The Sheikh's Bartered Bride

“Long-term living visas?” Catherine choked out.

Lila nodded and went on. “Then of course there is the mining partnership. King Asad wants to realize the benefit of the geologist’s findings. He is convinced your father’s company is key to making that happen.”

“Mining partnership?” Catherine asked, her voice faint to her own ears.

Lila missed the question and leaned forward confidingly. “My husband thought King Asad would surely bring forth a more distant relation for the marriage alliance until he realized that as usual, his father had other benefits in mind.”

“Long-term living visas.” The words came out of her subconscious as Catherine dealt on a conscious level with the other things Lila had told her.

Lila nodded. “King Asad is a sharp negotiator.”

Catherine’s mind was still stuck on the concept that a marriage had been part of the mining deal. Her marriage? “You mean Hakim’s duty was to marry me?” Catherine whispered in dawning horror.

Lila’s brow furrowed. “Well, yes. You could put it like that.”

Catherine wondered if there was any other way of putting it. “The further benefits of my marriage to your husband’s cousin were the long-term living visas in case political dissidents made them necessary?” she asked, clarifying it in her mind as she spoke.

This time Lila did not answer, seeming to finally latch onto the fact that what she’d been saying was news to Catherine. And not welcome news.

For her part, Catherine was finding it almost impossible to wrap her mind around the idea that her marriage had been arranged as part of a business deal with Benning Excavations. That the man she believed had loved her had lied to her and tricked her. No love there.

Lila looked worried. Really worried.

Ca felt sick to her stomach and had to swallow down bile as her throat convulsed. Everyone at the dinner probably knew that she was the albatross around Hakim’s neck. Necessary for him to fulfill his duty, but not a wife he truly wanted and desired. Certainly not a loved wife.

Humiliation lanced through like a jagged edged sword.

“Does the whole family know?” she asked, needing confirmation of the worst.

Lila shook her head vehemently. “No one outside of King Asad, Abdul-Malik, my husband, Hakim and you know of the plan.”

Learning that the mortifying truth was known by only a select few did not lessen the pain threatening to engulf her in a tide of black anguish. She’d been betrayed on every level. Her father had lied to her. Her husband had lied to her. She’d been used as a means to an end by a king she’d never even met before today.

She’d been used to fulfill his duty by the man seated next to her. The swine. The no good, double-dealing… She couldn’t think of a word bad enough to describe him.

She hated him.

She hated herself more. She’d been such a fool. Twenty-four-years old and still too stupid to realize when she was being manipulated and used. Hakim did not love her. He didn’t even care about her. You didn’t use people you cared about. What did that say about her dad?

She felt another wave of sickness wash over her.

Did her mother know?

Did Felicity? No. Felicity would have told her.

“Are you all right? You’ve turned pale.” Lila’s concerned voice barely penetrated the fog of pain surrounding Catherine.

Lila leaned around Catherine. “Sheikh Hakim, I think your wife is ill.”

Hakim turned, his duplicitous face cast in a false show of concern. “Is something wrong?”

“You don’t have a heart.” Venom born from an unbearable pain laced each word. “I hate you.”

He reeled back as if she had struck him. Lila’s shocked gasp barely registered. Catherine just wanted out of there. She was breaking up, her heart shattering into jagged pieces inside her chest. She went to stand, but Hakim caught her and held her to her chair.

“What is going on?”

“Let me go.”

“No. Explain what has you so upset. ”

“You lied to me.”

“We discussed this. You understood.” Even now, he wasn’t going to admit the full truth.

“I’m the duty. You had to marry me.” Her voice rose with each successive word until she was practically shouting. “It was part of some mining deal with my father!”

Hakim’s gaze slid to Lila. “What did you tell her?”

Catherine answered for the other woman. “She told me the truth, something my husband and father did not see fit to do.”

She could hear King Asad inquiring about what the problem was. Her husband’s answer and his anger both registered in the peripheral of her consciousness. As did Lila’s profuse apologies. It was all there, but none of it was real. She couldn’t take it in.