Page 6 of The Sheikh's Matchmaker Bride

"Looking for someone?" Nadyah teased.

Shahid shook his head. "No. What gave you that idea?"

Nadyah grinned. "Nothing. Just a thought." She went toward the sofa and addressed Azim. "You were saying about me?"

Azim smiled. "I was just telling Shahid that you and Lucy have just about taken over the wedding preparations."

"And that's a good thing, I assume?" Nadyah asked.

Azim stood and shrugged, a wide grin on his face. "What can I say, sister? I'm just the bridegroom. What do I know?" he said.

Shahid turned and peered out to the terrace. From behind him he heard Nadyah's voice. "Aliyah's in the garden, Shahid," she said.

He turned back to her. He knew his weak attempt to look surprised had failed miserably when he saw the look on his sister's face. There was no way he would ever be able to fool her, he told himself. In any case, who was he really trying to kid? It was Nadyah who had told him Aliyah would be at the palace. Maybe this whole charade was simply for Azim's benefit.

"Maybe I'll go and say hello," Shahid said to Nadyah.

"You do that," she replied. "She can't have gotten far."

Shahid knew his sister was having fun at his expense. She'd always tried to do that to him. It was one of her favorite tactics for bursting his bubble whenever he got too serious or intense about anything.

And, right now, he was certainly feeling intense about the prospect of seeing Aliyah. It had been two months since the wedding. Two months since the inexplicable had happened. Two months during which he had spent virtually every day trying to figure out just what had taken place between himself and Aliyah. Sweet, gorgeous Aliyah. The girl who had been his friend for so long. The girl he had teased mercilessly so many years ago.

But now, she was the woman who had turned his world upside down in the most shocking and incomprehensible way.

"You don't mind if I just leave you for a little while," he said.

Azim and Nadyah shook their heads in unison. Surely it must be obvious, he told himself. He was doing a terrible job of disguising his desperation to get out to Aliyah. He was sure they could see the urgency on his face, hear it in his voice.

Shahid waved a hand toward his siblings and stepped out onto the terrace, feeling the sudden heat of the high afternoon sun. He paused to take off his jacket and hang it over the back of one of the chairs. It was cooler now that he wore only a thin white shirt. Still, his dark dress pants seemed somehow inappropriate. He felt overdressed, but he'd left in a hurry, without time to dress down to something casual.

Shahid went to the balustrade and peered out across the flat green lawn, squinting his eyes to see anything amongst the shadows of the banks of trees that created neat grassy passageways throughout the expanse of the garden.

He felt a flush of irritation at first. There was no sign of Aliyah. Then he saw a movement, far off beneath a tree, and his heart leaped. His body moved almost of its own volition, as if simply seeing Aliyah had triggered something instinctive inside him.

He raced down the steps and onto the lawn, his shoes sinking into the soft grass. He gazed ahead and started to run over in his mind just what he would say to her once he'd covered the hundred metres or so that separated him from Aliyah.

As he strode across the lawn he was momentarily taken aback by the urgency he felt at the prospect of seeing her again. Again, a confusing welter of emotion flared in him. The same unsettling jumble of feelings which had tormented him these past few weeks.

What was he going to say to her? What would she say to him? And then it struck him. Maybe she'd left the terrace because she was trying to avoid him. Perhaps she was intent on fending off his advances. Because that was what he was doing, wasn't it? Making his move. Taking the action he'd been planning every day since they'd danced, every day since he'd held her petite, warm body against his.

He took a few more steps toward Aliyah. He saw her resting her hand against the back of a stone bench placed in the shade of a tall tree. It was plain that she wasn't running from him. There was that, he told himself. Maybe she'd realized there was no point in trying to avoid him, especially here in the palace. Perhaps the encounter he'd waited so long for was destined to be nothing more than a polite meeting, an exchange of pleasantries.

Something tightened inside him. He knew that wasn't what he wanted. He'd already decided that the time had come for him to tell Aliyah exactly how he felt about her. It had all come together at the last wedding. Holding her close, seeing the look in her eyes, something had awakened inside him. Or had it been something that had been dormant for a very long time? An attraction that had it's roots way back in time, back when they'd merely both been close friends.

Shahid ran a hand through his dark hair and sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm the nerves that had taken hold of him. He tried to fathom what was happening to him. He'd never felt like this about any of the other women he'd had in his life. And there had been plenty of them, he reminded himself. Probably too many, if he was entirely honest with himself.

But that was all in the past now, he told himself. All that concerned him now was Aliyah. He peered toward her. She had taken a seat and was leaning back, her face lifted up to the branches of the tree, and he could see that her eyes were closed. Even from here he could see that she was trying to calm herself. Was she trying to pretend that she didn't know he was coming to her?

Now that he was closer, he could see just how amazingly beautiful she was. He felt a stirring as he saw the fullness of her body beneath the pale blue dress she was wearing. The hem of the dress ended at her knees and he saw her bare legs and the flat shoes that enclosed her small feet.

Her dark hair tumbled back across her shoulders and her elegant, bare arms were stretched out along the edge of the back of the seat. Shahid drew in a sharp breath, feeling his heart race, his pulse pounding. There was a tightness in his throat and he wondered if he was even going to be able to get out the words he'd rehearsed.

He took a few more steps and then he was a mere few feet away from her. He halted beneath the shade of the branches. For a moment he just gazed at her, taking in the beauty of her pretty features; the full lips; the high cheekbones; her arching brows. Her eyes were still closed and he could see her chest rise and fall with each breath. Her skin seemed to glow with health and there was the hint of a smile at the corners of her tempting mouth.

There was no doubting the truth.

Not anymore.

---