“Ugly?” Serena supplied.
He grinned. “Maybe on the unattractive side.”
“I am glad you do not find me so. I, on the other hand, thought you’d be a white and pasty American. I, too, find you a relief.”
Cade straightened. “You had to have known my family history. My father was Arab.”
“You are still darker than I expected.” Her eyes followed a trail of bare skin at his neck, and then skipped the covering of the robe to examine his hands. “And not the spoiled good-for-nothing playboy I was expecting. You have the hands of a man who works hard.”
“You watch too many American TV shows,” Cade said with a smile. The servant had moved the tea glass yet closer to his plate, and Cade pushed it away. “What other misconception can I clear up for you?”
“I have to be honest with you, Prince Makin,” Serena said, startling Cade with the subject of honesty and reminding him that he had a little truth he needed to share with her as well. “I dreamed of choosing a prince of my own, an Arabian of royal birth. I love it here in Balahar and would not wish to leave. I am far more Arab than I am American.”
“I’m far more American than I am Arab.” He thought about that. There was no way Mac was going to live in Balahar: he wouldn’t be happy here at all. Cade thought palace life would try his patience after more than a few days. “I think you’re going to end up living in America again, Princess.”
“I do not wish to leave my people.”
“You married me,” he said bluntly. “What did you expect?”
“Frankly, I expected you were marrying me to be in line for the throne.”
“Nope.” He pushed the goblet away for a final time, looking up at the servant. “Take the tea away. I do not want it.”
The servant jumped to remove the glass, his expression concerned. Cade couldn’t explain it, but something about the servant bothered him unreasonably. Maybe he was just tense from this princess problem. He turned his attention back full force to Serena. “I can tell you quite honestly that none of the Coleman males are interested in the Balahar throne.”
“Why do you say it that way?” Delicate chestnut eyebrows lifted with surprise.
“Just letting you know, Princess, in case you thought you’d married the wrong brother. We’re all the same on this subject.” It was the truth. Even if he weren’t masquerading as Mac, Cade would never be interested in this whole scenario.
Except maybe for the princess. He eyed her covertly over the food they both ignored. She was gorgeous and sexy, a hottie in gauzy fabric. But he couldn’t see her with Mac.
Uh-oh. I don’t even want to have this thought.
“Listen, princess—”
“Do you mind calling me by my name?” she asked. “Somehow, when you say princess, I’m pretty sure you’re not expressing a term of respect. I feel you could just as easily interchange babe, doll, or sweet cheeks for princess. And I don’t like it.”
She glared at him.
Caught by surprise, he hesitated before grinning widely.
“It’s your attitude,” she told him. “And your tone. I prefer you address me as Serena when we are alone together.”
“Anything else you want from me, Serena?”
“All I ask is that you always be honest with me. I didn’t expect a love match, but I would appreciate honesty and respect.”
“All right.” He tossed the napkin onto the table, unable to eat the strongly spiced food. “I did expect a pampered princess who would be mainly an ornament.”
“So sorry to disappoint you.” Her eyes blazed at him.
He drummed the table, causing the servant to jump to anticipate Cade’s needs. This put Cade into a worse mood, not the least because the tea he hadn’t wanted was replaced with something else—which he wouldn’t drink, either. “Can we ditch this guy? He’s like a jumpy puppy.”
The first hint of a smile he’d seen on Serena’s face came and went quickly—but it had been there. “I don’t mind.”
He waved a hand to dismiss the servant, who backed reluctantly from the room. “So, I’ll leave you here while I finish my business and then come back and get you sometime,” Cade offered.
“You do not intend to…to—”
“I don’t think so,” he interrupted. “It would be better if we didn’t.”
“But the marriage won’t be binding unless it’s consummated.”
“Do you want it to be binding?” He looked at her curiously.
“I—I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I don’t think we have much in common. Yet it would break my father’s heart.”
There was that. His mother would be none too pleased, either, especially when she discovered what he’d done.
“Don’t you want to make love to me?” she asked suddenly.
His throat dried out. His entire body electrified at her soft question. “I do, Princess,” he said, without a trace of the mockery with which he’d referred to her before. “But you want honesty, and you deserve that from your husband. And I can’t give that to you right now.”
“What do you mean?”
He sighed. Then he leaned close to her ear, which brought the scent of her to him fully and made him somehow regret what he had to tell her. “I’m not Prince Makin,” he said.
SERENA HELD BACK A SMILE, thinking this prince had a strange sense of humor. “Of course you are Prince Makin. My father would know if you were not.”
“I have a twin, who is Prince Makin. I am Prince Kadar.”
She raised an eyebrow. “If that is true, why are you lying to my father? To the people of Balahar?”
“I had no intention of marrying you when I came here,” he said. She sensed the honesty behind his striking words. “Everything happened quickly. There didn’t seem to be a good time to pull the reins in, actually. And once I realized that I’d agreed to marry you, I didn’t want to insult King Zak by saying that I’d changed my mind.”
“I see.” Serena tried to hold back her rising dismay. “No, I don’t see. So you didn’t marry me for the throne of Balahar.”
“No.”
He shook his head, and a vague sense of feminine insult, no matter how irrational it should have been, rose inside her. “Where is Prince Makin, your brother, then? The man I was intended to marry?”
“At home, tending to The Desert Rose.”
“You are his emissary. He sent you to spy on me.”
“No. Well, maybe. I had business over in Saudi Arabia and said I’d pop by and visit you. This wasn’t the way I intended for the visit to work out, obviously.”
“You’d pop by and visit me. How American that sounds.” She was starting to feel more than a trace of bitterness. “So you popped by and married me instead.”
One dark brow rose as he stared at her. “You have every right to be angry. I fully expect that we can have this marriage annulled because it won’t be consummated. Then you can marry my twin, who is your proper intended.”
“Or?” Now her brow rose. “I assume there’s an ‘or’ in this.”
He shrugged. “You could come home with me. I’m not flying commercially, and my co-pilot is waiting at the airport, so we’d have plenty of secrecy.”