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“It doesn’t.”
“You cite it as reason for not keeping your commitment.”
“I never made a commitment. When I was thirteen I was informed that one day we would marry.”
A mere girl. He had felt compassion for her. “But you never complained. Why now?”
“I spun fairy castles in the air, dreams that took me too long to realize they had no basis in reality.”
Dreams of love. Didn’t she know? That commodity was not for such as them. “You need to consider this more carefully.”
“Zahir, I’m giving you your freedom.” Exasperation and a tinge of anger laced her tone. “Instead of trying to talk me out of it, you could simply say thank you.”
Did she really believe she was doing him a favor? He did not think so. “Our families will be shamed.”
“Oh, please. Nothing official has ever been announced.”
“Nevertheless, the expectation exists.”
“So?” She shrugged, as if really, this did not matter. “Those who have expectations will have to be disappointed.”
“Like my father. Like the man you call uncle. They will be humiliated.”
The look she gave Zahir said she did not buy his calamity scenario. “Disappointed maybe but, in that regard, not as much as they would be by a divorce.”
“Why divorce?” Though he admitted he did not know her as well as he could, he had never considered her a pessimist. “You are not making any sense.”
“Zahir, can you honestly tell me that you are not feeling even a little niggle of hope right now? That relief isn’t warring with your need to talk me out of doing what you know you want?”
Shock held him silent. Her words implied that she actually believed she was doing him some sort of favor; that somehow he would and even should thank her for threatening to break her word. He tried to think of what could have caused her to draw such a ridiculous conclusion, but despite his superior intellect he came up with nothing.
No possible reason for her outlandish ideas.
She sighed, her shoulders slumping just enough that he knew she was not as calm about this as she was pretending to be. “Your silence speaks better than your words could. I will take full responsibility for the aborted engagement with our families and the media.”
“No.” He surged up from his desk, realizing that perhaps now was not the time to intimidate with that barrier between them.
“I have only one request.”
He halted on his way around the desk. “What is it?”
“I want one night in your bed, the wedding night I will not now have.”
If she had shocked him with her threat to break their agreement, this request practically had him catatonic. What in blue blazes was she thinking?
“Why?” he ground out while trying to somehow make sense of his prim and proper princess-to-be offering him, no, demanding from him, something that should not be indulged in until after their marriage.
The next heir could not be conceived under a cloud.
“I want you to be my first.”
Well, naturally. “But you do not wish to marry me.”
Did she truly believe there was any sense, even the smallest modicum of logic in such a scenario?
“Did you want to marry Elsa Bosch?”
He’d indulged in fantasies at one time. He’d believed himself in love. More fool him. But even then he’d known it was pure fantasy to even consider such a thing. He’d soon realized that more than her career made her the wrong choice as future queen of Zohra.
