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It had all been a deal.

“I want to know everything, Mr. Saunders.”

“I thought you were aware of the basics, Ms. Gra…” Ethan Saunders, her father’s attorney, halted on the other end of the line. “Excuse me. Princess Aal Ferjani.”

Princess Aal Ferjani. She’d never felt this name applied to her. She’d thought it was because of the state of her marriage. Now she knew it was because it didn’t apply. And it never would. “Sabrina will do, Mr. Saunders,” she said tightly. “And I want to know more than the basics. I want every detail. There are no legal provisos that stop you from filling me in, are there?”

“When you put it that way, no,” the man said cautiously. “I just got the impression that your father didn’t want to bother you with particulars. I assumed that was why you weren’t present during negotiations or contract signing.”

Wading deeper into the nightmare, needing to hit rock bottom and be done with it, she prodded, “I do need to be bothered with the particulars, Mr. Saunders. My future depends on it.”

There was a protracted silence on the other end. Then he exhaled. “Very well, Sabrina. While you were involved in your graduate studies, your father’s health deteriorated, plunging him into a deep depression. He made catastrophic financial decisions—against my advisement, I must add. They ruined him. It was then that Sheikh Adham moved in. He’d been circling your father’s land, and had tried to purchase it more than once. He knew he could finally acquire the land he’d long coveted with your father no longer in a position to refuse the sale. He had clear plans to close down the winery and plant other crops, while using the rest of the unplanted land as a horse farm.

“But your father was not without his own strategy. He investigated Sheikh Adham in turn, learning of his need to produce an heir within a certain time frame.”

Her heart detonated at the confirmation of her worst fears. “And he offered me to him.”

“You did fulfill all of Sheikh Adham’s requirements, and your father was still an astute enough businessman to know that. You are of impeccable lineage, physical qualities and…reputation.”

Sabrina felt another red-hot lance skewering through her.

So that was why Adham had pretended to want her. He’d been out to assure her purity when he’d taken her for a test drive before deciding to marry her. A test drive he’d hoped would bear his required fruit, that he’d been loath to perform, judging by his aversion to repeating it, except when necessity dictated.

He’d been another of her father’s arranged grooms all along.

But he’d gone far beyond any of them ever had. He’d seduced her to make sure she’d consent to the marriage. The mutually beneficial deal. For her father and for him.

And instead of being an heiress, she was actually indebted to him and would regain her legacy only when she provided him with a child. A child he wanted in order to fulfill his father’s demands.

He’d never wanted to marry her, and felt nothing sincere for her. She was nothing to him.

No. She was worse than nothing. She was an annoyance, a burden. One he probably would get rid of the moment he could.

Mr. Saunders was going on about fine print. She’d heard all she’d wanted to hear, all she couldn’t bear hearing. She didn’t notice when the call ended. She might have hung up on the man.

It was worse than she’d feared. She’d been the only one under the misconception that this was a real marriage. Everyone else knew what it was—another of Adham’s breeding ventures.

She’d been offered and accepted as a desirable mare.

But worse, Adham had believed all along that she was in on the deal.

Rage rose inside her again. She wiped fiercely at the tears.

It didn’t matter what he’d believed. Only one thing mattered. He had to know she wanted no part of his plan, had agreed to none of it. She’d take nothing from him. She’d do anything, give up everything, to prove it.

And if fate should have it that she gave him his coveted heir, it would be on