“Please don’t get angry. I’ll come with you.”
“You’ve been crying,” he says, studying my face. One of his big hands comes up to my cheek. His thumb runs along it. His words are so soft now, nothing like before.
“I’ll come,” I try again, not wanting to admit I’d been crying.
A smirk pulls at his lips. “I know you will,” he says before he scoops me up in his arms and strides out the front door.
Chapter 8
Karim
“Why didn’t you tell me you were going to marry that woman?” Giselle snaps at me as her cheeks turn a sweet pink. Fucking hell, she’s even adorable when she’s mad. I didn’t know such perfection could even exist, but here it is, pissed as hell at me, and all I want to do is kiss her until those cheeks turn pink for a whole different reason.
I reach out and hit the button that raises the glass to separate us from Zion and my driver. I want her all to myself.
“Nikki?” I ask, looking over at her once the privacy partition is in place. Relief slowly trickles through me. I have her back again. I’m going to have to be more careful. She all too easily slipped right through my fingers. Something so precious must always kept within reach.
“The girl you were going to marry. How could you do that? How could you just pick one woman and then change your mind? That’s not fair, Karim.” Her eyes are filled with so much emotion and sadness, showing me she isn’t like any other woman out there. Most women I’ve seen would shove and step on another at the chance to marry a king. No, not my Giselle. She’s soft and sweet and likely believes in fairy tales. I might even start to believe in them after tonight.
“Who said I was going to choose Nikki as my queen?” Anger gushes through me that she could somehow believe that I’m capable of such deception, but I remind myself that she doesn’t know who I am. But I thought she felt what I did. I know she did. I saw it in her eyes. That only leaves one option. Someone planted that thought in her pretty little head. Yes. I would definitely have to keep her close. I don’t want people’s hate to fill her ears. I need to protect this innocence she has to her.
“The woman at the table. And Nikki sort of insinuated it.” Her bottom lip trembles, and I want to kiss it.
She looks away from me, and I can’t stand the distance she’s trying to put between us. I reach over and grab her waist, pulling her onto my lap and making her look at me. I need those eyes back on me. Her brown hair, now flowing freely, tumbles in glossy locks between our bodies.
“Nikki is the daughter of a friend of my father’s. I have never and will never have romantic feelings for her. I don’t even have friendly feelings for her. She’s cold and calculating. That’s not the type of queen my people need. That’s not the type of queen I need. I’ve never so much as touched her.”
“Then what was tonight all about? You were supposed to choose a bride.” Her eyes drop down to her lap where she starts to play with her fingers. I grab her hands and bring them to my lips. I kiss her fingers, trying to get her to relax. Her eyes come back to mine.
There is hurt in her gaze, and I gently brush my knuckles across her cheek to try to ease some of her pain.
“I was trying to appease my council, but I had no intentions of really announcing a bride. I thought I could, but deep down I knew I couldn’t go through with it. The ball was merely to appease the people and give them hope that I was finally taking a wife.” I lean forward and place a soft kiss on her cheek where my fingers were. “I never expected you to walk into my palace. Into my life.”
A spark of hope lights in her eyes, and I continue.
“My parents hadn’t met one another until the day of their wedding. And yet they were the happiest and most loving couple I’d ever witnessed. I wanted that for myself and my queen.”
“That’s crazy. Things like that aren’t real!” She bites her lip, and I can see that she doesn’t believe what she’s saying. There is a question in her voice, begging me to disprove her.
“Anything is possible, princess. Especially when I’m the one who makes the rules.”
That pulls a smile from her. “My family thinks that I live too much in a bubble, that things aren’t that sweet in the world.”
“I’d spend my life making sure everything was that sweet for you. I’d make sure nothing ever fucked with that bubble you’re in as long as you let me in it with you.”
She looks at me with so much hope in her eyes but starts playing with her fingers again. I grab ahold of them and rub my fingers along them, trying to calm her.
“Did you come after me because I could be carrying your child?”