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Would the villagers—Mahindar’s people—like and accept her? Perhaps she’d instinctively asked to come here to test her mettle before facing the much harder-to-please people of Rajhabi?
Her worries soon proven unfounded when they were overrun with the sixty or seventy adults and children who congratulated them on their marriage, thanked them for their generous donation of food and finally welcomed them to their celebrations.
It was like being swept along by a wave as she and Mahindar kept pace with everyone else moving onto the pier. Someone pulled out a guitar and strummed beautiful music while Mahindar pulled out a seat for Arabelle at a table and sat next to her. She almost groaned at being faced with even more food, but politely accepted a glass of wine while she got her fingers greasy eating marinated chicken wings and pork ribs.
She spotted the surfer dude in the crowd, his blond hair and green eyes standing out amongst all the swarthy skin of the island natives with their dark eyes and glossy black hair. He winked at her but was soon lost in the crowd when a pair of young women vied for his attention and drew him away.
Arabelle got just as distracted by the conversation going on around them, which started off muted but soon grew in volume with the wine consumed alongside the food. The atmosphere was festive and fun and she chatted with Mahindar to the people around them, both laughing with a young, married couple whose two year old boy stamped his feet to the guitar music.
Mahindar leaned close and murmured, “You will make a great mom one day.”
She turned to him, her throat drying. Children hadn’t been on her agenda. All she’d wanted was a career with unlimited books to make her happy. “It shouldn’t be too difficult when we have Nannies to rear them.”
He frowned. “We will lead busy lives, there’s no doubting that. But I don’t want our children to have part-time parents. Nannies will be used mostly for those special occasions when we need them.”
She blinked at him under the fairy lights, his serious face all too entrancing. Then a surge of bitterness hit front and center. It was all well and good for him to want a full time mother for his children. “So while you’re running the country I’m running around after our children?”
His frown deepened. “Is that not the greatest honor?”
“If it wasyouwould be doing it.” She sighed heavily. “What does it matter of my opinion, anyway? I don’t get a choice, either way.”
His gaze turned considering. “I think you’re determined to hate your role as sheikha.”
“Do I need to remind you ours was an arranged marriage? One I didn’t even have a say in. I’m finding it a little hard now to view my role as your wife in a positive light.”
“You know arranged marriages are commonplace in our world. I’m not the bad guy you like to think I am.”
“You could be a serial rapist for all I know.” Not that he’d need to be with all the women at his damn disposal. She’d never forgive him for his harem, for those other women at his beck and call.
His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. But then few people would dare suggest such a thing. Her stomach knotted with sudden anxiety. Though a part of her knew his western education saw him more indulgent to her ways, she instinctively knew not to push too hard. Beneath his civilized, royal veneer beat the heart of a fierce barbarian.
“Then allow me to give you a brief character reference and bio.”
She bit her bottom lip. “That isn’t necessary.”
“Oh, but it is,habibi,if we want to move forward.”
She sighed, then said haughtily, “Very well.”
His grim smile revealed he’d taken note of her royal decree. But if it bothered him he didn’t let on. Hell, it probably put a bigger fire in his belly to make her a slave to his country.
“When I was conceived there was much celebration.”
“Of course,” she said drily.
He leaned closer. “I was considered quite the miracle baby after my mother had two stillborn children and three miscarriages.”
She swallowed down sudden nausea. His mother had been a broodmare who’d kept on giving despite her obvious inability to carry to full term. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
He didn’t appear to acknowledge her apology. In fact he seemed lost in the past when he added, “I might have been hailed as a blessing, and was rather spoilt in many ways.”
Why did she get a sudden, deep feeling he wasn’t telling her everything? That his childhood wasn’t some fairytale and was in fact rather brutal?
“But it didn’t stop my parents dying far too young thanks to the war destroying our country and our people,” he continued. “I was only eighteen when I took on the reign as sheikh.”
“So young,” she said softly. “Yet you managed to turn the war on its head.”
He nodded. “Thanks to my success, all those revered whispers at my birth exploded into salutations.”
