An Inconvenient Marriage (Married to a Prince) (2 page)

The flow of passengers swept her off the air-conditioned bus into a suffocating heat.  Perhaps the wool business suit had not been the wisest choice for travel.  Once inside the cool airport terminal, her comfort level improved, but her anxiety level rose considerably.  Hopefully she could conclude her business and be on her way in a couple of days at the most.  She wouldn’t be able to relax until landed safely back in America.

Beyond the glass doors that separated the customs booths from the masses waiting to pick up family and friends, Delilah noticed camera crews.  Not one, but several. Were they shooting a movie or had some newsworthy event transpired?  She reached the front of the line and handed the official her passport.  His gaze moved between her face and the passport several times.  He checked a sheet of paper on his desk and then discretely motioned to someone in the security booth. 

A uniformed man approached her.
“Miss Jordan.  Can you come with me please?”

“What’s going on?” she asked, trying to swallow a rising sense of panic.

“This way, please,” he said and pointed for her to precede him to the security room.

Go to
Nadiar, her lawyer had advised.  And fool that she was, she hopped on a plane and came here without bothering to make appointments or arrangements or even doing some basic research.  This was not like her at all. She must still be in shock from her mother’s surprise announcement.  To make matters worse, she had apparently been singled out for a security search.

“Do you need me to open the suitcase?” she asked the guard.

“You wait here please.”

He disappeared before she could answer.  The small room had one mirrored wall, which she assumed was a window that allowed someone to watch her from the other side.  For several minutes she sat motionless on a wooden bench. Just when she was about to call out, the side door opened and a man stepped into the room.

He wore a long white caftan with a gold accented robe.  The traditional desert headdress like she had seen in movies covered his head.  He was tall, and he towered over her even when she came to her feet.  Shadows in the dimly lit room obscured his face from view but not so much that she missed the dangerous spark in his onyx eyes as he glared down at her.

“
Lilah Rafik?” he asked.  His voice was deep... and angry.

“Jordan,” she corrected.
“Delilah Jordan.”

“Not according to your
Nadiarian birth certificate.”

Her body went rigid.  “Who are you?”

“Oh, Ha bibi.  Do you not recognize your own husband?”

Chapter Two

Sami watched the play of emotion on Delilah Jordan’s delicate face with a disappointment he hadn’t expected.  Despite his hard-won and well-deserved reputation for being the most arrogant bastard in the royal family, women still threw themselves at him in the hope of gaining a title. He was aware of how easily they fluttered their eyelashes and flashed a sultry grin to get what they wanted.  So the look of revulsion on the face of his wife sent a definite blow to his otherwise healthy ego. 

His gaze swept over her, taking in her conservative beige suit, her sensible shoes and matching purse, and her golden brown hair confined in a prim little bun.  Not the brash New Yorker he’d feared, but he supposed with all the reporters waiting by the exit for a glimpse of the woman who would be queen, conservative was better than flashy. Her green eyes sparked with annoyance at his blatant appraisal.

He pointed towards the door.  “Are you ready?”

She looked at him in question. 
“Ready for what?”

“To face the reporters out there.”

“What reporters?” She choked on the question and swallowed hard.

“Just a couple of local newscasters... and half the damn foreign press,” he muttered sarcastically.

“Why?”

He wasn’t sure that anyone could be that naive.  Did she have no idea what kind of attention she would draw by announcing to a consulate employee that she was his wife, or was it part of a calculated plan?

“To meet my
Nadiarian born wife who has finally returned home from America.  The newest princess in the palace.”

“What?”  She dropped her purse on the floor and slumped into the wooden bench behind her.  Her skin paled to a milky white. “I don’t want to talk to reporters.”

“You should have thought about that before you made it known publicly that you are my wife.”

Her body tensed and she raised her chin defensively.  “I did not make some kind of public announcement, Mr...Prince... what am I supposed to call you, anyway?”

“Master,” he said with a grin.

“Yeah, right.”
  Her fear seemed to disappear in a sea of indignation. She was a prickly little thing.  “I don’t know why you think I’ve come, or what you think I want.  But let me make this as clear as I can, Your Royal Highness...”

“No.  That would be my father.  Call me Sami.”

“Well, thank you for your permission.  I came here for one reason and one reason alone.  And one that I’m sure you’ll agree is practical.”

“And what is that, my darling wife?”

She crinkled her nose at his words.  “I want you to divorce me.”

He hid his surprise under a mask of indifference.  That one caught him off guard.  Why was he insulted when he wanted nothing more than to be free of this whole situation himself?

“There is a problem with your plan, but now is not the time to discuss the matter.”  He picked up her purse from the floor and handed it to her.  In light of her surprising request, he would postpone her press conference for another time.  “We can get around the press by saying you are too tired to be interviewed right now, but you will have to speak with them soon.”

“Thank you.”  She rose and reached for the handle of her suitcase.  “I have a reservation at the Hilton.”

He took the luggage from her.  “I will have it canceled for you.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “And where do you expect me to stay?”

“Where else would you stay, but with your husband at the palace?”  At least he didn’t have to worry about her saying something foolish in the presence of the reporters.  Her shock kept her speechless as they made their way past the crowd to the waiting car.

