A Marriage of Convenience (Married to a Prince) (7 page)

“I’m going to miss him too,” she said softly.
“So will Joey.”

Jealousy replaced his earlier guilt.
Just how close was she with this Charlie that even Joey would miss him?

“Look out for him until I can figure out something
.”

Yousef heard more than enough.
He cleared his throat.

Honor met his glare without a trace of remorse. “I have to go, Shelly.
’

Shelly
. He grunted. Her interfering roommate had refused to tell him where to find Honor last year. And apparently never passed on the message that he wanted to see her. Evidently she was still trying to warn Honor away.

“
I’ll call you after the wedding.” She hung up the phone. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” he grumbled.

“Okay. Let me go check on Joey one last time.”

He blocked the doorway as she tried to leave.
“Who’s Charlie?”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

She arched her eyebrow in question.
“Were you eavesdropping on my conversation?” The laughter in her voice grated on his splintered nerves.

“How come you never mentioned him when you accepted my marriage proposal?”

She smiled and absently straightened his tie. “You mean that was a marriage proposal? I thought it was a business arrangement.”

He caught her wrist before she could distract him.
“You’re avoiding the question.”

“I should really let you suffer for thinking the worst of me, but Charlie is my cat.”

“Cat?” His anger dissolved in a sea of embarrassment. The woman got to him despite his resolve to remain in complete control. “You have a cat?”

“He sort of adopted me when we were both feeling a little abandoned.”

“I didn’t abandon you,” he growled out through clenched teeth.

Honor s
hook her head. “I was making arrangements for my house and my pet. Do you want to fight about it, Yousef?”

“No.”

“Then, could we start by admitting that we were both wrong in the past and let it go? I’d like to get through this year without destroying each other.”

One year
. Did she think he would forget without her bringing it up in every conversation? “And have you taken care of everything?”

“For the most part.
What about you? Shouldn’t you be at work? You’re sister said something about having some kind of domestic problems.”

“My sister talks too much, especially on subjects she knows nothing about.
I have taken some time off until after the wedding.” Time he probably shouldn’t be sparing at this point in the negotiations, but the Bedouins respected marriage and family obligations better than most Nadiarians. “Are you ready to leave?”

She shrugged.
“I guess so. I still don’t understand why we can’t bring Joey.”

“Don’t you trust my mother with him?”

She smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her cotton shirt-dress. “I didn’t say that.”

“You would think you had never left him with a sitter before.”

“I never have,” she said.

“Never?”

A halo of golden hair framed her face as she shook her head. “I didn’t have any reason to.”

“And now you do.
We have things to take care of at your consulate so we can marry. We will only be gone a few hours.” He handed Honor her purse from the chair. “Your father is here. My family is here. You can have my cell phone. They will call if there’s a problem.”

“You think I’m being ridiculous.”

She was definitely over-protective but he made allowances because of her unfamiliar surroundings. Once she got used to Nadiar she would enjoy the benefits of having an extended family. “Maybe a little.”

“You thought I was having an affair with my cat, and I’m ridiculous?”

Before he had time to lose his temper, Honor slipped her arm through his. The gesture both surprised and warmed him.

“That wasn’t fair,” she said with a big grin.
“I knew you were listening to my conversation so I had a little fun with it.”

So, she had deliberately tried to make him jealous?
And worse, her plan had worked. Perhaps he deserved it. If the thought of Honor seeing another man caused him to act like a fool, he could only imagine how she must have felt last year when she incorrectly assumed he was already engaged to another woman. What he had considered a persuasive argument for getting married right away had backfired. As much as he loathed admitting it, Honor was right. They both needed to accept blame and get over it.

* * *

Leaving her son for a few hours proved to be more difficult than Honor expected. Yousef made her return his cell phone after she made three phone calls in fifteen minutes to check on the baby. To his credit, he didn’t laugh at her, although she knew he thought her paranoid.

After a trip to the American Consulate to clear up the necessary paperwork for her to marry abroad, they were driven to the bustling city center.
The mix of glass skyscrapers, ancient ruins and ornate mosques told the architectural history of Nadiar’s long and glowing past. As the limousine pulled up in front of a jewelry store, Honor cringed at the awkward prospect of picking out a wedding ring. She didn’t realize how awkward until the driver entered the shop first and had the building cleared of all patrons before she and Yousef went inside.

“Is there a reason for this?” she asked

“Security,” he answered as if it should have been obvious. He offered his hand as she stepped from the car.

“Every time we go some
place together?”

“No.
This is a special circumstance.”

Every person in the store thought the
ir reason for buying jewelry a special occasion. She felt uneasy walking through the doors of the now vacant store. A soft buzz of voices from the street followed her inside.

The floral scent of Jasmine flowers hung in the cool air.
She glanced around the shop. Case after case of glittering jewels and polished gold sparkled in the chandelier lighting. She hadn’t seen such an opulent display of jewelry since her father took her to Tiffany’s as a little girl. “Can we make this quick, Yousef.”

“Joey is fine.”

“That’s not my concern. I feel guilty about making all those people wait outside so we can pick out a ring.”

He shook his head.
“We’re not here for a ring. I already took care of that.”

She wasn’t sure how he found time to buy a ring when she only accepted his
offer yesterday. “And we’re here because...?”

