“Flour,” she said quickly, by way of explanation.
Only it explained so little. “Flour?”
“You know. That you cook with?”
“Yes, of course I know what flour is. Why is it on your face?”
She took in a deep breath and met his gaze unfalteringly. “I’m making an apple pie. I came to ask you to share some with me.”
His frown was bemused. “Apple pie?”
“You know, it’s an American staple.” She fluttered her lashes down, recalling his statement that had been a criticism of her ‘American-ness’.
“I have had it before, yes,” he drawled quietly. He crouched down on his haunches then, surprising her. “Why?”
She licked her lower lip and fixed her gaze on an elaborate tapestry that hung across the room.
With a sound of frustration, Aki lifted a hand and cupped her cheek, angling her face to his. “I will share your pie, on one condition.”
“What is it?”
“A kiss.”
“A kiss?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes widened, her heart hammered into her rib cage. She furrowed her brow. “You know, Aki, I’m really not stupid.”
His expression didn’t change. At least he didn’t attempt to placate her on that score. He stayed silent.
She shifted uncomfortably, and when she spoke, her words were cracked with emotion. “I know that you married me because you had to. That, if you’d had any say in the matter, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.”
Still, he did not speak.
She dropped her eyes to her knees. “I think we don’t like each other very much. That we have a complicated history that has nothing to do with me and you, but one that nonetheless makes it difficult for us not to carry a burden of hate.” She linked her fingers together in her lap. “And I know that I won’t be any match for you. Sexually.” She gulped. There. She’d said it. “I have no experience.” She shrugged. And though she was trying to establish a new, open relationship with her husband, she couldn’t resist adding, “I’m sure that sleeping with me will be bland for you. Perhaps even boring.”
If she’d been looking at his face, she might have seen a flash of recognition in his handsome features.
“Let me show you something,” he said, his voice hoarse. He reached down and put his hands over hers, where they were clasped together. Gently, he pulled her to standing, her body cleaved to his. “May I?” His eyes were on her lips, his intention obvious.
She nodded silently.
His kiss was not bland. It was desperate. A silent plea of a desperate man. One who found his wife far more desirable than he could have imagined. Who had damned her with feint praise and low expectations and realised the reverse was true.
His lips moved over hers, while his hands traced her back, rubbing and touching. She was so soft. Such a contrast to his own hard planes.
With effort and discipline, he broke the kiss. Her eyes were heavy with desire, and he knew his own showed a matching need. He caught her hand and slowly, his eyes locked to hers, lowered it to his throbbing arousal. She startled when he placed her over his hardness. “Does it feel to you like I find you boring?”
“Oh.” She bit down on her lower lip, but she cursed her own inexperience.
“Stop doubting yourself,” he demanded hoarsely, releasing his hold on her wrist and linking his hands behind her back. It kept her pinned to him. He scanned her face. “Tell me about your fiancé.”
“My…” She swallowed convulsively. “Why?”
“You are a beautiful woman with no self-confidence when it comes to your… appeal. I would like to know why.”
Her expression didn’t hint at her inner turmoil. But in truth, any lack of confidence she might have around men had a lot more to do with Sultan Aki Katabi than the man she’d once thought she’d marry.
“I won’t discuss Arnaud with you.”
Something twisted inside Aki. “Your engagement ended only months before I approached your father.”
Her caramel flecked eyes flew wide. “It sounds to me like you have all the facts already.”
He smothered the hint of a smile. Her astuteness was always a revelation to him, particularly given his original assumption that she had barely two brain cells to rub together. “Facts, perhaps. But facts are so black and white. I would like to hear from you what happened.”
Her skin had paled. “How much do you know?”
“That you and he were together for many years. That you became engaged. And that while you were busy with your studies, he cheated on you. Often.”
Her eyes flew to his, the hurt in them obvious. “How do you know all that?”
“Investigators.” He shrugged as though it were no big deal.
“But… how could investigators know how often he was with other women?”
Aki studied her carefully. Her emotional distress was obvious. The distress that a broken heart alone could cause? A heart still broken? Still grieving? Still longing for the one she had lost?
“He had a friend. I have forgotten his name. One of those American football types.”
“Chad.” She exhaled slowly, nodding. “Chad told your investigator.”
“Yes.”
“Chad knew?” She pushed away from him and paced across the room. Her temper was rising spectacularly. “Chad knew?”
“Evidently.” He watched as she paced, her hands on her hips, her face distressed.
“You are upset,” he said after a few moments.
“Of course I’m upset! He made a fool out of me. I let him make a fool out of me.” And she was doing it all over again. Just like Arnaud and Chad had laughed at her, she’d heard Aki and Ryan doing the same. She straightened her back. That was not her fault. It was men. These men.
“On the contrary, he is making a fool of himself. Any idiot who runs around with women behind your back is an idiot.”
She looked at him with angry scepticism. “Like you threatened to do?”
His face darkened. “I have already told you that I spoke in haste.”
“Yeah, well, apparently Arnaud did in haste. And did a lot.” Her eyes narrowed. “How many women were there?”
