“I think knowing one another is less important than knowing what our marriage will be,” she said after a small pause. “Does your cousin envisage us … sharing a room? Once we are married?”
Straight to it, Ash thought with admiration. “An heir will be required.”
She frowned. “Even though Zahir has married?”
Ash shrugged. “The expectation of children is carried by both Syed and Zahir equally. And by me, also,” he added as an afterthought.
“Why?”
His lips twisted in a smile. “It is the way of our people. The royal family’s prosperity and power is measured by its number.”
“Fine,” she said, moving past the point. “We’ll have to cross that bridge at some point.”
Her reticence fascinated him. “Do I take it that’s something that worries you?” He asked softly, leaning forward a little in his chair.
A pale pink spread through her cheeks and he was entranced by her innocent beauty. “It’s something I can’t quite imagine,” she answered frankly despite the awkwardness she was feeling.
“You are inexperienced,” he murmured.
“Really?” She swallowed, her fine neck knotting visibly. Memories she wanted to suppress were clouding her mind. She kept visibly calm with effort. “You really want to ask if I’m a virgin?”
He ignored what he took as her indignation – which she had every right to feel. “It is something that I would be discussing with your father’s aides if you weren’t here,” he reminded her gently.
She nodded, her fingers fidgeting in her lap. Then, her eyes locked to Ashad’s and it was as though he’d been punched in the gut. An electric charge moved between them, arcing with heat and emotion. “Is he?”
“Is who?”
“Syed,” she snapped with obvious impatience. “My husband-to-be.”
Ashad laughed at the very idea. Though Syed was discreet in his affairs, he’d been involved with many women over the years. Charlotte was staring at him, her eyes narrowed, her lips compressed.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I’m sorry.” He held a hand up in apology. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t see why I should have to discuss my sexual past if the same burden isn’t being met by him.”
Ash dipped his head forward to hide the smile that was spreading over his face. “It’s a traditional requirement.”
“Some traditions need to shift with the times,” she pointed out angrily.
“Is that your way of saying you’ve taken men to your bed before?”
“Taken men to my bed?” She expelled a sigh to cover a shiver. The truth of her situation was a secret she kept out of habit. “That’s not what I was saying at all,” she contradicted carefully. “I’m saying that the traditional expectation that royal brides be ‘untouched’ is ludicrous if the same isn’t expected of the groom.”
“Ah,” he said with a mock-serious nod. “But royal grooms spend years honing their skills so that they can please their brides in the bedroom.” It had been intended as a joke, but the image of pleasing Charlotte filled Ashad’s mind and he sobered immediately. How he’d like to do that – to move inside of her, watching her beautiful face scrunch as pleasure after pleasure waved across her body. He wanted to give her a tsunami of euphoria, to make her scream his name across the ocean so that it could be heard in the old city of Kalastan. He wanted to mark her as his.
Never in his life had he felt such a primal need to possess a woman. Never before had he met a woman he was less able to seduce.
“So he’s allowed to sow his royal oats, so to speak, while I’m expected to get about in some kind of virtual chastity belt?”
Hell. Ashad was finding the conversation less and less bearable. A chastity belt? He thought of the jewelled version he’d seen at a Victoria’s Secret show a few years ago – more jewellery than belt, it had strapped around the model’s waist, joining in a diamond clip at the front.
He was sliding onto very dangerous ground.
“Perhaps we should come back to this matter another time,” he said with a tight smile.
“It’s not going to be any more palatable to me then. This is the twenty first century. I’m not some fifteen-year-old handmaiden being traded to a foreign ruler. This isn’t some Bedouin arrangement that our forefathers would have approved of. I’m not going to be that kind of wife.”
“And what kind of wife will you be?” He asked, barely drawing breath.
She furrowed her brow but spoke as though the words had been rolling through her mind, desperately seeking release. They practically tumbled off her tongue. “I want to be a role model. Not just to girls and women but to men, as well. I want my husband to treat me with respect. To value my opinion. I want to work, too.”
“Doing what?”
“I know I can’t have a ‘normal’ job but my mother has always been involved in charities. I currently serve on the fundraising committees of several hospitals and consult with our school board. I intend to continue doing so.”
His gut rolled. “I see.”
“And you don’t like it?”
He laughed, a gravelly sound. “Are you a mind-reader now?”
“You’re not great at hiding what you’re thinking,” she said with an arched brow.
He hoped that wasn’t the case because if she could read the distinctly adults-only direction of his thoughts, they’d both be in hot water. “I think you are reading me wrong,” he said. “I admire the type of wife you aspire to be.”
“Oh, yes?” She reached for a cherry and twirled it by the stem. “So much so that you’d marry a woman like me?”
His breath caught in his throat. Perhaps she was a mind-reader after all. “Are we talking about my marriage now?” His question was banal, calm, as though he were unaffected by her completely.
“Why not?” She asked with an attempt at insolence that he somehow just knew didn’t come naturally to her. “You see fit to sit opposite me and discuss my marriage.”
“Hang on a second,” he said with a husky laugh. “You chose to come and see me. You could have stayed out of this.”
