She lifted her chin, her eyes flaring now with anger. Arif had assured him his daughter was extremely biddable, but from this conversation alone Azim knew the man had exaggerated—and her defiance was both an aggravation and an insult he didn’t need.
‘There must be a dozen women like me,’ she said, her chin lifted, ‘with suitable breeding and bloodlines. Why are you so determined to marry a stranger you don’t even want to get to know?’
Because she’d been intended for Malik. Because choosing anyone else when his entire country had been expecting her as Sultana would be an admission of failure, a sign of defeat, and something he refused to consider. He had suffered too much, sacrificed too much, to fail in this. ‘You are my chosen Sultana,’ he stated coldly. ‘Most women would consider that an honour.’
Her eyes flashed. ‘But I am not most women.’
‘So I am beginning to realise.’
‘I just don’t understand—’
‘You don’t need to understand,’ Azim snapped. He took a steadying breath, pain stabbing his temples once more. He could feel a full-fledged migraine coming on, the black spots starting to dance before his eyes, the nausea churning in his stomach. He had five minutes, if that, to get to a dark, quiet room and wait out the agony. ‘All you need to do,’ he stated in a tone of utter finality, ‘is to obey.’
Her mouth dropped open as Azim turned away. He walked blindly from the room, his vision starting to grey at the edges. He could not manage any more. From behind him he heard a ragged gasp.
‘Your Highness...’ It was a cross between a protest and a plea, a sorrowful sound that grated on his nerves even as it plucked at the broken strings of his compassion. He had been abrupt with his fiancée, he could acknowledge that. If he hadn’t been in pain, if he hadn’t seen her shudder...perhaps things might have been a little different. But it was too late now to make amends, if he even wanted to, which he didn’t think he did. Better for his bride to accept the hard reality, just as he’d had to do time and time again. Life was hard. People turned on you, betrayed you, used you. She could learn the same life lessons he had, albeit in far more comfortable circumstances.
‘An attendant will show you to your room,’ he stated, forcing the words out past the pain that was building like a towering wall in his head. ‘You may spend the next few days preparing for our wedding.’ He didn’t wait to hear her reply. He knew Arif would force her to comply, and in any case he didn’t trust himself to stay standing for much longer. He pushed through the doors, doubling over the moment they’d swung behind him, his hands braced on his knees.
‘Your Highness...’ An attendant hurried forward, and with immense effort Azim straightened, throwing off the servant’s arm. He couldn’t be seen as weak, not even by a servant.
‘I’m fine,’ he grated. Then he walked on leaden legs to his bedroom, and its welcoming darkness.
* * *
Johara stood in the audience chamber for a full five minutes before she felt composed enough to leave its privacy for the prying eyes of the many palace staff. The abruptness of her conversation with Azim had bordered on the surreal, and yet it had possessed the stomach-clenching realisation of hard reality. This man, who had not spared her so much as an introduction, who barked commands, whose smile seemed cruel, was going to be her husband.
She tried to find one redeeming quality in the man she was meant to spend her life with and came up empty. He possessed a strong sense of duty, she supposed, her thoughts laced with desperation and flat-out panic. He wasn’t bad-looking; in fact, if his expression hadn’t been so severe, his manner so terse, she might have thought him quite handsome. His form was certainly powerful, and even in the shock and tension of their conversation she’d noticed his muscled shoulders, the dark slashes of his eyebrows.
He had a compelling look about him, possessing the kind of bearing that made you want to both stare and look away at the same time. He was too much. Too hard, too cold, too cruel. He hadn’t offered her one simple civility in their first meeting. What on earth would their life together look like?
She couldn’t marry him.
Johara pressed her hands to her cheeks, distantly noting their iciness, as she gazed out of the arched window at the desert vista. A hard blue sky and an unrelenting sun framed the endless, undulating desert. Looking at it hurt Johara’s eyes, and made her long for the rolling hills and lavender fields of Provence, the dear familiarity of her book-lined bedroom, her kitchen garden with its pots of herbs, the stillroom where she’d pottered about experimenting with salves and tinctures, pursuing her interest in natural medicine. Made her wish, yet again, that everything about her meeting with Azim had been different. Better. Or preferably, hadn’t happened at all.
She dropped her hands and took a deep breath. What recourse did she have now? She was powerless, a woman in a man’s world, a sultan’s world. Her only option was to run to her father and beg him to release her. Hope flickered faintly as she considered this.
Her father loved her, she knew he did. Yes, he’d been planning for her marriage to the Sultan of Alazar for years, but...he loved her. Perhaps her father had not realised what kind of man Azim was. Perhaps when she told him just how cold and hard her husband-to-be seemed, he’d renegotiate yet again. Or at least ask for a delay, months or even years...
Taking a deep breath, Johara turned from the room. A palace attendant was waiting by the door as she came through. ‘His Highness wished me to show you your rooms.’
‘Thank you, but I’d like to see my father first.’
The attendant’s face was blank, his voice polite as he answered, ‘Many pardons, but that is not possible.’
The anxiety that had been coiling in her stomach like a serpent about to strike reared up, hissing. ‘What do you mean? Why can I not see my own father?’
‘He is in a meeting, Sadiyyah Behwar,’ the man answered smoothly. ‘But I will, of course, let him know you wish to speak with him.’
Johara nodded, the panic receding a little. Perhaps she was overreacting, seeing conspiracy or coercion at every turn. Her father would surely come to her when he was able. He would listen to her. He would understand. He might be ambitious and sometimes a little bit hard, but she had never, not once, doubted his love for her. ‘Thank you.’
She followed the man silently down a long marble corridor to a suite of rooms nearly as opulent as the audience chamber where she’d met Azim. She gazed round at all the luxury, the huge bed on its own dais with silk and satin covers, the sunken marble tub in a bathroom that was nearly as large as her bedroom at home, the spacious balcony that overlooked the palace’s lush gardens. It was lovely, but all she could see was a gilded prison, invisible bars that would hold her there for the rest of her life.
What would she do here, as Azim’s wife? Lie on a bed with her face to the wall, as her mother had these many years, trapped by her own endless despair? Johara resisted that with a deep, frightened instinct. She had long ago vowed never to be like her mother, had chosen a cheerful, optimistic approach to life as a matter of principle, because to give in to doubt or despair was no life at all. Yet optimism was hard to find now.
So then would she devote herself to her children, if they came, and try to forget the unending loneliness of being yoked to a man who had no interest in her beyond her bloodline? Would she be able to make friends, make a life? There was so much she didn’t know, so much she couldn’t imagine and didn’t even want to imagine. She wanted more for her life than what Azim was offering. She wanted more for her life than any arranged marriage could provide. It had taken a fleeting week of precious freedom to make her realise that.
She sank onto a divan by the window, her body aching with both emotional and physical fatigue. It had been a little more than twelve hours since her father had