Aki had the distinct impression that the conversation was becoming unwieldy. It was flailing, as a snake with no head, between them, and he could no longer control its direction with ease. “The friend did not say.”
“Don’t lie to me,” she insisted, crossing back to stand in front of him.
Aki watched her carefully. “He said only that there were ‘dozens’. It is a loose term, which could mean anything.”
She pushed at his chest, and tears of rage filled her eyes. “Don’t!” She yelled, her face contorted into a mask of rage. “What is it? Some kind of ‘bro-code’? That men have to lie and cover for each other? Why would you defend Arnaud?”
He grabbed her wrists and held them against his chest. “I am not defending him.” His voice held a note of warning.
“Yes, you are! I’m a big girl; I can handle the facts.”
“Did you really have no idea?”
Her temper, which she had thought was at its zenith, sparked hotter and higher. “I guess I’m just that dense.”
He rubbed a thumb across her wrist. “I am just surprised that he was so adept at covering his tracks.”
“I’m a gullible fool,” she muttered. “He was very credible, as a boyfriend.” She closed her eyes as remembered pain flooded her body. “It was his idea. To wait until we were married. To, you know.” And because he already seemed to know everything about her, she spoke the words that had run around her brain since she’d learned of his affair. “I would have slept with him. I loved him. We were engaged. But he didn’t want me.” A solitary tear slid down her cheek and Aki watched its progress with a grim frown. “He didn’t want me.”
“Through no fault of your own,” he promised darkly.
“How can you say that? You don’t want me either.”
She clamped her lips together, her eyes flashing with surprise at her revelation.
“Why do you think I do not want you?”
She couldn’t tell him. It was too mortifying. If he knew that she’d overheard his conversation with Ryan, there would be no façade left. Only the cold, hard facts of their marriage. They would no longer be able to pretend at civility. She moved her shoulders in what felt like a shrug.
He reached up and began to pull pins from her hair, placing them on the desk behind them. “You could not, in a hundred years, be more mistaken. I do want you.”
She shook her head, trying to blink away the tears that were in her eyes. Anger, hurt, grief and fury all swirled inside of her, and a desire to lash out and hurt him back sparked in her chest. “I can’t have sex with someone who sees me as a charity case.” She reached up and grabbed his wrist, arresting it in the process of freeing her hair. “Please, stop.” Her words were so loaded with sadness that he did as she asked. His eyes burned with a fierce intensity that she couldn’t meet.
“I can’t have sex with someone who hates my father. I’m sorry that you needed to marry someone from my family, to remove any possible civil disunity in Talina. I’m sorry that I was the bride you were forced to select.” She dropped his hand and it fell to his side. “I’m sorry that I was pretty darn heart broken when you approached me. I wanted to escape - all that pity over Arnaud, everywhere I went. You know? I wanted to get away, and then you appeared, and hey… I thought… I can marry you, and give my dad a tremendously great gift at the same time. And I thought it solved your problems, too. I just didn’t understand. I guess I didn’t think it through properly.”
The air throbbed with angry silence for a moment. “What did you not think through?” He asked finally.
“How our marriage would ever work.” Her expression was glum. “How you would resent me, for having done nothing more than being born to a man you think might want to take your throne from you. And mostly, for accepting your proposal.”
“I do not resent you.” He denied it with such conviction, that she almost believed him.
“You do.” She stepped backwards. It was the only explanation to the vitriol she’d heard in his words on their wedding night. “You do, and there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. I am not stupid.”
He frowned, and took an impatient step towards her. “You keep saying that, and yet you are being incredibly obtuse at present.”
“No. I’m seeing everything very clearly.” She paused at the entrance to his study, unknowingly beautiful in her evident state of distress.
“Wait, Eleanor. Don’t go like this.”
She looked across at him as though she were weighing things up. “It’s okay.” She said finally. “I’m okay. I’m glad that we’ve cleared the air. At least we both know where we stand now.”
Chapter Five
Ryan scanned his eyes down the column; mentally calculating which divisions weren’t performing as they should be. Aki was a demanding employer. But even without his friend’s need for excellence, Ryan had always been motivated by perfectionism. He was singularly driven, and his desire to tie things up in neat little bows was probably largely what drew him to the finance sector. There was risk and there were inevitably losses, but ultimately, numbers had a magical synergy to them.
The door opened inwards without a knock, meaning it could be only one person.
“Aki,” he greeted without looking up, his concentration unbreakable when set at a task. A pleasant aroma drifted towards him and called his attention.
The Sultan of Talina stood, at the edge of his desk, a plate with pie in one hand. It was such a ludicrous sight that Ryan couldn’t help laughing. “You changing career? Going into the restaurant business?”
Aki’s expression was grim. “My wife … baked. This.”
Ryan dropped his gaze from Aki to the perfect looking pie in his hands. “She did, huh?”
“Yes.”
“And you’re not happy about it?”
