But it did!
She wanted to wail, but she folded her arms around her chest, felt the thud of her heart pounding against her palm. He was right. It didn’t have to make sense. She was here. They were here.
‘Our marriage,’ he continued, dismissing her line of questioning, ‘will show my people I am stable. Grounded. I will be secure in my role as King in the eyes of my men. My people.’
‘And you think by making me your wife—their Queen—is the stability they need?’ Raising her chin, she asked, ‘But what about my life? I can’t just up sticks and—’
‘As we have already established, there is nothing at home for you.’
No, he’d established that she had no job, and soon she’d have no home. They hadn’t talked about her non-existent friends, or how empty her life was now she didn’t have to care for her dad. But what about her dreams?There was nothing holding her back any more.
She could have been anything... She still could be...
‘I have plans. I’m going to college,’ she told him, revealing her plans to them both before she’d thought them through. ‘I’m going to enrol as soon as the college announces the new intake date and I’m going to get my Visual Arts diploma.’
‘And your tuition fees?’ Smooth as silk, he sliced through the rebirth of her old dream.
Money, time and her dad had always been the excuses for why she couldn’t chase her dreams before. Why she couldn’t go to college. Why she couldn’t take her talent and do something with it. Now her dad was gone, and time was all she had. But money...?
‘I’ll find a way. A job. Something permanent.’ She’d never had a permanent job before. Her dad had always made it difficult, and part-time work had been the only option.
At her last job—the call centre—she’d been on the phone to her boss once, about adding more shifts to her rota, and her dad had been screaming curse words in the background about something...a poor bet. And of course it had been her fault he’d lost. Her boss had told her not to come back.
But she didn’t have to worry about her dad any more—not the poor bets, or the drinking binges he’d thought he deserved for losing, or putting him back together when he’d been full of regret.
It was just her now.
‘I saw a vacancy at the local primary school before you kidnapped me from my life—for an assistant to work in early years education. Creative sessions...’
She frowned, trying to recall what the role had actually been and why it had lingered in her memory. She hadn’t thought it was possible before. Her getting a job at a school. She’d barely made it through school herself. But that had changed.
‘It was in art.’ The words exploded from her mouth. The vacancy had stayed with her because it was about art. Her dream.‘Messy play for children with additional educational needs. I like kids—’
‘When have you come into contact with children?’
‘Christmas work in retail,’ she explained. ‘Kids get bored when their parents are shopping. I talked to them.’
By accident, she’d learnt that children responded when spoken to like human beings. And it had always filled her with a sense of pride when one of the mums juggling more than one child had appreciated her intervention. She could work with children. She could! She’d combine her love of art and kids while working on her portfolio as a portrait artist.
She’d always wanted to be an artist. Her heart raced. She still could be.
Her face hardened as Akeem’s lips parted to flash a gleam of perfectly white teeth.
‘Are you laughing at me?’ she asked. Because how many times had she been laughed at in school? Called stupid for drawing nudes? For recreating the pictures she’d coveted in art books well past their due date back in the library?
Wincing, she felt memories catch her between the eyes. How hard her father had laughed when he’d found her portraits. When she’d told him about becoming a professional portraitist. When Akeem had left her behind and she’d confessed she’d attended a taster session for a diploma in Visual Arts at the local college?
He’d hidden all her art supplies then. Destroyed her work. Her memories. But she’d still had her books. He hadn’t taken those, and she’d devoured them. Repeatedly. Lost in fantasy, in fairy tale and romance.
‘No, I am smiling at your ability to surprise me. I would never laugh at your dreams.’
She gritted her teeth and tried to dismiss the response her body was having to his obvious sincerity.
‘You can do your diploma here,’ he said.
‘Here?’
‘Why not here?’ he countered. ‘I can fly in a professor of the arts to give you one-to-one tutoring. You’d get your diploma, Charlotte.’
She could get her diploma...
What choice did she have, anyway? There was nothing at home for her, but here she wouldn’t be standing still any more. She could start walking towards her dreams. Towards claiming back her identity with her art.
She could make a life to call her own.
But what kind of life would it be?
A restricted life.
A life where her husband locked his bedroom door in the name of duty.
She understood why he’d said it—that his bed was off-limits. But she could still feel it. The energy between them. The knowledge that in an instant they could both be naked and in the same situation they’d been in upstairs.
The attraction between them was powerful. She’d be a fool to deny it. But a sexless and loveless marriage sounded...painful. Emotionally. Mentally.
Was she strong enough to agree to be his Queen—to help him build a secure reputation as King—while forging forward and making her own life? If she left—went home—would she regret that she had never seized the opportunity? Squeezed every ounce of opportunity from it for herself?
Opportunity was to be had if she let herself. If she closed her heart to the people they’d been and accepted the people they were now.
And who were they?
He was a king, and she...
She was going to be selfish, wasn’t she? Bold. Live her life.
But a night of sex and marriage were two different things. If she closed herself off to the emotions raging inside her chest—if she didn’t let him in—she could be the Queen he needed and get her diploma.
Couldn’t she?
Was he even giving her a choice?
She inhaled deeply and nodded. ‘I’ll do it,’ she agreed with a firm, confident nod. ‘I’ll marry you.’
‘For the price of a diploma you’d accept the consequences of our actions...?’
Akeem sucked in a lungful of air. He didn’t get angry any more. He stayed in control of all things. At all times. But the thought that Charlotte would concede to his demand just so that she could get her diploma made him angry.
He alone wasn’t enough. He, as a man, would never be enough. Not for his father. Not for her. He was an afterthought, a consequence, a burden she would have to carry—as he always had been. He’d only ever been wanted when he had something to give.
His blood.