by Maisey Yates
The thought both intrigued and repelled him. It was a foolish thought. There was nothing that strong. Not even the fire of Jada’s passion.
The wedding ended very quickly, and for that, he was grateful. The moment the pronouncement was made, that they were husband and wife, Jada left his side and went to where Leena was sitting, pulling the child into her arms.
He wondered if he would ever be able to do that so easily. If he would ever do it the way she did, out of necessity. If only that sort of connection, that sort of understanding could be transferred through a kiss.
But then what would be left of you if you lost your armor? Do you even know if there’s anything underneath?
No. He didn’t. And he had no intention of finding out.
Sayid came up from where he’d been sitting and joined Alik where he was standing, both of them watching their respective wives and children. That moment confirmed he had done right. His heart would not give him confirmation. It simply wasn’t capable of it. But in his mind he knew, it was right.
“What have you done, Alik?”
“I did as you said I should do. I went and claimed my child.”
“And the woman?”
“She is the woman who was trying to adopt Leena. I could hardly rip the child from her arms.” Though that had been the original plan. Strange to think of it now. Strange to think he’d imagined it would work. To take Leena from Jada, when it seemed like they were a part of each other.
“Was she?” Sayid asked. “I did not realize there was someone who had been caring for her.”
“Yes. Would that have changed your advice?” Alik was worried it might. That even Sayid would think Jada was better suited to the task.
“Not necessarily. How is it she ended up agreeing to marry you?”
“I told her to. It keeps her with the child. It creates a proper family. I did the right thing.”
“You uprooted them both from their country. You forced a woman who has only known you for four days to marry you.”
“Is it so different to what you did with Chloe?”
Sayid shot him a deadly look. “It was different.”
“Not in the least.”
“I had feelings for her when we married.”
“I know,” Alik said, mildly amused by the memory. He’d incurred the wrath of his friend by implying he’d been less than gentlemanly with the other man’s wife in their brief time alone at his seaside palace.
“And you don’t have feelings for this woman?”
“Of course not, Sayid, I barely have feelings.” He flashed his friend his most practiced grin, the one that had gotten him out of more trouble than most people had ever been in.
“So you think.”
“So I know.”
“You told me once, Alik,” Sayid said slowly, “that you saw no point in making vows you couldn’t keep.”
Alik shifted, the memory rushing back to him, making him uncomfortable. Because that was just what he’d done today. He’d made vows he had no intention of keeping. He had every intention of continuing on as he’d always done.
“I also told you that I avoid making vows whenever possible. Today, it was not possible.” He looked over at Jada. She was sitting, holding Leena in her lap. Her golden skin had a gray tinge to it and her lips were chalky pale. She was miserable. The realization sent a pang straight to his chest. Strange. “This is different. She knows what this is.”
“And you think that’s enough? You think what happened here today, the words you spoke, you think those won’t matter?”
“It is not the same as a normal marriage. It is to protect my daughter. To protect Jada’s rights, which she insisted on. This makes sense.”
Sayid laughed. “One thing you’ll discover soon, my friend, is that women and children rarely make sense.”
“I know about women.”
“Yes, you do. But you don’t know about wives.”
Jada was sitting in her room, watching Leena sleep. Sayid and Chloe had lingered for a while, but as nice as they were, Jada had been happy to see them go. She was tired of being on show. Tired of playing the part of, if not happy bride, then at least contented bride. It was too much and the strain was starting to break her.
This whole thing might break her. She was afraid it would.
There was a light knock on her door. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Adira appeared. Alik’s head of the household was spare with her smiles but today, she offered Jada one. “Mr. Alik has requested that you join him for a late dinner.”
“I…” With Adira looking at her like that she hardly felt like she could refuse. “What about Leena?”
“I will stay on this floor. If she cries, you will be fetched immediately.” Adira was being friendly, but she had the air of a woman who brooked no nonsense, and would not be disagreed with. She reminded Jada a bit of her own mother.
“Thank you,” she said.
She stood from her position on the bed and wondered if she should change again. She’d stripped off her wedding dress the moment she was up in her room, and had traded it out in favor of a simple sundress. She’d longed for the comfort of her sweatpants but it was way too hot to indulge herself.
No. She wasn’t going to change. It didn’t matter what she wore to see Alik.
Her husband. A vision of Alik swam through her head and panic assaulted her. No. She closed her eyes and thought the words again. Her husband. And she willed an image of Sunil to appear. Alik was not her husband. Not truly.
She swallowed hard and patted the sleeping Leena once on her rounded belly before offering the housekeeper another smile and walking out of the room.
As she drew closer to the dining area, her heart started beating harder, faster. And she started remembering the wedding. The moment when Alik had taken her hand. His fingers had been rough on her skin, and hot, so hot. The heat had seeped through her skin, shot through her body, pooling in her stomach.
