About the Authors

REBECCA WINTERS lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. With canyons and high alpine meadows full of wildflowers, she never runs out of places to explore. They, plus her favourite vacation spots in Europe, often end up as backgrounds for her romance novels, because writing is her passion, along with her family and church.

Rebecca loves to hear from readers. If you wish to email her, please visit her website at cleanromances.com

CARA COLTER shares her life in beautiful British Columbia, Canada, with her husband, nine horses and one small Pomeranian with a large attitude. She loves to hear from readers, and you can learn more about her and contact her through Facebook.

JESSICA HART was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since—travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration to draw from when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons. If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website at www.jessicahart.co.uk.

MAISEY YATES is a USA Today Bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking, and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online, and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website, www.maiseyyates.com.

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-nominated author CAITLIN CREWS loves writing romance. She teaches her favourite romance novels in creative writing classes at places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally gets to utilize the MA and PhD in English literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in California with her very own hero and too many pets. Visit her at www.caitlincrews.com.

Canadian DANI COLLINS knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got ‘The Call’. Her first Mills & Boon novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.

CAROL MARINELLI recently filled in a form where she was asked for her job title and was thrilled, after all these years, to be able to put down her answer as ‘writer’. Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and, after chewing her pen for a moment, Carol put down the truth – ‘writing’. The third question asked, ‘What are your hobbies?’ Well, not wanting to look obsessed or, worse still, boring, she crossed the fingers on her free hand and answered ‘swimming and tennis’. But, given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, I’m sure you can guess the real answer.

Bestselling author MICHELLE CELMER lives in south-eastern Michigan with her husband, their three children, two dogs and two cats. When she’s not writing or busy being a mum, you can find her in the garden or curled up with a romance novel. Michelle loves to hear from readers. Visit her Web site, www.michellecelmer.com, or write her at P.O. Box 300, Clawson, MI 48017.

BRENDA HARLEN grew up in a small town surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as an attorney (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mum and to try her hand at writing books.

Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (too many books, according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with “real” people.

NINA MILNE has always dreamed of writing for Mills & Boon—ever since she played libraries with her mother’s stacks of Mills & Boon romances as a child. On her way to this dream Nina acquired an English degree, a hero of her own, three gorgeous children and—somehow!—an accountancy qualification. She lives in Brighton and has filled her house with stacks of books—her very own real library.

SUSAN MEIER is an author of over fifty books for Mills & Boon. The Tycoon’s Secret Daughter was a Romance Writers of America RITA®Award finalist, and Nanny for the Millionaire’s Twins won the Book Buyer’s Best award and was a finalist in the National Reader’s Choice awards. She is married and has three children. One of eleven children, she loves to write about the complexity of families and totally believes in the power of love.

CAT SCHIELD has been reading and writing romance since high school. Although she graduated from college with a BA in business, her idea of a perfect career was writing books for Mills & Boon. And now, after winning the Romance Writers of America 2010 Golden Heart® Award for Best Contemporary Series Romance, that dream has come true. Cat lives in Minnesota with her daughter, Emily, and their Burmese cat. When she’s not writing sexy, romantic stories for Mills & Boon Desire, she can be found sailing with friends on the St. Croix River, or in more exotic locales, like the Caribbean and Europe. She loves to hear from readers. Find her at catschield.com. Follow her on Twitter, @catschield

DANA MARTON is the author of more than a dozen fastpaced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of Excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She loves to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at DanaMarton@DanaMarton.com.

USA TODAY bestselling author CATHERINE MANN lives on a sunny Florida beach with her flyboy husband and their four children. With more than forty books in print in over twenty countries, she has also celebrated wins for both a RITA® Award and a Booksellers’ Best Award. Catherine enjoys chatting with readers online—thanks to the wonders of the internet, which allows her to network with her laptop by the water! Contact Catherine through her website, catherinemann.com, find her on Facebook and Twitter (@CatherineMann1), or reach her by snail mail at PO Box 6065, Navarre, FL 32566.

Growing up near the beach, ANNIE WEST spent lots of time observing tall, burnished lifeguards—early research! Now she spends her days fantasising about gorgeous men and their love lives. Annie has been a reader all her life. She also loves travel, long walks, good company and great food. You can contact her at annie@annie-west.com.

LEANNE BANKS is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author, who is surprised every time she realizes how many books she has written. Leanne loves chocolate, the beach and new adventures. To name a few, Leanne has ridden on an elephant, stood on an ostrich egg (no, it didn’t break), gone parasailing and indoor skydiving. Leanne loves writing romance because she believes in the power and magic of love. She lives in Virginia with her family and four-and-a-half-pound Pomeranian named Bijou. Visit her website at www.leannebanks.com.

KANDY SHEPHERD swapped a career as a magazine editor for a life writing romance. She lives on a small farm in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband, daughter and lots of pets. She believes in love at first sight and real-life romance—they worked for her! Kandy loves to hear from her readers. Visit her at kandyshepherd.com.

TESSA DARE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of twenty historical romances. Her books have won numerous accolades, including Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® award (twice) and the RT Book Reviews Seal of Excellence. Booklist magazine named her one of the ‘new stars of historical romance’, and her books have been contracted for translation in more than a dozen languages.

A librarian by training and a booklover at heart, Tessa makes her home in Southern California, where she lives with her husband, their two children, and a trio of cosmic kittens.

EVA LEIGH is the pen name of a RITA® Award-nominated romance author who writes novels chock-full of smart women and sexy men. She enjoys baking, tweeting about boots, and listening to music from the ’80s. Eva and her husband live in central California.

#1 New York Times bestselling author STEPHANIE LAURENS began writing romances as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly became a career when her first novel was accepted for publication, and with entirely becoming alacrity, she gave up writing about facts in favor of writing fiction.

All Laurens’s works to date are historical romances, ranging from medieval times to the early 1900s, and her settings range from Scotland to India. The majority of her works are set in the period of the British Regency. Laurens has published more than 60 works of historical romance, including 36 New York Times bestsellers. Laurens has sold more than 20 million print, audio-, and e-books globally. All her works are continuously available in print and e-book formats in English worldwide, and have been translated into many other languages. An international bestseller, among other accolades, Laurens has received the Romance Writers of America® prestigious RITA® Award for Best Romance Novella 2008 for The Fall of Rogue Gerrard.

Laurens’s continuing novels featuring the Cynster family are widely regarded as classics of the historical romance genre. Other series include the Bastion Club Novels, the Black Cobra Quartet, and the Casebook of Barnaby Adair Novels. All of her previous works remain available in print and all e-book formats.

For information on all published novels, and on upcoming releases and updates on novels yet to come, visit Stephanie’s website: www.stephanielaurens.com.

To sign up for Stephanie’s Email Newsletter (a private list) for heads-up alerts as new books are released, exclusive sneak peeks into upcoming books, and exclusive sweepstakes contests, follow the prompts at Stephanie’s Email Newsletter Sign-up Page.

Stephanie lives with her husband and two cats in the hills outside Melbourne, Australia. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading, and if she isn’t reading, she’ll be tending her garden.

MILLS & BOON

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The Royal Collection & The Historical Collection

Royal Affairs

Rebecca Winters, Cara Colter and Jessica Hart

Royal Sins

Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews and Dani Collins

Royal Temptation

Carol Marinelli, Michelle Celmer and Brenda Harlen

Royal Babies

Nina Milne, Susan Meier and Cat Schield

Royal Protector

Caitlin Crews, Dana Marton and Catherine Mann

Royal Weddings

Annie West, Leanne Banks and Kandy Shepherd

The Wallflower Wager

Tessa Dare

Dare to Love a Duke

Eva Leigh

The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

Stephanie Laurens

Wild Wicked Scot

Julia London

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-10000-7

THE ROYAL COLLECTION & THE HISTORICAL COLLECTION

His Princess of Convenience © 2016 Harlequin Books S.A Her Royal Wedding Wish © 2008 Cara Colter The Secret Princess © 2011 Jessica Hart Bound to the Warrior King © 2015 Maisey Yates Protecting the Desert Heir © 2015 Caitlin Crews Pursued by the Desert Prince © 2017 Dani Collins Protecting the Desert Princess © 2014 Carol Marinelli Virgin Princess, Tycoon’s Temptation © 2010 Michelle Celmer The Prince’s Second Chance © 2011 Brenda Harlen Claiming His Secret Royal Heir © 2017 Nina Milne Pregnant with a Royal Baby! © 2016 Linda Susan Meier Secret Child, Royal Scandal © 2016 Catherine Schield Traded to the Desert Sheikh © 2015 Caitlin Crews Royal Captive © 2010 Dana Marton His Pregnant Princess Bride © 2016 Catherine Mann The Sheikh’s Princess Bride © 2015 Annie West The Doctor Takes a Princess © 2011 Leanne Banks Crown Prince’s Chosen Bride © 2016 Kandy Shepherd

The Wallflower Wager © 2019 Eve Ortega Dare to Love a Duke © 2019 Ami Silber The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh © 2019 Savdek Management Proprietary Limited Wild Wicked Scot © 2016 Julia London

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

Note to Readers

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

The Royal Collection

Royal Affairs

His Princess of Convenience

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

Her Royal Wedding Wish

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

The Secret Princess

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Royal Sins

Bound to the Warrior King

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Protecting the Desert Heir

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Pursued by the Desert Prince

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Royal Temptation

Protecting the Desert Princess

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

Virgin Princess, Tycoon’s Temptation

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

The Prince’s Second Chance

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Royal Babies

Claiming His Secret Royal Heir

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Pregnant with a Royal Baby!

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Secret Child, Royal Scandal

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Royal Protector

Traded to the Desert Sheikh

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Royal Captive

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

His Pregnant Princess Bride

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Royal Weddings

The Sheikh’s Princess Bride

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

The Doctor Takes a Princess

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Crown Prince’s Chosen Bride

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

The Historical Collection

The Wallflower Wager

Booklist

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

Dare to Love a Duke

Booklist

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

EPILOGUE

Wild Wicked Scot

Back Cover Text

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

EPILOGUE

About the Publisher

The Royal Collection

Royal Affairs

Rebecca Winters, Cara Colter and Jessica Hart

Royal Sins

Maisey Yates, Caitlin Crews and Dani Collins

Royal Temptation

Carol Marinelli, Michelle Celmer and Brenda Harlen

Royal Babies

Nina Milne, Susan Meier and Cat Schield

Royal Protector

Caitlin Crews, Dana Marton and Catherine Mann

Royal Weddings

Annie West, Leanne Banks and Kandy Shepherd

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Royals

COLLECTION

Royal Affairs – January 2019

Royal Sins – February 2019

Royal Temptation – March 2019

Royal Babies – April 2019

Royal Protector – May 2019

Royal Weddings – June 2019

Royal Affairs

His Princess of Convenience

Rebecca Winters

Her Royal Wedding Wish

Cara Colter

The Secret Princess

Jessica Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

His Princess of Convenience

Rebecca Winters

This book is dedicated to every woman

who was once a little girl

with a dream to be a princess.

CHAPTER ONE

August, Monte Calanetti, Italy

THE FLOOR-LENGTH MIRROR reflected a princess bride whose flowing white wedding dress, with the heavy intricate beading, followed the lines of her slender rounded figure to perfection. It probably weighed thirty pounds, but her five-foot-nine height helped her to carry it off with a regal air.

The delicate tiara with sapphires, the something-borrowed, something-blue gift from the queen, Christina’s soon-to-be mother-in-law, held the lace mantilla made by the nuns. The lace overlying her red-gold hair, to the satin slippers on her feet, formed a whole that looked…pretty.

“I actually feel like a bride.” Her breath caught. “That can’t be me!” she whispered to herself. Her very recent makeover was nothing short of miraculous.

Christina Rose, soon-to-be bride of Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi of Halencia, turned to one side, then the other, as past memories of being called an ugly duckling, the chubby one, filled her mind.

From adolescence until the ripe old age of twenty-eight, she’d had to live with those unflattering remarks muttered by the people around her. Not that she really heard people say those things once she’d grown up and had been spending her time doing charity work on behalf of her prominent family. But she knew it was what people were thinking.

In truth her own parents were the ones who’d scarred her. They’d left her with nannies from the time she was born. And as she’d grown, her father had constantly belittled her with hurtful barbs by comparing her unfavorably to her friends. “Why is our daughter so dumpy?” she’d once heard him say. “Why didn’t we get a boy?” They’d picked out the name Christopher, but had to change it to Christina when she was born.

His unkind remarks during those impressionable years had been wounds that struck deep, especially considering that Christina’s mother had been a former supermodel.

Christina didn’t know how her father could have said such cruel things to his daughter when she had loved both her parents so much and desperately wanted their approval. Between her unattractive brownish-red hair she’d always worn in a ponytail, to her teeth that had needed straightening, she’d been an embarrassment to her parents, who moved in the highest of political and social circles in Halencia.

In order to keep her out of sight, they’d sent their overweight daughter to boarding school in Montreux, Switzerland, where forty-five girls from affluent, titled families were sent from countries around the world.

Her pain at having to live away year after year until she turned eighteen had been her deepest sorrow. Christina was a poor reflection on her parents, whose world revolved around impressing other important people in the upper echelons of society, including the favor of the royal family of Halencia. Her father particularly didn’t want her around when they were entertaining important dignitaries, which was most of the time.

If it hadn’t been for Elena, the daughter of Halencia’s royal family attending the French-speaking boarding school who’d become her closest friend, Christina didn’t know how she would have survived her time there. With both of them being from Italian-speaking Halencia, their nationality and own dialect had immediately created a bond between the two women.

Though Elena bore the title of Princess Elena de L’Accardi, she’d never used it at school or behaved as if she were better than Christina. If anything, she was a free spirit, on the wild side, and good-looking like her older brother, the handsome Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi, who was the heartthrob of Halencia, beloved by the people. He’d had a hold on Christina’s heart from the first moment she met him.

Elena never worried about breaking a few rules, like meeting a boyfriend at the local ice-skating rink in Montreux without their headmistress finding out. And worse, sneaking out to his nearby boarding school and going rowing on the lake at midnight, or sneaking her out for a joyride to Geneva in the Lamborghini his wealthy parents had bought him.

Christina had loved being with Elena and secretly wished she could be outgoing and confident like her dear friend. When the royal family went on their many vacations, Christina missed Elena terribly. It was during those times that Christina developed a close friendship with the quiet-spoken Marusha from Kenya.

Marusha was the daughter of the chief of the westernized Kikuyu tribe who’d sent his daughter to be educated in Switzerland. Marusha suffered from homesickness and she and Christina had comforted each other. Their long talks had prompted Christina to fly to Kenya after she turned eighteen and Marusha prevailed on her father to open doors for Christina to do charity work there.

Once she’d established a foundation in Halencia to deal with the business side, Christina stationed herself in Africa and lost herself in giving help to others. She knew she was better off being far away from home where she couldn’t be hurt by her parents’ dissatisfaction with her.

Caught up in those crippling thoughts, Christina was startled to hear a knock on the door off the main hallway.

“Mi scusi,” sounded a deep male voice she hadn’t heard since his phone call two months ago. “I’m looking for Christina Rose. Is she in here?”

What was Antonio doing up here outside the doors of the bridal suite?

In a state of absolute panic, Christina ran behind the screen to hide. She’d come up here to be alone and make sure her wedding finery fit and looked right. For him to see her like this before the ceremony would be worse than bad luck!

Her heart pounded so hard she was afraid he could hear it through the doors. Trying to disguise her voice to a lower pitch, she said, “Christina isn’t here, signor.”

“I think she is,” he teased. “I think it’s you playing a game with me.”

Heat filled her cheeks. He’d found her out. “Well, you can’t come in!”

“Now, that’s the Christina I remember. Still modest and afraid of your own shadow. What a way to greet your intended beloved.”

“Go away, Antonio. You should be at the chapel.”

“Is that all you have to say after I’ve flown thousands of miles to be with my fiancée?”

The large four-carat diamond ring set in antique gold belonging to the L’Accardi royal family had been given to her at their engagement four years ago. Though she’d gone through the sham ritual for the most worthy reason, it had been a personal horror for Christina.

But when her parents had acted overjoyed that she’d snagged the crown prince, she felt she’d gotten their attention at last. Becoming a royal princess had made them look more favorably at her, and that had helped her enter into the final wedding preparations with growing excitement.

The minute Antonio had flown back to the States, she put the ring in a vault for safekeeping. To damage it out in Africa would be unthinkable. She’d only gotten it out to wear on the few times they were together in Halencia. Now it was hidden in her purse.

Christina had never felt like a fiancée, royal or otherwise. She knew Antonio had been dreading this union as much as she had, but he was too honorable for his own good. Therefore Christina had to follow through on the bargain they’d made for Elena’s sake.

“I didn’t really believe this day would come.”

He’d stayed away in San Francisco on business. The press followed his every move and knew he’d only been with her a handful of times since the engagement. He’d flown home long enough to be seen with her at the palace when she flew in from Africa. They came together in order to perpetuate the myth that they were in love and looking forward to their wedding day.

“San Francisco is a long way from Halencia, Christina, but I should have made time before.”

“I know you’ve been married to your financial interests in Silicon Valley. No fiancée can compete with that.” Not when she knew he’d been with beautiful women who were flattered by his attention and couldn’t care less that he was engaged.

“You want to marry a successful husband, right? We had an agreement for Elena’s sake.”

He was right, of course, and it had been a secret between her and Antonio. But no one knew how Christina had pulled off such an improbable coup. The press had dubbed her the Cinderella Bride.

“I know, Antonio, and I plan to honor it. But not one second before I have to go downstairs to the chapel. Don’t you have something else to do?”

“I’m doing it right now. Do you mind if I put a little gift on the bed for you?” He’d said it kindly. “I promise I won’t look at you and I’ll hurry back out.”

“What gift? I don’t want anything.” She knew she sounded ungracious, but she couldn’t help it. She’d never been so nervous in her life!

“It’s your family brooch, the one that a Rose bride wears at her wedding to bring her marriage luck. One of the stones had come loose, so I had it repaired for you to wear and couldn’t get it back to you until today.”

The brooch?

Christina had heard the story behind the brooch all her life. It was supposed to bring luck, but she thought it had been lost a long time ago. She’d asked her wedding planner, Lindsay, to try and track it down for her, but to no avail. Her father’s aunt Sofia certainly hadn’t whispered a word about it during all the wedding preparations. Why hadn’t she given it to Christina herself? Furthermore how did Antonio get hold of it?

“Thank you for bringing it to me,” she said in a subdued voice. “It means a lot.” In fact, more than he could know. A special talisman to bring her luck handed down in the Rose family. Now she felt ready.

“It was important to me that you have it. I want this day to be perfect for you.”

She was thrilled by the gesture and heard the door open. If all he had to do was put it on the bed, she should be hearing the doors closing any second now.

“Are you still holding your breath waiting for me to go away, bellissima?”

Bellissima. Christina was not beautiful, but the way he said it made her feel beautiful, and today was her wedding day. She imagined he was trying to win her around with all the ways he knew how. She had no doubts he knew every one of them and more.

He laughed. “I’m still waiting, but we don’t need to worry, Christina. After all, this isn’t a real marriage.”

She took a deep breath, realizing he was teasing her. “Well, considering that this isn’t going to be a real marriage, then I’d say we need all the luck we can get, so please leave before even the ceremony itself is jinxed by your presence here.”

“A moment, per favore. It’s a lovely bridal chamber. The balcony off this suite shows the whole walled village of Monte Calanetti—it’s very picturesque. I do believe you have a romantic heart to have chosen the Palazzo di Comparino for our wedding to take place. All nestled and secluded in this place amongst the vineyards rippling over the Tuscan countryside. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect setting to celebrate our nuptials.”

“After living near the vineyards of the Napa Valley in California all these years, I doubt a spot like this holds much enchantment for you. I guess I should be thanking you for letting our wedding take place here instead of the cathedral in Voti. Now, will you please go so I can finish getting ready?”

* * *

Christina was still her vulnerable self. Antonio stopped the teasing for a minute. “If it’s any solace to you, I’m sorry for the position I’ve put you in.”

After a long silence she said in a defeated tone, “Don’t worry about it.” He heard a sadness in her voice. “To be honest, it isn’t as if I’ve had any other offers.”

Her comment revealed a little of her conflict, the same conflict torturing him. There was a part of him that wanted to be crazy in love. If only he’d been an ordinary man like his best man, Zach, who could marry the woman who’d captured his heart. To choose a bride his heart wanted had never been a possibility.

When he thought about Christina, he realized she was having similar feelings that increased his guilt, but he couldn’t dwell on that right now. It was too late for regrets. They would be married within the hour and he intended to be a good husband to her.

“Just remember we’re doing this for Elena,” he reminded her, hoping it would help her spirits. “She’ll be up in a minute to escort you to the chapel.” His eyes closed tightly for a moment. “Would it help if I told you I admire you more than any other woman I know?” It was the truth.

“Actually it wouldn’t,” she came back. “Thousands of women have entered into political unions disguised as marriage. We thought our engagement wouldn’t last long. I thought that after four years you would fly to Africa and tell me in person we didn’t have to go through with it.”

“I’m afraid that wasn’t our destiny, Christina. Everything has escalated out of control, the paparazzi have driven things to a higher pitch. Father’s chief assistant, Guido, had me on the phone, urging me to marry you as soon as possible. The people are fed up with my parents. They want our marriage to take place for the good of the monarchy, reminding me of the danger of an abolished royal family if we wait.”

“I know. That’s because they want you for their king, and you need a queen. I understand that, but I’d rather you didn’t start using meaningless platitudes with me.”

“I was complimenting you,” he asserted.

“I’m glad we could help preserve Elena’s reputation along with your family’s, but I don’t want compliments. Your sister is doing much better these days and has a boyfriend who treats her well. Let’s be happy for that and avoid any unnecessary pretense.”

Antonio had come to the bridal suite already deeply immersed in troubled thoughts about their forthcoming marriage. Her last remark only added to his anxiety. He put the small velvet-lined box at the foot of the bed. After closing the doors quietly behind him, he left the bridal suite and walked down the corridor to the staircase of the three-storied palazzo.

Zach, his best friend, would be waiting for him in the bedroom just off the staircase of the second floor. By now some hundred and fifty guests had arrived for the ceremony, including his parents and their entourage. The small wedding Christina wanted had grown to royal proportions. It had been inevitable.

Antonio had met Christina when he went to Switzerland many times to visit his younger sister at boarding school. She always asked if her roommate, Christina, could come along with them when they went out for fondue au fromage or took the ferry to see the sights around Lake Geneva.

Though Antonio thought of Christina as his sister’s pudgy friend, he’d found her sensible and soft-spoken, and probably the sweetest girl he’d ever met. That favorable impression of her grew deep roots when she’d phoned him in the middle of the night about Elena four years ago.

His sister had needed help because she and her loser addict boyfriend had been hauled off to jail on drug possession. Her boyfriend had been arrested and charged. What if Elena was next to be tainted with a jail record?

The paparazzi would have blown his sister’s mistake into a royal scandal that would do great damage to the already damaged royal family. Antonio’s parents hadn’t been in favor with the country for a long time and were constantly being criticized in the press for their profligate ways.

In order to keep Elena’s latest scandalous affair out of the news, Antonio had to think of something quick to take the onus off his wayward younger sister. Thankful beyond words for Christina’s swift intervention with that phone call, he was able to turn things around and had talked her into entering into a mock engagement with him to create a new piece of news.

If the press focused on his stunning announcement, it would take up column space and deflect the paparazzi’s interest in his sister’s scandal, thus saving Elena’s poor reputation and the family from further scrutiny and ruin.

After some persuasion Christina had agreed to fly to Halencia and become his fiancée because she loved Elena and had believed the engagement wouldn’t last long. They’d be able to go their own separate ways at some future date. Or so Antonio had thought…

But once he’d leaked the news of their engagement to the press and it had gone public, everything changed. Elena’s problems with the paparazzi went away like magic. Even more startling, the news of his engagement to the unknown Christina Rose grew legs.

The country approved of the Cinderella fiancée doing charity work in Kenya, whom he’d plucked out of obscurity. Immediately there was a demand for a royal wedding to become front and center. Guido was insistent on it happening immediately.

Antonio understood why. The royal approval ratings had dropped to an all-time low. In particular, his and Elena’s philandering parents drew criticism with their string of affairs. There were accusations of them dipping into the royal coffers to fund their extravagant lifestyle. To his chagrin, Elena was also becoming infamous for her wild party ways and uncontrolled spending habits.

The press had been calling for the king and queen to step down. It was the will of the people that the monarchy be turned into a republic. Or…put Antonio on the throne.

A lot had gone wrong with his family while Antonio was pursuing his studies and business interests in the US. To his amazement, the separation that had distanced him from all this scandal had endeared him further to his subjects, who saw him as the one person to save the royal dynasty! Christina’s hope that there wouldn’t be a wedding was dashed. So was his… Guido’s phone calls to him had changed everything.

And had made him feel trapped.

Once Antonio reached the second floor of the palazzo, he entered the bedroom designated as the groom’s changing room.

“There you are!” Zach declared with relief. “You have a letter from your father.” He handed him an envelope.

Antonio opened it and after reading it, he put the note back in the envelope and slid it in his trouser pocket. What were his parents up to now, spending the taxpayers’ money on a honeymoon he hadn’t asked for? He couldn’t say no, but this was the last time public money would be spent on private, privileged citizens of the royal family.

“It’s getting late,” Zach reminded him. “You have to finish getting ready now. Lindsay has the wedding planned down to the second.”

Antonio looked at his best man through veiled eyes. “I had to deliver the brooch to Christina so she could pin it on her wedding dress before the ceremony.”

“How did that go?”

“She was hiding behind a screen and told me to leave.” Considering the fact that she’d been forced to go through with this marriage they hadn’t planned on, he shouldn’t have been surprised she sounded so upset.

“That was wedding nerves. Christina was a sweetheart when Lindsay and I met with her for her fittings,” Zach said, helping him on with the midnight blue royal dress uniform jacket.

After their unexpected exchange upstairs, Antonio didn’t exactly agree with his friend. “She’s not happy about this wedding going ahead.”

Zach attached the royal blue sash over his left shoulder to his right hip, signaling his rank as crown prince. “She’s a big girl, Antonio. No matter how much she cares for Elena, she wouldn’t have agreed to an engagement with you if deep down she hadn’t wanted to. Christina doesn’t strike me as a woman who would bow out on a commitment once she’d given her word.”

Antonio grimaced. “She wouldn’t,” he admitted, “but she would have had every right. When I was talking to her upstairs, I heard a mournful sound in her voice. She thought our engagement would have ended before now and she wouldn’t have to go through with a real wedding.” He’d felt her pain. From here on out he’d do everything he could to make her happy.

“You both underestimated the will of the people who want you to be their ruler.”

His jaw hardened. “But she didn’t ask for this.” He had a gut feeling there was trouble ahead.

“So use that genius brain of yours and look at your wedding as new territory. Think of it the way you do with every challenge you face at work. Think it and rethink it until it comes out right.”

“Thanks for the advice, Zach.”

His friend meant well, but Antonio couldn’t treat it as he would a business problem. Christina wasn’t a problem. She was a flesh-and-blood human being who’d sacrificed everything for her friend Elena. That kind of loyalty was so rare, Antonio was humbled by it. His concern was to be worthy of the woman whose selflessness had catapulted her to the highest rank in the kingdom.

Zach gazed at him with compassion. “Are you all right?”

He sucked in his breath. “I’m going to have to be. Because of you, I was able to give Christina that brooch. I can’t thank you enough for getting it from Sofia.”

“You know I’d do anything for you.”

A knock on the outer door caused both of them to look around. “Tonio—” his sister called out, using her nickname for him. “It’s time. You should be out at the chapel.”

“I know. I’ll be right there.”

“I hope you know how much I love you, brother dear.”

“I love you too, Elena.”

“Please be happy. You’re marrying the sweetest girl in the whole world.”

“You don’t have to remind me of that.” He’d put Christina on a pedestal since she agreed to their engagement. But he’d heard another side come out of her in the bridal suite.

“Lindsay says you two have to hurry!”

Zach’s wife had planned this wedding down to the smallest detail. The schedule called for a four-thirty ceremony to avoid the heat of the day. He checked his watch. In the next fifteen minutes Christina would walk down the aisle and become his unhappy bride.

“We’re coming,” Zach answered for them.

Antonio glanced at Zach. “This is it.”

“You look magnificent, Your Highness.”

“I wish I felt magnificent. Let’s go.”

* * *

Christina heard Elena’s tap on the door of the suite. “Come in.”

Her friend hurried in, wearing a stunning blush-colored chiffon gown. On her stylishly cut dark blond hair she wore a tiara. “You look like the princess of every little girl’s dreams,” Christina cried softly.

“So do you. The tiara Mother gave you looks like it was made for you.” Elena walked all the way around her, looking her up and down. “Guess what? This afternoon all eyes are going to be on you, chère soeur.” They would be sisters in a few minutes. Tears smarted Christina’s eyes. “Oh, la-la, la-la,” she said. “My brother will be speechless when he sees you at the altar. Your hair, it’s like red gold.”

“I just had some highlights put in.”

“And you got your teeth straightened. How come you didn’t do it a lot earlier in your life?”

“Probably reverse snobbery. Everyone thought I looked pathetic, so why not maintain the image? I knew it irked my parents. It upset me that they couldn’t accept me for myself. But when the wedding date was announced, I realized I would have to be an ambassador of sorts.

“Antonio deserves the best, so I knew I had to do something about myself and dress the right way. Until a month ago, I never spent money on clothes. It seemed such an extravagance when there are so many people in the world who don’t have enough to eat. Elegant high fashion wouldn’t have changed the way I looked.”

“Oh, Christina.” Elena shook her head sadly. “I always thought you were pretty, but now you’re an absolute knockout! If all the girls at our boarding school could see you, they’d eat their hearts out.”

Christina’s cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m being truthful. You’ve lost weight since the last time I saw you. Your figure is gorgeous. With your height, the kind I wish I had, that tiara gives you the elegance of a young queen. I’m not kidding. Lindsay found you the perfect gown and I love the interlocking hearts of your brooch. Is there anything more beautiful than diamonds?”

“It’s been in the Rose family for years and supposed to bring luck. Antonio brought it to the room earlier. Do you think I pinned it in the right place?”

“It’s right above your heart where it should be. You look as pure and perfect as I know you are.”

She averted her eyes. “You know I’m not either of those things.”

“I know how much your parents have hurt you, but you can’t let that ruin your opinion of yourself. One day they’ll realize you’re the jewel in their crown. Today my brother is going to see you as his prize jewel. I’ve never told you this before, but all the time we were in Switzerland together, I had the secret hope he would end up marrying you one day.”

I had the same hope, Christina admitted to herself, but she’d never confess it to anyone, not even Elena.

“The day I met you at school, you became the sister I never had and you never judged me. That has never changed. After we left school, our friendship has meant more to me than you will ever know.”

“I feel the same,” Christina said with a tremor in her voice.

“That awful night I phoned you when Rolfe was arrested for drugs, I knew I could count on you to help me. I believe it’s destiny you contacted Tonio. Now you’re about to become his bride to save my reputation.” Her eyes glistened with tears. “You have to promise me you’ll be happy, Christina. Tonio’s the best if you’ll give him a chance.”

Christina reached for Elena’s hands. “I know he’s the best because he was always kind to me when we were in Montreux. And because of his sacrifice for you, that takes brotherly love and goodness to a whole new level. He honors his family and his heritage. Who couldn’t admire him?”

“But I want you to learn to love him!” Her eyes begged.

“You’re talking a different kind of love.” After he’d phoned to tell her the date they were going to be married, she was forced to accept her fate. “I haven’t dated much, Elena. I did spend time with one doctor in Africa. But when I got engaged to Antonio, that ended any possibility of a relationship with him or any man, let alone potential love.”

In a way, her engagement had helped her to hide from love for fear that she would never be good enough for anyone. If she wasn’t good enough for her parents, why would she be good enough for any man?

Still, her parents had been overjoyed with the engagement, which made her happy. And Christina had adored Antonio in secret for years, not only for the way he loved Elena, but for his hard-work ethic. In Christina’s new position as his wife, the number of people she’d be able to help with her charities would be vastly increased. Was it worth giving up on the possibility of true love?

Christina had never felt worthy of love and so had never been hopeful of meeting “the one.” At the end of the day she’d reconciled herself to this marriage.

“Can you honestly tell me you’re not excited about your wedding night?”

“Oh, Elena—you’re such a romantic and I know you feel guilty about what’s happening, but don’t let that worry you. Yes, I’m excited, but mostly I’m nervous. Antonio and I have never spent time alone together. You know what I mean. But Antonio has been with other women both before and probably after our engagement. My eyes are wide-open where he is concerned. After the women he has been with, I’m afraid I’m not going to compare.”

A stricken look entered Elena’s eyes. “Don’t you dare say that! And don’t think about any of his past relationships. He knew they would never amount to anything, and today he’s marrying you.”

“I know, but it’s still hard to believe.” Christina stared at her friend. “I wasn’t convinced Antonio planned to go through with our nuptials. You can’t imagine my surprise when he finally called me and said I needed to start making the wedding plans with Lindsay.”

“He meant it, Christina. I know he got engaged to you to save my skin, but he could have chosen any number of eligible royal hopefuls. Why do you think he chose you?”

“I was…convenient.”

“That’s not the answer and you know it. There was something deeper inside that drove him to choose you. I think you need to think about that as you walk down the aisle toward him today looking like any man’s dream. If you don’t believe me, take one more look in the mirror.”

“You’re very sweet.”

“It’s true. Tonio came to Switzerland a lot during our days at boarding school. He liked you right off and enjoyed your company. He trusts you.”

“But he’s not in love with me.”

“Give him a chance and he will fall in love with you. I’ve always loved you and feel all the more indebted to you for the sacrifice you’re making to save me and our family from scandal. Will you promise me one thing?”

“If I can.”

“Pretend that today you’re going to get married to the man you’ve always loved and who has always loved you.”

I have always loved him…from a distance. There was no pretense on Christina’s part.

Elena rushed over to her and they hugged.

“What’s wrong, Elena? Are those tears?”

“I just don’t want anything to go wrong. This wedding is all my fault. I’ll pray for you and Antonio to be happy.”

Christina took a big breath, sensing that deep down Elena was really worried. Why? What wasn’t she telling her, unless her guilt was working overtime?

“It’ll be fine, Elena.” She’d made up her mind about that. Today was her wedding day and she was living her fantasy of marrying the prince of her dreams. For once in her life she planned to enjoy herself. She could do it. She’d seen herself in the mirror and felt confident to be his bride.

“You’d better start working on it right now,” Elena warned. “Otherwise you’re going to give everyone a heart attack if you don’t make an appearance in the chapel in the next minute.”

“I’m ready.”

“I love you, Christina.”

“The feeling’s mutual. You have to know that by now.”

Elena blew her a kiss. “I do.”

Together they walked down the stairs to the foyer of the palazzo and out the main entrance to the courtyard. The chapel faced the palazzo across the way with a beautiful fountain in the center. Lindsay was waiting for them inside the church doors of the foyer with their flowers.

She let out a gasp when she saw Christina. “You’re perfect! Better than anything I’d imagined. So perfect, in fact, I can’t believe my eyes.”

Christina smiled at Zach’s wife. “You outdid yourself, Lindsay. All the credit goes to you. This dress is divine.”

Louisa, the owner of the palazzo, hurried toward her. “You’re the most stunning bride I’ve ever seen.”

“Thank you, Louisa. You look lovely too. I’m indebted to you for your generosity in letting us be married here. The Palazzo di Comparino is the most ideal setting for a wedding in all of Tuscany.”

“It’s been an honor for me. I told Prince Antonio the same thing.”

Louisa had given Christina a tour of the newly renovated chapel yesterday. She’d met the elderly priest who would be marrying them. While he walked with her in private, they chatted about the renovations.

She’d been utterly enchanted with the fabulous unearthed fresco of the Madonna and child now protected by glass. The charming chapel had an intimacy and spiritual essence. It thrilled her to know she’d be taking her vows in here. She intended to make this the perfect wedding day.

“Everyone is inside waiting,” Lindsay whispered. “Here’s your bouquet, Christina.”

“Oh—these white roses are exquisite.”

“Just like you. And here’s your bouquet, Elena.” Lindsay had matched the flowers to the soft blush of her gown. “Zach will hand you the ring to give Antonio when the time comes during the ceremony. As we rehearsed, once you hear the organ, you and your father will enter the chapel with Elena five paces behind you. The king and queen are seated on the right side with their retinue. Your family and friends are on the left.”

Christina looked around. “Where’s my father?”

“I’m right behind you.”

As she turned, her heart thudded mostly in fear in case she saw rejection in his dark gray eyes. He had a patrician, distinguished aura and was immaculately dressed. His gaze studied her features for a moment. “I’m glad to see you’ve changed for the better. Today the Rose family can be proud of you.”

“You look very handsome too, Father.”

“Christina?” Lindsay reminded her. “Take your father’s arm.”

The organist had started playing Wagner’s “Wedding March.” There’d probably never been this many people inside. Her joy was almost full.

She clung to her father as they slowly made their way down the aisle of the ornate interior. The only eyes she searched for were her mother’s, wanting her approbation. Her mother, who was in her midfifties, was still a beautiful brunette woman and the envy of many.

Just once Christina hoped to find a loving smile meant for her alone. As she passed the pew, she made eye contact with her. A proud smile broke out on her mother’s perfectly made-up face. That acknowledgment made Christina feel as if she were floating as she walked toward her prince.

She focused her attention on the two men standing at the altar before the priest. Zach, as best man, stood several inches taller than the crown prince, who was six foot one, according to Elena. They were watching her progress.

A slight gasp escaped her lips when she looked into the startling blue eyes of the man she was about to pledge her life to. It had been several months since the last time she saw him at the palace. His visit had been brief.

In full dark blue ceremonial dress, Antonio looked so splendid she was shaken by her reaction to him. His light brown hair, smart and thick, was tipped with highlights from the sun, reflecting a healthy sheen. With such a lean, fit body, he was the epitome of a royal prince every little girl dreamed of marrying one day.

How incredible that Christina was about to become his wife. If I were the type, I’d pass out at the feet of the most desirable man in all Halencia. But I’m not going to make any mistakes today. This is my wedding day. I love it already.

Caught up in all the wedding preparations, she felt that she was his beautiful bride and she intended to be the woman he was excited to marry. Her teenage dream had come true. The only thing more she could ask of this day was that the fantasy would last forever.

CHAPTER TWO

MAYBE ANTONIO’S EYES were playing tricks on him. The stunning woman walking on the arm of her father with the grace of a queen had to be Christina, but it was a Christina he’d never seen or imagined.

When did the brownish-red hair, which he remembered she’d worn in a ponytail, turn out to be a spun red gold?

Had her body ever looked like an hourglass before now?

The lace veil against her smooth olive skin provided a foil for her finely arched dark eyebrows. Because of the light coming through the stained glass windows, her crystalline gray eyes had taken on a silvery cast. Her red mouth had a passionate flare he’d never even noticed.

His gaze fell lower to the brooch she’d pinned to the beaded bodice of her wedding dress. The diamonds sparkled in the light with every breath she took.

Elena approached her side to take the bouquet from her. When Christina smiled at his sister, Antonio caught its full effect and was blindsided by the change in her.

While he’d been talking to her earlier in the bridal suite, parts of her sounded like the woman he’d gotten engaged to four years ago. But she wasn’t the same person on the outside. It threw him so completely that he felt a nudge from Zach to pay attention to the priest.

“Your Highness?” he whispered. “If you will take your bride-to-be by the hand.”

Antonio reached for her right hand. Her cool, dry grip was decisive. If she was suffering wedding nerves, it didn’t show. He didn’t know if he was disappointed by her demeanor, which seemed unflappable.

In a voice loud enough to fill the interior, the priest began. “Welcome, all of you. Today we are gathered here for one of the happiest occasions in all human life, to celebrate before God the marriage of a man and woman who love each other. Marriage is a most honorable estate, created and instituted by God, signifying unto us the mystical union that also exists between Christ and the Church. So too may this marriage be adorned by true and abiding love. Let us pray.”

Antonio bowed his head, but his burden of guilt over compelling Christina to follow through with this marriage weighed heavily on him. As Zach had reminded him, she’d entered into this union of her own free will because of her love for Elena, but the words may this marriage be adorned by true and abiding love pierced him to the core of his being.

In the past four years he’d done nothing to show her love. The only thing true about this marriage was their love for Elena, and on his part the need to preserve the monarchy. But at this moment Antonio made up his mind that their love for his sister would be the foundation upon which they built a life together.

Antonio’s absence from her life except for those four quick visits had made certain she had no anticipation of love to come. To his surprise she sounded happy as she repeated the marriage covenant. He hadn’t expected that.

When it was his turn to recite his vows, he felt the deep solemnity of the moment and said them with fervency.

“Who holds the rings?”

“I do,” Zach responded.

“Grant that the love which the bride and groom have for each other now may always be an eternal round. Antonio? Take the ring and put it on Christina’s finger saying, ‘With this ring, I thee wed.’”

She presented her left hand while he repeated the words. Her hand trembled a little as he slid the wedding band next to the diamond from the royal family treasury he’d given her four years earlier. So she wasn’t quite as composed as he’d thought, but it didn’t make him feel any better. If anything, he felt worse because he’d done nothing to ease her into this union and lamented his selfishness.

Now it was her turn to present him with his ring. She took it and placed it on Antonio’s finger. His new bride was suddenly so composed that again he marveled. “With this ring, I thee wed,” she said in a steady voice.

They were married.

The deed was done.

“Antonio and Christina, as the two of you have joined this marriage uniting as husband and wife, and as you this day affirm your faith and love for each other, I would ask that you always remember to cherish each other as special and unique individuals, that you respect the thoughts, ideas and suggestions of one another.

“Be able to forgive, do not hold grudges, and live each day that you may share it together. From this day forward you shall be each other’s home, comfort and refuge, your marriage strengthened by your love and respect.”

Antonio’s shame increased. I’ve shown her no respect.

“You may now kiss your bride.”

When Antonio turned to her, he saw a look of consternation in her eyes. Oh, Christina. What have I done to you? You’re so good. So sweet. His eyes focused on her lovely mouth before he grasped her upper arms gently and kissed her.

Not only her lips but her whole body trembled. Her fragrance assailed him. He deepened the kiss, wanting her to know he planned to make their marriage work. Whether she was putting on a show for everyone, or responding instinctively to new emotions bombarding her as they were him, he didn’t know. But she kissed him back and he found himself wanting it to go on and on.

The priest cleared his throat, prompting Antonio to lift his mouth from hers. A subtle blush had entered her cheeks. He removed his hands.

“Antonio and Christina, if you’ll turn around.” When they’d done his bidding, he said in a loud voice, “May I present Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi and his royal bride, Princess Christina Rose. Allow them to walk down the aisle to the foyer of the chapel, where you can mingle outside.”

Elena came forward to give Christina her bouquet, and then the organist played the wedding march. Taking a deep breath, Antonio grasped her free hand, still feeling the tingly effect of her warm, generous mouth on his. He guided her to the first pew where his parents were seated and stopped long enough for both of them to bow to the king and queen of Halencia.

To show Christina’s parents his respect, he escorted her across the aisle to their pew to acknowledge them. He gave her a sideward glance. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears. He didn’t know what that was about.

How could you know when you haven’t spent any real time getting to know her?

More upset with himself and even more shaken by their kiss, he walked her slowly down the aisle. He darted her another glance, but this time she was smiling at everyone. She was so gracious it impressed the hell out of him. She could have been born to royalty.

He’d honored Christina’s wishes by letting her plan the wedding here instead of the fourteenth-century cathedral in Voti. She’d insisted on a simple ceremony. If there’d been any royal formality or long traditional ceremony, she wouldn’t have agreed. Antonio had been so thankful she hadn’t backed out that he’d fallen in with her every wish.

In private he’d asked his parents to take a backseat so this could be Christina’s day. She was beloved of the people, but she couldn’t have abided all the pomp and circumstance. Since his parents were resigned to their fate to put Antonio on the throne, they’d acceded to his wishes. He’d even heard them say they were relishing the idea of retirement and looking forward to more freedom in the future.

At his engagement four years ago, Antonio had vowed to sacrifice his personal freedom and return from California to take the throne at a later date with Christina at his side. He’d felt a strong loyalty to his country and had always been conscious of his royal duty. But he’d only been prepared to marry her on his terms, and hadn’t considered her fears.

There were going to be a lot of changes after his coronation in another week. He had a raft of constitutional issues that would put the royal family in a figurehead role, with specific duties. There would be a much reduced civil list, no hangers-on supported by the state; all personal belongings and lifestyle choices and holidays would be paid for by personal business interests rather than the state.

The areas of change went on and on, which was why the monarchy had been on the brink of disaster. This marriage would hopefully turn the tide of criticism. Christina’s values of hard work and true charity resonated with the people. Her example of selflessness was the big reason they’d embraced Antonio as their soon-to-be king. Antonio still had to prove himself equal to the task. And much more, like becoming the husband Christina deserved.

He walked her outside and across the courtyard to the terrace bedecked in flowers at the side of the palazzo. A small orchestra was playing a waltz at one end of the terrace with an area reserved for dancing. Hundreds of tiny lights strewn among the trees and flowers made it look like a true fairyland and had created a heavenly fragrance. The grand serving table with its fountain and flowers was surrounded by exquisitely set tables, an enchanting sight he’d always remember.

The late-afternoon Tuscan sunshine shone down on them. The picturesque setting and vineyard had an indescribable beauty, yet all he could see for the moment was the stunning bride draped in alençon lace, still clinging to his hand. Antonio swallowed hard.

She’s my wife! She’s the woman I promised to love and cherish.

Suddenly he seemed to see a whole new world ahead of them, uncharted as yet. Her faith in their marriage made him open his eyes to new possibilities. This was their wedding day. He wanted it to be wonderful for both of them. After their kiss at the altar, he was eager to feel her in his arms.

* * *

“Christina? Look this way.”

She was so dazed by what had happened at the end of the ceremony that she was hardly aware of the photographers brought in to make a record of their wedding day. When Antonio had deepened their kiss, she felt a charge of energy run through her body like a current of electricity. She could still feel his compelling mouth on hers.

Maybe this was how every bride felt when kissed on her wedding day. But Antonio wasn’t just any man. He was her husband, for better or worse.

Before everyone could crowd around to congratulate them, Antonio pulled her close. “Do you mind if we talk to our guests later? I’d like to dance with you first,” he said in his deep voice.

Her heart thumped hard before she looked at him. “I’d love it.”

His hot blue eyes played over her features. “Let me put your bouquet on this table.”

After he laid it down, Christina felt his arm go around her waist. The contact reminded her of the kiss they’d shared at the altar. She hadn’t been the same since and was more aware of him than ever as he led her to the dance area.

She couldn’t help thinking back to the time she’d been at boarding school. Never in her wildest imagination would she have believed she’d eventually become the wife of Elena’s dashing older brother. This moment was surreal.

As he drew her into his arms she said, “You need to know I haven’t done much dancing in my life.”

He held her closer. “Didn’t they teach you to dance at boarding school?”

“Are you kidding? Whatever you think goes on at boarding school simply doesn’t happen. We were all a bunch of girls who’d rather be home. We all had a case of homesickness and waited for the letters that didn’t arrive. We ate, studied and slept four to a room in an old freezing-cold chateau. You don’t even want to know how frigid the water closet could be.”

He laughed out loud, causing everyone to look at them.

“Once a week we were allowed to go to town with the chaperone. She chose the places we could visit. Elena managed to scout out the dancing places we weren’t supposed to visit, then dragged me with her where we met guys who flocked around her.”

“Sounds like my sister.”

“She taught me the meaning of fun. The rest of the time we went to a symphony or an opera, and other times we went to a play, always on a bus. I liked the plays, especially one adapted from Colette’s writings about a dog and cat.”

Antonio started moving them around the terrace decorated with urns of flowers. “Tell me about them,” he whispered against her hot cheek. His warm breath sent little tingles of delight through her body.

“Elena and I bought the books and studied the lines to help us with our French. Both animals loved their master and mistress. Their battles were outrageous and hilarious.”

“You’ll have to lend me the book to read.”

“Anytime. Wouldn’t it be fun if animals really could talk? I used to love the Doctor Doolittle books as a child. When I first got to Africa, I thought I really had arrived in Jollijinki Land.”

He lips twitched and he held her a little tighter, but her gown provided a natural buffer. “I have a feeling you could entertain me forever.”

She moved her head so she could look into his eyes. Marrying Antonio felt right. She felt like a princess. The feeling was magical. She was living her fantasy and never wanted it to end. Her parents were proud of her today. Everything was getting better with them. “This is a new experience for both of us, Antonio. Forever sounds like a long time. Let’s just take it one step at a time.”

His lips brushed hers unexpectedly, creating havoc with her emotions. “One step at a time it is. Since everyone is watching us, let’s put on a show, shall we?”

She smiled at him. “I thought we’d already been doing that.”

“They haven’t seen anything yet.”

Her adrenaline gushed as he waltzed them around the terrace. It didn’t surprise her that he knew what he was doing. She followed his lead as he dipped her several times, causing people to clap. Dancing with him like this was a heady experience she hadn’t anticipated. He must have been enjoying it too, because one dance turned into another.

“This is fun,” he murmured against her lips. “Your idea for having our wedding here at the palazzo has turned out to be sensational. I remember once when the three of us climbed into the mountains above the vineyards lining Lake Geneva and came to an old farmhouse that had been turned into a quaint inn.

“You said it was your favorite place and went there often on your hikes and bicycle rides with Elena for fondue bourguignonne. I think you must have had it in mind when you chose the Palazzo di Comparino for our wedding. I see similarities.”

Her head tilted back in surprise. “I can’t believe you remembered that hike, let alone made the association with this place.”

His gaze played over her features. “I’ve remembered all our outings. The truth is, I found you and my sister more entertaining than most of my friends, with the exception of Zach.” His comment made her smile.

“When I did fly to Switzerland, I came because I wanted to. Being with you two was like taking a breath of fresh air and kept me grounded. I’ve never told you this, but I was always relieved to know you were there to help temper my sister. She’s always had trouble with boundaries.”

“And I was the insipid, boring tagalong, afraid to break out of my shell, right?”

He frowned. When he did that, he looked older and quite fierce. “You were shy, but amazingly kind to my sister. Even when she got herself into impossible situations you never judged her.”

“You were kind to me too by including me. Remember the day we visited the Chateau de Chillon? We’d climbed up on the ramparts and I was taking a picture when I dropped my camera by mistake and it fell into the lake several hundred feet below.”

“You should have seen the tragic look on your face,” he teased.

“I was so upset, but you turned everything around when you bought me a new one just like it and gave it to me before you left us at the school.” She felt her eyes smart. “That was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.”

“Then we’re even because Elena needed a constant friend like you and you were there for her in her darkest hours. You have no idea what that meant to me. I knew I could always count on you. I wish I could say the same for our parents. They’ve been so caught up in a lifestyle that has cost them the confidence of the people that they’ve neglected Elena, who needed a strong hand.”

Christina sucked in her breath. “I needed her friendship too.”

“Elena told me you had problems with your parents.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about them right now. We were talking about your sister. She’s so sweet. Elena cared about me when no one else did. She made me believe in myself.”

“The two of you have an unbreakable bond. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed close over all these years. You don’t know how lucky you are. How rare that is.”

“According to Elena, you have that kind of relationship with Zach.”

He nodded. “But I didn’t have a friend like you while I was at boarding school and college. It wasn’t until I moved to San Francisco. If you want to know a secret, I envied you and Elena.”

She heard a loneliness in his admission that went deep. “Because you’re the prince, it was probably hard for you to confide in someone else during those early years. With you being expected to rule one day, you had to watch every step.”

Antonio stopped dancing and grasped her hands in both of his. “You understand so much about me, Christina.” His blue eyes had darkened with emotion. “But you paid a price by agreeing to get engaged to me.”

Giddy with happiness she said, “What price is that when I’m having the wedding of my dreams?”

Her thoughts flew back to their engagement. The king and queen had thrown the supposedly happy couple a huge, glossy engagement party, but it had been the worst night of Christina’s life. To have to be on show, self-consciously standing next to the most gorgeous man she’d ever known, she’d never felt so unglamorous in her life. Especially when she knew her parents considered her a failure.

Yet they’d acted thrilled over the engagement and made such a fuss over her that it made her happy that they showed her that kind of attention. She’d been starved for it. But once she saw the photos, she’d been unable to bear the sight of herself looking so dull and plump. But that was a long time ago and she refused to dwell on it.

The guests had been going through the buffet line before finding their seats at individual linen-covered tables with baskets of creamy roses and sunflowers. Christina had to admit the estate and grounds looked beautiful. A fountain modeled after the one in the courtyard of a draped nymph holding a shell formed the centerpiece. Everything looked right out of a dreamworld, including the beautifully dressed people.

Antonio drew her even closer as they walked past the guests to get their food. He handed her a plate and they moved back and forth, choosing a delicious tidbit here and there. But she was too happy and stimulated to sit down to a big meal with him at a table reserved for them alone.

Several of the guests had started to dance. Among them Louisa, who was being partnered by Nico. According to Louisa, the two of them weren’t on the best of terms, but the way he was looking at her right now, Christina got the feeling they had a strong attraction. Well, well. It appeared the festive party mood had infected everyone.

Antonio finished what was on his plate. Since hers was empty, he put them both on the table. When he looked at her she was filled with strong emotion and said, “Today I’m so happy to be your wife, Antonio. I mean that with all my heart.”

“Christina,” he said in a husky voice, squeezing her hand. “Because of your sacrifice for me—for the country—I trust you with my life.” He said it like a vow and kissed her fingers in a gesture so intimate in front of the wedding guests that she made up her mind to be the best wife possible.

Just then Louisa happened to pass by her. “You look radiant,” she whispered.

Christina was still reacting to Antonio’s gesture as well as his words. “So did you out there dancing with Nico.”

“Who knew he could waltz?”

Her comment made Christina chuckle. Antonio smiled at her. “I want to dance the whole evening away with you, but I think we need to say something to our parents.”

They walked hand in hand toward the king and queen and they all chatted for a moment. Christina’s parents were seated by them. While Antonio was still talking with his parents for a minute, her mother, dressed in an oyster silk suit, got up from the table to greet Christina with a peck on the cheek.

Though Christina had known this began as a publicity stunt, she’d tried to win her parents’ affection. Four years later she was still trying and had hopes that her marriage to the future king had softened their opinion of her.

Her mother stared into her eyes. “You look lovely, Christina. I do believe that tint on your hair was the right shade.”

A compliment from her mother meant everything. “I’m glad you like it.”

“It’s a good thing Lindsay planned everything else, including your new royal wardrobe. You’ll always want to look perfect for Antonio.”

“I plan to try.”

“I know you will. Certainly today you’ve succeeded.” Her voice halted for a minute before she added, “You’ve never looked so attractive.”

Christina’s eyes moistened. She couldn’t believe her mother was actually paying her another compliment. In fact, she sensed her mother wanted to say more but held back.

“Grazie, Mama,” she said in a tremulous voice, and kissed her mother’s cheek.

Marusha stood nearby. Christina hugged her. She’d flown in for the wedding. Her family would be coming for the coronation. For this ceremony, only their closest friends and relatives made up the intimate gathering.

Next came Christina’s great-aunt Sofia. “You look enchanting.” The older woman embraced her. “Working in Africa has made all the difference in you,” she said quietly. “You have a queenly aura that comes naturally to you.”

Christina craved her aunt’s warmth and hugged her extra hard. “I’m thrilled to be wearing the brooch.” She was glad Antonio had sneaked up to the bridal chamber to give it to her.

“It suits you. I’m so proud of you I could burst.”

“Don’t do that!” she said as they broke into gentle laughter.

“I’ve been watching your handsome husband. He’s hardly taken his eyes off you since we came outside.” Her brown gaze conveyed her sincerity. “I can see why. You’re a vision, and you’re going to help Prince Antonio transform our country into its former glory. I feel it in these old bones. I have the suspicion that you didn’t need the brooch to bring you good luck. You and your prince are special, you know?”

No, Christina didn’t know, but she loved her aunt for saying so. “I love you.”

Her great-aunt kissed her on the cheek before Elena rushed in to hug her hard. “Ooh—you’re the most gorgeous bride I ever saw. I do believe you’ve knocked the socks off Tonio. All the time he’s been talking to the parents, he’s had his eye on you.”

Sofia had said the same thing. From the mouths of two witnesses…

“The two of you looked so happy out there it seemed like you were sharing some great secret. By the way, in passing I heard your mother tell your aunt Sofia that she’d never been so proud of you.”

“Thank you for telling me. Things seem to be better with Mother,” she whispered. “It is a beautiful wedding, isn’t it?”

“It’s fabulous, and you know why? Because you’re Tonio’s wife and will make him a better man than he already is. Meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. He’s going to feel the same way once he gets to really know you the way I do.”

Tears glistened on Christina’s eyelashes. She hugged her again. “We’re true sisters now,” she whispered.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOUR HIGHNESS, THE photographer is waiting for you and your bride to cut the wedding cake.”

Antonio switched his gaze to Zach, but his mind and thoughts had been concentrated on Christina and it took a moment for him to get back to the present. “Thanks, Zach. We’re coming.”

“I hope you love wedding cake,” she whispered as they made their way to the round table holding the fabulous three-tiered cake.

He flashed her a quick smile. “Is this the moment you’re going to get your revenge on me for past misdeeds?”

“If you’re referring to the chocolate you fed me full of cherry cordial that dripped down my blouse on one of our outings, I wouldn’t be surprised.” The impish look in her beautiful gray eyes was so unexpected that his heart skipped a beat.

“Be gentle,” he begged, putting his arms around her from behind to help her make the first cut with the knife. Another chuckle escaped her lips. With great care she picked up the first piece and turned to him, waving it in the air as if trying to decide how to feed it to him. This produced laughter from the guests.

“Just take your best shot, whatever you have in mind.”

“So I do have you a little bit worried.”

“Please, Christina.”

“I tell you what. I’ll have a napkin ready.” She plucked one off the table. “Now open sesame.”

He closed his eyes and obeyed her command.

“You have to keep your eyes open, coward,” she said in a low teasing voice.

“I can’t do both,” he teased back.

“Then I’ll eat it instead.”

Shocked by her response, he opened his eyes only to be fed the cake, part of which fell onto his chin into the napkin she held for him. The wedding guests laughed and clapped their hands. Of course everything had been caught by the videographer.

Christina cleaned him up nicely, then kissed his chin. “Thanks for being a good sport, Your Highness.”

“Don’t call me that.”

She looked surprised. “No?”

“Not ever.”

She flashed him a smile. “Are we having our first fight?”

Her question caught him off guard. Before he could respond, Lindsay came up to Christina with her bridal bouquet. “When you’re ready to leave the party, you can toss it behind you.”

“Thank you, Lindsay. All your planning has made this the most beautiful wedding party in the world. I’ve never been happier.”

“You look radiant, Christina.” She gave her a hug, and Antonio saw his wife whisper something to her in private.

“It’s already being taken care of,” Lindsay whispered back, but Antonio read her lips.

Intrigued, he couldn’t wait to get his bride alone, but no one was ready to leave the reception yet and Zach had snatched her away to dance. He decided now was the time to dance with his mother, then his mother-in-law.

The queen gave him a hug before he danced her around the terrace. “You’re going to have to keep an eye on that one,” she said, eyeing Christina, who was still whirling around with Zach. “She isn’t quite as docile as I remember.”

“She’s her own person,” Antonio replied with the sudden thrilling realization that his new bride might mean more to him than he could have imagined.

“Indeed she is. You both look perfectly marvelous together. She’s changed so much since the engagement that I hardly recognize her. You have no idea how glad I am that you’ve come home for good to settle down. A man needs marriage, and your marriage is good for the monarchy. I’m very happy with you today.”

“Thank you, Mama.” Except that marriage hadn’t stopped his parents from having their offstage affairs.

He twirled her back to the table and asked Christina’s mother to dance. She had been a former fashion model and was still a very attractive woman. But as he gazed at Christina, who was laughing quietly with Zach, he thought she was the real beauty. Not only in her appearance, but in her character.

“Are you sorry our daughter wanted the wedding here instead of at the cathedral in Voti?”

“Anything but. Don’t you think every woman should be able to have the wedding of her dreams where she wants it?”

“But you’re the crown prince.”

Antonio smiled at her. “Tonight I’m a new bridegroom and I can’t imagine a more perfect setting for Christina and me than this delightful spot in Tuscany.”

“Then I’m glad for both of you. You make a stunning pair.”

“Grazie.”

He could still hear Christina’s words when she’d told him what it was like at boarding school. We were all a bunch of girls who’d rather be home. We all had a case of homesickness and waited for the letters that didn’t arrive. The emptiness in her voice had conveyed pain, even after all these years.

If he didn’t do anything else, he would make certain she didn’t feel pain because of him. “Did you visit her in Africa?”

“We made it over once and were guests in the palace of Marusha’s parents. They’re very westernized there.”

“Your daughter has made a big contribution. It’s no small thing she has done to help those in poverty.”

“I’m very proud of her.”

He was glad to hear it. On that note he danced her back to the table. After thanking her, he went over to the table where Marusha was seated and asked her to dance with him. The charming woman had come with her husband. He gave her a turn around the terrace.

“You honor me, Your Highness. I’m very happy Christina is your bride. We hope you’ll both come to Kenya and stay with us.”

“I’ve always wanted to travel there and promise to visit you when the time is right. You honor us by coming. Christina thinks the world of you and your family.”

“We feel the same. Thank you.”

Once she was seated, Antonio hurried to find Christina, who was talking to Elena. His sister smiled at him. “It’s about time you paid attention to your bride.”

“First I want a dance with you, little sister, if it’s all right with my wife.”

Christina darted him a serious glance. “She’s the reason we even know each other. You’re welcome to enjoy her for as long as you want.”

He knew she meant that and moved Elena around the terrace. She had a gleam in her eye. “Having fun, brother dear? More than you thought?”

“Much more,” he confessed.

“Christina has that effect on people. Mother can’t get over the change in her. I told her that Christina is like the woman in the stone. All Michelangelo had to do was chip away at the marble until her beauty emerged for all to see.”

His sister had just put the right words to his thoughts. “It’s a perfect analogy.”

She studied his features. “It’s growing dark. Are you ready to leave the party?” she asked with a sly smile.

“The truth?”

“Always.”

“I feel like I did the first time I had to jump out of a plane during my military service.”

Elena chuckled. “Since you survived, I’m not worried.”

“In all honesty, I haven’t made this easy for Christina by maintaining distance between us over the last four years.”

“Don’t worry about it. She married you today and I think you’ve both met your match. I’m so happy for both of you I could burst. Don’t let me keep you from whisking your bride away.” She kissed his cheek and hurried off.

He was left standing there while her last comment sank in. Antonio hated to admit he felt nervous for what was to come. He’d be taking his wife upstairs to the bridal chamber. This was a new experience for him. Taking a fortifying breath, he made a beeline for Christina, who was talking to more guests.

Lindsay came up to him. “Christina still needs to throw her bridal bouquet to the crowd. If you’re ready, take her to the front of the palazzo and I’ll make the announcement to the guests to follow you.”

“Thank you for all you’ve done.”

“It has been my pleasure.”

He kissed her cheek before reaching for his wife. Christina’s gaze flicked to his. “What is it?”

“We have one more ritual to perform.” He picked up the bridal bouquet. After putting it in her hands, he slid an arm around her slender waist. Her lovely body was a perfect fit for him.

“I already know where I’m going to throw it,” she whispered as they left the terrace and walked around to the front entrance of the palazzo.

“So do I,” he drawled.

“Antonio?” She eyed him with surprising tenderness. “Thank you for dancing with Marusha. To dance with the future king had to be one of the big highlights of her life.”

“I wanted a chance to thank her for coming. She’s been your true friend all these years. I have a feeling you two are going to miss each other.”

“That’s something I want to talk to you about, but we’ll discuss it later.”

An alarm bell went off in Antonio’s head. Did Christina want to go back to Africa? She’d lived a whole period of her life there that he knew nothing about. In fairness, she didn’t know details about his former life either. While he stood there filled with new questions that needed answers, the guests had congregated in the courtyard.

Before he knew what she was doing, his wife cleared her throat and faced the crowd. “Antonio and I want to thank you all for coming to share in our beautiful wedding day. I’m one of the lucky girls in the world who actually got to marry a real prince. His kindness to his sister, Princess Elena, my dearest friend, proved his princely worth to me years ago. I can honestly say there’s not another man like him, prince or otherwise. So this is for you, Elena. May you find your own wonderful prince too!”

Christina turned her back to the crowd and threw the bouquet in a southeasterly direction that was no mistake with Elena standing there. It was no accident that everyone made room around his sister so she could catch it. Then a roar of approval and clapping burst from the crowd. Antonio’s breath caught. With that speech she’d ensured her place in everyone’s heart as their queen-to-be.

Filled with emotion, he put his arm around her shoulders and pressed a kiss to her lips. She kissed him back and it felt convincing, but was this a show for the camera? He’d felt a distinct spark when they kissed at the altar. But if it had only been on his part, he didn’t want to believe it right now. Was she nervous too?

Without asking her permission, he grasped her hand and drew her along with him to the inside of the palazzo. He leaned back against the closed door, still holding her hand. Now that the moment was here to be alone with her, he felt slightly breathless. The wedding night was upon them.

“Are you up to climbing to the third floor?”

* * *

The bridal suite.

Their bridal suite now. The kiss Antonio had given her in front of the palazzo felt…hungry. In that moment she’d experienced an answering rush of desire that took her by storm. Her fantasy had taken on a new dimension. What was going on with her?

“I think I can about make it,” she teased, and started her ascent. But after a few steps she picked up her gown to give her the freedom to hurry the rest of the way. His footsteps followed, keeping pace with the thundering of her heart.

She almost ran down the hallway to the bridal suite. Before she reached the doors, he caught up to her and picked her up in his arms. “Oh—” she half squealed, surprised her gown didn’t hinder him. She knew her husband was strong, but being held close to him like this made her realize what a rock-hard physique he possessed, and he smelled wonderful.

Their faces were only inches apart. He smiled into her eyes. The blue of his irises had a depth of brilliance that ignited every pulse point in her body. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve been looking forward to this all day.” He slowly lowered his mouth to hers and began kissing her.

A burst of desire swept through her. Things were moving much faster than she’d anticipated and she found herself kissing him back with an urgency she couldn’t seem to suppress. What was happening was perfectly natural for a grown man and woman on their wedding night, but they had come to this marriage as friends from a long time ago. He’d never held her, or danced with her or kissed her, in Switzerland.

When she could take a breath she said, “If you keep this up, our dinner will get cold.”

“What dinner?” His gaze was focused on her mouth.

“The one we didn’t eat. It’s waiting for us out on the terrace of our suite.”

“Was that what you were whispering to Lindsay about?”

She nodded.

“I must say I’d much prefer eating with you alone up here. I like the way my wife thinks.”

Christina was glad he felt that way, because she needed time to get used to him. A meal would give both of them a chance to unwind while they anticipated their wedding night. Now that the moment was here, she didn’t know what to do and felt so awkward she hoped he couldn’t sense it.

* * *

Antonio gave her another swift kiss on the lips and managed to open the door. He walked through the foyer of the semidark suite and made it as far as the bedchamber before putting her down. She eased away far enough to remove the veil and tiara.

He knew she needed some privacy before they did anything else. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He pressed a kiss to her lips. “Don’t start dinner without me.”

“I won’t. Your bags should be in the sitting room.”

“I’ll find them.”

Much as he was reluctant to let her go, he needed to make her more comfortable. After giving her upper arms a quick squeeze, he left the bridal chamber for the other part of the suite. Spotting his bags, he went into the bathroom down the hall to freshen up. It was a relief to discard his sash and ceremonial dress jacket. This was a brand-new experience for both of them. Tonight he wanted to do everything right for her.

Hoping he’d given her enough time, he left the bathroom and started back to the bridal suite. He’d undone his shirt at the neck and rolled his sleeves up to the elbows.

Against the darkened sky, the candles flickering from the terrace table bathed Christina in soft light. As she leaned over in her exquisite wedding dress to pour their wine, he noticed the glory of her midlength hair where the strands of gold gleamed among the red. It looked so thick and sleek he longed to run his hands through it.

She must have sensed his presence and gave him a sideward glance. Again the candles flickered, turning her eyes to a shimmery silver. His bride had come to this earth with her own unique color scheme, one that resonated with him in ways he hadn’t noticed at the age of eighteen. His fifteen-year-old sister and her friend had been too young for him to appreciate the sight he was being treated to tonight.

Between her classic features with those high cheekbones and passionate red mouth, the blood was pounding in his veins. His gaze fell lower to the feminine outline of her body in her gown. While they’d danced, she filled his arms in all the right places and was the perfect height for him.

Her choice of wedding gown had pleased him immensely. She looked demure, but her coloring added the dash of sensuality he’d noticed the first moment he saw her in the chapel.

Christina might not have been aware of it, but he’d watched the males in the crowd admiring her all evening long.

For the first time he wondered how many men she’d known who’d more than admired her. Though it was a little late to question what her love life had been like prior to the actual preparations for their wedding, he couldn’t help but wonder. He felt as if he were swimming in waters over his head.

Her eyes played over him as he moved toward her. He liked the way she was looking at him. When she reached for her wineglass, he picked up his. “This wine comes from the Brunello grapes grown in this vineyard.”

Antonio swirled it around in his glass. “That’s very fitting. I’m sure it will be delicious. A toast to my wife, who has already made my life infinitely richer by simply agreeing to marry me. Salud!” He touched his glass to hers before they both drank some.

She unexpectedly raised her glass again and touched his. “To my husband. You never let your sister down or betrayed her trust. Because of that you’ve won mine. To you, Antonio. Salud! You’ll make the finest king our country has ever known.”

“If that happens, it’s because you’re at my side.” His throat swelled with emotion, making it difficult to swallow his second taste of the fruity wine.

“Shall we sit down to eat? I’m sure you’re as ravenous as I am.” She seated herself before he could help her.

They both tucked in to the heavenly food. She ate with an appetite. He liked that. Most women of his acquaintance ate rabbit food—whether to impress him or not—but not Christina. There was nothing fake about her. That was what impressed him.

When she lifted her eyes to him he said, “The little speech you gave in front of the palazzo blew me away.”

“It did?”

“How could it not? I thought no other man could be luckier than I am to have you for my wife.”

“I feel the same way about you.”

“Christina—I know I’ve put you in an impossible situation.”

“You don’t have to say anything, Antonio. I understand. That’s behind us now.”

“No, it isn’t. Not until I tell you why.”

She had hold of her wineglass stem, but she didn’t lift it to her lips while she waited for his explanation. Looking at her right now, he didn’t think he’d ever seen so beautiful a woman.

“In a word, I was afraid.”

Her delicate eyebrows frowned. “Of what?”

“That once I was in Africa where we could really be alone, you might tell me the engagement was off and send me packing.”

She sounded aghast and let go of the glass to put a hand to her throat. “I would never have done that to you.”

“Then you’re a woman in a million. Who else would have sacrificed her personal happiness for the greater good of someone, something else?”

“Our circumstances were very unusual, but I am happy.”

He shook his head. “You don’t need to pretend with me. This is truth time. I did something terribly selfish to ask you to marry me.”

A pained look entered her eyes. “Is this your way of telling me you wish we hadn’t gone through with the wedding?”

“No, Christina, no—” He reached across the table and grasped both her hands. “I’m just thankful you consented to be my bride. If you’ll let me, I’d like us to start over again. Through Elena we’ve been friends for years, but you and I don’t know each other. I want to get to know all about you. What are the things you love to do? What are the things you hope to do?”

Her silvery gaze enveloped him. “Besides grow old with you?”

“Yes. I’d like to learn it all.”

“I’m a pretty normal woman, Antonio. I like reading books and eating chocolate. I like spending time with my friends, especially your sister. I love Africa and the time I spent there helping others. But I suppose my greatest wish would be to have a family of my own. When I first visited the Kikuyu villages with all the adorable children, I hungered for a child of my own. How do you feel about children?”

“I want them too, Christina.”

“But I want to take care of them myself. Even if I’ll be queen, I want to be their mother in the truest sense of the word.”

“So you don’t want to send them away to boarding school?”

“Why? It doesn’t make sense to me that if you have a child, you would send it away as soon as possible.”

He released her hands. “You’re talking about yourself.”

“Yes.”

He saw her eyes glaze over.

“I wanted my mother and father during my growing-up years. If you and I have a baby, would you want it to leave us before it was time to let him or her go? Did you like being sent away to boarding school?”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“But did you like it?”

“No. I’ve never admitted that out loud.”

“Neither did Elena.”

“I know.”

“But we’ll be the parents,” Christina said, then added in an anxious tone, “Will our son have a choice? You say you want to know all about me. If you tell me our children will have to leave home before I’m ready to see them go, I couldn’t bear it. Why have them at all?”

Antonio got out of the chair and went around to hunker down beside her. He grasped the hand closest to him. “Look at me.” She finally did his bidding. “I was wrong not to come to Africa. We did need time to talk about all these things so I could reassure you.”

He heard her heavy sigh before she spoke. “I’m sorry I’ve turned this beautiful night into something else. Forgive me.”

“There’s nothing to forgive. You have my word that we’ll keep any children we have with us for as long as they want to be with us. The only time they’ll have a nanny is if you need to attend a royal function with me.”

Her eyes lit up again. “Honest? Is that a promise?”

He could deny her nothing. “I swear it.”

“Oh, Antonio. You’ve made me so happy.”

To crush her in his arms was all he had on his mind, but he wanted to give her time and feel comfortable with him. “I was afraid you were going to tell me that you wanted to live in Africa part of the year.”

“My life is with you, but I’d love it if we took some trips there together one day. Maybe when our children are old enough to enjoy the animal life? But we’ve been talking about me. What is one of your dreams?”

“I’m a pretty normal man too. I want a family. I want to be a success at what I do. Because I’ll be king, I want to change the country’s impression of a monarchy that has shown a breakdown in the old values.”

“Like what for instance?”

“The excess spending for one. There are so many areas that need change. But I’m boring you.”

“Never.”

“Spoken like my queen already.” He got to his feet and drew her over to the terrace railing with him. He looked out over the peaceful Tuscan landscape. His pulse throbbed with new life. He wasn’t the same man who’d slipped the brooch into the bedchamber earlier in the day.

If he had to describe his feelings at this minute, he was excited for what was to come. When he’d anticipated his wedding weeks ago, he didn’t count on being thrilled by this woman who surprised him at every turn. He no longer felt trapped.

Things were going so well he didn’t dare make the wrong move until she was ready for the physical side of their marriage. For them to get through the wedding without problems when they were virtual strangers led him to believe they could turn their marriage into something strong, maybe even wonderful given enough time.

He already felt strong feelings for her, which surprised him. They’d discussed one crucial element concerning their marriage by talking about the children they would have. But as near to each other as they were physically right now, they were still worlds apart.

“Christina?” He turned to her and cupped her face in his hands. “Tonight I’m happier than any man has a right to be.” He lowered his head and closed his mouth over hers. The taste and feel of her set his pulse racing. “You’re the most wonderful thing to come into my life.”

Antonio pressed kisses over every feature. “I need to get closer to you. Would you like me to undo the buttons at the back of your wedding dress before I change?”

He saw a little nerve jump at the base of her throat. His bride was nervous. That was his fault for not visiting her and letting her get comfortable with him.

“Yes, please.”

She turned, reminding him of a modest young maiden. It brought out his tenderest feelings as he began undoing them from the top of her neckline to the bottom, which ran below her waistline. His fingers brushed her warm skin as he set about freeing her trembling body. Never had he enjoyed a task more.

“A-are you finished?” she stammered.

He smiled to himself. “Not quite.” When he was done, he lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck. Her mane felt like silk. “There. You’re free,” he whispered, and turned her around. The sleeves and bodice of her gown were loose. All he had to do…

But he didn’t dare. “I don’t think you have any idea how lovely you are. I want to kiss you, esposa mia. Really kiss you.” He found her trembling mouth and began to devour her. The few kisses they’d shared up to now bore little resemblance to the desire he felt for her as she responded with growing hunger.

He clasped her against him, feeling her heart thundering into his. Antonio had an almost primitive need to make love to her, but not this stand-up kind of loving. He wanted her in his bed and was so enthralled by her he moaned when she unexpectedly tore her lips from his and eased away from him.

“Christina?” He had to catch his breath. “Have I frightened you?”

“No.” She shook her head, clutching her gown to her.

He could tell she was as shocked as he was by what had just happened. He needed to reassure her. “This has been a huge day, especially for you. I’m going to let you go right now. Since we have to be up early to leave on our honeymoon, I’ll bid you buonanotte, bellissima, and make myself a bed on the couch in the sitting room.”

CHAPTER FOUR

CHRISTINA STARED AFTER her new husband, so startled by his sudden departure she could weep. She’d been on fire for him and had been ready to go wherever he led. But in the moment that she’d tried to catch a breath, Antonio left her in a dissatisfied condition.

Was it possible a groom could have nerves like the bride? Confused over what had happened, she blew out the candles and walked to the bedroom. After stepping out of her wedding dress, she laid it over a chair with the veil on top. She put her satin slippers on the floor and placed the tiara on the dresser. They were remnants of the happiest day of her life.

She slipped on a nightgown before brushing her teeth. Then she turned out the lights and got into bed. How could she possibly sleep when her body was throbbing with needs she’d never felt before? He’d awakened a fire in her, but she hadn’t known how to handle it when he told her he’d make a bed on the couch for the night. She hadn’t had the temerity to go after him.

Sleep must have come, but she awakened early and finished her packing. Making use of the time until Antonio joined her, she’d touched up her pedicure and manicure. Her nails were done in a two-toned nude shade that matched everything and did justice to her royal antique-gold wedding band and diamond ring.

Since they’d be flying to Paris and would be the target of the paparazzi, Christina had chosen to wear an elegant-looking white two-piece suit from her new royal trousseau. The jacket with sleeves to the elbow fit at the waist. The high neck was half collared and there were pockets on the jacket as well as the skirt. She wore the brooch above the left pocket.

It was the perfect lightweight summery outfit to wear while walking around the City of Lights. Low-heeled off-white pumps and an off-white jacquard designed clutch bag with gloves completed her ensemble.

She’d worn her hair parted sideways into a high bun with one loose, hanging side longer than the other. Two white sticks for her hair with pearl tips matched her pearl stud earrings. Christina hadn’t worn perfume in Africa in order to avoid attracting insects. Back home now, she used a soap with a delicious flowery scent. Her makeup consisted of a tarte lip tint. She needed no other color.

When she was ready, she walked to the door of the sitting room and knocked. “Antonio? Our breakfast is waiting.”

“Grazie. I’ll be right out.” His deep-timbred male voice curled through her. It sounded an octave lower than usual. He must have barely awakened.

She wandered out to the terrace to wait for him. Her eyes filled with the beauty of the Tuscan countryside. The peaceful scene reminded her of a picture in a storybook where the rows of the vineyard formed perfect lines. All around it the gold and green of the landscape undulated off in the distance dotted with a farmhouse here and a red-roofed villa there.

Too bad she felt anything but peaceful inside.

All of a sudden she sensed she wasn’t alone and turned to discover a clean-shaven Antonio studying her from the doorway wearing a casual summer suit in a tan color with a cream sport shirt unbuttoned at the throat. With his olive skin and rugged features, he was so gorgeous she couldn’t believe she was married to him.

“Buongiorno, esposo mio,” she said softly.

His blue gaze roved over her body from her hair to her heels, missing nothing in between. She’d never felt him look at her that way before, as if she were truly desirable. Her legs went weak because she hadn’t expected that look after he decided not to sleep with her last night. She honestly didn’t know what to expect.

“How are you this morning?” he asked in a husky tone of voice. A small nerve throbbed at the corner of his mouth. What were his emotions after having gone to his own bed last night instead of spending it in hers?

“I’m fine, thank you. I’m excited that we’ll be walking along the Champs-Élysées later on today. Aren’t you?”

A strange smile broke the line of his mouth. “Shall we eat while we talk over our itinerary?” A question instead of an answer. Something was wrong.

He held out a chair for her. When she sat down, his hands molded to her shoulders for a moment. Warmth from his fingers coiled through her body. “As bewitching as you were to this man’s eyes last night, I find the sight of you right now even more beguiling.”

Because of the way he’d been looking at her when no one else was around, she believed he’d meant what he just said. But she hadn’t been beguiling enough to go to bed with her. She decided to accept the compliment graciously instead of throwing it back in his face.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” His hands left her shoulders and he took his place across the table from her. They both started eating the rolls and fruit. After drinking some coffee he said, “How did you sleep?”

“The truth?”

“Always.”

“Probably as poorly as you. I doubt that couch was long enough to accommodate your feet.” She was glad to hear a chuckle come from him. His eyes lit up with amusement. “When everyone sees us, they’ll think we’re sleep-deprived because of a passion-filled wedding night and they’ll be happy to think that a new royal heir could be on the way already. You know that’s what’s on everyone’s mind.”

He flashed her a piercing glance through narrowed lids. “But our business is our own.”

“Of course.”

After eating another roll, he sat back in the chair. “My mother left it to my father to give me some last-minute advice.”

That didn’t surprise Christina. “What did he have to say?”

“It isn’t what they said. It’s what they did.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Read this.” He handed her a note from his suit jacket pocket.

She opened it.

Dear Antonio, your mother and I want you to have the perfect honeymoon. We know you wanted to spend a few days touring Paris and the environs before the coronation next week. But we’ve thought of something much better and it has all been arranged. All you have to do is be ready by eight in the morning. A helicopter will fly you to Genoa, where you’ll take the royal jet to a dream spot for your vacation. It’s a place neither you nor Christina has been to before. As always we remain your devoted parents.

They weren’t going to Paris?

Her pulse raced. She’d thought there would be so much to do there and they’d have time to get to know each other while seeing the sights. Just what kind of dream vacation did his parents have in mind?

To be gone for a whole week together alone— It worried her that in a week’s time he might find out she was unlovable. That old fear never quite went away.

What was Antonio’s reaction to the news? Christina’s first impulse was to tell him she didn’t want to go on any dream vacation. But she couldn’t refuse to do the first thing he was asking of her, especially when it was a wedding present from the king and queen themselves.

“I can hear every thought running through your head, Christina. The look in your eyes is all I need to see to know this is the last thing you expected or wanted. If it’s any help, it’s a surprise to me too. The idea of our honeymoon being scripted by my parents at the taxpayers’ expense is typical of the lavish way they’ve lived their lives and expected me to do the same. If you still want to go to Paris, that’s what we’ll do.”

“And hurt your parents?” It took a courageous man to say that to her. She was touched that he would put her feelings first. Her watch said it was almost eight now. “No, Antonio. We have the rest of our lives to plan our own vacations when we can get away. I don’t want us to start off our marriage by alienating your parents. What difference does it make where we go?”

Something flickered in the recesses of his eyes. “Thank you for saying that. I like it that my new bride is adaptable and sensitive enough not to hurt their feelings. Have you done all your packing?”

“Yes.” It was a good thing Elena had done some shopping with her and had insisted on her buying a couple of bikinis. “You never know when you need beachwear,” her friend had confided. Maybe Elena had known about the location of the vacation spot her parents had planned for them and wanted Christina prepared for any eventuality. “How about you, Antonio?”

“I’m ready as I ever will be.”

“Then I’ll freshen up and meet you downstairs.” She got up from the table and hurried into the bathroom for one last look in the mirror. After applying a new coat of lipstick, she walked into the bedroom and noticed her suitcase was missing. She could count on Lindsay and Louisa to make certain her wedding things were packed and returned to the royal palace in Voti.

All she needed was her purse and gloves. When she left the bridal suite and started down the stairs, she discovered Antonio waiting for her in the foyer of the palazzo.

He stood there looking tall and heartbreakingly handsome. His brilliant blue gaze swept over her in a way that sent her pulse racing. “Will you accuse me of using a platitude to tell you how beautiful you look this morning?”

“Even with bags under my eyes from lack of sleep?” But she smiled as she said it.

“Even then,” he murmured. A tiny smile lifted one corner of his lips. “As you said earlier, any onlookers will speculate on the reason why and consider me the luckiest of men.”

She took the last step, bringing her closer. “You’re good, Antonio. I’ll give you that.”

He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“I think you know. Aren’t you afraid all these compliments are going to turn my head?”

The smile disappeared. “If you want to know the truth, I’m afraid they won’t.”

While she stood there confused again and wondering how much truth was behind his statement, Guido, his father’s chief of staff, opened the doors. “Your Highness? Princess Christina?”

Guido had addressed her as Princess. She’d better get used to the title, but the appellation was still foreign to her.

“If you’re both ready, your cases are stowed in the limousine. Your helicopter is waiting in Monte Calanetti to fly you to Genoa.”

“Grazie, Guido. We’re coming.”

She preceded Antonio out to the smoked-glass black limousine with the royal crest on the hood ornament. Guido held the rear door open for her so she could climb in, then shut the door. Antonio went around the other side and got in, shutting the door behind him. He slid close to her while they both attached their seat belts.

“This is nice,” he murmured, and grasped her hand. “I’m excited to be going off on a trip with my new wife. I only wish I knew where.”

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. “Your sister may have given me a hint, but I didn’t realize it at the time.”

“What did she say?”

“She made sure I bought some bathing suits when we went shopping. Did you pack one?”

“I’m sure mine is in my case somewhere.”

“Do you think Hawaii or the Caribbean? I’ve never been to either destination.”

“I have.” He released her hand long enough to pull the note from his pocket. “According to this, it’s someplace where neither of us has been before.”

“That’s right. I forgot.”

“Our parents probably collaborated. It ought to be interesting.”

“I agree. From what Elena has told me, you’ve been all over the world.”

He smiled. “Let’s put it this way. I’ve traveled over many countries without ever landing.”

Christina returned his smile. She’d taken many helicopter trips with Marusha into the more inaccessible areas of Kenya’s forested interior, so she was no stranger to the sensation of liftoff or landing. Before she knew it, they’d arrived on the outskirts of the village where their helicopter was waiting.

Antonio helped her out of the limo into one of the rear seats of the helicopter. He climbed in next to her while Guido placed their cases inside, then got in the copilot’s seat for the short flight to Genoa. Passing over the Tuscan countryside was a constant delight.

Once they boarded the royal jet with its insignia in huge gold lettering, Christina was introduced to the pilot and copilot before being given a tour. She was struck by the staggering opulence inside and out. To her mind, the platinum curving couches, mirrored ceilings and ornate bathroom were out-of-this-world outrageous.

With an office, a gourmet kitchen and two bedrooms, all extravagant to the point of being ridiculous, she imagined the plane that contained a cockpit meant for the emperor of the universe must have cost in the region of millions upon millions of dollars.

Antonio must have been watching her, because he said in a quiet voice, “Is there any question in your mind why our country is outraged by the unnecessary spending of my own parents? Papa bought this off an oil-rich sheik. When I’m king, I have every intention of selling it to the highest bidder and using the money to bolster Halencia’s economy and put more funds in your charity foundation.”

When she thought of the relief that money could bring to the Kikuyu people, she wanted to throw her arms around his neck in joy, but she didn’t dare with Guido and the steward in hearing distance.

After they sat down on one of the couches, Guido made a surprising announcement. “This is where I leave you, Your Highnesses. When you reach your destination, you’ll be met and taken to your vacation paradise. After the plane lands, you’ll be flown in a helicopter to your own private paradise. There’ll be no phone, television or internet service there.”

What?

While she sat there stunned, she could tell by the lines around his mouth that Antonio wasn’t amused either. “Guido? You’ve gotten us this far, but I refuse to travel any farther until you tell me where we’re going.”

“I suppose it couldn’t hurt to say that you’ll be arriving on the other side of the world in approximately twenty-one hours from now.”

“That’s not much help,” Antonio said in a clipped voice.

“I’m only following the king’s orders. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”

Antonio turned to her. “How about you, Christina?”

She had compassion for Guido, who was loyal to his king first. “I don’t need anything. Thank you for everything you’ve done.”

“You’re welcome. Enjoy your honeymoon.” He bowed to Antonio before leaving the plane.

In a few minutes the engines screamed to life and the fasten-seat-belts sign flashed on. Before long the jet headed into the sun. Once they’d achieved cruising speed, they got up from the couch and moved to sit in the lavish dining area where the steward served them a fabulous lunch.

“Don’t be upset with Guido. It’s obvious your parents’ big surprise is important to him and to them.”

One eyebrow lifted. “Twenty-one hours one way takes a lot of fuel. Round-trip means thousands more dollars being paid out from the public coffers. It isn’t right.”

She sat back while she sipped her coffee. “I agree, and I admire your desire to change the dynamics of the L’Accardi family’s spending habits. But for now, why don’t we decide to be Jack and Jill, two normal people who got married on a whim, and have just been given a windfall from their oil-rich uncle in Texas who wants to make us happy.”

“Oil?”

“Why not? When we return to civilization, that’s the time to start trimming the budget.”

When she didn’t think it was possible, he chuckled. “Jack and Jill, eh?”

She nodded. “One of the American girls from Texas at the boarding school had the name Jill, and her brother’s name was Jack.”

By now his eyes were smiling. “I’ll go along with that idea. What do you say we go to one of the bedrooms and watch a movie where we can be comfortable?”

Each bedroom had a built-in theater. She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “I’ll find my suitcase and change my clothes.”

He reached across the table and grasped her hand. “I’m sorry you’re not able to show off that lovely white outfit in Paris.”

A warm smile broke out on her face. “Don’t be.” She wouldn’t forget the way he’d stared at her when he walked out on the terrace earlier that morning. Christina had seen a glint of genuine male appreciation in his eyes that brought her great pleasure. “We’ll do Paris one of these days.”

Feeling his gaze on her retreating back, she walked through the compartment and found the bedroom where both their cases had been placed. She took hers and crossed the hall into the other bedroom.

After putting it on the queen-size bed, she found a pair of lightweight pants in dusky blue and a filmy long-sleeved shirt with a floral pattern of light and dark blues combined with pink. It draped beautifully against her body to the hips.

The white suit went in the closet before she slipped into her casual clothes and put on bone-colored leather sandals. After removing the pearl tipped sticks from her hair, she exchanged the pearl studs for gold earrings mounted with star-shaped blue sapphire stones. As she was applying a fresh coat of lipstick, she heard a knock on the door.

“Antonio?”

He opened it but didn’t enter. “Come on over to the other bedroom when you’re ready.”

Her heart started to thud. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

* * *

Antonio had changed into jeans and a sport shirt. Normally he would have put on the bottoms of a pair of sweats and nothing else for the twenty-one-hour flight. But out of consideration for Christina, he needed to make his way carefully for this journey into the unknown. Their honeymoon was in the process of becoming a fait accompli.

He’d experienced two heart attacks already: one at the altar when his fiancée appeared in her white wedding dress and lace veil. The other attack happened this morning when he first saw her on the terrace ready for their trip to Paris wearing a stunning white outfit. When he heard her call out his name just now, he should have known to brace himself for the third attack.

“Enter if you dare,” he teased. Antonio had stretched out on the bed with his head and back propped against the headboard using a pillow for a buffer.

“Ready or not,” she countered, and came into the room. The incredibly beautiful woman dressed in blue appeared, and the sight almost caused him to drop the remote. With her shiny hair, she lit up any room she entered. How could he have ignored her for so long? The few phone calls and visits to her had been made out of duty. The busy life he’d been leading in California had included hard work and one certain woman when he had the time.

Thoughts of his future marriage for the good of the country had only played on the edge of his consciousness, as did the woman who’d been thousands of miles away in Kenya. He couldn’t go back and fix things, but he could shower her with attention now. They didn’t know each other well yet, but had made a start last night when their passion ignited.

Antonio recognized that he needed to treat her the way he would any beautiful woman he’d just met and wanted to get to know much better. He patted her side of the bed. “Come and join me. We have a choice of five films without my having to move from this spot.”

She laughed and pulled a pillow out from under the quilt. The next thing he knew she’d thrown it at the foot of the bed and lain down on her stomach so she could watch the screen located on the other side of the bedroom. “Why don’t you start the one you’d like to see without telling me what it is?” she said over her shoulder.

Christina made an amazing sight with those long legs lying enticingly close to him. “What if you don’t like it?”

“I like all kinds of movies and will watch it because I want to know what makes my husband tick.”

His heart skipped a beat. “You took the words out of my mouth.” He clicked to the disk featuring a Neapolitan Mafia gangster film. “I only saw part of this when it first came out.”

“I’m sure I haven’t seen it. Italian films are hard to come by when you’re out in the bush. This is fun!”

He found it more than fun to be watching it with the woman he’d just married. She made the usual moans and groans throughout. When it concluded she turned on her side and propped her head to look back at him. “I heard that the Camorra Mafia from Naples was the inspiration for that film. Were there really a hundred gangs, do you think?”

“I do.”

“Did any cross the water into our country?”

“Three families that we know of.”

“Do they still exist?”

“Yes, but were given Halencian citizenship at a time when our borders were more porous. They’re no longer a problem. What I’m concerned about is creating high-tech jobs. Tourism and agriculture alone aren’t going to sustain our growing population. I have many plans and have been laying the groundwork to establish software companies and a robotics plant, all of which can operate here to build Halencian industry.”

“So that’s what you’ve been doing in San Francisco all these years. No wonder you didn’t come home often.”

“Are you accusing me of being a workaholic?”

Her eyelids narrowed. “Are you?”

“I make time to play.”

“Since I won’t be able to go to sleep for a long time, what can I do for you, my husband?”

“How about reading to me?”

The question pleased her no end. “You’d like that?”

“I saw a book in your suitcase. Have you read it already?”

“I’m in the middle of it.”

“What’s it called?”

“Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. He wrote about South Africa and the breakdown of the tribal system. It’s not the part of Africa I know, but it’s so wonderful I’m compelled to finish the book.”

“I never got around to reading it,” he said.

“Tell you what. I’ll read you the blurb on the flyleaf. If it interests you, I’ll read from the beginning until you fall asleep.”

“I’m surprised you don’t carry a Kindle with you. Aren’t physical books heavy to carry when traveling?”

“They can be, but I really like to hold a book in my hands. They’re like an old friend I can see peeking at me from the bookshelf, teasing me to come and read again.”

“I’ve decided you’re a Renaissance woman, Christina.”

“That’s a curious word.”

“It really describes you. You’re a very intelligent woman. I see in you a revival of vigor and an interest in life that escapes most people. You’re more intriguing than you know.”

If she was intriguing, that was something. “When did you discover that?” she asked without looking at him.

“It happened when you were just fifteen. I drove you and Elena to an old monastery in the woods above Lake Geneva. When we went inside, you were able to translate all the Latin inscriptions in those glass cases. I detested Latin and at eighteen I still needed a tutor for it. To hear you translating for us, I was so stunned at your expertise, it left me close to speechless. Do you remember that time?”

He remembered that? It caused her pulse to pick up speed. “Yes. I was showing off to you so you wouldn’t think that your sister was spending time with a complete numbskull. My mother hated it that I was such a bookworm and would rather read than go to tea with a bunch of girls who only talked about boys and clothes.”

“This conversation is getting interesting. When did you first become interested in boys?”

“Actually I was crazy about them at a very early age.” Pictures of Prince Antonio and Princess Elena were constantly in the news. From the time she was about eight, she always liked to see photos of the famous brother and sister in the newspaper accompanying their family on a ski trip or some such thing.

He was the country’s darling. By the time she met him in person, she’d already developed a crush on him that only grew after being with him. Of course all the silliness ended when she left Montreux and had new experiences in Africa. Once in a while she and Marusha would see him in the news, but until Elena’s brush with the law he’d been as distant to her as another galaxy.

Antonio broke into laughter. “The secret life of Christina Rose. How scandalous.”

She chuckled. “Marusha had plenty to tell me about tribal mating rituals of the Kikuyu. In fact, she kept me and Elena royally entertained most nights after lights went out. We’d stay up half the night talking. She had a crush on this security guard who was guarding a VIP at the Montreux Palace Hotel.

“You know how beautiful Marusha is. Well, we’d walk past him and she’d say things to him to capture his interest. He never spoke, but his eyes always watched her. He was tall, maybe six foot five, and he kept his arms folded. He was the most impressive figure I ever saw and I think he was the reason she could handle being in Montreux when she’d rather be home in Africa.”

Laughter continued to rumble out of Antonio.

“Your sister had other interests. There was a drummer in the band that played at this one disco we were ordered not to visit. He was crazy about her and kept making dates with her. She only kept one of them. It was through him she met other guys, the kind she finally ended up with who got thrown in jail for drugs.”

“Let’s be thankful she has grown up now, but don’t stop talking,” Antonio murmured. “I could listen to you all night. What masculine interest did you have?”

Christina didn’t dare tell him that there was no male to match Antonio. His image was the one she’d always carried in the back of her mind. “Oh… I always loved men in the old Italian movies. You know, Franco Nero, Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio De Sica.”

“No Halencian actors?”

“No. I’ve liked a couple of British actors too. Rufus Sewell…ooh-la-la.” She grinned. “Now, there is a male to die for! So, which actress did it for you?”

“That would be difficult to answer.”

“You don’t play fair. You manage to get a lot of information out of me, but I ask you one question and suddenly you play possum.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you play dead like a possum when you don’t want to reveal yourself. The possum does it for protection. It’s a very funny American expression and it describes you right now. What are you hiding from? Is the truth too scary for you?”

“Have a heart, Christina. I’m not nearly so terrible a womanizer as some of the tabloids have made me out to be. They’re mostly lies.”

“That’s all right. You just keep telling yourself that. When I married you I forgave you for everything. But I’ve talked your ear off, so excuse me for a minute.”

She hurried into the other bedroom and grabbed the book from the table, and then she returned to Antonio. “Are you still in the mood to be read to, or are you ready to confess your sins?”

“Yes and no.”

He was hilarious.

“All right, then. Here’s the quote from it. ‘Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear.’” She read the rest.

A long silence ensued before Antonio murmured, “That’s very moving. Tell me something honestly. Are you going to miss Africa too much?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve spent ten years of your life there. So many memories and friends you’ve made.”

“Well, I’m hoping that from time to time I’ll be able to fly to Nairobi to keep watch over the foundation, which I plan to continue with your permission.”

“There’s no question about that.”

Good. “But our marriage is my first priority, and your needs come first and always will with me.”

“You’re wonderful, Christina, but that isn’t what I asked, exactly. Did you leave your heart there?”

“Certainly a part of it, but I could ask you the same thing. Do you feel a strong tug when you think of San Francisco and the years you spent there?”

“I’d be a liar if I didn’t say yes.”

“I didn’t expect you to say anything else. As for me, I’ve decided I have two homes. One there, where I’ve always been comfortable, and now the new one with you. I see them both being compatible. When you long for San Francisco and want to do business there, I’ll understand.”

“You’d love it there. I want to take you with me and show you around.”

He couldn’t have said anything to thrill her more. “And maybe you can fly to Africa with me for a little break from royal business.”

“We’ll make it happen.”

She studied him for a long time. “Is there a woman you had to leave who’s missing you right now? Maybe I should rephrase that. Is there someone you’re missing horribly?”

Antonio should have seen these questions coming, particularly since he hadn’t slept with her last night. “I haven’t been a monk. What about you?”

A quick smile appeared. Her appeal was growing on him like mad. “I’m no nun.”

For some odd reason he didn’t like hearing that.

You hypocrite, Antonio. Did you want a bride as pure as the driven snow? Did you really expect her to give up men while she waited four years for you to decide when to claim her for your wife?

“Who was he?” His parents’ affairs had jaded him.

“A doctor who’d come to Kenya to perform plastic surgery on some of the native children. Once I came back to Africa with the engagement ring on my finger, he left for England three days later.”

“I kept you waiting four years,” Antonio muttered in self-disgust.

A frown marred her features. “Antonio, none of that matters. I’m your wife! But you still haven’t answered my question. Is there a woman who became of vital importance to you before you had to fly home to get married?”

He got off the bed. “The only woman of importance was one I got involved with before our engagement, Christina.”

“Then you’ve known her a long time. If there’d been no engagement, would you have married her?”

“That’s hard to say. I might have if I’d decided to turn my back on my family and wanted to stay in California for the rest of my life. But when your call came telling me about Elena’s problems and I talked to her, I realized how binding those family ties really are right from the cradle.”

“I know that all too well,” she whispered. Christina had obviously been talking about the relationship with her parents.

“The accident of my being born to a king and queen set me on a particular path. To marry a foreigner and deviate from it might bring me short-term pleasure. But I feared I’d end up living a lifetime of regret.”

She shook her head. “How hard for both of you.”

Her sincerity rang so true he felt it reach his bones. “Though I continued to see her after the engagement party, nothing was the same because we knew there would have to be an end. We soon said goodbye to each other.

“In a way it was a relief because to go on seeing her would not only have made a travesty of our engagement, but the situation was totally unfair to her and you. My sources at the palace confirmed that the country was suffering and there were plans afoot to abolish the monarchy. I knew it was only a matter of time before—”

“Before you had to come home and marry me to save the throne,” she broke in. “I get it.”

“Christina—” He approached her and grasped her hands. “Do you think it’s possible for us to forget the past? You know what I mean. When I said my vows in the chapel, I meant what I said. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life. Can you still make that same commitment to me after knowing what I’ve told you?”

Her marvelous eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Antonio, I want you to know that when I made my vows at the altar, I was running on faith. Now that faith has been strengthened by what you’ve just admitted to me. If we have total honesty between us, then there’s nothing to prevent us from trying to make this marriage work. You’ve always been the most handsome man I’ve ever known, so my attraction to you isn’t a problem.”

He kissed her fingers. “Can you forgive me for staying away from you before the wedding?”

“We’ve already had this discussion.”

He slid his hands to her upper arms. “No woman but an angel like you would have sacrificed everything to enter into an engagement that didn’t consider your own personal feelings in any way, shape or form. Forgive me, Christina. I don’t like the man I was. I can only hope to become the man you’re happy to be married to.”

Her eyes roved over his features. “I liked the man you were. That man loved his sister enough to save her and their family from horrible embarrassment and scandal. She wasn’t just any sister. She was the princess of Halencia, my friend. I loved you for loving her enough to help her.

“You have no idea what she did for me. She was the only person in my world besides my great-aunt Sofia who was good to me. Elena was the person I cried to every time I was hurt by my parents, especially my father, who wished I’d been born a boy.” The tears trickled down her flushed cheeks.

Antonio sucked in his breath. “Grazie a Dio, you’re exactly who you are.” He started kissing the tears away. When he reached her mouth he couldn’t stop himself from covering it with his own. The taste of her excited him. Without her wedding dress on, he could draw her close and feel the contours of her beautiful body through the thin fabric of her shirt. Her fragrance worked like an aphrodisiac on his senses, which had come alive.

“Bellissima.”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE FIRST TIME Christina had heard Antonio use the word bellissima, he’d said it in a teasing jest outside the door of the bridal suite. Just now he’d said it because she could sense his physical desire for her. After last night, there was no mistaking their attraction to each other. But she needed to use her head and not get swept away by passion until they’d spent more time together.

He’d wanted to put off making love to her last night. She was glad of it now. They did need more time to explore each other’s minds first. Antonio might have walked away from the love of his life in San Francisco, but that didn’t mean the memories didn’t linger.

Christina could make love with him and pretend all was well, but she knew that until she held a place in his heart, then making love wouldn’t have the same meaning for either of them. She wanted their first time to happen when it was right.

As soon as he lifted his mouth, she eased out of his arms. Avoiding his gaze she said, “I’m going to freshen up before dinner. Where do you want to eat?”

“How about the other bedroom? There’ll be other films to pick from. Your choice. I’ll tell the steward to bring it in ten minutes.”

“Good. After our fabulous lunch, I can’t believe I’m hungry again.”

When he didn’t respond, she left him to use the restroom. Some strands of her hair had come loose. It was smarter to just undo it and brush it out. Before he brought their dinner, she pulled out the pillows and propped them against the headboard. After taking off her sandals, she reached for the remote and got up on the bed. Before long Antonio walked in carrying a tray.

“Put it here between us.” She patted the center of the bed.

“The steward still won’t breathe a word of where we’re going.” He put the tray down. Sandwiches and salad.

“Loyal to the end.” She smiled at him. “In the meantime this looks good.”

“I think so too.” He joined her on the bed and they began to eat.

“Do you mind if we talk? We haven’t discussed how we’re going to live. In the fairy tales the prince takes his bride to his kingdom and they live happily ever after, but we never get to see how they live.”

He smiled. “I have my own home in one wing of the palace. Our bedroom and living room overlook the Mediterranean. It’s totally private and will be our home. My office is on the main floor adjoining my father’s. My parents have their own suite. You’ve already visited Elena in her suite, which is in the other wing. But we’re far enough apart to lead separate lives.”

She poured them both more coffee, then sat back to drink hers. “Is it going to feel terribly strange bringing a wife into your world?”

He finished off the rest of his sandwich. “I thought it would. In fact, I couldn’t comprehend it. But after being with you, I’ll feel strange if you’re not with me. I’ve discovered that I’ve slipped into the husband role faster than I would have thought and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

Christina studied him for a moment. “Today I feel like we’re beginning to get to know each other and aren’t afraid to be ourselves. That was my greatest fear, that you’d be different from the man I knew as Elena’s brother. I’ve worried that in living with the man you’ve become, I’d feel invisible walls that kept us strangers. But I don’t feel that way at all when I’m around you.”

“That’s good to hear. I have no idea if I’m easy to live with, Christina, and beg your forgiveness ahead of time.”

A gentle laugh escaped her lips. “That goes for me too. So far I have no complaints. I hope you don’t mind if I ask you a few more questions.”

“Why would I mind? This is all new. You can ask me anything.”

She put down her empty coffee cup. “Is Guido going to be your chief of staff when you take over?”

“At first, yes. But he’s been loyal to my father for years and when he sees how I intend to rule the country, he may have trouble supporting me.”

As he was lying in bed, he’d worried about how everything would go while he was away on his honeymoon. If something went wrong before the coronation, he wouldn’t be there to smooth things over. His father’s note said no phone, no TV or internet while they were on vacation. He’d never been without those things and couldn’t comprehend it at the time.

“I’ll support you, Antonio. I believe in the changes you’re going to make.”

He heard the fervor in her voice and smiled at her. She was too good to be true. “If things get bad, how would you like to be my new chief of staff?”

Christina broke into laughter. “Now, there’s a thought. The media will claim that Princess Christina is running the show.”

“Better you than anyone else I can think of. But seriously, let’s not worry about the future of the monarchy today. Look—” He sat forward. “I know everything will be strange at first.”

“Elena said your mother has her own personal maid. I don’t want one, Antonio. I find it absurd to ask someone to fetch and carry when I’m perfectly capable of doing those things myself. And I’d like to cook for you, go shopping at the markets. I can balance homemaking with the time spent at the charity foundation office in town.”

The more she talked, the more he liked the sound of it. “We’re on the same wavelength. All the years I lived in the States I did most things myself and prefer it, so I get where you’re coming from. We’ll make this work.”

Her silvery eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Thank you for being so understanding.” When she spoke, her heart was in her eyes and it touched a part of his soul.

“Thank you for marrying me.” He meant it with all his heart.

A shadow crossed over her face. “Antonio—if I’d told you I didn’t want to get married when you called, what do you think you would have done?”

“I don’t know. What saddens me is that you weren’t sure I’d follow through and marry you. Christina, I swear not to do anything consciously to hurt you or bring you grief. Do you believe that?”

“Of course I do,” she answered in a trembling voice. “Now I’ll stop pestering you and hand you the remote. Here are half a dozen movies. Choose whichever one you want. I’m loving this.

“When we get back to Halencia, I’m afraid everything will change. Elena told me your father’s daily schedule is horrendous, so I consider this time precious to have you all to myself. Tomorrow we’ll reach our destination, so I’m taking advantage of the time to talk to you.”

“You’ve always been so easy to be with, Christina. You still are.” More than ever… He clicked the remote and flipped slowly through the titles so she could have time to choose.

“Stop!” she cried out. “The African Queen in Italian? Half of that film was filmed in the Congo!”

Antonio grinned. “I never saw it.”

“I bet we have Elena to thank for this one.” She smiled. “Trust her to find me a film I’d enjoy. Do you mind if we watch it?”

“Not at all. It will give me a feel for where you’ve lived and worked all these years.”

“I never worked in the Congo. The Kikuyu tribe lives on the central highlands, but it doesn’t matter. The part in the Congo is authentic. Just don’t forget it’s an old, old movie, Antonio.”

He flashed her a smile that turned her heart over. “I like old if it’s good.”

“This is good. I promise.”

Christina settled back to watch the film while she finished her sandwich. She could tell Antonio liked it. He kept asking questions as if he was truly interested. Maybe he was. But if she continued to wonder when his reactions were natural or made up to please her every time he spoke, their marriage didn’t have a hope of succeeding.

“The actress is a redhead like you.”

“The poor thing. She probably suffered a lot as a child.”

“She became a movie star, Christina. It obviously didn’t hurt her.”

He lay back on the bed and slid his hand into her hair splayed on the pillow. He lifted some strands in his fingers. “I love your hair. It gleams like red gold and smells like citrus.”

“My shampoo is called Lemon Orange Peel. When I’m in Africa I have to use a shampoo with no scent so the tsetse flies and mosquitoes won’t zero in on me.”

“You’d be a target all right. Do you love it there so much?”

“Yes.”

“You’re wonderful, you know that?”

Her eyes filled with telltale moisture.

His hand moved to her face. He traced the outline of her jaw with his fingers. “You have flawless skin and a mouth I need to kiss again.” Without asking her permission his lips brushed hers over and over until he coaxed them apart and began drinking deeply.

A moan escaped her throat as she felt herself falling under his spell. He rolled her into his rock-hard body. A myriad of sensations attacked her as she felt him rub her back, urging her closer. With every stroke, her body continued to melt as the heat started building inside her, making her feverish. Antonio was taking her to a place she’d never been before.

She wasn’t cognizant of the fasten-seat-belt sign flashing until the captain’s voice came over the intercom. “We’ve started to experience turbulence. For your safety, you need to come forward and sit until we get through this.”

On a groan Antonio released her, much more in control than she was. “Come on. Let’s go.” He got off the bed and helped her to her feet.

She couldn’t believe how bumpy it had become and clung to him while they made their way out of the bedroom and down the hallway to the couches. Christina had so much trouble fastening her seat belt that Antonio did it for her and then fastened his own.

“It’s going to be all right.” He reached for her hand.

The incident didn’t last long. When the sign went off, she undid her seat belt and got up before Antonio did. “It’s late. If you don’t mind, I’m going to get ready for bed. Last night I hardly slept and now I’m exhausted.”

After he undid his seat belt, he stood up. “You go ahead. I’m going to have a chat with the captain and will see you in the morning.” He put a hand behind her head and pressed a firm kiss to her mouth before releasing her. “Get a good sleep.”

“You too,” she whispered before walking back to the bedroom she’d just left. Her legs felt like mush, but this had nothing to do with the bumpy flight. The kiss he’d just given her was able to reduce her to a trembling bride. A little while ago she’d experienced the kind of passion that would have rendered her witless and breathless given another minute in his arms.

Frightened because she’d almost lost control, she showered and got ready for bed. Once under the covers she had a talk with herself. It was too soon in their marriage for the physical side to take over. She didn’t doubt Antonio’s intentions. He was doing his best to be a considerate husband. There was nothing wrong with that, not at all. But she wanted to know his possession and realized this was what she got for entering into a marriage of convenience.

I don’t want to be his convenient bride.

Christina wanted him to make love to her because he was in love with her and couldn’t live without her. She wanted Antonio in every way a woman wanted her husband. From the age of fifteen she’d been attracted to him. All it had taken was that kiss at the altar to turn her inside out.

What have you done to me, Antonio?

She closed her eyes, reeling from that torturous question until she fell into oblivion. The next time she was aware of her surroundings, her watch indicated she’d slept ten hours. All in all, they’d been flying twenty hours with refueling stops she hadn’t been aware of. That meant they were close to their unknown destination.

If Antonio had come to her in the night, she didn’t know about it. Chances were he’d been exhausted too and needed sleep as much as she did. She threw off the covers and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and arrange her hair back in a French twist.

The more she thought about it, the more she believed they were flying to a beach vacation. After some deliberation, she chose to put on a pair of white pants and toned it with a filmy white top of aqua swirls that looked like sea spray. The short sleeves and round neck made it summery. Once she’d put on lipstick, she packed her bag so it would be ready to carry off the jet.

Antonio must have had the same thoughts, because when she walked through the plane to the dining area, she discovered him dressed in white pants and a white crew-neck shirt with navy blue trim. His virility took her breath.

As she approached, he broke off talking to the steward. “I was just about to come and wake you for breakfast. We’ll be landing pretty soon. I’ve been told we don’t want to miss the view before we touch down.”

“That sounds exciting. How did you sleep?” She sat down at one of the tables.

He took his place opposite her. “I don’t think as well as you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m a restless sleeper when I travel. When we touched down to refuel, I got out of the jet to stretch my legs. I peeked in on you to see if you wanted some exercise too, but you were out like a light.”

She felt Antonio’s admiring gaze before the steward served them another delicious meal that started off with several types of chilled melon balls in a mint juice. “Mmm. This is awesome.”

“I agree,” he said, still eyeing her face and hair over his cup of cappuccino until she felt a fluttery sensation in her chest.

They ate healthy servings of eggs, bread and jam. If she ate like this for every meal, she’d quickly put on the weight she’d slowly lost over the past year.

The steward came to their table. “The pilot will be addressing you in a minute. When you’re through eating, please take your seats in the front section. He’ll start the descent, allowing you a bird’s-eye view.”

“Thank you,” Antonio said, exchanging a silent glance with her. By tacit agreement, they got up from the table and walked forward to one of the couches, where they sat together and buckled up.

In a minute the fasten-seat-belt sign flashed and they heard the captain over the intercom. “Your Highness? Princess Christina? It’s eleven a.m. Tahitian time.”

“Tahiti—” she blurted in delight, provoking a smile from Antonio who reached for her hand.

“We’ll be landing at the airport built on the island next to Bora Bora. From there you’ll be taken by helicopter to a nearby island that is yours exclusively for the next four days. The sight you’re about to see is one of the most glorious in the world. Start watching out the windows.”

Christina felt the plane begin to descend. Pretty soon she saw a sight that was out of this world. The captain said, “Bora Bora has been described as an emerald set in a sea of turquoise blue with a surrounding necklace of translucent white water.”

“Incredible!” she and Antonio cried at the same time.

“There are dark green islands farther out in the lagoon that face the mountain. This lagoon is three times the size of the land mass.”

“Oh, I can’t believe this beauty is real.” She shook her head. “No wonder sailors from long ago dreamed of reaching Bora Bora.”

“To the southeast you’ll see a coral garden with waters swimming with manta rays, barracudas and sharks. You can watch them at their feeding time.”

She turned to her husband. “I’m not sorry your parents gave us this beautiful gift, Antonio. They couldn’t have planned a more glorious honeymoon retreat for us.”

“You’re right.” He squeezed her hand.

The jet circled lower and before long they touched down. Antonio undid both their seat belts. “I’ll grab our suitcases. What else?”

“My white purse on the dresser.”

He nodded. “I’ll be right back.” His excitement matched hers. They’d come to paradise and couldn’t wait to get out in it.

She walked toward the galley to thank the steward.

“It’s been my pleasure, Princess.”

Antonio caught up to her with her purse. The steward carried their cases to the entrance of the jet where their pilot was waiting. He shook his hand. “Thank you for a flawless flight.”

“It has been an honor for me to serve you and the princess. There’s a helicopter waiting to fly you to your private resort where every need will be met. In four days I’ll be here to fly you back to Halencia. Enjoy your honeymoon.”

She left the jet with Antonio following her and made her way to the helicopter. The pilot, an islander, greeted them warmly and explained they’d be flying to one of those dark green islands in the distance.

Christina sat in one of the backseats. The second Antonio joined her and buckled up, the rotors screamed to life and they lifted off, flying low over the aquamarine water. The pilot spoke to them over the mic.

“Welcome to Tahiti. The resort has heard that the future king and queen of Halencia are our guests. Word has come that you are much beloved, Princess. No one else will disturb your vacation, but you have a staff to wait on you. Ask for anything.”

“Thank you.”

When she looked back at Antonio, he was staring at her. “Do you know everyone who meets you is so charmed by you that you have them eating out of your hand? I noticed it as we were walking down the aisle after the ceremony. All eyes and smiles were focused on you.”

A blush seeped into her cheeks. “A bride is always the center of attention at a wedding. It’s the way of things.”

“But my bride is exceptional and loved by the people already. If I’m to gain any credibility with the country when I’m king, it will be because of you.”

“Thank you, but you don’t need to say things like that to me.”

“Yes, I do.” The sincerity in his voice convinced her.

Before she knew it, the pilot set down the helicopter on a stretch of the purest white beach she’d ever seen. Another man in shorts and T-shirt was there to take their bags.

“Welcome to Bora Bora, Your Highnesses. I’m Manu and will be serving you. If you want anything, it will be at your disposal. With the powerboat you can go where you wish to fish, scuba dive, hike. Anything you want.”

They shook his hand and followed him to their resort. It turned out to be a massive island bungalow of traditional Polynesian design with a vaulted ceiling situated on stilts over their private lagoon of turquoise water. As they walked inside, the living room looked like a sumptuous palace suite with windows on all sides and glass floors throughout to watch the fish.

There were windows on all sides and two different sundecks facing Bora Bora with platforms so they could step off directly into the lagoon.

Outside were oversize chairs and more glass floor panels. Manu showed them the dining room and kitchen with a refrigerator stocked with snacks and drinks. “There’s food here to enjoy inside or to make a picnic. The spacious bathroom has two tubs and walk-in showers.”

They followed him to the fabulous bedroom, also with a vaulted ceiling, where he put down their cases. Then he showed them out to one of the platforms. “The powerboat is ready and filled to capacity to take you where you want. Come with me to the other platform.”

They followed him. “You have your own two-seater kayak, snorkeling equipment, rubber rafts, whatever you want including towels and sunscreen. The lagoon water is eighty degrees and the nighttime temperature is the same.”

Warmer than a bathtub?

Christina marveled that everything you could ever want had been provided. She thanked Elena silently for taking her to buy some swimming suits.

“I’ll be the person waiting on you. Pick up the phone to order your food or when you need clothes washed or ironed. There’s one in the living room and another one in the bedroom. There’s no internet, no television. If there’s an emergency, you call me on the house phone and I’ll take care of it. Can I answer any questions?”

“Not right now.” Antonio shook his hand. “Thank you, Manu.”

After the islander disappeared, she looked around in wonder. “All of this just for us?” she murmured to her husband. “Only a king could afford to pay the resort enough money to keep the world away.”

He chuckled and turned to her. “What do you want to do first?”

“Let’s unpack and then go for a swim. That water is calling to me.”

* * *

Antonio couldn’t help but admit that this had to be the ultimate getaway. His parents had gone over-the-top on this one, but he’d promised Christina they’d enjoy this outrageous luxury and not count the cost.

It didn’t take long to put their things in closets and drawers. Then she disappeared in the bathroom. While she was out of sight he changed into his boxer-style black bathing trunks. Wanting to create a mood, he went into the living room and searched in the entertainment center for the radio.

When he turned it on, he got Tahitian music, exactly what he wanted. There was a switch that said Outside. He flipped it and suddenly they were surrounded with island music that no doubt could be heard out on the beach.

A smiling Christina came hurrying in wearing a lacy peach-colored beach robe over what looked like a darker peach bikini. Her gorgeous long legs took his breath away. “That’s such romantic music, I think I’m dreaming all this.”

“Fun, isn’t it? Let’s go try out the water.”

He opened the door that led to the platform off the living room. She leaned over the railing to look down at the water. “It’s clear as crystal.” When she reached the edge of the platform, she removed her beach coat and put it over the railing.

“Wait, Christina. You need some sunscreen or you’ll pick up a bad sunburn.”

“You’re right.”

“I’ll get it.” He went over to the basket and brought it to her. “I’ll put some on your back and shoulders.”

She turned her back toward him without hesitation. Her skin felt like satin and he loved rubbing the cream over her. The legitimate excuse to touch her made him wish he didn’t have to stop. Summoning all the self-control he could muster, he handed her the tube so she could do the rest herself.

“Thank you,” she said in a shaky voice. “Now it’s my turn to put some on you, although you’re already tanned.”

He longed to feel her hands on him. His pulse throbbed as he felt her spread the cream over his shoulders and back. After putting the tube on the railing, she jumped in the shallow water and shrieked with joy.

“Oh, Antonio— This is divine!” She splashed the water with her hands and laughed in delight before lying back while her legs did the work of keeping her afloat.

One look at her and he couldn’t reach her soon enough. Bathtub was right. The temperature here stayed around eighty day and night. He swam up next to her, infected by her sounds of excitement. With the Polynesian music filling the air, they were like children who’d discovered the fount of pure pleasure.

Together they moved out deeper into the blue lagoon. He swam under and around her. The glimpses of her exquisitely molded body set his heart pounding.

“Look at that darling little sea turtle!”

Spectacular as it was, he would rather look at her. As they trod water, they caught sight of other types of small fish including a clown fish with orange and white stripes. One discovery turned into another. They played and darted through the water for several hours, concocting silly games to identify the fish they saw. Her prowess as a swimmer was going to make this the adventure of a lifetime.

Since there was no one else around, Antonio felt as if they were the last two people on earth…or the first. Adam and Eve?

He loved the idea of it, loved being with her like this where her guard was down. Her sense of fun was already making this trip unforgettable. “What do you say we go back and drink something icy cold while we sunbathe on the lounge chairs?”

“That sounds perfect. I’ll race you back.”

Together they did the crawl. He slowed his pace to stay even with her. When they reached the platform he climbed up first, then helped her. She put on her beach robe and headed for one of the loungers.

“I’ll order some drinks and be right back.”

“No alcohol for me. Even a little wine can give me a headache.”

“Did you suffer from one on our wedding night?”

“No, because I only sipped a little, but I know to be careful.”

That was something he didn’t know. He rarely drank himself and was pleased to learn she didn’t care about it. His parents constantly overindulged.

A few minutes later and Manu appeared with two frosted glasses of juice topped with a flower.

“I could get used to this in a hurry,” Christina commented after they’d given him their order for dinner and were alone again. Antonio handed her some of the brochures from the table in the living room. He looked over one, but would study the rest of them later. Right now he was content to study her and look at the white clouds moving slowly across the sky.

He finished his drink. “It’ll be several hours before dinner, but it’s already late in the day. How would you like to go exploring in the powerboat? We’ll follow the directions in that brochure and make our plans for tomorrow.”

“That’s exactly what I want to do. While we were descending in the plane, I longed to spend more time just to get acquainted with this glorious place.”

A few minutes later they undid the ropes and Antonio idled them out into the lagoon. He reached into one of the lockers. “Here—put this lifesaving belt on.” He handed it to her.

“But the water isn’t that deep.”

“It doesn’t matter. If we got into trouble, you’d be glad of it.”

“I’ll wear it if you wear one too.”

“Nag, nag.” But he smiled as he put one on.

“Now that I think about it, can you imagine the media storm if we had an accident and word got out that the future king and queen of Halencia had almost drowned because they hadn’t been wearing preservers? People would wonder what kind of ruler they had.”

He chuckled. “Point taken. It would never do.”

Off Point Matira they came across a group of huge manta rays. There were spotted and gray rays. Antonio swam near their boat while they watched in fascination.

“We should be marine biologists,” she exclaimed. “Just think, we could come out to places like this and spend all day long for weeks on end.”

Antonio nodded. “Being out here, you can understand the appeal for that kind of work. Are you interested in watching the locals feed the sharks? We’re not far from there.”

“I guess it’s safe or they wouldn’t advertise it, but I think I’ll want to stay in the boat.”

He drove them to the spot where the local divers stood chest deep in the water. Four-and five-foot sharks circled around them to get their food.

“That’s scary to me,” Christina said. “I’ve changed my mind about being a biologist.”

“Instead you’d rather be in Kenya where you can be dragged off by a lion.”

“No—” She grinned at him.

For their last destination they took off and headed for the coral garden, an underwater park southwest of Bora Bora Island. For an hour they were spellbound by the amount of colorful fish and coral. Like an excited child she squealed over the varieties.

“I’m going to take a quick dip before we head back.”

Antonio couldn’t have stopped her. She was too anxious to get closer. Off came her belt and she lowered herself in the water. The sight of her going underwater made him nervous. He watched her like a hawk. To his relief she came back up a few minutes later, but she looked distressed.

“I stepped on something, but I don’t know what.”

Diavolo. “Does it sting?”

“No. It’s just kind of sore on the pad of my foot.”

Antonio leaned over and helped her into the boat. He set her down on the banquette so he could inspect it. “You made contact with a sea urchin, but luckily I only see two spines.” Thank heaven. “They’ll need to come out. Keep your leg on the banquette and I’ll get us back home.” He wrapped the life belt around her, kissed her lips and got behind the wheel.

“Do you think it’s serious?”

“No. I once got a whole foot full of them, but I was fine. Still, we’ll ask the doctor to check you.”

“Oh no—I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Accidents can happen anytime in the water, as you reminded me.”

The sky was darkening fast. He was glad when they reached their island. After tying up the boat, he undid the life belts and carried her from the deck into their bedroom.

After setting her down on top of the bed, he phoned Manu and asked for a doctor to come. “I’ll get you some ibuprofen after we’ve talked to the doctor.”

“Will you carry me to the bathroom? I need to get out of my suit and into a robe.”

“Of course.” He lifted her in his arms once more and let her hang on to him while he reached for her robe hanging on the door. “Can I help you?”

“I’ll be all right.” He waited until she said she was ready, and then he carried her back to the bed. In another moment he heard Manu’s voice coming from the main entrance. “The doctor is here.”

“Will you show him into the bedroom, Manu?”

Within seconds the two men came in. “Princess Christina? This is Dr. Ulani.”

He brought his bag with him. “Thank you for coming, Doctor. As you can see, my wife stepped on a sea urchin. She’s in pain.”

“Hush, Antonio. It’s not that bad at all. More of a discomfort.”

The native doctor smiled. “Accidents like this happen every day, even to someone like Your Highness. Let me check your foot. I’ll try not to add to your pain.”

Antonio placed a chair for him to sit while he worked on her. Relieved as he was that she was getting medical attention, it suddenly hit him how frightened he’d been when she first surfaced. In very little time she’d become so important to him that he couldn’t bear the thought of anything truly serious being wrong with her.

The doctor opened his bag and proceeded to get rid of the two spines. He put ointment on the sores and a dressing. “You’ll be fine tomorrow. Just make sure you wear some kind of shoe in the water if you’re not snorkeling with fins. I’ll give you a tablet for you to sleep that will kill the pain. Tomorrow if you’re still too sore, take some ibuprofen.”

“Thank you so much. It feels better already.”

“It’s a privilege to help you, Princess.” When he’d finished, he stood up. “Take care, now.”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Antonio muttered. He shouldn’t have let her slip into the water like that. The action had caught him off guard.

“Here’s the pill. Tomorrow you can take off the dressing.”

Antonio walked him out to the living room. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am you came.”

“It is my pleasure to wait on the future king and queen of Halencia. Our people are aware of your presence here and they are delighted. Don’t hesitate to get hold of me through Manu if you are alarmed by anything.”

Manu stood by. “You want your dinner in the bedroom, Your Highness?”

“Yes. Thank you. Will you bring a glass of water so she can take her medicine?”

He nodded and hurried to the kitchen. Antonio headed back to the bedroom. “Christina? It’s my fault you got hurt this evening.”

“Nonsense. I wasn’t thinking. When I saw those fish, I just had to get in closer.”

“Please tell me you’ll give me a heads-up next time before you do a disappearing act.”

His mermaid was resting against the headboard with a sore foot. “I’m sorry to be the one at fault for not having the sense to get in the water prepared. But, Antonio, you don’t have to try to be perfect with someone as imperfect as I am. I did a stupid thing, but the situation really is funny, don’t you think? Your parents planning for every contingency to bring us joy? And I blew it. At least for tonight. Now you have to give me my medicine and be stuck with your ball and chain until morning.”

“Don’t say that! Not ever! I don’t feel that way about you and never could. Promise me!” He sounded truly upset.

“I promise,” she said as Manu appeared with their dinner. Antonio thanked him and put the tray of food on the side of the bed next to her. He handed her the glass of water and the pill. “Take this first.”

After she did his bidding, he sat in the chair the doctor had used and they ate their dinner. He heard her sigh.

“It’s another beautiful night, so balmy. I’d wanted to go walking on the beach with you.”

“We’ll do that tomorrow night. For now, you need to try and fall asleep.”

“You won’t leave me?” Her eyes beseeched him.

“As if I would,” he murmured, experiencing a hard tug of emotion. It came to him that his new wife had become of vital importance to him. “I’ll join you as soon as I change out of my swimming suit.”

“Good. Don’t be long.”

Christina, Christina.

He put the tray on the table and went into the bathroom to change. After putting on a robe, he turned out the lights, then got into bed beside her. The pill must have been powerful, because her eyelids were drooping. Antonio rolled her into him and she let out a deep sigh. Soon she was asleep. Before long, oblivion took over.

Around six in the morning he felt the bed move. She’d gotten up to use the bathroom.

He eyed her through sleep-filled eyes. When she returned he said, “How’s the pain?”

“There’s hardly any at all. I can walk fine as long as I’m careful.”

“That’s wonderful news. Come back to bed and rest that foot some more. It’s still early.”

CHAPTER SIX

CHRISTINA EYED HER HUSBAND, who’d kept a vigil over her all night. She got back in bed, lying on her side so she could watch him sleep. He was such a gorgeous man. Dawn was sneaking into the bedroom with the morning breeze. Through the open windows she could see the unique shape of the mountains on Bora Bora. If she could be anywhere in the world, she wanted to be right here with the man she’d married.

When next she came awake, she found herself the object of Antonio’s blue gaze. She propped her head up with her hand. “How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough to watch my lovely wife. You’ve been sleeping so peacefully.”

Without hesitation he leaned over to kiss her. “Good morning, esposa mia. I dreamed about kissing you all night long.”

“I had the same dream.”

Before she could blink he put his arm around her and kissed her deeply, not letting her go until she had to breathe.

He sighed. “I needed that.”

“I’m pretty sure you need something else after taking care of me all night. I’ll ring Manu to bring our breakfast tray.” She reached for the phone and put in their order. After hanging up, she turned to her husband.

“How did you know?”

“That you’re starving?” she quipped. “I’m hungry too.”

He raised himself up and leaned over her. “You have no idea how beautiful you are, do you? I could eat you up.”

But at that moment Manu appeared at the door. “Shall I put your breakfast on the table?”

“No, Manu,” Antonio said. “I think we’ll have it right here in bed.”

The other man smiled and set it on the end of the bed before making a discreet departure.

She smiled at her husband. “We’re spoiled rotten. You know that.”

He moved to put the tray between them. Christina propped her head with a couple of pillows and bit into a croissant. “If the famous French impressionist Gauguin were here to paint us, he’d entitle it Petit Déjeuner au Lit Tahitien.”

His lips twitched. “Breakfast in a Tahitian bed is far too mundane. I think a more appropriate title would be Le Mari Amoureux.”

The Amorous Husband? Christina laughed to cover the quiver that ran through her. She’d forgotten he’d attended a French/Swiss boarding school too and was fluent in French besides Halencian, Italian, English and Spanish.

“What do you want to do today?”

“I’m up for anything.”

“Honestly?”

“My foot doesn’t hurt and I don’t want us to miss out on anything while we’re here. We don’t have that much time before we have to go back.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

Her pulse raced. “Neither do I.”

“What do you say we take out the kayak and just paddle around for fun?”

“That sounds perfect. I’ll get my suit on and wear a T-shirt so I don’t pick up any more sun on my shoulders.” With a kiss to his jaw, she slid out of bed. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

He’d been worried about that. The need to touch her was growing. A bad case of sunburn could make her feel miserable for several days. Relieved that her foot was healing well, he got excited to think about spending another glorious day with her. It was pure selfishness on his part to want her able to do everything with him waking or sleeping.

There was only one bed, but a number of couches. He had no intention of sleeping on a couch or a sun lounger tonight. He wanted his wife in that oversize bed clinging to him while the scented breeze from Bora Bora wafted through their bedroom.

“Antonio? I’m ready when you are.”

He looked up to see her standing there with a white T-shirt pulled over her suit. “I’m glad you’re wearing your tennis shoes.”

There was no doubt his bride had one of the most beautiful faces and bodies he’d ever seen, starting with her glorious hair. She’d fastened it on top with a clip. He wanted to reach up and pull her down to him, but right now it was important they keep having fun while breaking down walls.

Levering himself out of bed, he hurried to the bathroom to put on his trunks. Then he joined her at the edge of the platform. The Sevylor inflatable plastic kayak had been secured to the post with cords. Once they were undone he reached down to hand her a belt life preserver. While she put hers on, he fastened his.

“I’ll go first.” After getting in the front seat, he held out his hands to her and eased her into the backseat.

“Ooh—” She laughed. “It’s tippy. I’m used to a canoe.”

“You’ll soon get the hang of it.”

They unloosened their oars and started paddling. He led them around in circles to get her used to the motion. Over his shoulder he said, “According to the brochure, there’s no surf here because of the reef across the lagoon. When you’re ready, we’ll head out to that other island in the distance.”

“I can see you’re an old pro at this.”

“During my boarding school days in Lausanne, some friends that my parents didn’t approve of flew home with me on breaks. We’d go kayaking around Halencia on weekends. But as you know, the Mediterranean can be choppy when the wind comes up. This lagoon is like glass in comparison.”

They started paddling together and headed out. “I wonder if I ever saw you out there during the few times I came home from boarding school.”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself. Do you believe in destiny, Christina?”

“To be honest, until I received the phone call from you that we were really getting married, I believed that I was meant to—” She broke off abruptly. “Oh, it doesn’t matter what I believed.”

He stopped paddling and turned to look at her. “Tell me. I want to know.”

She shook her head. “If I told you, you’d see me as a pitiful creature who feels sorry for herself.”

“You’re anything but pitiful. I want to know what you were going to say.”

Christina rested her oar. She cast her gaze toward Bora Bora. “My parents didn’t want me, Antonio. They really didn’t. The only genuine love I felt came from my great-aunt Sofia, but I wasn’t her daughter and didn’t see her very often.

“I believed it was my lot always to live on the outside of their lives. This became evident when they didn’t put up a fuss about my working in Africa. I was crushed when they sounded happy about my doing charity work there. They didn’t miss me, not at all. Marusha’s parents have been more like parents to me than anyone.”

Her suffering had to be infinite. “That’s tragic about your parents.”

“I was afraid you’d say that, but I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. They were warmer to me at the wedding, especially Mother. You asked for the truth and I’ve told you. As for believing in destiny, despite my pain, I was happy with my life in Africa and decided I’d probably live there forever. The ability to help other people brought me a lot of peace I hadn’t known before.”

“Until I turned your world upside down,” he bit out in self-deprecation.

“It wasn’t just you, Antonio. Elena had already become family to me. When she got into real trouble, I felt her pain. Like you, she led a life of isolation being royal. I can understand why she took up with guys from my world. In your own way, you and Elena have led a life of loneliness. It’s a strange world you two inhabit and always will be. But I was lucky enough to be the friend Elena let in. If I could have had a sister, I would have wanted her.”

“You’re very perceptive, Christina. I originally went to San Francisco to learn business. It was there I worked with normal people. Zach became a true friend and I enjoyed it so much I didn’t want to go home. My parents’ lifestyle was a personal embarrassment to me. But when I heard of the trouble Elena was in, I couldn’t turn my back on her. Forgive me for using you.”

“By phoning you, I used you too,” Christina came back. “Did you really have a choice to do anything but try to draw the paparazzi’s attention away from her? I was the perfect person to help. After all, we were an unlikely threesome, yet no one knew me or knew about me. What I want to know is, why didn’t you break off our engagement a few years later and ask the woman you loved to marry you?”

His jaw hardened. “I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

“You see what I mean?”

Her sad smile pierced him.

“You tried to be like everyone else, but in the end, the prince in you dominated your will. The princess in Elena let you fall on your sword because you were both born to royalty and knew your duty. She wanted you to be king one day.

“Before I phoned you, did you know she wanted to admit everything to the police and take the blame so there’d be no reflection on you or your family? But I wouldn’t let her. I told her I was going to phone you because I knew you could fix things and you found a way.”

“Which involved you.” His voice throbbed. His emotions hovered near the surface. “Let me ask you a question. Why didn’t you tell me to go to hell when I called you to give you the wedding date? You would have had every right.”

She breathed in deeply. “Because your royal dust had blown on me years before. I’m not a Halencian for nothing. My country means everything to me. The engagement we entered into was very bizarre, but it made a strange kind of sense. In fact, the only kind of sense that would satisfy the people.

“I’m positive it would have been hard for them to accept your marriage to a woman from a different nationality as you pointed out. But if you’d wanted it badly enough, you could have made it happen.”

He eyed her for a moment. “When it came down to it, I didn’t want her badly enough to break my commitment to you.”

“Thank you for saying that. I want you to know I’m not sorry, Antonio.”

His heart skipped a beat. “Do you honestly mean it? Even though it meant ending an important relationship with the doctor you met in Kenya?”

“It wasn’t that important. I didn’t want to break my commitment to you either. You and Elena have trod a treacherous path all your lives. You always will because you were born to the House of L’Accardi.

“Elena and I were friends from the age of fifteen. I knew her sorrows. She bore mine. Her greatest fear was that you might end up living in California one day and giving up the throne so she would have to be queen. That was one of her greatest nightmares.”

Good heavens. So much had gone on that he hadn’t known about behind the scenes because of his selfishness in pursuing his own dream. “I didn’t realize…”

“How could you if she never said anything? At our reception, Elena acted so happy we got married that she could hardly contain herself.” Even though there was still something she seemed to be holding back.

“Her happiness went much deeper than that because it meant she wasn’t going to lose the best friend she’s ever had.”

Christina flashed a full, radiant smile at him, stunning him. “Now she’s got both of us and our threesome can go on forever.”

Forever.

* * *

Antonio turned around and started paddling again. There’d been a time when the thought of being married forever stuck in his throat. But no longer. When they returned to the hut, Manu had served their dinner on the deck.

“Tonight you are eating freshly caught mahimahi with coconut rice and mango salsa.”

“It looks fantastic, Manu.”

After he left them alone Christina said, “They’ve gone all out for us. Now I know the true meaning of being treated like a king.”

His blue eyes glinted with amusement as they sat down to eat.

Christina took her first bite. “The fish is out of this world.”

“This is Bora Bora mahimahi,” he quipped. “We won’t be getting anything this good in Halencia. If I could put off the coronation for a while, I’d like us to stay here for a month at least! I’m thinking our first-year anniversary. What do you say?”

“But we’ll fly commercial. And we’ll stay in a little bungalow over the water and play tourist like everyone else.”

“And climb the mountain and scuba dive. Have you ever been?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve got to take lessons. I’ll go with you.”

“You mean you’ll take time out of your busy day?”

“You’ll need a buddy. I don’t want anyone else buddying up with my wife.”

The possessive tone in his voice thrilled her.

Once dinner was over Christina showered and washed her hair. After toweling it, she used the blow dryer until it swished against her shoulders. She put on a pale lemon-colored nightgown. Her skin had picked up some sun, adding color to her complexion. To her relief her injury was barely noticeable.

Her lamp was the only light on in the room. There were more brochures for her to read on the side table, but she wasn’t ready for bed yet. Antonio had turned on more romantic music. The thought of him made her heart thump out of control. She’d just spent the most heavenly day of her life with the man who was now her husband.

Before long he came into the bedroom wearing a robe. Without a shirt he had an amazing male physique with a dusting of dark hair on his chest. Her mouth went dry just looking at him. When he came closer, she could smell the soap he’d used in the shower. “The night is calling to us. Let’s go out on the deck. I want to dance with you.”

