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“I mean—never mind. Bye.” Turning, she quickly followed the handler out of the garden.
But as she went back into the hot, crowded ballroom, and saw the sheikh sitting on the dais, she wasn’t nervous anymore. She wasn’t thinking about the powerful king who’d moved heaven and earth to bring together the most accomplished women in the world, merely to choose a potential bride.
Instead, Beth couldn’t stop picturing the handsome stranger who’d nearly brought her to her knees with a single touch, in the moonlit shadows of a chilly Parisian garden.
* * *
In the garden, Omar stared after her, still in shock.
Was it possible that he’d just had an entire conversation with Dr. Edith Farraday without her realizing who he was?
No, surely. She had to know.
But if this was a come-on, at least it had novelty value. No woman had ever pretended not to know him before.
He’d arrogantly assumed that every woman who’d agreed to come to the palais tonight wished to marry him. Was it possible one didn’t even know his identity? That she’d actually had so little interest in him that she hadn’t bothered to read newspapers, gossip magazines, or just look him up online? It seemed incredible.
But his instincts told him that Dr. Edith Farraday hadn’t been pretending. She truly had no idea who Omar was.
Just as he himself hadn’t known that Khalid was paying the twenty women to come to Paris. It made sense—as the potential brides his vizier had selected were all so famous and successful—that they could hardly be expected to toss their busy schedules aside, merely for the chance to become Omar’s queen. But still... It might have bruised a lesser man’s ego, to realize that the chance of marrying him hadn’t been enough to make women fly here from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe.
Which was why Khalid hadn’t told him the details, obviously. He’d told his vizier to arrange it, and arrange it the man had. It was Khalid sitting in the ballroom of his Paris mansion right now, meeting each woman personally. His friend was the one who’d winnow the twenty down to the ten whom Omar would meet personally tomorrow.
Khalid was the one who’d created the criteria for choosing the twenty potential brides, and arranged for them to be brought to Paris. When Omar had first seen the list that morning, he’d been surprised to discover how career-driven and ambitious the women were. But then, hadn’t he himself insisted the women must be brilliant to be his queen? Surely the woman he chose would be willing to give up her career, no matter how illustrious. What greater fate could any woman aspire to than becoming Queen of Samarqara?
There had just been one name on the list that had immediately displeased him.
“Why did you invite Laila al-Abayyi?” he’d demanded that morning. “I told you I cannot marry her.”
“No,” his old friend said cheerfully. “You told me you’d only marry her if all our nobles agreed she should be queen.”
“Which they will not.”
“The future is unknowable,” Khalid said.
“Not this,” Omar replied sourly. “I’m surprised she’d even agree. How can it not be humiliating for her to compete?”
His vizier had smiled, his dark eyes glinting strangely. “Like you, sire, Miss al-Abayyi puts Samarqara’s needs above her own. Her father was so insulted by your bride market plan that he was threatening to cause trouble. Then Laila announced that she approved of your plan, and that she, too, appreciates the old traditions. That calmed her father down. She accepted my invitation for diplomatic purposes, purely for the good of the nation.”
For the good of the nation, plus a million dollars, it seemed.
A million dollars per day.
Omar set his jaw. So be it. He’d avoided marriage for long enough. He was thirty-six years old, and if he died, there was no one to inherit the throne. His only family left was Khalid, a distant cousin who wasn’t even an al-Maktoun, but an al-Bayn. Omar needed an heir. He couldn’t risk a return to the violent civil war that had nearly destroyed Samarqara during his grandfather’s time.
Nor could he risk a love match. He’d never be such a fool again.
No. He was older now, wiser. Marriage was for dynastic reasons only. And in the month since he’d ordered Khalid to arrange the bride market, he’d successfully avoided thinking about it. It wasn’t difficult. Omar was always busy with affairs of state.
But tonight, after finishing a diplomatic meeting in the embassy, when he’d returned to the residence, he’d found himself on edge, knowing the women were there. The process had begun.
As king, Omar would only nominally make the final decision. According to the traditions of the bride market, his council would advise him of the woman they felt best suited to be his queen.
But she wouldn’t just be Omar’s queen. She’d also be his wife. The mother of his children. The woman in his bed and at his side. Forever.
If you marry a stranger, you could be sentencing yourself to a lifetime of misery.
Grimly, Omar pushed Khalid’s warning away. The bride market had already begun, and in any event, his vizier and council could hardly choose worse for him than he’d once tried to choose for himself.