Aki placed the pie on the table with a furrowed brow. “I’m not happy about other things. The pie is,” he paused, searching for the right word. “Not important.”
“The cherry on top?” He reached for a fork and tapped the top of the pastry. “Excellent crust,” he remarked, digging in deeper. “What’s going on with you two?”
Aki’s expression was shuttered. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Must be serious.”
He expelled an angry breath. “She is infuriating. The most insufferable, frustrating woman I have ever known.”
“I thought she was boring and dull and dumb?”
Aki stood stock still in the middle of Ryan’s dishevelled office. “No. She is none of those things. I was wrong.”
“Wrong!? You?!”
Aki turned only his head, to regard his friend. “Don’t bait me, Ryan. Not in the mood I am in.”
“Sorry,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s just that I don’t see why you’re having problems with Ellie. She seems pretty easy to get on with to me.”
Something completely foreign lodged in Aki’s chest. “Ellie?” He asked in disbelief.
Ryan shifted his weight on his feet. “It’s what she asked me to call her.”
“You are referring to my wife, Her Royal Highness the Emira of Talina, Eleanor Katabi as Ellie?”
Despite having lived in the Kingdom of Talina for almost two decades, Ryan still struggled with the strict formalities at times. “You’re my best friend. She’s your wife. I’ll call her whatever the heck she wants me to.”
The strange feeling intensified. “When? When did she ask you to address her so informally?”
“Earlier today. We took a walk through the orchard.”
A furious rage emanated through Aki’s body, but he didn’t betray it. He stalked out of Ryan’s office without another word, and walked with haste through the palace. She was not in her room. Nor was she in the library.
Where the hell was she?
With each step he took, his frustration only grew.
By the time he discovered her, reading a book of Talinese nursery stories in the shade of a fig tree, his anger was an actual force accompanying him, by his side. She looked up as he approached, her expression carefully neutral.
“You are my wife.” He ground out, standing with his hands on his hips so that she was cast into shadow.
“Yes?” She gently placed a slip of paper into the book and closed the covers.
“My wife.”
She frowned. “I don’t quite understand what you’re trying to tell me. I was there, remember? We stood up in front of a heap of people, said some words, signed a piece of paper.”
His expression was glowering. “Do not mock me, azeezi. Do not dare mock me.”
She stood to her feet with fluid grace. “How can I mock you when I don’t know what you’re talking about?”
“You have no business walking in the orchard with other men. What do you think the staff would make of it? You are my wife.”
“Oh, Jeez.” She rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. “This is about Ryan? Are you kidding me?”
“I am certainly not kidding.”
“He bumped into me and stopped me from eating some kind of beautiful poisonous fruit. We walked for about ten minutes. It was civil and nice.”
“It was inappropriate.”
She glared at him, but her anger was being eaten away by sadness. “You don’t want to spend time with me, but you also don’t want me to spend time with anyone else?”
His eyes were dark. “Not with other men, not on your own. No. I have cousins you can spend time with.”
“I didn’t have you marked as such a control freak.” She leaned forward, her face inching towards his. “Are you actually jealous?”
“Not jealous, no,” he denied too quickly to have given it any thought. “It is just irresponsible. It exposed both you and me to idle gossip.”
“Do you real
ly care?” She asked seriously.
“I care about you, and your reputation.” He scanned her face. “You cannot be alone with Ryan again.”
“Don’t be absurd,” she said crossly. “You can’t tell me who I can and can’t spend time with.”
“Can’t I?” His smile was grim. “You are perhaps not familiar with the customs of our country.”
She was shaking, and she couldn’t have said if it was from rage, fear, anger or a mix of all three. “He was just being kind to me.”
Aki didn’t say what he was thinking. That Ryan had no business being kind to her. That it was he, Aki, who should comfort her if she was distressed. “You are my wife,” he said instead.
She rolled her eyes in a gesture he found infuriating. “You’re like a record stuck on repeat. Yes. I am your wife. A person. Not a thing. I am not something that you own.”
“You are to be loyal to me.”
She laughed, though she was not amused. “What the heck is going on? This can’t all be about a few minutes talking with Ryan?”
“No. It is about your father. And Arnaud. And now Ryan. Men you are loyal to, and demonstrate more willingness to be civil to, than you do your own husband.”
“Seriously? You want to bring my father into this? As though I shouldn’t be loyal to him?”
“You forget that I was raised to despise your father,” he said darkly. “I was taught from birth that he desired nothing more than my downfall. So yes, your obvious adoration of him is somewhat galling to me.”
“Well, you’re going to have to get over it, because you’re wrong.” She glared up at his face, her expression mutinous. “Where are you getting your information? Papa never wanted the throne. I don’t know why your grandfather was so afraid of him. Not once did my father attempt to insinuate himself into palace life.” She shook her head in frustration. “And if you knew him, you would see that he is a great man. Far more worthy of my respect and loyalty than … anyone else.” She had gone too far. He was already furious, but her statement had doused his rage with petrol.
Visibly, she saw him attempt to pull his temper back in, but still, his eyes glowed with fury.