His Arranged Marriage (3 page)

And yet that was the reality of her situation.

“You are beautiful, Princess,” she was duly informed.

It wouldn’t matter if she were as ugly as intrigue, but she nodded in thanks for the compliment.

The ladies bowed their heads to her respectfully as they filed from the room. Serena glanced down at the shimmering cloth that had been skillfully draped to cover her and yet reveal her feminine charms and beauty. Amethyst with gold adornment highlighted her hair and the depth of her eyes.

It was all rather wasted on an American cowboy.

She could only pray that Prince Makin was kind, that he was at least handsome enough that she could stand to look at him in the light of day, and that he wasn’t overly impressed with himself. Americans tended to think highly of themselves. Men in general were that way.

If he was a man who thought he was going to ride in and carry her off on his Arabian stallion, Serena thought she would have to really bite down hard to keep her dismay in check.

She would know in less than thirty minutes.

In the hallway outside, the sound of maids scurrying with excitement caught her attention. That meant the arrival of the prince.

Serena closed her eyes to compose herself and waited for her maids to fetch her.

The door flew open.

“He’s here! The prince has arrived!” her ladies announced with glee.

Serena stared at them. “And the palace gossip says he is…?” she prompted.

They looked back at her uneasily.

“Out with it,” she told them. “Prepare me for the worst.”

“Tall,” was the first response.

“Loud,” was the second.

“Not dressed appropriately,” was the third. “Not like a prince.”

Serena’s eyebrows rose.

“Jeans, a cowboy hat and boots, my lady,” her most trusted handmaiden explained.

Serena drew herself up, unwilling to allow palace gossip to titter over the depth of her dismay. Nor would she embarrass her bridegroom with her reluctance.

“Take me to him,” she said.

The minute he stepped into the palace, Cade knew he’d underestimated the warmth of welcome extended to Prince Makin. King Zak’s idea of hush-hush apparently didn’t extend to a close gathering of advisers. A large room Cade would have described as a ballroom was filled with people wearing lavish ceremonial dress and jewels. It was a greeting meant to please and impress a future ruler.

King Zak apparently felt that to do any less would be to insult Prince Makin.

“Balahar and its king welcome Prince Makin,” a courtier announced.

Cade was led forward. He saw beautiful woman after beautiful woman, all with their eyes downcast as he passed them. If he were in a different position, he would have been strongly inclined to take advantage of the wealth of loveliness temptingly displayed before him.

The king of Balahar sat on a throne at the end of
the room, his face lit with a proud smile. Cade was ushered to within two feet of the regal king. He bowed deeply, only rising when the king touched his shoulder.

And then Cade saw the princess. She was brought forward from somewhere behind the throne, and took her place to the side of the king. She was arrayed in stunning purple and gold, and more strands of gold laced through magnificently burnished hair that reached her waist. Cade could see her eyes because she didn’t keep them lowered as he knew custom dictated. Nor did she curtsy as her maidservants were frantically indicating she should. She merely looked at him evenly with fabulous emerald eyes that assessed him as he did her.

She wasn’t tall, but she wasn’t petite, either.

In fact, she was just the perfect height for him. She watched him, and he watched her, and the whole court waited, enveloped in a hush.

He’d never seen a woman like her. The words that blew into his mind weren’t royal in the least:
What a babe! She’s a goddess. Mac’s gonna have a fit when he sees how lucky he is!

The princess never blinked as he stared, her perusal so thorough and honest that he had to smile. He’d been checked out by females before, but this lady left coyness to her Arabian sisters. He could tell his jeans and boots didn’t necessarily agree with
her but that something about him caught her interest in spite of herself.

So she was as reluctant as Mac was.
And not about to get caught buying a stallion without checking out its molars, either.

Cade couldn’t help himself. She was an absolute doll. He grinned hugely at her.

The court erupted with excited whispers and muted applause.

“Welcome to the family, Prince Makin,” King Zak said. “Your acceptance of my daughter, Serena, brings great joy to my heart.”