“To be fitted for your crown.”

A numbing shock rooted her in place. He could not have said what she just heard. She searched his face for some hint of amusement but he didn’t crack a smile.

“Something wrong?” he asked when he couldn’t urge her forward.

“I would have sworn you said crown. Tell me that’s a Nadiarian word for flatware,”

“No, it’s a piece of jewelry you wear on your head.”

Their conversation was absurd to the point of surreal. She clenched her trembling hands into fists. “Why do I need a crown?”

“It goes with the title you acquire with marriage.”

“What title?”

“Princess.”

She waited for the punch line that never came. He never said anything about a title; not yesterday or even last year when he had wanted to marry her. How was she supposed to live up to a title? Suddenly, a simple marriage for her son’s sake became very complicated. “I don’t want a title.”

“Well, I’m sorry Honor, but you get one, and the crown to go with it.”
The proprietor sent Yousef a questioning glance. He shrugged. “She’s still making up her mind about the stones.”

“Stones?” She nearly choked on the word.

“Weren’t you the one who wanted to make this quick?”

His laughter added to her shock and anxiety.
She found nothing amusing about this situation. He would spend a fortune on a glorified head band for a temporary marriage?

“Your mother doesn’t wear one.”

“You don’t wear it every day. Just for official events or State dinners.”

The reality of her situation surpassed any of the frightening
scenarios she’d imagined. Every little girl’s dream of being a princess just became her nightmare.

Yousef cupped his large hand over her smaller one.
“We have no choice in this, Honor. It’s a tradition. The sooner you get it over with, the sooner you can get back to our son.”

The mention of Joey gave her the needed jolt to get her moving.
She nodded slowly. “If I have to, I want a small one. A really, really small one.”

* * *

Yousef relaxed into the back seat of the limo.
He’d always believed he knew women and what made them happy. He learned today, that he knew nothing. What woman, given carte blanche to choose whatever precious stones and metals she wanted, would object? Honor! She picked the smallest tiara and asked for no modifications to the piece. Damned if it didn’t look magnificent with her delicate features! And there it sat, in a box on her lap and she hadn’t lifted the lid even once to look at it.

Instead, she stared out the window as if she lost her best friend.
What he hoped would be a pleasant surprise for her, had turned her into a nervous wreck. Did she really hate the idea of being married to him so completely? Earlier in the morning she had seemed friendly, even playful towards him. Now, he felt he had taken a quantum leap backwards.

“Am I missing something, Honor?
Why are you angry?”

She raised her head and met his gaze.
“I’m not angry.”

“Then what is the problem?” he asked.

“You never told me about all this. Palaces and protocol. The crown, the title. It’s overwhelming.”

“When was I supposed to mention it?
You only agreed to be my wife yesterday.”

Her blue eyes took on a shimmering glaze.
“We spent an entire year together and I realize now, that I didn’t know anything about your life at all. Don’t you think that scares the hell out of me?”

He slid his arm across her shoulders, fighting her resistance, to bring her next to him. “I’m sure that it is daunting.”

“Ya think?”

The familiar vanilla scent of her perfu
me wafted around him. “And have you not surprised me with a few things I didn’t expect?”

“Like what?”

“You do not think that a child is more significant, more overwhelming than any of this?” He waved his hand in a sweeping motion to emphasize his point.

“You apparently handle surprise better than I do,” she muttered.

Yousef swallowed a groan. As if he had handled anything better so far. He’d threatened her into staying, and then frightened her into marrying him. And worse, he had hoped he could buy his way out of his guilt by pleasing her with an expensive piece of jewelry. The joke was on him. She didn’t want the crown and she was scared to death by what it represented.

His gut told him to let her go.
Pushing her into a marriage she didn’t want, was wrong. This would blow up in his face. He knew her well enough believe they could come to a fair arrangement regarding Joey.

“Honor?”

She rested her head on his shoulder. The gesture caught him off guard. “I know. I’m being ridiculous again.”

“Not at all,” he said, drawing her closer.

“I’m just afraid. I’ll get over it.”

“I wasn’t going to be that condescending.”

Her fingers absently toyed with the buttons on his shirt. Her nervous habit was wreaking havoc with his hormones and disrupting his concentration.

“This is what is best for Joey and I have to put him first.” She recited the words as if they were a mantra she had to convince herself to believe in.

While his son’s welfare was his main concern, he couldn’t deny that he wanted her.
Really wanted her. But that didn’t give him license to force her into being with him. The right thing to do was to give Honor her freedom. “No, that wasn’t what I was going to say either.”

She tilted her head back to look at him. “So, what are you trying to say?”

Her full lips pursed together in a sexy pout. Warm breath caressed his neck and cheek. Damn! She was so incredibly beautiful. If she would push him away, she would make this much easier on him. She might have resigned herself to her fate, but he wanted more than resignation from her.

He inhaled deeply.
If he was going to do it, he had to do it now.

“Yousef?”

He brushed a kiss over her soft mouth. “When do you think you will be ready for the wedding?”

He couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t let her leave and take their son with her. Not before he got a chance to know them and more importantly, before they got a chance to know him. So far, he hadn’t proven himself as a father... or a man.