from his seat and Zoe couldn’t help noticing how tall and commanding he was. He motioned for the most exalted elder to approach the dais. Zoe’s stomach twisted sharply and she tasted hot, bitter fear in her mouth. What was the Sheikh doing? She had displeased him. Somehow she would be punished for it.
The older woman smiled victoriously and walked away with a spring in her step as the elder approached. Zoe was angry at herself for letting the old bat rile her.
The Sheikh placed his palm against his heart and told the chief elder, “You have honored me with Zoe as my bride.”
The elder couldn’t hide his surprise and the nearby guests started to whisper excitedly behind their hands and veils. Zoe didn’t feel any relief. Instead, she battled the trickle of suspicion. Honored? He didn’t know the first thing about her.
“I gladly accept the duty to protect her and provide for her,” the Sheikh continued, his voice strong and clear. “She will want for nothing.”
Her suspicions deepened as the buzz of conversation swelled. What was this man up to? She had learned firsthand that when a man made those kinds of promises it was very likely he would do the opposite. Like when Uncle Tareef had promised to take her in and look after her. Instead he’d stolen her inheritance and she’d become an unpaid servant in his household.
“And as your Sheikha,” Nadir announced, “she will spend her days and nights tending to me.”
Zoe lowered her head as the guests cheered. Anger swirled inside her chest. The tribe was thrilled that she pleased the Sheikh. He wasn’t going to let her leave his side and she wouldn’t have time to nurse the sick because she had the honor of being at his beck and call.
The man had no idea how important it was for her to work. Before her parents died Zoe had volunteered at the local hospital with her mother. It had been exciting and she’d known then she wanted to have a medical career like her father’s.
Her dreams of practicing medicine with her father had been shattered when her parents died in a car accident and suddenly she had found herself living in a foreign place with people she didn’t know. She had suffered through the language barrier, strange food and an unwelcoming tribe. But when she’d watched the healer treat the sick, Zoe had felt she was back in familiar territory.
In a matter of months she had become the healer’s assistant. It was supposed to be a punishment, but she had wanted to learn. When Zoe noticed that the poor women were reluctant to seek medical help from a male healer, she gradually took on the female patients. It was her way of continuing her family’s legacy, and practicing medicine had become her lifeline.
She had finally found a way to stay away from Uncle Tareef’s house and focus on something other than her difficult situation. And when she handled a medical emergency she felt the same excitement she had when she’d been back home in the local hospital. Taking care of women in need had let her find a sense of purpose. It was the one thing that kept her going.
And now the Sheikh wanted to take that away from her? Zoe closed her eyes and tried desperately to control her temper. She had to give up the one thing that interested her, the one thing she was good at, because Nadir didn’t like it? It wasn’t fair. She wanted to argue right here and now.
What was she upset about? Zoe slowly opened her eyes. What Nadir wanted didn’t affect her life. She wasn’t going to stay married long enough for him to take her interests away from her.
“I must say you surprised me.”
Zoe looked at the tall and slender woman who was now sitting next to her—her cousin Fatimah. Zoe clenched her teeth as she braced herself for what she was sure would be a few unpleasant moments.
Fatimah wore a shimmering green gown. Heavy gold jewelry dripped from her ears, throat and wrists. She always made a glamorous and dramatic impact wherever she went.
“I didn’t think you would do it,” Fatimah told Zoe in a breezy, chatty tone. “I know how you Americans believe in love matches.”
Zoe didn’t respond. She had never liked her cousin, and they weren’t friends. Fatimah would not form an alliance with an outcast like Zoe. Instead, she preferred to feel powerful by preying on the defenseless, and Zoe had seen her in all her destructive glory. Now she noted the dark look in her cousin’s eyes. Fatimah was on the prowl for trouble and had found her target.
Her cousin bestowed a tight smile upon her. “I can’t wait to tell Musad.”
Zoe did her best not to flinch. “Please do.”
She hoped she was getting better at not reacting to his name. Musad had once represented a fragile yet blossoming love in a world of quicksand filled with hate and indifference. Now his name reminded her that no man could be trusted.
“What should I tell our old friend?” Fatimah asked as she studied Zoe’s face closely. “Shall I send him your love?”
Zoe shrugged, refusing to let the word “love” pierce her wrung-out heart. Musad had ceased to matter a year ago, when he’d moved to America without a backward glance. She had filed him under “lesson learned.”
Zoe leaned back in her chair as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “Tell him what you want.”
Fatimah rested her hand on Zoe’s arm and leaned forward to whisper, “How can you say that, considering how close you were?”
Zoe felt the blood leaving her face as icy fear seeped in her veins. Fatimah knew. She saw it in the malicious glow of the woman’s eyes. Somehow Fatimah knew about her forbidden liaison with Musad. She was the one who’d started the rumors that were beginning to percolate in village gossip.
Zoe had to get away. She had to silence Fatimah. If she breathed a word of this to her family … to the Sheikh …
“Zoe?”
Zoe looked up to see her aunts and other female cousins. They were smiling. Real smiles. It was unlikely that they had heard Fatimah’s accusation. Zoe wanted to sag with relief.
“Come, Zoe.” One of her cousins unceremoniously pulled her from her chair and her female relatives surrounded her. “It’s time to prepare you for your wedding night.”
Her wedding night. Her stomach twisted sharply and she battled back nausea. Her aunts smiled and giggled as they swept her out of the courtyard and up to the honeymoon suite. She hunched her shoulders as corroding fear, thick and searing hot, bled through her body. It pooled under her skin, pressing harder and harder, threatening to burst through.
It suddenly sank into her. She belonged to the Sheikh. A man they called The Beast. She was married to him. Married.
Her married cousins were offering words of advice, telling her how to please her husband, but Zoe didn’t hear a word of it. There was a desperate energy among the women. Their laughter was a little shrill, their advice raw and uncoated.
Zoe didn’t resist as the women settled her in the center of the bed. She knelt on the mattress, her hands folded in front of her, her head bent down. She wanted to jump out of bed and run, but she knew these women would bring her back and guard the bedroom.
She closed her eyes and took a deep, jagged breath. She heard the women leaving the room, their laughter harsh as they tossed her more marital advice. She had always thought her wedding day would be different. In her daydreams it had been full of laughter and joy, not to mention love.
The reality was much bleaker. Zoe slowly opened her eyes. She was marrying because she was out of options and running out of luck. She was taking a leap of faith, believing she could use this marriage to her advantage. But she might have given up more than her freedom to a man who was a dangerous stranger.
What had she done?
Pure terror clamped her chest. She felt the room closing in on her as she tried to gulp in the hot air. Dark spots danced before her eyes.
“I can’t do this. I can’t sleep with him,” Zoe