Commanded by the Sheikh

Her eyes flashed ire. ‘There’s nothing wrong with being a housekeeper.’

‘Indeed not. But you’re young, intelligent, with the opportunity of education and advancement. The question, I believe, is fair.’ He waited, watching the play of emotions across her face: surprise. Uncertainty. Regret.

‘I intended to study music,’ she finally said, each word imparted with obvious reluctance. ‘But, as you know, I dropped out.’

He thought again of her playing the piano, the passion and hopelessness he’d seen on her face. ‘You never wanted to take it up again?’

She shook her head, decisive now. ‘There was no point.’

‘Why not?’

She pressed her lips together, her gaze turning distant. ‘The music had gone,’ she finally said. ‘The desire, along with the talent. I knew I couldn’t recapture it even if I tried, which I didn’t want to do.’ She sounded matter-of-fact but he felt her sadness like a palpable thing, like a cloak she was wearing that he’d just never seen before, never seen how it suffocated her.

For beneath that cool, remote exterior, Aziz knew there hid a beating heart bound by pain. A woman who had suffered...but what? And why?

He wanted to know but he kept himself from asking. She’d shared enough, and so had he. They both had secrets, and neither he nor Olivia wanted them brought to light. Yet he could not keep himself from wondering. He’d touched something dark and hidden in Olivia, something he shouldn’t let himself feel curious about, yet he was.

He wanted to know more about this woman.

* * *

Olivia shifted in her seat, avoiding Aziz’s penetrating stare, and focused on her salad. He was asking too many questions, questions that felt like scabs being picked off old wounds.

She’d put her memories in a box in her mind, sealed it shut and labelled it ‘Do Not Open. Ever’. Yet with his light questions, his curious tone, Aziz was prying off the lid.

She didn’t think about her dreaded term at university when she’d been like a sleepwalker, only half-alive, if that. She didn’t think about her music, although she’d surrendered to the desire and even the need to play a couple of times in the last few years. Playing the piano was like a blood-letting, all the emotions and agonies streaming out along with the notes.

She’d needed the release because the rest of the time she kept herself remote, distant, from everyone and everything, even her own feelings, her own heart.

Life was simpler, and certainly safer, that way. She’d fallen apart once, overwhelmed by emotion, by grief, guilt and pain, and she had no intention of letting it happen again. If she gave those dark feelings so much as a toe-in they’d take over everything. They’d swamp her soul. And she might never come up for air again.