LITMIR.BIZ

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did so. But Sophia could see that the smile did not quite reach his eyes. Formality and the business of protocol and good manners were no strangers to her, and it was easy for her to step forward to accept the good wishes of Mr Singh and his companions.

      She knew why Ash had introduced her as he had, of course. He had just made their marriage to each other official and placed it in the public domain, and now there was no going back from that declaration.

      ‘Kamir, please ask the kitchen staff to serve tea in my office,’ he instructed the waiting staff member before turning to her and saying politely, ‘Please excuse us, Sophia.’

      ‘We shall try not to keep you apart for too long,’ Mr Singh told her with a smile as the group departed.

      She was alone in the clinical vastness of the now-silent room. Alone with her sick dread of the emptiness of the future that lay ahead of her and her despair at the loss of the goal she had promised herself she would one day achieve.

      Her glance fell on her mobile and she remembered her sister’s message. Numbly she picked up her phone and quickly texted Carlotta. Am to marry Ash. And then she switched her phone off. She had too much on her mind to dare to allow herself the interruption and complication of other people’s views and input into the situation, even someone as close to her as Carlotta.

      The door opened. She looked up quickly, her heart racing, only it wasn’t Ash; it was a staff member who had come to ask her if she would care for tea or coffee.

      ‘Coffee, please.’ She thanked him, and went back to her lonely thoughts.

      In his office, even though he was doing his best to focus completely and only on what Alwar Singh had to say to him about their proposed business venture, Ash knew that in reality his thoughts and his concentration were divided. He was committed now publicly, as well as privately. Sophia would be his wife. His body responded with a surge of male heat. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, though. This marriage would be based on practicality and the need for him to have an heir. There would be no love involved. And no question of Sophia continuing with her present hedonistic lifestyle.

      Alwar Singh’s accountant was running through some of the figures that would be involved in the transformation of the currently derelict palace into a world-class hotel.

      ‘You will, of course, have a forty percent share in the hotel.’

      ‘Fifty percent,’ Ash checked her firmly. ‘That was our original agreement.’

      ‘It is Mr Singh who will be putting in most of the money and bearing the larger part of the risk.’

      ‘Not so,’ Ash contradicted her. ‘As Maharaja of Nailpur I have a responsibility towards my people and towards the cultural inheritance left to me by my ancestors. If the unique historical value of the palace is damaged in any way by its conversion to a hotel, something irreplaceable will be destroyed, not just for the present but for the future. That is my share of the risk.’

      After the meeting had concluded, his visitors left and Ash turned his concentration to the matter of making the necessary legal and practical arrangements for his marriage.

      In the drawing room of the apartment, Sophia threw aside the English language newspaper she had been attempting to read. Freed from the powerful determination of Ash’s presence her own independence was beginning to reassert itself. Her independence or her fear? What did she have to fear? She would only need to fear marriage to Ash if she was still vulnerable to him through her emotions, through the love she had once had for him, and that wasn’t the case. It was simply her desire to control her own life and to make her own decisions that was filling her with this increasing sense of urgency and need to escape. And why shouldn’t she escape? Why shouldn’t she prove to herself that she could be strong enough to claim her right to her freedom of choice. She already knew that there was no point in trying to make Ash understand how she felt. Her feelings didn’t matter to him.

      The staff member who had brought her coffee had returned and was removing the tray. Before she could change her mind, Sophia told him, ‘I’d like my case, please.’

      The man nodded his head and withdrew.

      She was running away again, she knew, but Ash had made it plain that he intended to marry her, leaving her no alternative.

      Ash had just finished putting in place the arrangements he had needed to make when one of his staff came into the office.

      ‘The Princess Sophia, she has asked for her suitcase, Highness,’ he told Ash.

      Sophia swung round when the door opened, her heart banging into her ribs when she saw that it wasn’t the man with her suitcase who had come in but Ash himself. One look at his face told her that he knew what she planned to do.

      Sophia took a deep breath. Very well, she would just have to make it clear to him that she wasn’t going to give up her freedom.

      ‘I don’t want to marry you, Ash,’ she told him. ‘I don’t think it’s the right thing for either of us.’

      Ash could feel the fierce surge of his anger slamming into him.

      ‘You are supposed to be an adult, Sophia, but you are behaving like a child—a child so selfish and self-obsessed that she thinks only of herself.’

      His accusation appalled her.

      ‘If you refuse to marry me now after I have introduced you publicly as my fiancée, the damage that will do not just to my role as the leader of my people but to those people themselves will be impossible to repair. Here in India we place great store by certain values—honour, duty, responsibility and the respect we have for our forebears, and what we owe to them in terms of the way we live our own lives.

      ‘You are the one who is responsible for the situation we are in, and you have a duty to that responsibility.’

      He was right. What he was saying was true, Sophia recognised. With his coldly angry words he had drawn for her a picture of herself that she didn’t like, and that filled her with shame.

      She gave a small jerky acknowledgement of her head, and told him shakily, ‘Very well.’

      She looked so alone and vulnerable, so in need of someone to protect her. Against his will the desire to comfort her invaded him, compelling him to take a step towards her. Abruptly he stopped himself. He had to think of his people and his duty. He had to put them first.

      ‘You give me your word that you agree that this marriage between us must take place?’ he pressed her.

      ‘Yes,’ Sophia agreed. Her mouth was so dry that the word was a papery rustle of sound.

      ‘Good. Normally it takes thirty days after one registers one’s wish to marry in a civil ceremony before that marriage can take place, but in our case that requirement has been waived and our civil marriage will take place tomorrow.’

      Tomorrow? Sophia’s heart jerked against her ribs.

      ‘I have informed your father of our plans. We have agreed that in lieu of the formal marriage ceremony we might have been expected to have, a post-wedding reception will be held later on in the year, either in Nailpur or Santina.’

      Ash reached into his pocket for the box he had picked up on his way back to the room, telling Sophia as he handed it to her, ‘I have this for you. The ring is a family heirloom and may need to be altered.’

      Sophia stared at the imposing-looking velvet-covered box with a crest embossed on it. Taking it from him, and determined not to let him see how much it hurt her that he wasn’t even attempting to make the romantic gesture of opening the box and placing the ring on her finger himself, it was all she could do to pretend to be enthusiastic. But as she opened the box she gasped at what she knew was the largest and most flawless diamond she had ever seen. Pear shaped and on a thin platinum band it had to be priceless. A family heirloom, he had called it. Did that mean …?

      ‘Was this your first wife’s engagement ring?’ she asked him, her voice and her body both stiff

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