by Leslie North
“Of course not.” Kishon’s voice sounded gravelly and off, even to himself. “Of course not.”
There was another pointed beat of silence. “Thank you, Sheikh Kishon,” Qamar said, then hung up on him.
Kishon picked up his cell and dialed Chakir.
“An interview. A puff piece.” Chakir stood confidently in the center of Kishon’s office, a fierce optimism on his face. “We all sit down together. The newlyweds and the engaged couple. We’ll give a pretty interview for the cameras, put out a few written articles, and show off all the love that’s going around the palace these days.”
“This is not a traditional solution to bad press.” Kishon’s shoulders felt like they’d been wrapped in the world’s strongest rubber band.
“Faking a marriage isn’t very traditional, either.”
“Shh,” hissed Kishon. “I don’t need anyone attributing that quote to you, brother.”
Chakir shrugged one shoulder. “Your situation isn’t traditional. There is another solution to all of this, you know.”
“And what’s that?”
“You could change with the times and stop worrying about what everyone will say. Or…you could admit you actually do love your wife. Then there’s no truth to the tabloid rumors.”
“There’s still truth to it,” Kishon grumbled. “I did propose to her because of the paparazzi that night.”
“What does it matter, if you love her?” Chakir narrowed his eyes. “If you love her, then all we need to do is prove it to the press.”
“No. No.” Worry wormed its way up through his stomach. “I don’t love her. I’m—not in love with her.” The words had a bitter taste and a sharp feel in his mouth, but he powered through them nonetheless. He couldn’t love Chloe. She probably preferred him when he wasn’t acting in his role as king, anyway, and that was his life. The time they’d spent in Washington had been a dream. A fantasy. “This is only meant to be temporary. Schedule the interview.”
Chakir looked for an instant as if he might reply, then gave Kishon a nod and walked out.
“Is there anything you don’t want me to say?” Chloe asked out of the side of her mouth, barely moving her lips. A makeup artist swiped a last layer of powder over her face.
“We’ve gone over the story of how we met. If we stick to that, we’ll be fine.” Kishon took her hand and squeezed, painfully aware of the cameras that were already rolling and the staff members around them.
He was uncomfortable on the stools that they’d been given for the interview. The silver lining was that they forced their occupants to sit up straight and tall. There was no other way to sit. Kishon longed for a traditional chair.
He also longed to be anywhere but this interview. The royal family of Hamari didn’t do puff pieces like this. He and Chloe were probably the first couple—along with Chakir and Hannah—to talk openly about their relationships to the press.
It felt wrong.
The rest of the room bustled around him. The film crew talked softly among themselves. The palace chef bustled around the catering table. And Chloe held his hand.
The next thing he knew, the director was counting them in. The interviewer, a man named Abdul, launched into his opening speech, looking straight into the camera. “Today we’re with Sheikh Kishon. Who have you brought with you today, if I might ask?” Abdul turned in their direction, giving them a subtle smile.
“This is my bride, Chloe.” He sounded like a robot. Worse than a robot. He heard Chakir’s stressed-out exhale.
The interviewer jumped in. “Sheikh Kishon, tell us about how you met your lovely wife.”
And Chloe—gorgeous Chloe—winked at Kishon. “That’s for me. I met Kishon when he visited the bar I worked at in Washington, DC. I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love across a bar top, but look at him—he’s irresistible.”
“How did you get to know each other while you were serving drinks?” The interviewer wore an encouraging smile.
“Oh, your classic back and forth. He’d tell me his favorite movie, I’d tell him mine.”
“What is your favorite movie?”
“Titanic,” Chloe said instantly, and Kishon flashed back to the moment Chloe had told him that. She’d been earnest, almost daring him to laugh at her. “And Kishon’s favorite movie is Casablanca.” She’d poked fun at him for choosing something so snobby.
“It’s true,” he offered, and the mood in the room relaxed.
The questions kept coming, and it dawned on him—he did have a relationship with Chloe. It wasn’t all fake.
“—like to do, even though we’re on a live stream?” The mention of the live stream was like a vise around his jaw. A live video had triggered his engagement in the first place.
“Kiss her,” Chakir said, and Kishon realized what the interviewer had asked. His brother leaned over and kissed his fiancée, so passionate that Kishon looked away.
He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t have that. He could hold hands with Chloe; he could kiss her gently in the gardens, but he could never be as vulnerable as Chakir. Kishon was the leader. That kind of immodesty wasn’t for him.
Kishon fought back a curdling jealousy. Chakir’s wedding would be a media event—of course it would—but the elders wouldn’t bat an eye so long as he stayed roughly within the bounds of tradition. They were always watching Kishon. Everyone was always watching Kishon.
“Tell us about Chloe,” said the interviewer, and Kishon realized the question was for him.
Everything he knew about her flew right out of his mind…everything except the most base, inappropriate things. The way she looked when she came. The way she arched her back when she rode him. The way she collapsed onto her pillow after sex and required at least a five-minute nap.