It had been so very like…
No. She wasn’t even going to think it. He didn’t turn her on. Yes, he was a handsome man, in his way. Well, handsome seemed wrong. Handsome sounded banal and safe. Vanilla. And Alik Vasin was anything but that.
He was scarred, rough. Dangerous. And in that danger, there was a magnetism that defied logic. That was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Ever.
She blinked. Just thinking that felt like a betrayal. Not just to her marriage, but to who she was. She wasn’t the kind of woman who lost her head over a hot man. A hot man she didn’t even like. She idly wiped her palm on her skirt, trying to rid herself of the feeling of his flesh against hers. Trying to get rid of the heat.
It didn’t work.
She walked down a curved staircase and a long hall, the high-gloss black floors casting a ghostly reflection in front of her. The palace was like a maze, and the week she’d spent there, mainly huddled in hers and Leena’s rooms, hadn’t been enough to make it feel familiar.
The one good thing about the size of the palace was that it made avoiding Alik simple. And all things considered, avoidance had been high on her list of priorities.
Her problem was simply that it had been too long since a man had touched her. Too long since she felt any sort of attraction or arousal. She simply hadn’t been interested. She still wasn’t, but it was nothing more than a body/brain disconnect. Nothing to get worked up about. She was still in control.
She took a shaking breath and walked into the dining room. Alik was sitting there, at the head of the table. The only light in the room was coming from flickering candles, set on the table, casting sharp shadows onto Alik’s face.
She’d just been thinking that he looked dangerous. She’d had no idea. Until now. His cheekbones looked more hard cut thanks to the flickering flames, his jaw more angular. Harder. And his eyes, they just looked hollow.
That, right there, should have been enough to erase the heat.
And yet, for some reason, her palm burned all
the more.
“Do you feel rested?” he asked.
“I’m not really sure.” She twisted her wedding band, the one on her right hand. Not the one she’d been given today. A reminder. Of what was real, and what wasn’t.
Then she took a seat somewhere in the middle of the long, opulent banquet table. Sitting at the other end made her look like a coward. And she was a coward so she wasn’t going to go sit next to him.
“I thought I should make sure you ate. You touched nothing at the lunch after the wedding.”
“I was too nervous to eat.”
“You seemed very calm.”
“I’ve learned not to show too much emotion on the outside.”
“Except that day at the courthouse.”
She remembered vividly how she’d sat down and cried on the floor. She wasn’t even embarrassed about it. The thought of losing her daughter deserved that level of emotion. “Re-straint was the last thing on my mind.”
“Was everything at the wedding to your taste?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “It wasn’t. And that was my plan.”
“Your plan?” He looked over at her and frowned. “Come sit closer to me. I’m not shouting down the table at you for our entire meal.”
She complied reluctantly, again, because she didn’t want to look like a coward, scooting toward him until there were only two chairs between them.
“Better?”
“Yes. Now tell me about this plan.”
In order to tell him, she would have to talk about Sunil, and she’d been avoiding that. Because it seemed wrong to talk about him to Alik, the man she’d just made her husband. It was too complicated. Too confused.
“I…This was my second wedding.”
“Was it?” His response wouldn’t have sounded out of place if her previous statement had been “it was nice and warm today.”
“Yes. I didn’t want this one to resemble my wedding. This wasn’t my wedding. Not in that way.”
He turned the wineglass in front of him in a slow circle. “And what happened to your first husband?”
Leave it to Alik to ask so bluntly. Social niceties were not something he gave deference to. Although, she found she almost liked it. At least he asked for what he wanted to know. At least he spoke, even when the words were unpleasant.
Now that thought, the comparison she was making to her husband, that was a betrayal. She shut it down as quickly as it started.
“Sunil had a lifelong heart defect. At least that’s what his doctor told me later. It had gone undetected until, one day his heart…stopped. He was at work. They took him to the hospital, kept him on life support for a while. But he never came back. He just slipped away.”
“How long has it been?” he asked.
“Three years.”
“You loved him?”
“I love him,” she said. “Very much. Not…not in the same way, obviously. But, he will always live in my heart.”
A knot of emotion formed in her chest, and she welcomed it. It was safer than the heat that had been blooming there only moments before. Much safer than any of the new, raw emotions she’d experienced in the past few weeks.
“I have never lost anyone I cared for like that. I can imagine it must be difficult for you.”
For you. As if it wouldn’t be for him. “You’ve never lost anyone you cared for?” She thought of her parents, of her husband. “You’re very fortunate.”
“I’ve never really loved anyone,” he said, his tone cold, frightening in its flatness. “One good thing about that is it keeps you from loss.”
“What about your parents?” she asked.
“I never knew them. My mother left me at an orphanage when I was two, probably nearly three. My date of birth is a best guess made by the woman working at the facility at the time I was brought in. My name was given to me in much the same way. I don’t share my surname with anyone I’m related to. From there, when it became overcrowded I was put out on the streets.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
“No need to be.”
Two servers came in and placed a tray in front of both her and Alik before leaving the room as quietly as they’d entered.
