Royal Families Vs. Historicals

CHAPTER THREE

KASIM HADN’T EXPECTED her to admit outright that she had had an affair with Sadiq, but he hadn’t expected an explanation like this, either. It shed an entirely different light on things. He couldn’t help but believe her.

Of course, she had done her best to scramble his brain with that kiss, so he forced himself to proceed cautiously.

“I’ll allow that Sadiq is what the Americans call a ‘geek.’ He is very modest and I’ve seen that do-good streak. He always seems sincere in his kindness toward Hasna. I can believe he would take it upon himself to help a stranger’s family. But I will check this with him,” he warned.

“Be my guest!”

Sadiq would back her story regardless. It was a far more tasteful explanation than admitting he’d had an affair with her. It was more tasteful to him, Kasim acknowledged darkly.

“I may have to relay some of this to my parents.” He was sorry now that his mother knew anything about this. She had already used the waiving of payment to stir up his father, basking in the importance of being the one to inform the king that there might be a scandal attached to their daughter’s wedding. She could easily have put the wedding itself in jeopardy in her quest for her husband’s attention, ever in competition with the king’s consort, Fatina.

It was exhausting and, given his father’s blood pressure and enlarged heart, Kasim expected his mother to show more sense. It was almost as if she was trying to provoke a heart attack. Maybe she was. Hell hath no fury, as the saying went, but at least he could defuse her latest damage with this information.

“If that’s what it takes to keep both our sisters from suffering profound disappointment, fine,” Angelique said stiffly, rising. “I trust they will also keep that information confidential.”

“They will,” he promised, brushing aside politics at home as he realized she was trying to kick him out.

He wasn’t ready to leave.

His mind had barely left their kiss. The way she had responded like a boxer coming into a ring had been exhilarating.

“Have dinner with me,” he said.

“Pah! Are you serious?” She blinked her mossy eyes at him. “Why?”

It was a completely singular reaction. Women cozied up to him and begged for an invitation to dine with him.

“We have more to talk about.”

“Like?”

He dropped his gaze to the pink-stained tissue crumpled on her desk.

She blushed, but it wasn’t all embarrassment. There was memory there, too. One that made her flush into her chest. The knowledge she was growing aroused again stimulated all the latent signals of his own desire.

Angelique looked away. “That was a mistake.”

“It was an effective distraction,” he allowed.

Her gaze flashed back to his. “That was not what I was trying to do.”

He shrugged. “Nevertheless, it put certain possibilities on the table.” He was already imagining that same explosive passion colliding on silk sheets. Or this desk she stood behind.

“I can’t,” she dismissed crisply.

“Why not?” A thought struck. “Are you in a relationship?” He tensed, dismayed.

“I wouldn’t have kissed you if I was, would I?”

“I don’t know.” He relaxed, starting to enjoy that pique of hers. It put a pretty glow in her eyes and revealed the intoxicating passion he’d tasted on her lips. “This is why we should have dinner. So we can get to know one another.”

“Are you in a relationship?” she shot back.

“No.” He scowled, not used to anyone asking questions so direct and personal.

She relaxed slightly, but her brow quickly crinkled in consternation. “Do you want to talk more about Sadiq? You still don’t believe me?”

“I want to go on a date, Angelique. I would think that was obvious.”

“A date.”

How could that take her aback? She actually retreated a half step. Her brows gave a surprised twitch, then, oddly, she looked uncertain. She dropped her gaze to her desktop. Bashful?

“I rarely date.”

“Then it should be a treat to have dinner with me.”

She laughed, which might have been offensive if she didn’t have such a pretty, engaging laugh. Her enjoyment was genuine and thorough. At his expense.

“I won’t apologize.” She held up a hand as she noted the way he folded his arms and set his teeth. “It wasn’t your conceit that got to me so much as the painful truth of that remark. You have no idea.”

Conceit? He’d been stating a fact.

She ran a fingertip beneath her eye, smile lingering.

“In gratitude for that exceptionally good chuckle, I’ll spare you some pain. I attract a lot of attention. I’m really not worth the trouble to take out. I know this because I’ve been told so more than once.” Her amusement faded to something more sincere. Resigned. Maybe even a tad wistful and hurt.

He started to say they could dine alone at his penthouse, then recalled his Paris residence was overrun by his mother and sisters and assorted female relatives.

“Your place then,” he said.

She shook her head, but there seemed to be some regret there. “Trella counts on certain spaces being kept private and our flat here is one of them.”

