Page 2 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
After all, she had but two things that she could use to her advantage, according to far too many of the unpleasant men she’d encountered, having had to forgo any A levels to leave school at sixteen to take care of her mother as best she could: her father’s august pedigree and the fact that Hope herself was entirely untouched.
Sometimes she almost thought it was funny, that the thing her friends had teased her about in the years since her father’s death had become the only weapon Hope had, it seemed. The only possible way she could getbothherself and her mother out of this mess.
Though she had taken her time coming to that conclusion, because it was so medieval.
Because she could always get a job, she’d told herself at first, the way normal people did. She sometimes thought about a gloriouscareerthe way she imagined some people dreamed of beach vacations in the Spanish sun. But the trouble was, Mignon could not do the same. Several attempts on her part had proved that, until Mignon had been forced to confess that she thought she was, perhaps, an idiot missing its village. Which had broken Hope’s heart.
In my dreams I am a fierce warrior for you, Mignon had whispered, working hard to keep a tremulous smile on her lovely, tearstained face.While in reality I am a mess. Beyond redemption, I fear.
No.Hope had been certain. Fierce.Never that.
That had left Hope to set aside any lingering Prince Charming fantasies—as well as any notions of a career, for that matter—and attempt to find a decent job that could support herandher mother when Hope had no work experience as well as no advanced education. But that was fine. She was scrappy. And while she had feelings, she was not buffeted this way and that by them, like Mignon.
She viewed this as a superpower, really.
But regardless of her feelings, and whether or not they ruled her, it had been a grueling two years of “dating” the sort of men who she found increasingly and almost unbearably unpleasant as time went on. Which was deeply unfortunate, as her dwindling funds made her more and more desperate to find someone—anyone—to help them, and running out of money meant she was running out of options.
Because one after another, the terrible men who took her out to such seemingly elegant dinners confessed their darkest and most furtive fantasies to her as if she’daskedfor such intimate details, making it impossible for Hope to agree to any terms they might put to her.
One after the next, they made it impossible to do the thing she knew she had to do to save her mother.
And when she refused them, they took great pleasure in making it clear that her virginity was her only currency, and her pedigree a mere gloss to go with it.
She began to fear that sooner or later, she would have to marry one of them and do whatever their vile imaginations conjured up, somehow.
Two years ago, Hope had foolishly believed that she would find the perfect solution to all her problems, and quickly.
After all, she’d started her search for the proper benefactor by aiming straight for men her father’s age, many of whom she’d met when she’d been a little girl. The men who she’d known had precious little in the way of scruples. Because she knew precisely which ones had taken it upon themselves to offer her mother what they calledcomfort, while drooling, after the funeral.
Instead, she’d had two years of exploring precisely how twisted and appalling some men really were.
A lesson she would have preferred not to learn at all, though she supposed it was good she had. Since there wereso manyof them.
Lionel Asensio had been a breath of fresh air, she thought now, because it was good to remind herself of reality. And the fact she’d survived those two years without succumbing to those revolting suggestions she had found so impossible to imagine, much less imaginedoing.She kept her eyes trained on him as she continued down the aisle, reminding herself further that this was an escape today. A victory. Because his notice of her had been a solution.
Finally, the kind—if cold—benefactor she’d been seeking all along.
Lionel Asensio had his own reasons for marrying in cold blood and in such haste. Hope did not care what those reasons were—she was merely delighted that he had them. She’d felt nothing but relief when he had actually wanted the gilt and gloss of her father’s spotless pedigree. That the fact that the Cartwrights stretched back through the ages ever since the original cart-making owner of the name had been elevated from his humble origins by a long-dead queen had intrigued him the most. Even her mother had helped in that respect, for Mignon had been raised in a family that seemed unaware that there was no longer the sort of French aristocracy that had once led to any number of revolutions. She had been made to shine brightly, that was all, and that was what she did. From her still-pretty face straight down into her thoroughbred bones.
All of this had impressed Lionel Asensio.
Her innocence had not been part of the initial discussions at all.
And none of that mattered today. Today was a day to walk very, very slowly down this aisle and congratulate herself on her own grit, not worry overmuch about terrible men or once noble blood. Mignon was even now sleeping off the morning’s excesses and would no doubt rise to dance again later this afternoon, flushed and happy that her daughter had wrangled the only thing Mignon had ever wanted in life—a husband.
As she walked without any undue haste, Hope was actually entertaining the notion of getting some kind of job after all. The wife of a billionaire like Lionel Asensio could create charities with a wave of her hand. She wouldn’t have to worry about not having the proper qualifications to work in the nearest chip shop.
Hope could hardly wait to see what she wasactuallygood at. Not what she wasforcedto do instead.
All it would take were a few vows. A few signatures on the contracts she’d already read over and agreed to verbally. So little, in the end, to be free at last. Really, her stone-faced husband-to-be was lucky she hadn’t sprinted down the narrow stone aisle to get on with things more quickly, which she suspected he would find unseemly in every regard.
There weren’t many people here today, which Hope was happy about, because this wasn’t exactly an all-out celebration of whatever a wedding usually celebrated.Fairy tales, she thought, but notwistfully. She’d learned her lesson there.Wistfulnesswas about as useful as childhood fantasies about far-off princes and castles made of stone. She thought the entirety of the congregation, sparse as it was, were members of Lionel’s staff—with the exception of one woman in the back, who was scowling from behind big glasses and looked like a library was missing its fearless leader. She entertained herself for a few slow steps by imagining that was a special guest of the groom, who might very well have hidden bookish depths that required a personal librarian on call, for all Hope knew.
What she did know for certain was that Lionel himself was a man of some renown, as most people in his tax bracket were. Wealth created its own legends, she had discovered over the past two years. She had been subjected to a great number of meetings with his PR team once she and Lionel had come to an agreement. They had decided how to fashion this strange wedding into a palatable romantic tale that could sell newspapers, appease the ever-nosy public, and serve Lionel’s own ulterior motives.
Hope didn’t care about any of that.
All she wanted was to get this over with, so that she could move at last into the next phase of her life. Maybe let herself grieve the loss of her father at last, now that she wasn’t forced to deal with the fallout of losing him.
