“Yes, but…” Had he been reading her email? But even if he had been, and she wasn’t sure she’d put it past him, she’d never said that. Never quite that. “I never said that. Not to anyone.”
“Were you misquoted, then?” He slid his tablet computer across the table to her. “Show me where, and I will notify my attorneys at once.”
Sterling swiped her finger across the screen and stared down at the page that opened before her, from a famously snide tabloid paper.
Queen of the Rebound screamed the headline. Then beneath it:
Sexy Sterling uses famous wiles to bewitch Omar’s grieving brother, the King of Bakri, but tells pals back home: “This marriage is for Baby Leyla. It’s all for show.”
The worst part, Sterling thought as she glared down at the offensive article and felt her stomach drop to her feet, was that she had no idea which of the people she’d thought were her friends had betrayed her.
“You understand that this is problematic, do you not?” he asked, still in that mild tone—though she was starting to see that there were other truths in that hard gleam in his eyes, in the tense way he held that mouthwatering body of his as he sat there in one of those dark suits of his that some artist of a tailor had crafted to perfectly flatter every hard plane, every ripple of muscle. Every inch of sensual male threat that emanated from him, made worse because of the luxurious trappings.
“It’s a tabloid,” she said dismissively, because she might note that threat in him but for some reason, it didn’t frighten her. Quite the opposite. “It’s their job to be problematic. It’s our job to ignore them.”
“I would ordinarily agree with you,” Rihad said, so reasonably that she almost nodded along, almost lulled by his tone despite the way her pulse leaped in her veins. “But this is a delicate situation.”
She deliberately misunderstood him, sliding the tablet back toward him and returning her attention to the selection of fruit and thick yogurt, flaky pastries and strong coffee, as if that was the most important thing she could possibly concentrate on just then: her breakfast. And so what if she wasn’t hungry?
“This is tabloid nonsense, nothing more,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Nothing delicate about it, I’m afraid. They like to smash at things until they break, then claim they were broken all along. Surely you know this.”
He didn’t speak for a moment and she tried to pretend that didn’t get to her—but eventually she couldn’t help herself and glanced up again, to find Rihad watching her too closely with a narrow sort of gaze, as if he was trying to puzzle her out.
She swallowed hard, and she couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to keep her secrets hidden from him, or if she wanted to lay them all out before him in a gesture so suicidal it should have traumatized her even to imagine it. Yet somehow, it didn’t.
“The whole world knows that Leyla is Omar’s daughter, not mine, no matter that my name is on her birth certificate,” he said, after a moment, when she was beginning to imagine she might simply crack open.
“Did I know that you put your name on the birth certificate?” Sterling asked, shocked and taken aback, somehow, at that little revelation. “I don’t think I did.”
She remembered his look of dark impatience, though she hadn’t seen it in a while. That made it all the more effective today.
“Exactly what sort of legitimacy did you imagine I meant to convey on your child when I married you?”
“I guess the sort where we’re not completely erasing Omar from his daughter’s life.” She reached over and fiddled with the hem of the blanket that drooped over the side of the buggy, though Leyla still slept soundly and no adjustments were needed.
“It is a legal maneuver, nothing more,” Rihad said, his tone harsher than it had been in months, but that couldn’t be why her chest felt tight. It shouldn’t matter to her either way. “But you’re making my point for me. Omar has not been erased in any meaningful way. Everyone knows who fathered Leyla. Her place might be assured on paper and in the courts, but in the eyes of the Bakrian people and, more important, our enemies, her legitimacy must come from us.”
“Us?”
“Us. Me, their king, and you, my brand-new and deeply controversial queen.”
She shied away from that term, scowling at him instead. “I don’t like that word.”
“Which one?” His voice was so dry then. So dark and compelling. “Us? Controversial?”
“Queen.” Her scowl deepened. “It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t fit the situation at all.”
She meant it didn’t fit her, trash dressed up in an unearned crown—and she had the strangest notion he knew exactly what she meant. His dark gold gaze almost hurt against hers.
“And yet it is your title, accorded to you with all due deference two months ago when you married the King of Bakri. That would be me, in case you’re not following this conversation, willfully or otherwise.”
“But I don’t want to be your—”
“Enough,” Rihad said then, cutting her off.
He sat back in his chair, never shifting those mesmerizing eyes of his from hers, looking dark and terrible and entirely too fascinating, from that brusque nose of his to his strong jaw and all that rich brown skin in between. She wanted to lean closer to him, explore him—and hated herself.
“I don’t care what you call yourself, Sterling. You are my queen either way. I suggest you accept it.” When she didn’t respond, that light in his gaze sharpened and made it a little too hard to breathe. “I think you understand perfectly well that we cannot allow any speculation that this marriage is fake to fester. It serves no one but our enemies.”
She felt oddly fragile. “Why do you keep talking about enemies?”
“The kingdom has been rocked by one scandal after the next and we are weak.” His gaze sharpened. “My father’s tumultuous love affairs. My wife’s death without giving me any heirs. Omar’s notorious mistress that he flaunted in the tabloids and his refusal to come back home and do his duty. My sister’s betrothal to Kavian of Daar Talaas, which she responded to by running away—”
“I like her already.”
“Amaya was a successful runaway, Sterling. She’s managed to avoid both my security and Kavian’s for months. Kavian will no doubt run out of patience with her, and when he does? Our countries will not unite and if they do not, Bakri will fall. There are too many other powers in the area that want our location and our shipping prowess, and we cannot possibly keep them all at bay alone.”
“You’re talking about your enemies.” She lifted her chin as she held that harsh gaze of his. “The only enemy I’ve ever been aware of was you.”
“I am talking about our enemies.” He nodded toward the tablet. “Or do you imagine that whatever ‘pal’ sold that story is your friend? Will they take you in when I am imprisoned and you—if you are lucky—are a royal Bakrian in exile?”
Sterling
