She sobbed, lifting her hands to her lips, the words so cold, so violent for their truth, and the reality they painted.
“I’m so sorry,” she said again.
“As am I.”
Her eyes shifted to Malik’s face as the full reality of this situation wrapped around her. “You are King,” she said, sitting into Addan’s chair now, collapsing into it, taking in a shaking breath.
“Yes,” he crossed his arms over his chest, “I will inherit Addan’s throne, and all that entails.”
She swallowed, his promotion one she knew he didn’t wish for, one she knew he didn’t take any joy in. Addan had said, many times, that Malik – eleven months younger – should have been born first. That he was the natural born leader. And while Sophia could see that Malik had the strength to be Sheikh, it was also abundantly clear he had zero desire for the role.
Sheikh Malik bin Hazari was a renowned playboy prince. Never at the palace, always off sleeping his way around Europe.
How many times had she opened a news website on her phone to see his photo? At a fashion parade, on a celebrity’s yacht, a glamorous beach, always with a beautiful woman at his side. Something heated sparked inside of her. Sympathy, she told herself, because that life of his was at an end.
He can do that, Sharafaha, because he is not the heir, Addan had pointed out, when she’d questioned him once over Malik’s antics.
And yet, his destiny was now to lead, to take up Addan’s role within this ancient Kingdom. Everything would change. Addan’s death shifted the whole world – or Sophia’s part of it, at least.
“Your highness,” she spoke softly, the words almost impossible to catch. “I’d like to be alone now.”
He didn’t answer, his eyes holding hers for a moment before she spun and moved to the door. But as her fingers curved around the handle, poised to open it
, his voice arrested her.
“You are part of that, Sharafaha.”
She turned to face him. “Part of what?”
“When he died, I inherited all that was his. Including you.”
A frisson of alarm jolted her spine. “I don’t… understand.”
“This palace, the title, the country, his duties. All of it. And also, your betrothal to Addan, on his death, by unbreakable law, passed to me.”
Chapter 1
Twelve months later
“YOU ARE SHAKING.” Malik’s lips compressed with impatience and Sophia shifted her gaze towards him, wishing he weren’t right. Wishing, with all her heart, she could get control of nerves that were firing through her body like sparks of electricity.
She couldn’t, and she was far too proud to deny the obvious. And so she tilted her chin defiantly, shooting him what she hoped passed for a withering look. “I’m aware of that.”
Her honesty didn’t, apparently, earn her any bonus points with the man she was hours away from marrying.
“You are afraid of me?”
He stood six and a half feet tall, muscle and sinew, a warrior in a King’s clothes, a warrior with a heart of steel. Yes. She was afraid; she was terrified. Years ago – as a teenager, she had agreed to marry her best friend; she had thought she’d be walking down the aisle towards the kind-hearted King Addan, who adored her, who had wrapped a bandage around her knee when she was only eight years old, and she’d run through a hedge of pomegranate, scratching herself all over.
“Do you think I mean to hurt you?” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down his nose at her, his symmetrical features covered in a sprinkling of facial hair incredibly distracting.
“No,” she heard herself say, shaking her head from side to side, then pressing her fingers against her stomach. The lace of the traditional, royal Abu Fayan bridal outfit was rough under her fingertips. It didn’t matter, anyway. No matter how she pressed, the butterflies wouldn’t go away. “It’s just…not what I’d expected.”
She tried to smile, but her features were too tense.
His eyes, blacker than the night sky, widened, and his brow furrowed. “This is not what either of us expected,” he agreed. He had long, dark hair, and he wore it pulled into a somewhat messy bun on top of his head. Addan had been neat. Trim. Well-groomed. The opposite to his brother.
A shiver ran down her spine as again she saw her intended groom as some kind of wild creature, feral and free-roaming, dragged in from the desert, barely contained by this exquisitely beautiful palace.