“It must have been hard,” she said.
“It was all I knew. And as I think you must know, it’s impossible to waste time feeling sorry for yourself when there is life to be lived.”
She did know that. It had been one of the things that had made her most angry when she’d been at the lowest point in her grief. That life had gone on. That she’d still had to go to the grocery store, still had to eat. Pay bills. There had been no time to drown in her grief the way she’d really wanted to.
Now she saw that for the blessing it was.
“That’s very true.”
“I have been thinking,” he said, his subject change sudden. “You should take my name. As should Leena.”
“What? Why?”
“You don’t want a different last name than your daughter, do you?”
“No…I hadn’t…I hadn’t considered it.”
“You gave her her first name, and I will not change it, but I want her to carry my name. She is my only family. And you should carry it, as well.”
“I don’t…” Patel was her husband’s name. Except, Sunil wasn’t her husband anymore. Alik was. “I’m not sure I can do that.” After what he’d just told her, about the orphanage worker who had chosen his name, she understood why it would matter to him.
But she couldn’t do it. Not now. Changing her name was like changing herself, and she couldn’t allow it. Couldn’t allow this, couldn’t allow Alik that sort of power.
“It is the most logical thing to do.”
“I know,” she snapped. “But I’ve just been so damn logical for the past week, that my heart has taken a beating and I’m not sure I can do this, too. I made you my husband today. That place belonged—belongs—to the man I loved. And if I take your name, then I have to get rid of his.”
“It is no matter to me,” he said, his tone hard. “It’s entirely up to you. I thought you might like our family to share a name.”
“A family? Is that what we are?” She hated herself for saying it. After what he’d just said, she knew she was stabbing at him, but she honestly couldn’t stop herself.
“The closest thing to one I’ve had.” Again, his voice carried that sort of detached weightlessness. As if none of this meant anything to him. As if he was simply relaying facts. The man seemed to live entirely in his head.
No, that wasn’t really true. Because there was something else about him. Something darker, much more frightening. Something earthy and sensual that came from a place deep inside of him. He was a man very much connected with his body, too.
And she didn’t like how much her own body seemed to be intrigued by that.
“I will think about it. It doesn’t have to be done right away. I can do it anytime.”
“Of course. In the meantime though, I will give Leena my name.”
“Leena Vasin,” Jada said quietly. And she looked at the man across from her again, at the stubborn set of his jaw, the shape of his brow. She saw it then, for the first time. How had she missed it?
Leena looked so very much like her father. The expression she made when she was grumpy especially, favored the stern look on his face now.
“It suits her,” Jada said, surprising herself when she said it. Surprised by how much she meant it.
Leena was Alik’s daughter. There was no denying it or ignoring it. And she was glad in that moment that he was in her life. She was sure the feeling would come and go, but right now, she was glad that Leena had a father. Her father.
“Do you know,” she said slowly, “she looks like you?”
Alik’s eyes were obscured by shadow and it was impossible to see what he was thinking. “Does she?” His voice was inscrutable as ever. There was no way to get a read on his emotions. No way to know what he thought about that revelation.
/> “Yes. When she’s about to throw a tantrum she gets a little crease between her eyebrows, just like you. And her eyes have more green in them, but they also have that gray that yours have.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said.
“Neither had I until just now.”
Alik looked down at his wineglass again. “We should eat before it gets cold.”
“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t conscious of what she was eating, and the moment the plates were clear she couldn’t actually remember what they’d been served.
“Would you like me to show you back to your room?”
Jada hesitated. It was dark now, no helpful light filtering in through the windows to guide her way. But the idea of traversing dark corridors with Alik didn’t exactly make her feel extra safe.
It made her stomach feel tight, made it hard to breathe. Still, she didn’t want to stumble around the palace for longer than necessary.
“Yes. Please, if you wouldn’t mind.”
Alik rose from his seat and Jada was reminded just how large he was, how imposing. Every inch the master of the castle. She didn’t know why she found it so fascinating. Didn’t know why she found him so fascinating.
He moved past her with that effortless grace of his. The deadly silence of a predator. It didn’t seem possible that a man who was so large, so tall and broad, could be so quiet when he moved.
She followed him out into the dark hall and a shiver ran over her body, creeping up her arms, her neck. “Got a flaming torch you can tear off the wall and use to light our way?”
Alik paused and turned, his expression cast into shadow. The shivery feeling got a bit more pronounced. He extended his hand and placed it flat on the wall, and then…the lights came on. And the expression revealed on his face could only be called smart-assed. “I could do that,” he said, “but it would be so much easier to simply find the light switches.”
“That would have been nice to know about earlier, so I wasn’t walking through this medieval heap in the dark.”
He turned away from her and started down the hall again, his back, wide and muscular, filling her vision. “Why on earth would I live in a place that didn’t possess modern conveniences? I’ve been homeless. I’ve been in prisons. I’ve done my time without modern luxury, and I find it isn’t my favorite.”
