ABBY GREEN - Secrets of the Oasis

Present day.

SHEIKH SALMAN BIN KALID AL SAQR looked at the shadows of the rotorblades of the helicopter as it flew across the rocky expanse below him. They undulated and snaked like dark ribbons over the mountaintops, and when he looked further he could already see minarets and the vague outlines of the buildings of Merkazad—and the castle, where he was headed. His home and birthplace. He was coming back for the first time in ten years. Ten long years. And he felt numb inside.

He could remember the day he’d left, and the blistering argument he’d had with his older brother Nadim, as if it had happened yesterday, despite every attempt he’d made to block it out in the interim. They’d been standing in Nadim’s study, from where he’d been running the country since the tender age of twenty-one. His older brother’s responsibility had always struck fear into Salman’s heart because he’d known he would never have been able to bear it.

Not because of a lack of ability, but because at the age of eight he’d borne a horrific responsibility for his own people that he’d never spoken about, and since that time he’d cut Merkazad and everyone associated with it out of his heart.

As if to contradict him a memory rose up of Jamilah—the kinship he’d always felt with her, the way that for a long time she’d been the only person he could tolerate being near him and, in Paris, the ease with which he’d allowed her to seduce him to a softer place than he’d inhabited for as long as he could remember. If ever. And then the way he’d callously told her that it had been nothing, that she’d imagined them having some sort of bond. His skin prickled at being reminded of that now, and with ruthless efficiency he pushed it aside and focused on that moment with his brother again.

‘This is your home, Salman! ’ his brother had shouted at him. ‘I need you here with me. We need to rule together to be strong.’

Salman could remember how dead he’d felt inside, how removed from his brother’s passion. He’d known that day would be his last in Merkazad. He was a free man. Since he’d been that eight-year-old boy, since the awful time of their incarceration, he’d felt aeons older than Nadim. ‘Brother, this is your country now. Not mine. I will forge my own life. And I will not have you dictate to me. You have no right.’

He’d been able to see the struggle that had run through Nadim, and silently he’d sent out a dire warning: don’t even go there. And as he’d watched he’d seen the fight leave Nadim. The weight of their history ran too deep between them. Salman felt bitter jealousy every time he looked at his brother and knew his integral goodness had never been compromised, or taken away, or violated. Salman’s had when his childhood had been ripped away from him over a three-month period that had felt like three centuries.

Salman knew Nadim blamed himself for not protecting him all those years before. And even though Salman knew that it was irrational, because Nadim had been as helpless as he had, he still blamed Nadim for not saving him from the horrors he’d faced. In a way, he wanted his brother to feel that pain, and he inflicted it with impunity, knowing exactly what he was doing even while hating himself for it.

Blame, counter-blame and recrimination had festered between them for years, and it had only been last year, when Salman had seen Nadim at the Sultan of Al-Omar’s birthday party, that he’d noticed a subtle change within himself. They’d spoken for mere tense moments, as was their custom when they met once or twice a year, but Salman had noticed a sense of weightlessness that he’d never felt before.

He grimaced, his eyes seeing but not seeing the vista of his own country unfold beneath him in all its rocky glory. The fact that he was flying over it right now, about to land in mere minutes, spoke volumes. A part of him still couldn’t really believe that he was coming to Merkazad for a month in Nadim’s stead, while he and his pregnant wife went to spend time in Ireland, where she came from, before they returned to have their first baby.

A ridiculous and archaic law said that if Merkazad was without its Sheikh for a month then a coup could be staged by the military to seat a new ruler. This law had been put in place at a time when they’d faced numerous and frequent attacks, to protect Merkazad from outside forces.

They’d been in this position only once before, when their parents had died and an interim governing body had been set up until Nadim had come of age. Luckily the army had been steadfastly loyal to their deceased father and to Nadim.

But Nadim had confided to Salman that since his marriage to Iseult some people were proving hard to win round, were disappointed that their Sheikh hadn’t picked a Merkazadi woman to be his wife. He’d been concerned that until his heir was born their rule might be vulnerable for the first time in years. But if Salman was there in his place there would be no question of dissent.

Salman had found himself saying yes, bizarrely overriding his conscious intent to say no. He’d known on some deep level that one day he’d have to come home to face his demons, and it appeared the time had come. He’d put his completely incomprehensible decision down to that, and not to a latent sense of duty, or to passing time…or to the fact that since he’d seen Jamilah at that party a year ago he’d felt restless.

Even now he could remember the visceral kick in his chest when he’d turned in that corridor in the Hussein Palace and seen her standing before him like a vision, like something from a dream he’d never admitted having.

He’d only realised in that moment, as a kind of sigh of relief had gone through him, that in all the intervening years since Paris he’d gone to the Sultan’s party every year hoping to see Jamilah…and he had not welcomed that revelation.

