“My father is dying.” The words were torn from Raffa and they sledged right into Chloe’s solar plexus. “And I want to give him this. I am begging you, Chloe, to help me. You are the only person; this is the only way. Will you help me?”
Her stomach twisted as the grief and desperation in his words ran through her. “You’re not just asking me to lend you my car for the weekend,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is a big deal.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You’ve done this before. Had children, I mean,” she said, her skin heating at the unintentional double entendre, when she hadn’t been referring to his sexual experience at all.
Slowly, she turned back to face him, and her skin was pale, her eyes uncertain. “You want me to do this for you?”
He swept his eyes shut and his strong, handsome face, wore visible signs of strain. “Yes.”
“I want something from you in return.”
That got his attention. His eyes flew wide open, and he lanced her with the intensity of his gaze. “Go on.”
“We both know why we married,” she spoke stiltedly, frowning a little, for once her mask of unflappability dropping to show her true feelings. “Our fathers were determined that we would and neither of us wanted to upset them. It’s one of the main reasons I knew this marriage would work – that we both put such a high value on loyalty to our families.”
He tipped his head forward in silent agreement.
“Plus, Apollo considers you one of his closest friends, and despite the fact he and I aren’t particularly close, I do respect his judgement.”
He continued to be silent at the reference to her older half-brother.
“But I don’t know you, Raffa.” She took a step towards him, her frown captivating. “I don’t know what foods you like to eat, nor what music you listen to. I don’t know what books you read – or if you read at all, for that matter. I don’t know what makes you laugh, I don’t know anything about the man I married.”
“And whose fault is that?” He queried smoothly. “You took yourself to Qadim just as soon as the ink was dry on our contracts.”
“You gave me the house in the city,” she was spurred to defend. “Did you think I wouldn’t go there?”
“I thought you would go there occasionally,” he said with a gentle rebuke in the words. “Instead, you’ve used it as a hide-out, spending every bit of time you could away from me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t hiding. I just… like the city,” she finished lamely.
“Be that as it may, if you had wanted to get to know me then you could have.”
“Fine,” she conceded with a sharp jerk of her head. “You’re right. But I can’t make love to a stranger. I’m just not wired that way.”
“How little you know of your body,” he said, almost regretfully. “You were quivering in my arms just now, and I guarantee that your insides were churning with wants. That your knees were weak and your belly tight, your breasts tender, your mind spinning with ways in which to find pleasure…”
“Stop it,” she pleaded, heat suffusing her cheeks. “A physical response to that kind of stimulus is normal.”
He didn’t respond and she was glad – glad that he resisted the temptation to point out that she knew nothing of such things.
“My father doesn’t have long,” he said heavily. “We cannot delay.”
“So what? You want me to strip naked? Go to your room? My God, Raffa. I’m a woman, not an automaton.”
“You are a woman,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “A woman with needs that I will take very good care of.”
“You are even more arrogant than I’d imagined!” She stamped her foot. “You can’t just dictate something like this to me.”
“You want to negotiate? You want me to agree to spend time with you? To get to know you? Fine. Move to the palace and we will do both.”
She stared at him with a feeling that she’d been backed tightly into a corner.
“Surely I can just come to the palace every few weeks. Stay in the capital, in my own home. Or you can come to me…”
“No.” He slashed his hand through the air. “This is not a game, Chloe. I need an heir and you are the only woman who can provide me with one.”
“So what I want doesn’t matter?”
“You wanted to marry me, and you have done so. You want children – your brother has told me as much.”
Anger slashed inside of her – directed at her husband Raffa and her brother Apollo. Birds of the same feather, flocking together, as always. Of course Apollo had divulged the stupid drunken conversation they’d had on the night of her twenty first birthday.
But she hadn’t known then what lay in store. She hadn’t known that only weeks later her father would be dead, that the marriage contract he’d negotiated would be the only way to honour and love the man she’d never had a chance to know in real life. That marrying Raffa had been her only way to claim a loss she couldn’t put into words.
“Apollo doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Chloe muttered, lifting fingertips to her temples and rubbing wearily. “He’s misinformed.”
“So you don’t want children?”
“No. Yes.” She expelled a plaintive breath. “One day, yes, I do. Very much. But …”
“It has to be now.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “If you cannot do this, if you want to leave, it must be now.”
“My God, Raffa! You’re not serious? You think a divorce would be good for your father? Why can’t we leave things as they are?”
“If I divorce you, I will remarry within a month. It is a slight delay, but considerably better than no prospect of an heir whatsoever.”
“You’re giving me an ultimatum,” she said, her shock genuine. It was a shock that filtered down to her core. “You’re threatening to throw me out if I don’t accede to this plan?”
His eyes held hers for a long moment and she could have sworn a glimmer of anguish ran across his handsome face before he was pure, arrogant Sheikh once more.
“Yes.”
