looked at him, her lush lips shaped into a perfect O. “What? Why so soon?”
He looked pointedly at her stomach.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I won’t start showing for a while. I mean, I knew you wanted to marry quickly but…two weeks? In the States I would have a hard time getting a wedding cake on two weeks’ notice!”
“You underestimate the power of money.”
“No. I don’t. Trust me. My family is practically made of money.”
“Then you underestimate the power of the sheikh of Rahat. I will have my staff see to the wedding feast. The ceremony will be held here at the palace. Small by royal standards but it cannot be helped.”
Her smooth brow crinkled as she drew her eyebrows together. “Oh, yes. It can’t be helped because I’m disgraced. Can’t have people thinking I’m pregnant, it would reflect badly on me. Not on you, of course, but then, isn’t that the way of it?”
Anger curled his stomach. Anger at whom…Angelina, his country and its traditions, or himself, he wasn’t sure. Possibly all three. “If you had married me three years ago you could have had the finest wedding imaginable,” he said through clenched teeth. “A parade through the city. A handmade wedding gown. Thousands of attendants ready to pay homage to the new queen.”
If she had married him three years ago he would have spared so many sleepless nights, so much longing.
At least he had her now. She would have to stay with him. She would be his wife and the mother of his child. She could not leave him now. That brought a slight sense of a relief, took away some of the pressure in his chest.
“Oh, yes, that’s what I need, Taj. A bigger wedding. That’s the problem. It simply won’t be grand enough if I’m not brought into the church on…on…camel back.” She stood, her pale cheeks flushing a dark rose. “How did you know that was the most essential thing to me? I should have married you three years ago, if not for the wedding, so my wardrobe would be more current.”
He stepped back, the heat in his stomach spreading now, a blaze of anger streaking along his veins. “Is that what you want? More gowns? I will give them to you. I can give you anything. Everything. I am Sheikh. I can provide you with things no other man can.”
“Oh, is that so,” she said, hands on her shapely hips. “Well, I believe that, sugar, I do. But there are men who could provide me with things you will never be able to give me.”
“I think not,” he said, striding forward and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him. Her eyes widened and he gentled his hold, his heart hammering. “I think not,” he said again, his voice softer.
He moved his thumb over her bottom lip and a shiver of desire racked his body. “The need I feel for you is as much a part of me as my blood,” he said. “And I am certain you feel the same.”
She pulled back. “That’s sex. So maybe we have good sex, and maybe we both want more of it. But sex isn’t everything.”
“You say that, but you are wrong. You have some…misconstrued idea that marriage is about love, I imagine. A modern concept that I have no patience for. Suitability, chemistry, that is what matters. Not some vague idea of a feeling that has no guarantee of existing let alone lasting. This,” he said, putting his hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating rapidly beneath his palm, “this is real. What I make you feel.”
“Go away, Taj.”
Dismissed. No one dismissed him. No one left him. And Angelina seemed to do both of those things freely.
“For now,” he said, taking a step back, ignoring the ugly twisting in his chest that was threatening to cut off his air supply. “But remember this, Angelina. You are pregnant with my heir, and you will be my wife. There is no running from this.”
He said it as much to remind him as her. She couldn’t leave him. Not now.
A good thing. Because if she did…he did not know how he would live with himself.
“She is getting sicker, Sheikh.” Hana, one of the maids trusted with Angelina’s care, stood before him, wringing her hands. “She is not keeping any food down. Not all day.”
“Do you think she needs a doctor?” he asked.
Hana shrugged. “The doctor has been. He says as long as she does not lose too much weight…he says her sickness is normal. Bad, but to be expected.”
Hana was one of the few on staff who was aware of the fact that Angelina was pregnant, but as she was attending her, Taj had felt it important.
“There is nothing that can be done?”
“She was given medication for motion sickness, which helps some women. Though she’s reluctant to take it. It makes her nervous.”
“Stubborn woman,” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “Is she asleep now?”
“Yes.”
“I will go to her. Keep everyone away from her end of the palace. I do not want her disturbed. Today, she is in my care.”
He stalked across the palace, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor, staff scurrying aside when they saw him coming.
His heart was pounding heavily by the time he reached the entrance to her quarters. He moved through her rooms, the elegant seating area, her sunroom, to her sleeping chamber. He paused at the door, a strange unease filling him.
He’d never cared for anyone in his life. Not on a personal level. On a grand scale, he cared for his people. But he sent others to do his bidding. He signed papers, he waved from vehicles. It was his administrative staff who assigned the execution of tasks.
He was aware, for the first time, of how different ordering care and giving it were.
He pushed the gilded door open and saw Angelina. She was in bed, the covers drawn up beneath her chin, her hair damp, sticking to her forehead.
“You are too hot,” he said, striding across the room, sitting on the edge of the bed and putting his hand on her forehead.
She stirred, opened her eyes, the expression in them confused and sleepy. “I…I’m not. I just…I threw up again and it makes me sweaty. What are you doing here?”
A good question. He felt completely and totally out of his depth. A foreign experience. “I heard you were unwell.”
“I’m morning sick,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“It is three in the afternoon.”
“Morning sickness isn’t always confined to morning, I’ve discovered. But other than feeling like death warmed over, the doctor says I’m fine. The baby is fine.”
“You do not look fine,” he said. “You
