The Marriage Deal

by Connelly , Clare

  7

  Amy

  THE SUN IS LOW in the sky as he brings the helicopter down onto the helipad, the colours streaking over the capital city like blazes of orange and gold. I watch him, his effortless control of the instruments impressive. “Where did you learn to fly like this?”

  “You mean without crashing?” He prompts, a lazy smile flicking across his lips, snaking heat through my belly. Goosebumps lift over my skin, and despite the fact I was thoroughly pleasured in the caves, I feel a rush of need for him flooding me to my core.

  “Yep.”

  His laugh is like warm treacle on my skin. “When I was fifteen, I spent a summer in the army. I enjoyed it, and decided to train with the air command branch.”

  “Seriously?”

  He cocks one brow. “You’re surprised?”

  “Actually, no. I can totally buy you as GI Joe or Rambo or whatever.”

  He grins. “Not quite.”

  I don’t believe him. From the first moment I met him I felt as though I’d been punched in the gut by testosterone and I feel it emanating from him now. “I bet they loved you.”

  “Who?”

  “The people you served with.”

  He lifts his shoulders. “There’s a strong sense of camaraderie in the armed forces. For someone like me – with no family – that was very important.” He brings the chopper down lower and guards emerge onto the roof, watching carefully. “I learned to rely on others, to support them. It was a turning point for me.” His hands are deft as he controls the instruments, like Chopin at a piano.

  “How so?”

  “Up until then, I’d been completely alone. I started to let people into my life.”

  My heart squeezes on an unexpected wave of sympathy and surprise. “I have you pegged as a loner still.”

  “Do you?”

  I nod.

  “Perhaps you’re right. I prefer not to rely on people, and yet I can if I’m forced to.” I can’t tell if he’s joking or not.

  “I’m surprised your guardians or whatever allowed you to enter the army. Wouldn’t it be too dangerous?”

  He lifts his shoulders. “We are not at war with anyone, azeezi. I took part in training and peace keeping exercises only.”

  I know him well enough now to know he’s downplaying the risks. “You’re the sole surviving heir. You married me – the daughter of a man you despise – simply to ensure your throne is safe.”

  The skids touch down on the helipad and the blades begin to slow. He flicks another switch then turns, his full attention bearing down on me. “Yes?”

  I swallow, his scrutiny making concentration difficult. “There must have been risks.”

  “There are always risks. Everywhere.”

  I consider that a moment. “Including in marrying me?”

  He lifts a hand and it takes me a second to realise he’s gesturing at the soldiers beyond the helicopter, instructing them to stay where they are rather than approach us. “There were more risks in not marrying you. I weighed it up and chose the best option.”

  It’s such a clinical way to describe the process of our coming together and yet I’m glad he employed that now – I need the reminder. Our marriage is businesslike, regardless of what just happened between us.

  I need some space, time in my own apartment, away from him and his powerful appeal, to examine everything that’s transpired. The way he feels about me is – or should be – beside the point, anyway. What I need to keep remembering, what lays heavily upon my heart, is that this is the man who destroyed my father’s life. Every tear I saw him shed, every grim expression, the light that was lost in my dad’s eyes, all of that is at this man’s feet.

  Guilt steals through me, fast and determined, so I angle my face away, needing my escape urgently.

  “Thank you for today.” I toy with the fabric at the bottom of my shirt. We dried it over the edge of the cave, sunbathing the shirt while we swam in the warm water of the rock pool and waited.

  “Amy?” His hand grabs my wrist, drawing my attention back, but I’m reluctant to give it to him. Something inside me has shifted; a lemon is in my throat. I swallow to clear it, without luck.

  He uses his other hand to guide my face to his – how easily he does that! Is it a metaphor for his control over me? Wasn’t today evidence of that enough? I wanted a day on my own, a day to explore under my own steam, but instead Zahir swooped in and took over. Oh, he might have taken me somewhere incredibly beautiful and special, and made me feel beautiful and special, but that’s not the point! I’m not supposed to be attracted to him, and yet I am. Completely and utterly, and all the while he has enough self-control to withhold his own pleasure without breaking a sweat.

  His eyes pierce mine; there’s no looking away. It’s as though a solar eclipse has emerged right here within the confines of the helicopter. “We’re married.”

  The comment draws a frown to my face. “Yes, I know. I was there.”

  He reacts with a tight smile. “Today has changed the nature of our marriage.”

  My heart is a sledgehammer in my chest.

  “I want you to start sharing my bed.”

  I blink, utterly confused by his statement. “You mean –,”

  “Your suite of rooms is for guest use. You are no longer a guest.”

  My lips part on a swell of emotion. “Because we had sex?”

  His eyes soften a little and I hate that I recognise sympathy in them. I pull away from his face, angling towards the front windscreen.

  “Yes.” It’s a simple response. “This marriage is not what either of us intended, but given how things are between us, it makes sense to take the next step forward.”

  Step forward. As though this is some logical integration plan, something that can be mapped and controlled.

  “I’m sorry, your highness.” I deliberately use his title, needing – desperately – to erode some of the intimacy that has formed between us. “I was just thinking the opposite.”

