How could it be otherwise, growing up with a man like her father?
Only now did it occur to him how little he knew about his new bride.
An uncomfortable feeling spread down his neck and across his shoulders. ‘Did she have reason to be frightened?’
‘I started sleeping in the room with her. Sometimes that helped.’
‘Layla, why was your sister frightened?’
It was only the second time he’d used her name and he saw her still.
Then she turned her back on him and picked up a robe, slipping it on and covering herself, shielding herself from him in every way. ‘If you want to deal with the night terrors, the best thing is to talk to her family and find out what is likely to be causing them.’ She fastened the robe around her waist. Her hair poured down her back, thick, shiny and as dark as a starless night. ‘That shouldn’t be a problem as you seem to know her well.’
Was that the second or third time she’d ignored his question about her life in the palace? Every time he raised it she deflected it. And suddenly he knew this relationship was going to be impossible if they shared nothing.
One of them had to make the first move.
‘I do know her well. I know her better than anyone.’ He had to push the words past his own natural reluctance to confide. ‘She’s my daughter.’
‘YOUR DAUGHTER?’ UNPREPARED for that revelation, Layla simply stared at him. ‘You have a daughter?’
‘She is six years old.’
He had a daughter.
She sank down onto the bed, her legs shaking, racking her brain for the information she had on him and discovering it to be depressingly sparse. ‘I—I didn’t know. I had no idea.’
She muttered the words to herself, examining this further piece of evidence to support her suspicion that it was possible to be intimate with someone and yet still know nothing about them.
It didn’t make any difference that she’d shared something with him she’d never shared with anyone else. He was still a stranger.
‘There are few who know, and those who do know better than to speak of it.’
His voice was flat and she looked at him blankly, shocked into silence and shaken by the enormity of it.
‘Why don’t people speak of it? Why would you hide the fact that you have a child?’
‘I lost my father. I lost my wife—’ He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Layla knew her face matched the colour of his.
‘No.’ She shook her head in instinctive denial of that hypothesis. ‘That wouldn’t have happened.’
‘How can you be sure?’ His tone was raw. ‘You insist on having evidence for everything—show me the evidence that my daughter would have been safe. Did your father live by a code of honour? Did he have boundaries beyond which he wouldn’t go? If so, then please enlighten me, because I have seen nothing like that in my dealings with him.’
The shame of it covered her like a filthy, dark sludge. She wanted to dive into the oasis and scrub her skin clean. ‘I can’t show you evidence. I understand why you kept your daughter’s existence a secret. But when I suggested marriage I would have thought—’
‘What would you have thought? That I would have confided in you? You arrived in the desert out of nowhere. I married you because I saw the sense in what you proposed but let’s not pretend that this marriage is a union of trust.’
His words shook her because in her head she’d started to spin a different scenario. When she looked at him all she could see was the burning heat in his eyes and all she could think of was his body, hard and hot against hers. Out of bed they were strangers but in bed? In bed they were as close as it was possible for two people to be and what they did in bed had started to dominate her brain. The craving inside her had intensified to the point that she found herself wishing the daylight hours away because at night there was a chance they’d be together. She found herself hoping desperately for the dark because it was only in the dark that he came to her. Swept away by the darkness and the wildness of the passion she’d started to imagine that this was real but now she realised she’d been deluding herself.
‘That is all true, but I am your wife now and that also makes me—’
‘Do not say the words.’ His voice was thickened with emotion. ‘Do not even think of yourself as my daughter’s mother.’
The words slid under her ribs like a blade.
She tried to ignore the sharp pain that made it difficult to breathe. Used logic to remind herself that his response was understandable in the circumstances.
The fact that he would kiss her, touch her, didn’t mean he trusted her with his daughter.
And she really couldn’t blame him for that, could she?
Right now he was the powerful protector, ready to shield his daughter from any threat, and it was clear he considered that threat to be her.
Feeling his struggle to suppress the emotion that threatened to overwhelm him, Layla groped for the best way to handle the situation. ‘At least tell me her name.’
‘Her name is Zahra.’
‘That’s a pretty name. Does she know you have married me?’
‘No.’ He was brutally frank. Everything about him was designed to repel her gentle attempts to ease closer. ‘There is no easy way to tell a child I have married the daughter of the man responsible for the death of her mother.’
The knife in her ribs twisted. ‘Had I known you had a daughter I never would have suggested this marriage. I had no idea there was a child involved. It changes everything.’
‘It changes nothing. This marriage was never personal so what difference would it have made?’
‘I would not have sacrificed your daughter’s happiness for—’
‘For the future of Tazkhan? And what about your sister’s safety? What about your own marriage to Hassan? Because that’s why you came to me, isn’t it? You wanted my protection.’
‘Yes, that’s all true. I was honest about that right from the start. But I didn’t want those things at the expense of a little girl’s happiness. A little girl who has already suffered a major trauma in her life.’ Layla was shaking so badly she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her. ‘There is no way I would have foisted myself on her as a stranger. At the very least I would have suggested I take time to get to know her. To gain her trust.’
‘That would have created a delay we could not afford, and this was never about building a relationship. And you are assuming you would have gained her trust.’
‘I would certainly have worked hard to do that. I have experience with children. Give me the opportunity and I will prove it to you.’
The shutters came down on those eyes. ‘No. We will wait and see if the night terrors settle and then re-evaluate.’
‘Perhaps they would settle if she had someone she could bond with. Someone she is close to.’
He turned slowly, his eyes like ice. ‘My relationship with my daughter is very close.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’ She thought about the way he’d soothed the child. About the anxiety and love on his face and the patience he’d shown. It had warmed her because she’d never seen a man like that with a child. ‘But you’re