by Dani Collins
Nura gave her a trembling smile. “My mother likes to say a woman wears the spirit of the child she carries. If so, our future king will be very strong-minded and independent.”
Hannah had thought she’d heard every old wives’ tale possible, but that was a new one. She couldn’t even laugh, though.
She dumbly followed Nura as she showed her into a palatial—ha-ha—bedroom. The bed was bigger than Hannah’s old apartment. Massive windows looked onto the beautiful courtyard full of ornamental trees and vines and lushly blooming flowers. There was a fountain directly outside her bedroom window, creating a soothing sound and a screen of privacy should anyone be in the pool looking in.
Like who? she wondered with a half-crazed snort.
When she moved through the huge glass doors to take in the enormous space, she heard birdsong and saw several birds flitting about in a huge gilded cage.
Nura pointed out a door off the far end of the courtyard, barely visible behind its own bower of greenery. “Prince Akin’s rooms. And this one leads there also.”
She brought Hannah back inside and opened a slatted door from the bedroom into a private passageway.
Hannah felt as though the baby did a somersault. She grew warm at the proximity to Akin while also experiencing an urge to release a fully hysterical cackle. Might as well nail that shut, she wanted to say. He wasn’t coming through it. Ever.
“The nursery is on the floor above. The elevator is near the kitchen.”
Speechless, Hannah followed Nura into a ridiculous bathroom where the bath was a six-person jetted tub surrounded by marble columns. The shower was big enough to host a carwash. The extravagance of space was one thing, but the details! Gold faucets, hand-painted tiles, etched mirrors and silk rugs to drip her bubble bath froth upon. There was a velvet-covered bench in case she needed a rest between washing one hand and the other.
I can’t do this was the uppermost thought in Hannah’s mind as a muted bell sounded.
“The doorbell.” Nura excused herself and hurried away.
“I have a doorbell?” Hannah muttered. She plopped down on the bench, head pounding. She couldn’t even begin to process this, especially when her skin felt coated by travel, her mind still cottoned with jet lag.
She stripped down and turned on the shower, hoping it would clear the cobwebs. The soap felt like silk and smelled of vanilla. The shampoo was a caress of tingling pineapple and rich coconut as it slid down her body. This would have been the most incredible shower of her life if Nura hadn’t walked in and patiently waited with a bath sheet outside the cubicle.
“I’m not...used to having people see me naked,” Hannah stridently told her, turning her back on the woman.
“Pregnant women are the most beautiful of all. Be proud that you carry a future king.”
Clearly Nura’s main duty was to bolster her mistress’s fragile ego, and Hannah was feeling brittle enough to accept it. She let Nura dry and fuss and pamper her. When Nura rubbed moisturizer into her feet, she decided it was as good a reason as any to marry Akin.
Was she really marrying him?
Nura got her into a satin robe and slippers and they returned to the fancy dressing room. Nura pointed out the envelope that had been delivered. As Hannah sat in the chair to read it, feeling like a movie star refreshing her lines from a script, Nura began combing and drying her hair.
The document was their prenuptial agreement. When had Akin had time to prepare it? And how could he justify giving her half a mi—Wait. That was half a billion dollars for every year of marriage!
Hannah nearly fell out of the chair but kept reading. Along with granting her complete control over incidentals like decor in the nursery and whether her baby would be fed by bottle or breast, she was charged with the hiring and supervision of nannies and other infant caregivers. Provided she gave appropriate consideration to the teaching of Baaqi’s language and customs, she had veto power on nearly every aspect of her son’s early schooling. His later education would require a consultative process with the palace’s best advisers, but her opinion would hold “profound weight” in those matters. There were stipulations for the baby’s visitation with the Queen and time with Akin to learn how to rule, along with an expectation that her son make the palace his home. In all other ways, her son was regarded to be in Hannah’s custody from birth until he was mature enough to make his own decisions.
The cordless phone rang and Nura stepped away to answer it, bringing it to Hannah.
“Will it suffice?” Akin asked.
Her heart gave a hard thump at hearing his voice. She looked at herself in the mirror, her reflection blurry because she wasn’t wearing her glasses. She was prepared to agree. How could she refuse? But did he really want to attach himself to her? What did she bring to this marriage? Certainly not billions of dollars or international influence or even a sexy body that he could make use of via their shared secret passage.
“I don’t understand,” she said truthfully. “Are you really willing to give me this much power?” His mother had hated her on sight. Hadn’t he noticed?
“Hannah.” He had a way of saying her name as though he found her the most curious creature he’d ever come across and didn’t know what to make of her. “You are the mother of our future king. All of those powers are yours regardless. I spelled them out because you asked me to.”
“I’m...” She looked at the contract, but her thoughts were scattered. “I’m overwhelmed, Akin.”
“Focus on the immediate. Sign it. Marry me. Then worry about the next task.”
“I love how you act like our marriage is as simple an undertaking as registering to vote.”
“It is. Polls close in one hour. I’ll see you then.”
One hour later, she was shown to a large hall where at least two hundred people were assembled. This was his idea of a small, private wedding?
