She bowed her head. “I suppose I do. But everyone needs a few secrets, right?”
Who was he to contradict her? He had secrets of his own. “I don’t know if needs is the right word. But yes, I know what you mean.”
Her blue eyes gleamed. “I’m still angry with you. But if you walked over here and took me in your arms, you could make me forget it all for a few hours.”
He was poised to do just that when she continued.
“But I’m asking you not to.” She shook her head. “I need time to process this, Rashid. I need time to figure out how to fit my life into this box you’ve handed me. I can’t do that if you confuse me with sex.”
CHAPTER TEN
SHERIDAN’S HEART POUNDED as she gazed at the handsome sheikh standing across the room. Just a word from her and he would cross the distance separating them and make her feel as if she were the most important, wonderful thing in his life for a few hours.
But she couldn’t let it happen again. Not after the way she’d felt this afternoon when they’d made love so urgently against a wall. After, when she’d felt shattered by the emotions he stirred inside her, when she’d needed tenderness and closeness, he’d pushed her away. Every effort she made to be close to him, he rebuffed. So why did she keep doing it?
And now she had to marry him. She didn’t know how she was going to survive if she had to keep navigating a sexual minefield with him. They’d done everything backward. Baby, sex and now marriage, and she couldn’t keep going down the same path without knowing who he was. Really knowing.
“The sex doesn’t mean anything to you,” she said. He did not contradict her, and her belly squeezed a little tighter. “And it doesn’t mean anything to me either, but it could start to mean more than it should just because I feel so out of place here.”
That was what truly frightened her. She was a stranger in a strange land, wholly dependent on this man, bound to him by ties greater than any devised by law. She had to keep her feelings grounded in reality. To do that, she couldn’t fall into bed with him every time he came near her.
He shoved his hands into his pockets—God, he was delicious in faded jeans—and adopted a casual pose that belied the tension in the set of his shoulders. He was a man poised on the edge of action. Always. That he would attempt to hide that from her was encouraging.
Because they both knew who had the true power. That he would allow her to have her own both stunned and warmed her. It was progress.
“I am not trying to place you in a box. You seem not to realize how very privileged your life is about to become.”
“A gilded box is still a box.”
He rubbed a temple and came around to sink down on the cushions of a settee. “I do in fact know this.” He leaned back and gazed up at the domed ceiling above them. “I hated living in this palace as a child. It was hell in many ways.”
She came around the chair and perched on the edge of it, her heart in her throat and a dull pain stinging her eyes.
He shrugged. “My father was a harsh man, habibti. He did not believe in sparing the rod, so to speak.”
She swallowed. Was he actually sharing things with her? Or was this an anomaly? “I heard that you only recently returned to Kyr. Is that why?”
His eyes glittered. “The palace is full of information, it would seem.”
“The person I heard it from seemed rather terrified to impart it. As if you would be angry. As if you are a tyrant who punishes people for slights.”
He looked rather stunned at that revelation. “I am a king, and I must be harsh at times. But I am not a tyrant. The only people who feel my wrath are the council and my immediate staff. I have no need to terrify maids or cooks, I assure you.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think you did.” Because the people she’d met seemed happy to have him as their king, though they were also more than a little awestruck by him. He didn’t speak much, they said. He kept to himself. He was serious and responsible and he didn’t smile.
But he was fair. No one had yet claimed he wasn’t.
One dark eyebrow arched as if he didn’t quite believe her. “Really? I would imagine you were my greatest critic. Did I not kidnap you and force you to come to Kyr? Am I not forcing you to marry me against your will?”
She clasped her hands together in her lap. “Well, those things are pretty bad and you should feel quite ashamed of yourself. But you haven’t been cruel. Exasperating and arrogant, but never cruel.”
He held her gaze steadily. “I am intimately acquainted with cruelty, and therefore I have striven never to be the kind of man who resorts to it in order to achieve his aims.”
Again, her heart twisted for the child he’d been. “I believe you.”
He blew out a breath. “Well, we have progress, then.” He stood suddenly. “Good night, Sheridan. Sleep well.”
“Rashid, wait.”
He turned back to her, a question in his expression.
Why had she stopped him? What did she want to say? Her heart beat hard and her throat ached and she didn’t understand this urge to go to him and wrap her arms around him. Not for the sexual chemistry, but for the boy he’d once been. The boy who’d had a cruel father and hadn’t known much love.
She wanted to know more. So much more. But he was finished and she didn’t know how to make him start again.
“Sleep well,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.
He tilted his head in acknowledgment. And then he was gone.
* * *
Kadir al-Hassan arrived the next day with his wife, Emily. Sheridan had just returned from playing with the puppies when she found the palace staff in an uproar. Or the domestic staff anyway. She swallowed hard and hurried to her room to change out of her jeans and T-shirt. It was quite a relief to be able to dress in something she wasn’t worried about getting dirty, though she’d chosen to wear the hijab, too. She liked the fabric covering her head when she went out into the hot Kyrian sunshine. It helped keep her cool.
