AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I want you to start sharing my bed.”
I blink, utterly confused by his statement. “You mean –,”
“Your suite of rooms is for guest use. You are no longer a guest.”
My lips part on a swell of emotion. “Because we had sex?”
His eyes soften a little and I hate that I recognise sympathy in them. I pull away from his face, angling towards the front windscreen.
“Yes.” It’s a simple response. “This marriage is not what either of us intended, but given how things are between us, it makes sense to take the next step forward.”
Step forward. As though this is some logical integration plan, something that can be mapped and controlled.
“I’m sorry, your highness.” I deliberately use his title, needing – desperately – to erode some of the intimacy that has formed between us. “I was just thinking the opposite.”
“In what way?”
My emotions are in a state of flux. “Today did change things between us.” I bite down on my lower lip, massaging it while I search for words. “Ever since I got here, things have been morphing into the opposite of what I expected.” Salt stings my eyes. “But nothing that happens between us will ever change what you put my dad through. I can’t forgive you for that, Zahir. I won’t.”
When I risk a glance at him, the only sign he’s heard is a slight narrowing of his eyes. Otherwise, his face is an implacable mask.
“And so you are determined to hate me forever?”
I wish it were that simple! I nod jerkily, looking down at my hands, the enormous wedding ring there almost laughing at me now.
“This changes nothing, azeezi.” His words are soft, but what he’s saying rings with power and control. I don’t look at him. “You are my wife, and it is time for you to start living like it.”
I gasp.
“I treaded slowly. Our honeymoon, the week afterwards, giving you time to adjust, but now that time is at an end.”
Perhaps he mistakes my silence for agreement, because a moment later he barrels on with his plan. “I will have Aliya oversee your move.”
As though it’s so simple! A done deal. Sure enough, a moment later his hands are moving to my seatbelt, undoing the clasp at my belly button, his hand staying there a moment before straying lower, brushing over my sex, a part of my body already far too sensitive from his ministrations in the cave.
“Do not worry, Amy. You are free to continue hating me as long as you would like. There will be other compensations for our marriage.”
I draw in a hurt, shaking breath, my eyes pinging to his as his words sink in. His low expectations of our marriage shouldn’t matter to me but they set a part of me to ice. I look away, hurt and anger at war within me. His hand shifts and despite my feelings I want to demur, to grab his wrist and draw it back.
I suspect he sees my disappointment, because he makes a throaty laugh. “Tonight, little one.” He brings his face back to mine. “In my own bed, in this palace, I will take you just as you wish, and there will be no stopping this time.” He presses a finger to my lips, a warning in his eyes. “Don’t make me kiss you here until you admit how much you want that.”
I glare at him, anger winning the war. “You’re an arrogant piece of work, do you know that?”
Another laugh. “Yes.” He undoes his own seatbelt. “You’ll get used to it.”
I want to fire a nasty rejoinder but none forms. I feel as though I’ve been pushed into a washing machine on full spin cycle. I’m completely disorientated and dizzy.
He strides across the roof, a magnificent figure of strength and confidence, nodding to the guards as he passes, his respect for them – and theirs for him – shown in every interaction. At the other side of the roof there’s a door. A distant figure opens it for him and he steps through without a backwards glance.
His confidence that he will get what he wants sits like a rock in my gut and I am very, very tempted to teach him a lesson.
Zahir
I’m furious with her and yet I smile anyway, because I should have predicted Amy would pull a stunt like this. There was no way she’d simply be reasonable and fall in with my plans. I had hoped she might, but apparently with Amy everything has to be a damned fight.
“Tell my wife I hope she feels better tomorrow,” I murmur to Aliya, returning my attention to the iPad, the FaceTime call with Elon Katabi, the leader of Salim, on hold while Aliya delivers the message to me. Her highness says she is not feeling well and has asked to delay the move to your apartment. She says she does not wish to make you ill.
It was obvious from Aliya’s reporting of this that Amy is – at least so far as Aliya perceives – far from ill. Her scepticism was apparent in every syllable.
