LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Are you not?”

      “I’m American,” she said. “I met my husband...my late husband, the king, when he was at school. Now he is dead. His brother is in his place, and is set on taking a wife. One who isn’t me, thank God. But he has determined my value is in a dynastic marriage abroad. And so...here I am.”

      “Your name,” he said, because he was tired of not knowing it.

      She blinked. “You do not know my name?”

      “I have no time for trivialities, and as I am not keeping you, your name did not seem important. However, now I will have it.”

      She tilted her chin upward, her expression haughty. “Forgive me, your highness, but my name is not considered a triviality in most settings. I’m Dowager Queen Olivia of Alansund. And I had thought we were going to discuss the merits of marriage.”

      Tarek shifted in his seat, lifting his hand and smoothing his beard. “I am not entirely certain there is any merit to marriage.”

      She blinked her large luminous blue eyes. “Then, why am I here?”

      “My advisors felt that it would be beneficial for me to speak to you. I am not certain.”

      “Is there another woman you prefer?”

      He wasn’t certain how to answer the question. Because it was a foreign thought. Women had never been a part of his life. Of his exile. “No. Why do you ask?”

      “You do require an heir, I would assume.”

      She was not wrong in that. He was the last of the al-Khalij family. All that remained of a once-mighty bloodline. Curse his brother for not taking a bride. For not procreating when he had the chance. Now it would fall to Tarek, and nothing in his life had prepared him for the task. Quite the contrary, he had been told that family would be nothing more than a weakness to one such as him. He had been trained to cast off the lusts of the flesh. In order to protect his country he’d had to become something more than a man. He’d had to become a part of the rock that grew out of the dry, impassable desert. Asking him to become blood and bone again was a tall order.

      But now he was all that stood between Tahar and her enemies. All that stood between his nation and ruin. He had long been the sword for his people, but now he was the head. A duty he could no more shirk than the previous assignation.

      “Eventually.”

      “With all due respect, Sheikh, the delay in producing an heir is what finds us both here today. I failed to have a child with my husband when I could have, and your brother failed to do so, as well. Therefore I find myself displaced. My brother-in-law is as uninterested in taking me as his bride as I am in becoming her, and you are here on the throne permanently when it should likely be a nephew of yours assuming the position. If I’ve learned one thing over the past year, it’s that delay in procreation can be quite a costly error.”

      Tarek leaned back, his muscles aching. This past month in the palace had done nothing to acclimatize him to modern furnishings. He found the positions they required him to hold unnatural.

      His original assessment of this queen, Olivia, was that she was fragile. He was beginning to wonder if he had been blinded by appearances. He knew better than that.

      A man who had spent as many years out in the desert as he had knew better than to trust his eyes alone. Mirages were more than the stuff of legend. As he well knew.

      In the desert you were far more likely to find sand than any respite from the heat. Still, when news of Malik’s death had been brought to him by the leader of the Bedouin tribe he spent some of his time with, he had been reluctant to return.

      What could he offer the country as a diplomat? This country that was a part of his soul. A nation left devastated by his brother’s rule. By the loss of his parents all those year ago to an assassin’s bullets.

      This country he had sworn to protect at all costs. Because it was all that remained. The throne, the protection of Tahar, were the very reasons his parents had lost their lives.

      Which was why he had to return. Why he had to rule. Why he had to continue on. Why he had to heal this nation left broken and in ruins by Malik.

      And why, no matter how distasteful it might seem, he had to consider the merit of taking a bride. One who would fill in the gaps he could not.

      “On that you present a well-made point. And yet, I have other options. At the very least I have proved I am much more difficult to kill than my brother.”

      She arched her pale brow. “Is anyone actively trying to disprove that? Because my own safety is paramount in my mind. If you have enemies, I find it won’t do to put myself, or any potential children, in that sort of situation.”

      “I appreciate your self-interest. However, my brother’s death was nothing more than an accident. There are no enemies. Any detractors he might have had he dealt with harshly. None remain.”

      “The manner of ruling ensures that many in fact remain. It’s just they are silenced. Hopefully, you do not bear the brunt of their anger.”

      “I am not Malik. I do not intend to follow his example.” Far from it. He intended to rule for the people, not for himself. Malik had intimidated the masses. Had ignored the economy. Had turned a blind eye while people starved. Spent money on lavish parties and bought jewels and penthouses for his latest courtesan. He had served no master but his own lust, and Tarek refused to walk down that same path.

      Far better to resent power than to crave it. As Tarek now knew his brother had done from when he was a very young man. As he had learned in greater depth since he’d returned.

      His brother was a murderer. Thankfully, now a dead one.

      She nodded slowly. “I see. Change can cause its own issues.”

      “You speak as though you have experience with this.”

      Pale pink lips curved upward. She was such a refined creature. Foreign to him. He had spent very little time in the company of women, less so women such as this.

      The females who populated the Bedouin camps he frequented were strong, accustomed to a harsh way of life. To fending off the elements and intruders, both from nature and enemy factions. They were not like this ridiculous and impractically designed specimen before him. Willowy, slim, with a neck that was too long and fragile in his estimation. She appeared far too easily broken.

      “My husband made quite a few changes when he took the throne. He was responsible for a great deal of modernization. Alansund was one of the more outdated countries in Scandinavia and King Marcus did quite a lot to change that.” She swallowed, that lovely, impractical throat working. “Change is always painful.”

      He nodded slowly. “And your country faces another change. A new king.”

      “Yes. Though I trust Anton will do his best for the country. He’s a good man, my brother-in-law.”

      “Not good enough for you to marry?”

      “He is involved with someone else and wishes to marry her. Anyway, it’s a bit biblical. Taking your dead brother’s wife. Not to mention, it didn’t settle well with me.”

      Tarek could not imagine why she would find that specifically objectionable. He tried to imagine what it might have been like if Malik had been in possession of a wife. He couldn’t fathom why it should be more distasteful than any other method of acquiring a sheikha. It didn’t matter to him who the woman had been married to previously.

      But then, he had to acknowledge his ignorance when it came to relationships between men and women. Perhaps, it was one of those things that escaped him due to the singular nature of his existence prior to coming back to live in the palace.

      “It was he who sent you here? Your brother-in-law?”

      She nodded slowly, taking a step toward the throne, the sound of her shoes on the black marble unique to his ears.

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