* * * *

Delilah walked around the well-appointed suite in astonishment.  While growing up, she had lived in apartments smaller than the bathroom.  She needed to get herself together.  From the moment she had seen the white domed palace in the distance, everything had stopped feeling real.  She’d been dropped into the center of some whimsical fantasy. Sami’s revelation that the people here considered her a princess had been a bigger bombshell than the news of her marriage.

She glanced at Sami.  He had changed from his traditional clothing to the more western style of khakis and a Rugby shirt.  The clothes seemed to be tailored to his lean, muscular body. Sitting on a brightly colored floor pillow near the large window, he stared at the vast desert in the distance as if he longed to be there.  He was handsome, she supposed, if she went for the dark, brooding, sexy type.  Which of course she didn’t, she thought, dragging her eyes away.

He obviously didn’t want to be married to her, so why had he not eagerly agreed at the airport that divorce was the fastest and simplest answer?

     “Should I bother unpacking?” she asked.

“You can have the maid take care of that.”  His gaze never left that distant point on the horizon that seemed to hold him spellbound. Or, maybe he was trying to ignore her.

“I meant - will I be here long enough to unpack.”

He turned towards her.  “Are you planning to leave?”

Tension seeped from every pore.  “Must we run around in circles?  We‘re strangers.”

“Actually, we have met. But you left here when you were five, so I’ll forgive you for not remembering.”

Her fingers tightened like a vice over the arms of the chairs.  Losing control would get her nowhere. “Regardless. We are strangers now. There is no point in pretending I’m your wife just because a piece of paper signed by our fathers says we’re married.”

“And your solution is that I shall divorce you, thereby dishonoring a promise made to your late father, who happens to be a national hero here?”

She gasped. His words hit like an emotional sucker-punch.  Her father, a national hero?   “Excuse me?”

“How much do you know about Ahmed
Rafik?”

Obviously not enough.
  She regretted now that she hadn’t pushed her mother harder for information about her father.  She shrugged sadly.  “I know he died when I was five and my mother took me back to America.  I didn’t know he was a Nadiarian national until I was seventeen.  And I found out about you last week.”

“That makes two of us,” he grumbled.  “And how did you come to discover our marriage?”

“My mother told me... finally.”

He crossed the room and stood directly in front of her. Anger radiated from him.  His presence overwhelmed her and she had to force herself to concentrate when he spoke. 

“Do you know that she told your father’s family that the marriage had been dissolved?”

“Yes.”

Sami arched his back as if to relieve tension, giving her a clearly defined view of his broad chest.  A strange tingling sensation washed over her.  “They had no reason to think she would lie.  What if I had married another, believing I was free?  A lot of lives would have been destroyed.”

“I’m sorry.  I’m trying to straighten out her oversights the best I can.”

“You have a grandmother and many other family members here who have not seen you or heard one word about you in twenty years.  Are you aware of that?”

A stabbing pain pierced her heart.  Why hadn’t her mother told her?  She twisted her fingers together until her knuckles cracked.  Tears filled her eyes. “I didn’t know.”

He grunted in disgust. “It appears your mother has told you nothing about one half of your life.  So what caused her to purge her conscience about your marriage now?” 

She paused.  How was she supposed to tell her husband that she was about to become engaged to another man?  “I’m not sure...”

“There is only one reason she would be pressed to reveal her lie, and that would be if you wanted to marry someone else.  Is that correct Delilah?”

“Yes.” She doubted she could feel any worse, any more guilt ridden or any more selfish than she did at this moment. 

* * * *

Sami stepped back; half afraid he would shake the life out of her.  How dare she come here without regard to the commotion she had caused, to ask him to divorce her so she could marry another?  He could not and would not humiliate his family by divorcing the woman he had just been obligated to acknowledge as his wife.

“Well, you can forget plan A.  Have you got a contingency plan?”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

He folded his arms across his rock solid abs and glared down at her.  “I’m not going to divorce you.”  But he sure as hell wanted to make her pay for backing him into a corner.  If she had contacted him quietly they might have been able to work out an arrangement that would have benefited them both.

“I can divorce you back in America.  I was trying to make this easy on you.”

“You were trying to make it easy on yourself.  I’m sure your lawyer told you it would take a matter of hours for me to end the marriage here in Nadiar.  Where as in the States, you would have to file papers, and since I couldn’t be served here, and you might have to wait up to two years.”

Her eyes widened in surprise.  “You know a lot about American law.”

“I spent four years in college and four years in law school in your country. I’m a member of the New York Bar.”

She wrapped her arms around herself in a protective gesture.  “Then what do you want?  You can barely stand to look at me unless you’re scowling, so don’t try to tell me you want a real marriage.”

What he wanted was immaterial.  He was bound by family honor to uphold the promise made to her father.  Even if she resisted the idea, her family would expect him to acknowledge Delilah as his wife and the future queen of Nadiar.

“There are some people who want to meet you. 
People who have prayed every day for your safe return.  People to whom my family owes a great debt of gratitude.”

Sorrow made her eyes glistened like emeralds.  “I understand that.  I want to meet my family.”

“Good.”  He tipped his head. “Convince them that you want a divorce.  If they release me from this promise, then I will go to the States so that I may be served with papers.  It won’t take more than a couple of months.  But either way, I will not initiate the process. I hope your fiancé will accept that.”

“He is not my fiancé.”

“No?”

She looked away, focusing on some point over his shoulder.  “I couldn’t very well take his ring when I learned about... when I learned I was...”