“Does she always fall asleep that suddenly?”
Carmen could only nod. His lips melted with indulgence as he rose and removed Mennah from her chair, then, enfolding her, walked out of the kitchen. It took Carmen a minute to lurch after him. She caught up with him as he exited the nursery.
He closed the door, said without preamble, “You don’t need to pack anything. Make a list of your needs and everything will be at the palace on our arrival in Judar. If you forget anything, order it and it will be brought to you within the hour. After you’ve settled in, I’ll order major store managers to come to the palace with their catalogs for you to pick whatever you wish.”
She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”
An edge hardened his rich, dark tone. “We’re leaving right away. My jet should be ready for the return trip.”
She felt the tethers of her sanity snapping one by one, groped for an anchor against his sweeping incursion. “Listen—”
He cut her off. “If you decide you feel nostalgic about your things, I’ll send people to pack every shred you have here later.”
“Now wait a minute. I’m going nowhere….”
“You are going exactly where I take you. To my kingdom.”
She shook her head, groped for breath. “I—I can’t travel…my passport isn’t valid….”
“I don’t need one to take you out of the country and into mine. My word is enough. Anyway, I’ll arrange for one. It will be waiting for you when we arrive at my home.”
“I’m not leaving my home.”
“You are. In case you haven’t grasped it yet, I’m having Mennah. Since you are her mother, this means having you, too.”
His declaration felt like a slap. A stab.
A hurricane of emotions started churning inside her.
Even if he had wanted her for real, she would have been in turmoil. He wasn’t just the man she loved—had thought she loved—he was a prince from another culture. She had no idea what being his wife entailed. But to have him state his intentions this way, as if she could have been anyone he’d endure now that he’d accidentally impregnated her, that she was just an unwanted accessory that came with the daughter he wanted so much…
Trying to hide her humiliation from his all-seeing eyes, she tried to scoff, “Phew, I hope this isn’t how you make your peace proposals. Your region would be up in flames within the hour.”
He gave her a serene look. “I save my cajoling powers for negotiations. This isn’t one, Carmen. It’s a decree. You had my child. You will be my wife.”
The world began to tilt, overturn, nausea rising with his deepening coldness and clinical unconcern.
She somehow found her voice again, found something logical to say. “Okay, I appreciate the strength of your commitment to Mennah. But if you want to be her father, you can do that without going overboard. Parents share a child’s upbringing without being married all the time, all over the world.”
“I’d never be a long-distance father. My daughter will be brought up in my home, my land, exposed daily to my love and caring, taught her privileges and duties as a princess with her first steps and words. But for her best mental and psychological health, she also needs her mother constantly with her. By marrying you, that’s what I’m providing for her.”
Put that way, what he’d said was incontestable. But…“This can all happen without marriage. I don’t want to live in Judar, but I would for Mennah. We can both always be there for her.”
“And what would she be if you don’t marry me? My love child? Do I even need to state that a marriage, to give her her legitimacy, her birthright, is beyond question?”
“But I…” The quicksand beneath her feet snatched at her. And she cried, “I don’t want to get married ever again!”
Carmen’s vehemence hit Farooq like a gut punch.
He’d been fighting the urge to close his eyes every time she spoke, to savor that voice that could bring a man to his knees begging to hear it moaning his name.
That was until she’d said…
“You’ve been married before?” he rasped.
Her face contorted before she looked away.
Something hideous sank its fangs into him. Jealousy? Why? When he’d long known everything they’d shared had been a sham?
He knew why. His instincts still insisted he’d been her first passionate involvement. How could they be so misled? Even after she’d claimed he’d been one in a hundred? How did they still insist that had been the lie, and what he’d felt when she’d abandoned herself in his arms had been the truth?
But her upheaval indicated true involvement. A husband who’d meant so much, his mere memory brought that much pain.
Another thought struck him with such violence he wanted to drive his fist through the wall. Had she been on the rebound when she’d accepted Tareq’s mission? Had her seeming abandon been part of her efforts to forget the man she’d loved?
“When were you married?”
At his question, she kept her eyes averted until he thought she’d ignore him.
Then a whisper wavered from her. “I wasn’t yet twenty. He was three years older. We met in college.”
“Young love, eh?”
Her color rose at his sarcasm. “So I thought. Long before he divorced me three years later, I realized there was no such thing.”
So he’d divorced her. And she was still hurt and humiliated that he had. But if she’d been twenty-three then, she’d met him two years afterward. Had she still been pining for her ex then?
But what man could have walked away from her? He wouldn’t have been able to. Hell, he’d been willing to marry her. Granted, he would never have gone as far as marriage if it hadn’t been what was best for Judar, but she’d been the only one he could have considered for such a permanent position in his life, the only one he’d wanted in his bed indefinitely.
“I swore I’d never marry again.”
Emotions seethed at her tremulous declaration. “Don’t you think it’s extreme to swear off marriage after such a premature and short-lived one? You’re still too young to make such a sweeping, final vow. You’ll still be young ten years from now.”
She shook her head. “It has nothing to do with age. I realized marriage isn’t for me. I should have known from my parents’ example that marriage is something that’s bound to fail, no matter how rosily everything starts.”