A Marriage of Convenience (Married to a Prince) (3 page)

“You think about it, Honor.
You are welcome to stay as our guest for as long as you would like,” the Amir said. “If you will excuse us, the nurse is here to take your father to the clinic and I have some meetings to attend. You probably need to rest now. We have a small dinner planned for you tomorrow that I hope you will attend.”

Sean shot his daughter a pleading glare. To decline the friendly offer would be unspeakably rude. She reluctantly nodded her acceptance.

They were gone and she was left to deal with Yousef. Thankfully, Joey declared his desire to be fed, letting out a small cry.

“He’s hungry.”
She held out her arms for the baby.

“I’ll feed him.”

“You can’t.”

“I assure you, I can.”

She shook her head. Everything with Yousef was an argument. He would never change. “You’re not equipped to do it.”

“Coming from a modern American woman such as yourself, I find your comment sexist. You’ve already cheated me out of five months of these little moments in his life.”

Funny, how he didn’t feel cheated out of the nine months of pregnancy that proceeded those
little moments
. The morning sickness, the backaches, the stretch marks. She earned those moments. “This is one thing you can’t do right now.”

“Why?”
He puffed out his chest defensively, ready to argue further.

“You don’t have breast milk.”

His mouth snapped shut. He handed her the child without further disagreement. When he didn’t move, she shot him an impatient glare. “Do you mind?”

“
No. Actually I don’t.” He sat in a rattan chair and made himself comfortable

Apparently, he didn’t plan to leave while she fed Joey.
Likewise, her son was not going to allow her to delay until Yousef left. With a lack of shyness she didn’t want to analyze, she unbuttoned her blouse and shifted Joey into position.

She felt
Youssef’s gaze on her, intense and penetrating in his ire. Sorrow filled her when she thought the way he used to gaze at her, intense, but in purely sensual way. She shrugged off the sad feelings. Some memories were better left buried where they couldn’t hurt her. She no longer had the luxury of nursing a broken heart. She had Joey to think about.

* * * *

Yousef watched mother and child with an odd fascination. Breast-feeding wasn’t a common ritual in the palace. In their desire to emulate western society, many women opted to buy the commercial infant care products. Wealth had come too quickly and easily to many Nadiarians, creating a class of spoiled nouveau riche. Children were raised and cared for by European nannies until they were old enough to be sent to elite boarding schools while their parents jetted around the world.

Honor, for all her modern western ideas of male-female relationships, still held onto some traditional values when it came to their child.
How did an infant fit into her working schedule? Her career had been so important to her that she had been willing to give up their relationship.

“Where do you leave Joey when you’re at work?”

Her gaze never left the baby’s face. “I don’t.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t leave him. I had three months of maternity leave when he was born, and now the school is on summer break.”

“And where are you living?”

“In the house my mother left to me.”

He had a vague recollection of the house in a northern suburb of Boston that she had inherited.
“Isn’t that far from where you were working?”

“In September, I will be working in a day care center locally so that I can bring him along.”

So, she had put their son above her own aspirations. He should be grateful for that at least, since she hadn’t been willing to do the same for him. “Then there’s no reason for you to turn down my father’s offer to spend some time here.”

Judging by the look on her face, anyone would have thought he had suggested forced manual labor instead of a vacation. “I can stay a couple of days, I guess.”

He loosened the tie at his neck that felt as if it was choking him.
“You have six weeks before you have to be back to work and all you can spare is two days?”

“It is not a matter of sparing, Yousef.”
She exhaled slowly, as if to keep her temper in check. “I don’t have a
staff
of people to take care of my home while I’m away.”

“Excuses!” he snapped.

“I didn’t pack enough for a long stay. Your house... palace is beautiful, but it’s not set up for a baby I’d guess.”

“More excuses.
But then you always were good at excuses, weren’t you?”

Joey had fallen asleep.
She lifted him away from her breast and rested him between two brightly colored pillows on the plush sectional sofa. With her blouse back in place, she stood to meet Yousef at eye level. She shook her head sadly. “We can’t spend five minutes alone without an argument. Why make it worse?”

He shot a pointed glance towards his son.
“Because you owe me.”

Her blue eyes sparked dangerously.
For a long, cold moment she said nothing, but when she finally spoke her voice shook with barely contained fury. “What do I owe you? You left.”

“I think your memory is slightly slanted.”

Even as she glared at him, she was most beautiful women he knew. He recalled other arguments, and how they always seemed to end with the two of them making love until they forgot why the hell they were angry to begin with. His body reacted both from the assault of memories and the soft, sweet scent of her as she stood near.

“My memory is crystal clear.
You returned to Nadiar without as much as a goodbye.”

Yousef took hold of her wrist as she tried to turn away.
He wasn’t about to admit that he had stopped by the dorm. Since her roommate made it clear she didn’t want to see him, he couldn’t say goodbye. “After you told me you didn’t want to be my wife.”

Her eyes shone with unspent tears.
“There was a little more to it than that.”

“It still came down to the same thing.
You didn’t want to marry me.”