He grasped her hand and they walked out into the balmy night. Christina gasped softly to see millions of stars overhead. “Antonio—have you ever seen the heavens this alive? I just saw a shooting star.”

“We don’t need a telescope when the universe seems so close. It’s even in your eyes. They are shimmering like newly minted silver. Combined with the red gold of your hair, you’re an amazing sight. A new heavenly body to light up this unforgettable night.”

His words overwhelmed her before he wrapped his arms around her and started dancing with her. Not the kind of dancing they did at the reception. This was slow dancing. She melted into him. The night had seduced her. There was a fragrance in the air from the flowers on the deck that intoxicated her. Being held against his hard body like this was pure revelation.

Her womanhood had come alive in his arms. She liked being taller because their bodies fit together. He’d buried his face in her hair. She could feel the warmth of his breath, tantalizing her because she longed to feel his mouth on hers. On their wedding night she’d thought the fantasy was over. How could she have known they would come to this paradise where she was finding rapture beyond her dreams?

“Give me your mouth, Christina,” he murmured. “I’m aching for you.”

She had the same ache and lifted her head. Their mouths met and they kissed for a long time, giving and taking, back and forth. She clung to him, needing the pleasure he gave her with every caress of his hands roaming over her back. When he moved his mouth lower, she moaned as he slowly kissed her neck and throat. Everywhere his lips touched, it brought heat that spread through her body like fire.

Without her realizing it, he’d danced them back inside. Then he swept her into his arms and followed her down on the bed. “I could eat you alive,” he whispered against her lips, and once again Christina was consumed by his kiss, hot with desire. A husband’s desire. She hadn’t known it could be like this.

“Bellissima? Tell me something. Have you ever been to bed with a man?”

The question jolted her. “No. Does my inexperience show so much?”

“Not at all. But I worried that if I’m the first man to make love to you, then I don’t want to rush you into anything. You’re so sweet, Christina. I didn’t need Elena to tell me just how sweet you really are. I want our first time to be everything for you.”

“Everything has been perfect so far,” she whispered, fearing something had to be lacking in her for him to bring it up. When he didn’t say anything, she eased away a little, but he drew her to him with her back resting against his chest.

“I’m glad, but I want to give you time to get used to me. Until you’re truly ready, let’s simply hold each other tonight. If I’d gone to Africa to see you, this is what we would have done. We have the rest of our lives and don’t need to be in a hurry.” He kissed her neck. “This is heavenly, you know? You smell and feel divine to me.”

To be held in his arms was heavenly, but little did he know she was ready! Though she loved him for trying to make their first time perfect, she was dying inside. Still, by his determination to ease her into marriage, it showed a tender side of his nature that proved what a wonderful man she’d married. How many men would care enough about their brides’ feelings to go to these lengths?

“This has been my idea of heaven, Antonio. I can’t wait until tomorrow.” Maybe tomorrow night he’d realize she didn’t want to wait a second longer.

When she awakened the next morning, she discovered her husband fast asleep. They’d slept late. Christina slid out of bed without disturbing him and rushed into the kitchen to phone Manu and order breakfast. Then she showered to get ready for the day.

With that accomplished she put on another bikini. This one had an apple-green flutter top. Both she and Elena had loved the crocheted look of the top and bottom overlying a white lining. It was more modest than many of the suits.

Since they’d probably be out in the water most of the day, she decided the best thing to do with her hair was to sweep it on top and secure it with her tortoiseshell clip. She removed her gold studs and put on a pair of tiny earrings the shape of half-moons in a green that matched her bikini.

Before going in to Antonio, she threw on a lacy white beach jacket that fell to just below her thighs. Now she was ready to greet her husband. But when she entered the bedroom, he’d turned onto his stomach and was still out for the count. Only a sheet covered his lower half. What a fabulous-looking man! She was still pinching herself to believe he was her husband.

He would need a shave, but she loved the shadow on his hard jaw. He looks were so arresting that his state of dress or his grooming didn’t matter. She’d loved the handsome eighteen-year-old prince. But over the years he’d grown into a breathtaking man no woman could be immune to.

While she sat feasting her eyes on him, she heard sounds coming from the kitchen. She got up from the side of the bed and went back to bring him their breakfast tray. She brought it in and put it on the end of the bed.

The aroma of the coffee must have awakened him. He turned on his side and opened his eyes. Between the dark fringe of his lashes, their brilliant blue color stole her breath. Antonio raised himself up on one elbow. “Well, what do we have here? Could it be the nymph from the fountain holding the seashell?”

She loved the imagery. He’d noticed the fountain sculpture in the courtyard in front of the palazzo. “Yes, sire.” His eyes darkened with emotion. “I’m here with your breakfast. Your wife told me you would awaken with a huge appetite.”

“My wife told you that? Her exact words?”

“I never lie.”

“Then will you tell her that spending the day with her yesterday was more than wonderful? But I’ll tell her just how wonderful when we’re alone again today. Those will be words for her ears only.”

Christina couldn’t prevent the blush that rose into her cheeks. “I’ll be happy to do that after I’ve served you your breakfast.” She got up and put the tray in front of him. “Do you wish me to leave? You have only to command me.”

“Then I command you to bring that chair over to the side of the bed and we’ll enjoy this food together.”

She smiled secretly and moved it next to the bed. “Your wife won’t mind?”

He flicked her an all-encompassing gaze. “She might. A woman serving me breakfast who looks as gorgeous as you might worry, so I think we’ll keep this moment to ourselves. How does that sound to you?”

She reached for a roll and bit into it. “You flatter me, sire.”

“I haven’t even started. That’s quite an outfit you’re wearing.”

Christina drank some orange juice and reached for a strip of bacon. “You like it?”

“I can’t keep my eyes off you. Do you serve all the men like that?”

“What men? You’re the only one on this whole island.”

He ate his food in record time. “That’s good because if I found out otherwise, I’d have to confine you to a room in the palace where I have the only key.”

Their conversation was getting sillier and sillier, but she loved it. She loved him.

“What are your plans for today, sire?”

“This and that.”

“Does your wife know about that?”

His eyes narrowed on her mouth. “She’ll find out.”

“I see.” Her heart jumped. “Well, if you’ve finished your breakfast, I’ll take the tray back to the kitchen.”

“Grazie. When you see her, tell her I want her to come to me. Now. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

She trembled as she reached for the tray. “Si, Your Highness.”

* * *

The second his wife left the bedroom on those long, shapely legs, Antonio headed for the shower and freshened up. Since she’d already put on her bikini, he pulled on a fresh pair of white bathing trunks. When he’d told her last night he could eat her alive, he hadn’t been kidding.

“Ciao, Antonio.” She was looking at one of the brochures while waiting for him.

“I understood you wanted to see me?” Her smile curved so seductively he wanted to throw her on the bed and stay there all day, but he resisted the urge. She was a fetching siren. Who would have guessed?

“How would you like to go to the nearby island with the waterfall? Manu says it’s a short hike, but worth it if you’re wearing tennis shoes.”

“I love hikes. I did it all over Switzerland and Kenya.”

She was amazing. “Manu told me it’s off-limits to everyone else while we’re here on our honeymoon.”

Her eyes lit up. “A whole island to ourselves? Let’s do it! I’ll pack us some food so we don’t have to come back for dinner.”

“Why not pack enough food in case we want to stay there overnight?”

“You mean sleep by the waterfall?”

He smiled at her. It was all he could think about. “Why not? Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to be Tarzan and Jane?”

She chuckled in response. “Yes. Many times.”

“We’ll take the speedboat.”

With their day decided, they packed things in the backpacks supplied by the resort, including light blankets, food and water. Antonio rang Manu to let him know where they were going. Then they left their retreat and took off for one of the dark green islands they could see in the distance that was taller than the others.

“The lagoon never changes, Antonio. It’s like eternal beauty all the time. I’ve never been this excited to do anything.”

She was reading his mind. They skimmed across the gorgeous blue water before reaching the white beach. Once they’d drunk some bottled water, they headed for the trail Manu said would be visible. Sure enough, they found it and started up the incline.

“The vegetation is so lush!” she exclaimed.

“Our own rain forest.” Their gazes clung before they got going on their trek. It took them less time to reach their destination than to have kayaked over there. Flowers grew in abundance. They spotted terns and swallows. The water came down in a stream, small at first, then widening before they reached the waterfall itself.

“Oh, Antonio—it reminds me of a waterfall scene in an old movie I once saw, but I think it was filmed in Hawaii.”

“This is as primitive as it gets.” He helped her off with her pack and gave her a long kiss. Then he removed his.

“Isn’t that spray marvelous? Look up there. If we can get on those rocks, we can ride the water down to the pool,” she said.

“Let me test the depth of it first.” He walked over to the edge and waded in the swirling water. He discovered that after a few steps there was a drop-off, but when he swam underwater he found it was only about twenty feet deep. When he emerged, he waved to her. “Come on in. It’s safe but a little cooler than the lagoon. Keep your tennis shoes on.”

For several hours they played in the water like children. Eventually they climbed up the side to reach the spot where the water from the mountain poured over the top of the rocks. He turned to his wife. “Shall we do it?”

“Yes.”

“Scared?”

“Terrified.”

“Take my hand.”

Together they moved onto the slippery rocks and before long the strength of the waterfall washed over them, plunging them down into the pool. Christina came up laughing. “Oh, Antonio—talk about a rush! This just couldn’t be real.”

He swam to her and kissed her over and over again while keeping them afloat. “We’ve found paradise, innamorata. How about one more jump, and then we’ll make camp for the night?”

Once again they hiked up the side to the top. Before they went out on the rocks, he plucked a white flower with a gardenia scent, growing on a nearby vine. He tucked it behind her ear. “Now you’re my Polynesian princess.”

Her eyes wandered over him. “I don’t ever want to go home.”

“Then we won’t.” He grabbed her hand and they inched their way onto the rocks until the force of the water took them over the edge. It was like free-falling into space until the water caught them and brought them to the surface.

Together they swam to the edge of the pool where they’d left their packs. He helped her out of the water and they proceeded to set up camp. After they’d made their bed, they put out the food. The exertion had made them hungry. They sat across from each other and ate to their hearts’ content.

He finally stretched. “I’ve never felt so good, never tasted food so good, never been with anyone I enjoyed more. In truth, I’ve never been this happy in my life.”

“I feel the same way,” she responded. “I want it to last, but I know it’s not going to.”

He shook his head. “Shh. Don’t spoil this heavenly evening. We have two more days and nights ahead of us.”

“You’re right.”

“You’ve lost your gardenia. I’m going to pick another one.” He got up and walked a ways until he found one. When he returned, he hunkered down next to her and put it behind her ear. “This is how I’m always going to remember you.”

Antonio couldn’t wait to get close to her again and cleaned up their picnic. When everything had been put away, she started to leave, but he caught her by the ankle. “Stay with me.”

“I was just going to get out of my bathing suit.”

“But I want to hold you first.” He pulled her down and rolled onto his side so he could look at her. “I’ve been waiting all day for tonight to come.”

“So have I.” Her voice throbbed.

He pulled her into him and claimed her luscious mouth that had given him a heart attack last night. “You could have no idea how much I want you. Love me, Christina. I need you.”

* * *

“Would it shock you if I told I wanted you to love me on our wedding night?” she admitted against his throat.

He let out a slight groan. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was afraid you would think I was too eager. I decided you needed time.”

Laughter broke from him. When he looked down at her, those fabulous silvery eyes were smiling. “I think that from here on out we each need to stop worrying about what the other one is thinking, and do more doing.”

“I couldn’t agree more. You drove me crazy on the way over in the jet.”

“Maybe that was a good thing,” he teased, kissing every feature on her face.

“It was painful!”

“Tesora mia,” he cried in a husky voice before starting to devour her. “I love your honesty. Come here to me.”

Christina melted in his arms and kissed him with the kind of passion he’d never imagined to find in this marriage. His heart jumped to realize he had such a loving, demonstrative wife.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ANTONIO HAD CALLED her his treasure. Christina felt cherished and desirable. His hunger aroused her to the depth of her being. This was her husband bringing her to life, shocking her, thrilling her as they found new ways to worship each other with their bodies.

His long legs trapped hers. “Why did I wait four years?”

She couldn’t have answered him if she’d wanted to. Enthralled by the things he was doing to her, Christina was too consumed by her own hunger for him. Like the spiral constellations lighting the canopy above, he sent her spiraling into another realm of existence. Throughout the hours of the night they loved fully until they finally fell asleep, only temporarily sated.

After their passion-filled night of ecstasy, she couldn’t believe they were still on earth. During the night he’d swept her to a different place, so intimate she’d wanted to stay on that sphere of euphoria forever.

She lay there wondering if last night’s lovemaking had resulted in a baby. Stranger things had happened to other women. She suddenly realized that she wanted his baby so badly she could hardly stand it.

Heat washed over her to remember what had happened between them last night. Christina wasn’t sorry that he hadn’t made love to her at first. Far from it. Last night had been magical.

Taking great care not to wake her husband and lover, she lay there looking at him. The sun was already high in the morning sky. They’d slept in late again, but it didn’t matter.

Oh, Antonio—I love you so much, you have no idea.

* * *

Antonio heard his wife sigh and glanced at her in sleep. She was the most unselfish lover he could ever have imagined. Last night she’d made him feel totally alive. Whole. When had he ever felt like this? Long after the stars had come out, they’d made love again and early this morning, again. He’d found paradise with her.

The next time he had cognizance of his surroundings, the sun was high in the sky. His wife lay on her side facing him. For a while he lay there studying her, then got to his feet and took a dip in the pool before pulling on his bathing trunks. He opened the backpack to get out some rolls and fruit. They’d need more food to stay on this island. He drank half a bottle of water while he ate.

She must have heard him and opened her eyes. “Oh—you’re up!”

“Just barely. Loving you has given me a ferocious appetite.”

She laughed. “I’m getting up, but you’ll have to turn your head.”

“Why?” he teased.

Christina blushed beautifully. “You know why.”

“I’m your husband.”

“I know, but—”

“All right. I’ll close my eyes, but I’ll give you to the count of ten to reach the water before I open them again.”

“Antonio—” she squealed.

“One, two.” He could hear the blanket rustle before she got up. A second later he heard water splashing and turned to watch her treading water. “You see? You made it.”

“If you’ll please put my bikini near the water and turn around, I’ll get dressed.”

* * *

Antonio’s deep laughter resounded through the forest. She could feel it reverberate inside her. “Anything to oblige.” He did her bidding. “I hate to tell you this, but the water is so transparent I can see you perfectly.”

“You’re no gentleman to say that to me.”

“Is that what you thought I was?” he mocked before turning his back.

She climbed out and dressed as fast as she could. When she reached him, he crushed her in his arms and gave her a kiss to die for. Then he handed her food and drink.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I wish we could stay here longer. Last night—” Her voice caught.

Their eyes met. “Last night will be burned in my memory forever, tesora.”

“Mine too.” She finished eating and started putting everything in their packs.

He worked with her. “Are you about ready?”

“Yes.”

After slipping on their tennis shoes, they started down the trail to the beach. In some parts she walked behind him, enjoying the play of muscle across his back and shoulders. Antonio had great legs for a man. In fact, there wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t perfect.

They reached the boat and loaded it. Christina helped him push it into the water, and then he helped ease her up and in before he took his place at the front. Before they took off across the lagoon, he looked back at her. As far as he could see, they were the only people out on this part of the lagoon.

“What do you want to do after we get back to the hut?” he called over his shoulder.

“I’d love to go to that coral sea garden and do some more snorkeling.”

“That makes two of us. When in our lives will we ever have a chance to see fish like this up close?”

“Probably never. I’m still pinching myself to believe there’s a spot like this on earth.”

“We’ll eat a meal and then go out for the rest of the day. Do you know what?”

“What?”

“You’re more fun than any of my friends.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it. I don’t know anyone, male or female, who loves what I love and can do everything with me and keep up.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t turn out to be like my socialite parents.”

“Thank heaven!”

Those two words warmed her heart all the way back to their island. After putting things away, they sat down to a meal, then went back out to the deck. Antonio covered her in sunscreen. His touch made her knees buckle. “Shall we stay in bed the rest of the day instead?”

Christina could hardly talk. “I’d love it, but our time here is so short, we need to take advantage of it.” She couldn’t believe she’d worried that in a week Antonio might be bored with her. Maybe it was because all the time they’d spent together in Switzerland had prepared her to be more comfortable with him where everything felt so natural.

“Just remember we’ll have all night,” he whispered against her neck. His breath sent tendrils of delight through her system. While she was still trying to recover, he got out the snorkels and fins. Once again they got into the boat and went looking for fish. The lagoon was home to so many species they had the time of their lives viewing everything.

She lost track of the time. So did Antonio. It wasn’t until they suffered hunger pains that she realized it was time to go in. When they returned to the island and were tying up the boat, Manu was there to greet them.

“You two must have had a good day to be out so long.”

Christina smiled at him. “Every day is a good day here.” But she sensed he had something else on his mind. So did Antonio.

“What’s wrong, Manu?”

“There was a call from the palace in Halencia. You are to call your sister as soon as you can. You can use the phone here and I’ll put it through for you.”

Both Christina and Antonio exchanged worried glances. Any number of things could be wrong for her to interrupt their honeymoon. “Thank you. I’ll do it as soon as we’re finished here.”

“Your dinner is in the kitchen when you want to eat.”

“You’re terrific, Manu,” she said.

After he disappeared, Antonio helped her out of the boat and they put their gear away. Already there was a change in her husband. Lines darkened his features, making him look older. They’d had an unforgettable night of loving and had been so carefree she could have cried to see that anxious look cross over his face.

Together they walked inside the bedroom of the hut, both of them still wearing their bathing suits. He turned to her. “I’m going to put on a robe, then make the call.”

While he went into the bathroom to change, she pulled out some underwear and dressed in a pair of tan shorts and a cream top. Then she hung her bikini over the outside rail to dry, all the time frightened something serious had happened back home. An accident, or worse?

Antonio came out of the bathroom and walked over to the side of the bed to the phone. She sat down next to him. He put the phone on speaker and grasped her hand while he waited for Manu to connect the call.

“Tonio?”

“Elena?” His heart was racing. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m so sorry to bother you on your honeymoon, but—”

“Is anyone ill?”

“No, no. Everyone’s fine, but there’s something you need to know. I hope you’re sitting down to hear this.”

Antonio looked at his wife, anxious for what was coming. “Go ahead.”

“I—I have to give you some background first,” she stammered. “You know that guy Rolfe? The drug addict I wish I’d never met?”

He sucked in his breath. “Yes?”

“Last week he was arrested on heavier drug charges. He called me from the jail and told me that if I didn’t help him out of the new charges, he’d tell the press everything about what happened when he was jailed the first time.”

“What?” he and Christina cried out at the same time. His thoughts were reeling.

“I thought he was high on drugs when he called me and I hung up on him. But he phoned me on the morning you were getting married and threatened me again. I told him there wasn’t anything I could do. He hung up on me telling me I’d be sorry.

“Oh, Tonio—he leaked the news about your fake engagement to the press. It’s all over the media that you thought up the bogus alliance with Christina to get me out of trouble with the police. He claimed I used drugs too and should have been jailed along with him.

“It’s gone viral too. The internet is alive with rumours that you were having an affair in California while Christina was in Africa having an affair with the doctor. He made it all up, but it’s done its damage.

“Marusha phoned me and told me she and her family are sick about this and want to know what they can do to stop it getting any worse. I don’t know what to do.

“The palace is in an uproar. Both sets of parents are beside themselves. Guido’s trying to help everything by preparing a new list of princesses. In case you can somehow salvage your reputation and get your marriage annulled, you’ll have a list of royal hopefuls to choose from. I’m fighting for you, Tonio, but I can’t do it alone.”

Pain ripped him apart. His arm went around his wife. He could only imagine how Christina was feeling right now.

“I heard Father give immediate orders for the jet to be flown to Tahiti to bring you home. It’s on its way now and will arrive at the airport at six in the morning Tahitian time. You need to be ready with a plan and come home as quickly as you can to help sort out this disaster, because that’s what it is!

“There’s a groundswell from people who don’t believe you should be crowned because of the lie. I’ve been labeled a drug addict and am the result of my parents who aren’t worthy of ruling the country. The people are afraid the lack of integrity on both your part and Christina’s has compromised everything.

“If feelings reach tipping point, the people could withdraw their support for the monarchy and this could be the end of it. The coronation has been called off until further notice.”

“No,” Christina cried out.

“Oh, Christina, I didn’t know you were listening. Let’s face it. I’m the one responsible for all this. I’m the reason any of this has happened and I feel so horrible about it I want to die. I never realized how vindictive Rolfe could be. How cruel and heartless after what you did to get him a light sentence. I spent time with him when I was at my most rebellious and wasn’t careful with the information I let out without realizing it. You and Christina have every right to hate me.”

“Of course we don’t hate you,” he ground out. “For now you’ll just have to hang on until we get back to Halencia. Trust me. We’re going to sort this out. I’ll talk to you tomorrow in person. And, Elena, never forget that we love you.”

* * *

Christina had buried her face in her hands. “Bellissima—” He took her in his arms.

Hearing that word applied to her produced a groan from her. She was so horrified over the news she felt physically ill and couldn’t form words.

His body stiffened. “I wondered what form of chicanery has been underfoot while we were on our honeymoon. It’s what I expected. I just didn’t know in the exact manner it would explode. Christina? Look at me.”

She tried, but his image was blurry.

“I know this has come as a shock, but we’re going to get through this because there’s been total honesty between us, grazie a Dio. Remember Elena needs our protection more than ever. She’s very fragile right now.”

“You’re right. I knew there was something wrong when she kept saying she hoped we’d be happy. Throughout our wedding she was terrified and had to keep all that bottled up inside. The poor thing.”

He kissed her lips. “I’ll make arrangements for the helicopter to be here at five a.m. Then you and I are going to have a long, serious talk.”

His composure under these precarious circumstances was nothing short of miraculous. The affairs of the kingdom were falling apart, yet his mastery in dealing with it was a revelation. As far as she was concerned, this was Antonio’s finest hour.

Whether she ever became queen or not, she would act like one right now because Antonio had never needed her help more to present a unified front. She knew deep down he wanted to be king in order to save his country from possible ruin. More than anything, Christina wanted that for him, whatever it took.

She grabbed two bottles of water from the refrigerator and hurried through the hut to their bedroom. While she waited for him to come, she started the packing for both of them. Five o’clock would be here soon enough. They needed to be ready to leave.

Christina lifted her head when he came into the bedroom with their dinner tray. “Did you get through to Manu?”

He nodded. “Everything is set. Since you’ve packed the bags, we can eat.” He put it on the bed. “Come on.”

She took a shaky breath. “I—I couldn’t.”

“You have to. I don’t want my wife getting sick on me. We’re on our honeymoon and I intend to enjoy it for the next six hours.”

Christina actually laughed despite her agony.

Together they got on the bed and ate. When they’d finished eating, he got up to put the tray on the table. “Excuse me a moment. I’ll be right back.”

She wondered what he was doing until she heard Tahitian music from the radio piped into their room. Once he reappeared, he turned off the lamps and crawled onto the bed beside her.

“This music is enchanting, isn’t it?” she said.

“I love it. Come here to me,” he whispered. “I need you.”

The blood pounded in her ears before she moved into his arms. “What are we going to do, Antonio?”

“We’re going to stay just like this.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, but there’s nothing to do about anything until we reach Halenica, so you’re stuck with me.”

“That’s no penance. You smell wonderful.”

“So you’ve noticed.”

She swallowed hard. “I notice everything.”

“So do I. You’re a warrior under that fiery mane.”

“What a compliment.”

“It is, because you’re going to be queen and now I know you have the steel to help me. Any other woman would have gone into hysterics a little while ago. Not you.”

She smiled in secret pleasure. “You wouldn’t let me. That’s the sign of a great king.”

“The priest’s words never had as much meaning to me until now.”

“Which words were those?”

“The part where he said ‘From this day forward you shall be each other’s home, comfort and refuge.’ Whatever we have to face when we get back home, Christina, I’m not worried because you’ve become my refuge in a very short time.”

Tears stung her eyelids. He kissed them. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s the good kind. When I’m happy, I often cry.”

“I saw tears when you looked at your parents in the chapel. What was going on in your mind?”

“That I didn’t always want to be a disappointment to them. Now that there’s a national scandal, they’ll consider that I’ve hit rock bottom.”

“If they can’t see beyond the end of their noses and recognize a hatchet job of major proportions, how sad for them. But I couldn’t be happier that you turned out just the way you are. My one regret is that we’re going to have to leave our paradise far too soon. I’ve had you all to myself since the wedding ceremony and I love the privacy so much I’m loath to give it up.”

“I feel the same. We’ve been living most people’s fantasy.”

He suddenly held her tighter and burrowed his face in her neck. “I want this fantasy to go on and on.” The longing in his voice echoed the desire of her heart. “I want you to know I’ll treasure this time together for the rest of my life.”

“I’ve loved every second of it too. Isn’t this place wonderful?”

“Yes, but it would be a waste without the right person along. We’ll come back again one day and spend time over at the coral garden. We’ll do a lot of things, but right now I just want to make love to you.”

Once again the age-old ritual began. This time Christina took the initiative to show her husband how much she loved him. She loved him in every atom of her body and poured out her feelings, wanting to take away any pain he was feeling tonight. At one point he pulled her on top of him. It was heaven to cover his face with kisses and play with his hair. He was such a beautiful man, there were no words.

“Christina? We only have a few hours before we have to return to Halencia and deal with the mess. If I’d known it was going to happen, I would have insisted we get married sooner and enjoy a month’s honeymoon at least. Now it’s too late for that.”

But before their wedding, neither of them had a clue that they would come to care for each other in so short a time. Christina was positive that flare of desire she’d felt when he kissed her at the altar had been unexpected for him too.

“Are you happy?” His voice sounded anxious. “Because I want you to be happy.”

She heard the longing and drew in a breath. “I’m happier right now than I’ve ever been in my life.”

“Grazie a Dio, because I am too. I hope our daughter has red hair like her mother.”

“Would you mind if our son has red hair instead?”

“Your hair is glorious. Why would I mind?”

“Mother wanted to turn me into a brunette.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t listen to her. When the time came, I wanted you for my bride.”

Yes. And he wound up with Christina to save his sister from disgrace. And now that the news had leaked, it was a national scandal, but he didn’t seem worried.

Their trust was on solid ground. More than ever she understood the deeper words of the priest. Be able to forgive, do not hold grudges, and live each day that you may share it together. From this day forward you shall be each other’s home, comfort and refuge, your marriage strengthened by your love and respect.

So far they’d shared each incredible day together. Their nights had been euphoric. This bedroom had become their home and refuge. She’d been able to comfort him in a way she wouldn’t have imagined. Living with Antonio was already changing her life and it frightened her that the happiness she was experiencing might be taken away from her after they returned home.

The next morning they awakened for breakfast. It had arrived with a newspaper. He pored over it.

Her heart thudded. “Anything to report about us?”

“There’s a photo of me taken at the airport. No matter how hard my father tried, the word still got out. But so far Manu has managed to keep our exact location a secret. He’s worth every Eurodollar he’s being paid.”

“Do you think your father will be upset?”

“Yes.” He flicked her a searching glance. “Are you in with me?”

“All the way. You know that.”

He put the newspaper down and moved himself away from the table. “Come out on the deck with me. I crave a walk along the beach with you before it rains.”

Her husband reached for her hand as they stepped down to the edge of the water and started walking. “With Bora Bora appearing and disappearing mystically through the clouds this morning, it looks surreal, Antonio. I feel like we’re in some primordial world. The air is so balmy it’s unreal.”

After they’d gone a ways, he stopped and grasped her arms so she faced him. “You’re so lovely you seem unreal. I need to know if I’m with a phantom wife.” In the next breath he lowered his mouth to hers and gave her the husband’s kiss she’d been dying for. Fire licked through her veins as she was caught up in his embrace. She knew he had to be in pain, but the way he was kissing her had her senses reeling.

Their bodies clung. She could feel the powerful muscles in his legs and melted against him. He released her mouth long enough to kiss her face and neck. His hands plunged into her hair before he kissed her throat, in fact, all the area of skin exposed by the sundress she was wearing home.

“Touch me,” he whispered in a ragged voice.

Succumbing to his entreaty, she wrapped her arms around his waist and heard his moan of pleasure as his mouth began devouring hers. The rain had started and was so ethereal in nature it felt more like a mist, adding to the rapture building inside her. Antonio was doing the most amazing things to her with his hands and mouth.

Too soon Manu arrived to tell them the helicopter had arrived. It was time to go.

CHAPTER EIGHT

THIRTY HOURS LATER the royal jet landed at Voti International Airport, where a helicopter was waiting to fly them to the palace. To their relief, no press was allowed on the tarmac.

During the times throughout the flight while Christina napped, Antonio had talked with his sister at length to get her to stop blaming herself. During the night his wife had been restless and couldn’t sleep. They were flying home to a hornet’s nest. She was holding her own, but he knew the emotions of his brave, beautiful wife were in turmoil.

At one o’clock that afternoon the helicopter landed on the back lawn of the palace closed to the public. He helped her down and they hurried toward the south entrance with several staff members bringing their luggage.

They rushed up the grand staircase to the second floor of the east wing. When he reached the doors of his apartment, he picked her up again like a bride.

“Antonio—” She hid her head against his shoulder. “We’ve already done this once.”

“I don’t care. I might feel like doing it every time we come in.” Before she could say another word, he silenced her with a kiss because he couldn’t help himself. She’d become the drug in his system. Her response electrified him. At this point he needed to be with her inside their home away from the world and make love to his wife.

After managing to open one of the two tall, palatial doors, he swept her through the apartment to the bedroom and followed her down on the bed. The staff knew better than to do anything but place the suitcases inside the main doors and leave them alone.

“Welcome to my world, Christina de L’Accardi. Besides family, you’re the first and only woman I’ve ever brought here. It’s always been a lonely place for me. Now it’s going to be our home.” It was liberating to crush her against him. One kiss turned into another. She wanted him as much as he wanted her.

Like clockwork both his cell phone and room phone started ringing. He moaned aloud before continuing to kiss her, but the ringing persisted until she tore her lips from his. “Of course everyone knows we’re back, Antonio,” she said out of breath. “You at least have to say hello.”

“That’s all I’ll say.” He sat up and reached for the bedside phone first, impatient because of the interruption of civilization. Being away from technology for a few days had been the best thing that could have happened to them. “Pronto—”

“Come sta, figlio mio?”

He looked at his wife, whose silvery eyes fastened on him still had the glaze of desire burning in their depths. His fingers ran over her lips. “Christina and I have been to heaven thanks to your generosity, Papa. But we were called back to earth too soon.”

“I’m thrilled you’ve had a wonderful time, but now we must talk.”

“Not now, Papa. My wife and I need the rest of this day together.”

“But there’s a crisis.”

His muscles clenched. “So I’ve been informed, but nothing’s more important than my time with her. I promise I’ll take care of things starting tomorrow. Give my love to Mama. Ciao.”

Christina chuckled. “You’ll have to answer your cell phone or it will never stop.” Letting out another sound of frustration, he reached in his pants pocket and pulled it out. When he saw the caller ID, he didn’t mind answering.

“Zach!”

“I’m glad you answered. Where are you?” His friend sounded more than anxious.

He smiled down at Christina. “We’ve just entered our humble home after being flown to paradise and back.” She kissed his fingers.

“I’ve never thought of Paris as paradise.”

“No. Bora Bora. A surprise wedding gift from my parents. You should take Lindsay there. You’d never want to come back.”

“Antonio? Is this really you? You sound strange, like you’re on something.”

He grinned. “I’ve been drugged all right.” A laugh came out of his wife. “Listen, I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“But you’ve got problems, buddy. Big problems.”

“My other half is going to help me solve them.”

“But she’s part of the problem, if you get my meaning,” Zach said, lowering his voice.

“You’ve got that wrong. She’s the solution, but I appreciate your concern. You’re the best friend a man ever had next to his wife. Ciao.”

No sooner had he hung up to indulge himself with his beautiful bride than Christina’s cell phone rang. She had to get off the bed for the purse she’d accidentally dropped on the inlaid wooden flooring while her husband was carrying her.

She didn’t need to look at the caller ID to know who it was. Might as well get this over now. “Pronto?”

“Christina?” Her mother sounded mournful rather than angry. “Is it true that you had an affair while you were engaged to Antonio?”

She held her breath. “If I tell you that was a lie, would you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“Would Father?”

“I—I can’t speak for him. What are you going to do?”

Her mother sounded as though she really cared. “It’s up to Antonio.”

“Just remember I’m here for you if you need me.”

For her mother to say that was astounding to Christina. “Thank you, Mama. We’ll talk later.”

Antonio’s arms were locked around her from behind. But for once she didn’t feel like crawling into a dark hole never to come out again. She turned to Antonio. “Mother just gave me her support.”

“It’s about time, but don’t forget you’ve got me now.”

“I know.” She lifted her mouth to kiss him, but there was a knocking on the outer doors, loud enough to reach their ears in the bedroom. “Tonio? It’s me,” Elena cried. “Can I come in? It’s an emergency!”

“Tell her to come,” Christina urged him. “She’s been waiting for us.”

He gave her another hug before they both hurried through the apartment to greet his sister.

When he opened the door, they barely recognized Elena, who’d been crying for so long her blue eyes were puffy and her face had gone splotchy. “I’m so glad you’re home.” She threw herself into Antonio’s arms and sobbed.

Christina closed the door and the three of them went into the living room. When he let her go, she turned to Christina. As they hugged, his sister had another explosion of tears.

“Elena—it’s going to be all right. Come and sit down on the couch.” She drew her by the hand. Antonio sat in the love seat near them.

She brushed the tears from her cheeks. “I have something to tell both of you. Marusha and I have had a long talk. Her husband found out through another doctor that before Roger left Africa, he got drunk and told things to the doctor that were supposed to be kept quiet. But the other doctor was unscrupulous and leaked it to the news.”

Christina shook her head. “I should never have gone out with him.”

Antonio stood up. “If we all keep blaming ourselves for everything, nothing will be accomplished. What’s done is done.”

“There’s more,” Elena admitted.

He took a deep breath. “Go on.”

“I broke down and told our parents why you and Christina got engaged. I also told them Christina had never slept with that doctor. It was pure fabrication.”

“It’s all right, Elena. The truth will free all of us.”

His wife was so right!

He’d already known that Christina hadn’t given herself to the doctor. Antonio had been stunned at the time and overjoyed.

“They think you’re both so noble,” Elena kept on. “Our parents are prepared to do anything to help you. But as you know, they’ve lost Guido’s respect and he has powerful friends in the council who are ready to abolish the monarchy altogether. Some of the others wanting to keep the monarchy alive have prevailed on the archbishop to grant an annulment so you can remarry. There’s a list of titled women they’re vetting now with Princess Gemma at the top.”

Filled with joy that Christina was his wife, Antonio stopped pacing. “No. That isn’t going to happen. I’ve got plans, ideas to build the economy. Christina and I plan to enlarge the African charity to make it far-reaching. I have a new jobs initiative to help us become a leader in technology. Scandal has rocked this nation for years, but we’ll weather it. We have to.”

Elena stared at him as if she’d never seen him before.

His wife got up from the couch and stood in front of him, wearing the same white suit she’d worn on the plane to Tahiti. “We will.”

Two beautiful words from the mouth of the woman he couldn’t imagine living without. He kissed her in front of his sister before walking over to Elena and pulling her to her feet. “I’m glad the truth is out, all of it.” He gave her a hug. “Everything is going to work out.”

“It’s got to, because I love you two so much.”

Antonio looked at his clever, adorable wife. She was so remarkable he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to be married to her.

He brushed his sister’s cheek with his finger. “So, what is the latest between you and Enzio?”

“We’re good.”

“Just good.”

“Um, very good.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“But you don’t need to hear about my love life right now. I’m going to leave you to your privacy and will talk to you later.”

They both hugged her before she hurried out of the apartment. He put his arm around Christina’s waist and walked her back to the bedroom. “Before we do anything else, I need to take another look at your foot. Why don’t you get undressed first? I want to make certain it is healing properly.”

“This is almost like déjà vu.”

While she started to take off her top and pants, her phone rang again. She’d left it on the end of the bed. “Let me get this first.” The caller ID said it was her great-aunt calling.

She clicked on. “Sofia?”

“Welcome home, darling. How was your trip?”

“Heavenly.”

“But you’ve come home to a viper’s nest. I know something that you don’t and I’m calling to warn you.”

Antonio came to stand next to her.

She gripped the phone harder. “What is it?”

“I’ve spent part of the day with your parents. Your father has left for the palace to talk to you. I tried in my own way to ask him to wait until tomorrow, but you know how he is.”

Yes… Christina knew exactly.

“For once in your life, darling, stand up to him and don’t let him bully you. He’s like his father and grandfather, born mean-spirited.”

This conversation meant her father was furious. “He’s a hard man to confront because he doesn’t have a soft side.”

“Unfortunately your mother has always been too afraid of him to intercede for you.”

Her eyes filmed over. “I always had you, Aunt Sofia.”

“And you’ve been one of my greatest joys.”

“Thank you for alerting me.”

“If there’s anything I can do…”

Christina turned to Antonio. “My husband and I are prepared to face whatever is coming. I love you so much for caring. Talk to you again soon.” She clicked off.

“What’s going on?” he murmured.

“My father is on his way over to talk to me.”

“I won’t leave you alone with him.”

She loved Antonio for saying that. “Knowing his style of quick attack, he won’t be here long. Do you mind if we talk in the living room?”

“Of course not. This is our home. You can have anyone you want here, anytime.”

“Thank you.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him.

“I’ll go downstairs to my office and talk to my executive assistant. If you need me, I’ll be here in an instant.” She nodded. He put on a fresh sport shirt and left the apartment. Antonio was far too handsome for his own good.

This was her first chance to walk around her new home. The palace was a magnificent structure. Antonio’s apartment was bigger than any home she’d ever been in. Already she knew her favorite place would be the terrace overlooking the water.

To think Antonio had been born here and had lived here until he was old enough to be sent away to schools and college. There was so much to learn about him as a child as well as an adult, but she couldn’t concentrate when she knew her father would be coming any minute.

The phone on the bedside table rang. She walked over to pick it up. “Yes?”

“Princess Christina? This is the office calling. Your father is here to speak to you.”

“Can you send him to our apartment?”

“Si, signora.”

“Grazie.”

“Prego.”

Five minutes later she heard the knock on the door and opened it to see her father standing there. “Come into the living room, Papa.”

He looked around while he followed her, but he didn’t take a seat when she suggested it.

“Where’s your husband?”

“In his office downstairs.”

“What I have to say won’t take long.”

It never does.

His eyes glittered with anger. “If you want to do one thing to restore the name Rose in people’s estimation, you’ll leave Antonio for the good of the monarchy.”

“I thought you wanted a king for a son-in-law.”

He stared at her. “Not when his queen dishonored him by being with another man during the engagement. The people will forgive him, but they’ll never forgive you.”

She lifted her chin. “I didn’t dishonor him. Is that all you came to say?”

His lips thinned. “Use the one shred of decency left in you to allow Antonio to rule with the right queen at his side. He may stand by you now, but in time doubts will creep in, and doubt can ruin a marriage faster than anything else. Let him marry Princess Gemma.”

“Antonio didn’t want her the first time around. He chose me.”

Her father’s cheeks grew ruddy. “The archbishop will sanction a divorce since the marriage was fraudulent and your behavior during the engagement has painted you an immoral woman. You have one more opportunity in your life to right a tremendous wrong. Then public sentiment will end up being kind to you.”

“So if I do that and bow out of his life, will you forgive me for being born a woman instead of a man and be kind to me?”

“The one has nothing to do with the other.”

Her breath caught. “You mean that no matter what I do, there can be no forgiveness from you in this life?”

“You always were a difficult child.”

She stiffened and fought her tears. “I’m your daughter. Yours and Mother’s. I wanted your love. I wanted your acceptance. I tried everything under the sun to be the child you could love.”

“We gave you everything, didn’t we?” He turned to leave.

“Papa—”

Halfway out the door he said, “Has he told you he loves you? Because if he hasn’t, then you need to do the right thing. If you don’t know what is in Antonio’s heart, why take the risk?”

Beyond tears, she walked out to the terrace, clutching her arms to her waist. The warning phone call from her aunt Sofia hadn’t helped. She’d been thrown into a black void. Antonio had never said he loved her. She hadn’t expected him to love her, but that was before they’d gone to Tahiti together and she’d found rapture with him.

If she truly didn’t know what was in Antonio’s heart, then was it a risk to stay in the marriage as her father said?

After standing there for a while, she went back to the bedroom and called the palace switchboard. “Would you connect me with the palace press secretary please?”

“Si.”

In a minute a male voice came on the line.

“This is Princess Christina. I have a statement to come out on the evening news. I’ll have it sent to your office by messenger. If you value your job, you’ll tell no one. I mean, not a single soul.”

“Capisco, Princess.”

She hung up and went into the den, where she wrote out what she wanted to say. It didn’t take long. After putting the note in an envelope and sealing it, she phoned the charity foundation in Voti. Arianna, the manager, answered the phone. Thank heaven she was still there.

“Christina? I can’t believe you’re calling. I thought you were on your honeymoon.”

“We’re back. I need a favor from you. A big one. Can you stop what you’re doing right now and drive to the west gate of the palace?”

“Well, yes.”

“I’ll be waiting. This is an emergency.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Bless you.”

She hung up and started throwing the things she’d need for overnight in her large tote bag. There was always money in her bank account and she had her passport. Without stopping to think, she left the apartment and hurried down the long hall of the west wing to the staircase.

When she reached the main doors, she stopped to talk to one of the guards. “Would you see that the palace press secretary receives this immediately?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

Then she passed through the doors to the outside where another guard was on duty. “If the prince wonders where I am, tell him that an emergency came up at the charity foundation in town. One of my head people is picking me up so we can deal with it. I’ll phone the prince later, but he’s in meetings right now and can’t be disturbed.”

“Capisco.”

So far, so good. She rushed outside and waited under the portico until she saw Arianna’s red Fiat. Christiana hurried around the passenger side and got in. “You are an angel, Arianna, and I’ll give you a giant bonus.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Back to the foundation.” She put on her sunglasses. It only took a few minutes to reach the building. “Why don’t you go on home? I’ll be working late and will lock up again.”

“All right.”

“This is for your trouble.” She handed her a hundred Eurodollars and got out of the car. When her friend drove off smiling, Christina hailed a taxi and asked to be driven to the ferry terminal. There were ferries leaving on the hour for Genoa during the summer.

She paid the driver, then hurried inside and bought a ticket. Within twenty minutes she walked onto the ferry and sat on a bench as it made its way to the port in Genoa. From there she transferred to the train station and caught the next train going to Monte Calanetti via Siena. So far no one had recognized her because pictures of her wedding to Antonio hadn’t been given to the press.

When it pulled in to the station, she phoned Louisa.

“Dear friend?” she said when Louisa answered.

“Christina?”

“Yes. I’m in Monte Calanetti. Do you have room for a visitor?”

“Did I just hear you correctly?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I have room!” No doubt Louisa figured correctly that there’d been trouble since their flight back from Tahiti. “You can stay in the bridal suite for as long as you want.”

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ll be there soon and tell you everything.”

As the taxi drove her to the Palazzo di Comparino, she turned off her phone. No one knew where she’d gone and that was the way she wanted things to stay.

* * *

Antonio had spent more time in his office than he’d meant to. He’d given Christina as much time as she needed to be with her father. After taking care of some business matters, he hurried to his wing of the palace. He planned to order a special dinner for them and eat out on the terrace. Having to come home early had robbed them of another precious night in Bora Bora, but tonight he intended to make up for everything. The need to make love to his wife was all he could think about.

“Christina?” There was no answer. He walked through to their bedroom. She wasn’t there. Maybe she’d gone exploring, but she hadn’t left a note. It was possible that after being with her father she’d gone to visit Elena. He phoned his sister. “Does Christina happen to be with you?”

“No.”

“Hmm. I was doing a little business, but she’s not here.”

“She loves the outdoors. Maybe she took a walk outside to the kennel. That’s what we usually do when she visits me. You know how much she adores animals.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

He put through a call to the kennel, but no one had seen her.

Angry with himself for not putting a security detail on her first thing, he phoned the head of palace security. “Alonzo? I’m looking for Princess Christina. Find out where she is and let me know ASAP. I want surveillance on her twenty-four-seven starting now.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

He put off ordering dinner and hurried downstairs to the palace’s main office. “Did anyone here see Princess Christina’s father arrive?”

One of them nodded. “The princess asked that he be shown to your apartment. About twenty minutes later he passed by the office and left the grounds in a limousine.”

More than frustrated at this point, Antonio headed for Alonzo’s office. “Any news about her yet?”

Alonzo shook his head. “We’re still vetting everyone on the force. Some of them went off shift at five o’clock and we’re still trying to reach them for information.”

He frowned. She wouldn’t have gone to his parents’ apartment, would she? He called them on the chance that she was there for some reason. But they had nothing to tell him.

Definitely worried now, he put through a call to Christina’s parents. He should have tried there first. Her father got on the other extension. “Your Highness?”

“I’m looking for my wife. If you have any idea where she is, I’d like you to tell me now. The last anyone saw of her was you.”

“You mean she’s missing?”

His anger was approaching flash point. “What did you say to her?”

“The only thing a good father could say to his daughter. Do the right thing.”

Antonio saw red. He clicked off and spun around in fury. It was almost nine o’clock. Could she have flown to Nairobi without telling him?

Frantic, he asked Alonzo for his men to check the airport to see if she’d flown out. Within a few minutes the news came back that she hadn’t boarded any planes going anywhere.

“Hold on, Antonio. There’s another report coming in. The guard at the west gate saw her leave the palace grounds in a red Fiat before he went off duty just before five. He had no idea you were looking for her. She told him she was going to the charity foundation to take care of an emergency and didn’t want you to worry.”

His hands balled into fists. “Find out if she’s still there! We need to call all the girls working there to find out who drove the Fiat.”

Before long the report came back that the building was closed for the night. No sign of Princess Christina anywhere. In another minute they had a woman on the line. Antonio took the call. “Arianna?”

“Your Highness. I didn’t realize you were looking for her. When I dropped her off in front of the building, she said she was going to work in there for a while and that I should go home.”

“So you have no idea where she went, or if she even went inside.”

“No. I’m so sorry.”

“What state was she in?”

“She definitely had an agenda and asked me to hurry, but that’s all.”

“Thank you, Arianna.”

He handed the phone back to Alonzo.

Where are you, Christina. What did your father say to turn you inside out?

While he stayed there in agony, wondering where to turn next, the press secretary, Alonzo, came hurrying into the office. “Your Highness?”

Antonio turned to him. “Do you have news about the princess?”

His face had gone white. “I do. She told me if I said anything I’d lose my job, but I can’t let you suffer like this.”

“What do you know?”

“She handed me an envelope and wanted the television anchor to read her statement during the ten o’clock news.”

“She what?”

He nodded. “It’ll be on every network in five minutes in every country in the world.”

Alonzo turned on the big-screen television in his office. Antonio felt so gutted he started to weave.

“Better sit down, Your Highness.”

“I’ll be all right.” His heart plummeted to his feet as he saw the words breaking news flash across the screen.

Suddenly the female news anchor appeared. “There’s huge news breaking from the royal palace in Voti, Halencia, tonight, threatening to rock the already shaky monarchy decimated by scandal. It is struggling to stay alive in a nation so divided that one wonders what the ultimate outcome will be.

“I have in front of me a statement that Princess Christina, recently married in a private ceremony to Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi, has asked the press to read. These are her words and I quote. ‘Dear citizens of Halencia. It is with the greatest sadness that I, Princess Christina de L’Accardi, am removing myself from the royal family to end the bitter conflict. I confess that although my relationship with Prince Antonio started out as a publicity stunt for reasons I don’t intend to go into, I want everyone to know I love my new husband with every fiber of my being. A man with his integrity doesn’t come along every day, or even in a lifetime. I knew him when we were both teenagers. Even then he showed a love and loyalty to his country that put others to shame. I want everyone to know he’s the light of my life and my one true love. But I’m sorry that it isn’t enough for the people of Halencia.’”

Christina…his heart cried.

“Wow! How’s that for a heartfelt confession from the ‘Cinderella Bride’ as the nation has called her? Her charity in Africa has gained international attention. I have to admit I’m moved by her sacrifice and graciousness. That doesn’t happen to me very often. Stay tuned for news coming from the palace as the fallout from her surprising statement is felt throughout the country and the world.

“There’s no word from the prince or his family about this shocking development. You’ll have to stayed tuned when more news will be forthcoming.”

The television was shut off. Alonzo eyed Antonio with concern. “We’ll find her. Just give us time.”

“Thank you, Alonzo.” But he knew the damage had been done when her father talked to her. He’d done such an expert job of destroying her that Antonio doubted Christina might ever come out of hiding.

As he left the office and started up the staircase for his apartment on legs that felt like lead, his phone started ringing. He looked down. Good old faithful Zach. He clicked on.

“Antonio?”

“Si?”

“What a hell of a mess.”

“That doesn’t even begin to cover it,” he half groaned.

CHAPTER NINE

September, Voti, Halencia

AFTER HIS SPEECH, Antonio stood before the divided government assembly to answer questions.

“With all due respect, Your Highness, Princess Christina has graciously stepped aside to appease those voices who still want you to rule, but with someone more befitting to be your consort. Why won’t you listen to reason?”

His anger was acute. “What princess on your short list has devoted half her life to charity and worked among the poverty-stricken in Africa with no thought for herself? What princess would willingly give up the title of queen in order not to stand in the way of her husband?”

The room grew quiet.

“My wife hasn’t made excuses or defended herself, so I’ll do it for her. This so-called affair of hers was in truth a friendship, nothing more, but trust evil to find its way to do its dirty work. She remained true to our engagement. So I’ll say it again. If I can’t rule with Christina at my side, then I have no desire to rule. Therefore I’ve given orders that there’ll be no coronation.”

A loud roar of dissent from that part of the council loyal to him and the crown got to their feet, but he was deaf to their cries.

“But, Your Highness—”

Antonio ignored the minister of finance, his good friend, who was calling to him and stormed out of the council meeting. He walked out of chambers and headed straight for his office down the hall of the palace.

“Roberto?” he barked.

“Your Highness?” His assistant’s head came up.

“Call the press secretary and ask him to come in here right away. No one is to disturb us, do you understand?”

“Si.” He picked up the phone immediately.

Antonio went into his private suite and slammed the door, but he was too full of adrenaline to sit. With Christina’s stunning press statement read over the airwaves three weeks ago, plus her disappearance that had come close to destroying him, the joy he’d experienced on his honeymoon had vanished. He felt as if he’d been shoved down a pit and was falling deeper and deeper with no end in sight.

Within a few hours of searching for her that night, Alonzo’s security people had tracked his wife to the Palazzo di Comparino. Apparently Louisa had taken her in. His clever, resourceful wife had made her getaway so fast by car, taxi, ferry and train that it had knocked the foundation from under him.

There’d been no word from her for the past desolate three weeks, but he hadn’t expected any. Her father had made certain of that. With her press statement ringing out over the land, she would never come to him now. Meanwhile, Antonio had made a firm decision. He’d meant what he’d just said before the council. If he didn’t have her at his side, he didn’t want to be king at all.

For the first time in his life he was doing what he wanted, and he wanted Christina. No amount of argument could persuade him to change his mind. Being reminded by Guido that Christina had decided to sacrifice her own heart for Antonio’s reputation and the country had only made him fall harder for his wife, if that was possible.

Roberto buzzed him that the press secretary was outside. Antonio told him to send him in.

When the other man entered the room looking sheepish, Antonio said, “Do you want to redeem yourself?”

“Anything, Your Highness.”

“I want you to arrange a press conference for me on the steps of the palace in approximately one hour.”

“I’ll do it at once, Your Highness.”

* * *

Louisa had turned the sitting room at the palazzo into a TV room. Christina was grateful, since it was the only way she got information from the outside world. The rest of the times she took long walks and coordinated charity business with the foundations in both Halencia and Nairobi.

Between Marusha and Elena, she was kept apprised of their news. Marusha was pregnant after suffering two miscarriages. Christina couldn’t be happier for her. Elena’s boyfriend, Enzio, wanted to marry her, but it meant talking to her parents first and she was nervous about that.

Though there was plenty of talk because Louisa had constant visitors, no one mentioned Antonio in her presence. Her aching heart couldn’t have handled talking about him. Marusha begged her to come back to Africa. She would always have a home waiting. Christina told her she’d be coming in a few days. She’d outstayed her welcome with Louisa. It was time to go.

This afternoon both love-smitten Daniella and Marianna had come over for an evening with the girls. Christina had the suspicion Louisa was trying to cheer her up. She loved her for it and it was fun for all of them to get together.

Louisa poured wine from the vineyard and showed off her expertise about the vintage. Christina was impressed that she knew so much about it. Nico definitely had something to do with it.

Dinner wouldn’t be for another couple of hours. Christina wasn’t a wine drinker, but this afternoon was special, so she joined in with the others to take a sip.

Marianna smiled. “Hey, you guys—want to know a little gossip? I overheard Connor and Isabella talking wedding plans with Lindsay.”

“I knew it!” Louisa said while everyone cheered. “Oh—it’s time for the six o’clock news.”

“Do we care?” Daniella interjected.

“I do,” Louisa exclaimed. She hurried over to the TV and turned it on. Christina was secretly glad, since it was the only way she had of knowing what was going on at the palace. Her heart was broken for Antonio, who was having to carry on through the fight to determine the destiny of his country.

“Buonasera. Tonight we have more breaking news coming from the royal palace in Voti, Halencia. Crown Prince Antonio de L’Accardi has broken his long silence and has prepared a statement, which we will bring to you from the front steps of the royal palace.”

The image flashed to a somber Antonio in a dark blue suit who was so gorgeous that Christina feared her heart would give out. The girls grew quiet as all eyes were focused on him.

“Fellow countrymen and women, these have been dark times for the crown and it’s time for the conflict to end. I’ll be brief. As I told the National Council this morning, I dare any tabloid to come after me or my wife again.”

What? Christina shot to her feet.

“I admit that our engagement was originally a strategic move, but having spent time with Christina, I realize what an amazing person she is, how kind, generous and charitable she is, and how lucky this country is to have her as queen! I defy anyone to call our marriage a fake. To me it’s the most real and true relationship I’ve ever had. So I’ll tell you what I told the council. I’m in love with my wife and will not be giving her up, even if it means losing the throne!”

Christina was shaking so hard she might have fallen if she’d hadn’t been holding on to the chair. The girls stared at her in wonder.

Louisa smiled at her. “Every woman in the world with eyes in her head would love to be in your shoes right now, Christina Rose.”

She nodded. “I’d like to be in them too, but he’s not here.”

Footsteps coming from the hall caused them to turn. Christina came close to fainting when Antonio walked in. “Who says I’m not?”

“Antonio,” she gasped. “But you were just on television.” He was dressed in a sport shirt and chinos instead of his dark suit.

“That was taped at noon. This afternoon the council reassembled and voted unanimously for our marriage to stand. The coronation will take place in two weeks. Once I was given the news, I flew here in the helicopter. It’s standing by for me to take you back to the palace.”

By now the girls were on their feet, hugging her and each other for joy.

Christina watched as her husband in all his male glory walked over to her. His brilliant blue eyes blinded her with their heat.

“H-how did you know I was here?”

“Palace security traced you once we heard from the guard that you’d left the grounds with Arianna.”

“I thought I was being so careful.”

“You were. For a few hours your disappearance gave me a heart attack. Since we’d barely returned from Bora Bora, I hardly think that’s fair. Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Her love for him was bursting out of her. “I promise.”

In front of everyone he picked her up in his arms as he’d done twice before. “Excuse us, ladies. We have very personal matters of state to discuss and must get back to the palace. The limo is waiting for us.”

Heat flooded her body as he carried her out of the room and the palazzo. After helping her into the car, he told the driver to head for Monte Calanetti before crushing her in his arms. “You don’t have to worry about the state of our marriage, cara. I’m madly in love with you and this is a new day.”

Christina was euphoric during their flight to Voti. Once they touched ground and were driven to the palace, he swept her along to their home on the second floor. Again he gathered her in his arms and carried her through to their bedroom.

After following her down onto the bed, he began kissing her. They were starving for each other. Christina couldn’t get enough of him fast enough. Everything that had kept them apart had been cleared away. She was able to give him all the love she’d stored up in her heart and body.

The next morning she heard a sound of satisfaction as he pulled her on top of him. Their night of lovemaking had appeased them for a little while. She sat up and looked at their clothes strewn all over the floor.

Antonio pulled her back down. “I’m in love with you, Christina. So terribly in love with my red-haired beauty I’ll never get over it. You believe me, don’t you?”

There was a vulnerability about the question that touched her heart. “I feel your love in every atom of my body, my darling. Is there any doubt how I feel about you after last night? I need you desperately and want your baby.”

“Anything to oblige the woman who has made me thankful I was born a man.”

“I loved you from the time I was fifteen, but I never dared admit it to myself because—”

Another kiss stifled any words. “We’re never going to talk about past sadness. When I called your father to find out what he said to you, he gave me the answer and I had a revelation of what it was like to grow up with him. All we can do is feel sorry for him. I believe your mother has always been afraid of him.”

“I know you’re right.” Just when Christina didn’t think she could love him anymore, he said or did something that made her love for him burn hotter. “I can’t wait to thank your parents for Bora Bora.”

“They’ve always lived their life over-the-top, but there’s one thing they did I’ll always be thankful for. They wanted us to find love.”

“Yes, darling, and we found it there.”

He kissed her neck and shoulders. “I’m the happiest man alive.”

“Are you ready for a little more happy news?”

“What?”

“Enzio has asked Elena to marry him.”

Antonio grinned. “He’s a brave man to want to take her on.”

“She’s worth the risk. Guess what else? Marusha is expecting a baby.” Christina kissed every feature. “I can’t wait until we can announce we’re having our own baby.”

“I’m going to do my best to make that happen. I know now the one thing missing in my life was you and the family we’re planning to have. We should have gotten married instead of engaged.”

“I think about that too, all the time. But I don’t think we were destined to get together until the time was right. We both had work to do first.”

Antonio rolled her over and looked down at her. “You’re the most beautiful sight this man has ever seen. I love you, tesoro mio. Never leave me.”

“You know why I did.”

A pained look entered his eyes. “The last three weeks have been the worst of my entire life.”

“For me too. But as you said, no concentrating on past sorrows. We’re together now and I’m able to live every day and night with the prince of my heart.”

While they were talking, the house phone rang. She eyed her husband. “That’s probably Guido wanting to know when you’re free to discuss royal business. You better put him out of his misery.”

Antonio grinned and picked up. “Pronto.”

“Your Highness, Princess Christina’s mother is asking if she can talk to her daughter in private.”

He covered the mouthpiece. “Christina?” Curious, she looked at him. He stared into her eyes with concern. “Your mother wants to talk to you.”

She swallowed nervously. “Is she on the phone?”

“No. It’s Guido. What do you want to do?”

“I’ll take the call.”

He handed her the receiver. “Guido?”

“Your mother asks if she can come to your apartment to talk to you.”

She blinked. “Now?”

“She’s says it’s of vital importance.”

“Then have someone show her up.”

“Very well.”

Antonio had picked up on the conversation. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. My mother let me know she’s on our side. Why don’t you order breakfast while I talk to her in the living room? She won’t be here very long, no matter what is on her mind.”

He pressed a swift kiss to her lips and did her bidding. As for herself, Christina could have changed into an outfit, but she decided the robe was perfectly presentable. Before long she heard a knock on the main door.

Sucking in her breath, she opened it. Her mother always looked impeccably dressed and coiffed. But Christina knew right away something was wrong when she saw the tears in her eyes. “Come in.”

But she just stood there.

“Mother?”

She shook her head. “I thought I could do this, but I can’t.” She started to turn away.

“Can’t do what?” Christina asked, causing her mother to stop.

“Ask your forgiveness, but I don’t have the right. I lost the right years ago. I knew your father must have had emotional problems when you were born. He wanted to give you up for adoption because you weren’t a boy. I purposely prevented any more pregnancies in case I had another girl.”

Christina was aghast at what she was hearing, but it made sense when she considered what her great-aunt Sofia had told her about the Rose men.

“I bargained with him that I wanted to keep you, and he wouldn’t be sorry. That’s why I kept you away. But you’ll never know my shame for what I’ve done.” She hung her head.

“I may have given birth to you, and your father may have provided you with everything, but you didn’t have parents who showed you the love and devotion you deserved.”

Christina stood there in shock as her mother broke down and sobbed.

“I’ll never be forgiven for what I did to you. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but you’re my sweet, darling girl. I love you, Christina. My pride in you is fierce. Just know that I loved you from the moment you were born and I wanted you to hear it from me. I won’t bother you again.”

“Mother? Don’t say that. I want us to have the relationship we never had. It’s never too late,” Christina said in a tremulous voice. “What you’ve told me about Papa changes everything.”

Her mother turned to her with a face glistening in tears. “You mean you don’t hate me with every fiber of your being? I would, because I’m not the great person you are.”

“Oh, Mama—”

Christina reached for her and hugged her until her mother reciprocated. They clung for a long time. With every tear her mother shed, Christina felt herself healing. “We’ll invite you over for dinner in a few weeks. I’ll be cooking.” She kissed her mother on both cheeks. “Dry your tears and I’ll see you soon.”

“Bless you, figlia mia.”

* * *

On Coronation Day bells rang out through the whole of Voti as Antonio and Christina left the cathedral and climbed into the open carriage. The massive throng roared, “Long live King Antonio and Queen Christina! Long live the monarchy!” They chanted the words over and over as the horses drew the carriage through the street lined with cheering Halencians.

The day had turned out to be glorious. Christina thought her heart was going to burst with happiness. Every few minutes someone called out, “Queen Christina!” When she turned, people were taking pictures.

Antonio sat next to her and squeezed the hand that wasn’t waving. “You know what they want, bellissima.”

She looked back at him. “You mean a kiss? I want it much more.” Showing breathtaking initiative that would probably cause her to blush later, she kissed him several times to the joy of the crowds.

The capital city of Halencia teemed with joyful faces and shouts of “Long live the monarchy.”

“Your country loves you, darling. You don’t know how magnificent you looked when the archbishop put that crown on your head.”

“It’s a good thing I didn’t have to keep wearing it. How does yours feel?”

“I like the tiara. It’s light.”

“Your hair outshines its gleam.”

They were both wearing their wedding clothes. The only thing different was the red sash on Antonio proclaiming him king.

“We made a lot of promises today.” She kept waving. So did he.

“Are you worried?”

“No, but the sun is hot,” he muttered. Their procession went on for over an hour.

Christina laughed. “I feel it too. But don’t worry. We’ll make it through and be alone later.”

“I can’t wait.”

Eventually the carriage returned them to the palace. On their way up to the balcony off the second floor, Antonio summoned Guido to bring them a sandwich and a drink. The chief of staff, who’d chosen to stay on with Antonio, looked shocked, but he sent someone for the food.

Antonio whispered in her ear, “Did you see that look he gave us?”

“We’re breaking royal protocol, darling.”

“We’ll be breaking a lot of rules before my reign has come to an end.”

She shivered. “Don’t talk about that. I can’t bear the thought of it.”

When the sandwich arrived, they both ate a half and swallowed some water. Feeling slightly more refreshed, they walked out onto the balcony to the roar of the crowd.

To please them her husband kissed her again with so much enthusiasm she actually swayed in his arms. A thunderous roar of satisfaction broke from the enormous throng that filled every square inch of space.

Once the royal photographers had finished taking pictures, Antonio grasped her hand. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To our home for some R and R until the ball this evening.”

“But we’re supposed to mingle with all the dignitaries.”

“There’ll be time for that tonight.”

She hurried along with him, out of breath by the time they reached their apartment. When they entered, they discovered a lavish meal laid out for them in the dining room.

“Who arranged for this, darling?” she asked.

“My mother. She said it would be an exhausting day and we’d need it.”

“I think she’s wonderful.”

Once in the bedroom, she removed her tiara and asked him to undo the buttons of her wedding dress. “That didn’t take long. You did that so fast I’m afraid you’ve lost interest already. Last time you took forever.”

“I hope it drove you crazy.” He bit her earlobe gently when he’d finished. “Did it?”

“I’ll never tell.”

Antonio caught her to him and rocked her in his arms for a long, long time.

“Your capacity to love is a gift,” he whispered against her cheek. “I don’t know how I was the one man on earth lucky enough to be loved by you. I’m thankful your mother came to see you on the day we got back from Tuscany. She was able to answer the question that’s always been in your heart. The sadness in your eyes has disappeared.”

Christina threw her arms around his neck and looked into those blue eyes filled with love for her. “You’re right. And now I have one more secret to disclose. You were always the man for me. When you asked me to get engaged, I jumped, leaped at the opportunity. To be honest, deep down I was petrified you would come to Africa and call it off. So I played it cagey, and it paid off!”

After enjoying a meal, they made love again before it was time to go out to greet their guests and enjoy the royal celebration. Guido looked frantic as they approached the balcony.

“Your Highness, we’ve been waiting for your appearance to start the fireworks.”

Antonio hugged her waist. “We’re here now.”

No sooner had they stepped out so everyone could see them than a huge roar of excitement from the throng of people filled the air. Suddenly there was a massive fireworks display that lit up the sky, bursting and bursting, illuminating everything. Antonio looked into Christina’s eyes. Her heart was bursting with happiness.

“Ti amo, Antonio.”

He stared at her. “Darling, you’re crying. What’s wrong?”

“I’m so happy tonight I can’t contain it all.”

Giving the crowd what they wanted by kissing her, he whispered, “My beautiful wife. This is only the beginning. Ti amo, bellissima. Forever.”

Her Royal Wedding Wish

Cara Colter

In memory of Hunter 1997–2007

Beloved.

CHAPTER ONE

JAKE Ronan took a deep, steadying breath, the same kind he would take and hold right before the shot or the assault or the jump.

No relief. His heart was beating like a deer three steps ahead of a wolf pack. His palms were slick with sweat.

He was a man notorious for keeping his cool. And in the past three years that notoriety had served him well. He’d taken a hijacked plane back from the bad guys, jumped from ten thousand feet in the dead of night into territory controlled by hostiles, rescued fourteen school-children from a hostage taking.

But in the danger-zone department nothing did him in like a wedding. He shrugged, rolled his shoulders, took another deep breath.

His old friend, Colonel Gray Peterson, recently retired, the reason Ronan was here on the tiny tropical-island paradise of B’Ranasha, shifted uneasily beside him. Under his breath he said a word that probably had never been said in a church before. “You don’t have your sideways feeling, do you?” Gray asked.

Ronan was famous among this tough group of men, his comrades-in-arms, for the feeling, a sixth sense that warned him things were about to go wrong, in a big way.

“I just don’t like weddings,” he said, keeping his voice deliberately hushed. “They make me feel uptight.”

Gray contemplated that as an oddity. “Jake,” he finally said reassuringly, his use of Ronan’s first name an oddity in itself, “it’s not as if you’re the one getting married. You’re part of the security team. You don’t even know these people.”

Ronan had never been the one getting married, but his childhood had been littered with his mother’s latest attempt to land the perfect man. His own longing for a normal family, hidden under layers of adolescent belligerence, had usually ended in disillusionment long before the day of yet another elaborate wedding ceremony, his mother exchanging starry-eyed “I do’s” with yet another temporary stepfather.

Ronan had found a family he enjoyed very much when he’d followed in his deceased father’s footsteps, over his mother’s strenuous and tear-filled protests, and joined the Australian military right out of high school. Finally, there had been structure, predictability and genuine camaraderie in his life.

And then he’d been recruited for a multinational military unit that was a first-response team to world crises. The unit, headquartered in England, was comprised of men from the most elite special forces units around the world. They had members from the British Forces SAS, from the French Foreign Legion, from the U.S. SEALs and Delta Force.

His family became a tight-knit brotherhood of warriors. They went where angels feared to go; they did the work no one else wanted to do; they operated in the most dangerous and troubled places in the world. As well as protecting world figures at summits, conferences, peace talks, they dismantled bombs, gathered intelligence, took back planes, rescued hostages, blew up enemy weapons caches. They did the world’s most difficult work. They did it quickly, quietly and anonymously. There were few medals, little acknowledgment, no back-patting ceremonies.

But there was: brutal training, exhausting hours, months of deep cover and more danger than playing patty-cake with a rattlesnake.

When Ronan had been recruited, he had said a resounding yes. A man knew exactly when his natural-born talents intersected with opportunity, and from his first day in the unit, code-named Excalibur, he had known he had found what he was born to do.

A family, other than his brothers in arms, was out of the question. This kind of work was unfair to the women who were left at home. A man so committed to a dangerous lifestyle was not ready to make the responsibilities of a family and a wife his priority.

Which was a happy coincidence for a man who had the wedding thing anyway. Ronan’s most closely guarded secret was that he, fearless fighting man, pride of Excalibur, would probably faint from pure fright if he ever had to stand at an altar like the one at the front of this church as a groom. As a man waiting for his bride.

So far, no one was standing at it, though on this small island, traditions were slightly reversed. He’d been briefed to understand that the bride would come in first and wait for the groom.

Music, lilting and lovely, heralded her arrival, but above the notes Ronan heard the rustle of fabric and slid a look down the aisle of the church. A vision in ivory silk floated slowly toward them. The dress, the typical wedding costume of the Isle of B’Ranasha, covered the bride from head to toe. It was unfathomable how something so unrevealing could be so sensual.

But it was. The gown clung to the bride’s slight curves, accentuated the smooth sensuality of her movements. It was embroidered in gold thread that caught the light and thousands of little pearls that shimmered iridescently.

The reason Ronan was stationed so close to the altar was that this beautiful bride, Princess Shoshauna of B’Ranasha, might be in danger.

Since retiring from Excalibur, Gray had taken the position as head of security for the royal family of B’Ranasha. With the upcoming wedding, he’d asked Ronan if he wanted to take some leave and help provide extra security. At first Gray had presented the job as a bit of a lark—beautiful island, beautiful women, unbeatable climate, easy job, lots of off-time.

But by the time Ronan had gotten off the plane, the security team had intercepted a number of threats aimed directly at the princess, and Gray had been grim-faced and tense. The colonel was certain they were generating from within the palace itself, and that a serious security breach had developed within his own team.

“Look at the lady touching the flowers,” Gray said tersely.

Ronan spun around, amazed by how much discipline it took to take his eyes off the shimmering vision of that bride. A woman at the side of the church was fiddling with a bouquet of flowers. She kept glancing nervously over her shoulder, radiating tension.

There it was, without warning, that sudden downward dip in his stomach, comparable to a ten-story drop on a roller coaster.

Sideways.

Surreptitiously Ronan checked his weapon, a 9mm Glock, shoulder holstered. Gray noticed, cursed under his breath, tapped his own hidden weapon, a monstrosity that members of Excalibur liked to call the Cannon.

Ronan felt himself shift, from a guy who hated weddings to one hundred percent warrior. It was moments exactly like this that he trained for.

The bride’s gown whispered as she walked to the front.

Gray gave him a nudge with his shoulder. “You’re on her,” he said. “I’m on the flower lady.”

Ronan nodded, moved as close to the altar as he could without drawing too much attention to himself. Now he could smell the bride’s perfume, tantalizing, as exotic and beautiful as the abundant flowers that bloomed in profusion in every open space of this incredible tropical hideaway.

The music stopped. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the flower lady duck. Now, he thought, and felt every muscle tense and coil, ready.

Nothing happened.

An old priest came out of the shadows at the front of the chapel, his golden face tranquil, his eyes crinkled with good humor and acceptance. He wore the red silk robe of a traditional B’Ranasha monk.

Ronan felt Gray’s tension beside him. They exchanged glances. Gray’s hand now rested inside his jacket. His facade of complete calm did not fool Ronan. His buddy’s hand was now resting on the Cannon. Despite the unchanging expression on Gray’s face, Ronan felt the shift in mood, recognized it as that itching for action, battle fever.

The sideways feeling in Ronan’s stomach intensified. His brain did a cool divide, right down the middle. One part of him watched the priest, the bride. The groom would arrive next. One part of him smelled perfume and noted the exquisite detail on her silk dress.

On the other side of the divide, Ronan had become pure predator, alert, edgy, ready.

The bride lifted her veil, and for just a split second his warrior edge was gone. Nothing could have prepared Jake Ronan for the fact he was looking into the delicate, exquisite perfect features of Princess Shoshauna of B’Ranasha.

His preparation for providing security for the wedding had included learning to recognize all the members of the royal families, especially the prospective bride and groom, but there had never been any reason to meet them.

He had been able to view Shoshauna’s photographs with detachment: young, pretty, pampered. But those photos had not prepared him for her in the flesh. Her face, framed by a shimmering black waterfall of straight hair, was faintly golden and flawless. Her eyes were almond shaped, tilted upward, and a shade of turquoise he had seen only once before, in a bay where he’d surfed in his younger days off the coast of Australia.

She blinked at him, then looked to the back of the room.

He yanked himself away from the tempting vision of her. It was very bad to lose his edge, his sense of mission, even for a split second. A warning was sounding deep in his brain.

And in answer to it, the back door of the church whispered open. Ronan glanced back. Not the prince. A man in black. A hood over his face. A gun.

Long hours of training had made Ronan an extremely adaptable animal. His mission instantly crystallized; his instincts took over.

His mission became to protect the princess. In an instant she was the focus of his entire existence. If he had to, he would lay down his life to keep her safe. No hesitation. No doubt. No debate.

The immediate and urgent goal: remove Princess Shoshauna from harm’s way. That meant for the next few minutes, things were going to get plenty physical. He launched himself at her, registered the brief widening of those eyes, before he shoved her down on the floor, shielding her body with his own.

Even beneath the pump of pure adrenaline, a part of him felt the exquisite sweetness of her curves, felt a need beyond the warrior’s response trained into him—something far more primal and male—to protect her fragility with his own strength.

A shot was fired. The chapel erupted into bedlam.

“Ronan, you’re covered,” Gray shouted. “Get her out of here.”

Ronan yanked the princess to her feet, put his body between her and the attacker, kept his hand forcefully on the fragile column of her neck to keep her down.

He got himself and the princess safely behind the relative protection of the stone altar, pushed her through an opening into the priest’s vestibule. There Ronan shattered the only window and shoved Princess Shoshauna through it, trying to protect her from the worst of the broken glass with his own arm.

Her skirt got caught, and most of it tore away, which was good. Without the layers of fabric, he discovered she could run like a deer. They were in an alleyway. He kept his hand at the small of her back as they sprinted away from the church. In the background he heard the sound of three more shots, screams.

The alley opened onto a bright square, postcard pretty, with white stucco storefronts, lush palms, pink flowers the size of basketballs. A cabdriver, oblivious to the backdrop of firecracker noises, was in his front seat, door open, slumbering in the sun. Ronan scanned the street. The only other vehicle was a donkey cart for tourists, the donkey looking as sleepy as the cabdriver.

Ronan made his decision, pulled the unsuspecting driver from his cab and shoved the princess in. She momentarily got hung up on the gearshift. He shoved her again, and she plopped into the passenger seat. He then jumped in behind her, turned the key and slammed the vehicle into gear.

Within seconds the sounds of gunfire and the shouted protests of the cabdriver had faded in the distance, but he kept driving, his brain pulling up maps of this island as if he had an Internet search program.

“Do you think everyone’s all right back there?” she asked. “I’m worried about my grandfather.”

Her English was impeccable, her voice a silk scarf—soft, sensual, floating across his neck as if she had actually touched him.

He shrugged the invisible hand away, filed it under interesting that she was more worried about her grandfather than the groom. And he red-flagged it that the genuine worry on her face made him feel a certain unwanted softness for her.

Softness was not part of his job, and he liked to think not part of his nature, either, trained out of him, so that he could make clinical, precise decisions that were not emotionally driven. On the other hand he’d been around enough so-called important people to be able to appreciate her concern for someone other than herself.

“No one was hit,” he said gruffly.

“How could you know that? I could hear gunfire after we left.”

“A bullet makes a different sound when it hits than when it misses.”

She looked incredulous and skeptical. “And with everything going on, you were listening for that?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Not listening for that exactly, but listening. He had not heard the distinctive ka-thunk of a hit, nor had he heard sounds that indicated someone badly hurt. Details. Every member of Excalibur was trained to pay attention to details that other people missed. It was amazing how often something that seemed insignificant could mean the difference between life and death.

“My grandfather has a heart problem,” she said softly, worried.

“Sorry.” He knew he sounded insincere, and at this moment he was. He only cared if one person was safe, and that was her. He was not risking a distraction, a misdirection of energy, by focusing on anything else.

As if to challenge his focus, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He had turned it off for the wedding, because his mother had taken to leaving him increasingly frantic messages that she had big news to share with him. Big news in her life always meant one thing: a new man, the proclamation it was different this time, more extravagant wedding plans.

Some goof at Excalibur, probably thinking it was funny, had given her his cell number against his specific instructions. But a glance at the caller ID showed it was not his mother but Gray.

“Yeah,” he answered.

“Clear here.”

“Here, too. Aurora—” he named the princess in Sleeping Beauty, a reference that was largely cultural, that might not be understood by anyone listening “—is fine.”

“Excellent. We have the perp. No one injured. The guy was firing blanks. He could have been killed. What kind of nutcase does that?”

He contemplated that for a moment and came up with one who wants to stop the wedding. “Want me to bring her back in? Maybe they could still go ahead with the ceremony.”

Details. The princess flinched ever so slightly beside him.

“No. Absolutely not. Something’s wrong here. Really wrong. Nobody should have been able to penetrate the security around that wedding. It has to be someone within the palace, so I don’t want her back here until I know who it is. Can you keep her safe until I get to the bottom of it?”

Ronan contemplated that. He had a handgun and two clips of ammunition. He was a stranger to the island and was now in possession of a stolen vehicle, not to mention a princess.

Despite circumstances not being anywhere near perfect, he knew in his business perfect circumstances were in short supply. It was a game of odds, and of trust in one’s own abilities. “Affirmative,” he said.

“I can’t trust my phone, but we can probably use yours once more to give you a time frame and set a rendezvous.”

“All right.” He should have hung up, but he made the mistake of glancing at her pinched face. “Ah, Gray? Is her grandfather all right?”

“Slamming back the Scotch.” Gray lowered his voice, “Though he actually seems a little, er, pleased, that his granddaughter didn’t manage to get married.”

Ronan pocketed his phone. “Your grandfather’s fine.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful news! Thank you!”

“I can’t take you back just yet, though.”

Some finely held tension disappeared from her shoulders, as if she allowed herself to start breathing after holding her breath.

Eyes that had been clouded with worry, suddenly tilted upward when she smiled. If he was not mistaken, and he rarely was, given his gift with details, a certain mischief danced in their turquoise depths.

She did not inquire about the groom, and now that her concerns for her grandfather had been relieved, she didn’t look anything like a woman who had just had her wedding ceremony shattered by gunfire, her dress shredded. In fact, she looked downright happy. As if to confirm that conclusion, she took off her bridal headdress, held it out the window and let the wind take it. She laughed with delight as it floated behind them, children chasing it down the street.

The wind billowing through the open window caught at the tendrils of her hair, and she shook it all free from the remaining pins that held it, and it spilled down over the slenderness of her shoulders.

If he was not mistaken, Princess Shoshauna was very much enjoying herself.

“Look, Your Highness,” he said, irritated. “This is not a game. Don’t be throwing anything else out the window that will make us easy to follow or remember.”

She tossed her hair and gave him a look that was faintly mutinous. Obviously, because of her position, she was not accustomed to being snapped at. But that was too bad. There was only room for one boss here, and it wasn’t going to be her.

With the imminent danger now at bay, at least temporarily, his thought processes slowed, and he began to sort information. His assessment of the situation wasn’t good. He had been prepared to do a little wedding security, not to find himself in possession of a princess who had someone trying to kill her.

He didn’t know the island. He had no idea where he could take her where it would be secure. He had very little currency, and at some point he was going to have to feed her, and get her out of that all-too-attention-grabbing outfit. He had to assume that whoever was after her would be sophisticated enough to trace credit card use. Ditto for his cell phone. They could use it once more to arrange a time and place for a rendezvous and then he’d have to pitch it. On top of that, he had to assume this vehicle had already been reported stolen; it would have to be ditched soon.

On the plus side, she was alive, and he planned to keep it that way. He had a weapon, but very little ammunition.

He was going to have to use the credit card once. To get them outfitted. By the time it was traced, they could be a long way away.

“Do you have any enemies?” he asked her. If he had one more phone call with Gray, maybe he could have some information for him. Plus, it would help him to know if this threat was about something personal or if it was politically motivated. Each of those scenarios made for a completely different enemy.

“No,” she said, but he saw the moment’s hesitation.

“No one hates you?”

“Of course not.” But again he sensed hesitation, and he pushed.

“Who do you think did this?” he asked. “What’s your gut feeling?”

“What’s a gut feeling?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Your instinct.”

“It’s silly.”

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“Prince Mahail was seeing a woman before he asked me to marry him. She’s actually a cousin of mine. She acted happy for me, but—”

Details. People chose to ignore them, which was too bad. “Your instincts aren’t silly,” he told her gruffly. “They could keep you alive. What’s her name?”

“I don’t want her to get in trouble. She probably has nothing to do with this.”

The princess wasn’t just choosing to ignore her instincts, but seemed determined to. Still, he appreciated her loyalty.

“She won’t be in trouble.” If she didn’t do anything. “Her name?”

“Mirassa,” she said, but reluctantly.

“Now tell me how to find a market. A small one, where I can get food. And something for you to wear.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “Can I have shorts?” She blinked at him, her lashes thick as a chimney brush over those amazing ocean-bay eyes.

He tried not to sigh audibly. Wasn’t that just like a woman? Even a crisis could be turned into an opportunity to shop!

“I’m getting what draws the least attention to you,” he said, glancing over at her long legs exposed by her torn dress. “I somehow doubt that’s going to be shorts.”

“Am I going to wear a disguise?” she asked, thrilled.

She was determined not to get how serious this was. And maybe that was good. The last thing he needed was hysteria.

“Sure,” he said, going along, “you get to wear a disguise.”

“You could pretend to be my boyfriend,” Princess Shoshauna said, with way too much enthusiasm. “We could rent a motorcycle and blend in with the tourists. How long do you think you’ll have to hide me?”

“I don’t know yet. Probably a couple of days.”

“Oh!” she said, pleased, determined to perceive this life-and-death situation as a grand adventure. “I have always wanted to ride a motorcycle!”

The urge to strangle her was not at all in keeping with the businesslike, absolutely emotionless attitude he needed to have around her. That attitude would surely be jeopardized further by pretending to be her boyfriend, by sharing a motorcycle with her. His mind went there—her pressed close, her crotch pressed into the small of his back, the bike throbbing underneath them.

Buck up, soldier, he ordered himself. There’s going to be no motorcycle.

“I’ll cut my hair,” she decided.

It was the first reasonable idea she had presented, but he was aware he wasn’t even considering it. Her hair was long and straight, jet-black and glossy. Her hair was glorious. He wasn’t letting her cut her hair, even if it would be the world’s greatest disguise.

He knew he was making that decision for all the wrong reasons, and that his professionalism had just slipped the tiniest little notch. There was no denying the sideways feeling seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his stomach.

Shoshauna slid the man who was beside her a look and felt the sweetest little dip in the region of her stomach. He was incredibly good-looking. His short hair was auburn, burnt brown with strands of red glinting as the sun struck it. His eyes, focused on the road, were topaz colored, like a lion’s. As if the eyes were not hint enough of his strength, there was the formidable set of his lips, the stubborn set of his chin, the flare of his nostrils.

He was a big man, broad and muscled, not like the slighter men of B’Ranasha. When he had thrown her onto the floor of the chapel, she had felt the shock first. No man had ever touched her like that before! Technically, it had been more a tackle than a touch. But then she had become aware of the hard, unforgiving lines of him, felt the strange and forbidden thrill of his male body shielding hers.

Even now she watched as his hands found their way to his necktie, tugged impatiently at it. He loosened it, tugged it free, shoved it in his pocket. Next, he undid the top button of his shirt, rubbed his neck as if he’d escaped the hangman’s noose.

“What’s your name?” she asked. It was truly shocking, considering how aware she’d felt of him, within seconds of marrying someone else. She glanced at his fingers, was entranced by the shape of them, the faint dusting of hair on the knuckles. Shocked at herself, she realized she could imagine them tangling in her hair.

Of course, she had led a somewhat sheltered life. This was the closest she had ever been, alone, to a man who was not a member of her own family. Even her meetings with her fiancé, Prince Mahail of the neighboring island, had been very formal and closely chaperoned.

“Ronan,” he said, and then had to swerve to miss a woman hauling a basket of chickens on her bicycle. He said a delicious-sounding word that she had never heard before, even though she considered her English superb. The little shiver that went up and down her spine told her the word was naughty. Very naughty.

“Ronan.” She tried it out, liked how it felt on her tongue. “You must call me Shoshauna!”

“Your Highness, I am not calling you Shoshauna.” He muttered the name of a deity under his breath. “I think it’s thirty lashes for calling a member of the royal family by their first name.”

“Ridiculous,” she told him, even though it was true: no one but members of her immediate family would even dare being so familiar as to call her by her first name. That was part of the prison of her role as a member of B’Ranasha’s royal family.

But she’d been rescued! Her prayers had been answered just when she had thought there was no hope left, when she had resigned herself to the fact she had agreed to a marriage to a man she did not love.

She did not know how long this reprieve could possibly last, but despite Ronan telling her so sternly this was not a game, Shoshauna intended to make the very most of it. Whether she had been given a few hours or a few days, she intended to be what she might never be again. Free. To be what she had always wanted most to be.

An ordinary girl. With an ordinary life.

She was determined to get a conversation going, to find out as much about this intriguing foreigner as she could. She glanced at his lips and shivered. Would making the most of the gift the universe had handed her include tasting the lips of the intriguing foreigner?

She knew how wrong those thoughts were, but her heart beat faster at the thought. How was it that imagining kissing Ronan, a stranger, could fill her with such delirious curiosity, when the thought of what was supposed to have happened tonight, between her and the man who should have become her husband, Prince Mahail, filled her with nothing but dread?

“What nationality are you?”

“Does it matter? You don’t have to know anything about me. You just have to listen to me.”

His tone, hard and cold, did not sound promising in the kiss department! Miffed, she wondered how he couldn’t know that when a princess asked you something, you did not have the option of not answering. Even though she desperately wanted to try life as an ordinary girl, old habit made her give him her most autocratic stare, the one reserved for misbehaving servants.

“Australian,” he snapped.

That explained the accent, surely as delicious sounding as the foreign phrase he had uttered so emphatically when dodging the chicken bicycle. She said the word herself, out loud, using the same inflection he had.

The car swerved, but he regained control instantly. “Don’t say that word!” he snapped at her, and then added, a reluctant afterthought at best, “Your Highness.”

“I’m trying to improve my English!”

“What you’re trying to do is get me a one-way ticket to a whipping post for teaching the princess curse words. Do they still whip people here?”

“Of course,” she lied sweetly. His expression darkened to thunder, but then he looked hard at her, read the lie, knew she was having a little fun at his expense. He made a cynical sound deep in his throat.

“Are women in Australia ever forced to marry men they don’t love?” she asked. But the truth was, she had not been forced. Not technically. Her father had given her a choice, but it had not been a real choice. The weight of his expectation, her own desperate desire to please him, to be of value to him had influenced her decision.

Plus, Prince Mahail’s surprise proposal had been presented at a low point in her life, just days after her cat, Retnuh, had died.

People said it was just a cat, had been shocked at her level of despair, but she’d had Retnuh since he was a kitten, since she’d been a little girl of eight. He’d been her friend, her companion, her confidante, in a royal household that was too busy to address the needs of one insignificant and lonely little princess.

“Turn here, there’s a market down this road.”

He took the right, hard, then looked straight ahead.

“Well?” she asked, when it seemed he planned to ignore her.

“People get married all over the world, for all kinds of reasons,” he said. “Love is no guarantee of success. Who even knows what love is?”

“I do,” she said stubbornly. It seemed her vision of what it was had crystallized after she’d agreed to marry the completely wrong man. But by then it had been too late. In her eagerness to outrun how terrible she felt about her cat, Shoshauna had allowed herself to get totally caught up in the excitement—preparations underway, two islands celebrating, tailors in overtime preparing gowns for all members of both wedding parties, caterers in overdrive, gifts arriving from all over the world—of getting ready for a royal wedding.

She could just picture the look of abject disappointment on her father’s face if she had gone to him and asked to back out.

“Sure you do, Princess.”

His tone insinuated she thought love was a storybook notion, a schoolgirl’s dream.

“You think I’m silly and immature because I believe in love,” she said, annoyed.

“I don’t know the first thing about you, what you believe or don’t believe. And I don’t want to. I have a job to do. A mission. It’s to keep you safe. The less I know about you personally the better.”

Shoshauna felt stunned by that. She was used to interest. Fawning. She could count on no one to tell her what they really thought. Of course, it was all that patently insincere admiration that had made her curl up with her cat at night, listen to his deep purring and feel as if he was the only one who truly got her, who truly loved her for exactly what she was.

If even one person had expressed doubt about her upcoming wedding would she have found the courage to call it off? Instead, she’d been swept along by all that gushing about how wonderful she would look in the dress, how handsome Prince Mahail was, what an excellent menu choice she had made, how exquisite the flowers she had personally picked out.

“There’s the market,” she said coldly.

He pulled over, stopped her as she reached for the handle. “You are staying right here.”

Her arm tingled where his hand rested on it. Unless she was mistaken, he felt a little jolt, too. He certainly pulled away as though he had. “Do you understand? Stay here. Duck down if anyone comes down the road.”

She nodded, but perhaps not sincerely enough.

“It’s not a game,” he said again.

“All right!” she said. “I get it.”

“I hope so,” he muttered, gave her one long, hard, assessing look, then dashed across the street.

“Don’t forget scissors,” she called as he went into the market. He glared back at her, annoyed. He hadn’t said to be quiet! Besides, she didn’t want him to forget the scissors.

She had wanted to cut her hair since she was thirteen. It was too long and a terrible nuisance. It took two servants to wash it and forever to dry.

“Princesses,” her mother had informed her, astounded at her request, “do not cut their hair.”

Princesses didn’t do a great many things. People who thought it was fun should try it for a day or two. They should try sitting nicely through concerts, building openings, ceremonies for visiting dignitaries. They should try shaking hands with every single person in a receiving line and smiling for hours without stopping. They should try sitting through speeches at formal dinners, being the royal representative at the carefully selected weddings and funerals and baptisms and graduations of the important people. They should try meeting a million people and never really getting to know a single one of them.

Shoshauna had dreams that were not princess dreams at all. They were not even big dreams by the standards of the rest of the world, but they were her dreams. And if Ronan thought she wasn’t taking what had happened at the chapel seriously, he just didn’t get it.

She had given up on her dreams, felt as if they were being crushed like glass under her slippers with every step closer to the altar that she had taken.

But for some reason—maybe she had wished hard enough after all, maybe Retnuh was her protector from another world—she had been given this reprieve, and she felt as if she had to try and squeeze everything she had ever wanted into this tiny window of freedom.

She wanted to wear pants and shorts. She wanted to ride a motorcycle! She wanted to try surfing and a real bathing suit, not the swimming costume she was forced to wear at the palace. A person could drown if they ever got in real water, not a shallow swimming pool, in that getup.

There were other dreams that were surely never going to happen once she was married to the crown prince of an island country every bit as old-fashioned and traditional as B’Ranasha.

Decorum would be everything. She would wear the finest gowns, the best jewels, her manners would have to be forever impeccable, she would never be able to say what she really wanted. In short order she would be expected to stay home and begin producing babies.

But she wanted so desperately to sample life before she was condemned to that. Shoshauna wanted to taste snow. She wanted to go on a toboggan. She felt she had missed something essential: a boyfriend, like she had seen in movies. A boyfriend would be fun—someone to hold her hand, take her to movies, romance her. A husband was a totally different thing!

For a moment she had hoped she could talk Ronan into a least pretending, but she now saw that was unlikely.

Most of her dreams were unlikely.

Still, a miracle had happened. Here she was beside a handsome stranger in a stolen taxicab, when she should have been married to Prince Mahail by now. She’d known the prince since childhood and did not find him the least romantic, though many others did, including her silly cousin, Mirassa.

Mahail was absurdly arrogant, sure in his position of male superiority. Worse, he did not believe in her greatest dream of all.

Most of all, Shoshauna wanted to be educated, to learn glorious things, and not be restricted in what she was allowed to select for course material. She wanted to sit in classrooms with males and openly challenge the stupidity of their opinions. She wanted to learn to play chess, a game her mother said was for men only.

She knew herself to be a princess of very little consequence, the only daughter of a lesser wife, flying well under the radar of the royal watchdogs. She had spent a great deal of time, especially in her younger years, with her English grandfather and had thought one day she would study at a university in Great Britain.

With freedom that close, with her dreams so near she could taste them, Prince Mahail had spoiled it all, by choosing her as his bride. Why had he chosen her?

Mirassa had told her he’d been captivated by her hair! Suddenly she remembered how Mirassa had looked at her hair in that moment, how her eyes had darkened to black, and Shoshauna felt a shiver of apprehension.

Before Mahail had proposed to Shoshauna, rumor had flown that Mirassa was his chosen bride. He had flirted openly with her on several occasions, which on these islands was akin to publishing banns. Shoshauna had heard, again through the rumor mill, that Mirassa had asked to see him after he had proposed to Shoshauna and he had humiliated her by refusing her an appointment. Given that he had encouraged Mirassa’s affection in the first place, he certainly could have been more sensitive. Just how angry had Mirassa been?

Trust your instincts.

If she managed to cut her hair off before her return maybe Prince Mahail would lose interest in her as quickly as he had gained it and Mirassa would stop being jealous.

Being chosen for her hair was insulting, like being a head of livestock chosen for the way it looked: not for its heart or mind or soul!

The prince had taken his interest to her father, and she had felt as if her father had noticed her, really seen her for the very first time. His approval had been drugging. It had made her say yes when she had needed to say no!

Ronan came back to the car, dropped a bag on her lap, reached in and stowed a few more on the backseat. She noticed he had purchased clothing for himself and had changed out of the suit he’d worn. He was now wearing an open-throated shirt that showed his arms: rippling with well-defined muscle, peppered with hairs turned golden by the sun. And he was wearing shorts. She was not sure she had ever seen such a length of appealing male leg in all her life!

Faintly flustered, Shoshauna focused on the bag he’d given her. It held clothing. A large pair of very ugly sunglasses, a hideous hat, a blouse and skirt that looked like a British schoolmarm would be happy to wear.

No shorts. She felt like crying as reality collided with her fantasy.

“Where are the scissors?” she asked.

“Forgot,” he said brusquely, and she knew she could not count on him to make any of her dreams come true, to help her make the best use of this time she had been given.

He had a totally different agenda than her. To keep her safe. The last thing she wanted was to be safe. She wanted to be alive but in the best sense of that word.

She opened her car door.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“I’m going the hell in those bushes, changing into this outfit, as hideous as it is.”

“I don’t think princesses are supposed to change their clothes in the bushes,” he said. “Or say hell, for that matter. Just get in the car and I’ll find—”

“I’m changing now.” And then I’m going into that market and buying some things I want to wear. “And then I’m going into that market and finding the restroom.”

“Maybe since you’re in the bushes anyway, you could just—”

She stopped him with a look. His mouth snapped shut. He scowled at her, but even he, as unimpressed with her status as he apparently was, was not going to suggest she go to the bathroom in the bushes.

“Don’t peek,” she said, ducking into the thick shrubbery at the side of the road.

“Lord have mercy,” he muttered, whatever that meant.

CHAPTER TWO

RESIGNED, Ronan hovered in front of the bushes while she changed, trying to ignore the rustling sound of falling silk.

When she emerged, even he was impressed with how good his choices had been. Princess Shoshauna no longer looked like a member of the royal family, or even like a native to the island.

The women of B’Ranasha had gorgeous hair, their crowning glory. It swung straight and long, black and impossibly shiny past their shoulder blades, and was sometimes ornamented with fresh flowers, but never hidden.

The princess had managed to tuck her abundant locks up under that straw hat, the sunglasses covered the distinctive turquoise of those eyes, and she’d been entirely correct about his fashion sense.

The outfit he’d picked for her looked hideous in exactly the nondescript way he had hoped it would. The blouse was too big, the skirt was shapeless and dowdy, hanging a nice inch or so past her shapely knees. Except for the delicate slippers that showed off the daintiness of her tiny feet, she could have passed for an overweight British nanny on vacation.

As a disguise it was perfect: it hid who she really was very effectively. It worked for him, too. He had effectively covered her curves, made her look about as sexy as a refrigerator box. He knew the last thing he needed was to be too aware of her as a woman, and a beautiful one at that.

He accompanied her across the street, thankful for the sleepiness of the market at this time of day. “Try not to talk to anyone. The washrooms are at the back.”

His cell phone vibrated. “Five minutes,” he told her, checked the caller ID, felt relieved it was not his mother, though not a number he recognized, either. He watched through the open market door as she went straight to the back, then, certain of her safety, turned his attention to the phone.

“Yeah,” he said cautiously, not giving away his identity.

“Peterson.”

“That’s what I figured.”

“How did Aurora take the news that she’s going to have to go into hiding?”

“Happily waiting for her prince to come,” he said dryly, though he thought a less-true statement had probably never been spoken.

“Can you keep her that way for Neptune?”

Neptune was an exercise that Excalibur went on once a year. It was a week-long training in sea operations. Ronan drew in his breath sharply. A week? Even with the cleverness of the disguise she was in, that was going to be tough on so many levels. He didn’t know the island. Still, Gray would never ask a week of him if he didn’t absolutely need the time.

Surely the princess would know enough about the island to help him figure out a nice quiet place where they could hole up for a week?

Which brought him to how tough it was going to be on another level: a man and a woman holed up alone for a week. A gorgeous woman, despite the disguise, a healthy man, despite all his discipline.

“Can do.” He let none of the doubt he was feeling creep into his tone. He hoped the colonel would at least suggest where, but then realized it would be better if he didn’t, considering the possibility Gray’s team was not secure.

“We’ll meet at Harry’s. Neptune swim.”

Harry’s was a fish-and-chips-style pub the guys had frequented near Excalibur headquarters. The colonel was wisely using references no one but a member of the unit would understand. The Neptune swim was a grueling session in ocean swimming that happened at precisely 1500 hours every single day of the Neptune exercise. So, Ronan would meet Gray in one week, at a British-style pub, or a place that sold fish and chips, presumably close to the palace headquarters at 3 p.m.

“Gotcha.” He deliberately did not use communication protocol. “By the way, you need to check out a cousin. Mirassa.”

“Thanks. Destroy the phone,” the Colonel said.

Every cell phone had a global positioning device in it. Better to get rid of it, something Ronan had known all along he was going to have to do.

“Will do.”

He hung up the phone and peered in the market. The princess had emerged from the back, and was now going through racks of tourist clothing, in a leisurely manner, hangers of clothing already tossed over one arm. Thankfully, despite the darkness of the shop, she still had on the sunglasses.

He went into the shop, moved through the cluttered aisles toward her. If he was not mistaken, the top item of the clothing she had strung over her arm was a bikini, bright neon green, not enough material in it to make a handkerchief.

A week with that? He was disciplined, yes, a miracle worker, no. This was going to be a challenging enough assignment if he managed to keep her dressed like a refrigerator box!

He went up beside her, plucked the bikini off her arm, hung it up on the closest rack. “We’re not supposed to attract attention, Aurora. That doesn’t exactly fit the bill.”

“Aurora?”

“Your code name,” he said in an undertone.

“A code name,” she breathed. “I like it. Does it mean something?”

“It’s the name of the princess in ‘Sleeping Beauty.’”

“Well, I’m not waiting for my prince!”

“I gathered that,” he said dryly. He didn’t want to feel interested in what was wrong with her prince. It didn’t have anything to do with getting the job done. He told himself not to ask her why she dreaded marriage so much, and succeeded, for the moment. But he was aware he had a whole week with her to try to keep his curiosity at bay.

“Do you have a code name?” she asked.

He tried to think of the name of a celibate priest, but he wasn’t really up on his priests. “No. Let’s go.”

She glanced at him—hard to read her eyes through the sunglasses—but her chin tilted in a manner that did not bode well for him being the boss. She took the bikini back off the rack, tossed it back over her arm.

“I don’t have to wear it,” she said mulishly. “I just have to have it. Touch it again, and I’ll make a scene.” She smiled.

He glanced around uneasily. No other customers in the store, the single clerk, thankfully, far more interested in the daily racing form he was studying than he was in them.

“Let’s go,” he said in a low voice. “You have enough stuff there to last a year.”

“Maybe it will be a year,” she said, just a trifle too hopefully, confirming what he already knew—this was one princess not too eager to be kissed by a prince.

“I’ve had some instructions. A week. We need to disappear for a week.”

She grabbed a pair of shorty-shorts.

“We have to go.”

“I’m not finished.”

He took her elbow, glanced again at the clerk, guided her further back in the room. “Look, Princess, you have a decision to make.”

She spotted a bikini on the rack by his head. “I know!” she said, deliberately missing his point. “Pink or green?”

Definitely pink, but he forced himself to remain absolutely expressionless, pretended he was capable of ignoring the scrap of material she was waving in front of his face. Unfortunately, it was just a little too easy to imagine her in that, how the pink would set off the golden tones of her skin and the color of her eyes, how her long black hair would shimmer against it.

He took a deep breath.

“This is about your life,” he told her quietly. “Not mine. I’m not going to be more responsible for you than you are willing to be for yourself. So, if you want to take chances with your life, if you want to make my life difficult instead of cooperating, I’ll take you back to the palace right now.”

Despite the sunglasses, he could tell by the tightening of her mouth that she didn’t want to go back to the palace, so he pressed on.

“That would work better for me, actually,” he said. “I kind of fell into this. I signed up for wedding security, not to be your bodyguard. I have a commanding officer who’s going to be very unhappy with me if I don’t report back to work on Tuesday.”

He was bluffing. He wasn’t taking her back to the palace until Gray had sorted out who was responsible for the attack at the church. And Gray would look after getting word back to his unit that he had been detained due to circumstances beyond his control.

But she didn’t have to know that. And if he’d read her correctly, she’d been relieved that her wedding had been interrupted, delirious almost. The last thing she wanted to do was go back to her life, pick up where she’d left off.

He kept talking. “I’m sure your betrothed is very worried about you, anxious to make you his wife, so that he can keep you safe. He’s probably way more qualified to do that than I am.”

He could see, clearly, that he had her full attention, and that she was about as eager to get back to her prince as to swim with crocodiles.

So he said, “Maybe that’s the best idea. Head back, a quick secret ceremony, you and your prince can get off the island, have your honeymoon together, and this whole mess will be cleared up by the time you get home.”

His alertness to detail paid off now, because her body language radiated sudden tension. He actually felt a little bit sorry for her. She obviously didn’t want to get married, and if she had feelings for her fiancé they were not positive ones. But again he had to shut down any sense of curiosity or compassion that he felt. That wasn’t his problem, and in protection work, that was the priority: to remember his business—the very narrow perimeters of keeping her safe—and to not care anything about what was her business.

Whether she was gorgeous, ugly, unhappy at love, frustrated with her life, none of that mattered to him. Or should matter to him.

Still, he did feel the tiniest little shiver of unwanted sympathy as he watched her getting paler before his eyes. He was glad for her sunglasses, because he didn’t want to see her eyes just now. She put the pink bikini back, thankfully, but turned and marched to the counter as if she was still the one in charge, as if he was her servant left to trail behind her—and pay the bills.

Apparently paying had not occurred to her. She had probably never had to handle money or even a credit card in her whole life. She would put it on account, or some member of her staff would look after the details for her.

She seemed to realize that at the counter, and he could have embarrassed her, but there was no point, and he certainly did not want the clerk to find anything memorable about this transaction.

“I got it, sweetheart,” he said easily.

Though playing sweethearts had been her idea, she was flustered by it. She looked everywhere but at him. Then, without warning, she reached up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thanks, Charming,” she said huskily, obviously deciding he needed a code name that matched hers.

But a less-likely prince had never been born, and he knew it.

He hoped the clerk wouldn’t look up, because there might be something memorable about seeing a man blushing because his supposed lady friend had kissed him and used an odd endearment on him.

Ronan didn’t make it worse by looking at her, but he felt a little stunned by the sweetness of her lips on his cheek, by the utter softness, the sensuality of a butterfly’s wings.

“Oh, look,” she said softly, suddenly breathless. She was tapping a worn sign underneath the glass on the counter.

“Motorcycles for rent. Hour, day, week.”

It would be the last time he’d be able to use this credit card, so maybe, despite his earlier rejection of the idea, now was the time to change vehicles. Was it a genuinely good idea or had that spontaneous kiss on the cheek rattled him?

He’d already nixed the motorcycle idea in his own mind. Why was he revisiting the decision?

Was he losing his edge? Finding her just too distracting? He had to do his job, to make decisions based solely on what was most likely to bring him to mission success, which was keeping her safe. Getting stopped in a stolen car was not going to do that. Blending in with the thousands of tourists that scootered around this island made more sense.

Since talking to Gray, he wondered if the whole point of the threats against the princess had been to stop the wedding, not harm her personally.

But he knew he couldn’t let his guard down because of that. He had to treat the threat to her safety as real, or there would be too many temptations to treat it lightly, to let his guard down, to let her get away with things.

“Please?” she said softly, and then she tilted her sunglasses down and looked at him over the rims.

Her eyes were stunning, the color and depth of tropical waters, filled at this moment with very real pleading, as if she felt her life depended on getting on that motorcycle.

Half an hour later, he had a backpack filled with their belongings, he had moved the car off the road into the thick shrubs beside it and he was studying the motorcycle. It was more like a scooter than a true motorcycle.

He took a helmet from a rack beside the motorcycles.

“Come here.”

“I don’t want to wear that! I want to feel the wind in my hair.”

He had noticed hardly anyone on the island did wear motorcycle helmets, probably because the top speed of these little scooters would be about eighty kilometers an hour. Still, acquiring the motorcycle felt a bit like giving in, and he was done with that. His job was to keep her safe in every situation. Life could be cruelly ironic, he knew. It would be terrible to protect her from an assassin and then get her injured on a motorbike.

“Please, Charming?” she said.

That had worked so well last time, she was already trying it again! It served him right for allowing himself to be manipulated by her considerable charm.

She took off her sunglasses and blinked at him. He could see the genuine yearning in her eyes, but knew he couldn’t cave in. This was a girl who was, no doubt, very accustomed to people jumping to make her happy, to wrapping the whole world around her pinky finger.

“Charming isn’t a good code name for me,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not. Charming. And I’m certainly not a prince.” To prove both, he added, sternly, “Now, come here and put on the helmet.”

“Are you wearing one?”

He didn’t answer, just lifted his eyebrow at her, the message clear. She could put on the helmet or she could go home.

Mutinously she snatched the straw hat from her head.

He tried not to let his shock show. In those few unsupervised minutes while he had talked to Gray on the phone, she had gone to the washroom, all right, but not for the reason he had thought or she had led him to believe. Where had she gotten her hands on a pair of scissors? Or maybe, given the raggedness of the cut, she had used a knife.

She was no hairdresser, either. Little chunks of her black hair stood straight up on her head, going every which way. The bangs were crooked. Her ears were tufted. There wasn’t a place where her hair was more than an inch and a half long. Her head looked like a newly hatched chicken, covered in dark dandelion fluff. It should have looked tragic.

Instead, she looked adorable, carefree and elfish, a rebel, completely at odds with the conservative outfit he had picked for her. Without the distraction of her gorgeous hair, it was apparent that her bone structure was absolutely exquisite, her eyes huge, her lips full and puffy.

“Where’s your hair?” he asked, fighting hard not to let his shock show. He shoved the helmet on her head quickly, before she had any idea how disconcerting he found her new look. His fingers fumbled on the strap buckle, he was way too aware of her, and not at all pleased with his awareness. The perfume he’d caught a whiff of at the wedding tickled his nostrils.

“I cut it.”

“I can clearly see that.” Thankfully, the mysteries of the helmet buckle unraveled, he tightened the strap, let his hands fall away. He was relieved the adorable mess of her hair was covered. “What did you do with it after you cut it?”

Her contrite expression told him she had left it where it had fallen.

“So, you did it for nothing,” he said sternly. “Now, when we’re traced this far, and we will be, they’ll find out you cut your hair. And they’ll be looking for a bald girl, easier to spot than you were before.”

“I’m not bald,” she protested.

“I’ve seen better haircuts on new recruits,” he said. She looked crestfallen, he told himself he didn’t care. But he was aware he did, just a little bit.

“I’ll go back and pick up my hair,” she said.

“Never mind. Hopefully no one is going to see you.”

“Does it look that bad?”

He could reassure her it didn’t, but that was something Prince Charming might do. “It looks terrible.”

He hoped she wasn’t going to cry. She put her sunglasses back on a little too rapidly. Her shoulders trembled tellingly.

Don’t be a jerk, he told himself. But then he realized he might be a lot safer in this situation if she did think he was a jerk.

When had his focus switched from her safety to his own?

Rattled, he pushed ahead. “I need you to think very carefully,” he said. “Is there a place on this island we can go where no one would find us for a week?”

He tried not to close his eyes after he said it. A week with her, her new haircut and her new green bikini stuffed in the backpack. Not to mention the shorty-shorts, and a halter top that had somehow been among her purchases.

He could see in her eyes she yearned for things that were forbidden to her, things she might not even be totally aware of, things that went far beyond riding on motorcycles and cutting her hair.

Things her husband should be teaching her. Right this minute. He had no right to be feeling grateful that she had not been delivered into the hands of a man she’d dreaded discovering those things with.

Instead she’d been delivered into his hands. One mission: keep her safe. Even from himself.

Still, he was aware he was a warrior, not a saint. The universe was asking way too much of him.

He turned from her swiftly, got on the motorcycle, persuaded it to life. He patted the seat behind him, not even looking at her.

But not looking at her didn’t help. She slid onto the seat behind him. The skirt hiked way up. Out of his peripheral vision he could see the nakedness of her knee. He glanced back. The skirt was riding high up her thigh.

It was a princess like no one had ever seen, of that he was certain. On the other hand, no one would be likely to recognize her looking like this, either.

“Hang on tight,” he said.

And then he felt her sweet curves pull hard against him. Oh, sure. For once she was going to listen!

“I know a place,” she called into his ear. “I know the perfect place.”

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He slowed, checked the caller ID. His mother. He wrestled an impulse to answer, to yell at her, Don’t do it! Instead he listened to her leave yet another voice mail.

“Ronan, call me. It’s so exciting.”

They were crossing over a bridge, rushing water below, and he took the phone and flung it into the water.

He was in the protection business; sometimes it felt as if the whole world was his responsibility. But the truth was he could not now, and never had been able to, protect his own mother from what she most needed protecting from.

Herself.

Shoshauna pressed her cheek up against the delicious hardness of Ronan’s shoulder. His scent, soapy and masculine, was stronger than the scent of the new shirt.

Alone with him for a week. In a place where no one could find them. It felt dangerous and exciting and terribly frightening, too. She pressed into him, feeling far more endangered than she had when the gun had gone off in the chapel.

Some kind of trembling had started inside her, and it was not totally because he had hurt her feelings telling her her hair looked terrible. It wasn’t totally because of the vibration of the motorbike, either!

“Go faster,” she cried.

He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“It doesn’t go any faster,” he shouted back at her, but he gave it a hit of gas and the little bike surged forward.

Her stomach dropped, and she squealed with delight.

He glanced back again. His lips were twitching. He was trying not to smile. But he did, and his smile was like the sun coming out on the grayest of days. That glimpse of a smile made her forget she had only a short time to squeeze many dreams into, though a week was more than she could have hoped for.

Still, it was as if his smile hypnotized her and made her realize maybe there was one dream he could help make come true. A dream more important than wearing shorts or riding astride or touching snow. A dream that scorned people who pretended all the time.

She had only a few days, and she wanted to be with someone who was real, not kowtowing. Not anxious to please. Not afraid of her position. Someone who would tell her the truth, even if it hurt to hear it.

I’m not going to be more responsible for you than you are willing to be for yourself, he had told her. She shivered. In that simple statement, as much as it had pained her to hear it, was the truth about how her life had gone off track so badly. Could Ronan somehow lead her back to what was real about herself?

When she was younger, there’d been a place she had been allowed to go where she had felt real. Relaxed. As if it was okay to be herself.

Herself—something more and more lost behind the royal mask, the essential facades of good manners, of duty. Something that might be lost forever when she was returned to Prince Mahail as his bride.

“There’s an island,” she called over the putter of the engine. “My grandparents have a summer place on a small island just north of the mainland. No one is ever there at this time of year.”

“No one? No security? No groundskeeper?”

“It’s a private island, but not the posh kind. You’d have to know my grandfather to understand. He hates all the royal fuss-fuss as he calls it. He likes simplicity.

“The island is almost primitive. There’s no electricity, the house is like a cottage, it even has a thatched roof.”

“Fresh water, or do we have to bring our own?”

“There’s a stream.” Ronan thought like a soldier, she realized. All she could think about was it would be such a good place to try on her new bikini, such a wonderful place to rediscover who she really was! But, given the strange trembling inside her, how wise would that be? Given the reality of his smile, the pure sexiness of it, was it possible she was headed into a worse danger zone than the one she was leaving?

“Bedding? Blankets?”

His mind, thankfully, a million miles from bikinis, on the more practical considerations. “I think so.”

“How do you get to it?”

“My grandfather keeps a boat at the dock across the bay from it.”

“Perfect,” he said. “Show me the fastest way to the boat dock.”

But she didn’t tell him the shortest way. She directed him the longest way possible, because who knew if she would ever ride a motorcycle again, her arms wrapped so intimately around a man with such an incredible, sexy smile?

She loved the motorcycle, even if she had been deprived of feeling the fingers of the wind playing with her hair. She could still feel the island breeze on her face, playing with the hem of her skirt, touching her legs. She could feel the kiss of warm sunshine. She had a lovely sensation of being connected to everything around her. The air was perfumed, birds and monkeys chattered in the trees. She didn’t feel separate from it, she felt like a part of it.

And she could feel the exquisite sensation of being connected to him—her arms wrapped around the hard-muscled bands of his stomach, her cheek resting on the solid expanse of his back, her legs forming a rather intimate vee around him.

Her mother, she knew, would have an absolute fit. And her father wouldn’t be too happy with her, either. She could only imagine how Mahail would feel if he saw her now!

Which only added to the delectable sense of dancing with danger that Princess Shoshauna was feeling: free, adventurous, as if anything at all could happen.

Just this morning her whole life had seemed to be mapped out in front of her, her fate inescapable. Now she had hair that Prince Mahail would hate, and she didn’t think he’d like it very much that she had spent a week alone with a strange man, either!

“Can you go faster?’ she called to Ronan over the wind.

The slightest hesitation, and then he did, opening the bike up so that they were roaring down the twisting highway, until tears formed in her eyes and she could feel the thrill to the bottom of her belly.

She refused to dwell on how long it would last, or if this was the only time she would ever do this.

Instead she threw back her head and laughed out loud for the sheer joy of the moment, at her unexpected encounter with the most heady drug of all—freedom.

CHAPTER THREE

RONAN cut the engine of the motorboat, letting it drift in to the deserted beach. He glanced at the princess, asleep in the bottom of the boat, exhausted from the day, and decided there was no need for both of them to get wet. He stood up, stepped off the hull into a gentle surf. The seawater was warm on his legs as he dragged the boat up onto the sand.

It was night, but the sky was breathtaking, star-studded. A full moon frosted each softly lapping wave in white and painted the fine beach sand a bewitching shade of silver.

From a soldier’s perspective, the island was perfect. Looking back across the water, he could barely make out the dark outline of the main island of B’Ranasha. He could see the odd light flickering on that distant shore.

He had circled this island once in the boat, a rough reconnaissance. It was only about eight kilometers all the way around it. Better yet, it had only this one protected bay, and only the one beach suitable for landing a boat.

Everywhere else the thick tropical growth, or rocky cliffs, came right to the water’s edge. The island was too small and bushed in to land a plane on. It would be a nightmare to parachute in to, and it would be a challenge to land a helicopter here. Planes and helicopters gave plenty of warning they were arriving, anyway.

It was a highly defensible position. Perfect from a soldier’s perspective.

But from a personal point of view, from a man’s perspective, it couldn’t be much worse. It was a deserted island more amazing than a movie set. The sand was white, fine and flawless, exotic birds filled the night air with music, a tantalizing perfume rode the gentle night breeze. Palm trees swayed in the wind, ferns and flowers abounded.

At the head of the beach was a cottage, palm-frond roof, screened porch looking out to the sea. It was the kind of retreat people came to on holidays and honeymoons, not to hide out. Which was a good thing. He highly doubted anyone would think to look for the princess here.

He gave the rope attached to the boat another pull, hauled it further up on the sand until he was satisfied it would be safe, even from the tide, which, according to the tide charts he had purchased at a small seaside village, would come up during the night.

Only then did he peer back at Aurora, his very own Sleeping Beauty. The princess, worn down from all the unscheduled excitement of her wedding day, was curled up in the bottom of the boat, fast asleep on a bed of life jackets.

The silver of the moon washed her in magic, though he felt the shock of her shorn head again, followed by a jolt of a different kind—the short hair did nothing but accentuate her loveliness. Right now he was astonished by the length and fullness of her lashes, casting sooty shadows on the roundness of her cheeks. Her lips moved, forming words in her sleep, something in her own language, ret-nuh.

He’d insisted on a life jacket, but the skirt was riding high up her legs, he caught a glimpse of bridal white panties so pure he could feel a certain dryness in his mouth. He reached out and gave the skirt a tug down, whether to save her embarrassment or to save himself he wasn’t quite sure.

A deserted island. A beautiful woman. A week. He was no math whiz, but he knew a bad equation when he came across it.

He’d done plenty of protection duty, and though it wasn’t his favorite assignment, Ronan prided himself on doing his work well. He’d protected heads of states and their families, politicians, royalty, CEOs.

The person being protected was known amongst the team as the “principal.” The team didn’t even use personal names when they discussed strategy, formulated plans. The cardinal rule, the constant in protection work, was maintaining a completely professional, arm’s-length relationship. Emotional engagement compromised the mission, period.

But the very circumstances of those other assignments made maintaining professionalism easy. The idea of forming any kind of deeper relationship or even a friendship, with the principal had been unthinkable. There was always a team, never just one person. There was always an environment conducive to maintaining preordained boundaries.

Ronan was in brand-new territory, and he didn’t like it. So, before he woke her up, he looked to the stars, gathered his strength, reminded himself of the mission, the boundaries, the rules.

“Hey,” he called softly, finally, “wake up.”

She stirred but didn’t wake, and he leaned into the boat and nudged her shoulder with his hand. She was slender as a reed, the roundness of her shoulder the epitome of feminine softness.

“Princess.” It would be infinitely easy to reach in and scoop her up, to carry her across the sand to that cottage, but that brief contact with her shoulder was fair warning it would be better not to add one little bit of physical contact to the already volatile combination.

A bad time to think of her lips on his cheek earlier in the day, her slight curves pressed hard against him on that motorcycle.

“Wake up,” he said louder, more roughly.

She did, blinked—that blank look of one who couldn’t quite place where they were. And then she focused on him and smiled in a way that could melt even the most professional soldier’s dedication to absolute duty.

She sat up, looked around and then sighed with contentment. She liked being here. She had liked the entire day way too much! He had not been nearly as immune to her laughter and her arms wrapped around him as he had wanted to be, but thankfully she didn’t have to know that!

She shrugged out of the life jacket and then stretched, pressing the full sensuous roundness of her breasts into the thin fabric of the ill-fitting blouse. Then she stood up. The boat rocked on the sand, and the physical contact he wanted so badly not to happen, happened anyway. He caught her, steadied her as the boat rocked on the uneven ground. She took one more step, the boat pitched, and she would have gone to her knees.

Except his hands encircled her waist nearly completely, the thumb and index finger of his right hand nearly touching those of his left. He lifted her from the boat, swung her onto the sand, amazed by her slightness. She didn’t weigh any more than a fully loaded combat pack.

“You’re strong!” she said.

He withdrew from her swiftly, not allowing himself to preen under her admiration. A week. They had to make it a week.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” she asked, hugging herself, apparently oblivious to his discomfort. “I love it here. My grandfather called it Naidina Karobin—it means something like my heart is home.”

Great.

“Isn’t that pretty?”

“Yeah, sure.” Real men didn’t use words like pretty. Except maybe in secret, when they looked at a face like hers, washed in moonlight, alive with discovery. Mission.

He reached into the boat and grabbed the knapsack. As he followed her across the sand toward the cottage, he noted that the trees in the grove around it were loaded with edible fruits, coconuts, bananas, mangos.

He’d landed in the Garden of Eden. He only hoped he could resist the apple. Boundaries.

As they got closer, the princess jacked her skirt up and ran, danced really, across the sand. She looked like some kind of moonlit nymph, her slender legs painted in silver. Rules, duty, professionalism.

He followed her more slowly, as if he could put off the moment when they set up housekeeping together and everything intensified yet more.

Becoming part of Excalibur, Ronan’s endurance, physical strength, intellectual assets, ability to cope with stress had all been tested beyond normal limits. One man in twenty who was recruited for that unit made it through the selection process. Membership meant being stronger, faster, tougher in mind and spirit than the average man.

And yet to share the space of that cottage on this island with a real-live sleeping beauty seemed as if it would test him in ways he had never been tested before.

Ronan had been in possession of the princess for less than twenty-four hours and he already felt plenty tested!

He drew a deep breath as he followed her up wide steps to the screen door that he thought had been a screened-in veranda. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of moonlight inside, he saw he had been mistaken.

It was not a screened porch, but a screened-in house. A summer house, she’d said, obviously designed so that it caught the breeze from every angle on hot summer nights. The huge overhang of the roof would protect it from the rare days of inclement weather these islands experienced.

White, sheer curtains lifted and fell in the breeze, making the inside of the house enchanting and exotic. The main room had dark, beautiful wooden floors, worn smooth from years of use, moonlight spilling across them. Deeply cushioned, colorful rattan furniture was grouped casually around a coffee table, a space that invited conversation, relaxation.

Intimacy.

At the other end of the room was a dining area, the furniture old, dark, exquisitely carved and obviously valuable. That such good furniture would be left out in an unlocked cottage should have reassured him how safe the island was. But Ronan was a little too aware that the dangers here could come from within, not without.

The screens as walls gave a magnificent illusion of there being no separation between the indoor living space and the outdoors.

He spied a hurricane lamp and lit it, hoping the light would chase away the feeling of enchantment, but instead, in the flickering golden light, the great room became downright romantic, soft, sultry, sensual.

The light was soft on her face, too, her expression rapt as she looked around, her eyes glowing with the happiness of memories.

Ronan would have liked it a lot better if she was spoiled rotten, complaining about spiderwebs and the lack of electricity.

To distance himself from the unwanted whoosh of attraction he felt, Ronan went hurriedly across the room to investigate a door at the back of it. It led to an outdoor kitchen, and he went out. The outdoor cooking space was complete with a huge wood-fired oven and a grill. Open shelves were lined with canned goods. A person could camp out here, on this island, comfortably, for a year.

Beyond that, in a flower- and fern-encircled grove was an open-air shower, and the whoosh he’d been trying to outrun came back.

He reentered the house reluctantly, thankful he didn’t see her right away. He finished his inventory of the main house: there were two rooms off the great room, and he entered the first. It was the main bedroom, almost entirely taken up by a huge bed framed with soaring rough timbers, dark with age, more sheer white curtains flowing around the bed, surrounding it. Again the screens acting as outer walls made the bed seem to be set right amongst the palms and mango trees. The perfume of a thousand different flowers tickled his nose. There was no barrier to sound, either. The sea whispered poetry. He backed hastily out of there.

Princess Shoshauna was in the smaller of the bedrooms, looking around and hugging herself.

“This is where I always stayed when I was a child! Look how it feels as if you are right outside! My grandfather designed this house. He was an architect. That’s how he came to be on B’Ranasha. I’ll have this room.”

He would have much preferred she take the bigger room, act snotty and entitled so he could kill the whoosh in his stomach.

“I think you should take the bigger room,” he suggested. “You are the princess.”

“Not this week I’m not.” She smiled, delighted to have declared herself not a princess.

If she wasn’t a princess, if she was just an ordinary girl…he cut off the train of his thought. It didn’t matter if she was a wandering gypsy. She was still the principal, and it was still his mission to protect her.

He reached into his pocket, took out a pocketknife and cut the cord that kept the mattress rolled up. He found the bedding in a tightly closed trunk under the bed. A floral sachet had been packed with it, and the white linen sheets smelled exotic.

He laid them quickly on the bed, then watched, bemused, when she eyed the pile of bedding as though it were an interesting but baffling jigsaw puzzle.

“You don’t know how to make a bed,” he guessed, incredulous, then wondered why it would surprise him that a princess had no idea how to make a bed.

The truth was, it would be way too easy to forget she was a princess, especially with her standing there with shorn hair, and in a badly rumpled and ill-fitting dress.

But that was exactly what he had to remember, to keep his boundaries clear, his professionalism unsullied, his duty foremost in his mind. She was a princess, a real one. He was a soldier. Their stations in life were millions of miles apart. And they were going to stay that way.

“My mother would never have allowed it,” she said, sadly. “She had this idea that to do things that could be done by servants was common. Of course, she was a commoner, and she never quite overcame her insecurity about it.”

She didn’t know how to make a bed.

Every soldier had been tormented, at one time or another, with making a bed that could satisfy a drill sergeant who had no intention of being satisfied. Ronan could make a bed—perfectly—anywhere, anytime.

To focus on the differences between them would strengthen his will. To perceive her as pampered and useless would go a long way in erasing the memory of her slender curves pressed into his back as they rode that motorcycle together.

“I’d be happy to make it for you, Princess,” he said.

She glared at him. “I don’t want you to make it for me! I want you to show me how to make it.”

He was tired. He had not had the benefit of a two hour nap in the bottom of the boat. She had slept for an hour or so before that, as well, while they had waited, hidden, for it to get dark enough to take her grandfather’s boat from the dock and cross the water without being seen.

It would be easier for him to make the bed himself, but he had to get through a full week, and that wasn’t going to be easy if he argued with her over little things.

His eyes went to the full puffiness of her lips, and he felt his own weariness, his resolve flickering.

He had to get though a full week without kissing her, too.

Making a bed together didn’t seem like a very good starting point for keeping things professional and distant. Neither did fighting with her.

He had the uneasy feeling he’d better adjust to being put in no-win positions by the princess.

He separated the sheets from the blankets, found the bottom sheet and tossed it over the mattress.

“First you tuck this under the mattress,” he said.

“I’ll do it!” she said, when he reached out to demonstrate.

He held up his hands in surrender, stood back, tried not to wince at her sloppy corners, the slack fabric in the center of the bed. He didn’t offer to help as she grunted over lifting the corners of the mattress.

He handed her the second sheet, tried to stay expressionless as she shoved it under the bottom of the mattress in such a bunched-up mess that the mattress lifted.

She caught the tip of her tongue between her teeth as she focused with furious concentration on the task at hand. He folded his arms firmly over his chest.

She inserted the pillows in the cases with the seams in the wrong places and fluffed them. Then he handed her the top blanket, which she tossed haphazardly on top of the rest of her mess.

The bed was a buck private’s nightmare, but she smiled with pleasure at her final result. To his eye, it looked more like a nest than a well-made bed.

“See?” she said. “I can do ordinary things.”

“Yes,” he said, deadpan. “I can clearly see that.”

Something in his tone must have betrayed him, because she searched his face with grave suspicion.

A drill sergeant would have had the thrill of ripping it apart and making her do it again, but he wasn’t a drill sergeant. In fact, at the moment he was just an ordinary guy, trying to survive.

“Okay,” he said, “if you have everything—”

“Oh, I’ll make yours, too. For practice.”

“What do you need practice making a bed for?” he asked crankily. He didn’t want her touching his bedding.

He was suddenly acutely aware of how alone they were here, of how the dampness of the sea air was making the baggy dress cling to her, of how her short hair was curling slightly from humidity, and there seemed to be a dewy film forming on her skin. He was aware of how her tongue had looked, caught between her teeth.

Ignoring him, she marched right by him into his room. He trailed behind her reluctantly, watched as she opened the trunk where the linens were kept and began tossing them on his bed.

“I’m going to do all kinds of ordinary things this week,” she announced.

“Such as?” He didn’t offer to help her make the bed, just watched, secretly aghast at the mess she was making.

“Cooking!” she decided.

“I can hardly wait.”

He got the suspicious look again.

“Washing dishes. Doing laundry. You can show me those things, can’t you?”

She sounded so enthused he thought she must be pulling his leg, but he could tell by the genuine eager expression on her face she really wasn’t.

How did a man maintain professional distance from a princess who wanted nothing more than to be an ordinary girl, who was enthralled at the prospect of doing the most ordinary of things?

He nodded cautiously.

“I would like to learn how to sew on a button,” she decided. “Do you know how to do that?”

Sewing buttons, insignia, pant hems, was right up there with making beds in a soldier’s how-to arsenal, but she didn’t wait for him to answer.

“And I can’t wait to swim in the ocean! I used to swim here when I was a child. I love it!”

He thought of that bikini in their backpack, closed his eyes, marshaling strength.

“You don’t happen to know how to surf, do you?” she asked him. “There used to be a surfboard under the cottage. I hope it’s still there!”

His boyhood days had been spent on a surfboard. It was probably what had saved him from delinquency, his love of the waves, his need to perfect the dance with the extraordinary, crashing power of them.

“This bay doesn’t look like it would ever get much in the way of surf,” he told her. “It’s pretty protected.”

She looked disappointed, but then brightened. “There’s snorkeling equipment under there, too. Maybe we can do that.”

We, as if they were two kids together on vacation. Now would be the time to let her know he had no intention of being her playmate, but he held his tongue.

She gave his bed a final, satisfied pat. “Well, good night Ronan. I can’t wait for tomorrow.” She blew him a kiss, which was only slightly better than the one she had planted on his cheek earlier in the day.

He rubbed his cheek, aggravated, as if the kiss had actually landed, an uncomfortably whimsical thought for a man who prided himself on his pragmatic nature. He listened for her to get into her own bed, then went on silent feet and checked each side of the cabin.

The night was silent, except for the night birds. The ocean was dark and still, the only lights were from the moon and stars, the few lights on the mainland had winked out.

He went back into his bedroom. He knew he needed to sleep, that it would help him keep his thinking clear and disciplined. He also knew he had acquired, over the years, that gift peculiar to soldiers of sleeping in a state of readiness. Any sound that didn’t belong would awaken him instantly. His highly developed sixth sense would guard them both through the night.

He shrugged out of his shirt but left the shorts on. He certainly didn’t want her to ever see him in his underwear, and he might have to get out of bed quickly in the night. He climbed into bed. It had to be his imagination that her perfume lingered on the sheets. Still, tired as he was, he tossed and turned until finally, an hour later, he got out of the bed, remade it perfectly. He got back in and slept instantly.

Shoshauna awoke to light splashing across her bed, birdsong, the smell and sound of the sea.

She remembered she was on her grandfather’s island and thought to herself, my heart is home. She remembered her narrow escape from marriage, the unexpected gifts yesterday: riding the motorcycle, buying the daring bathing suit and shorty-shorts.

Kissing Ronan on the cheek. Feeling the muscles of his back as they shared the motorcycle, feeling his hands encircle her waist.

Ronan was a gloriously made man, all hard muscle, graceful efficiency of movement, easy, unconscious strength, a certain breathtaking confidence in his physical abilities. Add to that the soft, firm voice, his accent. And his eyes! A soldier’s eyes to be sure, stern, forbidding even. But when the mask slipped, when they glinted with laughter, she felt this uncontrollable—and definitely wicked—shiver of pure wanting. He made her feel such an amazing mixture of things: excited and shy, aggravated, annoyed, alive.

Shoshauna knew it was wrong to be thinking like that. She was promised to another. And yet…if you could pick a man to spend a week on a deserted island with, you would pick a man like Ronan.

She gave her head a shake at the naughty direction of her own thoughts and realized her head felt unnaturally light and then remembered she had cut her hair.

She had glimpsed her hair in the mirror of the motorcycle. Now she hopped out of bed and had a good look in the mirror above the dressing table.

“Oh!” she said, touching her fingers to it. It looked awful, crushed in places from sleep, standing straight up in others. Despite that, she decided she loved it. It made her look like a girl who would never back down from an adventure, not a princess who had spent her life in a tower, at least figuratively speaking! In fact, she felt in love with life this morning, excited about whatever new gifts the day held. Excited about a chance to get to know Ronan better.

But wasn’t that a betrayal of the man she was promised to?

Not necessarily, she told herself. This was her opportunity to be ordinary!

She realized she had not felt this way—happy, hopeful—since she had said yes to Prince Mahail’s proposal. Up till now she had woken up each and every morning with a knot in her stomach that shopping for the world’s most luxurious trousseau could not begin to undo. She had woken each morning with a growing sense of dread, a prisoner counting down to their date with the gallows.

Her stomach dipped downward, reminding her that her reprieve was probably temporary at best.

But she refused to think of that now, to waste even one precious moment of her freedom.

Ronan had left the backpack in her room, and she pawed through it, found the shorty-shorts and a red, spaghetti-strapped shirt that hugged her curves. She put on the outfit and twirled in front of the mirror, her sense of being an ordinary girl increased sweetly.

Her mother would have hated both the amount of leg showing and the skimpiness of the top, which made Shoshauna enjoy her outfit even more. She liked the way lots of bare skin against warm air felt: free, faintly sensual and very comfortable.

She went out her door, saw his bedroom was already empty. She stopped when she saw his bed was made, hesitated, then went in and inspected it. The bedding was crisp and taut. She backed out when she realized the room smelled like him: something so masculine and rich it was nearly drugging.

She went back to her own room, tugged the rumpled bedding into some semblance of order, declared herself and the room perfectly wonderfully ordinary and went in search of Ronan.

He was at the outdoor kitchen, a basket of fruit beside him that he was peeling and cutting into chunks. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the pure poetry of him performing such a simple task, and then blushed when he glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow. He had known she stood there observing him!

Still, there was a flash of something in his eyes as he took in her outfit, before it was quickly veiled, a barrier swiftly erected. And there was no hint of that flash in his voice.

“Princess,” he said formally, “did you sleep well?”

It was several giant steps back from the man who had laughed with her yesterday. She wanted to break down the barrier she saw in his eyes. What good was being an ordinary girl if it was as if she was on this island alone? If her intrigue with this man was not shared?

“You must call me Shoshauna,” she said.

“I can’t.”

She glared at him. “I command it.”

He actually laughed out loud, the same laugh that had given her her first glimpse yesterday of just how real he could be, making her yearn to know him, know someone real.

“Command away, Princess. I’m not calling you by your first name.”

“Why?”

“It’s too familiar. I’m your bodyguard, not your buddy.”

She felt the sting of that. Her disappointment was acute. He wanted the exact opposite of what she wanted! She wanted to feel close to another human being, he wanted to feel distant. She wanted to use this time together to explore his mysteries, he was just as determined to keep them secret.

It was frustrating! Her mother would approve of his attitude, a man who knew his place and was so determined to keep their different positions as a barrier between them.

But so would her grandmother love him. Her grandmother said soldiers made the best husbands, because they already knew how to obey. Not that he was showing any sign of obeying Shoshauna!

And not that she wanted to be thinking of this handsome man and the word husband in the same sentence. She had just narrowly missed making marriage her fate.

Still, she wanted him to participate in the great adventure she was on. How could she forget she was a princess, forget her obligations and duties for a short while, if he was going to insist on reminding her at every turn by using a formal title?

“How about my code name, then?” she asked.

He hesitated, glanced at her, shrugged. She couldn’t tell if it was agreement or appeasement, though whichever it was, she sensed it was a big concession from him, he suddenly refused to look at her, took an avid interest in the fruit in front of him.

“I’ll do that,” she said, moving up beside him. Did he move a careful step away from her? She moved closer. He moved away again and without looking at her, passed her a little tiny knife and a mango.

“Don’t cut your fingers off,” he said dryly.

She watched for a moment as his own fingers handled the knife, removed a fine coil of peel from the fruit. He caught her watching him, again, put down the knife and turned away from her to put wood in the oven.

“What are we going to make in there?” she asked eagerly.

“I’m going to make biscuits.”

“I want to learn!”

“What for?”

“It seems like it would be a useful skill,” she said stubbornly.

“It is a useful skill. For someone like me, who frequently finds himself trying to make the best of rough circumstances. But for a princess?” He shook his head.

“I want to know useful things!”

“What is useful in your world and what is useful in mine are two very different things,” he said almost gently.

Rebelliously she attacked the mango with her knife. Ten minutes later as she looked at the sliver of fruit in front of her, what was left of her mango, she realized he was probably right. Domestication at this late date was probably hopeless. She felt sticky to the elbow, and had managed to get juice in her eye. The mango was mangled beyond recognition.

She cast him a look. Ronan was taking golden-brown biscuits off a griddle above the stove. The scent of them made her mouth water.

“Here,” she said, handing him the remnants of her mango. He took it wordlessly, his face a careful blank, and added it to the plate of fruit he had prepared.

She thought they’d take the food inside to the dining table, but he motioned her over to a little stone bench, set the plate down between them, lifted his face to the morning sun as he picked up a piece of fruit.

She followed his example and picked up a slice of fruit and a biscuit with her fingers.

Shoshauna had dined on the finest foods in the world. She had eaten at the fanciest tables of B’Ranasha, using the most exquisite china and cutlery. But she felt as if she had never tasted food this fine or enjoyed flavor so much.

She decided she loved everything, absolutely everything, about being an ordinary girl. And she hadn’t given up on herself in the domestic department yet, either!

CHAPTER FOUR

AFTER a few minutes Shoshauna couldn’t help but notice that her pleasure in the simplicity of the breakfast feast seemed to be entirely one-sided.

Ronan, while obviously enjoying the sunshine and eating with male appetite, seemed pensive, turned in on himself, as anxious not to connect with her as she was to connect with him.

“Are you enjoying breakfast?” she asked, craving conversation, curious about this man who had become her protector.

He nodded curtly.

She realized she was going to have to be more direct! “Tell me about yourself,” she invited.

He shot her a look, looked away. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m a soldier. That means my life is ninety-nine percent pure unadulterated boredom.”

She supposed you didn’t learn to make a bed like that if you led a life of continuous excitement, but she knew he was fudging the truth. She could tell, from the way he carried himself, from the calm with which he had handled things yesterday that he dealt with danger as comfortably as most men dealt with the reading of the morning paper.

“And one percent what?” she asked when it became apparent he was going to add nothing voluntarily.

“All hell breaking loose.”

“Oh!” she said genuinely intrigued. “All hell breaking loose! That sounds exciting.”

“I wish you wouldn’t say that word,” he said, ignoring her implied invitation to share some of his most exciting experiences with her.

“Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell,” she said, and found it very liberating both to say the word and to defy him. Her society prized meekness in women, but she had made the discovery she was not eager to be anyone’s prize!

He shot her a stern look. She smiled back. He wasn’t her father! He didn’t look more than a few years older than she was. He couldn’t tell her how to behave!

He sighed, resigned, she hoped, to the fact he was not going to control her. She’d been controlled quite enough. This was her week to do whatever she wanted, including say hell to her heart’s content.

“What’s the most exciting thing that ever happened to you?” she pressed, when he actually shut his eyes, lifted his chin a bit higher to the sun, took a bite of biscuit, apparently intent on pretending he was dining alone and ignoring her questions.

He thought about it for a minute, but his reluctance to engage in this conversation was palpable. Finally he said, without even opening his eyes, “I ran into a grizzly bear while in Canada on a mountain survival exercise.”

“Really?” she breathed. “What happened?” It was better than she could have hoped. Better than a movie! She waited for him to tell her what she could picture so vividly—Ronan wrestling the primitive animal to the ground with his bare hands…

“It ran one way and I ran the other.”

