The Man's Outrageous Demands (20 page)

George couldn’t have hurt her. Mild irritation, perhaps, but nothing deep or profound.

Sam on the other hand, was a completely different man. Marabeth loved him completely, even his arrogance and irritating commands. But he treated her as if she was a simpleton and that Marabeth just could not endure. Not from Sam anyway. It hurt too much. Over the past few days, Marabeth had implored Sam to not take over the wetlands. Unfortunately, each time she brought up the subject, he treated her arguments with patronizing amusement. And then yesterday, she’d found out that they had broken ground on the area. Sam hadn’t even had enough respect for her and her opinions that he’d taken a moment to tell her.

There would be a great deal of embarrassment. She could make an announcement that it was her fault and this should not reflect poorly on any other member of the government. She was sure there would be negative repercussions but she would deal with them later. This was her heart and her future that were at stake. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, take any chances with either.

She pulled the sheets away and got out of bed. Marabeth felt mildly better once she was showered and dressed in a soft, green dress that matched her eyes. She wasn’t sure why she went to the trouble of dressing though. She had fittings for her rehearsal dinner dress as well as her wedding dress, both of which would take up a great deal of the day.

Marabeth walked listlessly down the hallway towards the breakfast room, hoping she was late enough so no one else would be present. She didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Luckily, she was alone as she sipped her tea and ignored the biscuits and other offerings on the buffet table. She stared out the window, watching the wind stir the trees and flowers softly. What was she going to do? She considered several options besides calling off the wedding which would be so humiliating to her parents. Unfortunately, her mind discarded all of her solutions as being too unrealistic.

She had to call off the wedding. And she’d have to be firm about it. Marabeth put down her half filled teacup and stood up, resolute in her determination.

She walked down the hallway and smiled at Jerry who immediately stood up and bowed. “Good morning, your highness,” he said. “I’ll tell the Minister that you are here to see him,” he said.

“Thank you, Jerry,” Marabeth said and turned to look out the window. There was a beautiful view of the courtyard, she realized. Sam was going to be furious, but she’d have to be strong and explain to him that she wasn’t going to back down.

“He’s available immediately, your highness,” Jerry said behind her.

Marabeth turned and walked into Sam’s office. “Good morning, Sam,” she said and shivered as he took her into his arms as soon as the door was closed. He kissed her until her knees were weak and she had to push at his shoulders before his mouth changed her mind. “Sam, I need to talk to you,” she said.

“What’s on your mind?” he asked, pulling her so she was standing between his legs while he leaned back against the desk.

Taking a deep breath, she looked up into his handsome face. “I’m not going to marry you,” she said. Then waited for the explosion.

Sam smiled and chuckled. “Yes, you are. You’re just mad at me for some reason. What’s going on?” he asked.

Marabeth was instantly irritated by his words. She stepped out of his arms and took several steps away.

“No, Sam. I’m not marrying you.”

“Tell me the problem and I guarantee that I can make it better? Talk to me.”

Squaring her shoulders, she looked down at the floor, gathering strength. Finally, she looked back up at him, her chin jutting out defiantly as if she could force him to understand that she was not kidding around about this issue. “I won’t marry someone who doesn’t trust or respect me. I’ll personally send out the press release and I’ll take the responsibility on me. Don’t worry, my father will be mad, but only at me.”

Sam stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. “Marabeth, what are you talking about?”

“I’m calling off the wedding, Sam. If you’d listen to me, instead of telling me what I’m going to do or not going to do, you’d understand that I’m serious about this.”

“Why?” “Because you don’t trust me or respect me.”

“You’ve said that,” he growled. “Now make sense.”

Balling her hands into fists, she squared her shoulders and turned to face him. “Sam, I’m not kidding. You won’t talk to me about what is going on with my security. You didn’t tell me anything that was going on with the wetlands, what else are you not telling me? Obviously you don’t trust me.” She took a deep breath before continuing, “And let me just emphasize this security issue so you understand how angry I am about that. Do you have any idea knowing that something is seriously wrong but not getting any information on what that could be? It’s terrifying. And you have information that you’re not sharing with me. It is patronizing and condescending to know that you don’t trust me enough with that information. Instead, you make me hibernate here in the palace and order me around. I’m not a silly female who needs to be told what to do.”

He walked over to tower above her. “You’re mine, Marabeth. And I protect what is mine.”

She could tell that he was angry but didn’t care. “No. I’m not. See? You’re still not listening to me. I might be engaged to you, but I’m stopping this madness before the wedding when you think you’ll have total control over me.”

“You love me, Marabeth. Don’t even try to deny it.”

She nodded and angrily wiped the unwanted tears from her cheeks. “Yes. I do. But it has to be a two way street. I kept thinking that if you’d just get to know me a little more, you’d realize that I’m an intelligent person and not a ninny who you can treat like a child. But the more I gave, the more you learned, the more you stopped telling me things. So now, I’m basically a captive of the palace at your command. People can barely even come into the palace to see me. This has to stop. And if it means halting the wedding so you can get rid of your commando style protection, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“There is something happening out there that I don’t want you exposed to,” he said.

“What Sam? What’s going on?” she pleaded with him, her eyes imploring him to let her know what the issues were, to trust her to be able to absorb them and deal with them.

