He wasn’t talking about marriage toher. Yet a strange shivery feeling rippled down her spine and curled into her belly like large fingers digging deep. Her skin prickled all over and heat eddied in disturbing places.
‘I’m sure that will be no problem.’ She forced a smile. ‘You’ll have your pick of eligible women.’
And Karim didn’t need a crown or wealth to attract them. He was handsome, urbane and, she knew to her cost, charming. He could coax the birds from the trees if he set his mind to it. No wonder she, so unworldly and inexperienced at twenty-two, had been taken in, thinking his attentions meant something special.
‘I don’t need to pick when there’s one obvious choice.’
His crystalline gaze locked on hers and his voice deepened to a baritone note she felt vibrate through her bones.
‘The Queen of Assara.’
His words were clear. Safiyah heard them, and yet she told herself Karim had said something else. He couldn’t really mean—
‘You, Safiyah.’
‘Me?’ Her voice rose to a wobbly high note.
Once she’d believed he wanted to marry her, that he cared for her. Her father had been sure too. And so had Karim’s father. He’d permitted her and her father to stay at the Za’daqi palace even while, as they’d discovered later, he was in the final stages of terminal illness.
But when a family emergency had dragged her and her father back to Assara everything had fallen apart. Karim hadn’t farewelled them. Nor had he responded to the note she’d left him. A note she’d written and rewritten. There’d been no attempt to contact her since. Just…nothing. Not a single word. When she’d tried to contact him at the palace she’d been fobbed off.
Then had come the news that Karim’s father had died. To everyone’s amazement Karim had renounced the throne and left Za’daq. Even then she’d waited, refusing to believe he’d really abandoned her. Days had turned into weeks. Weeks to months. And still no word. And over those months her faith in him had shrivelled and turned into hurt, disbelief and finally anger.
Even at the last moment, when she’d been cornered in a situation she’d never wanted, a small, irrepressible part of her had hoped he’d step in and stop—
‘Safiyah?’
She blinked and looked into that dark gaze. Once those eyes had glowed warm and she’d read affection there. Now they gave nothing away. The coldness emanating from him chilled her to the core.
‘You want to marryme?’ Finally she managed to control her vocal cords. The words emerged husky but even.
‘Want…?’ Forehead crinkling, he tilted his head as if musing on the idea. But the eyes pinioning hers held nothing like desire or pleasure. His expression was calculating.
That was what gave Safiyah the strength to sit up, spine stiff, eyebrows raised, as if his answer was only of mild interest. As if his patent lack of interest in her as a potential wife, a woman and a lover, didn’t hurt.
She wouldnotlet him guess the terrible pain his indifference stirred. Everything inside her shrivelled. Bizarre that, even after his rejection years before, part of her had obstinately clung to the idea that he’d cared.
‘You’re right. No sensible man wouldwantto marry a woman who ran out on him like a thief in the night.’
She gaped at the way he’d twisted the past. How dared he? Hearing the devastating news of her sister’s attempted suicide, ofcourseSafiyah and her father had gone to her immediately. Her father had made their apologies for the sudden departure, referring to a family emergency. Safiyah had assumed she’d have a chance to explain to Karim personally later.
Except he’d refused to take her calls. He’d led her on to believe he cared, then dumped her, and now he was pretending she’d been the one at fault!
‘Now, look here! I—’
‘Not that it matters now. The past is dead, not worth discussing.’ He sliced the air with a decisive chopping motion, his expression cold. ‘As for wanting marriage now… Perhapsneedis a better word.’ He opened those wide shoulders and spread his hands in a fatalistic gesture.
‘I can’t see your logic.’
Safiyah’s voice was clipped, that of a woman ostensibly in control. She wouldn’t demean herself by rehashing the past. He was right. It was over. She should count herself lucky she’d discovered Karim’s true nature when she had. He hadn’t been the paragon she’d believed.
‘There’s no reason for us to marry.’
‘You don’t think so?’ He shook his head. ‘I disagree. Despite what your law says, even the most optimistic supporter couldn’t expect me to take the throne of Assara without a ripple. I’m a foreigner, an unknown quantity. You’ve said yourself that there are political undercurrents and rivalry in the country’s ruling elite. To overcome those an incoming ruler would need to show a strong link to Assara and to the throne.’
He paused, watching her reaction. Now, with a sinking heart, Safiyah understood where he was going. And it made a horrible sort of sense.
‘What better way of showing my respect for Assara and cultivating a sense of continuity than to marry the current Queen?’