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‘So, you are accustomed to buying clothes for the other women in your life,’ Ruby gathered, not a bit averse to making him uncomfortable if she could.
‘No comment. I’m glad you like the dress.’
Her brown eyes flamed amber. ‘Your hide is as tough as steel, isn’t it?’
‘I never said I was a virgin,’ Raja shot back at her with sardonic cool, his strong features taut.
‘Oh, I had already worked that out for myself,’ Ruby retorted, thinking of how smoothly he had seduced and bedded her.
In retrospect the level of his experience with her sex was obvious to her and to her annoyance that awareness loosed a whole flock of curious questions inside her head. How had she compared to his other lovers? Did he go for blondes, brunettes or redheads or any of the above? Would he even have found her attractive had she not been a long-lost and almost forgotten Ashuri princess? Every question of that ilk that crossed Ruby’s mind infuriated her. Why was she letting him make her feel insecure and vulnerable? Now that she knew the truth behind their consummated marriage, she would be better able to protect herself.
‘There will not be another woman in my bed while you remain my wife,’ Raja volunteered abruptly, his brilliant, dark eyes welded to her expressive face.
‘My goodness, do you think I care?’ Ruby forced a laugh and then plastered an amused and scornful smile to her lips. ‘I couldn’t care less what you do. I have to take account of the reality that we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future so there’s no sense in fighting every step of the way.’
‘You make a good point,’ Raja responded although outrage had shot flames of gold into his gaze when she declared that she didn’t care what he did.
‘And I’m not asking you to sleep on the sofa tonight and I’m not sleeping on it either. We’re adults. I’m asking you to respect that agreement you think is so foolish and forget that we ever had sex.’
Wonderment consumed Raja as she spoke. Forget about the sex? She stood there looking like every fantasy he had ever had in her little black dress with her beautiful eyes, sultry pink mouth and glorious legs tempting him and she thought he could easily return to treating her like a sexless stranger? He had deceived her by cloaking his true intentions, he reminded himself fiercely. This was the punishment, the payoff. He had to give her time to adjust to her new role.
‘I will do my best,’ Raja replied flatly.
He emanated angry vibrations and she wondered why that was. The need to get inside Raja’s head and understand what made him tick was, Ruby was discovering, a constant craving. Did he only want to make love to her because he thought that should be his right as a husband? Or would he have wanted her anyway just for herself? And why, when she had never planned to become intimate with him, should that distinction matter to her?
Later he did up the zip on the blue dress and it fit her like a tailor-made glove, the rich colour flattering her fair colouring. As she sat at the dressing table straightening her hair Raja came to her side and handed her a jewellery box. ‘It is a small gift.’
Ruby lifted the lid and stared down dumbstruck at the flawless glittering teardrop diamond on a pendant. Small wasn’t the right word. It was a big diamond and, although she knew next to nothing about the value of jewellery because she had never owned any beyond a wristwatch, she guessed that a diamond that large had to be worth a small fortune.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled in shock.
‘Allow me.’ While she lifted her hair out of the way, Raja clasped the pendant at the nape of her neck. She shivered as his fingertips brushed her sensitive skin and that little knot of sexual hunger in the pit of her stomach tightened up a notch. ‘I would’ve given you earrings but your ears aren’t pierced.’
‘No, I’m a total unbelievable coward. I once went with a friend and she fainted when they did her ears. She bled all over the place too—it put me right off!’ Ruby confided, suddenly desperate to fill the awkward silence.
His shrewd, dark eyes screened in his reflection in the mirror, Raja rested a hand on her taut shoulder. ‘Ruby…’
‘My mother said my father chose my name, you know,’ she volunteered abruptly. ‘He said that a virtuous wife was worth more than rubies. It’s kind of insulting that the only future he could see for me was as someone’s wife.’
‘But I am grateful to have you as my wife.’
‘Only because I was part of the peace treaty,’ Ruby fielded, flatly unimpressed by that declaration. ‘Spoils of war and all that.’
