“My father is dying.” The words were torn from Raffa and they sledged right into Chloe’s solar plexus. “And I want to give him this. I am begging you, Chloe, to help me. You are the only person; this is the only way. Will you help me?”
Her stomach twisted as the grief and desperation in his words ran through her. “You’re not just asking me to lend you my car for the weekend,” she said through gritted teeth. “This is a big deal.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“You’ve done this before. Had children, I mean,” she said, her skin heating at the unintentional double entendre, when she hadn’t been referring to his sexual experience at all.
Slowly, she turned back to face him, and her skin was pale, her eyes uncertain. “You want me to do this for you?”
He swept his eyes shut and his strong, handsome face, wore visible signs of strain. “Yes.”
“I want something from you in return.”
That got his attention. His eyes flew wide open, and he lanced her with the intensity of his gaze. “Go on.”
“We both know why we married,” she spoke stiltedly, frowning a little, for once her mask of unflappability dropping to show her true feelings. “Our fathers were determined that we would and neither of us wanted to upset them. It’s one of the main reasons I knew this marriage would work – that we both put such a high value on loyalty to our families.”
He tipped his head forward in silent agreement.
“Plus, Apollo considers you one of his closest friends, and despite the fact he and I aren’t particularly close, I do respect his judgement.”
He continued to be silent at the reference to her older half-brother.
“But I don’t know you, Raffa.” She took a step towards him, her frown captivating. “I don’t know what foods you like to eat, nor what music you listen to. I don’t know what books you read – or if you read at all, for that matter. I don’t know what makes you laugh, I don’t know anything about the man I married.”
“And whose fault is that?” He queried smoothly. “You took yourself to Qadim just as soon as the ink was dry on our contracts.”
“You gave me the house in the city,” she was spurred to defend. “Did you think I wouldn’t go there?”
“I thought you would go there occasionally,” he said with a gentle rebuke in the words. “Instead, you’ve used it as a hide-out, spending every bit of time you could away from me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I wasn’t hiding. I just… like the city,” she finished lamely.
“Be that as it may, if you had wanted to get to know me then you could have.”
“Fine,” she conceded with a sharp jerk of her head. “You’re right. But I can’t make love to a stranger. I’m just not wired that way.”
“How little you know of your body,” he said, almost regretfully. “You were quivering in my arms just now, and I guarantee that your insides were churning with wants. That your knees were weak and your belly tight, your breasts tender, your mind spinning with ways in which to find pleasure…”
“Stop it,” she pleaded, heat suffusing her cheeks. “A physical response to that kind of stimulus is normal.”
He didn’t respond and she was glad – glad that he resisted the temptation to point out that she knew nothing of such things.
“My father doesn’t have long,” he said heavily. “We cannot delay.”
“So what? You want me to strip naked? Go to your room? My God, Raffa. I’m a woman, not an automaton.”
“You are a woman,” he said, his eyes narrowed. “A woman with needs that I will take very good care of.”
“You are even more arrogant than I’d imagined!” She stamped her foot. “You can’t just dictate something like this to me.”
“You want to negotiate? You want me to agree to spend time with you? To get to know you? Fine. Move to the palace and we will do both.”
She stared at him with a feeling that she’d been backed tightly into a corner.
“Surely I can just come to the palace every few weeks. Stay in the capital, in my own home. Or you can come to me…”
“No.” He slashed his hand through the air. “This is not a game, Chloe. I need an heir and you are the only woman who can provide me with one.”
“So what I want doesn’t matter?”
“You wanted to marry me, and you have done so. You want children – your brother has told me as much.”
Anger slashed inside of her – directed at her husband Raffa and her brother Apollo. Birds of the same feather, flocking together, as always. Of course Apollo had divulged the stupid drunken conversation they’d had on the night of her twenty first birthday.
But she hadn’t known then what lay in store. She hadn’t known that only weeks later her father would be dead, that the marriage contract he’d negotiated would be the only way to honour and love the man she’d never had a chance to know in real life. That marrying Raffa had been her only way to claim a loss she couldn’t put into words.
“Apollo doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Chloe muttered, lifting fingertips to her temples and rubbing wearily. “He’s misinformed.”
“So you don’t want children?”
“No. Yes.” She expelled a plaintive breath. “One day, yes, I do. Very much. But …”
“It has to be now.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest. “If you
