Chapter Seven
THERE WERE MANY ways that Hana had imagined herself getting married over the years.
Whether it be in the Grand Hall in Omrhain like her parents, or in the palace of her unimaginable fiancé of her future.
But never once had she thought it would happen on small private jet, forty-one thousand feet in the air.
As she stood in the aisle of a plane, rather than a palace or a holy place, in front of a minister who could legally marry them, beside a man who wanted nothing less than to marry her, Hana wondered whether she had ever been more sorry.
There were no family members present, no friends or supporters.
Ehsan was standing as her guardian for the ceremony and the witnesses were two of the flight attendants.
Her hands were bare of the henna that should have been drawn there from a night she didn’t have with her sisters and aunts and cousins and those closest to her.
The tears that pressed against the backs of her eyes weren’t in joyful hope of a future that awaited her. Rather, they were guilt and regret and sorrow for what she had forced Malik into and just a little bit for what she had forced herself into.
When Malik took her hand in his as the imam read out the terms of the marriage contract, and despite the tension between them, she held on to his fingers as if they were the only thing tethering her to the moment.
Given that the nikah should have already taken place in Omrhain, certain ceremonies would be forgone as already having been done.
And that absence struck her painfully. Her thoughts were so loud and so painful that she didn’t even hear the imam declare the marriage complete and when she looked up at the man she had tied herself to for the rest of her life, he simply turned away.
Malik’s assistant looked at her with pity that she didn’t deserve before scampering off after his king, leaving her standing there alone. The imam took her hand, patting it in an attempt to offer comfort, but Hana didn’t think she deserved even that.
Hana’s lips wobbled as she took a seat on the opposite side of the plane to…her husband. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she tried to focus on what she needed.
Hard work and determination.
But this time Amara’s voice sounded quieter, almost a whisper.
Even so, Hana clung to her mantra with both hands.
She quickly and quietly wiped at her cheeks, brushing away the few tears that had fallen.
She had got them into this mess and it was time she stopped wallowing and made the best of it.
She’d promised herself that she would make him a good wife, and she would prove that to him too.
Flash bulbs exploded from the minute the steps were dropped and the door to the private jet was opened.
And Hana suddenly so incredibly thankful Ehsan had brought them a change of clothing.
She wondered who had packed the bag, because the abaya she wore was breathtakingly beautiful.
The full-length cream silk was decorated with exquisitely intricate detailing and sparkled and shone from the golden thread and sequin details.
The large sleeves draped elegantly from the open abaya she had layered over the belted dress beneath.
Malik was dressed in a thobe that matched her abaya and hugged the breadth of his shoulders in a way that was almost indecent.
He looked…incredible. The cream of the material deepened the rich bronze of his skin, and the sharply cut angles of the ankle-length garment hugged his torso in a way that made him look trim and powerful at the same time.
His long dark hair brushed his shoulders, and the sharp lines of his features almost dared one to look. He’d pressed his hand against his chest, as if to signify his happiness to see the people of Al Surrahin, and the ruby nestled in the gold signet ring on his little finger gleamed in the sun.
He appeared not at ease, but prepared. Confident. Commanding.
All the while, Hana’s legs trembled beneath her skirts. What if she fell? Or slipped? Or tripped and brought shame upon him on her first appearance as his wife?
Malik inclined his head so subtly that Hana was sure that anyone else would miss it. He wanted her to stand by his side. No. Not wanted.
Needed.
He’d not wanted a wife at all. But the people of Al Surrahin needed faith in their leader—even if Malik was only temporarily guiding them. She swallowed her nerves and took a step forward, bringing her to his side.
Cheers and cries of jubilation broke out across the waiting crowd as they caught their first sight of their king’s new bride.
Hana forced a smile to her features and, following Malik’s gesture, raised a hand to wave at the thousands of people standing behind the ropes that had been placed a safe distance from the powerful engines of the jet.
Young, old, rich, poor, so many people had gathered to welcome them home.
Nearest to them were a group of young school children, all in their uniforms holding flowers and hand-drawn pictures.
