Free Protecting His Princess by C. J. Miller

looked at her. Watched her and didn’t say anything. His gaze drilled into her.
    Finally he spoke. “Are you telling me you’ve never been alone with a man?”
    Laila shifted under his scrutiny. She wasn’t ashamed of how she had chosen to live. It was, after all, a deliberate choice. Her aunt and uncle were trusting, and she could have secretly dated men in America. She’d been asked out a few times by customers in the coffeehouse and had declined their invitations. “Aside from members of my family, I have not been alone with a man. Not in the way you mean.” She had never before experienced the attraction or the connection she had with Harris.
    Harris stepped closer. “How is that possible? Have you seen yourself? You’re gorgeous. How do you keep men away from you?”
    Laila blushed. The compliment heated her insides. “It’s well understood in Qamsar that an unmarried woman of a certain age isn’t left alone with her suitors. My father or mother chaperoned dinners, and my father was planning to select someone for my marriage. He died before he’d made the final arrangements.” With the power and influence her father had held, he should have arranged a match when she was young, as he had done for her brothers. But his relationship with Laila had been different. Her father had admitted he was having trouble letting go of his daughter, and had wanted to find a good man with honesty and integrity who would treat her well.
    “The first man you want to be with is your husband.” He spoke it as a statement, not a question. His voice lacked incredulity. He sounded as if he was trying to understand.
    “My parents’ plan was that I only ever be alone with my husband. In America, I wondered about that choice and if it was right for me.” The darkness hid the redness that burned on her face. She’d been too direct.
    “Now that your future is more open, how do you feel about that?”
    She hadn’t entirely processed what would change for her when she started a new life in America. She was concentrating on the part of the arrangement that would keep her family safe and her from being married to someone Mikhail had chosen, likely someone she would find awful. She put the conversation back on comfortable ground. “I want to be happy. In America, I will learn to date how other modern women do.” Though she had worried about an arranged marriage with someone Mikhail would choose for her, she hadn’t had the same fears when her father was alive. He would have seen to it she married someone good and kind.
    “You no longer want an arranged marriage?” he asked.
    Once she was living in America, she wouldn’t have the means to arrange a marriage. She’d need to break ties with her past life and find someone on her own. “It might not be an option without a male in my life to arrange it or the connections to find someone. I suppose my mother or Saafir could help, but we’ll all have to find new lives and build relationships. I could find my own suitors.” Couldn’t she? Could Harris be one of them?
    “I’m responsible for your health and well-being. I put you on this track, and if it goes off the skids, I’ll know I had a hand in that. If you end up married to a jerk you meet in America, I’ll hold myself accountable.”
    She wasn’t planning to let her life veer off course, and she wouldn’t marry a jerk. She might be inexperienced, but she had good instincts. “You seem to believe I’ll make bad choices. I’m capable of finding a good man.” She wasn’t sure what qualities she would look for. Those things had been in the hands of her family.
    He called her out of her worry. “How will you know the good guys from the bad? You don’t have experience seeing through someone’s lies,” Harris said. “The world is full of liars.”
    He was included on that list. Their entire relationship was a deception. “Perhaps your line of work has made you jaded. Not everyone prides themselves on being a liar or