The Sheikh's Accidental Bride (The Sheikh Wants A Wife 2)

Nadya nodded, as though she could empathize.

“And then it begins,” he continued. “Every other week my mother is asking ‘Salman, have you met any women lately?’”

Salman. There it was, at last. Just when she’d gotten too caught up in the conversation to plot ways of getting him to say it, he’d come right out with it.

She’d never met a man named Salman before. He was the sole owner of the name for her. She liked the name. She liked the way he wore it.

“Yes, parents have a way of pressuring you into making decisions you aren’t ready to make, don’t they, Salman?”

She took the opportunity to say his name immediately, even though it may have given her away if he were already suspicious. She liked the way it felt on her lips.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t ready to make it,” Salman said, backtracking. They were already back on the unsteady ground they’d found themselves on earlier, only this time, they were just a bit more comfortable with each other. They stepped out onto it together.

“So this was your parents’ idea as well, was it?” he asked, innocently enough.

Nadya hurriedly said that it was, and her eagerness brought a little smile to his lips.

“And you came willingly? Or have you been sent against your will?” He bent down close to the table and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Shall I call for the police?”

Just the idea sent an involuntary shiver down her spine. Was this illegal? Was she committing fraud?

“I’m right when I want to be, thank you very much,” she said. And she meant it. “Anyway,” she carried on, trying to distance herself from the embarrassing moment of sincerity and the terrifying idea of the police, “don’t family always kind of have you captive?”

He frowned. “I love my family,” he said.

Nadya hurried to clarify. “Oh, I love mine, too,” she said. “But that’s beside the point. Even if they want to help you… I mean, especially if they want to help you… it can sometimes feel like a bit of a trap.”

His eyes narrowed, and Nadya wished she hadn’t gone down this line. But she couldn’t stop now. “It’s like, because they know you… or… no, that’s not what I mean.” She was flailing, unsure how to say what she meant. “Don’t you feel it?” she asked. “When you’re with them? Like they’re trying to suck you in, and they’ll never let you go.”

He tilted his head from side to side, like he was knocking the thought back and forth to see where it fit. “I suppose I know the feeling you mean. But I think you value too much being let go. Sometimes it’s nice to be held onto.”

Nadya went back to her wine.

“And I think you might not value it enough.” He looked at her for a long moment, before he followed her lead and went back to his wine, as well. “You surprise me, Nadya.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I do? Good. You know, a princess can be surprising, or agreeable.”

He smiled, seeing where she was going with this. “And let me guess… you just happen to be both?”

“Oh no,” she said, with gusto. “I’m just surprising.”

FOUR

The fear of Other Nadya’s arrival began to fade from Nadya’s mind as the dinner wore on. It seemed less and less likely that she was going to arrive if she hadn’t already.

“And what about you?” he asked her, over their third course. “What did you study?”

“Political Science. But I didn’t finish.” The truth burst out of her without her meaning it to.

“Where?” he asked, and she told him. “And why didn’t you finish?”

There was a trickier subject. It would have been difficult to answer even if she hadn’t been pretending to be someone else. But now she wasn’t sure what to say. How would a Middle-Eastern royal ever feel the way that she did? How would it play with Salman if she told him how she really felt?

Maybe it was the light of the night, with the stars beginning to peek out through the glowing sky above them that made her do it. Whatever the reason, she continued. “I just realized the reasons that I got into politics weren’t something that politics can really change. Not well, anyway. Everything’s just power-mongering, isn’t it? The rich and the powerful squabbling over what they have. The people who have nothing aren’t even in the game.”

She held her breath, the stillness between them punctuated by a car horn many stories below. She prepared for him to be offended, or to tell her that she couldn’t possibly be who she said she was. But to her surprise, Salman sighed.

“I feel the same. Take you, for example.”

“Me?”

“No, I don’t mean it in a bad way,” he reassured her, seeing her nervousness at the attention. “I mean take my family choosing you as a bride for me. It didn’t matter who you really were, just what family you were a part of. It’s all loyalties, and alliances. Even now, with everything we are so fortunate to have, and all the power that my family has... Still we give our lives to defend it.”

She liked the way that he looked when he was riled up. It made him seem less like he was the perfect model of a man, and more like he was an actual, living, breathing human.

He moved on quickly, not lingering in the point of pain. “And, of course, they picked you to make sure then don’t end up with grandchildren named Tim and Julie.”

Nadya giggled a little. She wasn’t prone to giggle. The wine must be going to her head, she thought. “You should name your kids Tim and Julie, anyway,” she said. “That’ll show them.”

Salman smiled, and corrected softly: “Our kids.”

The certainty of it all hit Nadya like a shot in the dark. Here she was, admiring and dreaming. But there were things that couldn’t be changed.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve said something to upset you.”

“No… No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put a damper on the mood. You just reminded me of everything that’s happening.”

They were talking about it now, really and truly. There would be no turning back from it.

“You know, if you don’t want to do this, they can’t make you. And I’d understand. Really, I would.”

The temptation was there. It would be so easy. She could just tell him that she wanted to call it off, at least for now. Maybe she could say that she wanted to get to know him a little bit better, first – more than three days would allow. But what would that change, in the end? Maybe she would plant a seed of doubt in his mind. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe Salman’s declaration that the wedding was postponed would make its way back to the real Nadya’s family, and she would choose that point to show up.