That devotion to her sister kept getting to him. The second nature of it. He understood it very well and had to like her for it.

“Dining in public it is, then.”

She grew very grave. “I’m serious, Kasim. My sort of notoriety is a punishment. You would be tarred as my lover overnight.”

“Since I intend to spend the night with you, where is the harm?”

“Do you?” she scoffed, flushing with indignation. And stirred sensuality.

He saw the deepening of her color and the swirl of speculation behind her gaze. The way she swallowed and licked her lips. Her nipples rose against the light silk of her top and filmy jacket.

He smiled with anticipation.

“That’s rather overconfident, isn’t it?” she said snippily.

“Don’t act surprised, Angelique.” He flicked his gaze down to the breasts that had flattened against his chest, the pelvis that had pressed into the thrust of his. “We’re very well matched and both intrigued to see where this could go. If you’re so eager you don’t want to go to dinner first, we can progress to that discovery right here and now. Provided you remove your necklace first.”

Her chin was not so narrow as to be pointed, but not so round as to be girlish. It was as perfect as the rest of her. She set it into a stubborn angle and said, “Punishment it is.”

She marched past him to the door.

“Maurice,” she said as she swung the door open. “A card, please. I’ll be dining with the prince later. Would you be kind enough to send someone to scout the restaurant of his choosing?”

She relayed the card to Kasim as he came up behind her. If he wished to be so forward, her glare spat at him, he could suffer the wrath of her celebrité.

He wasn’t scared. His worst family secret had been painstakingly—and yes, agonizingly—buried. Reports that he had affairs with beautiful women only aided that particular cause.

“Your men can call that number with the details,” Angelique said.

He pocketed the card thoughtfully. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“No need. My security will deliver me.”

“So cautious.” He felt the seeds of irritation forming. Perhaps he didn’t care about the notoriety she provoked, but the triple-A level of security could become tiresome. “It’s a test?” he guessed. If the arrangements for a simple dinner were too much for him, he was not prepared for the rest of the way she lived, she seemed to be conveying.

“It’s my reality,” she said with a flat smile.

* * *

He annoyed me.

That was the only reason Angelique had agreed to dinner.

Or so she told herself.

And repeated to Trella, when her sister rang through on the tablet before she’d got round to calling Henri.

“What’s going on with you?” Trella demanded with a troubled frown. “I’m feeling… I don’t know. Restless. Keyed up. Henri texted that your blip was a false alarm, but was it more serious?”

She and her sister didn’t keep much from one another. There was no point. They read each other too well.

Not that they were psychic. Angelique never feared Trella could peer into her private moments, but they had an uncanny connection. Despite whatever distance might separate them, they were eerily aware of the other’s emotional temperature. They knew if the other was happy or sad, angry or scared.

It was one of the reasons Angelique was encouraged to believe Trella was actually getting better this time. The Sauveterres were all paranoid to a point, but for Trella, terror had become her constant companion and a very debilitating one. She didn’t want to fall apart with anxiety attacks, but for years they had struck without mercy and Angelique had always been aware when they did. It hadn’t helped her own sensitive nature one little bit.

Living a cloistered life had leveled out the worst of Trella’s episodes, but now she was trying to overcome her fear of being in public so she could go to Sadiq’s wedding. It wasn’t so much fear of actually being around people or in the public eye that held her back, but fear that any change in her routine would trigger fresh attacks. So it was proving to be a “two steps forward, one back” process, but she was getting there.

Angelique was just as worried that anything could cause Trella to backslide, so she was very firm in stating, “Today was me being an idiot. That’s all.”

She didn’t go into detail about the kiss, but gave Trella a good laugh describing the scene as Kasim set off her panic button.

“He said it would be a treat to have dinner with him. I’ll show him a treat,” she muttered.

“It’s been a long time since you went on a date. Even longer since it was someone you were genuinely attracted to,” Trella noted.

There went any attempt at disguising from her sister how deeply Kasim affected her.

“I don’t know why I am! He’s not my usual type at all.”

“You don’t have a type. You go out with men who make you feel guilty if you turn them down, or sorry for them.”

“Well, there’s no feeling sorry for this one. He’s…” Indescribable. She was reacting to him from a completely different place than she’d ever experienced. He didn’t pluck her heartstrings as Trella suggested, or tweak her conscience. It was a way deeper reaction than that. He drew her to him.

