* * *
‘The wedding was beautiful and you look especially lovely in your wonderful dress.’
‘Thank you.’ Farah automatically murmured the rote response she had given most of the well-wishers at the wedding even though the gentle woman who had just joined her was now her mother-in-law. The fact was her brain was operating in some sort of a fog. She kept reminding herself that she was doing this for her father but that didn’t always feel like the truth and that worried her just as much as being married did.
‘I hope you don’t mind about the orchid.’
‘The orchid?’
‘A wedding gift from my private nursery. I had it delivered to your apartment in the palace. It’s very rare but also very hardy. It represents love and fertility.’
Farah forced a smile at her words. Earlier Zach had asked her not to reveal the reason behind their marriage to his mother. She didn’t know why, other than to stroke his massive ego, but she had agreed to go along with it. Now she felt like a phony as his mother beamed up at her. ‘My son always said he would marry for love, and I am so glad he has, because he deserves it.’
Love? Farah never would have imagined that her new husband would be motivated by such a deep emotion and it made her wonder if he had been in love with the woman he had almost married. And if he had been in love then, was he still? She clutched her stomach, feeling a little ill at the thought. Or was that just the bubbly drink she’d consumed? Imogen had warned her to go easy on it but it was so sweet and refreshing she kept forgetting. She took another sip and realised that her mother-in-law was waiting for her to say something.
Wondering if ‘thank you’ was even mildly appropriate, she was almost glad when Zach approached them.
‘I hope my mother is not making your ears bleed, habiba?’ He smiled down at her like any indulgent new husband who was indeed in love with his wife.
‘Not at all,’ she said a little breathlessly, trying to remember how much she disliked his handsome face.
She noticed the loving look he bestowed on his mother and suddenly wondered if his wish to keep his mother in the dark about their union had less to do with his ego and more to do with real caring. She’d lived on a diet of her father’s prejudices against this man and his family for so long it was difficult to differentiate fact from fiction where he was concerned. His comment that perhaps her father wasn’t the only one living in the past returned but she shook it off. She absolutely did not live in the past.
Grumpily, she watched his mother return his smile as if the sun shone out of him and Farah felt a pang that her own mother wasn’t present. Probably if she had been, then Farah wouldn’t have been here because her father would not have been bitter enough to kidnap the prince.
She glanced across the room to where her father was talking with a group of men, seeming to have forgotten the events that had led them to this night. He was the only person from her village present because Farah hadn’t wanted to invite anyone else. It wasn’t as if this was a real celebration and now she wished she had at least invited her good friend, Lila. She could do with the moral support, if not some advice about her wedding night to come.
The thought of sleeping with the prince caused a riot of mixed emotions to take flight in her stomach and she sipped her drink to subdue them. Should she be looking forward quite so much to joining with a man she didn’t like? And would it be as good as kissing him was, or would it be a let down, as she’d heard other women tell of it? Somehow she knew that it wouldn’t be and she shivered.
‘Cold, habiba?’ Zach leant closer to her and she shook her head. She wasn’t cold, she was hot. Too hot.
As if he was completely attuned to her innermost thoughts, his hand splayed possessively across her hip. ‘I’m afraid we have to leave you, Mother. We have a honeymoon to get to.’
‘Oh, how romantic. Make me lots of babies.’
Honeymoon? Babies? Farah’s stomach fluttered again. All this talk of love and seeing Imogen and Sheikh Nadir’s obvious adoration for each other was making her think strange, unwanted thoughts about things she’d once steadfastly declared she did not want, things that would make her just as beholden to a man as any other Bakaani woman. Things that had her earlier panic about marriage return tenfold.
Before she could tell him she had no desire to go on a honeymoon like a real married couple, his nose grazed the top of her head. ‘You smell delicious,’ he murmured huskily. ‘What scent did you bathe in?’