The ridge of his jaw became more pronounced. “That is not possible.”
“Your jet is broken?”
Rather than respond to the sarcasm in her question, he answered it as if it had not been rhetorical. “No.”
“Then I don’t see the problem.”
“Do you not?” The silky menace in his tone reminded her that this was a man who had been trained since birth to exercise a great deal of authority.
Still, “No,” she insisted stubbornly.
“Have you forgotten the wedding ceremony among my grandfather’s people?” He asked the question conversationally, as if they were discussing their social schedule rather than the end of one of the shortest marriages on record.
She wasn’t about to play the hypocrite. “It would be ridiculous to go through yet another wedding ceremony when I intend to go home and file for a divorce, don’t you think?”
That elicited a reaction, albeit a subtle one. His entire body tensed as if prepared for battle. “There will be no divorce.” So decreed Sheikh Hakim bin Omar al Kadar.
“I don’t see how you can stop me.” She wasn’t one of his subjects.
The expression on his face said she didn’t have a very efficient imagination and as much as it shamed her, she shivered. “I mean it, Hakim. I won’t stay married to a man who sees me as nothing more than a convenient means to an end.”
“You are not a convenience. You are my wife.”
“So, you keep saying. Funny, I don’t feel like a wife.”
Something feral moved in his eyes. “I can take care of that small problem.”
She knew just what he meant and she shook her head vehemently. “I’m not going there again.”
“Where?” he asked in a honeyed drawl that made her wish she was fully dressed and sitting across a table from him, not a small breakfast tray.
Nevertheless, she refused to let him see how intimidated she felt. “Bed,” she said bluntly.
“But we are very compatible in bed.” His fingers brushed down the curve of her breast.
She sucked in air, but it didn’t help the goose bumps instantly forming on her flesh or the tightening of two erogenous bumps she hoped did not show through the blankets. Her heart felt dead inside her, why didn’t her body follow suit?
“That’s sex and I’m sure you’ve been compatible with other women before.”
“Never like with you.”
She wished she could believe him. It would have been some small assuagement for her lacerated pride. But after yesterday, she didn’t trust anything he said. “Tell it to the marines.”
“He laughed at that, though it was a harsh sound. I have no interest in making love to anyone but you.”
“It’s not making love when you don’t love me.”
His superior smile mad her want to scream. “Then what is it?”
“Sex, or if you’d rather…” She said a blunt Anglo-Saxon term she had never used before in her life. Then she picked up her croissant and forced herself to take a bite to show she wasn’t affected by the conversation.
“Crudeness is unbecoming in you.”
She finished chewing her food before speaking. “I’m not interested in what you find becoming. Not any more.”
With a gesture of frustration, he stood up. “Enough.”
She glared at him. “You can’t order me around like a child.”
“Why not? You are behaving like one.”
“In what way am I acting childishly?” She demanded.
“You are happy married to me. You love me, yet you threaten to dissolve our marriage on the flimsiest pretext.”
“I do not consider your betrayal a flimsy excuse!”
“I did not betray you!”
She’d never heard him shout before. She didn’t like it.
He took a visible hold on his temper. “When we married, you were so filled with joy, you glowed.”
She opened her mouth, but he held his hand up.
“Do not deny it.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good. Finally, we move forward.”
“I’m not happy now.”
“That is apparent, but not something that cannot be changed.”
“It will never change,” she said with all the despair eating away at her emotions. She’d been happy because she believed the man she loved also loved her. He didn’t. End of joy.
He shook his head, the movement decisive. “This I do not believe.”
“It may come as a shock to you, but being used by both my father and my husband does not make me happy and since that reality cannot be altered, I don’t know how you expect my feelings to change.”
Time was supposed to heal all wounds, or so the old saying went, but right at that moment the future stretched forth in one bleak ribbon of pain.