take in his reaction. Libby, her face a bloodless contrast to her scarlet gown, raised lost, stunned eyes that seemed to beg for support and reassurance.
In contrast, Imaran's face warped into a mask of rage that was just as quickly replaced by an unreadable blank canvas. As Imaran stood, blocking Rasyn's view of Libby, the scrape of his chair across the marble floor rumbled through the silent room. With high dignity, Imaran smoothed the line of his dinner jacket.
"Congratulations." Imaran spoke too quietly for anyone else in the room to hear. "Abbas is yours. You've won."
***
As he strode down the unfamiliar palace halls in search of Imaran, Rasyn clenched his teeth until they ached. It had all been for nothing.
Instead of unburdening himself of one country he didn't want in favor of a cousin who would take it on gratefully, he was saddled with both Abbas and the Sabr Valley. Not to mention a wife...
Why hadn't she just played her part like he'd planned? But this wasn't the time to think of Libby. He needed to concentrate on finding his cousin, not be distracted by the memory of the mixture of horror and vulnerability on her face.
Imaran would likely never forgive him, but he had to try to talk to his cousin. To come clean about everything and attempt to rescue what he could of their relationship.
Rasyn turned another corner. His gut churned to find a vaulted hall as empty as the one he'd just left.
"Dammit." The curse provided little release from his pent-up anger.
Wait. This hall ended in a night-dark space. A private inner courtyard like the one in the Abbas royal palace? He followed the instinct drawing him to it.
Just as he was about to continue his search elsewhere, a man-shaped shadow moved from its place at the base of a thick-trunked date palm and resolved into the form of his cousin.
"Have you come to gloat?" His tone oozed pain.
"Imaran." He stepped through an archway and passed from the well-lit hallway into a dark garden open to the night sky.
The slow, even noise of a single pair of hands clapping filled the otherwise quiet vacuum. "Well done." The gloom silhouetted Imaran's face. "I have no idea how you accomplished that."
He opened his mouth to speak, but his cousin went on before he had the chance.
"Then again, you always were the favorite. You married a woman who is completely ill-equipped to be queen, managed to circumvent Parliament and delivered the Sabr Valley back to Abbas. All without lifting a finger. Is there anything else of mine you want? It's much easier to just give it to you than have it taken from me so painfully."
The acidic anxiety that had been eating through Rasyn's gut since he'd heard the announcement went still. In its place was a cool rage that wasn't under his control.
"I never wanted this."
"Oh, but you've managed it with such efficiency." Imaran's tone dripped with condescension that fuelled the cold flame of Rasyn's anger. "Even the tabloids are thrilled with your queen. However did you arrange for a photographer to capture you on your knees in that hotel lobby?"
"I did not plan that."
Imaran's laughter split the quiet night. He scrubbed his hand over his face like a man who hadn't slept in a week.
Rasyn could no longer hold back his anger. "You have no clue what I have done to avoid all this. For you," he spat out.
"For me? Please, you shouldn't have." Imaran's sardonic smile made Rasyn clench his fist at his side—the only way to avoid blackening his cousin's eye.
His neck began to prickle with some sixth sense warning of a deeper danger. He didn't have to look behind him to know that he wasn't alone with his cousin. And that the presence he felt was his wife's. He knew as surely as he knew his own name that Libby stood behind him, a little to his right, and that she took in every word he spoke.
But it was too late to stop what was coming next. He could no longer hold in his words. At that moment, Imaran's feelings ceased to matter; Libby's feelings ceased to matter. He could no longer bear the weight of the lies. The truth would be told.
With a chill in his tone that rivaled Imaran's, he spoke. "You accuse me of selfishness? You see me as a thing in the way of your desires. You have always been like a brother to me, and yet you have let our