Off to one side, uniformed staff lined their approach to the sleek black limousine that waited to take them to the palace.
Hana pressed her lips together, hoping to seal in all the feelings welling up within her from the guilt and the lie that was their marriage.
Just then she caught sight of a little girl, pressed up against the barrier, staring at her with large round eyes glistening with tears of joy and excitement, probably dreaming of one day being just like Hana—married to a handsome prince—and the lump in her throat grew twice as large as the ache in her heart.
Malik cast a worried glance at the woman beside him. His wife. His hand flexed at his side. There was nothing to be done now. All he could do, all they could do, was make the best of it, until he was able to let her go.
The thought of trapping her to him was untenable, a thorn that stuck deep into his side. Not because of her, but because of what she wanted. The love she so clearly ached for. The children, the family, she so desperately wanted.
‘We should have landed at the palace,’ Malik bit out for Ehsan’s ears alone as they descended the steps from the private jet towards the red carpet waiting for them at the bottom. The assistant standing behind him flinched.
‘But then we would have denied the people what they wanted. To see their sheikh, at last, happily married,’ Ehsan replied.
When Hana broke off to go and speak to a young girl with a bouquet of wildflowers, he turned to the younger man and in hushed tones, demanded, ‘What kind of marriage was that?’
‘A legal one,’ Ehsan returned, his eyes aimed at the ground.
Malik bit back a curse. He wanted to howl his frustration and roar his fury. Hana deserved better than that, but they were not yet in a position to fulfil anything other than what they had.
A burst of giggles erupted from where Hana, from where his wife, was talking to the little girl and a ripple of fresh flashes went off, almost blinding him.
And for just a moment, he allowed himself to wonder what it might have been like to bring her back to his country as his wife, had he not seen her at the spa.
He didn’t need to think long. He knew how it would have been.
Cold. Distant. But easy. None of the complicated feelings he experienced when he now looked at his wife.
The light of the afternoon sun caught the thousands of gems detailed all over her abaya and gleamed in her beautiful, thick, dark hair.
Hair that made him want to run his fingers through it, to push it back from her face as she looked up at him the way she had done the night before.
The way she probably would never do again.
How could she? He had tied her to him, with no promise of the life she wanted so much. He never should have agreed to this. He should have found another way.
Anger, so often close to hand, heated his gut with a punch.
‘I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to live in a lie. I certainly didn’t want to rule with a lie.’
This time, Ehsan surprised him with a faint echoing anger of his own. ‘We all have to do things we don’t want to do, Your Highness. It’s for the good of the people and Her Highness is not so awful that it would be a hardship.’
Malik opened his mouth to reply, but Ehsan stalked towards Hana’s side, helping her engage with the people of her new country, leaving Malik to feel even worse.
Despite the plans to move swiftly from the airport to the palace, Hana’s impromptu meet and greet waylaid them by nearly an hour, which pushed back their schedule so that when they arrived, it was to find the palace a little frustrated and highly anxious.
Hana might be new to the role of wife, but she wasn’t new to the role of royal.
She met with each member of the staff lined up to greet them, a word of greeting or kindness for each one, in a way that Malik rarely bothered with.
He’d had no need to sweet-talk the staff, who surely only saw the areas in which he lacked in comparison to his brother.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. You would make a good ruler if you let yourself.
Malik flinched at the sound of his brother’s voice in his head.
And with her by your side, you might even enjoy it.
Malik’s teeth began to ache from how tightly he’d been clenching his jaw.
Hana shook the hand of another of the female staff that would be on hand to serve her while she was present here, unaware of either his behaviour or the train of his thought.
And as much as he might have wanted to protest, to pull her away so that they could finally talk about the situation, he knew how important it was for her to make a strong first impression on the household staff.
‘We have arranged for some food to be sent to the suites, Your Highness,’ Ehsan said from where he stood at his shoulder.
Malik nodded, his mind flashing back to a plate of stuffed vine leaves and burnt ramen noodles.