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“And yet you challenge it.”
“Do I?” He queried silkily, leaning his powerful frame forward. The same sense of unease crept over her, hand in hand with a throbbing low in her abdomen.
She made a small noise of agreement. “You are trying to get me to change my mind.”
“I am making sure you know your own mind,” he clarified stonily. “This marriage will not be easy for someone like you.”
“I doubt a royal marriage is easy for anyone,” she attempted to defuse the attention with a humorous observation.
“Least of all for someone who has been raised as English.”
She tilted her head to the side, in a habit she’d developed when she was deep in thought. “No, that can’t be it.”
He raised his brows to encourage her to continue.
“Tasha was also raised in London. My foreign-ness can’t explain your hostility.”
“Am I hostile?”
Her laugh was short and succinct. “Absolutely.”
He ground his teeth together. “Your cousin had a year to prepare for this. She had a natural bent for performance, and she was looking forward to taking up this role.”
Sally pursed her lips at his assertion. While Tashana had been as outgoing and confident as she’d appeared, the idea of the royal wedding had terrified her. It showed the depths of her courage that she’d agreed to it.
He didn’t notice her shift in fo
cus, and continued, “She was instructed in the ways of statehood. The arts of diplomacy and royalty. What about you?” He turned it back on her. “Why do you think you are qualified for this?”
She swallowed, but her throat remained parched. “I don’t know,” she answered finally. “I can’t say. I’m not like Tasha.” Her frown brought small lines to her forehead. “She was effortlessly unique. I don’t believe, for even a moment, that I am more qualified than she. Not for a second would I claim to have a greater right to this than she did. Tasha would have been a wonderful Emira.” Tears threatened and she swallowed bravely. “But she died before she could have the chance to prove me right.”
Sally focussed her shimmering green gaze on an arrangement of flowers on the other side of the balcony. She waited until her emotions had settled. “I am taking her place without any expectation of ever being more than a place holder.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not an idiot. I know I don’t look like her. I know I’m not attractive in the ways she was.” She shook her head slowly. “But I am an Ibarra. I have the same blood in my veins. I hope that the Sheikh’s marriage to me will do exactly what his marriage to Tasha would have.”
“Which is?” He pushed, not wanting to analyse her speech in greater detail.
“To bring peace to our people. It’s all I want. We are more alike than we are different. You grew up to the west of the mountains, and I to the east. We heard the same nursery rhymes and the same songs. Our connection to the desert and these mountains is identical. We were raised staring at the same stars. My hope is that my marriage to your sheikh will remind people of our similarities.”
He rubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw, and was quiet for a long time. His eyes were locked to hers, clashing with her gentle softness as though he might be able to break her down with the strength of his look.
The doors to the balcony were high and rounded at the top. To either side was a gold lion, modelled in a predatory stance. Their eyes glittered black, reminding her of the man opposite.
“And what of love?”
His question, after so long a stretch of silence, surprised her. “Love?” She couldn’t help the short laugh of surprise that escaped her lips.
“Yes.” He was impatient. He leaned forward and she caught a hint of his cologne.
It made her insides clench in fierce recognition. “Did the sheikh love Tashana?” The visage of her cousin clouded her eyes. She blinked to clear it.
His smile was perfunctory. “He recognised her abilities.”
Sally’s heart turned over. Be brave, she urged herself. “Abilities you do not believe I possess?”
Exasperation flitted in his eyes. “You are twenty one.”
“I’m aware of that fact,” she retorted waspishly.
“The man you are hoping to marry is twenty eight. He has spent his whole life learning to rule this country.”