Her eyes flared and so too did her temper. “Out of my marriage negotiations? No, thank you.”
Understanding crystallised. “You don’t like this. You don’t want to do it.”
“I didn’t say that,” she muttered. “But I have no intention of letting a room of men decide my future.” She stood now and she was magnificent, her slim frame moving like a kernel of flame as she paced the empty floor behind her seat. “I understand the reasons for marrying Syed. I agree that it makes sense.” She stopped pacing and arrested him with a sudden stare. “You are avoiding my question.”
“Am I?” He leaned back in his chair, and admitted to himself for the first time that he was in serious trouble. For Ashad Al’Eba was a man who got what he wanted. Every time, without fail. It was a personality trait inherent to the core of his being.
And he wanted Charlotte.
CHAPTER TWO
Charlotte nodded but her brain was sluggish.
Was he what? Oh! Avoiding the question. Absolutely he was. He was a skilled conversationalist and she could see why he’d earned the nickname Adin’s Lion. This man would make mincemeat of anyone – not just because he was six and a half feet of muscle and sinew, but because he was smart. His conversation was nimble, shifting effortlessly from one statement to the next, seeing what she’d meant even when she’d been careful to say the exact opposite.
Suddenly her spur-of-the-moment, motivated-by-pride decision to come down and meet Ashad Al’Eba face to face seemed unbelievably foolish. Perhaps the stupidest thing Charlotte had ever done, which was saying something.
“Yes. You’re not willing to discuss your marriage and yet I know you must have one lined up. Isn’t that the way things are done in your family?”
Ash smiled. It was a beautiful smile. His face was all harsh lines and angles, from the cheekbones that l
ooked like they’d been carved by a renaissance master to the cleft in his square chin, the jaw the was covered in stubble and the eyes that shone with the light of all the stars in the universe. And when he smiled, it was as though he was touching her. A shiver danced down her spine.
“And in yours,” he pointed out with infuriating logic.
She nodded. “So? Who is she?”
Ash leaned forward, his eyes scanning her face. “Why are you so interested?”
She turned away from him, studying the view beyond the window. “I don’t know,” she said finally, her voice quiet. “I suppose I’m just making conversation.”
Ash was quiet. “Does it bother you that Syed has had many partners before you?”
She shook her head and then turned around to face him. She regretted it almost instantly. The powerful desire that was fanning through her made logical thought impossible. This man was her husband-to-be’s cousin! And he was acting in a professional capacity. She had no reason to think the same inconvenient thud of awareness was paralysing him.
“Would it bother him if I had?”
Ashad’s eyes seemed to be boring into her soul. She wanted to look away from him but knew it would give away how easily he could disturb her.
“I can’t say,” he said finally. He leaned back in the chair and the room was quiet, save for the pounding of Charlotte’s heart.
“Would it bother you?” It was a dangerous question. She reprimanded herself mentally, yet she was incapable of stepping away from the ledge. Who was this man? She had expected him to be strong and fearsome, but not sexy as hell. She hadn’t expected a single look to set her pulse pounding, to make her core clench with needs she hadn’t known she possessed. Would she feel the same for Syed; her intended groom?
“No,” he said, his eyes clashing with hers. “And yes.”
“Which is it?” She asked, when her mind was screaming at her to change the subject.
“Like you, I realise that we are in the twenty first century. I don’t think a woman’s virginity is a prize she should feel it necessary to save for her wedding night.”
This was a very dangerous subject. Charlotte’s temperature was spiking. They were discussing sex and innocence as though it were no less incendiary or personal than the weather.
“But you?” He didn’t move. She almost leaned forward, so eager was she to hear the rest of his statement. “You I do not like to think of being cavalier with your body.”
She drew in a gasp. If only he knew how offensive and wrong that observation was. She was careful not to show her grief and sensitivity. “Why not?”
His smile was mysterious. “You are beautiful. No, beyond that, you are a person of the rarest kind of beauty. Only great love should have tempted you to give up your innocence.”
Warning lights were flashing in her mind. She dug her fingers into her hips in an effort to distract from the pain of her heart. She covered the hurt with a sassy retort. “So only ugly women are allowed to be promiscuous?”
He burst out laughing. The sound was melted butter on her flesh. She could have groaned. “Are you always so quick to see the worst in people?”
“Only those that arrive to negotiate the terms of my marriage and ask about my virginity as though they have every damned right.”
Heat stole into her cheeks. She felt the blush spread across her face at the outburst she hadn’t been prepared for.
“Would you have preferred my uncle the King?” Ashad asked with a small lift of his lips. “I assure you, he would have been considerably less gentle about the matter.”
“I’m sorry,” she said haltingly. “I didn’t come here with the intention of being combative.”
“What did you intend, when you arrived this morning?”
“I don’t know,” she said warily.
“Please, sit,” he gestured towards the seat and she crossed to it slowly. “I have known about this wedding for a long time. I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Meaning it upsets you?”
“No,” she spat the word out with a growl. “Stop putting words into my mouth.”
“You are putting words into my ears,” he corrected with that spiced accent of his. “And they are intriguing me.”
