“Congratulations, Your Majesty.”
Rashid waved the man out and then they were alone. But Rashid didn’t speak. He simply sat there with that bloodless look on his face until her belly was a tight ball of nerves.
“I’m not sure I really believed it would happen the first time.” Her voice shook but Rashid didn’t seem to notice.
He looked up at her as if just realizing she was there. “What?”
But he didn’t wait for an answer. He sprang to his feet and began pacing like a caged beast. He was wearing his desert robes today, complete with the headdress held in place by a golden igal. He was regal and magnificent and breathtaking. She watched him pacing, her hand over her stomach, and tried to come to grips with the fact she was having his baby.
“We’ll marry immediately. The council will have to be informed and then we can sign the documents. We can have a wedding ceremony for the public, but that can be done in a few weeks. You won’t be showing by then and—”
“Stop.” Sheridan was on her feet, her blood pounding in her throat and temples. She didn’t know why she’d spoken, but she felt as if her entire life was altering right before her eyes and there was nothing she could do to stop the tidal wave of change.
Rashid was looking at her now, his dark gaze dangerous and compelling. She reminded herself that he was capable of tenderness. He had touched her tenderly only last night when holding her hair and rubbing her back. And then there was the night he’d made love to her, so hot and intense and, yes, tender in his own way.
“You’re making all these plans without asking me how I feel about any of them.”
His brows drew down. “This is the way things are done in Kyr. How would you know what the arrangements should be?”
She dug her fingernails into her palms. She was sweating, but not from illness. From shock. And fear.
“I wasn’t talking about how things are done in Kyr. I’m talking about this marriage.”
As if she could refuse it. She was here, in his palace, and he was a king. This child had to be born legitimate. And he’d said he would pay for Annie’s treatment. What more could she want?
Love. Yes, she could want love. She could want to marry a man because she loved him, not because she had to.
His gaze narrowed. “You are pregnant—this marriage will take place.”
She held her arms stiffly at her sides. “Maybe I want to be asked. Did you ever consider that? Maybe I wanted to get married in an old church somewhere, with my family surrounding me, and maybe I wanted to be in love with the man I marry.”
Oh, why say that out loud? Why let him know what a hopeless romantic you are?
His expression grew hard. “Life does not always give us what we want. We have to take what’s offered and do the best we can with it.”
Her heart fell. He was infuriating. Cold and calculating and arrogant. She wanted him to care, at least a little bit, about what this meant for her. To him, she was a woman who carried a potential king. He wanted to order her about the way he ordered Daoud or Fatima or Mostafa.
And she knew, if she knew nothing else, that she couldn’t allow him to do that without protest.
“I didn’t say yes yet. You’re making plans and I didn’t say yes.”