Bride Behind The Desert Veil (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Marchetti Dynasty, Book 3)

was turning away from her, clearly done with the conversation, and shock that he could dismiss her so easily after all but handing her over to a complete stranger for the rest of her life made Liyah blurt out, ‘Why do you care for me so little, Father?’
He stopped. He faced her again, and for the first time in her life Liyah saw something flicker to life in his eyes. Incredibly. It was only after he spoke that she realised what it was: acute pain.
He said, ‘Because your mother was the only woman I loved and you look exactly like her. So every day that you’re alive and she isn’t is a reminder of what I have lost.’
Yesterday
Sharif saw the falcon first. A peregrine falcon. Mature. He guessed at least ten years old. Magnificent. Feathers reflecting golden tints in the dying rays of the sun. Its grace and seemingly lazy circles in the air didn’t fool Sharif. It was looking for prey and would swoop and kill within a split second.
He was about to find his binoculars to have a closer look when he heard the sound of a horse’s hooves. One horse.
He shrank back into the shadows of the trees around the natural pool at the oasis where he’d set up camp for the night, en route to the palace at Taraq. His team had gone on ahead. He needed some time alone in the desert. It never failed to ground and recharge him, and he knew the coming weeks would require all of his focus...
A horse and rider thundered into the small but lush oasis, shattering the peace. In an instant Sharif assessed the young man to be an expert horseman, his body moving as one with the horse. The enormous stallion came to an abrupt halt under a twitch of the reins, nostrils flaring, body sheened with a light film of sweat. He’d been ridden hard.
The young man slid off athletically, patting the horse’s neck and leading it over to the pool where it drank thirstily. He looped the reins around a nearby tree, tethering the horse.
Sharif wasn’t sure why he stayed hidden in the shadows, but some instinct was compelling him to remain hidden for now. He sensed the stranger’s desire to be alone. Like him. Also, he presumed the rider would move on once the horse had drunk and rested for a moment.
He couldn’t make out the man’s—the boy’s face. He had to be a boy. He was tall, but too slight to be a man. His head and face were covered in a loose turban.
The falcon swooped low at that moment and Sharif saw the rider lift up his right arm. The bird came to rest on a leather arm-guard. So it was a pet falcon. Impressive.
The stranger fed the bird what looked like a piece of meat out of a pouch at his hip and then, with a flick of his arm, let the bird fly off again.
The young man stood at the edge of the pool. A sigh seemed to go through his slender frame. And then he lifted his hands to undo his turban.
Sharif moved to announce himself, but stopped in his tracks when the turban fell away and a riotous mass of dark unruly curls was unleashed, tumbling down a narrow back. Narrow back. Long hair. Curls.
It hit Sharif. This wasn’t a young man—it was a young woman, and as he watched, struck mute and unable to move, she started to take off all her clothes.
The gallop to the oasis had only taken the smallest edge off Liyah’s turmoil—a potent mixture of anger and helplessness. It was the eve of her wedding and she was hopelessly trapped. And she’d put herself in this position for the sake of her sister, which only made her feel even more impotent. It wasn’t as if she was being forced into this. She could have ignored her sister’s call. Stayed in Europe.
Yet, she couldn’t have. She adored her sister—the only family member who had ever shown Liyah love and acceptance. Liyah would do anything to secure Samara’s happiness. Even this.
And, after extracting a promise from her father that he wouldn’t stand in the way of Samara marrying her sweetheart, Javid, at least Liyah’s sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain.
But it wasn’t even that sacrifice that was uppermost in her mind. She was still reeling from what her father had revealed a week ago. That he’d loved her mother. And that Liyah reminded him of her.
Knowing the reason why she’d always been shunned by her father wasn’t exactly a comfort. It only compounded her sense of dislocation. Isolation. Love had done this to her father—made him bitter.
In a way, discovering this had only confirmed her belief that love was not to be trusted. It made you weak and vulnerable.
If anything, she more than most should agree with a marriage based on the sound principles of practicality and necessity. She just hadn’t ever figured that she would have to put it into practice. She’d relished the prospect of an independent life. Free to make choices of her own.
Living in Europe for the past couple of years had given her a false sense of freedom. That freedom had been an illusion. Even if she hadn’t come back here to take her sister’s place, her family’s neglect and disapproval would have always cast a long shadow, reminding her of how unlovable she was.
Since her father had mentioned that her husband-to-be was the CEO of a luxury conglomerate, Liyah imagined him to be the sort of individual who gorged himself on rich food, beautiful women and vacuous pleasures.
She didn’t want to blight her last days of freedom—ha!—by thinking of a future she couldn’t change, so she hadn’t even bothered to look him up. Which she knew wasn’t exactly rational—but then she hadn’t been feeling very rational for the last week as the full enormity of what she’d agreed to sank in.
The water of the deep pool looked