She frowned, sharply disappointed at his lack of heroics. “That doesn’t sound very exciting!”

“I guess you had to be there.”

“I think I would like to go to the mountains in Canada.” Yes, even with bears, or maybe because of bears, it sounded like an adventure she’d enjoy very much. “Are the mountains beautiful? Is there snow?”

“Yes, to both.”

“What’s snow like?” she asked wistfully.

“Cold.”

“No, what does it feel like.” Again, he was trying to disengage, but he was the only person she’d ever met who had experienced snow, and she had to know.

“It’s different all the time,” he said, giving in a little, as if he sensed her needing to know. “If it’s very cold the snow is light and powdery, like frozen dust. If it’s warmer it’s heavy and wet and sticks together. You can build things with it when it’s like that.”

“Like a snowman?”

“Yeah, I suppose. I built a snow cave out of it.”

“Which kind is better for sledding?”

“The cold, dry kind. What do you know about that?”

“Nothing. I’ve seen it on television. I’ve always had a secret desire to try it, a secret desire to see different things than here, more beautiful.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything more beautiful than this,” he said. “It’s a different kind of beauty. More rugged. The landscape there is powerful rather than gentle. It reminds a person of how small they are and how big nature is.” He suddenly seemed to think he was talking too much. “I’m sure your husband will take you there if you want to go,” he said abruptly.

It was her turn to glare at him. She didn’t want to be reminded, at this moment, that her life was soon going to involve a husband.

“I’m fairly certain Prince Mahail,” she said, “is about as interested in tobogganing in snow as he is in training a water buffalo to tap dance.”

“He doesn’t like traveling? Trying new things?” He did open his eyes then, lower his chin. He was regarding her now with way too much interest.

She felt a sensation in her stomach like panic. “I don’t know what he likes,” she said, her voice strangled. She felt suddenly like crying, looked down at her plate and blinked back the tears.

Her life had come within seconds of being linked forever to a man who was a stranger to her. And despite the fact the heavens had taken pity on her and granted her a reprieve, there was no guarantee that linking would not still happen.

“Hey,” Ronan said, “hey, don’t cry.”

After all the events of yesterday, including being shot at, this was the first time she’d heard even the smallest hint of panic in that calm voice!

“I’m not crying,” she said. But she was. She scrubbed furiously at the tear that worked its way down her cheek. She didn’t want Ronan to be looking at her like that because he felt sorry for her!

She reminded herself she was supposed to be finding out about Ronan, not the other way around!

“What made you want to be a soldier?” she asked, trying desperately for an even tone of voice, to change the subject, to not waste one precious second contemplating all the adventures she was not going to have once she was married to Mahail.

Something flickered in his eyes. Sympathy? Compassion? Whatever it was, he opened up to her just the tiniest little bit.

“I had a lousy home life as a kid. I wanted routine. Stability. Rules. I found what I was looking for.” He regarded her intently, hesitated and then said softly, “And you will, too. Trust me.”

He would be such an easy man to trust, to believe that he had answers.

“Isn’t it a hard life you’ve chosen?” she asked him, even though what she really wanted to say was how? How will I ever find what I’m looking for? I don’t even know where to look!

He shrugged, tilted his chin back toward the sun. “Our unit’s unofficial motto is Go Hard or Go Home. Some would see it as hard. I see it as challenging.”

Was there any subtle way to ask what she most wanted to ask, besides How will I ever find what I’m looking for? It was inappropriate to ask him, and too soon. But still, she was not going to find herself alone on a deserted island with an extremely handsome man ever again.

She had to know. She had to know if he was available. Even though she herself, of course, was not. Not even close.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” She hoped she wasn’t blushing.

He opened his eyes, shot her a look, closed them again. “No.”

“Why not?”

His openness came to an abrupt end. That firm line appeared again around his mouth. “What is this? Twenty questions at the high school cafeteria?”

“What’s a high school caff-a-ter-ee-a?”

“Never mind. I don’t have a girlfriend because my lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to having a girlfriend.”

“Why?”

He sighed, but she was not going to be discouraged. Her option was to spend the week talking to him or talking to herself. At the moment she felt her survival depended on focusing on his life, rather than her own.

Maybe her desperation was apparent because he caved slightly. “I travel a lot. I can be called away from home for months at a time. I dismantle the odd bomb. I jump from airplanes.”

“Meeting the grizzly bear wasn’t the most exciting thing that ever happened to you!” she accused.

“Well, it was the most exciting thing that I’m allowed to talk about. Most of what I do is highly classified.”

“And dangerous.”

He shrugged. “Dangerous enough that it doesn’t seem fair to have a girlfriend or a family.”

“I’m not sure,” she said, thoughtfully, “what is unfair about being yourself?”

He looked at her curiously and she explained what she meant. “The best thing is to be passionate about life. That’s what makes people really seem alive, whole, isn’t it? If they aren’t afraid to live the way they want to live and to live fully? That’s what a girlfriend should want for you. For a life that makes you whole. And happy. Even if it is dangerous.”

She was a little embarrassed that she, who had never had a boyfriend, felt so certain about what qualifications his girlfriend should have. And she was sadly aware that passion, the ability to be alive and whole, were the very qualities she herself had lost somewhere a long the way.

As if to underscore how much she had lost or never discovered, he asked her, suddenly deciding to have a conversation after all, “So, what’s the most exciting thing you’ve ever done?”

Been shot at. Cut my hair. Ridden a motorcycle.

All the most exciting events of her life had happened yesterday! It seemed way too pathetic to admit that, though it increased her sense of urgency, this was her week to live.

“I’m afraid that’s classified,” she said, and was rewarded when he smiled, ever so slightly, but spoiled the effect entirely by chucking her under her chin as if she was a precocious child, gathered their plates and stood up.

Shoshauna realized, that panicky sensation suddenly back, that she had to squeeze as much into the next week as she possibly could. “I’m putting on my bathing suit now and going swimming. Are you coming?”

He looked pained. “No. I’ll look after the dishes.”

“We can do the dishes later. Together. You can show me how.”

He said another nice word under his breath.

She repeated it, and when he gave her that look, the stern, forbidding, don’t-mess-with-me look, she said it again!

When he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, a man marshaling his every resource, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was dreading this week every bit as much as she was looking forward to it.

“How about if we do the dishes now?” he said. “In this climate I don’t think you want to leave things out to attract bugs. And then,” he added, resigned, “if you really want, I’ll show you how to make biscuits.”

She eyed him suspiciously. He didn’t look like a man who would be the least bothered by a few bugs. He’d probably eaten them on occasion! And he certainly did not look like a man who wanted to give out cooking lessons.

So that left her with one conclusion. He didn’t like the water. No, that wasn’t it. And then, for some reason, she remembered the look on his face when he’d put that pink bikini back on the rack in the store yesterday.

And she understood perfectly!

Ronan did not want to see her in a bikini. Which meant, as much as he didn’t want to, he found her attractive.

A shiver went up and down her spine, and she felt something she had not felt for a very long time, if she had ever felt it at all.

Without knowing it, Ronan had given her a very special gift. Princess Shoshauna felt the exquisite discovery of her own power.

“I’d love to learn to make biscuits instead of going swimming,” she said meekly, the perfect B’Ranasha princess. Then she smiled to herself at the relief he was unable to mask in his features. She had a secret weapon. And she would decide when and where to use it.

“Hey,” Ronan snapped, “cut it out.”

The princess ignored him, took another handful of soap bubbles and blew them at him. Princess Shoshauna had developed a gift for knowing when it was okay to ignore his instructions and when it wasn’t, and it troubled him that she read him so easily after four days of being together.

He had not managed to keep her out of the bathing suit, hard as he had tried. He’d taken her at her word that she wanted to learn things and had her collecting fruit and firewood. He’d taught her how to start a decent fire, showed her edible plants, a few rudimentary survival skills.

Ronan had really thought she would lose interest in all these things, but she had not. Her fingers were covered in tiny pinpricks from her attempts to handle a needle and thread, she was sporting a bruise on one of her legs from trying to climb up a coconut tree, she gathered firewood every morning with enthusiasm and without being asked. Even her bed making was improving!

He was reluctantly aware that the princess had that quality that soldiers admired more than any other. They called it “try.” It was a never-say-die, never-quit determination that was worth more in many situations than other attributes like strength and smarts, though in fact the princess had both of those, too, her strength surprising, given her physical size.

Still, busy as he’d tried to keep her, he’d failed to keep her from swimming, though he’d developed his own survival technique for when she donned the lime-green handkerchief she called a bathing suit.

The bathing suit was absolutely astonishing on her. He knew as soon as he saw it that he had been wrong thinking the pink one he’d made her put back would look better, because nothing could look better.

She was pure, one-hundred-percent-female menace in that bathing suit, slenderness and curves in a head-spinning mix. Mercifully, for him, she was shy about wearing it, and got herself to the water’s edge each day before dropping the towel she wrapped herself in.

His survival technique: he went way down the beach and spearfished for dinner while she swam. He kept an eye on her, listened for sounds of distress, kept his distance.

He was quite pleased with his plan, because she was so gorgeous in a bathing suit it could steal a man’s strength as surely as Delilah had stolen Sampson’s by cutting off his hair.

Shoshauna blew some more bubbles at him.

“Cut it out,” he warned her again.

She chuckled, unfortunately, not the least intimidated by him anymore.

It was also unfortunately charming how much fun she was having doing the dishes. She had fun doing everything, going after life as if she had been a prisoner in a cell, marveling at the smallest things.

Hard as it was to maintain complete professionalism in the face of her joie de vivre, he was glad her mood was upbeat. There had been no more emotional outbursts after that single time she had burst into tears at the very mention of her fiancé, her husband-to-be.

Ronan could handle a lot of things, up to and including a mad mamma grizzly clicking her teeth at him and rearing to her full seven-foot height on her hind legs. But he could not handle a woman in tears!

Still he found himself contemplating that one time, in quiet moments, in the evenings when he was by himself and she had tumbled into bed, exhausted and happy. How could Shoshauna not even know if her future life partner liked traveling, or if he shared her desire to touch snow, to toboggan? The princess was, obviously, marrying a stranger. And just as obviously, and very understandably, she was terrified of it.

But all that fell clearly into the none-of-his-business category. The sense that swept over him, when he saw her shinny up a tree, grinning down at him like the cheeky little monkey she was, of being protective, almost furiously so, of wanting to rescue her from her life was inappropriate. He was a soldier. She was a princess. His life involved doing things he didn’t want to do, and so did hers.

But marrying someone she didn’t even really know? Glancing at her now, bubbles from head to toe, it seemed like a terrible shame. She was adorable—fun, curious, bratty, sexy as all get-out—she was the kind of girl some guy could fall head over heels in love with. And she deserved to know what that felt like.

Not, he told himself sternly, that he was in any kind of position to decide what she did or didn’t deserve. That wasn’t part of the mission.

He’d never had a mission that made him feel curiously weak instead of strong, as if things were spinning out of his control. He’d come to like being with her, so much so that even doing dishes with her was weakness, pure and simple.

It had been bad enough when she waltzed out in shorts every morning, her legs golden and flawless, looking like they went all the way to her belly button. Which showed today, her T-shirt a touch too small. Every time she moved her arms, he saw a flash of slender tummy.

It was bad enough that when he’d glanced over at her, hacking away at the poor defenseless mango or pricking her fingers with a needle, he felt an absurd desire to touch her hair because it had looked spiky, sticking up all over the place like tufts of grass but he was willing to bet it was soft as duck down.

It was bad enough that she was determined to have a friendship, and that even though he knew it was taboo, sympathy had made him actually engage with her instead of discouraging her.

I had a lousy home life as a kid. That was the most personal information he’d said to anyone about himself in years. He hated that he’d said it, even if he’d said it to try and make her realize good things could come from bad.

He hated that sharing with her that one stupid, small sentence had made him realize a loneliness resided in him that he had managed to outrun for a long, long time. He’d said he didn’t have a girlfriend because of his work, but that was only a part truth. The truth was he didn’t want anyone to know him so well that they could coax information out of him that made him feel vulnerable and not very strong at all.

He was a man who loved danger, who rose to the thrill of a risk. He lived by his unit’s motto, Go Hard or Go Home, and he did it with enthusiasm. His life was about intensely masculine things: strength, discipline, guts, toughness.

After his mother’s great love of all things frilly and froufrou, he had not just accepted his rough barracks existence, he had embraced it. He had, consciously or not, rejected the feminine, the demands of being around the female of the species. He had no desire to be kind, polite, gentle or accommodating.

But in revealing that one small vulnerability to Shoshauna, he recognized he had never taken the greatest risk of all.

Part of the reason he was a soldier—or maybe most of the reason—was he could keep his heart in armor. He’d been building that armor, piece by meticulous piece, since the death of his dad. But when he’d asked her, that first day together, “Who knows what love is?” he’d had a flash of memory, a realization that a place in him thought it knew exactly what love was.

There was a part of him that he most wanted to deny, that he had been very successfully denying until a few short days ago, but now it nibbled around the edges of his mind. Ronan secretly hoped there was a place a man could lay his armor down, a place he could be soft, a place where there was room to love another.

Shoshauna, without half trying, was bringing his secrets to the surface. She was way too curious and way too engaging. Luckily for him, he had developed that gift of men who did dangerous and shadowy work. He was taciturn, wary of any interest in him.

In his experience, civilians thought they wanted to know, thought a life of danger was like adventure movies, but it wasn’t and they didn’t.

But Shoshauna’s desire to know seemed genuine, and even though she had led the most sheltered of lives, he had a feeling she could handle who he really was. More than handle it—embrace it.

But these were the most dangerous thoughts—the thoughts that jeopardized his mission, his sense of professionalism and his sense of himself.

But what had his choices been? To totally ignore her for the week? Set up a tent out back here? Pretend she didn’t exist?

He was no expert on women, but he knew they liked to talk. It was in his own best interests to keep the princess moderately happy with their stay here. Hell, part of him, an unfortunately large part, wanted to make her happy before he returned her to a fate that he would not have wished on anyone.

Marriage seemed like a hard enough proposition without marrying someone you didn’t know. Ask his mother. She’d made it her hobby to marry people she didn’t really know.

A renegade thought blasted through his mind: if he was Shoshauna’s prince, he’d take her to that mountaintop just because she wanted to go, just to see the delight in her face when she looked down over those sweeping valleys, to see her inhale the crispness of the air. He’d build snowmen with her and race toboggans down breathtakingly steep slopes just to hear the sound of her laughter.

If he was her prince? Cripes, he was getting in bigger trouble by the minute.

There had been mistakes made over the past few days. One of them had been asking her about the most exciting thing in her life. Because it had been so pathetically evident it had probably been that motorcycle ride and all of this.

From the few words she’d said about passion he’d known instantly that she regretted the directions of her own life, yearned for more. And he’d been taken by her wisdom, too, when he’d told her that the dangerous parts of his job kept him from a relationship.

Was there really a woman out there who understood that caring about someone meant encouraging her partner to pursue what made him whole and alive? Not in his experience there wasn’t! Beginning with his mother, it was always about how she felt, what she needed to feel safe, secure, loved. Not that it had ever worked for her, that strangling kind of love that wanted to control and own.

The last thing he wanted to be thinking about was his mother! Even the bathing suit would be better than that. He was aware the thought of his mother had appeared because he had opened the door a crack when he admitted he had a lousy childhood. That was the whole problem with admissions like that.

He was here, on this island, with the princess, to do a simple job. To protect her. And that meant he did not—thank God—have the luxury of looking at himself right now.

Still, he knew he had to be very, very careful because he was treading a fine line. He’d already felt the uncomfortable wriggle of emotion for her. He didn’t want to be rude, but he had to make it very clear, to himself and to her, this was his job. He wasn’t on vacation, he wasn’t supposed to be having fun.

He couldn’t even allow himself to think the thoughts of a normal, healthy man when he saw her in that bathing suit every day.

But now he was wondering if he’d overrated that danger and underrated this one. Because in the bathing suit she was sexy. Untouchable and sexy, like a runway model or a film actress. He could watch her from a safe distance, up the beach somewhere, sunglasses covering his eyes so she would never read his expression.

With soap bubbles all over her from washing dishes, she was still sexy. But cute, too. He was not quite sure how she had managed to get soap bubbles all over the long length of her naked legs, but she had.

She put bubbles on her face, a bubble beard and moustache. “Look!”

“How old are you?” he asked, putting duty first, pretending pure irritation when in fact her enjoyment of very small things was increasingly enchanting.

“Twenty-one.”

“Well, quit acting like you’re six,” he said.

Then he felt bad, because she looked so crestfallen. Boundaries, yes, but he was not going to do that again: try to erect them by hurting her feelings. He’d crossed the fine line between being rude and erecting professional barriers. Ronan simply expected himself to be a better man than that.

Against his better judgment, but by way of apology, he scooped up a handful of suds and tossed them at her. She tossed some back. A few minutes later they were both drenched in suds and laughing.

Great. The barriers were down almost completely, when he had vowed to get them back up—when he knew her survival depended on it. And perhaps his own, too.

Still, despite the fact he knew he was dancing with the kind of danger that put meeting a grizzly bear to shame, it occurred to him, probably because of the seriousness of most of his work, he’d forgotten how to be young.

He was only twenty-seven, but he’d done work that had aged him beyond that, stolen his laughter. The kind of dark, gallows humor he shared with his comrades didn’t count.

Even when the guys played together, they played rough, body-bruising sports, the harder hitting the better. He had come to respect strength and guts, and his world was now almost exclusively about those things. There was no room in it for softness, not physical, certainly not emotional.

His work often required him to be mature way beyond his years, required him to shoulder responsibility that would have crippled any but the strongest of men. Life was so often serious, decisions so often involved life and death, that he had forgotten how to be playful, had forgotten how good it could feel to laugh like this.

The rewards of his kind of work were many: he felt a deep sense of honor; he felt as if he made a real difference in a troubled world; he was proud of his commitment to be of service to his fellow man; the bonds he had with his brothers in arms were stronger than steel. Ronan had never questioned the price he paid to do the work before, and he absolutely knew now was not the time to start!

Sharing a deserted island with a gorgeous princess who was eager to try on her new bikini, was absolutely the wrong time to decide to rediscover those things!

But just being around her made him so aware of softness, filled him with a treacherous yearning. The full meltdown could probably start with something as simple as wanting to touch her hair.

“Okay,” he said, serious, trying to be very serious, something light still lingering in his heart, “you want to learn how to make my secret biscuit recipe?”

Ronan had done many different survival schools. All the members of Excalibur prided themselves in their ability to produce really good food from limited ingredients, to use what they could find around them. He was actually more comfortable cooking over a fire than he was using an oven.

An hour later with flour now deeply stuck on her damp skin, she pulled her biscuit attempt from the wood-fired oven.

Ronan tried to keep a straight face. Every biscuit was a different size. Some were burned and some were raw.

“Try one,” she insisted.

Since he’d already hurt her feelings once today and decided that wasn’t the way to keep his professional distance, he sucked it up and took one of the better-looking biscuits.

He took a big bite. “Hey,” he lied, “not bad for a first try.”

She helped herself to one, wrinkled her nose, set it down. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

He hoped she wouldn’t. He hoped she’d tire soon of the novelty of working together, because it was fun, way more fun than he wanted to have with her.

“Let’s go swimming now,” she said. “Could you come with me today? I thought I saw a shark yesterday.”

Was that pure devilment dancing in the turquoise of those eyes? Of course it was. She’d figured out he didn’t want to swim with her, figured out her softness was piercing his armor in ways no bullet ever had. She’d figured out how badly he didn’t want to be anywhere near her when she was in that bathing suit.

In other words, she had figured out his weakness.

He could not let her see that. One thing he’d learned as a soldier was you never ran away from the thing that scared you the most. Never. You ran straight toward it.

“Sure,” he said, with a careless shrug. “Let’s go.”

He said it with the bravado of a man who had just been assigned to dismantle a bomb and didn’t want a single soul to know how scared he was.

But when he looked into her eyes, dancing with absolute mischief, he was pretty sure he had not pulled it off.

She was not going to be fooled by him, and it was a little disconcerting to feel she could see through him so completely when he had become such an expert at hiding every weakness he ever felt.

CHAPTER FIVE

SHOSHAUNA stared at herself in the mirror in her bedroom and gulped. The bathing suit was really quite revealing. It hadn’t seemed to matter so much when Ronan was way down the shoreline, spearfishing, picking up driftwood, but today he was going to swim with her! Finally.

She could almost hear her mother reacting to her attire. “Common.” Her father would be none to pleased with this outfit, either, especially since she was in the company of a man, completely unchaperoned.

But wasn’t that the whole problem with her life? She had been far to anxious to please others and not nearly anxious enough to please herself. She had always dreamed of being bold, of being the adventurer, but in the end she had always backed away.

She remembered the exhilarating sense of power she had felt when she realized Ronan didn’t want to see this bathing suit, when she’d realized, despite all his determination not to, he found her attractive. Suddenly she wanted to feel that power again. She was so aware of the clock ticking. They had been here four days. There was three left, and then it would be over.

Suddenly nothing could have kept her from the sea, and Ronan.

At the last minute, though, as always, she wrapped a huge bath towel around herself before she stepped out of the house.

Ronan waited outside the door, glanced at her, his expression deadpan, but she was sure she saw a glint of amusement in his eyes, as if he knew she was really too shy to wear that bikini with confidence, with delight in her own power when there was a man in such close quarters.

“Look what I found under the porch,” he said.

Two sets of snorkels and fins! No one could look sexy or feel powerful in a snorkel and fins! Still, she had not snorkeled since the last time she had been here, and she remembered the experience with wonder.

“Was the surfboard there?”

“Yeah, an old longboard. You want me to grab it? You could paddle around on it.”

“No, thank you,” she said. Paddle around on it, as if she was a little kid at the wading pool. She wanted to surf on it—to capture the power of the sea—or nothing at all. Just to prove to him she was not a little kid, at all, she yanked the towel away.

He dropped his sunglasses down over his eyes rapidly, took a sudden interest in the two sets of snorkels and fins, but she could see his Adam’s apple jerk each time he swallowed.

She marched down the sand to the surf, trying to pretend she was confident as could be but entirely aware she was nearly naked and in way over her head without even touching the water. She plunged into the sea as quickly as she could.

Once covered by the blanket of the ocean, she turned back, pretending complete confidence.

“The water is wonderful,” she called. “Come in.” It was true, the water was wonderful, warm, a delight she had been discovering all week was even better against almost-naked skin.

Suddenly she was glad she’d found the courage to wear the bikini, glad she’d left the towel behind, glad she was experiencing how sensuous it was to be in the water with hardly anything between it and her, not even fabric. Her new haircut was perfect for swimming, too! Not heavy with wetness, it dried almost instantly in the sun.

She looked again at the beach. Ronan was watching her, arms folded over his chest, like a lifeguard at the kiddy park.

She was going to get that kiddy-park look off his face if it killed her!

“Come in,” she called again, and then pressed the button she somehow knew, by instinct, he could not stand to have pressed. “Unless you’re scared.”

Not of the water, either, but of her. She felt a little swell of that feeling, power, delicious, seductive, pure feminine power. She had been holding off with it, waiting, uncertain, but now the time felt right.

She watched as Ronan dropped the snorkeling gear in the sand, pulled his shirt over his head. She felt her mouth go dry. This was how she had hoped he would react to her. A nameless yearning engulfed her as she stared at the utter magnificence of his build.

He was pure and utter male perfection. Every fluid inch of him was about masculine strength, a body honed to the perfection of a hard fighting tool.

Shoshauna had thought she would feel like the powerful one if they swam together, but now she could see the power was in the chemistry itself, not in her, not in him.

There was a universal force that called when a certain woman looked at a certain man, when a certain man looked at a certain woman. It pulled them together, an ancient law of attraction, metal to magnet, a law irresistible, as integral as gravity to the earth.

Shoshauna became aware that the “power” she had so wanted to experiment with, to play with, was out of her control. She felt a kind of helpless thrill, like a child who had played with matches and was now having to deal with a renegade spark that had flared to flame.

Impossible to put this particular fire out. Ronan was all sleek muscle and hard lines, not an ounce of superfluous fat or flesh on his powerful male body. His chest was deep, his stomach flat, ridged with ab muscles, his shoulders impossibly broad. His legs were long, rippling with muscle.

He dove cleanly into the water, cutting it with his body. Two powerful strokes carried him to her, another beyond her. She watched, mesmerized, as his strong crawl carried him effortlessly out into the bay. He stopped twenty or thirty yards from her, trod water, shook diamond droplets of the sea from his hair.

Watching him, she realized what she had been doing could not even really be called swimming. She was paddling. No wonder he treated her as if she belonged in the kiddy pool! Bathing suit aside, in the water she was an elephant trying to keep pace with a cheetah!

Ronan flipped over on his back, spread his arms like a star and floated. It looked so comfortable, so relaxing that she tried it and nearly drowned. She came up sputtering for air.

“Are you okay?”

And what if she wasn’t? Would he swim over here, gather her in his arms, maybe give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?

“I’m fine,” she squeaked.

He did swim back over, but did not come too close. “You’re about as deep as you should go,” he told her. “I’ve noticed over the past few days you are not a very strong swimmer.”

“In my mother’s mind swimming in the ocean was an activity for the sons and daughters of fishermen.”

“It seems a shame to live in a place like this, surrounded by water and not know how to swim. It seems foolish to me, unnecessarily risky, because with this much water you’re eventually going to have an encounter with it.” Hastily he added, “Not that I’m calling your mother foolish.”

“Plus, she has this thing about showing skin.” And that was with a regular bathing suit.

Ronan eyed her. “I take it she wouldn’t approve of the bathing suit.”

He had noticed.

“She’d have a heart attack,” Shoshauna admitted.

“It’s having just about the same effect on me,” he said with a rueful grin, taking all her power away by admitting he’d noticed, a man incapable of pretense, real, just as she’d known he was.

“That’s why your mom doesn’t want you wearing stuff like that. Men are evil creatures, given to drawing conclusions from visual clues that aren’t necessarily correct.”

Back to the kiddy pool! He was going to turn this into a lecture. But he didn’t. He left it at that, yet she felt a little chastened anyway.

As if he sensed that, he quickly changed the subject. “So, I’ve got you out here in the water. Want to—”

Was she actually hoping he was going to propose something a little evil?

“Want to learn how to swim a little better?”

She nodded, both relieved and annoyed by his ability to treat her like a kid, his charge, nothing more.

“You won’t be ready to enter the Olympics after one lesson, but if you fall out of a boat, you’ll be able to survive.”

It had probably been foolish to suggest teaching Shoshauna to swim. But the fact of the matter was she lived on an island. She was around water all the time. It seemed an unbelievable oversight to him that her education had not included swimming lessons.

On the other hand, what did he know about what skills a princess needed? Still, he felt he could leave here a better man knowing that if she did fall off a boat, she could tread water until she was rescued.

Probably he was kidding himself that he was teaching her something important. If a princess fell overboard, surely ten underlings jumped in the water after her.

But somehow it was increasingly important to him that she know how to save herself. And maybe not just if she fell off a boat. All these things he had been teaching her this week were skills that made no sense for a princess.

But for a woman coming into herself, learning the power of self-reliance seemed vital. It felt important that if he gave her nothing else, he gave her a taste of that: what her potential was, what she was capable of doing and learning if she set her mind to it.

Because Ronan was Australian and had grown up around beaches and heavy surf, he had quite often been chosen to instruct other members of Excalibur in survival swimming.

Thankfully, he could teach just about anybody to swim without ever laying a hand on them.

She was a surprisingly eager student, more willing to try things in the water than many a seasoned soldier. Like the things she had been doing on land, he soon realized she had no fear, and she learned very quickly. By the end of a half hour, she could tread water for a few minutes, had the beginnings of a not bad front crawl and could do exactly two strokes of a backstroke before she sank and came up sputtering.

And then disaster struck, the kind, from teaching soldiers, he was totally unprepared for.

She was treading water, when her mouth formed a startled little O. She forgot to sweep the water, wrapped her arms around herself and promptly sank.

His mind screamed shark even though he had evaluated the risks of swimming in the bay and decided they were minimal.

When she didn’t bob right back to the surface, he was at her in a second, dove, wrapped his arm around her waist, dragged her up. No sign of a shark, though her arms were still tightly wrapped around her chest.

Details. Part of him was trying to register what was wrong, when she sputtered something incomprehensible and her face turned bright, bright red.

“My top,” she sputtered.

For a second he didn’t comprehend what she was saying, and when he did he was pretty sure the heart attack he’d teased her about earlier was going to happen for real. He had his arms around a nearly naked princess.

He let go of her so fast she started to sink again, unwilling to unwrap her arms from around her naked bosom.

Somehow her flimsy top had gone missing!

“Swim in to where you can stand up,” he ordered her sharply.

He knew exactly what tone to use on a frightened soldier to ensure instant obedience, and it worked on her. She headed for shore, doing a clumsy one-armed crawl—her other arm still firmly clamped over her chest—that he might have found funny if it was anyone but her. As soon as he made sure she was standing up on the ocean bottom, he looked around.

The missing article was floating several yards away. He swam over and grabbed it, knew it was the wrong time to think how delicate it felt, how fragile in his big, rough hands, what a flimsy piece of material to be given so much responsibility.

He came up behind her. She was standing up to her shoulder blades in water and still had a tight wrap on herself, but there was no hiding the naked line of her back, the absolute feminine perfection of her.

“I’ll look away,” he said, trying to make her feel as if it was no big deal. “You put it back on.”

Within minutes she had the bathing suit back on, but she wouldn’t look at him. And he was finding it very difficult to look at her.

Wordlessly she left the water, spread out her towel and lay down on her stomach. She still wouldn’t even look at him and he figured maybe that was a good thing. He put on the snorkeling gear and headed back out into the bay.

He began to see school after school of butterfly fish, many that he recognized as the same as he would see in the reefs off Australia: the distinctive yellow, white and black stripes of the threadfin, the black splash of color that identified the teardrop.

Suddenly, Ronan didn’t want her to stay embarrassed all day, just so that he could be protected from his own vulnerability around her. He didn’t want her to miss the enchantment of the reef fish.

Her embarrassment over the incident was a good reminder to him that she had grown up very sheltered. She had sensed the bikini would get his attention, but she hadn’t known what to do with it when she succeeded.

In his world, girls were fast and flirty and knew exactly what to do with male attention. Her innocence in a bold world made him want to share the snorkeling experience with her even more.

They would focus on the fish, the snorkeling, not each other.

“Shoshauna! Put on a snorkel and fins. You have to see this.”

He realized he’d called her by her first name, as if they were friends, as if it was okay for them to snorkel together, to share these moments.

Too late to back out, though. She joined him in the water, but not before tugging on her bathing suit strings about a hundred times to make sure they were secure.

And then she was beside him, and the magic happened. They swam into a world of such beauty it was almost incomprehensible. Fish in psychedelic colors that ranged from brilliant orange to electric blue swam around them. They saw every variety of damselfish, puffer fish, triggerfish, surgeonfish.

He tapped her shoulder. “Watch those ones,” he said, pointing at an orange band. “It’s a type of surgeonfish, they’re called that because their spines are scalpel sharp.”

Her wonder was palpable when a Moorish idol investigated her with at least as much interest as she was giving it! A school of the normally shy neon-green and blue palenose parrot fishes swam around her as if she was part of the sea.

He was not sure when he lost interest in the fish and focused instead on her reaction to them. Ronan was not sure he had seen anything as lovely as the awed expression on her face when a bluestripe snapper kissed her hand.

He was breaking all the rules. And somehow it seemed worth it. And somehow he didn’t care. Time evaporated, and he was stunned when he saw the sun going down in the sky.

They went in to shore, dried the saltwater off with towels. He saw she was looking at him with a look that was both innocent and hungry.

“I’m going to cook dinner,” he said gruffly. Suddenly breaking the rules didn’t seem as great, it didn’t seem worth it, and he did care.

He cared because he felt something, and he knew it was huge. He felt the desire to know someone. He wanted to know her better. He wanted things he had never wanted and that, in this case, he knew he could never have.

These four days together had created an illusion that they were just two normal people caught up together. These days had allowed him to see her as real, as few people had ever seen her. These days had allowed him to see her, and he had liked what he had seen. It was natural to want to know more, to explore where this affinity he felt for her could go.

But the island was a fantasy, one so strong it had diluted reality, made him forget reality.

He was a soldier. She was a princess. Their worlds were a zillion miles apart. She was promised to someone else.

With those facts foremost in his mind, he cooked dinner, refusing her offer to help, and he was brusque with her when she asked him if he knew the name of a bright-yellow snout-nosed fish they had seen. She took the hint and they ate in blessed silence. Why did he miss being peppered with her questions? Did she, too, realize that a dangerous shift had happened between them?

Still, getting ready for bed, he was congratulating himself on what a fine job he’d done on reerecting the barriers, when he heard an unmistakable whimper from her room.

Surely she wasn’t that embarrassed over her brief nude scene?

He knew he had to ignore her, but then she cried out again, the sound muffled, as if she had a blanket stuffed in her mouth. It was the sound being stifled that made him bolt from his room, and barge through her door.

She was alone, in bed. No enemy had crept up on him while he’d been busy playing reef guide instead of doing his job.

“What’s the matter?” He squinted at her through the darkness.

The sheet was pulled up around her, right to her chin.

“I hurt so bad.”

“What do you mean?”

He lit the hurricane lamp that had been left on a chair just inside her door, moved to the side of her bed and gazed down at her. She reluctantly pulled the sheet down just enough to show him her shoulders. That’s why she had been quiet at dinner.

Not embarrassed, not taking the hint that he didn’t want to talk to her, but in pain. Even in the light of the lantern he could clearly see she was badly sunburned. Cursing himself silently, he wondered how close she had come to heat exhaustion.

White lines where her bikini straps had been were in sharp contrast to her skin.

Because her skin tones were so golden it had never occurred to him she might burn. It had not seemed scorchingly hot out today. On the other hand he should have known breezes coming off the water could make it seem cooler than it was. It had never occurred to him that someone who lived in this island paradise might not avail themselves of the outdoors.

He remembered, too late, what she had said about her mother. “Has your skin ever seen the sun before?” he asked her.

She shook her head, contrite. “Not for a long time. I was allowed to come here until I was about thirteen, but then my mother thought I was getting to be too much of a tomboy. She thought skin darkened by the sun was—”

“Let me guess,” he said dryly. “Common.”

He was rewarded with a weak smile from her. Selfish bastard that he was he thought, At least I’m not going to have to see her in a bikini again for the three days we have left here on the island.

But there was another test he had to pass right now. He was going to have to administer first aid to her burns. She’d exposed her back to the sun while they snorkeled. The water beading on it had drawn the sun like a magnet. Though her shoulders were very red looking, most of that burn was going to be on her back where she couldn’t reach it herself.

Having grown up in Australia, he was cautious of the sun, but his skin was also more acclimatized to sun than that of most of the people he worked with. He did not have fair coloring, his skin seemed to like the sun.

But many times after long training days in the sun, especially desert training, soldiers were hurting. Ronan had learned lots of ways to ease the sting with readily available ingredients: either vinegar or baking soda added to bath water could bring relief. Unfortunately, just as when he was in the field, they didn’t have a bath here.

What they did have was aspirin, he had seen that in a cabinet in the outdoor kitchen, and powdered milk, an ingredient he’d used before to field dress a sunburn.

He knew, though, there was going to be a big difference between placing soothing dressings cooled with freshly made milk onto her back, and slapping it onto a fellow soldier’s.

All day he’d struggled to at least keep the physical barriers between them up, since the emotional ones seemed to be falling faster than he could reerect them. When she’d lost the top, and he’d wrapped his arms around her to pull her back to the water’s surface, he’d known he had to avoid going to that place again at all costs, skin against skin.

But here he was at that place again. It almost felt as if the universe was conspiring against him.

But she was his charge. He had no choice. He felt guilty that she’d gotten burned on his watch in the first place. It was proof, really, he could not be trusted with softer things, more tender things, things that required a gentle touch.

It was proof, too, that he was preoccupied, missing the details that he had always been so good at catching.

“Come on out to the kitchen,” he said gruffly. “I’ll put something on that that will make it feel better.”

“I can’t get dressed,” she told him, and blushed. “My skin feels like its shrinking. I don’t think I can move my arms. I don’t want to put anything on that touches my skin.”

Oh well, just run out there naked then.

He yanked the sheet out from the bottom of the bed and tucked it around her right up to her chin. “Come on.”

She wobbled out behind him to the kitchen, the sheet draped clumsily over her, him uncomfortably and acutely aware that underneath it she was probably as naked as the day she was born. The outfit was somehow as dangerous—maybe more so—than the bikini had been.

And the night was dangerous—the stars like jewels in the night sky, the flowers releasing their perfume with a gentle and seductive vengeance.

“Sit,” he said, swinging a chair out for her. He took a deep breath, prayed for strength and then did what had to be done. He lifted the sheet away from her back, forced himself to be clinical.

Her back looked so tender with burn that he forgot how awkward this situation was. The marks where her bikini strings had been tied up dissected it, at her neck and midback, white lines in stark contrast to the rest of her. Her skin was glowing bright red on top of her copper tones.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” he said, his sympathy genuine, his guilt acute even though he knew how hard it was to spot a burn as it was happening in the full sunlight, “but in the next few days your skin is going to be peeling. It may even blister.”

“Really?” she asked.

She couldn’t possibly sound, well, pleased, rather than distressed.

He had to make it a bit clearer. “Um, you could probably be lizard lady at the sideshow for a week or two.”

“Really?” she said, again.

No doubt about it. Definitely pleased.

“Is there some reason that would make you happy?” he asked.

“Between my new hair and lizard lady, Prince Mahail will probably call off the wedding. Indefinitely.”

Now there was no mistaking the pleasure in her voice.

Don’t ask, Ronan. “Is he really that superficial?”

“He chose me for my hair!”

Well, he’d asked. Now he had to deal with the rush of indignation he felt. A man chose a wife for her hair?

It was primitive and tyrannical. It was not what she deserved. Wasn’t he in the business of protecting democracy? Of protecting people’s freedoms and right to choose? If she was being forced into this, then what? Cause an international incident by imposing his values on B’Ranasha, by rescuing the princess from her fate?

“Are you being forced to marry him?” he asked.

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nobody forced me to say yes, but there was enormous pressure, the weight of everybody’s expectations.”

He turned from her quickly to stave off the impulse to shake her. Here he’d been thinking he had to rescue her when the aggravating truth was she had not, as far as he could see, made a single move to rescue herself. She seemed to just be blindly trusting something was going to happen to get her out of her marriage. And much as he hated to admit it, so far that had worked not too badly for her.

But her luck was going to run out, and for a take-charge kind of guy, relying on luck to determine fate was about the worst possible policy.

Rather than share that with her, or allow her to see the fury he felt with her, Ronan busied himself mixing a solution of powdered milk and water in a big bowl. He tore several clean tea towels into rags and submerged them in the mixture.

Then, his unwanted surge of emotion under control, a gladiator who had no choice but the ring, he turned back to her, lifted the sheet off her back.

“Hold that up for me.”

He laid the first of the milk-soaked rags flat on her naked back, smoothed it on with his hands. She seemed unbelievably delicate. Her skin was hot beneath the dressing. And, for now anyway, before the inevitable peeling, it felt incredibly smooth, flawless beneath his fingertips. He didn’t know of any other way to bring her comfort, but touching her like this was intimate enough to make him feel faintly crazy, a purely primitive longing welling up within him.

He thought she might flinch, but instead she gave a little moan of pleasure and relief as the first cool, milk-soaked dressing adhered to her back, a sound that could have easily been made in another context.

“Oh,” she breathed. “That feels so good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt anything that good.”

His wicked male mind wondered just how innocent that made her. Plenty innocent. And it was his job to keep it that way.

He thought about a man he had never seen, whom he knew nothing about, becoming her husband, being trusted with her delicacy, and he felt another unwanted stab of strong emotion.

Not jealousy, he told himself, God forbid, not jealousy, just an extension of his job. Protectiveness.

But he knew it wasn’t exactly a part of his job to wonder, was that man whom she had almost married, worthy of her? Would her prince be able to make her pleasure as important as his own when the time came? Would he be tender and considerate? Would he stoke the fire that burned in her eyes, or would he put it out?

Ronan, he reprimanded himself. Stop it! By her own admission, she was not being forced into anything. It was her problem not his.

Still, the feeling of craziness intensified, he felt a sudden primitive need to show her what it should feel like, all heat and passion, tenderness and exquisite pleasure. If she’d ever experienced what was real between a man and a woman she wouldn’t accept a substitute, no matter how much pressure she thought she felt.

She was seriously going to pay with her life to relieve a little temporary pressure from her folks?

He gave himself a fierce mental shake. His thinking was ludicrous, totally unacceptable, completely corrupted by emotion. He had known her less than a full week, which really meant he did not know her at all!

He was not dating her, he was protecting her. Imagining his lips on her lips was not a part of the mission.

Who would have thought he would end up having to protect the princess from himself?

“Leave those dressings on there for twenty minutes,” he said, his voice absolutely flat, not revealing one little bit of his inner struggle, the madness that was threatening to envelope him. “Unfortunately in this heat the residue of the milk will start to sour if you leave it on overnight. You’re going to have to rinse off in the shower before you go back to bed.” He passed her some aspirin and a glass of water.

“This will take the sting out.” He sounded as if he was reading from a first-aid manual. “Drink all the water, too, just in case you’re a bit dehydrated. I think you’ll sleep like a baby after all this.”

She probably would, too, but he was wondering if he was ever going to sleep again!

Fixing her up had taken way too long, even with him trying to balance a gentle touch with his urgency to get this new form of torture over with.

“I’ll head back to bed, I’ll leave this lamp for you. You can peel those dressings off by yourself in twenty minutes or so. Don’t forget to shower.”

“All right.”

“You should be okay for a few hours. If the pain comes back, starts bugging you, wake me up. We’ll do it all again.” He had to suck it up to even make that offer. He didn’t want to touch her back again, have her naked under a sheet, the two of them alone in a place just a little too much like paradise.

No wonder Adam and Eve had gone for the apple!

“Ronan?” Her voice was husky. She touched his arm.

He froze, aware he was holding his breath, scared of what could happen next, if she asked him to stay with her. Scared of the physical attraction, scared of the thoughts he had had earlier.

“What?” He growled.

“Thank you so much.”

What was he expecting? She was burned to a crisp. The last thing on her mind was, well, the thing that was on his mind. Which was her lips, soft and pliable, and how they would feel underneath his, how they would taste.

“Just doing my job.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes met his. There was no mistaking the heat and the hunger that changed their color from turquoise to a shade of indigo. He realized it wasn’t the last thing on her mind after all. That one small push from the universe and they’d be all over each other, burn or no burn. The awareness that sizzled in the air between them put that burn on her back to shame.

He sucked in a deep breath, then ducked his head, turned abruptly and walked quickly away from her.

It took more discipline to do that than to do two hundred push-ups at the whim of a aggravated sergeant, to make a bed perfectly for the thousandth time, to jump out of an airplane from twenty thousand feet in the dead of the night. Way more.

He glanced at his watch to check the date. He had to get control over this situation before it deteriorated any more.

But when he thought of her shaking droplets of water from the jagged tips of her hair, laughing, the tenderness of her back underneath the largeness of his hands, he felt a dip in the bottom of his belly.

He focused on it, but it wasn’t that familiar warning, his sideways feeling. It was a warmth as familiar as the sun and as necessary to life.

What had happened to his warning system? Had it become dismantled? Ronan wondered if he had lost some part of himself that he needed in the turquoise depths of her eyes.

Isn’t that what he’d learned about love from his mother? That relationships equaled the surrender of power?

“You are not having a relationship with her,” he told himself sternly, but the words were hollow, and he knew he had already crossed lines he didn’t want to cross.

But tomorrow was a new day, a new battle. He was a warrior and he fully intended to recapture his lost power.

CHAPTER SIX

SHOSHAUNA took a deep breath, slid a look at Ronan. He was intense this morning, highly focused, but not on her. She could not look at him—at the dark, neat hair, his face freshly shaven, the soft gold brown of his eyes, the sheer male beauty of the way he carried himself—without feeling a shiver, remembering his hands on her back last night.

“Are you mad at me?”

“Princess?” he asked, his voice flat, as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Yesterday you called me Shoshauna,” she said.

He said nothing; he did not look at her. He had barely spoken to her all morning. She’d gotten up and managed to get dressed, a painful process given the sunburn. Still, she had been more aware of something hammering in her heart, a desire to see him again, to be with him, than of the pain of that burn.

But Ronan had been nowhere to be found when she had come out of her bedroom. He’d left a breakfast of fresh biscuits and cut fruit for her, not outside on the bench where she had grown accustomed to sharing casual meals with him, but at the dining room table, at a place perfectly set for one.

Shoshauna had rebelled against the formality of it and taken a plate outside. As she ate she could hear the thunk of an ax biting into wood in the distance. Just as she was finishing the last of the biscuits, he dragged a tree into their kitchen clearing.

Watching him work, hauling that tree, straining against it, that awareness tingled through her, the same as she had felt yesterday when she had watched him strip off his shirt before swimming. She felt as if she was vibrating from it. Ronan was so one hundred percent man, all easy strength and formidable will.

Even to her inexperienced eye it looked as if he was bringing in enough wood to keep the stove fired up for about five years.

“Good morning, Ronan.” Good grief, she could hear the awareness in her voice, a husky breathlessness.

She knew how much she had come to live for his smile when he withheld it. Instead, he’d barely said good morning, biting it out as if it hurt him to be polite. Then he was focusing on the wood he’d brought in. After using a handsaw to reduce the tree to blocks, he set a chunk on a stump chopping block, swung the ax over his head, and down into the wood.

The whole exercise of reducing the tree to firewood was a demonstration—entirely unconscious on his part—of pure masculine strength, and she could feel her heart skip a beat every time he lifted the ax with easy, thoughtless grace. She remembered again the strength in those hands, tempered last night, and shivered.

But today his strength was not tempered at all. He certainly seemed angry, the wood splintering into a thousand pieces with each mighty whack of the ax blade, tension bunching his muscles, his face smooth with a total lack of expression.

He had not even asked her how her sunburn felt, and it felt terrible. Could she be bold enough to ask him to dress it again? She felt as if she was still trembling inside from the way his hands had felt pressing those soothing cloths onto her back last night. But he looked angry this morning, remote, not the same man who had been so tender last night.

“Ronan?” she pressed, even though it was obvious he didn’t want to talk. “Are you angry about something?”

Actually, something in him seemed to have shifted last night when he had questioned her about her marriage. He had gone very quiet after she had admitted she wasn’t being forced to marry anyone.

“No, ma’am, I’m not angry. What’s to be angry about?”

“Stop it!”

He set down the ax, wiped the sweat off his forehead with a quick lift of his shirt collar, then folded his arms over his chest, looked askance at her.

“I didn’t mean chopping the wood,” she said, knowing he had misunderstood her deliberately.

“What did you mean then, Princess?”

“Why are you being so formal? You weren’t like this yesterday.”

“Yesterday,” he said tightly, “was a mistake. I forgot myself, and it’s not going to happen again.”

“Having fun, going snorkeling was forgetting yourself?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If you call me ma’am one more time, I’m going to throw this coconut right at your large, overweight head!”

“I think you might mean my big, fat head.”

“That’s exactly what I meant!”

He actually looked as though he might smile, but if he was amused he doused it quickly.

“Princess,” he said, his patience elaborate and annoying, “I’m at work. I’m on the clock. I’m not here to have fun. I’m not here to teach you to swim or to identify yellow tangs for you. My job is to protect you, to keep you safe until I can get you back to your home.”

“I could have been assassinated while you were out there chopping down the jungle,” she said, aware her tone was growing snippy with impatience. How could he possibly not want more of what they’d had yesterday?

Not just the physical touch, though that had filled her with a hunger that felt ravenous, a tiger that needed to be fed, but the laughter, the easy camaraderie between them. It was that she found herself craving even more. How could it be that he did not want the same things?

“I think,” he said dryly, “if assassins had arrived on the island, I would have heard a boat. Or a helicopter. I was only a few seconds away.”

He was deliberately missing the point! “Bitten by a snake, then!”

He didn’t answer, and she hated that he was treating her like a precocious child, though for some reason his attitude was making her act like one.

“Eaten by a tiger,” she muttered. “Attacked by a monkey.”

He sent her one irritated look, went back to the wood.

“I’m making a point! There is no danger here. None. No assassins, no snakes, no tigers, no mad monkeys. It would be perfectly fine for you to relax your vigilance.”

Crash. The wood splintered. He gathered the splinters, tossed them in a pile, wouldn’t look at her. “I relaxed yesterday. You got a large, overweight sunburn because of it.”

“You are not feeling responsible for that, are you?” His lack of a response was all the answer she needed. “Ronan, it wasn’t your fault. It’s not as if it was life threatening, anyway. A little sunburn. I can hardly feel it today.” Which was a lie, but if it got rid of that look from his face—a look of cool professional detachment—it would be a lie worth telling.

He said nothing, and she knew this was about more than a sunburn.

“Are you mad because I agreed to get married?”

Bull’s-eye. Something hard and cold in his face shook her. “That falls squarely in the none-of-my-business category.”

“That’s not true. We’re friends. I want to talk to you about it.” And suddenly she did. She felt that if she talked to Ronan, all the chaos and uncertainty inside her would subside. She felt that the terrible loneliness that had eaten at her ever since she said yes to Prince Mahail would finally go away.

She felt as if she would know what to do.

“My cat died,” she blurted out. “That’s why I agreed to marry him.”

It felt good to say it out loud, though she could tell by the look on his face he now thought she was certifiably insane.

“But you have to understand about the cat,” she said in a rush.

“No,” he said, holding up his hand, a clear stop signal. “No, I don’t have to understand about the cat. I don’t want you telling me about your personal life. Nothing. No cat. No marriage. Not what is on or off your mother’s approval list, though we both know that what isn’t on it is cavorting in the ocean in a bathing suit top that is unstable with a man you barely know.”

“I do know you,” she protested.

“No you don’t. We can’t be friends,” he said quietly. “Do you get that?”

She had thought they were past that, that they were already well on their way to being friends, and possibly even something more than friends. These last few days she had shared more with him than she could remember sharing with anyone. She had felt herself opening around him, like a flower opening to sunshine.

He made her discover things about herself that she hadn’t known. Being around him made her feel strong and competent. And alive. It was easy to be herself with him. How could he say they could not be friends?

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I don’t get it.”

“Actually,” he said tersely, “it doesn’t really matter if you get it or not, just as long as I get it.”

She felt desperate. It was as if he was on a raft and she was on shore, and the distance between them was growing. She needed to bring him back, any way she could. “Okay, I won’t tell you anything about me. Nothing.”

He looked skeptical, so she rushed on, desperate. “I’ll put a piece of tape over my mouth. But I can’t go out in the sun today. I was hoping you’d teach me how to play chess. My mother felt chess was a very masculine game, that girls should not play it.”

Even though he’d specifically told her not to mention her mother to him, she took a chance and believed she had been right to do so, because something flickered in his eyes.

He knew she’d be a good chess player if she got the chance, but if he’d realized that, he doused the thought as quickly as his smile of moments ago. He was silent, refusing the bait.

“Do you know how to play chess?” If she could just get him to sit down with her, spend time with her, soon it would be easy again and fun. She wanted to know so much about him. She wanted him to know so much about her. They only had a few days left! He couldn’t spoil it. He just couldn’t.

He took up the ax and put another piece of wood on the stump he was using as a chopping block. He hit it with such furious strength she winced.

“Are you going to ignore me?”

“I’m sure as hell going to try.”

Shoshauna was a princess. She was not used to being ignored. She was used to people doing what she wanted them to do.

But this felt different. It felt as if she would die if he ignored her, if they could not get back to that place they had been at yesterday, swimming in the magical world of a turquoise sea and rainbow-hued fish, his hands on her back strong, cool, filled with confidence, the hands of a man who knew how to touch a woman in ways that could steal her breath, her heart, her soul.

Her sense of desperation grew. He was holding the key to something locked inside of her. How could he refuse to open that secret door? The place where she would, finally, know who she was.

“If I told my father you had done something inappropriate,” she said coolly, “you’d spend the rest of your life in jail.”

He gave her a look so fearless and so loaded with scorn it made her feel about six inches high. And that was when she knew he was immovable in his resolve. She knew it did not matter what she did—she could threaten him, try to manipulate him with sweetness—he was not going to do as she wanted. He had drawn his line in the sand.

And over such a ridiculously simple thing. She only wanted him to play chess with her!

Only, it wasn’t really that simple, and he knew it, even if she was trying to deny it. Getting to know each other better would have complications and repercussions that could resound through both their lives.

But why worry about that today? They had so little time left. Couldn’t they just go on as they had been? Couldn’t they just pretend they were ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances?

But even as she thought it, she knew he would never like pretending. He was too real for that. And when she slid another look his way, she could tell by the determined set of his jaw that he intended to worry about that today, and she could tell something else by the set of his jaw.

She was completely powerless over him.

“I’m sorry I said that,” she said, feeling utterly defeated, “about my father putting you in prison. It was a stupid thing to say, very childish.”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” As if he expected her to say things like that, to act spoiled and rotten if she didn’t get her own way. She had not done one thing—not one—to lead him to believe such things of her.

Unless you included saying yes to marrying a man she did not love.

That would speak volumes about her character to a man like Ronan, who wore his honor and his integrity as part of the armor around him.

“I would never do something so horrible as tell lies about you. I’m not a liar.” But hadn’t she lied to herself all along, about Mahail, her marriage, her life?

“I said it didn’t matter,” he said sharply.

“Now you really are mad at me.”

He sighed heavily.

Shoshauna, looking at herself with the brutal assessment she saw in his eyes, burst into tears, ran into the house, slammed her bedroom door and cried until she had no tears left.

Shoot, Ronan thought, was she ever going to stop crying? Bastard. How hard would it have been to teach her to play chess?

It wasn’t about teaching her how to play chess, he told himself sternly. It was about the fact that things were already complicated so much that she was in there crying over something as tiny as the fact he’d refused to teach her to play chess.

Though, dammit, when she had said her mother didn’t want her to play chess, that it was masculine, something in him had just itched to give her the rudiments of the game. She had such a good mind. He bet she’d be a better-than-average player once she got the fundamentals down, probably a downright formidable one.

She didn’t come out of that room for the rest of the day. When he told her he had lunch ready, she answered through the closed door, her voice muffled, that she wasn’t hungry.

Now it was the same answer for supper. He should have been relieved. This was exactly what he needed to keep his vows. Distance. Space. Instead he felt worried about her, guilty about the pain he’d caused.

“Come on,” he said, from the other side of the door, “you have to eat.”

“Why? To make you feel like you’ve fulfilled your obligation to look after me? Is providing a nutritious menu part of protecting me? Go away!”

He opened the door a crack. She was sitting on her bed cross-legged in those shorty-shorts that showed way too much of her gorgeous copper-toned legs. She looked up when he came in, looked swiftly back down. Her eyes were puffy from crying. Her short, boyish hair was every which way. She’d taken her bra straps off her burned shoulders, and they hung out the arms of her T-shirt.

“I told you to go away.”

“You should eat something.” He stepped inside the door a bit.

“You know what? I’m not a little kid. You don’t have to tell me to eat.”

He was already way too aware she was not a little kid. He’d seen the damned bikini once too often! He’d seen what was under the bikini, too.

He was also aware this was becoming a failure of major proportions. He was going to take her back safe from threat but damaged nonetheless: hair chopped off, sunburned, starving, puffy-eyed from crying. Though they still had two days and a couple of hours to get through before he could cross back over that water with her, deliver her to Gray. She couldn’t possibly cry that long.

His stomach knotted at the thought. Could she? He studied her to see if she was all done crying.

She’d found a magazine somewhere, and she was avoiding his eyes. The magazine looked as if it had been printed in about 1957, but she was studying it as intently as if she could read her future on the pages. Her eyes sparkled suspiciously. More tears gathering?

“Look,” he said uncomfortably, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “I’m not trying to be mean to you. I’m just telling you the way things have to be.”

“Is that right?” she snapped, and threw down the magazine. She regarded him with spitting eyes, and he could see clearly it was fury in them, not tears. “As it happens, I’m sick and tired of people telling me how it’s going to be. Why are you the one who decides how it’s going to be? Because you’re a man?”

She had him there.

“Because I’m the one with the job to do,” he said, but he heard the wavering of his own conviction. If ever a woman was born to be his equal it was this one.

She hopped off the bed. Instinct told him to get away from her. A stronger instinct told him to stay.

She stopped in front of him, regarded him with challenge. He, foolishly, held his ground.

She reached up on tiptoe, and she took his lips with her own.

He was enveloped in pure and sweet sensation. Her kiss was as refreshing and clean as rainwater. Her lips told him abut the polarities within her: innocence and passion, enthusiasm and hesitancy, desire and doubt.

He had heard there were drugs so strong a man could be made helpless by them after one taste.

He had never believed it until this moment. He willed himself not to respond, but he did not have enough will to move away from her, from the sweetness of her quest.

The hesitancy and the doubt suddenly dissolved. Her arms reached out, tangled themselves around his neck, drew him closer to her. Her scent wrapped around him, feminine, clean, intoxicating. Through the thinness of her shirt he could feel the warmth radiating off her skin. Her curves, soft, sensual, womanly, pressed into him.

Temptation was furious within him. Pure feeling tried to swamp rational thought. But the soldier in him, highly disciplined, did the clean divide between the emotion he was feeling and what he needed to do.

If he continued this, if he accepted the invitation of her lips, the growing urgency of her kiss, if he allowed it to go where it wanted to go, it would be like a wild horse that had broken free, allowed to run. There would be no bringing it back under rein once it had gone too far.

The soldier wanted control; the man wanted to lose control.

The soldier insisted on inserting one more fact. If this carried to its natural conclusion, Princess Shoshauna would be compromised. The wedding would be off. Her wedding. Again, she wouldn’t have made a choice, just allowed herself to be carried along by forces she considered out of her control.

It was not what Ronan wanted for her.

He didn’t want her to get married to anyone but—

But who?

Him? A soldier. A soldier who didn’t believe in marriage? Who hated it? This must be a genetic flaw in his family, the ability to convince oneself over a very short period of time, before reality had a chance to kick in, that a marriage could work. He yanked himself away from her.

This was the difference between him and his mother: he didn’t have to follow the fantasy all the way through to the end. He already knew the end of every love story.

The soldier won—fact over fiction, practical analysis over emotion, discipline over the wayward leanings of a man’s heart.

But he was aware it was a slim victory at best. And he was aware that aggravating word, love, had popped up again, banished from his vocabulary since around his thirteenth birthday. It was suddenly presenting itself in his life with annoying frequency.

Ronan made himself hold Shoshauna’s gaze, fiery with passion, soft with surrender. He tried to force all emotion from his tone. But the magnitude of his failure to do so—the cold fury of his voice—even took him by surprise. Of course, he really wasn’t angry at her, but at himself, at his own vulnerability, his own weakness, his sudden crippling wistfulness.

Hope—a sudden ridiculous wish to regain his own innocence, a desire to be able to believe in things he had long since lost faith in.

“Are you using me to buy your freedom?”

She reeled back from him. If he was not mistaken the tears were back in her eyes, all the proof he needed that insanity had grabbed him momentarily, that moment when he had contemplated her and himself and marriage in the same single thought.

The truth was much more simple. He was a soldier, rough around the edges, hardened, not suitable for the company of a princess or anyone sensitive or fragile.

But there was nothing the least bit fragile about Shoshauna when she planted both her little hands on his chest and shoved him with such amazing strength that it knocked him completely off balance. He stumbled backward, two steps, through her bedroom doorway, and she rushed forward and slammed the door behind him with the force of a hurricane.

As he contemplated the slammed door, he had the politically incorrect thought that it was a mistake that hurricanes weren’t still named exclusively after women: volatile, completely unpredictable, even the strongest man could not hope to hold his balance in the fury.

“Just go straight to hell!” she yelled at him through the door. She followed that with a curse that was common among working men and soldiers, a curse so common her mother surely would have had heart failure hearing it come from her princess daughter’s refined lips.

So he was returning Shoshauna a changed woman. No hair, sunburned, starved and she was going to be able to hold her own in a vocabulary contest with a construction crew.

He turned away, muttering to himself, “Well, that didn’t go particularly well.”

But outside, contemplating a star-studded night, black-velvet sky meeting inky-black ocean, he rethought his conclusions.

Maybe it had gone well. Shoshauna was a woman who needed to discover the depths of her own power, who needed to know how to utilize the hurricane forces within her, so she would not be so easily buffeted by the forces outside of her. In the past it seemed that every shift of wind had made her change direction.

She’d made the decision to get married because her cat died? Only his mother could come up with a fruitier reason than that!

But from the way Shoshauna had shoved him and slammed that door, she was nearly there. Could she hold on to what she was discovering about herself enough to refuse a marriage to a man she did not love? Could she understand she had within her the strength to choose the life she wanted for herself?

Despite the peaceful serenity of the night, contemplating such issues made his head hurt. One of the things he appreciated most about his military lifestyle was that it was a cut-and-dried world, regulated, no room for contemplation, few complexities. You did what you were trained to do, you followed orders: no question, no thought, no introspection.

He scrubbed his hand across his lips, but he had a feeling what had been left there was not going to be that easy to erase.

After a long time he looked at his watch. It was past midnight. Just under forty-eight hours to go, and then they were leaving this island, meeting Gray.

What if her life was still in danger?

Well, if it was, if the situation was still not resolved, Gray had to have come up with a protection plan for her that did not involve Ronan.

But was he going to trust anyone else with her protection if she was still in danger? Would he have a choice? If he was ordered back to Excalibur, he was going to have to go, whether she was in danger or not.

He hoped it was a choice he was never going to have to make. Which would he obey? The call of duty or the call of his own heart?

Jake Ronan had never had to ask himself a question like that before, and he didn’t like it one little bit that he had asked it now.

The fact that he had asked it meant something had shifted in him, changed. He cared about someone else as much as he cared about duty. Once you had done that, could you ever go back to the way you were before?

That’s what he felt over the next twenty-four hours. That he was a man trying desperately to be what he had been before: cool, calm, professional, a man notorious for being able to control emotion in situations gone wild.

He almost succeeded, too.

It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t easy, that he was managing to keep the barriers up between them. She was using the kitchen at different times than him. She refused to eat what he left out for her. He found her burnt offerings all over the kitchen, along with mashed fruit. He didn’t know if she was trying to torment him by washing her underthings and stringing them on a line by the outdoor shower, but torment him it did, especially since she had managed to turn her bra from pure white to a funny shade of pink.

Of course, he could show her how to do laundry. He wanted to, but to what end? Nothing about her life included needing an ability to do laundry without turning her whites to pink.

And nothing about his life needed the complication of inviting her back into it.

No, this might be painful: these silences, the nose tilted upward every time she had to pass him, the hurt she was trying to hide with pride and seething silence, but in the end it was for the best. Even when he found an aloe vera plant and knew how it would soothe her sunburn, bring moisture and coolness and healing to her now badly peeling skin, he would not allow himself to make the offer.

When he saw her sitting at the dining room table by herself, moving chess pieces wistfully, he would not allow himself to give in to the sudden weakness of wanting to teach her how to play.

It only led to other wantings: wanting to make her laugh, wanting to see her succeed, wanting to see her tongue stuck between her teeth in concentration, wanting to touch her hair.

Wanting desperately to taste her lips again, just one more time, as if he could memorize how it felt and carry it inside him forever.

But he didn’t give in to any of that. He applied every bit of discipline he had ever learned as a soldier to do what was right instead of what he wanted to do.

And he would have made it.

He would have made it right until the end, except that the wind came up.

The surf was up in the bay. And Princess Shoshauna, clad in a T-shirt to cover her burns, was running toward it, laughing with exhilaration and anticipation, the old surfboard they’d uncovered tucked under her arm.

“Hey,” he yelled from the steps of the cottage, “you aren’t a good enough swimmer for that water.”

She glanced back. If he was not mistaken she stuck out her tongue at him. And then she ran even faster, kicking up the sand in her bare feet.

With a sigh of resignation and surrender, Ronan went after her.

CHAPTER SEVEN

SHOSHAUNA found the waves extraordinarily beautiful, rolling four feet high out in the water where they began their curl, breaking on the beach with a thunderous explosion of white foam and fury.

Her foot actually touched the hard pack of wave-pounded sand, when his hand clamped down on her shoulder with such strength it spun her.

Even though she had spent way too much time imagining his touch, it was not satisfactory in that context! She faced him, glaring. “What?” she demanded.

“You’re not a strong enough swimmer for that surf.”

“Well, you don’t know everything! You said the surf would never even come up in this bay and you were wrong about that!”

“I’m not wrong about this. I’m not letting you go in the water by yourself.”

He had that look on his face, fierce; the warrior not to be challenged.

But Shoshauna had been counting days and hours. She knew this time of freedom was nearly over for her. Tomorrow they would be gone from here. And she knew something else. She was responsible for her own life and her own decisions.

She stood her ground, lifted her chin to him.

“I have a lifelong dream of doing this, and I’m doing it.”

He looked totally unimpressed with her newfound resolve, indifferent to her discovery of her own power, immune to the sway of her life dreams. He folded his arms over his chest, set his legs, a man getting ready to throw her over his shoulder if he had to.

As delicious as it might be to be carried by him kicking and screaming up to the cottage, this was important to her, and she suddenly had to make him see that.

“It’s my lifelong dream, and the waves came. Don’t you think you have to regard that as a gift from the gods?”

“No.”

“Ronan, all my life people have made my decisions for me. And I’ve let them. Starting right here and right now, I’m not letting them anymore. Not even you.”

Something in him faltered. He looked at the waves and he looked at her. She could see the struggle in his face.

“Ronan, its not that I want to. I have to. I have to know what it feels like to ride that kind of power, to leash it. I feel if I can do that, conquer those waves, it’s just the beginning for me. If I can do that, I can do anything.”

And suddenly she knew she had never spoken truer words. Suddenly she realized she had made a crucial error the other night when she had thought he held the key to the secrets locked away within her.

When they had started this adventure, she remembered saying she didn’t know how to find what she was looking for because she didn’t know where to look.

But suddenly she knew exactly where to look.

Every answer she had ever needed was there. Right inside herself. And part of that was linked to these waves, to knowing what she was capable of, to tapping her sense of adventure instead of denying it. She could not ask Ronan—or anyone else—not her mother or her father or Mahail to accept responsibility for her life. She was in charge. She was taking responsibility for herself. He did not hold the key to her secrets; she did.

She knew that what she was thinking must have shown in her face, because Ronan studied her, then nodded once, and the look on his face was something she would take back with her and cherish as much, maybe more, than the satisfaction of riding the wave.

She had won Ronan’s admiration—reluctant, maybe, but still there. He had looked at her, long and hard, and he had been satisfied with what he had seen.

She turned and stepped into the surf, laughed as she leaped over a tumbling wave and it crashed around her, soaking her in foam and seawater.

Then, when she was up to her knees, she placed the board carefully in front of her and tossed herself, belly down, on top of it. It was as slippery as a banister she had once greased with butter, and it scooted out from underneath her as if it was a living thing. A wave pounded over her, awesome in its absolute power, and then she got up and ran after the board.

Drenched, but deliriously happy, she caught the board, shook water from herself, tried again. And then again. It was discouraging. She couldn’t even lie on it without getting dumped off. How was she ever going to surf?

Her arms and shoulders began to hurt, and it occurred to her this was going to be a lot harder than she’d been led to believe by watching surfers on TV. But in a way she was glad. She wanted it to be challenging. She wanted to test her spunk and her determination and her spirit of adventure. Life-altering moments were not meant to be easy!

Ronan came and picked her up out of the sand after she was dumped for about the hundredth time, grabbed the board that was being dragged out to sea. She grabbed it back from him.

He sighed. “Let me give you a few tips before you go back out there. The first is this: you don’t conquer that water. You work with it, you read it, you become a part of it. Give me the board.”

It was an act of trust to hand the board to him, because he could just take it and go back to the cottage, but somehow she knew he was now as committed to this as she was. There was nothing tricky about Ronan. He was refreshing in that he was such a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy.

“You’re lucky,” he said, “it’s a longboard, not a short one, a thruster. But it’s old, so it doesn’t have a leash on it, which means you have to be very aware where it is at all times. This board is the hardest thing in the water, and believe me, it hurts when it clobbers you.”

She nodded. He tossed the board down on the sand.

“Okay, get on it, belly down.”

She recognized the gift he was giving her: his experience, and recognized her chances of doing this were better if she listened to him. And that’s what he’d said. True power wasn’t about conquering, it was about working with the elements, reading them.

And that’s what Ronan was like: one of the elements, not to be conquered, not to be tamed. To be read and worked with.

When she was down on her belly, he gave her tips about positioning: how to hold her chin, where to have her weight on the board—dead center, not too far back or too far forward.

And so she learned another lesson about power: it was all about balance.

He told her how to spot a wave that was good to ride. “Nothing shaped like a C,” he warned her sternly. “Look for waves shaped liked pyramids, small rollers to start with. We’ll keep you here in the surf, no deeper than your hips until you get the hang of it.”

He said that with absolute confidence, not a doubt in his mind that she would get the hang of it, that she would be riding waves.

“So, practice hopping up a couple of times, here on the sand. Grab the rails.”

“It doesn’t have rails!”

“Put your hands on the edges,” he showed her, positioning her hands. She tried not to find his touch too distracting! “And then push up, bend your back and knees to start, get one leg under you, and pop up as fast as you can. If you do it slow, you’ll just tip over once you’re in the water.”

Under his critical eye, she did it about a dozen times. If he kept this up she was going to be too tired to do it for real!

“Okay,” he finally said, satisfied, peeling off his shirt and dropping it in the sand. “Let’s hit the water.”

They didn’t go out very far, the water swirling around his hips, a little higher on her, lapping beneath her breastbone.

“This is the best place to learn, right here.” He steadied the board for her while she managed to gracelessly flop on top of it.

“Don’t even try to stand up the first couple of times, just ride it, get a sense for how your surfboard sleds.”

“Sleds? As in snow?”

“Same word,” he said, and she smiled thinking this might be as close as she got to sledding of any kind. Maybe she would have to be satisfied to look after two dreams with one activity!

“Okay, here it comes. Paddle with those arms, not too fast, just to build momentum.”

Shoshauna felt the wave lift the board, paddled and then felt the most amazing thing: as if she was the masthead at the head of that wave. The board was moving with its own power now and it shot her forward with incredible and exhilarating speed. The ride lasted maybe a full two seconds, and then she was tossed onto the sand with such force it lifted her shirt and ground sand into her skin.

“Get up,” he yelled, “incoming.”

Too late, the next wave pounded down on top of her, ground a little more sand into her skin.

He was there in an instant hauling her to her feet.

She was laughing so hard she was choking. “My God, Ronan, is there anything more fun in the entire world than that?”

He looked at her, smiled. “Now, you’re stoked,” he said.

“Stoked?”

“Surfer word for ready, so excited about the waves you can barely stand it.”

“That’s me,” she agreed, “stoked.” And it was true. She felt as if she had waited her whole life to feel this: excited, alive, tingling with the awareness of possibility.

“Ready to try it standing up?”

“I’m sooo ready,” she said.

“You would have made a hell of a soldier,” he said with a rueful shake of his head, and she knew she had just been paid the highest of compliments.

“I want to do it myself!”

“Sweetheart, in surfing that’s the only way you can do it.”

Sweetheart. Was it the exhilaration of that offhanded endearment that filled her with a brand-new kind of power, a brand-new confidence?

She went back out, got on the board, carefully positioned herself, stomach down. She turned, watching over her shoulder for just the right wave.

She floated up and over a few rolling waves, and then she saw one coming, the third in a set of three. She scrambled, but despite her practice runs, the board was impossibly slippery beneath her feet. It popped out from under her. The wave swallowed her, curled around her, tossed her and the board effortlessly toward the shore.

She popped up, aware Ronan was right beside her, waiting, watching. But the truth was, despite a mouth full of seawater, she loved this! She loved feeling so part of the water, feeling so challenged. There was only excitement in her as she grabbed the board, swam back out and tried again. And again. And again.

Ronan watched, offered occasional advice, shouted encouragement, but he’d been right. There was only one way to do this. No one could do it for you. It was just like life. He did not even try to retrieve the board for her, did not try to help her back on it after it got away for about the hundredth time. Was he waiting for her to fail? For exhaustion and frustration to steal the determination from her heart?

But when she looked into the strong lines of his face, that was not what she saw. Not at all. She saw a man who believed she could do it and was willing to hold on to that belief, even while her own faith faded.

It was his confidence in her, the look on his face, that made her turn the board back to shore one last time, watch the waves gathering over her shoulder. It was the look on his face that made Shoshauna feel as if she would die before she quit.

Astonishingly, everything worked. The wave came, and the crest lifted her and the board. She found her feet; they stuck to the board; she crouched at exactly the right moment.

She was riding the sea, being thrust with incredible power toward the shore.

She rode its fabulous power for less than a full second, but she rode it long enough to feel its song beneath her, to feel her oneness with that power, to taste it, to know it, to want it. Her exhaustion disappeared, replaced by exhilaration.

She was really not sure which was more exhilarating, riding the wave or having earned the look of quiet respect in Ronan’s face as he came up to her, held up his hand. “Slap my hand,” he told her.

She did, and felt his power as surely as she had felt that of the wave.

“That’s a high five, surfer lingo for a great ride,” he told her.

She achieved two more satisfactory rides before exhaustion made her quit.

He escorted her to shore. She was shivering with exhaustion and exertion and he wrapped her in the shirt he had discarded there in the sand.

“I did it!” she whispered.

“Yes, you did.”

She thought of all the things she had done since they had landed on this island and felt a sigh of contentment within her. She was a different person than she had been a few short days ago, far more sure of herself, loving the glimpse she’d had of her own power, of what she was capable of doing once she had set her mind to it.

“I want to see what you can do,” she said. She meant surfing, but suddenly her eyes were on his lips, and his were on hers.

“Show me,” she asked him, her voice a plea. Show me where it all can go. Show me all that a person can be.

He hesitated, looked at her lips, then looked at the waves, the lesser of two temptations. She saw the longing in his eyes, knew he was stoked. She caught a glimpse of the boy he must have once been, before he had learned to ride his power, tame it, leash it.

And then he picked up the board and leaped over the crashing waves to the water beyond. He lay down on the board, paddled it out, his strength against the surging ocean nothing less than amazing. He scorned the surf that she had ridden, made his way strongly past the breakers, got up into a sitting position, straddling the board and then waited.

He rode up and over the swells, waiting, gauging the waves, patient. She saw the wave coming that she knew he would choose.

He dropped to his chest, paddled forward, a few hard strokes to get the board moving, glanced back just as the top of the wave picked up the back of his board. She saw the nose of the board lift out of the water, and then, just when she thought maybe he had missed it, in one quick snap, he was up.

He rode the board sideways, one hip toward the nose of the board, the other toward the tail, his feet apart, knees bent, arms out, his position slightly crouched. She could see him altering his position, shifting his weight with his body position to steer the board. He was actually cutting across the face of the wave, down under the curl, his grace easy, confident and breathtaking. He made it look astonishingly easy.

This was where it went, then. When a person exercised their power completely, it became a ballet, not a fight with the forces, but a beautiful, intricate dance with the elements. Ronan rode that wave with such certainty.

Shoshauna had walked all her life with men who called themselves princes, but this was the first time she had seen a man who truly owned the earth, who could be one with it, who was so comfortable with his own power and in his own skin.

There was another element to what he was doing, and she became aware of it as he outran the wave, dropped back to his stomach, moved out to catch another. He was not showing her up, not at all.

Showing off for her, showing her his agility and his strength and his grace in this complex dance with the sea.

He may have been mastering the sea, but he was giving in, surrendering, to the chemistry, the sizzle that had been between them from the very moment he had first touched her, dragged her to the ground out of harm’s way, a mere week ago, a lifetime ago.

Ronan was doing what men had been doing for woman since time began: he was preening for her, saying, without the complication of words: I am strong. I am fearless. I am skilled. I am the hunter, and I will hunt for you. I am the warrior, and I will protect you.

It was a mating ritual, and she could feel her heart rising to the song he was singing to her out there on the waves.

Finally he came in, tossed the board down, then threw himself down on his stomach and lay panting in the sand beside her.

She wanted to taste his lips again, but knew she was in the danger zone. He questioned her motives, he would never allow himself to be convinced that it was about them, not about her looking for convenient ways to escape her destiny.

To even try to convince him might be to jeopardize the small amount of time they had left.

Tomorrow, hours away from now, they would leave here.

As if thinking the same thought, he told her his plan for the day. They would take the boat back across the water, find where the motorcycle was stashed in the shrubbery. Did she know of a fish-and-chips-style pub close to the palace? She told him that almost certainly it was Gabby’s, the only British-style pub on the island that she was aware of.

“We’ll meet Colonel Peterson there at three,” he said.

“And then?”

“If it’s safe, you’ll go home. If it isn’t, you’ll most likely go into hiding for a little longer.”

“With you?”

“No, Shoshauna,” he said quietly. “Not with me.”

She would have tonight, then one more ride on that motorcycle, and then, whatever happened next, this would be over.

Sadness threatened to overwhelm her, and she realized she did not want to ruin one moment of this time she had left contemplating what was coming. She suspected there was going to be plenty of time for sadness.

Now was the time for joy. For connection. He knew they were saying goodbye, it had relaxed his guard.

Shoshauna looked at the broadness of Ronan’s shoulders as he lay in the sand beside her, how his back narrowed to the slenderness of his waist, she looked at how the wet shorts clung to the hard-muscled lines of his legs and his buttocks.

She became aware he was watching her watching him, out of the corner of his eye, letting it happen, maybe even enjoying it.

She reached out and rested her hand on the dip of his spine between his shoulders. For a minute his muscles stiffened under her touch, and she wondered if he would deprive her of this moment, get up, head to the cottage, put distance between them. She wondered if she had overplayed.

But then he relaxed, closed his eyes, let her touch him, and she thought, See? I knew I would be a good chess player. Still, she dared not do more than that, for fear he would move away, but she knew he was as aware as she was that their time together was very nearly over. That was the only reason he was allowing this. And so she tried to memorize the beauty of his salt- and sand-encrusted skin beneath her fingertips, the wondrous composition of his muscle and skin. She felt as if she could feel the life force flowing, vibrating, throbbing through him with its own energy, strong, pure, good.

Night began to fall, and with it the trade winds picked up and the wind chilled. She could feel the goose bumps rising on his flesh and on her own. The waves crashed on the shore, throwing fine spray droplets of water up toward them.

Still, neither of them made a move to leave this moment behind.

“Do you think we could have a bonfire tonight,” she asked, “right here on the beach?”

Silence. Struggle. It seemed as if he would never answer. She was aware she was holding her breath.

“Yeah,” he said, finally, gruffly. “I think we could.”

She breathed again.

Ronan slid a glance at Shoshauna. She had changed into a striped shirt and some crazy pair of canvas slacks she had found in the cottage, lace-up front with frayed bottoms that made her look like an adorable stowaway on a pirate’s ship.

Despite the outfit, she was changed since the surfing episode, carrying herself differently. A new confidence, a new certainty in herself. He was glad he’d let down his guard enough to be part of giving her that gift, the gift of realizing who she would be once she went back to her old world.

Surely, he thought looking at her, at the tilt of her chin, the strength in her eyes, the fluid way she moved, a woman certain of herself, she would carry that within her, she would never marry a man for convenience, or because it would please others. He remembered her hand resting on his back. Surely, in that small gesture, he had felt who she was, and who she would be.

Tonight, their last night together, he would keep his guard down, just a bit, just enough.

Enough to what? he asked himself.

To have parts of her to hold on to when he let her go, when he did not have her anymore, when he faced the fact he would probably never look at her face again.

Then he would have this night: the two of them, a bonfire, her laughter, the light flickering on her skin, the sparkle in her eyes putting the stars to shame.

In the gathering darkness they hauled firewood to the beach. As the stars came out, they roasted fish on sticks, remembered her antics in the water, laughed.

Tomorrow it would be over. For tonight he was not going to be a soldier. He was going to be a man.

And so they talked deep into the night. When it got colder, he went and got a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders, and then when it got colder still and she held up a corner, he went and sat beneath the blanket with her, shoulder to shoulder, watching the stars, listening to the waves and her voice, stealing glimpses of her face, made even more gorgeous by the reflection of the flame that flickered across it.

At first the talk was light. He modified a few jokes and made her laugh. She told him about tormenting her nannies and schoolteachers.

But somehow as the night deepened, so did the talk. And he was hearing abut a childhood that had been privileged and pampered, but also very lonely.

She told him about the kitten she had found on a rare trip to the public market, and how she had stuck it under her dress and taken it home. She smiled as she told the story about a little kitten taking away the loneliness, how she had talked to it, slept with it, made it her best friend.

The cat had died.

“Silly, maybe to be so devastated over a cat,” she said sadly, “but I can’t tell you how I missed him, and how the rooms of my apartment seemed so empty once he was gone. I missed all his adorable poses, and his incredible self-centeredness.”

“What was his name?”

“Don’t laugh.”

“Okay.”

“It was Retnuh. In our language it means Beloved.”

He didn’t laugh. In fact, he didn’t find it funny at all. He found it sad and lonely and it confirmed things about her life that she had wanted to tell him all along but that he had already guessed anyway.

“Prince Mahail’s proposal came very shortly after my Beloved died. Ronan, it felt so much easier to get swept along in all the excitement than to feel what I was feeling. Bereft. Lonely. Pathetic. A woman whose deepest love had been for a cat.”

But he didn’t see it as pathetic. He saw it as something else: a woman with a fierce capacity to love, giving her whole heart when she decided to love, giving it her everything. Would the man who finally received that understand what a gift it was, what a treasure?

“Will you tell me something about you now?”

It was one of those trick questions women were so good at. She had shared something deep, meaningful. She wasn’t going to be satisfied if he talked about his favorite soccer team.

“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” he said, hedging.

“What kind of little boy were you?” she asked him.

Ah, a logical place to begin. “A very bad one,” he said.

“Bad or mischievous?”

“Bad. I was the kid putting the potatoes in the tailpipes of cars, breaking the neighbors’ windows, getting expelled from school for fighting.”

“But why?”

But why? The question no one had asked. “My Dad died when I was six. Not using that as an excuse, just some boys need a father’s hand in their lives. My mother seemed to know she was in way over her head with me. I think wanting to get me under control was probably motivation for most of her marriages.”

“Marriages? How many?” Shoshauna whispered, wide-eyed. This would be scandalous in her country where divorce was nearly unheard of. It had been scandalous enough in his own.

“Counting the one coming up? Seven?”

“You can’t be responsible for that one!”

Still, he always felt vaguely responsible, a futile sense of not being able to protect his mother. When he was younger it was a sense of not being enough.

“What was that like for you growing up? Were any of her husbands like a father to you?” Shoshauna asked.

And for some reason he told her what he had never told anyone. About the misery and the feelings of rejection and the rebellion against each new man. He told her about how that little tiny secret spark of hope that someday he would have a father again had been steadily eroded into cynicism.

He didn’t know why he told her, only that when he did, he didn’t feel weaker. He felt lighter.

And more content than he had felt in many years.

“What was your mother’s marriage to your father like?” she asked softly.

He was silent, remembering. Finally he sighed, and he could hear something that was wistful in him in that sigh. He had thought it was long dead, but now he found it was just sleeping.

“Like I said, I was only six when he died, so I don’t know if these memories are true, or if they are as I wish it had been.”

“Tell me what you think you remember.”

“Happiness.” He was surprised by how choked he sounded. “Laughter. I remember, one memory more vivid than any other, of my dad chasing my mom around the house, her running from him shrieking with laughter, her face alight with life and joy. And when he caught her, I remember him holding her, covering her with kisses, me trying to squeeze in between them, to be a part of it. And then he lifted me up, and they squeezed me between them so hard I almost couldn’t breathe for the joy of it.”

For a long time she was silent, and when she looked at him, he saw what the day had given her in her face: a new maturity, a new ability to be herself in the world.

And he heard it in her voice, in the wisdom of what she said.

She said, “Once your mother had that, what she had with your father, I would think she could not even imagine trying to live without it. By marrying all those men, she was only trying to be alive again. Probably for you, as much as for herself. It wasn’t that she wanted those men to give you something you didn’t have, it was that she wanted to give you what she had been before, she saw you grieving for her as much as for him.”

It was strange, but when he heard those words, he felt as if he had searched for them, been on a quest that led him exactly to this place.

A place where, finally, he could forgive his mother.

Ever since he’d left home, it was as if he had tried desperately to put a lid on the longing his earliest memories had created. He had tried to fill all the spaces within himself: with discipline, with relentless strength, with purpose, with the adrenaline rush of doing dangerous things.

But now he saw that, just like Shoshauna, he had been brought to this place to find what was really within himself.

He was a man who wanted to be loved.

And deserved to be loved.

A man who had come to know you could fill your whole world, but if it was missing the secret ingredient it was empty.

With the fire warm against their faces and the blanket wrapped around them, they slept under the winking stars and to the music of the crashing waves. He had not felt so peaceful, or so whole, for a long, long time.

But he awoke with a fighting man’s instinct just before dawn.

For a moment he was disoriented, her hair, soft as eiderdown, softer than he could have ever imagined it, tickling the bottom of his chin, her head resting on his chest, her breath blowing in warm puffs against his skin.

The feeling lasted less than half a second.

He could hear the steady, but still far off, wop-wop-wop of a helicopter engine, beneath that the steady but still-distant whine of powerboats.

He sat up, saw the boats coming, halfway between the island and the mainland, three of them forming a vee in the water, the helicopter zooming ahead of them to do reconnaissance.

The fire, he thought, amazed at his own stupidity. He’d been able to see the lights of the mainland from here, how could he have taken a chance by lighting that fire?

Because he’d been blinded, that’s how. He’d forgotten the number-one rule of protection, no not forgotten it, been lulled into believing, that just this once it would be okay to set it aside. But he’d been wrong. He’d broken the rule he knew to be sacred in his business, and now he was about to pay the price.

He knew that emotional involvement with the principal jeopardized their well-being, their safety. And he had done it anyway, putting his needs ahead of what he knew was right.

He’d acted as if they were on a damn holiday from the moment they’d landed on this island. Instead of snorkeling and surfing, he should have spent his time creating a defensible position: hiding places, booby traps, a fallback plan.

He felt the sting of his greatest failure, but there was no time now for self-castigation. There would probably be plenty of time for that later.

He eyed their own boat, the tide out, so far up on the sand he didn’t have a chance of getting it to the water before the other boats were on them, and he didn’t like the idea of being out in the open, sitting ducks. He could hear the engines of those other boats, anyway. They were far more powerful than the boat on the beach.

“Wake up,” he shouted at her, leaping to his feet, his hand rough on her slender shoulder.

There was no time to appreciate her sleep-ruffed hair, her eyes fluttering open, the way a line from his own chest was imprinted on her cheek. She was blinking at him with sleepy trust that he knew himself to be completely unworthy of.

He yanked her to her feet. She caught his urgency instantly, allowed herself to be pushed at high speed toward the cottage. He stopped there only briefly to pick up the Glock, two clips of ammo, and then he led the way through the jungle, to where he had chopped down the tree earlier.

He tucked her under the waxy leaves of a gigantic elephant foot shrub. “Don’t you move until I tell you you can,” he said.

“You’re not leaving me here!”

He instantly saw that her concern was not for herself but for him. This was the price for letting his barriers down, for not maintaining his distance and his authority. She thought listening to him was an option. She did not want to understand it was his job to put himself between her and danger.

She did not want to accept reality.

And his weakness was that for a few hours yesterday he had not accepted it either.

“Princess, do not make me say this again,” he said sharply. “You do not move until you hear from me, personally, that it’s okay to do so.”

Three boats and a helicopter. He had to assume the worst in terms of who it was and what their intent was. That was his job, to react to worst-case scenarios. There was a good chance she might not be hearing from him, personally, ever again. He might be able to outthink those kind of numbers, but their only chance was if she cooperated, stayed out of the way.

“My life depends on your obedience,” he told her, and saw, finally, her capitulation.

He raced back to the tree line, watched the boats coming closer and closer, cutting through the waters of the bay. His mind did the clean divide, began clicking through options of how to keep her safe with very limited resources. Not enough rounds to hold off the army that was approaching.

The boats drew closer, and suddenly he stood down. His adrenaline stopped pumping. He recognized Colonel Gray Peterson at the helm of the first boat, and he stepped from the trees.

Ronan moved slowly, feeling his sense of failure acutely. This was ending well, but not because of his competence. Because of luck. Because of that thing she had always seemed to trust and he had scorned.

Gray came across the sand toward him.

“Where’s the princess?” he asked.

“Secure.”

Of course she picked that moment to break from the trees and scamper down the beach. She must have left her hiding place within seconds of Ronan securing her promise she would stay there.

“Grandpa!” She threw herself into the arms of a distinguished-looking elderly man.

Ronan contemplated her disobedience—the complete disintegration of his authority over her—with self-disgust.

Gray looked at her, his eyebrows arched upward. “Good grief, man, tell me that’s not the princess.”

“I’m afraid it is.”

But Gray’s dismay was not because she had broken cover without being given the go-ahead.

“What on earth happened to her hair?”

The truth was Ronan could only vaguely remember what she had looked like before.

“She’s safe. Who cares about her hair?”

Gray’s look said it all. People cared about her hair. Ronan was glad she had cut it if it made her less of a commodity.

“She is safe, isn’t she?” Ronan asked. “That’s why you’re here? That’s why you didn’t wait for me to come in?”

“We made an arrest three days ago.”

“Who?” He needed to know that. If it was some organized group with terror cells all over the place, she would never be safe. And what would he do then?

Peterson lowered his voice. “You gave us the lead. Princess Shoshauna’s cousin, Mirassa. She was an old flame of Prince Mahail’s. You’ve heard that expression ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ but in this case it was more like high school high jinx gone very wrong.”

Ronan watched Shoshauna, felt her joy at being with her grandfather and felt satisfied that her instincts had been so correct. If she had that—her instincts—and now the ability to capture the power of the wave, she was going to be all right.

“You went deep,” Gray said, “if I could have found you I would have pulled you out sooner.”

Oh, yeah, he’d gone deep. Deep into territory he had no right going into, so deep he felt lost even now, as if he might never make his way out.

“But when one of the villagers saw the fire last night and reported it to her grandfather he knew right away she’d be here.” Gray glanced down the beach at her, frowning. “She doesn’t look like the same person, Ronan.”

Ronan was silent. She was the same person. But now she had a better idea of who that was, now, he hoped she would not be afraid to let it show, to let it shine.

He was aware of Gray’s sudden scrutiny, a low whistle. “Anything happen that I should know about?”

So, the changes were in him, too, in his face.

“No, sir.” Nothing anybody should know about. He would have to live with the fact his mistakes could have cost her her life. Because they hadn’t, no one else had to know. Ronan watched the other two boats unload. Military men, palace officials, bodyguards.

“Where’s Prince Mahail?’ he asked grimly.

“Why would he be here?”

“If I was going to marry her and she’d disappeared, I’d sure as hell be here.” But only her grandfather had come. Not her mother. Not her father. Not her fiancé. And suddenly he understood exactly why she had loved a cat so much, the loneliness, the emptiness that had driven her to say yes instead no.

But she knew herself better now. She knew what she was capable of. As far as gifts went, he thought it was a pretty good one to give her.

Gray was looking at him strangely now, then he shook it off, saying officiously, “Look, I’ve got to get you out of here. Your commanding officer is breathing down my neck. Your Excalibur team is on standby waiting to be deployed. I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, you’d better be back when they pull the plug. I’m going to signal the helicopter to drop their ladder.”

Ronan was a soldier; he trained for the unexpected; he expected the unexpected. But somehow it caught him completely off guard that he was not going to be able to say goodbye.

The helicopter was coming in low now in response to Gray’s hand signals, sand rising around it. The ladder dropped.

Don’t think, Ronan told himself and grabbed the swaying rope ladder, caught it hard, pulled himself up to the first rung.

With each step up the ladder, he was aware of moving back toward his own life, away from what had happened here.

Moments later, hands were reaching out to haul him on board.

He made the mistake of looking down. Shoshauna was running with desperate speed. She looked as if she was going to attempt to grab that ladder, too, as if she was going to come with him if she could.

But the ladder was being hauled in, out of the way of her reaching hands. Had he really been holding his breath, hoping she would make it, hoping by some miracle she could come into his world. Was he really not ready to let go? But this was reality now, the chasms between them uncrossable, forces beyond either of their control pulling them apart.

She went very still, a small person on a beach, becoming smaller by the second. And then, standing in the center of a cyclone of dust and sand, she put her hand to her lips and sent a kiss after him. He heard the man who had hauled him in take in a swift, startled gasp at the princess’s obvious and totally inappropriate show of affection for a common man, a soldier no different from him.

But he barely registered that gasp or the startled eyes of the crew turning to him.

Jake Ronan, the most pragmatic of men, thought he felt her kiss fly across the growing chasm between him and touch his cheek, a whisper of an angel’s wings across the coarseness of his whiskers, as soft as a promise.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SHOSHAUNA looked around her bedroom. It was a beautiful room: decorated in turquoises and greens and shades of cream and ivory. Like all the rooms in her palatial home, her quarters contained the finest silks, the deepest rugs, the most valuable art. But with no cat providing lively warmth, her space seemed empty and unappealing, a showroom with no soul.

She was surrounded by toys and conveniences: a wonderful sound system; a huge TV that slid behind a screen at the push of a button; a state-of-the-art laptop with Internet access; a bathroom with spa features. But today, despite all that luxury, all those things she could occupy herself with, her room felt like a prison.

She longed for the simplicity of the island, and she felt as if she had been robbed of her last few hours with Ronan. She had thought they would at least have one more motorcycle ride together. No, she had even been robbed of her chance to say goodbye, and to ask the question that burned in her like fire.

What next?

The answer to that question lay somewhere in the six days of freedom she had experienced. She could not go back to the way her life had been before, to the way she had been before.

Where was Ronan? She still felt shocked at the abruptness of his departure. After that final night they had shared, she had wanted to say goodbye. No, needed to say goodbye.

Goodbye? That isn’t what she wanted to say! Hello. I can’t wait to know you better. I love the way I feel when I’m with you. You show me all that is best about myself.

There was a knock on her door, and she leaped off her bed and answered it, but it was one of the maids and a hairdresser.

“We’ve come to fix your hair,” the maid said cheerfully, “before you meet with Prince Mahail. I understand he’s coming this afternoon.”

Shoshauna did not stand back from the door to invite them in. She said quietly but firmly, “I happen to like my hair the way it is, and if Prince Mahail would like to see me he will have to make an appointment to see if it’s convenient for me.”

And then she shut the door, her maid’s mouth working soundlessly, a fish gasping out of water. For the first time since she had come back to this room, Shoshauna felt free, and she understood the truth: you could live in a castle and be a prisoner, you could live in a prison and be free. It was all what was inside of you.

A half hour later there was another knock on her door, the same maid, accompanied by a small boy, a street ragamuffin.

“He said,” the maid reported snippily, “he has something that he is only allowed to give to you. Colonel Peterson said it would be all right.”

The boy shyly held out the basket he was carrying and a book.

Shoshauna took the book and smiled at him. She glanced at the book. Chess Made Simple. Her heart hammering, she took the basket, heard the muted little whimper even before she rolled back the square of cloth that covered it.

An orange kitten stared at her with round green eyes.

She felt tears film her eyes, knew Ronan was gone, but that he had sent her a message.

Did he know what it said to her? Not “Learn to play chess,” not “Here’s a kitten to take the edge off loneliness.”

To her his message said he had seen the infinite potential within her.

To her his message said, “Beloved.” It said that he had heard her and seen her as no one else in her life ever had.

But then she realized this gift was his farewell gift to her. It said he would not be delivering any messages himself. Had he let his guard down so completely on that final day together because he thought he would never see her again?

Never see him again? The thought was a worse prison than this room—a life sentence.

She wanted to just slam her bedroom door and cry, but that was not the legacy of her week with Ronan. She had learned to be strong. She certainly had no intention of being a victim of her own life! No, she planned from this day forward to be the master of her destiny! To take charge, to go after what she wanted.

And to refuse what she didn’t want.

“Tell Prince Mahail I will see him this afternoon after all,” she said thoughtfully.

She realized she had to put closure on one part of her life before she began another. She did not consult her father or her mother about what she had to say to Mahail.

He was waiting for her in a private drawing room, his back to her, looking out a window. When she entered the room, she paused for a moment and studied him. He was a slight man, but handsome and well dressed.

She saw the boy who had said to her, years ago, as he was learning to ride a pony at his family’s compound, “Girls aren’t allowed.”

He turned and smiled in greeting, but the smile faltered when he saw her hair. She deliberately wore short sleeves so he could see the chunks of skin peeling off her arms, too.

He regained himself quickly, came to her and bowed, took both her hands.

“You are somewhat worse the wear for your adventure, I see,” he said, his voice sorrowful, as if she had survived a tsunami.

“Not at all,” she said, “I’ve never felt better.”

Of course he didn’t get that at all—that how she felt was so much more important than how she looked.

“I understand you have been unaccompanied in the presence of a man,” he said. “Others might see that as a smirch on your character, but of course, I do not. I understand the man’s character is unimpeachable.”

She knew she should be insulted that the man’s character was unimpeachable, but in fact it had been Ronan who had exercised self-control, not her. Still!

“How big of you,” she said. “Of course that man saved me from a situation largely of your making, but why think of that?”

“My making?” the prince stammered.

“You were cruel and thoughtless to Mirassa. She didn’t deserve that, and she retaliated. I’m not excusing what she did, but I am saying I understand it.”

The prince was beginning to look annoyed, not used to anyone speaking their mind around him, especially a woman. What kind of prison would that be? Not being able to be honest with the man you shared the most intimate things in the world with?

“And that man, whom others might see as having put a smirch on my character, was absolutely devoted to protecting me. He was willing to put my well-being ahead of his own.” To refuse everything I offered him, if he felt it wasn’t in my best interests.

“How noble,” the prince said, but he was watching her cautiously. She wasn’t supposed to speak her mind, after all, just toss her hair and blink prettily.

“Yes,” she agreed, “noble.” Ronan, her prince, so much more so than this man who stood in front of her in his silk and jewels, the aroma of his expensive cologne filling the room.

What would he say if she said she would rather smell Ronan’s sweat? She smiled at the thought, and Mahail mistook the smile for a change in mood, for coy invitation.

“Are you well enough, then, to reschedule the day of our marriage?” he asked formally.

So, despite the hair, the skin, her new outspokenness, he was not going to call it off, and suddenly she was glad, because that made it her choice, rather than his—that made it her power that had to be utilized.

She needed to choose.

“I’ve decided not to marry,” she said firmly, with no fear, no doubt, no hesitation. A bird within her took wing.

“Excuse me?” Prince Mahail was genuinely astonished.

“I don’t want to get married. I have so many things I want to achieve first. When I marry I want it to be for love, not for convenience. I’m sorry.”

He glared at her, put out. “Have you consulted your father about this?”

Of all the maddening things he could have said, that about topped her list!

“It’s my choice,” she said dangerously, “not his.”

Prince Mahail looked at her, confused, irritated, annoyed. “Perhaps it is for the best,” he decided. “I think I might like your cousin, Mirassa, better than you after all.”

“You would,” Shoshauna muttered as he marched from the room.

And yet the next day, when she met with her father, she felt terrible trepidation, aware her legs were shaking under her long skirt.

Meetings with him always had a stilted quality, formal, as if his children were more his subjects than his blood.

“I understand,” he said, without preamble, “that you have told Prince Mahail there will be no wedding.”

“Yes, Father.”

“Without consulting me?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

Shoshauna took a deep breath and told him who she was. She did not tell him she was the girl he wanted her to be, meek, docile, pliable, but she told him of longing for education and adventure…and love.

“And so you see,” she finished bravely, “I cannot marry Mahail. I am prepared to go to the dungeon first.”

Her father’s lips twitched, and then he laughed. “Come here,” he said.

As she stepped toward him, he stood up and embraced her. “I want for you what every father wants for his daughter—your happiness. A father thinks he knows best, but you have always been a strong-spirited girl, able, I think, to find your own way. Do you want to go to school?”

“Yes, Father!”

“Then it will be arranged, with my blessing.”

As she turned to go, he called her back.

“Daughter,” he said, laughing, “we don’t have a dungeon. If we did I suspect your poor mother would have locked you away in it a long time ago. I will explain this, er, latest development to her.”

“Thank you.”

Funny, she thought walking away, her whole life she had sought her father’s love and approval. And she had gotten it, finally, not when she had tried to please him, but when she had been brave enough to please herself, brave enough to be herself.

This was news she had to share with Ronan. She asked Colonel Peterson where he was.

He looked at her carefully. “He’s been deployed,” he said, “even if I knew where he was, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

And then she realized that was the truth Ronan had tried to tell her about his life.

And she recognized another truth: if you were going to be with a man like that, you had to have a life—satisfying and fulfilling—completely separate from his. If Ronan was going to be a part of her life, she had to come to him absolutely whole, certainly able to function when his work called him to be away.

She renewed her application for school and was accepted. In two months she would be living one more dream. She would be going to study in Great Britain.

And until then?

She was going to learn to surf! There was no room in a world like Ronan’s for a woman who was needy or clingy. She needed to go to him a woman confident in her ability to make her own life.

And then she would be a woman who could make a life with him.

An alarm was going off, and men were pouring through the doors of an abandoned warehouse, men in black, their faces covered, machine guns at the ready. Ronan was with Shoshauna, his body between her and the onslaught, but he felt things no soldier ever wanted to feel—outnumbered, hopeless, helpless. He couldn’t protect her. He was only one man…

Ronan came awake, drenched in sweat, grateful it wasn’t real, perturbed that after six months he was still having that dream, was unable to shake his sense of failure.

Slowly he became aware that the alarm from his dream was really his phone ringing. He’d picked up the phone, along with a whole pile of other things he needed, when he’d moved off base a few months ago. Next time he bought a phone, he’d know to test the damned ringer first. This one announced callers with the urgency of an alarm system announcing a break-in at the Louvre.

He got up on one elbow and looked at the caller ID window.

“Hi, Mom,” he said.

“Are you sleeping? It’s the middle of the day.”

“We’re just back from a deployment. I’m a little turned around.”

Six months ago he wouldn’t have imagined voluntarily giving his mother that information, but then, six months ago she would have been asking all kinds of questions about what he’d been up to, trying to get him to quit his job, do something safer.

Interestingly, Ronan found he wasn’t enjoying the emergency call-outs the way he once had. He recognized that adrenaline had become his fix, his drug, it had filled something in him.

It didn’t work anymore. Not since B’Ranasha. He’d felt something else then, softer, kinder, ultimately more real.

Adrenaline had been a substitute, a temporary solution to a permanent problem. Loneliness. Yearning.

He’d been asked if he would consider taking an instructor’s position with Excalibur. Maybe he was just getting older, but the idea appealed.

Now his mother didn’t even ask a single detail about the deployment, which was good. Even though she now had her own life and it had made her so much more accepting of his, Ronan thought it might set their growing trust in each other back a bit if he told her he’d just been behind the lines in a country where a military coup was in full swing rescuing the deposed prime minister.

Or, he thought, listening to the happiness in her voice, maybe not.

The big news that she had been trying to reach him about when he’d taken the wedding security position on B’Ranasha, amazingly, had nothing to do with another wedding, or at least not for her. No, she’d had an idea.

She’d wanted to know if he would invest in her new company.

But of course, that wasn’t really what she had been asking. Sometime, probably in that week with Shoshauna, Ronan had developed the sensitivity to know this.

She was really asking for an investment in her. She was asking him, fearfully, painfully, courageously, to believe in her. One last time, despite it all, please.

And isn’t that what love did? Believed? Held the faith even in the face of overwhelming evidence that to believe was naive?

The truth was he had all kinds of money. He’d had a regular paycheck since leaving high school. Renting this apartment was really the first time he’d spent any significant amount of it. His lifestyle had left him with little time and less inclination to spend his money.

Why not gamble it? His mother wanted to start a wedding-planning service and a specialized bridal boutique. Who, after all, was more of an expert on weddings than his mother? There was no sideways feeling in his stomach—not that he was at all certain it worked anymore—so he’d invested. When she’d told him she’d decided on a name for their new company, he’d expected the worst.

“‘Princess,’” she said, “the princess part in teeny letters. That’s important. And then in big letters ‘Bliss.’”

Into his telling silence she had said, “You hate it.”

That was putting it mildly. “I guess I just don’t understand it.”

“No, you wouldn’t, but Ronan, trust me, every woman dreams of being a princess, if only for a day. Especially on that day.”

And then Ronan had been pleasantly surprised and then downright astounded at his mother’s overwhelming success. Within a few months of opening, Princess Bliss had been named by Aussie Business as one of the top-ten new businesses in the country. His mother had been approached about franchising. She was arranging weddings around the globe.

“Kay Harden just called,” his mother told him breathlessly. “She and Henry Hopkins are getting married again.”

“Uh-huh,” Ronan said.

“Do you even know who they are, Jacob?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Don’t call me that! Jacob, you’re hopeless. Movie stars. They’re both movie stars.”

He didn’t care about that, he’d protected enough important people to know the truth. One important person in particular had let him know the truth.

All people, inside, were the very same.

Even soldiers.

“We’re going to have a million-dollar year!” his mother said.

Life was full of cruel ironies: Jake Ronan the man who hated weddings more than any other was going to get rich from them. He’d told his mother he would be happy just to have his initial investment back, but she was having none of it. He was a full, if silent, partner in Princess Bliss, if he liked it or not. And when he saw how happy his mother was, for the first time in his memory since his father had died, he liked it just fine.

“Mom,” he said. “I’m proud of you. I really am. Please, don’t cry.”

But she cried, and talked about her business, and he just listened, glancing around his small apartment while she talked. This was another change he’d made since coming home from B’Ranasha.

After a month back at work he had decided to give up barrack life and get his own place. The brotherhood of his comrades was no longer as comfortable as it once had been. After he’d gotten back from B’Ranasha he had felt an overwhelming desire to be alone, to create his own space, a life separate from his career.

If the apartment was any indication, he hadn’t really succeeded. Try as he might to make it homey, it just never was.

Try as he might to never think about her or that week on the island, he never quite could. He was changed. He was lonely. He hurt.

The apartment was just an indication of something else, wanting more, wanting to have more to life than his work.

And all that money piling up in his bank account, thanks to his partnership in Bliss, was an indication that something more wasn’t about money, either.

He’d contacted Gray Peterson once, a couple of days after leaving B’Ranasha. He’d been in a country so small it didn’t appear on the map, in the middle of a civil war. Trying to sound casual, which was ridiculous given the lengths he’d gone to, to get his hands on a phone, and hard to do with gunfire exploding in the background, he’d asked if she was all right.

And found out the only thing he needed to know: the marriage of Prince Mahail and Princess Shoshauna had been called off. Ronan had wanted to press for details, called off for what reason, by whom, but he’d already known that the phone call was inappropriate, that a soldier asking after a princess was not acceptable in any world that he moved in.

Ronan heard a knock on his door, got up and answered it. “Mom, gotta go. Someone’s at the door.”

Was it Halloween? A child dressed as a motorcycle rider stood on his outside step, all black leather, a helmet, sunglasses.

And then the sunglasses came off, and he recognized eyes as turquoise as the sunlit bay of his boyhood. His mouth fell open.

And then she undid the motorcycle helmet strap, and struggled to get the snug-fitting helmet from her head.

He had to stuff his hands in his pockets to keep from helping her. Finally she had it off.

He studied her hair. Possibly, her hair looked even worse than it had on the island, grown out considerably but flattened by the helmet.

“What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly, as if his heart was not nearly pounding out of his chest, as if he did not want to lift her into his arms and swing her around until she was shrieking with laughter. As if he had not known, the moment he had recognized her, that she was the something more that he yearned for, that filled him with restless energy and a sense of hollow emptiness that nothing seemed to fill.

This was his greatest fear: that with every moment he’d dedicated to helping her find her own power, he had lost some of his own.

“What am I doing here?” she said, with a dangerous flick of her hair. “Try this—‘Shoshauna, what a delightful surprise. I’m so glad to see you.’”

He saw instantly she had come into her own in ways he could not even imagine. She exuded the confidence of a woman sure of herself, sure of her intelligence, her attractiveness, her power.

“I’m going to university here now.”

That explained it. Those smart-alec university guys were probably all over her. He tried not to let the flicker of pure jealousy he felt show. In fact, he deliberately kept his voice remote. “Oh? Good for you.”

She glared at him, looked as if she wanted to stamp her foot or slap him. But then her eyes, smoky with heat, rested on his lips, and he knew she didn’t want to stamp her foot or slap him.

“I didn’t get married,” she announced in a soft, husky purr.

“Yeah, I heard.” No sense telling her he had celebrated as best he could, with a warm soda in one hand and his rifle in the other, watching the sand blow over a hostile land, wishing he had someone, something more to go home to. Feeling guilty for being distracted, wondering if he was just like his mother. Did all relationships equal a surrender of power? Wasn’t that his fear of love?

“But I have dated all kinds of boys.”

“Really.” It was a statement, not a question. He tried not to feel irritated, his sense of having given her way too much power over him confirmed! Seeing her after all this time, all he wanted to do was taste her lips, and he had to hear she was dating guys? Boys. Not men. Why did he feel faintly relieved by that distinction?

“I thought I should. You know, go out with a few of them.”

“And you stopped by to tell me that?” He folded his arms more firmly over his chest, but something twinkled in her eyes, and he had a feeling his defensive posture was not fooling her one little bit. She knew she had stormed his bastions, taken down his defenses long ago.

“Mmm-hmm. And to tell you that they were all very boring.”

“Sorry.”

“And childish.”

“Males are slow-maturing creatures,” he said. Had she kissed any of them, those boys she had dated? Of course she had. That was the way things worked these days. He remembered all too well the sweetness of her kiss, felt something both possessive and protective when he thought of another man—especially a childish one—tasting her.

“I didn’t kiss anyone, though,” she said, and the twinkle in her eyes deepened. Why was it she seemed to find him so transparent? She had always insisted on seeing who he really was, not what he wanted her to see.

He wanted to tell her he didn’t care, but he had the feeling she’d see right through that, too, so he kept his mouth shut.

“I learned to surf last summer. And I can ride a motorcycle now. By myself.”

“So I can see.”

“Ronan,” she said softly, “are you happy to see me?”

He closed his eyes, marshaled himself, opened them again. “Why are you here, Shoshauna?”

Not princess, a lapse in protocol that she noticed, too. She beamed at him.

“I want to play you a game of chess.”

He didn’t move from the doorway. A game of chess. He tried not to look at her lips. A game of chess was about the furthest thing from his poor, beleaguered male mind. “Why?” he croaked.

“If I win,” she said softly, “you have to take me on a date.”

He could have gotten her killed back there on that island. She apparently didn’t know or didn’t care, but he was not sure he’d ever be able to forgive himself or trust himself either.

“I can’t take you on a date,” he said.

“Why not? You aren’t in charge of protecting me now.”

If he was, she sure as hell wouldn’t be riding a motorcycle around by herself. But he only said, “Good thing, since I did such a crack-up job of it the first time.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t you ever think what could have happened if those boats that arrived that day hadn’t been the colonel and your grandfather? Don’t you ever think of what might have happened if it hadn’t been your cousin, if it had been a well-organized terror cell instead?”

There it was out, and he was glad it was out. He felt as if he had been waiting months to make this confession. Why was it always so damned easy to show her who he really was? Flawed, vulnerable, an ordinary man under his warrior armor.

“No,” she said, regarding him thoughtfully, seeing him, “I don’t. Do you?”

“I think of the possibilities all the time. I didn’t do my job, Shoshauna, I just got lucky.”

“The boys at school use that term sometimes,” she said, her voice sultry.

“Would you be serious? I’m trying to tell you something. I can’t be trusted with you. I’ve never been able to protect the people I love the most.” The look wouldn’t leave her face, as if she thought he was adorable, and so he rushed on, needing to convince her, very sorry the word love had slipped out, somehow. “I have this thing, this sideways feeling, that tells me what to do, an instinct, that warns of danger.”

“What’s it doing right now?” she asked.

“That’s just it. It doesn’t work around you!”

She touched his arm, looked up at him, her eyes so full of acceptance of him that something in him stilled. Completely.

“You know why it doesn’t work around me, Ronan? Because nothing is wrong. Nothing was wrong on the island. You were exactly where you needed to be, doing exactly what you needed to do. And so was I.”

“I forgot what I was there to do and, Shoshauna, that bugs the hell out of me. I didn’t do a good job of protecting you. I didn’t do my job, period.”

“I seem to still be here, alive and kicking.”

“Not because of anything I did,” he said stubbornly.

She regarded him with infinite patience. “Ronan, there are some things that are bigger than even you. Some things you just have to surrender to.”

“That’s the part you don’t get! Surrender is not in any soldier’s vocabulary!”

She sighed as if he was being impossible and childish just like those boys she had dated. “Thank you for the kitten, by the way. I was able to bring him with me. He’s a monster. I called him Hope.”

He wasn’t really done discussing his failures with her, but he said reluctantly, “That sounds like a girl’s name.” The name said it all, named the thing within him that he had not been able to outrun, kill, alter.

He hoped. He hoped for the life he saw promised in her eyes: a life of connection, companionship, laughter, love.

“You know what I think, Ronan?”

“You’re going to tell me if I want to know or not,” he said.

“Just like I want someone to see me for who I am, someone I don’t have to put on the princess costume for, you want someone to see you without your armor. You want someone to know there is a place where you are not all strength and sternness. You want someone to see you are not all warrior.”

“No, I don’t!”

“Now,” she said, casually, as if she had not ripped off his mask and left him feeling trembling and vulnerable and on the verge of surrendering to the mightiest thing of all, “let’s play chess. I told you the terms—if I win you have to take me on a date.”

“And if I win?” he asked.

She smiled at him, and he saw just how completely she had come into herself, how confident she was.

“Ronan,” she said softly, her smile melting him, “why on earth would you want to win?”

CHAPTER NINE

“I CAN’T believe you’d ever accept anything but my very best effort,” he said, though the truth was he already knew he was lost.

She contemplated him. “That’s true. So if you win?”

“I haven’t even agreed to play yet!”

“Well, we’ve stood at this point before, haven’t we, Ronan? Where you have to decide whether or not to let me in.”

They had stood at this point before. On the island he’d refused to play chess with her, and he’d made her cry. But then he had only been doing his job, and in the end that barrier had not been enough to keep him from caring about her.

Without that barrier where would it go?

A single word entered his mind. And oddly enough, it was not surrender. Bliss.

He stood back from his door, an admission in his heart. He was powerless against her; he had been from the very beginning. Princess Shoshauna of B’Ranasha walked into his humble apartment, took off the black jacket and tossed it on his couch as if she belonged here.

The form-fitting white silk shirt and black leather pants were at least as sexy as that bikini she had nearly driven him crazy in, and his feeling of powerlessness increased.

She looked around his place with interest. He shoved a pair of socks under the couch with his foot. She looked at him.

“I want to live in a cute little place just like this, one day.”

His mother had claimed that every girl wanted to be a princess, but somehow, someway he had lucked into something very different. A girl who had already been a princess and who wanted to be ordinary.

He got his chess set out of a cabinet, set it up at the small kitchen table.

“Why didn’t you call me?” she asked, sitting down, taking a black and a white chess piece and holding them out to him, closed fist.

He chose. Black, then. Let her lead the way.

He snorted. “Call you? You’re a princess. You’re not exactly listed in the local directory.”

“You knew how to get ahold of me, though, if you’d wanted to.”

“Yes.”

“So you didn’t want to?”

He was silent, contemplating her first move, her opening gambit. He made a defensive move.

“I couldn’t. I still dream about what could have happened on that island. I failed you. There I was snorkeling and surfing, when really I should have been setting up defenses.”

“I’d been protected all my life. You didn’t fail me. You gave me what I needed far more than safety. A wake-up call. A call to live. To be myself. You gave me a gift, Ronan. Even when you didn’t call it that, it was a gift.”

He waited.

“I needed to choose and I have. I’ve chosen.”

“To play chess with a soldier?”

“No, Ronan,” she said gently. “It was never about the chess.”

“So I see.” He was surrendering to her, just as he had on the island, even though he didn’t want to, even though he knew better. Bliss. It unfolded in him like a sail that had finally caught the wind, it filled him, it carried him forward into a brand-new land.

She beat him soundly at chess, though he might have been slightly distracted by the scent of her, by the pure heaven of having her in the same room again, by the sound of her voice, the light in her eyes, the way she ran her hand through the disaster that was her hair.

“Do you know why I dated those other boys?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“So that you wouldn’t have one single excuse to say no to me. So that you couldn’t say, ‘You only think you love me. You don’t know anyone else.’”

“Love?” he said.

She sighed. “Ronan, I made it perfectly clear it wasn’t about the chess game.”

That was true, she had.

“So,” he said, “what do you want to do for that date?”

What would a princess want to do? The opera? Live theater? Was he going to have to get a new wardrobe?

“Oh,” she said, “I want to go to a pub for fish and chips and then to a movie after. Just like an ordinary girl.”

His mother had been so wrong. Not every girl wanted to be a princess, not at all. Still, when he looked at her and smiled, he knew there was no hope she would ever be an ordinary girl, either.

And suddenly it came to him, a truth that was at the very core of humanity. A truth that was humbling and reassuring at the very same time.

Love was more powerful than he was.

He got up from his chair, came around to hers and tugged her out of it. Shoshauna came into his arms as if she was coming home.

“I guess,” he whispered against her hair, “it’s time for you to start calling me Jake.”

He picked her up for their first official date three nights later. He felt like a teenager getting ready. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, trying for just the right note of casual.

As he approached her address, he was aware that for a man who had done the most dangerous things in the world with absolute icy calm, his heart was beating faster, and his palms were sweat-slicked.

She lived on campus in what looked to be a very ordinary house until he went to the front door, rang the bell and was let in.

There were girls everywhere, short girls, tall girls, skinny girls, heavy girls. There were girls dressed to go to nightclubs and girls in their pajamas. There were girls with their hair in rollers and girls hidden behind frightening facial masks of green creams and white creams. And it seemed when he stood in that front foyer, every single one of them stopped and looked at him. Really looked.

“Sexy beast,” one of them called out. “Who are you here for?”

The last time he had blushed was when Shoshauna had kissed him on the cheek and called him Charming in that little market in B’Ranasha. She was determined to put him in predicaments that stretched him! At least now he knew a little blush wouldn’t kill him.

“I’m here for Shoshauna.” There were groans and calls of “lucky girl,” and he found himself blushing harder.

But when he saw her, coming down the steps, two at a time, flying toward him, all thought of himself, of his wild discomfort at finding himself, a man so used to a man’s world, so surrounded by women, was gone.

There was a look on her face when she saw him that he knew he would never forget, not if he lived to be 102.

It was unguarded and filled with tenderness.

A memory niggled at him, of a moment a long, long time ago. His father coming up the steps from work, in combat uniform, his mother running to meet him, a look just like the one on Shoshauna’s face now in her eyes. And he remembered how his father had looked at her. Despite the uniform, in that moment his father had not been a warrior. No, just a man, filled with wonder, gentled by love, amazed.

In the next few weeks, even though Ronan had to run the gauntlet of her housemates every time he saw her, he spent every moment he could with her. Every second they could wangle away from hectic schedules, they were together. Simple moments—a walk, holding hands, eating pizza, playing darts at the pub—simple moments became infused with a light from heaven.

Ronan was aware that, left to his own devices, he would have performed his duties perfectly on B’Ranasha. He would have been a perfect professional, he would never have allowed himself to become personally involved with the principal.

And he would have missed this: the tenderness, the sweetness of falling head over heels in love. But somehow, some way, a kind universe had taken pity on him, given him what he needed the most, even though he had been completely unaware of that need. Even though he had strenuously denied that need and tried to fight against it.

Falling in love with Shoshauna was like waking from a deep hypnotic state. When he woke in the morning, his first thought was of her. He felt as if he was living to make her laugh, to feel the touch of her hand, to become aware of her eyes resting on his face, something in them so unguarded and so breathtakingly, exquisitely beautiful.

For some reason he, a rough soldier, had come to be loved by a woman like this one. He planned to be worthy of it.

Shoshauna looked around, let the trade winds lift her hair. There was a flower-laced pagoda set up on the beach, the royal palace of B’Ranasha white and beautiful in the background. They had tried to keep things small, but even so the hundred chairs facing the wedding pagoda were filled. The music of a single flute intertwined with the music of the waves that lapped gently on the sand.

Jake’s mother, Bev, had managed to get over her disappointment that, despite the fact it was a royal wedding, her first, they wanted nothing elaborate. Now Shoshauna saw why her mother-in-law’s business was so successful: she had read their hearts and given them exactly what they wanted—simplicity—the beauty provided by the ocean, the white-capped waves in the blue bay the perfect backdrop to the day.

Shoshauna wore a simple white sheath, her feet were bare, she had a single flower in her hair.

She watched from the tree line as Jake made his way across the sand and felt the tears rise in her eyes. Beloved.

He was flanked by Gray Peterson, just as he had been the first time she had seen him, but this time Jake looked calm and relaxed, a man at ease despite the formality of the black suit he was wearing, the people watching him, the fact it was his wedding day.

It had been almost a year since she had first laid eyes on him, six months since she had won her first date with him in that chess match.

Since then there had been so much laughter as they discovered a brand-new world together—a world seen through the viewfinder of love.

They had ridden motorcycles, gone to movies, walked hand in hand down rain-filled streets, played chess and done nothing at all. Everything was equally as astounding when she did it with him.

He was so full of surprises. Who would have ever guessed he had such a romantic nature hidden under that stern exterior? The kitten as a gift should have been her first clue! He was constantly surprising her with heart-felt or funny little gifts: a tiara he’d gotten at a toy store; a laser pointer that drove the kitten, Hope, to distraction; a book of poems; a pink bikini that she would use now, for the first time, on her honeymoon.

And the stern exterior was just that. An exterior. She’d always thought he was good-looking, but now the hard lines on his face were relaxed around her, and the stern mask was gone from his eyes. The remoteness was gone from him and so was his need to exercise absolute control over everything. Jake Ronan seemed to have enjoyed every second of letting go of control, seeing where life—and love—would take them, if they gave it a chance.

It had taken them to this day and this moment. He stood at the pagoda, his eyes searched the tree line until they found her.

And he smiled.

In his smile she saw such welcome and such wonder—and such sensual promise—that her own heart beat faster.

Of course, there was one thing they had not done, one area where he had maintained every ounce of his formidable discipline. Jake Ronan had proven to be very old-fashioned when it came to the question of her virtue.

Oh, he had kissed her until she had nearly died from wanting him, he had touched her in ways that had threatened to set her heart on fire, but always at the last moment he had pulled away. He had told her his honor was on the line, and she had learned you did not question a warrior’s honor!

But tonight she would lie in his arms, and they would discover the breathtaking heights of intimacy. After the reception, they would take her grandfather’s boat, and they would go to their island, Naidina Karobin, my heart is home. The island would be once again inhabited only by them.

Last night, even though he wasn’t supposed to see her until today, Jake had managed to charm his way past all her girlfriends and her cousins and aunts.

“I brought you a wedding present.”

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she told him, but not with a great deal of conviction. She loved seeing him.

“I know. I couldn’t stay away. Knowing you were here, just a few minutes away from me, I couldn’t not be with you. Shoshauna, that’s what you do to me. Here I am, just about the most disciplined guy in the world, and I’m helpless around you. Worse,” he moved closer to her, touched her cheek with the familiar hardness of his hands, “I like being helpless. You make me want to be with you all the time. You make everything that is not you seem dull and boring and like a total waste of time.

“You make me feel as if all those defenses I had, had kept me prisoner in a world where I was very strong but very, very alone. You rescued me.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “Ronan, you could not have given me a more beautiful gift than those words.”

He smiled, a little bit sheepishly. “There’s still enough soldier in me that I don’t see words as any kind of gift.” He opened the door and brought in what he had left in the hallway.

She burst out laughing. That’s what he did to her, and for her—took her from tears to laughter and back again in the blink of an eye.

A brand-new surfboard, and she had been delighted, but at the same time she rather hoped, much as she was stoked about surfing, that the waves would never come up. She rather hoped they would never get out of bed! Not for the whole two weeks. That she could touch him until she had her fill of the feel of his skin under her fingertips, until she had her fill of the taste of his lips, and she already knew she was never going to get her fill of that!

Shoshauna was still blushing from the audacity of her own thoughts when her mother and her father came up beside her, not a king and a queen today but proud parents. Each of them kissed her on the cheek and then took their seats.

Her father in particular was very taken with Jake. Her mother had been more slow to come around, but no one who truly got to know Jake could do anything but love him.

Her mother had also been appalled by the simplicity of the wedding plans, but she and Bev had managed to console each other and had become quite good friends as they planned the wedding of their children.

Her grandfather came to her side, linked his arm through hers, smiled at her, though his eyes were wet with tears of joy.

And then Shoshauna was moving across the sand toward her beloved, toward Jake Ronan, and she could see the whole future in his eyes. Her grandfather let her go, and she walked the last few steps to him on her own, a woman who had chosen exactly the life she wanted for herself.

Jake watched Shoshauna move toward him across the fineness of the pure white sand.

She had chosen the simplest of dresses, her feet were bare, but when you were as beautiful as she was, even his mother had agreed that simplicity was the best way to let her true beauty shine through.

His mother and his wife-to-be, here together.

And in him the most wonderful surrender. He would protect them with his life, if he ever had to, and they both knew that.

Someday he would have children with Shoshauna, and he could feel the fierce protectiveness within himself extend to them, but something new was there, too.

A trust, that he would do whatever he could do, but when his strength ran dry, then there would be something else there to step in, something that seemed to have a better plan for him than anything he could have ever planned for himself, if the woman walking over the sand toward him was any indication.

He knew that something went by a great many names. Some called it the Universe, the life force, God.

He had come to call it Love, and to recognize it had been running the show long before he’d come along, and would be running it long after.

There came a point when a man had to realize that there were things he did not control, and that he would only exhaust himself, drain away his strength and his soul, if he continued to think the whole world would fall apart if he was not running it.

Ronan had come to believe that he could trust the protection and care of a force larger than himself.

It was the same force that brought a certain man and a certain woman together, against impossible odds, across cultural and social differences, the force that made one heart recognize another.

And it was that force that would protect them and see their children into the world.

Once upon a time Jake Ronan had thought if he ever had to stand where he was standing today, he would probably faint.

And yet the truth was, he had never felt so calm, so strong, so right. And the strangest thing of all was that, even as Ronan admitted he was powerless in the face of this thing called love, with each day of his surrender he felt more powerful, more alive and more relaxed, more grateful, more everything.

This was the something more he had longed for all his life: to be a part of the magnificent mystery that flowed around him and in him as surely as it flowed through the waves on the sea. He longed to ride that incredible energy with the ease and joy with which he could ride the most powerful of waves. Not to conquer but to feel connected.

He watched Shoshauna move toward him, and he almost laughed out loud.

For one thing he had come to know that this thing he chose to call Love had the most delicious sense of humor.

And for the longest time he had thought it was his job to rescue the princess.

But now he saw that wasn’t it at all.

That she had come to rescue him. And that allowing himself to be rescued had not made him a weaker man but a better one.

She reached him, looked him in the face, his equal, the woman who would be the mother of his children, his companion, his friend, his lover through all the days of his life.

“Beloved,” she said, her voice hushed with reverence of what they stood in the presence of, that Force greater than all things. “Retnuh.”

And he said to her, his eyes never leaving her face, in her own language, a greeting and a vow, “My heart is home.”

The Secret Princess

Jessica Hart

For my dear niece, Suzy,

with love on her engagement.

CHAPTER ONE

WAVING her hands around her head in a futile attempt to bat the midges away, Lotty paused for breath at the crest of the track. Below her, an austere granite house was planted between a forbidding sweep of hillside and a loch so still it mirrored the clouds and the trees clustered along the water’s edge.

Loch Mhoraigh House. It looked isolated and unfriendly and, according to all reports in the village, its owner was the same.

‘He’s the worst boss I’ve ever had.’ Gary had been drowning his sorrows in the Mhoraigh Hotel bar all afternoon and his words were more than a little slurred. ‘Not a smile, not a good morning, just straight to work! I told him if I’d wanted to work in a labour camp, I’d have signed up for one. It’s not as if he’s paying more than slave wages either, and he won’t get anyone else. I told him what he could do with his job!’

‘Quite right too.’ Elsie, the barmaid, polished glasses vindictively and warned Lotty against making the trek out to Loch Mhoraigh House. ‘We don’t want Corran McKenna around here. The Mhoraigh estate should have gone to his brother, we all know that,’ she said, hinting darkly at some family feud that Lotty didn’t quite follow. ‘Nobody from the village will work for him. You go on up to Fort William,’ she told Lotty. ‘You’ll find a job there.’

But Lotty couldn’t afford to go any further. Without her purse, she was penniless, and when you needed money, you got yourself a job, right?

Or so she had heard. The truth was that until an hour earlier, when she had realised that her purse was missing, Lotty had never in her life had to think about money at all.

Now she did.

It was Lotty’s first challenge, and she was determined to rise to it. Her life was so luxurious, so protected. She understood why, of course, but it meant that she had never once been tested and, until you were, how did you know who you were and what you were made of? That was what these few short weeks were all about. Was there any more to Her Serene Highness Princess Charlotte of Montluce than the stylish clothes and the gracious smile that were all the rest of the world saw?

Lotty needed to know that more than anyone.

Here was her first chance to find out. When you didn’t have any money, you had to earn some. Lotty set her slim shoulders and hoisted her rucksack onto her back. If everyone else could do it, she could too.

Three miles later, she was very tired, tormented by midges and, looking doubtfully down at the unwelcoming house, it occurred to Lotty, belatedly, that she could be making a terrible mistake. Loch Mhoraigh House was very remote, and Corran McKenna lived alone out here. Was it safe to knock on his door and ask if he could give her a job? What if Elsie had been right, and he was a man who couldn’t be trusted? Elsie’s dislike of him seemed to be based on the fact that he wasn’t a real Scot, and she had implied that he had acquired the estate under false pretences.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a choice, Lotty knew that. One phone call, and a close protection team would be on its way within minutes. A helicopter would swoop down and scoop her up, and take her back to the palace in Montluce. There would be no midges there, no money worries, no need to put herself at risk. There would just be her grandmother to face, and the knowledge of her own uselessness. She would be the princess who ran away and couldn’t last a week on her own.

Lotty grimaced at the thought of the humiliation. Three months, she had agreed with Philippe and Caro. Three months to disappear, to be anonymous, to see for herself what she was made of. She couldn’t give up at the first difficulty, and slink home with her tail between her legs.

She was a princess of Montluce, Lotty reminded herself, and her chin lifted. Her family hadn’t kept an iron grip on the country since the days of Charlemagne by giving up the moment the going got tough. She had been raised on the stories of the pride and courage that had kept Montluce independent for so long: Léopold Longsword, Princess Agathe who had been married off to a German prince nearly fifty years her senior in order to keep the succession safe, and of course the legendary Raoul the Wolf.

They had faced far greater challenges than Lotty. All she had to do was find herself a job. Was she going to be the first of the Montvivennes to accept defeat?

No, Lotty vowed, she wasn’t.

Lotty adjusted her rucksack more comfortably on her back, and set off down the rough track towards Loch Mhoraigh House.

The house loomed grey and massive as Lotty trudged wearily up to the front door. An air of neglect clung to everything. Weeds were growing in what had once been an impressive gravel drive and the windows were cold and cheerless. It was very quiet. No lights, no music, no sign of anyone living there. Only the crows wheeling above the Scots pines and the cry of some bird down by the loch.

Lotty hesitated, looking at the old-fashioned bell. What if Corran McKenna wasn’t there? She wasn’t sure her feet could take her back up that hill.

But what if he was? Lotty chewed her bottom lip uncertainly. She had never had to persuade anyone to give her a job before. She’d never really had to persuade anyone to do anything. Normally people fell over themselves to give her whatever she wanted. She led a charmed and privileged existence, Lotty knew, but it made it a lot harder to prove that she was a worthy successor to all those doughty ancestors who had fought and negotiated and bargained and married to keep Montluce free.

They wouldn’t have been deterred by a simple no, and neither would she.

For these few weeks, she had abandoned her title and her household. There was no one to arrange things for her, no one to make sure she got exactly what she wanted.

She was going to have to do this for herself.

Taking a deep breath, Lotty pressed the bell.

She could hear it clanging inside the house somewhere. Immediately, a furious barking erupted. It sounded as if there was a whole pack of dogs in there, and instinctively Lotty took a step back. There was a sharp command and the dogs subsided, except for a high-pitched yapping that continued until it was suddenly stifled as a door was shut firmly on it.

A few moments later, the front door was jerked open.

A tall, tough-looking man, as forbidding as the hills behind the house, stood there. He was younger than Lotty had expected, with dark, uncompromising features and a stern mouth, and his eyes were a pale, uncanny blue.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve c-come about the job,’ said Lotty, cursing the stammer that still resurfaced at times when she was nervous. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have stammered, she was sure.

His fierce brows snapped together. ‘Job? What job?’

‘I heard in the hotel that you needed help restoring some cottages to let.’

‘News travels fast…or did Gary stop at the bar on his way back to Glasgow?’ Corran added with a sardonic look.

Lotty brushed at the midges that clustered at her ears. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have put up with being left on the doorstep either, but she could hardly insist that he invite her inside. She concentrated on sounding reasonable instead. ‘He said you didn’t have anyone else and that you’d be stuck without anyone to work for you.’

‘And did he also say that it was the worst job he’d ever done, not to mention being the worst paid, and having the worst boss?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And yet you want to work for me?’

‘I’m desperate,’ said Lotty.

The pale eyes inspected her. Lotty had never been the subject of that kind of unnerving scrutiny before and, in spite of herself, she stiffened. No one in Montluce would dare to look at her like that.

‘Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look desperate,’ said Corran McKenna. He nodded at the high tech walking trousers and microfleece she’d bought in Glasgow only four days earlier. ‘Those clothes you’re wearing are brand new, and the labels tell me they weren’t cheap. Besides,’ he said, ‘you’re not suitable for the job.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re not a man, for a start.’

‘That’s not a good enough reason,’ said Lotty, who might not want to rely on her royal status to protect her, but didn’t have to like his dismissive tone. ‘I think you’ll find there’s such a thing as sex discrimination.’

‘And I think you’ll find I don’t give a toss,’ said Corran. ‘I need someone strong enough to do physical work, not someone whose most strenuous activity is probably unscrewing her mascara.’

Lotty’s eyes sparked with temper. All at once she could feel her celebrated ancestors ranging at her back.

‘I’m not wearing mascara,’ she said coldly, ‘and I’m stronger than I look.’

For answer, Corran McKenna reached out and took her hands, turning them over as if they were parcels so that he could inspect them. His fingers were long and blunt, and they looked huge holding her small hands. He ran his thumbs over her palms and Lotty burned at the casualness of his touch.

‘Please don’t try and tell me that you’ve ever done a day’s rough work in your life,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t mean I can’t start now.’ Lotty tugged her hands free. ‘Please,’ she said, trying to ignore the way her palms were still tingling. If she looked down, she was sure she would be able to see the impression of his fingertips seared onto her skin. ‘I really need this job.’

‘I really need someone suitable,’ said Corran. ‘I’m sorry, but the answer is still no. And don’t bother looking at me like that with those big eyes,’ he added crisply. ‘I’m immune.’

Her jaw actually dropped. ‘I’m not looking at you like…like anything!’

She did astounded very well, but Corran found it hard to believe that she could really be unaware of the power of those luminous grey eyes. They were extraordinarily beautiful, the colour of soft summer mist, and fringed with long black lashes that did indeed appear to be natural when he looked closely.

The kind of eyes that got a man into trouble. Big trouble.

She was very pretty, slender and fine-boned, and she wore her trekking gear with an elegance that sat oddly with the short, garish red hair. A soft scarf at her throat added a subtle sophistication to her look.

Corran had the best of reasons for distrusting sophistication.

Frowning, he looked behind her for a car, but the overgrown gravel drive was empty. ‘How did you get here?’

‘I walked from the hotel,’ she said, eyeing him warily.

‘It didn’t occur to you to ring beforehand?’ he asked, exasperated. ‘It would have saved you a pointless walk.’

‘My phone doesn’t work here,’ she said.

‘If it’s a mobile, it won’t. That’s why we still have landlines,’ he explained as if to a child.

‘Oh.’

She sounded disconcerted. Corran could almost swear she had never used an ordinary telephone in her life. Maybe she hadn’t. Privilege was written in every line of her face, in the tilt of her chin, and cheekbones like that only came from generations of aristocratic inbreeding.

He hardened his heart against the pleading in those huge grey eyes. Desperate? She was probably down to her last hundred thousand.

‘Oh, well…I like to walk,’ she said, recovering.

‘You look ready to drop,’ Corran told her frankly. ‘How far have you walked today?’

‘Sixteen miles.’

Great. Sixteen miles, and he was supposed to let her walk back to the hotel? Corran sighed in exasperation as he faced up to the inevitable. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lotty,’ she said. A moment of hesitation. ‘Lotty Mount.’

Now why didn’t he believe her? ‘All right, Lotty, you wait there. I’ll get my keys.’

Her face lit up. ‘You’re going to let me stay?’

‘No,’ said Corran, ignoring the disturbing kick of his pulse. ‘I’m going to drive you back to the Mhoraigh Hotel.’

She looked at him in dismay as she waved at the midges. ‘I don’t want to go back there!’

‘Frankly, I don’t care what you want,’ he said, irritated that he had actually started to feel guilty there for a moment, irritated even more by the fact that his pulse still hadn’t quite settled. ‘I want you off my property. There’s no way you can walk back to the hotel and my reputation’s bad enough round here without you collapsing halfway.’

‘I’m not going to collapse,’ she protested. ‘And I’ve no intention of getting in a car with you,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘It’s a bit late to start having scruples, having walked all the way out here,’ Corran pointed out. ‘There’s just me and the dogs.’

‘Well, anyway, I’d rather walk back,’ Lotty said stiffly. ‘It’s a nice evening.’

Corran glanced up at the sky. As so often in Scotland, the day had started murky, but cleared in the afternoon, and now, at almost seven, only a few wispy clouds lurked low on the horizon. At this time of year it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. The hills were a soft blue, the water still and silver, the air almost golden. Lotty was right. It was a fine evening.

But there was not a breath of air to riffle the surface of the loch, which meant no breeze to blow the curse of the Highlands away.

‘The midges will eat you alive,’ he said, watching her slap at her neck below her ear. ‘If they haven’t already.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’d rather walk,’ she added and bent to heave the rucksack onto her back. Corran saw her wince at the weight of it on her shoulders, and he scowled.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman,’ he said irritably. ‘You can’t walk all the way back if you’ve already done sixteen miles today.’ He pointed a finger at her. ‘Stay there. I’m going to get my car keys.’

He was gone less than two minutes, but by the time he came back Lotty was already toiling up the track.

‘Fine!’ he shouted after her. ‘Be stubborn! Just don’t collapse on my land!’

‘I won’t,’ she called over her shoulder.

Frustrated, Corran stood at the door and watched the slight figure. Her head was held high, but he could tell what an effort it was, and he swore again.

What was she thinking, hiking three miles to a strange house just on the off chance of a job? It wasn’t safe. He could be anybody.

Corran glowered. He had enough problems of his own without worrying about Lotty, if that really was her name, but he watched her with a frown in his eyes until she had rounded the bend. He would give her half an hour or so and then go and see how far she had got. She would have proved her point by then, and would no doubt be more than grateful for a lift.

But when he drove along the track later, there was no sign of her. He went all the way to Mhoraigh, although he didn’t go inside the hotel. The locals had made it quite clear what they thought of him, and if she had made it that far, she was perfectly safe.

