Page 43 of The Sheikh's Willing Captive

"Is that all?" he asked sharply.

"What else do you want me to say?" she snapped.

"The truth," he replied. "I've seen the way you look at me since you arrived back in Qazhar. I saw how you reacted back at the palace when we were going through that ceremony. You can't tell me you don't feel anything for me," he said. His voice was rising. It echoed around the confines of the encampment. "If you tell me you have no feelings for me, I refuse to believe it, Paige. My eyes, and my heart tell me something different."

After he'd spoken, there was a long awkward silence between them. She felt suddenly very warm, the heat of the emotion adding to the warmth of the fire.

"What do you have to tell me, Razim?"she said in a chilled voice. "And what has it got to do with whether I love you or not?"

He moved closer. "It has everything to do with it, Paige. It has to do with our future."

"We don't have a future, Razim," she said sharply. Somewhere, deep inside herself, she knew she didn't want that to be true. She never had wanted it to be true. But, it was too late to change any of that now. From the moment she had stepped on the plane in New York, there had been only one outcome to all of this. The ending of her time with the sheikh of Qazhar.

"That is where you are wrong," Razim said steadily and with a curious certainty. "We can still have a future."

She stared at him incredulously. "What are you talking about? How?"

He paused a few moments, gathering his thoughts. Then he looked at her, steadily and purposefully. "There is a tradition about which I knew nothing. It has to do with divorces."

She saw him swallow. Was he nervous about what he was about to tell her? If so, why? What could possibly make him act like that?

"Ahmed told me after the divorce ceremony," Razim said. "I have to admit, I was shocked. But pleasantly surprised."

"Told you what?" Unease crept through her, creating a tight ball of anxiety in her middle.

"There is a way of undoing the divorce," he stated.

Paige stared at him. Razim gazed at her, unflinching, barely moving a muscle.

"Undoing the divorce?" Paige asked, feeling completely confused. "How can that be?"

"There is an ancient condition in the divorce ceremony which allows for the wedding to be reinstated. On one condition."

"And what is that?" she asked. She wasn't sure she even wanted to know. Emotions swirled around her body. Her heart was pounding relentlessly.

"If the newly divorced couple share the marriage bed they shared on their first night together," he said.

Paige's head began to swim. She reached out a hand and placed it flat against the cold, dry sand. Paige curled her finger, sinking them into the sand. She felt her breathing tighten and she peered at Razim. Surely he must be pretending, she told herself. This was archaic. Primitive. Didn't Qazhar have modern divorce laws?

"If they sleep together?" she asked.

He nodded.

"And then what?" she demanded, still hardly able to fully understand what he was trying to tell her.

He drew in a deep breath before answering. "Then the marriage annulment is revoked."

"And?"

He paused. She wanted to reach out and seize his arm. Demand that he speak. That he give her full story.

"The marriage is reestablished. Fully. And it can never be broken."

"What!" she ejaculated.

This time she couldn't prevent herself from standing up. She leaped to her feet and glared down at Razim. "What on earth are you saying? That, if I sleep with you here, then you get to claim me again as your wife?"

To her amazement he didn't stand and face her. Instead he simply gazed up at her and nodded. "That is exactly what I'm saying," he replied. "And the marriage can never be annulled. We will stay married forever."

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