She had felt self-conscious when she had realized he would see her like this. Nura had done her best, but lipstick didn’t hide her braces. Heavy eyeliner only marginally helped her eyes look bigger behind her glasses. There was no way to look anything but near-popping pregnant, because that was what she was.
Akin looked incredible, of course. He wore a dark green robe with gold edging over a traditional white robe and headdress. His gaze skipped restlessly over her, showing no reaction, but her heart did a few twists and turns all the same, hoping he saw a little of something he might like.
At least the veil hid her butchered hair, but she still felt as though she was trying too hard. Like it was obvious she was trying to be pretty yet had nothing to work with.
Don’t, she reminded herself. She’d spent too many years maligning herself, but she wished he was marrying her for some reason more than her baby. She wished he liked something about her. His dispassionate acceptance was almost worse than a stronger emotion like contempt or hatred.
The ceremony was conducted in Arabic. A young woman stood off to the side, quietly translating for Hannah. Parts of it seemed to follow his traditions, while others were more familiar to her as western customs. He didn’t seem like a man who did things on a whim or out of sentiment, so she assumed there was a message for the gathered guests in the merging of their cultures.
She was so busy trying to track all those things she didn’t feel the weight of her marriage sink in until Akin slid a ring on her finger. The split band setting lined with diamonds held a massive, glittering stone in the middle.
Her hand trembled in his and her breath grew uneven. He squeezed lightly as though offering reassurance, then gave her a similar ring to thread onto his finger.
It surprised her he would wear a wedding ring, especially one that was a masculine match to hers. His was a more robust setting with fewer diamonds on the band but an equally giant stone that was more deeply set.
It was heavy, and pressing the ring into place
on his finger made her eyes sting. She blinked and the false eyelashes she wore fluttered against the lenses of her glasses.
Moments later, they were pronounced husband and wife. He lifted her veil.
That was the most difficult moment of all, when she felt as though all her shields were removed. She was as vulnerable as she could possibly be. He looked on her before all these people and she knew herself completely inadequate in every single way. He had let her put a ring on his finger as though this meant something, but it meant nothing.
Yet, his grave expression told her this marriage meant everything. He had made vows, same as her. For one tiny second, she almost believed they had truly promised themselves to one another.
His gaze slipped over her expression, likely reading all her silly dreams and hopeless insecurities. Her attempts and failures. Her hard-won pride and every humiliation she had ever suffered.
He gently cupped her cheek and his thumb caressed once, twice. He loomed closer. He was so tall! Her belly nudged into him and he paused with surprise right before his mouth touched hers.
Then his lips were against hers and her mouth trembled. How did such a sweet gesture make her feel as though she clutched lightning with her bare hands? Scorching heat suffused her, and her eyelids fluttered closed over her damp eyes. He started to draw back and she drew in the barest breath of protest, not ready for their kiss to end.
He returned with another sweet graze of his mouth over hers, lovely and tender and brief. He drew back, expression still solemn, but with a curious light in the back of his eyes.
Perhaps it was simply the flash of the cameras as they began to burst around them.
He turned her to face the crowd and it was done.
Hannah rose in the night, as she did about a thousand times every night. This time she knew she wouldn’t get back to sleep. Maybe it was jet lag, maybe it was the baby, maybe it was a mind that had decided it was time to sift through the last thirty-six hours or so.
She and her “husband”—how surreal to think she had one—hadn’t stayed long at their wedding celebration. She’d been introduced to a sea of faces and had eaten a few bites of unfamiliar foods that would have intrigued her if she hadn’t been so overwhelmed. She had felt like an oddity in a zoo and was relieved when they made their escape.
She was hungry now, though. She searched up a banana from the bowl in the lounge and wandered outside to the courtyard to eat it, not bothering to pull a robe over her filmy blue nightgown. It was gorgeous out here. The birds were quiet, the stars twinkling, the fountain glowing and the air soft and warm. She lowered herself onto a well-cushioned lounger in the shadows beneath a tree and wondered if she had done the right thing or made a horrific mistake.
Just as homesickness and doubts began to prickle at her, there was a quiet movement from across the pool, the sound of a door sliding open.
Akin appeared in a loosely tied bathrobe, a drink in his hand.
The way he eased into a lounger and exhaled made her think he hadn’t slept yet. He sipped, set the drink aside and let his head fall back.
She should say something, let him know she was here, but there was something companionable in silently sharing the night. Marital bliss? She smiled to herself in the dark, relaxing as she gazed on him.
He slid his hand into the opening of his robe to give a lazy scratch and she bit her lips against an embarrassed giggle. Maybe she should yawn loudly and pretend to wake up, then act surprised to discover he had joined her out here. She would just wait until he’d stopped...
He seemed to be scratching a long time. Was he—
Oh, good grief. He was. He was caressing himself!
She really needed to let him know she was here, but she was too mortified to move. Her mouth went dry and her throat locked up. She closed her eyes, but that was worse, because it only made her aware of the most luridly sensual feelings that were awakening inside her. Her nipples tightened and a pulsing, reflective ache accosted her loins.
