Midnight in the Harem: For Duty's Sake / Banished to the Harem / The Tarnished Jewel of Jazaar. Carol Marinelli

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      “No, but there are other Elsas in this world.”

      “I have no interest in them.” “I hope that’s true.”

      “You doubt my word?” Zahir’s shock was almost comical.

      She poured the tea, adding a scant teaspoon of sugar to hers. “Not exactly.” “Then what, exactly?” “The future. I doubt the future.” “Well, don’t.”

      She wanted to laugh, but simply shook her head. “If only it were that easy.” “It can be.”

      “Certain safeguards would make it easier.” “The conditions.” “Yes, my conditions.”

      “For you to marry me, despite the fact you carry my child.” He stirred not one, but three teaspoons of sugar into his tea.

      She’d always found his sweet tooth endearing, something she knew about him that few people noticed. Because he didn’t eat desserts. But he did drink cocoa and put lots of sugar in his coffee and tea. Seeing evidence of that sweet tooth now brought a measure of comfort, a reminder that not everything had changed.

      He was still the same man she’d fallen in love with from afar, the same man she’d planned for most of her adult life to marry.

      “Yes.”

      “I’m not going to like them, am I?” “No.” There was no point in sugarcoating it—no matter how much he might like sweet things, but she wasn’t going to feel guilty for trying for some semblance of assurance for her future, either.

      She might not be that naive, year on from university woman who believed she could have a one-night stand with the man she loved and come out of it relatively unscathed, but she still had to have some level of hope for her future. His agreement to her conditions would give her that.

      He sat back, his mug in one hand, his eyes fixed on her with that patented intensity of his. “I am all ears.”

      She took a deep breath and went for broke. “I want a prenup that guarantees me the right to raise our children in the United States in the event you take a lover.”

      She waited for the explosion, but none came. He simply sat, sipping his tea in silence and looking completely unperturbed.

      “Nothing to say?”

      “I assume there is more since you said conditions plural, not condition in the singular.”

      “Yes.” Was he really as sanguine as he appeared? “I mean it.”

      “I assumed you did.”

      “You aren’t angry.”

      “Considering your past, such a condition is hardly a shock.”

      “But …” He would never countenance his children being raised outside of Zohra. She finally stuttered as much out loud.

      “Naturally not, but since it won’t happen, I fail to see why I should become upset over your need for the reassurance on that score.”

      He was right, it was a reassurance. He might not maintain fidelity for her sake. However, she was wholly convinced that he would for the good of their children and the sake of the throne he protected so carefully.

      Feeling light-headed with relief he’d accepted the first and she would have thought the hardest hurdle to overcome, she said, “I am glad you are not offended.”

      “I would be, if I believed your request was based on a lack of trust in me personally.”

      “You don’t?”

      “It’s obvious that your past has a great deal of bearing on this, as I have said.”

      “And you do not think your ongoing relationship with Elsa figures into it all?”

      “That was before we were formally engaged.”

      “You said you considered us as good as.”

      “In one respect that is true, just as in the same respect, a part of me already considers the throne of Zohra mine. However, it will not in actuality be until my father abdicates in my favor or sees his final days on earth.”

      “So, you did make a distinction.” She was more thankful to hear that than she would ever admit to him.

      “Do you not know me even that well?” he asked, sounding like he was finally feeling the offense she’d expected him to take earlier.

      “I thought I did and then I got those pictures.”

      He winced. “Point taken.”

      “I realize now, I was hopelessly naive in my expectations, but those photos devastated me,” she admitted.

      She had no trouble reading his expression for once, it was pure dismay. “You believed I would be celibate once the contract was signed?”

      “Yes.” She felt foolish for that belief now. It had been a teen girl’s fantasy she’d never reconsidered in the light of adulthood. At least, not until she’d been forced to. “You see, I was.”

      “When I signed that contract, I was a twenty-four-year-old man. You were a thirteen-year-old girl.”

      “Are you saying it would not bother you if I had taken a lover since becoming an adult?”

      He opened his mouth and then shut it again, no words emerging.

      “Smart choice.”

      He frowned. “My initial response does not paint me in a favorable light.”

      “No doubt.”

      “Your other conditions,” he prompted, clearly not wishing to dwell on his unpalatable double standard. “There are only two more.” “They are?”

      “Your heir is allowed to have a childhood.”

      “I had a childhood.”

      “Until you were seven, yes I got that.”

      “I was not an unhappy child.”

      She was convinced that a man of Zahir’s strength would have bloomed under any conditions, but she refused to allow her own children to face the same exact sort of childhood he’d been raised with. “This is not a negotiable point.”

      “You do realize that saying something like that to me is like waving the red flag to the bull?”

      “I didn’t—now I do.”

      “You wish to rephrase it?”

      “No.”

      His brow rose in clear surprise.

      “I am willing СКАЧАТЬ