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“You’re still not smiling.”
“How about this?” Irritated, she stretched her face into an uncomfortable rictus of a smile.
He shuddered. “Stop.”
“I can’t smile, I can’t frown—what do you want from me?”
“At least look pleasant.”
“Like you?” she countered.
Omar deliberately smoothed his handsome features into a neutral expression that did, indeed, look very pleasant. She was irritated and a little envious that he could hide his feelings so well.
“It’s not fair,” she grumbled. “You’ve been trained.”
“Trained my whole life,” he agreed grimly, reaching for a jewel-encrusted gold goblet. Drinking deeply, he set it down, smiling for the benefit of the banquet tables beneath the dais. “It’s how I can sit beside you, pretending to be happy about my choice.”
“Do you want me to just leave Samarqara?”
“Leave?” He snorted, glancing at her coldly. “Not before you make everyone despise you as much as I do.”
“These people already despise me.”
“The nobles might. But not everyone. Not the servants. Not the regular people of the square.”
Beth thought of Rayah, and how happy the girl had been to serve her. “You expect me to be rude to them for no reason?”
“I expect you to do whatever it takes, as long as it shows no dishonor to my country or my throne, until I can satisfyingly renounce and discard you.”
“What do you have in mind?” she ground out. “Should I rip off my dress and dance naked on the banquet tables?”
His pleasant expression disappeared. “Perhaps later.”
Her lips parted in shock. “I was joking.”
His black eyes cut through her. “You seemed eager enough to be naked before.”
Against her will, her gaze fell to his cruel, sensual lips. Her own mouth tingled. With a shiver, she turned away.
“That was before,” she whispered.
“Before I discovered the truth about you.”
“No,” she said. “Before I discovered the truth about you.”
“Which is?”
Beth met his gaze. “That you’re a heartless bastard who will never forgive.”
“Forgive betrayal?” Smiling for the benefit of the crowd, he took a drink from the golden goblet. “No.”
This icy, ruthless king was nothing like the hot-blooded, seductive man who’d taken her virginity—the man who’d lured her with soft lips and soft words.
Blinking fast, Beth said in despair, “What happened to the man I met in Paris?”
“What happened to Dr. Edith Farraday?” was the cool rejoinder.
The rest of the banquet passed in a blur, as she ate food she didn’t taste and listened to speeches she didn’t want to hear, all about Dr. Edith Farraday’s many accomplishments and the glory she would bring to Samarqara as queen.
