Duty and the Beast

And the thing that made him angrier than ever, the thing that made him steam and fume, was that for just one day, just a few short hours, he had actually believed that this marriage might work.

He’d actually believed they had something that could take this marriage beyond the realms of duty and into something entirely more pleasurable.

Fool!

He’d been blinded by sex, pure and simple. So blown away by the delights of her sweet, responsive body, he’d forgotten what he was dealing with: a skin-deep princess who wanted the entire fairy-tale, from the once-upon-a-time to the happy-ever-after. When was she going to realise this was real life, not the pages from some child’s picture book?

He paused as he came to the door of her suite, wondering if she’d already had her belongings removed and shipped. Nothing would surprise him.

He pushed open the door. It was silent inside and eerily dark with the closed curtains, only the light from the still-open door spilling in. There was no trace of her. He crossed the floor to her dressing room and tugged open the door. Nothing. She’d had them pack every single thing and wasted no time about it. They had taken every trace, until one might think she had never been here at all.

He ground his teeth together as he contemplated her mood when she had given the instructions to collect her belongings. Clearly she did not consider her return to Jemeya to be in any way temporary. Clearly she had no wish to be here. Maybe he should cut his losses and let her go. He would be well rid of her. He would have to ask Hamzah if that was an option that could be tolerated.

He was on his way out when his passing caused something to flutter, like loose papers riffling in the breeze, and he turned towards where the sound had come from. He pulled open a curtain, let light flood in and found them straight away. There were some loose papers on a desk tucked haphazardly under a blotter. He frowned, remembering a letter she’d been writing the night they’d been married when he’d come looking for her; remembering the way her fingers had shifted the pages as she’d looked down at them. The rushed packers had not done such a thorough job after all.

He pulled them out, intending to fling them in the nearest bin, when her neat handwriting caught his eye. Of course she would have neat handwriting and not some scrawl, he thought, finding yet another reason to resent her. She had probably been tutored in perfect script from an early age.

He didn’t intend to read any of it, but he caught the words ‘foolish’ and ‘naive’ and he thought she must be talking about him, compiling a list of his faults.

That would be right. She had sat here on her wedding night and made a list of his failings—and to her sister, no less. No wonder it was such a long letter.

So what did his little princess really think of him? This should be amusing.

But as he read it wasn’t amusement he felt. It was not him she was calling a fool. It was herself, for wishing she could choose a marriage partner, for ever thinking that she might one day marry a man for love, a good man who would love her for who she really was.

A ball formed in his gut, hard and heavy. He knew he shouldn’t read on, but he could not stop. And he felt sick, knowing he was not that man she had wished for, and knowing that she saw herself as flawed when life and circumstances had conspired against her, when he knew it wasn’t life she should be blaming. For he was the one at fault, he was the man who had shattered her dreams.

And he still wasn’t sure why he cared.

When had duty got tangled with desire? Maybe about the time he had realised she was who she had said she was—an innocent.

Or maybe about the time duty had tangled with need.

Aisha.

All she had wanted was a man to love her the way she should be loved. Those words had meant nothing to him before. Her hopes and wishes had been like so much water poured on sand, for they had been thrown together, strangers, and what did it matter what either of them wanted when neither of them had a choice?

But he knew her now, better than before, and seeing her thoughts written down so clearly, knowing how she’d been hurting all that time…

The ball in Zoltan’s gut grew heavier, and heavier still as he saw her call herself naive for saving herself for some mythical and ultimately non-existent male, and as she apologised to her sister for all the times she’d thought Marina had tossed her virginity away lightly, because at least she’d chosen who she’d gifted it to. For it had been hers to give, and she’d been the one to make that decision, and now Aisha applauded her, even envied her, for she would never experience that privilege.

But beyond that she was sorry, she wrote, that she had ever considered herself something special for the choice she had made. A choice that had clearly backfired spectacularly.