smiled faintly. “There is no direct translation. It is a Zakharian endearment along the lines of ‘my dearest one,’ although it is much more comprehensive.”
“You can’t expect me to be content with that.” Her brow wrinkled, and she asked hesitantly, “Should I know what it means? Did you tell me before?”
His answer was slow in coming. “Yes. The first time I called you mariskya you asked me. But I would not tell you because you would not have understood. Not then. Only later, after I... That is, after we...”
He seemed to be heading down a path he found difficult to speak about, and Tahra made an educated guess. “After we became lovers?” Her words hung in the air between them, and though he didn’t respond immediately, Tahra knew somehow she’d guessed wrong—that was not what he’d been trying to say.
After a long silence, Marek finally said in a low voice, “We have never been lovers.”
“Why not?” Tahra’s question seemed to take her by surprise as much as Marek, because warm color rose in her cheeks and she gave a little embarrassed laugh. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said that. Please forget I asked.” She tried to pull her hand away from his, but he held tight.
“But I want to answer that question.” His thumb brushed the engagement ring on her finger. “I have said this to you before...when I asked you to marry me.”
Her eyes sought his, and she said softly, almost shyly, “Please tell me again.”
“It was harder than you know leaving you at the door to your apartment,” he confessed in a low voice. “Holding you...kissing you...” He shook his head. “Letting you go every night took every ounce of determination I have.”
“Why did you?”
He smiled faintly. “Because you are the first woman I have ever envisioned as my wife. And in Zakhar a man does not... That is, we are taught...”
To his amazement, Tahra’s cheeks whitened and she jerked her hand away from his. “In other words, you have a double standard where women are concerned.” Her voice was cool, but he heard a thread of anger running through it. “I thought that went out of fashion fifty years ago.”
“That was not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” She gave a scornful snort. “Virgin brides are the exception nowadays, Marek, not the rule. Are you a virgin?”
He couldn’t believe she was asking him, but his answer was automatic and immediate. “Of course not. I am thirty-three and I am a ma—”
She cut him off. “Man. You’re a man, and therefore it’s expected that a thirty-three-year-old man wouldn’t be a virgin.”
He tried to possess himself of her hand again, but she refused to let him. At a loss to understand what was happening, he asked, “Why are we arguing about this?”
“So what you’re saying is that if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.” She tugged furiously on his engagement ring, which wasn’t easy with the cast on her right wrist. When it was finally free, she grabbed his hand and slapped the ring in it, then forcefully closed his fingers around it. “You don’t have to worry. I won’t hold you to an engagement entered into under false pretenses.”
“Tahra!”
“I can’t believe you told me this before, and I agreed to marry you,” she said under her breath. “I don’t believe it.”
“I did not tell you that part.” He opened his fingers and stared at the ring it contained...the second time Tahra had returned it to him. The second time she’d turned him down. “That is not why—” He broke off when he realized what he’d almost said.
She wasn’t listening to him, and Marek could only thank God. “How could I?” she was saying to herself. “How could I possibly... Especially since...”
Then he focused on what she’d said earlier, and a savage pain slashed through his heart. “...if you knew I wasn’t a virgin, we would have been lovers long ago...but you wouldn’t have asked me to be your wife.”
Was Tahra telling him she wasn’t a virgin? Could it be possible his sweet, shy Tahra hadn’t waited for him? Had...slept with other men?
Just as swiftly her scornful question leaped to mind. “Are you a virgin?”
A two-word litany began repeating in his brain—double standard, double standard, double standard—and shock sent icy shards everywhere. Tahra was right. He had slept with other women. Women he’d desired but hadn’t loved. He had not waited for Tahra. Why had he automatically expected she would have waited for him?
This new thought struggled with the Zakharian concepts with which he’d been raised, a culture clash of momentous proportions. Out of the maelstrom, only one thought emerged—he loved Tahra. That hadn’t changed. Could never change. No matter what, she was still his darling to cherish. To protect. And that meant maintaining the fiction they were still engaged so long as she needed his protection.
“No,” he told her firmly, capturing her left hand and sliding the engagement ring back on her finger. “Do not.” His voice was as implacable as his words when she opened her mouth to protest. “Do not fight me on this, mariskya. Your accusation is untrue. Whether you believe it or not, I would have asked you to marry me no matter what.”
Tahra stopped resisting, but her eyes searched his face, as if needing confirmation of his words. Finally she nodded. “Okay. I believe you.” Then she smiled and he could breathe again. “They told me in my pre-assignment briefing that Zakharians are a little...shall we say...behind the times where women are concerned. Not like some other countries where women have to go around covered head to toe and aren’t even allowed to drive a car, but...”
His fingers tightened on hers. “I am a product of my upbringing, yes,” he admitted. “But I am not wedded to my ignorance. You know I have already learned a few home truths about women and their role in society from Angelina, and I—” He stopped when confusion spread across her face. “Captain Angelina Mateja-Jones,” he explained patiently. “Head of the queen’s security detail, a post I held until the king asked me to take over the security for the crown prince. She is married to the man you work for at the US embassy, Alec Jones.” He paused for a moment, then stated flatly, “None of this strikes a chord in your memory, does it?”
She shook her head, a shadow creeping into her eyes. “No, it doesn’t. I wish it did.”
“We are friends with them,” he continued after a moment. “Alec is the regional security officer—RSO, you call it—at the embassy, and you are his administrative assistant. That created a slight problem at first, because Alec and I are friends, as are Angelina and I. But we all agreed that when you are at work, you and Alec act as professionally as if that is all there is to your relationship. When we are together as friends...that is a different story.”
“I see.” There was a tinge of doubt in her voice, but she didn’t add anything.
“As I started to say, Angelina
