Sheikh's Castaway by Alexandra Sellers Page A

angry smile.
    â€œIt’s not true!” she cried, but if he heard the dismay in her voice it left him unmoved.
    â€œWhat is not true? What part of what I have said do you dispute?”
    â€œIf you didn’t love me, why didn’t you tell me that when you proposed?”
    â€œYou never asked. My reasons for wishing the marriage formed no part of our bargain. You could have made it so, but you did not choose to know.”
    â€œOnly because I thought—I thought—”
    â€œWhat did you think?” His eyes narrowed. “You thought I loved you?” Fierce laughter erupted from him. “You got it all, is that what you thought, Noor? I offered you wealth and social connections, and my family’s honour, and now you say you thought you had my love, too—and what were you offering in exchange? Not love, for you love only yourself.”
    â€œThat’s not true!” she cried, stunned by this battering. “Anyway, I didn’t need your wealth or social conn—”
    â€œYour name, that was the sum total of what you brought to our agreement. That you are the descendant of a man my grandfather remembers with love and respect.”
    His voice dripped with bitterness, and she knew then without a doubt that what she had overheard his cousin and aunt saying was the truth. He had been brutally angry over his grandfather’s decision.
    â€œWhy do you flinch from admitting it?”
    She could feel tears burning her eyes, but not for the world would she let Bari see how affected she was, her skin crawling with humiliation and shame.
    â€œYou pretended!” she accused him, her voice hovering on a sob. “Try and deny that! Don’t call me a fool when you know perfectly well you acted as if you were besotted with me!”
    He lifted a hand, a shoulder, in an expressive shrug. “You are a sexually attractive woman. But if you had really wanted my love, Noor, you would have acted like a woman who wants to be loved, not like one who knows she can do no wrong. When did you concern yourself with my good opinion? With the regard of my mother and sisters? With anyone’s well-being but your own? Nothing is as important to you as your own wishes, it seems. Whose opinion matters to you? Whose feelings do you consider?”
    â€œThat’s a lie!”
    â€œSo sure are you of your worth that you didn’t notice I never spoke of love! Yet—you tell me now—all the time you were assuming that I loved you passionately. Is that the attitude of a woman with a heart? To take love for granted?
    â€œAnd if you had ever believed you loved me, you would have told me so. Even when there is nothing but sex a woman will say I love you. But not you. Oh, Bari, isn’t it wonderful! That is what you said. But no word of love.”
    Anger and humiliation scorched her. She had never been so insulted, so bitterly condemned.
    â€œI was a virgin! Why do you think I waited all that time, if not for love?”
    He smiled. “You waited for a husband. You said to me, only with my husband, or my future husband, not only with the man I love.”
    â€œIt went without saying. Of course I expected to love the man I married!”
    His black eyes fixed her, as if with pins to a board. “And did you love him, the man you nearly married?” Her heart fluttered a protest.
    â€œI—” Her mind seemed to stumble.
    â€œGo on, Noor. Tell me you love me,” Bari challenged mockingly.
    Was he right? Was it the image she had loved, and not the man at all? What was love? She hesitated, and he laughed outright.
    â€œYou can’t expect me to say it now! ” she cried.
    â€œIf you imagine love is so easily killed, then you know nothing of love. You are suffering from bruised pride, and you imagine you have been crossed in love!”
    â€œThat is so untrue!”
    He eyed her coldly. “And is this truly why you ran from our wedding ceremony