And for no reason she could pinpoint, she felt remorse in that statement. She felt apology.
How absurd! This man apologized to no one, least of all his wife.
“I would never do that to your father,” she said after a beat had passed. “And you know that.”
Raffa expelled a breath and nodded. “Yes.”
At least he didn’t lie about his manipulations. “He’s on his death bed. The shock of our divorce could kill him. Give me a better ultimatum. One that holds two options that might appeal to me.”
He let out a short sound of frustration. “You rather misunderstand the point of an ultimatum.”
“No, I don’t.” She turned away from him again, pacing towards the waterfall. How long had it stood there, washing over ancient rocks, washing over ancient feuds? “I just didn’t think you’d be capable of behaving like this.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso, inadvertently drawing his attention to her slender fragility so that he wanted to join her in heaping abuse at his feet. What he was doing was beneath him, and he knew it. It was despicable and unreasonable. But desperate times called for desperate measures and only the deepest love and affection for his father, the deepest respect for their family’s long tradition of keeping the peace in Ras El Kida, kept him to his course.
Goran represented a very real threat, and though Raffa knew he would triumph over it, there would be damage and loss in the interim. An heir was the only way to ensure the kingdom’s safety.
“Well, Chloe? I don’t have all night. What’s it to be?”
She didn’t move. Not even a little, so that Raffa was left wondering if she’d heard him. But finally, her head shifted just a fraction.
“I’ll move to the palace,” she said with a grim determination he understood. “But you will make time for me in your life. I’m not going to be ignored by you as well.”
<
br /> Raffa was too relieved by her acquiescence to notice the bitter rejoinder that followed immediately afterwards.
“I’m pleased you are being reasonable.” Now that she’d agreed, he moved forward with plans. “I’ll have your servants bring your things, though much of your bridal trousseau has been installed in my dressing room already --,”
“Your dressing room?” She interrupted, whirling around. “I’ll have my own suite of rooms, though?”
“No.” His eyes glittered. “You are my wife and we are about to take a step forward – this marriage is about to become truth, not just a construct of our fathers’. So you will come to my apartment, my bed, my life.”
“But you surely don’t want that any more than I do?”
He shrugged. “I want an heir. And you being here gives us the best chances.”
“At your beck and call?” She snapped tartly, a shiver of anticipation and pleasure dancing up her spine. “You’re serious?”
“You either want this or you do not. You’ve just agreed to be my wife, to carry my child, so why are we arguing over semantics?”
“I don’t consider this semantics! I consider the question of my space and privacy to be an incredibly important one. I will have my own suite of rooms, Raffa, and you won’t bully me into anything else. You will come to me, but by prior appointment, at a time that suits us both.” She said stiffly, her tone loaded with an impressive degree of hauteur.
“There is no material difference between your plan and mine,” Chloe continued. “Making me move into your suite is unnecessarily cruel, and I hope I’m not wrong about you. I hope you’re not capable of that.”
The tension in the air could have been sliced with a knife.
“Fine.” It was an agreement given through gritted teeth. “Seeing as you’re being so reasonable. Use the suite that was given over to you for the wedding.” He stalked towards the door and pulled it inwards. The guards were still at their posts, as though nothing had changed. As though the whole universe hadn’t fallen into disarray in the last twenty minutes.
He spoke to one of the guards in his native tongue, fast and low, and despite being fluent in the language, Chloe couldn’t engage her brain to properly digest his words. Something about ‘her highness’ and ‘unwell’.
“I will see you tomorrow night, Chloe,” Raffa said as she moved through the door to his room. “Consider that a prior appointment.”
She opened her mouth to issue a harsh rejoinder but he slammed the door shut, stranding her between two guards, neither of whom would meet her angry blue eyes.
*
Chloe woke early after a restless night’s sleep, and battled a heavy fog of disorientation with each blink of her eyes. Her room was different – larger – with enormous windows that opened onto a balcony to one side. Different, but familiar.
And it hit her like a freight train, memories of the night before, the summons she’d received to attend the palace, her husband’s coldly delivered missive that she must bear his child, her refusal, his ultimatum, and finally, her agreement.
She planted her feet onto the marbled floor and wiggled her toes, staring at the pale pink polish that had been applied only a day earlier, when life had made so much more sense. She stood, frowning as she moved towards the windows that looked towards the desert.
How majestic this country was! Hot, yes, but in a way that had sparked life and enthusiasm back into Chloe’s blood. Without realizing it, she’d fallen asleep sometime during her teenage years, or perhaps she’d intentionally taught herself to be numb, to hold her heart tight, to avoid the pain that her father’s rejection inevitably inflicted.
Perhaps she’d taught herself to be numb to the pain that was endemic to the sight of her father with her half-brother – with whom he was always welcoming, warm and proud. To see them together was to see an example of what a healthy parental relationship should have been.