She twisted her hand free and took a step back.
“Never mind. We obviously have different memories of that day.” She stepped around to the back of the sofa to put some distance between them. “I’d be willing to stay for a short while, because your father asked, and because I owe my father that much. As long as we aren’t going to drag up the past the entire time.”

He noted cynically, that his paternal rights played no part in her
decision. “I’d say our past is very much connected to the present situation.”

“Joey might be an infant, but he still senses things like tension, anger, and fear.
If you can’t put aside what you feel about me for the time he’s here, then I don’t see any point in remaining.”

Putting aside what he felt for her was no small feat. A jumble of conflicting emotions warred inside him.
Anger, certainly, but desire as well. For despite everything, he still wanted her and he loathed the weakness in himself.

“Well, then I‘ll be careful not to say anything to make you nervous, angry or afraid.”

* * * *

Honor nodded her head sharply. She didn’t believe he would be able to keep his word, but for the short while she would be there, she would learn to ignore it. “I guess I should speak to my father about staying in his home.”

“There is plenty of room in the living quarters of the Palace.”

She shook her head. “I’d feel uncomfortable around so many strangers...”

“They happen to be my son’s family.
He belongs here.”

How could she argue?
Not that she’d win, anyway. Yousef had made a decision, and he was intractable when he set his mind on something. In the past she had been able get around him with a kiss and a smile, but too much time and hurt had passed between them.

Honor glanced towards her sleeping child.
She owed this to Joey, whether she liked it or not. This was as much a part of his heritage as his dark eyes and olive complexion. “All right, Yousef. We’ll stay here... for two weeks.”

The corners of his mouth twitched, but he seemed to bite back an angry retort. “Fine.
I’ll have a suite of rooms prepared.”

“Thank you.”
She turned her attention to the panoramic view from the wall of intricately etched glass. The grounds reminded her of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Trees, shrubs and flowers of every variety and color surrounded magnificent fountains. Marble footpaths crisscrossed the courtyard. The sheer beauty took her breath away. But beyond the gates, all points west led to the desert. Thousands of miles of desolate, unrelenting heat and sand. Nadiar was a country of contradictions.

She turned back to find Yousef crouched down in front of the baby, watching him sleep.
He stroked his finger gently along Joey’s cheek. Her stomach knotted. She recalled a time when Yousef had shared those intimate and tender gestures with her. She wasn’t jealous of her own son, but envied him.

Chapter Three

Yousef stalked around the posh business office. Two weeks? Was that all she felt he deserved? It certainly didn’t leave him much time.

The
Amir insisted that he make sure his child had the rights and protection of his family name. How was he supposed to accomplish that now? Honor hadn’t wanted to marry him last year. If she had changed her mind in the interim, she could have told him about the child. So, it seemed damned unlikely that she would agree now.

Unless she didn’t have a choice.

Apparently, he wasn’t going to get assistance from his father, who held Honor blameless. Perhaps his brother, who was a Nadiarian lawyer, would be more helpful. If he could just get Sami to stop smirking.

“What is so funny?” Yousef asked.

“I’m trying to picture you as a father.” Sami leaned back in his leather chair and chuckled. “Do you realize how many hearts you broke today?”

“I doubt that.”
Not that there wasn’t a circus like crowd of Nadiarian mothers hoping to marry their daughters into the royal family, but he knew that his personality had little to do with the matchmaking efforts. If anything, Sami, as the oldest son of the Amir, was considered the better catch. Both he and his brother, however, had vowed to steer clear of title-seeking women.

H
e had been so drawn to Honor, precisely because she had been unimpressed with his title. In the end, she had apparently unimpressed with the man as well.

“How did father take the news?” Sami asked.

“The news of an heir? Very well. That fact that my son was born out of wedlock? Not so well. In fact, he’s barely speaking to me.”

“So, what do you need from me?”

Yousef sat in the chair across from his brother. “Legal advice.”

“I’m listening.”

“Is it true that I have no legal way of gaining custody of my son?”

“That is true.”
Sami twisted uncomfortably in the seat. “Unless...”

“Yes?” Yousef prompted.

A long pause hung in the air. “Unless you want to have her declared an unfit mother.”

Yousef thought about the gentle and loving way she interacted with the child and immediately dismissed the idea.
“Besides that?”

His bother looked both relieved and apologetic.
“Then you can’t take custody from his mother. You have little chance of even shared custody right now since your son does not bear your name.”

“There’s not much I can do about that if she leaves. Are you telling me I have no legal recourse to keep them here?”

“No. I said the courts would not allow you take the child from his mother. That doesn’t mean you can’t keep them here.”

“Without causing a diplomatic incident with the American government?”

Sami nodded.

Yousef leaned forward in the chair. He was open to anything that would help his cause. “How would I do that?”

“The same way you can’t take her child away from her, she can’t take your son away from you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you can’t force her to stay, but you can possibly stop her from taking Joey with her. Would she leave without him?”

“Not a chance.” He rose and stepped closer to the desk. “So what do I need to do?”

“Well, the law has never actually been
tested before. It was passed to protect Nadiarians who married the foreigners who came to work here. It has never been applied to a child born abroad.”

“So it might not go in my favor?”
Yousef said.

“No.
But it would buy you time.”

Time was something he needed.
But at what cost? “Then do it.”