  “In what way?”

  My emotions are in a state of flux. “Today did change things between us.” I bite down on my lower lip, massaging it while I search for words. “Ever since I got here, things have been morphing into the opposite of what I expected.” Salt stings my eyes. “But nothing that happens between us will ever change what you put my dad through. I can’t forgive you for that, Zahir. I won’t.”

  When I risk a glance at him, the only sign he’s heard is a slight narrowing of his eyes. Otherwise, his face is an implacable mask.

  “And so you are determined to hate me forever?”

  I wish it were that simple! I nod jerkily, looking down at my hands, the enormous wedding ring there almost laughing at me now.

  “This changes nothing, azeezi.” His words are soft, but what he’s saying rings with power and control. I don’t look at him. “You are my wife, and it is time for you to start living like it.”

  I gasp.

  “I treaded slowly. Our honeymoon, the week afterwards, giving you time to adjust, but now that time is at an end.”

  Perhaps he mistakes my silence for agreement, because a moment later he barrels on with his plan. “I will have Aliya oversee your move.”

  As though it’s so simple! A done deal. Sure enough, a moment later his hands are moving to my seatbelt, undoing the clasp at my belly button, his hand staying there a moment before straying lower, brushing over my sex, a part of my body already far too sensitive from his ministrations in the cave.

  “Do not worry, Amy. You are free to continue hating me as long as you would like. There will be other compensations for our marriage.”

  I draw in a hurt, shaking breath, my eyes pinging to his as his words sink in. His low expectations of our marriage shouldn’t matter to me but they set a part of me to ice. I look away, hurt and anger at war within me. His hand shifts and despite my feelings I want to demur, to grab his wrist and draw it back.

  I suspect he sees my disappointment, because he mak
es a throaty laugh. “Tonight, little one.” He brings his face back to mine. “In my own bed, in this palace, I will take you just as you wish, and there will be no stopping this time.” He presses a finger to my lips, a warning in his eyes. “Don’t make me kiss you here until you admit how much you want that.”

  I glare at him, anger winning the war. “You’re an arrogant piece of work, do you know that?”

  Another laugh. “Yes.” He undoes his own seatbelt. “You’ll get used to it.”

  I want to fire a nasty rejoinder but none forms. I feel as though I’ve been pushed into a washing machine on full spin cycle. I’m completely disorientated and dizzy.

  He strides across the roof, a magnificent figure of strength and confidence, nodding to the guards as he passes, his respect for them – and theirs for him – shown in every interaction. At the other side of the roof there’s a door. A distant figure opens it for him and he steps through without a backwards glance.

  His confidence that he will get what he wants sits like a rock in my gut and I am very, very tempted to teach him a lesson.

  Zahir

  I’m furious with her and yet I smile anyway, because I should have predicted Amy would pull a stunt like this. There was no way she’d simply be reasonable and fall in with my plans. I had hoped she might, but apparently with Amy everything has to be a damned fight.

  “Tell my wife I hope she feels better tomorrow,” I murmur to Aliya, returning my attention to the iPad, the FaceTime call with Elon Katabi, the leader of Salim, on hold while Aliya delivers the message to me. Her highness says she is not feeling well and has asked to delay the move to your apartment. She says she does not wish to make you ill.

  It was obvious from Aliya’s reporting of this that Amy is – at least so far as Aliya perceives – far from ill. Her scepticism was apparent in every syllable.

  I un-pause the conference call and resume our conversation, but my mind continues to unravel the problem of my wife. She is stubborn and argumentative, and I can feel her animosity towards me often enough to know it’s not going anywhere – and probably never will. Does that matter? Do I need her to like me?

  No.

  I need her by my side – a visible presence in Qabidi society, someone who can mollify the small crowd of violent, unruly supporters of the Hassan claim. I need them to see her happy with me, for them to realise a Hassan is on the throne, albeit not the one they wanted. My hope is that they will choose acceptance and peace over more trouble-making – and the harsh penalties I have been hesitating to impose.

  No longer. My country is at a turning point and Amy is a part of that. If she wants to play games and deny how she feels about me physically, then that’s her prerogative. I can wait.

  Amy

  My plan backfired, in that I got exactly what I thought I wanted. Zahir’s polite message in response to my own – that I’m too sick to move to his rooms – was not what I’d expected. I thought he’d fight me. Bang the door down to my room and carry me to his own, anger sparking between us meaning that when we made love there’d be no tenderness, no emotions other than dislike and enmity. And then would it have been acceptable?

  Would that have meant I was betraying my family to a lesser degree?

  I huff as I push my elbow into the pillow, trying to get comfortable and failing miserably. There is nothing wrong with the luxuriously soft duck down pillow, nor the hand-crafted mattress. My body is on fire and there is nothing in this room capable of extinguishing these flames.

  Thoughts of the old adage about ‘being careful what you wish for’ fire through my mind. Was I stupid to fight him on this point? I don’t know. My head says ‘no’. After all, it’s important that I hold my ground, that I show him sex doesn’t mean I’ll submit to him completely. It doesn’t make us friends, or anything more complex. And it’s no reason to change the current arrangement. I can have my own room, without being drawn completely into his orbit. I know I need some time and space away from his magnetic presence, time in which to make myself remember that I should hate him, even when deep down I know I don’t.