And made her feel too transparent just thinking about him. She quickly mentioned she still owed Henri a call, but lingered to ask Trella, “Have you noticed… Is something going on with Henri and Cinnia?”

Trella tilted her head in consideration. “He hasn’t said anything to me, but now that you say it…”

Henri didn’t peep a word about anything unless he wanted it known, but if he did confide a secret, it was to Trella first. They were all close, but they each had their own special relationship with each other. It went all the way back to the day Angelique and Trella were born. Their twin brothers had been allowed to name their sisters and it had created a sense of responsibility in each boy for “his” baby sister.

Ownership, Trella and Angelique had often called it in a mutter to each other. Half the time the boys acted like their sisters were kittens picked up from the animal shelter, but it was a dynamic that had colored their entire lives. They all loved each other equally, but when it had come to holding a sister’s hand or pushing her on a swing, they had naturally divided into Henri and Trella, Ramon and Angelique. Oldest with youngest, middle with middle.

Which wasn’t to say that Henri was any less protective of Angelique than he was of Trella, or that Ramon was more. Trella’s kidnapping had sent the boys’ instincts off the scale. Their father’s death six years later, when the men were barely twenty-one, had added yet another layer to their self-imposed yokes of responsibility.

Thus both men would insist on an explanation for today’s false alarm.

Angelique hung up on her sister and placed the call to both brothers at once, opening with, “I can’t talk long. I have a date.”

Their identical faces stared back at her, Henri in the London flat that he often shared with Cinnia, Ramon in the corporate office in Madrid. They both gave her their full attention, but Henri’s expression was marginally more severe, Ramon’s a shade amused.

“Do you really expect us to believe the ‘looking at your necklace’ story?” Ramon asked.

“Do you really want a different one?” she challenged.

“Soyez prudent, Gili,” Henri said. “He doesn’t keep his women long and he has publicly stated that his father will choose his bride—a traditional virgin from Zhamair, no doubt. I wouldn’t recommend a romance.”

“Hear that, Ramon? Don’t get your hopes up.”

No smile out of Henri. He really was a grump these days. Angelique scanned behind him for Cinnia. She usually dipped into the screen for at least a quick hello.

“I have to go to Beijing for a week, but I’ll be back in Paris after that. You can explain properly then,” Henri stated.

Good luck, she thought, suppressing a snort, and took note of how permanent that sounded. Back in Paris after that. Henri usually divided his time between Paris and London with occasional popovers to New York and Montreal. More often than not he said “we,” meaning him and his companion of two years, Cinnia.

Ramon only introduced his lovers to the family if they happened to bump into each other at a public event. Women were a catch and release sport for him and he was forever on the run anyway, covering Spain, Portugal and all of South America for Sauveterre International. The men were actively working on acquisitions in Asia and Australia, but as Ramon sometimes joked, “We’re only one person.”

“Trella told me not to bring her tomorrow,” Ramon said abruptly, dark brows pulling into a frown. “Did she tell you that?”

“What? No!” Angelique was taken aback. “I just spoke to her. She said, ‘See you tomorrow.’ We’re going to finish Hasna’s gown and start packing everything.” Had she blocked her sister from airing some misgivings, too focused on herself and her date with Kasim?

“No, I mean she said she wants to travel to Paris alone. With guards, of course, but she doesn’t want me to come with her.” Ramon scratched his eyebrow. “It started because I said I was heading to Rio right after and that I had to be there until Sadiq’s wedding. She said I shouldn’t have to double back and she would go to Paris alone.”

“Go with her anyway,” Henri ordered. “I’ll change my schedule and come get her, if you don’t have time. Where is Mama?”

“No!” Angelique interjected. “Boys.” They were thirty, but sometimes calling them that was the only way to pull them out of their patriarchal tailspins. “We’ve always said that Trella has to be allowed to do things in her own time. That meant not pushing before she was ready, but it also means not holding her back when she is ready. You know how hard she’s trying.”

“Exactly why she shouldn’t push herself and trigger something. No. I don’t like it,” Henri said flatly.

“Neither do I,” Ramon said.

“Too. Bad,” Angelique said, even though her own heart was skipping and fluttering with concern for her sister. “I’ll be here,” she reminded. “It’s a couple of hours on the private jet. I do the trip all the time.”

“It’s different,” Ramon grumbled. “You know that.”

“Let her do this,” Angelique insisted, ignoring the sweat in her palms as she clutched her tight fists. “I’ll text her so she knows I can come get her if she changes her mind.”