Now she hesitated as she stood in her closet. She had her clothes from home and the Kyrian clothing. In the end, she chose to wear a blouse and trousers with the hijab. Then she checked her email and waited nervously for someone to decide she should be sent for.
Finally, there was a knock at her door and Emily al-Hassan was on the other side. She was a pretty girl, tall and slender and elegantly dressed in a designer suit and low heels. And she was smiling.
“You must be Sheridan,” she said after she introduced herself. “I’m so pleased to meet you.”
Sheridan was happy to meet her, too. Emily was American, and it was like having a visitor from home even though they’d never met before.
Emily took a seat and talked easily while Fatima arrived with tea. Once Fatima was gone, Emily’s expression changed to something more sympathetic and concerned.
“How are you holding up?” she asked. “Is Rashid behaving himself?”
Sheridan felt a little odd talking about her life with a stranger, but then Emily was the only other person she knew who shared the novel experience of marrying a Kyrian royal.
“I’m not sure he knows how,” Sheridan said, and Emily laughed.
“Truthfully, when I first met him, Rashid scared me half to death. He’s so quiet. So intense.” She frowned then. “I probably shouldn’t say anything, but you are marrying him now and so I feel you should be armed with as much information as possible. Rashid and Kadir didn’t have a good relationship with their father. He was very harsh.”
“Rashid mentioned it.”
Emily’s eyes widened a bit. “Did he? How interesting. Did he also mention that their father refused to choose an heir? It should have always been Rashid, but King Zaid wanted to punish him. So he left the succession undecided.”
“But he de
cided in the end.”
Emily sipped her tea. “No. Kadir did. Rashid did not come when their father died, and so Kadir had to take the throne. But Rashid finally showed up before the formal declaration. And Kadir abdicated.”
Sheridan blinked. “Why would he do that?”
Emily’s cheeks reddened a bit then. “It’s a long story, but he did it for me. I was too scandalous for Kyr, you see. And Kadir never wanted to be a king. He only married me to get out of it.”
“But you’re still married.”
Emily laughed. “Oh, yes. Marrying Kadir for all the wrong reasons is still the best thing I ever did. Because it turns out the reasons were right in the end.”
Sheridan’s throat ached. It was clear that Emily al-Hassan loved her husband very much. And he must love her equally as much to have given up a throne. It was incredibly romantic. And it made her sad when she thought of her and Rashid and their impending marriage.
She shook her head as hot feelings welled up inside her. “I don’t want to marry Rashid. I don’t love him, and he doesn’t love me. But there’s the baby to consider. A baby born to an unmarried mother can’t inherit a throne, apparently, even when the king of Kyr is most definitely the father. And forget shared custody.” She waved a hand. “Not happening here.”
“No, that is definitely Kyr for you.” Emily leaned forward and squeezed her hand. Sheridan liked how sympathetic and friendly the other woman was. “Kyr has its charms, and the al-Hassan brothers have even more. I promise you they are worth it in the end. Even grouchy Rashid.”
Sheridan laughed. She’d been on the edge of tears, but laughing helped to banish them. At least temporarily. God, she’d needed this. Someone who didn’t think the sun rose and set on Rashid, who knew he was flawed and who didn’t mind saying it.
“He is grouchy,” she said. “And bossy.”
Emily laughed. “Bossiness is an al-Hassan trait. But you have to admit they are devilishly handsome.”
“I haven’t seen your husband yet, but if he looks anything like Rashid, I’d say you’re a very lucky woman.”
Emily’s eyebrows waggled. “I am a very lucky woman. And you will be, too, once you tame Rashid.”
Sheridan sighed. The other woman was so certain everything would work out in the end. Sheridan didn’t feel that way at all. She thought of Rashid pushing her away after sex and her heart wanted to break. “I don’t know that he’s tamable. Or that I want to. In truth, I wish I could just go home.”
But that wasn’t as true as she claimed, and she felt a blush stain her cheeks. Emily very politely didn’t comment.
“Would you like more tea?” Emily asked instead, reaching for the pot.
“Please.”
After they settled down with fresh cups, Emily looked at her very thoughtfully. “Kadir tells me that Rashid has always been intense, but he has not always been the sort of emotionally closed-off man he is now. Kadir does not know what happened, but he thinks something did. There were a few years when they only had the barest of contact. Kadir was building his business and Rashid was in Russia.” Emily sipped her tea. “I’ve only known grouchy Rashid, so I can’t say for certain. But Kadir loves his brother very much, and he would not do that if Rashid was not good.”
Sheridan’s heart thumped. She wouldn’t have guessed that Kadir didn’t know about his brother’s marriage and his wife’s subsequent death, but clearly he did not. It wasn’t her place to say anything, so she sipped her tea and kept silent. But she hurt for Rashid as she thought of him losing the woman he loved and having no one to turn to.
They sat there for another hour, chatting about many different things. Emily explained the Kyrian wedding procedure to Sheridan, who found it comfortingly sterile. Oh, she’d always wanted the big emotional wedding, but signing her name on a document and then watching Rashid do the same would be quite enough for her. It was like signing loan papers at the bank. She could handle that.