S
ERENA’S HEART JUMPED
in her chest when her father spoke the words from which there was no going back.
It’s done,
she thought wildly as the chattering voices swirled around her. King Zak embraced his new son-in-law, and then the prince bowed before her, taking her hand in his as he kissed her fingers.

Shock ran through her. The cowboy prince was not following custom, and it caught her off guard. Strange feelings of excitement ran through her at the touch of his lips brushing her skin. Amazement rippled over her as she hesitated, unsure as to what she should do next. What did he expect from her?

“Smile for me, Princess,” he said softly, for her ears alone.

His husky command threw her into confusion.
That voice sought her compliance, made her want to do whatever he wanted of her.

This was not the way she wanted to feel about a husband she wished to feel nothing for.

Even for a princess who knew her duty, the magnetic appeal seeking to steal her senses was overwhelming. Before Serena could force herself to obey her prince, her cowardly legs managed a brief curtsy before she escaped to the shelter of her room.

I cannot do this! I cannot marry a man who looks at me as if he could devour me with a single kiss!

W
ITHIN MOMENTS
, her maidservants came for her. There was no escaping her fate now that Prince Makin had nodded his acceptance of their arranged marriage. Her hair was swiftly combed to hang free to her waist, no longer adorned with the gold ribbons. Perfume meant to tantalize her bridegroom was lavishly dabbed at her temples and between her breasts.

She was taken to a small antechamber where the king and Prince Sharif—King Zak’s other adopted child—and her own prince awaited her. The look on Prince Makin’s face was somehow priceless. He’d been pried from his jeans and robed in raiment befitting an Arabian prince for his marriage. Because of the need for swiftness and utmost secrecy, the only other people in the room were the king’s trusted adviser, her favorite maidservant, and the of
ficial who would bless their union. Momentarily she wondered if Prince Makin was taken aback by the lack of pomp surrounding their marriage, but that was impossible. It was his mother, Rose Coleman-El Jeved, who had emphasized the need for such.

The ceremony was over in a matter of moments, which flew by all too quickly. Numbly Serena realized that not only was she now irrevocably married to the American pretender, he fully intended to claim a kiss from her. Heart rate accelerating, she closed her eyes and prayed the kiss would be mercifully swift.

F
OR A MAN USED TO THINKING
on his feet, Cade would later admit to himself and everyone else that he’d been caught totally off guard. First off, he hadn’t realized that a simple smile meant he was accepting the princess as his. Second, he would have to confess that his command of Arabian hadn’t prepared him for the swift rush as he was led to a private chamber where his clothes were swiftly replaced with more appropriate ones. Realizing he was in over his head, Cade opted to keep his mouth shut.

To admit now that he was not Prince Makin would bring such embarrassment upon the family name it couldn’t even be considered. And he could only envision the humiliation on his mother’s face if he were found out. Prince Sharif stared at him with an enigmatic smile on his face, one dark eye
brow raised, his lips curled as if he owned the world. And as if he could read Cade’s discomfort with the trap he’d gotten himself jammed in.

Cade’s gaze shifted to the golden trap named Serena. He was stuck with this lovely woman. From the frantic, frightened look on her face, he figured they were both roped into a corral neither of them wanted to share.

Maybe it was the oh-no-he’s-going-to-eat-me look on Serena’s face that drove him to do what he sensed she didn’t want him to do. But he was a prince, and that meant he could kiss his bride if he wanted to, and somehow he’d gotten himself tangled up in this rope, and by jimmy, she could just share his misery.

Cade put his lips against the startled princess’s. Like beating butterfly wings spreading apart, her mouth opened under his.

All Cade could think of when he felt her compliant surrender was that after all the years his mother had dragged him to church, he finally understood what King Solomon had been so excited about when he’d written his famous Song of Solomon.

As impossible as it seemed, as wrong as it should have been to touch the princess intended for his brother, kissing Serena Al Farid made Cade feel like a powerful and wealthy-beyond-measure king.

Serena Wilson-Al Farid was a treasure.

