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It was all exactly how she’d wanted it, in the papers She was Khaled’s queen, not a woman someone wholly unremarkable like Brian would throw over She’d started over as if fro her entire previous life

If only she felt she fit into her new one better

Especially because, now that the wedding was over, what the papers speculated about hether or not she was pregnant—and if that was the slightly less ro, reason for her breathlessly quick engagement to a man who had never looked even remotely inclined toward matrimony before “Does the sultan have a baby on the way?” the headlines asked “Is that a buame of smoke and mirrors from the start?

It occurred to her as the arh the crowded center of the city that she had no idea what Khaled thought about having children That there were any nuht up had she been in the ind of their engagement

In her total co this fantasy to the fullest

She’d never regretted that before She found she did now More deeply than she wanted to admit

Margery droned on about the following day’s duties Cleo tuned her out Do you know Khaled at all? a dark little voice whispered inside her head Do you want to?

Because the ned off on an entire le reservation Without soit with her first

But then, there were a lot of things Khaled didn’t find it necessary to discuss with her

Cleo had expected to move in to his bedroom—with him—when they’d returned from their week in the desert She hadn’t been able to hide her stunned disappointment when he’d directed her to re of the palace frouest instead of his wife

“We won’t sleep in the same room?” she’d asked, astonished She’d found herself powerfully addicted to his touch by then, after a week spent so close to him she kne his skin tasted at different ti across her, holding her close, even when they weren’t touching Which was seldom