“Would I have to run everything by you?” she asked.
“Is that so unreasonable? I’m all for advancements, Galila, but at a pace people can adapt to.”
She supposed that was fair, but: “Are you just offering me this role because you know I like it? As a way to persuade me into accepting our marriage?”
“What I offered last night wasn’t enough?” he asked in a silky tone that caused a shiver to trickle down her spine.
She refused to look at him.
A moment later, he clicked a button and spoke again to the voice she presumed was at the landing pad. The palace appeared and captured all her attention.
It was clearly the product of centuries of additions. The highest dome dominated the center structure while annexes stretched in four directions, each with a variety of smaller domes, flat roofs, solar panels and even an arch of solarium windows over a great hall of some kind. From each of these four legs grew smaller additions, apartments perhaps—there were a number of small pools and courtyards with palms and fountains.
He landed in a circle on one of the highest rooftops where three other helicopters of various sizes were already tethered. They were hanging their headphones on the hooks above the windscreen when he spoke again.
“How you come to terms with our marriage is up to you, but it is a fact. You may weigh in on the details of our celebration as you see fit, but my staff is perfectly capable of making it happen without your input. As for representing the women of my country—our country—I would like you to be their voice, if you’re willing. Is that something you would enjoy or not?”
She hesitated, drew a breath and admitted, “Each time I say yes to you, I feel a piece of me fall away. It’s not the same for you, though, is it?”
People were approaching to tether the helicopter, but he didn’t look away from her, only said a quiet, “No.”
It hurt a lot more than she had braced herself for, pushing a thickness into her throat and a pressure behind her eyes.
“Is this still about love, Galila? Look at my mother. You don’t want that. Be practical and accept this marriage for the beneficial partnership it can be.”
To whom? Everyone but her.
She was being offered the chance to elevate the living conditions of a country full of women for the low price of her own freedom and the loving marriage she had always promised herself.
“I’ve never understood how people live without love.” Her brothers did, maybe because they hadn’t been loved in the first place. She had, though, and maybe that was proof that Karim was right. She had grown addicted to being seen as special and valuable and wanted. Losing her mother’s love was still a deep and agonizing wound.
She knew better than to fall into another situation where she was yearning for feelings that weren’t there, yet here she was, distantly hoping he would come around and feel something toward her.
“It’s not that difficult,” Karim replied drily, essentially driving a coffin nail into her heart. “Come. Let me show you our home.”
“Well, I guess I don’t have a choice, do I? Not unless I want to throw myself off the edge of this roof and end things right now.”
“Why would you say that?” His voice lashed at her, quick and snapping sharp as a whip. “Don’t ever say anything like that. Ever.”
His vehemence had her recoiling in her seat, heart hammering. She recalled with chagrin that his father had fallen from a balcony here. “I didn’t mean—”
He cut her off with a chop of his hand through the air between them and disembarked, then impatiently demanded she come out behind him, picking her up and releasing her with abrupt motions.
He exchanged a few words with someone, then hurried her out of the heat and into the relief of air conditioning where a handful of personnel awaited them, all wearing attentive expressions.
“Cantara.” He introduced a middle-aged woman in traditional dress with heavily made-up eyes, a wide smile and a tablet and stylus at the ready. “My mother’s assistant, when she’s here at the palace. Cantara will show you around and help you hire the staff you need. I’m required elsewhere.”
He strode away. The rest of the staff flowed into position behind him like birds in a flock, making him seem to disappear.
She waited, but he didn’t look back. Last night’s intimacy was forgotten. It certainly hadn’t changed anything in his agenda.
“I’ve had tea prepared in your chamber. May I show you there?”
Galila found a polite smile and dutifully followed where she was led.
* * *
Karim forced himself not to look back, but he still saw Galila. Heard her.
How did each word she spoke have such power over him? She loaded a single glance with a thousand emotions, saying, I’ve never understood how people live without love, while a kaleidoscope of despair and confusion, yearning and wistfulness took their turn across her angelic face. Somehow, she caused those feelings to be reflected in him, twisting his conscience at the same time, which was distinctly uncomfortable.
And when he tried to move her past her melancholy, she thrust a knife from a completely unexpected direction, flippantly suggesting she throw herself to her death the way his father had done.
Whatever pangs of guilt had reverberated through him had been slapped out by that statement, sparking his temper with the power of a lightning strike.
That slam of energy had had its roots in a white-hot fear. He would never wish his experience on anyone, certainly could never face witnessing something so traumatic again, but somehow knew it would be especially devastating if she did it.
He’d smacked a hard lid on that sort of talk, seeing how wary his outburst made her, but he didn’t even want her to dare think of doing something so horrific, let alone threaten it.
The entire five-minute conversation had left her limpid eyed and looking abandoned as a child when he left her with an assistant and turned away.
Perhaps she was entitled to some bewilderment. Their lovemaking had been so powerful, he had stooped to reminding her of it himself, unable to dismiss it from his mind. He wanted her to recall every twitch and sigh and caress. It was all he could think about.
But it was completely reckless to let himself be so distracted and preoccupied by carnal desires. He had married her to keep a secret that could rattle swords in both their countries—upend the entire region, even. Not to mention the personal cost to all of them. Her mother’s affair was already a sore topic with her and her siblings. He didn’t want to force painful discussions on them any more than he wanted them himself.
No. She might open herself to him and offer a type of pleasure he had never experienced, lure him like a bee to a nectar-laden flower, but he had to remain stoic and indifferent. And after the way she had behaved at the wedding? Getting drunk and spilling what she had to him? There was no way he could entrust her with the rest. Too much depended on him keeping their parents’ affair a secret.
To do that, he had to keep her contained, yet at a distance. In his palace, in his apartment, but not in his bed. It was best for all their sakes.
CHAPTER FIVE
TEN DAYS LATER, Galila was fed up with being ignored.
Not that she was ever left alone. Rather, maids and clerks and advisors hovered constantly, asking for her preference on everything, right down to which side of the gold-plated bathroom tap her cut-crystal toothbrush cup should sit.
She was changed at least four times a day, from silk pajamas to comfortable breakfast wear, then to casually elegant midday wear, then sophisticated evening wear and finally back to pajamas. If she and Karim were entertaining, there might be poolside wraps while amusing the wife of a visiting diplomat, cocktail attire before dressing for dinner or something ceremonial for an official photograph.
They were always entertaining. Or meeting with some dignitary over a luncheon. Even breakfasts were business meetings, where she and Karim ate across from each other, but staff hovered with tablets and questions, asking for replies on emails and finalizing their schedules for the rest of the day.
The strange part was, she didn’t mind the demands. She found it invigorating. There was something both thrilling and satisfying in making seating arrangements or setting a menu or suggesting a blue rug would look better in this room, and seeing her wishes carried out promptly and without question.
As a princess in Khalia, she had had influence, but even Malak’s disinterested male opinions had held more sway than her own. She had nearly always been contradicted by her mother, which Galila had sometimes thought was purely a desire on her mother’s part to reinforce her own position, not a genuine partiality to whatever suggestion of Galila’s she had decided to overrule.
Now, as Queen of Zyria—and that title made her choke on hysterical laughter because she had yet to properly sleep with her husband, the king—Galila discovered the power of her position. At first, she’d been tentative, expecting to hear that the Queen Mother Tahirah ought to be consulted or had always preferred this or that.
To her amazement, Galila was assured that such courtesies as consulting the Queen Mother were at her discretion. The only voice that might veto her own was her husband’s. What a heady thought!
So she tested the extent of her privilege. She sought out her husband unannounced and said she would wait for the king in his anteroom.