“My spies tell me that the marriage is done,” Layla informed Azzam, “and the fact that we were not invited is insulting.”

“None were invited,” Azzam consoled her. “Put it from your mind.”

“I can’t.” Layla was festering inside. Azzam’s lack of concern for the situation distressed her to the point of pressing him. “Azzam, you trust Zak too much!”

Azzam shrugged. “I truly don’t have the thirst for intrigue that I once did.”

“I do,” she replied, her voice bitter. “The throne of Sorajhee is the only prize left to me in my old age and I would see the jewel polished more brightly.”

“You speak like a foolish old woman.”

Pride mixed with impatience stirred up a vicious cocktail inside Layla. “You would not speak so if you knew everything I have done to protect what is
rightfully yours! How can you even speak of allowing Zakariyya to take it from you?”

Azzam’s eyes narrowed on her. “I doubt the wisdom in not exacting a punishment for your previous schemes. What have you done for me, besides be a choking bone in my throat with your constant demands for more power? More of everything? You wear me out, woman. No wonder I spend more time than ever in the comparative peace of my harem.”

Layla cloaked herself inside her robe, drawing the cloth tight against her body, a shield against his scorn. The beginning of hatred for her husband ate into her soul. What a blow to her pride that, after all the years she’d worked to make certain no Coleman-El Jeveds made a claim to the throne, one had apparently appeared like a bad dream from the past to do just that. She should have done more than convince Azzam to put Rose into a sanitarium and steal Rose’s one son away from her. She should have demanded to see the bodies of the three other Coleman-El Jeved princes when they were rumored to have died. But she’d been so certain that having Rose shut away would end any future threat to Azzam ascending to the throne. “I will take my leave of you now,” she said frostily as she bowed to Azzam. “If you will grant me so.”

He shrugged, losing interest in his petulant wife.

With that cool dismissal, Layla swept from the
room.
Fool not to see the danger under your very nose, Azzam!

But she did. And it was up to her to make certain that nothing stood in between her and the prize she coveted above all.

Balahar.

Fortunately, she had a few moves left to her. If the marriage was not consummated tonight, it would not be a legal and biding union. She had learned that the American was on his way to a neighboring country.

Between now and the time he departed, Serena’s new husband would find it very difficult to consummate the royal marriage.

She smiled to herself, and thanked Allah for inhibiting potions and loyal spies.

S
ERENA AND
C
ADE
sat beside each other at a table draped with a lavish cloth and more food than they could eat. A robed servant stood behind them, anticipating their dining needs. Cade ignored the tea the servant moved closer to his plate. He didn’t need tea, or food for that matter.

What he needed was to talk to Serena, and she hadn’t uttered more than two words to him so far. Did she plan to ignore him?

“Guess you’re not too crazy about being married to me,” he stated mildly.

“I am positive I could say the same about you.”
She gave him a frank look that plainly said she was being restrained.

“I have to say you’re a relief,” Cade began, thinking to compliment the princess. “I was afraid you’d be…”

“Ugly?” Serena supplied.

He grinned. “Maybe on the unattractive side.”

“I am glad you do not find me so. I, on the other hand, thought you’d be a white and pasty American. I, too, find you a relief.”

Cade straightened. “You had to have known my family history. My father was Arab.”

“You are still darker than I expected.” Her eyes followed a trail of bare skin at his neck, and then skipped the covering of the robe to examine his hands. “And not the spoiled good-for-nothing playboy I was expecting. You have the hands of a man who works hard.”

“You watch too many American TV shows,” Cade said with a smile. The servant had moved the tea glass yet closer to his plate, and Cade pushed it away. “What other misconception can I clear up for you?”

“I have to be honest with you, Prince Makin,” Serena said, startling Cade with the subject of honesty and reminding him that he had a little truth he needed to share with her as well. “I dreamed of choosing a prince of my own, an Arabian of royal
birth. I love it here in Balahar and would not wish to leave. I am far more Arab than I am American.”