Charlotte drew in a deep breath. He was looking at her as though she was an enormous present he wanted to unwrap. The air crackled with awareness and Charlotte knew it wasn’t one-sided. “Perhaps we should stick to the terms of the marriage contract,” she said after a moment, in an attempt to be sensible.
“We are,” he insisted. “And your feelings on the matter.”
She sat straight, her back could have been made of steel. “Are my feelings relevant?”
“Isn’t that why you came here?” He leaned forward, and the air seemed to spark louder, willing him to touch her. Or was that Charlotte’s wayward wishes? “To show that your feelings count?”
“Perhaps we should have a table of discussion,” she murmured, her pulse a thready beat in her body. And a chaperone, she added silently, thinking that she wouldn’t be feeling so absolutely windswept if Mika had been with her. At the thought of Mika, the woman who had been Charlotte’s nanny and then nurse maid and finally now friend, Charlotte relaxed.
Mika expected more of Charlotte than this silly, ill-thought-out interest in the diplomat from Kalastan. She stood, sliding her feet back into her shoes without breaking eye contact with Ash.
“A table of discussion?” He stood, and skirted the dark wooden bench between them, his eyes throwing questions at her she knew she couldn’t answer.
“Why don’t you email me with your agenda,” she suggested, doing her best to find her poise.
“I think it is you who has the agenda,” he pointed out, stopping just a foot or so away from her, his hands by his side, his body carefully still.
“Fine, I’ll email you,” she said with a curt nod. “I presume one of my staff will have your details?”
His nod was perfunctory but then he turned and strode towards his desk. He reached for a card. It was shaped like a square and printed with a golden damask pattern. On one side, in discreet black print it had his name, an email address and a cell phone number.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
His nod was watchful. Was he always like this? So intent and invested, as though her every mood was speaking to him?
Charlotte forced herself to smile. “For the card,” she lifted it between her fingers, “and your time, and the fruit.”
“Of course.” He dipped his head forward slightly. “It was a true pleasure, your highness.”
“Charlotte, please.” She took a hasty step backwards. “We’re going to be family, remember?”
His look gave nothing away. Good. If the awareness only flowed in one direction, then it should be easier for her to pretend it didn’t exist.
Charlotte disappeared from the room, her heart pounding, her blood burning, her stomach in knots. She kept her head dipped forward and walked efficiently, all but holding her breath until she reached the bottom step of his embassy. She paused then and turned, her eyes drawn to the door to his office. It was closed.
* * *
His card was stunning.
Just as the man had been.
Oh, there was no other word for him, really. Physically, mentally, in every way, he had bowled her over.
Charlotte stared across the room mutinously, a frown etched on her face as she threw the tennis ball from one hand to the other, her eyes not shifting from the fourteenth century tapestry that hung opposite her.
It wasn’t that she’d never seen a gorgeous guy, or been alone in the room with one. Her upbringing had been relatively liberal. Her circle of friends was comprised of Falinese children like her. True, she was the only royal, but the rest were similarly unique, whether children of oil barons, mining magnates, film stars, financiers – they lived in a rarefied way, and they were all of them confident, young and yes, glamorous.
Perhaps that’
s why Ashad had knocked her sideways.
He wasn’t glamorous. Not like his business card or his office. He was rugged. Real. Raw. Primal, almost. There had been an energy emanating from him that would have been at home in the desert sands of Kalastan. He was a desert prince, she thought with awe, like one of the badawi she’d heard so much about.
He was all man. There was nothing manicured or pretentious about him, and yet he’d listened to her and honed in on her concerns as though he really cared.
She grunted, tossing the ball harder so that it made a pocking sound when it collapsed into her palm. She threw it again, back and forth, back and forth, hoping to deaden the direction of her thoughts.
“So? How did it go?” Mika asked, striding into the room with a tentative smile on her face.
Charlotte flicked her eyes at her friend and then grabbed the ball in both hands and held it in her lap. “Fine.”
“It does not look like it went ‘fine’,” Mika murmured with a shake of her head. “You are angry.”
“I’m not!” Charlotte denied. “I’m … confused.”
“Why should you be confused? You know this wedding is what you want. It is what your parents want. And now it is so close. Why should you be confused?”
Charlotte bit down on her lip, her mind spinning on the point. “I want the marriage because my parents want it,” she said carefully.
“So?” Mika took the seat beside her charge, her eyes not wavering from the young woman’s profile.
“I don’t know. I have a strange feeling. A presentiment of disaster if I go through with this.”
“Wait a second.” Mika gripped Charlotte’s arm, a look of grave concern crossing her features. Her almond-shaped eyes, an ice blue courtesy of her Danish mother, were drawn together. “You mean a bride has got cold feet before her big day? I’m shocked! This is unprecedented! This has literally never happened before in the history of weddings.”
“Oh, ha, ha, ha,” Charlotte said, though her lips twitched with a smile. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is just jitters.”
The Sheikh's Stolen Bride: The only way to make her happy was to make her his... (The Sheikhs' Brides Book 2) Page 2