She signed off with warm regards to both her brothers and finished getting ready for her date.

* * *

Angelique had to give Kasim credit. He did his homework—or his people did.

He chose a restaurant she and her family frequented for its excellent food and location atop the Makricosta, one of Paris’s most luxurious hotels. The staff was also adept at protecting her privacy, not forcing her to walk through the lobby, but willing to arrange an escort from the underground parking through the service elevator.

It always amused her that the most exclusive guests of fine establishments wound up seeing plain Jane lifts and overly bright hallways cluttered with linen carts and racks of dirty food trays.

To her surprise, Kasim was in the elevator when it opened. That instantly sent its ambiance skyrocketing. He was casually elegant in a tailored jacket over a black shirt that was open at the throat.

Her blood surged, filling her with heat. What was it about this man?

“I didn’t realize you were staying here,” she said, trying not to betray his effect on her as she and Maurice stepped in.

“I wasn’t. Until I had a date with you.” His gaze snared hers and held it.

A jolt of excitement went through her as the suggestiveness in his comment penetrated. Don’t act surprised. We’re very well matched…

She’d never progressed so fast with a man that she’d contemplated sex on a first date. In fact, her advancement to the stage of sharing a bed was so slow, she had only got there a couple of times. Each time she had arrived with great expectation and left with marginal levels of satisfaction.

Now her mind couldn’t help straying into sensual curiosity. What would it be like to sleep with Kasim? Their kiss had been very promising. She grew edgy just thinking of it.

“In case you wished to dine unseen,” he added almost as an afterthought, with an idle glance at the ever stone-faced Maurice, but with a hint of droll humor deepening the corners of his sex god mouth, like he knew where her mind had gone and was laughing at her for it.

Wicked, impossible man. He had made her think about sleeping with him. Deliberately.

She didn’t let on that his trick had worked, although her pink cheeks probably gave her away. “The restaurant is fine. I’m rarely bothered there.”

The maître d’ greeted her warmly by name and assured Kasim it was an honor to serve him. He showed them to a table at a window where a decorative screen had been erected prior to their arrival, enclosing them in a semiprivate alcove.

Kasim held her chair and glanced at the screen as he seated himself. “Apparently we dine unseen regardless.”

“Did you want to be seen with me? You wouldn’t be the first.”

“I wouldn’t be ashamed,” he said drily. “You’re very beautiful. But if you’re more comfortable like this, by all means.”

Angelique tried not to bask in the compliment as their drink orders were taken. She had freshened her makeup and vetted her outfit over the tablet with Trella, settling on an ivory cocktail dress with a drop waist that ended above her knees in a light flare. The sleeves were overlong and held a belled cuff while the entire concoction was embellished with some of Trella’s best work in seed pearls and silver beads.

Public appearances were always this fine balancing act between avoiding being noticed but wanting to show Maison des Jumeaux in its best light if she happened to be photographed, all while trying not to look over-or underdressed for the actual event.

“Judging by what you said today, I didn’t think there’d been recent threats. Is this just the vigilance against them that you spoke of?” He nodded at the screen.

“That’s me trying to maintain some level of mystery,” she joked, but her voice was flat. “Yet another reason I don’t bother dating,” she expanded. “You already know far more about me than I do about you…not that whatever you’ve read online is true.” She so hoped he knew that and wondered why it mattered so much.

“You haven’t stalked me?” His brows angled with skepticism. “Asked Hasna about me?”

“I rarely surf at all. Too much chance of running into myself. And no. I’m too protective of my own privacy to invade someone else’s.” She didn’t bring up that Henri had been more than happy to check him out on her behalf. “In my months of working with your sister, she only volunteered the information that you insisted she finish school in exchange for supporting her desire for a love marriage and that you refuse to sing at the wedding, even though your voice is quite good.”

He snorted. “It’s not. And she’s lucky our father is allowing any music at all, let alone a handful of Western tunes. That’s it?”

She debated briefly, then admitted quietly, “She told me you lost your brother a few years ago. I’m very sorry.” At least her sister was alive. She was grateful for that every single day.

Kasim looked away to the window as though absorbing a slap.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” she murmured.

“It’s public knowledge,” he dismissed, bringing his attention back to her with his thoughts and feelings well hidden.

She instantly felt like a hypocrite for claiming she didn’t invade others’ privacy. She desperately wanted to know what he was thinking behind that stony mask. He fascinated her. That was why she had come to dinner. There. She’d admitted it to herself. She wanted to know more about him.