page18 (1/1)

“No, Cleo, I don’t want you to go” Khaled shoved his hands in his pockets as if he was afraid they ainst his will, and that h there was a stor on despite the saze of his from hers, and she wanted that to matter “I want you to marry me”

Three reat hall of the palace in Jhurat that was seldom open to the public, ordinary Cleo Churchill married His Excellency, the Sultan, in a traditional ceremony witnessed by hundreds in person and far ically throughout

In your face, Brian, she thought at one point, because she was a tiny, tiny person

Her hands were covered in henna, she was draped in breathlessly lovely scarves that made her look mysterious even in her own er to herself as the typical Jhuratan wedding feast began But then, she hadn’t much liked the easily fooled, easily betrayed Cleo who’d stood there in such shock in Brian’s condo, had she?

Now she was Khaled’s wife The chosen and beloved bride of a sultan, celebrated around the globe Which meant she could never be that Cleo, pathetic and huer existed Only this one did

“You h,” her brand-new sister-in-law, A after Khaled’s proposal—not, Cleo reflected as she suests, that he had proposed so much as announced his intentions with every expectation of her obedience

A sulky when Khaled had ratulations,” she’d said after a ray then, and fixed on Cleo intently, her s you everything you want”

Not exactly sincere happiness on her behalf, but then, that had been thin on the ground Cleo’s family in Ohio had been baffled when she’d called to tell them the news and to invite them to come to Jhurat and meet the man who’d so enchanted her that she didn’t intend to move back home at all

“Are you allowed to come home?” her middle sister, Charity, had asked in her otten her on the phone “I’ve seen a lot of —”

“She saw one Lifeti husband, Benji, had said on the extension

“I can go wherever I want,” Cleo had said, holding tight to her patience “I don’t want to go anywhere”

“It’s all a bit of a ind, isn’t it?” her mother had asked after Khaled flew the whole fa Cleo tense even when her mother had s Though it does seem a bit quick on the heels of all the unpleasantness last spring”

“This is certainly a fla,” her sister Marnie had chih on her forehead she’d looked perpetually surprised ever since she’d stepped off Khaled’s private jet “If you’re willing to pay that kind of price”

“If you can’t be happy for me, can you at least try to be polite?” Cleo had deed and isolated and annoyed at herself that she’d been so desperate for them to be happy about this

“If you’re happy, we’re happy,” her father had said then in his blustery way that had ended that topic of conversation, and the fact that he’d looked exactly the same as he always did—solid and decent and kind and real, even standing in a sumptuous palace a whole world away fro too close to teary

“I think love at first sight is great,” her best friend, Jessie, whoether, had said via Skype froht, too? Why not wait a little bit? What’s the rush?”

“There’s no rush”

“You hardly know him I say that with love”

“I want this,” she had gritted out, and it was a truth that echoed all the way down to her bones,her hurt “I want thiselse”