Total pages in book: 230
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 217798 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1089(@200wpm)___ 871(@250wpm)___ 726(@300wpm)
“I like it.” Chelsea stood. “I’ve got a massage in five. I think we should help the Mistress plan.”
Phoebe winked her way. “You know I’m always up for a good plan.”
It was probably a horrible idea, but sometimes a woman had to take a chance. Perhaps when her king stole her away, he would find he was the one who was claimed.
Yes, she liked the sound of that.
CHAPTER 4
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Chapal moved a palm frond, sneaking a peek at the beach where Dayita would soon be walking.
Kash sighed and tried not to step on anything the horse decided to leave behind. “It’s considered good luck.”
His cousin looked somewhat ridiculous wearing traditional clothes. His chest was on display and he wore a pair of lightweight pants that reached just below his knee. On his head rested a headdress made of shells and palm leaves.
On Chapal’s skinny, never-hit-a-gym-in-his-life, how-was-a-brown-man-so-damn-pale body, it looked a bit silly.
Kash rather thought it made him look dashing and romantic. Otherwise, he looked like an idiot douchebag about to reenact a bit of history almost no one gave a damn about.
Except for all those crazy people on the beach waiting to watch the ceremony. They lined the beach and the road that would take them back to the palace. Weston had the route guarded by a number of the new guard he had hired in the last week. He’d doubled the amount of palace guards and was working with the small police force and military to get them trained.
Even his old bodyguard Rai had agreed to come back for the royal wedding. He stood outside the staging area, his back to Kash and his eyes moving across the crowd.
“Do you really want good luck?” Chapal asked. “You want this marriage to work? I ask because I like Day. I’ve known her for the last few years and she’s a lovely woman. I would hate to see her get hurt.”
Days had passed and this was all he’d heard. It had been a solid week since he’d agreed to the arrangement and every moment he spent with Day made him think it wouldn’t be so bad. Every moment he spent away from her made him wonder if he was a monster.
“Why would she be hurt? Have you ever once known me to hurt a woman?”
Chapal turned, crossing his arms over his chest and then uncrossing them because he was wearing a horrible necklace made of the aforementioned itchy palm fronds. “You would never physically hurt a woman. I know that. I’m talking about her tender heart.”
He had to smile at that one. “Tender heart? Have you seen what she does to members of parliament who don’t get on board with her education plans? She can eviscerate a man with that sharp tongue of hers.”
Day had been keeping her appointments as the head of education despite the fact that the last week had been a whirlwind. He’d gone with her to an advisory meeting with the parliament’s committee on schools. He’d stayed in the background as she’d requested, watching from the back of the balcony seats. They’d given her a rough interrogation about her budget and why they should increase it. At two points in time he’d nearly stood up and gone after a few of the bastards for the way they’d spoken to her. Day had been cool and calm, explaining everything patiently and then threatening to go straight to the press with a story about how the Loa Mali parliament had spent three hundred thousand dollars on a party to celebrate their own anniversary, a party the public wasn’t invited to, but they refused to spend a paltry seventy-five thousand to update computer software for their children. They’d sputtered and cursed and Day had gotten her way.
And Kash had gotten a hard-on. A really massive, wouldn’t-go-away-for-a-long-time hard-on.
That had felt good. It had been a long time since he’d wanted more than sex, since he’d wanted one particular woman, and for more than to prove he could have her.
Maybe he was a bit of a monster, but he never lied to the women he took to his bed.
And he wasn’t going to lie to Day.
“She doesn’t date often,” Chapal continued. Why his cousin believed he had to also be his conscience, Kash had no idea. “The whole time I’ve known her she’s dated two men. One was a setup and she never saw him again. She spends all of her time on work. When she goes on vacation, she goes alone.”
That didn’t seem right. “Where does she go? And what happened with the other man?”
“She dated the minister of transportation for about six months. They seemed well suited, but then she broke things off with him and he was married to another woman within six weeks. She won’t talk about what happened. I think he asked her to marry him, but only if she gave up her job and came home. I think she comes up against this quite a bit. As for her vacations, she goes to Europe. Ben and I asked if she would like company once, but she said she was fine alone.”