Harper stared at herself in the floor length mirror, determined not to look at the clock again. Counting down the minutes until the wedding ceremony only made her more nervous that she already was.
Jad, the designer tasked with outfitting Harper for her wedding, ducked out from under the sea of cream silk. "Sayeda, you are shaking."
His accented English was tinted heavily with frustration as he breathed out something as close to a sigh as his respect for her position would allow.
Harper gave an equally frustrated shrug. She couldn't help it. The marriage may have been a facade, but the nerves and adrenaline were all too real.
Jad brought himself to full height, all nearly six feet of it, and ordered Harper out of the dress. "Sayeda, I can’t sew your dress with you shaking. I will take this with me. You can have it back when I’m finished."
She stepped behind the privacy partition and slipped into a silk robe, cinching the belt at her waist. Jad hurried out the door, mumbling something under his breath in rapid-fire Arabic.
Unable to stop herself, Harper checked the clock again and sighed. She was to be married to Zaid in less than an hour.
Married.
To Zaid.
Her emotions, amped up by the massive amounts of pregnancy hormones coursing through her system, lay in a tangled mess at the pit of her stomach. A jumbled heap of anxiety, dread and excitement.
This wasn’t a real marriage, a fact she kept reminding herself in an attempt to temper those hopes that kept creeping in. A naiveté she was surprised had lingered all these years, even after all she had learned. About life. About love. About men.
Her mother had gotten high on that hope, had sought it out, chased it down like a huntress after her prey. But Harper had never felt the urge to grasp onto such undulated passion. Had never let it hold her under its thrall.
But it called to her now, luring her away from rational thought and all she knew to be true. All the things she knew Zaid could offer. And far more importantly, all the things she knew he could not.
But that kiss...
Zaid had felt it, too. She was sure of that. It was in the way he held her, the way his hands seemed to skim the surface of her skin, afraid to grab hold but unable to let go.
And she had seen it in his eyes, the way he had been broken apart and put back together. Just like she had been.
The door to her suite opened and she readied herself for another round of ‘Sew the Dress on the Pregnant Bride’. "I take it you decided it was better to have your head under my dress after all."
"While I'm sure having my head under your dress would certainly be a memorable experience,” Zaid’s voice rang out, “I think I would rather save that for tonight. Something to look forward to.”
Harper's mouth dropped open. "I thought you were someone else."
"That's disappointing,” Zaid said. “Tell me who and I’ll make sure he never sees daylight again.”
"I mean...the designer just left...with my dress..."
Zaid laughed. The first genuine laugh she'd ever heard from him.
She relaxed into one of her own, the knots in her stomach loosening. "You're in a good mood."
"I have every reason to be. It is my wedding day, after all."
"Yes, I suppose it is." She sucked in a breath. "We should probably talk..."
"That sounds ominous."
"The thing...last night...when you–"
"I kissed you."
"You did."
"And you liked it."
More than liked it. It had been intoxicating, inciting in her a terrifying want, a yearning she feared she could never satiate. "I was there. I remember."
"Good to know." Zaid edged toward her, slowly, as though stalking prey.
"I don't want things to be awkward between us."
“I told you before. We are adults. And we are attracted to each other."
"Attraction? That's all this is?"
He took her hands in his, the simple mehndi design she had chosen to decorate her hands and palms peeking through as he laced their fingers together. It seemed appropriate to him that her hands be decorated. Small and delicate though they were, there was strength in them, precision. Harper’s movements were as sharp and exact as her mind.
"I have no illusions regarding this marriage," he said. "And I have no intention on going back on my promise to you.” Zaid brought her hands to his mouth and kissed her lightly on the palm. “But should you change your mind, the offer still stands.”
Jad returned with Harper's dress, and she shooed Zaid away.
"That is your cue to leave," Harper said. "It's bad luck to see my dress before the wedding."
"I've already seen your dress, rohi."
"All the more reason," Harper said. "I know you don't believe in luck, but I have the worst, and I won't risk it interfering."
