This wasn’t for Rhastaan, this was personal.
But in that case, trust was all the more important. He’d rushed into this marriage with too little thought. He’d weighed the pros and cons of the arranged marriage with a cool head, but he’d chosen Aziza in a very different mood. The last time he’d done that it had ended with marriage to Sharmila, and the fallout from that had scarred so much more than his face. If there was one thing that experience had taught him, it was to be wary, that nothing was what it appeared on the surface.
He had time to spare on this. He could bank the treaty, play a careful game, and see if he might get more out of it than he had ever planned. One thing he was sure of was that he was damned well not going to lose the women who had sexually excited him most in years if he could help it.
‘Did I give you permission to leave?’
‘Do I need your permission?’
She wanted to resist—wished she had the strength to tell him to go to hell and turn and walk away. But she knew she wasn’t going to manage that. How could she try for any other reaction when she’d already given him the message he wanted simply by staying at all?
She had to prove to him that she could be trusted. That there was no conspiracy at all behind her appearance as his potential bride. What else could she do? If Nabil suspected her father, her whole family would be in danger, her mother and sister disgraced.
The memory of the moment he had taken her from the banqueting hall, the way that her father had had to bow as she passed, the look on Jamalia’s face when Farouk had said those words he has chosen you, all combined to put a touch of steel in her spine, fire up her blood. She could see his face reflected in a mirror on the wall, the dark scowl that brought his black brows together.
‘I am the King,’ he growled now.
‘And I am your Queen. Well, that’s true, isn’t it? Or was our marriage illegal in some way?’
She waited a nicely calculated moment, watched his face freeze, those black eyes flashing dangerously.
‘You wanted to know who I am—well, I’m not Zia the maid, or even just Aziza any more. I am the Sheikha, the Sheikh’s chosen wife, by marriage at least if not in actual fact.’
That hit home. She saw his eyes go to the bedroom door, then back again, fixing on her so strongly that she felt the force of his stare like a laser burn at the back of her head.
‘You took me as your wife today and as such I no longer need to bow down to anyone.’
His smile was deadly. A quick, rough quirk of his lips that warned of something dangerous to come.
‘Outside this room, perhaps. But surely you know that a marriage needs to be consummated before it becomes formally finalised—a fact rather than just a declaration of intent?’
‘Consummated...’
This time she couldn’t help herself. She turned partway, then froze again as she met the black ice of his stare. Just hours before, her foolish young heart had dreamed of sharing this man’s bed, of giving him her body, because he had made her feel special, chosen—wanted. It had been the fulfilment of her adolescent dreams. But that was when she’d believed he wanted her more than any other woman.
Now she dreaded the possibility because she knew that he saw her only as his to command. A pawn in the treaty negotiations. He didn’t even trust her and her attempts to explain had been dashed aside.
Did he really expect her to stay, to share his bed tonight? Of course he did. That was what this marriage had always been about. But that was before he had believed that she and her family had somehow deceived him.
Then there was that other vital reason he had married her. He needed an heir, so did that override his dark distrust?
‘Are you saying that you believe me now? That you don’t think that I married you under false pretences? So do I go or do I stay?’
Her thoughts dried up as Nabil prowled towards her, silent-footed, as sleek and dangerous as a beautiful black panther stalking his prey.
Coming level with her, he slid his hand under her chin to lift her face when she tried just to stare at the ground to avoid him.
‘You stay.’
His smile was deadly, steely-eyed, with a twist to his mouth that had nothing of warmth in it. It was a smile that spoke of possession, of ownership. The smile of a man who knew he was the ultimate ruler; that he held her fate in the palm of his hand.
‘Walk out that door and you take with you your own reputation and that of your family. As you are so determined to point out to me, you are now my Queen and as such you are expected to share my room. My bed.’
His cold-eyed gaze left her face and drifted over towards the door into his bedroom. If there was anything that brought home to her just how much things had changed since the moment they had almost stumbled through that door in a hot-blooded rush, she’d thought for the bed, it was the look that was stamped on to his stunning features. Every muscle in his face was set hard as stone, his jaw tight, those sensual lips clamped into a thin, hard line.
Did that twist of her heart, the sudden fluttering in her throat speak of excitement or fear? Was she always condemned to suffer ambiguous feelings about this man? At one moment wishing to be anywhere but here, at another knowing that she would be the target of bitter disappointment if she was never to know him fully.
‘Oh, you need not look so appalled, habibti.’
He actually smiled when he saw her expression.
‘I think that neither of us wants to rush into anything tonight. The country needs an heir but for tonight the country must wait. It has waited years already—what will one more night matter?’
He couldn’t let her go, Nabil acknowledged inwardly. He had known that as soon as he had seen her turn and walk towards the door. But he knew only too well where his reckless desire for another woman had led him. Once the ghost of Sharmila had come between them, everything had been blackened and distorted by those memories.
Aziza or Zia were one and the same it seemed, but he still had to question whether that meeting on the balcony had been as innocent as it had appeared or something else. He knew what he wanted to think, but what he wanted had only shown him in the past that where women were concerned he was a fool, and a blind one at that.
As a king, he needed a queen. As a man, he needed a woman. When he had seen Aziza walk away from him, her head held high, her back as straight as a spear, those lush hips undulating with every step she took, she had looked every inch a queen: beautiful, stately, regal. And he had wanted her like the devil.
He still wanted her. So much that his whole body hurt. Even as he had come out with that ‘one more night’ line, his unappeased desire had been like a scream in his head.
She was his wife for goodness’ sake! What he wanted to do was to grab hold of her, lift her from her feet and carry her into the bedroom—throw her down on to the black silk covers and lose himself in the heat and beauty of her body.
Hell, no! There was more to play for here than just a night of hot sex. This marriage was supposed to have been for the future of the country. He was not
