Chosen for His Desert Throne by Caitlin Crews

Author:Caitlin Crews
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-10-02T18:09:29+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE WEDDING GUESTS began to pour in the day after their announcement.

From near and far they came. Tarek welcomed in men who had fought with him, relatives and business allies, foreign heads of state and an inevitable selection of celebrities. He pretended he did not know which of his guests had spoken against him over the course of the last year and which had given him nothing but their quiet support.

But he knew. And they knew. And there was a power in the invitation to his would-be enemies, to permit them to witness how wrong they’d been about him up close. It was the logical extension of the press junket he and Anya had undertaken and Tarek could not pretend he didn’t enjoy it.

There was a grand party that night to kick off the traditional week of celebrations. It was also the first opportunity for Anya to prove to the international crowd that she was not under duress. And for the people of Alzalam, that she was worthy of the role she was to assume at the end of the week.

“No pressure, then,” she’d said earlier in the flippant manner only she dared employ in his presence.

Tarek had found he had to have her, in a slick rush of need, even if it meant that her aides would have to reapply all the beauty enhancements—to his mind, wholly unnecessary—that they’d used on her to prepare her for the evening.

“You will be a natural.”

“Because you say so?” She had been slumped in a delicious sort of ruin where he’d left her, bonelessly draped over an ottoman in her bedchamber.

“Yes, because I say so,” he’d replied. “Am I not the King?”

Anya had smiled at him, the way he liked best. Dreamy and sweet. Private.

The Anya who appeared in public never looked that soft. That was for him alone.

And as he stood in the middle of the grand party in one of the palace’s ballrooms that night, Tarek found himself thinking about that smile more than he should.

Just as he thought about her more than he should, when he knew better.

Because while it turned out that the former prisoner he was marrying for purely practical reasons was remarkably good at distracting him from the things he brooded about, that didn’t change the truth of them.

Like the fact he was obsessed with this woman.

Tarek knew better than that. The history of his kingdom was filled with examples of why romantic obsession was a scourge. Nothing but a curse. Many of his ancestors had been endlessly derailed by theatrics in the harem. Favorite wives seemed to lead inevitably to catastrophes—witness his former betrothed and the shame she had brought to her family. Tarek had always vowed he would never succumb to such pettiness.

He had already paid dearly for the affection he’d held for his younger brother. He could not afford a far worse blindness. He would never forgive himself.

“Imagine my surprise,” Anya had said at dinner one day after she’d finally got a comprehensive tour of the Royal Palace.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.