‘Now you’re being ridiculous. It’s not as if you don’t have anything to wear.’ He headed for the bathroom. He’d wasted enough time on this meaningless discussion. If she’d played her cards right, they could have used their time much more productively. He turned at the door. ‘This is my brother’s coronation. You are going to be my wife. There will be no standing at the back. You are family now, and I expect you by my side. Is that understood?’
The conversation troubled him, even as he breakfasted with Kareef, even as he should have been focusing on his brother’s words and his needs. But Kareef seemed strangely at odds with himself too, and uninterested in Rafiq’s half-hearted talk of contracts with the tribespeople of Marrash. Or was that just because he found it hard to regain the enthusiasm for his own success after this morning’s strange conversation with Sera? It was certainly not the way he intended waking up with Sera again.
News of their impending marriage would have snagged Kareef’s attention, he was sure. But today was Kareef’s day, and there was nothing he would do to deflect attention from that. There would be time for that announcement later. Not that Kareef didn’t look as if he could do with some cheering up. Maybe if Tahir had managed to make it in time, as he’d promised? But their younger brother was nothing if not scrupulously unreliable, and, sadly, there seemed scant possibility he’d show up now.
An onshore breeze caught them as they crossed the courtyard, whipping at his robes as he walked side by side with his brother, and the cries of the crowd outside the gates interfered with his tangled thoughts. Once again he’d made the decision to don the robes of his countrymen. It was not so much to ask, he’d decided. Not so much of a stretch as he’d imagined. Maybe there were some parts of Qusay he didn’t need to forget.
Sera had turned out to be one of them.
He frowned. Would she be waiting for him inside the ancient ruin? Or had whatever had been troubling her this morning swung her mind, and she was hiding somewhere in the cloistered shadows, as she’d clearly been intending?
It didn’t make sense. Cerak had been taken care of. So what was her problem?
Today Sera had reluctantly chosen the peacock-blue gown from Marrash to wear. She had fingered her black abayas lovingly, wishing she could hide under one of those, and hopefully go unnoticed and unrecognised, but Rafiq would be upset, she knew, and already today she had angered him. And now there was colour all around her, a multitude of guests dressed in finery from one hundred nations, and still she felt achingly conspicuous as she sat in the seat Akmal had arranged for her, so close to the front that she could feel a thousand eyes at her back, a butterfly for each pair flitting inside her. She kept her own eyes to the front, not wanting to meet any of them, managing an awkward smile only when the Sheikha caught her eye. Her lover’s mother! What must she think? She wished Rafiq would get here, so that she could at least hide herself against him. He had defended her against Cerak, made sure she could not hurt her again. He made her feel safe.
She took a deep breath, tried to settle her jittery stomach and cool her damp palms. Soon he would take her away from here. Far away from Qusay and the palace and any chance of running into someone from her past. She could hardly wait.
The sound of trumpets filled the air and the crowd hushed, heads swivelling around to where the official party gathered at the back. Relief quelled her flighty stomach. Rafiq would be among them. Soon he would be here. But for now she resisted the temptation of turning her head, waiting until the party had made their way almost to the front before she dared glance behind her.
Her gaze never made it to the official party. He was staring at her, the ambassador from Karakhistar, his burgundy sash stretched across a white dress shirt that looked a size too small for his spreading paunch. But it was the sneering look of contempt on his face that turned her stomach. The nervous butterflies were now massive moths, writhing in their death throes inside her. And she remembered the night when Hussein had ordered her to sit alongside the ambassador, her breasts practically spilling from the near-transparent top Hussein had insisted she wear, and how he had reached for her greedily, with pudgy fingers, thinking she was the entertainment, before Hussein had bundled him unceremoniously out—only to make her watch while he had tried and failed to achieve the same level of arousal as his guest, cursing her for her failure to stimulate him.
She dropped her head, her hand going over her mouth, sweat beading at her brow. She was so glad now that her heaving stomach was empty, that there was nothing to lose, nothing to further humiliate herself with. And suddenly Rafiq was there alongside her, his arm around her back.