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“Surely I can just come to the palace every few weeks. Stay in the capital, in my own home. Or you can come to me…”
“No.” He slashed his hand through the air. “This is not a game, Chloe. I need an heir and you are the only woman who can provide me with one.”
“So what I want doesn’t matter?”
“You wanted to marry me, and you have done so. You want children – your brother has told me as much.”
Anger slashed inside of her – directed at her husband Raffa and her brother Apollo. Birds of the same feather, flocking together, as always. Of course Apollo had divulged the stupid drunken conversation they’d had on the night of her twenty first birthday.
But she hadn’t known then what lay in store. She hadn’t known that only
weeks later her father would be dead, that the marriage contract he’d negotiated would be the only way to honour and love the man she’d never had a chance to know in real life. That marrying Raffa had been her only way to claim a loss she couldn’t put into words.
“Apollo doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Chloe muttered, lifting fingertips to her temples and rubbing wearily. “He’s misinformed.”
“So you don’t want children?”
“No. Yes.” She expelled a plaintive breath. “One day, yes, I do. Very much. But …”
“It has to be now.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “If you cannot do this, if you want to leave, it must be now.”
“My God, Raffa! You’re not serious? You think a divorce would be good for your father? Why can’t we leave things as they are?”
“If I divorce you, I will remarry within a month. It is a slight delay, but considerably better than no prospect of an heir whatsoever.”
“You’re giving me an ultimatum,” she said, her shock genuine. It was a shock that filtered down to her core. “You’re threatening to throw me out if I don’t accede to this plan?”
His eyes held hers for a long moment and she could have sworn a glimmer of anguish ran across his handsome face before he was pure, arrogant Sheikh once more.
“Yes.”
And for no reason she could pinpoint, she felt remorse in that statement. She felt apology.
How absurd! This man apologized to no one, least of all his wife.
“I would never do that to your father,” she said after a beat had passed. “And you know that.”
Raffa expelled a breath and nodded. “Yes.”
At least he didn’t lie about his manipulations. “He’s on his death bed. The shock of our divorce could kill him. Give me a better ultimatum. One that holds two options that might appeal to me.”
He let out a short sound of frustration. “You rather misunderstand the point of an ultimatum.”
“No, I don’t.” She turned away from him again, pacing towards the waterfall. How long had it stood there, washing over ancient rocks, washing over ancient feuds? “I just didn’t think you’d be capable of behaving like this.”
She wrapped her arms around her torso, inadvertently drawing his attention to her slender fragility so that he wanted to join her in heaping abuse at his feet. What he was doing was beneath him, and he knew it. It was despicable and unreasonable. But desperate times called for desperate measures and only the deepest love and affection for his father, the deepest respect for their family’s long tradition of keeping the peace in Ras El Kida, kept him to his course.
Goran represented a very real threat, and though Raffa knew he would triumph over it, there would be damage and loss in the interim. An heir was the only way to ensure the kingdom’s safety.
“Well, Chloe? I don’t have all night. What’s it to be?”
She didn’t move. Not even a little, so that Raffa was left wondering if she’d heard him. But finally, her head shifted just a fraction.
“I’ll move to the palace,” she said with a grim determination he understood. “But you will make time for me in your life. I’m not going to be ignored by you as well.”
Raffa was too relieved by her acquiescence to notice the bitter rejoinder that followed immediately afterwards.
“I’m pleased you are being reasonable.” Now that she’d agreed, he moved forward with plans. “I’ll have your servants bring your things, though much of your bridal trousseau has been installed in my dressing room already --,”