"With a fake marriage?"
"With any marriage."
Zaid brought her hand to his mouth, and pressed a kiss to the tips of her fingers. "Until we meet again, rohi."
#
The wedding guests in attendance were few, most of them high-ranking political officials. A sober reminder of the nature of their union.
As if she needed one.
Harper stood in the archway separating the courtyard from the gardens, nervously fidgeting with her dress as she waited for the ceremony to begin. The music changed, slipping into a wedding procession. Her cue to walk down the aisle.
She froze, nerves raw, hands shaking. Her fight or flight response spinning into overdrive. Taking a deep breath, she pulled back her shoulders, summoning up all the courage she could find. Anything to quell the endless hum of anxiety buzzing inside her.
She took one step, then another, her feet on the cobblestone feeling as foreign to her as the delicate fabric, a plain cream silk embroidered with gold, against her skin. She made it halfway and faltered, her courage fading, the reality of what she was about to do, the commitment she was about to make, collapsing on top of her.
And then she saw Zaid standing at the end of the aisle, his dark slacks and white shirt a sharp contrast to the sand and stone on which he stood. Their eyes met and a flood of calm bled through her.
As if without thinking, she found herself walking again on the smooth cobblestone, past the rows of guests, until she was standing beside him.
The ceremony began, and Zaid drew nearer to her, his eyes fixed on hers, filled with a muted intensity. The same intensity she'd seen in him just before he had kissed her. She involuntarily licked her lips in response, thankful for the distance between them, the small gap of space between his body and hers. Between the lure of temptation and her desire to give into it.
The Officiant turned to her, speaking slowly as he guided her through her vows. She spoke the words quietly in a botched attempt at Arabic, curious of their meaning. She could ask Zaid, after the ceremony and have him translate the promises they were making to each other. But she wouldn't dare. Her common sense wouldn't allow it. If she knew the promises she was making, she would be bound to them. Bound to him. Her conscience would insist upon it.
It came time for Zaid to say his vows, and he reached for her, taking her hands in his. His touch was magnetic and familiar, the heat of his hands on hers causing her body to react, closing that precious gap between them.
He spoke, his tone deliberate as he recited his vows, making the most intimate of promises to her. Promises she had no doubt he would keep.
He slipped a simple gold band on her finger, a sister to the ring his mother had worn. But this one hers, a symbol not of love, but of devotion. Their devotion to each other. A vow that meant more to her than any declaration of love ever could.
Love faded, changed, devolved, disintegrated. Love was a promise made only by fools who knew no better.
She was no fool. She had learned early on what happened when you gave yourself away in the name of fickle emotion. Her marriage to Zaid would be different. It would be stable. Built on something more solid than a mere feeling.
The Officiant spoke again, addressing both of them this time. Blessing their union, the bond that had been secured between them. Not with contracts and signatures, but with an oath, a promise made from woman to man, from husband to wife.
The intensity in Zaid's gaze deepened, and Harper forced herself to breathe normally, her throat suddenly too dry, her lungs too tight to properly inflate. Her heart drummed in her chest, aching with a need she couldn't name. And wouldn't, even if she could. An ache she had never felt before, one that cried out for her to lose herself in those gray eyes, to lose herself completely in Zaid.
The small gathering of guests cheered, and only then did Harper realize the ceremony was over. Not with a kiss, like she had anticipated. But with a sworn oath.
Zaid raised her hands to his mouth and kissed her lightly. "Come."
She swallowed, the vows they had recited, so foreign yet so deeply imbedded in her soul, still echoing in her mind. "What happens now?"
"Now we make it official."
Her legs froze, her body unable and unwilling to move forward, leaving her standing in the gardens, her arm outstretched, her hand still connected to Zaid's by the tips of her fingers. "The wedding didn't make it official?"
Zaid shook his head, a hint of a smile dancing on his expression. "There is something else we must do before our marriage is legally binding."