Yet with Chloe, the old man had barely acknowledged her. And when he had, it had been to commodify her in some way or other, to try to stick her into one of the pigeon holes he thought right. Was she excelling at school in any way? Was she smart enough for him to be proud of her? Was her wit as quick as Apollo’s? Might she be an asset to the business in the way Apollo had been?
No. Chloe was intelligent, but not given to academics, and mild dyslexia that had gone undiagnosed until her teenage years had meant she was almost too far behind to start trying in high school.
Was she beautiful, then? Beautiful enough to be sought after by men who her father might at least admire?
No. At least, she hadn’t been for many years. A gawky teenager who was as flat as a board long after her friends had started to grow curves and shoot up, she’d been mistaken for a child when she was almost able to obtain her drivers’ license.
Chloe had nothing that her father had seen as meritorious – even the blood in her veins, that was half-his, had not been enough to redeem her.
And how she’d loved him anyway! How she’d adored reading about his business successes, seeing his name and image in the papers, knowing him to be someone of such incredible repute! How she’d longed for his approval, his affection.
She could still remember the day he’d called her – it was only the second time he’d done any such thing and the first had been to tell her that her mother was dead.
That had been a stilted, short conversation. Going through the motions – his offer for her to move to Greece, her demur, his obvious relief.
So when he called her for the second time in her life, she felt a heavy sense of worry – naturally her mind had gone to Apollo. But Apollo was fine. The old man had been calling with good news, he’d promised. “Malik has begged me to grant his son your hand in marriage.”
She’d been floored – and had asked a lot of bumbling questions about her potential groom. Though she’d visited Ras el Kida several times, as Malik’s guest, she’d never met his son. The idea was almost impossible to credit, except she remembered Apollo telling her, at some point, that Raffa was required to marry – and to marry well.
Chloe had been given a classical education, despite the fact she’d not excelled at it. She spoke several languages, and had been sent to finishing school in Switzerland at her father’s insistence. Had he known, even then, that she would marry a King?
When Chloe had agreed, she’d wanted only one thing from her father: his love. All of it. She’d wanted him to wrap her in a hug and tell her he was proud of her.
He’d died before he’d had the chance – and now, she had gained a fresh perspective.
Her father would not have been proud of her.
Her father would not have said he loved her.
Because he hadn’t.
On some level, she supposed she should have been grateful that he at least acknowledged her to be his child: something her own husband wasn’t willing to do for his lovechild.
Anger and anticipation were at war within her system! She didn’t know how to feel! Chloe was at sea, and it was rolling and shifting, splashing her with new sensations and doubts even when her decision had been made.
Her ladies’ maids didn’t share her sense of emotional ambiguity. When they entered her suite shortly after a light breakfast of fruit and sweet pastry had been served, they brought with them an air of unmistakable exuberance.
All traditions were strictly adhered to at the palace; far more so than had been the case in the city. There, she had been free to dress in casual clothes if she’d wanted to, so long as she wasn’t taking part in any official duties. Her maids dressed her in one of the gowns that was required – an emerald green with diamonds at the collar and cuff – and then excused themselves with low bows that almost hid their twitching smiles.
“Okay, Aysha,” she asked her chief lady in waiting, once they were alone. “What is it? What are you all smiling about?”
Aysha didn’t bother to obfuscate.
“They are happy to be home, your highness.”<
br />
Chloe was thunderstruck. “Home? This is their home?”
“Well, yes. Naturally.”
“Not, ‘naturally’!” Chloe disputed with a shake of her head. “You mean the palace is where they lived? And then I made everyone move to the city just because I didn’t want to be here?”
“Our job is to be where you are,” Aysha pointed out kindly. “If you choose to take part in the Mars program, I’m afraid we would have to take our positions on the rocket alongside you.”
Chloe laughed but it was a noise of brittle exhaustion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t know you were interested in Mars,” Aysha teased.
“You know what I mean.” Chloe toyed with her wedding ring – an enormous solitaire diamond – out of habit. She often spun it around her finger when she was thinking, pushing it to the knuckle joint and back to the webbing of her slim fingers. “If you all wanted to be at the palace, you should have said so.”
“We are your servants,” Aysha chided, softening the rebuke with a gentle smile. “Our job is to serve you. Why should our desires matter?”
“How can you speak like that! You know they matter to me. We’ve worked together closely since I arrived in Ras el Kida. Have I ever seemed like a despot to you?”
“No. But you are a princess, a Sheikha, and your husband is the ruler of this country. No one in Ras el Kida is stupid enough to risk displeasing him.”
A shiver of apprehension ran down Chloe’s spine. Aysha was right, but she couldn’t have said that a desire to risk displeasing her husband was the sole motivation for her agreement with his plan. Out of nowhere, she imagined their child, she pictured a chubby little baby with dimpled cheeks and sparkling eyes and a mess of curling, bouncing hair, and a kick of maternal need anchored her to the spot.
Blackmailed by the Spaniard Page 19
