In Too Deep_ Husband Material & the Sheikh's Bargained Bride - Brenda Jackson [34]
Then the next day, her father told her that he was being discharged, and that Adham had asked for her hand in marriage. She was overwhelmed by relief and happiness. Her father was going to be okay, and Adham loved her as much as she loved him.
But she crashed down to earth when she talked to her father’s doctors. They said they were releasing him only because he’d asked to die at home. There was no use performing open-heart surgery, or even a heart transplant, since his other systems had been severely damaged, and he had only a few days to live.
Both her father and Adham agreed on an immediate wedding so that her father could witness it. She wanted to give him whatever happiness she could in his last days, but it was heart wrenching to know he wouldn’t live to see her building a family with the man of her dreams.
Hours after the wedding, her father slipped into a coma. He died twenty-four hours later.
After such a tragic start to their marriage, it was the last thing she expected to have Adham whisk her away from her family home in Long Island, to deposit her in a mansion of his in New England and return to his obligations and duties. He came home only fleetingly, but certainly not to her.
She at first thought he was giving her time and space to mourn, so she tried to show him that she wanted nothing but to lose herself in his arms, that his intimacy would be the best salve for her grief.
When that didn’t work, she looked everywhere for a reason for his withdrawal. She got a possible explanation when Jameel, his right-hand man who also supervised her hashyah—her entourage as a princess—told her there was a forty-day mourning period in Khumayrah, where normal life was interrupted to observe bereavement.
Now it was three weeks later, and she could no longer buy this. It was understandable to cancel their honeymoon in their situation, but to not come near her at all? To treat her like a stranger and not the bride she’d thought he hadn’t been able to wait to possess again? That, she couldn’t understand.
Just this morning, she’d again tried to speak to him. And again, he hadn’t given her a chance.
He whisked her to the Hamptons for the start of the polo season, informing her of his many interests there. He was a player on one of the teams, as well as a patron who provided their horses, and a friend and associate to many of the pivotal people in the Bridgehampton Polo Club.
And here she was, in another one of his mansions, this one even more impressive than the last—a spectacular estate on a dozen acres in a prime Bridgehampton South location, with a stunning floor plan, top-of-the-line building materials and masterful finishes. Its three floors covered thirty-six thousand square feet, and the grounds included a unique recreation pavilion. He’d said he liked to have his own residence when he came every year for the tournaments, and he needed all that space to accommodate his entourage and security.
He’d installed her in the master suite that boasted Bordeaux walnut floors, exquisite decor and an expansive en suite bathroom with gold fixtures and onyx walls and floors. The only thing it didn’t include was her groom. “Sabrina.”
She jerked out of her morbid musings. Adham.
His voice had come from the suite’s sitting-room door. Fathomless, irresistible, the exotic inflections of his native Khumayran that mixed with his upper-crust British accent turning her name into an invocation.
In spite of the crushed expectations and confusion of the past weeks, hope surged, making her dizzy with it.
Maybe he would come to her at last. Maybe he had withdrawn to give her time to mourn her father, and had postponed their wedding night until he was sure she was up to withstanding his passion.
If that was it,