She hadn’t done what he was doing in ages, not feeling the least bit sexy lately, but suddenly she desperately wanted to touch herself and she wanted to watch him touch himself as she did.
What kind of pervert was she? At the very least, she definitely ought to keep her eyes closed!
But she didn’t. She opened them to see if he had noticed her. He hadn’t. She couldn’t really see what he was doing, but his legs had shifted open. His hand moved beneath the drape of his robe. Tension increased its grip on him, and his hand moved faster...
She heard him inhale. She was right there with him, taut with anticipation.
He stilled and time stopped. Then his breath left him in a shaken exhale. His bunched shoulders relaxed.
For a moment, all she could hear was her heartbeat in her own ears. It was so loud he ought to be able to hear it clear across the pool.
He sighed again. It sounded more like relief than pleasure. Then, in a perfunctory move, he swiped the edge of the robe across his stomach, rising to remove it in essentially the same motion, as though he was well practiced at staining his robe and leaving it on the lounger. Then he walked naked to the steps of the pool.
Hannah sat there in astonishment, hot with voyeuristic lust, especially as she caught an eyeful of him stark naked, like he was part of some kind of man-candy calendar. The pale blue glow off the fountain threw shadows onto his brown skin, delineating his muscled chest and sectioned abs and wow. Sculptors were never that generous when they recreated a body like his.
Of course, he was still thick with his recent arousal, but her inner muscles clenched in longing as she drank her fill of the sight of him. She was still reeling from watching him, still ashamed that she’d done so, but not nearly as regretful as she ought to be.
She felt a bizarre kinship toward him, too. The matter-of-fact way he’d done it, as though it was one more chore like brushing his teeth, struck her as very forlorn. Was he as lonely as she was?
The water climbed to his knees, the middle of his thickly muscled thighs, and cut across his narrow hips to his waist.
She hadn’t moved, but he suddenly stiffened. His arms flexed and his fists closed as he snapped his head to look directly at her.
Oh, dear. She braced herself for the worst dressing down of her life, one she absolutely deserved.
“I forgot you had access to this courtyard.” His aggressive tension dissipated. “Go to bed. You need your rest.” He stretched his arms before him and dove under, beginning to swim laps with tuck turns as if he did this as often as he did the other.
She husked out a laugh of relief, but... What had just happened? Why wasn’t he angry?
Baffled, she shifted on the lounger, curling her legs up so she was more on one hip, the side of her face tilted into a small pillow so she could watch him. She wasn’t sure why she did. She was still aroused, still terminally embarrassed, but there was something soothing in watching his body slide through the water in that rhythmic way. A splash of a turn and the long pull of his arms again.
Maybe she just wanted to know she wasn’t alone here after all?
After about fifteen minutes, he stopped near her and folded his arms on the ledge. Here it came. She braced herself.
“Can’t sleep? Why not?”
She blinked. “Why can’t you?”
“Too much to do.”
Dare she ask if manhandling himself was on his to-do list? To think she’d only put braces and making a baby on hers.
“Exercise is a waste of time,” she said in a weak attempt at humor.
“It helps me clear my mind and fall asleep.”
She bet it did. Oh, she was dying over here, glad the dark hid her fiery cheeks, trying to think how to smooth things over and coming up dry.
“Do you need something?” he demanded in a clipped tone that she imagined had entire regiments standing up stra
ight.
Clarity. Reassurance. “I’d settle for a cup of tea, but I don’t want to wake Nura.”
“Your maid? Wake her. That’s what she’s there for.”
“It’s not important,” she protested, touching where the baby was elbowing for more room. “This is all very strange. You have to know that, Akin.”
“You’ll get used to it.” Zero compassion there.
Oh, she was going to have to grab the bull by the horns, wasn’t she? “You must be angry with me. You have a right to be.”
A single beat of surprise, then, “Anger, like all emotions, is a waste of time.”
She frowned. “Do you really believe that?”
“I’ve been in combat, Hannah.” Here was the quiet tone that refused to pull punches. “Anger provokes foolish acts of bravery. Rational thought keeps you alive. As you wisely put it to me, pick your battles. I don’t pick unnecessary ones.”
She let her head settle back onto the pillow as she absorbed that.
“But in future, if you want to watch me touch myself, ask. You owe me one.” He slipped under the water and began swimming laps again.
Was that a joke? She covered her mouth, able to feel how hot her face became at the thought of owing him a reciprocal performance, but she couldn’t help laughing into her hand. He had made a joke.
CHAPTER FOUR
AKIN WAS TAKEN aback each time someone congratulated him on his recent marriage. It was pro forma, and he had far more pressing matters to deal with. Immediately after his brother’s death, various factions had decided Baaqi was at a weak point. Skirmishes had broken out on several fronts. Akin was still quashing them, but as the world absorbed the news that the much-harder-assed brother would be taking control while a recognized heir was weeks away from coming into this world, a tentative stability was beginning to settle over his country.