LITMIR.BIZ

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…?’ Realising she was gaping, she slammed her mouth shut.

      ‘Making a cut where it won’t be seen and commented on,’ he said in a voice filled with quiet irony. ‘Thus I’m salvaging your pride in the eyes of others, my dear wife.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’ Beyond pride now or remembering any of her instructions for tonight, she gazed at him in open pleading. ‘What are you doing?’

      He sighed. ‘As you said, virgins bleed, Amber. It’s my duty to ensure that your reputation isn’t ruined. Pull the coverings down, please, and quickly, before the blood drops on the rug. Imagine what the servants would make of that.’ His tone was filled with understated irony.

      She closed her mouth and swallowed, and then swivelled around in the bed to pull the covers down.

      She watched as he dripped blood into his other hand. ‘It seems enough, I think,’ he said after thirty seconds. Her husband of six hours looked at her. ‘Which side of the bed do the servants know you prefer?’

      Torn between shock and fury born of humiliation, she pointed.

      ‘Thank you.’ As casually as if he’d spilled water, he smeared his blood on the bed. Then he walked into the bathroom; she heard the sound of running water.

      When he came out he returned to the desk, picked up his bridegroom’s clothing, pulled it back over his head and let it fall to his feet. He sat down again, reading, scrolling and making notes.

      Not knowing what else to do, she sat on the bed, drawing her knees under her chin, her arms wrapped tight around them. And for the next hour, she watched him work in growing but helpless fury.

      Why won’t you touch me? she wanted to scream. Why don’t you want to touch me? What did I do wrong?

      But she’d made an innocent scene with Fadi when it was obvious he was running from her, and he’d told her about Rafa. I can’t marry her, but I love her, Amber.

      She’d made another scene before her father when Alim fled the country rather than marry her. He has rejected both Fadi’s position, and Fadi’s bride.

      She was already the bad-luck bride in the eyes of the servants and the people—but if they found out about this, she’d never recover. Fadi had loved another; Alim fled the country—but neither of them had made the rejection this obvious.

      Asking him why would only humiliate her further.

      After a while, her husband said without looking at her, ‘It would be best if you went to sleep, Amber. It’s been a very long day for you.’

      She lay back on the sheets, avoiding the smeared blood—but she kept watching him work out of a stubborn refusal to obey anything he asked of her. If he wasn’t going to be a real husband, it relieved her of the necessity to be any kind of wife.

      Suddenly she wondered how long a day it had been for him. How long had he been working—right up until he’d dressed for the wedding? During the ceremony and after he’d kissed her hand, touched her face with a smile, played the loving bridegroom—for the cameras and the people, no doubt. Now he was working again. Barely two months ago, Harun fought for his life, for the sake of a nation that didn’t belong to him.

      Did he ever stop, and just be a normal man?

      Harun, just look at me, be kind to me for a minute. I’m your bride, she wanted to say, but nothing emerged from her mouth. She was lying on their marriage bed, his for the taking in this shimmering piece of nothing, and he was doing stupid paperwork.

      He didn’t even look at her, just as he never had before.

      As a soldier, they said, he’d fought with a savagery beyond anything they’d seen before. Like Fadi, had he done it to escape her? What a shame for him that he’d lived, forced into taking a wife he clearly didn’t want in the least.

      She hated him. She hated this bed … and she couldn’t stand this ridiculous situation any more.

      Pulling her hair into a messy knot, she got to her feet, stalked into the bathroom, shredded the stupid negligee in her haste to take it off, and scrubbed away all traces of perfume and make-up under the stinging heat of the shower.

      Using the pumice stone she scrubbed at her skin until it was raw, and took minimal comfort in the fact that Harun would never know how he’d made her cry.

      But as she scrubbed herself to bleeding point she vowed she’d never make a fool of herself for an el-Kanar man again. No, she’d show Harun nothing, no emotion at all. She’d be a queen before him at all times, damn it! And one day he’d come to her, on his knees, begging for her …

      If only she could make herself believe it.

      CHAPTER THREE

       Three Years Later

      ‘MY LADY, the Lord Harun has requested entrance!’

      Startled, Amber dropped the papers she was reading and stared at her personal maid, Halala. Barely able to believe the words she’d heard, she couldn’t catch her breath. All the ladies were in a flutter of excitement … and hope, no doubt.

      She could almost hear the whispers from mouth to ear, flying around the palace. Will he come to her bed at last?

      Her cheeks burned with embarrassment at the common knowledge within the palace of the state of her marriage, the tag of bad-luck bride she couldn’t overcome, but she answered calmly enough. ‘Please show my husband in, and leave us. I need not remind you of what will happen if you listen in,’ she added sternly, holding each of her ladies-in-waiting with her gaze until they nodded.

      As the room emptied she smoothed down her dress, her hair, while her pulse beat hard in her throat. What could he want? And she had no time to change out of one of her oldest, most comfortable dresses—

      Then Harun entered her rooms, tall and broad-shouldered, with skin like dark honey and a tiny cleft in his chin; she’d long ago become accustomed to the fact that her husband was a quiet, serious version of her dashing first crush. But today his normally withdrawn if handsome face was lit from within; his forest-at-dusk eyes were alive with shimmering emotion, highlighting his resemblance to Alim more than ever. ‘Good morning, Amber,’ he greeted her not quite formally, his intense eyes not quite looking at her.

      He doesn’t care what I’m wearing, Amber thought in sullen resentment. How foolish she’d been for wishing to look pretty for him, even for a minute. I don’t even know why I’m surprised. Or why it still hurts after all this time.

      Why had her father wanted her to wed this—this robot? He wasn’t a man. He was barely human … at least not where she was concerned. But, oh, she’d heard the rumours that he was man enough for another.

      She tamped down the weakness of anger, finding strength in her pride. ‘You need something, My Lord?’ she asked, keeping her tone meek, submissive, but just as formal and distant as his. ‘It must be important for you to actually come inside my rooms. I believe this is the first time you’ve come here willingly in three years.’

      He looked at her then—with a cold flash in his eyes that made her feel like a worm in dirt. ‘Since you’re taking the gloves off, my wife, we both know it’s the first time I’ve been in here willingly at all, not merely since our wedding night.’

      The burning returned in full measure to her cheeks, a stinging wave of embarrassment that came every time she thought of that awful night. Turning from him with insulting slowness, as if she didn’t care, she drawled, ‘You never did explain yourself.’

      Yes, she’d said it well. As if it were a mere matter of curiosity for her, and not the obsession it had been for so long.

      She marvelled that, in so long, there’d never been an opportunity to ask before—but Harun was a master at making certain they were never alone. His favourite place in the palace seemed to be his office, or

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