Nalini Singh: Craving Beauty

He swore under his breath. "The central agreement was signed and sealed before I asked for permission to date you. Nothing but the most minor ancillary matters remain." He wondered if she'd believe him, this beau­tiful, dusky desert rose. It was his word against her fa­ther's.

To his shock, he thought he saw a glimmer of tears in her eyes. "I thought he cared for me a little. . .but my worth to him has always been determined by my looks." The pain in her was so tightly controlled, it wounded him just to hear her. "Now I know he feels nothing for me, if he can so cold-bloodedly manipu­late me into marriage with a man he wishes to do busi­ness with."

Marc couldn't stand to see this proud woman so hum­bled. This was not how his haughty beauty was meant to sound, lost and alone. Striding to the bed, he sat down beside her. When he reached out to touch her cheek, she froze. "I have no intention of doing anything against your will, so stop looking like a deer caught in the headlights."

Her head jerked up. "Don't snap at me like that."

This was the woman he'd fallen for—this woman of fire not ice. Desire flared again, deep and heavy. With­out conscious intent, his fingers trailed down her face to rest on the delicate skin of her neck. She shivered at his touch, and hope blazed inside him. Driven by dreams he'd never thought to experience, he found himself lean­ing forward to taste her.

Harsh reality intruded when she turned her head away in sharp refusal, giving him her profile.

He dropped his hand and got off the bed. Walking to the door, he tried to tell himself it didn't matter that she'd rejected him. "Do you even desire me, Hira?" It was a question without subtlety, but he needed the truth, and from the lush look of her and her confession of in­volvement with another man, he knew she had to be experienced.

He hated the idea of those long, sun-kissed limbs intertwined with another man's, though he'd never been a man who judged a woman on her sexual history. He was no hypocrite. Except, it appeared, with this woman. Tonight had been full of unwelcome surprises.

Eyes wide, his new wife looked up from her intense pe­rusal of the white-on-white embroidered bedspread, her fingers crushing a single fragile petal. The sweet scent of roses shimmered into the air. "All you know of me is my face and my body—there is nothing more to tie us together. I don't believe in lying with a man unless there is emotion between us." Her voice almost trembled at the end.

And she'd said she would never love again. The pain in his chest was nearly overwhelming. “You expect me not to touch you all our married life?" He wanted to be very sure of her meaning, very sure of what he'd surrendered to his inexplicable but raging need to possess the woman he'd glimpsed by the light of a delicate sickle moon.

She continued to crush rose petals in her elegant fin­gers. "My father had another woman always. Can Amer­ican men not do the same?"

He rocked back on his heels. "Is keeping a mistress common in Zulheil?" He'd thought that this was a land of honor and integrity, a land where a man could find a woman who'd be loyal as well as beautiful, a woman who could find beauty in the night sky and in a scarred man's face.

"No." Hira's acknowledgment only gave him a mo­ment's relief. "It's considered dishonorable, and most of our women will not stand for it. If they cannot fight for their right to be honored as a wife, their clan will fight for them, even if that means dissolving the marriage." Her eyes met his, fierce in defense of her country.

Yet when she smiled, it was a parody of beauty. "But it's done in my family. My mother's clan does not help her because she does not ask. My father has her well under his thumb. He only lay with her long enough to gain heirs—my two brothers. You can do the same." Ice coated every word.

It was a blow to the most masculine core of him. "You obviously have no desire to be with child." He ran his eyes down her perfect form, something she'd hate to lose to a belly swollen with his child.

What a fool he'd been. Even after his long-ago emo­tional mauling at Lydia's hands, he'd married a beauty thinking that something far more precious, something the lost boy from the bayou had been searching for all his life, was hidden beneath the outer layer. Instead he'd gotten exactly what he deserved. "Don't worry. I won't need heirs for a while."

Turning, he tugged open the door with unnecessary force. He was so disgusted with his own folly that he didn't trust himself in the same room as her. Or perhaps it wasn't his anger he was afraid of but the dangerous sliver of hope that continued to dig into his heart, in­sistent that he fight for his wife. That sliver wouldn't let him end this marriage, not until he'd discovered the truth about the woman he'd married.

Who was the real Hira? An icy sophisticate or a warm-hearted innocent who'd once looked at him with shy welcome in her eyes?

Hira stared after her husband, her stomach in knots, her uncaring mask threatening to crack at any moment. The instant his footsteps faded, she jumped up and locked the door with trembling fingers, almost blinded by the light reflected off the diamond bracelets around her wrists.

Only when the bolt slid home did she crumple to the floor, stuffing her knuckles into her mouth to muffle her sobs. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't bother to wipe them. Who was there to see if beautiful Hira Dazirah looked less than perfect?

You obviously have no desire to be with child.

Marc's—her husband's—disgusted pronouncement ran through her mind over and over. Like every other man before him he'd wanted her for her body and yet he blamed her for it. Even worse, he blamed her for something that was untrue.

She'd once dreamed of having as many children as her body would allow, with a husband she'd love. A hus­band who'd love her back. Those thoughts had belonged to a young girl full of hope and joy, a girl long since bur­ied under the pain of a heart crushed so completely she wasn't sure if it would ever heal.

Her experience at Romaz's hands had left her easy prey for her father's machinations. Kerim had used her sense of family honor to get her to marry, saying that they couldn't afford to have Marc renege on the deal. From what her new husband had said, clearly it had been Kerim who'd pushed for marriage, not Marc. Her father no doubt believed that Marc would favor family in matters of business; Hira already knew that the man she'd married would never succumb to such manipulation.

Kerim's lies had achieved no purpose but to bind her to a man who didn't want her now that he had her. She wasn't even to have the comfort of thinking he'd fallen for her with one glance.

So why had Marc acquiesced to her father's wishes? Only one answer came to her—he wished to own her. It didn't matter to him what kind of woman she was, whether she had a good heart or mind. He'd seen the outer package and liked it enough to go along with Kerim's demands.

Her father had sold her to cement an alliance, and Marc had bought her because he liked the look of her.

Between them, they'd reduced her worth from woman to chattel. She wasn't surprised at her father's actions. No, it was Marc whom she was angry at. Marc who'd be­trayed the awakening thing between them by marrying her without courtship or romance. According to all she knew, he hadn't even tried to get around Kerim's orders.

There had been more than simple desire between them the night they'd first met, but with his act, Marc had crushed that wild and tender emotion.

Hira woke later than usual, courtesy of slumber rid­dled with nightmares. Dressing quickly after a hurried shower, she girded herself to go down and face her hus­band's temper, for what man wouldn't hate the woman who'd denied him their marriage bed?