Free The Sheikh's Accidental Bride by Holly Rayner

to seeing what it was he wanted to show her.
     
    There was a large area around the house that was landscaped, as was the expectation with residences this grandiose. Out beyond that, however, Salman had left the remaining land as raw forest. It was a stark contrast to the carefully protected, meticulously cared for garden in the courtyard.
     
    “It’s about 350 acres, altogether,” he said, answering her unasked question, as they wandered through the trees.
     
    Nadya wished that she had worn her Chucks after all. Her sandals were new, bought for the party, and they were going to give her blisters if she wasn’t careful. She was torn between thinking that she should insist they go back, and wanting to keep going.
     
    “And you want to show me all 350 right now?”
     
    He chuckled. “No, don’t worry. I just wanted to show you the lake.”
     
    It took them nearly fifteen minutes more to reach the lake. Nadya thought for sure they’d lost their way once or twice, but every time she looked over at Salman, she saw no trace of confusion or uncertainty. They weren’t following a path, really, though she could see some places, just here or there, where it looked like people had walked before.
     
    They came upon the lake suddenly. There were trees all around them, and then in an instant there was just water. There was a grass lip, with a curve down to a small silt beach. The lake itself was alive, just the way she felt the house had been. It wasn’t theirs alone. It had a life all its own, with a bird’s nest out a ways and the occasional ripple from fish below.
     
    “It’s beautiful,” Nadya said. She realized once she said the words that he had been looking at her, waiting with rapt attention for her to give her verdict.
     
    “Isn’t it? I’m glad to hear you say that. My father wasn’t sold on the property at first. He didn’t understand why I would choose to live in America, when there’s a palace back home. It was always his idea that I would come back, after my studies were done. But now that they are…” He ran his fingers through his hair. It was a habit he had, Nadya noticed, when he was thinking of something that bothered him. “Anyway, I showed him this, and he understood.”
     
    Nadya slipped out of her sandals again, as she had on the cool slate back in the courtyard. It didn’t seem like an odd thing to do, but she felt like it should be. In front of a man so powerful, and particularly in the strange, precarious and deceitful position she’d found herself in, it seemed like she should have been careful not to get too comfortable.
     
    But she wanted to be comfortable with him. And she found that the more he spoke to her, the more she found that it was impossible not to be. Just as long as they stayed far enough from the riskier topics, so that she could keep the tight wire she was walking out of her mind.
     
    “Not many lakes in Al-Ahradi, I take it?” she asked, and he shook his head emphatically.
     
    “We’ve got a little bit of coast. Just a little. The palace is near it. But it isn’t really the same. The waves are always crashing. It’s beautiful, but it’s never still.”
     
    He wandered a little bit closer to the water, if only to come a little closer to Nadya, who was standing with her toes right on the edge of it, now. “Everything in my life moves, it seems.”
     
    She looked back at him. “Well, whose fault is that?” she asked. It didn’t seem like such a bad thing. Better than everything staying the same.
     
    “I’m not just marrying for him.” He said it like it was the continuation of what he’d been saying just then, and not a call back to their talk in the bowling alley.
     
    “Aren’t you?” Nadya asked, not looking back.
     
    “No. I mean it. Everything in my life feels like it’s moving. My family keeps going, on and on. My sisters all have their own lives and my father has the kingdom. I think I’d like it, to get pulled in. Just the thing