“She’s very kind,” he said, the breath going out of his lungs. “Smart. Funny.” He could have been describing anyone. “My wife is wonderful,” he said, every word striking him like an out-of-tune violin. And then Kishon found himself standing up. “That’s all for today.”
The interviewer didn’t miss a beat. He turned to the camera and started giving a wrap-up speech.
Kishon left the room without a backward glance.
13
The internet was blowing up, and Chloe couldn’t tear herself away.
The photos of her and Kishon at the gardens were plastered absolutely everywhere. There were even more shots from the wedding itself. Dozens of blogs dissected their expressions during the wedding ceremony to prove or disprove the theory that the relationship had been faked. Hundreds of websites shared that news over again. Every time Chloe refreshed her search page, there were new results.
She curled on the sofa in Kishon’s rooms, balancing a tablet on her lap. She’d showered and put on makeup as soon as he’d gone to his first meeting of the day, which made her obsession with the news coverage seem more respectable. She scrolled and read, scrolled and admired the photos of them from the wedding, scrolled and laughed, scrolled and seethed.
The puff piece had done its job. This morning, it was dominating the internet coverage, spawning thousands of reactions from people around the world. They took screen grabs of every micro-expression on her face and spent paragraphs analyzing each one.
It was exhausting.
It was exhilarating.
She couldn’t stop reading it.
The people who thought the relationship was fake thought she’d done it for the money. The exposure. They thought she, a woman who would forever be unworthy of a sheikh, had trapped him in a marriage so she could cash in on the coverage for herself.
In other words, she was in this for the money, and nothing else.
It wounded her deep inside at a spot she hardly ever acknowledged, right in the center of an old ache. It made her feel hollow, to think that she’d only agreed to marry him out of selfishness. It made everything she did seem hollow. Horrible.
She unfolded her legs and stretched. That was it. No more websites.
<
br /> Maybe just one more website.
This one started out with a few kind words about the wedding, but quickly devolved into a supposed exposé about Chloe’s bartending days, complete with the video from the night of his proposal. She flinched at the sight of herself punching that guy. It could have really hurt her painting hand.
Her cell phone rang. Mom came up on the screen, and guilt wrapped itself around Chloe’s throat and squeezed. Her mom had remarried five years before and moved out to Arizona with her new husband, and since all of this had happened, they’d barely had time to talk. Nancy and her husband had dipped in and out of Hamari for a scant couple of days for the wedding, and Chloe totally understood—Steve was dedicated to his business, and his business kept her mother stable and happy, along with everything else about him.
“How’s the greatest mother in the world?”
Chloe’s mom laughed. “I’m not sure, Chloe. A greater mother would still be in Hamari.”
“Ew, no. We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon. All you’d have to do here is talk me up to all the staff.”
“Supposed to be on your honeymoon?”
Chloe cursed under her breath. “Yeah—it’s been delayed. Kishon is needed to plan his brother’s wedding. Apparently, there are a lot of traditional duties for the king when his brother gets married, so…we put it off.”
“Chloe.” In that Chloe, she heard all the echoes from her childhood. How many times had her mom said her name in just that way, when Chloe was pretending everything was fine? She always knew. She always knew when something had gone wrong, no matter how much Chloe tried to hide it. “What happened?”
“Exactly that,” Chloe insisted. “Chakir’s wedding is coming up, so we have to wait. It’s nothing.”
“It’s something. Tell me.”
A ridiculous, wild pain speared into the center of Chloe’s heart like a weaponized breath. A delayed honeymoon was nothing to complain about—not in the context of her life. They had been so poor when Chloe was growing up. A memory swam up from somewhere deep—her mother going through Chloe’s piggy bank so they could buy groceries, her face frozen in shock and embarrassment in the light spilling through Chloe’s open door.
“I—” She wheezed in a breath and got herself back under control. “It’s different than I expected.”
“How could you have had any expectations about marrying a sheikh?”
“I just thought…” I thought I would be able to marry him without falling for him. “I thought I would be doing more painting than I’ve had time for.” A laugh tore from her throat. “We’ll get there. Marrying Kishon is going to let me paint all over the world, like I’ve always dreamed. I just have to be patient.”
“Sure,” her mother said. “Sure, money can buy you international travel, but it doesn’t solve everything.”
“What’s to be solved?”
“If marrying Kishon hurts your heart, Chloe, how are you going to paint? You’ve always painted with your heart.”
Chloe gritted her teeth. How did she know? How did she know about the tension that came with every beat of her heart, like all the love in her body pulled her toward Kishon as inexorably as gravity?
“I’ll get to paint,” she said. I won’t get to keep him. “But I’ve got to get going. I love you, Mom.”
Chloe’s mother loved her, too.
She hung up without saying another word and let the tears come.
“Chloe, what happened?” The door to Kishon’s rooms shut with a sharp crack. He rushed across the room and dropped to his knees in front of the sofa. He took her face in his big hands and looked into her eyes. Thud. Her heart still reacted just the same way to that particular shade of blue.
