The Sheikh's Bartered Bride

Ebony eyes compelled her to agree.

She wanted to, if only to stop the drumbeat of pain remorselessly pulsing through her. She tried to stifle a whimper, but the broken sound escaped her.

He groaned and pulled her to him. “Why I asked you to marry me is unimportant,” he said, speaking into her hair. “The only thing that matters now is that we are married. We can be very happy together.”

He was wrong. So wrong. “It is important.”

“No.” His hand brushed her back. “Many marriages are arranged among my people and they are very happy. It is what we give to our marriage that will determine what it becomes for us. Trust me, jewel of my heart.”

She’d been listening right up to that moment, wondering if he was right. Wishing it could be so, but it couldn’t.

“I can’t trust you.” And she wasn’t the jewel of his heart. He didn’t love her, therefore she had no place in his heart. Rage borne of betrayal welled up in her. She pushed on his chest. “Get away from me!”

Again he had that look like she’d smacked him. “I am your husband. You will not speak to me like that.”

His arrogance wasn’t in the least attractive at the moment.

“You’re only my husband until I get home and file for divorce.” What that wouldn’t do to all his uncle’s and her father’s machinations.

She supposed that none of them had taken into account the possibility that the worm would turn. They probably thought that she’d stay married to man who had lied to her and manipulated her. After all, what else did she have to look forward to?

She might not be the kind of woman who haunted men’s dreams, but that didn’t mean she was willing to live the nightmare of loving someone whose whole purpose is pursuing her had been to use her.

He jumped to his feet and towered over her. “You do not mean that. I will not allow it.”

“I don’t know how things work in Jawhar,” she said with dripping sarcasm, her heart hemorrhaging with grief, “but back home I can file for divorce without the approval of my sheikh husband.” Or her deceiving father for that matter.

“You are tired. You are not thinking rationally.” He rolled his shoulders as if trying to lessen the tension surrounding them.

She could have told him it wouldn’t work. Nothing would work. The tension was born of anguish and it was anguish that had no respite.

“You’re wrong. I’m thinking more rationally than I have for the past six weeks.”

He shook his head, as if he could negate her words. “You need to rest. We will not discuss this further right now.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. Was he for real? Okay, maybe that was the way things worked in Jawhar, though she took leave to doubt it. But he’d gone to school in both France and America, both countries hotbeds of feminism. And although she had never considered herself a raving feminist, that didn’t mean she was going to let her husband treat her like a child.

“That’s it? You say we aren’t going to talk about it and I’m supposed to shut up and go to bed?”

He rubbed his hand over his face. “That is not what I meant, Catherine. If it pleases you, I am tired, as well, I would be most grateful if could wait to discuss this further until we have both had a chance to sleep.”

As hard as she tried, she could not detect a single note of sarcasm or condensation in his voice. He looked tired, too. Considering how little sleep they’d had the night before and the way they had spent the afternoon, she could even understand why.

But a cynical doubt needled her already agitated brain. Was he just trying to take their battle to a location he had shown his mastery in so well already?

If he was, he had a rude shock coming.

“You’re right. I am tired.” And heartsick. “I would like to go to bed.”

He looked relieved.

“But there is no way on this earth I’m sleeping with you.” She said each word as it were its own sentence, spacing them succinctly so there could be no confusion about her intentions.

“You are my wife.”

She didn’t feel like a wife right now. She felt like a dupe. “I’m your means to an end,” she derided.

His body tightened and he pulled himself to his full height, his chilling expression of outrage making him look bigger than his already tall six feet two inches.

“You are my wife.” He gritted out between clenched teeth, more angry than she had ever seen him. “Several hundred guests bear witness that this is so. I have legal documents that state you are no longer Miss Catherine Benning, but Catherine bin Hakim al Kadar. Do not ever say you are not my wife or attempt to deny my name.”