The girl wasn’t his responsibility, anyway. Putting the Land Rover into a three point turn, Corran headed back to Loch Mhoraigh House and told himself he wasn’t going to think any more about her.

Still, he slept badly, and he was in an irritable mood when he set off for the cottages the next morning. The dogs ran eagerly ahead, past the old stable block and the walled garden, past the ruined boathouse and the track leading up to the barns and out beside the loch to the dilapidated cottages that had been built by his great-great-grandfather for the estate workers in the days when Loch Mhoraigh had been a thriving estate.

It had rained during the night, and the air was fresh and sweet with the smell of bracken from the hills. Corran thought longingly of the high corries, but he couldn’t afford to take a day off, especially now that he would have to advertise for more help. Gary had only lasted two days. That made him think about the girl, Lotty, and he shook his head. Quite how she had expected to do the job, he didn’t know. She didn’t look strong enough to lift that rucksack.

Although she had, now he came to think of it.

He would finish the plastering in the first cottage, Corran decided, then he would advertise in the local paper—again. He could do that online. He was mentally composing an advert that made the job sound attractive while simultaneously making it clear that the successful applicant would have to work till he dropped for a meagre wage when he realised that Meg had frozen at the cottage door, which stood open although Corran knew that he had closed it when he left the day before.

Meg dropped to her belly and lay alert and quivering as Corran came up. He frowned. ‘What is it, Meg?’ He looked around him, and his brows drew even closer together. ‘And where’s that other damned dog?’

Telling Meg to stay, he stepped inside the cottage. The door on the left led into the living room, and there, sure enough, was his mother’s dog, fawning over the girl who had turned up on his doorstep the night before.

The girl whose stricken expression had sent him on a fool’s errand to the village just to make sure that she hadn’t collapsed in a heap in the middle of the track.

For a long moment, Corran couldn’t trust himself to speak.

She had abandoned her rucksack somewhere, and was in the same clothes she had worn the day before, except that now the scarf was knotted around her head like a Fifties housewife, which should have looked absurd but somehow looked chic instead. Her sleeves were rolled up in a businesslike way. She had clearly been sweeping up sawdust, and she still held the broom in her hands as she crouched down to make a fuss of the dog.

At Corran’s entrance, though, she straightened. ‘Good m-morning,’ she said brightly, and he heard the slight stammer he’d noticed yesterday. Corran guessed that it only happened when she was nervous.

As well she might be.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded, which he thought was fairly restrained under the circumstances.

‘Well, I could see you’ve been working in here, so I thought I could start c-clearing up.’

‘Oh, did you? And what part of me telling you that I wasn’t going to give you a job and wanted you off my property didn’t you understand?’

The soft mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘I wanted to prove that I could do the job. All I’m asking is a chance to show you what I can do.’

‘I drove all the way to Mhoraigh last night in case you’d collapsed on the track,’ Corran told her furiously. ‘Are you telling me you were here all the time?’

‘There was some straw in the barn. I slept there.’

It had easily been the most uncomfortable night of Lotty’s life. In spite of her exhaustion, she hadn’t slept at all. Late in May, the night had still been cool and, even wearing all her clothes, she had been cold and bitterly regretting that she had ever heard of Loch Mhoraigh.

Why hadn’t she tried harder to persuade the hotel to give her a job of some kind, just until she had earned enough to move on to Fort William? But she had chosen to come out here, and now pride wouldn’t let her accept Corran McKenna’s casual dismissal. She might not be using her title, but she was still a princess of Montluce.

Not that pride had been much comfort as Lotty had shivered on the straw and suffered the midges that swarmed through the cracks in the old barn doors. Now she wanted nothing so much as a shower and a cup of coffee.

But first she had to convince Corran to let her stay.

He wasn’t looking at all encouraging. His brows were drawn together in a ferocious glare and his mouth set in what could only be called an uncompromising line. Lotty couldn’t, in truth, really blame him for being angry, but how was she to know that he would be chivalrous enough to drive out and make sure that she was all right? If he was going to be nice, why couldn’t he just give her the job?

It was time to be conciliatory, she decided. Some victories were won by battles, but sometimes negotiation won just as effective a result. Lotty had learnt that from her family history too.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know I’m trespassing, but I can do this job—I can!’ she insisted at Corran’s expression. ‘Gary—the guy I met at the hotel—told me he’d been cleaning and painting, and I can do that.

‘You don’t even need to pay me,’ she went on quickly as Corran opened his mouth. ‘I heard you can’t afford to pay much in the way of wages, and I’m prepared to work in exchange for somewhere to stay.’

He paused at that, and she pressed on, encouraged. ‘Why not give me a chance? I’m not going to cost you anything, and I’m better than no one, surely?’

‘That rather depends on how useful you can be,’ he said grimly. ‘I hope you’re not going to try and tell me you’ve got any building experience?’

‘I know how important it is to keep a building site clean,’ said Lotty, who had once laid the foundation stone of a new hospital and had been impressed by the neatness of the site. She’d assumed that it had been tidied up for her arrival, as things usually were, but the foreman had assured her that wasn’t the case. He wouldn’t tolerate mess on his site at any time. ‘An untidy site is a dangerous site,’ she quoted him to Corran.

‘And just how many building sites have you been on?’ he asked, clearly unconvinced.

Lotty thought of the construction sites she’d been shown around over the years. Her father, the Crown Prince, had been more interested in Ancient Greece than in modern day Montluce, and after her mother had died it had fallen to Lotty to take on the duties of royal consort.

‘You’d be surprised,’ she said.

Corran studied her through narrowed eyes. ‘Would I, indeed?’

Oh, dear, she was supposed to be allaying his suspicions, not arousing them. Lotty bent to pat the little dog who was fussing at her ankles still.

‘Look, I can see that in an ideal world you’d employ someone with building skills,’ she said, ‘but I gather experienced tradesmen aren’t exactly queuing up to work for you, so why not give me a try until you find someone else? What can be so hard about cleaning and painting, after all? And at least my services will come free.’

Corran was thinking about what she’d said, Lotty could tell. She held her breath as he rubbed a hand over his jaw until she began to feel quite dizzy. It might have been lack of oxygen but it was something to do with that big hand too, with the hard line of his jaw. It didn’t look as if he had shaved that morning and Lotty found herself wondering what it would be like to run her own hand down his cheek and feel the prickle of stubble beneath her fingers.

The thought made her flush and she tore her gaze away and got her breathing back in order. Taking a firmer hold of the broom, she went back to tidying up the curls of wood and sawdust that covered the floor. No harm in giving Corran McKenna a demonstration of what she could do. It might not be the most skilled job in the world, but a quick look round the cottage had shown her that there was plenty of cleaning to be done.

‘I’m not denying that I’ve found it hard to find anyone prepared to stick the job longer than a few days,’ Corran said at last.

‘I gather you might need to work on your management skills,’ said Lotty, still sweeping.

‘I see you and Gary had a good chat!’ Corran snorted in disgust. ‘All he had to do was plaster a few walls. Why the hell would he need managing?’

‘Well, you know, an encouraging word every now and then might have helped,’ she suggested before she could help herself. ‘Not that I’d need any encouragement,’ she added hastily.

‘No encouragement, no money…’ Corran watched her brushing ineffectually at the floor and looked as if he couldn’t understand whether to be intrigued or exasperated. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so keen to work here. Why not look for a job where you’d get paid at least?’

‘I can’t afford to go anywhere else.’ She might as well tell him, Lotty decided. ‘I lost my purse yesterday.’

It had been so stupid of her. She just wasn’t used to being careful about her things. There was always someone who would pick things up for her, deal with settling any bills, check that she hadn’t left anything behind.

‘I haven’t got money for a cup of coffee, let alone a bus fare.’

Corran’s look of suspicion only deepened. ‘When most women lose their purses they go to the police,’ he pointed out. ‘They don’t set off into the wilds to doorstep strange men, insist on jobs they’re not qualified to do, and trespass on private property!’

Lotty flushed. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘What about calling your bank or credit card company for a start?’

How could she explain that a phone call to her bank would likely have led straight back to Montluce, where her grandmother would have the entire security service looking for her?

‘I don’t want anyone to know where I am,’ she said after a moment.

Corran’s black brows snapped together. ‘Are you in trouble with the police?’ he asked.

For a moment Lotty toyed with the idea of pretending she had pulled off a diamond heist, but she abandoned it regretfully. Corran’s eyes were too observant and she would never be able to carry it off.

‘It’s nothing like that.’ She moistened her lips. She would have to tell him something. ‘The thing is, I…I needed to get away for a while,’ she began carefully.

It went against the grain to lie, and her grandmother would be horrified at the idea of her denying her royal heritage, but Lotty was determined to spend the next few weeks incognito.

‘My mother always talked about the time she walked the Highland Way, and I thought it would be a good idea to walk it for her again, the way I always told her I would, and think about what I wanted to do with my life.’

So far, so true. Lotty had spent long hours sitting with her mother when she was dying. She had held her thin hand and kept a reassuring smile on her face all the time so that her mother wouldn’t worry. She’d only been twelve, but she hadn’t once cried the way she wanted to, because her grandmother had told her that she was a princess of Montluce and she had to be as brave as all the princesses before her.

There was no need to tell Corran about giving her close protection officer the slip in Paris, or about the crossing to Hull, where she was fairly sure she wouldn’t meet anyone she knew, and where she’d had her hair cut in a funny little place upstairs on a side street.

She had dyed it herself that night, just to make sure she was unrecognizable, but the colour wasn’t anything like it had promised on the box. She had been horrified when she looked in the mirror and saw that it had gone bright red. She looked awful! The only comfort was that no one would ever, ever associate Princess Charlotte with red hair. She was famous for her sleek dark bob and stylish wardrobe, and there was certainly nothing sleek or stylish about her now.

Apart from the hair fiasco, Lotty had been pleased with herself that night. She had got herself across the Channel, and she was on her own. Not a huge adventure for most people, but for Lotty it was a step into the unknown. She was free!

Only sitting in that tiny hotel room, Lotty had realised that now there was no one to organize her day for her, she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. That was when the idea of walking the Highland Way her mother had loved so much had jumped into her head. She had taken a train to Glasgow the next day, left her case in a locker at the station, and set off with a rucksack on her back.

‘It was wonderful,’ she told Corran. ‘There’s a very clear track, and other people are walking. I was having a great time, until I stopped for lunch yesterday. I had a sandwich at a pub, so I must have had my purse there, but when I got to the hotel at Mhoraigh I realised that I didn’t have it any more. They were so kind at the hotel, and looked up the phone number of the pub for me, but, when I rang, they didn’t know anything about my purse. I’d hoped someone might have found it and handed it in.’

She actually looked surprised that her purse, clearly stuffed with cash and platinum credit cards, hadn’t been handed back to her intact! She was the most extraordinary mix of sophistication and naivety, thought Corran.

He’d been listening to her story, unsure what to make of her. Clearly, she wasn’t telling him everything with all this vague talk of getting away. It occurred to him that she might be a celebrity who needed to hide away from the media for a while. Not because he recognised her—Corran had no interest in the so called high life, as his ex wife could attest—but because there was a starry quality to her somehow, a certain purity to her features and a luminous presence that even her dusty, straw-flecked fleece and the insect bites on her face couldn’t disguise.

She reminded him of the roe deer he had seen from his bedroom window early that morning. It had paused in a pool of light and lifted its head, graceful and wary. Lotty had the same kind of innocence in her eyes, an innocence that didn’t go with the expensive clothes and the style with which she wore that ridiculous scarf around her head.

Then he caught himself up. What was the matter with him? Any minute now he’d be spouting poetry when what he should be doing was remembering just how easily a beautiful woman could tie you up in knots. Corran scowled at the memory. Nothing Lotty had told him had made him any less suspicious of her motives.

CHAPTER TWO

‘GO on,’ he said grimly. ‘You’re at the hotel, and have discovered that—incredibly—nobody has handed in your purse.’

‘So I was stuck,’ said Lotty. ‘But then I met Gary, and he told me about this job, and it seemed meant. I needed a job, you needed someone to work for you. I walked all the way out here, but then you wouldn’t even consider me, and I just couldn’t face going back to the hotel, so I found somewhere to sleep and, if it’s any comfort, I got bitten to death by midges.’ She showed him her bare forearms, where she had been scratching.

Corran refused to be sympathetic. ‘Serves you right,’ he said callously. ‘If you’d been sensible, you could have had a lift back to the hotel and called someone from there.’

‘I’m not going to call anyone,’ Lotty said, her face set. ‘I can’t explain, but I just can’t.’ She turned the full force of those lovely grey eyes on Corran, who had to physically brace himself against them. ‘Oh, please,’ she said. ‘Please let me stay. It would just be for a few weeks.’

‘Weeks?’

‘Until you can get someone else, at least,’ she amended quickly.

Corran managed to drag his eyes from hers at last and sighed. ‘Come with me,’ he said, making up his mind abruptly.

Propping her broom against the wall, Lotty followed Corran out of the cottage where they were met by a black and white collie.

‘This is Meg,’ said Corran. ‘She does what she’s told.’

Lotty thought that she was being obedient too but, after a glance at Corran’s face, she decided not to point that out. He was as formidable as the bare hills that rose on either side of the loch. It was a shame he didn’t smile more, especially with that mouth…

Hastily, she looked away.

It didn’t matter whether Corran smiled or not as long as he let her stay. The alternative was to admit that she really was just a pampered princess who couldn’t cope on her own. All she would have to show for her rebellion would be four days walking.

Compared to that, what did it matter if Corran smiled or not?

He led her to one of the other cottages strung out along the lochside. It was the same sturdy shape as the others, with low, bumpy stone walls, their white paint now flaking sadly, and dormer windows set in the roof like a pair of quirky eyebrows.

‘Take a look,’ said Corran, opening the front door and gesturing her through with an ironic flourish of his hand.

Lotty stepped cautiously inside. The cottage was filthy. It was cluttered with broken furniture and shrouded in ghostly grey cobwebs. In the kitchen, the sink was stained and rusty, there was mould growing under the old fridge, and the floor was covered with mouse and bird droppings. A window hung open, its glass cracked and dirty, and the banister was smashed. Afraid to trust the creaking floorboards, Lotty turned slowly in one spot.

‘What do you think?’ asked Corran.

‘It…needs some work.’

‘Of all five cottages, this is the one in the best condition.’ A grim smile touched the corners of his mouth at Lotty’s expression. ‘At least it doesn’t need major work, and the roof is sound enough. I’ve got three months to get them all ready to let before September.’

‘Three months? It would take three months to get rid of the dirt in this one room!’ said Lotty.

‘It’s a pity you think that, because I was going to offer you a deal,’ said Corran.

‘A deal?’

‘You get this cottage cleaned up and ready for painting by the end of the week, and I’ll let you stay. I don’t for a minute think you’ll last that long, but, if you do, then you can paint it too, and then you can move on to the other cottages.’ He looked at Lotty. ‘Think you can do that?’

Lotty pursed her lips and pretended to study the room as if she were calculating how long it would take her, although the truth was that she had no idea how she would even begin to clean up that mess. Corran had clearly set her what he thought was an impossible task.

Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t back down from a challenge like this, and neither would she.

‘And in return?’ she said with a fair assumption of casualness.

‘In return you get board and lodging. You said you’d work for free, so that’s the deal. Take it or leave it. Frankly, short of carrying you bodily back to the hotel, I can’t think of another way to get rid of you!’

Nobody had ever spoken to Lotty the way Corran did. And no one was ever that unreasonable either. There was no way she could get this cottage ready for painting in three days. That was why he had set it as a challenge, one he knew she would fail.

She was just going to have to show him how wrong he was.

‘I’ll take the deal,’ she said.

‘You’ll regret it,’ Corran warned.

Lotty lifted her chin and met his pale eyes. ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’

‘We will,’ he agreed. ‘I’m betting you won’t make it to the end of the day, let alone the end of the week.’

‘And I’ll take that bet as well,’ said Lotty defiantly.

Perhaps it wasn’t fair. The man wasn’t to know that he was betting against a descendant of Léopold Longsword, after all. Fairness had been dinned into Lotty almost as thoroughly as pride and duty but, right then, she didn’t care. ‘I say I’ll still be here at the end of the month!’

Corran’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘You’re really prepared to bet on that?’

‘I am.’ The grey eyes were bright with challenge. ‘How much?’

‘Well, as we know you don’t have any money, that’s not much of an issue, is it? What have you got to wager?’

Lotty thought of her wealth, safely squirrelled away, of her expensive car and designer wardrobe, of the antiques and valuable paintings that filled her palace apartment, of the priceless jewellery she had inherited as Princess of Montluce.

‘My pride,’ she said. He wasn’t to know just how important self-respect was to her right then.

Corran held her gaze for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘If you’re prepared to risk it, that’s up to you.’

‘And what will I get when I win?’ she asked him.

‘It’s academic, but what would you like?’

Lotty searched her mind desperately. ‘When I’ve been here a month you have to…to…to take me out to dinner,’ she improvised.

Corran didn’t exactly smile, but there was a glimmer of amusement in the pale blue eyes. ‘It looks like we’ve got ourselves a deal, then,’ he said. ‘And you’ve got yourself a job—for as long as you can stand it.’

You’d have thought he’d offered her a diamond necklace instead of three days of unrelenting, dirty work for no pay.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ she said, her face lighting with a smile. ‘Thank you!’

Corran’s chest tightened foolishly as he looked into her eyes, and for one ridiculous moment he forgot how to breathe properly. It was only a second before he got his lungs firmly back under control but, even so, it was an alarming feeling. She had only smiled, for God’s sake!

Yanking his gaze from hers, he took out his confusion on the dog, who was worrying at a hole in the skirting board. ‘Pookie! Get out of there!’ he snarled, and the dog frisked over to him, its silky coat filthy now with dust and cobwebs.

Lotty looked at Corran. ‘Pookie?’

He set his teeth. ‘He’s my mother’s dog.’ He eyed Pookie’s not-so-white fluffiness with disgust. ‘If you can call that a dog.’

Lotty had crouched down and was encouraging Pookie, who was now in a frenzy of excitement at all the attention, his little tail circling frantically as she ruffled his soft coat. ‘He’s sweet,’ she said.

‘He’s not sweet,’ snorted Corran. ‘He’s a nuisance. He’s never been disciplined, and he’s always filthy. I mean, who in their right mind has a white dog? I tried telling my mother this wasn’t a suitable place for him, but she wouldn’t listen. No, I have to put up with him for four months while she goes off on some world cruise! It’s her fourth honeymoon, or possibly her fifth. I’ve lost count.’

‘Well, he seems happy enough.’ She studied the roughly shorn coat. ‘I’m guessing he normally has a long coat?’

‘And a ribbon to hold the hair out of his eyes,’ said Corran sourly. ‘I haven’t got time to deal with any of that nonsense. I cut his coat as soon as my mother had gone. She’ll have a fit when she comes back, but that’s too bad. This is a working estate, and it’s humiliating for Meg to be seen with a ball of fluff with a ribbon in its hair.’

Lotty laughed as she straightened. ‘I can see Pookie doesn’t do much for your image!’ She looked around the filthy cottage. ‘Well, I’d better get started if I’m going to get this ready for painting,’ she said. ‘Can I borrow the broom from the other cottage?’

‘You might want to change your clothes first,’ he said, frowning. ‘It’s going to be dirty work.’

‘I don’t have anything else with me. I just brought what I could carry in my rucksack.’

‘I could probably find you an old shirt,’ said Corran gruffly.

‘Well…thank you,’ said Lotty, with the smile that was famous throughout Montluce. ‘If you’re sure. I don’t want to be any trouble.’

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ he grumbled. ‘You’d better come up to the house. I don’t suppose you’ve had any breakfast either?’

‘No,’ she admitted and he blew out an exasperated breath.

‘How were you expecting to work if you hadn’t had anything to eat? You’re no good to me if you’re fainting with hunger.’

He stomped back to the house, Lotty following meekly in his wake, while Meg trotted beside him and Pookie scampered around in circles, yapping with excitement.

At the back door he kicked the mud and dust off his boots and snapped his fingers to the dogs. ‘I’ll feed these two, and maybe that will shut Pookie up. If you want to make yourself useful, you can make some tea. The kitchen’s through there.’

He disappeared down a corridor hung with battered waxed jackets and mud-splattered boots, the dogs at his heels. There was something so incongruous about the big man with the fluffy little dog that Lotty couldn’t help smiling as she watched them go. Corran might look tough, but he was also a man who couldn’t say no to his mother. That made her feel better.

The kitchen was a square, solid room with fine proportions and a ceiling festooned with old-fashioned drying racks, but to Lotty it seemed bare and cheerless.

Not that she knew much about kitchens. All her meals were sent up from the palace kitchens, and if she wanted a cup of tea, she rang a bell and one of the maids made it in the servants’ galley.

There was no bell to ring now, and no useful maid. Lotty looked around dubiously. She had never made tea or coffee before, but how difficult could it be?

Well, there was the kettle, at least. She carried it over to the sink, filled it and set it back on the base, resisting the urge to brush her hands together in self-satisfaction. Eat your heart out, Raoul the Wolf, she thought. He wasn’t the only Montvivennes who could rise to a challenge.

Now, where was the tea? Aha! Lotty pounced on a pack, and was feeling pretty confident until she realised that the kettle wasn’t getting hot. She put her hand on it, and had just bent her head to see if she could hear anything when Corran walked in and raised his brows at the sight of her with her ear pressed against the kettle.

‘I don’t think it’s working,’ she said as she straightened.

Corran looked at the kettle and then at her. Without a word, he reached round and clicked on a switch at the back of the kettle. Immediately, a light came on and there was a rushing noise.

Lotty bit her lip. ‘I haven’t used a kettle like this before.’

‘Have you put a tea bag in a mug and poured over boiling water?’ Corran asked sarcastically.

She hoped she didn’t look too grateful for the tip. Bag, boiling water. She could do that. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee?’

‘There’s instant.’ He tossed her a jar, which she caught more by luck than science. ‘Sorry, I’m fresh out of luxuries,’ he said, correctly interpreting Lotty’s look of dismay. She would have sold her soul for a cup of freshly ground coffee right then.

‘I’ll have tea,’ he told her, opening a cupboard. ‘The mugs are in here.’

‘Have you just arrived?’ Lotty took out two, leaving a single mug marooned in a vast cupboard. ‘You don’t have much stuff.’

‘I moved in a couple of months ago.’ Corran tossed a couple slices of bread in the toaster and slammed it down. ‘I’ve never been a big one for stuff,’ he told her. ‘You don’t acquire much in the Army, and my ex wife kept the house and all its contents when we got divorced.’

So he was divorced. Lotty filed that little bit of information away. She would have liked to have known more, but didn’t want to sound too interested. It was hard to imagine Corran McKenna unbending enough to ask anyone to marry him.

Not her business, of course, but Lotty couldn’t help wondering what his ex-wife was like as she put a tea bag in a mug and hoped she looked as if she knew what she was doing. What sort of woman would crack that grim façade? What would it take to bring a man like Corran McKenna to his knees? To make that hard mouth soften and the icy eyes warm with desire?

Lotty stole a glance at him as he opened the fridge and fished out butter and jam and a pint of milk, which he sniffed at suspiciously before putting it on the table. She wasn’t at all surprised to hear that he had been in the Army. He had that tough competence she had seen in all her close protection officers, most of whom also came from a service background. They were all lean, hard men like Corran, men with absolute focus and eyes that were never still.

But she had never noticed their mouths before, or speculated about their love lives. Just looking at Corran’s mouth made Lotty’s stomach jittery. Why had she started to think about him kissing? Now warmth was pooling disturbingly inside her.

Lotty made herself look away and concentrated on unscrewing the jar of coffee granules instead.

‘It’s a shame this room is so bare,’ she said to break the silence. Her voice sounded thin, as if all the air had been squeezed out of it. ‘It could be a lovely kitchen.’

Corran grunted. ‘The kitchen is the least of my worries at the moment. The rest of the house is just as bare. I’m more concerned about getting the estate up and running again. I can live without furniture until then.’

‘You don’t have any furniture?’

‘Just the basics. This table. A couple of beds.’ He nodded his head at the armchair by the range. ‘That old chair my father’s dog used to sleep on.’

‘Then this was your father’s house?’

‘Yes,’ said Corran, a curt edge to his voice. ‘I inherited the house and the estate from him.’

‘Isn’t it usual to inherit the furniture as well as the house?’

He shrugged. ‘My stepmother took everything when she moved to Edinburgh.’

‘Why did she do that?’

‘You’d have to ask her that,’ he said distantly.

Lotty sniffed cautiously at the jar of coffee, unable to suppress an involuntary moue of distaste. She was trying to remember what the barmaid had told her at the Mhoraigh Hotel. ‘I heard there was some kind of family feud,’ she told Corran.

‘It takes two to feud,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘I’m not feuding.’

Lotty had been spooning coffee granules into a mug, but stopped when she saw Corran’s expression. ‘What?’

‘You like your coffee strong.’

Uh-oh. Clearly she had overdone it. ‘Er, yes…yes, I do.’ Surreptitiously, she spilled the last spoonful back into the jar. ‘They say the estate should have gone to your brother,’ she said to distract him.

‘My half-brother,’ he corrected her sharply. ‘Who told you that? Oh, you’ll have got it from the hotel in Mhoraigh, of course,’ he answered his own question. ‘That well-known centre of unbiased information!’

‘Is it true?’

‘No, it’s not true.’ Corran scowled as he threw a couple of plates on the table and rummaged in a drawer for knives. Why should he care what Lotty thought? She had pushed her way in here, and if she didn’t like it, she could leave. It didn’t matter if she believed that he wasn’t entitled to the estate, but still he found himself saying, ‘I’m my father’s eldest son.’ The words sounded as if they were pushed out of his mouth. ‘I was born here.’

She had found a warm spot in front of the range and was leaning against it, her arms spread along the rail. ‘You don’t sound Scottish,’ she commented.

‘My parents divorced when I was six. My mother took me to London after that.’

‘So Loch Mhoraigh isn’t really home to you?’

‘Yes, it is!’ As always, the suggestion caught Corran on the raw. Mhoraigh was the only home he had ever had. ‘I spent part of every summer here when I visited my father.’

Lotty was frowning. ‘Then why is there a question mark over you having the estate? Doesn’t the eldest son usually inherit?’

‘It’s normal, yes, but Andrew—my halfbrother—is very popular around here. Especially at the hotel, where he seemed to spend most of his time as far as I can gather,’ Corran added evenly. ‘Everyone would much rather he had inherited the estate.’

‘Why not you?’

He sighed. ‘Are you always this nosy?’

For a moment she looked taken aback. ‘I suppose I’m used to asking a lot of questions,’ she said.

‘As part of your job?’

Something uncertain flickered in her eyes. Good, thought Corran. Let her see what it was like being on the receiving end of an interrogation for a change!

‘Yes,’ she said after a tiny hesitation. She cleared her throat. ‘I suppose you could say I’m in public relations.’

‘Does that mean you’d be happy discussing your family with a stranger?’

That strange expression flitted across her face again. ‘No, perhaps not. But we’re not going to stay strangers, are we? We’re going to be working together for a whole month so I can win that bet,’ she reminded him. ‘We might as well get to know something about each other. And I’d rather know the truth than rely on gossip.’

‘The Mhoraigh estate is mine,’ said Corran. ‘That’s all the truth you need.’

‘I don’t understand why they don’t like you in the village.’

‘Not everyone falls for my charm,’ he snarled at her, and then wished he hadn’t when she chuckled. She looked startlingly pretty when laughter warmed the patrician looks.

‘Oh, I can see they might be able to resist your sunny disposition,’ she said, ‘but most people like things to be fair and, if you’re the eldest son, it’s fair that you inherited, surely?’

Corran blew out an exasperated sigh. He might as well tell her or she would never shut up about it.

‘My father always intended to change the entail on the estate,’ he said, making sure his voice was empty of all bitterness. He didn’t want Lotty concluding that he was screwed up about all this, no matter how pretty she looked when she smiled.

‘Andrew was his favourite. Everyone knew that. He had the huge advantage of not reminding him of my mother. My father never forgave her for leaving him, and every time he looked at me, he saw her. It made my visits…difficult.’

Lotty’s lovely grey eyes darkened with sympathy. ‘That must have been hard on you.’

‘Please spare me the violins,’ said Corran curtly. He couldn’t bear people feeling sorry for him. He especially didn’t want Lotty feeling sorry for him.

‘I was perfectly happy as long as I could be here at Mhoraigh.’ He had told himself that so often, he even believed it. ‘I knew how my father felt and that the estate would go to Andrew eventually, and I’d accepted that. That’s why I joined the Army. If I couldn’t live here, I had no roots, and the military life suited me fine for a while. When my commission ended, though, I wanted to come back to the Highlands. I was thinking about buying a place of my own, and then my father sent for me.’

He stopped, remembering the last time he had seen his father. The churning bitterness and regret he had denied for so long. Why was he telling Lotty all this? What did it matter? He had come to terms with his father’s rejection long ago.

Hadn’t he?

‘He told me that he wasn’t going to change the entail after all. I still don’t know why. Perhaps he thought the estate would be too much of a liability for Andrew. Mhoraigh would be mine, he said, but he was leaving everything else to my stepmother and Andrew. The trouble was that there was no money left after the way they’d all been living these past few years. I daresay Moira thought all the furniture was the least she deserved. Hence the empty house,’ said Corran.

Lotty was a good listener, he realised. She kept her eyes fixed on his face and her head was tilted slightly to one side as she concentrated on what he was saying.

‘It must have been a difficult situation for everyone,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t difficult for me,’ said Corran, rescuing the toast, which had started to burn. He flicked both slices onto a plate and offered them to Lotty, who pushed herself away from the range and came to sit at the table.

‘I didn’t care if they stayed or not, as long as I didn’t have to actually live with them. I offered Moira Loch End House, which is a perfectly decent house, and said she could take any pieces of furniture she wanted, but she chose to go to Edinburgh instead, telling everyone that I’d thrown her out of her home.’

Lotty frowned. ‘Why don’t you tell everyone that’s not the true story?’

‘Because I don’t care,’ Corran said in a flat voice. He put more bread in the toaster and came back to sit at the table opposite Lotty. ‘I understand why Moira is bitter. She always resented the fact that I existed when in her mind Andrew should have been the eldest. I was supposed to go away and not come back, but Mhoraigh was in my blood too.’

He didn’t want to think about his annual visits to see his father, which he had longed for so much and hated at the same time. Andrew was seven years younger than him and the two boys had nothing in common. As a child, he had been bitterly aware that neither his father nor his stepmother wanted him there. Only the hills had welcomed him.

‘As for the village, well, they’ve already made up their minds about me, and I haven’t got the time or the inclination to try and make people like me. I’ve got enough to do keeping this estate afloat.’

Corran eyed Lotty with a mixture of resentment and frustration. He had been perfectly happy to keep all this buried until she had started asking her questions. What was it about her that made you want to tell her, to make her understand? It had to be something to do with that shining sincerity, that luminous sense of integrity that made you trust her in spite of the fact that you knew nothing about her.

‘So what about you?’ he asked, wanting to turn the tables once more. He pushed the butter and jam towards her. ‘I suppose you come from a big, happy family where everybody loves each other and behaves nicely?’

Lotty understood the sneer in his voice. She understood the ripple of anger. She had heard a lot of sad stories in her time. No matter how people tried to dress them up for a royal audience, the pain was always there, and her heart ached for Corran as it did for everyone she met who had suffered and endured and who made her feel guilty for not having done the same.

She could only imagine what it had been like for Corran, loving this wild place but feeling unwanted here. No wonder there was still something dark and difficult in his face. For as long as she could remember, wherever Lotty went, people had tidied up and given her flowers and waved flags and clapped her just for existing. She might long for anonymity sometimes, but never had she been made to feel unwelcome.

She was lucky.

‘I can’t claim a big family,’ she said, buttering her toast. The extended family wasn’t even that big now, she thought, and it wasn’t that happy either. She wondered what Corran would make of the so-called curse of the Montvivennes, which had seen such tragedy over the past couple of years.

‘I’m an only child. I’d have loved to have had a brother or sister,’ she added wistfully. It would have been wonderful to have shared the responsibility, to have had someone else who understood what it was like. ‘My mother died when I was twelve, and my father last year.’

There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Corran gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that about happy families.’

‘It’s OK. Both my parents loved me, and they loved each other. That makes us a happy family, I think.’

‘So you’re on your own too,’ he said after a moment.

Lotty had never thought of it like that before. As a princess, she was rarely alone.

‘Well, there’s my grandmother,’ she said. ‘And my cousin.’ Philippe was like a brother, she thought.

And of course there were thousands of people in Montluce who loved her and thought of her as one of their own. She had no grounds for feeling alone.

‘No husband? No boyfriend?’

‘No.’ Aware of Corran’s eyes on her, Lotty felt the telltale colour creeping along her cheeks. She spread jam on her toast and took a bite. ‘No, there’s no one.’

‘So who are you running away from?’

Still chewing, Lotty put down her toast. ‘I’m not running away.’

‘You said you needed to get away,’ he reminded her.

She had. Lotty sighed. How could she explain to Corran the pressure to be perfect all the time?

Of course she wasn’t running away from anything bad. Her life was one of unimaginable luxury and Lotty had always known that the price of that was to do her duty, and she did it.

Since her mother’s death, her grandmother had controlled her life absolutely. Every minute of Lotty’s day was organized for her, and Lotty went along with it all, because to protest would be childish and irresponsible.

How selfish would she be to insist on her own life when so many people looked forward to her visits? How could she behave like a spoilt brat when her own grandmother had devoted her entire life to the service of the country and endured bitter tragedy without complaint? The Dowager Blanche had lost two sons and a great-nephew in quick succession. Compared to that, how could Lotty say that she didn’t want to open another hospital, or spend another evening shaking hands and being nice?

Until Philippe came back and the Dowager Blanche had decided that Lotty’s duty to the country extended to marrying a man who didn’t love her. Philippe had understood. It was Philippe who had encouraged her to escape. ‘Your grandmother is the queen of emotional blackmail, Lotty,’ he’d said. ‘You deserve some fun for a change.’

‘I’ve always been a good girl,’ Lotty told Corran. ‘I’ve always behaved well, and done what’s expected of me. I just want a chance to be different for a while. I want to take the kind of risks I never take. I want to make my own mistakes. I want to see if I’m as brave as I think I am, and if I go home now I’ll know I’m just a coward.

‘I’m not running away,’ she told him again. ‘I just want to do something by myself. For myself.’

‘Then you’re going to learn what I learnt a long time ago,’ said Corran. ‘If you want something badly enough, the only person you can rely on is yourself.’

To Lotty, it sounded a cold philosophy, but how could she argue when she had no experience of relying on herself?

‘And you want Mhoraigh?’ she said.

Corran nodded. ‘This used to be one of the finest estates in the Highlands,’ he told her. ‘But there’s been no maintenance for years, and gradually its wealth has been frittered away. My father liked to act the laird, and he was big on shooting parties and keeping up traditions, but he didn’t believe in getting his hands dirty, and Andrew’s the same. He looks the part, but the land was just a source of income for him.

‘But Mhoraigh’s mine now,’ said Corran, setting his jaw, ‘and I’m going to make it what it was.’

‘On your own?’

‘On my own,’ he agreed. ‘Of course, it would be easier if I had some financial reserves, but between alimony payments and all the ready assets going to Moira and Andrew, I can’t begin to improve the breeding stock or even keep up with the maintenance.

‘That’s why I need to get the cottages up and running as soon as I can,’ he said, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table. ‘Holiday lets are a good source of income, but the summer is my only real opportunity to get the work done. This is a working estate, and there’s farming to be done too. We’ve finished lambing and the sheep are out on the hill now, but come September I need to be taking them to market. Then I’ll be buying tups, and the cattle will go in October. And all that’s apart from the forestry and routine maintenance.’

‘Hmm,’ said Lotty through a mouthful of toast. ‘I can see why you need some help.’

‘And instead I’ve got you,’ Corran said with a sardonic look.

She met his eyes across the breakfast table. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘You’ve got me.’

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER breakfast, Corran showed Lotty to a room upstairs. He had warned her that the house was bare, but it was still a shock to see how thoroughly it had been stripped by his stepmother. There were no carpets or curtains, hardly any furniture, and tired patches on the walls marked where pictures had once hung.

It made Lotty feel sad to think of how bitter his stepmother must have felt to have left the house in such a state. Corran put on a good show of not caring what anyone thought, but Lotty had seen the bitter curl of his mouth when he had talked about being the unwanted son. Small wonder that he had grown into a grimly self-sufficient man.

Like the rest of the house, her bedroom was sparsely furnished, with just a bed and a straight-backed chair on the bare boards, but it was light and spacious and from the window there was a lovely view of the loch. Lotty, who had spent her life in the most luxurious of accommodation, was delighted with it.

She would have to collect her rucksack from the barn later, but for now Corran had provided her with an old shirt. Lotty took off her fleece and T-shirt and shrugged the shirt on over her bra, uncomfortably conscious of the feel of it against her bare skin. The cotton was worn and threadbare at the cuffs and collar, but it was clean and it smelt very comforting. She rolled up the sleeves and tried not to think that the skin the shirt had touched had been Corran’s. It felt disturbingly intimate to be wearing his clothes.

Back at the cottage, she squared her shoulders determinedly and set to work, glad of the gloves she had brought in case the weather turned unseasonably cold. She would show Corran McKenna what she could do, but that didn’t mean she had to like touching all the filth and horrible cobwebs.

She spent the first two hours dragging the clutter of old furniture in the living room outside. One or two of the bigger pieces would have to wait until she could persuade Corran to help her, but in the meantime at least she could start to make an impression. She rolled up rugs, coughing and spluttering at the dust, and then gritted her teeth before tackling the cobwebs on the ceiling with a broom.

Some of the spiders were enormous, and she had to jump out of the way as they scuttled irritably across the floor. Lotty hated spiders, but she wouldn’t let herself scream. Princesses didn’t squeal or shriek or make a fuss, and they were never afraid. Her grandmother had taught her that.

Once the spiders were dealt with, she even began to enjoy herself. She was grimy and hot and the dust made her wheeze, but there was no one to charm, no one waiting to shake her hand, no one expecting anything of her except that she get this job done. No deference, no sycophancy, just Pookie, who seemed to have attached himself to her and was snuffling happily around, scrabbling at holes in the skirting boards and growling at imaginary rats.

At least Lotty hoped they were imaginary.

When Corran found her at lunchtime, she was sweeping up piles of dust and rubbish and singing tunelessly in French while Pookie pounced on fluff balls. Neither of them noticed him at first, which just went to show what a useless excuse for a dog Pookie was.

From the doorway, Corran watched Lotty wielding the broom inexpertly. She was swamped by his shirt, and she wore that scarf twisted up and knotted in two corners, so she should have looked ridiculous. Instead, the rough shirt just emphasised the delicacy of her arms and the pure line of her throat rising out of the worn collar, while she managed to make even the scarf look chic.

And she was singing! She wasn’t supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be overwhelmed by the task he had set her, and disgusted by the dirt. She was supposed to be giving up and going away. He needed help, yes, but he needed someone practical, not this slight, elegant figure with her spine of steel and her speaking grey eyes. Lotty was too…distracting.

Look at how she had made him talk over breakfast, pushing him to think about the past, and look at him now, breaking off to make coffee, just to make sure she stopped for a few minutes! He didn’t have time to worry about her.

Corran scowled and rapped on the door with his knuckles. ‘I’ve brought lunch,’ he said curtly.

Startled, Lotty swung round in mid-song, and Pookie came scampering over to yap and fawn at his knees to cover his embarrassment at being caught unawares.

‘Quiet!’ Corran bellowed and the dog dropped back on its haunches, ears drooping comically in dismay at his tone.

‘He’s just pleased to see you,’ said Lotty, smiling. She propped her broom against the broken banister, pulled off her gloves and dropped them on the bottom step, and came towards him, brushing her hands on her shirt. On his shirt. ‘And I am too, if you’ve got lunch with you!’

When she smiled, her whole face lit up and Corran felt something tighten around his heart for a moment. It was a long time since anyone had looked happy to see him.

And how pathetic was it that he had even thought of that?

‘Don’t expect me to make a habit of it,’ he said, glowering. ‘It’s just that I’ve finished plastering and I thought I might as well throw some sandwiches together. I want to start baling silage this afternoon, and there’s no point in stopping for lunch once I get going.’

‘I didn’t think I’d be allowed the time for lunch,’ she said. ‘I certainly didn’t think you’d make it. I’m impressed by the service!’

That was right, Corran thought, hunching a shoulder. Make a big deal of it, why didn’t she? Next she would be suggesting that he was worried that he might have asked her to do too much.

‘It’s not too bad outside,’ he said stiffly. ‘I thought we could eat down by the loch.’

‘That’s a wonderful idea!’ said Lotty. She took a deep breath of fresh air, glad to get out of the musty cottage for a while, although she had no intention of admitting that to Corran, of course. Putting her hands to the small of her back, she stretched, unable to prevent a tiny grimace at the twinge of her muscles.

‘Had enough?’ said Corran.

‘Certainly not,’ she said, determined not to let him guess how grateful she was for the chance to stop for a while. ‘You were the one who stopped for lunch!’

Lotty’s shoes crunched on the shingle as she made her way back up the little beach after washing her hands in the cool, clear loch. Corran was unwrapping a packet of sandwiches on the rocky outcrop.

‘It’s nothing fancy,’ he warned as he held out the packet to her.

Lotty took one and perched on the rock beside him. ‘It looks great to me,’ she said honestly. She couldn’t believe how hungry she was, after all that toast at breakfast too.

The sandwich was little more than a piece of cheese thrown between two pieces of ready-sliced bread, but Lotty had rarely enjoyed a lunch more. It felt good to be outside. The air was cool and faintly peaty and she pulled off her scarf so that the breeze could ruffle her hair.

Taking a mouthful of sandwich, she turned up her face to the sun that was struggling through the clouds. ‘Good,’ she mumbled. Even that small rebellion felt wonderful. Princesses never talked with their mouths full. When she went home she would have to remember her manners, but right now she could do whatever she wanted. It was an exhilarating thought.

Corran was pouring coffee from a flask into plastic mugs, but he put it down so that he could brush a cobweb from Lotty’s shoulder. ‘You’re filthy,’ he said.

It was a careless touch, but Lotty’s skin tightened all the same and she was conscious of a zing of awareness.

‘That’s what happens when you try and get rid of forty years’ of dirt,’ she said, embarrassed to find that she was suddenly breathless.

It wasn’t as if Corran was particularly attractive. He was as hard and unyielding as the rock they were sitting on. The dark brows were drawn together over the pale, piercing eyes in what seemed a permanent frown. And yet one graze of his fingers was enough to send the blood skittering around in her veins, one look at his mouth and her heart bumped alarmingly against her ribs.

Unaware of her reaction, Corran handed her a mug. ‘I couldn’t remember how you took your coffee this morning, so I put milk in.’

‘It doesn’t make much difference to me,’ said Lotty, glad of the excuse to shift her position on the rock. She wrinkled her nose as she looked down in the mug. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful, but this isn’t what I call coffee.’

‘I might have known you’d turn out to be a princess,’ said Corran, and Lotty jerked, spilling most of the mug over his shirt.

‘What?’

‘You’re very particular about your coffee.’ His eyes sharpened suddenly. He was clearly putting something together. ‘You were singing in French just now… I didn’t guess because your English is perfect, but you’re French, aren’t you?’

Perhaps it would have been easier to have pretended that she was French, but pride in her country was ingrained in Lotty. ‘I’m from Montluce,’ she corrected him, chin lifting.

‘Isn’t that part of France?’

Lotty bridled. People always thought that. ‘No, it isn’t! We speak French, but Montluce is an independent state with its own monarchy.’

‘And a big chip on its shoulder?’ Corran suggested with a sideways glance.

‘Not at all. We’re small, but we have a very high opinion of ourselves!’

The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘I see. Does everyone in Montluce speak such good English, or is it just you? I wouldn’t have guessed if I hadn’t heard you singing.’

‘I was sent away to school in England after my mother died,’ she told him. ‘You soon pick up the language when you have to.’

‘Must have been tough to lose your mother and be sent to a strange country at the same time,’ said Corran.

‘It wasn’t the best time of my life,’ Lotty allowed, ‘but I just had to get on with it.’

She had begged her father to let her stay with him in Montluce, but it was her grandmother who had dealt with all the practicalities of life after her mother’s death. Lotty needed to speak English, the Dowager Blanche had decreed, and it would do her good to have a change of scene. The child was much too nervous as it was. She couldn’t be allowed to mope around Montluce. Yes, her mother’s death was sad, but Lotty had to learn to deal with whatever life handed her. There were to be no tears, no complaints. She was a princess.

So Lotty had gone away to school and she hadn’t cried and she hadn’t complained. But she had hated it.

‘It was awful at first,’ she said, sipping at her coffee in spite of everything she’d had to say about it. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done if I hadn’t met my friend Caro there. We were both really plain and both horribly shy and, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I had a stammer. I still stammer a little when I’m nervous,’ she confessed.

‘I noticed.’

Everyone else pretended that they didn’t.

Corran’s eyes rested on her face. ‘You changed,’ he said.

‘I lost my puppy fat eventually and grew up,’ she acknowledged.

‘You did more than that. You’re a beautiful woman,’ said Corran in a matter-of-fact voice, ‘as I’m sure you must know.’

Lotty heard that a lot. The beautiful Princess Charlotte. It made her uncomfortable. All beauty ever did was put her on a pedestal, where people gawped at her and admired her, but nobody got close enough to touch.

‘I’d rather be pretty,’ she said.

‘Isn’t beautiful better than pretty?’

‘Pretty is warmer, less intimidating.’ She stirred the shingle with the toe of her shoe. ‘Being beautiful isn’t the same as being desirable.’

‘No,’ said Corran thoughtfully after a moment. ‘I suppose that’s true.’

Not but you’re desirable, Lotty. Not I think you’re wrong. I find beautiful women very desirable.

Well, what had she expected? Lotty chewed glumly on the second half of her sandwich. It was stupid to feel disappointed because he didn’t think that she was desirable.

A pedestal could be a cold and lonely place. Thousands of people said they thought she was beautiful. Thousands loved her. But would they still love her, still want her, if they really knew her? Lotty wondered. If they could get past the mystique of royalty, past the security guards, past the rigid protocol of palace?

Lotty longed for someone to want her enough to try.

She longed to be desired, not for her title or her wealth, but for her body. She longed to know what it was like to love a man, to know what every other woman, it seemed, knew. What was the point of being beautiful if you could get to twenty-eight having barely been kissed? Lotty had never met a man who wasn’t intimidated by the suffocating etiquette that surrounded her in Montluce. Sometimes it felt as if she was the only twenty-eight-year-old virgin in the world.

Dispiritedly, Lotty finished her sandwich and brushed the crumbs from her hands. Beside her, Corran was drinking his coffee, his eyes narrowed at the hills across the loch. The fingers around the mug looked very strong. He had a farmer’s hands, square and capable and scarred with nicks and scratches. There was a focused quality to him, a forcefulness that sharpened the air around him and made it impossible to ignore even the smallest detail: the flat hairs at his wrist, the plaster dust in his hair, the creases edging his eyes.

He sat easily on the rock, long legs thrust ahead of him into the shingle, dusty boots crossed at the ankle. Never in a million years would Lotty have that assurance, that sense of being utterly at home in one’s skin. Corran McKenna wasn’t a man who would be intimidated by anything. If he wanted something, he would go out and get it.

He wouldn’t care about mystique. If Corran wanted her, he wouldn’t think twice about brushing aside her close protection team and knocking down her pedestal.

If Corran wanted to lose his virginity, he wouldn’t bleat about how difficult it was to meet the right person. He wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by ignorance or insecurity. He would reach out with those big hands and take what he wanted.

Lotty’s mouth went dry and she swallowed, yanking her eyes away from that ruggedly uncompromising profile. It had taken all her courage to jump off her safe, lonely pedestal for a while. She might be descended from the likes of Raoul the Wolf and Léopold Longsword, but she wasn’t brave enough to take the next step just yet.

She tipped the last of her coffee onto the shingle. ‘I think I’d better get back to work,’ she said in a hollow voice.

Afterwards, Lotty was never sure how she got through that first week at Loch Mhoraigh House. She had been tired before, but never with that bone-deep physical weariness that left her feeling leaden and light-headed at the same time.

Determined to prove Corran wrong that first day, she shut the doors and windows of the cottage once the midges gathered at four o’clock and began stripping off the peeling and faded wallpaper until her arms ached and her eyes bulged with exhaustion. Her grandmother had brought her up to do whatever needed to be done without complaint, and Lotty was going to stay there until she was finished.

‘What are you still doing here?’ Corran stomped into the cottage, slapping irritably at the midges. He had finished baling half an hour ago, and had expected to find Lotty back at the house. Having to come and find her had done nothing to improve his temper.

Slamming the door behind him, he took in Lotty, who was halfway up a stepladder, swaying alarmingly as she scraped at the sitting room wall. There were curls of wallpaper clinging to her scarf, and what little he could see of her face through the layer of grime was smudged with exhaustion. ‘For God’s sake, woman, get off that ladder before you fall off!’

‘You told me I had to get the cottage ready for painting.’

‘I didn’t tell you to spend all night in here!’

‘I will if that’s what it takes.’ Lotty jutted her chin at him in a stubborn gesture he was already finding familiar. ‘There’s no point in wasting the light when the evenings are long like this.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Corran snapped. ‘You’re dead on your feet.’

‘I’m all right,’ she said, which was so patently untrue that he didn’t even bother to argue.

‘What about the dog?’ He glared down at Pookie, who was scrabbling at his knees in the usual fawning welcome. Like Lotty, the dog was filthy, his white coat grey with dust and tangled with scraps of wallpaper and other rubbish. ‘I don’t suppose it occurred to you that he might need to be fed?’

As he’d intended, Lotty was instantly guilty. ‘No, I didn’t think of it. Sorry, Pookie.’ She looked back at Corran. ‘I don’t suppose you could take him back with you and feed him now, while I finish this?’

‘You suppose right,’ he said. ‘I want you to stop being so stubborn and come back to the house before you collapse.’

It was amazing how a mouth that looked so soft could set in such an implacable line. ‘I want to finish this job.’

Corran had had enough. ‘If you don’t do as I say, I’m going to sack you, and then you won’t have a job.’ He jabbed his finger at her. ‘Now, you get off that ladder right now or I’ll come and drag you down myself!’

There was no mistaking that tone of voice. Lotty scrambled down from the ladder without another word. Nobody had ever spoken to her like that before and, even through her exhaustion, she was conscious of a flicker of shameful excitement. It was almost worth provoking Corran’s temper to have the satisfaction of being treated so unlike a princess!

And the truth was that she wasn’t sorry to be forced to stop. After a sixteen-mile walk the previous day, a sleepless night and the day’s hard physical work, she was so tired she couldn’t even muster the energy to brush the midges away, and she stumbled over her own feet until Corran took her arm in a hard grip.

‘You are one stubborn woman, you know that?’ he growled. ‘Why don’t you just admit that it’s all too much for you?’

‘Because it’s not. I’m fine, honestly.’

‘You can’t even walk straight! This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen,’ he said grouchily. ‘I haven’t got time to worry about what sort of state you’re in, you know. I can’t concentrate on what I’m doing if I have to wonder about whether you’ve collapsed in a heap somewhere because you’ve got no idea how to be sensible!’

He harangued Lotty all the way back to the house, although she was too tired to take in much of it. As soon as they were inside and could shut the midges out, he let go of her arm and she slumped against the wall without his support. It was all she could do not to slide onto the floor with Pookie, who was yapping hysterically at the prospect of being fed.

Corran looked from one to the other as if unable to decide which of them was more exasperating. ‘You!’ He pointed at the dog. ‘Shut up! And you,’ he added to Lotty, jerking his finger at the ceiling, ‘go up and have a bath. You’ve got half an hour before supper. And don’t fall asleep in there!’ he shouted after her as she bumped against the wall on her way to the stairs, the prospect of getting clean too delicious to resist.

The bathroom was draughty and as cheerless as the rest of the house, with linen fold panelling halfway up the walls and lino that curled at the corners. The cast iron tub had claw legs and rusty stains beneath the taps, but to Lotty it beat any five star bathroom hands down. She sank into the hot water with a groan of pleasure.

It felt as if every millimetre of her was caked with grime. Holding her breath, she squeezed her eyes shut and sank below the surface, to emerge smiling and spluttering a few moments later. It had been a long, tough day, but she had survived it. She had a job, she had somewhere to stay, and now she was going to be clean as well.

It felt wonderful.

Closing her eyes, Lotty rested her head against the rim of the bath and let her mind drift. And somehow it drifted to Corran, and the way he had looked when he had stormed into the cottage. He had obviously showered himself, because his dark hair had been damp still. His jeans emphasised his long legs and narrow hips, while the plain dark T-shirt moulded his broad chest.

Lotty had to admit that she liked his body. It was strong and solid, without being showy. She liked the easy way he moved, the feeling she had that he was utterly at home in his skin. She liked his competence, the assurance with which he did everything, even if it was just snapping his fingers at a dog or unscrewing a flask. Corran was in control of whatever he was doing.

He might not smile, but there was an appealing sureness to him. Lotty’s mind floated further, back to the rock where she and Corran had shared lunch, back to wondering what he would be like as a lover.

If only she had more confidence! She was intelligent, capable, beautiful. She was a princess, for heaven’s sake. By rights, she should have the nerve and the knowledge to seduce him without a second thought.

Not a single one of her distinguished ancestors would have hesitated to take what they wanted. But they hadn’t had to be perfect, had they? They hadn’t been brought up by Grandmère, hadn’t been expected to take her mother’s place and save her father distress by behaving perfectly at all times.

She didn’t have to behave perfectly now, Lotty reminded herself.

The idea, terrifying in its recklessness, glimmered back into life. This was her chance, her one shot at living life like everyone else. For three short months, she could be normal.

And how normal was it to be a virgin at twenty-eight?

Maybe it was the hot water, but Lotty could feel herself beginning to glow. Perhaps she would never have the nerve, but she was allowed to dream, wasn’t she?

She wanted to dream that she got out of this bath and went downstairs. In her dream, Corran was in the kitchen. Perhaps not the most romantic of settings, but it was the only room she had seen properly. Besides, there was something about all that tough masculinity in a domestic setting that appealed to her.

So, yes, he was in the kitchen, doing something ordinary. Cooking. Chopping something. Not onions or garlic, but something not quite so pungent. Tomatoes, perhaps. His head was bent and he was totally focused on his task, but when she appeared in the doorway, he lifted his head.

And he smiled.

Lotty had never seen Corran smile, not properly, but she knew it would be slow and sure, like the rest of him, and she shivered at the way it warmed the granite face, creasing his cheeks and curving that cool mouth.

Come here, he said, and in her fantasy his voice was dark and low and urgent. All the breath leaked out of Lotty’s lungs just imagining it. It was a voice that would brook no disobedience, and it would never occur to her not to do exactly as he asked. So she would cross the kitchen towards him without taking her eyes off his and…

No, wait, what was she wearing? Lotty rewound a little. If she was going to have a fantasy, she might as well get it right, and she didn’t want to lose her virginity in the jeans, camisole and raspberry-pink cashmere cardigan, which was all she had had to wear in the evenings for the last week. She certainly didn’t want to be wearing her grungy work clothes.

Just a towel? She wouldn’t have the nerve, Lotty decided. No, if this was a fantasy, she didn’t have to be limited to the contents of her rucksack, did she? Her suitcase that was still sitting at Glasgow Station contained a Japanese print silk robe. She could wear that.

Satisfied, Lotty mentally slipped into the robe. Beneath it, she was naked and the silk felt cool against her bare skin. Ah, yes, now the fantasy was well back on track.

Come here, Corran said—again—and she walked towards him, the robe fluttering around her legs. She stood in front of him, and he reached wordlessly for the belt, tugging it gently so that the robe fell open.

Would he gasp at her beauty? Lotty considered and rejected this regretfully. She just couldn’t imagine Corran gasping at anything. But he might smile again, mightn’t he? A slow smile that started in his eyes and made her heart thump as he put his hard hands at her waist and drew her towards him.

And then—oh, then!—he would lower his head and—

‘Lotty!’ The door flew open and Corran charged into the bathroom.

Gasping with shock, Lotty jerked upright out of the water and slapped her hands to her shoulders to cover her breasts. ‘What are you doing?’ she shrieked.

‘I thought you had drowned!’

He’d called her name. He’d knocked on the door. Silence. And then he’d remembered how tired she had been, because of him. He’d gone cold, picturing her sliding beneath the water, too tired to rouse herself, and he’d panicked, bursting into the room, convinced that he would find her limp and lifeless, desperately trying to remember resuscitation techniques.

And there she was, her eyes huge and frightened, her shoulders bare, and Corran’s eyes had taken on a weird life of their own and were ensnared by the wet, glowing body in the bath, skidding from clavicle to earlobe to elbow to the arms clamped firmly over her breasts.

‘I did knock,’ he said, but his voice seemed to come from a long way away. He was disgusted with himself. He knew he had to get out of there, but he couldn’t move. He didn’t know whether he felt light-headed with relief or cold with anger.

Anger was easier to deal with. ‘Why the hell didn’t you answer?’ he demanded.

‘I didn’t hear. I was d-daydreaming.’

The tiny stammer jolted Corran back to himself. I still stammer a little when I’m nervous, she had said.

She shouldn’t be nervous of him, but what else could she feel when he had stormed into the bathroom and was standing there, staring at her? Mortified, Corran forced himself to move at last. Turning his back on her, he strode for the door.

‘Well, since you’re alive after all, dinner’s ready,’ he said curtly.

‘I—I’ll be down in a minute.’

How long was it going to be before he got the image of Lotty in the bath out of his mind? That luminous skin, the wet, lovely slope of her shoulders. Her short hair was spiky, the grey eyes wide and startled, and a pulse had hammered in the bewitching hollow at the base of her throat.

Corran glowered as he drained the pasta. He’d been alone too long. The last thing he needed right now was a complication like Lotty.

She appeared a few minutes later, modestly covered in jeans and a cardigan. Not her fault that the soft pink wool seemed to hug her arms enticingly, reminding him of the bare skin beneath, or that the top she wore beneath the cardigan emphasised the delicate line of her clavicle.

Corran dragged his eyes away from it. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ he said stiffly.

‘No, it was my fault,’ she said. ‘I didn’t hear you and I might well have fallen asleep if you hadn’t checked, so thank you.’

An awkward silence fell.

‘It must have been some daydream,’ he said to fill it. ‘I was quite loud.’

A wash of colour swept up Lotty’s throat.

Her eyes slid from his as she pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘Something smells good,’ she said, pointedly changing the subject, and Corran’s interest was perversely piqued. What did a woman like Lotty dream about? he wondered.

Who did she dream about?

Well, it was none of his business, he reminded himself as he turned the pasta in the sauce. And he didn’t care anyway. He had to remind himself of that too.

‘Spaghetti bolognaise,’ he told her, plonking the pot onto the table. ‘I can only cook three dishes. This isn’t going to be a great gastronomic experience for you.’

‘I don’t mind,’ said Lotty, who was still jittery from the shock of Corran bursting into the bathroom. One moment she’d been dreaming that, and the next he’d been there, looking furious, and reality had slapped her around the face. This was no ardent lover. This was a man with far more on his mind than her pathetic little fantasies.

In one of those gruff acts of kindness that kept catching her unawares, he’d retrieved her rucksack from the barn and put it in her room. She felt a little better once she was dressed in the outfit she’d worn every evening on the walk, but she was still desperately aware of Corran moving around the kitchen and her breathing kept getting muddled up. His presence seemed to be sucking all the oxygen from the air. The only other person Lotty knew who had that same compelling presence was her tiny autocratic grandmother.

‘Help yourself.’ Corran gave her a plate and pushed the pot towards her. ‘It’ll be filling if nothing else.’

Lotty was still burning with embarrassment, but she took some pasta to be polite. The spoon and fork rang against the edge of the saucepan, loud in the silence.

A princess always puts people at their ease. The memory of her grandmother’s voice was so clear that Lotty almost expected to turn and see her at her shoulder.

Clearing her throat, she forced herself to make conversation. ‘Do you always cook for yourself?’

‘I don’t have much choice. Fortunately, I’m not that bothered about food, but I get pretty sick of the same three dishes, I have to admit.’ Corran paused in the middle of helping himself to pasta. ‘I don’t suppose you cook, do you?’

There was no use pretending. Lotty had barely been in a kitchen before arriving at Loch Mhoraigh. ‘I’m afraid not.’

‘Pity. I was going to suggest you might like to earn some extra money.’

‘Extra?’ Lotty raised her brows. ‘I’m not earning any money, so how can I earn extra?’

‘All right, maybe you’d like to earn some money on top of your board and lodging.’ He looked at her assessingly. ‘You could be my housekeeper. I can’t pay much, mind, but it would be worth it not to have to do any more cooking myself for a while.’

‘If you can afford to pay a housekeeper, why not give me something for cleaning the cottage?’

‘That was a different deal,’ said Corran. ‘You wanted to do it. This is something I don’t want to do. See the difference?’

Lotty chewed a mouthful of pasta. He was right. Filling was the best thing that could be said about it. Could she do much worse? The idea of earning her own money was ridiculously exciting for one who had been wealthy beyond most people’s dreams since she was born.

Nearly as exciting, but not requiring nearly as much nerve as the idea of losing her virginity.

Over Corran’s shoulder she could see a few tatty recipe books propped on the otherwise bare dresser.

‘I can’t claim any cooking experience, but I can read,’ she said. ‘I could have a go.’

‘Great,’ said Corran. ‘Consider yourself hired.’

Lotty stared at him. ‘Is that it?’

‘I’m hardly going to give you an interview,’ he pointed out. ‘I don’t care what the meals are like as long as they’re edible and I don’t have to cook them myself.’

It was a little late to start negotiating, Lotty realised, but she tried anyway. ‘Do I get extra time to finish the cottage? It’ll take me some time to do the cooking as well as the cleaning.’

Corran finished his mouthful as he considered. ‘Fair enough,’ he agreed at last. ‘You can have an extra day. But that’s all. Take it or leave it.’

Léopold Longsword would no doubt have wrung more concessions out of him in a process of wily negotiations, while Raoul the Wolf would probably have just chopped his head off, but Lotty took the deal.

CHAPTER FOUR

THERE were no curtains at her bedroom window. When the summer light woke her early in the mornings, Lotty would allow herself a few moments to just lie and remember where she was before she launched into another gruelling day. Her muscles ached, her bed was narrow, the mattress ancient and lumpy, the room bare, but she was very happy.

Every day was full of new experiences. Small ones, trivial ones, but for Lotty it was like discovering a new world. She learnt to peel potatoes and chop onions, to wash dishes and empty the vacuum cleaner. She wrote her first shopping list and got down on her knees with a scrubbing brush. Unable to bear the disgusting coffee, which Corran insisted was perfectly adequate, she even began to acquire a taste for tea instead.

It surprised her how quickly she fell into a routine. She would clear up after breakfast, prepare sandwiches for later and then head to clean the cottages. All morning she swept and brushed and scrubbed. The Dowager Blanche would be aghast if she knew that her granddaughter was on her knees like a servant.

There were times when Lotty had to screw up her nose. Times when she was so tired and filthy that she was tempted to take a break, but ironically those were the times when she remembered she was a princess. Proper princesses might not get dirty, but they didn’t give up either.

So she kept going until she heard the tractor outside, which was her signal to join Corran for lunch. Once when it was raining, they ate their sandwiches in the barn, sitting on hay bales, but usually they went to the little beach and breathed in the tangy air that blew down the loch from the sea in the west.

Lotty was always stiff when she got up to head back for an afternoon’s hard physical work in the cottages, but that was easy compared to the task of preparing a meal every evening. She was rather miffed to discover that she was not a natural cook. Montluce had a reputation for fine food that rivalled that of its more famous neighbour, France, and Lotty couldn’t help feeling that she should somehow have acquired a talent for cooking along with the stubborn pride of all her countrymen.

The recipes never looked that difficult but, however closely she followed them, meat ended up charred or raw or horribly tough, while even a simple task like boiling vegetables resulted in either a challenging crunchiness or an unappetising slush. With every disaster, Lotty’s chin inched a little higher, and the next day she would square up to the recipe book with renewed determination.

Luckily, Corran didn’t seem that bothered. He had no interest in food and ate only to fuel himself as far as Lotty could see.

‘Isn’t there anything special you’d like me to make?’ she asked him once.

‘This is fine,’ he said, forking in a beige sludge that was supposed to be pasta with a delicate cheese sauce.

‘There must be something you like particularly,’ she persisted.

Chewing, Corran gave it some thought. ‘My father had a cook for a while—Mrs McPherson. She used to make the best scones.’

Scones. Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult. Determined to make something Corran would enjoy, Lotty found a recipe. It looked fairly straightforward, but she would need bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar, whatever they were.

She added them to the shopping list. Corran had a meeting with his father’s solicitor in Fort William, and had told her to make a note of any essentials they needed so that he could get them in one big supermarket shop. At the top, Lotty had written: ‘Decent Coffee!!!!’ Not that she expected Corran to take any notice.

It was just as well she had given up on the seduction idea, Lotty reflected every night as she fell into bed. She was too tired to put it into action.

If she worked hard, Corran worked even harder. He was always up before her, and was off checking his cattle before breakfast. The sheep grazed high up on the hills, but the cattle were kept down on the flats around the loch. They were lovely solid, shaggy creatures with gentle eyes and incongruously fierce horns. Corran was making silage to feed them in the winter, and in between work on the cottages kept up running repairs on gates and fences around the estate.

Lotty liked seeing him around the farm on his tractor. She watched him studying his cattle, striding up a hillside or neatly stacking bales of silage, and felt a strange constriction in her chest. He looked so contained, so utterly at home here. You could tell just by looking at him that Corran McKenna didn’t need anyone or anything else.

He seemed to be able to turn his hand to anything. In the cottages, he knocked down walls, plumbed in new bathrooms and kitchens, mended floorboards, made a new banister. ‘How did you learn to do all this?’

she asked him, watching him fit a shower in the first cottage.

Corran shrugged. ‘I picked up a few skills in the Army. Here, hold this, will you?’ He passed her a plastic door while he ripped open a packet of nuts and bolts with his teeth.

‘You installed showers in the Army?’

‘It was more about learning to do whatever needed to be done.’

Doing whatever needed to be done. Oddly, his comment reminded Lotty of her grandmother’s steely resolve.

‘Do you miss it?’

‘The Army?’ He shook his head as he took the door from her and manoeuvred it into position. ‘No. It suited me for a while. After I graduated, all I wanted to do was be here—the one place I wasn’t welcome. I was rootless and restless, and the Army gave me the challenge I needed, but I was too much of a loner to do well.’ He glanced at Lotty. ‘I’m not good at taking orders.’

‘A bit of a drawback in the military,’ she commented dryly, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

‘You could say that. I was up for insubordination too often, but I had just as many citations after successful operations, and I got a reputation as a maverick. When my commission was up, I don’t think the Army was that sorry to see me go.’

He screwed in the first bolt with a few deft twists of the screwdriver. ‘I’d seen enough dusty hellholes by then, anyway. I missed the hills.’ He looked out of the bathroom window to where the hillside soared up from the loch. ‘There are hills in Afghanistan, but they’re not like these.’

Lotty’s eyes rested on his profile. He had that toughness and competence that must have made him a good officer, but she could see that he might not have been a successful team leader. He had grown up a lonely little boy, rejected by his father. Not surprising then that he was more comfortable going his own way, relying on himself. Corran McKenna wasn’t a man who would let himself need anyone else.

The thought made her sad.

‘Did you come straight back to Mhoraigh?’

Corran fitted another screw. ‘No. As far as I knew, my father was still intending to leave the estate to Andrew then. I decided that if I couldn’t have Mhoraigh, I would buy my own place, and all I needed to do was earn enough money to get started. So I set up a security company in London with a mate of mine. Jeff did all the schmoozing—he’s good at that stuff—and I dealt with the practicalities. I didn’t like being in London but it was the best place to make money.’

In went the last screw. ‘And then my father sent for me when he knew he was dying, and everything changed.’

‘I can’t imagine you in London,’ said Lotty.

‘I can’t either now, but actually I spent quite a lot of time there one way or another. My mother is a city girl through and through—God knows how she ever got together with my father—and after she left him she took me to London. She’s been there ever since, getting married and divorced on a regular basis. Every time I went home from school, it seemed she was living in a different house with a different man, always convinced that this was going to be the one.’

Corran shook his head at his mother’s capacity for self-delusion as he stepped back and tested the shower door.

‘You must have thought that you had found the one too, when you got married.’ Remembering that she was supposed to be clearing up, Lotty bent for the dustpan and brush. She had been longing to find out more about his marriage, and she might not get a better opening.

For a moment she was afraid Corran wasn’t going to answer. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it wasn’t that romantic,’ he said in the end. ‘We only got married because Ella told me she was pregnant.’ He caught Lotty’s startled look. ‘She said she’d had food poisoning so she’d missed a pill. It happens.’

‘I didn’t realise you had a child,’ she said.

‘I don’t. We’d barely tied the knot when it turned out that it was all a mistake.’

‘A mistake?’ Lotty was staring at him with those grey eyes that tugged at a chord deep in his belly and made it impossible to ignore her the way he wanted to. Her hair was tied up in that absurd scarf with the jaunty knots. He had found her another shirt as the first one was so filthy after two days that she had had no choice but to wash it. This one was a dark blue tartan. Corran had never thought of it particularly before, but on Lotty it looked wonderful. Sexy.

‘Didn’t she take a test?’

He forced his mind back to the conversation. ‘I don’t know,’ he said, blowing out a breath. ‘It was stupid of me not to ask for proof, but it never occurred to me that she would make up something like that.’

‘Were you disappointed?’

‘No. I hadn’t thought about having a family, so it was all a bit of a relief.’

‘And yet you married Ella straight away.’

Uncomfortable, Corran hunched a shoulder. ‘She said she wouldn’t consider a termination, and I had to accept my part in it. She didn’t get pregnant by herself.’

‘No,’ Lotty agreed, ‘but you didn’t have to get married either. This is the twenty first century. There are plenty of successful single parent families out there.’

‘I know that.’ A muscle started jumping in his jaw. Talking of his marriage always made Corran feel like a fool, and he wished he hadn’t started telling Lotty about it. ‘We could have lived separately. I just didn’t like the idea of a child of mine being shuffled from one parent to the other and made to feel a nuisance to both.’

He stopped, appalled to hear the bitter undercurrent to his words. It seemed to sizzle in the air. Lotty would think he was talking about himself. She would think he was pathetic, and screwed up still about a childhood that was long past. Which he wasn’t. He didn’t believe in self-indulgent wallowing in the past. What was the point of dwelling on it? What was done, was done. His parents had done their best, and he had grown up and made his own life. No problem.

But Lotty wouldn’t realise that. She had been standing there, her head tilted slightly to one side, the way she did when she was listening, and she would have heard that self-pity bursting through. Made to feel a nuisance to both. Why didn’t he just burst into tears and be done with it?

‘I don’t think wanting to make life easier for a child is a bad reason to get married,’ said Lotty after a moment.

Corran busied himself collecting all the packaging from the shower. ‘Well, it’s just as well there was no baby. Ella and I were a disaster together.’

‘There must have been something between you,’ Lotty objected.

‘Sex,’ he said bluntly. ‘That’s not enough to keep a marriage going. Ella was—is—gorgeous, but she’s desperately needy, and I’m not well-equipped to deal with that. She wanted constant attention, and I was too busy trying to keep the company running to give it to her. When you’ve seen the aftermath of a roadside bomb or watched kids used as human shields, it’s hard to care much about sending text messages or arranging little surprise treats. I just didn’t have the patience to deal with Ella’s neuroses. To be honest, it was a relief when I found out that she was having an affair with Jeff.’

Lotty’s jaw dropped. ‘With your friend?’

‘Jeff was much more Ella’s type. God knows why she wanted to marry me in the first place.’

‘Apart from the sex?’ There was an unusual squeeze of lemon in Lotty’s voice, and a tinge of colour along her cheekbones. For some reason that made Corran feel better.

‘Apart from that,’ he agreed gravely.

He propped the cardboard against the wall and balled up the plastic sheeting. ‘As it turned out, it all worked out for the best. Ella would never have come up to Loch Mhoraigh. She’s a city girl, like my mother. Things got complicated with Jeff, of course, and the business went down the pan, but I’d heard from my father by then and I didn’t care as long as I could get to Mhoraigh. I agreed to an outrageous divorce settlement, which is why I’m so skint now.’

‘That doesn’t seem very fair,’ said Lotty. ‘She was the one having the affair.’

Corran shrugged. ‘But she was probably right when she said I didn’t pay her enough attention. Besides, it was my fault for choosing a woman who was as unsuitable as my mother,’ he said, stuffing the plastic into a black bin liner. ‘You’d think I would have known better.’

‘You love your mother,’ said Lotty with such certainty that his head came up and he stared at her.

‘What makes you think that?’

‘You’re looking after a dog called Pookie, for a start.’ She glanced at his mother’s dog, who was stretched out in a patch of sunlight, his flanks twitching as he dreamed of chasing rabbits.

Corran sighed. ‘It’s very hard to say no to my mother,’ he conceded. ‘I love her, of course I do, but she’s impossible. Frivolous, scatty, the attention span of a midge. Utterly unreliable. She drifts through life dispensing charm and kisses and leaving emotional and financial chaos in her wake.

‘It never occurs to my mother that someone—usually me—has to clear up the mess she leaves behind her,’ he said, jabbing the last piece of plastic into the bin bag. ‘Which is why I can’t now understand how I ever got involved with Ella in the first place. It should have been obvious that we were completely unsuited, just like my parents.’

‘Sometimes opposites attract,’ suggested Lotty, her eyes on the dustpan and brush she was using to sweep up sawdust. For some reason she was feeling dispirited.

‘In bed perhaps,’ said Corran, ‘but I’m looking for someone who’s in for the long haul now. My mother was a disaster here, and Ella would have been too. My stepmother stayed, but it was her fancy ideas that proved the real drain on the estate. It would be nice to have some female company, sure, but I’ve learnt my lesson. Next time, I’m going to be pragmatic. I’m looking for a nice, sensible, practical woman who’ll fit right in and be prepared to share my life here. I don’t need glamour. I need someone who can drive a tractor and help with the lambing.’

‘Why stick at that? Why not insist that she can cook too?’ said Lotty waspishly. ‘Then she can be really useful!’

‘The kind of woman I’m looking for will be able to cook,’ said Corran. ‘That goes without saying.’

He was warning her off. Lotty was sure of it. Just in case she was getting ideas.

Well, she had got the message. Lotty liked to think of herself as sensible, but she suspected Corran wouldn’t agree. She had done her best with the cleaning, but there was no denying the fact that her practical skills were limited. And she certainly wasn’t a cook.

She wasn’t at all the kind of woman Corran was interested in.

And, even if she was, Lotty reminded herself, she couldn’t stay at Mhoraigh. I’m looking for someone who’s in for the long haul, Corran had said. She was strictly short haul. Her allegiance was to Montluce. That was the life she had been born to. She might be loving this brief escape, but nothing altered the fact that her place was in her own country, with the people she had been brought up to serve, not in these wild hills with a grim-featured man who hadn’t even believed she would last this week.

A divorced man who would never let anyone close to him.

He wasn’t at all the kind of man she should be interested in, either.

Still, she couldn’t help the way her heart jumped when Corran came into the cottage the next morning. He had changed out of his usual old cords and holey jumper and was wearing dark trousers and a jacket. His shirt was open at the collar, but Lotty spotted a tie rolled up in his pocket. He was obviously going to wait until the very last minute before he put that on.

‘You look very smart,’ she said.

Corran grimaced as he glanced down at himself. ‘I thought I’d better brush up for the solicitor.’ He looked around the room, which was still dingy and grubby, but transformed from earlier in the week, and his gaze came back to Lotty, who was on her knees cleaning the skirting boards. ‘Are you going to be OK here on your own all day?’

‘I’ll be fine.’ Lotty wrung out a cloth into the bucket. The water was already filthy. ‘I’ve got Pookie to protect me.’

Corran snorted as he eyed the little dog, who was sitting next to her, looking like a soft toy with his bright eyes and ears cocked as if he was following the conversation.

‘He’s not what you’d call an intimidating guard dog,’ he pointed out. ‘Unless you get a burglar with a phobia about fluff, in which case he might come in handy, I suppose.’

‘No burglar is going to be bothered to come all the way out here,’ said Lotty. ‘Besides, there’s nothing to steal.’

That was true enough. Still, Corran couldn’t help worrying.

And that made him cross. This was exactly what he had been afraid of when he first let Lotty stay. Worrying about someone else. He didn’t need it, he thought irritably.

He had known Lotty would be a distraction, but he couldn’t have guessed just how great a one she would prove to be. He couldn’t shake the image of Lotty in the bath. It was as if the curve of her throat, the slim shoulders, the delicate line of her clavicle were burned into his mind. He could still see the wet, pearly skin, the arms clutched over her breasts, her soft mouth open in shock, her eyes huge and startled.

If only he wasn’t so aware of her all the time. Even when he was ripping up floorboards or knocking down walls, he could see Lotty, slender, eyes shining, smiling that smile that made something stir queerly inside him. He could still picture her wrinkling her nose at a mug of tea or chewing her lip as she studied a recipe.

Much as he would like to dismiss her as a pampered brat, Corran couldn’t deny that she was a hard worker. There was a steely resilience to her that he hadn’t recognised at first, a stubbornness to the way she lifted her chin and refused to give in. He had pushed her unfairly hard, Corran knew, but she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint about the conditions. Corran didn’t know anyone else who would have put up with so much.

‘I’ll go to the supermarket on the way back,’ he told her. ‘Is there anything else you want?’

Lotty sat back on her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘Proper coffee,’ she said.

‘You’ve already put that on the list. Three times. And we don’t need coffee,’ he said. ‘We’ve got plenty of tea.’

Lotty made a face, and he grinned at her, a brief, flashing smile, before he turned for the door. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘Work hard.’

Princess Charlotte was hardly ever alone. There was always a footman outside the door, a lady-in-waiting with letters to be answered, her private secretary to discuss visits, a maid to help her dress.

So Lotty didn’t mind being left on her own at all. She hummed as she tackled the grime on the skirting boards and tried to forget about how Corran had looked when he smiled. The grin made him look younger, warmer, more attractive.

Much more attractive.

She wasn’t supposed to be noticing that he was attractive, Lotty reminded herself crossly. Hadn’t he already warned her off? And hadn’t she already remembered that she would be going home to Montluce before too long, and that she had had quite enough new experiences to keep her going for a while?

Losing her virginity was just going to have to wait.

It would be a shame to spoil things. In spite of everything, she liked Corran. She liked the fact that he made no concessions to her. He might be rude, but she could be rude right back. She could say whatever came into her head, and Corran wouldn’t mind at all. In an odd way, they were friends. Lotty had never felt as comfortable with anyone before, that was for sure. She didn’t want to spoil that by making an unwelcome pass that would embarrass him and humiliate her.

It was enough that he had let her stay.

And that she had kept her part of the bargain too. If she could finish washing down the paintwork, the cottage would be ready for painting by the end of the day and she would have done what she had promised to do, Lotty reminded herself. She should be thinking about that, not Corran’s smile.

But she couldn’t help the alarming dip of her stomach when Corran came back earlier than she had expected. He appeared in the doorway of the cottage bedroom, all austere angles and hard planes, and in spite of herself Lotty’s pulse kicked up a notch.

Eyes narrowed critically, he looked around the room. The floorboards were swept, the walls bare, the paintwork dingy with age but clean.

‘Not bad,’ he said.

‘Not bad?’ Lotty echoed, because it was easier than thinking about how lean and hard and untouchable he looked. How could she have even thought about trying to attract a man like Corran? He was too tough, too uncompromising, too dauntingly self-contained.

She rested her fists on her hips. ‘Is that all you can say? Not bad?’

‘What would you like me to say?’

‘For a start, you could say, “I’m sorry, Lotty, you were right and I was quite wrong when I said you wouldn’t be able to get the cottage ready for painting in a week.”’

Something that might have been a smile hovered around Corran’s mouth. ‘All right, I was wrong about that. There, satisfied?’

‘Not quite. You also have to say, “and I was completely wrong about you not lasting a day”. In fact, you might as well admit that you’re well on your way to losing that bet we made.’

‘That was for a month,’ he reminded her. ‘A lot can happen in three weeks.’

Lotty put her nose in the air. ‘Well, I hope you didn’t spend too much money in Fort William today, because you’re going to have to save to take me out for that dinner!’

The dent at the corner of Corran’s mouth deepened. ‘You’re a long way from earning that dinner, but I will give you a night off cooking. I splashed out on a ready-made curry.’

Not having to prepare the meal meant that Lotty could linger in her bath that evening, and she made the most of it. She was getting sick of putting on the same thing every evening but, short of ringing the changes between a camisole and a silk vest, she didn’t have much choice. On went the jeans, on went the raspberry pink cardigan that clashed so horribly with her red hair. She hadn’t thought about that when she threw a few clothes into her rucksack before she set off on the walk. She hadn’t thought it would matter what she wore in the evenings.

It didn’t matter. It was just that it might be nice to look more…feminine, more desirable.

Catching herself sighing, Lotty gave herself a mental slap. Pushing her feet into pumps, she shrugged on the cardigan and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Corran was heating up the curry.

‘Can I do anything to—’

She stopped. A spanking new cafetière sat in the middle of the kitchen table, a packet of freshly ground coffee propped against it.

‘I only bought it because I’m sick of you moaning about the instant coffee,’ said Corran before she could say anything.

Lotty couldn’t believe it. ‘You bought coffee! Real coffee! Oh, thank you!’ Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and hugged him, but even before her hands touched that solid body, she knew she’d made a mistake.

A big mistake.

Now, instead of imagining, she knew that he felt as hard and strong as he looked. She knew how safe he felt, how steady. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, smell clean cotton and clean skin and something that was just Corran.

And for one tiny moment, his arms closed around her and he held her against him. It was an instinctive response to her throwing herself at him, Lotty was sure, but it felt so good, she let herself hope foolishly that he would never let her go.

He did, of course. A beat, another, three, and then he snatched his arms from around her and stepped sharply back.

Mortified, Lotty flushed. ‘Sorry, it was just… I’m so thrilled by the idea of real coffee.’ It sounded lame, even to her.

Corran turned away to check on the rice. ‘It doesn’t take a lot to thrill you, does it?’ he said.

There was just a hint of something that might have been strain in his voice, but Lotty was still too embarrassed at the way she had thrown herself at him to wonder too much at it. She was more concerned to make sure that Corran knew she hadn’t meant anything by her hug. Keep it light, she told herself.

‘You know me,’ she said. ‘Easily excited.’

Then she wished she hadn’t said that. It sounded suggestive somehow.

There was an awkward pause. Lotty’s hands were thrumming with the feel of him. Not knowing what to do with them, she hugged her arms together and moved away as casually as she could while she tried desperately to think of something to say to break the lengthening silence.

In the end it was Corran who broke it. ‘So, how did you get on today? You weren’t too lonely?’

‘No. Well, a bit at lunchtime, maybe.’

She had sat on the beach with just Pookie for company. She had noticed the driftwood on the shingle, the birds that wheeled overhead, the colours of the hills across the loch, but it hadn’t been the same without him.

Corran put the rice and curry on the table, and Lotty pulled out a chair and sat down, still self-conscious. Her grandmother would be ashamed of her. All those years of training to put everyone at their ease no matter the circumstances, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say!

The silence stretched uncomfortably again.

‘Um…how long does it take to get to Glasgow from here?’ Lotty blurted out at last.

Corran stiffened. ‘Two or three hours.’ He shot her a sharp glance. ‘Why? Are you planning to leave?’

Leave? The thought had panic clawing at Lotty’s spine. ‘No! No,’ she said again, more calmly. ‘I’m just sick of wearing the same clothes every evening. I left a case in left luggage at the station in Glasgow and I wondered how hard it would be to go and get it on the bus. Always supposing you’d let me have a day off, of course!’

‘I don’t know about that,’ Corran said. ‘Days off? Next thing, you’ll be wanting sick pay and holidays and bonuses!’

They were both trying too hard, but it was better than that awful tense silence.

‘Just one little day off,’ Lotty pretended to wheedle. ‘I promise I won’t lift my nose from the grindstone for a minute after that!’

‘I was thinking of going down to Glasgow myself at some point,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll need to furnish and equip the cottages as we get them ready. There are big stores where you can get cheap and cheery flat pack furniture. You might as well come with me,’ he told Lotty gruffly. ‘We could pick up your case at the same time.’

‘That sounds great. Thank you!’

‘I can’t spare the time for a while yet, though,’ he warned. ‘If you’re desperate, you’d better buy yourself something in Fort William. You can do the shop next week. Don’t expect any fancy shops, though.’

Lotty parked Corran’s Land Rover and reminded herself to lock it and put the key away safely. There was no footman here to drive the car away for her, to wash it and valet it and make sure that it was full of fuel before the next time she went out. All she normally had to do was get out and walk up the steps to the palace.

It was all very different here.

Lotty was excited at the trip to Fort William on her own. This was another whole new experience for her. She had been thrilled when Corran had told her she could do the supermarket shop. That morning he had handed her a wodge of cash.

‘That’ll have to be enough,’ he said, and then he added some more notes. ‘And this is for you.’

‘For me?’

‘Your housekeeping wages,’ he explained patiently. ‘It’s not much, but you’ve earned it.’

Now that money was burning a hole in Lotty’s pocket, and she was looking forward to her day off.

Not that she wasn’t enjoying her job. Having cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, she had helped Corran do some minor repairs—filling in holes in the plaster, fixing the broken banister, replacing the kitchen window—and since then she had been painting. Lotty loved seeing how the cottage looked brighter and fresher with every stroke of the brush.

She was on her mettle about the cooking now too. Which was nothing to do with the fact that Corran was looking for a woman who could cook, because she didn’t care, did she? And there was no point in trying to impress him. Still, Lotty wanted to do better, and she thought she was improving.

A little, anyway.

Now she felt as if she had earned her morning off. As Corran had warned, the shops were far from fancy, but Lotty didn’t care. She shopped in Paris and London, but none of the very expensive designer shops she usually frequented compared to the fun of flicking anonymously through the racks in a cheap and cheerful chain store with the music thumping and a sales assistant filing her nails behind the counter and nobody paying the slightest bit of attention.

Lotty loved it.

She bought a couple of vest tops, a shirt and a cotton jumper and smiled to herself imagining her grandmother’s expression. The Dowager Blanche would be horrified by the idea of her granddaughter in cheap off-the-peg clothes, and yet Lotty had more satisfaction buying them with the money she had earned from Corran than she had ever had buying designer labels with her inheritance.

CHAPTER FIVE

THINKING of her grandmother reminded Lotty that she ought to check in with Caro and make sure that everything was all right in Montluce. She wandered around until she found an internet café and sat down at a computer with a coffee.

Caro had written a long, chatty email, and made Lotty laugh describing her first meeting with the Dowager Blanche, and her grandmother’s beloved pug. It was strange reading her friend’s reaction to the palace and to Philippe, but she sounded in fine form, which was a big relief to Lotty, who had known just what a big deal it was when she had asked Caro to stand in as Philippe’s girlfriend.

The Dowager Blanche had been intent on making a match between Lotty and Philippe ever since his father had become Crown Prince of Montluce, and Caro had agreed to act as a decoy while Lotty escaped. She had told her grandmother that she was too embarrassed to stay in Montluce with Philippe flaunting his new girlfriend, which hadn’t predisposed the Dowager Blanche to like Caro very much. Knowing how intimidating her grandmother could be, Lotty hoped she hadn’t been too caustic to Caro. But Caro had obviously taken it all in good spirits, and was even generous enough to feel sorry for the Dowager.

I think that beneath all the guff about duty and responsibility and behaving like a princess, she’s really worried about you, Caro had written.

Lotty sighed. She knew that Caro was right. Her grandmother had controlled every aspect of her life since her mother had died—and probably before then, knowing the Dowager. She was a small, erect woman with a rigid composure and an excoriating tongue. Everyone in Montluce respected and adored her in equal measure.

Lotty felt much the same. She knew her grandmother loved her, but the Dowager didn’t believe in open displays of affection. Lotty had not been allowed to run around and behave like other children. For as long as she could remember, she had been good and done what was expected of her.

Other members of the royal family, like Philippe, had escaped, refusing to be crushed under the burden of duty and privilege, but Lotty had never dared stand up to her grandmother.

Until now.

Lotty drafted a careful email to the Dowager’s private secretary, saying that she was safe and well, and another to Caro, telling her about what she’d been doing. Caro would laugh at the idea of her peeling potatoes or making tea, but Lotty was still loving it. She wasn’t ready to go back to being dutiful just yet.

It was hard to shake off a lifetime of being good, though, and Lotty couldn’t help feeling selfish and guilty as she drove back to Loch Mhoraigh House that afternoon. She had had such a lovely time pushing a supermarket trolley along the aisles. Even queuing to buy cheese from the delicatessen counter was fun. Lotty had never queued before, and it was a thrill to take a ticket and wait for her number to be called like everyone else.

On the way home, she stopped in the village to buy the basic items she could get at the shop there. Corran always shrugged off any suggestion that he try and improve his relationship with the community, claiming that he had more important things to do, but Lotty thought it was a shame. The least they could do was support the local shop, she said. He was lucky to have one so close.

Not that the shop offered a big range of stock.

It had a post office counter at the back, and a small selection of basic goods. A plump woman with tightly permed grey hair and winged glasses presided behind the counter. She eyed Lotty with interest as she carried over milk and butter.

‘You’ll be working up at the big house?’

Unused to the way information travelled in village communities, Lotty was amazed. ‘How did you know?’

‘That’s Corran McKenna’s Land Rover you’re driving,’ she said, which was a pretty big clue when Lotty thought about it. ‘Besides,’ she went on as she rang up the milk and butter, ‘they said at the hotel that you’d gone up there. We’d all expected to see you back before now.’

‘No, I like it there,’ said Lotty. ‘I’m hoping to stay a couple of months. Corran’s doing a great job,’ she added loyally.

‘Aye, well, his heart was always there, even as a wee boy.’

‘Oh, you know him?’

‘I did. I was Cook up at the big house for a while.’

‘You’re Mrs McPherson?’ said Lotty in delight.

‘I am.’

‘Corran told me about your scones.’

Mrs McPherson flushed with pleasure and settled herself more comfortably against the counter. ‘I used to make them for him specially,’

she confided. ‘I felt sorry for the lad. It was shameful the way they treated him, it was. I’m not saying he was an easy boy, but that child practically brought himself up. His father had no time for him, and his mother never cared what anyone thought of her. What a minx she was!’ She sniffed disapprovingly. ‘She was English, you know.’

Then she paused, evidently realising what she had said. ‘Of course, not like you.’

Lotty couldn’t help smiling at her discomfiture. ‘I’m not English,’ she reassured her.

‘Is that so? You sound English.’

‘That’s because I went to school in England. I’m actually from Montluce.’

She waited to be told that Montluce was part of France but, to her consternation, it turned out that Betty McPherson was an avid reader of gossip magazines, and knew all about Lotty’s country and the crisis in finding a successor to her father.

‘What a time that poor family has had!’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Yes, it’s been difficult for them,’ said Lotty, beginning to wish that she had kept her mouth shut. But she couldn’t bring herself to deny her own country.

Mrs McPherson seemed to have followed the crisis in such detail that Lotty had a few moments’ anxiety in case she was recognised, but the older woman didn’t seem to have made the connection between the elegant Princess Charlotte and the scruffily dressed girl who stood in front of her. It was partly a question of expectation, Lotty knew, but she was glad that she had had her hair cut nonetheless, and perhaps the red hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

As soon as she could, she changed the subject by asking for Mrs McPherson’s scone recipe. Her first attempt to make scones had been a disaster and left the kitchen full of smoke. Fortunately, this proved to be an effective diversion, and it was some time before she was able to escape, sent on her way with lengthy instructions.

‘And don’t forget to dust the baking tray with flour,’ was Mrs McPherson’s parting shot, which meant nothing to Lotty. She smiled anyway and waved from the door, hoping that she was going to be able to remember it all.

As soon as she got back to Loch Mhoraigh House, she rushed into the kitchen and tried to put Mrs McPherson’s instructions into effect, but if anything that batch of scones were worse than the ones she’d made before.

And that was saying something.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Corran, but Lotty wouldn’t give up. How hard could it be to make scones?

Mrs McPherson made it sound so easy. The recipe books made it sound easy. So why couldn’t she do it? Was she really so lacking in any talent or ability? The more she thought about it, the more depressed Lotty got.

What, really, was she good for? Smiling and shaking hands. That was it. She was going to have to go home to Montluce and all she would have to show for it would be some broken fingernails. Yes, she had acquired a few basic skills like peeling a potato or painting a wall, but neither was exactly challenging. Lotty was terribly afraid that when it came down to it, she was just the pampered princess that the anti-royalists thought her after all. A smiling face. A walking clothes hanger. Nothing more than that.

What if that was all she was?

Raoul the Wolf would be ashamed of her.

Lotty kept thinking about her grandmother, whose spine of steel never bent, who would never, ever admit that a member of the royal house of Montluce was beaten.

So she kept on making scones, as if that would prove something, although whether it was to her grandmother or herself or her illustrious ancestors Lotty was never quite clear.

And the scones kept turning out flat and hard.

‘I really don’t understand why it matters so much,’ said Corran, as Lotty gazed despondently at that day’s flat offering.

‘I just want to be able to do something well,’ she tried to explain.

‘You do lots of things well,’ said Corran impatiently.

‘Like what?’

He hesitated. ‘See?’ she pounced on him. ‘You can’t think of anything!’ Her face crumpled. ‘I’m useless!’

‘You’re not useless. What a ridiculous thing to say!’

Corran glowered at her. He wanted to tell her how she had changed the feel of the house just by being there. How he looked forward to coming in at the end of a long day and seeing her at the range, stirring some sauce with a dubious expression. How she lit up a gloomy day with her smile.

But he didn’t know how to say it without making it sound as if he wanted her. Which he didn’t.

Much.

Lotty was the last kind of woman he wanted to get involved with, Corran had to remind himself every day after yet another night haunted by the image of her in the bath. The pure line of her throat seemed to be etched into his brain and, no matter how hard he tried not to look, his eyes would catch on the sweet curve of her mouth.

She worked with a steely determination that would put many men far stronger than her to shame, but she was beautiful and, even tired and dirty and despondent, there was a glamour to Lotty that made Corran leery.

There was no place for glamour at Loch Mhoraigh House. His own mother had been a perfect example of how disastrous it could be when you took someone out of their natural milieu, and his brief marriage to Ella had simply underscored that. Corran wasn’t making that mistake again. When he had time for a relationship again, it would be with someone who belonged here, someone who could offer practical support and do more than look decorative.

Already he was getting too used to having Lotty around. It made Corran uneasy. ‘You’re just looking for attention,’ he told her crossly.

‘You can’t think of anything, can you?’

Corran could feel himself being driven into a corner. ‘You’re good with Pookie,’ he offered at last.

It was true too. With Lotty to shower attention on him, Pookie had settled down and wasn’t nearly as irritating. He still looked more like a toy than a dog, but he could be appealing enough when he tried. Sometimes when he sat on the sofa Pookie lay beside him on his back to have his tummy scratched and Corran found himself obliging.

Lotty was looking unconvinced. ‘And you’re a whizz with a broom,’ he tried again, but the face she made at him showed what she thought of that as an accomplishment.

‘Those sausages you cooked yesterday were pretty good.’

‘They were burnt!’

‘I read somewhere that charcoal is good for you.’

A tiny smile quivered at the corner of her mouth. ‘You’re just trying to indulge me.’

‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get a meal on the table,’ he said acidly. ‘What gastronomic treat do we have tonight?’

‘Mince again. It’s all we’ve got left,’ she added, seeing Corran’s involuntary grimace. They had been eating a lot of mince recently. It was one of the few things she had learnt to cook without burning and even Corran was getting sick of it.

‘We’ll stock up again tomorrow on the way back from Glasgow,’ he said. ‘We can collect your case, buy some furniture and do a supermarket session on the way home. If we’ve got to waste a day, we may as well do everything at once.’

‘What do you mean, you haven’t got the code?’ Corran looked at Lotty in exasperation. They were standing in front of the left luggage lockers, which were cleverly locked with a digital code.

‘It was printed on a bit of paper and I put it in my purse to keep it safe.’

‘The same purse you left on a pub table?’

She nodded guiltily. ‘I’d forgotten all about it until we got here. I’m really sorry it’s a wasted journey.’

‘You can’t be the only idiot who loses the code. We’re not leaving here without that case,’ Corran said. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered and strode off.

Lotty wasn’t at all surprised to see him come back with a station official a few minutes later. He might not be able to lay on the charm, but he was competent. If something needed to be done, you could rely on Corran to do it.

She clearly wasn’t required to do anything more than stand and look helpless, which wasn’t hard, while Corran told the official how stupid and careless she had been. She did her best to seem crushed, but the truth was that she loved being ticked off.

‘You might at least have the decency to look ashamed,’ Corran said, not fooled by her downcast expression. ‘Look at all the trouble you’ve put this poor man to—not to mention the trouble you’ve put me to!’

Lotty hung her head. ‘You’re right. I’m really sorry.’

Corran looked at her suspiciously but she tucked in the corners of her mouth and kept her lips firmly pressed together until her case was safely retrieved, at which point she offered the official a dazzling smile.

‘Thank you so much.’

‘There’s no need to lay it on with a trowel,’ Corran muttered, carrying her case in one hand and steering Lotty out of the station with the other.

‘Trowel?’ she echoed, puzzled.

‘You know what I mean. Smiling at that poor man, making those big eyes at him…’

Lotty stared at him. ‘I thought you wanted me to thank him?’

‘A simple thank you would have been fine. You didn’t need to fawn over him.’

‘You know you’re being completely unreasonable, don’t you?’

‘I’m just saying.’

‘I would thank you too if you weren’t being so crabby.’ Lotty slid a glance at him under her lashes. ‘Seriously, thank you, Corran,’ she said after a moment. ‘It means a lot to have my case back.’

‘You didn’t need me,’ he said grouchily. ‘All you had to do was smile at that man and he’d have opened every locker in the place for you.’

If she didn’t know better, Lotty might even have thought he was jealous.

‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said, and was afraid that it was true.

Her case safely stowed in the back of the Land Rover, they then spent a trying afternoon buying furniture.

Corran was not a good shopper. The store was a cavernous warehouse with a complicated system of ordering by codes, and he was too impatient to take any interest in the process. ‘God, what a nightmare,’ he said, rubbing a hand over his hair. ‘Let’s do this quickly and get out.’

To everyone else they must have looked like any of the other couples there, Lotty thought. She found herself watching them wistfully, wondering what it would be like to be choosing furniture for your first home with someone you were planning to spend the rest of your life with. How much more fun than moving into palace apartments furnished with priceless antiques and every comfort you could possibly imagine, none of which you had chosen yourself.

She suppressed a sigh. A second glance would certainly have convinced anyone watching that she and Corran weren’t like everyone else. They didn’t touch each other, or confer with their heads together. Instead, Corran marched through the store, determined to get the job done as quickly as possible.

‘A chair is a chair,’ he said briskly, scribbling down the code for the first armchair he came across.

Lotty looked at him in disbelief. ‘That’ll look awful in the cottage,’ she protested. ‘It’s absolutely horrible.’

‘It’s a holiday let. Nobody’s going to care what they sit on.’

‘I care,’ said Lotty firmly. ‘I haven’t done all that painting for you to spoil everything with horrible furniture! You want the cottages to look simple and stylish, not cheap and nasty. If you’re going to charge people to stay, it’s the least they’re going to expect.’

‘Oh, very well,’ Corran grumbled, scratching out the code. ‘You choose, then.’

So it was Lotty who picked out beds and chests and a table and chairs, and a simple colourful sofa for the living room. She added bedding and towels, lamps and tablecloths, and a complete set of kitchen equipment to the list, before handing it back to Corran to go and pay for it all.

He squinted at it. ‘Are you sure we need all this stuff?’

‘If you’re advertising a furnished cottage, you’re going to have to furnish it,’ Lotty pointed out crisply.

And it was Lotty who charmed the assistant into arranging a separate delivery so that they left with just a brightly checked cloth for the kitchen table in Loch Mhoraigh House. ‘Haven’t we spent enough money?’ he grumbled when Lotty picked it up.

‘A few pounds isn’t going to make much difference after all you’ve spent on the cottages,’ she said. ‘The kitchen is so bare at the moment. A cloth will make it look more welcoming.’

‘Welcoming for who?’ demanded Corran, tucking the credit card receipt away in his wallet. ‘We’re the only people who ever see the kitchen.’

‘It’s a shame. It’s a lovely house,’ said Lotty, who was still saddened by the echoing rooms and the bare patches where pictures had clearly been hanging on the walls for generations. ‘It needs a lot of love.’

‘It needs a lot of money,’ said Corran, holding open the door for her as they headed out to the car park. ‘Money I don’t have at the moment. Once the cottages are up and running, I’m going to invite some financial types to come and have a look, see what we’ve done. If they’re impressed and can see some potential, I’m hoping they’ll consider investing in the estate as a whole, but the house is way down my priority list. I need new breeding stock, not tablecloths!’

‘I can see that,’ said Lotty, ‘but I still think it’s a pity the house isn’t more comfortable. It wouldn’t take much to make it nice, and then you could invite people round.’

‘What people?’ asked Corran sarcastically. ‘No one from the village will set foot in Loch Mhoraigh House while I’m there.’

‘Have you asked them?’

Corran’s lips tightened as he opened the passenger door of the Land Rover for her. ‘We’ve been through this, Lotty,’ he reminded her shortly. ‘I haven’t got time to sit around being social. I don’t care if the entire village is queuing up to be invited in.’

Lotty wasn’t ready to let it go. ‘You should be part of the community,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Quite apart from anything else, how are you going to meet that sensible wife when you’re a recluse?’

‘I’m not a recluse.’ Irritation gave Corran’s tone a sharp edge. ‘I’m just busy at the moment. And I’ve certainly got no money to spend tarting up the house for non-existent visitors!’

Lotty held the bright tablecloth on her knees. She hated the thought that the village distrusted Corran so much. If they could just meet him and get to know him, she was sure they would realise that he wasn’t the monster his brother seemed to have painted him.

‘I hope you’ll get round to it one day,’ she said as Corran started the engine. ‘I’d like to think of the house brought back to life as well as the cottages. It must have been wonderful in its heyday. It’s the kind of house that should be full of people, and have lots of children and dogs running around,’ she added wistfully.

‘Well, I’ve got the dogs,’ said Corran. ‘If you can count Pookie as a dog!’

He threw an arm along the back of Lotty’s seat as he put the Land Rover into reverse and swung round to look over his shoulder. Lotty was very conscious of his hand near her shoulder. If he lifted it just a little bit, he could caress her neck.

If he wanted to.

Which he didn’t.

She swallowed.

‘I think you’ll miss Pookie when your mother gets back,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the way you tickle his tummy sometimes when you think I’m not looking! Under that tough exterior, you’re just a softie.’

Corran finished manoeuvring out of the tight parking space before he glanced at Lotty. ‘I only do that to shut him up,’ he said, but there was a definite hint of a smile around his mouth all the same.

How did he do that, smile and not smile at the same time? It made Lotty feel very strange. One look at his mouth doing that not-quite-smiling thing, and she ended up feeling hollow and light-headed and sort of…fizzy.

She made herself look away.

‘Anyway,’ Corran went on, fortunately unaware of her reaction, ‘the chances are that my mother will have forgotten all about Pookie by the time she gets home. She’ll have moved on to some new enthusiasm, and it’ll be, Oh, darling, I’m sure he’d be so much happier if he stayed with you. And then I’ll be stuck with him!’ Corran shook his head. ‘Another ten years or so of calling a dog Pookie! Meg won’t be able to hold her head up with the shame of it! At least she’s a proper dog, who can bring the sheep in off the hill. What’s Pookie good for?’

‘He’s a companion,’ Lotty managed.

‘I don’t need a companion,’ he said. ‘I need a dog who’s some use to me.’

Just like he needed a wife who was some use to him, thought Lotty sadly.

Corran moved the gear lever into first. Now his hand was near her knee. The same hand that could have stroked her neck, if only he had moved it just a little.

Lotty wrenched her eyes away from it. Her mouth was dry. The Land Rover felt as if it had shrunk since they had driven down to Glasgow that morning. Now the sides were pressing in around her, pushing all the spare oxygen out of the vehicle and making the air twang under the pressure.

Nothing had changed, Lotty told herself. She was the same, Corran was the same, the Land Rover was the same.

She had spent too much time watching all those couples, that was all. It had made her twitchy. All that time she had spent reminding herself to be cool and careful around Corran, and now she might as well not have bothered. She was agonisingly aware of him beside her, and she shifted in her seat, desperate to find a way to convince him—or herself—that her heart wasn’t pounding and her throat wasn’t tight. Everything was just the same.

‘The children will love Pookie,’ she made herself say.

Corran stared at her. ‘What children?’

‘Well… I presume you’re thinking of having a family?’

‘I’m not married yet!’

‘Loch Mhoraigh would be a lovely place to bring up children,’ Lotty persevered, not even sure why she was making such a big deal of it. ‘You should have lots, and make sure their childhood isn’t like yours.’

Corran swung the Land Rover into the main road and put his foot on the accelerator. ‘I haven’t got time for any of that,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ve got the cottages to finish, an estate to get back on its feet, and then—maybe!—I can turn my attention to the house and finding another wife. It’ll be time enough then to talk about having children,’ he said. ‘That’s years down the line! Having a child now would be a disaster, just like it was for my parents. I’ve got far more important things to think about before then.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like getting new breeding stock, improving my herds. I need to buy some good rams in October.’

‘I’ve hardly seen any sheep,’ Lotty realised.

‘That’s because they’re all up on the hills at the moment. You’ll see plenty come September when we take the sheep to market,’ said Corran.

But in September she would be gone. ‘I’d like to see that,’ Lotty said in a level voice, ‘but I won’t be here then.’

She looked out of the window, suddenly bleak. In September she would be back in Montluce, back to her life as Princess Charlotte, always good, always obliging. A princess who never behaved badly. Who never sulked or lost her temper or felt herself burning up with desire.

And Corran would be here, taking his sheep to market, Meg at his heels and Pookie under his feet, bringing the estate back to life, without her.

Perhaps it would all be for the best. If her grandmother finally gave up the idea of her marrying Philippe, Lotty might be allowed to meet someone else. There had to be some prince or count somewhere the Dowager Blanche would deem a suitable match. Someone who understood royal life, who would know how to behave and how to smile and shake hands, who would be a dignified consort for Princess Charlotte of Montluce. Then Lotty could be married and lose her tiresome virginity to her husband. It would be sweet. It would be safe. It would be sensible.

But Lotty didn’t want sweet and sensible. She didn’t want suitable. She didn’t even want safe.

Not yet.

This might be the only chance she ever had to be reckless, her only chance to take what she wanted without worrying about what the papers might say, or how her grandmother would react.

All those ancestors had had a chance to live dangerously, one way or another. Why not her?

A little fling, a brief affair… Was that so much to ask for?

Absently Lotty rubbed her thumb over her poor, cracked fingernails and allowed herself to revisit the question that had been simmering at the back of her mind ever since that first bath at Loch Mhoraigh.

Why not ask Corran?

Under her lashes, she watched Corran driving with the same cool competence he did everything else. The long, solid body was relaxed, his eyes narrowed, the big hands very sure on the wheel. The flex of muscles in his thigh when he braked sent such a surge of lust through her that she was dizzy with it.

It wasn’t as if Corran was involved with anyone else. He was a free agent, and so was she.

So why not?

Of course, she wasn’t Corran’s type. He’d made it clear that he was looking for quite a different kind of woman, but that just made it better, didn’t it? There would be no problem about her leaving after a couple of months. She could say goodbye and he would never know who she really was. Not that Lotty thought Corran was the kind of man who would tattle to the tabloids, but who knew really? How I seduced virgin princess was a story some papers would pay a lot of money for, and the Mhoraigh estate was badly in need of cash.

Besides, she didn’t want him to know she was a princess. She wanted him to think of her as an ordinary girl. She wanted him to make love to her as an ordinary girl. She couldn’t bear it if he suddenly started treating her carefully. No, she wouldn’t tell him, ever.

He was single, attractive, and they were alone together most of the time. If she wanted to lose her virginity, Lotty thought, she might never have a better chance.

Why not Corran?

The sensible side of Lotty, the side that wasn’t giddy with desire, pointed out that she had no idea how to go about seducing a man and that, even if she did, Corran wasn’t the kind of man who would fall for any tricks. There was something dauntingly unflirtable about him. She simply wouldn’t dare.

So there was no point in thinking about it any more.

Only that didn’t stop her nerves crisping every time Corran reached for the gearstick between them. Every time he shifted his hands on the wheel or flicked a glance up at the rear view mirror, she found herself sucking in her breath. And every time she would wonder what it would be like if she did dare ask him to be her lover.

Because then she would be able to put her hand on that long, tantalising thigh. She would be able to look at the uncompromising line of his jaw without feeling sick with longing.

She would know what it felt like to press her lips to his throat. She would know the hard planes of his body, the shift of his muscles, the touch of his hands.

Lotty began to feel feverish. Fixing her eyes desperately on the road ahead, she swallowed and twisted her fingers together.

‘Are you all right?’

Corran’s abrupt question made her jump. ‘Fine,’ she said brightly. Too brightly. ‘Absolutely fine.’

‘You’re very quiet.’

‘Am I? I suppose I was just thinking about going home.’

‘It’s not much further,’ said Corran. ‘Another hour, maybe.’

‘No, I meant home to Montluce.’

There was a pause. ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’ The silence lengthened uncomfortably. Corran cleared his throat. ‘I don’t know anything about your country. What’s it like there?’

Lotty looked out of the window, remembering her home. ‘Everything’s on a small scale in Montluce. It’s like a fairy tale country in lots of ways. Mountains, lakes, castles, little old towns. It’s pretty.’

Her eyes rested on the great sweeps of hillside, their starkness softened and turned to gold in the early evening sun. ‘Here, it’s…wilder. Grander somehow.’ A sigh escaped her. ‘I’m going to miss it.’

‘Do you have to go?’ Corran asked. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the road ahead, and it sounded to Lotty as if the question had been forced out of him.

‘Yes,’ she said on a breath. ‘Yes, I do.’

Three months, she had agreed with Philippe, who was only standing in as regent while his father, the Crown Prince, was recovering from a major illness. The moment his father was better, Philippe would be leaving Montluce, he had told Lotty frankly, and that meant the country would need a first lady once more. Who better than Princess Charlotte, who had spent years doing the job for her own father? She had the perfect combination of warmth and dignity. The people loved her.

Ever since she was a child, Lotty had had the importance of duty and responsibility dinned into her. Her grandmother hadn’t hesitated to point out that Lotty would be monumentally selfish if she insisted on her own life after her father had died. How could she even think about refusing and letting the new Crown Prince down? How could she think about letting her country down?

She couldn’t. This was the only rebellion Lotty could allow herself.

‘I have to go back,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a choice.’

‘But not yet?’

Was that a hint of anxiety in his voice? Lotty swivelled in her seat to look at him, longing to believe that it was true. His eyes were flickering between road and mirrors, but his jaw was set. She could see the tension jumping in his cheek.

‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘not yet.’

CHAPTER SIX

THREE months, Lotty had given herself. She had been here for three weeks already…was she going to make the rest of the remaining time?

It was all very well deciding to do something about the lust that had her in its grip, but how exactly was she going to go about it? Lotty squirmed in her seat, mentally rehearsing scenes.

Should she just grab Corran once they got back to the house and hope he got the idea? She couldn’t see herself having the nerve to do that, descendant of Raoul the Wolf or not.

Or she could lead up to the question in a diplomatic fashion. I was wondering what your views were on brief flings? she could ask him, and then if he said that he was all for them, that would give her an opening at least.

Or perhaps she should be grown up and discuss the matter openly as two consenting adults.

Yes, grown-up was good, but the more Lotty tried to think about how such a conversation might go, the deeper she lost herself in a morass of euphemisms. Perhaps the grabbing option wasn’t such a bad one, after all.

One thing became clear to Lotty during that interminable drive. It had been a mistake to bottle up the physical attraction she felt. Something about being shut up in the Land Rover with Corran for so long seemed to have acted as a pressure cooker, and choosing furniture together had merely lifted the lid on her feelings, which were now threatening to explode out of control.

Lotty was alarmed by the way her hands were twitching and she had to clutch them together in her lap in case they wandered over to Corran of their own accord. She felt physically ill: giddy and slightly nauseous, her heart pounding, her throat dry. Was it normal to believe that the only way she could ever feel better again was if she could touch him?

If only she had more experience, she would know what to do. Was the chance of being able to coil herself around him and press her mouth to that pulse beating in his throat worth the risk of making a monumental fool of herself? Lotty couldn’t decide. She couldn’t think. She could just sit there and give up on the idea of pretending that she didn’t want him, while the air in the Land Rover grew tauter and tauter with every mile.

When they drew up in the stable yard behind Loch Mhoraigh House, Lotty practically threw herself out of the Land Rover to gulp at the fresh air, only to find that her legs were so weak that she had to hang on to the door.

Perhaps she really was ill?

Lotty told herself to get a grip. She was distracted for a little while by unpacking the shopping, and she made herself breathe deeply: in, out, in, out. Not too difficult once you had got the hang of it. She was very glad Corran had left her to it while he took the dogs out. Pookie was thoroughly overexcited after being left all day.

‘I’ve put your case upstairs,’ Corran said briefly before he left.

She would be able to change into something decent for a change. Lotty clung to the hope that wearing clothes from her old life would remind her that she was a princess, not a skittish, fever-eyed girl in a frenzy of lust. She would put on the clothes she wore in the palace, and she would miraculously become sensible and dignified again.

Only it didn’t work out like that.

Lotty remembered packing her most casual clothes, but everything she pulled out of the case looked far too smart for Loch Mhoraigh House. She was half inclined to put it all back, but having made such a fuss about getting the suitcase back, it would look odd if she didn’t wear anything from it.

She chose the most relaxed outfit she could find—a pair of loose trousers and a silk knit top, a scarf knotted casually at her throat—but, far from restoring her to her normal regal self, the slip of the luxurious materials against her skin only made her feel more edgy. Every cell in her body seemed to be jangling with awareness. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, or her feet, and she couldn’t settle to anything.

Corran was checking the oven but he glanced up briefly when Lotty went into the kitchen, and then did a double take. Closing the oven door, he straightened slowly.

‘You look very elegant,’ he said.

Elegant. It was a horrible word, Lotty decided. It was cold and restrained. She didn’t want to be elegant. She wanted to be foxy. She wanted to be sexy. She wanted to be hot.

And elegant didn’t belong at Loch Mhoraigh either. Elegant was out of place, just like she was, Lotty thought miserably.

They had bought a ready meal to heat up for supper, but Lotty was too tense to enjoy the break from cooking. The soft trousers whispered against her legs whenever she shifted in her seat, and with every stretch of her arm, every lift of her hand, the silky top caressed her bare skin. She wished she had her old jeans and pink cardigan on again, or—even better—her filthy working clothes. Anything would be better than sitting there, simmering, unable to think about anything except her own body and Corran sitting across the table.

She was preternaturally aware of him, of his fingers holding the foil packet steady as he helped himself, of the broad, strong wrists. She couldn’t risk looking into those iceberg eyes, but her gaze skittered around the rest of his face, from the dark brows to the forceful nose, across his cheek to his temple, along the uncompromising line of his jaw, and always back to his mouth.

That mouth.

Lotty’s pulse was roaring in her ears. She couldn’t believe that she had spent every other evening sitting at this same table, happily chatting to Corran. At least, she had chatted happily and Corran had offered caustic comments, but it had been comfortable.

It wasn’t comfortable now.

How could one day have changed so much? It wasn’t as if anything had happened. All they had done was sit in the Land Rover, and walk around two stores. And yet it felt as if a fault line had appeared between them, shifting the world out of kilter, and squeezing all the air out of the atmosphere. Lotty had years of experience of stilted situations. She knew just what to do to move the conversation on, to make people relax and smile.

But not now. She felt like a hot air balloon, precariously tethered, and it would take only one little tug and she would just float away out of control. It was all she could do to keep herself in her chair. So their lame attempts at conversation kept getting stuck while Lotty pushed her food around her plate.

‘Not hungry?’

‘Not really.’

‘Me neither,’ said Corran, pushing the plate aside. ‘Let’s go out.’

Lotty looked at him blankly. ‘Out?’

‘I’m stir crazy after a whole day indoors or in the car. I need some exercise. We could go for a walk.’

Lotty’s heart was beating high and hard in her throat. ‘OK.’

Outside, it was one of those long, soft Highland evenings she had come to love so much. Corran had told her it was a different story in winter, when the days were short and it was dark and bitterly cold, but in June the sun was only just setting at half past nine, and the cloudless sky was washed with an uncanny orange light.

The breeze ruffling the surface of the loch still carried the warmth of the day, but Lotty was hugging her arms together and her shoulders were hunched with tension.

‘Cold?’ Corran asked her. ‘Do you want to go back and get a jacket?’

‘No, I’m just… No, it’s fine.’ He could see her making an effort to relax her shoulders. ‘I’m fine,’ she said again, but she tucked her hair behind her ears in a gesture he had seen her make before when she was uncertain.

She had been tense all afternoon. Corran couldn’t put his finger on when things had changed. She had been her usual self on the way down to Glasgow, but gradually the ease had leaked out of the air, and then she had started talking about going home.

Her home, which wasn’t Loch Mhoraigh at all. Corran had been conscious of a nasty jolt at the reminder. Of course, he knew that Lotty wasn’t going to be there permanently—that had been the deal, after all—but he hadn’t thought she’d be thinking about going home yet.

He hadn’t thought at all. He’d just got used to Lotty being there. She’d turned into a more useful worker than Corran would ever have imagined and between them they were making good progress on the cottages. Which would explain the rush of relief when she had said that she wasn’t leaving immediately, of course.

Corran didn’t want to think about an alternative explanation.

On the whole he was glad Lotty had reminded him that she was only there temporarily. For some reason she was making a point of it today. Corran almost hadn’t recognised her when she came into the kitchen earlier. She was wearing trousers and a top, just as she had done every evening, but that outfit screamed sophistication and style. And money. Corran didn’t know much about clothes, but even he could see that it must have cost a lot of money. He wondered how many rams he could have bought for the cost of that pair of trousers.

She looked different. Elegant, expensive, a creature from a different world. She made Ella’s fashionable wardrobe look cheap. She didn’t look like she belonged at Mhoraigh any more.

And that was a good thing, Corran tried to convince himself. It made it easier for him to ignore the way her mouth tilted when she smiled. Made it easier to pretend that the blood didn’t rush to his head every time he looked into those luminous grey eyes.

She was walking beside him in silence, fiddling with the inevitable scarf at her neck, slender, straight-backed, those trousers swishing around her legs. Her face was averted slightly, and that meant he could let his eyes rest on the pure line of her throat as it swept down from her ear and curved into her shoulder. Sometimes Corran let himself imagine kissing his way down it…

He pushed the thought aside with a scowl. What was the point? Lotty was the last kind of woman he needed, Corran reminded himself. She didn’t belong here any more than Ella would have done, any more than his mother had done. There was no point in imagining what it would be like to draw her close and taste that soft, sweet mouth, to gentle his hands down her spine and discover if her skin was as warm and smooth as it looked.

No point at all.

Corran didn’t even know why he had suggested this walk. It was just reminding him how out of place Lotty was. And yet somehow she looked completely right here with the hills and the water. Somehow she felt right walking by his side.

Still thoroughly overexcited by their return, Pookie jumped around Meg, who did her best to ignore him as she trotted at Corran’s heels. They walked past the beach where they had lunch, and on around the loch side until the track petered into a narrow deer path which led at last to a perfect curve of beach at the end of the loch. Behind, the hills soared up into the sky, while the loch stretched gleaming down the glen.

Lotty just stood and looked for a while. Then she drew a long breath. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she said.

‘I always think of this as my beach,’ said Corran. ‘I used to come here all the time. No one ever found me—not that they would ever have looked.’

He sat down on the ledge of tufty grass, stretching his legs out onto the shingle. After a moment, Lotty sat down beside him, close but not touching.

The spectacular light was fading slowly from orange to a purplish colour, but it wouldn’t get properly dark until well after midnight. It was lovely to be out without the midges pestering and Lotty leant back on her hands and lifted her face to the breeze. She could hear it rustling over the grass, and the faint slap of the little waves ruffling the water.

And the boom of her pulse.

Corran was very close. He was looking out over the loch. Lotty could see the heart-wrenching line of his jaw and the very edge of his mouth. She wanted to tear her eyes away, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t stop thinking about how it would feel to touch him.

Then he turned his head and all the air left her lungs in a whoosh.

‘You’re very quiet,’ he said. ‘What are you thinking about?’

Lotty felt as if she were teetering on the edge of a cliff. If she stepped off, she could never step back.

She stepped anyway. Almost before she had thought of what she was going to say, she had opened her mouth and the words came out as if they had a will of their own.

‘I’m wondering if I dare ask you to k-kiss me.’

There was a long, long silence, while her words echoed out over the water and rang up in the hills. K-kiss me. K-kiss me. K-kiss me.

‘Do you?’ said Corran at last.

‘Do I what?’ She could feel embarrassment prickling beneath her skin as the colour crept up her throat.

‘Do you dare?’

Lotty drew a breath. ‘What would you say if I did?’

A suspicion of a smile hovered at the edge of his mouth. ‘I think I’d be able to oblige.’

‘Oh.’ The wretched colour deepened. This was when some darkness would help. She pulled at the grass beside her. ‘The thing is…I should warn you…I’ve never had a boyfriend.’

It wasn’t often she caught Corran by surprise, but he definitely blinked. ‘What, never?’

‘No.’ She moistened her lips. She had started, so she might as well tell him it all. She couldn’t be any more embarrassed anyway.

She went back to plucking at the grass, not looking at him. ‘I’m a v-virgin. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to have this time by myself. I know it can’t last for ever, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to…to…lose my virginity,’ she finished in a rush.

‘It would just be a temporary thing,’ she hurried on before Corran could speak. She was desperate to get it all out before she lost her nerve completely. ‘I know I’m not your type. It’s just…I wondered…’ Moistening her lips, she took a determined breath. ‘The thing is, I wanted a lover, only I wasn’t sure how to go about finding one and I just wondered, well, I thought…’

‘…that I would do?’ Corran suggested when she ran out of steam.

But he didn’t sound offended and, when Lotty risked a glance at him, she saw that the dent at the corner of his mouth had definitely deepened. Warmth bloomed deep inside her.

‘Well, there isn’t anyone else out here,’ she pointed out, just so that he knew that she wasn’t planning to get too involved.

‘No, there isn’t, is there?’

Reaching out, Corran ran an unhurried knuckle down Lotty’s cheek, and her throat tightened at the tenderness of the gesture from the hard hand.

‘Why don’t we start with a kiss and take it from there?’ he suggested.

‘OK.’ Lotty tucked her hair behind her ears and cleared her throat. Now that it had come to it, she was terrified and excited and very nervous that she wouldn’t do it right.

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t been kissed before either?’

‘Not really.’ How could she explain to Corran about the lonely pedestal she lived on, or how closely protected she had been by her grandmother all her life?

‘Incredible,’ he said, his eyes searching her face. ‘Like a princess in a fairy tale, locked away, waiting for a kiss…’

Lotty’s gaze slid from his. ‘Something like that.’

Corran shook his head in disbelief as he laid his palm against her cheek. ‘Are you going to ask me, then?’

The air was soft and sweet but Lotty shivered at his touch as he slid his hand down to her throat.

‘Please would you kiss me?’ she asked politely, and then he did smile. He really smiled, and something blossomed inside her. She had dreamt about seeing Corran smile like that, about seeing the hard mouth soften and the cold eyes warm, and the cheeks crease with amusement, and her heart contracted at the sight.

‘Yes, I’ll do that,’ he said, but he still didn’t kiss her. Instead he twisted his fingers around the scarf and drew it slowly from her throat. Lotty felt the coolness of the silk sliding over her skin and she closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the fizzy rush of anticipation and nervousness.

At last…at last!

Corran’s lips touched the corner of her mouth, and her eyes flew open in dismay. ‘Is that it?’ she said, unable to keep the disappointment from her voice.

‘No.’ His smile deepened. ‘That’s not it. That’s just the start. Come here,’ he said, pulling her close so that he could trail tantalising kisses along her jaw to her earlobe and then down to the pulse that was beating frantically in her throat.

Lotty arched her head back instinctively and her fingers curled in the grass. His lips were so warm, so sure as they made their way back towards her mouth, and then he was torturing her with slow kisses on the other side. It was agonizing. It was wonderful. Lotty’s senses were spinning with the wicked, delicious pleasure of it even as she burned with frustration.

And then his mouth reached hers at last, and the pleasure rocketed into a new urgency, a hunger that had her hands lifting instinctively to his shoulders so that she could hold on to him. His lips were warm and sure on hers, while his tongue teased until she parted her own and he took her with him as they sank down into the grass so he could kiss her in a way she’d only ever dreamed of before, long, long kisses, hungry but unhurried.

Lotty gave herself up to the sheer sensuous pleasure of it. Beneath her, the grass prickled her neck but she didn’t care. She felt only the warm weight of Corran pressing her down into the ground, his hard hands sliding insistently over her thigh, slipping beneath her top to trace patterns of fire on her bare skin. It felt so good to be able to touch him too, to run her own hands over his back and feel the flex of his muscles beneath his shirt.

‘I like this,’ she gasped at one point, and Corran smiled against her skin.

‘I can’t believe you’ve never done this before,’ he said.

‘Am I doing it right?’ she asked, suddenly uncertain, and he lifted his head to look down into her face, touched and amazed by her innocence. Lotty might be no expert, but she was so sweet and so eager and she felt so sinfully good.

‘You’re a natural,’ he told her, and a smile lit the beautiful grey eyes.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Would you kiss me again?’

‘Why don’t you kiss me?’ Corran rolled onto his back and spread his arms. ‘I’m all yours.’

Lotty smoothed her hair behind her ears, the way she always did when she was nervous, but she leant over him and looked down into his face for a moment before lowering her mouth to his. She was tentative at first, a little unsure, but he lay still and let her discover just what she could do.

And she could do quite a lot. Corran had to clench his hands to stop his arms clamping around her and rolling her beneath him once more. He didn’t want to frighten her, but she was sorely testing his control. She was lying right on top of him, tracing the angle of his cheekbones with light, butterfly kisses, kissing her way to his ear and then back to his mouth. Who would have thought that those sweet little kisses could be quite so tantalising, quite so sexy, quite so exciting?

When he couldn’t take any more—and Corran thought he had done pretty well to last as long as he did—he brought his arms up and held her protectively while he eased her beneath him once more and kissed her hard, once, twice and a third time, more lingeringly, because he couldn’t resist it.

‘More,’ said Lotty, winding her arms around his neck when he tried to lift his head, so he kissed her again.

The kiss went on a long, long time, and Lotty abandoned herself to it until Corran levered himself away from her.

‘I think it’s time we went back,’ he said unevenly.

‘Oh,’ said Lotty, disappointed. ‘That’s it? We’re stopping?’

Corran pulled her to her feet and brushed the grass off her. ‘We’ve only just got started,’ he said.

‘I don’t understand,’ Lotty said, but she let him take her hand and tug her back towards the house. ‘Why do we have to go back?’

‘There’s the little matter of protection to think about,’ Corran pointed out. ‘I thought we were just having a walk. I didn’t come prepared.’

‘Protection?’ Lotty’s mind was reeling. She felt as if she were drugged with delight, and her whole body was humming with the feel of Corran’s mouth on hers, his warm hands on her body.

When she thought of protection, she thought of her close protection officer, the one she had given the slip in Paris. She and Corran had been alone together for weeks. There was no one else around. Why would they need someone to protect them now?

Corran sighed. ‘You do know where babies come from, don’t you, Lotty? Even you can’t be that innocent!’

‘Oh,’ said Lotty, finally making the connection. ‘I didn’t think of that,’ she confessed.

‘Besides,’ he added, ‘we’ll be more comfortable in a bed.’

‘Oh.’ A shivery tide of anticipation and apprehension washed through Lotty. ‘Oh,’ she said again.

Afterwards, Lotty couldn’t really remember walking back to the house. Wrapped in a strange dreamlike state, she had no idea if they had talked or not. All she remembered was the feel of Corran’s strong fingers laced through her own, how warm and firm they had been.

They must have done something with the dogs when they got back, but she didn’t remember that either. There was just Corran letting go of her hand at the door to his room.

‘Are you sure, Lotty?’ he asked. ‘We can take it slow if you want.’

Lotty shook her head. ‘No,’ she said, stepping up to him so that she could slip her arms around his waist and sucking in a breath at the taut solid strength of his body. ‘I don’t want to go slow,’ she said. ‘I’m sure.’

Lotty lay on her side so that she could watch Corran, who was splayed on his front over the bed. She didn’t know how he could sleep. She was exhausted, but too overwhelmed to relax herself. She had known what happened in theory, of course, but she hadn’t known it would be like that.

‘Let go’, Corran had said, and she had. It had been like flying, terrifying and exhilarating. Now every cell in her body was fizzing with satisfaction, but at the same time she felt shaky and uncertain. All her boundaries had shifted, and she couldn’t go back to being the person she had been before.

But that was what she had wanted, wasn’t it? She had wanted to know what everyone else seemed to have, and now she did. Lotty’s lips curved at the memory. It had been a revelation—Corran’s mouth, Corran’s hands, his lean hard body, and how they could make her feel. Lotty burned at the memory.

She could look at him properly now that he was sleeping, and her eyes drifted wonderingly over the curve of his shoulder, the line of his back. His body was solid and male, with warm sleek skin. Who could have imagined that he would be a lover like that, that all that passion could be pent up behind the cool competence?

As if sensing her gaze, Corran stirred and rolled over, opening one eye as he encountered Lotty’s warmth, and then the other. Lotty could see him remembering just what she was doing there.

‘Good morning,’ she said nervously. She hadn’t been sure if she should slip back to her own room once he had fallen asleep. She had spent her whole life absorbing the correct protocol for different situations, but no one had ever told her the etiquette for sleeping with a man for the first time.

‘Good morning,’ said Corran. He shifted into a more comfortable position so that he could study her face. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.

‘I think so,’ said Lotty. Given what they had done the night before, it was absurd to feel shy now, but her eyes slid away from his all the same. She looked at his shoulder instead. ‘Corran, is it always like that?’

He reached out and tilted her chin up so that she had to look at him again. ‘It’s never going to be your first time again, Lotty, but it’s only going to get better, I promise you that.’

What did that mean? Lotty regarded him doubtfully. ‘Was I b-bad?’ she asked, wincing inwardly at that betraying stutter.

Corran stretched, and Lotty caught her breath at the flex of his muscles and the sheer, unfamiliar maleness of him. ‘Very,’ he said.

Well, she shouldn’t have asked the question if she didn’t want to know the answer, Lotty reminded herself. She bit her lip. ‘I did tell you that I wasn’t experienced.’

‘Lotty,’ he said, exasperated, ‘you were very bad in a very good way!’ Sighing, he reached out and pulled her into the hard curve of his body. ‘How is it someone so beautiful has so little belief in herself?’

What was there to believe in? Lotty wondered. She was a princess, and that was all anybody ever saw. She had never had a chance to be anything else, never had to prove herself. People treated her as special because of who she was, not because of what she was, Lotty had always known that.

Until now. Corran didn’t know she was a princess. If he had known, would he have made love to her last night? Lotty didn’t think so. They had been as intimate as two people could get, but he still didn’t know the most important thing about her. Lotty didn’t like the feeling that she was keeping a secret from him, especially now, but if she told him, he might change, and she couldn’t bear that.

No, she wouldn’t tell him yet.

Putting the flat of her hands on Corran’s chest to hold him away slightly, she said, ‘This won’t change things between us, will it?’

‘I would imagine it would, yes,’ he said dryly.

‘I don’t want it to.’

‘It’s a bit late for that, Lotty.’ Corran had been smoothing his hand possessively over the curves of her body but paused at that and a frown touched his eyes. ‘I thought this was what you wanted.’

‘It was,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I want everything else to stay the same.’

He took his hand off her. ‘Are you trying to say that you don’t want to do this again?’

‘No!’ said Lotty, horrified. ‘No, I do want that. Definitely.’ Corran’s expression was as hard to read as ever, and abruptly Lotty lost her nerve. ‘If you didn’t mind, of course.’

A smile quivered at the corner of his mouth as he pretended to consider the matter. ‘I think I could bear it,’ he said and put his hand back.

‘You’re laughing at me.’ Lotty would have liked to have had the strength to pull away, but it felt too good with his big hand gentling down her spine and over the flare of her hip, and his fingers tightened on her.

‘I am,’ he agreed, the smile deepening. ‘Why on earth would I mind?’

‘I’m not your type,’ said Lotty, but she eased closer anyway until her bare skin was pressed against his.

‘Aren’t you?’ His palm was so warm, so sure against her that Lotty caught her breath.

‘You said yourself that I’m not the kind of woman you’re looking for,’ she managed.

That was true. Corran was oddly jolted by the reminder. He shouldn’t have needed reminding. His mother had been lesson enough and, after his ill-fated marriage to Ella, he had no intention of falling for another woman who wouldn’t fit in with life here in Mhoraigh.

Corran was clear in his own mind. He wanted a practical, sensible woman who wanted to share his plans and work with him to restore the estate to its former glory. A woman who would belong at Mhoraigh and be part of his life for ever.

Lotty wasn’t that woman. No matter how hard she worked, there was an elegance to her that made her look like an exotic orchid planted out in a kitchen garden.

And she wasn’t going to stay. She had been clear about that.

But none of that had mattered last night when she had asked him to kiss her. All the reasons why it would be sensible to keep a distance had evaporated at one look from those beautiful grey eyes. He could have said that it wasn’t a good idea, Corran realised in retrospect, but he could see how much it had cost Lotty to ask him and the truth was that he hadn’t wanted to say no.

The truth was that kissing her was all he had been able to think about as they walked along the loch and the moment he had looked at her and seen the uncertainty and desire in her face he had been lost.

Last night had caught Corran unawares. He had wanted to give Lotty pleasure, to make her first time special, but he hadn’t expected to be shaken himself. She had been so sweet, though. So surprising. All his life he had kept a careful guard over his feelings, and it was unsettling to remember how easily it had been swept away by the feel of her skin, by the taste of her, by her warmth and aching innocence. By the heat that had blazed so unexpectedly between them and blotted out all sensible thought.

Sensible thought. He should be able to do that, at least. Corran hauled his mind back to more practical channels with difficulty. Lotty herself seemed to be approaching the matter pragmatically. Surely he could do the same?

‘I was thinking about marriage when I said that,’ he told her. ‘I’m not ready to marry yet. And as you don’t seem to be in any hurry to marry either, why shouldn’t we make the most of the time we’ve got together in the meantime?’

Something flickered in the lovely grey eyes. Corran couldn’t be sure if it was relief or disappointment. ‘That’s what I think,’ she said. ‘We both know that it’s only temporary. I’ll be leaving in a few weeks.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

LEAVING. A cold finger touched Corran’s heart, but he pushed the feeling aside. ‘That’s settled, then,’ he said, sliding a hand over her hip to draw her closer but she fended him off once more.

‘It’s just that the rest of the time, when we’re not…you know…’ She trailed off in confusion and Corran felt something shift in his chest at her blush.

‘I know,’ he said, doing his best to keep his smile under control, although he wasn’t sure how well he succeeded as Lotty was looking at him suspiciously.

‘Yes, well…the rest of the time, I want it to be the way it was before,’ she said. ‘I want to carry on working just the way I’ve been doing, and I want you to be just as crabby and cranky as you always are.’

‘Cranky?’ He had her warm against him once more, could kiss his way along the lovely slope of her shoulder. ‘When am I ever cranky?’

‘All the time,’ said Lotty, but she sounded breathless.

‘I’m not feeling very cranky at the moment,’ he told her, smiling against her skin. ‘You don’t want me to be crabby now, do you?’

‘Not now.’ Lotty’s hands were moving hungrily over his back, pulling him closer, pressing her nearer. ‘Later then,’ she managed unsteadily. ‘Promise me you won’t change.’

‘I promise,’ he said.

But it was difficult when the weather stayed fine for the most part, when the days drifted one into the other and the long summer evenings seemed more golden than usual. Corran found it harder and harder to be as cross as Lotty wanted. How could he be cranky when she was there, smiling at him? When, no matter how hard they had worked, there were long hours of sweetness to look forward to at the end of the day? He did his best to maintain the grouchy demeanour that seemed to mean so much to her, but even he could see it was less and less convincing.

Every morning, Corran told himself that he couldn’t afford to lose focus on getting the cottages finished. Every morning he reminded himself that Lotty would be leaving.

There was no point in telling her his plans for the farm, Corran knew that, but still he found himself asking if she wanted to come with him to check on the sheep, found himself driving her up into the hills on the long summer evenings, walking with her across the heather. And if she stayed in the kitchen, as she often did, his step would quicken as he headed back to the house and, every time he caught sight of her, his heart lifted alarmingly.

Lotty was still persevering in her attempt to bake the perfect scone.

‘I wish I’d never told you I liked scones,’ he said, coming into the kitchen to find her sulking over another batch of leaden scones with burnt bottoms.

‘I’m going back to Mrs McPherson,’ grumbled Lotty. ‘I’m sure she forgot some vital ingredient.’

Corran slid his hands around her waist and pulled her back against him so that he could kiss the side of her neck. He liked the way she arched when he kissed her there, liked the tiny breath she sucked in. He liked how he could make a smile tremble on her lips, no matter how cross she was.

Not that he was supposed to be noticing things like that. He was supposed to be thinking about the estate, not about how warm and sweet she was as she turned in his arms. Sure enough, she was smiling and the grey eyes were shining. He loved how transparent she was, how true.

Loved? Corran caught himself up on the word. No, that wasn’t right. Liked, yes. Admired, yes. Loved, no.

No, no, no.

‘What is it?’ said Lotty, and he realised that he had let her go.

‘Nothing.’ She wanted him to be grouchy, he would be grouchy. Now he felt grouchy. ‘I’d rather you spent time painting than making scones.’

‘I’ve been painting,’ she pointed out. She was on the third cottage and making good progress, as Corran well knew. ‘I’m waiting for it to dry before I do the top coat in the bathroom. I should finish tomorrow.

‘Which reminds me,’ she said as she tipped the scones into the bin. ‘Do you know what day it is tomorrow?’

‘Thursday.’

She clicked her tongue. ‘More important than that.’

‘It’s not your birthday, is it?’

‘It’s exactly a month today since we made that bet.’ Lotty cocked her head on one side. ‘You said I wouldn’t last a day, and I bet you I’d still be here a month later. Remember?’

‘Oh. That.’ Corran shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Well, I’ve already admitted I was wrong.’ He pretended to glower at her. ‘What more do you want?’

‘We had a deal,’ Lotty reminded him. ‘You promised to take me out to dinner.’

‘All right.’ Corran didn’t mind doing that. She had earned a decent dinner. ‘We’ll go to Fort William on Saturday. There’s a good restaurant on the loch there.’

But Lotty was shaking her head. ‘I don’t want to go to Fort William,’ she said. ‘I want to go to the ceilidh at the Mhoraigh Hotel tomorrow.’

She knew Corran wouldn’t want to go. She could see him thinking of reasons not to.

‘The food there is terrible,’ he said after a moment.

‘You don’t care about food,’ Lotty pointed out.

‘I do if I’m paying for it.’

‘We’ll eat before we go. The point is the dancing, not the dinner.’

Corran rubbed a hand over his face. ‘Wouldn’t you rather go out for a nice meal?’

‘No,’ said Lotty. ‘I want you to take me to the ceilidh.’