But when the time came to do just that later the same day, Sheridan found herself more emotional than she’d thought she would be. The signing took place in Rashid’s office with Kadir and Emily for witnesses, along with the lawyers who presided over the entire thing. It lasted all of a few minutes as they sat on one side of a conference table with the lawyers on the other and Kadir and Emily at either end.
There was a translator who read the documents to Sheridan, and then she was directed to sign her name on a line. She could feel Rashid beside her, his gaze intent on her as if he expected her to refuse. She almost did. She almost stood and ran from the room, but in the end she knew it would merely be a stalling tactic.
She signed and put the pen down, then stared at her fingers clenched in her lap. Rashid scratched his signature across the document in a hasty scrawl, and then shoved the whole thing across the table.
He was angry, she realized, but she didn’t know why. She glanced over at Emily, who gave her a smile of encouragement and a firm nod, as if to say, “You can do this.”
Another few moments and the men on the other side of the table were filing the documents into briefcases and rising. They left the room, and then Emily went to Kadir, who took her hand in his and gave her a look that could only be called hot. He was very handsome, of course. The al-Hassan brothers had been designed by God to make female hearts beat a little harder when they walked into a room.
“Congratulations, Rashid,” Kadir said, shaking his brother’s hand. “And Sheridan, welcome to the family.”
He kissed her on both cheeks. Emily did the same while Kadir took his brother aside for a quick conversation at the other end of the room. Sheridan’s heart was beating hard and her stomach fluttered.
“It’ll be fine,” Emily said. “He’s a good man. He’s just a little lost, I think. Kadir was, too, but we found our way.” She squeezed Sheridan’s shoulders. “You will, too. I’m certain of it.”
Sheridan wished she shared Emily’s confidence, but all she could do was smile wanly and thank the other woman for being there.
Kadir joined his wife then, his arm going around her shoulders. He couldn’t seem to be near her without touching her. It made Sheridan wistful. Rashid touched her, but only to initiate sex. After he’d found his release, he was finished with the touching.
“We should leave them alone now, habibti,” Kadir said.
And then Kadir and Emily were gone and Sheridan was left standing in Rashid’s private office—where they’d had mad sex against the wall—with the beautiful view of the sandstone cliffs in the distance on one side and the ocean on another. The room was quiet. Too quiet.
She turned to look at Rashid and found him watching her. He did not look pleased. She thought of him shoving the papers across the table and her belly tightened. He wanted to be married even less than she did, it would seem.
She thought of him last night, telling her about his wife. He’d said it plainly, unfeelingly, but she knew he must have been deeply affected by the death of the woman he’d loved.
And he must have loved her, since he’d married her willingly and not because she was pregnant with an heir to the throne.
Now he was married to her, and no matter how much he’d said it had to be done and there was no choice, he clearly wasn’t happy about it now that it had taken place.
His frown deepened. “Kadir says you are frightened of me.”
Sheridan shook her head. “I’m not.”
“I didn’t think you were. You’ve been giving me hell since the first moment I saw you. If you weren’t frightened then, you could hardly be so now that I’ve made you a royal princess.”
Her belly rolled with nerves. A princess, but not a queen. In order for there to be a queen, the king had to make a proclamation. That much she’d learned from Emily. And while it was silly to even think about the difference, it was quite obvious that Rashid
did not intend to issue a proclamation. His father had never done so, either.
“I don’t feel like a princess.”
“You will soon enough. You’ll have to go before the council, and then there are state functions to preside over, meetings to attend. You’ll have a secretary and a staff. You will have to choose a cause to support, and then you will need to make appearances for it—”
“Rashid, please.” He stopped speaking. There was no moisture in her throat at all. She thought of everything he’d just said and wanted to run and hide. She wasn’t shy, but it was too much to process so soon. “Can I please get used to the idea of being married before you start throwing duties at me?”
He looked stiff. Formal. He was so incredibly handsome in his dark desert robes today. They were trimmed in fine gold embroidery that sparkled and shimmered as he moved. Her own dress—a deep purple silk gown with a cream hijab—was not as beautiful.
“Since you informed me you did not wish to be married, and that you did not like having nothing to do, I assumed you would be happy to do things that would take you away from me.”
This conversation was like navigating a minefield. How did one respond? Did she ignore the jab about marriage and focus on the part about being busy? Or did she address them both?
“You know what my objections to this marriage are, so I’m not repeating them. And I would like to be busy, but the things you’ve mentioned are not like running a party-planning and catering business.”
His mouth flattened. “Some of the skills are the same. You said you liked to make people happy. You will be doing the same as a royal princess. And there will be functions to plan, if you wish to be involved in that.”
“I think you know I would.”
“Then you will inform your secretary. She will arrange everything for you.” He went over to his desk and shuffled through some papers while she stood there and felt like a kid who’d been called into the principal’s office for misbehaving.
“Are you angry with me?” she finally asked, deciding that the only way to get anywhere with him was to speak her mind.
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