The Sheikh Crowns His Virgin. LYNNE GRAHAM

scorn in his tone. ‘After all, he has been married for many years. He has four children and a very large number of grandchildren... However, I assume that your grandfather was unwilling to accept a polygamous marriage, so my uncle had to divorce his wife before he could be allowed to marry you...’

      Zoe was stunned by what she was learning. She wondered if her grandfather had been aware of those same unpleasant facts and then she told herself off for shying away from the unlovely truth that Stam Fotakis had wanted his granddaughter to become a princess regardless of what it would take to achieve that end. Prince Hakem had had to divorce his wife to take Princess Azra’s granddaughter as a bride! Zoe was appalled and mortified and guilt-stricken, feeling that she should’ve done her homework better and shouldn’t be in the position of finding out such a crucial fact when it was too late to change anything. Hakem’s poor wife! Raj was definitely correct in his conviction that her grandfather would never have accepted a polygamous marriage and would only ever have settled for his grandchild becoming the Prince’s sole wife.

      ‘I didn’t know... I swear I didn’t know that he was a married man!’ Zoe protested vehemently, a guilty flush driving off her previous pallor. ‘In spite of what you seem to think, I would never have agreed if I had known that he was getting rid of his real wife just to marry me for a few months.’

      Raj had no idea why she was bothering to defend her behaviour by pleading ignorance of the reality that his uncle had been a perfectly happy married man before her availability had ignited his ambition. Zoe Mardas might look convincingly like a storybook princess or a heavenly angel, but Raj had an innate distrust of that level of physical beauty and a cynical view of humanity. Beautiful on the outside but what less than presentable motives were she striving to conceal from him? He had discovered for himself that beautiful on the outside too often meant ugly on the inside.

      In any case, Zoe could not possibly be as naïve as she was pretending to be. She had to know her own worth in Marabanian terms. Thousands of delighted Banians would flood the streets to celebrate an alliance between a royal Prince and Princess Azra’s grandchild. His uncle had come very close to pulling off a spectacular coup in the popularity stakes.

      ‘I assume you are willing to go home now?’ Raj queried, marvelling at his own restraint in asking her that question because, frankly, he was determined to get her out of Maraban by any means within his power.

      ‘Of course, I’m willing to go home!’ Zoe shot back at him in reproach. ‘Good grief, I’m not wanting to marry a man I’ve never even met, who divorced his wife just to become my bridegroom! Do I look that desperate?’

      ‘I don’t know you. I have no idea what your motivations are or, indeed, were,’ Raj parried with the intrinsic hauteur that came as naturally to him as breathing, his exotically high cheekbones taut, his arrogant nose lifted, his hard jaw clenched.

      Zoe’s colour heightened, her eyes brightening with anger, for in a couple of sentences, he had cut her down to size, enforcing the distance between them while also underlining his indifference to her feelings about anything. He looked different with that headdress covering his riot of coal-black curls. While the keffiyeh framed and accentuated his superb bone structure and those dark deep-set eyes set below slashing ebony brows, it also made him look older and off-puttingly sombre.

      ‘I confess that I am surprised, however, that you have not even met Prince Hakem. While such traditional matches still occasionally occur in Maraban, they are no longer the norm and I would not have thought a woman from your background would have been prepared to accept a husband sight unseen,’ he admitted smoothly, dark eyes glittering back at her in cool challenge.

      A wild surge of temper rocked Zoe where she stood, thoroughly disconcerting her, and her small hands coiled into tight fists by her side. The derision lacing his intonation and his appraisal was like a slap in the face. He might say that he didn’t know her but she could see that, regardless of that reality, he had still made unsavoury assumptions about her character.

      ‘Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like this?’ Zoe suddenly hissed at him, out of all patience and restraint because the way he was looking at her, as though she were some sort of lesser being, infuriated her. ‘I came to this wretched country in good faith and my trust has been betrayed. I was drugged, kidnapped and subjected to a terrifying experience! Now you start judging me even though you don’t know the facts.’

      ‘I agree that I don’t know the facts, nor do I need to know them,’ Raj countered, disconcerted by the passion etched in her heart-shaped face as she answered him back. He wasn’t used to that—he wasn’t used to that kind of treatment at all.

      He had been reserved from childhood, discouraged from letting his guard down with anyone, continually reminded about who he was and what he was and exactly what his rank demanded. After his mother’s tragic death, he had had to learn to conceal his feelings and his insecurities, had had to accept that such personal responses were out of step with his status. An accident of birth had imprisoned him in a separate category, denying him the relaxation of true friends or freedom. When he had finally broken out of that prison, he had discovered to his consternation that that often icy reserve of his, which kept people at a distance, was as much a natural part of him as his face.

      ‘Well, you’re going to hear the facts, whether you want to or not!’ Zoe snapped back at him curtly. ‘Prince Hakem approached my grandfather to suggest the marriage, not the other way round. I didn’t meet him beforehand because there was no need for me to meet him when it was never intended to be a normal marriage. I was to go through the ceremony and live quietly afterwards in the Prince’s home. He swore that he would treat me like a daughter and that no demands would be made of me. Then after several months I was to go home and get a divorce...’

      Raj’s spectacular eyes gleamed as darkly bright as polar stars while he absorbed that surprising information. He understood now why his aunt had agreed to the divorce without making a fuss. Hakem must have promised to remarry her once he was free again and, in support of her husband’s royal ambitions, Raj’s aunt had been willing to make that sacrifice. ‘But what was in this peculiar arrangement for you?’ Raj persisted with a frown of bewilderment. ‘It cannot surely have been enriching yourself when your grandfather is such a wealthy man...’

      ‘Status!’ Zoe almost spat out the word as if it physically hurt her and, indeed, it did. ‘I would’ve become a princess and, while that doesn’t matter much to me, it means a great deal to my grandfather and I wanted to please him. He’s done a lot for me and my sisters.’

      ‘Being a princess wouldn’t have been much of a consolation while you were living in Hakem’s home,’ Raj informed her very drily. ‘Hakem’s wife and children are well known and well liked and everyone who knew them would have been ready to loathe you on sight.’

      ‘Well, the marriage is not going to take place now, is it?’ Zoe cut in thinly, turning away from him to wander across to the far side of the tent. ‘After all that’s happened, nothing short of handcuffs and chains would persuade me to stay in Maraban!’

      Raj was disconcerted to find his brain sketching an erotic mental image of her chained to a bed, all flyaway blonde hair, passionate green eyes and little heaving pale pink curves for his private delectation. He stiffened and shifted restlessly while he fought to kill that untimely vision stone dead. But, sadly for him, there was nothing politically correct about his body and within seconds he was filled with desire.

      ‘You know, I don’t want to be rude or melodramatic,’ Zoe began shakily.

      ‘You may not want to be but you can’t help behaving that way?’ Raj incised hoarsely, knocked off balance now by his libido, that intimate imagery of her strengthening rather than fading and exercising the most extraordinary power over him.

      Zoe spun. ‘You’re the one being rude!’ she condemned, challenged to catch her breath when she clashed involuntarily with his intense gaze. ‘Acting like being kidnapped is normal and refusing to tell me who orchestrated this whole stupid charade!’

      ‘I am withholding