The past week had been a revelation. Nothing she had read in books had prepared her for how different she would feel. It was as if she had never been properly alive before, Lotty thought, as if she had been sleepwalking through life doing what was expected of her. Now every cell, every fibre of her was alight, on fire.

She loved making love with Corran. It was messier and more awkward and much, much more exciting than she had imagined, and it made her feel wild and reckless. She loved knowing that the rules changed the moment they closed the bedroom door and she didn’t have to be sweet and good any more. She loved abandoning herself to the passion that flared between them every night, loved forgetting everything but the touch of Corran’s hands, the feel of his lean, hard body, the taste of his mouth, the shivery, shocking excitement, the glittery rush.

But in the morning she remembered. In the morning the old Lotty was back, wagging a mental finger and pointing out that forgetting like that was a very bad idea. Reminding her that she would have to go home one day soon, and that there would be no more heart-shaking nights, no more bone-melting pleasure. There would be duty and responsibility and doing the right thing.

She would go back to Montluce and be the perfect princess once more, and Corran would be here alone. Lotty hated the thought of it. Self-sufficient he might be, but she wanted him to at least make contact with the village again. She’d wondered how to make it happen until she had driven to the shop in Mhoraigh that morning.

‘Mrs McPherson was telling me about the ceilidh this morning,’ she said to Corran. ‘She says everyone goes. I think it sounds like fun.’

‘It won’t be if I go,’ said Corran flatly. ‘No one wants me there, and you know it.’

‘Because they don’t know you,’ Lotty said. ‘They’ve just got an image of you that you’ve never bothered to correct. I don’t understand why you’re not open with them. If you told them the truth and let them see you as you really are, they would change their minds. What’s the point of pretending to be someone you’re not?’

‘I’m not pretending,’ Corran said with a touch of irritation. ‘They think I’m unfriendly and an outsider, and I am.’

‘I’ve seen you up in the hills,’ she reminded him. ‘You belong here.’

‘You won’t get them to believe that.’

‘If they saw what you’re doing here, and knew what you felt about the estate, they would.’

‘Frankly, Lotty, I don’t care what they believe,’ Corran said. ‘They’re not interested in me, and I’m not interested in them. I can’t see how me going to the ceilidh is going to change that.’

‘It’s not all about you,’ Lotty pointed out. ‘I want to go.’

‘Then go with Mrs McPherson. She seems to be your big buddy.’

Her mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘I want to go with you.’

‘The deal was for dinner,’ Corran tried, scowling, but Lotty wasn’t going to be intimidated out of her plan. Corran might not accept it, but he needed to be part of the village.

‘Lucky you,’ she said. ‘I’m a cheap date.’

‘I don’t dance.’ It was his last shot, and Lotty wasn’t having any of it.

‘Come on, Corran. You made the bet, and you lost.’

He tried to glare her down, but she just returned him stare for stare, and in the end he sighed irritably. ‘Oh, very well. If that’s what you want. But don’t blame me if it’s a disaster.’

‘I thought you’d wear a kilt.’ Lotty’s face fell when she saw Corran waiting for her in black jeans and a dark shirt. He looked vaguely menacing, not helped by his forbidding expression.

‘Lotty, you’ve got a ridiculously romantic notion of what this ceilidh is going to be like,’ he said. ‘No one will dress up for it. It’s just a dance in a pub, not a formal ball.’

‘Oh.’ Lotty looked down at her acid yellow shift dress. ‘Am I going to be overdressed?’

Corran studied her with mingled exasperation and affection. It wasn’t that the dress was ostentatious. The style was spectacularly simple, in fact, but the cut and the material shrieked expense. She wore it with little pumps and her short hair was tucked behind her ears to show plain pearl earrings.

‘Massively,’ he said. ‘You look like you’re going to a cocktail party in Paris, not a ceilidh in a crummy country hotel.’

Lotty bit her lip. ‘Do you think I should change?’

‘No.’ The trouble wasn’t what she was wearing, it was the style with which she wore her clothes, the elegance with which she held her head. ‘You’re going to look out of place whatever you wear,’ he told her. ‘Let’s just go and get this over with.’

The band was tuning up as they walked into the hotel’s dining room, which had been cleared for the ceilidh. Silence fell at the sight of them, broken only by the scrape of the fiddle and the squeeze of the accordion. They could hardly have looked more alien, Corran thought. Himself, dark and forbidding, the unwanted son, and Lotty, bright and elegant and regal.

He had known it would be like this. There was no place for either of them in the village. Looking round the hostile faces, Corran wished that he had flatly refused to come. Not for himself, but he hated the thought that Lotty would be ostracised because she was with him. She would be hurt and upset, and the prospect was enough to make him reach for her arm, ready to swing her round and lead her back out before anyone could reject her.

But, not for the first time, Lotty surprised him. For someone with so little confidence in herself, she was undaunted by the hostile atmosphere. She moved forward, smiling, as if she had spent her life defusing awkward situations and, before Corran knew what was happening, she had put everyone at their ease and the party atmosphere resumed.

Watching her, Corran was puzzled and impressed. The surly Mhoraigh villagers unbent to a man in the face of her charm, and before long she was being swept off to dance by the burly Rab Donald, who had been Andrew’s best friend when they were boys and who had eyed Corran himself with uncomplicated dislike.

The music struck up with a flourish, and the dance began with much swinging of partners and stamping of feet. The floor was full, but it was impossible to miss Lotty in her yellow dress, a bright light at the heart of the room. Next to Rab, she looked tiny, a delicate, elegant pixie.

Rab had his meaty hands at her waist. Corran’s brows drew together.

‘Now there’s a fine girl.’ Mrs McPherson spoke beside him, clearly following his gaze.

Fine. It was a good word to describe Lotty, Corran thought. There was nothing crude about her at all. From her delicate ears to her little feet, she was all pure lines and light.

He glanced at Mrs McPherson, then back to Lotty. ‘Yes, she is. Except when it comes to cooking, of course.’

‘How is she getting on with her scones?’

‘They get worse and worse.’

Mrs McPherson laughed. ‘She’s always asking if I’ve left out some vital ingredient.’

Corran had always liked Betty McPherson, and she at least wasn’t eyeing him askance the way the rest of them were. Lotty might have been accepted, but the others were still giving him a wide berth.

It was nice of Mrs McPherson to come and talk to him, but he was having trouble concentrating on the conversation when Rab was out there, touching Lotty, holding her. Corran could feel his hands curling into fists with the longing to push his way through the dance and punch Rab off her.

It surely had to be the longest dance in history, but at last the music ended. Corran’s tense muscles relaxed. The dance was over. There was no need for Rab to touch her any more. And no need for Lotty to encourage him by smiling at him like that either.

But now she was laughing, agreeing to dance with Nick Andrews, who had owned the hotel as long as Corran could remember, and who made no secret of his dislike of Corran either. Corran’s expression grew blacker but he managed to drag his attention back to Betty McPherson.

‘I don’t know why she’s so obsessed with those bloody scones,’ he said, and she smiled gently.

‘She wants to make them perfect for you.’

There was a tiny silence, then Corran turned to her as the fiddle struck up once more for Strip the Willow. ‘Would you care to dance, Mrs McPherson?’

‘Betty,’ she corrected him. ‘And, thank you, I would.’

When it was Corran’s turn to make his way down the line of ladies, he found himself face to face with Lotty at last. Holding out her hands so that he could swing her round, she smiled at him, such a joyous, shining smile that Corran felt something unlock in his chest. She looked so beautiful, he didn’t want to let her go.

But, sooner or later, he was going to have to.

Lotty was obviously having a wonderful time, and her delight was infectious. She danced every dance, and Corran made himself stand back and let her meet everyone. He was uncomfortably conscious that he had been selfish. He had wanted to keep her to himself, but he could see now that Lotty needed more. She was happy now at Loch Mhoraigh, he knew that, but so perhaps had his mother been at the beginning. In the end she would want people, parties, more than just him.

Perhaps Lotty knew that herself. Perhaps that was why she was so insistent that she would be leaving. Perhaps it was just as well she was going.

Or so Corran tried to convince himself.

So he stood back and let the other men dance with Lotty, but when the leader of the band called everyone onto the floor for the last dance, he made sure that he was standing next to her. It would be a slower tune, he knew, and he pulled her onto the floor before anyone else had a chance to get his eager hands on her.

Now he could get his hands on her instead.

Corran held her, the way he had wanted to hold her all evening. He spread his fingers over her back, feeling the tiny bumps in her spine through the silk dress. Her hair was growing out of its pixie cut but if he ran his hand up to the nape of her neck, the skin there was still soft and enticing beneath the feathery wisps of hair. She was slender and warm in his arms, and he could smell the faint expensive fragrance she always wore in the evenings. He was going to miss that when she left.

He was going to miss a lot of things, Corran realised. Already he was used to her being in the kitchen, frowning down at the cafetière, wrinkling her nose at the smell of tea. He was used to the way she tied her hair up in a scarf like a Fifties housewife when she was doing dirty work. Only Lotty could carry that look off without looking ridiculous!

She had an innate style whatever she was wearing, he thought. In the evening she would change into a skirt or loose trousers after a bath, and Corran had to admit that her elegant, feminine presence had made a difference to the feel of the house. The rooms felt comfortable since Lotty had taken on the role of housekeeper. Corran wasn’t quite sure how she had done it. They were still bare, but they felt lighter, happier, somehow. She found wild flowers in the overgrown garden and made charmingly haphazard arrangements with them. Even the kitchen looked mellow and inviting now, in a way it had never done before. Corran liked going in at the end of the day and finding her there.

He liked how eager and responsive she was in bed. How passionate. How she could make his senses reel with the brush of her lips.

Yes, he would miss her, Corran acknowledged to himself. But Lotty had made it very clear that she had no intention of staying for ever. She would be moving on soon.

And that was just as well, Corran reminded himself. Lotty wasn’t the sort of wife he needed. She couldn’t cook. She didn’t understand the country. She was ethereal and lovely, and he needed someone sturdy and strong. She was all wrong for him.

Still, he rested his cheek against her hair and felt her relax wordlessly into him. He turned his lips to her temple and touched the skin there. Her hand tightened in his and she eased closer, her body soft and pliant. The feel of her made him light-headed. It made him forget that she was leaving, forget the village and the hostility he still sensed beneath the smiles, forget everything but the woman in his arms. Lotty, who was all wrong, but who felt so right.

‘Please tell me it’s not more scones!’

Lotty was at the range, peering dubiously into the oven, but the moment Corran came into the kitchen her pulse kicked up a notch. It always did that, even now. It didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing, something inside leapt at the sight of him every time.

‘I thought I’d try a chocolate cake for a change,’ she told him as he dumped a couple of carrier bags on the kitchen table. He’d had a meeting at the bank in Fort William and grudgingly agreed to stop off at the village shop on his way back to pick up a few essentials.

A man with shopping bags. Nothing glamorous or heroic about that, but he was so lean and so powerful, and his presence filled the room so that the breath dried in Lotty’s mouth. It did that every time, too.

Lotty kept waiting to get used to making love with Corran. She had expected that it would slake that terrible craving to wind herself round him and press herself against him and crawl all over him, but if anything it was worse. She was still dazzled by lust and longing and the thrill of being able to touch him. After years of being a good girl, Corran’s touch had let loose a different Lotty, one whose recklessness and passion both thrilled and alarmed her.

Only the day before she had finished painting the woodwork in the cottage’s kitchen. It was too late to start a new room—or that was the excuse Lotty gave herself, anyway—so she went to find Corran. Perhaps she had it in mind to help him tidy up. Or perhaps she had something quite different in mind all along.

He was in the next cottage, boxing in the bath. When Lotty paused in the doorway, he was bending over a sheet of plywood, sawing it into shape. The floor was covered in sawdust and wood shavings and the smell of new wood filled the air.

As Lotty watched, the sun came out from behind the clouds and a shaft through the open window lit directly onto Corran, hot and sweaty in a faded T shirt and jeans. She could see the dust hanging in the light. Her gaze followed the sunbeam to where it gilded the prickle of stubble on his jaw, to the curve of his back as he bent over the wood, to the muscles that flexed in his arms as he wielded the saw, and she was gripped by a need so acute that she couldn’t move, couldn’t even breathe. She could just stand and stare at him.

Sensing her gaze, Corran glanced up and froze at her expression. He didn’t say anything but something shifted in the air, something hot and dark that lit the fever in Lotty’s blood.

Corran laid down his saw and straightened.

She took a step inside the room.

‘You’re a bad girl,’ he said, and his voice was dark and dusty with desire.

‘I didn’t say anything.’

‘You didn’t need to.’

He put his hands on the wall on either side of her, trapping her, and Lotty’s heart pounded with excitement. She slid her hands beneath his T-shirt so that she could run them over his flanks, loving the feel of his warm, solid skin, revelling in the flex of his muscles beneath her touch, smiling at his indrawn hiss of breath.

‘Do I need to say anything now?’

‘No,’ he said, and the expression in his eyes snarled every one of Lotty’s senses into an urgent knot of desire.

And then…oh, then! Lotty still burned at the memory. It had been wild, exciting, reckless.

Very reckless.

‘I’m going to have to be prepared if you’re going to do that to me again,’ Corran said unevenly at last, resting his forehead against hers.

‘Do what?’ Lotty was breathless. She clung to him, limp with satisfaction. ‘What did I do?’

‘You looked at me. You know what I mean,’ he said as she started to laugh. ‘You turned those great eyes on me and they told me you’d die if you couldn’t have me.’

‘That’s how I felt,’ she confessed.

‘We mustn’t do that again, Lotty,’ said Corran. ‘It’s too much of a risk.’

‘No,’ she had agreed. It was stupid to make love without taking precautions, of course it was. But, deep down, Lotty loved the fact that she could be bad. That she could make him forget about everything but her, his hands on her, her mouth on his, make him forget about anything but the rocketing need between them.

That she could forget that she was a princess. Lotty loved that most of all.

Flushing with remembered heat, Lotty made herself turn back to the range and pull out the cake. How was it possible that it looked flatter and harder and thinner than it had when she’d put it in?

‘I don’t think it’s supposed to look like this,’ she said, her mouth turning down at the corners. It certainly didn’t look like the exquisite patisserie that the palace kitchens produced. The head chef made a chocolate cake that was so light and delicious that it was hard to believe that it contained any calories at all. It melted in the mouth, so that one slice was never enough.

This cake had about as much chance of melting in the mouth as a brick.

‘It’ll be fine,’ said Corran, without glancing at it. He was putting milk away in the fridge. ‘Let’s have some tea and we can always dunk the cake in it.’

‘Good idea.’

Lotty put the kettle on. She had never cared for tea before, but now she drank it all the time. They often had a mug in the afternoon, taking a brief break from working.

The cottages were coming on really well. Lotty felt proud when she looked around her and remembered what a desperate state they had been in when she first arrived. She didn’t mind getting dirty and tired. She could see the cottages being transformed in front of her eyes. She was doing something, not just having things done for her. Lotty sat on the doorstep with Corran and the dogs on those afternoons, and she watched the hills and drank tea and felt completely happy.

Every now and then the cold finger of reality would poke her in the stomach, reminding her that time was passing and this wasn’t for ever, but Lotty’s heart shrank back from dealing with it. One more week, she said to herself every time. One more week, and then she would face the prospect of leaving.

It was getting harder and harder to remember this wasn’t her real life. Montluce felt very far away. Corran had offered her the use of his computer after she had told him she’d used the internet café in Fort William, so she had been able to check her email over the past month, but increasingly she found herself putting it off. She’d had a stiff message from Dowager Blanche, who was obviously hurt and angry, which made Lotty feel horribly guilty, as it was no doubt intended to, and she didn’t want any more like that.

Caro’s messages were much more entertaining. Lotty enjoyed seeing palace life through her friend’s eyes. It made her realise how absurd all the formality she had taken for granted for years was. Lotty was glad Caro seemed to be having a good time, although she was suspiciously cagey about her relationship with Philippe. It sounded as if the people of Montluce had taken her to their hearts too.

Lotty even allowed herself a little fantasy that Caro would get together with Philippe. If the two of them married, Caro could be first lady of the realm and Lotty would be free. Then Lotty felt selfish. How could she wish the restrictions of royal life on her free-spirited friend? Besides, she couldn’t see her grandmother accepting Caro as the future Crown Princess. The Dowager Blanche had firmly traditional views on who might or might not be acceptable to marry into Montluce’s royal family. A commoner like Caro was unlikely to go down well.

Then there was Philippe to think about too. Lotty knew how difficult going back to Montluce even for a short time would be for him. He would be putting a good face on it, but his relationship with his father was too bitter for him to want to stay in the country a moment longer than necessary.

No, Caro and Philippe had done enough for her as it was. She couldn’t expect them to take over her life on a permanent basis. She couldn’t run away from her obligations for ever. She would have to go back to Montluce and do her duty, the way she had been raised to do.

But not yet, her heart cried. Not yet.

‘Oh, I nearly forgot.’ Corran drew a glossy magazine from the bottom of the carrier bag. ‘Mrs McPherson sent you a present.’

‘A present?’ Surprised, Lotty set the two mugs of tea on the table and took the magazine. ‘Really? For me?’

‘She seemed to think you’d like it. I can’t imagine why,’ he said austerely as Lotty turned the magazine over to reveal the distinctive cover of Glitz. ‘It’s full of vacuous celebrities as far as I can see. Why would anyone care about all that trivial gossip?’

‘It’s called being interested in people,’ said Lotty, who had been known to flick through a magazine in her time too.

She fanned the pages. ‘Besides, it’s not all gossip. There’s also important stuff in here about shoes and frocks and make up. We’re not all riveted by breeding programmes for Highland cattle, you know.’

‘I forget you’re interested in that kind of stuff,’ said Corran, drinking his tea morosely.

‘I wonder why Mrs McPherson thought I would be?’ Lotty said, still puzzled.

He shrugged as she pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘You seem to be her pet. I had to spend half the afternoon listening to her rabbiting on about scones and how wonderful everyone thinks you are now. Although she did say something about Montluce, now I come to think about it. She seems to know more about you than I do.’

Lotty looked at him sharply, unsure what to make of the faint undercurrent of…resentment? jealousy? bitterness?…she heard in his voice.

‘Well, it was kind of her to think of me,’ she said, careful to keep her expression neutral.

‘Yes, except then I felt obliged to pay for it,’ grunted Corran. ‘It’s probably a tried and tested sales technique of hers: make me feel guilty for not thinking of bringing you a present myself.’

‘Oh, so it’s a present from you, in fact?’ said Lotty with a half smile.

‘I don’t think it counts as a present if you’ve been blackmailed into buying it!’

She laughed. ‘Well, thank you, anyway,’ she said, opening the magazine out on the table and licking a finger so that she could leaf idly through the pages one by one. ‘A little frivolity makes a nice change.’

Corran was leaning against the kitchen counter, eyeing her morosely over the rim of his mug as she looked through the magazine, a tiny smile curling the corners of her mouth, long lashes downswept over the grey eyes. His gaze rested on the heart-shaking line of her cheek, and an ache for something he couldn’t name lodged in his chest.

The truth was that Betty McPherson had made Corran feel bad. He hadn’t thought of Lotty missing things like shopping and gossip, but of course she would. There was little scope for fashion at Loch Mhoraigh, but she still managed to look elegant and feminine. She was clearly someone used to a comfortable life, surrounded by fine things. Sooner or later, she would start to hanker for proper shops and things to do in the evening, he reminded himself.

True, she hadn’t complained about their absence yet, but she hadn’t been there that long.

It just felt like forever. Corran struggled to remember what it had been like without her now, and when he tried to imagine the future when she was gone, he just came up with a terrifying blank.

He was going to have to try harder.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ELLA hadn’t complained either at the beginning, he remembered. She had claimed at first that he was all she wanted but, once they were married, it turned out that she wanted a lot more than that. Corran wasn’t enough at all. Every day, there had been something that he didn’t do or didn’t feel or didn’t provide.

His mouth twisted, remembering that time. Ella had been constantly discontented, it seemed. She was disappointed that he spent so much time at work, resentful that he didn’t surprise her with bunches of flowers or mini breaks in Paris or little pieces of jewellery and hurt that he didn’t send her messages on the hour, every hour.

Corran had never understood why Ella needed proof that he loved her. He said it, and he’d meant it, and it seemed to him that ought to be enough, but Ella required constant reassurance that he had obviously failed to provide. She would plunge into despair, punishing him with floods of tears or sulky silences, and then go out and spend huge sums on her credit card which apparently made her feel better. Corran wondered if she was subjecting Jeff to the same treatment now, and hoped his old friend was dealing with it better than he had.

He couldn’t imagine Lotty carrying on like that. She had a natural dignity and grace, a quiet strength apparent in the straightness of her spine and the tilt of her chin. But then there had been no warning that Ella was that needy either. He had married one woman and ended up with quite a different one, Corran remembered bitterly. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

And what, really, did he know about Lotty? He knew she was warm and passionate and stubborn. He knew she was hard-working and intelligent, but had an inexplicable lack of belief in her own beauty and abilities. He knew how her eyes lit when she smiled. He knew the scent of her skin, the softness of her hair, the precise curve of her hip. He knew she was stylish and sweet and a terrible cook.

But she was close-mouthed about her family and life before she came to Loch Mhoraigh. If it ever came up in the conversation, she would change the subject, and Corran was happy to pretend that her other life didn’t exist, that there was just this time they had together.

Her English was so perfect that he often forgot that she was from Montluce. Mrs McPherson’s reminder had been like a finger poking in the ribs. He didn’t like the idea that she had thought about Lotty being the kind of girl who would like to read a glossy magazine. He didn’t like her knowing something about Lotty that he didn’t. He didn’t like being reminded that Lotty had another life in another country, where she probably shopped and read magazines and wore expensive clothes all the time.

Corran didn’t want to know about that Lotty. That Lotty was going to leave. If he thought about that Lotty, he’d have to remember that she wasn’t going to stay here at Loch Mhoraigh for ever. Watching her leaf through the magazine, remembering, Corran felt something cold settle in the pit of his stomach.

More fool him for forgetting in the first place. He had to get a grip, Corran told himself. He had lost focus on the estate. He was thinking about Lotty too much. He’d be knocking down a wall or plumbing in a new pipe, and he’d remember her softness, or the silkiness of her hair, or the way his heart pounded when she touched him, when he ought to be thinking about breeding programmes or investment strategies.

Lotty was sipping her tea, pursing her lips at a page, shaking her head at another as she flicked through the articles. They certainly didn’t require much reading. From what Corran could see, they consisted of a lot of shiny photographs with captions. How could she possibly find any of it interesting?

Then she turned a page and choked, spluttering tea everywhere.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

But Lotty couldn’t answer. She was coughing and laughing at the same time, her eyes watering, until Corran began to get concerned. Levering himself away from the counter, he patted her on the back.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ she tried to say, but it came out as a squeak and she put a hand to her throat. ‘Sorry!’

Unthinkingly keeping his hand on her back, Corran peered over her shoulder to see what had surprised her so much.

The page was dominated by a photograph of a vibrant girl with untidy hair. She was smiling at the camera and wearing a man’s jacket that was clearly much too big for her. A New Style Icon for Montluce, trumpeted the headline.

Another picture showed her with a good-looking man. Corran read the caption. Wedding Rumours for Prince Philippe, it read.

‘What’s so funny?’ he asked Lotty, who was still trying to clear her throat.

‘What? Oh!’ She tried to pull the magazine away. ‘Oh, nothing. I was just surprised. She… she reminds me of someone I used to know, that’s all.’

‘Pretty girl,’ Corran commented, studying the photo. He was still absently rubbing Lotty’s back. ‘At least she looks like she’s got some personality, unlike most celebrities.’

Caro certainly had personality, thought Lotty. She was desperately aware of his warm hand moving over her, and she couldn’t resist leaning back into it as she wiped her eyes.

She wished she could tell Corran about her friend. She would have liked to have explained how Caro worried about her weight and wore the oddest clothes, like that old dinner jacket of her father’s, and how much she would laugh to hear herself described as a style icon.

It would be nice to tell him what a special friend Caro was, and how she had stepped in to give Lotty herself a chance to escape from Montluce for a while. Caro would say that it had suited her too, but Lotty knew that it was a lot to ask her friend to give up two months of her life.

But how could she tell Corran all that without telling him that she was a princess? Without changing everything.

They had so little time left. Why risk spoiling it? They were going to have to say goodbye anyway, Lotty reasoned. She wanted Corran to remember her as a woman, not as a princess pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

Unaware of her thoughts, Corran was still looking at the picture of Caro and Philippe. ‘What an awful life, though,’ he said. ‘Who’d want it? I can’t see the point of these tinpot monarchies, other than to fill the pages of trashy magazines.’

Tinpot monarchy? Lotty stiffened, unable to let the insult pass. ‘I’m from Montluce,’ she reminded him in an icy voice. ‘We don’t think of it as a tinpot monarchy.’

‘Oh, come on, Lotty! You’re not telling me you believe the monarchy in a tiny place like Montluce isn’t an anachronism?’ Taking his hand from her shoulder, he flicked the picture of Philippe dismissively. ‘What does this guy actually do other than get himself photographed? It’s not as if any of them do any work.’

Lotty thought of the long days smiling and standing until her back ached, of putting people at their ease and making them feel as if they had been part of something special even if they had just shaken hands with her. At the end of the day her hand was sometimes so sore she had to soak it in iced water to reduce the swelling.

Abruptly, she pushed back her chair so that Corran had to move out of the way. She carried her mug over to the sink. ‘I didn’t realise you were such an expert on European monarchies,’ she said coldly.

‘I’m not, but I’ve got several mates who became bodyguards after leaving the Army. It’s good money, I gather, but God, what a life, trailing around after obscure royals! Some of the stories they tell about the pampered brats they have to babysit would make your hair stand on end. They spend their entire day following these people around from shop to restaurant to party.’

‘Really?’ said Lotty, who had spent her entire life being shadowed by a member of the royal close protection team.

Montluce had few political problems, at least until the recent furore about the proposed gas pipeline, but it was an important financial centre, and the royal family’s wealth was enough to make them a target. Lotty’s first companions were lean, expressionless men whose eyes moved constantly and who were always on the alert to the slightest sound or movement.

‘It’s not much fun being trailed after either,’ she pointed out, and then, as Corran raised his brows, ‘I imagine.’

Rinsing out the mug, she set it upside down on the draining board and wiped her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said.

Corran frowned. ‘Haven’t you finished for the day?’

‘I’ve just a bit of tidying up to do.’

‘The midges will be out soon,’ he warned.

‘I won’t be long.’

Lotty needed to be alone for a while. It had been odd seeing Caro and Philippe in that magazine, and she hadn’t been able to help laughing at the idea of Caro’s unconventional dress style coming into fashion, but Corran’s attitude to the Montlucian monarchy had stung. That was her family he had dismissed as being lazy, pointless and out of touch.

It was ironic that Philippe was probably the person who would most agree with him.

The conversation had depressed her, underlining as it did the gulf between them. It had left her feeling disloyal and guilty for being so happy at Loch Mhoraigh.

Calling for Pookie, she walked down to the cottages, her hands stuffed into her pockets. The little dog frolicked around her ankles and she thought about how much she would miss him when she left. The loch was grey and choppy under sullen clouds, and there was a rawness to the air that made Lotty zip up the collar of her fleece. On a day like this, it ought to be easy to feel nostalgic for the green hills and serene lakes of Montluce but there was an elemental grandeur to the Scottish mountains that caught at Lotty’s throat, no matter what the weather.

That made her feel bad too. She was a Princess Charlotte of Montluce. She loved her country. She shouldn’t feel like this about another one, as if Scotland was where she belonged. As if it was going to tear her heart out when she left.

Lotty vented her confused feelings on the floorboards, getting down on her knees to scrub them vigorously. She didn’t want things to change, but they couldn’t stay like this for ever.

She should start giving some thought to leaving soon. She had saved most of her housekeeper’s wage, derisory though it was. She had enough to move on, and maybe get a job somewhere else for her last month of freedom.

Or perhaps she should just go home to Montluce. That was where she belonged, after all. Her grandmother might be autocratic, but Lotty was her only real family now and she would need her granddaughter’s support.

Philippe would be leaving Montluce as soon as his father was well enough to take over his duties once more, and then Lotty would have to be ready to step back into the role she had been born for. But she couldn’t go back to the way she had been before. Not after being here with Corran. Somehow she was going to have to do something to make her life bearable when she got home.

Then she caught herself up. Bearable? What kind of self-pitying nonsense was that? Lotty flinched inwardly, ashamed of herself. She had more money than she knew what to do with. Everyone loved her—the papers were always saying so. She never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from. Millions of people would love to be in her position.

They’d love to have nothing to do all day except be shown around factories and community projects. They’d love to shake hands and smile, no matter how fed up they were feeling. They’d love to have to be careful about everything they wore and everything they said and everything they did. They’d love to spend their lives living up to other people’s expectations.

But she was the one going to have to do it.

And she would, Lotty vowed. As for the time she had left here with Corran, she would make the most of it and refuse to let herself have any regrets.

Corran had been right about the midges. Lotty had to run back to the house, frenziedly batting them away from her ears while Pookie scampered beside her, unclear about the reason for all the urgency but barking with excitement anyway.

In the kitchen, Corran had papers spread all over the table.

‘Oh.’ Lotty stopped, slapping the last few midges from her hands and neck. It was all very well to decide to make the most of things, but all at once the atmosphere seemed awkward. ‘I was going to start the supper. Will I disturb you?’

‘No, you carry on,’ said Corran. ‘I thought it would be easier to do this here than on the computer, but I can move if I’m going to be in your way.’

Why were they suddenly being so polite to each other? Lotty hated it. She washed her hands at the sink.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I heard back from the finance company I approached about investing in the estate this morning,’ he told her. ‘It just so happens that Dick Rowland, one of the directors, is coming up to the Highlands with his wife. He suggested calling in on their way to Skye to have a look round the estate.’

‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ It was difficult to tell from his expression.

Corran straightened the page of figures in front of him as if trying to decide. ‘It goes against the grain to ask for help,’ he said after a moment, ‘but the fact is, I’m going to need extra money to get the estate up and running again, and I’m lucky to get any interest at all from investors in the current market. So yes, it’s good news—but Rowland won’t make up his mind until he’s seen what we’re doing.’

‘I thought the idea was that income from the cottages would be ploughed back into the estate?’ Lotty dug in the vegetable basket for an onion.

‘It will be, but it’s going to take a while for the money to start coming through. We might pick up one or two Christmas lets but, realistically, we won’t get many takers until next Easter. I need to be investing in breeding stock this autumn. If Dick Rowland is prepared to invest in the estate, I can get going.’

Lotty picked up a knife and sliced the top off the onion. She was getting better at cooking basic meals, or perhaps she was just getting more practice. She was never going to be a master chef, but at least she didn’t need to follow a recipe now to make shepherd’s pie.

‘So we need to impress him when he comes?’

Corran nodded. ‘It won’t be easy. Rowland’s a famously hard-headed businessman. He says it’ll just be an informal visit, but when I mentioned it to the bank manager today, she said I should have all my figures ready for him anyway.

‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about before we got distracted by Glitz,’ he went on stiltedly after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Are you likely to be around?’

‘Around?’ The onion was making Lotty’s eyes stream, and she lifted her arm to wipe the tears away with the back of her wrist. ‘What do you mean?’

‘The Rowlands aren’t coming for another month,’ he said. ‘You always said you’d only stay a couple of months.’ Corran drew a breath. ‘I wondered if you had a plan to move on yet.’

‘Oh…’ Lotty lowered the knife. Hadn’t she just decided that she should think about leaving? But she couldn’t go, not while he needed her. ‘No…not yet,’ she said slowly.

‘I’d appreciate it if you could stay a couple of weeks longer until they’ve been,’ he said formally. ‘I’d like to make sure the cottages are completely ready. It will show that I’ve got a strategy and can implement it.’

Lotty felt as if she’d been given a reprieve. Another month, and a reason to stay. Happiness was ballooning inside her, but the sober, sensible part of her brain hung in there too, dragging her back to reality with the reminder that nothing had changed really. She would still have to go.

‘I’m happy to stay until they’ve been,’ she told him, ‘but after that…’

‘You’ll leave,’ Corran finished for her quickly. ‘I under stand.’

Lotty didn’t want him to understand. She wanted him to seize her in his arms and beg her not to go. She wanted him to refuse to let her go, to make her stay for ever.

But what about her grandmother? Her duty? What about the fact that Corran wanted a sensible, practical wife to share his life?

She forced a smile and went back to chopping her onion. ‘So what’s the plan? Finishing the cottages?’

‘Yes, those first,’ he said, pushing the papers into a pile. ‘Then I’d like to get the rest of the place spruced up a bit too. Half the fences are down. It all looks shabby. I need to do something about the barns and pens, and the stable block is a mess… Well, I can’t tackle all of it yet, but if I can cost out my development plans and look as if I’ve put in a bit of effort, I should have a better chance of convincing him that this can be a profitable estate again—and that’s all he’ll be interested in.’

Lotty wasn’t sure about that. ‘I think you should do something about the house too,’ she said as she tipped the onion into a frying pan.

Corran frowned. ‘The house is bottom of my priority list.’

‘First impressions count,’ she said.

She should know. She thought about all the royal visits she had done, and how everything was always tidy, always freshly painted and sparkling clean. It was nonsense to think that she was seeing places as they really were. The people who welcomed her wanted her to see them as they could be, as they longed to be, not as they were on a day-to-day level.

Corran wasn’t convinced. ‘The house isn’t part of the investment plan.’

‘They’re going to arrive here,’ Lotty pointed out. ‘I’m not suggesting you do up the whole house, but at the very least you need to make sure the drawing room and the loo look welcoming.’

‘I can’t believe Dick Rowland will notice that the drawing room is a bit shabby.’

‘His wife will. And it’s more than a bit shabby. You don’t want them feeling depressed by the place before they even get outside.’

Corran thought about that. ‘I can’t afford new furniture.’

‘We can use some of the stuff we bought for the cottages,’ said Lotty. ‘As long as we’ve fully furnished a couple of those, they’ll get the idea. We just need a couple of sofas and a coffee table. We’ll keep it simple.’

She shook the onion in the pan, excited by the possibilities. ‘It wouldn’t take long to strip off the old wallpaper so you can’t see the marks where the paintings were—that would make a big difference!—and we could sand the floorboards. I can make it look nice.

‘If you want to impress this guy, Corran, you need to make sure you welcome him properly,’

she said. ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ she promised him.

‘I suppose you did this kind of thing in your PR job,’ said Corran, and she bit her lip. She’d forgotten about her imaginary career in public relations.

‘Something like that,’ she said.

A thought occurred to her. ‘How long are they going to stay?’ she asked Corran, not sorry to change the subject. ‘Not the night?’

The pale eyes gleamed with understanding. ‘No, he said they were planning to spend the night in Fort William.’

‘Phew! At least I won’t need to produce a fancy meal.’

‘I’ll suggest a cup of tea,’ said Corran. ‘Just buy a packet of shortbread or something.’

But Lotty had no intention of giving the Rowlands shop-bought anything. She might not be up to cooking a gourmet meal, but surely she could manage something for tea. What better occasion could there be for some perfect little scones? And they would be perfect this time. She would go back to Betty McPherson and learn how to make them properly if it was the last thing she did.

It would be the last thing she did for Corran, and Lotty was determined to do it right. While she was doing her royal duty, she wanted to think of him here, on a thriving estate, doing what he needed to do. And if this investment helped him to achieve that, she would do whatever she could to make it happen.

Lotty was really pleased with the cottages when they were finished. Corran had put in new kitchens and bathrooms and done the tiling, while she had cleaned and painted them all. Now new carpets had been laid, and the rooms were simply but stylishly furnished. With that spectacular setting too, how could the Rowlands not be impressed?

Corran wanted to concentrate on the outside after that, but Lotty set about pulling the tired wallpaper off the drawing room walls. The house had much bigger rooms than the cottages, of course, and the high ceiling proved a new challenge. She had to balance precariously on ladders to reach the wallpaper underneath the coving, until Corran came in and shouted at her for taking unnecessary risks.

‘It is necessary,’ Lotty protested from the top of her ladder and he clicked his tongue in exasperation.

‘I’ll do it, then. Get down from there at once! I haven’t got time to deal with you if you break your neck,’ he grumbled.

It was almost like it had been before.

Almost.

Lotty couldn’t quite put her finger on what had changed, but something had. There was an edge of desperation to their love-making now and, although they still talked and Corran was still grouchy, sometimes a constraint crept into the silences between them. Now those pauses in the conversation which had once been companionable seemed to be weighted with all the things they weren’t talking about, like what would happen after the Rowlands had been.

Like the future, when they would go their separate ways.

Like saying goodbye.

Lotty was making more of an effort to keep in touch with Montluce, hoping that she would start to feel homesick. She wanted to remember all the things she loved about her country: the history and the proud independence of the people, the gentle lakes and the wooded hills, the cuisine and the markets and the chic way the women wore the most ordinary of clothes.

She emailed Caro more regularly, and was one of the first to hear when Philippe defied his father and the Dowager Blanche to refuse permission for the proposed gas pipeline that had caused unprecedented protests in the country. The environmental impact was too great, Philippe had decided, and astounded observers by negotiating a new agreement that miraculously satisfied the activists and those who were more concerned by the impact on the economy.

‘Montluce has hit the headlines,’ said Corran, who’d read about it on the internet. ‘Your Prince Philippe is being hailed as a hero of the environment.’

‘See, there’s a point to him after all,’ said Lotty, but she was wondering what was really happening in Montluce.

She hadn’t heard from Caro for a while. The Dowager Blanche would be furious. Lotty’s father hadn’t taken much interest in anything beyond Ancient Greece, so it was her grandmother who had been running the country behind the scenes for years. She was the one who had made the original agreement for the pipeline, and she wouldn’t take kindly to her will being crossed.

Expecting a crisis, Lotty was a little puzzled when none seemed to materialise but she had other things to think about. In spite of all her efforts to reconnect with Montluce, she was absorbed in life at Loch Mhoraigh. Sanding floorboards, walking the dogs, washing dishes, poring over a recipe, sweeping and tidying… Lotty clung to the ordinary things while she could, committing the simple joy of day-to-day life to her memory.

And when the day’s tasks were done, there were the long, sweet nights with Corran. She hoarded every moment. Each touch, each kiss, each gasp of wicked pleasure was dipped in gold and stored in her head for the future when memories would be all she would have.

How could she think about Montluce when there was Corran, his sleek, powerful body, his mouth—his mouth—and those strong, sure hands? Lotty wanted to burrow into him, to hold on to him as if he could stop the hours passing and make it always now, and never then.

But the clock kept ticking on and, just when Lotty had let herself forget about life in Montluce, she received an email message from her grandmother that jolted her back to reality.

Caro, it seemed, had gone back to England and everything had gone wrong. Where was Lotty when she was needed? Her grandmother missed her. Please would she come home soon.

It was a querulous message, so unlike the indomitable Dowager Blanche that Lotty was instantly worried. Her grandmother never begged, never admitted that she needed help.

Lotty bit her lip.

Unseeingly, she looked out of the office window. It was a dismal evening with rain splattering against the glass and an angry wind rattling the panes, but Lotty was thinking about the palace in Montluce. Did her grandmother need her now? Had she been selfish long enough?

‘May I use the phone?’ she asked Corran, who was in the kitchen, poring over figures for his breeding programme.

He looked up, and his brows drew together at her expres sion.

‘Of course,’ he said.

Lotty went back to the office, took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialled the palace’s number. As soon as it was answered she gave the code word which put her call immediately through to the Dowager Blanche’s office, and then there was a click and her grandmother herself on the line.

‘Grandmère?’ Lotty’s throat tightened unaccountably at the sound of her grandmother’s voice.

‘Charlotte!’

The Dowager Blanche, realising that her granddaughter was on the line, proceeded to give Lotty a lecture on how selfish and irrational she had been.

Lotty bore it, insensibly reassured to hear that her grandmother was still on her usual intransigent form. From what she could tell, the Dowager was unsure who to be more cross with, Caro, Philippe or Lotty herself. It seemed that they were all ungrateful and irresponsible. Caro had gone back to England—not that the Dowager cared!—and Philippe was moping around. She was beaten and tired, her grandmother told Lotty, but she didn’t sound it. She sounded like an old lady whose will had been thwarted and who didn’t understand what was going on.

‘When are you going to stop this nonsense and come home?’ she demanded at last.

‘Soon, Grandmère, I promise. There’s just something I need to do here.’

‘What sort of something? And where is here? What kind of granddaughter won’t even tell her grandmother where she is?’

The querulous note in her voice stabbed at Lotty’s conscience, but she steeled herself. ‘I’ll tell you about it when I come home.’

She ended the call and sat for a while, holding the phone against her chest, before she set it back in its cradle and went to find Corran.

‘Problem?’ he asked, looking up from his papers.

Lotty hugged her arms together. ‘No…I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘Things seem to have gone wrong. My grandmother sounds OK, but I think she needs me.’

‘Do you want to go home?’ Corran made himself ask.

She hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Not yet. I don’t think there’s much I can do for now. I’ll stay until after the Rowlands have been.’

‘And then?’

Lotty drew an uneven breath. ‘Then I’ll have to go.’

‘This looks…incredible.’ Corran stared around the drawing room, amazed at the transformation.

Having banished Lotty from ladders, he had painted the ceiling and coving, and helped her carry in the furniture, but everything else she had done herself. The dusty floorboards had been sanded until they were a warm honey colour, and she had painted the walls a pale yellow so that the room seemed to be filled with sunshine even on the dullest of days.

Lotty had chosen two of the simple sofas they had bought for the cottages, and set them on either side of the fireplace with a sturdy coffee table between them. The only decoration was an arrangement of wildflowers in the grate. Bare the room might be still, but it looked stylish and welcoming too.

‘Incredible,’ said Corran again, remembering how sad the room had looked before.

‘Let’s hope the Rowlands think so,’ said Lotty. ‘Now all we need is a nice day so they can see Loch Mhoraigh at its best.’

That last morning, Lotty woke early. She lay for a while blinking at the morning sun that striped the bed and glinted off the hairs on Corran’s chest. He was still asleep. Her face was pressed against his warm shoulder, and she could hear him breathing slow and steady.

Lotty’s hand drifted down his arm. She didn’t want to wake him, but she had to touch him. His muscles were firm beneath her palm, and her fingers played with the flat hairs on his forearm before curling around his wrist. How many more minutes would she be able to lie like this, drinking in the scent of his skin, comforted by his size and solidity and strength, loving him?

Of course she loved him. Lotty hadn’t wasted time trying to deny it to herself. She even thought Corran might love her too, but not enough to give up Loch Mhoraigh. She knew what this place meant to him. She wouldn’t ask him to leave it to live in Montluce with her, even if she had the courage to tell him who she was. Corran would hate the formality of the palace, and her grandmother would be horrified.

And how could she turn her back on her grandmother and her country to stay here when Corran had made it so clear that he was looking for quite a different kind of woman to share his life?

No, they had agreed to a temporary affair, and it had been wonderful, more wonderful than Lotty could ever have imagined, but it would be better for both of them if they left it at that.

If only Dick Rowland was impressed enough to invest in the estate. Lotty told herself that it would be easier to leave if she knew that Corran would have the money to bring Loch Mhoraigh back to life. He would be happy here.

And she would be happy in Montluce. Somehow.

CHAPTER NINE

LOTTY’S stomach churned and she shifted uneasily. She had been feeling queasy a lot recently. She’d tried to convince herself that it was anxiety about the Rowlands’ visit but, deep down, she knew that it was dread at the prospect of saying goodbye. Once today was over, she would have no excuse to stay. She had promised her grandmother that she would go home, and that was what she would do, but oh, it was going to be hard!

‘You’re fretting,’ Corran said lazily without opening his eyes.

‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘How can I sleep with you twanging beside me?’ he grumbled, but he pulled her hard against him. ‘Stop worrying,’ he said as his hands slid possessively over her. ‘It’ll be fine.’

Lotty wasn’t sure about that, but she let herself be distracted. She let him banish apprehension with skilful hands, let pleasure blot out all thought, and afterwards she pretended that nervousness about the day was all it had been.

She spent the morning fussing around, and made Corran change into a better shirt, although he refused point blank to put on a tie.

‘I’m supposed to be a working farmer,’ he said. ‘Farmers don’t wear ties.’

Lotty agonized for a while about her own outfit. She was afraid that some of her Montlucian clothes would look too elegant. As Corran pointed out, if she could afford clothes like that, it would look as if they didn’t need investment, but she could hardly wear her old working clothes either. In the end she settled for her faithful jeans and the raspberry pink cardigan she had worn every evening when she first arrived.

‘What do you think?’ she asked Corran. She offered a nervous twirl. ‘Is this casual enough?’

Corran looked her up and down, and his pale eyes were warmer than Lotty had ever seen them before. ‘You look perfect,’ he said.

Lotty was still glowing with his approval when the Rowlands arrived.

With its encouraging tax regime, Montluce had an impeccable reputation as a centre of international finance and Lotty had met plenty of financiers over the years. She had expected Dick Rowland to fit the same suave mould, but he turned out to be a bulky Yorkshireman with a meaty face and small, sharp eyes. His wife, Kath, was blonde and bubbly. She started talking before she was even out of the car and barely drew breath after that.

At least she seemed to like what she saw. ‘Oh, this is gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, looking around her. ‘What a wonderful place to live.’

Her wide blue eyes came back to rest on Lotty’s face with a slight frown. ‘Sorry, am I staring?’ she said when Corran introduced Lotty as his partner. ‘You look so familiar… We haven’t met before, have we?’

Lotty’s heart took a nosedive. Please, God, don’t let them have visited Montluce, she prayed. Why hadn’t she thought of that as a possibility? She had hosted countless receptions for visiting bankers at the palace. What if the Rowlands had been to one?

She fixed a smile on her face. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I would remember if we had.’

‘Maybe you look like an actress,’ said Kath, still puzzling. ‘Who does she look like, Dick?’

To Lotty’s relief, Dick ignored his wife. He was talking to Corran about the state of the track. ‘You need to do something about that,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to lose my sump at the very least on the way here.’

‘I’ve included the cost of upgrading the track in the financial plan,’ Corran told him.

Lotty offered coffee, but they agreed to begin with a tour of the estate. Corran drove them all in the Land Rover, which had been specially cleaned for the occasion. After admiring the cottages, he took them on a bumpy ride up the hillside to where he could point out the features of the estate and tell Dick about his plans for improvement.

It was a bright, breezy day. Billowing clouds bustled past the sun and sent great patches of light and shade sweeping across the hills. Far below them, the loch shone silver and Lotty remembered her first sight of it. Now it all felt so familiar.

It felt like home.

Lotty wanted to stand and drink in the view while Corran and Dick talked business but Kath Rowland kept chatting in her ear. She was determined to remember who Lotty reminded her of, and worked her way through a number of actresses, none of whom she remotely resembled, before deciding that it must after all be one of the mothers at her daughter’s school. To Lotty’s dismay, Kath appeared to be almost as avid a reader of gossip magazines as Betty McPherson. Why couldn’t she be languid and sophisticated like most of the financiers’ wives she’d met?

It was a relief when they went back to the house and she could escape to the kitchen to make tea. She had made the scone mix earlier so she just added milk and put them in the range while she boiled the kettle and set the tray. Wondering how Corran was getting on in the drawing room, she nearly forgot about the scones and had to whisk them out of the oven.

They were perfect.

She broke one open just to check. It was golden on the outside, light as air in the middle. Lotty could hardly believe it.

She carried the tray through to the drawing room, and her eyes met Corran’s as she set it down on the low table between the sofas. She saw him register the immaculate scones and they exchanged a private smile.

‘I’ve got it!’ Kath’s exclamation made Lotty jump. ‘I’ve been racking my brain to remember who you remind me of, and it’s just hit me. You’re the spitting image of Princess Charlotte of Montluce!’

Lotty went cold and then hot. ‘Oh, do you think so?’ she said as casually as she could. ‘Doesn’t she have dark hair?’

‘That’s true,’ said Kath, frowning in an effort of memory. ‘She has that wonderful signature bob. Still, the resemblance is remarkable. You even have the same name. Lotty’s short for Charlotte, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it’s quite a coincidence.’ Lotty’s hand shook slightly as she poured the tea. She could feel Corran’s eyes on her face but she didn’t dare look at him.

Kath was still talking. ‘I feel so sorry for that poor girl,’ she confided. ‘They say that family is cursed. First her father died, then her uncle and his son, and wasn’t there another son who was disinherited? He’s in prison for murder.’

It was for a drugs offence, but Lotty wasn’t about to correct her. Smiling brightly, she picked up the plate and passed it to Kath. ‘Would you like a scone?’

‘Ooh, these look gorgeous!’ Kath took one, but Lotty’s hopes that she might be diverted were soon dashed. Kath had more to say about Princess Charlotte.

‘Then she was engaged to Prince Philippe and he dumped her for somebody nobody had ever heard of. Poor thing, it must have been so humiliating for her!’

Desperately, Lotty offered scones to Dick and Corran, head ducked as if she could make herself invisible somehow.

‘They say Charlotte is broken-hearted,’ Kath went on inexorably. ‘She just dropped out of sight.’

‘Really?’ said Corran. His voice was empty of all expression, but when Lotty risked a fleeting glance at him she saw that he was watching her steadily and unsmilingly.

He knew. She could see it in his eyes, which were the clear, cold blue of icebergs. Lotty thought about the warmth she had seen there before the Rowlands arrived and she wanted to weep. You look perfect, he had said.

‘Nobody’s seen her for ages,’ Kath was rambling on. ‘Well, she couldn’t hang around and watch her fiancé flaunting another woman, could she? I don’t blame her for lying low.’

She had to say something. ‘I don’t think they were actually engaged, were they?’ she managed through stiff lips.

‘Oh, yes, they were,’ said Kath with all the authority of a regular Glitz reader. ‘She absolutely adored Philippe. It’s not surprising. He’s absolutely gorgeous, although they say he’s a real playboy.’

They didn’t know anything, Lotty wanted to shout at her, but she had to sit there and listen to Kath speculating about Philippe and Caro, and pitying poor Princess Charlotte who was so beautiful and good and so astronomically wealthy but so unlucky in love.

‘It just goes to show nobody can have everything, doesn’t it?’ she said.

It was a nightmare. Kath went on and on about Montluce and Lotty couldn’t think of a single way to stop her. Her perfect scones tasted like ashes in her mouth.

After that one glance, she couldn’t bear to look at Corran again. He wasn’t saying anything, but she could feel the cold fury radiating from him as clearly as if he had touched her. They were sitting rigidly side by side on the sofa facing the Rowlands, and the air between them was jangling with such tension that Lotty couldn’t believe that Kath hadn’t noticed.

‘She’s probably getting legless on some yacht somewhere,’ Dick Rowland interrupted his wife at last. ‘Corran, have you thought about a fish farm?’

So then they had to have a long discussion about the merits of salmon versus trout. Lotty crumbled her perfect scone on her plate and couldn’t decide whether she longed for them to go, or dreaded it because then she would have to face Corran.

It felt as if she sat there for hours before Dick finally slapped his hands on his thighs and announced that they would have to get on the road. He hauled himself to his feet, followed reluctantly by his wife.

‘I think you’ve got something here,’ he said to Corran. ‘Send me those figures, and we’ll talk when I get back from Skye.’

Outside, he thanked Lotty for the tea. ‘Those were the best scones I’ve ever tasted,’ he told her and then turned to shake hands with Corran. ‘You’re a lucky man, Corran, to have found yourself such a good cook!’

Dick was clearly waiting for Corran to put his arm around Lotty and smile and agree that he was a lucky man, but Corran couldn’t bring himself to touch her. To touch the missing Princess of Montluce. Because of course that was who she was. He’d seen her expression. Only a fool wouldn’t have guessed the truth long ago.

A fool like him.

Somehow Corran summoned a brief smile and managed to unlock his jaw enough to thank Dick for coming.

Face set, he stood next to Lotty—no, next to Princess Charlotte—on the doorstep and waved the Rowlands off. In silence they waited until the car had negotiated the bend in the track.

‘Well, I think that went well, don’t you, Your Highness?’ he said at last.

Lotty flinched at the unpleasant emphasis on the title, but she didn’t deny it. ‘I think it did, yes,’ she said and turned to go back inside.

Her coolness enraged Corran so much that he grabbed at her arm before he remembered just who she was and snatched his hand back as if he’d been stung. ‘You’ve been lying to me!’

‘How?’ Her face was pale, but her chin was up. How could he ever have mistaken her for anything but a princess? ‘How have I lied, Corran?’ she demanded. ‘I told you that I lost my purse. That wasn’t a lie. I told you I needed a job. That wasn’t a lie. I told you that I wanted to get away for a while but that I couldn’t stay for ever. That wasn’t a lie either. I haven’t lied about anything important.’

‘What about omitting the tiny little bit of information about you being a princess?’ he said furiously.

‘Would it have made a difference?’

Corran was thrown by her cool challenge. ‘A difference to what?’

‘To whether you’d let me stay. To whether you’d have made love to me. To everything.’

He rubbed a distracted hand over his face. ‘Yes! No! I don’t know!’

Lotty smiled sadly. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you,’ she said.

Without another word, she turned and went back into the drawing room, where she began to gather up the teacups as if nothing had happened, as if his world hadn’t just been turned upside down.

‘You must have thought I was an idiot!’ Corran followed her, too angry and humiliated to let it go. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. There was so much that didn’t add up. I should have guessed what you were. Who else but a princess wouldn’t know how to make a cup of tea? Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I couldn’t!’ Lotty’s voice rose, and she let the cups and saucers clatter onto the tray. ‘I didn’t want to tell you! I didn’t want you to start treating me carefully, the way everyone else does.

Just once, just for a short while, I wanted someone to look at me and see me, not a princess.’ She pressed a fist to her chest. ‘Me!’

There was a silence. Corran’s gut churned with disappointment and dismay as he stared at her, trying to see the old Lotty in the princess with the flashing eyes and the hectic flush along her cheekbones.

‘So what exactly are you doing here?’

‘I’m being selfish.’

Without warning, the fury drained out of her and she dropped onto the sofa as if someone had knocked her legs out from beneath her.

‘Everything I told you about my family was true,’ she said, looking down at her hands. ‘Except I didn’t tell you that Papa was Crown Prince of Montluce. He was a gentle man, and I don’t think he ever got over my mother dying when she did. He retreated into his studies, and my grandmother ran the country behind the scenes far more effectively than he could ever have done.’

Lotty risked a glance at Corran, who had folded his arms and was listening with a grim expression. How was she going to make him understand what her life in Montluce was like?

‘Papa was more interested in Ancient Greece than in shaking hands,’ she went on after a moment. ‘That was my job. As soon as I left school, I stepped into my mother’s shoes and became the public face of Montluce. I didn’t have a choice,’ she tried to explain, hating the desperation that curled the edges of her voice. ‘I’m an only child. Papa was wrapped up in his own world, my grandmother is elderly. I couldn’t refuse. I was brought up to do my duty and I did it.

‘Montluce may be a tinpot country to you, Corran, but it matters to the people who live there. Wherever I go, people are delighted to see me. I’m loved by thousands. They all think I’m wonderful. They all think I’m beautiful. I’m their perfect princess,’ said Lotty dully. ‘I can’t disappoint them by behaving badly, so I don’t. I let them put me up on a pedestal, and then I realised I couldn’t get down.’

‘So how did you get from the pedestal to Loch Mhoraigh?’ Corran’s voice was as hard as his expression.

Lotty let out a long sigh. How could someone like Corran possibly understand?

‘Worse than realising that I was stuck was realising that I didn’t know what I was doing up there in the first place,’ she said. ‘Why do all those people love me? It has to be because of what I am—how could it be because of who I am? Nobody knows who I am, least of all me.’

She paused. Corran was listening, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking. ‘My family has a proud history. It’s full of individuals who fought for Montluce and what they believed was right. I’m not like them. I’ve never had to fight for anything. I’ve never been tested.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Corran angrily. ‘For God’s sake, Lotty, you coped with losing your mother at twelve and being sent away to school. How much more tested do you want to be?’

‘I just didn’t feel as if I had ever had a chance to discover who I really was,’ she said. ‘When Papa died, I was sad, but I thought that at last I’d have the chance to step out of the limelight and find a life of my own. The new Crown Prince had a wife, so they didn’t need me. But then my uncle died, and his son soon afterwards, and it seemed like every time I turned round there was another family tragedy.’

Lotty smiled sadly. ‘Someone had to represent the family while everything was in turmoil, and how could I refuse when everyone was depending on me? Now we’ve got Crown Prince Honoré. He doesn’t have a wife either, and his only heir is his son Philippe. My grandmother decided it would be a good thing if Philippe and I made a match of it, and I…I panicked. I felt as if I was suffocating. I’ve never been good at standing up to my grandmother, and I could see all my opportunities closing down, one after the other.’

Leaning forward, she straightened the saucers on the tray. ‘I knew I couldn’t run away for ever, but I was desperate to get away, just for a while. I wanted to do something for myself, to find out what life was like off the pedestal, so I made a plan with Philippe.’

‘The same Philippe who broke your heart?’ asked Corran with a scowl.

‘It wasn’t like that,’ said Lotty. ‘Kath had it all wrong.’

‘What was it like?’

So she told him about the deal she had made with Philippe and Caro, and how they had provided the excuse for her to escape for a while.

‘But now it’s all gone wrong,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what happened. Caro’s gone home and my grandmother is upset and Philippe sounds desperate. And I have to go home,’ she said dully.

‘Back to the pedestal?’

‘Back to my duty.’ Lotty lifted her eyes to his once more. ‘I’m a princess. I can’t do whatever I like. I have a position, and with that comes responsibilities.’ She swallowed. ‘I ran away from them for a while, but they’re still there.’

‘So these last few weeks have just been a game to you while you played at being ordinary?’

In a dim part of his mind, Corran knew that he was being unfair, but discovering that Lotty was a princess had left him feeling raw and foolish. And hurt that she hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him the truth. He’d always thought of her as transparent and true. Now he was wondering just how much of what she’d told him, how much of what she’d been, had been pretence.

Lotty bit her lip. ‘I wanted to know what life is like without everyone watching your every movement, listening to your every word in case you make a mistake. Was that so bad?’

‘You should have told me,’ Corran said stonily.

Wearily, Lotty got up and put the last plates on the tray. ‘What would have been the point?’ she asked. ‘There was never any question that we would have a future together. I didn’t want to complicate things.’

‘So that’s it?’

‘What else is there to say?’ Lotty’s voice was very calm, but her knuckles were white as she gripped the tray and carried it through to the kitchen. ‘We both knew this was a temporary affair, Corran. I told you that I would have to go home to my grandmother, and I think I’d better do that now.’

‘How are you going to do that?’ he demanded furiously.

‘I just need to lift the phone, and someone will come and get me.’ Lotty turned on the hot tap and held her hand underneath it to check the temperature, while Corran stared at her incredulously.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘Washing up.’ She glanced at his face. ‘You see, I knew it would be like this. You think princesses shouldn’t wash up.’

‘I don’t know what I think any more,’ Corran confessed.

He dropped into a chair at the kitchen table and dragged his hands through his hair as if he could pull his thoughts into some kind of order.

Too late, he realised that he had fallen in love, but he loved Lotty, not this cool, distant princess. He loved Lotty, who was sweet and true, or who he thought was sweet and true. How could he know any more?

And even if she was still the same Lotty, how could he tell her that he loved her now? A declaration of love following straight on from the discovery that she was a princess and—what was that phrase Kath Rowland had used?—astronomically wealthy, was hardly likely to be convincing.

The truth crouched like a boulder low in his belly. Why hadn’t he heeded his own instincts, which had warned him from the first that Lotty was trouble? Instead he had blundered on, forgetting Ella, forgetting the facts, forgetting everything but the smooth warmth of Lotty’s skin, and the sweetness of her mouth, and the insistent pulse of need. And look where it had got him, a fool sitting at his own kitchen table while everything he had thought was true evaporated into nothing.

Lotty finished washing up and dried her hands on a tea towel. She glanced at Corran and hesitated, but in the end all she said was, ‘I’ll go and ring the palace now.’

Corran was still sitting at the table, his chest burning, his throat tight with bitterness and anger, when she came back.

‘They’re coming to pick me up.’

‘Now?’

She looked out of the window to where the hills glowed in the early evening sun. ‘There’s plenty of light,’ she said.

Sure enough, the faint purple sky was only just starting to deepen when Corran heard the dull wop-wop-wop of a helicopter overhead. He stood at the front door and watched it touch down perfectly on the gravel he had cleared for Dick Rowland, sending the birds shrieking in outrage from the trees.

Corran had seen plenty of helicopters in his time, but this one looked alien, sleek and shiny against the backdrop of the hills. It looked wrong.

The dogs were barking furiously at it. Corran called Meg back with a sharp word, but Lotty had to bend quickly to pick up Pookie, who, undaunted by his small size, was bristling with eagerness to see off the intruders.

Before the helicopter was settled, officers in dark uniforms had jumped out and were ducking under the still-spinning blades. They came quickly towards the house, guns at the ready, their eyes moving rapidly between him and Lotty. Corran kept his hands in full view. He’d been on operations like this himself, and these officers were professionals. They weren’t taking anything for granted.

The lead officer spoke briefly to Lotty in French, and she replied in the same language. Presumably she told them that she was under no threat as he gestured to the other men and they all fell back, although they stayed alert.

‘I should go,’ said Lotty.

She ruffled Pookie’s fluffy head and put him on the ground. ‘Be a good d-dog,’ she told him, and Corran could hear the crack in her voice.

Biting her lip, Lotty stroked Meg’s head and then raised her eyes to Corran’s at last. ‘I’ll never forget my time here,’ she said.

There was a great weight in his chest, pressing, pressing against his heart, holding him immobile. Unable to speak, Corran managed a stiff nod.

Lotty inhaled slowly, steadying herself, and then she turned and walked towards the helicopter.

Oblivious to the atmosphere, Pookie romped after her, head cocked eagerly as he looked up at her in expectation. Lotty stopped, and Pookie stopped too, his absurd tail wagging.

Corran found his voice. ‘Pookie!’

Pookie glanced back at him, puzzled, but evidently decided that his place was with Lotty. In the end, Lotty picked up the little dog and carried him back to Corran. When she put Pookie in his arms, Corran saw that her eyes were swimming with tears, and his heart clenched painfully.

He thought about how hard she’d worked, about the difference she had made.

He thought about the feel of her, about turning to her in the night and finding her warm and soft and responsive.

He thought about how much he was going to miss her.

He thought about how much he loved her, and how he’d left it too late to tell her.

Now Pookie was whining in his arms and she was walking away once more.

‘Lotty—’ he called impulsively.

She paused, half turned so that she could look at him over her shoulder.

There ought to be some way to tell her how he felt, but Corran’s mind went blank. All he could think was that she was leaving, and there was nothing he could do about it. ‘Thank you,’

was all he said in the end. ‘Thank you for everything.’

Lotty looked at him for a moment, and she jerked her head, just as he had done when he had been unable to speak. Then she turned and walked on to the helicopter, her back very straight. An officer saluted, and they stooped to avoid the whirling propeller blades as he escorted her to the door.

She climbed in without looking back.

The rest of the officers followed. The door was pulled shut, the spinning propeller picked up speed and the helicopter lifted into the air. It hung there, ungainly, for a moment, before veering round and heading off down the glen, its shadow skimming over the silver surface of the loch.

Corran watched it until it receded into a tiny speck and finally disappeared. The birds settled back into the trees, ruffling their feathers. Pookie sighed. Meg lay down and put her nose on her paws. Silence rolled down from the hillsides.

She was gone.

Lotty stood at the window of her apartment, looking out over the lake. It was a pretty scene, with sailing boats making the most of the autumn sunshine, and trees along the lakeside turning red and gold, but her heart still ached for the silver loch and the austere hills of Mhoraigh.

And for the man who belonged there.

Caro came to stand beside her. She touched Lotty’s arm gently. ‘Have you told your grandmother yet?’

‘Not yet, no.’ Lotty mustered a smile. ‘She’s not going to be happy.’

‘It’s more important that you’re happy,’ said Caro. ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’

‘Yes, I’m sure.’ It was the only thing Lotty had been sure of since seeing the double line on the strip. ‘I’m having this baby.’

‘What about Corran?’

It had been such a relief when Philippe had brought Caro back to Montluce. Lotty was fiercely glad for their happiness together, even if it did make her own misery more apparent. Caro’s presence changed the whole atmosphere in the palace. There was laughter in the long corridors and even the Dowager Blanche was seen to smile occasionally.

Reluctant to intrude on Caro’s joy, Lotty kept her grandmother company, and took up her duties once more. Eventually she hoped to be able to pass them on to Caro, but for now Caro was busy planning a wedding at the beginning of December and at least visiting factories and schools and hospitals made Lotty fix on a smile and hold her head up.

So she smiled and shook hands, moving through the days on automatic pilot, but inside she felt as if she was blundering through a smothering fog of despair. She missed Corran desperately. At night she lay awake, aching for him, remembering him. If she thought about him hard enough, would he feel her? Would he pause and look up from whatever he was doing, sensing that she was dreaming of him?

Everyone in Montluce was treating her very gently, as if she had been through some traumatic experience. Nobody asked her what she had been doing, or why she had disappeared.

Only Caro wanted to know about her time at Loch Mhoraigh. Only Caro knew about Corran, and it was to Caro that Lotty went when the consequences of that reckless afternoon in the cottage bathroom, with the sun streaming through the window and the sawdust on the floor, finally caught up with her.

Blurry with unhappiness, it had taken her longer than it should have done to notice the signs of change in her body, and now she put a wondering hand on her stomach. It was an extraordinarily powerful feeling to know that a child was growing inside her.

Except that it wasn’t extraordinary at all, really. Ordinary women around the world were having babies, just like her, and perhaps some of them were feeling the same jumbled mix of joy and terror and breathless awe at the miracle of it.

Caro was watching her in concern. ‘Corran’s going to be a father, Lotty. You have to tell him.’

‘I know, and I will tell him, of course I will, but I can’t yet, Caro.’

‘Why not?’

Lotty hugged her arms together as she turned from the window. ‘His ex-wife tricked him into marriage by pretending that she was pregnant. I’m not going to do the same thing.’

‘You’re not pretending,’ said Caro, exasperated. ‘You are pregnant!’

‘But how will Corran know that?’ asked Lotty. ‘I spent two and a half months pretending to be someone else. Why should he believe me now?’

‘If he loves you, he’ll believe you.’

‘He never said he loved me, Caro.’ Lotty sank into a chair and pushed her hair back from her face. Her bob had nearly grown back in, and it was smooth and dark, just as it had always been. She looked almost like her old self.

She just felt different.

‘Corran was very clear,’ she told Caro. ‘He’s not ready for children yet. A disaster was the word he used. He’s got too much to do getting the estate back on its feet. I’m not going to push him into a relationship he doesn’t want. If I tell him about the baby now, of course he’ll take responsibility. He’ll say we should get married, just like he did to Ella, and saddle himself with the wrong kind of wife all over again.’

‘You love him,’ said Caro. ‘Doesn’t that make you the right kind of wife?’

‘Not in Corran’s book. He’s determined to marry someone sensible and practical next time round, and I understand that. I think that’s what he needs too.’

‘You’re sensible,’ Caro insisted. ‘You’re practical too. Didn’t you tell me you did all that cleaning and painting? How much more practical does he want?’

‘He wants someone who’ll belong,’ said Lotty. ‘Someone who’s used to the isolation. Who can help with lambing if necessary, and who knows about farming and growing vegetables. Not someone like me, who didn’t even know how to peel a potato.’

‘You learnt, didn’t you? Just like I had to learn how to behave in a palace.’

In spite of herself, a smile trembled on Lotty’s lips. ‘I saw you and Philippe laughing at the Ambassador’s reception the other night. I’m sure that’s not how you’re supposed to behave!’

‘That was Philippe’s fault!’ Caro grinned then sobered. ‘The point is that I didn’t belong here either, but I’m learning. It could be the same for you at Loch Mhoraigh. And don’t you think Corran deserves to know he’s going to be a father?’

‘Of course he does, but not yet, Caro.’ The arguments had been going round and round in Lotty’s head until she was dizzy. ‘I don’t want Corran to feel as if he’s being forced into anything. I don’t want to be with him if that’s how he feels.’

She saw that Caro was still looking dubious. ‘When I’ve had the baby and am settled, I’ll tell him then, I promise. I’ve got to tell Grandmère first, and the Crown Prince. They’re going to be so disappointed. Perfect princesses aren’t supposed to get pregnant!’ she said with a twisted smile.

‘Oh, Lotty!’ Caro put her hand over Lotty’s. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to have this baby,’ said Lotty. ‘I know my grandmother won’t like me being a single mother, and maybe the people won’t like it either, but I’ve spent my whole life doing what everybody else expects of me.’

Her heart clenched at the thought of Corran, but she had meant what she told Caro. She would rather be by herself than push Corran into another disastrous marriage. Her time at Loch Mhoraigh had taught her that she was capable of doing whatever she set her mind to. She could be as strong as Raoul the Wolf when she needed to be. Wasn’t that what she had wanted to learn when she ran away from Montluce?

‘This is something I’m doing for myself, and for my baby,’ she told Caro. ‘I’m going to do it alone.’

CHAPTER TEN

‘A pint of milk, please, and I’ll take a packet of those biscuits.’

Corran avoided Mrs McPherson’s eyes. He preferred to shop in the anonymity of the Fort William supermarket, but whenever he decided to drive past the village he’d remember Lotty telling him they should support the local shop. So then he would have to come in, like now, and listen to Betty talking about Lotty, whose progress she was following in the glossy magazines she loved.

The news that they had entertained a princess had riveted Mhoraigh, although there were plenty, like Betty McPherson, who claimed that they had always known there was something special about her.

Corran had known there was something special about Lotty too. He just hadn’t realised that it involved a crown.

Everyone in Mhoraigh had hated him once;

now they pitied him. He was the frog who’d blown his chance with the princess.

Betty McPherson was very kind and often cooked him a meal to take home, but Corran hated the sympathy in her eyes. He hated the way she told him about the parties Lotty had been seen at, about the beautiful dresses she had worn. He hated the way he would drive back to the empty house afterwards and find that Lotty wasn’t there.

She wasn’t in the kitchen. She wasn’t in the cottages, her hair tied up in that scarf, humming tunelessly as she painted. She wasn’t walking Pookie down by the loch or sitting on the beach, sipping tea from the flask. She wasn’t there when he reached for her in the night.

She was in Montluce, being a princess, and far, far out of his reach.

Corran had thrown himself into work on the estate, but nothing was the same any more. Pookie was forlorn, and even Meg looked reproachful. ‘It’s all for the best,’ he found himself telling them as if they could understand him, but the words sounded hollow, even to himself.

And yet, how could it not be for the best? If Betty McPherson was to be believed, Lotty had slotted right back into her life in Montluce. It was absurd to hope that she might be missing Loch Mhoraigh, where there were no parties, no people, nowhere to wear those elegant clothes, and where her beauty was wasted on the hills and his mother’s ridiculous little dog. And him.

She had been happy there, yes. Corran knew that. He remembered the way her eyes used to shine—but he remembered, too, that she had never once said that she wanted to stay for ever.

Why would she? Just once, Corran had given in to temptation and looked Princess Charlotte of Montluce up on the internet, and there she was. A fist had closed around his heart at the sight of her. She was the perfect princess, just as she’d told him. Corran read about her life, and how much everyone loved her. Not a single scurrilous story was attached to her. She was just very beautiful, very good, very royal.

Oh, and very rich.

What could a man like him, a working farmer struggling to restore an isolated, dilapidated estate, possibly have to offer Princess Charlotte of Montluce?

Betty McPherson rang up the milk and the biscuits while Corran looked out at the first real snow of the season spitting from a leaden sky. He should stock up in case the track was ever impassable. Those were the kind of practicalities he should be thinking about, not how very far away Lotty seemed.

He opened his mouth to tell Betty that he would take more milk when she got in first.

‘Have you seen our lassie’s in the magazines again?’

Corran set his teeth. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Betty, I think I might—’

‘Look.’ Ignoring him, she pulled a copy of Glitz from the top of the pile on the counter. A Royal Rush Into Marriage! was splashed across the cover over a picture of Prince Philippe and Lotty’s friend, Caro. Philippe and Caro Wed This Weekend.

‘Very nice,’ said Corran. ‘Could I have—’

‘And here’s our lassie.’ Betty folded the page back and showed it to Corran. ‘She looks peaky, doesn’t she?’ Her sharp blue eyes rested on Corran’s face.

Corran didn’t answer. He’d forgotten about milk and bread. He was staring down at the picture of Lotty. She looked strained, but beautiful still, standing next to some chinless wonder in a dinner jacket. Charlotte and Kristof: Another Wedding in the Offing?

There was another picture of Lotty on her own. The caption to that one read, Charlotte’s Bump: Could She be Pregnant?

He picked up the magazine with hands that weren’t quite steady and looked more closely at Lotty’s stomach. It did look like a bump. Was it possible? But how long before a pregnancy showed? It was three and a half long, long months since Lotty had left.

Corran did the sums in his head and stiffened. Crushing the magazine in his hand, he stood for a moment staring unseeingly ahead of him before he turned on his heel and stalked out of the shop without thinking to pay for the magazine, or remembering the milk and biscuits left abandoned on the counter.

Betty McPherson smiled gently and put them back on the shelf.

The palace was alight with excitement. Lights blazed in the windows and the staterooms were filled with a hubbub of conversation as representatives from every part of Montluce mingled with the glamorous guests and visiting royalty who had been invited to see Prince Philippe marry Miss Caroline Cartwright the next day.

It was a long time since Montluce had seen a royal wedding, and the country was making the most of it. In spite of the snow, huge crowds had gathered outside the palace to ooh and aah at the guests as they arrived, and many had staked their claim on the roadside to watch the procession the next morning.

Lotty was working her way round the room, trying to talk to as many people as possible. She had pulled out all the stops to celebrate Caro and Philippe’s wedding and was looking regal in a ball gown made of heavy Italian red silk. Her shoulders were bare except for the ancestral ruby and diamond necklace and she wore a tiara in her dark hair. The beautiful cut of the dress had been specially designed to draw attention away from her bump, but she had draped a chiffon stole over her arms as a further distraction.

Lotty wasn’t ashamed of her pregnancy, but this party was in honour of Caro and Philippe and she didn’t want anything to attract attention away from them tonight. Already there had been some speculation in the papers. Most of the reception guests were too polite to stare directly at her stomach, but Lotty could tell that they were wondering if the gossip was true or not.

So she smiled and chatted and hoped that nobody could see how tired she felt.

Standing up to her grandmother’s fearsome will had been harder than Lotty had imagined. The Dowager Blanche had been devastated by Lotty’s pregnancy and was unable to comprehend how she could even contemplate having the baby on her own. Her latest plan was to marry Lotty off to Count Kristof of Fleitenstien.

‘He would raise the child as his own,’ she assured Lotty. ‘He understands how these things are done.’

Lotty didn’t want things done. The baby was hers and Corran’s. She wasn’t going to pretend anything else. She wasn’t going to pretend to love anyone she didn’t. She had had enough of pretending.

Across the room, Lotty watched Caro and Philippe circulating amongst their guests. She was so happy for them, but whenever she saw the easy way they touched each other, the way they caught each other’s eye in a moment of private amusement, she felt so lonely she could hardly breathe.

She missed Corran so much. She ached for him, hungered for him, like now, when the longing to be back at Loch Mhoraigh, pressed against him, was like a great hand closing around her throat. Sucking in her breath at the pain, Lotty closed her eyes without thinking.

‘Altesse? Can I get you anything?’

Lotty’s eyes snapped open and she fixed a smile automatically back into place. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ From somewhere she summoned a name and set out to charm, but all the time she was remembering how different it had been with Corran, who never minced his words, who was caustic and abrupt and treated her exactly the way he treated everyone else.

Her gaze fixed courteously on the guest’s face, she didn’t at first register the commotion at the door, but as his gaze widened at something over her shoulder, she turned.

And froze.

There, pushing his way through the footmen, was Corran.

Corran, unmistakable, even in a dinner jacket and bow tie. Corran, grim-faced, looking tall and forbidding and utterly out of place under the glittering chandeliers in spite of his clothes.

Lotty stared, paralysed by shock, disbelief and incredulous, astounded joy.

He was striding across the ballroom, shaking off the footmen who hurried after him, searching the throng of guests with his eyes.

Looking for her.

Then he saw her. Even through the crowds, she could see the blaze of expression in his pale eyes as he checked, and headed straight for her. At the same time, security officers were converging on him from all sides, muttering hastily into the radios on their wrists, while the startled guests fell silent around them.

Lotty pulled herself together. She had to stop things before they got out of hand. They couldn’t have a major security issue in the middle of Caro and Philippe’s party.

Stepping forward, she gestured the security officers back before they could wrestle Corran to the ground, and he strode the last few yards unmolested until he stood right in front of her.

‘There you are,’ he said.

There was a rushing in Lotty’s head and her vision darkened as a great tumble of emotions crashed through her. She didn’t know whether to throw herself into Corran’s arms or beat at his chest in fury. She was spinning wildly in a turmoil of anger and ecstasy and confusion and, leaping through it all, the astounding, wonderful knowledge that it was him, it was really him, he was there and nothing else mattered.

She couldn’t faint. Lotty gripped the edges of her stole so tightly that her knuckles showed white. This was Caro and Philippe’s party. She couldn’t spoil it by making an exhibition of herself. Already half the room seemed to be turning to stare and a space was forming around them.

From somewhere Lotty found her princess smile and pinned it on.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked through stiff lips.

‘Is it true?’ Corran demanded fiercely.

She knew what he meant, of course she did, but couldn’t answer, not here in front of everyone. ‘We can’t talk about this now,’ she said with an edge of desperation, and then, to her relief, Caro and Philippe were there, supporting her, looking from her to Corran and back again.

‘Is everything all right?’ Philippe rarely put on airs, but he could be daunting when he wanted to be.

‘Yes,’ said Lotty automatically.

Just as Corran snarled, ‘No.’

He took hold of Lotty by the wrist. ‘No, it’s not all right,’ he told Philippe flatly. ‘I don’t want to break up the party, but Lotty and I are going somewhere we can talk.’

Philippe took a protective step forward, but Caro had been watching Lotty’s face and she put out a hand to hold him back. ‘I think this must be Corran,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ she said to Corran. ‘I hoped you would.’

Lotty found her voice. ‘Corran, this is—’

‘We’ll do introductions later,’ he interrupted her. ‘Right now, you and I are getting out of here.’

Keeping a firm hold of her wrist, he turned without a further word to Philippe and Caro and dragged her towards the doors but, before he could reach them, he was baulked again. This time it was the Dowager Blanche herself who stepped into his way.

Lotty’s grandmother was small and elderly, but she had a presence that could stop even Corran in his tracks. More than one person watching flinched at the expression on her face as she fixed Corran with gimlet eyes. She was, Lotty thought, far more frightening than the security officers on either side of her who were sliding their hands to their shoulder holsters.

‘Take your hands off my granddaughter,’ she said in freezing accents. ‘Do you know who she is?’

Corran had stopped, but he didn’t let Lotty go. ‘I do,’ he said, looking the Dowager Blanche right in the eyes. ‘Do you?’

‘This is Her Serene Highness Princess Charlotte!’

‘No,’ said Corran. ‘This is Lotty.’

Lotty sucked in a breath and tried to interrupt before her grandmother annihilated him. ‘Grandmère…’ she began, but it was too late.

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Her grandmother’s voice was like a lash. ‘And how dare you talk about my granddaughter in that vulgar way?’

‘I dare because I know her better than you do,’ said Corran.

‘You are impertinent!’

‘I’m also right,’ he said. ‘I bet you don’t know how out of tune she is when she hums or how she sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth when she’s concentrating. Do you know how stubborn she is, how hard she works? How she stretches when she’s tired, how grouchy she gets when her scones don’t turn out? Do you know the exact angle she puts her chin in the air when she’s crossed?

‘I didn’t think so,’ said Corran when the Dowager looked astounded. ‘Well, I do. I know the Lotty you’ll never know. The Lotty who’s fussy about her coffee and snappy if I forget to wipe my boots. Who smiles when she washes up and who hates cleaning her paintbrushes.’

His eyes went to Lotty and the two of them might as well have been alone, although all pretence at conversation had died around them and the entire ballroom was listening.

‘The Lotty who’s sweet and true and funny, who made me happy and who left me all alone because I was too stupid to tell her how I felt.’

He turned back to the Dowager and his face hardened. ‘You only know the princess. I know the woman. I may not know Princess Charlotte, but I know Lotty.’

His eyes flickered to the bodyguards. ‘Now, I’d like to talk to her alone so I’d be glad if you’d call off your goons and let us leave.’

There was a frozen moment when the air between Corran and the Dowager fairly crackled and then, to Lotty’s utter astonishment, her grandmother stood aside without another word.

‘Thank you,’ said Corran in a cool voice.

There was utter silence in the ballroom as he pulled Lotty out of the main doors to where the great state staircase swept down two sides to the marble hall. The area outside the doors was thronging with footmen and guests who had missed all the excitement. Corran ignored them all.

‘God, how do we get out of here?’

Lotty found her voice at last. ‘I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with you after embarrassing me like that.’

‘You’ll never be the perfect princess again,’ Corran agreed. ‘Your reputation’s shot. There’ll always be gossip about you now—and there’ll be even more if we have our discussion here in front of everyone. I don’t mind,’ he said, ‘but you might want some privacy.’

Lotty pressed her lips together, but she knew he was right. ‘We’ll go to my apartments,’ she said.

An astonished footman sprang to life to throw open the door of the apartment for them. Head held high, Lotty swept in first.

Corran shut the footman out and turned to face Lotty, who was standing in the middle of a sumptuously decorated apartment. The diamonds in her tiara flashed in the light. Her head was high, her eyes bright with anger, and in the red ball gown she looked very much a princess.

‘I don’t appreciate being humiliated in front of my family, our staff and a ballroom full of guests,’ she said icily.

‘And I don’t appreciate finding out from Betty McPherson that I’m a father!’ Corran snapped back. ‘How humiliating do you think that was?’

Lotty stared at him for a moment, and then she dropped abruptly onto one of the sofas and covered her face with her hands.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, her voice muffled. ‘I’m so sorry, Corran.’

The anger leaked out of the air and Corran sat down heavily beside her. Gently, he pulled her hands from her face so that he could look into her eyes.

‘It’s true, then? You’re having a baby?’ His throat was very tight. ‘Our baby?’

‘Yes, it’s true,’ said Lotty, her fingers curling around his in spite of herself.

‘It was that afternoon when we couldn’t wait to go back to the house, wasn’t it?’ said Corran, and her cheeks warmed at the memory of the heat that had consumed them as the dust drifted in the sunlight and the smell of wood shavings filled the air.

‘I think it must have been.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me, Lotty?’

She pulled her hands from his. ‘You told me you weren’t ready for children,’ she reminded him. ‘You told me how Ella tricked you into marriage by claiming to be pregnant. You told me you were never making a mistake like that again.’ She swallowed.

‘I didn’t want to be a mistake, Corran,’ she said, ‘and I didn’t want you to think of our baby as one. I was afraid that if I told you before the baby was born, you’d do exactly what you’ve done, and come rushing out to do your duty.’

‘Duty?’ said Corran slowly. ‘Is that what you think this is?’

‘What else can it be?’ Lotty hugged her arms together to stop herself from reaching for him. ‘I know how you feel. I know that the estate is your priority now. You think having a child would be a disaster, and you don’t want to be stuck with a wife like me. I know all that.

‘I don’t blame you,’ she went on quickly as Corran opened his mouth. ‘I completely understand the kind of woman you need at Loch Mhoraigh.’

‘Do you?’ He put his head on one side and regarded her thoughtfully, a smile hovering for the first time around his mouth and in the depths of his eyes. ‘What kind of woman is that?’

‘You want a farmer’s wife.’ Her voice was dull and she fiddled with the ends of her stole. ‘You need someone practical who’s used to country living. I understand that.’

Corran nodded. ‘I thought I needed a sensible, practical wife too. In fact, I was sure of it, but it turns out that what I really need is a princess who can’t cook.’

Lotty leapt to her feet in agitation before he could go any further. ‘You’re just asking me because of the baby,’ she said, wrapping her arms miserably around herself. ‘I knew this would happen! That’s why I didn’t tell you.’

She took a turn around the room while she tried to get her thoughts in order. ‘I don’t need you to look after me, Corran,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m not denying you your rights as a father. I know you’ll be a good one. I can see you don’t want your child growing up split between two parents the way you did, but you’d never be like your father. I know Mhoraigh will be an important part of our child’s life.

‘I’ll be fine on my own,’ she said, lifting her chin in the unconscious gesture Corran recognised so well. ‘I may be about to fall off my pedestal as far as the country is concerned, and my grandmother may be disappointed, but nobody’s going to cast me out onto the street. Even if they were, I’d rather do that than know you were marrying me because you feel responsible.’

She’d done a full circuit and was back where she’d started. Corran was still sitting on the sofa, watching her with an unreadable expression.

‘You’d feel trapped and resentful, and that’s no way to start a marriage,’ she told him. ‘You’ve already been through that once, and I’m not going to do that to you again.’

‘Finished?’ said Corran, getting to his feet in his turn.

Lotty’s eyes flickered around the room as she tried to work out if that was a trick question or not.

‘Yes,’ she said, but doubtfully.

‘Good, so perhaps I can have my say now?’

‘All right,’ she said with a wary look.

Corran took a deep breath. ‘I know you don’t need me, Lotty,’ he said. ‘Why do you think it’s taken me so long to come and find you? Look at you,’ he went on, gesturing at the diamonds around her neck, the tiara in her hair. ‘You’re a princess! You live in a palace! You’ve got everything you could ever want. What can a man like me possibly give you that you don’t already have?

‘You don’t need me, Lotty,’ he said again, ‘but I need you. I need you desperately. I thought that all I needed was Loch Mhoraigh. I thought if I could be where I belonged, I’d be fine, but I’ve learnt that belonging is about people as much as about place. You taught me that,’ he told her. ‘You made me realise that Loch Mhoraigh is just a place, and that I’ll belong anywhere as long as I’m with you.’

‘But the baby…?’ she managed.

‘The baby gave me the courage to come and tell you myself,’ said Corran. ‘I’d been sitting there at Loch Mhoraigh, missing you, wishing I’d told you how much I loved you before you left. Furious with myself for not asking you to stay while I had the chance.’

He took hold of the ends of her stole and used it to draw Lotty towards him, very slowly. ‘Whenever I went into the shop, Betty McPherson would tell me how she’d been reading about you in the magazines and it sounded as if you were having a wonderful time, going to parties and doing all the things you never did at Loch Mhoraigh. I thought you were happy,’ he said.

Lotty shook her head slowly. ‘I wasn’t happy.’

‘Then Betty showed me the picture where they were speculating about you being pregnant, and you looked sad. You didn’t look the way you looked at Loch Mhoraigh, and then I thought, what if she isn’t happy? What if it’s not too late to tell her that I love her? What if she really is having my baby, and needs me now even a fraction of the way I need her? I knew how hard it would be for you. I couldn’t bear the thought of you dealing with your grandmother and the press and everyone else all on your own when I ought to be with you. I was furious with myself for not being with you, and furious with you for not telling me.

‘And so I came,’ he said simply. ‘I didn’t stop to think about what I would say when I got here. I heard about the party tonight and I knew you’d be there. I’ve got mates who work as bodyguards so I know how these things work—and, by the way, your security team isn’t quite as tight as it ought to be! There’s no way I should have been able to get to you.

‘But I did, and there you were, standing in the middle of the floor, and you looked so beautiful, like the princess you are, but you were you too…’

Corran broke off, looking ruefully down into Lotty’s face. ‘Sorry, I’m not explaining this very well, am I? It was just…when I looked into your eyes, I didn’t see Princess Charlotte. I saw Lotty—the Lotty I’ve missed so desperately since you left. The Lotty I belong with.’

‘Oh, Corran…’ Lotty’s mouth trembled and Corran let go of the stole to take her hands instead.

‘Everything I told your grandmother—and all those people who were listening, agog—is true. I’m not in love with Princess Charlotte, but I am in love with you. Please tell me you’ve missed me too, Lotty. Tell me you need me and love me, even if it’s just a little bit.’

‘Oh, Corran, of course I do!’ Her voice broke. ‘Of course I love you!’

Lotty’s tears spilled over as he pulled her hard against him and his arms closed around her at last. She buried her face into his throat and wept while he held her and murmured endearments into her hair. ‘I’m just so happy and I’ve been so lonely without you,’ she sobbed.

‘You don’t sound very happy,’ said Corran and she gave a watery laugh and lifted her face at that.

‘I am,’ she promised, winding her arms around his neck. ‘I am.’

They kissed, almost tentatively at first as if they could hardly believe that they were really there, touching at last. It felt so good to be kissing Corran again, to be holding him tight. Lotty pressed against his lean, hard body and would have wept again at the pleasure and the piercing relief of it if she had had the breath to spare, but the sweetness of the kiss was spinning her round and round until she was dizzy and dazed with happiness.

‘Are you sure?’ she mumbled between kisses as they broke for breath. ‘I don’t want to get married just because it’s the right thing to do.’

Corran was backing her over to the sofa, easing her down onto the cushions without once taking his warm lips from her throat. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said as he kissed his way along her jaw. ‘If you’re determined to ruin your reputation as the perfect princess, we’ll live in sin and you can thumb your nose at the press. As long as we’re together, I don’t mind.’

He rested his hand on her stomach and lifted his head to smile down at her. ‘But I think we might as well get married, don’t you? I’ll make sure our children know that they have a wild and wicked princess for a mother and you can pretend to be unconventional!’

Lotty laughed, but made a face. ‘I think I’ve done enough pretending,’ she said. ‘Have you forgiven me yet?’

‘I will if you’ll come back to Loch Mhoraigh with me.’

‘Oh, I’d love to do that,’ sighed Lotty.

Corran sat up, pulling her with him. ‘Why do I get a feeling there’s a but coming up? Do you need to stay in Montluce?’

‘No. From tomorrow, Caro will be Montluce’s princess, and I can step back. I wasn’t thinking about my duties here,’ Lotty told him. Drawing a deep breath, she tried to sit back, but Corran kept both arms firmly around her. ‘Montluce isn’t the problem; I am,’ she said. ‘The truth is that I’m not the right kind of wife for you, Corran. You do need someone useful, and I’m not.’

‘I disagree,’ said Corran, smoothing her hair back from her face. ‘You may not be the best cook in the world, but you’ve got very useful social skills. If it wasn’t for you dragging me to that ceilidh and charming everyone there, I would still be cut off from the village. As it is, I’ve been inundated with casseroles and cakes from Betty McPherson and everyone else in the village who feels sorry for me for being stupid enough to let you go. And you impressed Dick Rowland enough for him to invest in the estate. That’s much more useful than being able to drive a tractor or help with the lambing.’

Lotty sat up a little straighter. ‘I suppose that’s true. And we know I can clean and paint.’

‘No more hard labour for you until after the baby is born,’ he said firmly. ‘You can just concentrate on making me happy. That’s where you’re really useful.’

‘Oh, well, if I must,’ she said, smiling, and winding her arms around his neck as he kissed her again.

Some time later, she heaved a blissful sigh and rested her head against Corran’s shoulder. ‘I’m Caro’s bridesmaid, so we’ll have to stay until after the wedding tomorrow, but then we can go home. I can’t wait!’ Smiling, she pulled off her tiara and let it dangle from her fingers. ‘I won’t be a princess any more.’

‘You’ll always be a princess,’ said Corran, taking the tiara and putting it back on her head. ‘But you’ll always be Lotty too, and you’ll be a wife, and you’ll be a mother. You’ll be yourself.’

‘No more pretending,’ she realised.

‘No more pretence,’ he agreed. ‘For either of us. We’ll be true to ourselves and true to each other, and we’ll love each other and we’ll be together. What more do we need?’

Twining her fingers with his, Lotty leant in for another long, sweet kiss and thought about going home with him. She thought about the big grey house waiting for her by the water, about the hills and the cool, clean air.

And she thought about Corran, about the man he was and the life they would share, and the child they would love.

‘Nothing,’ she said.

Royal Sins

Bound to the Warrior King

Maisey Yates

Protecting the Desert Heir

Caitlin Crews

Pursued by the Desert Prince

Dani Collins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Bound to the Warrior King

Maisey Yates

Elyse and Elizabeth, I blame you for this book…

I mean, I thank you for this book. It was as fun

as I thought it would be.

CHAPTER ONE

SHE WAS FRAIL. And pale. Her blond hair pulled back into a tight and elegant bun, the long sleeves of her dress and the hem that brushed the floor were likely an attempt at sparing her European skin from the full brunt of the Taharan sun.

It would not do. A few moments out in the environment he’d spent his past decade in and she would perish.

Nothing more than a white lily drying on the sand until she returned back to the dust, sent away on the next dry, hot breeze.

Whatever advisor had imagined she would make a suitable wife for the Sheikh of Tahar was clearly yet another man he needed to have removed from his position.

When it came to his staff, Tarek’s needs were not Malik’s. As was becoming clearer and clearer every day.

A political alliance. That was what this potential marriage had been called. As Tarek knew nothing of politics he’d been more than willing to investigate the possibilities of the union.

But no. Seeing her now… It would not stand.

“Take her away from my sight,” Tarek said.

She looked up, her expression smooth yet shot through with steel. “No.”

He arched a brow. “No?”

“I cannot leave here.”

“Certainly you can. The same way you came in.” It was he who could not leave. He who could not go back and seek the solace of the desert.

He, who had been kept in isolation for most of his life, who now had to find a way to rule a population of millions.

She tilted her chin upward and he could see her regal bearing, the aristocratic lines of her profile. And he realized he had not bothered to hold on to her name.

He was certain he had been told when, two weeks previously, he’d been informed a princess from a European kingdom would be coming to offer herself in marriage. And yet, his brain had sifted through and retained some things, but not others.

Her name was not essential, and therefore it had been dropped.

“You do not understand, my sheikh,” she continued, her voice steady, echoing in the vast throne room.

He rather liked this room. It was very like a cave.

“Do I not?” he asked, still unaccustomed to the title.

“No. I cannot return to Alansund without this union secured. In fact, it would be best if I did not return at all.”

“And why is that?”

“There is no place for me. I am not born of royalty. I am not even native to the country.”

“Are you not?”

“I’m American,” she said. “I met my husband…my late husband, the king, when he was at school. Now he is dead. His brother is in his place, and is set on taking a wife. One who isn’t me, thank God. But he has determined my value is in a dynastic marriage abroad. And so…here I am.”

“Your name,” he said, because he was tired of not knowing it.

She blinked. “You do not know my name?”

“I have no time for trivialities, and as I am not keeping you, your name did not seem important. However, now I will have it.”

She tilted her chin upward, her expression haughty. “Forgive me, your highness, but my name is not considered a triviality in most settings. I’m Dowager Queen Olivia of Alansund. And I had thought we were going to discuss the merits of marriage.”

Tarek shifted in his seat, lifting his hand and smoothing his beard. “I am not entirely certain there is any merit to marriage.”

She blinked her large luminous blue eyes. “Then, why am I here?”

“My advisors felt that it would be beneficial for me to speak to you. I am not certain.”

“Is there another woman you prefer?”

He wasn’t certain how to answer the question. Because it was a foreign thought. Women had never been a part of his life. Of his exile. “No. Why do you ask?”

“You do require an heir, I would assume.”

She was not wrong in that. He was the last of the al-Khalij family. All that remained of a once-mighty bloodline. Curse his brother for not taking a bride. For not procreating when he had the chance. Now it would fall to Tarek, and nothing in his life had prepared him for the task. Quite the contrary, he had been told that family would be nothing more than a weakness to one such as him. He had been trained to cast off the lusts of the flesh. In order to protect his country he’d had to become something more than a man. He’d had to become a part of the rock that grew out of the dry, impassable desert. Asking him to become blood and bone again was a tall order.

But now he was all that stood between Tahar and her enemies. All that stood between his nation and ruin. He had long been the sword for his people, but now he was the head. A duty he could no more shirk than the previous assignation.

“Eventually.”

“With all due respect, Sheikh, the delay in producing an heir is what finds us both here today. I failed to have a child with my husband when I could have, and your brother failed to do so, as well. Therefore I find myself displaced. My brother-in-law is as uninterested in taking me as his bride as I am in becoming her, and you are here on the throne permanently when it should likely be a nephew of yours assuming the position. If I’ve learned one thing over the past year, it’s that delay in procreation can be quite a costly error.”

Tarek leaned back, his muscles aching. This past month in the palace had done nothing to acclimatize him to modern furnishings. He found the positions they required him to hold unnatural.

His original assessment of this queen, Olivia, was that she was fragile. He was beginning to wonder if he had been blinded by appearances. He knew better than that.

A man who had spent as many years out in the desert as he had knew better than to trust his eyes alone. Mirages were more than the stuff of legend. As he well knew.

In the desert you were far more likely to find sand than any respite from the heat. Still, when news of Malik’s death had been brought to him by the leader of the Bedouin tribe he spent some of his time with, he had been reluctant to return.

What could he offer the country as a diplomat? This country that was a part of his soul. A nation left devastated by his brother’s rule. By the loss of his parents all those year ago to an assassin’s bullets.

This country he had sworn to protect at all costs. Because it was all that remained. The throne, the protection of Tahar, were the very reasons his parents had lost their lives.

Which was why he had to return. Why he had to rule. Why he had to continue on. Why he had to heal this nation left broken and in ruins by Malik.

And why, no matter how distasteful it might seem, he had to consider the merit of taking a bride. One who would fill in the gaps he could not.

“On that you present a well-made point. And yet, I have other options. At the very least I have proved I am much more difficult to kill than my brother.”

She arched her pale brow. “Is anyone actively trying to disprove that? Because my own safety is paramount in my mind. If you have enemies, I find it won’t do to put myself, or any potential children, in that sort of situation.”

“I appreciate your self-interest. However, my brother’s death was nothing more than an accident. There are no enemies. Any detractors he might have had he dealt with harshly. None remain.”

“The manner of ruling ensures that many in fact remain. It’s just they are silenced. Hopefully, you do not bear the brunt of their anger.”

“I am not Malik. I do not intend to follow his example.” Far from it. He intended to rule for the people, not for himself. Malik had intimidated the masses. Had ignored the economy. Had turned a blind eye while people starved. Spent money on lavish parties and bought jewels and penthouses for his latest courtesan. He had served no master but his own lust, and Tarek refused to walk down that same path.

Far better to resent power than to crave it. As Tarek now knew his brother had done from when he was a very young man. As he had learned in greater depth since he’d returned.

His brother was a murderer. Thankfully, now a dead one.

She nodded slowly. “I see. Change can cause its own issues.”

“You speak as though you have experience with this.”

Pale pink lips curved upward. She was such a refined creature. Foreign to him. He had spent very little time in the company of women, less so women such as this.

The females who populated the Bedouin camps he frequented were strong, accustomed to a harsh way of life. To fending off the elements and intruders, both from nature and enemy factions. They were not like this ridiculous and impractically designed specimen before him. Willowy, slim, with a neck that was too long and fragile in his estimation. She appeared far too easily broken.

“My husband made quite a few changes when he took the throne. He was responsible for a great deal of modernization. Alansund was one of the more outdated countries in Scandinavia and King Marcus did quite a lot to change that.” She swallowed, that lovely, impractical throat working. “Change is always painful.”

He nodded slowly. “And your country faces another change. A new king.”

“Yes. Though I trust Anton will do his best for the country. He’s a good man, my brother-in-law.”

“Not good enough for you to marry?”

“He is involved with someone else and wishes to marry her. Anyway, it’s a bit biblical. Taking your dead brother’s wife. Not to mention, it didn’t settle well with me.”

Tarek could not imagine why she would find that specifically objectionable. He tried to imagine what it might have been like if Malik had been in possession of a wife. He couldn’t fathom why it should be more distasteful than any other method of acquiring a sheikha. It didn’t matter to him who the woman had been married to previously.

But then, he had to acknowledge his ignorance when it came to relationships between men and women. Perhaps, it was one of those things that escaped him due to the singular nature of his existence prior to coming back to live in the palace.

“It was he who sent you here? Your brother-in-law?”

She nodded slowly, taking a step toward the throne, the sound of her shoes on the black marble unique to his ears. Something to do with the high-heeled style of her footwear. Intriguing. Unfamiliar.

“Yes. He realized you might be in need of a queen. And it so happened we had an extra.”

He recognized the bit of strange humor in that statement. He might have laughed had he been a man given to such things. As it was, he had forgotten how.

“And we are short one. I can see where this appeared to be a logical solution. But regrettably I find I’m in no space to make vows. Now, are you able to see yourself out or shall I call some guards to assist you?”

* * *

Olivia couldn’t remember the last time she had been dismissed. Or perhaps she could. In reality Anton had summarily dismissed her across the sea and to a foreign country to make herself an asset to Alansund. Because with Marcus dead she no longer qualified as important. It was pointless to be angry about it. She had no royal blood. She had borne no heir. That was palace life. None of it was personal.

The health of the country was paramount. When she had married Marcus she had pledged her allegiance to her adopted homeland, and she could hardly give it up now that he was gone.

In truth, this was the second relationship Anton had attempted to arrange for her. The first to a diplomat from Alansund who would be taking up residence in the United States. Since Olivia was American by birth it had made sense, but…

She’d felt no connection to the man. And the idea of returning to the US had felt like a regression somehow. She wanted something new. Craved it.

Then Malik had died and a new sheikh had been installed in Tahar. The perfect opportunity to forge an alliance with a country long isolated, but rich in oil and other resources.

Anton had asked, and she had agreed. She’d failed him once; she wouldn’t do it again. Still, even knowing the sheikh was unconventional, raised mainly in the desert, she had imagined…something else. She certainly hadn’t expected this man.

His presence filled the throne room with an animalistic air that radiated from him. He was not the sort of royalty she was accustomed to. Her husband and her brother-in-law were cultured. Men who spoke with carefully chosen words, who had posture that would cause envy in the most experienced soldier. Men who wore suits with expert precision—aristocratic beauty so sharp it was deadly.

Sheikh Tarek al-Khalij possessed none of those qualities. He was more beast than man, leaning back on the glittering throne, one hand on his chin, the other holding fast to the ornate armrest. His legs were spread wide, one outstretched, the other tucked beneath the chair.

He was not handsome.

In his unremarkable tunic and linen pants, with his long black hair pulled back by a leather strap and his dark beard concealing most of these features, he was the furthest thing from it.

But he was captivating.

His eyes were like onyx—endless, flat. Assessing. She found it difficult to look away.

In many ways she was relieved that he was turning her down. This was not what she had signed on for. She’d seen pictures of the previous ruler. He had been cultured, handsome in much the same way Marcus had been.

She had been prepared to take on another man such as that. She had not been prepared for Tarek.

Still. She had no idea what would become of her if she turned back now. If she returned to Alansund without completing the proposed mission. If she slipped straight back into the void of grief and uselessness she’d been wallowing in at the palace. And she desperately didn’t want to disappoint her brother-in-law. Didn’t want to sever one of the few good ties she had in place.

She imagined that Anton wouldn’t disown her completely. But there was no place for her there. No purpose. She would have nothing more to do than rattle around the large palace, nothing more than a useless limb that could easily be amputated. Until she said something. Until she spoke up and lost the good favor of the last person on earth who cared about her even a little…

It was too close to what she’d experienced growing up. The forgotten child. Because everyone had had to give Emily every last shred of attention. Watching Emily required constant vigilance. The state of her health needing to be monitored at all times.

What does resenting that make you?

She pushed the thought to the side. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Her parents had done what good parents had to do. And she had done what a good sister should. Still, she had an aversion to idleness. To invisibility.

“I wish you would reconsider,” she said, the words exiting her lips before she had a chance to think them through.

Did she wish he would reconsider? She wasn’t sure. Part of her wanted to run away, to go back to the private plane that had brought her here—the same sort of plane her husband had perished in two years ago—climb into the bed and cover herself with a blanket and spend the flight back to Alansund curled into the fetal position.

That was the other problem. Returning would require getting on a plane again. Three antianxiety pills had not been enough to make that bearable.

She’d never liked to fly. Losing Marcus hadn’t helped that particular phobia.

“Do you know what my function has long been here in my country?” His tone was mild. Deceptive, she had a feeling.

“Enlighten me,” she said, schooling her tone into smooth unbreakable glass.

“I am the dagger. The one a man might keep hidden in the folds of his robe. Concealed, and all the more dangerous for that reason. I did not command the army. Rather, my place was in the desert. My focus on the tribes there, on ensuring stability. Loyalty to the crown. Commanding small battalions when need be. Crushing insurgency before it ever had the chance to take root. The enemy to my brother’s enemies. The one they barely knew existed. They say if you live by the sword, you will also die by it. If that is the case, I suppose I am simply awaiting the final blow. However, as I previously stated, I am quite difficult to kill.”

Unease crept down her spine like icy fingers. If he had been intending to scare her, he had very nearly succeeded. But he had also piqued her curiosity. And for the moment that overrode the fear.

“Do you have any training in being royalty?” she asked.

“Do I know how to converse with foreign dignitaries, give speeches and eat with rudimentary table manners? No.”

“I see,” she said, taking a step closer to him. She felt as if she was approaching a caged tiger. There was no real danger, not in this setting. But the strength, the lethal potential in his body was evident. “With that taken into account, perhaps I could be of use to you in other ways?”

“What other ways? If you mean to entice me with your body—” he looked her up and down as he said the word, his gaze dismissive “—you will find that I am not so easily moved.”

Heat rushed over her in a flood. She wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger. And she wasn’t sure why she would feel either. She didn’t know the man. His assessment of her body didn’t mean anything to her. She was confident enough in her appeal. Marcus had certainly never had any complaints.

She did her best to keep from flinching. To keep from faltering. Her emotions, her concerns, had no place here. Truly, she had no right to feel upset, or concerned. She owed this to Anton. He wasn’t asking too much, not when it came to serving the country.

“Any woman can share her body with you,” she said, her tone dismissive. “Very few have the benefit of royal training. As I said, I’m American. An heiress, and certainly from a wealthy family, but not royal. There was much I had to learn before I was ready to become queen. I could teach you.”

His expression barely changed, a flicker in his eyes that was nearly imperceptible. “You think I might find value in that?”

“Unless you want the country you’ve spent so much of your life protecting to burn, I think you will. There is an entirely different manner of strength that is coveted in politics. And like your physical strength, you will be required to work at it. You must build up your muscles, so to speak.”

“I don’t have to marry you to receive the benefit of your training.”

“It’s true. You don’t. And perhaps that’s a good place for us to start.”

“What are you proposing?”

“Give me some time to prove my value to you. Marriage is a rather serious step for two strangers to take.”

He tilted his head to the side. “Have you married one before?”

“Marcus wasn’t a stranger when we married. We met at university.”

“A love match?” he asked, one dark brow raised.

Her stomach twisted uncomfortably, a bit of numbness starting at the tips of her fingers and slowly spreading upward. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “Just another reason I find it so easy to entertain the idea of a mutually beneficial alliance. I am not searching for, nor do I anticipate having, another marriage like my first. I don’t want one.”

“I can promise you a marriage between the two of us would be nothing like the one you shared with your first husband.”

She didn’t doubt it.

“Fine. Don’t send me back. Give me one month. I will help you with the finer points, and we can engage in a kind of courtship. A bit of something for the media, something for your people. If it doesn’t work out, there is no harm. But if it does… Well, it solves several problems.”

He stood abruptly, his movements fluid. It reminded her of the strike of a viper. So still in the moment just before the fatal hit was administered. Over before you ever knew it had occurred.

“Dowager Queen Olivia of Alansund, we have an accord. You have thirty days to convince me that you are indispensable. If you are successful, I will make you my wife.”

CHAPTER TWO

“A MEMBER OF staff will show you to a room.”

“Perhaps you might trouble yourself just long enough to show me?” Olivia didn’t know why she was pressing for any more time spent in Tarek’s presence. Perhaps it was simply her attempt at reclaiming control of the situation.

She didn’t like feeling out of control, and the past two years of her life had given rise to the feeling that she was nothing more than a rock hurtling through space, at the mercy of gravity’s pull. She hated that feeling. It was too close to what she’d experienced growing up with the specter of terrible illness hanging over the household.

Nothing highlighted your true lack of influence on anything important like death, or the threat of death. Olivia was far too familiar with both.

So you can wallow in it, or you can make a difference. It isn’t like Anton wants to send you on an unpleasant mission. But he has a country to consider.

And so did she.

This wasn’t the time to break down. This wasn’t the time to start making things all about her, and her comfort. There was a broader scope to consider.

“You assume I might know where a prepared guest room is. I assure you I do not.”

“You don’t know the layout of the rooms in your own palace?”

He stepped down from the raised platform the throne sat on, making his way toward her. “This is not my palace. It is my brother’s palace. That is my brother’s throne. I wear my brother’s crown. Metaphorically, of course.” Olivia found it impossible to breathe with Tarek advancing on her as he was. He was nothing like the men she was accustomed to. Nothing like her gentle, sophisticated father. Nothing like her cultured, amusing husband. Or indeed her quiet and steady brother-in-law. If she was focusing on space metaphors, Tarek was a black hole. Sucking the air, the sound, the energy from the room around him, internalizing it. Creating a void that he alone commanded. “None of this is mine. I was not meant for this. If you intend to make me your project, then you should be aware of that fact.”

“What is the solution, then? Because you seem to be here, whether or not you feel destined for it,” she said, not certain where the strength to speak came from. Apparently, though he had sucked the air from her lungs, he had not stolen her ability to speak.

“I suppose you are the solution. My brother’s advisers despair of me. Fair enough, as I despair of them. I feel they are weak-minded sycophants, trained to be so by a ruler who required mindless servitude. I do not. Nor do I want it.”

“Come now, most rulers enjoy a bit of bowing and scraping.”

Black eyes clashed with hers. “Only a man craves praise. A weapon wants nothing more than to be used. And that, my queen, is all that I am.”

She swallowed hard, trying to appear self-possessed. Trying to feel self-possessed. “Then, I will train you to fight. The way a king must fight.”

He began to pace, making a circle around her. A shiver ran through her, chilling her down to her bones. “I worry. I worry about the things I have left behind, untended.”

“Then, use what you have seen. I’m sure you know more about many things than your brother ever did.” She had no idea if that was true; she was simply trying to prove her worth. “Use that. And let me assist you with the rest. Interacting with diplomats is simply politics as usual. My husband excelled at that. As do I.”

“Well, then, I expect for you to prove that within the allotted time. Follow me.” He strode past her, his movements decisive, abrupt.

She snapped to attention, doing her best to keep pace with him. It was nearly impossible. The top of her head came to his shoulder, and that was with the aid of her high heels. She had to take three strides to his every one, sounding like a panicked baby deer as she clicked along the marble. “Where exactly are you taking me? Because you just said you didn’t know where you were going.”

“Give me a skin of water, place me in the middle of the desert and I could find my way back. And yet, I find this palace difficult to navigate. It is too dark. I depend on the sun for my direction.”

“Interesting,” she said, “except, are you leading me to my room or the middle of the desert? Inquiring minds want to know.”

Just then a servant girl turned the corner and began walking toward them down the long corridor, her eyes averted. “You there,” Tarek said, his tone commanding. “Are there guest quarters in which I might install the queen?”

The girl stopped, her eyes widening. “Sheikh Tarek, we did not know to expect a guest.”

“Yes, because I did not tell you we were expecting one. Though I assumed my impotent advisors might have done. It is extremely difficult to accomplish simple tasks here. In the desert each man asks for himself. We have none of this foolish bureaucracy.”

The girl looked at him, her expression blank.

“I’m fine with whatever is available,” Olivia said, attempting to inject some diplomacy into the exchange. “I’m certain it will be fine. So I will need my bags brought from the car.”

The girl nodded. “I can do that. The room nearest the sheikh’s quarters has a made-up bed. It will be the simplest room to prepare.”

Tarek went very still, and Olivia had the feeling he didn’t want her staying near him. “That will be fine,” Olivia said before he could protest. Her aim was to be in proximity with him after all.

“See that it is done,” Tarek said.

The girl nodded and scurried off.

“I imagine you know how to find the room,” Olivia said.

He nodded once. “Indeed. Follow me.”

They wandered down a maze of domed corridors, with silver walls inlaid with stone reflecting off the polished floor. The palace at Alansund housed the crown jewels of the royal family. This palace seemed to be made of them. It was ostentatious, a show of riches that awed even her.

“This is beautiful.”

He stopped, turning to face her. “Is it? I find it oppressive.”

He turned away again, continuing to lead them in their journey. He was such a strange man. Impenetrable as rock, and yet, at the same time, honest in his speech. Still, for all that honesty, she found she could not understand him.

“I suppose when you are used to open spaces, it might be difficult to become used to living behind stone walls.”

“I’m used to stone walls. I’ve spent much of my time inhabiting caves, and an abandoned village out in the middle of the desert. But I have no good memories here.” He let his words die there, and she sensed there would be no reviving them now, no matter how persistent she was.

She didn’t need him to go on. She didn’t need to know his story, didn’t need to understand him.

She simply needed him to marry her.

A wave of fear, of uncertainty, washed over her. She wondered what she was doing here. Why she was agreeing to marry this stranger.

For Alansund. Because you were asked to. Because you are a queen who has no throne, no power. Because you have no husband. Because you have nowhere else, and nothing else.

Her internal voice had ample reason, and she found it difficult to argue. But fear was not looking for rationality. Fear was simply looking for a foothold, and it had found one.

Not so difficult to do in this situation.

Still, she followed on. He paused at one of the ornate doors that led to what she assumed would be her quarters for the duration of her stay. He pushed the door open without saying anything.

“You’re a scintillating conversationalist, has anyone ever told you that?” she asked.

“No,” he said, the sarcasm skating right over his head.

“I’m not that surprised.”

“Conversation was never required of me.”

In that statement, she felt all of the helplessness he would never otherwise express. And somehow, in that moment, with those words, she felt a connection with him. They were both in a situation they were ill equipped to handle. Olivia, having lost her status, having lost the man that was so much a part of her identity. And Tarek, pulled from the desert to become something he had never been trained to be.

“We will find a way,” she said. She wasn’t sure who the assurance was really meant for. Him, or her.

“And if we do not, you can return home.”

“It isn’t my home,” she said, speaking the words that terrified her more than any others. “I don’t have one. Not now.”

“I see. I have one. I simply cannot return to it.”

“Perhaps we will make one here?”

She tried to imagine finding a bond with this man, tried to imagine being his wife, and she found it impossible. Though not more impossible than returning to Alansund. Watching her brother-in-law sit on the throne, where Marcus had been before. Watching his fiancée take her place.

That was perhaps an even bigger impossibility.

“If not that, perhaps we can simply prevent the palace from falling into ruin? And the entire country with it?”

“That’s a lot of faith you’re placing in a stranger,” she said.

“I would more readily put my faith in you than anyone who worked under my brother.”

“Was he so bad?”

“Yes,” Tarek said, offering no further explanation. And she could tell, by the finality in that one-word answer, that he would not.

“Then, perhaps you don’t have as far to go as you might think. You may look good simply by comparison.”

“Perhaps.”

Olivia didn’t say anything; rather, she continued to stand next to him, feeling intensely uncomfortable. Socially at sea. That almost never happened to her.

“I thought you wanted to be shown to your room,” he said.

“I do,” she said, walking past him and into the vast space. Different than her quarters in Alansund, but no less grand. It glittered like the rest of the castle, full of gold and jewels, the bed wrought from precious metal, twisted together like gilt tree branches. “I suppose I just feel a bit—” She turned as she spoke the sentence, and saw that she was talking to nothing.

Tarek had excused himself without a word. Obviously finished with her for the moment.

She was alone. Something that had become far too common in recent months.

How she hated the emptiness.

She crossed the room, taking a seat on the edge of the bed, trying to squash the feeling of terror, of sadness climbing up inside her, mixing together to create a potent cocktail that made her head swim, made it difficult to breathe.

“You can’t break now,” she said. “You must never break.”

* * *

He wasn’t sure if it was a memory or a dream. Both.

Right now, though, it was agony, reality. As it had been ever since he had come back to the palace. Ghosts of the past long banished rising back up to haunt him.

He had spent a great many years out in the middle of the desert with nothing but a sword to act as protection. There, he had known no fear. Because the worst that had awaited him was death. Not so here in the palace. Here, there was torture.

He sat up, his breath burning like fire, sweat rolling down his face, his chest. He was disoriented, unsure of his positioning in the room. Certain, in that moment, that he wasn’t alone.

He was on the floor, a blanket tangled around his naked body. He stood, disengaging himself from the fabric, searching the dark space around him, his every sense on high alert. He felt as if he was dying. His brain lost in a cloud of fog that made it impossible to sort through what raged inside him, and what he had to fear outside.

He walked to his nightstand and took his sheathed sword from the surface. Something wasn’t right about any of this, but he couldn’t sort through what it might be. There was nothing in his mind but a tangle of demons, and he couldn’t see around them to figure out what his next action should be. So he defaulted to what he knew.

Violence. And the intent to draw blood before any could be shed by him.

He pulled the sword from the scabbard and held the blade high, walking toward the door, toward the threat.

* * *

A thunderous sound woke Olivia from her sleep. She sat upright, her hand pressed to her chest, her heart beating fast. Instinctively, because she was confused, disoriented, she looked to her left, checking to see if Marcus had heard the sound, too.

But of course he hadn’t. Because he wasn’t there.

He was dead. She knew that. Was unbearably conscious of it almost all the time. Forgetting now, in a palace in a faraway land, in the bedroom next to the man she was considering marrying in place of Marcus… It seemed cruel.

She heard the sound of metal scraping against stone and clutched the blanket more tightly. For the first time she questioned her safety. She had made a lot of assumptions about Tahar, about Tarek, based on the fact he was a royal. Based on the fact that this was a palace. Based on her position. She questioned all of it now. Now, when it was too late.

She got out of bed, grabbing hold of her robe, sliding the diaphanous fabric over her flimsy nightgown. She pushed her hair back from her face and walked quietly toward the door, the marble cold beneath her feet. That unbearable curiosity of hers was warring with her sense of self-preservation.

You are being overdramatic. You are in a palace. You’re a visiting political ally. Nothing is going to happen to you.

She was just firmly in that place of paranoid thinking she’d been knocked into after Marcus’s sudden death. Where everything was potentially fatal, and most certainly out to get her. She blew out a determined breath and took another step to the door, cracking it cautiously, peering out at the corridor.

Her breath froze completely in her lungs when she caught sight of the figure prowling in the darkness. A man, large, imposing. Naked. In his hand was a sword, a deadly, curved blade glinting in the moonlight that filtered through the high-set windows that lined the long hall.

She should be terrified. And she was, rivulets of fear sliding through her, freezing, increasing the icy terror that wound itself around her lungs. She was also fascinated.

He turned, long hair sweeping to the side with the movement, and she caught sight of his face. Tarek.

He didn’t look like anything that should be here in this time. He was like a relic of a bygone era. A Viking warrior or fierce desert marauder. His chest was broad, thick, the muscles of his arms massive. They would have to be to wield the sword the size of the one in his hand. He was a statue made flesh, the perfect specimen of a man lovingly crafted by an artist’s hands. Brought to deadly, feral life.

He turned away again, prowling down the same length of hall he had done the first time before coming back, moving toward her room. She froze, stopping her breath. She would have stopped her heart for a moment if she had the power. But just like before, he ended his march at the edge of the door to his chamber. A sentry, on guard, weapon in hand.

He didn’t know where he was, that much she was certain of. Though she couldn’t be entirely sure why she was certain. Perhaps simply because she was reasonably sure he wouldn’t normally stand watch without anything to cover his body.

A shaft of light fell across his bare back, highlighting the ridges of muscle along his spine and down lower. Now she couldn’t breathe even if she wanted to.

Her heart thundered a hard and even beat, the blood in her veins running hotter. Faster.

She had no explanation for it.

Except that it had been two years since she’d touched a man. But surely she wasn’t that basic.

So basic that she found herself captivated by a naked man holding a sword, a stranger, when she should be afraid and possibly calling for help.

But her mouth didn’t work anymore, her throat too dry for words to escape.

When he turned again, the light fell across his face. In that moment, it wasn’t his beauty she was captured by, but his torture. His pain. It was there, evident in the lines etched into his skin, in the deep hollowness of his eyes.

She could feel his pain. As though it had invaded her own chest, wrapping itself around her heart and squeezing tight.

That was when she closed the door. There was an ornate key jammed into the lock and she turned it, securing herself in the chamber. She wasn’t sure she was locking him out, or locking herself in. She wasn’t sure of much at the moment.

She grabbed the edges of the robe and held it more tightly around herself, climbing back into bed and covering her head. All she could hear now was the beating of her own heart, her own ragged breathing.

She had a feeling it would be a very long wait for sunrise.

CHAPTER THREE

TAREK FELT AS though he hadn’t slept. Odd, considering he now lived in a palace, when before he had lived in the hollowed-out shells of houses not inhabited by anyone other than him for the past two hundred years. One would think he would find better rest protected by guards, in a temperature-controlled environment. With a mattress. And yet, he found he didn’t.

He’d been awake for only an hour, and already he had been accosted by several members of staff while walking through the halls. So many decisions that had to be made before he had seen to his morning routine.

In the desert, he had started a fire early every morning, boiled water for coffee. Usually he ate bread or an instant hot-cereal packet he acquired from different traders that came and did business with him every few months.

He spent the morning getting into the rhythm of the day. Tasting the weather on his tongue, getting a sense for what the earth had in store for him. He worked hard, and when his brother had need of him, he did dangerous, bloody business. But he would also go many days in a row without ever speaking to another person. Without doing much beyond physical training and tending to his encampment.

When trouble was brewing, he would attach himself to the Bedouin camps, rallying with the men to see what could be done to protect their borders. Otherwise, he led a solitary existence.

The palace was never solitary. There were people moving about constantly. And it all seemed to revolve around him.

He didn’t like it. Not at all. He was the man who waited. Who said, “Here I am, send me.” He was the weapon. He was not the one who wielded it.

He was now in pursuit of coffee. The breakfasts they served here in the palace were too ornate for his liking. Cheese and fruit, cereals, meats. His brother had always lingered over meals. And Tarek had begun to believe that any indulgence his brother had was one that might cause corruption. Was one he ought to abstain from.

Food, in his estimation, was yet another tool designed to complete a specific task. It was simply fuel.

Coffee was a slightly more necessary fuel. A part of his routine he could not forgo.

He walked into the dining room and saw Olivia sitting at the head of the table, a bit of the type of food he had just been thinking of spread out over her plate. She looked up, smiling. She had a pleasing smile. Pink lips, even, white teeth. He liked the look of it.

He quite liked the look of her.

Much like lingering over food, he had never much lingered over women.

“Good morning,” she said. A dull blush rose in her cheeks. That, he felt, was also pleasing.

“Good morning.” He felt obliged to return the greeting, though he didn’t agree with her assessment.

“How did you sleep?” she asked.

“I would imagine not well. I’m still tired.”

She nodded slowly. “Oh. You don’t have any insight about why?”

A strange flash of memory broke over him. Terror. Pain. Restlessness.

He shoved it aside. These memories, memories long suppressed, had taken on new life when he’d returned. An even more violent life when he’d discovered his brother’s private journals.

Admission that Malik had ordered the death of their parents. A secret Tarek could never share with the country, for they had suffered so much already at the hands of Malik. His spending had left people poor, bereft, taxed beyond reason with the infrastructure of the city left to decay.

He could not do further damage.

In addition to the admission of his parents’ murder had been chronicles of how he’d tortured Tarek. To break him. To ensure that it was never discovered that Malik had ended the lives of the former sheikh and sheikha. To transform him into a malleable weapon to be used at Malik’s discretion.

If his brother was not already dead—of an overdose, naturally—Tarek would have, in fact, killed him upon discovery of those writings.

Because Malik had never broken him. He had hardened him.

His brother had transformed him; there was no doubt. But every drop of blood Malik had spilled from Tarek’s veins had soaked into the earth here. Had bound him, not to his brother, but to his nation. To his people.

He would not stray from that now.

“I do not like this place,” he said.

A servant bustled into the room. “Is there anything I can get you, Sheikh Tarek?”

“Coffee. And bread.”

The woman looked at him as though she feared for his sanity, but said nothing as she nodded and then left again. Only he and Olivia remained. He didn’t sit; rather, he began to pace the length of the room. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “You know I didn’t sleep,” he said, turning to face her. “Tell me.”

Her blue eyes widened, pale brows arching upward. “How do you know that?”

The edges of his mouth curved upward. He might have no experience of women, but he could read this one. “You become very still, very smooth when you are holding back an avalanche. There is much beneath the surface, I think. A very diplomatic woman, but occasionally you slip. You have a very sharp tongue. When you’re holding it in check this well I assume it’s because there is much to withhold.”

The color in her face deepened, and a sense of pleasure curled itself around his stomach. Unfamiliar.

Satisfaction, he supposed.

And why not? So often he felt out of his element in this place. It was immensely rewarding to have the sense that he had claimed a victory.

To go from being the master of his domain, a man who conquered the desert, who thrived in it, to a man who could scarcely sleep. A man who was caged… It was jarring indeed. There was nothing he despised more than a sense of helplessness. And that sense of helplessness had pervaded his being from the moment he had stepped back within the palace walls. That considered, he celebrated this small victory slightly more than was necessary.

“You sleepwalk,” she said, her words straightforward. Succinct. “Naked. With weapons.”

Something about that word on her lips sent a burst of heat through his veins. He wasn’t sure why. And yet again he was back in unfamiliar territory. Not just because of what she’d said, and how it made him feel, but because he was…doing things he didn’t remember.

Out of his own control.

That settled far beyond disturbing.

“I was not aware,” he said, keeping his tone flat.

“It would account for why you don’t feel rested in the morning,” she said. “Why don’t you sit?”

“I’m not in the frame of mind to sit. I have business to attend to.”

“It won’t hurt you to eat breakfast,” she said, a small smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

“What is so funny?”

“We already sound like a married couple.” She put her hands flat on the tabletop, looking down at them. “My husband never took time for breakfast. He would eat something terribly unhealthy while he drank a coffee on his way into the office.”

She looked sad, and he did not know what to do with that. “He sounds as though he was suited to this kind of life.”

“He loved his country. Though he was often in a hurry in the morning because he had stayed up too late at a party the night before. And he was rushing to catch up from the moment his feet hit the ground to the moment he lay back down. He was very young, with a lot of weight on his shoulders.”

“I am not so young, yet I find it quite the weight.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty. I believe.”

Little lines of concern wrinkled her brow. “You aren’t sure?”

“I lose track. It isn’t as though anyone has ever baked me a birthday cake.”

She frowned, the expression creating deep grooves by her mouth. She seemed, in his estimation, unduly distressed by his lack of baked goods. “No one?”

“Perhaps,” he said, battling against a memory that was pushing against his brain. “But I would have been much younger.”

It would have been when his parents were alive. And he never could remember back that far. Sometimes…sometimes he saw his father’s face… So serious. So earnest. And he was speaking. But the words were muddled. He could never hear them properly.

He never tried.

Mostly because accessing those memories required him to wade through the ones that immediately preceded them. The years spent in the palace before he had been sent to the desert.

The years that had turned him to stone.

“I always had a birthday cake. Though I didn’t always have anyone there to share it with me. When I was older I would go on trips with friends. Cruises and things. I made sure I didn’t lack for company when I got older.”

“Why didn’t you always have people to share with when you were young?” He found he was interested.

“My parents were busy,” she said, looking away. “I’m twenty-six. If you were curious.”

“I wasn’t.” It was the truth. He was curious about her, but age meant little to him.

“I suppose since you aren’t exceptionally curious about your own age, I can’t be surprised.”

“Is age something people care about?”

Her forehead wrinkled. “How long have you been out in the desert?”

“Since I was fifteen, I would say. Not solely in the desert. Primarily. I returned to the palace periodically to speak to my brother. But I rarely stayed overnight.” He did not like this place. He had not liked to be in close quarters with Malik.

He had the dark thought that he liked the entire world much better now he didn’t have to share it with his brother’s soul.

“I’m amazed you can carry on a conversation as well as you do.”

“I spent a lot of time with various Bedouin tribes. Off and on. Mostly I’ve lived alone. I don’t dislike it.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Did you dream when you were alone?”

Tarek frowned. “I don’t think so.”

“Did you dream last night?”

He tried to remember, but everything was fuzzy again. “It wasn’t a dream. Something else. Something woke me. Pain.” Memory. Not dreams. But he didn’t want to tell her that.

Just then a servant appeared with a cup and an insulated pitcher, along with an assortment of rolls in a basket.

Olivia arched a brow. “Have a seat.”

It hit him then, one of the things that seemed so strange about her. “You are not afraid of me.” He took a seat where his food had been placed and set about pouring a cup of coffee.

“Last night I felt afraid,” she said. “But you had a sword.”

A sharp, hot pain lanced his chest. “I did not hurt you or threaten you, did I?”

“Would you feel bad if you had?”

He turned her question over slowly. “I have always taken the protection of women and children seriously. I would not like to hurt you. Or cause you fear.”

“You speak like a man,” she said, “but I wonder if you feel things like a man.”

“Why?”

“You’re very deliberate in your responses. Most people would know right away how something made them feel.”

“I have not spent much time examining my internal workings.”

She pinched her lips, her expression assessing. “You are very well-spoken. It won’t be the manner in which you speak that we will find problematic, only the things you say.”

“You could always write my speeches for me.”

“I assume someone at the palace already does.”

“I released the majority of the staff that worked under my brother.”

“What did he do that made him so bad?” she asked.

Pain lanced his skull. “He just was.”

“Why do you sleepwalk?”

Frustration boiled over inside him, sudden, hot. “I don’t know,” he said through clenched teeth. “I was not even aware that I did. How on earth would I know the reason?”

“I had to take sleeping pills for a good six months after… Sometimes sleeping is hard.” She swallowed, her pale throat expanding and contracting. That part of her was pleasing, as well.

“I’m not going to take sleeping tablets. It would compromise my ability to act if the need arose.”

“You’re surrounded by guards here.”

“You forget, I was used in addition to palace guards, and an army.”

“True. But now you’re the king. And I only have thirty more days.”

“Twenty-nine,” he said.

“No. Definitely thirty. I was only here for a few short hours yesterday, and we barely interacted.”

“Twenty-nine.”

She let out an exasperated breath, rolling her eyes. “You working against me will not make this pleasant.”

“Sadly for you, I am not pleasant.”

She stood, her hands flat against the tabletop. “And I am not pleasant when provoked. I didn’t get where I am in life by being a shrinking violet.” She straightened, tapping her chin with her forefinger. “The first thing you need is a haircut. And a shave. Also a suit.”

“All today?”

“As I only have twenty-nine days, we may, in fact, squeeze more into this afternoon. I don’t know. It depends on how ambitious I’m feeling.”

“Why does that sound ominous?”

“Because,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts, an action that drew his eye, “I’m also unpleasant when I’m ambitious. I have some phone calls to make. I will meet you in your office in a half hour.”

With that, she turned on her heel and walked out of the room, leaving him sitting at the dining table alone.

CHAPTER FOUR

OLIVIA WAS TEMPTED to break into her antianxiety medication before meeting Tarek in his office. But no, she needed to save those for full-on panic attacks. Which, fortunately, only happened when she was boarding planes these days. She should have had one when confronted by a naked man with a sword. But panic had not been the dominant emotion.

She squared her shoulders and raised her fist to knock on his office door. She wasn’t going to dwell. Not on the conflicting, heated feelings that had gone coursing through her veins when she’d seen him out in the corridor last night. Naked, tortured.

She was sick to focus on his nudity. She didn’t know the man. He obviously had a great many issues. He seemed scarcely more than a feral beast.

You came prepared to marry him.

True. Which made his naked body very much pertinent to her and her interests. The idea behind marriage, after all, was for him to produce an heir.

She didn’t consider sex a negative. It was part of marriage, as far as she was concerned. Not an unpleasant part. She’d never been under any illusion that this marriage agreement would mean celibacy. And in the two years since Marcus’s death she had, indeed, been celibate.

She knocked, ruthlessly cutting off her line of thought.

So many things were innocuous in theory and much more daunting in practice. Tarek, his body and what she felt on the subject, was one of those things.

“Enter.” She heard his voice through the door.

She pushed the door open and shut it behind her, the breath rushing from her lungs at the sight of him standing in front of his desk with the posture of a soldier, hands clasped behind his back. There was no bracing for the impact of Tarek. She just needed to recognize that now and move on.

“I have entered,” she said, waving a hand. “Now to get down to business.”

“I am happy to take direction from you when it comes to matters of my civilization. However, that does not mean you will be assuming total control of my daily life.”

“Only for the next twenty-nine days.”

He chuckled, an entirely humorous sound that chilled her. “No. If you are to be my wife, then we must start as we mean to go on. I do not know how your previous marriage was conducted. However, should you become my wife, you must be aware of this one thing—you will not be my minder.”

“I didn’t think I would be,” she said, her stomach tightening painfully. “And the subject of my first marriage is off-limits.”

“You spoke of your husband only this morning.”

She sniffed. “It’s different if I broach the subject.”

“Are all women so difficult?” he asked.

“Only when dealing with impossible men.”

His black gaze was impassive. “Then, this should be interesting.”

“That’s one word for it. I assume that somewhere in the palace you have the proper tools to take care of your facial-hair situation.”

“I’m not certain. We could find out.” He walked over to the door of the office, swung it open and took one step out into the corridor. And then he shouted. Possibly the name of a servant, or just the demand, she wasn’t certain.

“What are you doing?”

“I am investigating the presence of a razor. Is that not what you wanted?”

“I assume you have a telephone on your desk. One that might reach servants in a more direct manner than bellowing like an animal.”

“I did not consider that.” He straightened and stepped away from the door, closing it behind him. Then he walked over to the desk, gazing at the phone situated there.

“Do you know how the phone works?”

“I have used it,” he said, his tone clipped.

“Better idea. We go to your bathroom. I’m certain we’ll be able to find something.”

“I suppose.” He didn’t sound convinced.

“Follow me.”

She headed toward the door and felt no sense of movement behind her. She paused. “Are you coming?”

Rather than sensing any movement, she felt his heat behind her, his breath warm on her neck. The proximity, his warmth, burned through her with the ferocity of a spark on dry tinder. “I am not a dog to be brought to heel. Make no mistake, my queen, I am not your pet. You are not training me for your enjoyment. I will do what I must to fulfill the needs of my country. But no matter the trappings I am wrapped in, the man beneath will remain the same. I am not a good man. I’m not a bad man. I am simply a man who does what is necessary. You will do well to remember that.”

She felt the loss of his presence like a physical blow, and she froze for a moment, gasping for breath. In that moment, he moved ahead of her, striding out of the office without waiting. She fortified herself, blinking rapidly, trying to gain control as she went after his retreating figure.

He blazed a path through the palace, leading them both back to the wing that contained their bedrooms. He flung open the doors to his suite wide and she followed dutifully.

I’m not a dog to be brought to heel.

Well, neither was she.

She thought her quarters were quite grand. His surpassed anything she had ever seen before. She had been a guest at many palaces during her tenure as queen of Alansund. They all paled beneath the shimmer of the palace in Tahar.

Tarek’s domain could house the average dwelling. Open and vast with a massive bed at the center. The bathroom was not partitioned off from the rest of the space, a sunken tub, shower and gilt mirrors visible from where she stood in the doorway.

“I can see why you haven’t found a razor. You could hide an army in here.”

“Only a small army,” he said. She couldn’t tell if he was teasing, or being literal. It was difficult to say with Tarek.

“Small in number, or small in size?”

“Neither would be terribly helpful.”

She laughed. “No, I don’t suppose. Okay, if I was a razor I suppose I would hide in a cabinet. If I was a very small army, I would probably hide in a cabinet, too.” She checked his face for a glimmer of humor. She saw none. “You’re a tough crowd, Tarek.”

“I’m not a crowd.”

She shook her head and walked into the bathroom area, stopping in front of the mirror and sink, then crouching down in front of the cabinet. There was indeed a shaving kit there waiting. “Found it.” She took the leather case from its position and set it on the mosaic countertop.

Tarek gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, and all Olivia could do was stand there, her eyes wide, her lips parted. She was captivated. By his strength. By the shift and bunch of his muscles. By the acres of golden skin covered in dark hair, and beneath that, an air of violence, of electricity that was barely contained by the flesh stretched over his bones.

He advanced on her, every inch the predator. Something in her went still, quiet.

She was, she realized, the prey. She could not run. She could not hide. And so she waited.

At the point where she saw dark spots in front of her vision she realized her subconscious had taken on a rather dramatic position. She took a sharp breath, placing herself firmly back in the moment.

“Was the strip show really necessary?” she asked.

He looked at her, one dark brow arched. “Yes. It was.”

He said nothing more as he set about unzipping the bag and disseminating the contents.

There was an economy to his movements that she found fascinating. Each movement direct, capable. He was such a large man it would be tempting to think he didn’t possess fine coordination. But he did. He took to readying the shaving supplies with all the skill of a man assembling a weapon.

He looked up and she studied his face as he studied his reflection in the mirror. He looked like a man regarding a stranger, not a man staring at himself.

It occurred to her then that she didn’t have to stay and supervise the proceedings. But she found she couldn’t tear herself away. And he didn’t ask her to.

It was a terrifying feeling, being rooted to the spot like that, unable to focus on anything other than the man in front of her.

Was it so easy to attach to somebody when you had spent so much time in isolation?

Her throat ached suddenly, thinking of the empty halls of her childhood home. Of escaping that kind of solitude, finding friends, finding her place, finding her husband. And then returning to the same life. Alone. In a palace, rather than a mansion in upstate New York, but alone all the same.

Here, she had Tarek. She had a goal. A rock to cling to in a choppy sea, when before she had been adrift.

Was she so simple?

He turned the faucet on, held his hands beneath the stream of water before splashing it onto his face. Water droplets ran down his neck, down his chest. She was suddenly thirsty. Very, very thirsty.

This was just another way she was simple, apparently.

She was mesmerized by the flex in his forearms as he set about his task. He applied the same ruthless efficiency to this as he had done in the prep. The razor was a straight blade, and he wielded it with all the skill with which she had seen him wield his sword.

She had found him compelling with the beard. But the face he uncovered beneath it was simply stunning. It was a fierce kind of beauty, like the desert itself. Harsh, hard. Almost too brilliant to behold. Hard lines and unexpected curves. From his blade-straight nose to his sensual mouth. Without the competition from his facial hair, his brows were stronger, darker, framing his eyes, making them even more arresting. More powerful.

Was it only yesterday she had thought he wasn’t good-looking? So much had changed between that first sighting to that unguarded moment when she’d seen him, stripped bare in every way, outside his chamber. To this moment here, as he scraped away another layer, revealed yet another facet of himself.

When he finished, he pooled water into his hands again, rinsing away the remaining soap and the odd stray whisker still clinging to his skin. He straightened and turned to look at her, and it was almost as if she was seeing a different man.

Except for those eyes. Those eyes were undeniable.

His dark hair was wet, hanging loose down to his shoulders. He would have to get that dealt with as well, but she didn’t expect him to do that on his own. She almost thought it was a shame. There was something arresting about him as he was now, something disreputable about the long hair. A nod to the fact that he appeared to be, in many ways, a relic of the past.

She took a step toward him, and he stayed, immovable as stone.

Her heart was thundering so hard that if he spoke, she wouldn’t be able to hear him over the sound echoing in her ears. She felt compelled to close the distance between them. She knew one moment of hesitation, one moment where she thought she might be better off showing restraint. But why? There was no reason to show restraint of any kind. No reason to suppress the buzz of attraction she couldn’t deny she felt for him.

Maybe she felt it only because it had been so long since she’d been with a man. Maybe she felt it only because she was lonely. But maybe, just maybe, the reasons didn’t matter. Her ultimate goal was to marry him after all.

Chemistry was a very powerful reason for marriage, as far as she was concerned.

