“You say you will protect me, but you forget what I’m sacrificing...my independence, my career, my friends, my hopes, my dreams.” She shook her head. “But how do I know you will truly protect me? How do I know I can trust you when you use your power to subjugate my will?”
He looked at her, eyebrows lifted. “Because I’ve given you my word. My word is law.”
“In Saidia, maybe. But I’m not Arab or Bedouin. I’m American. And my father said many things, but as we both know, he meant none of them. Damien said more things, promising me love and safety and security, and he didn’t mean them, either. So no, I don’t trust you. But that’s because I don’t trust men. How can I? Why should you be any different?”
He didn’t speak, but this time he was listening. Carefully. Closely.
“You want a good wife,” she said breathlessly. “Well, I want a good husband. I want a kind husband. You say you have integrity and strength. How do I know that? You must allow me to discover the truth myself. You need to allow me to develop trust. And that will take time. You must give me time to prove you are indeed a good man, a strong man, not a liar or a cheat.” She pressed her lips together to stop them from trembling. “I understand that my family owes your family something. But I think you owe me something.”
“You will have my wealth, and more riches than you can imagine.”
“I don’t want riches! Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Her fist went to her chest. “And I want happiness. This last year has been awful. Damien didn’t break me, but he broke my heart. He hurt me so badly and I’m not ready for more pain.”
“So what do you want?”
“Hope,” she whispered. “I want hope.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want to believe that if this...marriage...is not good for me, if you are not good for me, you will set me free.”
He said nothing. She could tell she’d surprised him. Caught him off guard.
“I cannot spend my life here in Saidia an unhappy hostage. I can’t imagine you’d want such a woman for your wife, either. For that matter, I can’t imagine your mother would want you to make your wife so terribly unhappy.”
“Do you know anything of my mother?” he asked, his voice sharp.
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then maybe it’s time you learned who I am, and where I’ve come from. Follow me.”
Jemma trailed after Mikael as he exited the courtyard. They traveled through a maze of hallways. Every time she was sure he’d turn right, he turned left. When she anticipated him turning left, he went right. The Kasbah halls seemed to be circular. It made no sense to her.
Finally he stopped in a spacious hall topped with a skylight and opened the tall door. “This is my personal wing,” he said. “It includes a bedroom, office and living room, so I can work when here, should I need to.”
She followed him through the tall door into a handsome living room. Wooden panels had been pulled back from the trio of windows and sunlight flooded the room, making the pair of low sapphire velvet couches glow and the gold painted walls shimmer.
They continued through the living room into another room, this one also bright with natural light as one entire wall was made of glass doors.
The room itself was sparsely furnished, the buff stone walls unpainted, and the plush carpet beneath her feet intricately woven of pale gold, faded blue, and a coral pink.
A low couch was on one side of the room while an enormous dark wood desk inlaid with pearl dominated the other side, positioned to face glass doors with the view of a spacious, but Spartan courtyard.
He crossed the floor to the desk, opened a drawer, and drew out a small jeweled picture frame. He held the frame out to her. “This is my mother at twenty-three, just two years younger than you are now.”
She took the frame from him. The woman was young and blonde and very beautiful. She had straight bangs and high, elegant cheekbones. Her long hair hid one shoulder and her blue eyes were smiling, laughing, up at the camera.
“She’s...so fair,” Jemma said, brows tugging as she studied the laughing beautiful girl with straight white-blonde hair.
“She was American.”
Jemma’s head jerked up. Her gaze met his.
He nodded once. “Your mother was descended from a Mayflower family. So was my mother. She was American as apple pie.”
Jemma felt a lump grow in her throat. She looked back down at the photo, noting the girl’s swimsuit and cover up and the blue of the sea behind her. “Where was this taken?”
“The Cote d’Azur. My father met her when she was on holiday with friends in Nice. My father swept her off her feet. They were married within months of meeting.”
“She’s so beautiful.”
“She was young and romantic and in love with my father...as well as in love with the idea of becoming Saidia’s queen.”
Jemma handed the framed photo to him. He put it back in the drawer. “My father betrayed her trust,” he said quietly. “And then your father betrayed her trust. Which is why I promise you, I will not betray you. I am a man of my word. And if I vow to provide for you properly, I will. Over time our marriage will hopefully heal the rift between families and countries. It won’t be immediate. It might not even happen in our generation, but I hope that it will be better for our children.” He studied her, expression fierce, resolute. “We begin our journey as husband and wife tonight, by sharing our first meal together in the Bridal Palace.”
Jemma’s throat ached. She felt close to tears. “Would your mother approve of what you’re doing?”
“Leave her out of this.”
“How can I?” she choked. “You don’t!”
“One day you will understand the importance of honor. One day when we have our children—”
“No!”
“That is fair. You are right. I will save the talk of children for later. Instead let us focus on tonight, and how we shall retreat to the Bridal Palace, for the first of our eight nights. For the next eight nights, I will pleasure you.”
“And what happens after that eighth night?” Jemma asked tartly. “Do you disappear into your suite? Return to Buenos Aires? What happens then?”
“You are in control for the next eight nights. You get to pick a different pleasure each evening, or the same pleasure, or...no pleasure.”
She frowned, not understanding.
He saw her expression, correctly reading her confusion. “According to Saidia law, the first eight nights are the groom’s. The next eight nights are the bride’s. The Saidia bride doesn’t have to take her husband into her room, or her bed, for any of the next eight nights, unless she wants to. What happens during the second eight nights is entirely her choice.”
“What is the point of that?” Jemma asked.
“It was to teach a randy bridegroom not to be selfish in bed, and provide an incentive for the groom to be patient and tender with his new bride, pleasuring her so thoroughly that she’ll hunger for her husband’s touch.”
Jemma’s cheeks were on fire again. Heat coursed through her, her skin prickled, suddenly almost too sensitive.
Mikael’s dark eyes met hers. “And I assure you, I intend to please you so thoroughly you’ll beg me to return to your bed for every night of your eight nights.”
She drew a slow breath, head spinning. Everything inside of her felt tight, tense.
“I have never heard of any honeymoon being so purely...carnal and erotic.”
“It might sound like that, until you remember that most royal brides brought here were innocent virgins, carried here against their will. As I told you, it was customary for the royal groom to kidnap a bride from one of the rival desert tribes. The honeymoon was his chance to win his bride’s affection, and loyalty, before he took her home with him. But, if he couldn’t win her affections by the end of the sixteen days, then she could leave him without repercussions or shame.”
That last bit caught Jemma’s attention. “She could choose to go home?”
“If he couldn’t make her happy in their sixteen days together.” He reached out, stroked the sweep of her cheekbone, making her skin tingle. “I will please you,” he said, quietly, decisively. “I promise to satisfy you completely.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed, heart pounding. She’d loved Damien and she’d been quite sure Damien had loved her, but he’d never been overly concerned with pleasing her. Pleasuring her.
She couldn’t quite get her head around the idea that Mikael was promising to satisfy her completely.
Sexually.
Fulfilling her every fantasy.
“You are making a lot of promises,” she said unevenly, her mouth drying.
“They are promises I fully intend to keep.”
“I worry that you are...unrealistic.”