Page 29 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child
“I will do my best,” she had replied. She’d shot him a look, holding herself very straight and tall as if some of those comportment classes had sunk in, after all. “For Miles’s sake.”
And Malak could hardly complain that she was hiding behind Miles when he had used his son to the same purpose himself. But it chafed at him.
And as he’d gone about his sacred duty, promising himself to his kingdom and his people, mouthing ancient words he had never thought would be his to say aloud, he found himself thinking less about the awesome responsibilities before him and more about this woman who still didn’t seem to realize she was destined to be his queen.
When there could be no other outcome.
And if he was honest, only a very small part of that had to do with the son they shared.
Afterward, in the small, formal reception that was filled with palace advisors and a host of his ministers, only a portion of his attention was on the usual political machinations, jostling for position and naked ambition amongst his courtiers. What he was focused on was Shona.
Shona, who kept a mysterious half smile on her face as she stood slightly off to one side, Miles there in front of her with his eyes wide. Shona, who gazed down at her son with that fierce pride written all over her—and the strangest thing was how Malak shared it. He could feel it in him, too. Miles had been outfitted to look like the miniature version of his father he was, and something about that made Malak’s chest ache.
But then, all of this did. The three of them standing together like this did something to him. He’d gotten good at ignoring it during the dinners they shared, but today it seemed less like a vague ache and more like a pulled tendon, sharp and inescapable, no matter how he stood or tried to catch his breath.
He could see how they’d look in all the pictures they’d taken today. Malak and Shona with Miles between them. Miles a few shades darker than Malak’s own brown skin and a few shades lighter than his mother. Like the happy family Malak had never known himself. The kind of happy family he’d never believed in.
A perfect set, something in him whispered.
When the nannies came to lead Miles away, Shona made as if to go with him, but Malak stopped her.
“I thought I would—”
“Remain behind with your lord and king?” Malak smiled at her frozen expression. “What an excellent idea.”
And he knew he’d gotten through to her somehow, because she made no move to create the sort of scene he knew full well she could have done, if she wished. And would have done a week ago. Possibly even yesterday. Instead, she stood with quiet dignity at his elbow, and stayed with him as he finished all his official conversations.
Malak doubted she knew that she had as good as announced her intention to wed him to every minister and courtier in the palace. And every subject of his who would see their pictures in the papers. But he knew.
And it felt a great deal like triumph—which he, in turn, enjoyed a whole lot more than all those other things he’d have preferred not to feel.
“Your ministers can’t possibly think that was appropriate,” she said when they were alone again, the last two in the formal hall outside the throne room. Malak loosened the tie of the very exquisitely cut Western suit he’d worn for the reception.
“If you mean the fact that I am dressed more like a Western king than the sheikh I am in my bones and my blood, believe me, there were many complaints.” He eyed her as if she’d made them. “But none I listened to, as you can see.”
Shona blinked. “What’s wrong with how you’re dressed?”
And then she looked flustered, as if the question revealed more than she’d meant it to.
Malak didn’t try very hard to hide his smile. “Nothing at all if the throne I wished to ascend was in Europe. Didn’t you hear the questions the reporter asked about that very thing?”
Shona was standing in the middle of the room, a vision in that formal dress that looked even better on her than Malak had imagined it would. She stood straight and almost too still, as if she was afraid to move. As if the wrong breath might lead to something far worse than the sudden intimacy of being the only two remaining in a formally crowded room.
“It’s very difficult to listen to so many people talk at once,” she said after a moment. “The reporter, the interpreter and then you as you answered.”
“Which is why you should take Arabic lessons,” he replied mildly, and smiled when her gaze cut to his with more of the heat he was used to. “It cuts down on the chatter. Alas, the tutor I hired for you tells me that you have yet to sit through a single one of her carefully crafted—”
“You made your point earlier.” Her dark eyes glittered as she looked at him. “You don’t have to beat me over the head with it. And no, I didn’t hear the interpreter say anything about your clothes.”
“I wore traditional dress in the throne room and Western dress to the reception, upending centuries of tradition and, according to some, betraying my crass soul for all to see. Because I wish to straddle both worlds. I intend to be a progressive king.”
“Progressive?” she echoed. In clear disbelief. “You?”
“Indeed. There are parts of this kingdom that have remained unchanged since the twelfth century. Villages that have yet to enter the bold new world of the thirteenth century, much less the twenty-first.”
“But...progressive?” She let out a sound that was close enough to a laugh to make his eyes narrow. “That is not a word I would use to describe you.”
“My politics are considered remarkably progressive, in fact,” he assured her. “Here in Khalia, that is, where I am known as a great libertine, who wasted the better part of the last decade immersing myself in the scandalous pleasures of loose and casual Western cities and their many licentious women.”