Well aware of his chauvinistic views, Farah tried another tact. ‘At least let me choose who I marry, because the prince was telling the truth—nothing happened.’
‘You should have listened to me,’ her father stated as if she hadn’t even spoken. ‘When I told you to stay away from him.’
‘Like you’re listening to me now?’ she retorted.
‘I told you to stay away, too.’ Amir interrupted, clasping her clammy hands between his. ‘I knew it would lead to trouble.’
So this was her fault?
She felt so utterly infuriated she didn’t trust herself to speak. And she supposed this was her fault, in a way. She had defied her father in her misguided attempt to fix everything but, damn it, she had only wanted to help. She had only wanted to prevent things from getting worse for her father. Next time he wanted to go rampaging she’d make sure she stayed home!
She stared down at Amir’s hands holding hers, his thumb stroking her skin in a soothing gesture, and she wondered how much more this night would deteriorate when the high and mighty Prince of Bakaan refused to marry her.
* * *
‘Zach, you don’t have to marry her.’
Zach heard Nadir’s quiet words but his attention was riveted to the tableau across the room. Their body language spoke volumes. Farah’s face flushed with her ardent displeasure; her bearing was nothing short of regal, her father holding himself aloof like an imperious ass, and his second-in-command...had just taken hold of her hands.
Zach’s eyes narrowed. An unexplainable rage welled up inside him. Were they secret lovers? It wasn’t unheard of, even though a woman was supposed to come to her husband’s marriage bed a virgin. Would she come to his in that untouched state? Or had she already given herself to the idiot who was about to lose his hand—at best!
His jaw clenched. ‘Idiot.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Not you.’ Zach briefly thought about bypassing his hand and going straight for his neck. He, the master communicator—well, there was nothing like a broken neck to get a point across, he supposed. ‘But, yes, I do have to marry her.’
Nadir’s expression grew stern. ‘Bloody hell. I believed you when you said you hadn’t slept with her. I should have known when I saw you in the garden—’
‘That was nothing.’
‘Nothing? Two more minutes and you would have ripped her clothes off.’
Zach drew his eyes away from Farah and regarded his brother. ‘More like one, but that’s not why I have to marry her. And I didn’t lie. Nothing has actually happened between us.’ Well, nothing if you ignored the unexpected make-out session in the alleyway or his subsequent fantasies in the shower. Not to mention what he’d been about to do to her in the garden. ‘I have not slept with her. Not in the biblical sense, anyway.’
‘Then we’ll get you out of this.’
Zach could see Nadir readying himself to go into problem-solving mode but Zach’s attention was elsewhere. Which was why he only vaguely heard the mention of war, peace and love. And he knew his brother wasn’t doing a book review.
He swung back to Nadir. ‘What about love?’
Nadir sighed impatiently. ‘You said that was the only reason you would marry—if you were in love.’
Yeah, that was what he’d said once. But honour and integrity were just as important and he wasn’t about to let this little spitfire who knew obscure facts about Roman history, and who intrigued him and made him laugh as no other woman ever had, take that from him. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to his brother, crossing the room before he’d even registered his intention.
His icy gaze went to the idiot’s, his hand to Farah’s elbow. ‘This meeting is over,’ he informed the tense trio.
Of course, she tried to pull away from him. ‘I told my father—’
‘I will marry your daughter.’ He spoke over the top of her, clasping her elbow more firmly.
‘Never thought I’d see the day a Darkhan would do the right thing,’ the old man preached.
‘Only because you probably don’t recognise the gesture.’
Farah’s knight-errant cleared his throat. ‘I don’t—’
Zach turned on Amir as he squared off against him and was clearly about to spill his guts. ‘You are about to lose your head if you’re not careful,’ he bit out. ‘Guards, put them in prison,’ he ordered softly.
At the mention of prison his newly acquired fiancée came to life once more. ‘No!’