LITMIR.BIZ

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face more deeply indented, but his dark eyes remained as bright and full of snapping intelligence as ever.

      ‘Sit down, Raj,’ the King instructed. ‘We have much to discuss but little time in which to do it.’

      Raj folded lithely down opposite and waited patiently while the server ritually prepared the coffee from a graceful metal pot with a very long spout. He took the tiny cup in his right hand, his long brown fingers rigid as he waited for one of his father’s characteristic tirades to break over his head. Tahir was an authoritarian parent and had become even more abrasive and critical after the death of his third wife, Raj’s mother. Sadly, that had been the period when Raj had been most in need of comfort and understanding and, instead of receiving that support, Raj had been sent to a military school where he was unmercifully bullied and beaten up. From the instant Raj had left school, he and his father had had a difficult relationship.

      ‘I knew that Omar would run to you for help. He never had a thought in his head that you didn’t put there first,’ Tahir remarked fondly. ‘We will not discuss the past, Raj. That would lead us back to dissension.’

      ‘I’m sorry, but this woman...’ Raj began even though he knew the interruption was rude, because he was so keen to find out why his father had acted as he had and had risked an enormous scandal simply to take his brother down a peg or two.

      ‘You never did have a patient bone in your body.’ Tahir sighed. ‘Have sufficient respect to listen first. I want you home, Raj, back where you belong, as my heir.’

      Raj was stunned. For a split second he actually gaped at the older man, his brilliant dark eyes shimmering with astonishment and consternation.

      His father moved a hand in a commanding gesture to demand his continuing silence. ‘I will admit no regrets. I will make no apologies. But had I not sent you away, my foolish brother would never have plotted to take your place,’ he pointed out grimly. ‘For eight years I have watched you from afar, working for Maraban, loyally doing your best to advance our country’s best interests. Your heart is still with our people, which is as it should be.’

      Raj compressed his lips and gazed down into his coffee, dumbfounded by the very first accolade he had ever received from his strict and demanding parent.

      ‘Do you want to come home? Do you wish to stand as the Crown Prince of Maraban again?’

      A great wash of longing surged through Raj and his shoulders went stiff with the force of having to hold back those seething emotions. He swallowed hard. ‘I do,’ he breathed hoarsely.

      ‘Of course, my generosity must come at a price,’ the King assured him stiffly.

      Unsurprised by that stricture, Raj breathed in deep and slow. ‘I don’t care who I marry now,’ he declared in a driven undertone, hoping that that was the price his father planned to offer him. ‘That element of my life is no longer of such overriding importance to me.’

      ‘So, no longer a romantic,’ his father remarked with visible relief. ‘That is good. A romantic king would be too soft for the throne. And it is too late to turn you into a soldier. But your marriage... On that score I cannot compromise.’

      ‘I understand,’ Raj conceded flatly, shaking his hand to indicate that he did not want another cup of coffee, for any appetite for it had vanished. Sight unseen, some bride of good birth would be chosen for him and he and his bride would have to make a practical marriage. It would be a compromise, a challenge. Well, he was used to challenges even if he wasn’t very good at compromises, he acknowledged grimly. But he would have to learn, and fast, because it was unlikely he would have much in common with the bride chosen for him.

      ‘I should thank Hakem for bringing the Fotakis girl to my attention because I didn’t even know she existed,’ the King mused with unconcealed satisfaction. ‘I was outraged when I realised what my brother was planning to do. I was even more outraged when I realised that I had no choice but to approach Fotakis himself...the man who stole the beautiful Azra from me. But he has given his permission.’

      Only then registering what the older man was proposing, Raj threw his head back in shock. ‘You’re expecting me to marry Zoe?’

      ‘And to do it right now, today. I brought the palace imam with me,’ his father told him bluntly. ‘This marriage would be your sign of good faith, your pledge to me that from now on you will act as a sensible son. Marry her and I promise you that nothing will stand in your path.’

      ‘Zoe wants to go home!’ Raj pointed out incredulously. ‘She will not want to marry me.’

      ‘Her grandfather has given his permission,’ the King pointed out with a frown of bewilderment. ‘A prince for a prince and a bridegroom less than half Hakem’s age, you make an acceptable substitute in Fotakis’s eyes. You have no choice in this, Raj. The girl is too great a prize to surrender, a huge gift to our people. No more popular bride than Azra’s granddaughter could be found for you. We will have a big state wedding to follow. I believe she is as beautiful as her grandmother. You should be pleased.’

      Raj compressed his lips on the reality that his father was insane. He talked as though women still dutifully and happily married the husbands picked by their most senior male relative. But even in Maraban those days were long gone. It was now only men of his father’s venerable age who still expected the right to tell their offspring who they should marry.

      ‘Zoe wants to go home,’ he repeated steadily.

      ‘You have two hours to persuade her otherwise. I have already prepared an announcement to be made from the palace,’ the King told him solemnly. ‘Their Prince has come home and done his duty at last.’

      ‘Zoe was expecting to divorce Hakem within a few months,’ Raj reminded his parent tautly.

      ‘Yes, you can let her go once the fuss has died down. You can choose your own second wife,’ Tahir informed him with the lofty air of a man bestowing a gift on the undeserving. ‘I won’t interfere, although there is one exception to that rule. That whore, Nabila...you cannot bring her into the family under any circumstances.’

      At the mention of that name accompanied by that offensive term, Raj lost every scrap of colour, his eyes lowering, his expression cloaked by his spiky black lashes, for he had just learned that his father knew what had happened eight years earlier between his son and his first love. Discomfiture filled him to overflowing but the meeting, Raj recognised by that final warning, was over. He vaulted upright with something less than his usual grace. ‘There is no risk of that development. I’ve not seen her in many years,’ he revealed stiffly.

      ‘Go and get ready for your wedding,’ his father urged, clearly not accepting the possibility that Zoe might refuse to marry him. ‘And send Omar in!’

      * * *

      Having had her breakfast, Zoe was ushered into another tent and left there alone. She checked her watch, shifted her feet, frustrated that she didn’t know what the cause of the hold-up was. When Raj entered, she spun fully round to face him and then she froze, remembering uneasily that he was a prince and that she had not treated him as she should’ve done. But then that was his fault, she reminded herself, lifting her chin again. He looked tense, the smooth chiselled bones of his face taut beneath his bronzed skin, his dark deep-set eyes curiously intent on her.

      ‘I thought you were in a hurry to leave,’ she reminded him, wondering why even that scrutiny could heat her up inside her skin as if she were being slowly roasted. He made her feel hot and bothered and uncomfortable and if that was sexual attraction, well, then she wanted no part of it. Those physical reactions were affecting her ability to behave like a rational being.

      ‘My father spoke to me and...our situation has changed,’ Raj admitted, half turning towards the open doorway, avoiding a more direct look at her, lest he lose his concentration.

      Any man would’ve looked though, he assured himself. Her beautiful hair was restrained in a long braid but he still remembered that silken veil unbound. Her shapely legs were exposed by a short

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