“Yes.” He nodded, regarding her thoughtfully.
“Why?”
“I need a wife.”
“But it didn’t have to be me,” she pointed out with a small shake of her head.
“We are married now.”
“So you plan to keep me here forever?”
He shrugged. In truth, he hadn’t thought that far ahead. “You wanted to spare Jack from persecution. I wanted to do the same for you. Marriage was the only way to guarantee your safety.”
She arched her brows. “Oh?”
“Yes. I could not bring you to the palace as my lover. That is not my way. It would be a disrespect to my mother and my country.”
“You’ve never had a mistress at the palace?” She demanded scornfully.
“No. Hotels. Apartments. Never here.”
“Then why bring me here?” She hissed. “You could have kept me somewhere else. Kept me secret. This was not necessary.”
“Perhaps not.” He loosened his tie and pulled it from his shirt, placing it onto the bureau near the door.
“So? Why then?”
Because I don’t want to let you go. The internal admission shocked him. It couldn’t be true. It was a red herring. That was not why he’d married her. “I had to make a quick decision. My chief of security, Kalil, was preparing papers against you both. This served to save you.”
Her heart turned over in her chest. “So all that stuff about a baby, an heir, that was…”
“To aggravate my sister. Nothing more. She is right, Olivia. Talidar has an heir. Her son would be accepted almost as well as mine would be.”
“Then this doesn’t make sense.”
He shrugged. “You’re seeing this from your cultural standpoint. That marriage must exist between a man and woman who are in love and have courted one another for years.”
“Yes, damned right I am,” she responded acerbically. She wanted to stay calm, but her insides were zinging with fury and outrage.
“It is not like this in Talidar. Not for people of royal birth. I have no expectations of love. What I have with you is already better than I have ever expected.”
“What do we have?” She demanded scornfully.
“A healthy sexual attraction. A mutual desire.”
“But we hardly know each other,” she argued logically, lifting her fingers up and freeing her hair from the scarf. “And another thing,” she said quickly, passing the fabric over to him as though it might burn her fingertips. “Did you go to London looking for a bride? Why did you have your mother’s dress at your disposal? That makes no sense.”
“A coincidence,” he said deeply. “The dress was being repaired.”
Did she believe him? None of it made sense, so it was difficult to separate out what she could credit as real and not.
“Who is Marni?”
He froze, his dark eyes impossible to read. “Marni? Why do you ask?”
“Your sister said you married me because of Marni.”
He nodded, but his face had paled. It was obvious the accusation had affected him. “My sister is wrong.”