He ran his fingers through his hair yet again and turned away from her. “You don’t need to know the details. You’ll just have to trust me,” he said, but he was getting frustrated himself. He didn’t know how to share information with people. Every instinct in his body was telling him they were getting closer to the stalker but they just couldn’t pin the guy down. Until then, Sam wasn’t willing to let her go out in public. The man had threatened her life and he loved her too much to let anything happen to her.

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about, Sam. What details? I do trust you. I know that if you think something is wrong, then there is really something wrong. A few weeks ago, that wouldn’t have been the case. I thought you were just mean and ornery. But after getting to know you, I understand that you take each piece of information and pull all the details together to form a bigger picture. But you don’t trust me with any information, thinking I might faint if given the gory details. You don’t know me well enough to understand that I’m made of tougher stuff.”

He walked over to her and took her hands in his. “Marabeth, we’re getting married. Do you understand?” he said, his intense blue eyes looking into hers, willing her to bow to his commands.

“No, Sam. We’re not.” She pulled her hands free and walked to the doorway. She was about to open the door when his next words stopped her.

“You want to read the details? Come look,” he said and pulled a file out from under a stack of papers.

Marabeth turned and looked at his face. This was going against everything he believed in and her heart melted at that realization. It took a lot for him to give in but he was doing it.

She took the file and started reading. It was packed with information on someone who had apparently taken a violent hatred of her about six months ago. It had been a psychotic kind of love initially, but according to the man’s letters, his feelings had changed unexplainably about three months ago. He was furious with her for some reason.

Marabeth sat down on one of the chairs in front of Sam’s desk and read through all the pieces of paper, all the notes the man had written and somehow gotten into the palace. There was no postmark on any of the envelopes so they had to have been delivered personally.

She heard Sam speak to Jerry outside his office but she didn’t pay him any attention. He must have told Jerry to cancel his meetings or something since Sam paced his office the whole time she read through the information.

It took almost forty five minutes, but by the time she was finished, her fingers were shaking. “Okay, well that was frightening. But thank you for letting me know what is going on. I understand now why you’ve put in place so many extra precautions. Some of the questions Manny was asking me make more sense now.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you read the notes,” he said harshly. “Next time, you’ll accept my word when I tell you that you won’t like it.”

Marabeth shook her head and stood up. “You will not. You’ll bring me the information as soon as you get it and trust that we can work things through together.”

Sam breathed a sigh of relief at her words. He pulled her close. “Tell me you love me,” he said.

“I love you. More than I want to at times, but I love you.”

“Tell me you’ll marry me,” he said, smiling at her words.

She was silent for a long time. Sam pulled back and stared down at her face. “Marabeth, you will marry me,” he commanded.

She smiled up at his face. “Will you promise not to hide things from me?” she said.

He looked at her face, struggling with feelings inside himself. Finally, he nodded. “I’ll try,” he said.

Marabeth started to pull away and shook her head. “Not good enough,” she said. “I want complete trust.”

“Why don’t you trust me to take care of this for you?” he asked, gripping her upper arms and shaking her gently.

In response to the battle she could feel warring within him, she put her arms around his waist and hugged him. “I do trust you. I know that you’ll do whatever is needed to keep me safe. But I don’t want to be kept in the dark about anything between us. I’m tired of living in a one sided world. I grew up with a very dictatorial father. I don’t want that in my marriage,” she said. Then shook her head, “I won’t have it in my marriage.”

He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close. “Give me time. I’m not used to taking orders from someone half my size and weight.”

She pulled back, instantly offended. “I can take you down, buddy,” she laughed. “You’ve taught me yourself,” she reminded him.

“Just try it,” he growled and bent down to kiss her gently. “Tell me you’ll marry me,” he demanded.

Marabeth ignored the command in his voice and said the words he wanted to hear. “I’ll marry you, but you’ll have to marry me back. That means a partnership, not a dictatorship,” she said, sighing as his hands caressed her shoulders and back, making her shiver in anticipation.
“Fine. But you’re still not leaving the palace until we find this guy.”

She looked up into his eyes and smiled. “I’d be happy to stay in your bed until you find this guy,” she laughed.

Sam needed no other prompting. He bent down and picked her up into his arms, then walked quickly out of his office. “Cancel my meetings this afternoon,” he said to Jerry, who looked confused at first, then grinned widely as he watched the Minister and the Princess walk down the hallway towards the living quarters of the palace.

Epilogue

Marabeth smiled up at the tall man standing next to her in dove gray morning clothes. “I do,” she said, her voice strong and confident. Sam’s fingers tightened over hers.

“I now pronounce you, husband and wife,” the minister said, his voice ringing out over the church filled with over one thousand guests. Sam turned to Marabeth and pulled her into his arms, kissing her thoroughly as the rest of the congregation laughed and applauded.

The pipe organ burst into the wedding march and Marabeth smiled broadly, waiving to the crowd.

Sam led her through the church and out onto the balcony where a crowd of Cordova citizens were eagerly awaiting the announcement of the wedding vows. Sam had directed that they would make the announcement themselves, instead of sending a messenger to deliver the news. Marabeth had figured out who was stalking her and the man had been arrested. He’d admitted everything and was now safely tucked away in a mental institution.

Now that the threat was over, Sam was eager to show off his new bride, proud of her heritage and her dedication to the people of this country.