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Caz caught her by the shoulders.
“I have not asked you to marry me,” he said brusquely, “I’ve told you to marry me. There’s a world of difference.”
“You’re insane! You can’t tell me—’’
“Yes,” he said harshly, I can. I am the ruler of this country. My word is l
aw.”
There it was, the true nature of the Sheikh of Suliyam. He was a dictator and she, fool that she was, had done everything she could not to acknowledge that truth.
“Not in my world, it isn’t. You can’t force me to—”
She cried out as his hands bit into her flesh. “The world you know has no meaning here. Would you prefer to see the few men I brought with me slaughtered?” He lowered his head until his eyes burned into hers. “My men’s lives are worth more to me than your foolish female pride.”
“And me?” she said, in a papery whisper. “What am I worth to you?”
His mouth twisted. What he’d just told her was true enough, but it wasn’t all of it. His men were prepared to give their lives for him, and he had been raised to willingly give his life for his people.
But when Ahmet leered at him and said he wanted Megan, he hadn’t thought about his men first, or his people, or his responsibility to the throne.
He’d thought of Megan, lying beneath Ahmet’s savage bulk. Of the barbarian’s hands on her. Of her tears, her terror, and he’d come as close to insanity as a man could get without tumbling over the edge.
His hands had knotted into fists; his heart pounded. He’d looked into Ahmet’s fat, ugly face and imagined it bloodied beyond repair, imagined the joy of beating him to his knees…
He’d reached deep inside himself, struggled to hold on to reason even as his vision reddened, and acknowledged that if he attacked the barbarian, he’d surely seal Megan’s fate.
Could he tell her that? Tell her that he would gladly give his life for hers, if he thought it would save her? No. He couldn’t. Such a thought was irrational and he couldn’t afford to be irrational.
He was the king.
“You’re very important to me,” he said carefully. “I’m responsible for your welfare.” She seemed to sag in his hands. What more did she want him to say? Caz searched for the words that would make this easier and finally found them. “Of course, the marriage won’t be real.”
Her head came up and she looked into his eyes. “It won’t?”
“The ceremony will have meaning only in Suliyam, not in the States. I’ll take care of nullifying it on my end. You won’t have to do anything to set it aside.”
“Oh. I didn’t…I thought…”
“We’ll return to the palace tomorrow, I’ll put you on a plane and send you home.” His voice, and his hands, gentled. “And then you can put what happened here out of your mind.”
Put it out of her mind. She’d exchange wedding vows, then put them out of her mind?
“Megan? Do you see how simple this is?”
She looked at Caz again. His gray eyes were steady on hers. He looked like a man who’d just suggested an appropriate dinner menu instead of a marriage, calm and pleasant…except for a tiny flicker of muscle beating in his jaw.
“It isn’t as if the ceremony will have any real meaning.”
“No. I understand that now.”
“All you’ll have to do is play the part of obedient female a little longer.” Caz’s voice roughened. “Obedient, and eager.”
“Excuse me?”
“Ahmet wondered why I hadn’t married you already. It was an excellent question, and I answered by telling him I’d wanted to wait until I could plan an extravagant celebration but that being alone with you these past days had been difficult for me. For you, as well.” Caz slid one hand up her throat; he could feel Megan’s pulse drumming beneath his fingers. “A man doesn’t sleep with the woman he intends to wed,” he said huskily.
Megan nodded. It all made perfect sense. Her head told her so. Her heart was the part of her having a problem. She’d never really thought about marriage but surely if you did decided to say “I do,” it was supposed to have some meaning.