“I’m far more American than I am Arab.” He thought about that. There was no way Mac was going to live in Balahar: he wouldn’t be happy here at all. Cade thought palace life would try his patience after more than a few days. “I think you’re going to end up living in America again, Princess.”

“I do not wish to leave my people.”

“You married me,” he said bluntly. “What did you expect?”

“Frankly, I expected you were marrying me to be in line for the throne.”

“Nope.” He pushed the goblet away for a final time, looking up at the servant. “Take the tea away. I do not want it.”

The servant jumped to remove the glass, his expression concerned. Cade couldn’t explain it, but something about the servant bothered him unreasonably. Maybe he was just tense from this princess problem. He turned his attention back full force to Serena. “I can tell you quite honestly that none of the Coleman males are interested in the Balahar throne.”

“Why do you say it that way?” Delicate chestnut eyebrows lifted with surprise.

“Just letting you know, Princess, in case you thought you’d married the wrong brother. We’re all the same on this subject.” It was the truth. Even if
he weren’t masquerading as Mac, Cade would never be interested in this whole scenario.

Except maybe for the princess. He eyed her covertly over the food they both ignored. She was gorgeous and sexy, a hottie in gauzy fabric. But he couldn’t see her with Mac.

Uh-oh. I don’t even want to have this thought.

“Listen, princess—”

“Do you mind calling me by my name?” she asked. “Somehow, when you say
princess,
I’m pretty sure you’re not expressing a term of respect. I feel you could just as easily interchange
babe, doll,
or
sweet cheeks
for
princess.
And I don’t like it.”

She glared at him.

Caught by surprise, he hesitated before grinning widely.

“It’s your attitude,” she told him. “And your tone. I prefer you address me as Serena when we are alone together.”

“Anything else you want from me, Serena?”

“All I ask is that you always be honest with me. I didn’t expect a love match, but I would appreciate honesty and respect.”

“All right.” He tossed the napkin onto the table, unable to eat the strongly spiced food. “I did expect a pampered princess who would be mainly an ornament.”

“So sorry to disappoint you.” Her eyes blazed at him.

He drummed the table, causing the servant to jump to anticipate Cade’s needs. This put Cade into a worse mood, not the least because the tea he hadn’t wanted was replaced with something else—which he wouldn’t drink, either. “Can we ditch this guy? He’s like a jumpy puppy.”

The first hint of a smile he’d seen on Serena’s face came and went quickly—but it had been there. “I don’t mind.”

He waved a hand to dismiss the servant, who backed reluctantly from the room. “So, I’ll leave you here while I finish my business and then come back and get you sometime,” Cade offered.

“You do not intend to…to—”

“I don’t think so,” he interrupted. “It would be better if we didn’t.”

“But the marriage won’t be binding unless it’s consummated.”

“Do you want it to be binding?” He looked at her curiously.

“I—I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I don’t think we have much in common. Yet it would break my father’s heart.”

There was that. His mother would be none too pleased, either, especially when she discovered what he’d done.

“Don’t you want to make love to me?” she asked suddenly.

His throat dried out. His entire body electrified at
her soft question. “I do, Princess,” he said, without a trace of the mockery with which he’d referred to her before. “But you want honesty, and you deserve that from your husband. And I can’t give that to you right now.”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed. Then he leaned close to her ear, which brought the scent of her to him fully and made him somehow regret what he had to tell her. “I’m not Prince Makin,” he said.

S
ERENA HELD BACK A SMILE
, thinking this prince had a strange sense of humor. “Of course you are Prince Makin. My father would know if you were not.”

“I have a twin, who is Prince Makin. I am Prince Kadar.”

She raised an eyebrow. “If that is true, why are you lying to my father? To the people of Balahar?”

“I had no intention of marrying you when I came here,” he said. She sensed the honesty behind his striking words. “Everything happened quickly. There didn’t seem to be a good time to pull the reins in, actually. And once I realized that I’d agreed to marry you, I didn’t want to insult King Zak by saying that I’d changed my mind.”

“I see.” Serena tried to hold back her rising dismay. “No, I don’t see. So you didn’t marry me for the throne of Balahar.”

