Nalini Singh: Craving Beauty

He'd crushed her with that dishonorable proposition. Barely able to function, she'd run from his apartment, wandering the quiet back streets for three hours. Just before darkness fell, she'd returned home by the same se­cret route she'd used to leave, and no one had ever learned of her attempted elopement. They just knew that suddenly all the fight had gone out of her. In one afternoon Romaz had achieved the outcome her father had been aiming for, for twenty-four years.

Now, almost six months after Romaz had cast her aside because her body alone wasn't enough, it was the greatest irony that she found herself married to a man who cared nothing for her money and only for her body.

"Daughter?"

She jerked up at the sound of her mother's voice. "Yes."

Amira smiled. "Come, it is time for you to wait for your husband."

Time to allow a stranger to touch her, Hira thought, anger spiking. Fascinated with him from the first, his act in bargaining for her like an object had turned her bud­ding desire into fury. How dare he reduce her to noth­ing more than the sweetener for a business deal?

As she followed her mother up the stairs, her eyes nar­rowed. Marc Bordeaux might've married her, but he would not have her. Not like this. Not without joy and ten­derness. Not until she knew the heart of the man he was.

Marc leaned in the open doorway, his body thrum­ming with, anticipatory tension. "Why the face? It's your wedding night, not an execution." He tried to keep his tone light, but it was hard when temptation sat right in front of him.

Hira occupied the middle of a canopied Arabian bed that screamed decadence. Hung with rich velvet curtains in a warm gold and made up with sheets of silken white, it invited sin and seduction. The luxurious hangings whispered softly in the heavy heat of the desert breeze wafting in through the open balcony doors, full of mur­murs of welcome.

It was as if Zulheil itself was urging him to indulge his hunger for his wife. To complete the invitation, her slender feet rested on pale-pink rose petals, petals that echoed the delicate pink of her wedding garments.

She should've looked like a dream. His dream.

But instead of welcome, there was only cool dis­tance in her eyes. The woman who'd captivated him with a single smile was subsumed under the crystal hardness of icy sophistication.

One aristocratic eyebrow rose. "What did my father promise you in the deal? Tell me and I'll deliver." That cultured voice with its exotic accent swept along his bloodstream, inciting him without intent. Her voice flared at the end, a stab of heat that was quickly smoth­ered by the ice, leaving him uncertain that it had ever appeared.

He clenched the fists he'd shoved into the pockets of his tuxedo pants, a feeling of dread infiltrating the joy with which he'd begun this night. "You agreed to this marriage, princess." What could've been an endearment came out as a taunt, her coldness stoking his temper. "I never wanted a wife who wasn't happy to be mine."

He'd starved for this moment since he'd first seen her on the balcony of her family home in Abraz, Zulheil's biggest city. Her face had been upturned to gaze at the stars, a wistful and somehow hungry smile gracing that lovely face.

"Your father refused to let me date you," he told her.

"You must know how old-fashioned he is. It was mar­riage or nothing, and you were asked your choice." He'd been startled by Kerim Dazirah's decree that no man was going to be allowed near his daughter without the ties of marriage, but had made his choice in an instant.

Driven by feelings he barely understood, he'd agreed to a marriage without courtship, chanced forever on the strength of one shared smiled, one instant of pure hap­piness. No woman had ever made him react with such impetuousness. No woman but Hira.

"Yes," she said softly, her strange light-brown eyes fixed on a point beyond his shoulder. "I had a choice. As much as any woman does when she has no indepen­dent means of income, no way to fight for her freedom, no chance of escape." Her tone was as emotionless as a doll's. "You were better than the alternative." The final line was heavy with disgust.

"Who?" He didn't like the idea of her with some other man, though he hadn't known of her existence until barely a week ago. From that moment, she'd be­come his. Only his.

Her full lips twisted. "You've met him. Marir."

"He's a relic." Marc recalled his one encounter with the oily merchant who was a crony of Hira's father. He'd disliked the man on sight because his eyes had kept straying to Hira, who'd been acting as hostess for Kerim's banquet. Marc had almost been able to see the old lech fighting the urge to lick his lips.

Simmering with possessive anger he hadn't then had any right to, he'd barely walked away without punch­ing Marir in his florid face. "Why would your father consider him a suitable match?" In spite of his lack of a beautiful face, Marc knew he was of value to the Dazirah family because of his wealth and business status.

"He has royal blood. Many times removed, but pres­ent nonetheless." Her mouth curved in a humorless smile. "My father always wanted to claim royal connections."

Another blow against him—he was no more royalty than the lowest bayou rat. "Then why did he accept me?"

"In my father's eyes, you are American royalty. As well as being a man of considerable wealth, you do business with our sheik and are welcome in his home—close enough to royalty to please him."

Marc clenched his hands even tighter, frustrated and angry. And hurt. Why did it hurt that this beautiful woman was rejecting him? Why did he feel like some­thing indefinably precious was slipping out of his grasp? "So that was all that was going for me? I wasn't old and fat?" He didn't spell out what they both knew. He might not be old and fat, but he was disfigured.

Scars ran in fine white lines down the left side of his face. His body bore far deeper marks. He'd become used to them long ago, his confidence founded on more substantial things, but this beautiful ice princess would surely have noticed. When she'd agreed to his proposal, he'd thought that the scars didn't matter to her. Now he saw that he'd been deluding himself. There was no wel­come in Beauty's eyes for this particular Beast.

She gave a regal nod and the shimmering light from the tiny, perfectly detailed chandelier caught on the di­amonds dripping from her ears. "I do not know you. You are a stranger. My father may have refused to allow a courtship, but you didn't even try to talk to me once!"

In fact, Marc had asked to speak to her several times before the wedding but had accepted her father's expla­nation that such things were not done in Zulheil. Unfa­miliar with the marriage rituals of this country, he'd been wary of giving offence and losing his chance to claim Hira. Not that that was any excuse, he thought harshly. He should've tried harder.

"Are your feelings going to change as we get to know each other?" Despite everything, he continued to ache for the gift of warmth she'd tantalized him with just once before. But he had no intention of taking something that wasn't freely given. Not even when desire was digging into him with razor-sharp talons and his body was heavy with passion so hot, it was al­most pain.

A sudden shadow dulled the almost-golden brilliance of her eyes. "I once loved a man." Her long lashes low­ered. "And I don't think I will ever love again."

Her words formed an arrow aimed at dreams he'd barely acknowledged but now knew were vital to his ex­istence. "Why did you marry me, then? Why make us both miserable?"

She raised her head and he caught a glimpse of red-hot anger in those changeable eyes. "My father said you wouldn't sign the agreement unless I married you. The deal with you is very important to the clan."