of twelve when an attempted rape had devastated her. Ever since then she had held herself apart, avoiding mixed company unless it was family-orientated. She was perfectly happy around her brothers-in-law, Eros and Raffaele, and she hadn’t been nervous either when dealing with the male parents at the childcare nursery where she had worked for months immediately after her recovery from her breakdown. Back then a full-time job in her own field of botany had seemed too challenging as a first step back into the real world.
‘Who are you?’ she asked baldly.
‘You may call me Raj. I am no one of importance here,’ he intoned in smooth dismissal, for he intended to fly back out of Maraban within the hour because he could not risk discovery and possible arrest. ‘But this nomadic base camp is where my cousin, Sheikh Omar, lives at this time of year.’
Zoe bridled as she scrambled upright, wishing for about the thousandth time that she was even a few inches taller, for being only four feet eleven inches tall was not an advantage when it came to persuading people to take her seriously. Unsurprisingly, Raj towered over her but he wasn’t quite as tall as her brothers-in-law, both of whom put her in mind of giants when she was around them. ‘Is he the man responsible for bringing me here...against my will?’ she stressed acidly.
‘No, he is not,’ Raj told her emphatically. ‘Nor would he harm a hair on your head but he has kept his distance because he does not speak English.’
‘Then who is responsible for bringing me here?’ Zoe demanded, standing her ground, tensing her spine to keep her back and shoulders straight and her head high. Her favourite self-help book urged that even if you didn’t feel confident, it was still possible to fake confidence and by so doing actually acquire it.
‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ Raj countered flatly.
Zoe’s green eyes flared as if he had slapped her. ‘Why not?’ she demanded.
‘It would serve no useful purpose.’
Zoe breathed in very deeply to contain the temper she hadn’t known she had until that moment. He was so incredibly patronising, so superior and his attitude affected her like a chalk scraping down a blackboard, setting her teeth on edge. ‘That’s my decision to make, not yours,’ she said succinctly.
Engaged in replacing his keffiyeh, Raj looked heavenward, involuntarily amused by that argument. She was like a doll with that tiny stature of hers and her phenomenally long blonde hair and she barely reached his chest.
‘You’re not taking me seriously,’ she condemned.
‘I’m afraid not,’ Raj conceded grudgingly. ‘I arrived here to sort this unfortunate mess out and that is what I intend to do.’
‘Is it indeed?’ Zoe snapped, incredulous that he had simply admitted his inability to treat her like an intelligent individual because, in her experience, most people lied on that score, denying that her diminutive size coloured their attitude towards her.
Raj paced several steps away from her, having discovered that proximity was unwise. His attention kept on dropping to that soft full pink mouth, that shimmering fall of pale hair, the barely noticeable little feminine curves hinting at her physical shape beneath the robe. He shifted, a kick of lust at his groin exasperating him for it was inappropriate and Raj was always very appropriate in his reactions to women. He controlled his responses, he did not allow them to control him and he had never understood the intoxicating lust that he had heard other men talk about, because only one woman had ever tested his control and, even then, it had not overwhelmed him.
‘I intend to have you conveyed home as soon as it is possible...unless you are unwilling to give up the possibility of marrying my uncle, Prince Hakem, and becoming a princess,’ Raj murmured bluntly. ‘I suspect my aunt, his wife of many years, whom he recently divorced, would be relieved to have the ingrate back by default, little though he deserves her forgiveness and understanding...’
‘ARE YOU TELLING me that Prince Hakem was already married at the time he agreed to marry me?’ Zoe gasped in astonished disbelief, her triangular face tightening and losing colour at that horrendous concept.
‘Of course, you were already aware of that reality,’ Raj informed her with considerable scorn in his tone. ‘After all, he has been married for many years. He has four children and a very large number of grandchildren... However, I assume that your grandfather was unwilling to accept a polygamous marriage, so my uncle had to divorce his wife before he could be allowed to marry you...’
Zoe was stunned by what she was learning. She wondered if her grandfather had been aware of those same unpleasant facts and then she told herself off for shying away from the unlovely truth that Stam Fotakis had wanted his granddaughter to become a princess regardless of what it would take to achieve that end. Prince Hakem had had to divorce his wife to take Princess Azra’s granddaughter as a bride! Zoe was appalled and mortified and guilt-stricken, feeling that she should’ve done her homework better and shouldn’t be in the position of finding out such a crucial fact when it was too late to change anything. Hakem’s poor wife! Raj was definitely correct in his conviction that her grandfather would never have accepted a polygamous marriage and would only ever have settled for his grandchild becoming the Prince’s sole wife.
‘I didn’t know... I swear I didn’t know that he was a married man!’ Zoe protested vehemently, a guilty flush driving off her previous pallor. ‘In spite of what you seem to think, I would never have agreed if I had known that he was getting rid of his real wife just to marry me for a few months.’
Raj had no idea why she was bothering to defend her behaviour by pleading ignorance of the reality that his uncle had been a perfectly happy married man before her availability had ignited his ambition. Zoe Mardas might look convincingly like a storybook princess or a heavenly angel, but Raj had an innate distrust of that level of physical beauty and a cynical view of humanity. Beautiful on the outside but what less than presentable motives were she striving to conceal from him? He had discovered for himself that beautiful on the outside too often meant ugly on the inside.
In any case, Zoe could not possibly be as naïve as she was pretending to be. She had to know her own worth in Marabanian terms. Thousands of delighted Banians would flood the streets to celebrate an alliance between a royal Prince and Princess Azra’s grandchild. His uncle had come very close to pulling off a spectacular coup in the popularity stakes.
‘I assume you are willing to go home now?’ Raj queried, marvelling at his own restraint in asking her that question because, frankly, he was determined to get her out of Maraban by any means within his power.
‘Of course, I’m willing to go home!’ Zoe shot back at him in reproach. ‘Good grief, I’m not wanting to marry a man I’ve never even met, who divorced his wife just to become my bridegroom! Do I look that desperate?’
‘I don’t know you. I have no idea what your motivations are or, indeed, were,’ Raj parried with the intrinsic hauteur that came as naturally to him as breathing, his exotically high cheekbones taut, his arrogant nose lifted, his hard jaw clenched.
Zoe’s colour heightened, her eyes brightening with anger, for in a couple of sentences, he had cut her down to size, enforcing the distance between them while also underlining his indifference to her feelings about anything. He looked different with that headdress covering his riot of coal-black curls. While the keffiyeh framed and accentuated his superb bone structure and those dark deep-set eyes set below slashing ebony brows, it also made him look older and off-puttingly sombre.
‘I confess that I am surprised, however, that you have not even met Prince Hakem. While such traditional matches still occasionally occur in Maraban, they are no longer the norm and I would not have thought a woman from your background would have been prepared to accept a husband sight unseen,’ he admitted smoothly,