Marriage Behind the Façade

“We can leave tonight. My plane is ready.”

Goose bumps crawled across her skin. What had she just agreed to? Panic spread inside until she was quivering with it. “I can’t be ready that fast. I need time to put things in order.”

The last time she’d dashed off with Malik she’d left her life in disarray. This time, she was putting everything in order before going anywhere. Because this time she would be stepping back into her life without the pain and disorientation of last time.

She’d gone without much thought, because he’d asked her to, and then when he’d asked her to stay, to marry him, she’d impulsively agreed. She’d given no thought to her life back in Los Angeles. A fact that her family never mentioned, but that she knew was very much on their minds whenever they looked at her. She was the impulsive one, the artistic one—the one who could leap without looking but then paid the price later.

And what a price it had been. She’d been a wreck. She’d asked herself in the early days after her return home if she’d been too hasty, if she should have stayed and confronted him, but she always came back to the same thing: Malik regretted marrying her. He’d said so. What was there left to say after that?

She might have loved him, but she would not be anyone’s cross to bear. And she’d definitely felt like a burden in the week after his confession. He’d changed, and she simply hadn’t been able to take it anymore. She’d never thought a year would pass without any contact between them, but that had only proven he did not want her in his life any longer.

“How much time do you need?” he asked, his voice tight.

“At least a week,” she answered automatically, though in fact she knew no such thing. But she wanted to be in control this time. Needed to be in control. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Impossible. Two days.”

Sydney bristled. “Really? Is there a timeline, Malik? A celestial clock somewhere that insists we must do this on a specific timetable? I need a week. I have to make arrangements at work.”

And she had to check with her lawyer, just in case she could find some sort of legal loophole that would change everything.

Malik gazed down at her, his dark eyes gleaming hotly. Intensely. She waited almost breathlessly for his answer. Malik was proud, haughty. Aristocratic and used to getting his way. If only she’d told him no when he’d suggested she marry him—but it had never crossed her mind. She’d been too awestruck, and far too much in love with the man she’d thought he was.

Though it was a little late, she would not blindly accept his decrees ever again.

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped. “One week.”

Sydney nodded her agreement, her heart pounding as if she’d just run a marathon. “Very well. One week then.”

He turned to gaze out at the ocean again. Then he nodded. “I’ll take it.”

She blinked. “Take what?”

“The house.”

“You haven’t really seen it,” she exclaimed. It was a gorgeous house, one that she only wished she could afford in her wildest dreams, with spacious rooms and breathtaking ocean views. It was the kind of house where she could be inspired to paint, she thought wistfully.

But Malik had only seen the exterior, the main living space, and this terrace. For all he knew, the bedrooms were tiny closets, the bathrooms a 1970s throwback with mustard and orange tiles and psychedelic black fixtures.

Malik shrugged. “It is a house. With a view. It will do.”

Inexplicably, a current of anger uncoiled inside her. He was careless when he wanted something. Accustomed to getting whatever he wanted when he wanted it.

Like her.

In Malik’s world, there were no consequences. No price to be paid when things didn’t work out the way you expected. There was only the next house, the next deal.

The next woman.

Dark anger pumped into her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she said. “There’s already an offer.”

Malik was unfazed. “Add twenty-five percent. The owner will not turn that kind of money down.”

“I think they’ve already accepted the offer,” she said primly. But guilt swelled inside her as soon as she voiced the lie. The owners were entitled to the sale. Her anger at Malik was no excuse to deprive them of it. “But if you’ll give me a moment, I can call and see if there’s a chance.”

Malik’s dark eyes burned into her. “Do it.”

Sydney turned away and walked across the terrace. She called the listing broker just to make sure there were no offers, and then strolled back to Malik when she finished. “Good news,” she said, though it galled her to do so. “If you can come up half a million, the property is yours.”

Because he was too smug, too careless, and she couldn’t let him ride roughshod over her. It was a rebellion of a sort to jack up the price. She refused to feel guilty. In fact, she would donate her portion of the commission to charity. At least Malik’s money could do someone some good.

“Fine,” he murmured. “Whatever it requires.”

Bitterness swelled in her veins. “And will you be happy here, Malik? Or will you regret this purchase, too?”

She didn’t say what she was really thinking—that he regretted her—but it was implied.

“I never regret my actions, habibti. If I change my mind later, I will simply get rid of the property.”

“Of course,” she said stiffly, shame pounding through her. “Because that is easiest.”

Malik could discard whatever he wanted, whatever he no longer needed or desired. He’d spent a lifetime doing so.

His expression didn’t change. He looked so haughty, so superior. “Precisely. You will write up the papers, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Get them now and I will sign them.”

“You don’t want to read them first?”

He shrugged. “Why?”

“What if I increase the price another million?”

“Then I would pay it,” he said.

Sydney opened her briefcase and jerked a blank offer form from inside. As much as she despised him in that moment, as much as she despised his arrogance and nonchalance, she couldn’t succumb to the temptation to take him for a spectacular ride. She quickly wrote in the price, and then shoved the papers at him.

“Sign here,” she said, pointing.

He did so without hesitation. She couldn’t decide if he was simply arrogant and uncaring or stupidly trusting. A split second later he looked up at her, his eyes sharp and hard, and she knew that stupidly trusting was not the correct choice.

This man not only knew what the fair market price of the property was, he also knew that she’d inflated the price—and he was willing to pay it.

“One week, Sydney,” he said, his voice sending a shiver through her body. “And then you are mine.”

“Hardly, Your Highness,” she said, though her voice shook in spite of her determination not to let it. “It’s simply another business arrangement. Forty days in Jahfar in exchange for a lifetime of freedom.”