Page 53 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
And the real fairy tale, the one that mattered, was that a princess could become a queen with or without a man who was too foolish to know what was right in front of him. The desert was eternal. So too was love.
She wanted a man who could appreciate both.
“I have never been any man’s whore,” she told him, though the words hurt more than they should. “You know this. Why should I be yours?”
“Hope—” Cyrus began.
But she lifted a hand and silenced him, that easily. He did not need to tell her that she was the only one who would dare such a thing, because she knew it.
The same way she knew that this man, the King of the Aminabad Desert, was the love of her life.
Yet this was not a stunt. This waslife. Her life, her child’s life. And his life too, little though he might realize it.
“I won’t,” she told him, as regally as she could manage. “I would rather be back in the dungeon.”
Then she made for the doors, throwing them open, and stalking through—paying no attention to the startled guards.
Hope did not go back to the harem. She walked herself straight back down to the cell she had left behind earlier, closed the door behind her with her own hands, and locked it tight.
Letting her silks fall where they liked.
Because she was perfectly prepared to stay where she was.
For as long as it took.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CYRUSHADTRIEDREASON.
He had tried thundering his commands through the bars of the dungeon cell in the hope that might cow her.
He had tried rash promises. That he would take no other wives. That he would make a formal proclamation, not only declaring her Queen, but making it clear to the whole of the kingdom that this Lord of the desert would keep her even if she never gave him a son at all.
But for reasons that escaped him, she remained wholly unmoved by his every attempt.
Are you truly determined to give birth to our child in a jail cell?he had demanded at last.
All Hope had done in return was invite her mother into the cell with her, so that Cyrus had two pairs of reproachful golden eyes glaring back at him as if he had somehow disappointed them both.
When he should not have cared either way.
Her mother had dared to mutter something in French that she clearly thought he could not understand. He wished he had not.
Mother, that is not helpful, Hope had murmured calmly. Also in French. Too calmly, to his mind.I think you know perfectly well that he is in no way impotent, or we would not be in this position, would we?
Cyrus had ground his teeth together, his jaw so tight that it hurt. He had clenched his fists, but he’d stayed on his side of the bars.
What I really think, Hope had said after a moment of studying him in a way he found disrespectful and outrageous in the extreme,is that if you want something to happen with me and with our baby, you had better start with your own mother.
He had refused, of course. What use had he for that accursed woman?
But whether he flatly refused or shouted his reasons why, his wife would not be moved.
So he stopped.
It took perhaps an hour before he found himself growling out orders to ready his plane and fly him north once again.
And that was how he found himself standing at the end of a winding, rainy lane, on a typically vile autumnal English afternoon.
