"THE SULTAN CHOSE HER, NOT for her intelligence or her beauty, but her heart." Safiye explained, staring at the little Grecian girl who looked on in disappointment as the Florentine woman was taken to the halvet and prepared. "He chose her because she endeared herself to him, much as Hürrem Sultan did when her eye caught that of Sultan Suleiman." --------- "I JUST WANT YOU, AHMED. Just you." She stood before him, expression true and eyes full of tears. "Whether you come to me as Bahti, writing to me of your day to day musings, wanting to dream of a life away from the palace, or Ahmed, the Sultan of the World with gold at your feet. None of it, not one thread of it, matters to me of I cannot have you with it."