There would be no harm in testing that chemistry.

She looked at him, tried to assess what he was thinking. Searched for knowledge deep in his eyes about what would come next. She saw nothing. Nothing but an abyss. And yet, like a child drawn to a bottomless well, she kept on moving toward him.

He smelled like clean skin and the soap he had just used, and there was something about the simplicity, the intimacy of that, she found irresistible.

Somewhere in the back of her mind a logical voice was telling her to think through her actions. Was tapping her shoulder and reminding her that, though she had come here with the aim of marrying him, Tarek was a stranger. That she had waited two months to give Marcus so much as one kiss, and waited until she had been given an engagement ring before she shared her body with him.

That she was dangerously close to exposing parts of herself she should hide for her protection. Because she knew what happened when she stepped out of bounds. When she made waves.

She ignored that voice, because while it spoke the truth, it was telling the truth about the girl she had been. Not the woman she had become.

Tarek was a man. Not a boy barely out of university. And she would appeal to him as a woman appealed to a man.

She reached up, brushing her fingertips over his cheekbone, down along the line of his jaw. His skin was smooth now, the sensation intoxicating. She felt him tense beneath her touch, a muscle in his cheek jerking. “It’s very nice,” she said, drawing closer still.

Her heart was thundering hard, her breasts aching, her nipples tight and sensitive. She lifted her other hand, pressing her palm flat against his chest. He was so hot. So hard. She moved her hand slightly, intent on trailing her fingertips down his abs, but she found herself wrenched away from him, stumbling backward.

Those black eyes were fearsome now, his chest, the chest she had just barely touched, heaving with the force of his breath.

“What are you doing, woman?”

And suddenly the thoughts that had been nothing more than a niggle in the back of her mind blanketed her completely, suffocating her. What was she doing? He had given no indication he wanted this. She barely knew the man.

Belatedly, she snatched her hand back against her chest, holding it in tightly. As though contracting in on herself now would make him forget she had ever reached out to him.

Then she wondered why, why she was allowing herself to feel embarrassed. Why she should bother to cover up the impulse. If they were to be married, they would have to come to an agreement on this. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life pretending to be a different woman. Pretending to want different things than she did. Truthfully, she was a bit shocked she wanted much of anything with him, considering he was a stranger. But she did. And in many ways, it was fortuitous. Being married to a man she wasn’t attracted to would be a hideous fate.

“I was touching you,” she said, her tone hard. “Is that so shocking?”

“For what purpose?”

She stared at him, hard, trying to work out if he was being disingenuous. “Because I wanted to touch you.”

“Don’t.”

“If we marry, that could be a problem.”

“If we marry, we can deal with it then.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. It’s important that we deal with these sorts of things now.” She swallowed hard. “I expect for this to be a real marriage.”

“It could hardly be a fake marriage.” He turned away from her, stalking back to the center of the room, bending over to pick up his shirt. “It will have to be legal, obviously.”

“Paperwork isn’t all there is to it. You have to interact with the person you marry. You have to coexist together. Sexual chemistry and compatibility are important.”

“If it is important to you, then, should I decide that marriage between the two of us is the most advantageous option, I will ensure your needs are met.”

His words were so dispassionate, so disconnected she couldn’t think of how to respond. This was not the language of seduction as she knew it. This was a one-sided conversation. He spoke as though it didn’t matter to him. In her experience, sex mattered a great deal to men. And also, in her experience, having a similar appetite to one’s husband was extremely advantageous.

“It is important to me,” she pressed, mainly because she was so fascinated by his response. Or rather, his lack of response.

“Then, should we decide on marriage, we will deal with it.”

He shrugged his shirt on and she stood there, blinking. “I don’t… I’m not certain I understand.”

“There is nothing to understand.”

Maybe not for him, but she was confused. Never in her life had a man reacted so neutrally to her touch. Not that she was incredibly experienced. Marcus had been her only lover after all. But she had practiced flirting plenty when she’d been at school, and it had usually gone well. Her first forays into looking for attention from those other than her parents had gone well enough. It had never gone beyond very innocent kissing, but even that had been balm for her parched soul.

This was… It was far too close to that horrible, dead feeling of standing there, begging for more and receiving nothing.

Too close to that moment she’d finally told her parents she needed more than walking past each other on occasion in the halls, more than false conversation over a monthly dinner.

She was not going to think of that now.

“I imagined you would have an opinion on the topic. Men usually do.”

“Men, as a species, are weak. They are fallible creatures who have far too many appetites that demand constant satisfaction. A servant cannot have more than one master. I have learned to live for the service of my country. That means I cannot serve my own appetites, as well. Doing so would make me a weak servant indeed. The fact that I am now sheikh changes nothing. I can desire nothing greater than the desire to serve.”

His words made something inside her curl in on itself. Something she hadn’t realized had been trying to bloom.

What was wrong with her? Why did this matter so much?

Why did it feel so desperately personal to be rejected by a stranger?

Stop being so needy.

“I should arrange for your haircut now.” It was automatic for her to get on with the task at hand. Anything was better than lingering in her discomfort and unexpected pain. “And clothing. You need to address your clothing situation.”

“There is something wrong with my clothing?”

“What did your brother wear to various events? Did he wear traditional Tahari clothing, or did he wear Western-style suits? This is important. I need to figure out how to handle your wardrobe.”

“I can see that if I offer you one sweet you will clamor for the whole bag.”

She smiled widely, trying not to reveal the fact that the potential double entendre in his statement had hit her in a vulnerable place. Yes, it would seem that if all of this was a sexual metaphor, if he gave her one little treat, she would try to devour the whole thing. She cringed internally.

Rejection stung. Always.

“That is what I’m here for,” she said, rather than giving in to saying any of the insecure things that were rolling around in her head.

“It doesn’t matter to me what my brother wore. I would prefer to draw a distinction between him and myself.”

“That’s a good place to start,” she said, not asking the questions that arose due to that statement. “What sort of ruler do you want to be? That’s a question only you can answer, Tarek. Though the answer is probably also relevant to me.”

“I do not believe a man is king for his own enjoyment. I believe a man can only serve if he is serving a purpose. A purpose that is beyond himself.”

“You speak about serving so often.”

“Bearing the responsibility of a nation is nothing if not service. If your primary objective is simply to rule, to lord over, then you accomplish nothing.”

She studied him, the harsh, hard lines of his face. “If you disagreed with your brother’s style of leadership, why didn’t you say anything to him?”

“It was not my task. My task was very specific. And an agreement was struck between Malik and myself some years ago.”

“What was that?”

“If he would leave me alone, I would be at his disposal to protect our people,” Tarek said, his words layered with darkness. “A mutual agreement we both respected. He called upon me when aid was needed, and I gave it. Anything else would have been abandonment of my post, of the people I cared for. I am in a different position now.”

“You have the power now. That’s the brilliant thing about being sheikh. What do you want to wear? Who do you want to be?”

“I do not have the capacity to care about such a thing as clothing,” he said, “but perhaps there is a connection I am missing?”

She straightened, indicating the well-fitted white dress she was wearing. “Clothing is important. It presents a certain image. I would like to think mine conveys quiet luxury and sophistication. Something people prize in a queen, or so I was told.”

“I…I see how that could be.”

“Good,” she said. “You care about your people. I know you do.”

“More than my own life,” he said.

Her stomach tightened, that conviction, that bone-deep certainty of his opening up a cavern of longing from deep within. To have someone care about her with that ferocity. With that strength.

She swallowed hard. No. Even letting herself think about that was dangerous.

“We are in a new age in Tahar,” he said, his tone grave. “And I am able to lead us there. I will. Let us show them.”

“Well, seeing as we can’t put you on the back of a white stallion brandishing a sword, I’m going to go with a power suit. I’ll make some phone calls. We will be in touch.”

With that, she walked out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, and beat a hasty retreat back to her own quarters. She needed some time alone. Needed some time to think. She had to get a handle on herself, because she couldn’t act in such a stupid, unthinking way again.

If nothing else, her own response to him, the emotional fallout of it, was reason enough.

She knew better than to need. Knew better than to depend on anyone.

She simply needed to remember.

CHAPTER FIVE

TAREK HAD SUCCESSFULLY avoided being directly involved in Olivia’s machinations for four days. Since coming to the palace, he had craved silence with a severity that bordered on madness. Since Olivia had arrived nearly a week ago it had intensified.

Since the moment she had touched him in his bathroom it had become even worse.

He was not innocent of the ways of the world, not a fool, either. He understood what the heat and fire in his blood meant, understood why she had been touching him. But he had made vows. To the earth, to himself. He was a man of singular purpose, and that had meant eschewing earthly pleasures. When it came to food he ate to survive, and when it came to sex…

It turned out a man did not need it to survive.

In fact, he had survived thirty years without. As a teenage boy banished to the desert, he had been far too broken to care. As a man grappling with his purpose, with the memories that still crowded in at night, echoes of pain that would push any human to the brink of sanity, he had reminded himself what had brought him through. The only way to withstand torture was to focus on what lay beyond it. The bright spot. The hope. The purpose.

He had stripped back his needs to one thing so long ago that he could not remember a day when his desires had been layered. When he had relished the feel of a soft bed, enjoyed the flavor of a meal or fantasized about what it would be like to touch the lush curves of a woman’s body. Memories lost to him, desires destroyed.

Every single one of them had flooded back to him the moment Olivia had placed her soft fingertips on his bare chest.

For the first time in years he had craved something sweet to eat, a sumptuous, well-appointed bed. And to see what was beneath her clothes.

That was why he had pushed her away. Contained in that one simple touch had been a weakness so complete, so repellent, he had no choice but to turn away from it.

Though she spoke the truth. Were they to be married, there would be no turning away from his duty as a husband. His duty as a sheikh.

He needed an heir.

Still, all would be possible. It was simply a matter of refocusing his purpose. And he was in the process of doing just that. They had spoken about his intentions as a ruler the other day, and as much as he would like to do nothing more than resent her presence, he had to acknowledge that she was helping. He scarcely recognized the man he saw in the mirror now. Far from the beast he had been when he had first arrived here, he now resembled someone he could imagine sitting on the throne.

His hair had been cut short. He was still getting used to the feel of it.

He felt like a man who had been pulled up out of the pit. Still orienting to the sunlight. To being aboveground.

Of course, his ability to avoid Olivia and continue to regain his equilibrium would end today. She had arranged for him to be dressed. As though he was a doll. She had been insistent that clothing was important, and when she had applied it to herself, he could well see her point.

She wore thin dresses made of luxurious fabrics that settled over her sleek, fascinating curves in an easy manner. It was difficult to look away from her, in part because of the cut of her clothing, he was convinced. She did indeed convey authority, a sense of belonging. She could have materialized from the gems and gold in the walls of the palace, precious metals come to life.

In that way, she would make a wonderful sheikha. At least one of them would look as though they had been born to serve in a palace.

For his part, he would protect his people. That much he knew.

The doors to his bedchamber burst open wide and in came the object of his thoughts, followed by another woman he had never seen before. That woman was pushing a rack full of clothing, her expression of determination mirrored by Olivia.

“This is Serena. She is now the official dresser here in the palace. You will make use of her. Starting now.”

“Hello, Olivia. It has been a few days since we’ve spoken,” he said.

“Hi,” she said. “I assume that screen over there will do for you to dress behind.”

He looked between the two women, processing the idea that he would need to change behind a screen. He had no modesty to protect. He imagined, therefore, that it was for their own comfort.

He thought back to the other day. To Olivia placing her hand on his chest.

Perhaps the screen would be wise.

Serena moved the rack to the ornate divider and Tarek followed suit. He stepped behind it, grabbing the first bundle of clothing from the rack and set about undressing, and redressing. He could hear Olivia and Serena speaking in hushed tones. He had no real desire to know what it was they were discussing.

He paid no attention to what he was putting on. He had no way of assessing suitability. He simply had to trust Olivia’s senses.

Serena approached him, the measuring tape in her hands, a determined expression on her face. She placed her hands on his shoulder, stretching the tape across them. And he waited. Waited for a feeling similar to the one he’d had when Olivia had touched him. But it didn’t come.

There was no heat. Nothing but the cool pressure of the tape and her touch buffeted by the layers of clothing.

Olivia moved nearer to him, her hand on her chin, her expression assessing.

“Do you have a comment, my queen?”

“This works for you. Though it definitely needs to be fitted.”

“I suppose it’s the kind of thing I should wear to the coronation party?”

Her blue eyes flew wide. “You have a coronation party?”

“Yes.”

“How is it that you haven’t mentioned this before?”

“We have only had two conversations. Possibly three. One of which ended poorly.” Serena knelt down in front of him, drawing the length of the tape down the inside of his leg. Olivia looked down, then back up at him, her pale brow arched. She said nothing. “Did you have something to say, Olivia?”

“Are you comfortable?”

“Do you really care?”

She pursed her lips, looking as though she was chewing her words thoroughly. “Of course I care. As your prospective fiancée. But then, as your prospective fiancée I also might have wanted to know about a major public event. There is media to consider, Tarek. We must decide whether or not we should appear together as a couple. I, for one, vote that we should.”

“We have not decided what to do about our union, or lack of one.”

“You have not decided,” she said, her voice determined. “My decision is made. This is…where I need to be.”

“Is this all about power for you?” His chest tightened, rage bleeding through him like a hemorrhaging wound. “Power corrupts, my queen. The need to rule simply for the sake of it destroyed my country once, and I will not allow that to happen again.”

“That isn’t what I mean. You told me once that you were a weapon. I am a queen. It chafes when you are not used as you ought to be.”

“Perhaps you could fill your time as head of some sort of committee.”

“That isn’t what I want.”

“Do you have some sort of emotional attachment to Tahar? To its success?”

She fixed determined, blue eyes on him. “I could create it.”

“I don’t think that’s good enough, Olivia.”

She took in a sharp breath, her eyes glistening. “I want a…” She looked away, then back up at him. “A home, Tarek. More than anything, I want a home that I belong in. One that isn’t empty. One where I am not extraneous. You need me here. And I want to be needed. Allow me to use my skill. Allow me to be what I can be.” Serena was still going about her work calmly while Olivia stood there, breathing hard, her breasts rising and falling on each indrawn breath.

“The only way to be what you want is through marriage, Olivia?” He studied her closely as he spoke. “What a frustration that must be for you. You have so little control. Or at least, this requires you to share it. Your future is dependent on my decision.”

He could see Olivia’s pulse fluttering at the base of her neck. Like a panicked bird trapped in a cage. He had the overwhelming urge to place his thumb over the top of it. To feel the intensity with which it beat, the velvet softness of her skin.

That simple, brief fantasy did much more to heat his blood than anything Serena was doing with the tape measure.

“Do I have to try on everything, or will your measurements suffice?” he asked Serena.

“There is plenty I can do with the measurements,” she said.

“Then, that will be all. Leave us. Olivia and I have much to discuss.”

Serena scrambled to obey his command. He was accustomed to such things. To people obeying his word. He functioned in life-or-death situations. And he was the one that the tribes looked to for safety. The one his men watched to ensure that this mission was not their last.

In this, at least, he was comfortable.

“I can fetch the suit later,” Serena said. She grabbed hold of the rack and made a hasty exit.

Once the door closed behind her, he and Olivia were alone. Facing each other.

He began to undo the top buttons of the shirt, and he watched as her eyes followed the motion. He was fascinated by this. By the fact that the effects he was experiencing were so closely linked to Olivia, rather than just the female form. Serena had been lovely. Dark haired, with more dramatic curves than Olivia possessed. Though he was not entirely certain if that was more enticing to him. He had given it little thought. Still, it was not outside the realm of possibility that Serena’s touch could have set his blood on fire in the same manner that Olivia’s had.

“From where I’m standing, my sheikh,” she said, her tone icy, “your future, and whether or not you are able to reestablish your nation, is closely linked to me. There was no one else here helping you. Who do you have on your side? Your brother’s old advisers? Those you have recently employed who are new to this position? They were going to let you attend a coronation looking as you did when I first arrived. Your people would have thought you insane. Would have thought you were a man who didn’t know how to dress. One who could not be bothered to shave and represent himself as the face of the nation without looking like an overgrown bush. Have they coached you on how to deal with the press?”

For the first time, Tarek felt a bit of discomfort. For the first time, he felt lost at sea in a different way. He had been focused on acclimating to palace life. To his new position. But he had a plan. He knew what he wanted for his country, and he was confident that he was morally everything Tahar needed in a leader. But the press, a ballroom full of people… He did not know what he would do under those circumstances. He did not know how to carry on a conversation in a civil manner, much less conduct an interview, much less give speeches. He knew how to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies. Could carve a swath of death and destruction through an opposing army with a flick of his sword.

But these things? They were foreign to him.

As foreign as the heat he felt when Olivia’s fingertips brushed against his skin.

He was a man who held command of life and death. A man who had survived bloody battles and great torture.

But he was, in many ways, not a man. He was all that he had been created to be. But he had not been created for this.

He would have to be remade. Again.

Sheikh Tarek al-Khalij had survived immense pain. Had faced down situations that would bring certain death, and triumphed. Very few things frightened him. But the prospect of being melted down again, reformed, did. Ice replaced the blood in his veins, a sick sensation washing over him.

He looked at Olivia, her slender form, her delicate hands. Hands that had already touched his skin. Before Olivia, how long had it been since anyone had touched him? He had had wounds bandaged at the various Bedouin camps. And before that…before that every touch had been agony. Designed to destroy.

But he could not remember the last time anyone had ever touched him so gently.

Perhaps being reformed in Olivia’s hands would be a different experience.

And perhaps she was correct. Perhaps she was all the hope he had.

She had been honest with him. Pain had radiated from her blue eyes as she had spoken of having no place. She needed him. Maybe admitting he needed her would not be so terrible.

“The coronation is in two weeks,” he said. “I do not know what will be expected of me.”

“You set the precedent. You are the sheikh. But you have to understand that if you forgo certain things, it will appear odd.”

“Did you aid your first husband in navigating his coronation?”

“I didn’t have to help Marcus with any of that,” she said, a soft smile on her lips. She softened when she thought of him. “He was born to that life. Created for it. He was an aristocrat on every layer. In a suit, out of the suit, you would never mistake him for anything but what he was. You, on the other hand, will have trouble looking like aristocracy even with the finest suit. I am not being insulting. I am merely stating a fact. No, I didn’t help him. But I did watch him. He, in fact, helped me. I was an heiress from the States, and while I knew plenty about presenting myself at functions, royal functions are entirely different. I’ve walked this road. I daresay it will be longer and harder for you, but I can help you along the way.”

“We shall marry,” he said, his voice rough. “I know nothing about this life I have stepped into. I know what I want. I know who I want to be. But I cannot get there without you. On this you have convinced me.”

Her breath left her body in a rush. “After four days?”

“You are determined. And you are very convincing.” He pushed the shirt from his shoulders, standing before her in nothing more than the dress pants. “We will announce our engagement at the coronation. I feel it is best to present a strong direction for the country. That said, having a wife in waiting will be best. I’m certain you can find a wedding gown that pleases you quickly enough?”

“I can,” she said, her voice soft.

For the first time since he had met her, Olivia Bretton seemed subdued. She had gone toe-to-toe with him on everything, but now that she was getting her way, she seemed to have shrunk.

“Do not wilt on me now,” he said. She raised her eyes to meet his, a question flitting through them. “When I first met you, I thought the desert would cause you to wither quickly enough. But you proved to me that first day that you were made of steel. Do not disappoint me now. Not when I have admitted to needing you.”

She straightened, some of the haughty defiance returning to her gaze. “I do not wilt.”

“Excellent. Wilting would be no use to either of us at this point.”

“You are aware that when we walk into that coronation we must look as though we are already a couple. You must be beyond reproach. You must instill absolute confidence in the stability of us as a couple. If you are looking to make us a figurehead, then we must be an infallible one. I have a reputation to stand on. The citizens of my country love me. The union will strengthen trade between Alansund and Tahar. It will be good for the economy, and will provide you with the semblance of experience.”

“That will entail you hanging on my arm, I suppose?”

“I think we can forgo dancing. I highly doubt anyone would fault you. But yes, we will need to look as though we are unified in every way. You will need a speech that outlines your plans for Tahar.”

“I do not have a speechwriter anymore. I fired him.”

“Do you…do you write?” she asked, her voice tentative.

“I do. Though it is not a skill I often use, I admit.”

“Perhaps we can work on this together. If you can lay out your plan, I can help make sure it reads well. You are well-spoken, I will say that for you.”

“Something to do with spending a lot of time alone, I think.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because,” he said, “I spent a lot of time speaking to myself. Keeping language was important to me, every language I learned from my father. I was quite careful with the gift he gave me.” He had often spoken into the emptiness. Run through the words that he might not use with frequency. Anything to make sure he didn’t lose the pieces of humanity that were still embedded in his soul. Like shards of glass, they were often uncomfortable, making them tempting to extract because they were at odds with why he had been out there in the desert. But still, he had clung to them. He was glad now.

Because now he needed it.

Too bad scattered shards were good for little when you were expected to present something unified.

“Good foresight anyway. It will come in handy later.”

“I live to be handy in your estimation, my queen.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” she said, smiling. It was a different smile than the one that crossed her lips when she spoke of her late husband. She was a nuanced creature. And he had never been good with nuance. Weapons of destruction weren’t known for nuance.

Her gaze flickered downward, and he could feel her slow perusal of his body. Then she looked back up, her cheeks red, her eyes locked with his. “You are studying me,” he said.

“I find you fascinating,” she replied.

“What is it about me you find fascinating?” His voice had changed, gotten huskier, deeper. And the heat was back. Heat and fire, and the dark pit of need that he had wished might remain covered.

“Right now? I find your body fascinating.”

She said the words in a measured, deliberate fashion. The color in her cheeks heightened, and at the same time the fire in his veins roared ever hotter.

“I know we tabled this discussion, with marriage as the condition upon which we might speak of it again,” she continued, “but now you have agreed.” She took another step toward him, her hand outstretched. There was a vulnerability in her eyes he could not guess at, but appealed to some unknown, dark part of him that was previously unexplored. Temptation grabbed him by the throat, unfamiliar. And before he could fully process the decision, his body had acted.

That was not unusual. When adrenaline poured through his veins, he trusted his body to do the thinking. It was trained, finely honed, strong.

But this wasn’t a battle. His body didn’t care.

He wrapped his fingers around her slender wrist and tugged her forward, placing her hand flat on his chest, just over his raging heart.

An answering heat flared in her eyes and he released his hold on her, setting her free to do what she wished.

This time, when she began to forge a trail down the center of his chest to his abdominal muscles, he didn’t do anything to stop her. He could not fathom how something so soft could have such a great impact. Like watching a feather land on a mountain, causing it to crumble.

Something tightened like a fist of fire in his gut, building and spreading lower, creating an ache down deep inside of him. He was the master of his body. The keeper of everything he felt, and everything he chose not to. But right now, that control had been wrenched from him. Was being clutched in Olivia’s delicate grasp, those soft, velvet fingertips holding sway over his every breath, his every act. She was, in this moment, the goddess of his universe, manipulating the very air around him.

She took a step toward him, raising her other hand, curling her fingers around the back of his neck. He had seen young soldiers do the very thing he was doing now. Standing there, watching an enemy advance, knowing that fleeing was the best option but holding their ground anyway. The morbid fascination of approaching doom too great to turn away from.

For those young, untrained soldiers, facing death was an anomaly. Facing death was far too common an occurrence in Tarek’s world. It held no curiosity for him in the least. But in this moment, he was much like those green young men facing down a steel-tipped arrow for the first time. Resistance should be the very first response, and yet it never was.

So he stayed, rooted to the spot, transfixed.

Though instead of watching a steel blade draw ever closer, his gaze was locked upon the clear blue of her eyes. Determined. Focused.

She paused, the tip of her tongue darting out to wet her lush, pink lips. He had the sudden image of pulling her close and completing the task for her. The urge to do so was strong, so strong his entire body shook with the restraint of not completing the task outlined in his mind’s eye.

On the heels of this desire was the incongruous thought that Olivia proved an iron fist was unnecessary to wield power. A delicate touch could accomplish so much more. With it she had reached inside him, exposed cracks in the walls he’d built around himself. Reinvigorated layers of need he had spent years pretending didn’t exist. Hunger became more than a simple need for fuel. It became a craving for flavor, for texture. For food, warmth, softness. For touch, and connection, and for a woman’s body beneath his.

He felt split in two, at war with the desire to seize back his control and pull away from her and to follow the new, darker urges building deep inside him.

Control. Focus. Purpose. That he had to have above all else.

And this, this physical connection with Olivia, was not something he could deny. It would be part of their marriage. But he must learn to take command of it.

For that very reason he stood, allowing her to continue to touch him. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to endure. To remain passive with her hands against his skin, her fingers tangling with his hair, the other hand exploring the ridges of his muscles.

He imagined all of the heat in his blood pooling in his stomach, draining away from the other parts of him. There he would keep it contained. There he would keep it controlled.

He drew in a ragged breath of his own accord, not commanded by Olivia, or his reaction to her.

And only then did he step away.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It is a very good thing, I feel, that you are fascinated with me. For it seems to be important to you. Still, I think consummation will wait until after our wedding.” He felt nothing when he said the words, because he did not allow himself to think of what they meant.

“That’s a very old-fashioned view.”

“Values have nothing to do with this. It is about focus. I do not intend to split that focus. Mine or yours.”

“I hardly think I’ll have a difficult time seeing to daily tasks simply because we’re in a physical relationship. You’re a handsome man, but I’m not sure I’d find you quite that distracting,” she said. “Though I see there is no harm in the two of us getting to know each other better. Sleeping with a stranger has never been my thing.”

He looked at the feminine creature he had agreed to marry and realized that there was a very great divide between the two of them. He had seen things, terrible things. The harsh and horrible realities of life that no one should ever have to face. He had endured unimaginable, unspeakable pain that would have destroyed most men. And yet, he knew nothing of people. Nothing of relationships and connections. Nothing of heat. Nothing of passion.

She contained those secrets beneath all of that soft skin. Mysteries wrapped in mysteries that were unknown to him. They sparkled in her eyes, and he had a feeling she would share them if he but asked.

And yet, when he made the decision to add such things to his life, it truly had to be his decision. Something he controlled. Something he was certain wouldn’t take away from his aims. He did not allow his body to be ruled by need. Not need for anything. Not even for the need to be relieved of pain.

And certainly not by the need for physical satisfaction.

Coming to grips with that had been more difficult when he was a boy. But he was a man with years of practice at denying unnecessary appetites. And he would continue to do so until he was certain he was in absolute control.

“I do not know if there will be a time when you won’t consider me a stranger,” he said, “but there will be a time when you will call me husband.”

“Then, I suppose whichever comes first, you being known to me or you being married to me, will be the benchmark for when we begin a sexual relationship.”

“I suppose.”

She blinked rapidly, taking a sharp breath before straightening. As though she had been off balance, and had righted herself. “You are not what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“A man,” she said simply.

“In what regard?”

“I have never known a man to be so resistant to being touched. I should have thought you would consider being with me a perk of our union. Perhaps I was a bit too egotistical?”

He sensed a strain of vulnerability beneath her words, and he couldn’t fathom why. She was, he gathered, hurt in some capacity by what she felt was indifference on his part.

He was not indifferent. But he felt the need to become so.

“I apologize, my queen,” he said. “I have spent too many years away from people to know how one usually responds to anything.”

She regarded him closely. “Somehow we’ll make that work to your advantage, Tarek. I’m not entirely certain how we’ll make it work to ours.”

She gave him one last look, lingering boldly over his body, then turned and walked out of his room. Leaving him half-dressed in clothes that made him feel like another man.

Or perhaps it was Olivia who made him feel that way.

CHAPTER SIX

OLIVIA WAS RESOLUTE in her decision to stay away from Tarek when he was shirtless. Because every time he stripped down, he seemed to cast her common sense to the floor right along with his clothes. She was at war with herself. Somewhat horrified by her actions while at the same time feeling completely justified in them. If he was going to be her husband, they would have to come to an agreement on this. But she would feel more comfortable if she wasn’t half as invested in the agreement. If she didn’t feel quite so out of control of her actions when he was near.

If she didn’t want him quite so much. That was the part that horrified her. Not because she was ashamed of wanting him, but because it was exposing to desire someone like that. And to show them that you did.

She knew better than that. You played games to protect yourself. Acted a little bit coy to make sure that the man felt the same. Even when she and Marcus had been married she’d played those games. But he had, too.

She had loved her husband very much, but they had their own lives. Their own bedrooms. There were things about him she didn’t know, things she didn’t want to know.

She kept herself guarded. Which was just good sense.

Because she knew the alternative far too well.

Still, for some reason, keeping guarded with Tarek was difficult.

Which confounded her, since she had loved Marcus. Known him. In that way you could know people. She had none of those things with Tarek. She had a fascination for his body. So different from her husband’s. Which was a thought that made her deeply uncomfortable.

She supposed, had she had a list of lovers, the temptation to compare wouldn’t be present. But as she had been with only one man, the sight and feel of another man’s body was more exceptional than it might have been otherwise.

And today was speechwriting day. She was torn between the desire to spend time with Tarek, to try to understand the man she had agreed to marry, and the desire to avoid him to stop herself from making any other stupid moves.

Today, there would be no avoiding. Today, there was a speech to consider.

She smoothed the front of her plum-colored sheath dress, then patted her blond hair, neatly secured in a bun. She looked much more collected and calm than she actually was. She had ensured that was the case before she left her quarters. She took a fortifying breath, pushing open the doors to Tarek’s office. He was expecting her. She didn’t see the point in knocking.

When she saw him standing there in front of his desk, his head bent low, his expression one of intense concentration, she wished that she could go back and allow herself a few more moments to fortify herself. To prepare herself.

His suit, apparently, was ready. And he was wearing it. Fitted perfectly to his broad shoulders, narrow waist, muscular thighs.

She had been right—there was no amount of expert tailoring or expensive fabric that could make him look the part of royalty. He did not look like an aristocrat. He looked like a man who had risen straight from the desert. And yet, something about the attempted civility made him appear all the more dangerous. Highlighted the ruthless lines of his face, accentuated the fearsome strength in his muscles.

“You look like you’re ready to tear out someone’s throat,” she said, attempting to diffuse the tension that was rioting through her. A tension he was likely oblivious to.

“Always,” he said. “I do what I must.”

“Terrifying, Tarek. Very terrifying.” She was being dry, and yet she sensed his words were true.

The thought sent a shiver through her body, and she couldn’t work out whether it was one of fear, or one of arousal. There was a thin line separating the two when it came to Tarek. She found it unnerving.

“Unless you mean to harm my country in some way, you have nothing to fear from me.”

Somehow she very much doubted that. Somehow she felt that she might have quite a bit to fear from him. She wasn’t sure where that came from, why she knew it all the way down to her blood. Only that she did.

She shook off the foreboding sensation. “Then, we should be fine.”

“I am uncertain about the speech.”

“I am here to help you be certain.”

That statement resulted in her having a stack of papers thrust in her direction. The words on the page were handwritten, and it was obvious that wielding a pen was not as familiar to him as wielding a sword.

“You couldn’t have typed this?” she asked. She supposed that was a ridiculous question. The man had not thought to use the phone sitting on his desk to reach members of staff.

“No.”

“I’m sorry. Do you know how to use a computer?”

“I haven’t done so in a great many years.”

“Well, the thing about technology is that it changes. It’s likely you will have to learn to do it all over again.” She perused the papers in her hand. “But that isn’t important right now. This is important. One thing at a time.”

The speech wasn’t eloquent. She couldn’t lie. There was no point.

“Okay. I think this is a decent guideline for what you might want to say. It is your heart. It’s what you want to do for the country. And I have spoken to you, and you speak well. So.” She handed the papers back to him. “You can use this if you get lost. But I want you to just tell me what you want for Tahar. What your plans are for the future. Make it brief, because people have limited attention. And you don’t want to overpromise. Better to overdeliver.”

“I don’t know how to speak in front of people.”

“I bet that isn’t true. You…” She searched for the right words. “You commanded men. You had to rally them before you went into battle. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

“This is the same thing. It’s a rally cry. For your people. Things might look bad now. They might seem hard. But nothing is impossible. You have faced down enemies and triumphed. You will triumph now. And so will they.”

He arched a brow. “I feel that perhaps you should give the speech for me.”

“Too bad it’s never the spouse they want to hear from. Unless it’s a garden party. Perhaps the opening of the children’s hospital.”

“More things I must manage, I take it.”

“No,” she said, tempted to touch him. Knowing she shouldn’t. “I’ll be your softer side. You sound the battle cry.”

“That sounds doable. Oftentimes none of this does.”

“That’s marriage. I’m your other half. No, we don’t love each other. But I don’t think we have to in order to fulfill that. I have skills you don’t. And you carry this country in your blood. You’re a warrior. So many things I could never be. But together we will make this work.”

Just saying the words made her feel as if things were locking into place inside her. Gave her a sense of completeness, of rightness. Being a part of something instead of sitting alone in the dark.

He looked up, his dark eyes meeting hers. “I need you to be more than half right now,” he said. “Because I feel I have little to contribute.”

“That’s okay,” she said, swallowing hard, the lingering emotion from her earlier realization making her ache. “Sometimes you might have to be more than half for me.”

“Should that ever arise, I swear that I will.”

It wasn’t passionate. It wasn’t romantic. It was nothing like the declaration of love she and Marcus had shared over a dinner on his family yacht, followed by a brilliantly orchestrated proposal. And yet, she felt the weight of it.

There was meaning in it.

The girl she’d been five years ago wouldn’t have felt anything in those words. Would have found all of this dispassionate and unexciting.

The woman she’d become felt the binding quality of his vow down to her core.

“If you can promise the country what you’ve just promised me, I think your speech will be just fine,” she said.

“I’m good with vows,” he said slowly. “I kept my word to my brother for fifteen years. I devoted myself to my country. I gave aid when it was required. I never once saw my own pleasure above the safety of the nation. Unlike my brother, I am not a pleasure seeker. There is much more to life than that. When everything in a man’s life is stripped away, the only thing he has left is his purpose. If a man has put his faith in things that burn, then when the fires of this world consume, there will be nothing left behind. But if a man puts his faith in rock, no matter how hot the blaze rages, it cannot be consumed. This country is my rock. If I am left with nothing else, I will fight for that to my dying breath.”

Olivia looked to the intensity in his black eyes, and for just one moment she wished he could be speaking about her. Why couldn’t someone treasure her that much?

You don’t need that kind of ridiculousness. You don’t need to depend on anyone.

She swallowed hard. “Say that. When you get up to speak, that’s all you need to say. Yes, eventually policy will need to be addressed. But that can always be done with press releases. This nation is wounded, and I think those are the words that will heal it. You’re the man who will heal it.”

The man who might heal me.

The moment those words flitted through her mind she rebelled against them, panic fluttering in her breast like a terrified bird, raging at the cage of bone and flesh it was trapped in. She didn’t want thoughts like that. She must be insane. Attaching some kind of emotional meaning to his words was foolish. Marcus had loved her, but he hadn’t healed her.

Why do you suddenly think you need to be healed?

Really, her brain needed to calm down. Stop asking her questions she didn’t have the answers to.

“I will simply have to trust you,” he said.

“I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t regret that,” she said, trying to lighten the mood.

His expression remained stone, and she wondered why she bothered to try to inject humor into any exchange with Tarek.

“I will do the same,” he said finally.

“I have no doubt.”

“I have procured a ring for you,” he said after a small amount of hesitation.

Her heart scampered into her throat. “You have?” Why was she reacting to this? She was sitting in a man’s office, in a very average day dress, about to be presented with a ring that was more the seal on a business agreement than anything else.

Her heart was pounding as though she was back on that yacht. With roses and champagne. A man that she loved.

She fought against the urge to close her eyes and turn away, because that would only make her look crazy. She was being crazy. Maybe because while this was a business arrangement in many ways, it was one that would involve sex. Closeness.

Only as much as you want.

That was what frightened her. How much she wanted.

He moved behind his desk, opening a drawer and producing a little box, placing it on the wooden surface.

She walked forward, pausing on the other side of the large piece of furniture. It stood between them, and for that she was grateful. Otherwise she might do something ridiculous, like touch him again. There really was no telling.

She reached out, touching the top of the jewelry box and sliding it toward herself. “Who chose this?”

“I did.”

She looked at him, unbearably curious about what would make a man like him select a piece of jewelry over another. If it had anything to do with her, or with something else. It was like studying a rock wall for secrets.

And he wasn’t going to tell her. Of course he wasn’t.

She picked up the ring box and opened it slowly.

Her indrawn breath settled in the back of her throat, never making it all the way to her lungs. It was a simple ring, with a large square-cut stone the color of the crystal-blue water in the pristine lakes found in Alansund. An oasis in this desert. She couldn’t help but see it that way.

She had removed her engagement ring and wedding band before leaving Alansund, because there was no point wearing them when she was anticipating wearing another man’s ring. Still, the idea of putting on one that was so different in style was both strange and a relief.

She wanted to ask him why. Why this ring?

But she didn’t.

Instead, she took it out of the box without ceremony and slipped it onto the fourth finger of her left hand. “Even fits,” she said.

“An accident.”

“Or a sign,” she said.

“If you believe in such things.”

“I suppose,” she replied. The man was impenetrable. And he refused to allow her to form a connection, no matter how small.

“There is much to prepare before the party.” His forehead wrinkled. “I cannot quite fathom that I am attending a party.”

She couldn’t help but laugh, and it was a relief. There’d been too much tension inside her. “I can see that you aren’t the most party oriented of men.”

“I don’t know how to have fun,” he said, sounding completely mystified by the concept.

A scene flashed through her mind, unbidden, of her hands moving over his bare back, her legs wrapped around his hips as he drove in deep. That, she had a feeling, would be fun. She swallowed hard. “I’m sure you know some ways. Or at least some ways to relieve stress.”

“I am fond of spending a few hours a day doing drills with my sword.”

She blinked, biting the inside of her cheek. “Is that a euphemism?”

“I am speaking of an actual sword. What were you thinking?”

Her face got hot. “Nothing.”

“I often feel we are speaking a different language sometimes.”

“That could be because we’re usually speaking your second language.”

“I do not think that’s it,” he said, his black eyes intense on hers.

She sensed it was her opportunity to push for information, but she withdrew. Because she was tired of pressing only to be pushed away.

“It’s a beautiful ring anyway. See, you did that well. No language barriers.” She determinedly lightened things.

“It will send the proper message, one hopes,” he said. “That we are moving forward unified, as a couple. For the sake of the nation.”

“I think it will. I will handle coordinating the staff to organize the menu planning, music, things like that. You just focus on…smiling when people smile at you.”

He put his hands into his pockets and he smiled. It was the saddest attempt at the facial expression she had ever seen. She found herself helpless to do anything but smile right back. And in that moment, the twist of his lips changed into something much more genuine. And her heart fluttered.

“Good,” she said, the word tight, rushed. “Very good. You’re going to be fine. All of this will be fine.”

She wasn’t sure if she was saying it for his benefit or for her own.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THIS WAS HER DOMAIN. Not the empty, echoing corridors. Not the feeling of being shrouded in a tomb. But this ballroom, glittering, full of people. An excuse to wear one of her beautiful custom-made gowns that had often been front-page news around the world when she was queen in Alansund.

The ballroom here in Tahar was different. With a high, domed ceiling, ornate golden detail and gems set ablaze by the lights suspended above. Everything was done up to perfection, and uniquely reflected Tahar and its beauty.

She was at ease here. But it was clear Tarek wasn’t.

Tarek was solid stone beneath her fingertips. Were it not for the heat radiating from his body, she would have thought he’d calcified entirely. Obviously, while this might be her comfort zone, it wasn’t his. She had expected as much, but she’d also had the feeling that there would be no preparing him for the moment. He simply had to live it.

She felt strangely protective of him. Odd, because she knew for a fact there was not a single person in this room he could not neutralize physically. But this wasn’t his battlefield. Social settings, the thrust and parry, the sneak attack that came with a tongue and not a sword, were where she was most deadly. And she stood by, ready to defend.

She sneaked a sideways glance at him and her stomach tightened with unmistakable desire. There was no use pretending it was anything else. He was beautiful. That thought had scrolled through her mind often over the past few days.

His hair reached the top of his collar, curling slightly, but adding no softness to the shape of his face. His square, blunt jaw was so tempting to touch. She wanted to press her lips just beneath it, on his neck, right where his pulse beat, steady and hard.

When they were married, she would have that right.

A sliver of ice slipped through her veins, a shiver working its way along behind it.

She wasn’t sure at all if he wanted her. She couldn’t read him, the beautiful rock wall of a man. Perversely, that only made her want to rail harder against him. To try to force a crack.

But she knew better than that. Creating conflict was overrated.

So many people talked about speaking your mind. Standing up for yourself. What was the worst that could happen, and all that.

She knew.

The worst that could happen was you laid yourself bare before the people you loved most and they stared blankly back. Offering nothing. Giving nothing.

She couldn’t think about that. Not now. Not when so much was going on around them. Not with members of international press stopping them to try to get Tarek to speak. Not with diplomats, politicians, social-program coordinators and businessmen all jockeying for Tarek’s attention while he grew increasingly tense beneath her fingertips.

This was the physical representation of the paperwork that stacked up on his desk every day. The verbal version of the written requests he had to process constantly while being so unfamiliar with the task.

With the added issue of the media being in attendance, watching his every move.

She wondered if Tarek knew how vicious the press could be. He was very closed off about exactly what had transpired over the past fifteen years. But it was clear he had spent his time away from civilization almost entirely.

He wasn’t familiar with computers, nor any modern conveniences. She wasn’t certain whether or not he could drive a car. She didn’t know if he’d ever faced the media before.

Another army that could be more vicious than one carrying weapons.

Tarek was making the official announcement about their engagement during his speech. And she had felt it would be best for them to open the evening with the speech. That way, people wouldn’t be needling him for information beforehand. At least, that was the idea.

Also, she was afraid that the anticipation would be nothing more than a slow painful death for her. Maybe she was projecting her concern on to him. Especially as he seemed as immovable as ever.

But then, with him it was impossible to tell.

Either he felt less than the average man, really and truly, or he simply buried it deeper beneath the surface.

She imagined it was the latter, but she wasn’t sure even he knew that.

In response to that thought, she let her hands drift over his forearm, and she felt him tense beneath her touch. Still, his expression remained the same.

“Are you ready to give your speech?”

“Yes,” he said. There was no uncertainty in him. It went a long way in calming her riotous nerves.

“Good.”

“What would you have done if I had said I wasn’t ready?” he asked, and if she didn’t know better, she would be certain there was a note of amusement in his voice.

“I would have rushed the front of the room and created a diversion so you could escape,” she said.

“Would you have made the speech for me?”

“If not that, perhaps I would’ve done an interpretive dance.”

The ghost of a smile toyed with the edges of his lips. “I cannot imagine that.”

“Liar. If you weren’t imagining it, you wouldn’t be smiling.”

“Did I smile?”

“Yes,” she said. Warmth bloomed in her chest, spreading down to her stomach.

She had been so excited to have the room filled with people only moments ago, and now she wished they would all go away. All the better to focus on Tarek.

The ache she felt, the intense desire to know him, had only grown over the past week. And unfortunately she had found very little to satisfy it.

“I do not know any of these people,” he said, looking around.

“I recognize a few of them,” she said.

She hadn’t made it public that she would be in attendance. In fact, she had called Anton and requested that he keep any connection between herself and Tarek secret. Things hadn’t been certain, and she didn’t want rumors preceding certainty.

Though tonight he would make the announcement. Tonight there would be certainty. She would have a place again.

“Who?” he asked.

“Well,” she said, “Miranda Holt is a reporter. She covers a lot of society things in the States. I’ve known her for years. She used to attend gatherings my family would throw.” By gatherings she meant grand galas. But details weren’t important. “And over there is the ambassador of Alansund and her husband. Others I know from their attendance at various functions there.”

“Do you suppose they think it odd you’re here with me?”

“I’m sure they are curious.”

“Are you afraid they’ll think you are betraying your husband’s memory?”

His words burned for some reason. “It’s been two years.”

“But people think of you with him. Not with me.”

“That will change.”

“And what about you?” he asked. “Do you still think of yourself as being with him?”

It was a strange question. Tarek never seemed possessive of her. He seemed indifferent to her when he wasn’t working directly with her on a project, so why he would ask something like that of her now she couldn’t fathom.

It was personal, and his interest in her was nothing like personal.

She had to linger over the question. As she did, a strange sensation washed over her. “I don’t,” she said, the words soft. “Marcus and I lived very separate lives. We were…a team in many ways. But I can’t claim a link with him that transcends the grave.”

“You smile when you think of him,” Tarek said, and if she didn’t know better she might imagine that he was jealous.

“He gave me a lot of things to smile about.”

That much was true. But suddenly, standing there, she had to acknowledge the gulf that had stood between herself and her husband. Had to acknowledge it because she felt it so keenly now. They had been two people walking side by side, toward a common goal. But their lives had not been intertwined. Losing him had left her cold, grieving. She had lost a cherished companion. But she had not lost a part of herself.

“A testament to the man,” Tarek said. “I imagine you did not have to teach him how to smile.”

Her heart twisted. “No. Marcus smiled easily. He was smiling when I walked into his life, and I daresay he was smiling when he went out of his own. He enjoyed the things of this world.” He had taught her to enjoy them, as well. Had made her feel not half so lonely. The thought of him would always make her heart warm. “He also prized his independence, and as I very much prize mine, I had no trouble giving it to him.” And if there were questions about what he did in his spare time, and whose bed he might be in when he wasn’t in hers, she had never asked them.

She felt disloyal thinking about it now. Because she had never made an issue of it when he was alive, so she had no call to let those suspicions fester in his death. Even if he hadn’t been faithful, she had never demanded him to be. And he had never made her unhappy.

She had not given him all of herself, so she could hardly expect him to give all of himself.

This was the wrong time to be having this realization. The wrong time to do any serious postmortem on her first marriage. Really, there was no right time. There was nothing left to fix. And she had been happy in her life, so thinking about fixing something that she had never thought broken was foolish indeed.

She’d never wanted to examine the cracks. Never wanted to pause for a state of the union for fear that, just as her parents had done, Marcus would do nothing but look at her with blank eyes and say, “There isn’t anything more I can give.”

“Marcus sounds a much easier man than I am. It isn’t too late for you to turn back.”

“Still so eager to get rid of me?”

“No,” he said. “But I fear you have walked into this without fully understanding all you have to contend with.”

“Maybe. But I’m not weak. And yes, you’re different than he was. But…I am not looking to replace him. Not in the way you might think. I’m not looking to re-create our life together. I’m looking for something new.”

“I quite like the idea that I am different,” he said, and his words sent a little shiver of pleasure through her.

She wasn’t sure why. Why she quite liked the idea of him being jealous. Of him wanting something from her. Or maybe she did, and she simply didn’t want to examine it.

“I like the idea that you are not wholly at ease with everything happening. Oftentimes you seem far too confident, as though you are walking a trail you have blazed before. While the landscape remains entirely unfamiliar to me.”

“Rest assured, Tarek, knowing royalty, knowing men, does not make you less of a mystery to me.”

“I find this perversely pleasing.” Something about the way he said the words lit her up inside, thousands of stars glimmering in the darkness that hadn’t been there before.

“Since you find very little pleasing, perverse or not, I’m going to mark that in the win column.”

“Do you have a win column?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m thinking of making one.”

He looked her over slowly, his dark eyes assessing. “Put that dress in it.”

And with that, he stepped away from her, cutting a swath through the crowd as he made his way toward the front of the room. And she was left standing there, barely able to breathe. What was it about that curt, barely a compliment that sent a wave of delight through her? She had been on the receiving end of some truly poetic words of praise. These were not poetic words in the least. And he had beat a hasty retreat after.

Perhaps, much like his smiles, they felt larger than they were because they were so hard-won.

He walked up the stairs to the podium that was set on the stage and her heart stopped. This was it. He looked completely calm, completely prepared. And she felt as if all of the nerves he should be feeling had been dropped down into the pit of her stomach, making it impossible for her to breathe.

She clasped her hands in front of her and whispered a prayer. Then she whispered it again. And again. She wanted him to succeed. She needed him to succeed. Needed both of them to succeed in this. This mattered so much, and she wasn’t quite sure when that had happened.

He opened his mouth and began to speak. And he stole her breath.

Tarek’s words flowed over her like warm honey. He was so cultured, so well-spoken, those words he had clung to in the lonely years in the desert well chosen, well guarded. She wondered if, in this case, it was a bit like preserving beautiful artifacts. If those words, so rarely handled, so rarely brought out before the world, were all the more precious and awe-inspiring for it.

Everyone in the room had the sense for it, she could see. They clung to each syllable as though it was gold.

“I know I am the brother you never saw,” Tarek was saying now, “but you will see me now. I spent long years in the desert offering protection to our nation’s borders. I will offer protection now. Not only in the shoring up of the borders, but in reaching beyond them. Tahar has been isolated for too long. We have been isolated for too long. I am deeply regretful for any crimes committed against our people, brought about by those in my bloodline. As for myself, I only know one thing. And that is how to protect. I will do so now. As for the other tasks required of a ruler, I am hopelessly outmatched. But I am fortunate enough to have found help. Queen Olivia, who served her country with her late husband, is to be my wife. She will be Sheikha of Tahar, and all that she gave to Alansund she will now give here. Our goal is to help each other by strengthening any weak points the other might have. With that goal, we will strengthen this country. I understand that you, here in this room and listening at home, might feel reason to distrust me. I understand that I will have to earn your allegiance. But I stand prepared to do that. I must prove myself, and I am willing. Thank you.”

With that, he strode from the stage, his focus trained on her, his posture rigid, his gaze unflinching. As though he was completely oblivious to the thunderous applause happening around him. As though he had no sense of how well he had done.

In this sea of people, he stood alone. Nothing could break through. She wondered what it would take to reach him, to break down the wall.

She began to walk toward him, her heart thundering, the sound around her muted now. She stopped in his path and he continued on, his dark eyes blazing. And for just one moment she felt as if she was at least seeing behind the wall. Even if she still couldn’t reach him, she was seeing more. The view beyond the rock and stone.

He paused in front of her and she reached up, putting both of her hands on his cheeks. “You were amazing,” she said, keeping her eyes locked with his.

He let out a hard breath, and she could feel his relief resonating inside her. “I have not caused a war,” he said. “Yet.”

She heard the click of cameras, knew this moment was being captured on film. It would be a headline tomorrow. Her, and her peacock-blue gown, holding on to his face. It would look like love. It would at least look like lust.

Honestly, it was the second. On her end, at least.

Either way, it would make for a good headline. The kind of headline they wanted. Now, though, it was time for them to make the rounds. Time to be social. She had promised she wouldn’t expect him to dance, but that meant that he didn’t have a good chance at escaping social responsibilities.

Over the course of the next two hours she did her best to provide balance to Tarek’s rather sullen version of conversation. She knew he didn’t come across as humorless on purpose; rather, it was just who he was. She wasn’t certain he was humorless per se, just that he didn’t know how to express his humor with any effusiveness. Still, he came across as quite deadpan, and by the end of the evening she was exhausted trying to add some buoyancy.

And she felt even more determined to tear down that wall. It was almost as though he was operating on a separate plane. Possibly the plane he had been actively existing in the night she had seen him in the hall, naked and fighting imaginary enemies. There was strength there, vibrancy. Passion. She was hungry for it. To release it.

He had admitted to feeling off balance because she seemed so comfortable in her role. But he made her feel even more off balance. Because he was untouchable. And she, most certainly, was not. He had reached inside her early on, and she had not felt right since.

She knew that the party would go on for a while yet, and yet she also sensed that Tarek wouldn’t want to linger. They had done their rounds, done their duties, as far as she was concerned. And the press would be appeased. It made no sense to keep him in the ballroom past the expiration date of his social skills.

She sensed he would only become more impenetrable as the evening passed.

“Let us retire,” she said.

“Is it the appropriate time?”

“It’s fine. You’re very busy. No one will expect you to stay until the room clears.”

He leaned in, his lips close to her ear. “Am I very busy?”

Her body immediately applied a dual meaning to his words, sending a shaft of heat down low. “I could ensure that you are.”

She could think of a great many ways the two of them could stay busy for a few solitary hours. Ways that would finally force him to meet her in the present. Ways that might show her the man beneath the control. Something raw, something elemental. Rather than all of this guarded, protected, manufactured civility.

She’d had too much of that. Enough to last a lifetime. Too much isolation. She was so tired of being lonely. So tired of being alone.

Suddenly she was tired down to her bones. Careful smiles; careful words. Nothing upsetting. Nothing too loud. No questions asked. No answers given. On either side. Her entire growing-up years had been spent that way, and then her marriage. She was so desperately sick of it.

He made no response to her offer, allowing her to lead him quickly and quietly from the ballroom. The early exit would spark innuendo for the article about the evening. And that, she imagined, would be a good thing, too. Giving the press, the public, a love story rather than a cold alliance to offer a throne to a displaced queen and help to a barely civilized sheikh. Already she would add humanity to him. Already her presence was a help.

Though at the moment she did not intend to let the published innuendo stand as fiction. She fully intended to reach this man once and for all. To forge a connection between the two of them.

She could feel the palace security staying in line with them. Likely ensuring they weren’t followed or disturbed. The people around them sensed it as well, for they cleared a path, making their exit easy.

Once they were out of the ballroom, she began to slowly move her fingertips along his forearm, her way of signaling intent.

She felt a slight tensing in his muscles, the barest hint of a response. Coming from him, it might as well have been an emphatic yes.

“Are you headed back to your quarters?” she asked, staring straight ahead.

“Yes,” he answered.

Her heart thundered in her head. “Okay.”

She walked with him, not releasing her hold on him, and he did not release his hold on her. She took that as a significant development. They were, of course, headed to the same wing of the palace. And he might not realize it yet, but she intended to head to the same room. To smash that wall. And maybe, just maybe, one inside herself, too.

She felt as if she was suffocating. Had the feeling both of them were. Drowning on land.

If she could just touch him. If they could touch each other.

They reached the door of his chamber and she paused with him. “Do you need any help with your suit?”

“I don’t think so.”

It didn’t surprise her that he didn’t immediately grab hold of the invitation. Subtlety was not his strength. She found that charming in a strange way. More and more as the days passed.

“Perhaps we can discuss your speech.”

He gazed down at her, the expression in his eyes unknowable. “If you wish.” He pushed the door open and she followed him in.

He took a seat on a lush divan that was placed against the back wall of his chamber, assuming that same arrogant posture she’d seen during their first meeting in his throne room. With his black tie, black jacket, crisp white shirt and tailored trousers, he was very close to looking civilized. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want him civilized. Didn’t want him hidden by yet more trappings.

That need, the need to have him, became a living beast inside her, growled, urged her forward. She began to walk toward him, watched as his dark eyes assessed her, attempted to anticipate her next move. She lowered her hands to her sides, curling her fingers around the silken fabric of her skirt, tugging it upward, exposing her legs, her thighs, as she continued to close the distance between them.

Then she saw it. A black flame burning in the depths of his eyes, so close to their natural color it would’ve been easy to miss. But it was there, glimmering like an oil slick. He was not untouched. He was not unmoved.

She approached, still clutching her skirt, placing one knee on the edge of the divan next to his before leaning forward, raising her hand on the wall behind him. He remained motionless, his expression fathomless. But of course it was. That was what he did. In a room full of people, he remained untouched. When applause thundered around him, he reacted like a deaf man.

He didn’t play the game. No subtle push and pull. And so this time she wouldn’t stop until she had destroyed his defenses, because that was what it would take. She realized that now, with certainty.

She rested her other knee on the divan, astride him now, sliding forward so that his big body was between her thighs, his heat teasing her, tempting her. He was motionless, as he had been the other times she had touched him. Except for the day he had pressed her palm against his chest. But then he had pushed her away, and she had allowed it. She had stopped.

But this time, she wasn’t going to stop at touching.

She lowered her head, angling slightly, pausing just before her mouth met his. Enjoying the moment. The pause before fantasy became reality.

He smelled like clean skin, the intimacy of the scent hitting her like a punch in the chest. It made her heart beat faster, made her ache. And it stole her last bit of restraint. She closed the remaining bit of distance, fusing her lips to his.

Heat exploded behind her eyelids, burst in her stomach. She hadn’t expected this. Not this instant firestorm that rocked her down deep. She was supposed to be seducing him, but she felt as if the tables had flipped, and there would be no coming back.

His lips were firm, hot, and only just now did she realize, immobile.

She moved her hand, gripped the back of his head and deepened the kiss, tracing the seam of his mouth with her tongue, requesting entry.

Her only warning of his next actions came in the form of a feral growl that rumbled in his chest, vibrating against her lips before she found herself being moved, Tarek’s arm was like an iron band around her waist as he stood, bringing her with him. He moved his hand, fingers buried deep in her hair, his grip so hard it was painful, pinpricks dotting her scalp as he tugged her head back.

With two long strides, he had her pressed against the wall, his hold still tight in her hair and around her waist, his body hard and hot against hers. His breathing was ragged, the look in his eyes that of a hunted animal. Desperate. Intense.

Her hands were trapped between their bodies, her palms against his chest. And she could feel his heart raging out of control.

He wasn’t unreachable now. Not untouchable or protected. It was terrifying. And it was everything she’d been craving.

He lowered his head slowly, his nose brushing hers, the movement deliberate, unpracticed. She let her eyes flutter closed, waiting. The moment stretched on forever, a small taste of eternity dropped into the middle of time.

Then, finally, he ended it.

When his mouth met hers it was rough, deep and hard. His lips were unforgiving, his tongue boldly pushing between her lips, sliding against hers. This was so far outside her experience. So different from kisses exchanged with careful aristocrats and playboys.

This was not a seduction. This was what it meant to be taken.

And this was where any semblance of stability he had carried with him tonight ended. He was not a man now but a beast. His muscular chest pressed tightly against her breasts, the solid length of his arousal resting against her thigh.

The kiss was bruising, almost painful. The movement of it strange, uneven. It carried with it the desperate quality of a man finding an oasis in the desert, drinking water he’d been deprived of. Absent of skill and social concern. Just the long, frantic satisfaction of a drought that had gone on for too long.

She was being conquered in a fashion that bordered on violence, and the neglected, hollow places inside her allowed themselves to be filled by it.

She was at his mercy, trapped between his body and the wall, held fast to his grip. And she loved it. There was no fear of seeming needy now, because he was holding nothing back. Because he needed her, it wasn’t half so terrifying to prove that she needed this, too. To expose her neediness. How could it be when he was demonstrating that he needed her, too?

She flexed her hips, shifting her position slightly to bring herself in line with his arousal. His grip on her hair tightened when she did, but he didn’t push her away. Her hands were still pressed against his chest, and she used that position to take hold of his tie, to wrench it free of the knot and cast it to the floor. Then she moved on to the buttons on his dress shirt, undoing the top two before sliding her hand beneath the fabric. She’d touched his chest before, and every single time it was a revelation.

Even better now that he was kissing her while she touched him.

His teeth grazed her swollen mouth and she retaliated, closing her teeth over his bottom lip, earning another growl that shook his entire being.

No one had ever touched her like this. No one had ever kissed her like this. And she had never realized how much she needed it.

But she needed more already. Needed that perfectly tailored suit of his on the floor, needed to discard her beautiful gown so that there was nothing at all between them.

She was about to make a move to do just that when she found herself completely bereft of his presence. He had released his hold on her, moving away from her, pacing back and forth.

“Tarek…”

“This is unacceptable,” he said.

The words hit her like an arrow to her heart. “No. It’s perfectly acceptable. We are going to be married. It is not acceptable for you to be with anyone else,” she said, stating a possessiveness she had never once spoken aloud to Marcus, unsure why she was doing it now. “So if not with me, then who is this acceptable with?” Her voice was trembling now, and she despised it. “And when?”

“You test my control,” he said. “That is what I find unacceptable.”

“What do you need control here for?”

“Control is nonnegotiable.”

“In this room?” She gestured around them. “With me?” She pressed her hands against her chest.

“In every room. Always.”

“I’m going to be your wife. You have never been married before, and I assume you’ve been with other women, so I can’t imagine what the issue is.”

“You are not my wife yet.” His words were insistent. Maddeningly opaque.

“But I will be.”

“And when we consummate, it will be then. And it will be in the proper order.”

“Am I to understand that you object to the spontaneity of this?” She was just peeved now.

“Yes. Because I refuse to allow my body to dictate my actions.”

“There is nothing wrong with this…”

“After the wedding.”

“Perhaps I don’t want to wait until after the wedding.” She was feeling slightly ashamed of how hard she was pushing. But then, why should she not? This was to be her marriage, too. What she wanted was important. And she wanted him.

“I must maintain my focus. I cannot afford to be distracted.”

“Tarek—”

“I can be ruled by nothing. My only master is this kingdom. I must do everything in my power to protect it. I have spent my life casting off earthly desires, and I will not give in to them now.”

Somewhere in her lust-fogged brain, she tried to make sense of his words. Tried to figure out something to say next. But she couldn’t.

“Get out,” he said, “or I will leave and find somewhere else to sleep tonight.”

“I’m not going to beg,” she said, her tone wooden. “Nor am I going to violate your person against your will.”

“Tonight went well. Do not let this ruin it.”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Do you know anything about women?”

“No,” he said, his tone dark.

“If you did, then you would know that rejection is always going to cast a pall over the evening.”

“I’m not rejecting you. I am marrying you.”

She flung her arms wide. “Well, I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“Because,” she said, ignoring the tightening in her throat, “you hurt my feelings.”

Oh, how she despised herself for that moment of honesty. Maybe he was right. Maybe she was too deep in this to see that she was letting it affect her judgment. Normally, she was much more like Tarek. Guarded. Holding back pieces of herself. Not allowing desire or a need for anything to dictate her actions.

Maybe he was right to be wary of this thing between them.

His dark brow furrowed. “How?”

“Because…I take it as…commentary on my appearance. On my appeal.”

He let out a hoarse laugh. “There is nothing wrong with your appeal. That is the problem. I cannot allow your appeal to become bigger than my goals.” His dark eyes dropped down to her lips. “I must never let my own desires become larger than the tasks I have to complete.”

“Not even desiring your fiancée?”

“Nothing. Where would it end? You don’t understand… My brother… He was driven entirely by his own desire. It was not limited to sexual need. But greed. For power, for money. It overtook him. And we carry the same blood. Where does it begin? And where does it end? I don’t know the answer. I will give no foothold to that level of greed. None. Not even for you. I must keep my focus clearly set.”

“But later…”

“It will be different. It will be in its place. Part of my obligations, and not merely a temptation.”

“Am I a temptation?”

He clenched his teeth tightly, a muscle in his jaw twitching. “You are the only real temptation I have ever faced.” With that, he turned away from her, summarily dismissing her without another word.

But he couldn’t dismiss the admission. She was a temptation for him.

She had never been a temptation for anyone before. For Marcus, she had been another indulgence in a lifetime of them. And she hadn’t even truly been that. She had been the suitable woman, the one he had married.

She tempted Tarek.

She wanted to hold that close, to examine it and turn it over in private, where she could decide how exactly she felt about it.

“When exactly are we to be married?”

Another raw laugh escaped his lips. “From where I am standing, I would say the sooner the better.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

A WEEK SINCE his encounter with Olivia had done nothing to cool the arousal in his blood. She tempted him, she tempted him beyond the need for anything else. He had been in dire straits in the desert. Sometimes without food, sometimes without water. And yet, now he craved her more than he craved either of those things. And it was unacceptable.

He was determined not to succumb to this. This wild need that was like a prowling animal inside him, tearing at years of well-practiced restraint.

Even now, he could taste her on his lips. Could recall exactly the soft, delicate feel of her mouth beneath his.

He had nearly crushed her beneath his need. He had been rough. He despised himself for that. For his lack of restraint.

He paced the length of his chamber. He had set the wedding day today. Had told his advisor that everything would need to be planned and set into motion for a ceremony to take place in two weeks’ time. He’d had a notice sent to Olivia. He imagined she would be quite annoyed with him.

He didn’t care. He was quite annoyed with her.

With all that she made him feel.

She expected sex. Of course she did. She had been married before, and she had no reason to expect their relationship to deviate from what she considered normal.

Nothing about him was normal.

He considered himself the furthest thing from an innocent. After all, he had endured grief, loss, torture. He had taken the lives of enemies when necessary. There was no place for innocence when you had watched a man’s soul depart from his body at your own hand. No, no room for it at all.

And yet, while he considered himself devoid of innocence, the word virgin hung large as an accurate description for his state of being. Indeed, he had never even kissed a woman until that moment with Olivia. There had never been opportunity. Or perhaps there had been. There had been many women in the Bedouin camps, widows who probably would have appreciated a bit of comfort and company. But he had never allowed his focus to stray. Had never allowed the impulses of his body to control his actions.

That focus, that determination had been paramount to his survival. Releasing his hold on it was never an option.

Whether he was a virgin or not had never mattered until now. Sexual desire was simply another appetite he’d cast off.

But he was discovering that introducing the desire for sex, the appetite for it, was much different than an appetite for food. He had managed to find ways to keep himself fed without allowing himself to desire rich flavors. Without allowing himself to be controlled by specific cravings.

Now that he had tasted Olivia, he wondered if there was any way to satisfy sexual need in a basic way. One that wouldn’t consume.

He doubted it now.

Of course, part of the issue was that he remained uneducated on the subject.

He had seen a great many animals copulate. Knew what that looked like. Knew the mechanics. And yet, the way Olivia looked at him, the way she responded to his touch, the way he had watched his brother abandon all for the sake of hedonistic appetites, told him that there was much more to it than that.

And beyond that, the gnawing hunger that had taken residence inside him from the moment he had first seen Olivia told him there was more.

Preparation. That was what always helped a new soldier. Doing drills, learning everything there was to know about the enemy.

Preparation made events seem less remarkable.

Of course, there was no way for him to acquire physical practice. But when practical experience couldn’t be had, reading would suffice.

He walked across the room to the vast library housed in the other end of the chamber, certain there was a book here that would satisfy his curiosity. After all, his brother had purchased a great many of the books.

His brother had been a bit shorter than he was, so Tarek looked slightly lower than eye level scanning the center shelves for anything that seemed to pertain to the subject. He was not disappointed.

He opened the volume, his eye immediately drawn to the detailed sketches of anatomy on the first pages. Yes, he could see he had a great deal to learn. He turned the page and there was a drawing of a man caressing a woman’s bare breasts. He thought of Olivia, the way she had felt pressed against his body. The soft, feminine shape of her and how she had fitted so perfectly against him.

Need bloomed hot and low in his stomach.

In that moment, he had a great many of his own fantasies. But he wanted to know all of the possibilities. He wanted to miss nothing.

He squashed that thought. This wasn’t about him. It was about her. Fulfilling his obligations as a husband and nothing more.

More important even than fulfilling obligations was mastering his need. He must form a strategy so that when faced with his opponent, he would not waver.

She was so soft. And his hands, warrior’s hands, so rough. When he placed them over her body he had to be sure he would deliver only pleasure. Had to be certain he would not…break her.

Of course he knew the mechanics of sex. He’d been fifteen when he’d left the palace after all. But fifteen-year-old boys might nudge each other and talk about women’s bodies. But they did not discuss a woman’s pleasure. Did not discuss control.

He needed to understand both of those things. For Olivia had known the touch of another man. She deserved pleasure.

And he required control.

An hour later, he had made it halfway through the book and was not feeling at all like education had done anything to lessen his desire. Certainly, he had some ideas that were new. And very, very interesting.

But that had not been the plan.

There was a firm knock on his door, and he cast the book aside. Strange that this was something he felt the need to hide, but he did. He hated needing to admit his lack of mastery.

He stood, ignoring the vague ache in his groin and the tightness in his stomach as he made his way to the door.

He opened the door only to meet Olivia’s fearsome blue gaze. “Yes?”

“I am informed, by a member of staff, by the way, not you, that we are to be married in two weeks.”

“Yes,” he bit out.

He would not allow her entry. His head was entirely filled with the images in that book and the images painted by the explicit instructions. And if he allowed her to get too close, he would only be tempted to put his new education to practical use.

“That’s impossible. It takes months to plan an event of that magnitude. You forget, I have been through this before.”

Yes, she had. In this, and in the things he had just been researching, she had more experience than he did.

But he frightened people. And he found that was more effective than experience at times.

Not with sex, obviously, but in the planning of a wedding, yes.

“It is eminently possible. This will not be like your first wedding.”

“Well, it couldn’t be. Good luck getting five hundred live doves this late in the game.”

“I cannot tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m not. My first wedding was ridiculous. Beautiful, but ridiculous.”

“I cannot promise this wedding will be less ridiculous. Less extravagant, certainly.”

“Two weeks?”

He arched a brow. “Did you want more time?”

She shook her head resolutely. “No. I am decided. But I’m doubtful that you can pull this off in two weeks.”

“Why would you doubt? I have you to help.”

“I can’t decide if I feel complimented or put upon.”

“Why choose one? You are a woman, and I’m quickly learning that means you can be both.”

“You do learn quickly,” she said.

He hoped so.

“Two weeks,” he reiterated.

“Two weeks,” she said. “But, Tarek, next time, tell me yourself when you set our wedding date.”

He nodded, attempting a smile, because this, he was confident, was a joke of sorts. “Next time.”

* * *

Two weeks passed quickly. Were Tarek a beloved monarch who had been on the throne for years, he could see the point of creating a spectacle out of his wedding. For the media, for the citizens. But as he was not, he felt there were better ways to spend his country’s money than on a lavish event they had not chosen, and one he and Olivia certainly didn’t need.

He had, in the past few weeks, spent time looking at photos of Olivia. It was easier than talking to her to gather information. Perhaps not the most up-front way of going about getting to know her, but he had been avoiding her since the kiss.

During that research he had seen photos of her at many social events. And he had seen her first husband. Polished, as blond as she was. He had seen their wedding. An intricate event that had lasted two days and commanded the attention of the media worldwide.

And then Tarek had seen pictures of her with himself. Mainly unsmiling, definitely not polished.

There was a photo of her holding his face, just after the speech. Her hands were so very pale on his dark skin. Highlighting the differences between them. She had said she did not think of herself as being part of her first husband still, and yet, looking at the pictures, he could see that she had been. They blended.

Whereas he…he did not look as if he belonged with her.

Of course, that was immaterial. They were marrying each other anyway. Today, in fact.

Which meant that tonight he would be out of excuses for not consummating the attraction between them. He gritted his teeth. They were not excuses. He had valid reasoning for resisting the heat that fired in his blood whenever she touched him. What he had said to her about his brother was true. Malik had been a man entirely ruled by his own desires. Tarek was a man made entirely of resistance. A man who had learned to shun everything unnecessary.

Seeing to his wife’s physical needs now fell under the banner of his responsibility, he could not deny that. But giving in to temptation in his bedroom after the speech seemed a violation of everything he was.

He had wanted her then. Hard, and fast. He had known it would be fast.

Heat lashed him like a whip.

He was more prepared now than he had been then. He had read not just one, but several books on the subject. And he had learned a great deal about female anatomy. He was grateful that he had, because he’d had no idea just how intricate the mechanics of the act could be.

Neither had he anticipated just how much his body would be captivated with the promise of it.

He had spent thirty years denying his impulses. His needs.

The prospect of no longer denying certain impulses loomed large. The thought, the very idea, had worked its way under his skin like a bullet, traveling through his body, blooming outward slowly, looking for a place to land where it might destroy whatever it touched.

Not the most delightful analogy. But then, he wasn’t surprised, considering he was rarely delightful.

Olivia’s first husband had been delightful. All of Tarek’s research had brought him to that conclusion. He wondered how quickly she would tire of being with a man who wasn’t. Though he had not coerced her into this. Far from that. She had been the one to come to him. The one to present a case for why he needed her.

Not for the first time he wondered what she was getting out of this. If she had thought to replace what she had lost, to recapture what it was to be royalty, she had most certainly come to the wrong place. Her life in Alansund had been filled with parties, glittering affairs, delightful excursions on the lake, picnics with her husband, the king.

Tarek could honestly say he would not be engaging in any of that.

Sex, however, would not be something he denied her. He was ready now. Preparation always brought a clearer head. Now that he had a plan, he would remain in command of his body, of his impulses when the time came. And in that way, he was determined to please her. Because it certainly seemed more desirable than throwing an increased number of parties.

For a start, it only required there to be two of them in the room. For another thing, Olivia would be naked.

He could not deny that added incentive.

He ignored the tightening in his gut. He could not focus on that. He had to focus on getting through this day.

He turned and faced the mirror, tightening the black tie he wore. When given the option, he had chosen a Western-style suit for the day, seeing as he was marrying a Western woman. He had thought hard about it. Because he cared deeply for his people and for their traditions.

But in the end, it was Olivia he had dressed for.

He had no idea of what she might wear. Part and parcel to his avoidance of her, both in the past couple of weeks, and completely today, as she had informed him coolly during their last brief encounter, that it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride on the day of the wedding.

He had not told her then that he didn’t believe in luck. Because she very clearly did, and he did not want to hurt her feelings again. He’d been very put out by the fact that he had. In addition to lacking sensibilities, Tarek also imagined that he lacked feelings. His soft, pretty fiancée most certainly possessed more than he did.

Naturally, he did not know how to consider them, as nothing inside him reflected her internal workings. Which meant he would simply have to watch. And he would have to try. He could not trust his dealings with the woman to be intuitive.

The door to his chamber opened slowly and his advisor appeared. “It is time, my sheikh.”

For the first time in memory, Sheikh Tarek al-Khalij felt fear. For today, he would not face down an enemy, but a bride. His bride.

However, much like an enemy attack, it was not something that could be waylaid.

“I am ready.”

* * *

Olivia adjusted her heavy veil, trying to quiet the pounding of her heart she readied herself to walk down the aisle. To pledge herself to a man she still felt she barely knew.

Strange that she was so conscious of that with Tarek. She had to confess, standing there now in her ornate gold-and-white gown, that she wasn’t entirely certain she and Marcus had known each other any better.

What Tarek lacked was the ability to let those around him see just enough that they might be fooled into thinking they knew him. She and Marcus had shared certain things freely. Smiles, their bodies, small talk. Easy conversation. Neither of them ever asked difficult questions. Neither of them had ever asked questions at all.

She shoved that thought aside. This was not the time to think about Marcus.

Though, really, it was inevitable that she would. Think about the other man who had been her husband on the day she was ready to marry another. Maybe, if she was in love with Tarek, she wouldn’t.

As it was, it was difficult not to draw comparison. To grasp at something to make the situation feel less foreign. To recall her other wedding day in an attempt to make this one feel less significant. It was a cheap trick that even she saw through, and yet, that wouldn’t stop her from trying it.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror, and her heart sank down low. This was so different in every way. There was no way she could use the fact that this was her second wedding to calm her nerves. If anything, highlighting the differences between the two only made this feel more terrifying.

She recalled the bespoke gown she’d worn the first time. It had made headlines around the world. Had set a trend for weddings for the next year.

This gown was weighted down with the tradition of the nation. Long sleeves, intricate embroidery, a thick belt just beneath her breasts, also gold. In so many ways the difference in gown symbolized the difference between the two unions. The other, light, showy, focused on the couple. This one heavy. Focused squarely on the need of Tahar.

And of yourself. Let’s not start pretending you’re too altruistic.

All right, she wouldn’t pretend she was being completely selfless. She quite wanted a place in life. A little bit of security. A purpose.

And then there was…him.

She was so attracted to him. But now that sleeping with him wasn’t a spontaneous thing, she found she was quite nervous about it. Now it was the finish line to a marathon of the day, and that put it in a slightly different light than the natural progression of a kiss, or a touch.

Also in keeping with the theme. Everything concerning Tarek was weighty.

“Sheikha?”

Olivia turned, surprised that Melia was already addressing her as such. The servant inclined her head, betraying no nerves in spite of the import of the event.

“They are ready for you.”

Olivia nodded, wishing she had opted to carry a bouquet. Something, anything to do with her hands.

Alas, she had nothing. So she gripped the front of her skirt, lifting it slightly as she walked through the halls toward the small sanctuary that was in a different wing of the palace.

Her throat suddenly grew tight, a pulse beating in her head. She had to close her eyes against it.

She had no connections in there. Her parents…well, they weren’t coming. Not a huge surprise, but the phone call last night had still left her nearly hollow with pain.

Emily wasn’t well. Emily couldn’t stand the heat and the dust. It was hardly fair to leave her…

And Olivia had said she understood, of course, because it was all she had said for years.

Only once had she fought back.

Her fifteenth birthday. She’d told them she would make the cake; she would make dinner. They just had to be there.

But they hadn’t been. Because Emily had been hospitalized and they’d visited her instead. And she’d been so angry. They’d stayed with Emily all evening. She’d been broken over it. Something in her shattering that had never quite been repaired after.

When she breathed in too deeply, she swore she could still feel it. Lodged like a barb deep in her chest.

How dare you miss this? I asked for this. Just this!

It isn’t as though we want your sister bedridden in a hospital, Olivia. Have some sensitivity. You will have all of your birthdays. You’ll grow up. You’ll marry. What will Emily have? How long does she have?

They’d been right. And whatever she’d been feeling… She hadn’t had any right. And as isolated as she’d felt before she’d poured her emotions out in front of her mother and father, she’d felt even more so after.

Because when they looked at her after that, all they saw was her selfishness. They had an ill daughter. They’d needed her to carry the weight. To be as happy and self-contained as she could be, and she’d failed.

She’d stepped outside her position, and after that had found no place at all.

Olivia swallowed hard.

She faced a room empty of her own connections. The only person there she knew would be the man she was pledging her life to, and as she had only just been thinking, she barely knew him.

The ornate doors to the sanctuary were closed, and Olivia paused in front of them, waiting for them to swing open, as she knew they would. She had discussed this briefly with the wedding coordinator. She knew already there would be very few people in attendance. Nobility, members of the Bedouin tribes, a few approved members of the press and palace staff. It would be nothing like that first wedding with thousands of attendees, where the world had been watching.

But there had been something insulating about that. So many people it had seemed surreal. They had all blended into one.

She had been floating on a cloud that day, insulated by her happiness. There was no insulation today. Only the stark reality of the cold stone walls around her and the imposing doors in front of her.

Doors that suddenly parted, revealing the small crowd, and the man that she was meant to bind herself to.

What surprised her was how immediately everyone else faded. Her eyes were locked on Tarek. He owned her focus, her attention. He was the reason she took that first step forward, and the next. She was certain of this, she realized, looking at him. But this wasn’t the giddy certainty of a girl imagining she had finally found that sense of love and belonging she had always fantasized about. This was different.

He was different.

She locked eyes with him, drawn ever nearer by the black flame burning there. He was magnificent. A modern-day warrior born of the desert sand. He was strength personified. And yet again, he was in one of those maddening, perfectly tailored suits that made a mockery of the entire concept of civility. Showed it for what it was. A cloak, a weakness. A construct used by those too frightened to reveal their true selves.

That was, she realized in that moment, one of the things she admired most about Tarek. He did not hide himself. She doubted he even knew how.

She arrived at the front of the room, and the clergyman presiding over the ceremony began to speak in Arabic. She had only a base understanding of the language, allowing the words to wash over her in a wave, the gist of them penetrating, but not the fine meaning. She had read a transcript of what would be said today, so she had a fair idea of what would be asked of her in terms of vows, of what those in attendance were hearing now.

She would have to learn her new language. Would have to become a part of this nation as she had become part of Alansund.

In many ways, she felt it had already become a part of her. She felt the change.

She repeated her vows slowly, in the phonetic Arabic she had memorized while reading the ceremony, with help from Melia. She kept her eyes focused on the ground as she did, her lungs tight, growing tighter still whenever she looked up and met Tarek’s gaze.

When she finished speaking, it was his turn.

But he did not repeat the vows they had learned. And he did not speak in Arabic.

“I am a man of the sword,” he said slowly, the grave intent in his words drawing her focus upward. “And I now pledge this blade to you. I will empty my veins before I allow one drop of your blood to be spilled. You are one of mine now, as this country is mine. And I will give all to defend and protect, and to destroy any who should seek to destroy you. Just as you belong to me, now I belong to you. I pledge my loyalty, my body, to yours. And never will I share what is meant to belong to us with any other. I shall honor your gift, the gift you give of yourself, and never misuse it. I have sworn to protect, to uphold the honor this country was founded on. Thus, I shall protect you. Thus, shall I treat you with the highest honor.”

He reached out and took her hand in his. She was conscious of how small, how pale it looked, concealed entirely by his. He held her tightly, his black eyes never leaving hers, cementing the vow, one she felt all the way down to her soul.

Suddenly her promises seemed so shallow. So empty. What had she done but repeat words spoken to her? Words she barely understood.

That was very like her first marriage.

A marriage where she had chosen the thinnest facade of connection over any sort of true intimacy and all the deep, exposing terror that came with it.

So she’d stayed on the surface. And she was ashamed now in the face of his sincerity.

What Tarek had said, those were vows. A pledge from the depth of his being.

She was honored. She was not worthy.

But she wanted it. Wanted it with a ferocity that shocked her.

Maybe it was time to stop being shocked by how many feelings Tarek seemed to call out of her with effortless ease.

Then he released her, and as a blessing was pronounced on them she found herself being led back down the aisle she had just come up, all eyes in the room on them, somber expressions all around. She’d been told to expect that, too. The reception would be the place for festivities. This ceremony was treated with all seriousness.

When they exited the sanctuary, Melia was waiting for them.

“The feast will be served in the grand hall,” she said. “If you go there now, you can take your seats and await the celebrations.”

Olivia took hold of Tarek’s hand and they started to walk down the corridor together. A sense of belonging filled her. She looked to the side, at the man who had become her husband, and her heart felt as if it had grown two sizes. This was something deeper. Something more.

The sort of thing she’d been afraid to reach for all these years. Right here. Right beside her.

He looked at her, his brow raised. “Yes?”

“Just letting it sink in.”

“That we are married?”

“Yes. That this is my home. That you’re my husband. All of it.”

He stopped, taking hold of her other hand and turning her so that she was standing facing him, his expression fierce. “Why? What is it you want? I spent the past two weeks looking at pictures of your old life and Alansund.”

Her stomach tightened. “Why?”

“To understand you.”

“You could have spoken to me.”

He lifted a shoulder, dismissing her words. “The photographs I looked at conveyed much. And so I’m curious, why would you leave all of that to come here?”

Her throat constricted, making words all but impossible. “Because it isn’t there anymore. There is no place for me. I know we haven’t had a chance to talk about this. I don’t…I don’t like to talk about the past. I don’t have a lot of happy things there.”

He raised his brows, his dark eyes full of something…understanding, maybe? Which was so strange she could hardly stand it. “I have some idea of what that might be like. Will you tell me?”

“My sister was ill. She is ill. She’s had a terrible autoimmune disease since we were children. My parents spent years of their lives in hospitals. Even now, she’s very fragile. Truthfully, she’s lucky to have lived as long as she has. But that meant that my life was solitary. Very often I was at home while they attended clinical trials. While Emily was hospitalized. It’s just one reason I felt so suited to palace life. The house was always full. I quite like that. And Marcus had a way of making everything feel easy. Fun. Bright. I didn’t have much experience of that. I’m afraid of being alone. I don’t like it. I don’t like feeling displaced. Like I’m an incidental. Because I’ve had too much of it.

“Emily can’t help it. I hate even saying any of this. It isn’t her fault. It isn’t my parents’ fault. And I found a way to fix all of that. It’s just that…Marcus died. And there isn’t a place for me there anymore, and it’s nothing but that yawning, horrible feeling of being extra. I tried to… There was this man who was a diplomat for Alansund and I tried to make things work with him, but it barely got past hello. I felt… I hate feeling like I failed in my duty. Like I didn’t hold up my end.”

She thought of that horrible moment. The birthday party. When she’d yelled at her parents for not caring. When they’d looked at her as though she’d failed in her unspoken duty. To be content with neglect, because she had health. She had never felt so broken. “So when Anton suggested this as a solution, I jumped at it. That’s why I’m here. At least here I matter.”

She couldn’t quite fathom why all of that had come spilling out. She had never even talked to Marcus about it like that. Oh, he had known about Emily’s condition, but she had never spoken to him about how it made her feel.

But Marcus had never asked.

Tarek put his hand on her cheek, the gesture so shocking she froze, her eyes wide. “You are needed. Know that.”

With that, he lowered his hand, continuing to walk with her down the corridor. The ache in her chest deepened, widened, a crack in a wall she hadn’t been aware of until recently.

She didn’t have time to ponder it too deeply. They entered the dining hall to find it glowing from floor to ceiling. The chandeliers were lit; candelabras lined the room. Flowers wound around everything. There was nothing restrained about any of this. It was an explosion of joy, of color. And since Olivia couldn’t muster up any of her own joy, she appreciated it blooming around her.

At the head of the low table were cushions in red, gold and blue, awaiting herself and Tarek.

“This is beautiful. I’ve never been to a party like this,” she said.

It reminded her very much of that birthday party again. But people were here. And it was glittering and full. So she would focus on that.

“Nor have I.”

She followed him to their positions, taking a seat beside him. Questions formed in her mind, hovering on her lips. She had just shared some of herself. And she wanted very much to try to get him to share his own experiences.

“How is that possible? Why were you out in the desert?”

Guests began filing into the room, more than had been in the ceremony. She had known this would be the case, too. There was also a feast outside the walls of the palace, food being given freely to the citizens of Tahar to celebrate the marriage of their sheikh.

Along with guests, musicians came in, music filling the space, echoing off the ceiling and the jeweled walls. In time with the music, platters of food came next, and her question was lost in the noise and shuffle.

She picked at a bit of spiced lamb on her plate, unable to muster up any appetite.

She looked over at Tarek, who was sitting with one leg curled beneath him and the other bent at the knee, his elbow resting on top of it as he made quick work of the food on his plate. He trained dark, serious eyes on her. “I was in the desert because my brother feared what I would become if I was here.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was not until recently that I realized just who he was. What he was doing to our country. It was not until recently I realized that he was very likely the one who’d orchestrated the assassination of my parents.”

His hard blank words hit her like bricks. One after the other. And she was barely able to recover from the first blow when a second arrived.

“I think he was afraid I would know. I think he was afraid of what I would do. So he broke my will. Filled my head with his teachings. His truths. Sent me away where I could be of no threat. To guard the borders. To protect his evil empire while he reduced it to ash from within.” He took another bite of food. “I have been slowly coming awake for years. Slowly coming into understanding.” He looked at her, his gaze so cold it sent a shiver down her spine. “He turned me into a creature. Tortured me until I knew nothing but pain and his words. I am what I was made to be. I doubt I will ever be anything else.”

CHAPTER NINE

THE REST OF the reception passed in a fog for Tarek. He had not intended to speak to Olivia with such honesty. He saw no point in infecting her with the darkness that lingered in his past. He scarcely saw the point of infecting himself with it. However, the longer he stayed here in the palace, the more he remembered. The more often he woke, naked and reaching for his sword, his entire body burning with memories of what it had been like to be subjected to the physical and emotional torture visited upon him by his own brother after the death of their parents. It had all been under the guise of strengthening him, but he saw it now for what it was.

The only thing that had gotten him through had been the vision of his people swimming before him. The idea that he might be the perfect weapon raised up to protect them. To prevent what had happened to his parents from ever happening again. It had not then occurred to him that the threat had come from within the palace. That it had been his own brother who had orchestrated their demise. He had only the scribbles of a prince in a private journal, and shattered pieces of memory that sometimes pushed to the fore, piercing his brain with painful, vivid replays of conversations he’d heard. As a boy? During his torture, he couldn’t be sure. They were too broken.

And they were not what he intended to focus on now. But Olivia had shared pieces of herself with him, and he had felt obliged to do the same. Now, though, it was time for them to return to their chamber. It was time for them to become husband and wife in every sense of the word.

A sense he feared he still did not fully understand.

I am what I was made to be. I doubt I will ever be anything else.

His own words, the truth in them, reverberated through him as he and Olivia left the hall to raucous applause and cheers from the guests in attendance.

His body did not know how to feel pleasure. His hands did not know how to give it.

He thought back to the fantasy he’d had a week before, looking down at the book that had held so many secrets to sexual gratification. The fantasy of placing his hands on Olivia’s breasts. Her skin was so soft, perfection, unmarred by the things of the world. His were scarred. His entire body was scarred. Rough. More weapon than man. How could he begin to touch her in a way that would bring her pleasure?

He would have to trust the mechanics. What he had learned in his study. Just as he had learned to trust that drills would suffice when wartime came. That some part of him, instinct, would rise up and take over, join in with what he had learned.

And yet, it seemed rather a large chance to take on such a delicate, easily crushed creature.

They walked on in silence, heading toward his chamber. Neither of them said anything; neither of them touched as they walked inside. Tarek closed the doors firmly behind them, and when he turned it was to see Olivia, slowly removing the bangles from her wrists. She placed the first one on the vanity with a decisive click, followed by a second, and a third. Until she had removed each ring of gold and silver from her arms.

Then she reached up, working small combs from her hair, detaching the veil that had hung over her shoulders. She placed the beautifully adorned fabric across the top of the bangles, her eyes never leaving his.

“I have been thinking,” she said, “about what you told me.”

His stomach turned over. “I am sorry. It is nothing good to think about.”

“Maybe it isn’t. But it happened. I was thinking also about the vows you made to me during the ceremony.”

“I know it was not what was written. But all of those things spoke of love, of clinging to one another. And I do not understand those things. But I understand protection. Possession. Perhaps neither are very romantic concepts, but they are real in my heart.”

She nodded slowly. “I know. It made them meaningful. I understood. But it made me feel that I owed you something of the same. Not just words that were written for me by someone else. Not a traditional sentiment about marriage when nothing about this is traditional. When nothing about the two of us is traditional.”

“And have you decided what they are?”

“I haven’t rehearsed them. But… Yes. I have never been tortured, Tarek. I have never been alone the way that you have. I haven’t known loss as you have done. I promise that when we touch my hands will bring you nothing but pleasure. I promise that I will never send you away. I promise that no matter how long it takes, I will make you see that you are not what he made you. You are a man. And I will do everything I can do to ensure you feel like one.”

As she spoke the final words, her hands went to the belt on her dress, nimble fingers unhooking the tiny catches there, letting it fall free. Then she moved to the tiny buttons at the front of the gown, undoing each one with a kind of purpose that carried great weight.

She parted the fabric, opening the dress at the front and letting it slide from her shoulders, a silken river at her feet.

She was bare beneath the gown. And he couldn’t breathe.

He had never in his life seen a naked woman in the flesh. Drawings, statues, paintings were useless renderings. They did not and could not capture the majesty of what he saw before him. He had to grit his teeth to try to maintain a grip on his control.

She was bathed in golden light, the soft halo provided by the candles in the room conforming to each curve and contour of her figure. He was transfixed by every part of her. The shadow of her collarbone, her round, full breasts, tipped with dusky, pale nipples. The slope of her waist that narrowed then widened again for lush hips and thighs. The dark shadow at the center holding his focus above all else.

She was, now and forever, the epitome of a woman to him. And for all of his days, this was the image he would see when the word was spoken.

Everything else, everyone else, was a pale shade in comparison with her.

“I think now we’re past time for discussion,” she said, luminous eyes meeting his. “Perhaps it’s time we do something other than talk.”

The book had not mentioned this. That he would scarcely be able to breathe. That he would be so hard it would be a physical pain. That his hands would shake. That he would be nearly immobilized with his desire, while also fighting the urge to pull her hard against his body, to lay her down and push deep inside her with no preliminaries whatsoever while he chased a release that was sure to surpass anything he had ever known before.

He thought that he had learned more than the mechanics. But he saw now that there was more still. And that theory would scarce be helpful here.

Because he had not taken into account what she might do. And what it might make him feel. He had made it all about her. Her pleasure. Meeting her expectations of the husband so that he would not be remiss in his responsibilities.

He had fancied his own control so iron that he needn’t consider it.

He had been a fool. And now he was a fool standing before a naked woman.

She began to walk toward him, each step creating a slight wave through her soft body, her breasts keeping rhythm with each movement. She looked down, her eyes clearly following his own line of sight, then looked up at him, a slight smile curving her lips. “I’m glad you’re pleased.”

“Go to the bed,” he said, his voice barely recognizable to his own ears. Though that wasn’t unusual. Sometimes, out in the desert, he had gone long enough without speaking that when he did so again, it was a surprise.

Her shoulders stiffened, one pale brow arching. “I didn’t realize you were one to give commands.”

“Neither did I. Go to the bed.”

He had to seize control here. There was no other option.

She turned away from him slowly, and he allowed himself a long moment to admire the view of her from behind. The enticing dimples low on her back just above the rounded curve of her bottom. The gentle sway of her hips as she walked away from him, complying with his demands.

Fire shot through his veins with a crack. This beautiful, fierce creature was obeying his commands. Soft, naked, lovelier than anything. Following his instruction. She had been the aggressor when it came to physical interaction between the two of them in the past. Tonight, the control would be his.

It was how it must be.

She sat on the edge of the mattress, her eyes watchful.

“Lie back.”

Her expression held many unspoken questions, but she complied. She breathed in deep, her breasts rising and falling. She was the picture of supplication, and yet he knew better. Because he knew Olivia.

“Raise your arms above your head,” he said.

She complied with that, as well. He admired her ease with her body. Her lack of nerves. She had confidence in him. Of course, she didn’t know the truth.

If things went well, she never would. It would be unnecessary.

He moved to the end of the bed, to a vantage point that provided him with an optimum view. Her legs hung over the edge of the bed, her knees pressed together, her eyes still on his. He took a step toward her, each step increasing the tightness in his chest, his difficulty in breathing. He paused at the edge of the mattress, leaning forward, pressing his hand into the soft bedding. Then he raised his other hand, tracing her cheekbone, the lovely curve of her upper lip, down to her chin. Her lids fluttered closed, her mouth relaxing, a sweet sigh escaping.

So his touch hadn’t harmed her. Wasn’t too rough.

He moved his fingertips across her throat and down lower between the valley of her perfect breasts. He watched as her nipples grew tighter, watched until the temptation to touch became too great. He let his fingers drift over her, brushing his fingertips over her sensitized skin. Satisfaction rocked him as she shivered, as he fulfilled that fantasy of his. She was softer than he had dared imagine. Softer than he had believed anything could be.

He let his exploration continue downward, stopping at the patch of curls between her thighs. He was shaking. From the inside out. Faced now with the full brunt of the desire he had spent fifteen years suppressing.

He was not stone. He was a man. A man who greatly desired the woman before him. Desire such as this had been stripped from him, a necessity for his survival he had told himself. A necessity for his mission.

Protection. Against corruption, against distraction.

But now, with Olivia before him, all he could think was that he had been missing a part of himself, and it had been returned to him.

He almost feared touching her. Fear that he could not meet the need within her. That the need within her did not match his own. That he lacked the skill to bring her to satisfaction.

He knew he lacked skill. All he had was desire.

So he would give her that. All of it. Everything within him.

He pushed his fingers lower, and she gasped as he met with slick flesh. Her knees fell open, allowing him greater access. Heat rose in his face, his breath coming in hard, short bursts, his heart beating so hard he feared it might burst from his chest. He fought to maintain his control, to ignore the ache building between his own thighs.

He stroked her gently, closing his eyes and letting the pages of the book fill the space in his mind. He did exactly as those pages had instructed him to, touching her just where they had said. Using the evidence of her desire to ease the motions. She made sharp, soft noises, her stomach pitching with each breath. She raised her hips off the bed, pressing herself more firmly into his touch.

“Please,” she whispered, “Tarek, please.”

He didn’t know what she was asking for. His mind went blank, the instructions he had placed there dissolving like sand through an hourglass.

She lowered her hand, placing it over his, pushing his hand down farther, pressing his fingertip into the entrance of her body. He looked up, meeting her gaze. Her eyes were bright, the color in her cheeks high. She pressed her hips into his touch yet again, and he answered her silent request, pushing his finger deep inside her.

A harsh, raw sound was wrenched from her lips and he withdrew from her, afraid he had done something wrong.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t stop.”

She put her hand back over his, guiding him back to where he’d been.

He reclaimed his position, continuing to stroke her gently with his thumb as he entered her again.

She let out a shivering breath, his name on her lips. It struck him in the chest like an arrow, warmth spreading outward like blood. Arousal such as this felt like an injury. So acute it was almost pain. But beneath that, a deep, unending pleasure unlike anything he’d ever known. He knew the ultimate goal of something like this was climax, and yet he found he wished to delay it for as long as possible. Wanted to extend the exploration of Olivia.

She continued to work her hips along with his motions, and he didn’t stop. Because she didn’t ask him to. He simply watched her, watched and tried to match his rhythm to her own, to learn her. Because she was teaching him, with each breath, each sound, each gentle roll of her hips.

He slid his thumb back and forth over the bundle of nerves he’d been teasing and a gasp shook her body, her internal muscles pulsing around him, her entire being trembling.

He knew what that was. He had read about it.

And he had helped her achieve it.

Satisfaction that surely rivaled any orgasm broke over him.

At the same time his pride roared around inside him like a beast, a sense of overwhelming humility overtook him. His hands, these hands that had endured so much pain and caused so much pain, had done that to her.

He was not worthy of the gift.

Her eyes opened again, a sleepy look in them now. “You didn’t even kiss me.”

He withdrew from her body, leaning over and pressing his mouth to hers. It was slow, exploratory, and he allowed her to lead now. She cupped his face, her soft hand resting on his cheek. She shifted, bringing her body into full contact with his.

She lifted her head, a half smile on her lips, and then she lowered her hand, pressing her palm to his hardened arousal. “I think it’s your turn.”

She curled her fingers around him through the fabric of his pants, heat cracking over him like a whip. And he couldn’t pretend this was all about her anymore. These appetites had always seemed a weakness to him. A part of his brother’s corruption; a part of man’s corruption. And yet, he could feel no corruption here in this.

Not here in this room that had become their sanctuary. No one else was invited; no one else and nothing else could gain a foothold here. A storm could be raging outside and the two of them would never know, shielded here, buffeted by the thick walls of the palace. This concerned only the two of them, and for the first time he understood that corruption crept in when the door was left open. But with it closed now, barred, in their own private refuge, he felt he was gathering strength rather than losing it.

That in fact, this might be the safest place for him to lose control, so that he might better rebuild it when he was outside these walls.

He would put up no argument to that conclusion at all. He was incapable.

He looked down at her, at the gleam in her blue eyes. Wicked, provocative. She squeezed him gently and a wave of desire moved through him.

He was a man after all. For surely stone could not feel these things. She sat up, getting onto her knees, leaning into him, increasing the pressure of her touch.

His throat tightened and he swallowed hard, his chest aching. Being stone, he imagined, was in many ways easier than being a man. But a stone could feel no excitement at the touch of Olivia’s hand. And that meant he had no desire for the ease that might come with life as a rock.

She surprised him then, not going to the closure of his trousers, but to the buttons on his shirt. He stayed motionless while she set about her task. Removing his tie, pushing his jacket to the floor, followed by his shirt. And then her hands went to the closure of his pants. Her movements were deft, certain, as she divested him of the rest of his clothing.

When he was naked before her, she pressed her palm against him again, her breath hissing through her teeth. He had no idea what expectation females might have of the male body. And he had never had a reason to cultivate modesty. So he found himself now standing before her, not nervous, but assessing.

A small sound escaped her lips that was akin to a whimper.

“Tell me your thoughts,” he commanded.

Perhaps this was not the best time to be talking, but he found that he needed to know what was on her mind. And he had no experience of reading people. Not like this.

“I’m impressed,” she said, her voice thick, husky. She traced the ridge of his erection with the tip of her finger, her eyes never leaving his. “You are most impressive.”

“Am I?”

She blinked. “Surely you know. I cannot be the only woman to praise your natural endowments.”

“You are.”

Her eyes widened. “Then, the other women you’ve been with have very bad manners.”

“I have never been with a woman before.” The admission broke past his lips and his best intentions to keep this a secret.

She jerked her hand back as though she’d been burned. “What?”

“I told you. I had taken a vow to cast off earthly pleasures. I had to keep my focus. I could not be allowed to be distracted, even for a moment.”

“Somehow I didn’t imagine you meant you had cast off everything.”

“Is it so unusual?”

Something in her expression softened. “In my experience, that would be the last thing a man chose to discard.”

“I can see that. My brother was consumed by his lusts. For power. For women. I thought it best not to taint myself with those needs.”

“And now?”

“My responsibilities have changed. They now include you.”

A crease formed between her brows. “I’m not sure if I like the idea of this being a responsibility.”

He reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist, drawing her palm back to his arousal. “Does this feel like a responsibility?”

“No. It certainly doesn’t.”

“I want this,” he said, barely able to force the words through his throat. “But I know very little about what I’m supposed to do to ensure your pleasure. I read a book.”

“You read a book?”

“Yes. To better learn how to please you.”

Color heightened in her cheeks. “Well, you’ve done a good job so far.”

He took hold of her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face upward. “Have I? Have I pleased you?”

“Yes. You couldn’t tell?”

“I felt you. I felt you climax around my fingers.”

She blushed. Somehow he had made her blush. He found that near as heady a rush as making her climax had been. “You’re a good study.”

“I am a thorough man. In all things.” He swallowed, looking down at her body. “And you are far too precious for me to approach this with no skill. With no control.”

“I had no complaints about your skill.”

“Perhaps I have been too honest.”

“No.” She pressed her hands against his chest, bracing herself against him. “I’m glad you were honest.”

She looked up at him, then focused in on his torso, pressing a kiss there. He closed his eyes, doing his best to maintain his hold on his control. What control he had. Dimly, he thought back to his earlier realization that allowing her to have his control here, in this place, might make him stronger outside of it.

She angled her head, kissing him lower, and he reached back and grabbed hold of her hair, working his fingers through the soft blond strands. She wrapped her fingers tightly around the base of his shaft, squeezing him as she curved her lips around the head.

He tightened his grip on her, flexing his hips toward her. She widened her mouth, taking him in deeper. White light exploded behind his eyes and he gritted his teeth hard to keep himself from reaching his release then and there. He had never conceived of such pleasure. Never imagined the intensity that might come from wrapping something other than his own fist around his body. Certainly, there had been times when he hadn’t been able to transcend the ache, that knot deep in his gut late at night. Then he had dealt with it quickly, as efficiently as possible. But this wasn’t about efficiency. This wasn’t about simply satisfying the ache. This was about relishing it. Enjoying every pass of her tongue along his length, every sweet jolt of pleasure wrapped up in pain.

He recalled then the pain he had experienced at the hand of his brother. Pain designed to break him.

He looked down at the soft, beautiful woman pleasuring him with her mouth, subjecting him to a new kind of torture. He was as out of control now as he had been then. At the mercy of his captor. But he had never had such a beautiful captor.

Her gentle hands on the most male part of him were more powerful than any whip brought across his skin had ever been. He had a feeling she could turn the tide inside him with a flick of her wrist. Or rather, a skilled turn of her tongue.

She took him in deeper, and he could think no more. There was nothing, nothing but a blessed blankness, carrying him through the darkness on a wave of sensation. He had, at points in his life, been filled so full of pain he had been afraid it would burst forth from him in an endless torrent. That it was too much for his physical being to contain. A knife plunging into his skin, deeper and deeper, until he was certain it would hit something vital and end him forever.

Now it felt as if the blade had turned. And it was still too much. Still too deep. But it was pleasure he was drowning in rather than pain.

He gritted his teeth, so near the edge he wasn’t certain how long he could hold himself back from going over. But the idea of finishing like this horrified him. He couldn’t subject her to that. Her lips were on him. Surely that was not acceptable. Even he with his limited experience knew that.

He tightened his hold on her hair, tugging her backward. “Enough,” he said, “I cannot endure any more.”

“Good,” she said. “I want you inside me.”

Her words made his stomach pitch. “I’m not sure I can withstand it.” His voice was rough, his words honest.

“We can only try,” she said. Smooth, perfect Olivia. As always. She never seemed ruffled. Never seemed at sea.

He felt certain that he must make it a goal to see her as lost and desperate as he was.

He growled, pressing her back into the mattress, gripping her wrists and holding them above her head. Much like the voluntary position she had assumed earlier. He parted her legs roughly with his own, settling between her thighs. “I will do more than try,” he said.

He might be a virgin, but he was also a warrior. Was a man who led troops into battle. Toward death, and yet ensuring they never in fact met that darkest of demons.

Surely if he could march into a line of enemy soldiers, he could breach a woman’s body.

He kissed her neck, because she looked delicious and he wanted to, and she arched against him, her breasts pressing firmly into his chest, her hips tilting upward. The head of his arousal met against her slick entrance. Yet again it was as though a blade had twisted inside him, a new brand of pleasure and pain bursting through him.

He wanted nothing more than to sink into her. The promise of all that heat, so sweet and slick, sheathing his body, pushed him to the brink.

“Say you want this,” he ground out, his lips still pressed against her neck.

“Yes. Tarek. I want this. Please.” She lifted her hips off the bed, pressing herself more firmly against him.

And he couldn’t hold back any longer.

He pressed against the opening to her body and entered her slowly, gritting his teeth as she surrounded him. Inch by excruciating inch.

He trembled, burying his face in her neck as he tried to hold back the orgasm that was threatening to end this before it even began.

He thought back to his long years in the desert. Barren, dry years that stretched before him as far as he could see. Blank, pale sand meeting a washed-out sky.

He thought of all the years he’d been without touch. Without anyone to speak to. Anyone to hold him.

He was here now. And so was she. And he would be damned to hell if he let it end now.

This was his due. For every slash in his skin made by a blade. For every lash of the whip. Every moment he’d gone without food or water. So much deprivation. And here he was submerged in sensation. In her.

Now, for the first time, he would maintain control, not for the sake of anyone else. But for himself. Only for himself.

He lifted his head, looked down at her. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted, cheeks flushed. He lifted his hand, traced her lower lip with his thumb. Could feel his body respond, pulsing deep inside hers.

He kissed her mouth, relishing her flavor, relishing the moment.

And then his control slipped its leash. He couldn’t stay still any longer. He withdrew, before thrusting back in deep. Repeating the motion when she moaned, the sound spurring him on.

She wrapped her legs around his hips, arching against him, urging him on. She whispered in his ear. Pleas, cries. All in English. His brain lost the ability to translate, her words losing their meaning as he moved with her.

She met his every thrust, pressing hard against him when he was sheathed fully within her. She shook in his arms, coming apart completely, her internal muscles tightening down hard on him as she gave herself over to her release.

And then he let go. And he was falling over the edge.

Blood roared through his ears, howling like a beast as he lost himself in his climax. In her. Olivia.

He opened his eyes, cupped her face, met her gaze. Her eyes were wide, shocked. Until she closed them. Looked away.

“Olivia,” he said, his voice rough. Unrecognizable.

She shifted beneath him, a small squeak escaping her lips. “Could I just…?”

“Sorry.” He rolled to the side, allowing her space. She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest, and he stayed where he was. On his side, his head propped up by his hand.

He gazed at the lines, the curves of her body. He couldn’t stop staring. She was beautiful. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Just looking at her was like water on parched earth. Healing. Reaching deep, untouched places inside him. Bringing them life.

She placed her hands on his arm, slowly letting her fingertips drift along his bare skin. “Tarek…you are so beautiful.” She touched a scar on his arm. “So fierce. So caring. That was… I have no words for it. Why have you never been with anyone? Why do you deny yourself?” She took a shuddering breath. “Tarek, what did he do to you?”

CHAPTER TEN

HE SHOOK HIS HEAD. “We don’t need to speak of it. Not now.”

She nodded slowly, keeping her hand on his arm. She didn’t speak for a moment, her eyes downcast. Then she looked back up at him. “You’ve really never been with a woman before?”

“No.”

“Have you… What…what have you done with…other people…?”

“No one. Nothing. I cannot remember the last time I was touched at all before you.” And suddenly the weight of her fingertips on his arm was like a brick. So heavy it was nearly unbearable.

“You were very good,” she said. “You should know that.”

Never in his memory had anyone said something to him out of interest of sparing his feelings. But he wondered now if that was the case. “There is no need for you to lie. In fact, it is best if you don’t. I need to learn how to please you.”

“You did. I’m not lying to you. Trust me, I wouldn’t. I was not a… You know I was with my husband. He was the only one. But…I say that to tell you I understand how important communication is. Especially in the bedroom.”

“I imagine he did not need instruction.”

“No,” she said, looking down. “He didn’t. Though, in some ways, he did. Anytime you’re with someone new you must learn them. All bodies are not the same. Being with you is different.”

“And does it please you?”

“Yes,” she said, meeting his eyes, leaving off any sarcastic asides.

“If I had known…if I had known what it would be like, I never could have resisted you the day that you touched me.”

A smile curved her lips. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I am a terrible liar. If I suffer from anything, it might be too much honesty.”

“I’ve noticed that. I find it quite refreshing.”

“Why is that?”

The smile inverted, a slight crease appearing between her brows. “I’m not sure. Maybe because I have spent very much of my life around careful people. I’ve spent much of my life being careful and suffering consequences when I wasn’t. I quite like that you aren’t.”

“I suppose carefulness might be a valuable skill to cultivate.”

“If I teach you, you have to promise never to use it on me.”

“An odd request.”

“Maybe I’m odd.” She tilted her head to the side, something about the motion making his heart feel slightly overlarge for his chest.

“I think of the two of us, I am the strange one.”

“Possibly.” She lay back on the bed, temptation personified. He could easily get lost in her. Make love to her until they both fell asleep.

And what will happen when sleep comes?

Ice replaced the blood flowing through his veins.

“It is time, I think, for you to go back to your room,” he said.

“What? I just thought…”

“For many reasons, not the least of which being that I have yet to solve the sleepwalking-with-weapons issue, I think it would be best if we kept to our separate quarters.”

She nodded slowly. “I anticipated that we would have separate rooms in general, but I thought perhaps tonight…”

“There is the issue of the sword.”

“Perhaps chuck it out into the hall?” she asked, one brow raised.

“I could, but then what else might I get hold of? I’m very resourceful.”

She raised her other brow. “Are you? I feel as if I’ve just benefited from some of that resourcefulness.”

That cool top layer of hers was back in place. It was because he’d hurt her in some way, and he could sense that. But he couldn’t fathom what he might do to fix it. Not when her fingers on his arm were crushing him now. Not when he needed space. Not just from her, but beyond these walls. Out in the desert.

But failing that, he just needed to be alone. He needed time to process. Time to rebuild. He couldn’t do that with her here.

“Please do not take this personally,” he said. “Please don’t be hurt.”

She shook her head slowly, removing her touch from him. “It doesn’t work that way, Tarek.”

“Why not?” Not even he was that obtuse when it came to interacting with people. Still, it seemed unfair.

“You can’t call a bullet back after it’s been fired. I would think that’s something a warrior would understand.”

“But I didn’t mean to fire at you.”

She put her hand on his cheek. “You know that doesn’t matter, either.”

“It is for your safety.”

She tilted her head to the side. “I’m sure it is. Good night, Tarek.”

She slipped from his bed, taking her wedding gown from the floor and slipping it back on, holding the front closed, not bothering to collect anything else. Not her bangles, not her veil, not her belt.

She had entered the chamber a bride, and she was leaving a wife. An unhappy wife.

But he had to set limits, even now. It was best she learned. When it came to sharing his body, he had determined to give. Because he could do nothing else, in truth. But there were other things that must remain off-limits.

He had whittled the focus of his soul down to a sleek, streamlined arrow, with all of the excess shaved away. He could not go back. He would not.

Yes, his body he could afford to share. But never his soul. He could never, ever expose her to everything he’d been through. Never share the creation of his scars.

She was far too lovely for him to ever present her with something so ugly.

Difficult, when the ugliness was written all over his body.

And one more reason to stay out of her bed tonight.

* * *

Olivia was playing petulant games, and she knew they would come to nothing with Tarek. Removing herself from her first husband’s bed for a certain length of time when she’d found him irritating had typically resulted in the desired apology. Because Marcus didn’t want to be without sex, he would say whatever he needed to in order to restore harmony in that area. Tarek, of course, wouldn’t understand. She was attempting to manipulate a man who was impossible to manipulate. Not because he was so strong, but because he simply didn’t understand subterfuge.

She felt wretched.

But he had torn her open on their wedding night, laid her bare in more ways than just the physical. The way he had looked at her… As though she was special, as though she was the only one. Her heart seized tight. It was because she was the only one. The only woman to ever touch him. The only woman to ever kiss him, to have him inside her body.

It forced more unfavorable comparisons between him and her first husband.

Marcus had been skilled. He had been with countless women before she’d come into his life. For him seduction had been about knowing exactly where to touch, exactly how.

He’d left her feeling as if she was floating on a cloud, left her feeling sated and satisfied.

Tarek had left her bruised. Aching. Desperate for more.

There was something so impolite about the way he had ravished her. Like the man himself. In contrast, Marcus had unfailing manners, always. But Olivia couldn’t escape the thought that it was a testament to how little it mattered which female was in his bed at any given time.

She had spoken to Tarek about how they would both have to learn. Of course she would have to take the time to watch his responses, to feel what made him shake. What made him moan. What made him hard. But then she’d realized that hadn’t been the case with Marcus. He had never learned her in that way. He knew women. That was different.

Not that she had cause for complaint; not that she never asked for more.

It was pointless to stand here and compare two men who were completely different. Particularly when one was dead, couldn’t give more even if she begged him to. And she hadn’t. When he’d been alive she’d asked him for nothing beyond what he gave.

Unlike Tarek, Marcus had never pledged fidelity.

She’d never asked him to.

You didn’t ask Tarek to, either.

And yet he had.

None of this made her wonder what was wrong with Marcus. Rather, she was beginning to wonder what was wrong with herself. Why she had never pushed for more. Because she and Marcus had professed love for each other, and still he had given her less than half. And she had accepted it. Not only had she accepted it, she’d been comfortable with it. Had he made eye contact with her as he thrust deep into her body the way that Tarek had, she probably would have curled in on herself and retreated.

Intimacy meant reaching deep. It meant sharing and changing. Turning over things that were wrong and discovering how they could be fixed. Facing problems head-on.

That had never gone well for her in the past. The potential cost felt too great.

For that reason, she hadn’t wanted that sort of intimacy with the man she’d once called her husband.

She wasn’t entirely certain she wanted it now. Because that intimacy was the reason she was avoiding Tarek’s bed in a fit of pique. His rough, unpracticed movements, that it was all for her, only for her, had stripped a layer of skin from her body, left her raw and exposed. And then, after all that, he had asked her to leave. When she had wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around his waist and curl up beside him, bury her face in the curve of his neck. Lie with him until her breathing matched his, until they both drifted off to sleep.

He had denied her that.

She was still angry. Still angry, even knowing she had to get into a limousine with him and go down into the capital city for him to make a speech at a monument of war to commemorate a day in the nation’s history. It was, in her understanding, a celebration of the founding of the country. The unification of the primary tribes into one sovereign nation. And of course Tarek would need to be there, again speaking of unity, and of the new future for Tahar.

And she, as the new sheikha, had to accompany him and stand just behind him, staring at him adoringly while she really wanted to eviscerate him. Possibly with her teeth. All right, she was being both dramatic and bloodthirsty.

She walked through the throne room of the palace to the antechamber that led outside. She paused, adjusting the scarf she had wound over her hair and loosely around her neck. Then she walked outside, putting on a pair of large sunglasses to protect her from the glare, and from Tarek’s gaze.

He was already standing there, in front of the limousine. He was wearing a dark suit jacket and perfectly cut trousers, his hands stuffed into the pockets. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow, and not even the superbly cut pants could disguise the perfection that was the musculature of his thighs. She thought it was funny how quickly he had taken to wearing European-style suits. He seemed to like them. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to bother to have anything else tailored. That could be it. Nothing off the rack was going to fit him. He was too tall, too broad.

She was obsessed with his body. Which wouldn’t be so much of an issue if she wasn’t also obsessed with the man. A man who was nearly impossible to reach.

“Good morning,” she said, opting for the first thrust so that it was his job to parry.

He turned and her stomach lurched. She chose to imagine him still as the great hairy beast-man she had initially encountered in the throne room. But considering that, she sometimes forgot just how beautiful he was. It was easy to focus only on the raw magnetism and forget that he was objectively the most handsome man she had ever seen.

“You are speaking to me, Olivia,” he said, his eyes flicking over her.

She wondered if she should have worn a dress. Or perhaps something more traditionally Tahari. She thought perhaps her cream-colored harem pants, gold blouse tucked into the high waist and long, loose linen jacket might not be the appropriate attire. If he noticed, he didn’t say.

“You do not have to cover your hair,” he said, jerking open the door to the limousine.

“I know. Wind.” She breezed past him and got into the car, sliding to the other side and buckling herself with a resolute click.

And Tarek insulation, but he didn’t need to know that. For that same reason, she kept her sunglasses in place.

“We will be staying in the city tonight,” he said, joining her in the limo, closing the door behind him.

The car began to move away from the palace as she processed this piece of information.

“I didn’t bring anything.”

“It was taken care of for you.”

Of course it was.

“You are angry with me,” he continued. “You haven’t spoken to me in two days.”

“Very good, Tarek. Next we’ll move on to the more advanced human emotions.”

“I explained to you why I didn’t want you in my room.”

“I don’t believe you,” she bit out. Her words lingered in the air, bitter, desperate to her ears.

“You want to stay with me?”

“Yes. I do.”

The admission was difficult, which she despised. Exposing all of her neediness, all of the desire in her that had gone unmet for so many years. Because of herself. Because she had never asked for more. Because she had been terrified of more. She still was. But she also felt as if she had been breathing stale air for too long, and Tarek was like the very wind she’d claimed to be trying to protect her hair from. A rush of something fresh, necessary, that she could not control or harness. But it wasn’t her hair she was concerned for.

It was her heart. That caged, protected creature that she had locked behind golden bars years ago. Because she had been so tired of feeling the hurt every time her parents missed something special of hers because they needed to be with Emily. Because what kind of monster did it make her if she wanted the attention stolen from her sick sister and directed at her? It was why she had been able to accept Marcus’s love for what it was. Why she had been able to love him in return while knowing almost nothing about him, and sharing almost nothing about herself.

She didn’t like any of these revelations. Not in the least. Any more than she liked the revelation that Tarek had disrespected the cage. Had stuck his hands right between the bars and grabbed hold of the thing she’d been coddling the most.

Bastard.

He didn’t even know. Hadn’t even been aiming for her affected organ, she knew. She supposed that was the danger of sleeping with virgins. They were so honest. And everything they gave was all for you.

As a woman who had never had anything that was just for her, she’d been unprepared for what it would do to her.

Marrying a stranger, a feral stranger, who lived across the world, who had completely different customs and practices than she did, surely should have been a recipe for continuing on in the manner she had become accustomed to. Surely he was the last person on earth who should have ever been able to reach her.

She was wretched indeed. And irritated that she was having these realizations while sitting next to him in a car. It wasn’t as if she could jump out of the moving vehicle to escape him.

On second thought, at the moment it sounded preferable to continuing to be enclosed in this tiny space with him.

Alas, she wasn’t going to take a chance on a tuck and roll at this moment.

Which meant she simply had to endure.

The limousine wound down a narrow street that widened into a highway, leading them from the outskirts of the city down into its heart. It was much more urban than Alansund, and while she had known that, seeing it was an entirely different matter. Living with Tarek as she did, in a palace that was a relic from another time, it was easy to forget that the country itself was a major world power. A capital of finance and technology.

They moved down deeper into the central business district, the buildings rising around them like sharp, slate-gray waves, threatening to close in on them. She had been raised in New York, upstate, but also partly in Manhattan. She was accustomed to cities. And yet, right now this felt a more foreign landscape than the barren desert that provided her view out her bedchamber at the palace.

It was strange how quickly that place had become her home. Her world.

Strange how quickly Tarek had managed to weave himself around her existence.

The entire car ride was silent. Filled with tension, her head filling with things she would never speak. Finally, they arrived at the memorial statue of a man riding a horse, symbolizing the nation’s strength. This was where his speech would be held. Already a crowd had assembled, and security detail was on hand.

The bodyguards approached the car, opening the doors for them and flanking them both as they made their way to the podium that was prepared for Tarek’s speech. She removed her sunglasses as they walked to the front, taking her position at his right shoulder, a pace behind him. She knew this pose. The pose of any royal spouse or politician’s wife. She had assumed it many times for Marcus.

But it had felt different.

Because now, watching Tarek speak, words she didn’t readily understand due to her poor command of the language, she felt a burst of pride unlike anything she ever experienced before. This wasn’t easy for him. This was not his forte. He was a man who had barely spoken to people for the past fifteen years, much less spoken in front of a crowd of them. And yet he was doing it. Because he loved this country, because he cared for it.

He was changing everything about his life, everything about himself, to become the leader that Tahar needed.

Life was always a challenge, even when you were doing all that you had been created for. All that you had been made for.

But how much more challenging must it be to perform tasks you had never imagined being asked to do?

She watched his every dynamic action until he was finished, until thunderous applause filled the air around them. And then, only then, did she look at the faces of those in the crowd. And she saw their hope. Saw their admiration.

Her heart fluttered against its cage.

After that, she was caught up again in the rush of security detail, ushering them back to the limousine. When they were safely inside, Tarek let out a breath she imagined he had been holding for the past twenty minutes.

“You did well,” she said, forgetting her annoyance for a moment.

“Now we must go to a hotel a few blocks downtown. It has something to do with tradition. Some sort of honor for the owner. It is the oldest hotel of its kind in the city. Of course, it has been greatly modernized, I have been assured. Not that I much mind if something isn’t modern. I’m used to caves after all.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.” She looked down. “Did you secure us separate rooms? Or did you give consideration to the gossip that might stir up?” she asked, breaking their momentary truce.

“We have been given the penthouse suite. I imagine that will give us adequate space.”

“I don’t know. I hear you’re very resourceful. Or did you pack your sword?”

“Do not test me, Olivia. I am aware that I have given you the impression that I’m some sort of house cat. Because you have caught me attempting to become domesticated. But I assure you, I am more tiger than tabby. Do not make me demonstrate it.”

“You show rather more restraint than a tiger. You allowed me to spend two days ignoring you, and you never once challenged me.”

She suddenly found herself pressed against the door, Tarek’s hands on either side of her, his body against hers. “Do not think you can manipulate me. You have seen me at a disadvantage, acclimating to a position that I was not created for. But I am not to be toyed with. I am not to be teased. I am not your aristocratic husband. Never forget you cannot play the same games with me.”

“No worries. I am in no danger of forgetting that you aren’t Marcus.” She would let him believe whatever he wanted to about that statement.

“See that you don’t,” he bit out.

The limousine pulled up to the front of the grand stone building. It reminded her more of places she had seen in Europe than she had expected it to.

“A holdover from our brush with colonialism, I believe,” he said.

“I wondered,” she said, because she had. And architecture was a welcome subject change. Really, anything was a welcome subject change at this point. Her irritation with him was betraying too much, not only to him, but to herself. She didn’t want to analyze her feelings as deeply as her anger was commanding.

Tarek didn’t wait for their driver. He opened the door to the vehicle, rounding the back of it and holding hers open, as well. She exited, and he looped his arm around hers, taking hold of her and leading her into the building.

There was little evidence of modernization in the lobby. Golden revolving doors led into a grand marble showcase. Crystal chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling, curved staircases flanking either side of the room.

Every member of staff in the room stood at attention, but none approached. It was the owner who made his way through the center of the room, approaching them with a wide smile on his face and his hand outstretched. Tarek shook it, and Olivia did the same.

“Welcome, Sheikh Tarek. Sheikha.” He swept his hand wide, indicating their surroundings. “We are most pleased you have joined us. As you may know, this hotel has housed every member of the royal family since it was built. We have readied our finest room. This is doubly special, as we are not only celebrating a new leader, but a new marriage.”

“Thank you,” Olivia said, certain she didn’t sound very convincing at all.

“The suite is on the top floor,” the man continued, handing Tarek a key card. “Would you like us to show you there, or will you make your own way?”

“I think we can make our own way,” Tarek said. She wondered if playing at civility was starting to chafe.

She knew it was for her. She couldn’t stand there smiling at him as though their interaction in the car hadn’t happened. As though the past few days hadn’t happened.

“We will have your luggage sent up directly, after you’ve had a moment to settle in.”

“Appreciated,” Tarek said.

He sounded less than appreciative. But at least he had tried. She was just standing beside him, silent, still. She may as well have been a pillar of salt. But she was a pillar of salt who could walk. She followed Tarek to the elevator bank and stepped into the lift with him, her breath freezing in her chest as the doors slid closed behind them. Here she was again, back in an enclosed space with the man who was driving her crazy.

This was ridiculous. She didn’t get crazy over men. She didn’t get crazy over anything.

Except Tarek. She had already admitted that everything about him was different. That he was reaching places she’d thought unreachable. There was no point playing as if she was confused now.

They completed the elevator ride in silence, and Olivia wondered what had happened to all of her social graces. She’d had them at one point, she was certain. In another life she had been a queen, confident both in her position, and in how to deal with her marriage.

Because you wanted nothing from it. But you need to matter to him. And you want to understand him.

She blew out a harsh breath, singularly frustrated with herself. She didn’t want deep personal insight. Not now, possibly not ever. But then, reflecting on the past wasn’t really very helpful, either. Particularly, because when she thought of the past, she felt as though she was pondering a different woman. She barely recognized that woman. In many ways, she barely recognized the woman she’d been when she’d walked into the throne room to tell Tarek she thought they should marry.

Because her reasons had been different then. They had had nothing to do with Tarek and everything to do with herself. With her desperation to find a place in life. To keep herself surrounded by enough things, enough people to feel as if she wasn’t alone. To cover up the yawning pit of need that was in the center of her chest.

Suddenly, Tarek mattered. Suddenly, it wasn’t just about not being alone. Though she was tired of that, too. Because she realized that she’d been alone for a very long time. Even when surrounded by people. Even when sleeping next to the first man she had married.

She watched her current husband, the only one who mattered, walk out of the elevator and up to the only door in the narrow hallway. He used the key card in the lock, the light turning green instantly.

“You know how to use one of those?”

He raised a brow. “It’s fairly self-explanatory.”

“Well, I’m having a hard time figuring out what is self-explanatory for you and what isn’t. The female body, obviously, was fairly self-explanatory. Female feelings, on the other hand…”

He held up the key card, the strip facing her. “I dare say this is a much more simple device than your inner workings. Also, if I could swipe this across your forehead and gain access to your secrets, I would.”

“Are you saying women are complicated?”

“I am simply saying I do wonder sometimes if life is better lived alone. And if sex is perhaps not worth the trouble it causes.”

“One time and you’re an expert in the consequences of sex?”

“I am living them,” he said, his tone telegraphing his foul mood. Well, she was just as foul. Fouler even.

“If it was just sex it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Is it not just sex?”

She shook her head. “No. Don’t you know that?”

“How would I know? I don’t know what only sex is supposed to feel like.” He pushed the door open and revealed an opulent suite, beautifully appointed.

It was indeed the epitome of modern luxury. But as she had spent most of her life steeped in modern luxury, there was a limit to how impressed she could be. Particularly when she had other matters on her mind.

“Are you supposed to feel as though your internal organs were ripped out through your chest and displayed for all the world? Are you supposed to feel like you can’t breathe whenever you remember what it was to be skin to skin with another person? Are you supposed to ache down to your very bones? If so, then I suppose I have an all right understanding of what it means to engage in sex.”

“No,” she said, her chest so tight she could barely breathe. “Just sex makes you feel good. I don’t even know what this is.”

“You will see that I am delighted to be unique to you, my queen.” He sounded nothing close to delighted at all.

“Oh, you could never be anything but, my sheikh,” she said, taking a step closer to him. “I have never experienced anything remotely similar to you.”

“For a start,” he said, his tone brittle, “I do not know how to smile.”

She took another step toward him. “Not well.”

He gripped her chin between his thumb and forefinger and held her fast, dipping his head suddenly and kissing her, hard, deep. The kiss bruised, wounded. And she didn’t mind. Because it reflected what was going on inside her. And then, just as abruptly as he descended, he pulled away. “I need a shower,” he said, turning and walking from the room.

He left her standing there, feeling dizzy. Angry. What was happening to her? Why was this man…this…virgin…causing her so much trouble? She had been married to a man whose skills as a lover were world renowned. Why was she so much more affected, why was she destroyed, wrecked, by a man who had never even kissed a woman before her? Her heart twisted tight. That was why. That was why she was so affected. She was unique to him. She made him feel. She reached him.

Had she ever been special to anyone else in her entire life? Had she ever been special to her parents? Had she ever been special to her husband?

Had she ever been special to herself? Or had she simply been so afraid she’d set about to make herself whatever she needed to be in order to keep from feeling lonely? Keep from feeling exposed? Had she ever mattered enough to her own self to demand a thing?

Not beyond that one failure.

Because in that moment, when she’d shouted her parents down for missing the party she’d thrown for herself, she had to face the fear that she wasn’t worthy of all she craved.

Face it. Live it. Accept it.

But it didn’t stop her from needing. And she’d been so sure that her neediness was wrong, shameful, because no one would ever want to meet it.

But now she was tired of it. So tired of feeling as if she was living behind a wall, with the walls of everyone around her standing between both of them. She was tired. Tired and alone, and she hated it. She wanted to be touched. She wanted to touch someone in return. She didn’t want nice; she didn’t want pleasant. She wanted real.

She stripped her jacket off, letting it fall to the floor, followed by her gold top, and her pants. As she made her way into the bathroom she rid herself of her undergarments, opened the door, stopping when she saw the broad expanse of Tarek’s naked back. He was standing beneath the hot spray, water droplets rolling down his skin.

And she was transfixed. Not just by the beautiful musculature she saw there, not just by his bronzed skin and the perfection of his butt.

It was the scars.

She had examined the front of him, his chest, his abs. Had touched him there. But she realized now she had never really looked at his back. He had been whipped. More than that, tortured. And it was written across that beautiful flesh, as bold as any pen stroke.

Olivia had never hated before. She did right now. Right now, she hated the man who would have been her brother-in-law. Hated him with a scorching fire that would never be satisfied.

He had done this. She knew he had.

She would kill him herself were he not already dead, and not lose any sleep over it.

She said nothing, approaching the shower and opening the solid glass door, stepping inside behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his scarred body. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t know if she was apologizing for the words they had exchanged outside or for the atrocities he had endured. Possibly both. Possibly for everything, even things she didn’t know about yet. Things she hadn’t done yet.

He was unique, this man. So special. And she had been petty. Of course he didn’t respond to things in any way she could anticipate. He was an entirely new creature to her. There was no past experience to call on to help her here.

He stiffened beneath her touch. But he didn’t pull away, and nor did he turn.

“I am very likely the one who should be sorry,” he said.

“I don’t know what to do with you.”

“If you are lost, I don’t know what hope the rest of us have.”

She smoothed her hands over his chest, the water making his skin slick. “What does that mean?”

“You always know what to do, Olivia.”

“Not right now. Right now, I’m just as lost as you are.”

He shifted then, turning and backing her against the wall, his erection hard against her hip, his dark gaze intense on hers. “I know what I want.”

“What?” she asked, her voice thin.

“You.”

“Have me.”

On a growl, he lowered his head, kissing her, harder than he had done out in the living area. This wasn’t a kiss filled with anger, but of desperation. Desperation that reflected her own. She smoothed her hands down over his back, the scar tissue beneath her hands obvious now. She had missed it the first night they’d made love. She’d had her hands on his shoulders as he’d thrust deep inside her, but she hadn’t realized what it meant. She did now. And she ached, not just with the need for him, but the need to heal him. The need to reach him. If she had to crack herself open wide, show him by example, she would. She would.

She reached down, grabbing hold of his thick arousal, shifting their positions and widening her stance, placing ahead of him the slick entrance to her body. “Please,” she whispered.

He flexed his hips, finding her center unerringly, moving deep within her.

Hot water rolled over them, his kisses raining down on her face to match each drop. Tarek was inside her. And she wasn’t alone. Wasn’t separate from him. She opened her eyes, meeting his dark, raw gaze. He saw her. She was not just a body, not simply a pleasant diversion, or a duty. He needed this; he needed her.

And she needed him. For the first time in her life, that idea didn’t terrify her to her core. She needed him, and it made her feel wonderful. Made her feel beautiful. Made her feel strong.

Because if she didn’t give up herself, Tarek would never be able to release the walls that surrounded his own heart. She knew it then, as sure she knew anything else.

She moved her hands down, grabbing hold of his behind, tugging him hard against her, gasping as her orgasm washed over her, the pleasure blinding, like nothing else she had ever experienced. She didn’t hold back the cries on her lips, didn’t hold back anything. She poured herself, all of herself, into it. And when he found his own release, she gloried in it. In the way he trembled, in the way he held her, his big hands braced against her hips, holding her steady as he rode the wave that threatened to consume them both.

Afterward there was no sound except for the water hitting the tile, their breath echoing in the small space.

“Let’s go to bed,” she said, her voice soft, firm. “Together.”

He let out a ragged breath, kissed her neck. “For a while,” he said, his tone cautious.

He turned the water off, and they got out of the shower. She took a crisp, folded white towel and began to drag it over his skin, erasing the water drops that covered his body. And he stood, allowing her to do it. As she did, she explored the scars that covered him. Memorized them. She felt honored to witness them. To feel them. Part of her wanted to close her eyes, to look away, to pretend she hadn’t seen them.

But that was wrong. Someone had to see this. Someone had to care.

And she had to stop being so afraid to care.

Because she could no longer pretend that caring meant never asking questions, never asking anything of each other. That was benign neglect at best, masquerading as love simply because there was undemanding sex thrown into the mix.

A sharp pain worked its way through her, starting in her temples and spreading down, the ache blooming in her throat, then hitting hard in her chest. She had loved Marcus. She couldn’t deny that. Not when the loss of him had thrown her into months of darkness, serious anxiety that had been difficult to shake. A feeling of loss and hopelessness that had been very real.

But she doubted in this moment if she had ever been in love with him. Their relationship hadn’t allowed for feelings that cut half so deep. They had been partners, lovers, but it had been nothing like this. Tarek’s pain lived inside her. Her triumph felt bound to his.

Do you still think of yourself as with him?

She flashed back to that question he’d asked her weeks ago during the coronation party. The answer had been simple. And it had been no. Because she had not been a part of Marcus.

Tarek was a part of her. Whether she was that for him or not, he was for her.

If she lost him, she knew very well that it would be like having her heart wrenched from her chest. It would be much harder to go on living. And that was the cost of love.

She loved him.

She wished, very much, in that moment, that she did not.

He took another towel from the counter and made it his mission to dry her. And by the time he was finished, by the time he scooped her up in his arms and carried her back into the bedroom, placed her gently on the bed, she knew that whether she wished it away or not, it was true. There had been no protecting herself from this. Nor from the pain that it could potentially bring.

Her desire to breach his defenses had caused her to lower her own.

She lay down on the bed, completely naked, unashamed, watching as he lay down beside her.

“Tell me about your back,” she said, her voice hushed.

Because she wanted the hard things. Because she wanted everything. Even if it was hard; even if it hurt. Even if it made her vulnerable.

“I told you. He tortured me.”

“Why?” she asked, knowing she sounded broken, devastated. Perhaps that wasn’t fair, when he spoke of it so calmly, but someone had to weep for him. It would be easy for her to do so.

“He said…he said the death of my parents was caused by weakness in the nation. He said I would have to be made strong. He said he did it because he loved Tahar. Because he loved me. He said it was the only way to protect the both of us.”

“What did he…?”

He reached out and touched her breast, his thumb gentle as it slid over her nipple. “You are so soft, Olivia. So beautiful. I do not want to fill your head with the things that were done to me. There is only darkness and ugliness there. Nothing more.”

“Don’t hide from me. Please. I don’t want that. I’m tired of pretending that someone lying next to me means I’m not alone. Especially when I realize that it isn’t true.”

“I don’t understand. If you’re lying next to someone, clearly you aren’t alone.”

“No. Trust me. Someone can lie next to you and still be miles away.”

“Marcus?”

“This is our bed,” she said, “I mean, this isn’t our bed, it’s the hotel’s. But you know what I mean. I don’t wish for him to be between us.”

“I understand. But is that what you’re talking about? Answer my question just this once.”

“Yes. Him. But don’t blame him. I never asked for more. And he never offered. I think he was protecting himself, as I was.”

“There is certainly wisdom in protecting yourself.”

Yes, but she was starting to see that she had been keeping herself wounded. Protecting herself from a fatal injury in her mind, but never fully healing the ones she’d already sustained.

“It’s much better to protect other people, don’t you think? You’ve certainly spent enough of your life doing that.”

“With a sword. It’s easy to protect yourself while you do that.”

“I suppose it would be.” She moved her fingertips over his arm, glorying in the feel of his bare skin beneath hers. “My parents didn’t come to my fifteenth birthday. It’s such a small thing compared to this.” She brushed her palm over a raised scar on his arm, continuing, “But it hurt me. Scarred me. Scars you can’t see. Our housekeepers made my birthday cakes. At least I had them. You didn’t, I know.”

“Olivia,” he said, his voice rough. “My pain does not erase yours. Do not make what is so large for you smaller just because I, too, have suffered.”

She swallowed hard. “You are…a wise man.”

“I’ve spent a lot of time alone. I’ve had a lot of time to think.”

“So you have.” She hesitated. “For my fifteenth birthday I made my own cake. My own dinner. I told my family it would be special. I knew…I knew Emily couldn’t come. She’d been in the hospital for a week. Her platelets were low and…anyway, I just asked my parents to come home for dinner. For my party.” She blinked against a dry, painful stinging in her eyes. “They didn’t come.” The words were a whisper. “I waited and waited. They didn’t come.” She could feel his muscles tense beneath her touch. “I threw the cake away. I couldn’t bear to eat it.”

“Olivia…” His voice was rough.

“There’s more. They got home late. And I…I yelled at them. Why couldn’t they spare a couple of hours for me? All I wanted was for them to spend more time at home with me. And my father just looked at me. My mother cried. Then he said…he said it wasn’t like they wanted to be away. They didn’t want to be in the hospital with a dying child. And how dare I want to take any time from Emily when she might die and…I was living. I shouldn’t complain. Everything with them changed after that. It was never the same. Never.”

“And so you left,” he said. “Changed countries.”

“Met a man I didn’t want anything from. That helped. He didn’t hurt me because…because I knew then never to demand anything. Never to make waves.”

“Your parents were fools,” he said.

“No. They were just in an impossible situation. They are.”

“Perhaps you feel the need to be fair. I do not. They hurt you. That, in my mind, is all that matters. I judge them by that sin.”

She took in a sharp, jagged breath, her fingertips trailing over his scarred flesh. “And I will judge Malik by his sins against you.”

“He had me starved.” Tarek rolled onto his back, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “He withheld water from me. To make me stronger,” he said, his voice rough. “Because I would need to spend much time out in the desert, and there I would not always have food or drink. I had to be prepared. He had me beaten. Because I needed to learn strength. He whipped me. And he…” Tarek touched a patch on his arm that was smooth, shinier than the rest of his skin. “He liked fruit. I remember watching him peel the skin from a pear. He was perfectly capable of peeling off a layer of human skin with as much efficiency. I wear the evidence of that.”

“Tarek. No,” she said, her stomach twisting painfully.

“When I returned to the palace it all came back to me. That is why I woke from my sleep. That’s why I walked the halls with a sword. To kill his ghost if he lingered. I could feel everything he’d done to me again. As though he was wounding me afresh. I found his journals. He admitted to having my parents assassinated. He…detailed the work he did on me to make me a loyal soldier. He liked the whips, as you saw. Liked to isolate me, as well. Deprive me of all sensory input, then…flay my skin with something sharp. My brother. My own brother. My parents were dead, and then…and then he betrayed me, and I have truly…truly never felt so alone as I did in that first moment when he tied me down and traced shapes in my back with the blade of his knife. That was when I started thinking of myself as a rock. Because a rock is unmoved. It might be reshaped, but it doesn’t bleed. It will not die. It is simply reformed. And it remains strong. A rock is never weakened.”

Olivia closed her eyes, stifling the sob that was climbing her throat. “How could he have done that to you? How?” They were empty words. Meaningless. And yet they were all she had.

