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“The princess is to attend His Highness,” Fahir said in his own tongue.
Chloe cursed inwardly but didn’t reveal a hint of how the pronouncement affected her. She’d become excellent at hiding her inner-most thoughts behind a well-practiced mask of indifference. First with her father, then with her brother, and now with her husband. Life had been a series of dictatorial men for Chloe and Raffa was no different.
“Fine,” she said to Aysha. “But you need not accompany me. I know the way.”
Aysha looked confused but knew her place wasn’t to question the princess’s dictates.
“As you wish,” she said with a bow, that set off a Mexican-wave reaction amongst the other servants.
Chloe turned her back on them and stalked through the enormous corridor of the Qasr Alnujum palace. She was not tall, only five and a half feet, and yet she walked fast, so it only took her five minutes to reach the carved timber doors inlaid with gemstones that announced the Sheikh’s apartments.
She hovered on the threshold, barely seeing the four guards that stood sentry, dressed in traditional military attire. They were the highest rank, she knew, men who had served in war and fought for their country, now prepared to willingly die for their ruler.
“Open the doors,” she said, taking only a moment to quell the blood that was raging inside of her veins.
They did so without a word.
Chloe had only been in his apartments once before, on their wedding night. As was the expectation, they’d spent the night together – better to acquiesce to traditions rather than incur the gossip and scandal of the palace staff. No one needed to know that she’d slept in the bed while he’d slept on a rolled mattress on the floor. She’d protested then but he’d made her feel utterly foolish, pointing out that he’d slept in far less savory environments during his four years in the country’s military.
The Warrior King – that was what the American press loved to call him. It conjured images of a half-man, half-beast, and unfortunately, those images were very close to the truth. Raffa was some kind of primal, feral creature, caged by his palace, but no less vitally strong for the veneer of civilization he adopted as required.
His own suite of rooms was unlike anything she could have imagined before arriving at the palace. Through the thick, carved timber doors there was an atrium with a waterfall that Raffa had explained, on their wedding night, was naturally occurring. The palace had been built against a mountain range and this room had historically been the Sheikh’s.
The waterfall dropped into a pool – ‘my predecessors liked to watch their concubines swim,’ he’d said, with something in his eyes that had made it hard for Chloe to tell if he was joking. Teasing her, mocking her innocence. Trying to shock her?
It had worked.
She’d jerked her attention away from the waterfall sharply then, and she did so now. Bougainvillea had been trained to grow over the ceiling, and night-flowering jasmine intertwined with it, creating a heady fragrance and a stunning tangle of purple and white flowers.
Through the atrium, the suite was in stark contrast to such wild beauty. Everything in Raffa’s rooms was the finest money could buy. From the enormous bed in his room, to the polished marble dining table that was set with gold cutlery and crystal glasses, to the cinema sized screen that sat against one side of his living area. It was sumptuous, decadent and not even remotely what Chloe found the most remarkable thing in the room.
No, that honour was reserved for her husband.
He stood in the centre of the space, his robe removed so that he wore only a pair of loose pants, low on his waist. His feet were bare and the long, dark hair he’d worn in a messy bun at the event was down now, falling over his sho
ulders in thick, tumbling waves. His chest was bare, and her gaze couldn’t help but fall to it, taking in the muscular ridging, the hard lines, the hair that ran down his navel and into the waistband of his pants.
“Like what you see?” He enquired sardonically.
She blinked, grateful then for the years of practice she’d had in concealing her thoughts and feelings; grateful for the father, brother, mother who had all taught her to hide her inner-most feelings at all times.
“You wanted to talk,” she reminded him crisply, moving deeper into the room, towards the bar, where she poured herself a mineral water and scooped some pomegranate seeds from a small golden bucket.
“No. I want to sleep with you. You want to talk.”
Chloe’s fingers fumbled the ice tongs but she was calm when she met his eyes. “Oh, come on, Raffa. Don’t make it sound as though you want this. You want an heir. Sex you already have, surely, with any number of willing women?”
His eyes narrowed and something dark crossed his expression. “Careful, sheikha. That sounds a lot like you are questioning my integrity.”
“How? By stating a fact?”
“You think I have been sleeping with other women?”
She was on dangerous ground and yet she couldn’t retreat. “I haven’t thought about it at all,” she lied. “But, if I had to answer that, I would say, of course. This isn’t a real marriage, you’re…”
“Yes?” He prompted with a dangerous edge to the words.
“Well, you’re you. All virile and masculine and no doubt used to regularly being…”
