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“So impatient. You must remember my country is beautiful.”
“I barely remember it at all,” she lied.
“You were to be the queen. Did you not find that an intoxicating idea of the future?”
She shook her head. “No. I never wanted power. And when you are being moved about by powerful men, I do not think that the promise of the throne feels powerful at all.” She looked at a spot, just behind his head because looking at him was always a mistake. “I was always being maneuvered. And I was very aware of it. I never thought that there was power to be had for me.”
“And if there was?”
She met his gaze again. “What do you mean?”
“It remains to be seen, how Riyaz will do.”
“So what, you think that I might need to...”
“I don’t know. But you are successful. You are more than a socialite now. And that... I think that that is a boon. There is an appearance of modernity to you as a choice, and the country is in bad need of some. It’s been cut off from the outside world for fifteen years after being nearly crushed beneath the bootheel of a dictator.”
“Oh. Well. I didn’t know that you are aiming to bring the country into the modern era. The whole forced bride thing seems to belie that.”
“Appearances, I said.”
“Yes. You are all about those, aren’t you?”
“Life is all about appearances, Ariel. I appeared to be a simple orphan boy, and managed to construct a new identity for myself as a result. I appeared to be an international playboy without an original thought in my head, and therefore was able to get close to the enemies of my family. I appeared harmless. Therefore I was able to inflict great harm when necessary. Appearance is all life is.”
“I don’t believe that.”
There was a core of steel running through his words. It made her tremble. It frightened her.
He was not the man that he once had been. But then, she had known him as a boy. He also wasn’t the playboy that he appeared to be, she did believe that. She believed him capable of great ruthlessness. And she did not ever want to fall on the wrong side of that. But at the same time... There was something about him, about the way that he was. The way that he was put together. It made her tremble.
It called to something long forgotten inside of her.
Whispered across her skin like an orange scented breeze.
She shut her mind down. She was panicking, that’s what she was doing. She was seeking desperately for something... Something other than panic. And that was twisting it all into this... Whatever it was. She refused to name it.
Refused.
“There is a bedroom at the back. Why don’t you sleep? For when we land, we will be assessing the situation. And you will begin training.”
“I’m not a dog,” she said. “‘Go lie down.’ ‘Begin your training.’”
He said nothing. And so she sat, sipping her champagne slowly and staring straight ahead. And even when she became utterly exhausted, she refused to sleep.
Because she would not give him the satisfaction of having successfully given her a command.
CHAPTER THREE
WHENTHEPLANEdescended over the mountains, in a strip of land that fell between countries, onto the hidden airway concealed by a pass, he felt like the blood of his ancestors had risen up within him. The battle cry of a warrior echoing through his body.
It had nothing to do with Ariel being at his side.
He was home. And he had returned home a victor. As he had known he must. Ariel was still sitting across from him, staring, though he wondered if she had lapsed off into some fugue state. She certainly didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being reasonable. Pity for her, he was neither satisfied nor dissatisfied by her display of temper. He had bigger things on his mind. And indeed, there were bigger problems set out before himself and his nation.
Ariel was meant to be a solution.
Atonement.