“This is why I turn away from indulgences. From lusts of all kinds because…look at where it brought him.”

“You aren’t Malik.”

“No,” Tarek said, his voice blazing. “I know he did not intend it, but he gave me purpose. He ensured with all he did that I would guard myself against the weakness that infected his blood.”

“Why? Why did he do it?”

“To break me, though he didn’t say it. Strength, he said. It was always strength. Truly, I think he wanted me to rejoice in being banished to the desert. To make me hate the palace so much that I would never want to return. He wanted me too broken to rule. Too broken to realize his true character. Brainwashed. He did a magnificent job. Out there, I felt nothing. I had but one purpose—to fulfill the bargain I had made with my brother. The one that meant he would leave me be. There was clarity there. A beauty in the simplicity. I cherished it. In that way, I suppose he did his job. He made me strong. He made me the rock. He made that existence feel easy.”

“It was a mind game. He didn’t care for you. He didn’t make you strong. You were strong. Any other man would have been broken.”

He looked up at her, his eyes so black, so empty, they wounded her. “Was I not broken, Olivia?”

“No, Tarek. No. You are not broken.” Her throat tightened, tears rolling down her cheeks. She put her hand on his chest, felt his heartbeat rage beneath her fingertips.

“Do not cry for me, Olivia. Not for me.”

“Who else will?”

“No one needs to.”

“That isn’t true. It isn’t.”

“Whatever I was before Malik… Whatever happened before… I am different now. I’m another man. Whether or not I’m broken is immaterial. I am not what I should be. I can never be.”

“You are everything you choose to be, Tarek,” she said, the words ringing with conviction. “He cannot command control over you, not anymore.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t understand the years I spent there. That they were my refuge. You cannot possibly understand what they meant to me, what they did to me.”

“Make me understand. I’m tired of being alone, Tarek. I’m so tired of being alone. Let me see. Let me see you.”

He rolled out of the bed, standing upright, naked, beautiful and unashamed. “Tomorrow,” he said, his voice strained. “Tomorrow I will show you. I will make you understand. I am not the man you wish I could be. I am not the man you should have.”

“But you have me,” she said, as close to an admission as she could muster right now.

Pain flashed through his eyes, but almost as quickly as it appeared, it was replaced by the flatness again. “Tomorrow, I will show you.”

“Tarek…” She blinked rapidly, looking down at her left hand, at the blue stone there. “Just…before you go… Why did you choose this ring for me?”

He looked at her, a subtle shift in his face softening his features. “Your eyes,” he said. “The stone was blue. Like your eyes. And I very much liked the look of it. Since it made me think of you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. A simple answer. But from Tarek…it may as well have been poetry. It was the truth. So simple. So perfect. It came from his soul, and touched her all the way down to hers.

Then he turned and walked out of the room, leaving her alone once again.

But this time, she didn’t feel devastated by the loneliness. Because she wasn’t simply going to lie back and allow it to be her fate. He had chosen this ring. Because of her eyes. That mattered. Because of that, she would fight.

It didn’t matter what had happened before. Her fear had no place. Tarek was brave. A warrior to his soul. She would be nothing less for him. For herself.

With him, she would fight for more. With him, she would fight for everything.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TAREK COULDN’T QUITE describe the feeling that took hold of him as they drove farther away from the city and deeper into the desert. It had surprised Olivia to know that he could drive a car. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. There were a great many gaps in his education when it came to modern civilization. And while it was a skill he had not often used, it was one he possessed.

Thankfully all of his duties today had been office work, and he had managed to reschedule to make this time for Olivia.

He had demanded they go alone. He was more dangerous than any of the men on his security detail and had likely insulted them by saying so.

But this had been a necessity.

A dark, gnawing sense of panic had been chewing at him since yesterday. Possibly since their wedding night. Or perhaps even before that. Whenever it had appeared, it was only growing worse as they drove into the bleached, bone-dry wilderness.

It was as though the air in his lungs had been replaced with dust. Like drowning on land. He wondered why he was doing this. What he hoped to find out here. What he hoped to show her.

Last night she had looked at him with need and expectation. No one had ever looked at him like that before. Much less such a soft, vulnerable creature. And he had realized in that moment that being prepared to ride out into battle for her was not enough.

He knew nothing else. He knew nothing beyond living by the sword. He had heard somewhere that meant he would surely die by it, and if that was the case, he was prepared. He would die for her. He had no question on that score. But he had no idea what stood in between indifference and a willingness to sacrifice himself. It was those feelings, those things that frightened him.

Because they weren’t a goal. They weren’t an end point. It wasn’t something clean and easy he could focus on.

The very idea splintered in his mind, confused him. Frightened him.

He could’ve laughed. Death didn’t frighten him, but whatever the small, pale woman made him feel was the closest thing to terror he had experienced in his memory.

“How much farther?” she asked when they had been driving for well over two hours.

“Close now,” he said. “There will be no one for miles. This time of year.”

“What about other times of year?”

“There is a Bedouin tribe who pass this way routinely twice yearly. Often they would come to my settlement, for lack of a better word, and stay with me for a few days. I have also at times traveled with them. Though not often.”

The shimmering horizon parted, and suddenly he could see the outlines of the skeletal buildings he had called home for fifteen years. He realized now why he had brought her here. To show her who he was. She had said she was tired of being alone, that she wanted to be with someone. Sadly for her, he was all she had. And this was all he was. She needed to see that; she needed to know.

He said nothing as his encampment drew nearer, and neither did she. It was as though a sandstorm had descended over them both, blanketing them completely, separating them sharply.

When he stopped the car, she remained silent. He killed the engine, opening the driver’s-side door slowly, cautiously. He hadn’t told her, but he was carrying a gun. He trusted nothing and no one. Anyone could have moved into this place in his absence.

“What exactly is this? Besides where you used to live,” she said finally, coming to join him out there in the sand.

“It was a village. Much like the hotel, a part of Tahar’s brush with colonialism. Two hundred years ago European settlers lived here. They didn’t last.” He looked around at the hollow stone buildings. “The houses did.”

“Which one was yours?”

“They were all mine,” he said.

“No. They weren’t. Which one did you stay in?” she said, her persistence, and her insight, more disturbing than he would like to admit.

He took her hand in his and walked her through the settlement. He was prepared to reach for his weapon if need be, but he had no sense that anyone else was in residence.

He hadn’t been back here since he had gotten word of his brother’s death. It had been only a few months, and yet it felt like another lifetime.

They walked through the doorway, the two of them leaving footprints in the smooth sand. He looked down, at the smaller set next to his own. It was strange, to have her here with him. To see evidence that he wasn’t alone.

Sand had washed through here like a flood, creeping up the sweeping staircase that was in the entryway of the two-story building. It was barren, empty, marred by years of wind, sun streaking through the unprotected windows and sandstorms.

It was bare, basic, and it was what he had known as home for half his life. He felt no relief, as he had imagined he might in his early days back at the palace. At first, he had imagined that going back to the simpler existence would be easier. But now he worried for his country. For the new position he had assumed. Now he realized he couldn’t come out and get lost in the desert. Because there were those at the heart of the country who were now depending on him.

“This is where you lived?” Olivia asked, a note of horror winding through her voice.

“Yes,” he said. “This is…this is my home.”

“How did you survive this? How did you ever survive this?”

He didn’t know how to answer that question. Because it hadn’t been difficult. Surviving what had come before it…that had been the hard part. To live in this, he had become this. Barren. Empty. Void of anything but the basics. But the need to survive.

“This…this is a part of me. This is what I am.” He indicated the empty, dry room. “This is all I am. I have purpose. But I am not…I am not more. Not more than this. I am not the beautiful, lavish halls of the palace. This is my soul. This is what’s left.”

“I don’t believe that. I don’t believe it, Tarek. You are more than this. You are more than what you were made.”

“I am exactly what I was made,” he said, his voice rough. “Nothing more.”

“That can’t be true,” she said, reaching up to touch his face. “I have seen inside of you. There is more than this. He didn’t destroy you. He didn’t hollow you out. He only wins if you let him.”

“You think it is so simple?” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her hand away. “You think you can simply speak it and it will be true?”

“Why not? You think you can show me this, make analogies out of stone and sand and convince me that you were broken. That you are empty. That you are not the man who made vows to me. The man who read a book so he would know how to please me.”

“No. It is impossible. Stop.”

“What is impossible? What?”

“I cannot be more. I cannot give you more. I will leave you nothing but alone, and you don’t want that. I will be everything you were hoping to avoid.”

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong, because I wasn’t looking to avoid anything when I came here. I was looking for anything, and it was all about me. It had nothing to do with you. I didn’t think of who you might be at all. What you might come to mean to me.”

“I am a killer. A machine. That is all. All I create is pain.”

She grabbed hold of his hands, brought them to her cheeks and held them close to her skin. “With these hands? These hands that have brought me so much pleasure. And have been so tender with me.” She smoothed her palms over his knuckles. “I know you have dealt out pain. I know you have been responsible for unimaginable destruction. In the pursuit of protecting your people. But when you touch me… I have never felt the way that I do when I’m with you. You are more. I’ve witnessed it. I’ve felt it.”

He reached around, grabbing hold of her hair, holding her still, tethering them together. “I can’t. I can’t give more. I must keep focused. I must keep my eyes on my goal.”

“Do you have to deny yourself forever?”

“Yes,” he said.

“No.” She leaned forward, battling against his grip, kissing him on the lips.

And he couldn’t fight against this. Against the need that rose up inside him. The desire to be with her. He knew he was all wrong for her, knew that he could never give her what she wanted. Knew that he didn’t possess the answers to the questions that were in her luminous blue eyes. But he wasn’t strong enough to tell her no. Wasn’t strong enough to turn away from this. Here, out in the desert where he had been the most isolated, he could not say no to this. To this chance to water the dry spaces inside him.

She had already compromised his control. And right now, facing down the desperation in her eyes, he didn’t have it in him to try to reclaim it. He couldn’t give her anything deeper than this. But if she wanted his body, he would gladly share it. And if she would share hers with him… He was not worthy. But he wasn’t strong enough to say no. He had survived torture. Had been beaten, broken, had withstood terrible pain. But he could not withstand this desire. This desire that roared through him like a feral beast, tearing at everything in its path.

After this. After this he would rebuild himself. Would find himself again out in the desert as he had done once before. But not now. Now he would lose himself. In her. In this one way he had given himself permission to find release.

“There is a bed. Upstairs. It is not fine. It is likely full of sand.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care.”

He lifted her up into his arms, held her close to his chest. Felt her heartbeat. She was so beautiful, so breakable. How was he entrusted to hold her in his arms? He was nothing. Nothing but a blunt instrument. Nothing but a weapon. What business did he have putting his hands on her body?

None. None at all. But he didn’t possess enough honor to turn away from her, to turn away from this. He felt things breaking between them, splintering. Mirroring the broken pieces of humanity that were left inside him, buried deep. Shattered beyond repair. When she looked at him, it was easy to believe they might be fixed. Easy to believe that he could be whole. Because when she looked at him, she saw a man. But even if the pieces could be repaired, he knew for a fact there weren’t enough left to ever create a whole man. Not in the way she deserved.

She saw more than he was. And he wasn’t strong enough to end that illusion. Not now. After this it would have to end.

With each step he took, the sand depressed beneath his feet, another reminder of where they were. Of the fact that he was ready to strip this beautiful woman naked in the middle of the desert, in a house that was barely fit for a scorpion, much less a queen.

But even with guilt lashing at him, he couldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop.

When they made it to the room he’d called his own for all those years, he set her down gently, her feet almost buried in sand. He went over to the crude metal bed frame and grabbed hold of the blankets, shaking them out fiercely. Now that he’d thought of scorpions, he had to be sure.

Her skin should never touch fabric this rough. Her body was worthy of only silk. And worthy of a man who knew better how to treat her. Better how to touch her.

Still, he walked toward her. Still, he wrapped his arm around her waist and tugged her against his body, kissing her deeply. Still, he brought her over to the bed and laid her down on the mattress. He was shaking as he let his hands drift over her curves, as he kissed her as if she was the oasis he’d been searching for.

Later. He would hate himself for this later.

He stripped her clothes from her, as quickly as possible, ruthlessly. No thought given to delicacy, to the expensive nature of her clothing. He heard fabric tear, and he didn’t care. If he was more beast than man, he would prove it now. He had no idea if wanting a woman made every man behave this way, made even the most controlled, careful of men act without thought to consequence.

But he didn’t care. It didn’t matter what other men did. It didn’t matter how sex usually felt. Because for him, this was unique. For him, this was the only experience. For him, there would be only her.

When she was bare before him, he bent his head and kissed the soft curve of her breast, drew her nipple deep into his mouth. Then he moved down lower, his tongue tracing a line down the center of her stomach. Her breath pitched, the sharp, sudden action an indicator of her pleasure. He knew. He was learning. She had been right. It didn’t matter how much you knew about sex. You had to know about your partner. Had to care about them.

His hands followed the same journey his tongue had, sliding down her waist, gripping hold of her hips and around behind her, cupping her buttocks, lifting her gently from the bed as he buried his face between her thighs and tasted her in a way he’d become obsessed with in fantasy over the past week.

She cried out as he dragged his tongue over her slick flesh, focusing his attention on the bundle of nerves that was the source of her pleasure. He would happily die like this. With her flavor on his tongue, her soft sounds of pleasure filling the air.

She placed her fingers through his hair, tugging hard, and he took it as a sign to go harder, to go deeper. He had no refined skill; he had only desire. Intensity. A need for her that burned in his gut, that was physical pain.

He would never get enough of her. He could lose himself in her, in this. Could return back to this desert place as long as he had her with him. And it was no longer the kingdom he saw swimming before his vision when he thought of his purpose. It was glittering blue eyes, soft pink lips, blond hair his hands could get lost in. It was Olivia.

The realization hit him with the force of a thunderclap. Everything in him screamed its denial, but he pushed it aside. Because he didn’t care for the future, not now, not with her slickness on his tongue, her desire coating his lips. He held more tightly to her, taking her against his mouth, lavishing attentions on her until she screamed, her voice echoing off the walls where there had before only been silence. This dry, barren place would never be the same again. Because it was filled with her.

And neither would he. Because he was filled with her, too.

He wanted her to be filled with him.

He shifted their positions, rising up to kiss her mouth, testing the entrance to her body with the head of his arousal. There were no preliminaries. He was not tentative as he’d been the first time. Rather, he thrust in deep on a growl, blinding white light flashing behind his eyelids.

He buried his face in her neck, relishing her scent, relishing her. Here he was, at the site of his desolation, in the place where he had been most isolated, most alone, as close to another person as one could possibly be.

He had no restraint now, no ability to hold himself back, and he gave thanks when she arched beneath him, crying out her release because it left him free to chase his own.

And when he did, he was consumed by it. Overcome as a lone traveler in a sandstorm, utterly devastated. Destroyed.

When it was finished, he had no strength left inside him. He could do nothing but pull her body against his and hold her as sleep took hold of him. There was no thought to anything else, no thought at all. Just the desire to rest.

That realization sent a jolt through him. Where had his focus gone? Was this moment of bliss the beginning of a road to ruin? Because it was difficult now to want anything but his own satisfaction. To lose himself in these sorts of moments. To weave a life together made of them. Of happiness and pleasure and comfort. Instead of purpose and loneliness.

But what will your people do if you lose your purpose? If you slide into corruption?

Just for a moment, he let himself imagine falling asleep with her. Making her his world. And a bright, intense burst of joy pierced the darkness inside him. A pure shaft of happiness like he’d never known before.

A happiness that scared him more than any pain he had yet endured.

It brought back memories. Memories long ago blocked out. His mother smiling. His father placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. Those words he could never hear.

Right then, he wanted to run. Right then, he wanted to get away. She made him remember. And that was even deadlier than forgetting.

CHAPTER TWELVE

“I LOVE YOU.”

Olivia didn’t mean to speak the words, but the moment they left her mouth she surrendered. Not just to the feeling, which she had come to terms with yesterday, but to the fact that she had just confessed it. She had said them many times over the course of her life. Her parents, to her sister. To her first husband. But never in all of her life had the response mattered so much. Never in her life had the words cost so much to speak.

Always, they had been the right things to say. A gift with nothing behind them.

But these three words spoken to him were like three strips taken from her hide. Essential parts of herself given to him because they were necessary. Because he was necessary. It made her vulnerable, she knew. It exposed every bit of the neediness she had been afraid of exposing all of her life. But she didn’t care, not now. Because finally, finally she wanted something that was worth the cost. She wanted someone who was worth the cost.

Tarek was the strongest man she had ever known. If he could face down the pain, the fear that he had endured, the loss, then certainly she could give something of herself to him. Had anyone ever given themselves to him? She would.

She realized now that she had stopped giving of herself a long time ago. She was insulated, surrounded by people who kept walls erected between them. As she did, too. But she couldn’t do that here. She couldn’t do that now. Not with him.

She couldn’t protect herself and love him. She would have to risk. Have to step out.

She had sworn she would never break. But for him she would have to. For him, she would break open and pour herself out. Show him her heart, her neediness, her everything.

For this man who saw her. This man who looked at her as if she was singular. Precious.

For this man, she would.

She felt Tarek stiffened beneath her hands. “Olivia, no.”

“Yes.” She knew already this would end badly.

That it would hurt like hell. But she was committed to it. She was so tired. She wanted to grab a sledgehammer and physically break something down to symbolize what she wanted to happen inside her. She didn’t want protection or comfort. She didn’t want safety. She wanted raw heat, passion. But the only way to get that was to walk through the fire. Better to burn alive than freeze to death.

“I cannot love,” he said, his voice like stone.

“You can. There are a lot of things you didn’t think you could do. I know you didn’t think that you could make love to me…”

“Is that it? You are taking that as a sign of love? A sign of affection?” He moved away from her, standing by the edge of the bed, pacing like a caged animal. “I want nothing to do with love,” he said, his tone fierce. “And even if I did, I lack the capacity.”

She shook her head, feeling numb. “No. I don’t believe that.”

“Because of this?” He indicated the bed. “Any beast can rut. That does not indicate the ability to love.”

“So now you’re going to reduce this? Now you’re going to make it nothing more than animals mating?”

“This was all about producing in heir, was it not?”

“Was it?” she asked, pain making her lash out. “If so, I hate to be the one to tell you, using your mouth on me, no matter how much fun it might be, will never produce an heir.” Talking about a baby like this, a child, their child was suddenly a new, sharp pain. A sliver shoved beneath her skin, adding to the rest.

An heir was no longer a detached title, a strange, hazy goal. But a baby. Part her. Part Tarek.

A dream she hadn’t realized she’d wanted so badly. One that was sifting through her fingers like sand with each angry word, each passing second.

His dark brows locked together. “I will not deny I derived enjoyment from it. But that is not an indication of finer feelings.”

“What are you afraid of? What are you hiding from?”

“Hiding seems to be your game, my queen, not mine.”

His words hit her with the full force of a slap. Because they were true. She was an expert at hiding. She preferred to hide among people, smiling, feigning connection, because it was a wonderful way to disguise the yawning ache of loneliness inside her. To pretend it was being satisfied. But she had admitted it to herself, so his words held no power. “Says the man who spent years hunkered down in this empty shell of a building?”

“I cannot keep my eyes on you and on my country. I have to remain focused.”

“Life isn’t that simple, Tarek.”

“It got me this far.”

“But there’s more. Don’t you want more? I want more. I’m tired of just getting by. I was protecting myself for so long. Accepting the blandest drop of human emotion because it meant I wouldn’t have to give anything back. It meant I wouldn’t have to risk anything. But when you don’t risk anything, you get no reward. I ran all the way to Tahar from Alansund to avoid being alone. To avoid having to deal with the emptiness inside myself. I was willing to marry a stranger in order to keep from dealing with the fact that I just… My parents could never show that they loved me as much as they love Emily. And rather than admitting I needed it, that I missed anything I just kind of closed in on myself, made myself strong. I asked for more and found they were unwilling to give it, and so I stopped. I was married to a man I could barely go beyond small talk with because I would rather have a shell than lose the pretense we had. But it’s not enough. I’m not going to let you get away with that. I’m going to ask for more than you think you can give. I’m going to demand it. If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t care if you ever said that you loved me. If this were me two years ago, I would never demand it. But this isn’t me two years ago. This is me now. This is me, being the woman that you helped me discover I am. So now you have to deal with it.”

“And I am the stranger that you chose to marry. I am not now a man you can fashion into the image you would like to see. I am all you see before you. I am what I was made to be.”

She got out of the bed, took a step toward him, bracketed his face with her hands. “Be more. You can be more than a goal. More than an ideal. Just because your brother was twisted, and evil, and completely beholden to all of his vices doesn’t mean you have to be.”

“You say that, and yet you know nothing of what I have seen. He killed my parents. Our parents. Our blood. He stopped just short of killing me because he thought I might be of some use, or perhaps because in his twisted mind he had power so he didn’t need to destroy me completely. I will never know for certain. He said that he loved me. As he tortured me, he said that he loved me. That is love to me. Love is nothing more than pain.”

She closed the distance between them, kissing him hard, not pausing to think her actions through. When she parted from him, they were both breathing hard. “Is that pain? Do you think I would cause you pain?”

“I think between the two of us we would cause nothing more than pain if we went down that road.”

“It’s too late. I’m down that road.”

“Then, understand I will never meet you there.”

His words sent a stab of pain straight through her, the kind of pain she had spent her life avoiding. She had laid herself bare to him, opened herself up, and he had rejected her. It was her deepest fear, and she was standing here in a hot, empty room, living it.

“I understand.”

She understood, but she could not accept it. Not now. Not any longer.

“We must return now,” he said. “We have a nation to rule. We can afford no more distractions.”

Olivia knew there was much she could no longer afford. But it had nothing to do with the kingdom.

She had found the strength to love him. Now she would have to find the strength to walk away.

* * *

When they walked back into the palace, the antechamber was empty. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor. Olivia had been silent on the drive back from the desert, but that didn’t surprise Tarek. She was upset, but she would be fine. She had not come to Tahar for love. Had not married him for love. And so he had confidence she would survive the disappointment. And he would regroup. Rebuild. They would continue on as they had started. In that he was confident.

He would have to guard himself more closely, but he was able.

They didn’t need love. She was wrong about love. Love was pain.

Love was only pain.

He began to walk deeper into the palace and sensed that Olivia was not walking with him.

He paused, and turned. “Olivia?”

“I’m leaving.”

“What are you talking about?”

She shook her head. “I have to leave. I have to leave here. I have to leave you.”

“Don’t be foolish. You are not leaving me. You are my wife.” He had never expected to have a wife. And now, he could not imagine his life without one. Without her. Pain wrenched through him, and he pushed it back.

“I know. And I married you before the entire country. I made vows to you. Promises. But I didn’t know then what I wanted. I thought I could have a marriage like the one I’d had before. Where I asked for nothing, where I expected nothing in return. But that only works when I’m not really in love. You… I love you. And I need you to love me back. I deserve to be loved back.”

A red haze fell over his vision, any control he’d laid claim to over the past fifteen years deserting him in that moment. He strode toward her, his heart thundering hard. “You think you can leave me? Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten what I am?”

“It’s you who have forgotten who you are. You’ve forgotten everything but the poison your brother put in your head. And I will not spend my life on the other side of your walls. I want more than that. I deserve more than that. You deserve more than that. Malik nearly destroyed Tahar with his indifference. And he tried to destroy you, too. But you would heal this country and never afford yourself the same. If they deserve it, your people, if this dust and rock you profess to love deserves it, why don’t you deserve it?” She was shouting now, screaming at him. All of her pristine, contained manner gone. “Fight for this. Fight for us. Please.”

“Wanting more leads to incredible acts of selfishness. As you are demonstrating right now.”

“I’m not a human sacrifice to be thrown on an altar. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is selfish. Maybe I’m not being giving enough. But I would give you everything if you would let me. You just won’t let me. And I can’t…I can’t pretend that I don’t want more. I won’t sit here and let you kill me by inches with your indifference.”

“If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s indifferent. I want you. Isn’t that enough?”

“It isn’t enough. Because you don’t want me. You want a body. You want a woman to stand at your side and be your queen. I want to be loved. I’ve spent too many years trying to fill that void with other things, trying to shut out the ache so I wouldn’t be lonely. So I wouldn’t hurt. But I would rather be lonely than lie to myself. I would rather hurt than hide.”

He couldn’t breathe. Felt as if he was being held down, subjected to a blade beneath his skin again. “Then, go,” he said.

She blinked those blue eyes that hours ago he’d been thinking of as his horizon line. “What?”

“Get out. If you don’t want this, then get out. There are plenty of women willing to marry a sheikh. I don’t need to have an heir with you. If this won’t make you happy, then leave. I will not hold you prisoner. You said you would never send me away. I made no such promises to you.”

“And if there’s a baby already?” she asked, tilting her chin up in the air.

“Then, we will handle it.” His stomach tightened and he fought to maintain a streamlined hold on his emotions. Anger was all he needed to feel now. There was no room for doubt, no room for hurt. “Now, get out.”

“Tarek—”

“Get out!” he roared at her, not caring that she was undeserving of his rage. Not caring that he had brought this on himself. He was the sheikh. For the first time he would own that. For the first time he would take true command.

She didn’t shrink; she didn’t pale. Rather, she nodded her head slowly, as regal as the first moment he had seen her. Then she turned and walked out of the room.

Blinding, burning pain flashed through his chest, and he dropped to his knees.

Olivia was gone. Olivia was leaving him. The woman he’d never imagined he’d want. The woman who had become everything. She was gone.

And there was only pain.

* * *

Two hours later the car that was carrying his wife departed the palace. Tarek went to his room, locking the door behind him, pacing the length of the space, his heart pounding so hard he was sick with it.

He would not keep her here. He could not.

He also knew he could not hold her while clinging to his control. While keeping an eye on his goal. His people needed a leader who would cast aside all earthly pleasures, who would give of himself wholly. He could not do that while clinging to Olivia.

He stripped his clothes off, pacing awhile longer before lying down in his bed. He would sleep alone tonight. As he had every night. And as he would every night after.

He craved Olivia. There was no denying it. He was as weak as any man when it came to desire for a woman’s body. A sobering realization. At least she was gone now and he would no longer be a slave to his needs.

He finally drifted into sleep, but it was restless, filled with nightmares, ghosts of the past. Searing pain. Visions of the torture that had gone on within the palace walls. Visions that had been absent ever since Olivia had become a true part of his life.

He sat up, his torso drenched with sweat, shaking.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, walked over to the window and looked out at the inky black desert. The moon was high in the sky, casting a pale glow on the sand. Such a desolate place, the desert. His kingdom.

It had seemed less so when she was here.

When she was here it was more like the years before Malik. More like when his parents had been alive.

Pain blasted him again, shooting through his skull. He didn’t allow himself to have these memories, and his body accommodated him. Because it hurt too much. Because he loved her too much.

He thought of Malik, inflicting wound after wound on his body. All while promising love.

And he thought of Olivia, professing to love him. They were not the same things. How could they ever be? Because Olivia was nothing like Malik. His mother and father had been nothing like Malik.

His parents. He had so few memories of them. But they were there. Those twisted, broken shards of his humanity would never have existed in the first place if not for them. Back then, he had been whole. He had been loved. Not in the way that Malik had claimed to love him. It had been different.

He gritted his teeth against the pain of the memory. It was like trying to break through a brick wall. One he had erected. There was a very clear division in his mind. Life before the death of his parents, and life after. He did not allow his mind across the wall into life before because he did not like to remember. Because it split his focus from his purpose. Because it caused him nothing but pain.

Searing, unending pain. Much like the torture he had endured at his brother’s hands.

Pain. At least in the desert there had been no pain. At least when he cut out every desire, every longing, every emotion, everything with a singular purpose before him, there could be no pain. And that was why it was so important.

Why it was so important to keep himself from wanting. Why it was so important to keep everything but that one goal stripped away. He had honed his existence into one of survival. Survival was simple. It cared not for comfort, for enjoyment. It cared only about breathing. Breathing was easy.

It was the rest that was difficult.

But he was not Malik. He had determined he would rule independent of his own desires. Was that not enough?

Unbidden, he saw a familiar face in his mind. Not Olivia’s this time. His father’s. And he heard his voice, soft, distant, from the unused recesses of his memory. The words. Those words he had longed to hear for so very long, muffled by pain and grief, now made clear.

I love this country. More than my own life. Without love, how can a ruler temper his power? What will he use as his guide?

A flood of memories filled him then, washing over the wall that remained, reducing it to rubble. Of everything that had happened before. Of who he had been before the torture. Before his exile. And he wished, more than anything, that he had Olivia here to hold him as the images overtook him. Brought him to his knees. Mingling with the grief he already felt over her loss.

He realized with sudden, stark clarity that whatever Malik had felt for anything, for anyone, it hadn’t been love. He was the evidence of the absence of love and all the destruction it could cause.

What did it matter if he swore protection, if he professed loyalty in his speeches, if he gave of himself, if he gave his possessions, but there was nothing behind it? If none of those actions possessed love, what did they mean? And what could they become?

He saw now that love was not pain. Love was the very thing that kept a man rooted. No matter how fiercely he focused on his goal, if he felt nothing in his heart, there was no compass to guide him. No true north that would ensure his direction was true.

It was love that would see him making the compassionate choices. Love that would help him believe when everything was dark.

It was love that had helped him believe already when life was dark, even though he had been too blind to see it. The love of his parents.

Olivia had told him. She had told him that he was not what Malik had made him. Had insisted that he had been strong already, or he would have perished. She had been right. It was everything his parents had made him. Their strength. Their love.

Love was not the weakness. Love was the strength. Love was everything.

Olivia had shown him that, and he had told her to leave. He had been afraid. He had been holding on too tightly, but had no control. It was the fear. Fear of pain. That was what all of this had been. Him running. Him fleeing the kind of pain he had been subjected to in his past.

And now she was gone. Now was too late.

She was on a plane, back to Alansund.

She should run from him. She had been denied her entire life. Perhaps there was nothing more her parents could have done. Her sister had always been ill; she had said so. Whether or not they could have done better by her, they should have. Simply because she was Olivia. And she deserved the best of everything.

She most certainly deserved a man who wasn’t shattered inside. Most certainly deserved a man who chose to love her the first time she asked.

Not a man with scars both inside and out. Not a man who had wounded her, told her to leave. Not the man who could scarcely imagine coming after her because he had never been away from his country, never been on a plane.

She was his queen. The queen he wanted ruling beside him. The queen of his heart.

Her kiss had changed him back from stone. Had demolished the walls inside him.

She had given him a new goal. Love. And with it, facets to his existence. More than simple survival. More than breathing.

He had no idea what he brought to her. No idea what he had done to deserve the feelings she claimed to have for him.

But if she would have him, he would claim her.

It didn’t matter how impossible it seemed to leave. Didn’t matter how far he had to go to find her. He was more when he was with her. He was the ruler he needed to be. He was a man.

And that meant whatever it took, he would see it done.

* * *

Olivia had never felt such pain. This truly was losing a part of herself. A grief so strange, so open-ended, she didn’t know what to do with it. It wasn’t like losing someone to death. There was no reclaiming someone who was gone. But Tarek was still walking around on this earth, and she could not have him. Could not be with him.

She had never loved like this before, either. With all of herself. Unreservedly. She had made herself vulnerable, and she was paying for it. Yet again she was paying for demanding more.

But she wouldn’t go back, either.

She realized now that though it was Emily who’d been sick all of her life, Olivia had allowed herself to be crippled inside. To shut her emotions, her desires, away so she wouldn’t suffer more rejection.

But now she had.

And she felt more alive than ever. She had been so afraid of loving with all of herself. Because it would leave her vulnerable. Leave her exposed. Marcus’s loss had only seemed to confirm that. But as badly as it had hurt, she could only be thankful at the time that she hadn’t given him her whole heart. Because she’d been afraid long before that loss.

She hadn’t taken any medication for the flight back. She’d been too lost in her sadness over Tarek to feel any anxiety. More than that, she wasn’t afraid to show it if she did. That was half of why she’d taken the pills. Because she was more afraid of showing her fear than of not being able to cope with it.

She didn’t care now. She supposed that was one thing.

She felt battered, broken. But strong. Because she had endured now, hadn’t she? Had faced down her deepest fear, returned alone, back to this palace, useless. No place for her.

But she didn’t care. Didn’t care that she wasn’t useful. Didn’t care if she was underfoot. Didn’t care to make herself indispensable so that someone might deign to care that she was around.

She loved Tarek. No matter what he did. No matter what he said to her, no matter how useful he was.

Didn’t she deserve the same?

She felt she did.

Too bad most of her wanted to get back on a plane and beg Tarek to take her back, whether he ever loved her or not. There was a very large part of her that felt pride was overrated in this situation.

It isn’t about pride. Pride is nothing. It’s about wanting to live.

She knew what life was without love. She’d spent her entire life closed off to it. Desperately wanting it, and denying herself because she was so afraid that others would hold it back from her. Now that she had truly felt it, she didn’t want to go back. She couldn’t.

There was a sharp knock on her bedroom door, and she peeled herself off her bed, smoothing her hands over her hair. “Yes?”

“My queen.” She heard her lady’s maid Eloise on the other side of the door. “There is a man here to see you. He says…he says he’s your husband.”

Her heart stopped, everything in her freezing.

“That’s impossible,” she said.

That was when Tarek chose to stride into the room. It had been only two days since she’d seen him. But she felt very much—and she knew it was desperately corny—as if he was an oasis in the middle of her emotional desert. The first sight of water and shade she’d had in a long crawl across burning sand.

He was so tall, impossibly strong and broad. His face so beautiful. The sharp, defining angles, those lips that could be both soft and commanding depending on how he chose to wield them.

He was a powerful enemy to those who opposed him, wonderful with the sword, she was certain. But as far as she was concerned, his body and all that he could make her feel with it was his most powerful weapon.

“I did not tell you that you could come in yet,” Eloise said, clearly full of pique.

“I did not ask. I am the Sheikh of Tahar, and I am Sheikha Olivia al-Khalij’s husband. It is my right to see her. More than that, it is my due.”

Olivia shivered, her new title, her new last name, somehow erotic and intensely affecting on his lips. “It’s okay, Eloise. Leave us.”

Eloise very clearly didn’t think it was okay. However, she obeyed Olivia’s command.

“I have never been on a plane before. I can’t say I enjoyed it,” Tarek said.

“Flying is terrible. I hate it. Why are you here?”

“I came here to get you, you foolish woman.”

Her heart scampered up into her throat. “I told you. I can’t live with you in a one-sided relationship. I just can’t. For so many reasons.”

“You said you needed to be loved.”

Her throat tightened around her heart, strangling her. “I do. I hate to try to explain what it was like to be married to Marcus. Because in many ways I hate to compare the two of you, because you’re so different. Because what I feel for you is so different. Also, Marcus is dead and I can ask no more of him. He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t disappoint me. He didn’t deny me. But I didn’t love him. Not like I love you. It was easy to be with him. We never had to know each other. Neither of us were interested in sharing or being shared with. It gave me companionship without having to make myself vulnerable. Without putting my feelings in any danger. Which you… I can’t do that with you. I want all of you. I want to open myself up and make you understand me. I want you to open yourself up to me. You make me so unbearably aware of how isolated I’ve been. And now that I know, I can’t go back to that.”

He closed the distance between them, cupping her cheek, his dark eyes blazing into hers. “I cannot go back. I can’t go back, either, nor do I want to. I was so alone. I stripped away every desire. Every emotion. Because I so desperately didn’t want to remember. I so desperately didn’t want to feel pain.” He laced his fingers through her hair, his eyes never leaving hers. “We are so much the same, Olivia. And when you first walked into my throne room I never would have thought so. But we were both protecting ourselves. I tried to protect myself to the end. I blamed love, because somehow I understood it had the power to devastate the most. It was easy to focus in on my torture, on the pain. On all the hate. Because then I could pretend it was the most painful part of what I had been through. It wasn’t. It was the loss of my parents. The loss of their love. And I wouldn’t even let myself remember it, because I wanted nothing to do with the pain. And so I rid myself of every emotion. I focused solely on my goal. So that I could survive.” He shook his head. “And then you came. You made me desire. You made me want. You did exactly what you’ve accused me of doing to you. You opened me up. Demolished the walls. And I was frightened. But after you left I realized that love was never the enemy. Yes, it hurts. It has the power to devastate. I was devastated by the loss of you.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I remembered my parents. Remembered words my father said to me. That hurt, too. But there was so much good in it. I realize now that you can’t have the good things without the pain. I was all right with that for a long time. But I’m not now.”

“What did you remember about your father?” she asked, her throat aching.

“That he loved Tahar. That he loved my mother. That he loved us. And I know for a fact Malik loved none of those things. If he loved any one thing, it was himself. It is the absence of love that hurts. That wounds beyond repair. If there is no love, every action is empty.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “I am tired of being empty.”

“You aren’t. You never were. Being with you… Seeing your strength… It’s what made me find mine.”

* * *

Tarek looked down at the woman he was privileged enough to call his wife. And he could no longer hold back the words that were bursting to be released from him like a torrent of water. He had used his words so sparingly over the years. Preserving them as though they were precious things. Perhaps he had saved them for such a time as this. Perhaps he had saved them for her.

Those things he’d hoarded inside him. His splintered humanity, the things that made him human… Perhaps they had all been saved for her. She made him feel as though he might not be splintered at all.

She made him feel as if he was whole.

“When I speak of love, I speak of love in general. But it is not love in the general sense that made me realize this. It was my love for you.” He pressed a kiss to her temple, everything inside of him shaking. “I love you, Olivia.”

He felt her sag in his arms, her whole body trembling. “Oh, Tarek. I love you, too. I love you, too. I’m so glad you love me.”

“Love is powerful. We have good reason to fear it,” he said, smoothing her hair. “Like any weapon, you must wield it well. And then it is an asset. Even if it is still dangerous.”

“That makes sense. Since I first met you, you told me you were a weapon.”

“And you told me you were a genteel, cultured queen. You did not tell me that you were, in fact, much more deadly than I.”

A smile curved her lips. “I didn’t know.”

He recalled the first time he had seen her. He had thought her frail. A white lily who would dry quickly in the harsh desert heat. But she had not been changed by the desert. Rather, the desert had been changed by her. He had been changed.

“Be my wife, Olivia,” he said, his voice rough.

“I already am.”

“You became my wife for politics. Stay my wife for love. When I ask you now, I ask you for no other reason than that I cannot live without you. I have lived without a great many things, but I could never survive without you.”

She drew a shaking breath, and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I will be your wife.”

“Do you remember, that first day, you told me you needed to be with me because there was no other place for you?”

“I remember,” she said, her words a whisper.

“You have made a place in my heart. And you will always have it. I swear this to you.”

A tear rolled down her cheek, a smile tugging at her lips. “More vows?”

“Yes. And I may yet make more. I’m new at this after all.”

“So am I. But that’s okay. We can learn together.”

EPILOGUE

TAREK DID MAKE more vows to Olivia. He made several every night, often while he was lost in her body. He never could get enough of being so close to her. Of being so connected, so loved, when he had spent so many years alone.

With her, he relished a great many things he had forgotten to want. Soft beds, good food. Birthday cakes that were never thrown away, and always shared together. Smiling. Olivia gave him so many reasons to smile. And less than a year after they were married she gave him yet one more.

Olivia walked into their shared bedchamber. They had not spent one night apart since he had come to get her in Alansund all those months ago. And, not coincidentally, he no longer had nightmares. There were no more ghosts in the halls of the palace. They had all been laid to rest by her.

“I have some news for you,” she said, her tone serene. But he was not fooled, because it was the same tone she had used when she had first come to the palace and proposed a marriage agreement between them. It was the tone she often used when she was about to broach something quite monumental and was trying to catch him off guard.

So strange to know another person so well. So wonderful.

“Unless you have invaded Germany, I imagine we can deal with it.”

“No,” she said, waving her hand, “no invasions today. However, I have been to see the doctor.”

“Have you?”

“It seems that you are finally going to get your heir.” And that was where her serene front ended. Tears welled in her eyes, and a smile broke out across her face. “But more important than that, we’re going to have a baby.”

Tarek took his wife into his arms, pressing a kiss to her lips, and then everywhere else he could reach.

She laughed. “I take it you’re happy?”

He was a man who had spent many years believing he was stone. A man who had resigned himself to spending life alone. And in his arms he held the most beautiful woman in the entire world, who had just told him she was going to give birth to a baby. His baby.

He was suddenly so full, he could scarcely breathe.

“I did not know such happiness existed until you,” he said, kissing her again.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, as though she was relishing him. No one had ever relished him before. No one except for her. “Neither did I, Tarek. Neither did I.”

Protecting the Desert Heir

Caitlin Crews

CHAPTER ONE

THE LAST TIME she’d run for her life, Sterling McRae had been a half-wild teenager with more guts than sense. Today it was more a waddle for her life than anything approaching a run—thanks to the baby she carried and had to protect no matter what, now that Omar was dead—but the principle remained the same.

Get out. Get away. Go somewhere you can never be found.

At least this time, twelve years older and lifetimes wiser than that fifteen-year-old who’d run away from her foster home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, she didn’t have to depend on the local Greyhound bus station to make her getaway. This time, she had limitless credit cards and a very nice SUV at her disposal, complete with a driver who would take her wherever she asked to go.

All of which she’d have to ditch once she got out of Manhattan, of course, but at least she’d start her second reinvention of herself with a little more style.

Thank you, Omar, Sterling thought then. The heels she refused to stop wearing even this late into her pregnancy clicked against the floor of the apartment building where she and Omar had shared his penthouse ever since they’d met while he’d been a graduate student. A wave of grief threatened to take her feet right out from under her, but Sterling fought it back with grim determination and clenched her teeth tightly as she kept on walking.

There was no time left for grief or anything else. She’d seen the morning news. Rihad al Bakri, Omar’s fearsome older brother and now the ruler of the tiny little port country on the Persian Gulf that Omar had escaped at eighteen, had arrived in New York City.

Sterling had no doubt whatsoever that he would be coming for her.

There was every chance she was already being watched, she cautioned herself as she hurried from the elevator bank—that the sheikh had sent some kind of advance team to come for her even though the news had broadcast his arrival barely a half hour ago. That unpleasant if realistic thought forced her to slow down, despite the hammering of her heart, so she appeared nothing but calm. It forced her to smile as she moved through the lobby, the way she might have on any other day. There would be no honoring Omar if she let herself—and more important, her baby—fall into the clutches of the very people he’d worked so hard to escape. And she knew a little bit about the way predators reacted when they saw prey act like prey.

The more fearful you acted, the harder they attacked. Sterling knew that firsthand.

So instead, she walked. She sauntered.

Sterling walked like the model she’d been before she’d taken her position at Omar’s side all those years ago. Like the notorious, effortlessly sensual mistress of the international playboy Omar had been in the eyes of the world. She strolled out into the New York City morning and didn’t look around to savor the great sprawl of the city she’d always loved so much and so fiercely. There was no time for goodbyes. Not if she wanted to keep her baby—Omar’s baby—safe.

And she might have lost Omar, but God help her, she would not lose this baby, too.

Sterling was glad the summer morning was bright and warm, giving her an excuse to hide her thick grief and her buzzing anxiety and the too-hot tears she refused to let fall behind a pair of oversize sunglasses. It took her longer than it should have to realize that while that was indeed Omar’s gleaming black SUV pulled up to the curb on the busy Upper East Side street, that was not Omar’s regular driver standing beside it.

This man lounged against the side of the vehicle looking for all the world as if it was some kind of throne and he its rightful king. His attention was on the cell phone in his hand, and something about the way he scrolled down his screen struck Sterling as insolent. Or maybe it was the way he shifted and then looked up, his powerfully disapproving dark gaze slamming into hers with the force of a blow.

Sterling had to stop walking or fall over—and this time, grief had nothing to do with it.

Because that look felt like a touch, intimate and lush. And despite all the work Sterling had put into her image as a woman who wallowed neck-deep in the pleasures of the flesh, the truth was she did not like to be touched. Ever.

Not even like this, when she knew it wasn’t real.

It felt real.

This driver was too much. Too tall, too solid. Too damned real himself. He was dressed in a dark suit, which only served to make his lean, intensely dangerous body seem lethal. He had thick black hair, cut short as if to hide its natural curl, rich brown skin and the most sensual mouth Sterling had ever seen on a man in her life, for all that it was set in a grim line. He was astonishingly, noticeably, almost shockingly beautiful, something that should have been at odds with that knife-edged form of his. Instead, it was as if he was a steel-tempered blade with a stunningly bejeweled hilt.

He was either the last person she should want driving her to freedom, or the first, and Sterling didn’t have time to decide which. She didn’t have any time at all. She could feel her phone buzzing insistently from the pocket where she’d stashed it, and she knew what that meant.

Rihad al Bakri. The king himself, since his and Omar’s father had died a few years back. He was finally here, in Manhattan, as she’d feared. Both Omar’s friends and hers were texting her warnings, calling to make sure she was aware of the impending threat. Because no matter what else happened, no matter what might become of Sterling now without the man who had been everything to her, Omar’s older brother could not know about this baby.

It was why she’d taken such pains to hide the fact that she was pregnant all these months. Until today, when it didn’t matter any longer, because she was running away from this life. She’d do what she’d done the last time. A far-off city. Hair dye and/or a dramatically different cut. A new name and a new wardrobe to go along with it. It wasn’t hard to pick a new life, she knew—it was only hard to stick to it once you’d chosen it, because ghosts were powerful and seductive, especially when you were lonely.

But she’d done it before, when she’d had much less. She had even more reason to do it now.

All of this meant that Sterling certainly didn’t have time to ogle the damned driver, or wonder what it said about her that the first man she’d noticed in years seemed to have taken an instant dislike to her, if the strange driver’s expression was any guide. It said nothing particularly good about her, she thought. Then again, maybe it was just her grief talking.

“Where is Muhammed?” she asked crisply, forcing herself to start forward again across the sidewalk.

The new driver only stared at her and as she drew closer she found herself feeling something like sideswiped by the bold, regal line of his nose and the fact that those dark eyes of his were far more arresting up close, where they gleamed a dark gold in the bright morning light. She was breathless and fluttery and she couldn’t make any sense of it, nor understand why he should look something like affronted. Her phone kept vibrating, her breath was ragged and she was this close to bursting into tears right there on the street, so she ignored the odd beauty of this strangely quiet and watchful man and wrenched open the door to the SUV herself.

“I don’t actually care where he is,” she threw at him, answering her own question as her panic started to bang inside her like a drum. “Let’s go. I’m sorry, but I’m in a terrible hurry.”

He leaned there against the driver’s window, his expression startled and thoughtful all at once, and he only studied her in a leisurely sort of way as Sterling slung her oversize shoulder bag inside. And she had never been much of a diva, no matter how much money Omar had given her to throw around. But today was a terrible day after a week of far worse, ever since she’d gotten that call in the middle of the night from the French police to tell her that Omar was dead after a terrible car crash outside Paris. And she had none of the social graces she’d worked so hard to learn left inside of her after that. Not even a polite word.

Not for a man like this one, who stared at her as if he would decide when and where they went, not her. Something snapped inside of her and she let it—hell, she welcomed it. A surly driver was a far better target than herself or Omar’s terrifying brother, who, Sterling was well aware, could show up at any moment and destroy everything.

As far as she’d ever been able to tell from reading between the lines of Omar’s staunchly loyal stories, that was pretty much all the sheikh did.

“How did you get this job?” she demanded, focusing her temper and her fear on the stranger before her. “Because I don’t think you’re any good at it. You do realize you’re supposed to open the door for your passengers, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course,” he said then, and Sterling was so startled by that rich, low, deeply sardonic voice that she curled a hand around her big, low belly protectively even as her throat went alarmingly and suddenly dry. “My mistake. It is, of course, my single goal in life to serve American women such as yourself. My goal and my dream in one.”

Sterling blinked. Had he said that in another way, she might have ignored it. But the way he looked at her. As if he was powerful and hungry and ferocious and was only barely concealing those things beneath his civilized veneer. It arrowed into her, dark and stirring.

It reminded her, for the first time in a very long while, or maybe ever, that she was a woman. Not merely mother to her best friend’s child, but entirely female from the top of her head, where that look of his made her feel prickly, all the way down to her toes, which were curling up in her shoes where she stood on the curb.

And entirely too many places in between.

The baby chose that moment to kick her, hard, and Sterling told herself that was why she couldn’t breathe. That was why her entire body felt taut and achy and very much like someone else’s.

“Then yours must be a life of intense disappointment,” she told him when she could breathe again, or anyway, fake it. “As you fall so far short.”

“My apologies,” the driver replied at once, his voice smooth, but with that hard undercurrent in it that made Sterling’s head feel light. “I forget myself, clearly.”

He straightened then and that didn’t make it any better. He was tall and broad at once, a sweep of black that took over the entire world, and she wouldn’t have been at all surprised if he’d snatched her up, belly and all, in one powerful fist—

But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t. He reached over and wrapped his hand over the top of the door instead, then inclined his head toward the SUV’s interior as if it was his car and he was the one doing her a great favor.

Impossible images chased through her head then, each more inappropriate and embarrassing and naked than the last. What was wrong with her? Sterling didn’t have thoughts like that, so yearning and wild. So…unclothed. She didn’t like to be touched at all, much less…that.

“Well,” she said stiffly after a tense, electric moment she could feel everywhere, even if she couldn’t understand it. She felt weak and singed straight through and she couldn’t seem to look away from him when she knew that he was causing this. That it was him. “Try not to do it again.”

His dark gold eyes got more intense, somehow, and that stunning mouth of his shifted into something that could only be described as mocking. She ordered herself not to shiver in response, but she felt it wash over her anyway, as if she had.

“But we really do have to get moving.” She made her voice softer then. Placating, the way she’d learned to do with all kinds of men—all kinds of people, come to think of it—over the years. She’d made it her art, and no matter that her life with Omar had tempted her to believe she wouldn’t have to live like that any longer. That she could turn it on or off for fun, as she wished. There’s no such thing as a happy ending, she reminded herself harshly. Not for you. “I have a long way to go and I’m already behind schedule.”

“By all means, then,” he said invitingly, the way a wolf might have done, with the suggestion of claws and the hint of fangs yet nothing but that sardonic smile on his shockingly sensual, infinitely dangerous mouth. “Get in. I would hate to inconvenience you in any way.”

Then he reached out and took her hand, ostensibly to help her into the SUV.

And it was like fireworks.

It was pure insanity.

Sensation galloped through her, shooting up from that shocking point of contact like wildfire, enveloping her. Changing her. Making the city disappear. Making her whole history fall out of her own head as if it had never happened. Making her body feel tight and restless and dangerously loose at once. Making her wonder, yearn, long—

She wanted to jerk her hand away from his, the way she always did when someone touched her without her permission, but she didn’t. Because for the first time in as long as she could remember, Sterling wanted to keep touching him more than she wanted to stop.

That astounding truth pounded through her like adrenaline, a sleek and dizzying drum.

“I cannot serve you if you do not enter the vehicle,” the driver said after a moment, his gaze narrowing in on hers in a way that made her breath go shallow. And his voice seemed to stoke the fires that raged in her, as if the way his hand wrapped around hers was a sexual act. A whole lot of sexual acts. “And that would be a tragedy, would it not?”

Sterling couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t breathe—and she was terribly afraid that the edgy feeling swamping her just then wasn’t panic at all. She knew panic. This was deeper. Richer.

Life-altering, she thought in a kind of awe.

But the only thing she could let herself think about right now was her baby, so she shoved all the confusing sensations away as best she could—and tried to get into the car and get away from him before her legs simply gave out beneath her.

Or before she did something she’d truly regret, like moving closer to this strange man instead of away.

* * *

There were a number of things Rihad al Bakri—reigning sheikh, Grand Ruler and King of the Bakrian Empire—did not understand.

First, how his late brother had neglected to mention that he had impregnated his mistress and quite some time ago, if her current condition was any guide. Or how this one delicate American woman had managed to elude his entire security force and was now sashaying out into the city as if she was still on the sort of catwalks she’d frequented when she’d been, by all accounts, a feral teen. Finally, he was arrogant enough to wonder how on earth she could possibly have mistaken him—him—for a livery driver, of all things.

And that was not even getting into his unending grief that his brother was gone. That after wasting so many years of his life gallivanting about with this unsuitable woman, Omar could have disappeared so senselessly in the space of a single evening.

Rihad could not come to terms with it. He doubted he ever would.

Yet all of that faded when Rihad took her hand, meaning only to help her into the SUV as any decent servant might. He had enough of them. He should know.

The loud, brash, concrete city all around them seemed to skip its groove like an old-fashioned record, and go still.

So still it was like a quiet agony, reverberating inside of him.

Her hand was delicate and strong at once, and Rihad didn’t like that. Nor did he like the way her mouth firmed as she looked at him, as if she was pressing her lips together to disguise the way they trembled, because he had the wild, nearly ungovernable desire to taste that theory.

Surely not.

Her strawberry blond hair should have appeared messy, twisted back in a riot of smooth gold and copper strands, but instead made her look fresh. She wore a stretchy sort of tunic dress over skinny jeans and absurdly high heels, quite as if she wasn’t so heavily pregnant that it looked as if she’d shoved a giant ball underneath her clothes. Worst of all, she was remarkably graceful, moving easily from the sidewalk into the vehicle, making him wonder exactly how she might move when not pregnant.

Or better yet, beneath him.

Rihad did not want to wonder about this woman in any capacity at all and much less that one. He’d wanted nothing more than to eradicate the stain of her from the memory of his brother’s life, erase her taint from the Bakrian royal family once and for all. That was why he’d come here himself, straight from Omar’s funeral, when he could easily have sent agents to eject her from this property.

Enough scandal. Enough selfish, heedless behavior. Rihad had spent his life cleaning up his father’s messes, Omar’s messes, even his half sister Amaya’s messes. Sterling McRae was the emblem of his family’s licentiousness and Rihad wanted her—and all the remnants of his brother’s lifetime of poor decisions—gone.

So naturally she was pregnant.

Hugely, incontestably, irrevocably pregnant.

Of course.

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU ARE WITH CHILD,” Rihad said grimly as his brother’s mistress settled herself in the SUV, pulling her hand from his as she sat—and perhaps, he thought, with a certain alacrity that suggested that simple touch had affected her, too.

He opted not to consider that too closely.

“You are very observant.” Was that…sarcasm? Directed at him? Rihad blinked. But she continued, her voice now coolly imperious. “And now if you’ll close the door and drive?”

She was giving him orders. She expected him—him—to obey these orders. To obey her.

That was such an astonishing development that Rihad merely stepped back and shut the door while he processed the situation. And thought about how to proceed.

All Rihad could hope for was that the child this woman carried was not Omar’s—but he was not optimistic. His brother’s obsession with his regrettable mistress had spanned the better part of a decade. Omar had famously scooped her up when she’d been a mere seventeen. He’d installed her in his apartment within the week, not caring in the least that she was little more than an ignorant guttersnipe with a made-up name who wasn’t even of legal age at the time.

The paparazzi had all but turned gleeful cartwheels in the streets.

“Omar will tire of her,” their late father had said after scanning one such breathless and insulting article, back in the Bakrian palace.

The old sheikh had been a connoisseur of flagrantly inappropriate women. He’d stopped marrying them after the mercenary Ukrainian dancer—the mother of the deeply disobedient Amaya, who was chief among Rihad’s many problems these days while she evaded her responsibilities and the fiancé she’d decided she didn’t want on the eve of her engagement party—had taken off and proceeded to live off the telling of her “my life in the evil sheikh’s harem” story for decades. The old man had gone off matrimony after that, but not women. If anyone knew how men treated their mistresses, it would be his father.

“Perhaps a refresher course in your expectations of Omar might not go amiss,” Rihad had suggested drily. “His time in New York City appears to have affected his memory, particularly where his duties to this country are concerned.”

His father had only sighed, as Rihad had known he would. Because while Rihad was his father’s heir, he had never been his father’s favorite. And no wonder. Omar and the old sheikh were peas in a deeply selfish pod, stirring up scandals left and right as they did exactly as they pleased no matter the consequences, while Rihad was left to quietly clean it all up in their wake.

Because somebody had to be responsible, or the country would fall to its enemies. That somebody had been Rihad for as long as he could remember.

“No man is without his weaknesses, Rihad,” his father had said, frowning at him. “It is only regrettable that Omar is making his so public.”

Rihad had no idea if he had weaknesses or not, as he’d never been given any leave to indulge them. He’d never kept mistresses, inappropriate or otherwise. He’d known full well that as his father’s successor he’d been promised in a political marriage since birth. And he’d dutifully married the woman picked out for him when he’d finished his studies in England, in fulfillment of that promise.

Tasnim might not have been a flashy model type, with masses of shining copper-blond hair and a sinful mouth like the woman Omar had holed up with all these years. But she’d been as committed to their marriage as Rihad had been. They’d worked their way to something like affection in the three short years before she’d been diagnosed with cancer at a routine doctor’s appointment. When she’d died five years ago this past summer, Rihad had lost a friend.

Maybe that was what moved in him then, on the side of a New York City street as his brother’s worst and most public embarrassment sat waiting for him to drive her away from the comeuppance Rihad had planned to deliver upon her, in spades. Fury that Tasnim, who had kept all her promises, was gone. The same old mix of fury and bafflement that Omar had broken all the rules, as usual, and gotten this plaything of his big with child anyway—and then abandoned a Bakrian royal child to fate, its mother unmarried and unprotected.

That or the fact her hand in his, her skin sliding against his in even so simple and impersonal a touch, had made him burn. He could feel it now. Still.

Unacceptable.

If he’d been anyone else, he thought, he might have been shaken by that astonishing burst of heat. Altered, somehow, by that fire that roared through him, making him feel bright and needy, and suggesting all manner of possibilities he didn’t wish to face.

But Rihad was not anyone else. He did not acknowledge weakness. He rose above it.

He pulled out his mobile, made a call and snapped out his instructions as he climbed into the driver’s seat, his decision made in an instant. Because it was the most expedient way to handle the crisis, he assured himself, not because he could still feel her touch as if she’d branded him. He could see Sterling in the back via his mirror—such a fanciful, ridiculous name—and the frown she aimed at him. It had nothing to do with the things that coursed through him at the sight of her, none of which he’d expected. He was a man of duty, never of need.

“You can’t talk on your phone while you drive,” she told him. Scolded him, more like. “You know that, don’t you?”

As if he was extraordinarily dim. It occurred to Rihad then that no one he was not related to by blood, in all his years on this earth, had dared address him with anything but the utmost respect—if not fawning deference.

Ever.

For a moment he was stunned.

He should have been outraged. He couldn’t understand why instead there was a part of him that wanted only to laugh.

“Can I not?” he asked mildly, after a moment, his tone an uneasy balance between the two. “I appreciate the warning.”

“Aside from the fact it’s against the law, it’s not safe,” she replied in that same irritated way he’d never in his life had directed at him before, her voice tight. Annoyed, even. He saw her shift against the leather seat and put her hands over her swollen belly, in a way that suggested she was not quite the soulless, avaricious harlot he’d painted her in his head. He ignored that suggestion.

“I don’t think I’d care if you ran this car into the side of a building if it was only me, but it’s not.”

“Indeed it is not.” Rihad slid his phone into the interior pocket of his jacket and then started the vehicle. “Yet your husband would miss you, surely?”

He was needling her, of course, and he couldn’t have said why. What could he possibly gain from it? A glance in the rearview mirror showed him her profile, however, not that cool frown he found he very nearly enjoyed. She’d turned her head as if to stare back at the building as he pulled the car into traffic. As if leaving it—this place she’d lived with his brother, or off his brother if he was more precise—was difficult for her.

Rihad supposed it must have been. It would be much harder to find a patron now, no doubt. She was older, for one thing. Well-known—infamous, even—for her role as another man’s prize possession, across whole years. Soon to be a mother to another man’s child, which the sort of men who regularly trafficked in mistresses would be unlikely to find appealing.

Because you find her so unappealing even now, when she is huge with your brother’s child, a derisive voice inside chided him. Liar.

Rihad ignored that, too. He could not find himself attracted to his brother’s infamous leftovers. He would not allow it.

“The father of my child is dead,” Sterling said, her voice so frozen that if he hadn’t stolen that glance at her, he’d have believed she really was utterly devoid of emotion.

“And you loved him so much you wish to follow him into that great night?” He couldn’t quite keep the sardonic inflection from his own voice, and her head swung back toward him, her lovely brow creasing again. “That seems a rather desperate form of tribute, don’t you think? The province of the cowed and the cowardly, in my opinion. Living is harder. That’s the point of it.”

“Am I having an auditory hallucination?”

That was obviously a rhetorical question. Still, Rihad shrugged as he turned onto the narrow highway that clung to the east side of the city and led out of town, and replied, “I cannot answer that for you.”

“Or are you quizzing me—in a snide manner—about the death of someone I loved? You’re a driver.”

And her tone was withering, but there was something about it that spoke of repressed emotions, hidden fears. Or perhaps he was the one hearing things then.

“I don’t care what you think about my life or my choices or my feelings, in case that’s not clear. I want you to drive the damned car upstate, no more and no less. Is that all right with you? Or do you have more unsolicited opinions to share?”

Rihad smiled as he merged onto a different highway and headed toward the top of the island and the stately bridge that would lead to the airfield where his jet should be waiting, refueled and ready, upon his arrival. Or heads would roll.

“Where are you going?” he asked her with deceptive casualness. “Upstate New York is lovely in the summer, but it is not possible to outrun anything in your condition. Surely you must realize this.”

“My condition.” She repeated the words as if, until she sounded them out, she couldn’t believe she’d heard them correctly. “I beg your pardon?”

“You look as if you’re used to being kept well,” Rihad continued. Mildly. “That will be hard to replicate.”

She swiped those huge, concealing sunglasses off her face, and Rihad wished she hadn’t. She was nothing less than perfection, even in a quick glance in the rearview mirror of a moving vehicle, and he felt as if he’d been kicked by a horse. Her eyes were far bluer than the sky outside and she was more delicate, somehow, than she appeared in photographs. More vulnerable, he might have thought, had she not looked so outraged.

“Does it make you feel good to insult people you don’t know?” she demanded, also in a tone he’d never heard directed at him before. This woman seemed to be full of such tones. “Is that the kind of man you are?”

“What kind of man I am or am not is hardly something you will be capable of ascertaining from the backseat of this vehicle.”

“Yet you feel perfectly comfortable shredding my character from the front, of course. What a shock.”

Rihad didn’t like the tightness in his chest then. “Were you not kept well? Please accept my condolences. Perhaps you should have found a better patron before you permitted such a shoddy one to impregnate you.”

He didn’t know what he expected. Floods of tears? But Sterling sat straighter in her seat, managing to look both regal and dignified, which only made that constriction around his chest pull tighter.

“Let me guess,” she said after a hard pause, her tone so scathing she was clearly nowhere near tears of any kind. “This is some kind of game to you. You intrude upon people’s lives, insult them, and then what? Is causing pain its own reward—or are you hoping they’ll do something crazy to get away from you, like demand you leave them by the side of the road? Exactly what do you get out of being this nasty?”

Rihad’s teeth were on edge, his body tense. He left the bridge behind him and headed west, wanting absolutely nothing at that moment but to get to his plane and get the hell out of here, back to his own land. His throne. The familiarity of his country, his rule. Before the tension in him exploded into something he couldn’t control.

That such a thing had never happened before—that he had never been quite this tense in the whole of his life before he’d laid eyes on this woman—did not bear thinking about.

“I have no intention of leaving you by the side of the road,” he assured her, and there was possibly too much dark intent in the comment, because she scowled at him in response. “Not yet anyway.”

“You’re a true gentleman. Clearly.”

And Rihad laughed then, because it was funny. All of this was funny, surely, however little familiarity he had with such things. He was a king pretending to be a driver. She was the mistress who had ruined his dead brother’s life. And he felt more alive trading insults with her than he had in years.

In fact, he couldn’t recall when he’d ever felt quite like this, for any reason.

He’d obviously gone mad with guilt and grief.

“I want us both to be very clear about who you are,” Sterling said then, leaning forward in her seat, and her scent teased at him, honey and sugar with the faintest hint of a tropical bloom beneath. It made his hands clench into fists against the steering wheel. It made him hard and needy.

It made him feel like a stranger to himself. Like the hungry, selfish man he’d never been.

Rihad couldn’t bring himself to analyze it. He concentrated on the road instead.

“I am perfectly clear about who I am,” he told her.

Or perhaps he was telling himself—because he had been. When he’d exited his private jet mere hours before. When he’d arrived at Omar’s apartment building, dismissed the driver who waited there and sent his team inside to secure this woman so he could have the pleasure of evicting her himself. He’d known exactly who he was.

And nothing has changed since then, he told himself harshly.

Or would.

“You are a man who thinks it’s appropriate to mock and insult a woman, first of all,” Sterling said in that precise way of hers that he really shouldn’t find so fascinating. It was only that no one had ever dared use a tone like that in his presence before, he assured himself. He was intrigued intellectually, nothing more. “Congratulations. Your mother must be proud.”

He laughed again, with significantly less mirth than before. “My mother died when I was twelve years old.”

“A great blessing, I think we can agree, so that she might be spared the knowledge of who you’ve become in her absence,” Sterling said, so matter-of-factly it took Rihad a moment to realize how deeply she’d insulted him. And then she kept going, unaware that no one spoke to him like that without consequences. No one would dare. “You are also a man who finds it amusing to speculate about the lives of strangers. Openly and repulsively.”

“Are you not a kept woman?” he asked, making no attempt to soften his tone. “My mistake. What is it you do, then, to support yourself?”

“You are ill-mannered and rude, and that was evident at a glance, long before you opened your mouth.” She laughed then, an abrasive sound that made his hackles rise. “I’ve met more honorable pigs.”

“Be very careful,” Rihad warned her. Because he had limits—even if, he was well aware, anyone who’d ever met him might have thought he’d crossed them a long while back. “A man does not react well to the questioning of his honor.”

“Then a man should act as if he has some,” she snapped.

“Yes, of course,” Rihad snorted. “And how would I prove that I am an honorable man to one such as you, do you imagine? Will you be the judge? A woman who—”

“Is pregnant?” Her voice was icy then, so cold he almost overlooked the fact that she’d interrupted him. Something no one had done since his father had died, and no woman had ever done, as far as he could recall. “So scandalous, I know. It’s almost as if every single person walking this earth came about their presence here some other way.”

“I must have mistaken you for someone else,” Rihad murmured as he made the final turn that would lead them to the airfield, which was just as well, because he thought his temper might flip the damned SUV over if he didn’t put some distance between the two of them, and soon. “I thought you were the mistress of Omar al Bakri.”

“If I were you—” and her voice was very soft, very furious then “—I’d be very, very careful what you say next.”

“Why?” Rihad realized he was taking out his aggression on the gas pedal and slowed as he arrived at the gate to find his men already there, which was lucky for everyone involved. They waved him through and he was glad, he told himself, that this little farce was almost finished. He wasn’t one for subterfuge, no matter how necessary. It felt too much like lies. “He is dead, as you say. You remain. Is that child his?”

“Ah, yes. Of course.” She sounded bored then, though he could still hear the fury beneath it, giving it a certain huskiness that he felt in all the wrong places. “I must be a whore. That’s the point of these questions, isn’t it? Are you trying to determine whether or not I’m a terrible, no-good, very bad harlot or have you already rendered your judgment?”

“Are you?”

She laughed. “What if I am? What is it to you?”

But Rihad glanced at her in the mirror and saw the truth of things in the way her hands clasped on the shelf of her belly, her knuckles white, as if she was not as blasé as she was pretending.

It would be easier if she was. Easier, but it wouldn’t do much for that thing that still held him in its grip, that he refused to examine any closer.

“I’m only using the proper terminology to describe your role,” he said mildly as he pulled up beside his plane out on the tarmac. “I apologize if you find that insulting.”

“You decided I was a whore the moment you saw me,” she said dismissively. Or he assumed that was what that particular tone meant, having never heard it before. “But virgins and whores are indistinguishable, I hate to tell you.”

“It’s a bit late to claim virginity, I think.”

“Whores don’t have identifying marks to set them apart.” If she’d heard him, she was ignoring him—another new sensation for Rihad. He was beginning to feel each of them like blows. “Purity isn’t a scent or a tattoo. Neither is promiscuity, which is lucky, or most men like you who love to cast stones would reek of it.”

“I am aware of only one case of a virgin birth,” he pointed out as he put the SUV into Park. “Everyone else, I am fairly certain, has gone about it the old-fashioned way. Unless you are on your way to notify the world’s religious leaders of the second coming of Mary? That would explain your hurry.”

“How many people have you slept with?” she asked, sounding unperturbed.

He laughed as much to cover his astonishment at her temerity as anything else. “Are you petitioning to be the next?”

“If you’ve slept with anyone at all and you’re unmarried, you’re a hypocrite.”

“I am widowed.”

A typical female might have apologized for his loss, but this was Sterling McRae, and she was not, he was already far too aware in a variety of increasingly uncomfortable ways, the least bit typical.

“And you’ve never touched a single woman in your whole life save your late wife?”

He should not have brought Tasnim into this. He was furious with himself. And Sterling, of course, correctly interpreted his silence.

“Oh, dear,” she murmured. “It appears you are, in fact, a hypocrite. Perhaps you should judge others a bit less. Or perhaps you’re no more than one of those charming throwbacks who think chastity only matters when it’s a woman’s.”

“The world has turned on its ear, clearly,” Rihad said in a kind of wonder, as much to the tarmac as to her, and he told himself that what surged in him then was relief that this was over. This strange interlude as a man people addressed with such stunning disrespect. “I am being lectured to by a blonde American parasite who has lived off of weak and foolish men her entire adult life. Thank God we have arrived.”

He turned in his seat, so he saw the way she jolted then, as if she hadn’t noticed the SUV had come to a stop. She looked around in confusion, then those blue eyes of hers slammed back to his.

“What is this? Where are we?”

“This is an airport,” Rihad told her, in that same patronizing, lecturing way she’d ordered him not to use his mobile as they’d driven out of Manhattan. “And that is a plane. My plane.”

She went so white he thought she might topple over where she sat. Her hands moved over the round swell of her belly, as if she was trying to protect the child within from him, and he hated that there was some part of him that admired her for so futile a gesture.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He suspected she knew. But he took immense satisfaction in angling closer, so he could see every faint tremor on those sinful lips. Every shiver that moved across her skin. Every dawning moment of horrified recognition in her deep blue gaze.

“I am Rihad al Bakri,” he told her, and felt a harsh surge of victory as her gaze went dark. “If that is truly my brother’s child you carry, it is my heir. And I’m afraid that means it—and you—are now my problem to solve.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE SUV SEEMED to close in around her, her heart was a rapid throb in her throat and it was only another well-timed kick from the baby that broke through the panic. Sterling rubbed a hand over her belly and tried to calm herself.

He won’t hurt you. He can’t. If this is the heir to his kingdom, you’ve never been safer in all your life.

The man she should have realized wasn’t the slightest bit subservient to anyone threw open the driver’s door and climbed out of the SUV, then slammed it shut behind him. She could hear the sound of that voice of his outside on the tarmac, the spate of Arabic words like some kind of rough incantation, some terrible spell that he was casting over the whole of the private airfield. His men. Her.

And she couldn’t seem to do anything but sit there, frozen in place, obeying him by default. She stared at the back of the seat he’d vacated and tried to convince herself that despite the panic stampeding through her veins, she really was safe.

She had to be safe, because this baby had to be safe.

But the truth was, there was more than a small part of her that was still holding out hope that this was all a terrible nightmare from which she’d bolt awake at any minute. That Omar would be there, alive and well, with that wry smile of his at the ready and exactly the right words to tease away any lingering darkness. He’d tell her none of this could possibly have happened. That it never would.

And this would be a convoluted, nonsensical story she’d tell him over a long, lazy breakfast out on their wraparound terrace with views of New York City stretching in all directions as if it really was the center of the world, until they both laughed so hard they made themselves nearly sick.

God, what she would do to wake up and find out this was all a bad dream, that Omar had never gotten in that car in France, that it had never spun out of control on its way back into Paris—

But the door beside her opened abruptly then and Rihad stood there before her.

Because, of course, it was him. Rihad. The sheikh. The king. The more-feared-than-respected ruler of his fiercely contested little country on the Persian Gulf. The older brother who had consistently made Omar feel as if he was a failure, despite how much Omar had looked up to him. As if he was less than Rihad somehow. As if the deepest truths of who he’d been had to be hidden away, lied about, concealed where no one could see them—especially not the brother who should have loved him unconditionally.

Omar had loved him, despite everything. Sterling had not been similarly handicapped.

“There has been no mention of this pregnancy in any of the papers,” Rihad said in his dark, authoritative way. “No hint.”

“Guess why?” she suggested, hoping all the pain she’d like to inflict on him was evident in her voice. “Guess who we didn’t want to know?”

“You were both fools.”

Sterling glared at Rihad as the light wrapped around him and made him look something like celestial. How had she managed to convince herself this man was merely a driver? He fairly oozed power from every pore. He was the physical embodiment of ruthlessness no matter how the summer sunlight loved him and licked over the planes and valleys of his fascinating face. He exuded ruthless masculinity and total authority in equal measure, and she’d thrown herself directly into his hands.

He stared down at her, that mouth of his in a sardonic curl, his dark gold gaze bright and hot and infinitely disturbing, until Sterling thought she might not be able to breathe normally again. Ever.

“I believe this is the part where a good driver helps a fine, upstanding lady such as yourself from the vehicle,” he said in that smooth way of his, like silk and yet with all that steely harshness beneath it. “Without any commentary involving terms she might or might not like.”

“I think you mean insults, not terms.”

“I think it’s time to get out of the car.”

Then he held out his hand and there was no pretending it was anything but a royal command.

“I’m not getting on that plane,” Sterling told him.

Very carefully and precisely, as if perfect diction might save her here. Save her from him. As if anything could.

“It was not a request.”

She could see then how much he’d been acting the part of the supposed servant before, because he wasn’t bothering with that any longer. He was a stern column of inimitable power, his will like a living thing coiled tight around both of them and the whole damned airfield besides, and she couldn’t understand why he’d played that game with her in the first place. This was not a man who pretended anything, ever, she understood at a glance. Because he didn’t need to pretend. This was a man who took what he wanted as he wanted it, the end.

But she was not going to let him take her. Not without a fight.

“Perhaps you’re misunderstanding me, Rihad,” she said, deliberately using his first name to underscore how little she respected him.

She felt the ripple of that impertinence move through him and then beyond him, through the line of his men, where they stood in a loose ring around him and the SUV, protection and defense. The disapproval washed back over her from all sides, but the gleam in Rihad’s dark gold gaze merely edged over into something more shrewd as he considered her.

As if she was an animal in a trap, she thought, and he was deciding how best to put her out of her misery. That was not a restful notion.

Sterling pushed on. “I would rather die than go anywhere with you.”

He leaned toward her in the open wedge between the door and the body of the SUV and every single nerve inside of her went wild. Sharp and hot and alert—something so much like pain it very nearly toppled her before she realized it wasn’t really pain at all. Merely an exquisite reaction—pure sensation, storming all over her—that she didn’t recognize and didn’t know what to do with.

It was almost impossible to keep herself from reacting, from throwing herself backward across the wide backseat and scrambling for safety—not that there was any available to her, she understood in a shattering instant. Not really. This man might not hurt her, physically, not as long as she was pregnant with the heir to his kingdom—but then, there were worse things.

She’d seen so many of them firsthand.

“Please believe me,” Rihad said softly then, so softly, though, that it only made her understand on a deep, visceral level how truly lethal he was. “I would arrange that if I could.”

“How charming,” she breathed, trying desperately not to sound as panicked as she felt. “I love threats.”

He smiled. “I would have done so years ago if I’d believed for one second that it would ever come to this. But let me assure you, any interest I appear to have in you is about the child you carry, not you. Never you.”

“This is Omar’s child,” she snapped back at him, struggling to keep her jangling, shimmering reaction to him to herself. “And since he is gone, that makes the baby my responsibility, not yours.”

“That is where you are wrong,” Rihad told her, his tone as merciless as that harsh look on his forbidding face. “If that child is indeed my brother’s—”

“Of course it is!” Sterling threw at him.

And only realized once she had said it that it was hardly strategic to tell him so. If he thought the child was someone else’s, if she could have convinced him of that, he might have let her go. Something in that dangerous dark gold gleam in his gaze told her he’d reached the same conclusion.

“Then, as I have explained, it is potentially next in line to rule my country.” He shrugged. “Your wishes would be of less than no importance to me at any time, but in a situation such as this? Which affects the whole of my country and its future?”

He didn’t have to finish the thought. That hard, sardonic twist to his lush mouth did it for him.

She tried again. She had no choice. “I refuse to go anywhere with you.”

“Get out of the car, Sterling,” he ordered her, steel and warning, and there was nothing but sheer power in his gaze. It rolled through her like fire. Or perhaps that was her name in his mouth while he looked at her like that. “Or I will take you out of it myself. And I rather doubt you will enjoy that.”

“Wow.” Sterling let out a small, brittle laugh. “This has been quite a morning for exploring the dimensions of your character, hasn’t it?”

“Hear this now,” he replied, his voice a hoarse kind of softness that made her shiver, his gaze dark and so powerful as it held fast to hers. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my country. Nothing at all.”

“How heroic.” But she was far more shaken by that than she should have been, when it wasn’t even any kind of direct threat. “I think we both know the truth is less noble. You’re nothing but a reactionary Neanderthal who is never challenged, never questioned, never forced to face the consequences of his actions.”

“You appear to have your al Bakri brothers confused,” Rihad replied with a certain soft menace that made her think she’d landed a blow. “I am not the renowned playboy who lived a life of leisure and debauchery. That was Omar. I am the one who cleaned up his messes. Again and again and again.”

She wanted to scream. Throw things. But she only curled her hands into fists and glared. “I take it you mean me. I am the mess.”

“You are not a mess, Sterling.” He sounded kind, but she could see that look in his gaze, and she knew better. “You are a toxic spill. You corrupt and you destroy, and you have been doing it for over a decade. What you did to my brother was bad enough. It appalls me to think you will have your claws sunk deep in the next generation of al Bakris.” His perfect lips firmed. “But I am a man of duty, not desire. Which means as much as I would prefer to pretend you and whatever child you carry do not exist, I cannot.”

She couldn’t breathe for a moment. It was almost too much. It threw her back in time to that terrible house in Iowa and the foster parents who had believed that she was nothing but their personal punching bag. Worthless and dirtied, somehow, by her own tragic history. And their contempt. For a moment she almost tipped back over into all that darkness—but then she caught his gaze again, so bright and hard at once, and it bolstered her. It lifted her.

Because she’d survived far worse than this man and like hell would she slide back into that headspace after a few mean words.

“Oh, no,” she murmured icily. “You might get this toxic spill all over your sheikhdom. What then?”

“You’ll find I am not so easily led astray,” he said, his voice as low as hers had been, but layered with a kind of dark heat she could feel within her. Making her too warm in all kinds of places she didn’t understand. “And I’ve had a lifetime of preparation. You’re merely one more disaster it falls to me to handle.”

“And then, oddly, you wonder why I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not afraid of you, Rihad.”

And the strange thing was, she wasn’t. He made her anxious, yes—panicky about the future. But that wasn’t the same thing as afraid. She didn’t know what to make of that. It didn’t make any sense.

“Go ahead,” Rihad suggested, those disturbingly bright eyes of his tearing into her, seeing far too much. “Fight me if you like. Scream loud enough to draw down the sun. Kick and scratch and hurl invective as it pleases you.” He shrugged almost lazily, and Sterling’s throat felt tight, while far to the south, parts of her she’d always largely ignored bloomed with a mad heat. “But this will still end the same way, no matter what you do. What is Omar’s belongs to Bakri. And what is Bakri’s is mine. And I will do what I must to protect what is mine, Sterling, even if it means I must kidnap you to accomplish it.”

He straightened then, though his gaze never shifted from hers, and Sterling couldn’t tell if that lump in her throat was panic or tears or something a good deal more like fate.

Don’t be absurd, she snapped at herself, but that sensation of foreboding snaked down her back all the same.

“But by all means,” he said, daring her in that soft way that danced along her limbs and made her skin prickle with warning, and something much warmer, “try me.”

Sterling opted to decline that offer with as much icy silence as she could muster. She also ignored his offered hand, but she pushed herself out of the SUV and onto the tarmac anyway, because she’d always been a realist at heart. Oh, her years with Omar had tempted her to surrender to optimism, but deep down she’d always known better. She’d always known what lurked down there beneath the happiest-seeming moments. She’d always assumed, on some level, that it would all end badly.

So she stood on her own two feet in front of this terrible man and she made the command decision to keep playing her role. Sterling McRae, rich man’s whore. Toxic spill, no less. Coveted by many, captured by none save Omar. She’d gotten very good at it. She reached up and unclipped her strawberry blond hair, shaking her head to send it tumbling down around her shoulders. She shifted position so that her breasts were thrust out and saw the very male response in his eyes.

All men were the same after all, even when a woman was as far along as she was. Even kings.

“How long will you be kidnapping me for?” she asked, so very politely.

“Ah, Sterling,” he replied in the same tone, though his look was far darker, and she had to fight back a betraying sort of flush when he shifted, the lean power of his body too obvious, too close. “Haven’t you guessed yet how this must end?”

She eyed him with sheer dislike. “You dropping dead where you stand, if there is a God.”

He shook his head at her. “You can always take to prayer, if you feel it will help. It won’t change what must happen, but perhaps you’ll approach it all with some measure of serenity.”

“Is that what you call this? ‘Serenity’?”

His fine, dark brows lifted. “I call it duty. I doubt you’d recognize it if you tripped over it.”

“Says the man who already married a stranger on command once and thought that made him virtuous,” she snapped, the past he’d thrown in Omar’s face so often coming back to her then in a burst. “I’m more afraid of tripping over your ego than your duty.”

“You don’t know anything about my first marriage,” Rihad told her with a lethal, vicious edge in his voice. “Not one single thing.”

“I know that expecting Omar to make the same sacrifice was hideous,” she said crisply, as if she wasn’t the least bit shaken. Though still…not afraid of him, somehow. “And you can tell yourself any stories you want about me and my past and whatever else, but I had nothing to do with it. I was the only thing in his life he liked.”

“Sterling.”

His face was closed down then, granite and bone. Utterly forbidding.

“If this is where you bore me with self-serving lies about your idyllic arranged first marriage, I think I’ll pass.” She eyed him. “I’m not as big a fan of stories as you seem to be.”

“It is my second marriage that should concern you, not my first.”

She stared back at him. Then she understood, in a terrible rush that felt like a tide coming in, crashing over her and rolling her into the undertow, then sweeping her far out to sea. All in that instant.

“Do I know the lucky bride?” Sterling asked, her voice as sharp as the razor-edged smile she aimed at him. “I’d like to convey my condolences.”

“An heir to my kingdom cannot be born out of wedlock,” he said, and she couldn’t tell if that note in his voice was fury or satisfaction. Perhaps it was both. It thudded in her all the same. “You must realize this.”

She jerked up her chin, belligerently. “I’m not marrying you. I’m not getting on that plane, I’m not letting you near my baby, and I’m definitely not marrying you. Your heirs are your own damned problem.”

And the sheikh only smiled.

“I didn’t ask you to marry me,” he said softly. “I told you what was going to happen. Resign yourself to it or do not, it won’t make any difference. It will happen all the same.”

“You can’t tell me to do anything,” Sterling fired back at him, and she couldn’t control the way she trembled then, as if he’d already clapped her in chains and carted her away to his far-off dungeon. “And you certainly can’t make me marry you!”

“Pay attention, Sterling.” Rihad’s gaze was hotter than the summer sun, and far more destructive. And his will was an iron thing, as if he didn’t require chains. She could feel it wrapped around her already, pressing against her skin like metal. “I am the King of Bakri. I don’t require your consent. I can do whatever the hell I want, whenever I want. And I will.”

CHAPTER FOUR

STERLING MARRIED SHEIKH RIHAD AL BAKRI, King of Bakri, at his royal palace on a lovely terrace overlooking the gleaming Bakrian Sea a mere two weeks later, surrounded by his assorted loyal subjects and entirely against her will.

Not that anyone appeared to care if the bride was willing. Least of all the groom.

“I don’t want to marry this man,” she told the assembled throng when Rihad walked her through the crowd as the ceremony began. “He is forcing me to marry him!”

She didn’t expect that anyone would spring into action on her behalf, exactly, but she’d expected…something. Some kind of reaction. Some acknowledgment, however small, of what was happening to her. Instead, the collection of Bakrian aristocrats only gazed back at her. Indifferently.

“They don’t speak English,” Rihad murmured lazily from beside her, resplendent in his traditional robes in a way Sterling couldn’t let herself look at too closely. It made her feel faint. Weak. Or maybe that was the way he held her arm as they walked, too strong and somehow too appealing there beside her, despite everything. She didn’t want to marry him. But she didn’t seem to mind him touching her, and that contradiction was making her feel even crazier. “And even if they did, who do you think they would support? Their beloved king or the woman who led my brother down the path of wickedness?”

“Don’t they have a problem with the fact you’re marrying a woman who’s carrying another man’s child?”

But no one seemed particularly moved by that, either, when she knew they could hear her. See her. Least of all Rihad.

“They think I am a great hero, to protect the family honor in this way.” He sounded so at his ease. It made the knot in her belly pulse in response. She told herself that was dismay. “To do my duty, a concept I know escapes you, despite the fact it requires I lower myself to marry a known harlot of no pedigree, less education and inadequate means.”

He’d reduced her entire life into three cruel phrases. And not as if he was trying to slap at her as he did it, but as if he was merely stating the unsavory, unfortunate facts. Sterling’s throat was impossibly dry. She was sure she was shaking. But he still held her arm in his easy grip, giving her the impression she could wrench herself away from him if she wanted. She knew better, somehow, than to test that.

“There’s nothing preventing me from throwing myself over the side of that railing over there to escape you and save you from this great act of charity you’re performing,” she told him then, sounding far away even to her own ears. “What makes you think I won’t?”

They stopped walking and stood before the small, wizened man she understood would marry them here, with the sea spread out before them like the promise of eternity—but it felt as much like a prison as the plane that had brought her here days ago had, or the rooms they’d stashed her in since, no matter how well-appointed. Inside of her, something ached. And she felt more than saw that infuriating, indolent shrug of his from where he stood next to her.

“Jump,” Rihad invited her, low and dark. It shouldn’t have moved in her the way it did, like fire and need, when he was only goading her. “It’s a fifty-foot drop to the rocks below and, in truth, the answer to a thousand prayers for deliverance from you and all you represent.” A small smile played over his mouth when she glared back at him. “Did you imagine I would beg you to reconsider? I am only so good, Sterling.”

He was so certain she wouldn’t do it. She could see it as if it was written across his darkly handsome face in block letters—and he was right. She’d survived too much, come too far, to take herself out now, even if there hadn’t been a baby to consider.

It wasn’t the first time she’d had to grit her teeth to make it through an unpleasant situation, she reminded herself staunchly. With a quick glance at the man taking up too much space beside her, implacable and fierce, Sterling rather doubted it would be the last.

Rihad hadn’t hit her. He didn’t seem violent at all, in fact, merely unimpressed with her. That was a long way from the worst place she’d ever been. She didn’t want this—but it wouldn’t kill her, either. So she trained her eyes on the officiant before them and surrendered.

And when there were no further disruptions from her, the wedding went ahead. Sterling felt it all from a great distance, as if she was watching a movie of that enormously pregnant woman in the billowing dress stand next to that darkly beautiful man with the smug expression on his face that indicated he’d had no doubt at all that she would do exactly as he pleased. Exactly what he wanted, as, apparently, everyone did eventually. It didn’t seem to matter that she didn’t participate in her own wedding ceremony, didn’t speak a single word either way. No one asked her to do anything but stand there. The man marrying them merely waved his hands in her direction, Rihad answered him in impenetrable Arabic and that was that.

The crowd cheered when it was done, as if this was a happy occasion. Or, she supposed, as if it was a real wedding.

“I hate you,” she told him, and bared her teeth at him. She didn’t pretend it was any kind of smile. They stood there in all that distractingly cheerful sunshine, as if there really was some call for celebration in the midst of this disaster. When instead she was married to a man she loathed, trapped here in his world, his palace, his very hands. She told herself that was fury she felt, that low, shivering thing inside her, or the fact she couldn’t seem to take in a full breath. Because she refused to let it be anything else. “I will always hate you.”

“Always is a very long time, Sterling.” Rihad sounded darkly amused. “I find most people lack the attention span for sustained emotion of any kind. Hate, love.” He shrugged. “Passion is always brightest when temporary.”

“You are an expert, of course.”

“My expertise fades next to yours, of course, and all your fabled conquests,” he replied, his tone ripe with bland insult.

“You have yet to marry a woman who actually wants to marry you,” Sterling couldn’t keep herself from railing at him, almost as if his insults got to her. Which she refused to allow. “I doubt you have the slightest idea what passion is.”

Rihad’s smile edged into something lethal, and while he didn’t hurt her in any way when he took her arm, she couldn’t pull out of his firm grasp, either. His smile deepened when she tried.

“You forget that I did not exactly choose you, either,” he said, darkly and too hot and directly into her ear, making her shudder in reaction—and she was all too aware he could feel her do it. That made it worse, like some kind of betrayal. “I executed my duty to this country the first time I was married. Can you truly imagine I wanted to do it again?”

“Then you should have left me in New York.”

“No.” His voice was firm. Matter-of-fact. She saw the harsh intent in his golden gaze, stamped deep into the lines of his dark, gorgeous face. “That child cannot be born out of wedlock and also be recognized as a part of the royal bloodline. It isn’t done.”

“Omar said it would be fine,” Sterling threw back at him as Rihad’s aides corralled the well-heeled courtiers and herded them from their seats, directing them farther down the terrace. “He said it was the only child he planned to present to you and if you wanted it, or him, you could change the law. After all, you’re the king.”

“Of course,” Rihad growled.

A muscle worked in his lean jaw and she felt his fingers press the slightest bit harder into the flesh of her upper arm where he still held her fast, though, still, it didn’t hurt. Quite the opposite—she was astonished at the fact her usual revulsion at the faintest physical contact hadn’t kicked in yet. It was her hatred of him, she told herself resolutely. It was shorting out her usual reactions.

“How typical of my brother,” Rihad was saying. “Rather than adhere to a tradition dating back centuries, why not demand that the tradition itself be altered to suit him instead? I don’t know why I’m at all surprised.”

Sterling opened her mouth to argue, to defend Omar, but the dark look Rihad threw at her stopped her. She shut her mouth with an audible snap. And then he began to move, sweeping her along with him whether she wanted to go or not.

He led her back through the glorious royal palace to the suite of rooms she’d been installed in when she’d arrived, and Sterling was glad he did it in that fulminating, edgy silence of his. She felt utterly off balance. Shaken down deep. She couldn’t tell if it was because the wedding had actually happened precisely as he’d warned her it would. Or because he kept touching her in a thousand little impersonal ways that were nonetheless like licks of fire all over her body and none of it because of fear.

Or because when he leaned down and spoke so close to her ear she’d felt it everywhere. Everywhere. Like the most intimate of caresses.

She still felt it. And she hadn’t the slightest notion what to do about it.

It wasn’t until they reached her door that Sterling realized she had no idea what was going to happen next. That she’d resolutely refused to believe this was happening at all, this mockery of a wedding, and had thus not thought about…the rest of it.

Did he expect…? Would he…? Her mind shied away from it, even as her body burst into a humiliating flash of delirious heat that she was terrified he could see, it felt so bright and scarlet and obvious. She clutched at her belly, as much to remind herself that she was hugely pregnant as to assuage her sudden spike in anxiety.

But Rihad merely deposited her inside the lovely, spacious suite that was the prettiest prison cell she’d ever seen, then turned as if to leave her there without another word—standing in the middle of the suite’s grand foyer in an indisputably gorgeous dress her attendants had insisted she wear today, that had made Sterling feel pretty despite herself. Despite him.

“That’s it?” she blurted out.

She wished she hadn’t said anything when he turned back to her. Slowly. He was particularly beautiful then, in his ceremonial robes with that remote, inscrutable expression on his lean face. Beautiful and terrible, and she had no idea what to make of either.

But she didn’t think it was fear that made her pulse pick up.

“What were you expecting?” he asked, mildly enough, though there was a dark gleam in those gold eyes of his that made her breath catch. “A formal wedding reception, perhaps, so you could insult my guests and my people with your surly Western attitude? Berate our culture and our traditions as you are so fond of doing? Shame this family—and me—even more than you already have?”

“You’re not going to make me feel guilty about a situation all your own doing,” she told him, ignoring the hint of shame that flared inside of her anyway, as if he had a point.

He does not have a point. He hurt Omar, kidnapped you—but she could still feel it inside of her. As if her own body took his side over her own.

“Or perhaps you thought we should address the subject of marital rights. Did you imagine I would insist?” Rihad moved closer and Sterling held her breath, but he only stopped there a breath away from her, his gaze burnished gold on hers, and still too much like a caress. “I hate to disappoint you. But I have far better things to do than force myself on my brother’s—”

Sterling couldn’t hear him call her a whore on the day she’d married him. He’d come close enough out on the terrace. She couldn’t hear him say it explicitly, and she didn’t want to consider why that was. What that could mean.

“Don’t let me keep you, then,” she said quickly before he could say it. “I’ll be right here. Hating you. Married to you. Trapped with you. Doesn’t that sound pleasant?”

“That sounds like normal life led by married couples the world over,” he retorted, and then he laughed. It seemed to roll through her and a smart woman, Sterling knew, would have backed away from him then. Found safer ground no matter if it looked like retreat. But she, of course, stood tall. “And yet there is nothing normal about this, is there?”

And something shifted then. The air. The light that danced in from outside her windows. Or, far more disturbing, that shimmering, electric thing that she worked so hard to pretend she couldn’t feel there between them. It pulled taut. It gleamed there in his fascinating gaze, dark gold and intoxicating.

Maybe that was why she did nothing when he reached out and slid his hand over her jaw to cup her cheek. Nothing but let him, when she’d never let anyone touch her before. She only held that gaze of his and possibly her breath, too, as his hard dark gold eyes bored into her and the heat of his hand changed her, from the inside out, telling her things she’d never wanted to know about herself, because she felt so many things, so many wild and intense sensations, and none of them were revulsion—

“Damn you,” he muttered, as if he was the cursed one. As if he was as lost as she was, as utterly out of control. “Everything about you is wrong.”

Then he bent his head and fit his mouth to hers, claiming her as easily as if he’d done so a thousand times before. As if she’d been his forever.

And everything stopped. Then melted.

Sterling braced herself for the kick of panic, of horror, but it never came. There was only the heat of it, the banked fury, the rolling wildfire that swept through her and altered everything it touched.

It was long and hot, slow and thorough.

Astonishingly carnal. Deliriously perfect.

It was nothing like the kisses she’d imagined, locked safely away in her little world, where she was never at risk of having one. Rihad’s kiss was possessive and devastating at once, storming through her, making her forget everything but him. Everything but this.

She forgot that she was anything but a woman—his woman, however he would have her, whatever it took, to burn in this fire until she was nothing but ash and longing, fire and need.

And his. God help her, she wanted to be his—

Rihad pulled away then and she could feel his breath against hers, harsh and stirring. Uneven, just as hers was.

He dropped his hand from the side of her face and stepped back, and it was as if he’d thrown them both out of vivid color and bright hot light into a cool, gray chill in that same instant. They only stared at each other for what felt like an eternity.

Sterling was aware of everything and nothing at once. The fine tapestries on her walls, in pinks and reds and ancient golds. The gilt and marble statuettes that bristled on every surface and the sparkling crystal that adorned the high chandeliers, every inch of which she’d studied in the long days she’d been here. The endless blue sea outside, putting the world right there in front of her yet always out of reach, so high up on the cliff side was the Bakrian royal palace. The baby inside of her, low and painful today, as if even her unborn child was expressing its disgust at what she’d let happen to her.

And Rihad. The king. Her husband. The man who had just kissed her. He looked every inch the wealthy sheikh today, in his traditional garments that only emphasized his strength, his power. The sheer intensity he carried with him like a sword, and now she knew he could wield it, too.

His expression was like stone as he gazed back at her, though his dark gold eyes burned the way she still did with the aftereffects of that kiss stampeding all over her, and Sterling couldn’t bring herself to look away.

“Whatever you’re about to say, don’t.” Her voice hardly sounded like hers, and she understood that it was far too revealing. That it told him far too much, and in far more depth. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Not today.”

Rihad’s nostrils flared as if he was pulling in a deep, deep breath, or fighting for control. As if he was as thrown by this as she was. As if the addictive taste of that wildfire that still crackled through her was too sharp, too dangerous, in him, too.

“I’m touched,” he said, and she understood that was all wishful thinking on her part, thinking this was difficult for him. Nothing was, after all. Not for the king. “I had no idea our wedding meant so much to you, considering how bitterly you complained throughout it.”

His voice was rough and sardonic, but Sterling was sick, she understood then, because she still felt the kiss like a caress. Her oversensitive breasts ached as if it had been that faintly calloused palm of his all over her bare skin. A little flicker of sensation skated from the tight peaks of each of them down through the center of her body to pool deep in her core. Then pulsed.

She’d always had a vivid imagination. But now what stormed in her was need.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she said, with what she thought was admirable calm, given the fact she now knew what that hard mouth of his felt like against hers, so hot and so male she might never recover from it.

“The trouble is, I know entirely too much about you,” he said after a moment, his tone harsh and cool, while his golden gaze seemed to tear into her. “And despite the temptation, I can’t overlook the fact that you were my brother’s low-class tramp of a mistress for over a decade.”

“And I am now also your wife,” she pointed out, amazed that her voice sounded so much calmer than she felt, if not quite as regally cool as his. She tipped up her chin. “Congratulations on your choices.”

“Let me be clear about how this marriage will work,” he said, and something curled up inside of her at the way he said it. “You will stay here in the palace until you deliver the baby. Will you wish to nurse it?”

“I…” She felt as if he’d tossed her over the side of that terrace after all. One moment he was kissing her, all carnal longing and impossible heat, and the next he was interrogating her about her plans for the baby’s feedings?

“I don’t care if you do or do not,” he said when she only blinked at him. “But if you do, you will stay here until the child is weaned. You will receive all the care and help you could require, of course. For all intents and purposes, that is now my child.”

“Never,” she said at once. Softly enough, but with feeling. “This is Omar’s baby. My baby. Nothing you do can change that.”

“Yes.” And his voice was ferocious. “Omar’s baby. Omar’s mistress. Omar’s many problems. This is nothing new for me, Sterling. I have been cleaning up after my brother all my life—why should it change now that he is dead?”

It was all too easy to remember how much she hated him then, and she clenched her hands so tightly into fists that her nails dug into her palms.

“What happens after the child is weaned?” she asked in a clipped voice as a tsunami of self-loathing crept ever closer, reminding her that she’d not only let this callous man touch her, but she’d also liked it. More than liked it.

She’d wanted more. Maybe she really was the whore Rihad thought she was. Maybe the fact she’d never touched anyone had concealed the essential truth about her.

“That is entirely up to you,” he said curtly. “Behave, and I may let you stay here, as long as you do not make a nuisance of yourself. Misbehave, and I will have you locked up in a remote part of the kingdom, a prisoner in fact and deed. I don’t care which it is.”

“I don’t want this,” she blurted out, because she was suddenly light-headed, and the thought that this was really her life now, that this had really happened, made the world spin.

He lifted a shoulder, then dropped it in that way of his—the royal sheikh untouched by and uninterested in such lowly concerns.

“Life is filled with sacrifices, Sterling.” His voice scraped over her, so harsh she expected it had left marks. “There were always going to be consequences for your relationship with my brother, whether he told you so or not. This is but one of them.”

She shook her head, as much to clear it as to negate him. “I don’t understand why you won’t let me go.”

He considered her for a moment, and there was no reason at all Sterling should flush while he did.

“You cannot imagine I would release a member of my blood into your tender care, can you?” He sounded amazed. And that was so insulting it would have hurt, had not everything else hurt that much more already. “The child stays here. And if you have a shred of maternal feeling in you, which I doubt, so will you. A child needs its mother, I am reliably informed. Even if that mother is you.”

“Wonderful,” she managed to say then, her voice bitter and thick. “That sounds like quite a life sentence. How lucky I am to have been snatched off the street and forced into such an advantageous marriage with the most benevolent and thoughtful dictator around.”

“If you weren’t so appallingly self-centered, you’d see that you truly are lucky,” he retorted, a flash of something dark in those eyes of his. “Far luckier than you deserve. But then, thinking of others is hardly your strong suit, is it? Or you’d have left my brother alone years ago.”

“And a happy wedding day to you, too, Rihad,” she threw back at him, and it was easier to simply hate him. Cleaner. Less complicated. It felt like a relief, and she didn’t question why she felt so free to do it. “You’re a terrible man and will no doubt be a worse husband, in much the same way I’m sure you’re an awful king. Oh, joy.”

Temper cracked over his face then, dark and alarming, and she braced herself for whatever awful thing he might say next—whore whore whore, wash and repeat, whore whore whore, she thought with a mental roll of her eyes that suggested an insouciance she didn’t quite feel—but instead, he went still. Then frowned.

Not at her, exactly. More at the floor beneath her.

Sterling looked down to find a puddle around her, soaking the hem of her wedding dress and then spreading out across the inlaid mosaic tiles at her feet, and froze in horror. Had she actually humiliated herself to such a degree that she’d—

But then she understood.

The puddle announced what she should have guessed from her mounting discomfort throughout this conversation, but had been too furious and too emotional to face—that her water had broken.

Her baby was coming a few weeks early, whether she was ready or not.

CHAPTER FIVE

SOME THIRTY-SIX HOURS after he’d kissed the new wife he hadn’t wanted in an act of dark foolishness that had haunted him ever since, Rihad stood in the shadows of Sterling’s state-of-the-art hospital suite in the center of Bakri City and watched her sleep at last.

He didn’t know why he was there, lurking about like a spurned lover instead of the king, when they had both been forced into this marriage, him by circumstance and her by his own hand. Instead, he couldn’t seem to look away from Sterling, the woman he’d called a toxic spill.

He should not regret that. It was the truth, he knew, at least in terms of his brother’s life this past decade. But it was hard to remember that at the moment.

There were the faintest smudges beneath her impossibly long lashes, the only indication he could see on her lovely face of how she’d spent the past day and a half. And she was so beautiful, so very nearly angelic in repose, that it made him realize he’d never seen her like this before—so vulnerable, so soft. Not fighting him, poking at him, insulting him or challenging him. Not plastered across tabloid magazines with her breasts falling out of her neckline and Omar’s arm wrapped tightly around her.

Not toxic by any measure.

His chest felt too tight for his own ribs.

And there beside her, lying in a bassinet wrapped up in a swaddling blanket so that only the wisps of jet-black curls on her head poked out above her wrinkled little brown face, was a miracle.

It had been among the hardest things Rihad had ever done, to step aside and let a woman he barely trusted walk across a room to do this work that only she could do. After that scene in the palace, she’d been rushed to the hospital, where the finest doctors in the kingdom had assured them that while the baby was coming a bit early, that didn’t mean anything was wrong with either it or Rihad’s new bride. And sure enough, when Sterling’s exquisitely formed little daughter entered the world at last, she was perfect in every respect. Tiny, perhaps, but utterly, undeniably perfect.

Rihad had been there moments later, to see a woman he’d dismissed as nothing more than callous and calculating beaming down at the scrap of a girl she held in her arms, the look on her face so intimate, so filled with love, it had almost been too much to bear.

He’d had the strangest sensation then—the oddest regret. As if she really was meant to be his. As if this was meant to be his family in more than simply name. As if this was all wrong, somehow—that he should have been there with her, holding her hand, reminding her she wasn’t alone, sharing his strength so hers would seem that much more boundless. Not an intruder into these first moments between mother and child, but a part of it. That was all insane, of course. He’d tried to shake it off as he’d approached her, stiff and formal.

She’d glanced up at him, and that look on her face had altered. That wasn’t a surprise, but still, Rihad had felt it like a blow. Her mouth had flattened when she’d seen him. She’d hidden that naked joy in her gaze.

He’d hated it.

“Her name is Leyla,” Sterling had told him after a moment, as if she’d needed a breath or two to pull herself together before she could speak.

There had been nurses bustling in and out of the birthing suite behind him, doctors being paged incessantly from the intercom out in the corridor, but Sterling had been still. Rihad had had the notion that she’d been waiting for some kind of strike. From him.

As well she should, he’d thought.

It had made that sensation of inexplicable loss yawn open even wider within him. The baby had made tiny noises, more a creaking sound than actual crying, and Sterling had finally relented, her mouth curving into a sweet little smile as she looked down to soothe the little girl that almost undid him. When she’d looked up again, it had almost killed him. He’d never seen that expression on her face before, not even in those happy tabloid pictures of her and Omar. Open. Loving. Soft.

Something like pure.

Even then, at such a tender moment that had nothing at all to do with him, Rihad had wondered what it would be like if that look had been meant for him—and then he’d wondered if he’d utterly lost his mind.

Not if so much as when, he’d told himself then.

“It was Omar’s favorite name for a girl,” she’d continued after a moment, a faint line appearing between her brows. “That’s not… I mean, is there some royal naming tradition I should know about?”

“No.” He’d sounded so stiff. So altered. “Leyla is a lovely name.”

“She’s wonderful,” Sterling had whispered then, bending her face back down to the infant, fierce and maternal—and he’d had to leave. Because he hadn’t known what to do with that roaring, howling thing inside of him, so threaded through with emotions he didn’t know how to process.

Emotions he hardly recognized. What had emotions ever had to do with his life before now? His was a cool world, rational and logical and coldly reasoned. It was his weapon, his strength. The bedrock of his ability to rule his country. He didn’t know what the hell to do with all these feelings. He didn’t know what it made him, that he felt anything at all for this woman or her child. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do with any of it.

He’d waited until night fell before he returned, and he slipped in only after his security detail assured him she slept at last. He told himself a thousand different reasons why that was the proper, even respectful, thing to do for a woman he hardly knew who’d just given birth—but the truth was, he was completely off balance and he knew it. He wasn’t sure he knew himself, was the thing—as if he’d been a stranger to himself since Sterling had walked up to him outside that building half a world away. And that alone was enough to give him pause.

Enough to keep him standing there in the shadows.

The child moved in her swaddling then, making that tiny noise again. Part alien, he thought, and part feline, and still it tugged at him. Rihad moved over to the bassinet before he knew he meant to leave his post across the room, seating himself in the chair beside it.

“Hush, little one,” he murmured, stroking his fingers down the whisper-soft plushness of one newborn cheek, marveling at it as he did. “Let your mother sleep.”

Then he covered the baby’s soft little body with his hand, letting the warmth of his palm seep into the rounded swell of her tiny belly, and sure enough, she quieted. Just as he’d done for his half sister Amaya when she’d been an infant. Just as he remembered watching his mother do to baby Omar when Rihad had been a small boy.

Rihad stayed where he was, gazing down at her sweet face, all those dark curls and the eyes that he’d seen earlier were a liquid black that reminded him of his brother, and tried to make sense of the wild tumult within him.

Like an earthquake, when he knew he wasn’t moving and neither was the ground beneath him. It tore him apart even so, even while he felt little Leyla’s sweet new breaths beneath his hand.

Or perhaps it was because of her.

And he’d been furious for such a long time now. He’d been in a dark, black, consuming rage since he’d gotten that call from the Parisian police. Since he’d had to bury his younger brother so many years before his time. He’d understood it was grief, mixed up somewhere in that terrible rage inside of him, but understanding such a thing hadn’t done much to soothe him or stop the fury. His anger—that Omar had been lost so tragically, at this woman who had twisted him into unrecognizable pieces, at the marriage he’d felt he had no choice but to insist upon no matter how little he might have wished it—had been a living flame, hotter by the day, and he’d stopped wondering when or if it might go out.

It had been so easy to focus it all on Sterling. His brother’s whore, Rihad’s new wife—

But here, now, it was gone. Extinguished completely.

That was what he felt, Rihad realized then. That internal earthquake ripped away his fury and left him with no one to blame. There was only the darkness of fate, the sheer, spinning horror that was his brother’s pointless, untimely death.

And this tiny, perfect child was all that remained of Omar on this earth. This little scrap of life, so new she still bore the wrinkles from the womb, was all that was left of the brother Rihad had only ever wished to protect, from his own debauchery as from anything else.

“I will not fail with you, little one,” he vowed then. “No matter what.”

And it was only when he spoke that he felt the dampness of water on his face. He made no move to wipe it away. Not here in this dark place where no one could see him. Where he could not see himself. Where there was nothing but his grief and this brand-new life he held in his hands.

He felt stretched out taut between the two, the dark and the light. Perhaps he always would.

“I will not fail you again, brother,” he whispered into the night. To Omar, wherever he was now. To the little baby that was all that remained of his brother. To the woman his brother had held above his own family, however little Rihad might understand that. None of that mattered any longer. “I will not fail the family you left behind. This I swear.”

* * *

Sterling woke that first night again and again, jolted awake by some internal panic that had her jackknifing up in her bed in alarm each time. But she found Leyla right there beside her, more beautiful each time she kissed her sweet cheeks or held her surprisingly hot little body against her own skin.

Those first days were a blurry sort of cartwheel through time, when all she could see or hear or focus on at all was this perfect little creature she’d somehow been chosen to bring into the world, and the astonishingly steep learning curve required to take care of her as she deserved—even in the Bakrian palace, where she had all the help she needed. That didn’t alter the weight of the responsibility she felt to this creature she found she loved bigger and wider and better than she’d imagined it was possible to love anything.

Her world shrank down to Leyla, only Leyla, and through her a connection to Omar again, who felt a little bit less lost to her when she held the daughter they’d made in her arms.

Beyond that, there was nothing save the dark, surprisingly quiet man who kept watch over her in his own way, moving in and out of the periphery of all that wasn’t Leyla until Sterling was as close to used to him as she imagined anyone could be around a man as intense and nerve-racking as Rihad.

She’d even dreamed she’d seen him in her room while she slept, watching over her like some guardian angel. She knew it was absurd. She’d given up believing in guardian angels a long time ago, and Rihad was more warrior than angel anyway, but the notion was warming all the same. It made her feel something like safe—and perhaps a woman who hadn’t so recently given birth might have questioned that. Investigated her own feelings, looked for reasons why a man like Rihad felt like safety when she knew perfectly well he was anything but.

As it was, Sterling merely accepted it, forgot about it, and kept her attention on Leyla.

Who, despite that unfurling of love and hope that had swamped Sterling from the moment she’d first seen her, was not gaining the weight she should have in those crucial first days. And for the first three weeks of her life, it was nothing but panic and worry and a terrible battle, no sleep and too many tears, as Sterling tried to breastfeed her and failed.

Again and again, she failed.

All she’d ever wanted was a family of her own, a child she would treat far better than she’d ever been treated herself, and now that Leyla was here she couldn’t even manage to feed her.

When Rihad found her in the chair next to her bed in her suite in the palace, finally bottle-feeding Leyla on the express and stern orders of the palace’s physician, Sterling had finally given up. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a shower, or felt like anything but a great, gristled knot of pain and failure.

Everything hurt. Everywhere. Inside and out. Her battered body and her beat-up heart alike.

But her baby girl, who hadn’t managed to get anything from Sterling’s own breast, was finally feeding hungrily. Almost gleefully. It should have made her feel better, to see that Leyla was obviously going to be fine now that she was able to eat her fill. It did, in a very deep and fundamental way that told her things about how limited her own parents had been.

Yet that had nothing to do with why Sterling was sobbing. Broken into a thousand pieces. Shaking as she held the bottle to Leyla’s busy mouth.

“Why are you crying?” Rihad asked, but in a very nearly gentle tone, unlike anything she’d ever heard from him—which might have set off an alarm or two somewhere inside of her, had she had room to process such things. “Has something happened?”

“Are you here to gloat?” she hurled back at him, tears streaming down her face unchecked because her arms were full of baby and bottle, self-recrimination and regret. “Call me more names? Comment on what a mess I am? How toxic a spill I am now, as you predicted?”

And then she was shocked almost out of her skin when the high and mighty King of Bakri simply reached over and took the baby from her with a matter-of-fact confidence that suggested he’d done exactly that a whole lot more often than Sterling ever had. He held Leyla in the crook of his arm and the bottle in his other hand as competently as any of the nurses who’d been in and out these past weeks. He leaned back against the side of the high bed, held the bottle to the baby’s sweet mouth and fixed his arrogant stare on Sterling once Leyla started suckling enthusiastically once again.

“What names do you imagine I should call you?” he asked mildly. “Do you have new ones in mind or will the old ones do? You seem to recall them so clearly.”

Sterling pulled her legs up beneath her, hugged her knees to her chest in the shapeless, ugly pajamas she’d been wearing for a long time and felt split wide-open with guilt and grief and intense self-loathing.

“Selfish, vain, I don’t know.” Nothing he could call her was worse than what she was calling herself just then. “If I was any kind of real woman, real mother, I would be able to do the most natural thing in the world, wouldn’t I?”

“Give birth?” He sounded completely unemotional, which was maybe why she was able to talk about this at all. The doctor had been so sympathetic it had made Sterling want to scream, then collapse to the floor in a puddle. She didn’t want sympathy. She wanted to know why. She wanted to know exactly how much she was to blame and precisely how correct her foster parents had been when they’d assured her she wasn’t worthy of a real family. “I believe you already did that, and quite well, if this child is any indication.”

Sterling rubbed her palms over her face, somewhat surprised to find herself shaking. “That was the easy part.”

“I’ve never done it myself, I grant you.” His voice was so arid then that it made her tears dry up in response. “But I think it’s a commonly held truth that while labor is undoubtedly many things, easy is not one of them.”

“There was an entire hospital wing’s worth of doctors and nurses right there, advising me and guiding me. I could have been knocked out and they would have done the whole thing without my input or participation.” She knew she was being ridiculous, could tell from the way she felt almost seasick where she sat when she knew she wasn’t moving—but that didn’t change the way she felt. What she knew. She’d told Omar she couldn’t do this, much less without him, and here was the proof. “This is what I needed to do, all by myself. This is what I’m supposed to do and I can’t do it.”

He didn’t respond, that fierce, brooding attention of his on the baby in his arms again—the baby who looked as if she could be his, she realized with a distant sort of jolt. That same rich brown skin, those same fathomless eyes. Because of course a baby of Omar’s would look as if she belonged to Rihad, as well. Why hadn’t she expected the family resemblance? Another kind of jolt hit her that she couldn’t entirely define, so wrapped up was it in all the rest of that storm inside of her.

“At the very least,” she made herself say, because if she didn’t she would break into sobs, “I’m exactly the useless, selfish bitch you already think I am.”

“What I think,” Rihad said after it seemed her words had crowded out all the air in the room and simply hung there like suffocating proclamations of inescapable truths, “is that it would be profoundly selfish indeed to continue to try to do something that isn’t working, against all medical advice, when surely the only goal here is to feed the child. No matter how you manage it.”

“But everybody knows—” she began, almost angrily, because she wanted to believe him more than she could remember wanting anything else, and yet she couldn’t let herself off the hook. She simply couldn’t.

They’d told her all those years ago that she was worthless. Useless. She’d always suspected they were right—

“I was exclusively bottle-fed, as was Omar,” Rihad said then, smooth and inexorable, his dark brows edging high in a kind of regal challenge. “Our mother never intended to breast-feed either one of us. She never did. And no one ever dared suggest that the Queen of Bakri was anything less than a woman, I assure you. Moreover, I seem to have turned out just fine.” His voice was still so dry, and when she only stared back at him, and her tears became salt against her cheeks, he laughed. “You preferred Omar, I understand. But he, too, was a product of the bottle, Sterling.”

Sterling let out a long, slow breath and felt it shudder all the way out, as if he’d picked up a great deal more than simply the baby when he strode in here, and stood there holding all of it off her for the first time in weeks. Maybe that was why she didn’t police herself the way she should have. That and the unwieldy mess of guilt and fear and worry that there was something bent and twisted, something rotten that would ruin her child, too, careening around inside of her.

“I want to be a good mother,” she whispered desperately, as if this man was her priest. As if he really was as safe as he felt just now. “I have to be a good mother to her.”

Because of Omar, yes. Because she owed him that. But it was more than that now. It was also because her own mother had been so useless, so remarkably unequal to the task of having a child. Because Sterling had once been a baby called Rosanna whom everyone had discarded.

And because everything had changed.

She’d been forced across the planet and into a marriage with the last man on earth she’d ever wanted to meet, much less marry. But then she’d given birth to this squalling, angry-faced, tiny demon thing with alien eyes and that fragile little head covered in all those dark curls, and everything had simply…shifted.

She felt twice as big on the inside than she could ever be on the outside, ripped open and wholly altered by a kind of glorious light she hadn’t known could exist. Love, maybe. Hope. Both.

As if windows she hadn’t known were inside of her had been tossed wide-open, and nothing but sunshine streamed in.

And she’d known the instant she’d held her baby against her own skin that she absolutely had to be a good mother to this little girl. To her daughter. No matter what that meant. No matter what it took.

Her eyes met Rihad’s then, over Leyla’s dark little head and soft brown cheeks. This man who detested her, who had never thought she was anything but the worst kind of whore, and had said so. And Rihad’s dark brows edged up that fine, fierce forehead of his even farther, as if he was astonished that she was in any doubt following his stated opinion on the matter.

It occurred to her that there was something the matter with her, that she should find that so comforting.

“You are a good mother,” he replied.

It sounded like one of his royal decrees. And Sterling wanted to believe that, too. Oh, how she wanted to believe it.

“You can’t know that,” she argued, her palm moving to rub against that ache in her chest she didn’t understand, in the very place where Leyla’s hot head had first rested. She scowled at him instead, because it was easier. “And the fact I can’t nurse my own child certainly suggests otherwise.”

“This is the great beauty of living in a monarchy, Sterling.” His lips twitched, which on anyone else she might have called the beginnings of a smile, or even laughter—but this was Rihad. “The only opinion on the subject—on any subject, in fact—that matters at all is mine. Are you not relieved? If I say you are an excellent mother, that is not merely a social nicety I am extending to my brand-new wife on a trying afternoon for her. It is an edict, halfway to a law.”

“But—”

“Go,” he ordered her. He lifted his chin in that commanding way of his when she only blinked back at him as if he’d lapsed into Arabic. “Take a shower. A bath. A walk outside. Sleep as much as possible and let others worry about this one. She will be fine, even if you let her out of your sight. This I promise.”

Leyla hadn’t been out of Sterling’s reach since her birth. Not even once. “But I can’t—”

“This is the royal palace,” he reminded her gently. Yet still with that implacable steel beneath his words. “I am perfectly capable of watching an infant but I don’t have to do that, either, because we have an extensive and very well-paid nursing staff here to tend to her every possible need. Which you might have noticed over the past three weeks had you not been so determined to drive yourself into the ground.”

“But—”

“Martyrdom is actually a far less endearing trait than many people seem to imagine, Sterling. And it always ends the same unpleasant and painful way.” His voice was all steel again then, and dark command besides. “Let the nurses do their jobs.”

“I don’t need them,” she argued, though she was so tired she thought she might fall off into sleep right where she sat, if she let herself. As if sleep was a cliff and she’d been balancing on the edge of it for weeks now, unsteadily. “Leyla is my daughter.”

“Leyla is also a royal princess of the House of Bakri,” Rihad said, with all that innate power of his she hadn’t forgotten, exactly, but had certainly stopped noting in the past few weeks. There was no noting anything else then, not when he sounded like that—as if he truly was issuing edicts he expected her to follow. “There is nothing, no accommodation or luxury or whim, that is not available to her at a moment’s notice.”

His dark gold gaze moved over hers, seeing things Sterling feared she was too tired to hide the way she should. And she was definitely suffering from sleep deprivation, she told herself, because there was no way Rihad would actually look at her the way he seemed to be then, with an expression that veered far too close to tenderness.

But that was impossible. She was delirious.

“You do not have to do this by yourself, Sterling,” he said quietly. “Especially not here in the royal palace. I don’t know what you think you have to prove.”

She knew exactly what she felt she had to prove, but she couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t tell anyone, but she especially couldn’t tell Rihad—and not only, she assured herself, because this was the nicest, warmest interaction she’d had with the man since she’d met him. But also because he wasn’t her confidante. He was her husband, yes, but only in the broadest sense of the term. There was no relationship, no trust. There wasn’t even affection, despite that odd light she’d imagined in his gaze just then. There was no intimacy.

Only that one kiss, she thought, the memory prickling over and into her, like gooseflesh rising along her arms. She’d almost forgotten it.

Perhaps she’d wanted to forget it, as there was no making sense of it.

She shoved it away again now, as his too-incisive gaze rested on hers as if he was also reliving those strange, wild moments with his mouth hard on hers. She needed sleep, that was all. Especially before she started thinking about things that made no sense—things she’d been so certain were purely hormonal and would disappear when she was no longer pregnant.

Maybe that kiss was still something she needed to sleep on, she thought then, as a different sort of shiver moved through her. Maybe it was something she needed at least a long shower and a good night’s rest to consider. Or maybe it was better by far—safer, certainly—to pretend it had never happened.

But either way Sterling stopped arguing and did as he’d told her.

Carrying that image, of the ruthless and terrible Rihad al Bakri cradling her tiny infant daughter in his strong arms, from the long, hot shower and straight on into her dreams.

CHAPTER SIX

“I OWE YOU an apology, Rihad,” Sterling said, her voice crisp and matter-of-fact.

She’d worked hard to make it that way. To sound businesslike, which suited this strange marital arrangement of theirs instead of actually apologetic, which did not. Apologetic was far too emotional.

They sat out in the fantastical garden that was the king’s private retreat in the center of the palace. Lush plants tangled with brightly colored flowers around three separate fountains, while gentle canopies covered the different seating areas tucked into this little bit of wilderness hidden away inside the palace complex. It was possibly the most beautiful thing Sterling had ever seen.

Then again, so was Rihad—not that it was at all smart to let herself think along those lines.

It’s like admiring the tapestries in my suite, she told herself today, sitting across from him at the graceful iron table where their breakfast had been laid out for them, the way it was every summer morning. That he’s beautiful is a fact, not an emotional thing at all, and certainly doesn’t take away from how terrible he always was to Omar.

But when he glanced up from the tablet computer where he’d been scrolling through something the way he often did, she felt too hot and looked away, and only partially because his dark gold gaze seemed harsher than usual today. She looked toward the nearest fountain that had been made to resemble a tropical waterfall, gurgling down over slick, shiny rocks to form a small, inviting pool Rihad had once told her she was welcome to make use of whenever she wished.

Yet somehow, despite the fact this man had seen her at her worst, dirty and crazy and sobbing and wild, the idea of him seeing her in anything like a bathing suit—splashing around in front of him or, worse, with him—made her heart thud too hard inside her chest. She chose to ignore that, the way she always did.

She ignored more and more by the day, she knew. And it was only getting worse.

They had taken to having their meals together here in the weeks since Rihad had forcibly removed Leyla from her arms and insisted Sterling take care of herself. Well. It was more that Rihad had decreed that they would take their meals here, whenever it was possible with his schedule, and Sterling hadn’t had it in her to object.

You didn’t want to object, a voice deep inside of her whispered. Or you would have.

“It seems I must keep an eye on you,” he’d said when he’d informed her of this new schedule. She’d been fresh from her first full night of sleep since Leyla’s birth and had felt drunk with it. Like a different person.

And he had looked at her in a way that had made her breath catch, as if he’d truly wanted nothing more than to take care of her. As if he really was some kind of guardian angel—though she knew better. She did.

Life had shifted all around her in these strange months since Leyla’s birth, then settled into a new form altogether. Sterling slept well at last. She spent her days with the baby and the fleet of cheerful, efficient nurses Rihad had acquired and who made Sterling feel like twice the mother she suspected she was. She took long walks around the palace and the surrounding grounds and gardens, sometimes pushing Leyla’s buggy and sometimes on her own, enjoying how much more like herself she felt by the day.

How oddly content she felt, here in her forced marriage to a man she’d vowed years ago to hate forever, no matter if Omar had or not. She’d been happy to carry that torch. She’d meant it on their wedding day when she’d told Rihad she hated him.

And then you kissed him.

But she didn’t want to think about that.

The presence of the nurses meant she had time to read again, to exchange emails with her friends in New York, to reacquaint herself with the life she’d put on hold when Omar had died. She started to imagine what might come next for her. She got back in touch with the foundation she’d worked with to aid foster children once they aged out of the system and found in the various responses to her marriage that things were very different now.

Omar’s friends, perhaps predictably, felt betrayed.

I understand why you’d feel that way, she emailed one after the next, trying hard to hold on to her patience—because where had they all been when she’d tried to run from Rihad? They’d texted, yes. Called. But not one of them had actually shown up that morning to help a heavily pregnant woman escape her fate.

Her entire plan had been to disappear somewhere and hope for the best. That had worked out well enough when she’d been fifteen and on her own—or in any case, she’d survived—but would it have been fair to Leyla? Sterling might have been married against her will, but a little bit of distance and a whole lot more sleep had made her think that having Leyla’s future assured was what mattered. That it was the only thing that mattered—and no matter that it was Omar’s infamously judgmental brother who’d made that possible.

But give me some credit, she’d chided Omar’s old friends—her old friends, too, not that anyone seemed to remember that while busy picking sides. Leyla is a princess and Bakri is a part of her birthright she can only access if legitimate. That’s all this marriage is: legitimacy for Leyla.

The charities and foundations she’d worked with who’d known her as Omar’s lover, by contrast, were ecstatic at the notion of working with the Queen of Bakri—a title Sterling hadn’t fully realized was hers to claim now.

Maybe a little bit too ecstatically, she’d thought only that morning, when yet another solicitation had hit her inbox.

It was only then that she realized that Rihad was staring at her across the table, and that she had no idea how much time had passed since she’d last spoken.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You told me you wished to apologize and then lapsed into silence,” he replied, mildly enough—though once again, there was a gleam in the dark gold of his gaze that reminded her what a dangerous man he was. That suggested he was waiting for something as he watched her. “I thought perhaps you were rendered mute by the enormity of your sins.”

“My sins have been widely overexaggerated, I think.” It had been two months since that kiss she found herself thinking about much more than she should. It was something about his mouth, crooked slightly in that sardonic way of his that thudded through her. “I wanted to apologize for falling apart the way I did in the first place. It’s taken me weeks to realize just how out of it I was.”

Rihad shifted in his seat, his strong fingers toying with the steaming cup of rich coffee before him on the table. And though the baby slept happily in her little buggy beside Sterling’s chair, Sterling had the sudden, crazy desire to wake her up—so there would be something else to concentrate on, something other than the way this lethal man was looking at her. A distraction from all of this intensity that swirled between them like the desert heat itself.

“And here I thought your apology would be for telling all your American friends that our marriage was a fake.”

She blinked. “What?”

A deeper, darker crook of that mouth. “I think you heard me.”

“Yes, but…” Had he been reading her email? But even if he had been, and she wasn’t sure she’d put it past him, she’d never said that. Never quite that. “I never said that. Not to anyone.”

“Were you misquoted, then?” He slid his tablet computer across the table to her. “Show me where, and I will notify my attorneys at once.”

Sterling swiped her finger across the screen and stared down at the page that opened before her, from a famously snide tabloid paper.

Queen of the Rebound screamed the headline. Then beneath it:

Sexy Sterling uses famous wiles to bewitch Omar’s grieving brother, the King of Bakri, but tells pals back home: “This marriage is for Baby Leyla. It’s all for show.”

The worst part, Sterling thought as she glared down at the offensive article and felt her stomach drop to her feet, was that she had no idea which of the people she’d thought were her friends had betrayed her.

“You understand that this is problematic, do you not?” he asked, still in that mild tone—though she was starting to see that there were other truths in that hard gleam in his eyes, in the tense way he held that mouthwatering body of his as he sat there in one of those dark suits of his that some artist of a tailor had crafted to perfectly flatter every hard plane, every ripple of muscle. Every inch of sensual male threat that emanated from him, made worse because of the luxurious trappings.

“It’s a tabloid,” she said dismissively, because she might note that threat in him but for some reason, it didn’t frighten her. Quite the opposite. “It’s their job to be problematic. It’s our job to ignore them.”

“I would ordinarily agree with you,” Rihad said, so reasonably that she almost nodded along, almost lulled by his tone despite the way her pulse leaped in her veins. “But this is a delicate situation.”

She deliberately misunderstood him, sliding the tablet back toward him and returning her attention to the selection of fruit and thick yogurt, flaky pastries and strong coffee, as if that was the most important thing she could possibly concentrate on just then: her breakfast. And so what if she wasn’t hungry?

“This is tabloid nonsense, nothing more,” she said, as calmly as she could. “Nothing delicate about it, I’m afraid. They like to smash at things until they break, then claim they were broken all along. Surely you know this.”

He didn’t speak for a moment and she tried to pretend that didn’t get to her—but eventually she couldn’t help herself and glanced up again, to find Rihad watching her too closely with a narrow sort of gaze, as if he was trying to puzzle her out.

She swallowed hard, and she couldn’t tell if it was because she wanted to keep her secrets hidden from him, or if she wanted to lay them all out before him in a gesture so suicidal it should have traumatized her even to imagine it. Yet somehow, it didn’t.

“The whole world knows that Leyla is Omar’s daughter, not mine, no matter that my name is on her birth certificate,” he said, after a moment, when she was beginning to imagine she might simply crack open.

“Did I know that you put your name on the birth certificate?” Sterling asked, shocked and taken aback, somehow, at that little revelation. “I don’t think I did.”

She remembered his look of dark impatience, though she hadn’t seen it in a while. That made it all the more effective today.

“Exactly what sort of legitimacy did you imagine I meant to convey on your child when I married you?”

“I guess the sort where we’re not completely erasing Omar from his daughter’s life.” She reached over and fiddled with the hem of the blanket that drooped over the side of the buggy, though Leyla still slept soundly and no adjustments were needed.

“It is a legal maneuver, nothing more,” Rihad said, his tone harsher than it had been in months, but that couldn’t be why her chest felt tight. It shouldn’t matter to her either way. “But you’re making my point for me. Omar has not been erased in any meaningful way. Everyone knows who fathered Leyla. Her place might be assured on paper and in the courts, but in the eyes of the Bakrian people and, more important, our enemies, her legitimacy must come from us.”

“Us?”

“Us. Me, their king, and you, my brand-new and deeply controversial queen.”

She shied away from that term, scowling at him instead. “I don’t like that word.”

“Which one?” His voice was so dry then. So dark and compelling. “Us? Controversial?”

“Queen.” Her scowl deepened. “It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t fit the situation at all.”

She meant it didn’t fit her, trash dressed up in an unearned crown—and she had the strangest notion he knew exactly what she meant. His dark gold gaze almost hurt against hers.

“And yet it is your title, accorded to you with all due deference two months ago when you married the King of Bakri. That would be me, in case you’re not following this conversation, willfully or otherwise.”

“But I don’t want to be your—”

“Enough,” Rihad said then, cutting her off.

He sat back in his chair, never shifting those mesmerizing eyes of his from hers, looking dark and terrible and entirely too fascinating, from that brusque nose of his to his strong jaw and all that rich brown skin in between. She wanted to lean closer to him, explore him—and hated herself.

“I don’t care what you call yourself, Sterling. You are my queen either way. I suggest you accept it.” When she didn’t respond, that light in his gaze sharpened and made it a little too hard to breathe. “I think you understand perfectly well that we cannot allow any speculation that this marriage is fake to fester. It serves no one but our enemies.”

She felt oddly fragile. “Why do you keep talking about enemies?”

“The kingdom has been rocked by one scandal after the next and we are weak.” His gaze sharpened. “My father’s tumultuous love affairs. My wife’s death without giving me any heirs. Omar’s notorious mistress that he flaunted in the tabloids and his refusal to come back home and do his duty. My sister’s betrothal to Kavian of Daar Talaas, which she responded to by running away—”

“I like her already.”

“Amaya was a successful runaway, Sterling. She’s managed to avoid both my security and Kavian’s for months. Kavian will no doubt run out of patience with her, and when he does? Our countries will not unite and if they do not, Bakri will fall. There are too many other powers in the area that want our location and our shipping prowess, and we cannot possibly keep them all at bay alone.”

“You’re talking about your enemies.” She lifted her chin as she held that harsh gaze of his. “The only enemy I’ve ever been aware of was you.”

“I am talking about our enemies.” He nodded toward the tablet. “Or do you imagine that whatever ‘pal’ sold that story is your friend? Will they take you in when I am imprisoned and you—if you are lucky—are a royal Bakrian in exile?”

Sterling opened her mouth to argue when something else occurred to her. That wild kiss swelled up in her again, a tactile memory. Searing through her as if it had only just happened. Flooding her with sensory images, with yearning, all over again.

“Is this really because you’re worried about how our marriage is perceived?” she asked him. “Because of enemies? Or is it because you want to get into my pants?”

He didn’t move a muscle. She knew that because she was watching him so closely that she could see it when he breathed. He didn’t even tense. And yet he seemed to explode outward, becoming twice his size and a thousand times more dangerous, like some kind of mystical being let loose from its cage at last.

And every single cell in Sterling’s body shivered to red alert.

She was flushed with the heat of it. Her skin seemed to ache for his touch. Her breasts felt too heavy and the taut peaks pulled tight. Inside of her, there was a low, hot humming that coiled between her legs and pulsed. Hard and wet. Ready.

It was the most carnal experience of her entire life.

It was the only carnal experience she’d ever had, save that last kiss.

And they weren’t even touching.

* * *

That he did not turn over the table between them and taste her again right now was, Rihad thought, the only evidence remaining that he had once been a civilized man.

He thought too much about his enemies as it was. He did not want to think about Sterling’s pants. He did not want to think about that body of hers that had redefined grace while heavily pregnant and now… She was difficult to look away from.

He found he rarely did.

Rihad did not want to think about the way he fought himself to keep from touching her, because he was determined to make this marriage work in some fashion or another, the way it had with his first wife. He and Tasnim had been friends, after a fashion. They’d eased into the physical aspects of their marriage and had worked on their friendship first. He’d decided at some point during the first days of gorgeous little Leyla’s life that he owed her mother no less, no matter how they’d come to find themselves married.

But that did not explain why he took himself in hand each morning in his shower to slake his growing need. And it certainly did not explain the tempting array of images he tortured himself with as he did so.

His voice was quiet when he finally answered her, and it cost him. “Can’t I be preoccupied with both the perception of our marriage and ‘getting in your pants,’ as you so charmingly put it?”

“Unlikely. Men are more often focused on the one thing above all else.”

“That shows how little you know me. I am not merely a man. I am a king.”

“I know you enough, Your Majesty.”

Her blue eyes rivaled the summer sun above them, and yet even when she looked straight at him he was certain he could see the walls she kept up, high and bolstered. He loathed them more and more each day. He wanted them knocked down. And he was entirely too aware that the urge was not exactly friendly.

“And besides,” she continued, her voice light, “you don’t really want into these pants anyway.” She let out a self-deprecating laugh and waved her free hand in the general direction of her midsection. “Everything’s gone a little crazy after giving birth.”

He snorted. “Self-deprecation does not suit you, Sterling.”

She frowned at him, and he saw her ball her hands into fists, then drop them in her lap. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you were gifted with the sort of genetics that make most women green with envy, as I suspect you are aware.” He shifted in his chair and let his gaze move all over her, which was not exactly an improvement for that wild hunger battering at him from within. Because she had been so beautiful when they’d met that she’d made Manhattan disappear so he could better admire her. And she grew more beautiful by the day. And the fact that she was no longer big with her pregnancy was the least part of that. “You gained a minimal amount of weight while carrying Leyla, lost most of it while giving birth to her and are probably healthier now than when you got pregnant in the first place. If the fashionably gaunt pictures I’ve seen of you back then are any guide.”

He saw emotions he couldn’t name flit across her face, one after the next, and he hated that he couldn’t read them. Or her. That she defied him even now, without a single word, by simple virtue of remaining opaque.

Rihad couldn’t have said when he’d begun to find that intolerable.

“I’ll thank you to keep your comments on my body to yourself.”

He smiled, and then wider when he saw the spray of goose bumps rise along her bare arms. “Unfortunately for you, Sterling, you are mine. And I take a keen interest in the welfare of the things that belong to me, whether that means trade prospects in my cities or my wife’s form.”

She was flushed, he noted, and he was sure that if he mentioned it she would claim it was disgust. Distress. But he didn’t believe that.

“How delightfully medieval.”

And he enjoyed this, Rihad realized with a thud. He liked her sharp tone, her icy wit, even if it was at his expense. Because Sterling was the only person he’d ever met who dared speak to him this way.

Perhaps there was something wrong with him after all, that he should enjoy it—her—so much.

“Your body is fine, Sterling,” he told her, as much to see her draw herself up in outrage as anything else. He made a show of drinking from his coffee cup, then setting it down, for the sheer pleasure of watching temper crack through those blue eyes of hers like lightning. “You’re not a model any longer. You certainly don’t need to keep yourself so drawn and skeletal.” He smiled again, and he could feel the wolf in it. “If you want to dissuade me from making advances on you, you’ll have to come up with something better than that.”

Her lips quivered and her gaze flashed dark, with something he didn’t understand. He was fascinated all the same.

“How about this.” Her voice was fierce, almost aggressive, but that only deepened his fascination. “Don’t make advances on me at all. I don’t want you.”

He watched her for a moment. He waited, and sure enough, she flushed again, brighter and delightfully redder than before.

“Now, that’s just an outright lie,” he murmured.

And she looked away, because he was right. And she hated it. And he loved that he could read that as easily as the text on his tablet.

“Is this where you force me again?” she asked tightly, her eyes on the pool nearest the table while her body shouted out all the ways she was a liar, again and again, as if it was in collusion with Rihad. “Because that was so much fun when you called it a wedding.”

He laughed then and saw her jolt with surprise. She turned back to him, her gaze unreadable again, but he’d come to a decision. The friendship angle had been fine these past months. It had been appropriate. The woman had just had another man’s child—and lost that man to a tragic accident besides. But it was time to move on.

Rihad stood, aware of the way her eyes clung to him as he moved, very much as if she was finding his body as much a temptation as he found hers.

“We’ll have a honeymoon, I think,” he said, and watched her shift restlessly in her chair, the truth in the pink bloom on her cheeks. “You and me for two weeks in the desert, with a thousand opportunities for intimacy.”

“What?” She sounded panicked, and he was not a civilized creature, he realized. Not at all, because he liked that. “Intimacy? Why would you want that?”

“Perception.” He shrugged. “Of course, it will be widely assumed that you’re merely pandering to my base, animal instincts with that famously lush body of yours. Men are beasts, are they not? And I am no better than my brother when it comes to your seductive powers.”

“Yes, you are!” Sterling looked alarmed. “You live to resist me! Or you should.”

“I am unfamiliar with weakness,” he told her, and he didn’t care if that truth hit her as arrogance. It didn’t make it any less true. “But in this case, succumbing to the practiced charms of a known seductress is a weakness I am prepared to allow the world to dissect at their leisure.” He eyed her aghast expression. “Doesn’t that sound like a wonderful story for your tabloid-loving friends to sell far and wide?”

Her voice was scratchy when she answered, and her eyes were much too bright with a heat he wanted to bathe himself in. “It sounds heinous. And completely unbelievable anyway.”

“Why don’t you ask me the question?” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers, because he doubted she’d appreciate it if he put them on her. Yet.

“Why are you so awful?” Sterling asked at once, her voice sharp but with that storm in her blue eyes. “But I already know the answer, of course. Because you can be.”

“That’s not the question you want to ask.”

Sterling stared back at him. He heard the summer breeze high above them, dancing through the plants and the trees, and the running water all around them, like songs. He saw her pulse hammer against the delicate skin of her neck and wanted nothing more than to press his mouth to it, as if he could taste her excitement. He saw her hands open and then bunch into fists again, as if she couldn’t control them.

She sat up straighter. Squared her shoulders. Tilted up her chin.

