Линн Грэхем – Rumours: The Billion-Dollar Brides: The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride (Brides for the Taking) / The Italian's One-Night Baby (Brides for the Taking) / Sold for the Greek's Heir (Brides for the Taking) (страница 13)
‘Because nobody ever fights or argues with me. You can have no idea how boring that becomes,’ Rashad admitted grimly.
In possession of a very sparky and forceful sister, Polly almost disagreed because she could not imagine finding pleasure in the apparently stimulating effect of dissension. Instead she said nothing, she simply shook her head. ‘Sexual attraction is not a good basis for marriage—’
‘It is for me,’ Rashad countered without hesitation. ‘I am convinced that you would make me the perfect wife.’
‘But nobody’s perfect!’
‘More perfect than flawed,’ Rashad qualified smoothly. ‘The discovery that you have Dharian blood in your veins only adds to your appeal. This is your world now as much as it is mine and you have a family who will love and support you here.’
Polly bent her head down to escape the temptation of his glittering dark eyes. It was a powerful argument to know that there was another world and another family for her to explore. Apart from her sister she had never had a caring family to lean on, which was why Hakim’s welcome had meant so much to her. She wanted to get to know that family and their culture, she wanted to spend time with them, which, with the cost of travel set against her low salary, would be very difficult once she returned home as scheduled at the end of the week.
‘There would be advantages and disadvantages to marrying me,’ Rashad outlined with dry practicality. ‘I do not believe you would be unduly influenced by my wealth but as my wife you would be very rich. On the other hand, you would lose the freedom to do and say exactly as you wish because royals are expected to behave according to protocol. Sometimes that protocol feels stifling but it is there for our protection.’
Polly flushed very pink because although he had said he hoped she would not be unduly influenced by his wealth, her mind had immediately flown to the good she could do with more money and she was mortified by that embarrassing moment of unwelcome self-truth. But poor Ellie was steeped in student debt and struggling and would be for many more years to come. Moreover, both sisters were desperately keen to trace their missing youngest sister, Penelope, and get to know her, but the hiring of a private detective was utterly beyond their financial means at present. She swallowed hard, ashamed of her thoughts and deciding that money had to be, in truth, the root of all evil and temptation.
‘What happened to your first wife?’ she asked him abruptly to escape those shameful thoughts of wealth and what she could do with it.
‘Ferah contracted blood poisoning from a snake bite and died five years ago,’ Rashad revealed in a harshened undertone. ‘She did not receive medical attention quickly enough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured automatically because her mind was reeling under the burden of all that he had said and her own desperate confusion.
‘Do you have an answer for me?’ Rashad prompted with an air of expectancy on his lean, strong face.
‘Not yet,’ she admitted, matching his honesty.
Her brain had flatly rejected marrying him at first. They barely knew each other and it would be insane...and yet? She did want him, in fact she wanted him more than she had ever wanted any man and she was not an impressionable teenager any longer. In fact, what if she never met another man who made her feel the same way that Rashad did? That terrible fear held her still and turned her hollow inside because he made her feel alive and wanton and all sorts of things she had never felt before. And what was more, she was discovering that she liked the way he made her feel.
‘Perhaps I can help you to make up your mind,’ Rashad murmured with silken softness. ‘You will see it as a form of blackmail but in reality it is the only possible alternative if you do not wish to marry me—’
Polly’s head reared up, blue eyes wide and bright. ‘Blackmail?’ she exclaimed in dismay. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘If you don’t marry me, you will have to leave Dharia immediately. Only your departure will end this madness on the streets and in the media.’
Polly was aghast at that cold-blooded conclusion. ‘You’re willing to throw me out of the country?’
Hard dark eyes held hers. ‘If that is what it takes, yes...and naturally I would not wish you to return in the near future,’ he decreed harshly.
Polly was shaken by that solution because she had been planning to get to know her grandparents, her newly discovered Dharian family. She had no doubt that Hakim and his wife would be willing to visit her at least once in London but it would not be the same as staying on in Dharia and having the chance to explore her father’s heritage and culture for herself.
‘I cannot allow the current security situation to continue,’ Rashad informed her grimly and he went to the doorway of the tent to clap his hands. ‘We will have tea while you consider your options.’
Polly didn’t see how tea was going to be the answer to anything but the sheer amount of entertaining ritual involved in the brewing of tea by two robed men at least gave her something to watch while her brain struggled to deal with a rising tide of anxiety. He was using blackmail even if on one level she could understand his position. It was very unfair from her point of view, though, that she should have to suffer for something that was in no way her fault. In many ways by piling on that extra pressure of an immediate departure, he was taking her right to choose away from her.
‘Seriously...’ she began furiously, ‘you would actually force me to go home?’
‘When it comes to what is best for my country I will always do it,’ Rashad countered with a roughened edge to his dark deep drawl. ‘That is my duty.’
Polly compressed her taut lips, her hand clenching angrily round her cup. She knew he meant it. It was stamped in the resolve that had hardened his lean, darkly handsome face. Either she stayed on in Dharia and agreed to marry him or she went home again and stayed there. She didn’t need to be pregnant to be offered a shotgun marriage, she reflected angrily. That was what he was offering her with the crowds providing the firepower of pressure.
Yet when it came to marriage all that went with Rashad in terms of baggage and culture and his people’s expectations was simply huge. Even so, she quite understood why he was willing when his next-best option was a marriage to a complete stranger about whom he would essentially know nothing.
‘Of course, you’d get the ring back if you married me,’ she said with a flat lack of humour.
‘And gain a gorgeous blonde wife,’ Rashad traded with a sudden charismatic smile that lit up his bronzed face, illuminating the hard cheekbones and hollows that gave his features such strong definition.
Polly glanced across the fire pit at him and the knowledge that if she said no she would never see him again sliced into her like the sudden slash of a knife blade. That prospect, she registered in mortification, was not something she wanted to think about. No more easily could she imagine being forced to walk away from the new family she had found. Perspiration beaded her upper lip as she fretted.
Marrying Rashad would be like taking a huge blind leap in the dark and she wasn’t the sort of woman who took risks of that nature, was she? But if it worked, there would be much to gain, she reasoned ruefully. She would have her grandparents for support. She was already powerfully attracted by Rashad.
‘The answer is...yes. It’s insane but...yes,’ Polly muttered almost feverishly before she could lose her nerve.
Although relief slivered through Rashad at her agreement that relief was threaded with undeniable resentment over his predicament. After all, he had been backed into a corner and forced to marry again. This was his choice, he reminded himself sternly. She was his choice and far superior to a bride who would have been a complete stranger, but the stubborn streak of volatility Rashad always kept suppressed had flickered from a spark into a sudden burning flame, for it was impossible for him to forget how very much he had hated being married.
‘IT’S NOT TOO late to change your mind,’ Ellie said with a hint of desperation while she watched the television to see the partying taking place in the streets of Kashan to celebrate Rashad and Polly’s wedding day. ‘Well, they probably do have you on the tea towels and you would need to be smuggled out of the country in disguise if you jilted him!’
‘Obviously, I’m not going to jilt him,’ Polly said quietly, wishing her sister would stop winding up her nerves with her dire forecasts.
Ellie had landed in Dharia forty-eight hours earlier and she had given her elder sister every conceivable lecture against marriage since her arrival.
‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure. Do you realise what you’re getting into? Are you even sure you will be his only wife? What if everything Rashad shows you on the surface is simply a front to persuade you to marry him? Look at those people partying at the announcement! He needs you more than you need him. That should make you suspicious. What if he has another woman hidden somewhere? A woman he really loves?’