Heir to a Dark Inheritance - By Maisey Yates Page 0,21
spoke, you think those won’t matter?”
“It is not the same as a normal marriage. It is to protect my daughter. To protect Jada’s rights, which she insisted on. This makes sense.”
Sayid laughed. “One thing you’ll discover soon, my friend, is that women and children rarely make sense.”
“I know about women.”
“Yes, you do. But you don’t know about wives.”
Jada was sitting in her room, watching Leena sleep. Sayid and Chloe had lingered for a while, but as nice as they were, Jada had been happy to see them go. She was tired of being on show. Tired of playing the part of, if not happy bride, then at least contented bride. It was too much and the strain was starting to break her.
This whole thing might break her. She was afraid it would.
There was a light knock on her door. “Come in.”
The door opened, and Adira appeared. Alik’s head of the household was spare with her smiles but today, she offered Jada one. “Mr. Alik has requested that you join him for a late dinner.”
“I…” With Adira looking at her like that she hardly felt like she could refuse. “What about Leena?”
“I will stay on this floor. If she cries, you will be fetched immediately.” Adira was being friendly, but she had the air of a woman who brooked no nonsense, and would not be disagreed with. She reminded Jada a bit of her own mother.
“Thank you,” she said.
She stood from her position on the bed and wondered if she should change again. She’d stripped off her wedding dress the moment she was up in her room, and had traded it out in favor of a simple sundress. She’d longed for the comfort of her sweatpants but it was way too hot to indulge herself.
No. She wasn’t going to change. It didn’t matter what she wore to see Alik.
Her husband. A vision of Alik swam through her head and panic assaulted her. No. She closed her eyes and thought the words again. Her husband. And she willed an image of Sunil to appear. Alik was not her husband. Not truly.
She swallowed hard and patted the sleeping Leena once on her rounded belly before offering the housekeeper another smile and walking out of the room.
As she drew closer to the dining area, her heart started beating harder, faster. And she started remembering the wedding. The moment when Alik had taken her hand. His fingers had been rough on her skin, and hot, so hot. The heat had seeped through her skin, shot through her body, pooling in her stomach.
It had been so very like…
No. She wasn’t even going to think it. He didn’t turn her on. Yes, he was a handsome man, in his way. Well, handsome seemed wrong. Handsome sounded banal and safe. Vanilla. And Alik Vasin was anything but that.
He was scarred, rough. Dangerous. And in that danger, there was a magnetism that defied logic. That was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. Ever.
She blinked. Just thinking that felt like a betrayal. Not just to her marriage, but to who she was. She wasn’t the kind of woman who lost her head over a hot man. A hot man she didn’t even like. She idly wiped her palm on her skirt, trying to rid herself of the feeling of his flesh against hers. Trying to get rid of the heat.
It didn’t work.
She walked down a curved staircase and a long hall, the high-gloss black floors casting a ghostly reflection in front of her. The palace was like a maze, and the week she’d spent there, mainly huddled in hers and Leena’s rooms, hadn’t been enough to make it feel familiar.
The one good thing about the size of the palace was that it made avoiding Alik simple. And all things considered, avoidance had been high on her list of priorities.
Her problem was simply that it had been too long since a man had touched her. Too long since she felt any sort of attraction or arousal. She simply hadn’t been interested. She still wasn’t, but it was nothing more than a body/brain disconnect. Nothing to get worked up about. She was still in control.
She took a shaking breath and walked into the dining room. Alik was sitting there, at the head of the table. The only light in the room was coming from flickering candles, set on the table, casting sharp shadows onto Alik’s face.
She’d just been thinking that he looked dangerous. She’d had no idea. Until now. His cheekbones looked more