“I made a stupid mistake.” She laughed through her tears. “I looked online, and I read all the things people are saying about me. I know I don’t look like a sheikh’s wife, but all the rest—”
“Don’t ever look up those things again.” The authority in Kishon’s voice sent a pleasant shiver rocking through her muscles. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” He kissed her then, his lips soft and searching.
“There was more.”
He pulled her back into another kiss. “None of it’s true. At least—none of it should matter here.” His eyes heated, an answering desire gathering between Chloe’s legs. She’d been so determined to come clean with him, but now her body took over. She arched her back and let him kiss down her neck. Let him take her shirt off. Let him peel off her leggings, let him strip her down until she was spread out naked underneath him on the sofa.
Kishon lowered his head to one nipple then the other. “Perfection,” he whispered. He kissed the sensitive skin below her belly button. “Perfection,” he said again. And then he bent between her legs, showing her exactly how much perfection he found there.
She tried to let herself sink into all the sensations, hoping that when Kishon climbed onto the sofa, her mind would disconnect from all the hurt that ran over like an erupting volcano. But it dogged her even as she came, even as she came back down underneath him.
Kishon noticed.
“What is it?” He brushed her hair back from her face, and Chloe couldn’t bear to touch him for one more second. It was like holding her hand to a fire.
She shifted away and grabbed a blanket to wrap around herself. “This is more than playing a role,” she said.
He smoothed his own hair back. “Playing a role?”
“Playing a role, with our marriage. For…for everybody, I guess. The people in Hamari. The people in the palace. The world. Maybe it started out as that, but it’s not like that anymore. We’re in a real marriage now.” He’d made his vows to her with her hands in his. She’d felt that strange falling, floating feeling—it was falling in love. Thousands of pictures and videos documented the occasion. There was no denying that it had happened. “We’re going to have to deal with the ramifications of that.”
“We only need to be married long enough for Chakir to wed.” His eyes seemed to pin her to the wall behind her. “Then we can have our freedom.”
It swept the breath from her lungs in a whoosh that she tried to swallow before he could see. That was just it. She didn’t want her freedom. She wanted Kishon.
But he wanted his freedom. Back in the beginning, he had been clear that it was a temporary arrangement. It had been clear that he didn’t want forever with Chloe or anyone else.
“Right.” The fight went out of her. What could she say that would convince him to take a chance on her? He could insist that she was the most beautiful woman in the world all day, but that wouldn’t change things between them.
It wouldn’t change what she had agreed to.
“Where are you going?”
She’d started walking without realizing it, heading for the bathroom. “I need a shower.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Chloe turned and faced her husband. “I need a minute.” She put a smile on her face. “You know, to recover.”
Something flashed across his face, there and then gone. “I’ll be here when you get out.”
She pulled in a big breath, ignoring the heat, ignoring the ache. “It’s okay if you’re not,” she said, and she didn’t wait for his reply.
14
Chloe was working, her head bent over a tablet, when Kishon found her in a sitting room at the very end of a hall in the private wing of the palace. Kishon had no idea why she’d chosen to work here, of all places. He’d forgotten the room, done in delicate shades of green, even existed. There was something to that—Chloe reminding him of places that he’d forgotten—but he had bigger things on his mind.
She looked up at him, her face brightening. “Hi.”
“I had to hunt for you,” he said. “The servants finally gave you up.”
Chloe laughed. “I told them to tell you where I was.”
“Oh. Then I’m a terrible hunter.” He sat next to her on the sofa, looking down at the tablet
she held in her lap. “What are you working on?”
“A new schedule for the youth center,” she said proudly, and the back of Kishon’s neck heated. After their conversation the week before about their marriage and the press, Chloe had been spending even more time on the youth center. Their partnership would be over before the full benefits of her work would emerge, yet here she was, putting together new programming. She took him through the tentative schedules, her voice taking him back to all those nights he’d spent sitting across from her at the bar. It had been easier then.
“So, what do you think?”
“The kids will love it,” he said automatically. He’d been lost in thought, but it was still true. They would. “I’m proud of you.”
Chloe glowed, and Kishon hated himself a little. But he’d come here with a mission, his duty as the king, and putting it off any longer wouldn’t do them any favors.
“I have some other news,” he said, wanting it done as quickly as possible. “Some articles have popped up in the last couple of days about Chakir and Hannah being the better couple. There are rumblings in the press that they would make a better king and queen, too.”
Chloe leaned back a little, putting an inch of distance between them that felt like a mile. “Kishon. You’ve broken your own rule.”
“I didn’t go looking for the article,” he said. “The elders brought it up to me. And if the news has reached them, it’s something we need to address.”
She glanced back down at her tablet. “Address how?”
“A public event or two, to show off our…relationship,” he said lightly. “I thought we’d begin tonight. I’m scheduled to attend a fundraiser for the local hospital system.”
“And you need me to stand there with you and look pretty.” Her smile was a fleeting thing that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Look like a sheikh’s wife, that is.”
“You always look like a sheikh’s wife.” He put an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in close. “Tonight we’ll both dress like royalty.”