  With a groan, I give up on sleep, pushing the lightweight, beautifully crafted covers from my body and moving towards the balcony. The early morning is cool – the sand dunes beyond the palace coloured by moonlight, turning them silver, just as they had been in the desert on that magical-seeming night. My throat goes thick as unwanted emotions – and doubts – flood my body.

  I stare out at the desert for a long time, consoling myself that through the course of history, millions of women must have chased this landscape with their eyes, looking for answers in the wise counsel of the particles of sand and grit. I’m simply another one of them, inconsequential in the scheme of things, my worries soothed by the perspective of history’s long view.

  “Your highness!”

  I must have dozed off at some point, because I’ve just woken up to find Zahir in front of my chair, his nostrils flaring as his eyes bore into me. I sit upright, looking around, disorientated for a few minutes before remembering my troubled night’s sleep – his easy acceptance of my excuse, the fact I’d regretted my decision every single second of the long, lonely night, the way my body had craved his to the point of insanity. The way it was craving him now, so that even the sight of him like this, dressed in white robes with his dark hair curling a little at the nape, makes me ache for him on an urgent, primal level.

  My voice is groggy – sleep and surprise coating the syllables in a heavy confusion.

  “How do you feel?” Before I can answer, his hand sweeps across my brow, apparently checking for my temperature, but I sit straighter, wishing his hand would brush other parts of my body. It’s as though something has been flicked on inside of me and I have no clue how to flick it off again.

  “I’m –,” I clear my throat. “Okay. Thank you,” I tack on belatedly.

  “I’m glad.” His nod shows approval, and for a moment I imagine something else.

  “You are?”

  “Yes.” He strides deeper into my apartment, moving to the kitchen. With a frown I stand and follow, energised by his appearance, anxious on a soul-deep level to not lose sight of him for even a moment. Ignoring how pathetic that makes me, I drink him in as he reaches into the pantry and lifts out a small, shiny pot.

  “What is that?”

  “An Alabaya,” he says, frowning. “Surely you’ve seen one?”

  I shake my head.

  “Your father doesn’t drink coffee?”

  “Coffee, yes,” I smile unconsciously. “He’s as addicted to the stuff as I am.”

  Zahir’s frown deepens. “Then what does he make it with?”

  “Um, a filter and grounds.”

  His lips compress in an obvious line of disapproval and I laugh, because of all the things he disapproves of my father for, how he takes his coffee seems rather absurd.

  “That is not the Qabidi way.”

  My smile slips a little. “I suppose he didn’t have one of those things with him he came to America. Perhaps it’s hidden away in a cupboard in his home, here.”

  The accusation sparks between us, the air around us changing in quality, growing thick and impossible to navigate, so I stand where I am as he works. In less than a minute, the kitchen is filled with an aroma that makes my tummy swirl with hunger. Coffee, yes, but spices too. I ignore an instinct to comment on the smell. I’ve been too sharply reminded of what my father lost – and coffee is barely the beginning of it.

  “This is what I came to speak to you about.”

  My heart lurches. “My father?”

  “Indirectly.” His eyes meet mine and it’s like being seared with a hot coal. My stomach flips and the ground seems to tremble beneath my feet. I am lost, untethered, unsure for a split second of my loyalties. I can see that this pains him, and I feel a horrible, unforgivable inclination to back away, to tell him to not worry about it right now. But dad! How could I ever shelve his concerns like that when bringing him home i
s the sole reason I came to Qabid?

  I tilt my chin in defiance against my own inclinations, holding his eyes for several seconds before he returns his attention to the coffee pot. He lifts the lid – the aroma in the room intensifies – then he pulls two small cups from another cupboard. I wonder how he knows his way around this room so well, but don’t ask the question. Am I afraid of the answer? Is it the spectre of a previous occupant that has my mouth filling with acid?.

  He pours the liquid into the two cups, placing one on the kitchen bench and nodding at it. “For you.”

  I hesitate before curiosity draws me nearer. I curve my fingers around the fine ceramic and lift it to my nose first. His eyes are on me, watching me, waiting for my reaction. I blow across the top so swirls of white steam drift from the rim.

  “Do you remember where you grew up?”

  Sadness moves through me, emulating the pattern of the steam. “I grew up in North Carolina.”

  He nods. “Of course. I mean where you spent the first few years of your life.”

  The coffee is delicious. It’s only in acknowledging that I realise a part of me had wanted to dislike it. To disapprove of something he’s obviously so proud of, something so innately Qabidi. Something he implied my father didn’t appreciate. I take another drink, letting the heat and flavour fortify me.

  He’s watching, waiting for my response. I lift my shoulders, conscious suddenly of the fact I’m still in pyjamas. It’s nothing new – he saw me like this in the desert, on our ‘honeymoon’, and yet self-consciousness floods me now. Ridiculous. Yesterday we spent hours making love, and this morning I’m like that blushing virgin he accused me of being.