The Sheikh's Convenient Bride

He knew. She’d begun the day an outcast, a modern-day Rapunzel locked away in the castle of a wicked magician, and ended it the wife of a sheikh.

His wife.

His pretend wife. He had to keep remembering that. The ceremony had been real enough, for Ahmet’s people. Real enough for him, had he chosen to let it be so, but that didn’t mean they were actually bound together in marriage.

The words they’d spoken weren’t in his wife’s language. The ceremony wasn’t part of his wife’s culture.

He wasn’t the man his wife would have chosen for her husband.

And, damn it, she wasn’t his wife.

How come he kept forgetting that?

Caz took a deep breath, then exhaled it slowly. Because he wanted her, that was how come. He’d wanted her from the first time he’d set eyes on her, sharp tongue, fiery temper and all. And now she was his.

How was a man supposed to remember he had no right to touch his bride on their wedding night? The moon was climbing the sky, casting its shy light through the window. The fire was as hot as his blood, the bed an invitation. He imagined what it would be like to undress her by the light of all those candles, watch as they cast shadows on her skin, as he exposed her to his eyes…

Hell.

Caz swung away. He was a man of discipline. A sheikh who had long ago learned to ignore his own needs when he had to. Surely, he could keep his hands off his wife for one night.

His wife, he thought again, and he knotted his hands, dug them deep into his trouser pockets and walked to the far side of the room, deliberately putting as much distance as possible between himself and the woman he could not think of as his bride.

“All right,” he said briskly. “I’ll take some of those blankets and pillows and make myself a bed on the floor.”

“You don’t have to. I trust you. You can sleep…”

“No,” he said sharply. “That wasn’t part of our deal. I’ll sleep on the floor. You sleep in the bed. And at first light, I’ll take you away from here. All this will be over, Megan. We won’t have to pretend this is the way we wanted things to be.”

He almost told her more. That if he lay down in that bed with her, nothing would keep him from taking her.

But this was a charade. She wasn’t his. She never could be.

So he tossed some pillows and blankets on the floor, went from candle to candle, snuffing out all but half a dozen nearest the bed so she wouldn’t be trapped in the dark. Then he got beneath the blankets and turned his back to her.

“Get some sleep,” he said gruffly. “You need it.”

She didn’t answer, but he hadn’t expected her to. By now, she was probably terrified. The strange ceremony. The wild dancing. All of it must have struck her as barbaric.

Caz heard the whisper of silk, the creak of the mattress and shut his eyes to the images that danced through his head. His bride was in bed. He was on the floor. Damn Ahmet, anyway. Damn tradition, and custom, and the world itself.

What good was a kingdom when what a man wanted was—when the only thing he wanted was…

His wife.

CHAPTER TEN

HE HADN’T thought he could sleep but exhaustion reached up, dragged him down into the darkness.

Caz slept. He must have slept, because the next thing he knew, the few candles still lit were sputtering, moonlight filled the room…

And his wife stood by the window, weeping.

Caz was off the floor in a heartbeat. “Sweetheart?”

She kept her back to him, shook her head and fluttered her hands in that way women had of saying Don’t, stay away, I’m fine. But he didn’t believe it, not for a minute, and

when he reached her, he took her gently by the shoulders and turned her to him.