“No.”

He shook his head, and a vague sense of feminine insult, no matter how irrational it should have been, rose inside her. “Where is Prince Makin, your brother, then? The man I was intended to marry?”

“At home, tending to The Desert Rose.”

“You are his emissary. He sent you to spy on me.”

“No. Well, maybe. I had business over in Saudi Arabia and said I’d pop by and visit you. This wasn’t the way I intended for the visit to work out, obviously.”

“You’d
pop
by and visit me. How American that sounds.” She was starting to feel more than a trace of bitterness. “So you popped by and married me instead.”

One dark brow rose as he stared at her. “You have every right to be angry. I fully expect that we can have this marriage annulled because it won’t be consummated. Then you can marry my twin, who is your proper intended.”

“Or?” Now her brow rose. “I assume there’s an ‘or’ in this.”

He shrugged. “You could come home with me. I’m not flying commercially, and my co-pilot is waiting at the airport, so we’d have plenty of secrecy.”

“The purpose of coming with you would be?”

“Popping by and checking out Mac. Turnabout is fair play, I suppose.”

She refused to smile at his suggestion, although his tone suggested irony. “Prince Kadar, I am not a plaything.”

“I am not suggesting you are.” He leaned close to where she sat, touching her hair with a reverent finger. “Quite the opposite. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Both her brows rose in astonishment. “I find that difficult to believe from such a playboy.”

“I am not a playboy!”

“A man who ‘pops’ by a foreign country to check out the goods is obviously a connoisseur. Or else your brother wouldn’t have sent you,” she stated with conviction. “Besides, your very personality tells me that you are too confident that no matter what situation you find yourself in, you always find a way to turn it to your advantage.” She raised her chin. “I do not like that trait in you. You remind me of Prince Sharif.”

“I wouldn’t compare me to a spoiled prince.”

“Oh?” She smiled without the sentiment behind it. “You know so much about him then, in the thirty minutes you’ve seen him?”

“He reminds me of someone I know.” His voice was thoughtful. “And he doesn’t like me, I can tell.”

“How intuitive of my brother, then,” she said
sarcastically. “To mistrust a man who is lying to him, marries his sister under false pretenses, and is no more a real prince than any commoner living outside these walls.”

“I am from the family I say I am,” Cade said sternly.

“It takes more than the accident of royal blood to make a prince,” Serena retorted. “Do not disparage my brother in the future. And don’t try to turn this particular situation to your advantage. I refuse to be manipulated for your purposes.” She crossed her arms. “Why should I not go to my father this instant and tell him what you’ve done?”

“Because I think you know that I mean you no harm. And I understand you being a little insulted that I don’t want to stay married to you, but you have to understand that my brother is—”

“I think I’ll keep you,” Serena said suddenly. “The punishment for your rash behavior should be to deal with your actions.”

“Hey, Princess, I’m not a child or one of your servants to command—”

“No, but you have wronged me. Do not play the injured party when it is me, Prince Kadar.” Serena could tell he didn’t like the tables being turned on him one bit, and that feeling of power provoked her into words. “You find me beautiful. I find you somewhat handsome.”

“Somewhat handsome!”

“Somewhat. Passably,” Serena said, glossing over the feminine fib. “I’m assuming I’d find your twin just as attractive, but he let you steal me away from him and I can’t admire that in a man.”

“Wait! I didn’t mean to steal you.”

“I am not in a mind to have my marriage annulled,” she cut in. “Already there are people who wish to see my father undermined, and such hesitation would definitely factor in weakness.”

“I don’t follow your thinking, Princess.”

“Of course you do not. You have not lived among palace spies and royal intrigue all your life. Quite simply, within moments of this problem getting out, those who wish harm to my father would know. And they would use the time needed to annul this marriage to their advantage. In other words, I can’t risk the danger to my father by playing games. You are married to me, and you will stay so.”

“That sounds dangerously like a command, Princess.”

She heard the steel in his voice and saw the glint in his eyes. This was a man who did not like to be pushed around. He had strength in him.