Review: The Sheikh's Bartered Bride

The Sheikh's Bartered Bride by Lucy Monroe
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3 ⭐⭐⭐ - OK decent reads.
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Reread: July, 2019
Read: September, 2012 (paperback)

Catherine Marie Benning was unaware that she was to become his wife. Her father wanted it that way.

Harold Benning also saw the marriage as beneficial. His concern over the continued single state of his twenty-four-year old daughter had been obvious. According to him, she never even dated.

This was unexpected. Her picture had revealed a pretty woman, but nothing like the exotic beauties he had bedded in the past. That he should react so readily to such an innocent sight made him stop in his journey toward her.

A genuine physical attraction on his part would make the job of her seduction that much easier.

She was too shy to pursue men and too ordinary to be pursued. Yet something about Hakim compelled her to step outside her comfort zone.

The latent and untapped passion he sensed in her would play to his advantage, making it easy for him to seduce her into marriage and fulfill his duty.

Catherine had agreed to be his wife. His uncle would be pleased. Her father would be pleased. Hakim was pleased. Marriage to Catherine would be no hardship.

“We considered marriage.” “But you broke up.” “She did not fancy life in a backwater like Jawhar.” The way he said the words, Catherine got the impression he was quoting the faceless woman he had once considered marrying verbatim.

Satisfaction coursed through her at the knowledge that her father had had nothing to do with her and Hakim meeting. She wasn’t a pity date, or being eyed as a possible way into her father’s good graces.

He could never tell her of the plans associated with their marriage. She would not understand.

“I was just a pity date.”

Catherine’s mind was still stuck on the concept that a marriage had been part of the mining deal. Her marriage? “You mean Hakim’s duty was to marry me?” Catherine whispered in dawning horror.

Catherine wondered if there was any other way of putting it. “The further benefits of my marriage to your husband’s cousin were the long-term living visas in case political dissidents made them necessary?” she asked, clarifying it in her mind as she spoke.

She’d been betrayed on every level. Her father had lied to her. Her husband had lied to her. She’d been used as a means to an end by a king she’d never even met before today.

She’d felt the pain of rejection many times in her life, but nothing had ever been like this.

“I thought you loved me.” “I never said I loved you.” Her heart felt like it shattered in her chest. “No. You didn’t, but you knew I believed it was me you wanted.” “I did want to marry you, Catherine.” “Because it fulfilled your duty to your uncle and because my father made it part of his filthy mining deal with an opportunistic king.”

“You married me because your uncle told you to.” His arms tightened around her, but he did not deny it.

She had believed he loved her and he didn’t. She felt betrayed by him, by her father and by her own misreading of the situation.

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