Using the velvet-covered footstool, she lugged herself onto the antique bed and lay down. She shivered, even though the room was comfortably warm. Silver threaded white cotton sheets rustled as she settled in, the silence creeping into her skin.
She stared up at the canopy of the bed, shameful tears pooling in her eyes.
Hadn’t she lived through this same lonely moment too many times to be still weighed down by a stranger’s indifference to her?
Zohra had known what she was taking on for Saira’s sake and yet she couldn’t shake the loneliness that twisted inside her, the crippling fear that she was bound to spend her entire life alone.
* * *
Stepping over the threshold of the State Hall, Zohra smiled for the first time in the week since the wedding. She was wearing an extremely comfortable and stylish pink pantsuit thanks to her personal stylist, and, for once, Zohra felt she could handle the day ahead.
It was the first official public event that Ayaan was attending since the wedding. Her gaze focused on Ayaan who, Zohra had noticed, rarely met his mother’s eyes. Queen Fatima had walked them through every event that had been planned for the day. Even Zohra knew that it was a job for a political aide but she had a feeling the queen had taken it on so that she could spend some time with her son.
A small crowd had already gathered, including Ayaan’s parents. Clad in a slate gray suit that hugged his wide shoulders, Ayaan stood at the opposite wall. His jaw clean-shaven, the unruly waves of his hair combed back, he looked every inch a commanding prince who had come back to Dahaar and its people against all odds.
He stood near his father and two other suit-clad men, but the way he stood, slanted away from the group, with a smile that curved his mouth but didn’t touch his gaze, Zohra felt his isolation like a live thing, almost as if there were a fortress around him.
A hush fell around her as everyone noticed her entrance. Her skin prickled with awareness like a warning beacon just as those golden eyes landed on her. And she saw the infinitesimal tightening of his shoulders, the long indrawn breath, as if he were bracing himself.
Frowning, Zohra struggled with the overwhelming urge to turn tail and disappear. She already had a healthy amount of dislike for any state affairs, and Prince Ayaan’s long-suffering attitude toward her presence on top of that grated at her.
She reached his side and the group widened to include her. Her nerves tightened at the press of Ayaan’s hard muscle beside her and all she could hear was the amplified thud of her heart, the whistle of every hard-fought breath, as he introduced her.
Ayaan’s palm lay against her lower back. She shivered, wondering if there was a brand on her skin in the shape of his palm. Zohra couldn’t remember the names of the two men and their wives a second after they fell on her ears.
How could she react so strongly to his presence while he barely tolerated hers?
He turned her toward him slightly. “I hope you have recovered from the wedding, Princess.”
A stinging response rose to her tongue. Pulling a deep breath in, she looked around and checked her impulse to shout at him in a very unprincesslike way. “You are actually deigning to speak to me?” she whispered.
He blinked at the animosity in her tone.
“Of course, state functions. That was in the rule book, wasn’t it?” She was acting like a child, but she couldn’t dismiss the image of Ayaan bracing himself to face her. Indifference and resentment had wounded her more than she had thought. And facing the same again...
“One of the times you will sigh deeply and suffer my company instead of banishing me from your presence.”
His hands locked behind him, he studied her with an intense gaze as if he could drill into her head and read all her secrets and fears. His mouth flattened, his ire nothing but a spark in his golden brown gaze. “And here I was afraid that you were far too clever than I ever wanted my wife to be, Princess.”
Rooted to the spot, Zohra stared at his back and spent the next two hours wondering what he meant. The informal social gathering complete, they were led through a narrow entrance, flanked by uniformed guards dressed in Dahaar’s navy blue.
Surprised by the security measures, Zohra was about to ask Ayaan when huge, ancient doors opened in front of them.
It was a scene unlike Zohra had ever seen.
A roar went up instantly at the sight of Ayaan. They were in a marble-tiled hall, ten times bigger than the huge throne room with at least a thousand people standing upon the wide staircase on the other side and more falling into a single line behind security ropes around the perimeter of the hall.
With every cheer and greeting that came from the crowd, Zohra felt Ayaan freeze next to her, inch by painful inch as if someone was injecting ice into his very veins. She heard Queen Fatima whisper Ayaan’s name, saw the king’s concerned pat on his shoulder but Ayaan didn’t budge.