Two weeks later, the night before Ruby’s first visit to Najar, Raja was enjoying a pleasant daydream. A century or so earlier had he acquired Ruby as the spoils of war, she would have belonged to him…utterly. It was a heady masculine fantasy to toy with while he was being driven to the orphanage that his wife had contrived to visit alone almost every evening since her initial official visit there. He had Wajid to thank for that information, for Ruby had kept very quiet about where she took off to during their rare moments of leisure.
Ruby took care not to share that time with him. It was yet another vote of no confidence from his wife, who was not his wife in any way that mattered, Raja conceded grimly. They might still share the same bed but she had placed a bolster pillow down the middle of it. That had made him laugh the first night, but within a week the comedy aspect had worn very thin.
His cell phone pinged with a message and he checked, frowning as the snap Chloe had put in of herself shone up at him, all blonde hair and a wide, perfect smile. Ruby did not possess that perfection of feature. Her nose turned up at the tip and she had the cutest little gap between her front teeth. Yet whenever he saw Ruby there was no one else in the room capable of commanding his attention. His handsome mouth curled as he read the suggestive text from his mistress. He had no desire to exchange sexy texts. That didn’t excite him. Chloe was becoming a liability. On the other hand if Ruby had felt the urge to send him a suggestive text he would have responded with imagination and enthusiasm, he acknowledged with self-derision. Unfortunately there was as much chance of a sext coming from Ruby as of Ashur sending a rocket to the moon.
Raja, however, remained conscious that he had no real grounds for complaint. His bride was already performing her duties as a future queen with considerable grace and good humour. Her naturally warm personality had great appeal. The Ashuri people liked her easy manner and chatty approach, not to mention her frankness in referring to the days when she had led the life of a young working woman.
Forewarned by a call of his impending unofficial visit, the orphanage director greeted him in the hall and took him straight to Ruby. Ruby was in the nursery with a little girl on her lap, painstakingly reading out a few brief words from a picture book in the basic Ashuri language, which she was working so hard to learn. A cluster of children sat on the floor round her feet.
‘The princess is a natural with children. It’s unfortunate that the child she is holding—Leyla—is becoming a little too attached to your wife,’ the older woman told him in a guarded undertone.
Raja got the message intended. He watched the little girl raise a hand to pat Ruby’s cheek and then beam adoringly up at her, her other hand clutching possessively at Ruby’s top. He watched Ruby look down at the child and realised that he had a problem that cut both ways, for his wife’s lovely face softened into a deeply affectionate smile. Raja would have been elated to receive such a smile but he never had. When Ruby saw him in the doorway, she leapt almost guiltily upright, arms locking protectively round the child in her arms. A staff member approached to take the little girl and Ruby handed her over, visibly troubled when the child began to sob in protest.
‘Raja…’ Ruby framed in a jerky, almost soundless whisper, for she was so astonished to see him standing there that her voice just deserted her.
Clad in the long off-white tunic called a thaub that he wore most days, Raja looked fantastically handsome, the smooth golden planes of his classic masculine features demarcated by the
exotic set of his lustrous dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her tummy flipped like a teenager’s and she froze, feeling foolish and very much aware that she was hopelessly infatuated with her husband, which was one reason why she avoided his company as much as was humanly possible. He was like an ever-growing fever she was trying to starve into subjection in her bloodstream.
‘I had some news I wished to share with you,’ Raja imparted lightly. ‘Until Wajid mentioned it, I had no idea that this was where you were coming most evenings.’
‘I enjoy being with the children. There’s no formality here—it’s relaxing,’ she told him.
‘Mrs Baldwin said you’re fond of one particular child—’
‘Leyla…there’s just something about her that grabs my heart every time I see her,’ Ruby admitted, opting for honesty. ‘I really love spending time with her. She’s so sweet and smart.’
Installed in the limo he had arrived in, Ruby said, ‘What news wouldn’t wait until I got back to the palace?’
‘There have been arrests here and in Najar. The members of the royal households who shared our itinerary with the kidnappers have been identified and arrested, as have their supporters.’
