Karim hadn’t come closer, yet his voice curled around her. She stiffened and moved to the window, needing distance from his looming presence. She looked out at the sprinkle of lights in the darkness, where the town bled down the slope towards the lake.
‘What if you have children? Wouldn’t you want them to inherit? I can’t believe you’d put your own flesh and blood second to someone else’s.’
Safiyah spun around to find him watching her, his expression intense yet impenetrable. Before she could puzzle over it he spoke.
‘Don’t worry, Safiyah, I won’t foist any bastard children on you.’
His tone cut like a blade and his brow wrinkled into a scowl, making her wonder at the depth of his anger. For anger there was, vibrating through the thickening atmosphere.
Safiyah tried to fathom it. Even when she’d told him he could forget about sharing her bed she hadn’t sensed fury like this.
Then, as abruptly as it had surfaced, it disappeared.
‘So, you agree to marry me?’
He still didn’t approach. Didn’t attempt to woo her with soft words or tender caresses.
Safiyah told herself she was grateful.
‘I…’ The words stuck in her throat. Duty, maternal love, patriotism—all demanded she say yes. Yet it was a struggle to conquer the selfish part of her that wanted something for herself. Finally she nodded. ‘Yes. If you take the throne, I’ll marry you.’
She hadn’t expected a display of strong emotion, but she’d expectedsomethingto show he appreciated her sacrifice. Even a flicker in that stern expression.
She got nothing.
‘Good. We’ll travel to Assara tomorrow.’
Karim kept his tone brisk, masking the momentary flash of emotion that struck out of nowhere and lodged like a nail between his ribs.
He inhaled, drawing on a lifetime’s training in dismissing inconvenient feelings. He didn’tdosentiment.
‘Tomorrow?’
Her eyes rounded. Almost as if she didn’t want this. Didn’t wanthim.
‘I’ll accept the Council’s offer in person. Now I’ve decided there’s no time to be lost. There’s no point giving Shakroun any opportunity to build more support.’
It would be a long, tough road ahead, establishing himself as Sheikh in a foreign country. Karim was under no illusions about that. But excitement burgeoned at the prospect. It was the work he’d been bred to, the work he’d missed even if he hadn’t allowed himself to admit it.
And nor was it just the work he looked forward to.
He watched Safiyah watching him and kept his face studiously blank. It wouldn’t do to let her guess that one of the benefits in acting quickly was to secure her.
Purely for political reasons, of course.
Yet Safiyah unsettled him more than she should. Thoughts of her had interfered with his decision-making and he’d kept following her around the room as if his body refused to follow the dictates of his brain. Baser impulses ruled—impulses driven by the organ between his legs and the urgent need to claim what he’d once so desired.
Thathadto be the reason for his current fixation. He’d once been prepared to offer Safiyah everything—his name, his loyalty, his wealth. Now he had the opportunity to claim what he’d been denied.
Relief dribbled through him. It was good to have a sane explanation for this urgent attraction.
A powerful throb of anticipation pulsed through him. That kiss, brief as it had been, had proved the attraction was there, stronger than ever.
‘What are you thinking?’
She repeated his own question, her eyes narrowed and her chin lifted, as if she’d read the direction of his thoughts and didn’t like it. That surprised Karim. He’d long ago learned to hide his thoughts.
‘Just thinking about my priorities when we get to Assara.’ He paused. ‘I’ll instruct my lawyers to draw up the adoption papers with the marriage contract.’