at a moment’s notice.”
Then he waited, as if he expected Tarek to react to that.
And Tarek did. He gazed down at the man the way he imagined he might look at an insect, should it dare to begin buzzing at him. Right before he squashed it.
Beside him, Anya made a soft sound that he thought was a suppressed laugh.
“My father is referring to his schedule at the hospital,” she said quickly. “He is...distressed that he had to alter it to come here for these celebrations. I explained to him that he could have come in later in the week, of course.”
“You may not care what people think of you, Anya,” her father said, making no apparent attempt to curtail the snide lash in his words. “But I’m afraid I do. However inconvenient it might be, I can hardly pretend this hasty wedding isn’t happening. It’s been all over the news.”
“Your daughter is my choice of bride,” Tarek said, without comprehension. “She is about to become the Queen of Alzalam, the toast of the kingdom. Yet you speak of your convenience?”
The man bristled in obvious affront. Tarek did not reply in kind, an example of his benevolence he suspected was lost on this small and unpleasant man.
“Rescheduling is such a nightmare,” the blonde on his arm breathed, her eyes on her husband.
“Excuse us.” Tarek’s tone was dark as he took Anya’s arm. “Let us leave you to contemplate your calendar. We will continue with the celebration.”
He steered Anya away from her scowling father, doing his best not to scowl himself, as that would only cause general agitation in the crowds all around.
“I cannot comprehend the fact I found you discussing your father’s inconvenience,” he said in a low voice. “As if he was not standing in the ancient palace of Alzalam’s kings, in the presence of a daughter who will become Queen. He should have been stretched out at your feet, begging your favor.”
And would have been even a generation ago, but the wider world tended to frown upon such things in these supposedly enlightened times.
Anya looked philosophical. Was Tarek the only one who could see the hurt beneath? And because he could see it, he could see nothing else.
“I suppose I should be grateful that no matter what he’s doing, no matter where he finds himself or who he speaks to, my father is always...exactly the same,” she said.
Tarek found himself even less philosophical as the night—and the week—wore on.
The kingdom overflowed with wedding guests and those who merely wished to use their King’s wedding as an opportunity to celebrate, now that the troubles of the past year were well and truly over. There were celebrations in and out of the palace, all over the capital city and in the farthest villages alike, as the people celebrated not just Tarek and the bride he was taking, but this new era of the kingdom.
Tarek was deeply conscious of this. He had promised them a new world, a bright future, and this was the first happy bit of proof that he planned to deliver. And in a far different way than any of his ancestors would have. His brother was in jail, the insurgents had been fought back, and Tarek had no fear of the world’s condemnation or attention—or he would not have been marrying this woman.
Now was a time for hope. His new Queen was the beacon of that hope.
Love grows in the most unlikely of places...the more easily swayed papers sighed, from London to Sydney and back again.
From Convict to Queen! shouted the more salacious.
But either way, choosing this thoroughly American career woman—all previously considered epithets to his people—was having precisely the effect on Alzalam’s image that Tarek had hoped it would. She was a success and their supposed love story even more so. All was going to plan, save his unfortunate obsession with the woman in question that he would far rather have coldly used as a pawn.
Yet no matter where he found himself in these endless parties, dinners, and the more traditional rituals prized by his people, and no matter the current state of his insatiable hunger for Anya herself, Tarek couldn’t keep himself from noticing that Anya’s father behaved more as if he was being tortured than welcomed into the royal, ruling family of an ancient kingdom.
“I told you,” Anya said one night, looping her arms around his neck as he carried her from her terrace into her bedroom. He had not yet moved her things into