The Sultan's Choice Read Free

clenched tight on her lap. ‘And I think it’s customary to ask for the person’s hand in marriage before assuming it’s given.’
    His eyes flashed dangerously and he settled back in the chair. Conversely it made Samia feel more threatened.
    ‘I take it that you overheard some of my phone conversation?’
    Samia blushed again, and gave up any hope of controlling it. ‘I couldn’t help it,’ she muttered. ‘The door was partially open.’
    Sadiq sat forward and said brusquely, ‘Well, I apologise. It wasn’t meant for your ears.’
    Giving in to inner panic, Samia stood up abruptly and moved behind the chair. ‘Why not? After all, you were discussing the merits of this match, so why not discuss them here and now with me? Let’s establish if I am conservative enough for you, or plain enough.’
    A dull flush of colour across the Sultan’s cheeks was the only sign that she’d got to him when she said that. Otherwise he looked unmoved by her display of agitation, and Samia cursed herself. Her hands balled on the back of the chair. He just sat back and regarded her from under heavy lids.
    ‘You can be under no illusion, whether you heard thatconversation or not, that any marriage between us will be based purely on practicality along with a whole host of other considerations.’
    When she spoke, the bitterness in Samia’s voice surprised her. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I’ve no illusions at all.’
    ‘This union will benefit both our countries.’
    Suddenly a speculative gleam lit his eyes and he sat forward, elbows on the desk. Samia wanted to back away.
    ‘I’d find it hard to believe that someone from our part of the world and culture of arranged marriages could possibly be holding out for a
love
match?’
    He said this sneeringly, as if such a thing was pure folly. Feeling sick, Samia just shook her head. ‘No. Of course not.’ A love match was the last thing she would ever have expected or wanted. She had seen how love had devastated her father after losing her mother. She’d had to endure the silent grief in his gaze every time he’d looked at her, because
she’d
been the cause of her mother’s death.
    She’d seen how the ripples of that had affected everything—making his next wife bitter. Love had even wreaked its havoc on her beloved brother too, turning him hard as a rock and deeply cynical. She’d vowed long ago never to allow such a potentially destructive force anywhere near her.
    The Sultan sat back again, seemingly pleased with her answer. He spread his hands wide. ‘Well, then, what can you possibly have against this marriage?’
    Everything! Exposure! Ridicule!
Samia’s hands were tightly clasped in front of her. ‘I just … never saw it in my future.’ She’d thought she’d faded enough into the background to avoid this kind of attention.
    And then, as if he’d taken the words out of her brother’s own mouth, Sultan Sadiq said with a frown, ‘But as the eldest sister of the Emir of Burquat, how on earth did youthink you would avoid a strategic match? You’ve done well to survive this far without being married off.’
    Purely feminist chagrin at his unashamedly masculine statement was diminished when guilt lanced Samia. Her brother could have suggested any number of suitors before now, but hadn’t. She’d always been aware that Kaden might one day ask her to make a strategic match, though, and this one had obviously been irresistible. This one came with economic ties that would help catapult Burquat into the twenty-first century and bring with it badly needed economic stability and development.
    As much as she hated to admit it, they
did
come from a part of the world that had a much more pragmatic approach to marriage than the west. It was rare and unusual for a ruler to marry for something as frivolous as love. Marriages had to be made on the bedrock of familial ties, strategic alliances and political logic. Especially royal marriages.
    If anything, this practical approach