Spice of Love - Completed

Chapter 18

He emerged into the room a short while later, a towel wrapped snugly about his hips, and reached for his phone. He would require a change of clothes before he went back to Cat. No use in taking the long way about and stopping in his room first when he can summon for a change of his clothes right here.

"She is very pretty."

Sadiq stilled, his voice falling silent as he relayed his order and then silently clicked call-off on the phone.

"Who?" He asked, playing dumb. Sadiq was not happy to go into this with a woman he never wanted to wed, when he had to go over it all again with a woman he did want to be wedded to.

"Your wife... your second wife."

The hitch to her tone was unexpected and had him turning.

"I did my part," growled Sadiq, suddenly beyond angry. "I fulfilled the terms of the contract. The Meher I was meant to settle on you was my seed in your womb. That has been done. There is no stipulation that the seed must take. Nor ensure a repeat of the action, if necessary. As far as I am concerned, woman, we are done."

"You think I wanted to be married off to someone I knew nothing of?" Princess Afsoon slid off the bed and reached for her discarded robe. Its material so sheer it had no business being used as a wrap. "We were both tossed into this impossible circumstance by our fathers. But at least I am willing to try." The princess widened her opaque eyes, proclaiming innocence long lost, if it was ever there to begin with, and lied through her teeth. She had hunted down the prince for herself. Decided on him even, when she was quite young. Afsoon had been all of fourteen when she saw it on Al Jazeera. The announcement of the prince's return from his studies abroad. The tabloids had been filled with the prince's exploits in London. He had looked incredibly debouched and unattainable. Afsoon had decided then and there, she would be his wife. Her ambition in place, she had set about wrapping her father and then his about her little finger to get him in the end. She would not lose him now. Not to a second wife.

Sadiq paused to eye his bride carefully. Try though he might, he couldn't penetrate to what lay beneath, and that more than anything set his back up. Cat, on the other hand, was an open book. She had been right from the start. Open in her demands of him. Open in her expectations of them as a couple and equally open in her dislike over being here at all. She was not only vocal, but a blank canvas, easily painted over with any emotion that ruled the moment. He felt safe with her, because of that. It was why he allowed her close and drew closer himself. With Cat he could be his arrogant, egotistical self... and get away with it. His lips twerked in the corner, recalling a conversation with Cat not so long ago.

"Why do this? Why pressure me into marrying you?" Cat had demanded that night, weeks before he had abducted her and brought her to his world. "You don't really want to wed me. It's just your being stubborn to see reason," she added, her tone more petulant after a bout of love-making than angry.

Sadiq had smiled at her. "I am a prince, Cat. It's what I am. Something I was born into. Do you know what that means?" He lifted a patient brow at her, waiting. Cat shook her head. His smirk widened. He loved it when she played dumb. "It means I have been born into this ego. It's been nurtured within me from young. Every step of the way, people have bowed down before me, giving me way. Even during my time with the General, the trials I had been put through each acknowledged my birthright. It would take a saint to grow up with my background and not develop the ego and arrogance that go with it." It was all very logical to his way of thinking and, he knew, to hers as well. It was why she allowed him to get away with so much. She too, unthinkingly, was deferring to the superiority of his birth.

"But what do you want with me?" Cat had demanded next, trying a different tactic to throw his interest off her. "What can your marrying me give you, that I haven't already?"