Salman’s face darkened. She should have always been firmly off-limits—a woman he should have turned his back on—but he hadn’t been able to resist. Even though he’d known that she’d been way, way too innocent for his cold heart he’d still seduced her in Paris, taken her innocence, proving to himself once again how debauched he really was.

And, not content with that, then he’d cruelly broken her heart. A bleakness filled his belly at remembering the pale set of her features that day. The incredible hurt in those beautiful eyes. He’d watched her innocence and joy turn into an adult’s bitter disillusion right in front of him, even as he’d been telling himself that he was doing her a favour.

He reassured himself that he’d saved her—from him and other men like him. Because he himself was beyond saving. He’d seen the face of evil and that would taint him for ever, and anyone around him, which was why he never allowed anyone too close.

Yet all that knowledge hadn’t stopped him from kissing Jamilah at the Sultan’s party. He’d only had to imagine her with that ineffectual date of hers and he’d been overcome with a dark desire to stamp her, brand her as his. His body throbbed to life now, making him shift uncomfortably; she’d tasted as sweetly sensuous as she had when he’d first kissed her in Paris, when he’d known he was doing the wrong thing but had been overcome with a lust so intense it had made him dizzy.

With an effort he forced his mind away from the disturbing fact that in the past year no woman had managed to arouse his once insatiable libido. But merely thinking of Jamilah now was doing just that, as if to taunt him, because she was the last woman he could ever touch again. If he had any chance of redeeming a tiny morsel of his soul it would be in this.

Salman knew Nadim suspected something had happened between them, and of course he didn’t approve. The protective warning had been implicit in Nadim’s voice in their last conversation. ‘You’re unlikely to see much of Jamilah. She lives and works down at the stables, and is extremely busy with her work there.’ And that, Salman told himself now, suited him just fine—because the mere thought of even seeing a horse or the stables sent clammy chills of dread across his skin. He wouldn’t be making a visit there any time soon.

With that thought lingering as the helicopter started to descend over the lush watered Merkazadi castle grounds, reality hit Salman, and claustrophobia surged along with panic. He fought the urge to tell the pilot to turn around. He was strong enough to withstand a month in his own country. He had to be. He’d heard far worse stories than his; he’d been humbled over and over again. He owed it to those who had trusted him with their stories to face this.

Not for the first time in his life did he wish that he could resort to the easy way out of drugs and alcohol.

He sighed deeply as the distinctive white castle came into clear view, the ornate latticed walls and flat-roofed terraces all at once achingly familiar and rousing a veritable flood of memories, some terrifying. He would get through this as he’d got through his life up to this point—by distracting himself from the pain.

‘Miss Jamilah—he stumbled out of the helicopter with his shirt half undone and torn jeans. He looked like a…a rock star, not the second in line to rule Merkazad.’ The main housekeeper screwed up her wizened face and spat out disgustedly, ‘He is nothing like his brother. He is a disgrace to—’

‘Hana, that’s enough.’ They were in a meeting to discuss the domestic schedule of the castle while Nadim and Iseult were away, and Jamilah was having a hard enough time just functioning since she’d heard Salman’s arrival in the helicopter the previous day.

The older woman flushed brick-red. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Jamilah. I forgot myself for a moment…’

Jamilah smiled tightly. ‘It’s fine. Don’t worry. Look, he’s only here till Nadim and Iseult get back…and then everything will be back to normal.’

Yeah, right.

The housekeeper’s face lit up. ‘And next year we will have a new baby in the castle! ‘

Jamilah let her prattle on excitedly, and hoped the dart of hurt she felt lance her wasn’t apparent on her face or in her eyes. She loved Nadim, and she loved Iseult, who had become a very close friend, but much to her ongoing shame she couldn’t help but feel a little jealous of their exuberant happiness.

In truth, when Nadim had told her they would be going to Ireland to see Iseult’s family while they still had time before the birth, Jamilah had felt a tinge of relief. To bear witness to their intense love and absorption every day was becoming more and more difficult. And it had only intensified with news of Iseult’s pregnancy some six months previously. Nadim hardly let Iseult out of his sight, and cosseted her like a prize jewel. Jamilah knew it drove Iseult crazy, but then she was as bad he was—visibly pining for her husband if he was away from her side for more than an hour.

Jamilah’s relief that she would have some respite had been spectacularly eclipsed when Nadim had casually mentioned over dinner that Salman would be taking over as acting ruler while they were gone.

She’d not missed the way Nadim and Iseult had looked at her intently for her reaction; they hadn’t asked questions after her bizarre behaviour at the Sultan’s party last year, but it had been obvious it had something to do with Salman.

She was proud of the way she’d absorbed the shock into her body and kept on sipping her wine, willing her hands not to show a tremor. She’d said nonchalantly, ‘That’s nice. It’s been so long since he came home…’