“So we’ll simply go out to the desert for a little while. Spend the time out there so people think…whatever they want to think. Call it a honeymoon so the whole world leaps to the same conclusion. That we’re together in more ways than one. A unit.”

“Yes.”

She swallowed, hard. “You won’t… I mean, we won’t…”

“I have no intention of forcing you to consummate this marriage,” he said bluntly, and he told himself it wasn’t fair to think she should already know that he was not that kind of man. It didn’t help when she sagged in her chair in exaggerated relief. “Have I given you cause to imagine otherwise?”

“You kidnapped me,” she pointed out, though what he noticed was how little heat there was in it. “You married me against my will. You’ll forgive me if I’m not entirely certain where you draw that line.”

He took his time moving around the table. Her eyes widened, but stayed fast to his, and she made a squeaking sort of noise that reminded him of Leyla when he pulled her chair out from the table and then around to face him, so he could brace himself on its arms and put his face directly into hers.

And God help him, but it was sweet.

“Bringing you to Bakri and marrying you before you bore a royal Bakrian child outside of wedlock was my duty,” he told her, dark and serious, though he was far more fascinated by the high color on her cheeks than was wise. “Containing the scandal that you represent is my responsibility. But what happens between us now?”

“Nothing is happening! There’s no us for anything to be between!”

He ignored her. “That has nothing to do with duty.” Rihad leaned in closer, so close he could have easily tasted that seductive mouth of hers, yet he held himself back. “That has everything to do with need.”

“I have no needs,” she said, but then she shivered, and Rihad smiled.

“I won’t force you, Sterling,” he told her with quiet intent. “I won’t need to.”

She stared back at him. No snappy comeback. No sharp wit. Wide blue eyes and that pulse of hers a wild staccato in her neck. And he wanted her more than he could recall wanting anything, for all that she was a wild card, a loose woman, a problem to be solved. He accepted all of that.

“But first,” he said, “it’s time to talk about Omar.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

STERLING GAPED AT HIM, her head spinning madly at the sudden shift in conversation and her stomach in a new, hard knot.

“You look at me as if you expect me to transform into a monster where I stand,” Rihad pointed out with a certain gruffness, almost as if that wounded him. She told herself she was imagining it. “All fangs and claws and evil intent.”

“I’m not sure you haven’t already done so.”

That mouth of his crooked into something not quite a smile. He reached over and tucked a stray tendril of her copper-blond hair behind one ear, and neither one of them moved for a long, shattering instant.

Then he straightened to his full height, but she could still see that steely glint in his dark gold eyes, the potency of his gaze undiminished.

“I am not going to go on a honeymoon, whether real or for show, with a woman whose head is filled with another man, Sterling. It’s time you told me about my brother and your relationship with him.”

He didn’t object when she pushed back the chair and surged to her feet, hurriedly stepping away from him. He only watched her as she went, and that shattering thing between them seemed to expand into a taut, terrible grip around her heart. But she made herself stand straighter.

“I don’t think you really want to have that conversation,” she told him as evenly as she could. “You’re unlikely to hear anything you like.”

Sterling wasn’t sure she wanted to have it, either. She felt too guilty, too ashamed. No matter what she might have told their friends or herself, this wasn’t what Omar would have wanted. He’d left Bakri for a reason. This—all of this, everything that had happened since the accident—was a stark betrayal of the best friend she’d ever had. The only family she’d ever known.

And that fire inside of her, that terrible flame when she looked at Rihad that she didn’t know what to do with, was worse.

“This is not the first time you have insinuated that I harmed my brother in some way,” Rihad said darkly. “Why? What is your evidence for this?”

She shook her head, as if she could shake him away that easily, and all his questions, too. “Don’t act the innocent, Rihad. It isn’t a good fit.”

“You mistake innocence for intent, I think. It’s time to stop talking in circles, Sterling. If you wish to accuse me of something, do it to my face.”

He smiled again then, lethally, and she felt it everywhere.

And she’d forgotten this, hadn’t she? She’d been lulled into a false sense of security because there’d been nothing in her head but Leyla and he’d been so encouraging, so supportive, since the day she’d been born. They’d eaten their meals together these past months and talked about a thousand things, like any other civilized strangers who happened to be married to each other. Books, art. The cities they’d seen, the places they’d visited, from Cannes to the Seychelles to Patagonia.

She’d learned that he had been a solemn child and an even more serious young man, studious and focused in all things. She’d discovered that he had played a great deal of soccer and the occasional game of rugby all the way through university, but only for sport, as he’d always known his future. His place.

“That must have been nice,” she’d said once. Perhaps too wistfully. “To have no doubt what direction you were headed in, no matter what.”

He’d eyed her across their dinner and the candles that had lined the table and she’d shivered, though she hadn’t been cold.

“Who can say if it was nice or not?” he’d replied after a moment, as if he’d never thought about it before that instant. “It was all I knew.”

She’d started to think of this man as something like pleasant. She’d started to imagine that this forced-marriage thing might not be quite so terrible after all. But she’d been kidding herself. This was Rihad al Bakri. He was the most dangerous man she’d ever encountered.

How had she allowed herself to forget that?

“Fine,” she said staunchly now, telling herself this had always been inevitable. That they had always been heading straight here. “Let’s talk about Omar.”

Sterling crossed her arms, wishing she didn’t feel so compelled to dress each time she knew she would see him, including the airy sundress she wore now that felt a bit unequal to the conversation. She told herself fashion and beauty were armor, the way they had been when she’d been a model and the point was to look at the clothes, not the woman in them. And they were—but that wasn’t the only reason she did it these days.

The depressing truth was that back then she’d liked to hide in the glare of any spotlight that might have been focused on her. But here in this far-off palace that sometimes felt like a dream over these past months, she liked it when he saw her. When he got that gleam in his dark gold eyes that told her he appreciated what he saw. Even now.

She had so many reasons to hate herself that Sterling couldn’t understand why she hadn’t started overflowing where she stood. Like a backed-up sewer. That was precisely how she felt, clogged and wrong.

“Wonderful.” His gaze was so dark. So intense. “Let’s begin with why Omar persisted in his relationship with you across all these years. He defied his family and his country, abandoned his duties and broke our father’s heart into a thousand pieces. That was unaccountable enough. Yet he never married you, never claimed you in the eyes of the world. Never stood up for you in any way when he knew perfectly well his affair with you was scandalous. Not even when you fell pregnant.”

“You’re relentless.” But she said that as if it was only to be expected, without any particular heat. “Omar was the best man I ever knew. The kindest and the bravest. He stood up for me in ways you can’t imagine.”

“My imagination is remarkably vivid.” His voice was cool. “Why don’t you try me?”

“Maybe Omar and I didn’t want to get married, Rihad.” She sighed when he only gazed at her in arrogant disbelief. “Maybe not everyone is as traditional as you are. In some places, it’s the twenty-first century.”

“I have no doubt that you and Omar lived a delightfully modern and unconventional life in every possible way, cavorting about New York City in all that marvelous limelight for so many years.” He eyed her in a way she didn’t much like then. “But your pregnancy should have snapped him back to the reality that, like it or not, he was a Bakrian royal who owed legitimacy to his own child. Why didn’t it?”

“Perhaps he assumed you would swoop in like the Angel of Death and sort it all out to suit yourself,” she said coolly. Then threw a smile, sharp and icy, back at him. “And look at that. You did.”

“Do you think these little games you seem determined to keep playing will distract me from getting your answer, Sterling? They won’t, I promise you. Why didn’t he marry you?”

His whole bearing had gotten colder and more regal as he stood there, his gaze a demanding thing that beat at her, and she believed him. She believed that he would keep asking that same question, again and again, until she finally answered it. That he would stand here an eternity if that was what it took. That he was like the great desert that surrounded his country on three sides, monolithic and impassable, and deeply treacherous besides.

“He wanted to marry me,” Sterling said after a moment. Then she raised her gaze to meet his again and forced herself not to show him any of the emotion that swirled around inside of her. “I refused.”

Rihad laughed. Not at all nicely. It set her teeth on edge, as she imagined it had been meant to do, and she had to order herself to unclench her jaw before she broke something.

“Of course you did.” His tone then was so dark, so sardonic, it felt like another one of his disturbingly sensual touches inside of her. “He begged you, I imagine, and you nobly rebuffed him, in the vein of all gold diggers and materialistic mistresses across the ages.”

He didn’t quite roll his eyes. His derisive tone meant he didn’t have to. But Sterling felt sharpened all the same then. Honed into some kind of blade by that dismissive tone of his.

“I know it’s hard for you to believe, Rihad. I know it flies directly in the face of all the fantasies you have about social-climbing sluts like me. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Omar would have married me in a heartbeat. I was the one with reservations.”

“The prospect of becoming a Bakrian princess was too onerous for you? It seemed too much of a thankless chore?” There was that lash in his voice then that should have made her crumble, but she only tilted up her chin and glared back at him. “You were already living off him. Why not make it legal and continue to do so forever?”

“You’re such a small man, for a king,” she said softly, and had the satisfaction of watching his eyes blaze at the insult. This was the man she’d met in New York. This was the man who had sparred with her in that SUV. It was absurd that some part of her thrilled to see him again, as if she’d missed him. “Or maybe all kings are the same. What do I know? Obsessed with all these tiny details, territories and tabloids, that make them what they are. Life is a great deal richer and more complicated than that.”

He studied her for a moment, and Sterling stared right back at him. There was something about the way he was looking at her, about the particular quality of that dark temper she could see inhabiting his gorgeous face just then. If he’d been any other man—if she’d been any other woman—she’d have thought it was some kind of jealousy.

But that made absolutely no sense.

“Give me one good reason you wouldn’t marry my brother,” Rihad growled after a moment or two inched by and still they stood there, faced off like enemy combatants. “You are a woman with no family. No support.”

Did he know that was a sore spot for her? Or had he scored a lucky hit? Sterling sucked in a breath and hoped against hope he hadn’t noticed.

But his dark eyes gleamed. He noticed everything.

“A marriage to Omar would have changed all that. Even were you to eventually divorce, and even if you’d signed away everything ahead of time as our attorneys would have made certain you did, you would always have remained a part of the kingdom. Your child would always be a member of the royal family. Why would a woman like you turn down that kind of security?”

A woman like you. That phrase rolled around and around inside of her, picking up all the mud and grime of all the other people in her life who had said something like that to her. No one could want a child like you, her foster parents had told her. Girls like you are only good for one thing, her first, sleazy modeling contact had told her. I should have known a bird like you would land on her feet, a British photographer friend of Omar’s had sneered in an email only yesterday.

Omar had been the only person she’d ever met who had never, ever, put her in that kind of box. Sterling told herself she had to focus. This was about him, not her. This was about his life—the one he’d wanted to live, not the one his overbearing brother thought he should have lived.

Maybe there wasn’t much a woman like her could do to a king, but she could certainly defend her best friend.

“You don’t know anything about your brother, do you? You never did.”

“I’m growing impatient,” Rihad growled. “If you want to continue to talk in circles, that’s your prerogative. But I will make no promises about my reaction to that. What I can promise you is that you are unlikely to like it very much.”

Sterling took a deep breath.

And then she told him Omar’s secret. At last.

“Omar was gay.”

* * *

If Sterling had reached beneath that maddeningly flowy dress she wore and pulled out a gun, then shot it directly into his heart, Rihad could not have been more shocked.

And for a long, tense moment, it felt as if she’d done exactly that.

The report from her statement echoed so loudly it drowned out the world. It made the breezes still, the far-off noise of the palace and the city beyond fade. Even the water in the fountains seemed to run dry for what seemed like a very long time.

Then she laughed, but it was a bitter, accusing sort of sound. It made him feel worse. Like a monster.

“Is that not what you were looking for, Rihad? I’m so sorry. Not everyone lives according to your narrow standards of behavior.”

“Explain this to me.” He didn’t sound like himself. He sounded like some gruff, autocratic mockery of the person he’d thought he was instead. He knew it. He could hear it. But he didn’t care. Not at that moment.

She glared at him. “Sometimes, Rihad, when little princes grow up and want to play with others, they don’t want to play with the little princesses as much as the—”

“Explain your relationship with him,” he snapped.

“This is ridiculous.” She rocked back on her heels and scowled at him. “You didn’t grow up beneath a rock. I don’t have to explain the world to you. You might choose to act as if it hasn’t moved on from the Stone Age here, but you know perfectly well that’s a choice you’re making, not the truth.”

“I don’t require that you explain the world to me. Only my brother.”

He shook his head, frowning, as every conversation he’d ever had with Omar raced through his head, one after the next. Every time Rihad had brought up Sterling, Omar had shrugged it off.

“She is necessary, brother,” he’d said. He’d never explained that assertion any further—and Rihad had thought him besotted. Bewitched. Led about by his most sensitive parts by a scandalous woman. It was a tale as old as time. As old as their own father, certainly.

It had never crossed his mind that this notorious woman, this walking sexual fantasy who had been the torment of thousands the world over in those coyly sensual perfume advertisements that had made her name, could possibly have been Omar’s beard.

Yet he believed her, and that meant she’d been exactly that, and he’d fallen for it. To the detriment of his own relationship with his brother.

“I think that if you could see the look on your face right now, you would understand why he felt this was necessary,” Sterling said coolly. “Omar didn’t dare tell you. He hid in plain sight and used one of the oldest tricks in the book.” She raised one hand and made the kind of imperious gesture in his direction that made him all but see red. “That exact expression.”

“I have no idea what you think you see on my face,” he gritted out. “But let me tell you what’s behind it. Shock.”

She scowled. “There is absolutely nothing wrong—”

“That he didn’t tell me,” Rihad threw at her. “That he felt he needed to sever his relationship with his own family. That he felt he needed to keep this secret all these years.”

“How could he possibly tell you?” she demanded, and he could see how much she’d cared for Omar in that fiercely defensive light in her blue eyes then, and everything inside him tilted. Slid. Because Rihad had only ever wanted to be that kind of support for his brother, and he’d failed him. “The only thing you ever talked to him about was what a disappointment he was. How he had let you down by not racing off to get married and have babies the way you thought he should. Having Leyla was his attempt to pacify you and I wouldn’t marry him because I thought he deserved more from his life. I thought he could do better than living a lie.”

“But this is what I do not understand.” Rihad raked his hands through his hair and had the odd notion that he was a stranger to himself. If his brother had been an entirely different man than the one he pretended he was, what else could be a lie dressed up like the truth? He felt cut off at his knees. Adrift in the middle of his own palace, where he had always known exactly what and who he was. “Why go to such lengths to live this lie?”

“I haven’t gotten the impression that Bakri is renowned for its open-mindedness,” Sterling said in that sharp way of hers that he enjoyed a bit less than usual then. “Much less its king. And I’ve only been here a few months.”

“I can understand why he would not wish to tell our father,” Rihad said, as if he was talking to himself. In part, he was. “The old man was harsh, despite his own weaknesses. He was of another time.”

“Whereas you are the embodiment of the modern age?” Sterling sniffed. “What with the kidnapping and the ranting about legitimacy and your obsession with al Bakri blood. Very progressive.”

“He should have come to me.”

“It’s not up to you to decide how he should have lived his life,” she threw at him, that scowl that twisted her face making her more pretty instead of less, somehow. “What he wanted was to live as he pleased. What he wanted was not to be nailed down into the things you thought he should do. He didn’t need your permission to be who he was.”

“Perhaps not,” Rihad said, and he heard a note he didn’t quite recognize in his own voice. Profound sadness, perhaps, that he doubted would ever leave him now. It cracked in him like temper. “But perhaps he could have used my support.”

Her lips parted then, her expression confused, as if he’d spoken that last part in Arabic.

“Your support?” she echoed. “What do you mean?”

Rihad was furious. And something that felt a great deal like lost, besides. He had always known precisely what he had to do and how to do it. He had always known his path and how to walk it. He didn’t know this. He didn’t know how to navigate it—because it was too late.

Omar was dead, and Rihad had loved him—yet never truly known him.

The grief he’d understood would always be with him seemed to triple inside of him with every passing moment. Became darker. Thicker. And woven in with it was guilt. That he hadn’t seen. That he hadn’t looked. That he’d accepted his own brother at face value, even when doing so had meant thinking the worst of him.

He hated this. He hated himself. He hated all those wasted years.

“None of this explains you,” Rihad bit out at Sterling, because she was there. Because she’d participated in this deception. Because she’d known his brother in a way he never would, and he was small enough to resent that, just then. “If he wanted a beard, why did he not marry years ago and cement it? And if he was going to be in a fake relationship with a woman, why did he not choose a woman who would raise no objections? Why you?”

“That seems to be the sticking point,” she pointed out, her lovely eyes flashing with something heavier than temper. Darker. He felt another stab of guilt, and hated that, too. “Not so much why he did it, but that he did it with a woman like me.”

“Because it’s impractical.” He wanted to punch something. He wanted to rage. He settled for seething at her instead. “You are a lightning rod of controversy. Why not choose a woman who would have flown beneath the radar?”

“Why don’t we conduct a séance?” Sterling suggested in that same sarcastic tone, her pretty eyes narrow and dark on his. “You can lecture him just like this. I’m sure it will have the same effect now as it clearly did when he was still alive.”

He didn’t know when he’d drifted closer to her, as if she was some kind of magnet. Only that they were much too close then, and he wanted to touch her too much, and that was only one of the reasons he was furious.

It was the easiest reason.

“Don’t.” Sterling’s eyes were glittering yet her mouth was vulnerable and Rihad wanted her. God, how he wanted her.

“Don’t what?” he asked. “You were never my brother’s lover.”

“That doesn’t mean I have any desire to be yours.”

Yet he could see the faint tremor beneath her skin. He could see the flush across her cheeks. He knew her desire as well as he knew his own.

“Liar.” But he said it as if it was very nearly a compliment.

She didn’t contradict him, and the world was still so far away. There was only her. Here. And there had already been too many lies. There had been too much hidden and for too long, and Omar was lost.

His brother had never trusted him. Neither did Sterling. And he couldn’t have said why he felt both so keenly. So harshly. As if they were the same thing. As if he could no longer trust himself.

“Help me solve the puzzle you present,” he urged her in a rough whisper. “Why did he have a child with you? What did he hope to gain?”

She looked confused and slightly bereft. “He imagined that if he had a child, that would show you that he wasn’t as irresponsible as you thought he was, even without you knowing the truth.”

“That is a fine sentiment, Sterling, but all the reasons I married you held true for him, too.”

“I doubt very much it was his intention to die,” she threw back at him. “If he hadn’t, maybe we would have married. Had he told me the reasons why that would help Leyla, I would have relented. But we’ll never know what might have happened, will we?”

“I know that if he’d come to me, if he’d told me, I would not have turned my back on him. That’s what I know.” Rihad let out a long breath. “I will never understand why he did not.”

Sterling made a frustrated noise. “That might have a bit more weight if you hadn’t spent all these years acting as if he was a communicable disease.”

He made a sound of protest, but she wasn’t listening to him. Instead, she thrust one of her fists at him as if she wanted to hit him, but held herself back at the last moment.

“All you did was talk about how you had to clean up after him, as if he was garbage.” And her voice was so bitter then. Her blue eyes the darkest he’d ever seen them. “Maybe if he’d thought he could trust you, if you cared about anything besides the damned country, he might have risked coming out to you.”

“I loved him.”

Again that fist, not quite making contact with his chest.

“Actions speak louder than words, Rihad. Don’t blame Omar for your failure to treat him like a person. That’s on you. That’s entirely on you.”

And whatever was left inside of him shattered at that. Leaving him nothing but a howling emptiness, and the uncomfortable ring of a truth within it that he’d have given anything not to face.

“Damn you,” he whispered, his tone harsh and broken, and he didn’t try to hide it.

Then he reached for her, because he knew, somehow, that Sterling was the only person alive who could soothe that shattered thing in him—

But she flinched away from him and threw up her arms, as if she’d expected him to haul off and hit her.

As if, he understood as everything inside of him screeched to a halt and then turned cold, someone had done so before.

CHAPTER EIGHT

STERLING FLINCHED, WHEN SHE knew better than that. But she couldn’t seem to help herself.

She’d finally pushed him too far. She’d felt safe with him all this time, safer than she’d ever felt with another man, but that was before. She’d gone over the edge at last and she’d seen that broken look on his face.

She knew what it meant. She remembered too well.

She expected the hit. It had been a long, long time, but she thought she could take it. There was no warding off a blow from a man as strong as he was or as close, but if she could take the inevitable fall well, it wouldn’t immobilize her. The trick was not to tense up too much in anticipation, and then to curl into a tight ball against the kick—

“Sterling,” Rihad said then, in that low, dark way of his that rippled through her, making her want to cry. Making her want him, too, which she thought was evidence that she was deeply sick in the head. Twisted all the way through, the way they’d always told her she was. “What do you think is happening here?”

“Please,” she whispered, trying to stand tall, to square her shoulders despite the fact she couldn’t stop shaking. “Just don’t wake the baby. I don’t want her to see.”

And she closed her eyes, tried not to brace herself too much and waited for him to hit her.

The way her foster parents always had.

She heard nothing. For one lifetime, then another.

Then, finally, Rihad’s voice, but he wasn’t speaking to her. He spoke in Arabic, and she didn’t have to understand the words he used to know he was issuing orders again in that matter-of-fact, deeply autocratic way of his that was as much a part of him as breathing.

Then again, the quiet.

The breeze above and the water all around, and she kept her eyes shut tight because the quiet was the trick. It was always a trick. The false sense of security had always, always tripped her up. The moment she’d thought it wasn’t going to happen and looked to see was the moment they’d laid her flat.

She heard footsteps, then the sound of Leyla’s buggy being wheeled away, and her stomach turned over, then plummeted. He was sending the baby off with the nurses, as she’d asked. That meant—

She flinched away from his hand on her arm, making it that much worse. Her eyes flew open and met his, burning dark, dark gold and far too close, and she nearly bit off her tongue.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered hurriedly, in a panic she couldn’t control, even when he let go of her and stepped back. “I didn’t mean to flinch.”

He studied her for a long, long time.

“Sterling,” he said, very quietly, but somehow with more power behind it than she’d ever heard him use before. “Who hit you?”

And everything inside of Sterling ground to a lurching, nauseating halt. She couldn’t risk this. She should never have flinched. Open up that old can of worms and he would see. He would know.

She didn’t think it through, she simply catapulted herself across the wedge of space between them, trusting he would catch her. She didn’t ask herself how she knew he would.

But he did.

His arms came around her as her chest collided with his, and all of that panic and all of those old ghosts shimmered into something else entirely.

His seductive heat poured through her. Into her. Chasing away all those old cobwebs she couldn’t afford to let him see. He couldn’t know.

She didn’t want to think too much about why that was the worst thing she could imagine. The very worst. She only knew, without a shred of doubt, that it was.

“Exactly what do you think you are doing?” he asked, but his voice was as gentle as his hands against her.

And yet she could feel how hot he was, hot and hard and deliciously male against her, everywhere. He wanted her. It was a revelation. He was so hot that she might have thought he was feverish, had she not been looking straight up into those dark gold eyes of his, where she could see he wasn’t the least bit unwell.

Dark and beautiful and much too close to all the parts of her she didn’t want him to see, perhaps. But not sick.

Sterling was more than a little bit worried that she was the sick one here, but she shoved that thought aside. There was no time left to worry about any of that. About the strange revelations this morning had wrought, much less what they meant or the repercussions they might have. She couldn’t let her mind spin out that way. She couldn’t see the future, so there was no use panicking about it.

She could only do her best to confuse the present in the easiest and most direct way available to her before Rihad talked them both to the point of no return. Before he saw who she really was and was as disgusted as everyone else had always been.

So that was what she did.

Sterling pressed against him in what she hoped was an excellent show of wanton abandonment, winding her arms around the strong column of his neck, her mouth actually watering as she let her gaze move from that smooth, brown sweep of skin to his marvelous mouth that was now right there—

“Sterling,” Rihad said repressively, but his hands were flush against her hips and he wasn’t pushing her away. And she could feel him against her belly, so hard where she was so soft and yielding. The wild sensation made her shudder all the way through and then arch against him.

As if this wasn’t the man she’d tried to run from, so long ago in New York, so sure he would ruin her.

As if this wasn’t the man she’d thought was about to haul off and hit her moments before.

Or maybe because it was him. Because she’d snapped into a very old, horribly familiar place and he hadn’t hit her after all. He’d looked appalled at the very idea.

And he wanted her. Even with that glimpse of the truth about her, he wanted her.

He wasn’t like any other man she’d ever known. And that shattering thing swirled inside her, making her feel something rather more like truly wanton after all. That maddening heat, storming through her limbs and gathering low in her belly, making her feel hot and ripe and hungry—

She arched into him, harder this time, then went up on her toes and kissed him.

And everything exploded.

His mouth was divine torture, his kiss insane. Rihad took control almost the second it began, one of his hands moving to wrap itself in her hair, the better to hold her head where he wanted it, the other a hard, wild encouragement at her hip.

He angled his head for a better fit, and then he simply…took.

And she loved it.

Rihad kissed like a starving man, as if Sterling wasn’t the only one scraped raw and left aching by this hungry thing between them. He kissed as if there was nothing at all for her to do but go along for the ride, wherever he took them. He kissed her until she was shivering against him in uncontrollable reaction, need and longing and the rich headiness of desire making her dizzy. And still so needy it hurt.

She couldn’t get close enough. She couldn’t taste him deeply enough. She didn’t care if she could breathe, if her feet touched the ground, and when he shifted to haul her against him and then lifted her high in the air, the only thing she could think to do was kiss him again.

Harder. Deeper. Longer. Hotter.

He wrapped her legs around his waist and held her there, twined around him with no other support, making her tremble at the strength he displayed so offhandedly—and then he shifted again, so their hips dragged against each other, his hardness against the part of her that was the neediest, and she moaned into his mouth.

She’d never liked being touched. But she found that didn’t apply to Rihad, who couldn’t seem to touch her enough.

And right at that moment, she didn’t care why that was. She would die if he knew, she thought. If he comprehended how untouched she truly was.

It wasn’t until her back came up against something that she realized it wasn’t just that spinning in her head that was making her feel loose and adrift—he’d walked over and laid her out on the table like his very own banquet.

“Reach up,” he ordered her, sounding more like a king than she’d ever heard him sound before, and there was probably something deeply wrong with her that she liked it. More than liked it—that hot, dark note in his voice swept over her skin as if he’d used his mouth against her, his mouth and his wicked tongue. “Hold on.”

She did as he asked. As he commanded. She didn’t even think twice about it, and not only because she wanted him to think she was that slut everyone believed she was, but also because that was so much easier than who she really was.

Sterling reached up over her head and grabbed the far edge of the table as he leaned in harder, pressing his hips against hers even as this new position made her back arch, as if she was offering up her breasts to him.

She was. She hoped she looked as if she’d done this a thousand times before—or even if she didn’t, that he’d be too interested in her breasts to care.

He smiled dangerously as he looked down at the place their bodies pressed together, and Sterling felt the glow of that sweep over her. Through her, hard and hot and needy, until it settled like a lightning bolt between her legs.

She bucked against him, helpless against these new sensations, and he laughed.

And then he bent down and found her nipple through the gauzy material of her dress with that dangerously clever mouth of his, so hot and so demanding, and sucked it straight into all that heat.

Sterling lost her mind.

There was nothing then, but the fire that rolled through her, one bright flame after the next, building toward something so immense, so impossible, that she would have been afraid of it if she’d been able to catch her breath.

But Rihad didn’t allow that.

He pressed the proof of his need hard into the place she hungered for him the most, soft and wet and wild for him even through the trousers he wore, with her ankles locked in the small of his strong back. He set a lazy, mind-melting rhythm, and Sterling could do nothing but meet it, shuddering more with every roll of his lethal hips.

She didn’t know what she was doing. But she couldn’t seem to stop.

His mouth teased her breasts through her dress while his hands streaked beneath it, testing her shape, her heat. Learning all kinds of things about her. That she rarely bothered with a bra, even these days when her breasts were still bigger than they’d been before her pregnancy. That a careful pinch against one nipple and a deep tug on the other made her clutch her legs tighter around him and ride him shamelessly, rubbing herself against him as wantonly as she could—

And then it slammed into her.

Like a train.

She cried out, but he was there, licking the sound of it from her lips, moving his own hips harder against hers, making it go on and on and on.

Making her shatter, then shatter again, then shatter once more.

Changing everything.

Changing the whole world.

Turning Sterling into someone new.

And when it was over, he let her drop her legs from around his waist and took a step back while she simply lay sprawled there on the table in a thousand pieces, trying to breathe.

It took a while and even then, it was a shaky thing.

When she sat up and pulled her dress back down to cover her, Rihad stood there above her, his dark face hard and his golden eyes glittering. He folded his arms over his powerful chest and considered her for a long, breathless moment, as if he wasn’t still so aroused that she could see the proof of it pressing against the front of his trousers, hard and thick, and how could she still want him? Even now?

Even as the events of this morning flooded her, making her question a lot of things. Her sanity chief among them.

“Congratulations, Sterling,” Rihad said in that low, rough voice of his that kicked up that fire in her all over again. “You succeeded in distracting me. How long do you think that will work?”

* * *

It had worked all too well, Rihad thought a few days later, as he sat in his luxuriously appointed offices and found it impossible to concentrate on matters of state.

Because she haunted him.

Her taste. The sounds she’d made as she’d writhed beneath him. The scent of her skin. The sweet perfection of her touch.

He found he couldn’t think of much else. Especially during the meals they took together in his garden, where they both acted as if that scene right there on the table hadn’t happened. They outdid each other with crisp politeness.

But it hummed beneath everything. Every clink of silver against fine china. Every sip of wine. Every glance that caught and held. Every movement they each made.

It was a madness in his blood, infecting him.

Or she was.

Because Rihad hardly knew himself these days. His entire relationship with his brother had been a lie. He was hung up on a woman he’d married while he’d believed she was Omar’s mistress—and he had lusted after her while believing it. He was more enamored by the day with a tiny child who was not his in fact, but who felt like his in practice. He felt as if he was reeling through his life suddenly, unmoored and uncertain, and he had no idea how to handle such an alien sensation.

It was as if there was nothing left to hold on to. Or, more to the point, as if the only thing he wanted to hold on to was Sterling—as if he was as bewitched by her as he’d always thought his brother had been.

Maybe his enemies were not wrong to threaten invasion. Rihad was beginning to think it would be a kindness.

He was halfway through yet another inappropriate daydream about his wife when his personal mobile rang with a familiar ringtone.

Rihad dismissed his ministers with a regal wave and then swiped to open the video chat.

His sister gazed back at him from the screen, looking as defiant as ever.

“Amaya.” He kept his voice calm, though it was harder than it should have been, and he didn’t want to think about why that was, all of a sudden, or who was to blame for his endless lack of control. “Have you called to issue your usual taunts?”

“The quick brown fox always jumps over the lazy dog, Rihad.” Her dark eyes were a shade lighter than the fall of thick dark hair she’d pulled forward over one shoulder, and it irritated him that she was both unquestionably beautiful and entirely too much like her treacherous mother. Smarter than was at all helpful and not in the least bit loyal to the Bakrian throne. It made her unpredictable and he’d always hated that—at least, he’d always thought he had. “I’m only giving you a much-needed demonstration.”

“I feel adequately schooled.”

“Obviously not. I can see you scanning behind me for details on my location. Don’t bother. There aren’t any that will help you find me.” The light of battle lit her face, and he stopped trying to find any sort of geographic marker in what looked like a broom closet around her. “Are you ready to call off this marriage? Set me free?”

This was where Rihad normally outlined her responsibilities, reminded her that despite what she might have preferred, she was a Bakrian princess and she had a duty to her country. That it didn’t matter how many years she’d spent knocking around various artistic, bohemian communities with her mother pretending she was nothing more than another rootless flower child, she couldn’t alter the essential truth of her existence. That her university years in Montreal might have given her the impression that her life was one of limitless choices in all directions, but that was not true, not for her, and the sooner she accepted that the happier she would be.

He’d been telling her all of this for months. Years.

None of those conversations had been at all successful.

Today, he thought of the brother he’d treated as if he was a failure, the brother he’d claimed he’d loved when he’d never given him the opportunity to be himself. Not in Rihad’s presence anyway. He thought of the way Sterling, the only woman—hell, the only person—who had ever defied him to his face with such a lack of fear, had flinched as if she expected him to beat her, all because she’d told him the truth.

He thought that perhaps he had no business being a king, if he was such a remarkably bad one.

“I wish I could do that, Amaya,” he said after a long moment. “More than you know.”

She stared at him as if she couldn’t believe he’d said that. He wasn’t sure he could, either.

He shrugged. “These are precarious times. The only possible way we will maintain our sovereignty is to unite with Daar Talaas. But you know this.”

“There must be another way.”

“If there was, don’t you think I would have found it?” He sat back in his chair, his eyes on the screen and on his sister. “It does not give me any particular pleasure to insist you do something you are so opposed to that you’ve been on the run all this time.”

“But…?” she prompted, though he noticed that defiant way she held herself had softened.

“But Kavian is a man who follows the ancient ways, and there is only one kind of alliance he holds sacred. Blood.” He studied Amaya then, saw the expression that moved over her face, that hint of something like heat in her gaze. “And I think you know this all too well, don’t you? Because while you were not exactly thrilled at the idea, you didn’t run away until after you met him at your engagement reception. Did he do something to you?”

Alliance or not, Rihad would kill him. But Amaya only flushed then, though she tried to cover it with a frown.

“The reality of the situation merely impressed itself upon me, that’s all. I realized that I’m not a Stone Age kind of a girl.”

He didn’t believe her, but that was hardly his business.

“I sympathize,” he said instead, and the thing of it was, he did. He truly did.

“And I’m skeptical.”

“Amaya, no one knows more about marrying for the sake of the kingdom than I do. I’m on my second such marriage.”

“That doesn’t exactly recommend the ordeal.” Amaya’s frown deepened. Her eyes searched his for perhaps a moment too long. “You’re not the happiest man I’ve ever met.”

And yet in comparison to Kavian, the desert warrior renowned for his ability to wage war like an ancient warlord, Rihad was a nonstop comedy show. Neither one of them pointed that out and yet it hung there between them anyway.

For a moment they only gazed at each other, separated by their years, the screen, her continued refusal to surrender to the inevitable.

“Don’t believe everything you read,” he advised her. “My marriage is not an ordeal.” He felt a sharp pang of disloyalty then, because he’d forgotten about Tasnim entirely. It was as if he really was a stranger, inhabiting the same body but utterly changed, all because of one lush woman and her artlessly addictive mouth. “And my first marriage might not have been a love match, but it was good. We were content.”

Amaya’s hand crept up to her neck and she cupped her hand there, then looked away.

“Kavian is not the kind of man who is ever going to be content,” she said, so softly he almost didn’t hear her. The old version of himself would have pretended he hadn’t.

“I wish I could call it off,” he told her quietly, and saw her swallow hard. Was he that harsh? That she had no idea that he wanted to protect her—that he would have if he could? “But you signed all the papers. You made your initial vows. By the laws of Daar Talaas, you are already his.”

She shuddered, and when she looked at him again, he felt that great loosening inside him again, as if he’d lost this, too. This relationship with the only sibling he had left. This sister who clearly had no idea that he loved her, too.

He felt an unknown and unpleasant sensation swamp him then and realized he’d felt it before. When Sterling had stood there before him with her eyes closed and her head bowed, visibly forcing herself to relax, the better to take a hit he hadn’t been planning to deliver.

Helplessness.

He loathed it.

“Amaya.” Her head jerked around and her eyes met his, and he saw confusion there. And something else, something a little more like haunted. “You are not a mere pawn. I care what happens to you. But I can’t fix this.”

“So I am doomed.” And her voice cracked on that last word. “There is no hope.”

“You can appeal to Kavian himself—”

“I’d have better luck appealing to a sandstorm in the desert!”

“Amaya.” But he didn’t know what to say. He was a goddamned king and what was the point? He couldn’t save anyone. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She shook her head, as if she was shaking something off. “I don’t want war, Rihad. I don’t want Bakri to fall. But I don’t want to be Kavian’s…possession, either. I won’t.”

And her screen went dark.

Leaving Rihad alone with his thoughts and his regrets, which were darker still.

CHAPTER NINE

THE SOUND OF the helicopter’s rotor blades faded off into the distance, taking with it Sterling’s halfhearted hopes that they might be called back to the palace to tend to some kind of governmental issue that simply couldn’t wait.

And then the only sound—in and around and between the brightly colored tents tucked there between the towering desert sand dunes and arrayed around the series of tree-lined pools that shouldn’t have existed in so arid a place at all—was the wind. It danced over the tops of the tents, making the hard canvas bend and stretch beneath the high sun far above, and then clattered its way through the palm trees.

Sterling was glad, because otherwise she was certain the only noise around for the miles and miles of uninhabited Bakrian desert they’d covered to get here would be the crazy pounding of her heart.

Rihad, of course, didn’t appear to hear any of it. He was conducting a conversation in rapid-fire Arabic into the satellite phone at his ear, striding toward one of the larger tents nearer the water as if he expected her to follow along obediently in his wake.

Instead, Sterling stayed where she was. She tilted her head back and let the desert sun play over her face. She liked the lick of heat, the tease of the dry wind against her skin and in the ends of the hair she’d scraped into a low ponytail beneath a wide-brimmed hat. She liked the murmur of the water from the nearby pools, the suggestion of cool, inviting shade beneath the trees and inside the tents. She would have been enchanted by the whole desert oasis thing altogether were it not for the fact he’d insisted she leave Leyla behind with the nurses, which was making her anxious.

And for what she suspected Rihad meant to accomplish here, which made her…something a lot more complicated than simply anxious.

“Maybe we can go in a month or two,” she’d said when he’d brought up their perception-altering honeymoon again at another one of their dinners. This one had been more intimate, set up in his private dining suite with the wraparound balcony that opened up over the whole of Bakri City, where all she could seem to think about was his hands on her body, his hardness clenched tight between her legs. “When Leyla is a little bigger and will be better about me going away for a night.”

Rihad had appeared focused on the food on his plate that night, not on her, though she should have known better than to believe that.

“It was not an invitation, as I think you know,” he’d said after a moment. “It was an order. A royal command, even.”

“Apparently, I have to remind you yet again that I’m not yours to command.”

He’d laughed, and she’d started in her chair, because it had been genuine. The sound of it had cascaded over her, as if it was poured straight from the sun. “Do you think so?”

She tried to sound prim. Not at all like the sort of woman who would climax all over a man on a wrought-iron table one summer morning. “I’m not one of your subjects, Rihad.”

“You are my queen.” His gaze had risen to meet hers then and she’d flushed hot and red. His dark gold eyes had been alive with something like merriment, and there’d been hints of that laughter in his voice when he’d continued. “And in the spirit of transparency between us, which I know is your dearest hope—”

“What’s wrong with murky?” she’d protested, aware she’d sounded as cranky as she had desperate. “I like a good swamp, especially in my marriage.”

His eyes had gleamed, laughter and light, and she’d felt undone.

He would unravel her completely. She had no doubt.

He’d already started.

“It will be more than a single night in the desert. I already told you it would be two weeks. And so it will.” When she’d started to argue he’d only smiled. “I’d resign yourself to the inevitable, Sterling. Have I yet to promise you anything that didn’t happen exactly as I said it would?”

She hadn’t been able to breathe. But that hadn’t stopped her mouth from moving.

“Are you going to command me to have sex with you, too?” she’d asked in that same absurdly overpolite tone, as if she was inquiring after high tea. “Consummation on demand?”

And she’d had no words to describe what his smile had done to her then, or how that lazy, predatory gleam in his dark gold eyes had made her feel. God, the way it had made her feel. How it had sneaked through her, tangling all around and making her hollow and needy, scared and yearning at once.

Did she want him to command her? Reach up, he’d ordered her that morning. Hold on. Was that why she’d asked?

“If you insist,” he’d said after a moment, in a dark-edged way that had made everything inside of her feel the way he’d sounded. Like honey, sweet and slow. She remembered shattering all around him, again and again. She shivered just remembering it. “Is that how you like it, Sterling? Do you prefer to give orders on the street and take them in bed?”

It was as if he’d read her mind, and she’d told herself stoutly that she hated that. And that he hadn’t, of course.

She’d sniffed as if she found this discussion crass beyond measure. “Not from you.”

Rihad had only smiled again, harder and edgier than before, and it had banged through Sterling like a symphony of gongs. “We’ll see. We leave in two days’ time. I suggest you resign yourself to the torture.”

And now she was far, far away from anything even resembling civilization. The helicopter ride had taken at least two hours and they’d left the city limits within the first twenty minutes. There was nothing for miles in any direction. There was nothing here except forced intimacy and, she thought while her stomach cartwheeled around inside of her, nothing at all to keep her from exploring the one man alive whose touch she didn’t seem to mind.

“I’ve dismissed all but the most essential staff.” His voice made her jump and she opened her eyes to find him propped up against the nearest palm tree, his dark gold gaze simmering as it touched hers. “There is no one else here but the two of us and, farther out, my security guards to keep watch over the perimeter.”

“You mean, to keep me from running away from you.”

He smiled again, and that other night at the palace hadn’t been a fluke. It was devastating. It was almost as powerful as his kiss. It made her feel that same mix of weakness and wonder, and she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about it.

“I mean, my most faithful and devoted guards are there to protect you whether you like it or not.” He’d let out a quiet sort of laugh. “But yes. Part of that protection would include returning you to my tender embrace should you wander too far from the oasis. The desert sands can be so treacherous.”

“How thoughtful.” But her mouth was pulling at the corners, as if her smile wanted to break free despite her own wishes. “Will you have men to guard the pools as well, in case I am tempted to drown myself rather than suffer your company?”

His laugh was deeper then. Richer. It was like drowning, indeed, in a masculine version of the best chocolate she could imagine, decadent and addictive.

She was in so much trouble.

“It depends which pool you mean to drown yourself in,” he said, as if he was giving the issue due consideration. “This nearest one will take some work. It’s barely knee-deep. You’re more likely to drown in your wineglass.”

“That can be arranged.”

He moved closer. He should have looked like any other man, the epitome of casual in nothing but a white oxford shirt and sand-colored trousers, but this was Rihad. He was the king. It didn’t seem to matter what he wore; nothing could conceal that low-edged hum of power he carried with him wherever he went.

“Shall we discuss our agenda, now that we’re here?” he asked when he was much too close. When she couldn’t seem to do anything but lose herself somewhere between that look on his face and the pounding of her heart.

“Our honeymoon has an agenda?” She fought to keep her voice light and airy—and to keep from leaping away from him because she knew, somehow, that he would know full well she wanted to do the opposite. “Royal sheikhs in their luxurious oasis retreats really aren’t like us.”

“Consider this nothing more than a statement of intent, Sterling.”

She wanted to throw something back at him, to make this interchange all about amusing banter and not about the rest of the things that circled all around them, pressing in on them, as flattening and searingly hot as the desert sun high over their heads.

“And what exactly do you intend?” she asked, but her throat was so dry, and he was so close. He stood there, much too near to her, so that she imagined she could feel the heat of him. So that her palms itched to touch him again—and that unnerved her more than anything else.

“I think you know what I want you to tell me,” he said quietly.

She didn’t want to meet his gaze then, but she did. And it shuddered all the way through her in a way that made her feel raw and vulnerable. But not afraid. Something else that she wasn’t certain she understood.

“No,” she said.

And she didn’t know what that meant, even as she said it. No, she didn’t know what he meant? No, she wasn’t going to tell him? No, in general?

But he smiled as if she’d whispered him a line or two of poetry and reached over to skate the backs of his fingers down the side of her face. Undoing her, she thought. He was tearing her down, pulling her apart, right where they stood.

“And I think you know the rest of what I want,” he said in a low voice.

“I know this will be hard for you to understand,” she said, trying to sound strong. Tough. Worldly and amused, in that way she’d perfected years ago. “But not everyone gets what they want all the time. Some people never get what they want at all. It’s a fact of life when you’re not literally the king of all you survey.”

Rihad smiled, and the heat where his fingers caressed her cheek blossomed deep within her.

“But I am.”

And still he smiled when all she could do was stare up at him, mute and undone and all those other things that tangled up inside of her and made her this shockingly susceptible to him.

Then he dropped his hand and stepped back, and Sterling felt that like a loss. She pulled in a breath, amazed she was still standing on her own two feet. Truly astonished she hadn’t simply keeled over from all that intensity.

“I have some things I must attend to,” he told her. “The sad truth is that the leader of a country is never truly on holiday, despite what he might wish. But you will join me for dinner. In the meantime, Ushala will lead you to your tent and see that you are settled in.”

“What if I don’t want to join you for dinner?” she asked.

She thought they both knew that she wasn’t really talking about dinner.

And in any case, Rihad only smiled.

* * *

Sterling disappeared into one of the sleeping tents that functioned as a luxurious guest room out here in his family’s private oasis. Rihad took a few calls as the afternoon wore on, impatient with this life of his that could not allow him anything resembling a real holiday. Not even a honeymoon.

He opted not to think too much about the fact that when he’d gone on a honeymoon previously, he’d welcomed the opportunity to work from the oasis, and neither he nor Tasnim had expected to see much of each other outside of their carefully polite meals.

But then, Sterling was different. Perhaps he’d known that from the first moment he’d seen her, so long ago now on that Manhattan sidewalk.

She did not emerge again until the sun dipped low and began to paint the dunes in the shifting colors of sunset. Reds and oranges, pinks and golds, and Sterling walking toward him in the middle of it all like another work of art.

Rihad sat in one of the majlis, a seating area marked off with a soft rug beneath him, bright pillows all around in the Bedouin style and a low table stretched out beneath a graceful canopy. It opened on the sides to let the evening in as he sipped a cool drink and watched the sunset outdo itself before him, as if for his pleasure alone.

After a glance to make sure she was coming to him—of her own free will, which pleased him, though he imagined he’d have sought her out if she hadn’t and he wasn’t certain what that told him about himself—Rihad didn’t look up as Sterling approached him, didn’t take his eyes off the horizon.

Almost as if he worried that if he did, his best intentions would simply crumble into sand and blow away.

He smiled at the glorious spectacle laid out before him instead, the colors changing and blooming as he watched. He never tired of the desert. How could he—how could anyone? The landscape was constantly shifting, yet always the same. The great bowl of the sky stretched high above with these magical, daily displays of fierce natural splendor. It reminded him who he was. It reminded him that Bakri was as much a part of him as he was of it. Just as the sky and the land were fused into this stunning unity twice a day as the sun rose and fell, so, too, was his family a part of this country. Twined together, made one.

That was what a marriage was, at its best. What it was supposed to be.

What he was determined this one would be, no matter what he had to do to get there.

Rihad did not choose to analyze all the reasons why his need for this burned in him. He only knew that it did.

She settled herself down across from him at the low table with that innate grace of hers that was beginning to feel something like addictive.

“Does your tent suit?” he asked her, as if they were meeting at some or other royal exercise, where the highest protocols were observed.

“It’s lovely,” she replied in the same tone.

Rihad bit back a smile and waved to the servants. They appeared at once, filling the low table between them with various dishes, from perfectly grilled skewers of lamb to a pile of handmade flatbread, a generous pot of homemade hummus, assorted other dipping sauces and side dishes. Rihad took the opportunity to study this woman, this wife of his. She was nothing like Tasnim. He couldn’t remember a single moment with his first wife that had ever felt like this—this seething thing, nearly at a boil, that thrummed along beneath his skin and made him feel predatory and possessive even when she wasn’t in front of him.

And much, much more so when she was.

She wore another one of her dresses and a flowing pashmina she wrapped tightly around her like a blanket. More to continue to conceal herself from him as much as possible, he thought with no little amusement, than to ward off the night air. Her lustrous strawberry blond hair was pulled back into what was, for her, a merely serviceable ponytail at her nape, but then, elegance was stamped into her bones. She couldn’t help but appear chic, even when she was attempting to look dowdy. She’d been haunting in those teenaged photographs that had taken the modeling world by surprise years back, all high cheekbones, world-weary blue eyes and that hooker’s mouth of hers. More than a decade later, she was objectively, inarguably stunning, no matter what lengths she went to hide it.

And Rihad was merely a man.

He lounged there against his pillows and watched her eat her dinner with evident relish, this woman who could knock men flat like dominoes. Take down whole kingdoms. Wreck worlds.

Or maybe that was just what she’d done to him, when he’d been expecting something so much different.

“You’re staring at me as if I’m an animal in a zoo,” she pointed out crisply when she’d demolished a few lamb chops and several heaping spoonfuls of the grain and greens salads. “It’s going to give me indigestion.”

“I’m waiting for you to finish eating,” he said lazily. “You’re building up your energy, are you not? For the sex. Consummation on command, I believe you called it. A warning, Sterling. I’m very demanding.”

“The sex,” she repeated slowly. There wasn’t a flicker of reaction on her perfect face, or even in those sky-blue eyes of hers when she fixed them on him, but he knew better. He could feel the air itself sizzle between them. “Am I to understand that you’ll be performing a solo act? Right here, out in the open? How fascinating. You’ll understand if I don’t watch, I hope. I wouldn’t want my stomach to turn at a delicate moment and throw you off your stroke.”

He only watched her as the servants cleared all the plates between them and then piled the table high again with an array of tempting desserts—but Sterling was looking at him with that fire in her gaze and he couldn’t have imagined any better treat than her.

“You’re sitting here in silence, Sterling,” he pointed out, playing up the languid desert king because he could see the way it got to her. He could see the way she shifted against her pillows, as if she couldn’t quite get comfortable. “I assumed that you’d decided we should jump right into the sex rather than have a frank discussion.” He smiled. “I’m perfectly all right with that, if it’s what you wish.”

* * *

She most certainly did not wish, Sterling told herself then. But she had the growing notion that she was lying to herself.

And worse, that he knew it.

“Do you ever have interactions with anyone in which you aren’t threatening them?” she asked, mildly enough. “Whether directly or indirectly?”

“Most of my interactions are political in nature,” he replied, a vision of male ease as he lounged there and watched her too closely, his dark eyes glittering in the light thrown by too many hanging lanterns to count. “So, no. I don’t have any conversations that do not involve jockeying for power, or position, or status, or economic gain.”

“You are aware that some people have conversations that involve none of those things?”

A faint crook to that perfect mouth. “I’ve heard rumors.”

“I will have to decline your lovely offer,” she said, and smiled at him in the polite-yet-distant way she’d perfected in New York. “I’ve never been to an oasis before and I think I’d like to take a swim in the middle of a desert. Your marvelous suggestion that we delve into my past and/or me, personally, while tempting, will have to wait.”

She thought he would throw something back at her, but he only continued to study her with that small smile in the corner of his mouth. Sterling took that as acquiescence—or whatever it was when powerful men gave in, without seeming to give at all.

Sterling rose and walked past him toward the deepest of the three pools that shimmered there only a few steps from where they’d had their dinner. All the pools were hung with their own lanterns, each casting a dancing, mellow light over the dark waters. It made the water seem something more than simply inviting. Mysterious. Seductive. She stepped onto the mat that had been laid out there beneath the lightly rustling palm trees and kicked off her slides, then dropped her pashmina.

“You realize you are not fooling me, I hope,” Rihad said almost conversationally, still lounging there beneath the canopy behind her. “I know exactly what you are doing.”

“Swimming?” she asked over her shoulder. “You are correct, Your Royal Majesty. Your powers of observation are truly magnificent.”

Then she pulled the floor-length, flowing dress she wore up and over her head, leaving herself in nothing at all but a very tiny, very provocative string bikini in a metallic, shiny gold.

She could feel his sudden stillness from behind her, predatory and vast, like an epic, nuclear implosion of the same hunger she knew beat in her, but she didn’t turn back toward him. She didn’t need to. This was the point. The tease. The distraction.

Getting him back a little bit. Making him pay.

And she’d spent enough time as a model to have rendered her nothing but practical, more or less, about her body. She might have given birth only a few months back. She might have a different shape now, and new marks like claws on a belly she doubted would ever be concave again. But she was well aware of the power of her curves. And she knew that standing there in a flirty gold bikini would make it as hard for Rihad to sleep at night as it had been for her since that morning in the palace gardens.

Sterling was very good at this after all. She’d made a living out of using her body like this, once upon a time.

But she didn’t want to think about the past. She wanted to keep it behind her, as long as she could. Tonight, she only wanted to make Rihad ache the way that she ached.

She didn’t look back at him, she looked at the inky black surface of the pool, lit with dancing gold from the lanterns, and it was like looking straight into Rihad’s mesmerizing gaze.

She dived right in.

CHAPTER TEN

THE WATER WAS COOL, CLEAR.

It was like a silken caress over her skin, long and luxurious at once, and if she could have, Sterling would have stayed beneath the surface of that pool forever. She let herself sink, then float beneath the surface, and pretended she could remain there. But eventually her lungs began to ache a little bit and she kicked back up into the night air.

To find Rihad much closer, squatting there at the edge of the water, his dark gaze fierce on hers. It made her heart leap inside her chest, so hard and so high she was surprised it didn’t make the water ripple in reaction.

“Do you think you are safe in the water?” he asked her, and there were stark lines stamped on his face as he gazed at her. As if need was carving into him, the way she could feel it in her, too.

Whittling away at her until she didn’t know what was left, or who she’d be when it was done.

“I think that safety is relative where you’re concerned,” she said now, perhaps a shade too flippantly. She was more enthusiastic about swimming than she was skilled at it, so she moved closer to the side of the pool, reaching out a hand to hold on to the edge. “Kings are not exactly known for putting the needs of their wives before their own.”

“You know a great many kings, do you?”

She slicked her hair back, as aware of the way his dark gold eyes tracked the movement as if he’d used his own hands. And his attention was like a live wire, ferocious and total.

“I’m aware of the entire history of the planet, if that’s what you mean.”

Rihad studied her in that focused, too-incisive way of his that made her want to do things to escape it. Before he could see every last corner of her dirty little soul.

“I have a modest hope that I am less bloodthirsty than many of the kings who predate me,” he was saying drily. “And I know I’m better to my wives than most of those, given I’ve yet to execute one.”

“Was that on the table here?”

“We’re talking about absolute power. It’s all on the table. Something to remember the next time you’re feeling feisty.” But his mouth was crooked into that small smile of his she was beginning to find addictive, despite that steady gaze of his that made her tremble deep within. “But I can’t imagine you really want to talk about the powers of the Bakrian monarchy, or the march of kings throughout time, do you?”

“I don’t want to talk to you at all. I wanted to swim.”

He indicated the pool behind her with a jerk of his fine chin. “Then by all means, Sterling. Swim.”

But she didn’t move.

They could have stayed frozen there for a decade. She’d never have known the difference. Only that she couldn’t look away from him.

This man who had far more power than the others she’d known, who’d taken theirs out on her because they’d considered her so beneath them. Rihad was autocratic. He certainly used his power. But never like that. Never so viciously.

Eventually, he reached down and traced a lazy, sensual pattern from one shoulder, across the very top of her chest, all the way to the other. Then back.

And she still didn’t understand why his was the only touch that made her feel like this, wrapped up in a blaze of need and outside her own skin. She didn’t understand why she wanted him, wanted more, wanted, when she’d never wanted any other man in her life.

When she’d never wanted any touch in her life.

She didn’t understand any of this, only that when he touched her she wanted to sob out, and not because it hurt her. And when he didn’t touch her, it was worse.

He’d made her into a woman she didn’t understand at all. Maybe it was that she felt like a woman after all. Not a punching bag. Not a clothes hanger. Not an ornament. Not a mother. A woman, for the first time.

“I hate you,” she whispered.

Just as she had at their wedding.

But this time, Rihad smiled, and it was as if that, too, burst into her and pried her wide-open however little she wanted to let him in.

“I am so sorry, little one,” he murmured, his dark gold eyes on hers, and that look of his slid straight through her, too soft and too slick. It made her shake and this time, not only inside. “It’s not so easy to make me the monster you wanted me to be, is it?”

“Maybe not,” she whispered up at him, filled with that same wild urge to do anything to keep him from seeing the truth about her. Before it was too late. “But this is very easy, actually.”

And Sterling reached up, grabbed hold of the arm he had propped on his knee as she braced her feet on the side of the pool, and she yanked him off balance.

Then she hauled the King of Bakri straight into the pool.

He sank like a stone, in a cascade of bubbles while a great wave slapped at her, and she was breathing so fast it hurt while the adrenaline—at her temerity, at the fact she’d actually done it—spiked inside of her. She’d made the split-second decision to get the hell out of that pool right now when he surfaced beside her, and Sterling realized that she was frozen in place. Paralyzed, more like.

Why on earth had she done that?

But Rihad laughed.

He tipped his beautiful face back and he laughed, hard and long, and she was tempted to think it was all a great big joke to him, to have her throw him fully dressed into a pool like that—but then he dropped his head back down, fixed that edgy gold gaze of his on her, and there wasn’t a shred of laughter on his lethally beautiful face then.

“That, Sterling,” he told her, his voice a sensual growl she felt in her sex as surely as if he was already touching her, “was a mistake.”

And then he reached over, hooked a hard hand around her neck and yanked her to him.

* * *

He took her mouth as if he owned it, and Rihad thrilled to it—because he did. She was his. The sweep of her tongue against his. The way she yielded to him so quickly, so completely, meeting him and spurring him on.

This was his woman. His wife. His.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on, and he thought he might drown them both as he feasted on her, taking and taking, so hard and so good he thought he might die from it. He thought he might not care too much if he did.

There was no time left then. Not anymore. He had to be inside her, now, and nothing else mattered. Not her secrets. Not all the things she still hadn’t told him and had gone to such lengths to avoid telling him. Nothing but this mad fire, this perfect kiss. The heft of her gorgeous breasts in their little scraps of gold, the slick glory of her taste.

His Sterling. His queen.

Somehow, he moved them to the shallower end of the pool, where he could stand. When he did, he trapped her between the pool’s bank and his body. He felt the wind against the wet shirt on his back, but he didn’t care. He only cared about Sterling. About this. Her hands digging into the flesh at his shoulders. Her legs moving to wrap around his hips again.

And for the first time in his entire adult life, Rihad stopped thinking.

He fumbled between them, wrestling with his soaked trousers to pull himself free. Then, his mouth still fused to hers, he reached down between them, out of finesse and out of his mind as he pushed her little bikini bottom to one side and stroked beneath it, straight into her soft, scalding heat.

“Rihad…” she moaned, straight into his mouth, and it was the sexiest thing he’d ever heard.

He didn’t think. He moved his hand, he held her close and then he simply thrust straight into her, hard and sure, making her truly his at last.

At last.

She made an odd sound, and he pulled back to look down at her lovely face, the haze clearing slightly.

Sterling’s eyes were too big and hinted at some kind of emotion he didn’t recognize. Rihad held himself still, and she breathed hard. Shakily. Once, then again.

“Are you all right, little one?” he asked quietly, still so deep inside of her he thought it might kill him. She was so hot, so wet. Snug around him, as if she’d been made to receive him exactly like this. “Did I hurt you? Are you not yet healed from giving birth?”

“No…” she said, as if she wasn’t sure. Her blue gaze was dark, slick, in the light from the gently dancing lanterns overhead. He frowned as she continued. “I’m fine. I’m healed, I… It’s just… It’s weird, that’s all.”

“Weird,” he repeated, as if the word didn’t make sense, and slid back a few inches, experimentally, just to see what would happen—

And then, impossibly, Sterling McRae blushed.

Bright red. As if, Rihad thought in total fascination, she was entirely innocent. As if this was her first time.

But that was crazy.

Still, once the thought was there, Rihad couldn’t seem to keep himself from indulging it. He’d wanted to lose himself in her, pound them both into delirious oblivion with all the pent-up need that had haunted his every thought of her for months now—but instead, he slowed down. He took his time.

He treated her like the virgin she couldn’t possibly be.

He kissed her everywhere he could see that flushed red skin, until the rosy glow she wore was for another reason entirely. He set a slow, lazy pace, easy and wicked at once, making sure that each time he slid away she clung to him a little more, then pulled him back to her a little harder. He used his mouth and his hands, his teeth and his voice, until she was writhing against him, mindless and moaning, just the way he’d wanted her.

Then he reached down, pressed hard against the center of her need and sent her flying.

And it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. So damned beautiful it hurt—and he wasn’t done.

When she came back to herself, panting and dazed, he went a little bit faster, a little bit harder. He held her where he wanted her and took her until that made her cry out, then splinter all over again, and that time, he went with her.

But he was in no doubt, even then.

Sterling was a virgin.

Or had been one anyway, before she’d entered this pool.

And now she was his.

* * *

Rihad was unusually quiet when he climbed from the pool and then pulled her out behind him, but Sterling was still floating off in the clouds somewhere, too lost in the sensations still storming through her body to care.

He lifted her up and swung her into his arms, then carried her over the sands to his tent, not seeming to notice that he was still in his soaking wet clothes. He shouldered his way inside, where Sterling blinked in the softly lit interior until her eyes adjusted. When they did, she had to bite back a gasp.

Because it was like walking into a dream. Where her tent was like a desert rendition of a high-end hotel room, Rihad’s was something else entirely. It was a pageant of scarlet and gold, from the wide bed on its magnificent, kingly platform to the seating areas, some with pillows on the floor arrayed around what looked like a fireplace, some with wide, inviting couches, some set carefully around what looked like a personal library. There were jeweled chests and thick rugs, tapestries and ornate screens to mark off separate areas, and it felt like all the half-formed fantasies Sterling had ever had about distant harems and the harshly beguiling men who ruled over them.

And he was far better than any fantasy she’d ever had, she knew now. Even the ones she’d had about him, little, though, she’d wanted to admit that to herself.

Rihad still didn’t speak.

He stalked across the room and disappeared behind one of the screens, into what Sterling assumed was his own bathroom suite. She stood where she was, dripping onto the priceless carpet like a drowned thing, and when he returned, his face was set into an expression she couldn’t begin to work out. And his gaze was so fierce she couldn’t look at him directly—though that was not exactly a hardship, she thought, as her eyes dropped from his. He’d stripped off his wet clothes and was starkly, proudly naked, striding toward her as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do so.

She supposed it was. Even she understood that nudity was commonly a part of the whole sex thing.

The whole sex thing that you’ve now done, she reminded herself, still more than a little dazed by it. The act itself and the fact that she’d slipped across a kind of internal boundary line while she’d been shattering apart in Rihad’s arms.

It was over. Virginity dispensed with quickly and efficiently, and the best part was, Rihad was none the wiser. No awkward conversations filled with explanations and confessions, no accusations of being a great big freak of nature—all the things she’d always feared would happen if she ever got around to this hadn’t happened with Rihad.

And she was still so turned on, still so hungry for him, that she shook.

He picked her up again, as if she was as light as a doll—or as if she was utterly his, a thought that was so electrifying it burst inside of her like pain—and she should have protested that, but she didn’t. This time, he set her down on the high, wide platform step next to the bed and set about peeling her bikini all the way from her body, his hands like hot brands where the wet material had chilled her skin.

He produced a towel from somewhere and dried her off, carefully and thoroughly, and before he was done she was restless and needy all over again, moving from foot to foot when he crouched down before her—

And he knew it, she realized, when he glanced up at her, his eyes glittering darkly and that lush mouth of his in a crooked curve.

Her breath left her in a rush.

Rihad wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her, then tipped her back so she sprawled out on the high bed before him. Then he folded up her knees and held her there with those too-strong hands of his, all of her aching lower body open to him. He looked at her for a smoldering moment, then leaned down and licked his way deep into her heat.

Sterling made a sound that could only be described as a scream.

And he took his damned time, all over again. He tasted every contour, every fold. He took her femininity as relentlessly and totally as he’d taken her mouth, and she was burning up for him so quickly, so deliriously, that she had the wild thought that she might not survive it.

He laughed against the core of her and it went through her like lightning, and then once more, he threw her off the side of the planet into that sweet, hot oblivion.

This time, when she came back to him he’d crawled up over her on the bed. He lined up that hard, proud length with her most sensitive flesh and, when she gasped out his name, pushed in deep.

It was different this time. Darker, hotter.

Harder.

She felt the wave snap back, then swell, and she tossed her head against the bed, as afraid of what was coming as she was desperate for it.

“Beg me,” he ordered her harshly against her ear as he held himself over her, and it was like its own caress, rough and wild.

And she didn’t think. She didn’t argue.

She obeyed. She begged.

And it made it that much better.

Hotter. Sweeter.

Rihad pistoned in and out of her, making her a creature she’d never imagined she could be. She tore at him. She scratched him. She pleaded with him and he laughed, and that made her plead all the more. She writhed and she held on, she met each hard thrust as if she’d been made for this. For him. As if she’d waited all this time, as if it hadn’t been an accident, because she’d been meant for him all along.

She wanted it to last forever. She thought she might die if it did.

And this time, when she fell apart, he shouted out her name like a hoarse prayer and came with her.

She didn’t know how long she slept, or if it was even sleep—maybe she’d simply passed out from the enormity of what had happened? What she’d finally done? But when she woke again, she was tucked up next to him and he was playing with her hair, sliding the slippery strands through those clever fingers of his, that enigmatic expression still on his darkly gorgeous face.

That face of his she felt was stamped inside her, somehow, like a brand.

Sterling felt made new. As if he’d taken her apart and put her back together, and she would never be quite the same. She felt deeply and irrevocably changed. Altered, as if she might not recognize herself in the mirror the next time she looked.

She felt as if he’d taught her how to fly.

And she couldn’t tell him that. He couldn’t know. It was a slippery slope—

“Sterling.”

She jolted back to him, to that curious light in his eyes and that little curve to his deliciously full mouth.

“Rihad,” she said, and she wondered if his name would always sound like that to her now. Like a poem.

“I want to ask you a question.”

“Anything.” She meant it. Especially if they could keep doing this. Just a few hundred more times, she thought, and that might take the edge off.

He shifted closer to her, propped himself up on one elbow and smiled into her eyes.

“Tell me one thing,” he said, in that voice of his, so low and now intimately connected to something deep inside of her, as if he could simply flip a switch and she would long for him. She did. His dark gold eyes gleamed. “How is it possible that you were a virgin?”

Sterling went very, very still. He reached over and pulled a long strand of her hair between his fingers again, and this time, he tugged. Gently enough, but it seared through her anyway.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, though her voice sounded faint—or maybe she couldn’t hear it very well, over the clatter of her heart against her ribs. Because what else could she say? “Who’s ever heard of a virgin my age?”

His gaze held hers, steady and direct. “I didn’t ask you whether or not you were a virgin, Sterling. I know you were.” His lips curved into something tender if not quite a smile, and it pulled at her. “Hail Sterling, full of grace.”

“It’s true,” she whispered, because the thought hadn’t occurred to her, really. Not fully formed anyway. “I accidentally performed a virgin birth.”

“I asked you how.”

“The usual way.” She blinked when his eyebrow arched. “By which I mean IVF, of course. I did tell you that your brother was gay.”

“Yes, thank you.” His voice was as dry as the desert all around them. “I gathered that, as I saw no heavenly host hanging about the pool just now. How were you a virgin in the first place, Sterling? You’re not a nun, virgin birth aside.”

She had to clear her throat, because she couldn’t get up and run. He would catch her in an instant and she’d end up answering anyway, just with a greater display of his superior strength to be awed by when she did. She had absolutely no doubt.

“Well,” she said after what felt to her like a very long while, though he didn’t seem to move a muscle throughout it, “it wasn’t a plan. It just happened.”

“How does such a thing just happen?” His gaze moved over her, and some heretofore unknown romantic part of her thrilled to that expression on his harshly beautiful face then, as if it really was tenderness. And oh, how she wanted it to be. “You were a beautiful girl on her own when you went to New York. A cautionary tale, really.”

She opened her mouth to tell him another lie, but she couldn’t, somehow. It was as if everything really had changed, whether she liked it or not. It wasn’t only the sex. It was the baby. The way he’d saved her from herself when she’d been out of her mind on hormones and guilt. It was that he hadn’t hit her—had seemed astonished she’d thought he would. It was his gentleness now. It was the way he’d taken over her body so completely and yet still left her wanting more.

Who was she kidding? It was him.

And Sterling didn’t want to think about what that meant. She thought she knew—and that was truly insane. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. And there were different levels of the truth.

“My foster parents were the nicest people,” she told him, smiling slightly as if that might make these things easier to talk about. As if anything could. “That’s what everybody always said, in case we weren’t grateful enough. They were kind. Giving. They took in kids like me who’d been otherwise completely abandoned. They had their own kids. They were active and responsible members of the community. Everyone adored them.” She couldn’t look away from him, though she wanted to. “And why wouldn’t they? My foster parents never left any marks. Sometimes they just hit us and other times they liked to play elaborate games, using us as targets. They practiced their aim with cigarettes, cans. Sometimes forks and knives. But there were never any bruises anyone could see.” She saw that dark thing move in his gaze and smiled again, deeper and harsher. “They always told us we were welcome to tell on them, if we dared. That they’d enjoy ripping little nothings like us apart in public. Because no one would ever believe a word we said about the saints of the neighborhood, and they were right.”

“Where are these people now?” Rihad asked softly. Dangerously, as if, were he to speak in his usual voice, he would raze whole cities to the ground with the force of his fury.

And it made something long frozen deep within her unfurl in a little blast of warmth.

“They’re behind me, that’s where they are.” She smiled at him, a real smile that time, and when he slid his hand along her cheek, she leaned into it. “But after that I knew how evil people were, once they thought they had all the power. How vicious and cruel. So I made myself into an Ice Princess who didn’t like to be touched and was always much too sober to have any fun anyway, so everyone left me alone. And then Omar came along, and I didn’t have to worry about that stuff anymore, because everyone believed I was with him. And that’s how I accidentally ended up a virgin.”

Rihad didn’t speak for a long time, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking. What was happening behind that austere, ruthless face of his and that disconcertingly sensual mouth. She wanted to lick him until neither one of them could think anymore. She wanted to bury her face in the crook of his neck, as if he could keep her safe from all the things that swirled around her that she couldn’t even identify. He would, she thought. He really would.

And God help her, the things she wanted then, that she was too afraid to name.

“But you let me take you.” His gaze was even more golden than usual then, and it set her alight. “Twice.”

“Yes.” Her throat was so dry that it hurt when she swallowed. “I did.”

“Why?” He traced a line from the tender place beneath her ear, down and around to stroke the line of her collarbone, as if he was trying to smooth the ridge of it back beneath her skin. “Why me?”

“We’re already married, Rihad,” she said, as primly as if she was lunching at some terribly dignified country club. “Your name is on my daughter’s birth certificate.”

And she saw that smile of his again, watched it light up his eyes. It filled her with the same light.

“Why, Sterling. That makes you sound traditional and old-fashioned, not modern and scandalous at all.”

“It seemed safe enough,” she told him, caught in that glittering gaze of his. Lost in the way he was touching her, so casually intimate, as if this was only the beginning. As if there was so much further yet to go—but she didn’t dare let herself think that. “And also, to be honest, I didn’t think you’d notice.”

He didn’t seem to move, but everything changed. Got way more intense, so fast it made her stomach drop. “I noticed.”

She froze. “Oh. Was I…? Was I not…?”

Rihad laughed then and rolled, coming up over her and holding her there beneath him, that stunning body of his stretched out above her, so gorgeously male it hurt.

“You were exquisite,” he told her quietly, sincerity in every syllable. “You are a marvel. But I am old-fashioned myself, Sterling, as you’ve pointed out to me many times. Deeply traditional in every possible way.”

She was shaking, and it wasn’t fear. It was him. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that you were far safer when I thought you were a whore,” he said bluntly, his dark gaze seeming to burn through her, kicking up new flames and changing everything. Changing her. “Now I know that you are only mine. Only and ever mine. And I, my little one, am a very, very selfish man.”

And then he set about proving it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE HEADLINE A MONTH LATER was like a slap—the hit, perhaps, that Sterling had been expecting all along. She sat frozen solid on the balcony outside Rihad’s suite, staring down at the tablet computer Rihad had left sitting there when he’d stepped inside to take a phone call. She felt sick.

Black Widow Sterling Lures King Rihad into Her Web! the worst of the European tabloids shrieked. And the article beneath it was even worse.

Sex-symbol Sterling flaunts postbaby bod and enslaves the desert king! Starry-eyed King Rihad can’t keep his eyes—or his hands!—off his late brother’s lover. “But Sterling left a trail of broken hearts behind her in New York,” say concerned friends. Will the formidable king be one more of heartbreaker Sterling’s conquests?

It was beautifully done, really. Killer Whore. Vain Whore. Married Whore. Omar’s Whore. New York Whore. So many clever ways of calling Sterling a whore without ever actually uttering the word.

The worst part was, she hadn’t seen this coming. She hadn’t expected it, and she should have. Of course she should have. But she’d actually believed that now that she and Rihad were not only married, but also actually as intimate as that honeymoon had been meant to suggest, the awful paparazzi would leave her alone.

She’d been incredibly naive.

There are no happy endings, she reminded herself then, frowning out at the sea that stretched toward the horizon before her as if basking, blue and gleaming, in the sun. Not for you. Not ever.

But she’d been lulled into believing otherwise.

Their lazy days at the oasis had bled together into one great burst of brilliant heat, a haze of bright sun above, desert breezes over the cool water in the shaded pools and the desperate, delirious hunger that only Rihad had ever called out in her—and that only he could satisfy.

Sterling had learned every inch of his proud, infinitely masculine body. She’d tasted him, teased him, taken him. She’d learned how to make him groan out his pleasure, how to scream out her own. He’d taken her beneath the endless stars, in the vast softness of his bed, in the luxurious tub that stood in her own luxuriously appointed tent. He’d been inventive and uninhibited—and demanding, as he’d promised. She’d learned to be the same in return.

Sterling had given herself over to the exquisite pleasures of the flesh that she’d denied herself so long—all her life, in fact. Touch. Lust. Desire and its sweet oblivion. She’d eaten too much, drunk too deeply. She’d lost herself in Rihad, again and again and again. She’d told him the truth about herself, or a critical portion of the truth anyway—and the world hadn’t ended.

She’d let herself imagine that Rihad was as powerful as he’d always appeared to her. That he could truly hold back whatever nightmares threatened. That he would.

That she and Leyla and this marvel of a man could create their own truths and live in them. That they could finally be the family she’d always wanted.

But she’d forgotten who she was.

She always did.

It had been some weeks since they’d left the oasis and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why the tabloids had latched on to her again. The article went on to make salacious suggestions about a list of regional leaders and some local celebrities, all of whom had been at last night’s elegant function in one of the new luxury hotel complexes being built along the shore of the Bay of Bakri.

That meant that someone at that party had taken exception to the Queen Whore being paraded about on their king’s arm and had taken to the tabloids to express their feelings.

“I’d prefer you not read that nonsense,” Rihad said from the doorway, his deep voice like a flame within her, that easily. That quickly. Sterling looked over at him, still frowning, despite the little flip her heart performed at the sight of him, dark and beautiful there in the arched entryway. His mouth crooked as if he could feel it, too. “It will rot your brain.”

“I told you not to take me to your events, Rihad.” When his fierce brows rose, she flushed, aware that her agitation had sharpened her tone. “I knew this would happen.”

“It is our job to ignore the tabloids,” he said, mildly enough. “Or so you told me yourself.”

But this was different. She was a different person than the woman who had said that to him. And this incarnation of herself didn’t want to let the tarnish of that one seep into what they’d built between them in the past month. She thought it might break her apart.

“It’s only going to get worse.” Sterling folded her hands in her lap and tried to remain calm, or at least to look it. “It always gets worse. They already call me the Queen Whore.”

“Not out loud or in print, they don’t.” There was no softness on his starkly beautiful face then. No hint of a curve to his lush mouth. Only that dangerous light in his dark gold eyes. “Not unless they wish to explain themselves to me personally. Let me assure you, no one does.”

“You can’t threaten everyone on the planet, Rihad. You can’t decree that people forget my past.”

“Your imagined past.”

“What does that matter? When it comes to perception, all that matters is what people believe.” She shook her head at him. “Isn’t that why we went on our honeymoon in the first place?”

“It was one among many reasons,” he said, and his dark gold eyes moved over her the way his hands did so freely, these days. And she was still so astonished that she liked it. That she more than liked it. “The least important, I think.”

He looked dark and forbidding in the gleaming robes he’d worn today for his meetings with some of the local tribes later on, but he didn’t intimidate her any longer. Not the way he once had. Now all that power, all that dark authority he wore so easily, made her shiver for entirely different reasons. His dark gold eyes fixed on hers and everything inside her stilled in glorious anticipation, the way it always did now. Goose bumps moved sinuously over her arms and shoulders, and she wished she could continue to lose herself in it. In him.

But she knew what he didn’t.

That her past was a living thing that stalked her. It always would. It always did, because it lived inside of her. No matter what she did, or how, the world thought the worst of her. That wouldn’t change. It had never changed. She’d told herself she was immune to it for all those years with Omar, because that kind of notoriety had been exactly what he’d wanted and they’d courted it together.

But Rihad was different. Rihad wasn’t hiding. The last thing Rihad needed was notoriety.

Rihad deserved a whole lot better than a secondhand queen he’d married only for the baby’s sake, no matter how they fit together in bed. Sex might have been new to Sterling, but it wasn’t to him. He could get it anywhere, she reminded herself brusquely and ignored the deep pang inside her at the thought. He was the King of Bakri. There would be women lining the streets of Bakri City should he indicate he was looking.

Sterling was the one who couldn’t imagine anyone but him touching her. She was the broken one, all the way through.

“You married yourself off to stop a scandal,” she reminded him lightly, though nothing inside of her felt anything like light. It was as if the moment she’d acknowledged the darkness, it had seeped into everything. Every part of her. “Not to perpetuate one every time you step outside the palace walls.”

He considered her for a moment, his dark gaze unreadable. He was still standing there in the arched doorway that led into his rooms, where she’d spent the bulk of her time since they’d returned from the desert. They hadn’t even discussed it—he’d simply moved her things into his suite. Sterling had been so spellbound by this man it hadn’t occurred to her to maintain any distance.

For his sake, not hers.

And it was then, frowning up at him, angry at herself and worried about his future, that Sterling understood that she’d fallen in love with Rihad al Bakri.

It stunned her. It was a hit as brutal as that tabloid headline, swift and to her gut, with the force of a hard kick. She didn’t know how she managed to keep from doubling over. How she managed to keep looking at him as if her entire life hadn’t run aground right then and there, decisively and disastrously.

Love wasn’t something Sterling could do. Ever.

How had she managed to fool herself all this time? A baby. A husband. No one will ever love you, little girl, they’d told her. This is what you deserve. Deep down, you know it.

She did know it. And she never should have let all of this get so complicated.

“What can possibly be going through your head?” Rihad asked quietly, jolting Sterling’s attention back to him. “To put such a look on your face?”

“I was only thinking about how soon we should divorce,” Sterling said, in a surprisingly even tone of voice. There were too many things rolling inside of her, making her feel unsteady on her own feet, as if she was a storm about to break. “That’s obviously the easiest and best way to solve this problem. You remain the dutiful, heroic king who married me only to secure Leyla’s position and when they discuss the scandal that is me, it won’t affect you at all.”

He’d gone so still. His dark gold eyes burned.

“Do I appear affected now?” It was a dangerous question, asked in that lethal tone of voice.

“It will make me seem particularly heartless and horrible if I were to leave before Leyla is a year old,” Sterling continued matter-of-factly, not answering him. “That might be best, then. I trust that once everything’s died down, once you marry someone far more appropriate, we can work out a quiet way for me to stay in her life.”

“Sterling.” He waited until she met his hard gaze, and she could admit that it was difficult. That it cost her. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Our divorce,” she said, struggling to keep her voice light. To gaze back at him as if there was something more inside her than a great weight and a terrible sob breaking her ribs apart. “Leyla is now legitimate. A princess of Bakri, as you planned. There’s no reason to drag this out if my presence here is causing you trouble. That’s silly.”

“Because it has worked out so terribly for you thus far?” he asked, a hard edge in his voice, like a lash, and she had to force herself not to react to it. Not to show him how it had landed and how it hurt. “My condolences, Sterling. When you came apart beneath my mouth in the shower this morning, twice, I had the strangest impression that you’d resigned yourself to the horrors of this marriage. Somehow.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and made herself glare at him as if she still hated him—as if she’d ever really hated him—her heart pounding at her as if she was running. She wished she was.

Then again, this was how it had started.

“That’s sex,” she said dismissively, and she felt something sharp-edged scrape inside her as she said it. As if she wanted to hurt him. As if she wanted to remind him that this had never been meant to happen between them. As if he was to blame for the fact she’d lost herself in sex and happy fantasies of happy lives she could never have. As if loving him was something he’d done to her. A punishment for daring to imagine she could love anyone without repercussions, when she’d been taught otherwise a very long time ago. “I’ve never had it before, as you know. It turns out, it’s a lot of fun.”

“Fun,” he repeated softly, in a way that should have terrified her.

She told herself it didn’t. Or that it didn’t matter either way.

“And I appreciate you introducing me to this whole new world,” she said, never shifting her gaze from his. “I do.”

“Introducing you?” he echoed, and that time, a chill sneaked down her back. Her heart already ached. Her stomach twisted. But if she loved him, if she loved her daughter—and God help her, but she did, so much more than she’d known she was capable of loving anything—she had to fix this.

And there was only one way to do that.

Maybe she’d always known it would come to this. Maybe that was why she’d never touched a man in her life. Because no matter who he was, it would always end up right here. Face-to-face with the worst of her truths and no way to escape it.

There is no other man, a small voice inside intoned, like words chiseled into stone. Deep into her heart. Not for you.

She knew that was true, too. It didn’t change anything.

“But you’re not the only man alive, Rihad, regardless of how you act,” she told him then, before she could talk herself out of it. Before she could give in to all the things she wanted. “You were merely my first.”

* * *

For a moment Rihad held himself so still he thought he might have turned to stone himself, into one of the pillars that held up this palace of his, smooth and hard and cold all the way through.

Which would have been safer for Sterling by far.

Because what shook in him, rolling and buckling, seismic and intense, was so vast he was surprised the whole cursed palace didn’t crumble down around them where they stood. There was a clutching sensation in his chest, a pounding in his head and a murderous streak lighting him up like a bloody lantern.

“I am your first, yes,” he said, in the voice of the civilized man that he’d always thought he was, before her—a king, for his sins, not this wild, fanged creature within that wanted only to howl. Then stake its claim. “And your last, Sterling. Let us make sure that part is clear.”

“That’s not up to you,” she said, tilting her chin up as if she was expecting a wrestling match to break out.

Rihad could think of few things he’d like more than to put his hands on her, but he wouldn’t do it just then. Not while he was still battling his temper, which was all the more unpredictable because he was so unused to it.

He’d never understood desire. Need. This kind of exquisite weakness. Now he was made of nothing else.

He tried to remain calm. Or at least sound calm. “I think you’ll find it is.”

“There’s no need to get so emotional,” she chided, and he was as astonished as that day back in New York when she’d started issuing orders. She stood, smoothing her hands down the front of the long dress she wore over her bare feet, a combination he found maddeningly erotic. Or was that another emotion? He seemed to be full of them where she was concerned. “I don’t know why you’re not seeing this clearly. The sooner we divorce, the easier it will be to rehabilitate your image.”

“My image is fine.”

Sterling inclined her head toward the table and his tablet and all those snide tabloid articles. “Evidently not.”

She even smiled serenely in his direction as she walked past him into the suite, the long skirt of her dress flowing out and around as she moved, so lithe and pretty on her feet it was as if everything she did was a dance. Even the way she walked away from him.

And this was absurd. He knew that. He knew she was trying to needle him, though he couldn’t have said why. He knew she wanted him as much as he did her—he hadn’t imagined their morning in his shower, the way she’d cried out his name and ground herself against his mouth, and he’d seen that same hectic fever in her gaze now, too. It was always there. Always.

He hadn’t imagined everything that had happened between them over the past month. This woman was his in every conceivable way. He had no intention of divorcing her, or even permitting her to sleep apart from him again. What did it matter if she admitted this or not?

Yet Rihad found it mattered quite a lot.

He stalked after her, catching her while she was still crossing his bedchamber and using her elbow and her momentum to spin her back around to face him.

“Don’t you dare—” she began, but he was already touching her, and that was its own alchemy.

That fire that only burned hotter by the day exploded between them, the way it always did, wild and bright. He saw her pulse accelerate in her neck. He saw that white-hot heat make her eyes go glassy.

“You little fool,” he bit out, but this wasn’t temper, he understood. Not any longer. There was that bittersweet pang of jealousy at the thought of her with other men, but everything else was pure, sensual menace that he had every intention of taking out on her delectable body. Until she took his point to heart. “Do you think this happens every day?”

“I assume it must,” she fired back at him, so busy fighting him she didn’t seem to notice the way he was backing her across the room, to the nearest wall. “Or every popular song I’ve ever heard is a lie.”

She let out a small, surprised noise when her back came up against the nearest brocaded wall, and then another when Rihad merely leaned closer and pressed his forehead to hers, holding her that simply.

“This is the sex you seem to think you can get anywhere,” he told her, and her mouth was a serious temptation, but he ignored it, concentrating on pulling that long skirt of hers up and sliding his hands beneath. “This is the chemistry you imagine is so run-of-the-mill.”

He felt that shudder go through her and then his hands were on her soft thighs, and it was his turn to let out a long breath when he found she was completely bare beneath her dress. There was nothing but the heat of her skin, the touch of her soft curls, and then that molten core of her, all his.

Only and ever his.

“Rihad…” she whispered.

“I don’t want to fight with you,” he told her.

He angled his head back so he could look at her, even as he plunged a finger deep into her heat. He watched a flush spread over her cheeks and knew that was the truth of things between them. The only truth that mattered, and it always would be. That dark, bewitching fire. That endless well of need.

“If you have something to say to me, Sterling, say it. Don’t poke at me. Don’t pretend.”

She stiffened at that. “Pretending is the problem. It’s what we’ve—I’ve—been doing this whole time!”

“I don’t think so.”

He pulled his finger from her depths, then held her gaze as he licked it clean, her taste as intoxicating as ever on his tongue. He felt his mouth curve as her lips parted at that, as if she was finding it difficult to breathe regularly. He reached down between them to handle his robes and his trousers, and then he stepped between her legs as he lifted her up, wrapping her around him and holding her there for a long, hot instant.

This time, he didn’t carry her to a nearby table. This time, as he lowered her against him he slid deep inside of her, so deep they both groaned at the sensation.

Her hands balled into fists at his shoulders and she bit her lip as if she meant to resist him. But then she rolled her hips against his as if she couldn’t help herself, and Rihad smiled.

He took control then. Her ankles were locked tight around his hips and he lifted her up, then brought her down, working her against him slowly. So slowly. Making her shudder and pant. Making it so good she’d forget all this divorce and separation nonsense.

Because she was soft and hot, a revelation around him with every stroke, and she was his.

All his. Always his.

It took him a long while to realize that he was chanting that out loud, like a prayer or a promise, and when he did, he laughed.

“Say it,” he demanded.

But this was Sterling, his Sterling. So even as she writhed against him, even as her hips met his in this wild dance of theirs, she defied him.

And God help him, he loved it. He loved all of this more than he’d ever imagined was possible, more than he’d ever loved anything or anyone. Sterling was his, damn it. All of her. Her body and her heart alike, and he didn’t much care if she thought otherwise. He knew the truth.

He wasn’t giving her up. Ever. Even if his kingdom came down around him. Even if the world followed suit.

For the first time in his life, he didn’t care about his duty. He cared about her.

“Say it,” he told her again. “I can do this all day. And if I can, you will. But you will not come until you admit what we both already know is the truth.”

She let out a sound then, half fury and half need, and Rihad laughed again, because he was as hungry as she was. As greedy for her.

“All yours,” she gritted out, her blue eyes slick and warm on his, and he felt it like a caress. This was who they were. Caress, capitulation, it was all the same thing. It all led to the same place. “Damn you, Rihad, I’m yours.”

He reached down between them and pressed hard against the taut center of her hunger, and she bucked hard against him, arching her back and digging her fingers hard into his shoulders, then screamed as she plummeted over the edge.

But Rihad was only getting started.

CHAPTER TWELVE

STERLING HADN’T MEANT to eavesdrop.

She’d been enjoying the gala, held in the grand art gallery that was one of the jewels of the new Bakri City, a testament to the country’s bright new future. Or so Rihad had said in his speech earlier, in English, for the benefit of the foreign press. She’d allowed the phalanx of docents to lead her through the first great exhibit, on loan from the Louvre, and had honestly enjoyed looking at the collection of world-class, world-famous art.

It had reminded her of her favorite way to spend a day in New York City: wandering aimlessly around the Metropolitan Museum of Art and losing herself in all the marvelous things collected there for the viewing, from paintings to metalwork to Egyptian tombs. Except here in Bakri City there was the sea on one side and the beckoning desert on the other, reminding her that she was across the world from the things she knew.

It had been ten days since she’d realized that she loved Rihad. Ten long days and longer nights since she’d understood that she must leave him and, worse, Leyla, too. Every day, she’d woken up and vowed that it would be her last in Bakri, that she would find a way to leave the two people she loved most. Yet somehow, there was always another reason to stay.

And here she was on yet another night, dressed in beautiful clothes as befit the queen she still had trouble believing was legitimately her. She’d smiled prettily on command, quite as if she couldn’t see the speculation in every gaze that met hers. As if she couldn’t hear the whispers that followed her around the great courtyard.

As if she wasn’t aware that at least half of the people who spoke to her were thinking the word whore as they curtsied and called her Your Majesty.

“Your daughter is the bright jewel of the kingdom,” professed one Bakrian aristocrat whom Sterling had recognized from her wedding. Where this woman and her husband, both possessed of crisp, upper-crust British accents when they spoke in their perfect English, had gazed back at her as if they couldn’t understand a word she’d said.

“I certainly think so,” Sterling had said.

“One can only hope she grows into her mother’s beauty,” said the husband, and Sterling hadn’t much liked that look in his too-knowing eyes when he said it, or the way he’d leaned closer than was strictly appropriate when he’d continued. “What a blessing it is for a daughter to become like her mother in every way.”

It took a moment for Sterling to understand that this person had, in effect, just called her infant daughter a whore. A potential whore.

She was going to ruin Rihad if she stayed. That much was obvious, no matter how he tried to dismiss it.

But aside from worrying over her biological limitations and the genetic propensity for ruining children she might have inherited from her own terrible mother, Sterling hadn’t really given a lot of thought to how her presence in Bakri would destroy Leyla. She’d thought that as Rihad’s daughter in every way but her biology, Leyla would be safe. More than safe.

You should have known better, sneered that internal voice that she knew came from her foster parents, across all those years, as if she was still standing in the middle of that cold kitchen waiting for the next blow to lay her out on the linoleum floor. You taint everything you touch.

She’d ducked into one of the cordoned-off alcoves for a little breather after that unpleasant last encounter. She wanted to take a moment—only a moment—to let her face do whatever it wished. To drop her public smile. To simply not be on display.

Sterling pulled in a deep breath, then let it out. Then again.

And it was as she was preparing to walk back out and face it all again that she heard Rihad’s deep voice from the other side of the pillar that concealed her.

“I have no worries whatsoever about the union between our countries,” he was saying in his crisp, kingly manner. “Nor can I imagine that Kavian has indicated otherwise, to your publication or to anyone else.”

That meant it was one of the reporters, Sterling understood, and that was why she didn’t reveal her presence. She’d had enough of the press earlier, with their sugary smiles and all those jagged claws right underneath, sharpened on her own skin every time they asked her a pointed question.

“Yet your sister remains at large.”

“The Princess Amaya’s schedule remains private for obvious security reasons.” Rihad’s voice was so cold then it made Sterling’s stomach clench tight. “But I can assure you that no member of the royal family is ‘at large.’ Your information is faulty.”

“Neither Kavian nor Amaya have been seen—”

“His Royal Majesty Kavian ibn Zayed al Talaas, ruling sheikh of the desert stronghold Daar Talaas, is certainly not in hiding of any kind, if that is what your impertinent suggestion is meant to imply.” Rihad’s voice held dark warning then. “But he no more clears his schedule with me than I do with him. He certainly does not clear it with you. I would advise you to step away from this subject.”

“Certainly, Sire.” The man’s voice made Sterling feel dirty. Tarnished. “My congratulations on your recent marriage.”

Sterling winced then, at the thunderous silence that told her all she needed to know about the expression Rihad was likely wearing.

“Tread carefully,” Rihad all but growled. “Very carefully.”

“Certainly, Your Majesty, you must be aware that there is mounting concern among your subjects that a woman like that—”

“A woman like that?” Rihad’s voice turned mild, which was her husband at his most volatile, even as that same old phrase knocked around inside of Sterling, leaving marks. New bruises to join the old. “By all means, enlighten me. A woman like what, exactly?”

That was when Sterling moved. She swept out from behind the pillar and hoped it would be assumed she’d simply taken herself off to the powder room.

Rihad stood squared off against a small, toad-like creature Sterling recognized as one of the paparazzi who had followed her every move in New York. She had no doubt that he was responsible for a great many of the horrible narratives that circulated about her to this day, as he’d taken after her as if Sterling was his pet project. He’d always looked at her as if he could see that truth buried deep inside of her. As if he knew how flawed and unwanted and ruined she truly was.

Part of her wanted nothing more than to leave him to Rihad’s scant and rapidly eroding mercy, but she didn’t dare. Not now, after all the recent bad press and a museum filled with more reporters. She was already enough of a stone draped around Rihad’s neck, dragging him down. There was no need to add an assault-and-battery charge on her behalf to the list of her sins against this man.

“Sterling,” the awful little man oozed at her. “We were just talking about you.”

She didn’t know which part of that offended her more—the way the man looked at her, the way he spoke to her with such unearned familiarity or the way he sidled closer to her with his hand extended as if he planned to put it on—

“Ancient Bakrian law states that if another man touches my queen without my permission I am not only permitted to rend him limb from limb with my own hands, but must do so to protect the honor of the crown,” Rihad said conversationally, and the reporter froze. Rihad’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Barbaric, is it not? And yet so many of my subjects find comfort in the old ways.”

He did not say, myself included, but Sterling felt certain she was not the only one who felt as if he’d shouted it from the rooftops.

The little man’s eyes glittered with a sort of impotent fury that Sterling knew—she knew—would translate into yet another revolting piece about her in the morning papers. She could practically read the article now as it scrolled across the man’s dirty mind.

To this man I will never be anything but a woman like that, Sterling thought miserably, but she only smiled at the reporter as she moved past him to take Rihad’s arm. The Queen Whore herself, parading around like so much pollution.

“You shouldn’t antagonize him,” she said softly as Rihad drew her out onto the dance floor, the elegant crowd parting all around them to let them take its center, as if the tense exchange had never happened. “Not him or any of his little cronies.”

“Must I introduce myself to you all over again?” Rihad’s voice was arrogant, and his dark gold eyes still glittered furiously. “I am the King of Bakri. He should not antagonize me.”

“You are the king, yes,” she agreed, trying to keep her smile in place and her voice low, as befitted such genteel and public a place. “And you should not condescend to notice a man like him. That you do at all is my fault.”

Sterling felt one of his hands tighten against the small of her back, and the other where his larger one gripped hers, and her curse was that she felt all of this like light. It was as if he poured straight into her, banishing all the darkness.

But she knew that wasn’t true. She knew nothing could.

“Do not start this again,” he warned her, his voice harsh despite his placid expression. “Not here.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty,” she murmured, so submissively that it startled a laugh out of him. Which in turn made her laugh, too, when she’d have said that was impossible under the circumstances. And still he spun her around and around that dance floor, as if they were nothing but beautiful. As if all of this was.

And some of the papers the next morning thought so, it was true.

But the others were vile.

There was a list of Sterling’s supposed conquests, spanning the globe and including some countries she’d never visited and many men she’d never met. Another featured a list of her “raciest moments,” which mostly involved skimpy outfits from her more outrageous modeling shoots held up as if she’d paraded around the streets of Manhattan wearing so little.

They didn’t actually call her a whore. But then, they didn’t have to call her anything. The comments section did that for them.

Sterling didn’t mention the articles. Still, she could see the temper crack across Rihad’s face and thought he tried to conceal it from her. Because that was Rihad, she understood now. Duty before all else. And he’d decided she was one of his duties. She cuddled Leyla on her lap and pressed kisses into the sweet crown of her head, and she only smiled when Rihad excused himself.

Because she knew what he refused to accept: this was never going to get better. She was never going to get better, or any less the subject of the repulsive speculation of the public.

And if she stayed here, Rihad and Leyla would rot right along with her.

Sterling might not have known a lot about love, but she knew—deep down she knew—that if she really, truly loved them, she wouldn’t condemn them to that kind of life. Not when it took so little to save them.

So very little.

All she had to do was leave.

* * *

When his chief of security strode into Rihad’s private conference room, scattering the gathered aides and the handful of ambassadors Rihad had been sitting with, he assumed it was about Amaya, at last.

“Has she been found?” he asked when the room was clear.

He thought the feeling that moved in him then was something far closer to regret than relief. But that made no sense. Amaya needed to be found and should have been found months ago. She needed to do her duty, no matter how Rihad might have come to sympathize with her plight. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d told her there were no other options available to them.

But he couldn’t deny the part of him that admired his younger sister for having stayed out of Kavian’s reach all this time. Rihad liked the other man well enough. Respected him, even. But he doubted very much that any other creature on earth had led him on such a merry chase.

“We are tracking her, Your Majesty,” his security chief said, standing at rigid attention, quite as if he expected a reprimand. “We have video of her leaving the palace an hour ago. It looks as if she’s headed for the city limits.”

Rihad digested that statement, and it took him longer than it should have to comprehend that the man was not talking about his sister.

But he couldn’t make sense of what he was hearing.

He was aware that he’d frozen solid where he stood. He heard what his security chief was saying, but he couldn’t seem to move. To react.

She had charmed her way into one of the palace’s fleet of armored vehicles, because she was nothing if not persuasive when she wished. And because she was his queen. Instead of heading for the royal enclosure near the sea, a perfectly reasonable place for her to go without any guards because it was manned with its own, she’d had the driver change direction once they’d left the palace grounds and she’d headed for the far reaches of Bakri City.

There was nothing there, Rihad knew. Nothing save the border.

“My daughter,” he managed to say, over the dark thud that was his heart in his chest. “Where is my daughter?”

His beautiful, perfect little Leyla, who he could not lose, and who, he realized, he’d never called his daughter before. Not out loud. He would not lose Leyla, no matter who her biological father was. She was his.

She and her treacherous mother were entirely his.

His security chief was muttering into his earpiece. Rihad was unnaturally still.

“The princess remains in the palace, Your Majesty. She is with her nurses even now.”

“Excellent,” Rihad bit out, and he started moving then, belting out orders as he went.

If Sterling had left the baby behind that meant he wouldn’t have to temper his reaction when he found her—though he was sure he would have to think about that, at some point. That she’d taken off without her daughter, which was so unlike her as to be something like laughable.

He might have imagined, once, that Sterling was nothing more than a calculating, callous sort of creature. The kind of woman who would have a child for the sole purpose of tying herself to a man and, more to the point, his fortune.

That he didn’t think that of her now, not even for a moment, told him things he was too furious to analyze just then. There was something seismic inside of him, bigger and bolder than anything he’d ever felt before. It was as massive as the desert, expanding in all directions, and he was not entirely certain he would be the same man when he survived it.

If he survived it.

But he had every intention of sharing the effects of it with his wife while he waited to see. Because he wasn’t letting her go.

Not ever.

* * *

The helicopter landed with military precision on the dusty desert road, forcing Sterling’s driver to slam on his brakes to a fishtailing stop—and putting an end to her escape fantasies that easily.

Sterling sat in the backseat and stared at the gleaming metal thing with its powerful rotors as if, were she to concentrate hard enough, she could make it go away again.

But it didn’t. Of course it didn’t.

For a long, shuddering moment, nothing happened.

The helicopter sat there in the middle of the otherwise empty road. Sterling’s driver, having lapsed into what sounded like frantic prayers as it had landed, was now muttering to himself. And that meant she had a lifetime or two to contemplate the leaping somersault her heart kept performing in her chest, no matter how sternly she told herself that hope was inappropriate.

She wasn’t running away this time. She wasn’t desperate or scared. She wasn’t a fifteen-year-old kid and she was no longer afraid of her best friend’s big, bad wolf.

This time, she was doing the right thing.

The helicopter’s back door opened and Rihad climbed out, his movements precise and furious, and yet still infused with that lethal, masculine grace that made her mouth water. Maybe it always would.

But if so, it would happen from afar. In magazines or on the news.

She was no good for him. She was even worse for her precious daughter. Nothing else mattered

“Stay here,” she told her driver, not that he’d offered to leap to her defense—the man clearly recognized the royal insignia on the helicopter’s sides if not his king himself.

Sterling slammed her way out of the car into the hot desert sun. Memories assaulted her as the hot wind poured over her. Of facing Rihad much like this on a Manhattan street, in what seemed like a different lifetime. Of the dark look he’d worn then and the far darker and grimmer look he wore now.

Sterling didn’t wait for him to reach her.

“What are you doing?” she threw at him across the hard-packed stretch of sandy road that separated them. “Let me go!”

“Never.”

Short. Harsh. A kingly utterance and infused with all his trademark ruthlessness.

She was as instantly furious at him as she was pointlessly, traitorously moved by that.

“It wasn’t a request.”

“You do not give the King of Bakri orders, Sterling.” He was closer then, and she could feel that edginess that came off him in waves, as if he was his own sun. “Your role is to obey.”

“Stop this.” Her voice was a hiss, and she slashed her hand through the air to emphasize it. “You’re not being reasonable.”

He was beyond furious—she could see it in every line of that body of his she knew better than her own now. He was practically vibrating with the force of his temper. And yet he only stared at her for a beat, then another, as if he couldn’t believe she’d said that to him.

And then he tipped back his head and laughed.

He laughed and he laughed.

When he focused on her again, Sterling was shaking, and not from anything like fear. It was need. Longing. Love.

“I am renowned for my reason,” he told her, no trace of laughter remaining in his voice then. “I am considered the most rational of men. My family is filled with emotional creatures who careened through their lives, neglecting their duties and catering to their weaknesses.” He shrugged. “I thought I didn’t have any weaknesses. But the truth is, I hadn’t met you yet.”

Again, she didn’t know how to feel, so she ignored the great, swirling mess inside of her. She balled her hands into fists and scowled at him.

“You’re making my point for me. I’m a weakness and you’re a man who can’t afford any. You need to let me go.”

“Yet when it comes to you, Sterling, I am not the least bit reasonable,” he growled at her. “Why the hell are you running away from me?”

“Why do you think?” she challenged, astonished. “I’m an anchor around your neck, weighing you down. You can’t have this endless scandal and that’s all this is. That’s all I am.”

“You left Leyla behind.”

Sterling couldn’t let herself think about that.

“She’s better off,” she gritted out. She swallowed back the anguished sob that threatened to pour out of her, to tear her open. “Divorced couples share custody all the time. There’s no reason why we can’t. And that means Leyla can grow up here, where she’ll be safe.”

“I can hear the words that come out of your mouth.” His voice set every hair on her body on end. It prickled over her, harsh like sandpaper and a darkness beneath it. “Yet not one of them makes the slightest bit of sense.”

“All I ask is that you find a good woman to help you raise her,” Sterling pushed on, determined, despite the way everything inside of her lurched and rolled as if she was about to capsize herself. She couldn’t let that happen. “Someone who is—”

“What?” Rihad asked brutally. “Not as dirty and ruined as you are?”

There it was.

It was shocking to hear someone else say that out loud after all these years. It was soul-destroying to hear it from him.

But Sterling wasn’t running away from the only man she’d ever loved like this, or ever would, because it was easy. She was doing it because it was right. Which meant she couldn’t collapse at that. She couldn’t let all that wild darkness inside of her take her down to her knees. It was too important that he accept this.

“You know, then.” She couldn’t process it.

He looked furious. Impatient. Darkly focused on her.

“I have an idea what those terrible people must have told you. It doesn’t make it true.”

“If you know,” she managed to say, “then there’s no reason for this to be so dramatic. I’m doing you a favor.”

His expression shifted into something incredulous and arrogant at once.

“I do not want a favor, Sterling,” he threw at her. “I want my family.”

And that easily, he broke her heart.

“You can make yourself a perfect family,” she told him, and she only realized as she spoke that her throat was constricted. That tears were welling up and pouring over, splashing down her face. It was as if he hadn’t simply broken her heart—he’d broken her into a thousand tiny pieces and she couldn’t keep them all together any longer. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to do it again. “You can have more babies and a sweet, biddable wife who follows your commands and never shames you in public. You can—”

“You are my family!” he roared at her, and when she jumped back an inch he followed, taking her arms in those hard, surprisingly gentle hands of his. “You are my wife, my queen. We have a daughter. This is your family, Sterling. I am your family.”

“Rihad—”

But her voice was choked and her words were lost somewhere in a great, wild tangle that swamped her then. Far greater than fear. Far more encompassing.

“And I know that you love me, little one,” he told her then, his voice lower, but still so raw it almost hurt to hear it. Almost. “Do you think I can’t tell? When I do nothing but study you, day after day?”

“I don’t,” she managed to respond, though she couldn’t stop shaking. “I can’t. Nothing good ever comes of my loving something.”

His hands tightened slightly on her arms, but his expression softened. He pulled her even closer. His dark gold eyes searched hers.

“Sterling.” He said her name as if it was as beautiful as she’d thought it was when she’d picked it as a teenager. “I know that love for you means a hit must be forthcoming. I know you expect nothing but pain and misery when you dare to hope.” He moved, rubbing his palms along her arms as if he was trying to warm her. Soothe her. Love her. “But I am a man of honor. My word is law. And no one will ever hit you again as long as you live. Especially not me.”

She shook her head, hard, though shivers chased through her, one after the next as if she really was being torn apart. She could feel the tearing, deep inside of her.

“I’m your duty, nothing more,” she said fiercely. “But your duty is to Bakri, not to me. And they deserve better. You deserve better.”

“And you deserve to believe that you do, too.”

She couldn’t breathe past those words. She whispered his name again then, but she couldn’t seem to stop crying. And then he let go of her, which was worse than a hit. Worse than a kick or two. She reached out a hand despite her intention to make him let her go, but then froze, because he wasn’t walking away from her.

Rihad al Bakri, reigning sheikh, Grand Ruler and King of the Bakrian Empire, sank to his knees on the sand before her, never shifting that proud, stern gaze of his from hers.

He reached over, but he didn’t take her hands. He took her hips in his powerful grip instead, as if he could lift her up if he wished. As if he could carry her forever, if she would only let him.

“I ordered you marry me once,” he said in that low, dark, powerful voice of his. “Now I am asking you to stay with me. To live with me, love me, and who cares what the papers say. There are men watching us right now. Does it look as if that bothers me?”

“Rihad. You can’t.” But she didn’t know what she meant to say and he wasn’t listening to her anyway. His hands gripped her hips.

“I want to make more babies with you and this time, I want to hold them in my own hands as they enter this world. I want to make love to you forever. You are worth a thousand kingdoms, and mine is nothing but a pile of sand without you.” His gaze was part of her, inside of her. “Be my wife in every possible way, Sterling. Not because it is my duty, but because it is my deepest wish. You are my heart. My love. I want you to be mine.”

And she understood that vast, unconquerable thing that slammed down on her then. It wasn’t fear—it was so much bigger. It was love. Real love, without conditions or qualifiers. Without lies. Love that might incorporate pain and darkness, as all life must in its time, but wasn’t made of it.

She’d expected him to hurt her because that was all she knew. She’d assumed she would ruin him the way she ruined everything, because that was what the people who’d hurt her had told her to justify their actions.

Terrible people, he’d called them.

But that was the past.

This man, here and now, on his knees before her in a way she imagined he’d never been before and never would be again, was the future.

She had to give herself over to the only thing she’d ever encountered that could beat back the darkness.

Love.

And within that, wrapped up so tightly it was nearly indistinguishable, hope.

“I’m already yours, Rihad,” she whispered, fierce and hopeful at once. “I’ve been yours all along.”

He wrapped his arms around her hips, resting his head against her stomach. She felt the press of his perfect mouth against her flesh and the deep shudder that went with it, as if she was accepting him into her bones.

“I love you,” he told her, dark and imperious against the belly where she would bear his children. She knew she would, and not only because he’d decreed it. “Never doubt that.”

“I love you, too,” she said, her tears falling freely, but this time, they were made of joy. This time, she recognized it for what it was. This time, she believed it really would last forever. That they would, together. “I always will. And always is a very long time, I’m told.”

“It had better be,” he muttered, every inch of him the king.

And then she sank down beside him, and he took her in his arms, and for the first time in her life, Sterling let herself believe in forever.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Ten years later…

“HE IS VERY annoying, yes,” Rihad told his furious daughter out in the private family garden that morning, and took care to hide his laughter from her. “But if you drown your brother in that pool, Leyla, there will be no party on Saturday and you may, in fact, spend your birthday in the dungeons.”

“There aren’t any dungeons in the palace,” his ten-year-old replied, hotly. “Mama said you made that up.”

He only smiled when she scowled at him. “There are dungeons if I say there are. I make the rules.”

“Brothers are stupid,” Leyla told him with a hint of imperiousness he thought she’d gotten directly from her mother.

Rihad thought of his own brother, lost so long now.

“I cannot forgive myself,” he’d told Sterling on Omar’s last birthday. As they did every year, they’d visited his grave on the palace grounds, together. “I doubt I ever will.”

She had been wrapped in his arms, her back tucked against his front, his chin resting on her head.

“He’d already forgiven you,” she’d said. She’d shifted when he tensed. “He loved you, Rihad. He always loved you.” She’d smiled up at him. “I was the one who hated you, for the both of us.”

“Brothers might be stupid,” he told Leyla now, “but you must love them anyway.”

“Love sounds stupid, too,” Leyla retorted, but she helped six-year-old Aarib continue to jump up and down on the wide lip of the pool near the waterfall anyway.

Though not without a very deep, long-suffering sort of sigh that did not bode well for her upcoming adolescence. Rihad repressed a shudder at that unhappy thought, given how stunning a child she already was, God help him. He returned his attention to the matters of state that awaited him on his tablet, a far more appealing prospect than his little girl growing up.

The papers hadn’t always left them alone, but it was nothing as it had been. Rihad had seen to the dismissal of the particular reporters who dared hound his wife so relentlessly—just as he’d seen to the immediate exile of some of his courtiers when he’d finally seen the way they’d treated her.

The Queen of Bakri, by definition, was a woman without peer, spotless of reputation and widely beloved by all.

Ten years on, Rihad had the distinct pleasure of knowing that wasn’t merely a decree he’d made, but the simple truth.

He knew the moment Sterling walked outside to join them in the garden. He always knew. She changed the air, he’d often told her, simply by breathing it, sharing it.

Those vicious, repulsive people she’d left behind in Iowa hadn’t ruined her. She wasn’t ruined. He thought that these days, she believed that without question at last.

His beautiful Sterling. His perfect wife.

He took a moment to marvel at her as she walked toward him across the stones while the world stilled all around him the way it always had. The way he thought it always would. She still dressed like the model she’d been, too elegant and so easily, offhandedly chic. That copper-blond hair of hers that still fascinated him beyond measure. Those long, long legs that had only this morning been draped over his shoulders as he’d driven them both to a hard, wild finish in the murky dark before dawn.

Ten years later and he was still hard at the thought of her.

“Are the monsters asleep?” he asked as she drew near.

“More or less.” She smiled as she looked at Leyla and Aarib, as if she truly enjoyed the particular music of their young voices, scraping holes in the sky. He knew she did. Despite himself, so did he.

“God bless the morning nap.”

Rihad thought of their younger boys, four-year-old Jamil and two-year-old Raza. Little hellions in every possible way, far louder than the older two combined, and they both demanded their mother’s personal attention as only younger children could. “Indeed.”

She moved as if to sit in her own seat but he pulled her down into his lap instead, nuzzling her neck until her breath caught. He pressed himself against the seam of her bottom, and she laughed.

“You’re insatiable.” But she sounded proud.

Content, he thought. They were content, and it was nothing like settling. It was like flying. Soaring through ten years and headed for ten more. Headed straight for forever.

“Only for you, my little one,” he murmured against her ear. “Always for you.”

They had not always had it easy, these past ten years. They had failed each other, hurt each other. The world was not always gentle and it was easy to lose each other in the whirl of children and responsibilities, even in a palace with fleets of nurses and around-the-clock staff.

But they had always had love. And love brought them back to each other, over and over again.

Rihad had learned to treat her less as a subject and more like a partner. Or he tried. She, in turn, had learned how to trust him.

This was intimacy, in all its complicated glory, of the soul and of the flesh. Lovers become parents, a king and his queen, a man and his woman. This was the magnificently double-edged sword of truly being known by another, across whole years.

In truth, he loved every bit of it.

And he still liked to show her how much.

“They’re kissing.” It was Aarib’s disgusted little-boy voice, more piercing than usual, or perhaps Rihad wanted to be interrupted less in that moment.

“They do that a lot,” replied Leyla, in her world-weary older-sister voice. “A lot.”

“Why did we have more children?” Sterling asked him, laughing. “Whose terrible idea was that?”

But then she kissed him once more, and he saw moisture glistening in her lovely blue eyes. He ran his hand over her cheek.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much, Rihad.”

“For what?” he asked quietly.

“For everything,” Sterling said, fiercely. “For giving me our family. For being my family.”

She rose to go to the children then, and he let her leave, fully aware that she had no reason to thank him. She was the heart of this wondrous little tangle of theirs, love and trust and wonder, tears and scrapes and sudden furies.

Their heart. His heart.

His, Rihad thought. Forever.

And he was the king. His will was law.

Pursued by the Desert Prince

Dani Collins

To my sisters, who often live far away,

but remain close, close, close in my heart.

Love yous. xoxo

CHAPTER ONE

ANGELIQUE SAUVETERRE PICKED up a call from her exterior guards informing her that Kasim ibn Nour, Crown Prince of Zhamair, had arrived to see her.

She slumped back in her chair with a sigh, really not up to meeting someone new. Not after today.

“Of course. Please show him up to my office,” she said. Because she had to.

Hasna had said her brother would drop by while he was in Paris.

Angelique didn’t know why the brother of the bride wanted to meet the designer of the bride’s wedding gown, but she assumed he wanted to arrange a surprise gift. So she didn’t expect this meeting to be long or awful. Her day with Princess Hasna and the bridal party hadn’t been awful. It had actually been quite pleasant.

It was just a lot of people and noise and Angelique was an introvert. When she told people that, they always said, But you’re not shy! She had been horribly shy as a child, though, and brutally forced to get over it. Now she could work a room with the best of them, but it fried her down to a crisp.

She yearned for the day when her sister, Trella, would be ready to be the face of Maison des Jumeaux. An ironic thought, since her twin wore the same face. As she freshened “their” lipstick, Angelique acknowledged that she really longed for Trella to be the one to talk to new clients and meet with brothers of the bride and put on fetes like the one she’d hosted today.

She wanted Trella to be all better.

But she wouldn’t press. Trella had made such progress getting over her phobias, especially in the past year. She was determined to attend Hasna and Sadiq’s wedding and was showing promise in getting there.

It will happen, Angelique reassured herself.

In the meantime… She rolled her neck, trying to massage away the tension that had gathered over hours of soothing every last wedding nerve.

At least she didn’t look too much worse for wear. This silk blend she and Trella had been working on hadn’t creased much at all.

Angelique stood to give a quick turn this way and that in the freestanding mirror in the corner of her office. Her black pants fell flawlessly and the light jacket with its embroidered edges fluttered with her movement while her silver cami reflected light into her face. Her makeup was holding up and only her chignon was coming apart.

She quickly pulled the pins out of her hair and gave it a quick finger-comb so her brunette tresses fell in loose waves around her shoulders. Too casual?

Her door guard knocked and she didn’t have time to redo her hair. She moved to open the door herself.

And felt the impact like she’d stepped under a midnight sky, but one lit by stars and northern lights and the glow of a moon bigger and hotter than the sun could ever hope to be.

Angelique was dazzled and had to work not to show it, but honestly, the prince was utterly spectacular. Dark, liquid eyes that seemed almost black they were such a deep brown. Flawless bone structure with his straight nose and perfectly balanced jawline. His mouth—That bottom lip was positively erotic.

The rest of him was cool and diamond sharp. His country was renowned for being ultraconservative, but his head was uncovered, his black hair shorn into a neat business cut. He wore a perfectly tailored Western suit over what her practiced eye gauged to be an athletically balanced physique.

She swallowed. Find a brain, Angelique.

“Your Highness. Angelique Sauveterre. Welcome. Please come in.”

She didn’t offer to shake, which would have been a faux pas for a woman in Zhamair.

He did hold out his hand, which was a slight overstep for a man to demand of a woman here in Paris.

She acquiesced and felt a tiny jolt run through her as he closed his strong hand over her narrow one. Heat bloomed under her cheekbones, something his quick gaze seemed to note—which only increased her warmth. She hated being obvious.

“Hello.” Not Thank you for seeing me, or Call me Kasim.

“Thank you, Maurice,” she murmured to dismiss her guard, and had to clear her throat. “We’ll be fine.”

She was exceedingly cautious about being alone with men, or women for that matter, whom she didn’t know, but the connection through Hasna and Sadiq made the prince a fairly safe bet. If a man in the prince’s position was planning something nefarious, then the whole world was on its ear and she didn’t stand a chance anyway.

Plus, she always had the panic button on her pendant.

She almost felt like she was panicking now. Her heart rate had elevated and her stomach was in knots. Her entire body was on all-stations alert. She’d been feeling drained a few seconds ago, but one profound handshake later she was feeling energized yet oddly defenseless.

She was nervous as a schoolgirl, really, which wasn’t like her at all. With two very headstrong brothers, she had learned how to hold her own against strong masculine energy.

She’d never encountered anything like this, though. Closing herself into her office with him felt dangerous. Not the type of danger she’d been trained to avoid, but inner peril. Like when she poured her soul into a piece then held her breath as it was paraded down the catwalk for judgment.

“Please have a seat,” she invited, indicating the conversation area below the mural. There were no pretty views of actual Paris in this windowless room, but the office was still one of her favorite places for its ability to lock out the world. She spent a lot of time on her side of its twin desks and drafting tables.

Trella’s side was empty. She was home in Spain, but they often worked here in companionable silence.

“I just made fresh coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“I won’t stay long.”

That ought to be good news. She was reacting way too strongly to him, but she found herself disappointed. So strange! She took such care to put mental distance between herself and others. The entire world would have this effect on her if she didn’t, but he only had to glance around her private space and she felt naked and exposed. Seen. And she found herself longing for his approval.

He didn’t seem to want to sit, so she pressed flat hands that tremored on the back of the chair she usually used when visiting with clients. “Was there something particular about the wedding arrangements you wanted to discuss?”

“Just that you should send your bill to me.” He moved to set a card on the edge of Trella’s desk.

She turned to follow his movement behind her. So economical and fascinating. And who was his tailor? That suit was pure artistry, the man so obviously yang to her yin.

He caught her staring.

She tucked her hair behind her ear to disguise her blush.

“Her Majesty made the same offer and you needn’t have troubled yourself. It’s a wedding gift for Sadiq and the princess.”

He noted the familiarity of her using Sadiq’s first name with a small shift of his head. “So Hasna said. I would prefer to pay.”

His gaze was direct enough to feel confrontational, instantly amplifying this conversation into one of conflict. Her pulse gave a reflexive zing.

Why would he be so adamant—?

Oh, dear God! He didn’t think she and Sadiq were involved, did he?

Why wouldn’t he? According to the headlines, she’d slept with half of Europe. When she wasn’t doing drugs or having catfights with her models, of course.

“Sadiq is a longtime friend of the family.” She retreated behind the cool mask she showed the world, ridiculously crushed that he would believe those awful summations of her character. “This is something we want to do for him.”

“We.” His gaze narrowed.

“Yes.” She didn’t bring up her sister or what her family owed Sadiq for Trella’s return to them. The fact that Sadiq had never once sought any glory for his heroism was exactly why he was such a cherished friend. “If that was all…” She deliberately presumed she’d had the last word on the topic. “I should get back to the final arrangements for your sister’s things.”

* * *

Kasim had to applaud his future brother-in-law’s taste. Angelique Sauveterre had grown from a very sweet-looking girl into a stunning young woman. In person, she had an even more compelling glow of beauty.

Her long brunette hair glimmered and shifted in a rippling curtain and what had seemed like unremarkable gray eyes online were actually a mesmerizing greenish hazel. She was tall and slender, built like a model despite being the one to dress them, and her skin held a golden tone that must be her mother’s Spanish ancestry.

Cameras rarely caught her with a smile on her face and when they did, it was a faint Mona Lisa slant that allowed her to live up to the reputation of her father’s French blood: aloof and indifferent.

She wore that look now, but when she had first greeted him, she had smiled openly. Her beauty was so appealing, Kasim had forgotten for a moment why he was here and had been overcome with a desire to pursue her.

Perhaps this captivating quality was the reason Sadiq was so smitten?

“About those arrangements… Today went well?” He had understood it to be the final fitting of his sister’s wedding gown and the bridesmaids’ dresses as well as a private showing of other clothes made for Hasna, all taking place on the runway level of this building. Once the last nips and tucks were completed, the entire works would be packaged up and shipped to Zhamair for the wedding next month.

“You would have to check with the women who were here, but they all seemed pleased by the time they left.” So haughty and quick to keep the focus on his sister.

From what he’d heard around his penthouse, the consensus had been a high level of ecstasy with everything from the clothes to the imported cordial to the finger sandwiches and pastries.

“Hasna doesn’t seem to have any complaints,” he downplayed. “Which is why I’m willing to spare her the nuisance of replacing all that you’ve promised her.”

Angelique was tall in her heels. Not as tall as him, but taller than most women he knew, and she grew taller at his words, spine stiffening while her eyelashes batted once, twice, three times. Like she was filtering through various responses.

“All that we’ve made for her,” she corrected, using a light tone, but it was the lightness of a rapier. Pointed and dangerous. “Why on earth would you refuse to let her have it?”

“You can drop the indignation,” he advised. “I’m not judging. I’ve had mistresses. There is a time to let them go and yours has arrived.”

“You think I’m Sadiq’s mistress. And that as his mistress, I offered to make his bride’s gown and trousseau. That’s a rather generous act for a mistress, isn’t it?”

She repeatedly spat the word as if she was deeply offended.

He pushed his hands into his pants pockets, rocking back on his heels.

“It’s a generous act to arrange a private showing for such a large party at a world-famous and highly exclusive Paris design house.” It hadn’t been only his mother and sister, but Sadiq’s mother and sisters, along with cousins and friends from both sides.

The cost of something like today wasn’t so high as to imperil his riches, of course. The groom’s family could equally afford it and given the extent of the Sauveterre wealth, and the rumors that the family corporation had underwritten this folly of an art project in the first place, he imagined Angelique wouldn’t be too far out of pocket, either.

“Had this afternoon been the only line item offered at no charge, I wouldn’t have batted an eye,” he said. “But the gown? I know my sister’s taste.” He imagined it had easily run to six figures. “And to throw in wedding costumes for the rest of the party? Including mothers of the bride and groom?”

“Sadiq’s parents and sisters are also friends of the family.”

“Plus a full wardrobe for Hasna to begin her married life,” he completed with disbelief. “All at no cost? This is more than a ‘gift’ from a ‘family friend.’ If I had learned of it sooner, I would have taken steps long before today.”

Hasna had been chattering nonstop about her big day, but what did he care about the finer details? He was glad she was marrying for love, he wanted everything to go well for her, but the minutia of decor and food and colors to be worn had meant nothing to him. It wasn’t until he had noted she was grossly under budget—not like her at all—that he had quizzed her on when to expect an invoice for the dress.

“If I’m Sadiq’s mistress, then I should want the fat commission off this! I would have told him to make his bride come to us as a payoff for losing his support—which I don’t need, by the way.” The hiss in her tone sliced the air like a blade. “That is not the way it went at all. Hasna didn’t even know Sadiq knew us. She said we were her dream designer and he arranged it secretly, to surprise her. We’re the ones who decided not to charge him.”

“Yes, funny that he would have kept this tremendously close ‘friendship’—” he let her hear his disdain “—such a secret from the woman he had been courting for a year and professed to love. I might have understood if he was paying you off.” He wouldn’t have condoned it, not when Hasna had fought so hard for a love match and had managed to convince him that Sadiq returned her feelings, but at least he would have seen the why of this ridiculous arrangement.

“Have you discussed this with Sadiq?” she demanded frostily, arms crossed. “Because I am as insulted on his behalf as I am on my own.”

“Sadiq is plainly not capable of doing what is needed. I will advise him after the fact.”

“I am not sleeping with Sadiq! I don’t sleep with married men, or engaged ones, either.”

“I’m fairly confident you stopped sleeping with him once the engagement was announced. I can account for his whereabouts since then.”

“He knows you’re watching him like that? With these awful suspicions about him?”

“I don’t judge him for having lovers prior to settling down. We all do it.”

Although it annoyed him that his brother-in-law had slept with this particular woman. Kasim didn’t examine too closely why that grated. Or wonder too much about how such a soft-spoken man had managed to seduce her. Sadiq had always struck Kasim as being more book-smart than street-smart, earnest and studious and almost as naive as Hasna.

This woman was surprisingly spirited. She would dominate someone like Sadiq.

Which more than explained why Sadiq hadn’t been able to end things as definitively as he should.

“And I’m…what?” she prodded. “Trying to coax him back by outfitting his wife? Your logic is flawed, Your Highness.”

Her impertinence took him aback, it was so uncommon in his life. The most sass he heard from anyone was from his sister and she typically confined it to light teasing, never anything with this much bite.

He found Angelique’s impudence both stimulating and trying. She obviously didn’t understand who she was dealing with.

“Why are you arguing? I’m offering to pay you for the work you’ve done. The more you resist admitting the truth and promising not to see him again, the more likely I am to lose patience and pull the plug on this entire arrangement, Hasna’s tears be damned.”

“You would do that?” Her jaw slacked with disbelief. “To your sister?”

She had no idea to what lengths he would go—had gone—to protect his family.

He wouldn’t allow himself to be drawn into yet another inner debate about his actions on that score. It still wrenched his heart, especially when Hasna still cried so often, but he had done what he had to. Ruthlessly.

And would do it again.

But he would not see his sister’s heart broken again. She loved Sadiq and Sadiq would be the faithful husband she desired him to be. If that meant fast-tracking a new wedding gown, so be it.

He let Angelique read his resolve in his silence.

She stood there with her chin lifted in confrontation, trying very hard to look down her nose at him. “All I have to do is say that I’m Sadiq’s mistress and this goes away?”

“Plus send me the bill and never contact Sadiq again.”

“I can give your money to charity,” she pointed out.

“You can. The important thing is that you will not be able to hold the debt over Sadiq’s head.”

“Ah, finally I learn my real motivation.” Her arms came out in amazement. “I was beginning to think I was the stupidest mistress alive.”

“Oh, I’m quite in admiration of your cleverness, Angelique.”

* * *

His use of her name made her heart, which was already racing at this altercation, take a jump and spin before landing hard.

“Have we arrived at first names, Kasim?” It was a deliberate lob back, not unlike when she played tennis with her siblings and she was so well matched she had to throw everything she had into each swing of her racket.

This man! She had spent years developing a shield against the world and he brushed it aside like it was a cobweb, making her react from a subterranean level. It was completely unnerving.

His lashes flinched at her use of his given name.

Good.

“Your insolence toward me is unprecedented. Take extreme care, Angelique.”

Her fingernails were digging into her own upper arms, she was so beside herself. She used the sharp sting to keep a cool head. She had training for this type of negotiation, she reminded herself. He thought he was holding a small fortune in seed pearls and silk hostage, but he was actually holding a knife to the throat of her sister’s happiness along with the debt their family owed to Sadiq.

Given that, there was no way Angelique wanted to jeopardize the wedding arrangements or cause a long-term rift.

Listen. That was the first step, she reminded herself as her ears pounded with her racing pulse. Apparently Kasim felt he wasn’t being heard.

“To be clear,” she said with forced calm, “you believe I’ve orchestrated this to put Sadiq into my debt?”

“Perhaps not financially. His family is wealthy in resources and political standing as well as actual gold. You’ve managed to neutralize yourself in my sister’s eyes, so she couldn’t possibly see you as a threat if you were to move in at a later date for whatever Sadiq was deemed useful for.”

“Can I ask how you concluded that I’m so cold-blooded? Because even the online trolls don’t accuse me of this sort of thing.” She was nice! Her family regularly told her she was too nice.

“If your heart was involved, you would have refused this commission altogether. If you wanted to retaliate for a broken heart, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to please Hasna. No. I’ve told you, I’ve had mistresses. I understand exceedingly practical women. This is an investment in your future. I accept that on a philosophical level, but not when it risks my sister’s happiness. That I cannot allow. So.” He nodded decisively at the card he’d left on the desk. “Send me the bill. Do not contact him again.”

He made as if to leave.

“Wait!” She leaped forward and grabbed his arm.

He froze, gaze locking onto her hand on his sleeve for one powerful heartbeat before he lifted his eyes. His face was filled outrage and something else, something glittering and fiercely masculine.

“Have we arrived at that level of familiarity, Angelique?” He pivoted in a swift move to face her, taking her own arm in his opposite grip.

It was the sudden dive and snatch of a predatory bird catching prey in its talons.

They stood like that in what seemed like a slowdown in time. Her heart pounded so hard her lungs could barely inflate against it.

“We’re not finished t-talking.” Her voice came out painfully thin. She knew she should release him and step back, but she was quite blown away by the masculine interest that flared to life in his gaze.

She wasn’t falsely modest. She knew she was beautiful. It was one of the reasons camera lenses so often turned on her. Men looked at her with desire all the time.

There was no reason she should react to this man’s naked hunger. But she did.

A very animalistic sexual reaction pierced deep in her loins, flooding her with heat and… Yes, it was reciprocal desire. He was looking at her as if he found her appealing and she certainly found him as attractive as they came. There might even be something chemical here because her gaze dropped involuntarily to his mouth. Longing rose within her.

His lips quirked.

She knew he was reading her reaction and was amused. It stung. She felt raw and gauche. It was the bane of her existence that she couldn’t always stop whatever feelings were overtaking her. This was so intense it was unprecedented, touching her at all levels. Physical, mental, emotional… He held her entire being enthralled.

“We are finished talking,” he said, while his arm bent against her grip. His hand arrived at her waist, hot and sure. His other hand tightened slightly on her arm, drawing her forward a half step, commanding, but not forcing. “If you would like to start something new, however…”

Don’t, she ordered herself, but it was too late. His mouth was coming down to hers and she was parting her lips in eager reception.

CHAPTER TWO

HE KNEW HOW to use that sexually explicit mouth of his, firmly capturing her lips in a hot, hard kiss. He slid a hand to the back of her head, rocked his damp mouth across hers, and damn well made love to her mouth like he had the absolute right!

She knew immediately that he was punishing her, but not in a violent way. He wanted her response, wanted to make her melt and succumb to him, to prove his mastery of her and this situation.

And he was doing it, sliding right past her resistance, ready to make her his conquest.

Hard-learned shreds of self-protection rallied. She had trained to meet any attack with an attack of her own.

She kissed him back with all the incensed outrage he had provoked in her, all the frustration that he affected her this powerfully.

She didn’t accept his kiss. She matched it. She stepped into his space so the heat off his body penetrated the silk she wore, branding her skin through it. Then she scraped her teeth in a threat across his bottom lip and stabbed her own fingers into his hair. It was completely unlike her to be sexually aggressive, but how dare he come in here with his accusations and intimidations?

Did this feel like she was daunted? Did it?

She felt the surprise in him, and the hardening as he grew excited.

His reaction fed hers. The quickening of arousal in her swelled, rising like a tide that picked her off her feet, washing her in heat, sensitizing her skin and making her hyperaware of her erogenous zones. Her back arched to crush her breasts against his hard chest. Her pelvis nudged into the shape behind his fly, inciting both of them.

His arms tightened around her and he kissed her harder. Not taking control so much as pressing his foot to the accelerator so they burned hotter and faster down the track they were on. His hand slid down to her backside, possessively claiming a plump cheek through silk.

The sensation was so acutely good, the moment rushing so fast beyond her control, Angelique pulled back to release a small moan and gasp for air.

He growled and ran his mouth down her throat, now angling her hips into his so he ground himself against her with blatant intention.

She let him, completely overcome by the moment. She was used to being treated somewhere between a trophy and a revered goddess on a pedestal. No man had ever kissed her like a woman who was not just wanted, but craved. This was real.

It felt earthy and elemental.

Pure.

She let her head hang back, hair falling freely, and maybe, yes, she was succumbing, but not to him. To this. Them. What they were creating together.

He muttered something that sounded like an incantation and his lips moved from her collarbone to the line of her camisole.

She gasped, “Yes,” aching for him to bare her breasts to his mouth, she felt so full and tight. When his hand moved up to her chest to caress along the edge—

Wait.

“Don’t—” she tried to say, but he had already picked up the silver disk of her pendant to move it over her shoulder.

* * *

One second, Kasim was sunk deep in arousal, well on his way to making love with a woman of exceptional passion.

Then the door crashed open and men burst in with guns drawn.

His heart exploded.

He instinctively tried to shove Angelique behind him, but she resisted, shouting, “I’m fine! Orchid, orchid! Stand down. Orchid!”

She held out a splayed hand like it could deflect bullets and tried to scramble in front of him, as if she could protect him with that soft, slender figure, but Kasim was pumped with as much adrenaline as the invaders. He locked his arms protectively around her while his brain belatedly caught up to recognize that these were guards he’d seen on his way in.

“I’m fine,” Angelique insisted in a shaken tone. “Stand down. Seriously,” she said with a look up at Kasim that was naked and mortified. “Let me go so I can defuse this.” Her hand pressed his shoulder.

Kasim’s arms were banded so firmly around her, he had to consciously force himself to relax his muscles.

“I’m fine,” she assured her guards as she slid away from him. She was visibly shaking. “Honestly. This was my fault. He was looking at my necklace. I should have warned him to be careful.”

Looking at her necklace? Her lipstick was smudged and she was bright red from her forehead to the line of her top. Her guards weren’t stupid.

They were professionals, however. One said, “Second level?”

“Water lily, and did you really?” She went across to a panel and reset something, then sighed and crossed to her desk to pick up her smartphone with a hand that still trembled. “Thank you. Please resume your stations.”

The guards holstered their weapons and retreated, closing the door behind them.

While her phone rang with the video call she’d placed, she plucked a tissue and leaned into a small desk mirror to hurriedly wipe her mouth. “This will only take a sec, but if I don’t—”

A male voice barked a gruff “Oui.”

“Bonjour, Henri.” Angelique tilted the phone so she could see the screen. She still looked somewhere between dumbfounded and grossly embarrassed, but was trying to paste a brave smile over it.

Kasim was utterly poleaxed. That kiss had been so intensely pleasurable, all he could think about was continuing from where they’d left off. Get off the phone.

“Je m’excuse. Totally my fault,” Angelique continued. “False alarm. Orchid, orchid. It was only a drill.”

“Qu’est ce qui c’est passé?”

“Long story and I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you later?”

“I’m looking at the security records.”

Angelique closed her eyes in a small wince. “Yes,” she said in a beleaguered tone, as though answering an unasked question. “The prince is still here. May I please call you later?”

“One hour,” he directed and they ended the call.

Angelique dropped the phone onto her desktop and let out an exasperated breath.

“Ramon will be next. My other brother,” she provided, nodding as her phone dinged. “There he is. Spanish Inquisition.” She clasped her hands and looked to the ceiling with mock delight. “So fun! Thanks.”

“You’re blaming me?” He hadn’t thought he could be more astonished by all that had just happened.

She shrugged as she acknowledged the text, then dropped the phone again.

Moving to the shelf in the corner, she said, “How about that coffee?”

* * *

Angelique moved to where the French press had been sitting so long it bordered on tepid. She shakily pushed down the plunger and poured two short cups, needing something to calm her nerves.

Yes, let’s not cause a rift with the wedding, Angelique, by having the Prince of Zhamair shot dead in your office.

What had happened to her that she’d let him kiss her like that? From the moment he’d walked in here, he’d been tapping a chisel into her. Now she was fully cracked open, all of her usual defenses and tricks of misdirection useless. It took everything she had not to let him see how thoroughly he’d thrown her off her game.

“Cream and sugar?” she asked, buying time before she had to turn around.

“Black.”

She finished pouring and made herself face him.

He paused in using his handkerchief to check for traces of her lipstick against his mouth and tucked it away. He looked positively unruffled as he took one cup and saucer from her, his steady grip cutting the clatter of china down by half.

She quickly picked her own cup off its saucer and took a bolstering sip of the one she’d doctored into a syrupy milk shake.

The silence thickened.

She tried to think of something to say, but her mind raced to make sense of their kiss. What had he meant about starting something new? What did he even think of her now? Her level of security on its best days had suitors running for the hills.

He wasn’t a suitor, she reminded herself. He was an arrogant dictator who had his wires crossed. That’s why she’d grabbed his arm. She hadn’t been able to let him leave thinking the worst. Demanding the worst.

“I wondered about the gauntlet of security I had to run in order to get in here,” he said, eyeing her thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize this was still such an issue for your family.”

Yes, let’s talk about my sister’s kidnapping and how it continues to affect all of us. Her favorite topic.

“We’re very vigilant about keeping it a nonissue. As you witnessed.” She was trying to forget how horrifying it had been to have her guards interrupt the best kiss of her life because she’d been too dazed by it to prevent a rookie error with the panic button.

But she supposed the kidnapping was the reason this meeting had come about, ever rippling from the past into the future, so… Very well. There were days they revisited that dark time and this was one of them.

As she made that decision, she was able to move behind her desk and set her coffee aside with a modicum of control. Flicking her gaze, she invited him to take a chair.

“I’ll stand.”

“Suit yourself. Either way I know I’ve captured your full attention.” She clasped her hands on her desktop, trying to steady herself. “I mean that literally. You won’t be allowed to leave until I say you may.”

He snorted, but she could see she did, indeed, have his full attention. She felt the heat of his gaze like the sun at the equator.

She swallowed. Good thing she was still wearing her pendant. Too bad he knew about it. She resisted the urge to grasp it for reassurance.

“The advantage that you continue to possess,” she said, trying to mollify him, “is that you’re willing to refuse the clothes we’ve made for your sister. I’ve heard all you said about wanting to protect her. I feel the same toward my own sister.”

Empathy. Step two of a hostage negotiation. This was good practice, she told herself. Another drill.

“You’re obviously aware of the general details of Trella’s kidnapping.” She had to swallow to ease how quickly those words tightened her throat. Her knuckles gleamed like polished bone buttons, but she couldn’t make her hands relax.

“I know what was on the news at the time, yes.”

She glanced at him, not sure what she expected to see. Avarice, maybe. People always wanted gruesome details beyond the basics of a nine-year-old girl being set up by a math tutor as boarding school was letting out, held for five days and found by police before money changed hands. There’d been more than one probing question today from different women in Hasna’s bridal party.

Angelique was adept at dodging those inquiries, but they rubbed like salt in a cut every single time.

Kasim was next to impossible to read, but there was an air of patience in him, like he understood this wasn’t easy for her and was willing to wait.

Great. Now her eyes began to sting. She was a crier, unfortunately. She already knew there would be tears later, when she spoke to her brothers. It wasn’t because she was upset by the false alarm, just that when a roller coaster like today happened, she tended to fall apart at some point as a sort of release.

She pushed the Remind Me Later button on her breakdown and strained her back to a posture she thought might snap her in two, but was enough to keep her composure in place.

“What’s never been made public is Sadiq’s part in helping us retrieve Trella.”

Kasim set his cup into its saucer and placed it on the corner of her desk. Folded his arms. “Go on.”

“You can’t simply accept that this is the reason we feel a debt to him?”

“Your brother could give him shares in Sauveterre International, if that was the case. Your other one, the one who races, could buy him a car. Why this?”

“Sadiq is very modest. He has refused all the different times we’ve tried to offer any sort of compensation. He doesn’t brag about his connection to our family. In every way he can, he protects our privacy. That’s why we love him.”

She took another brief sip of her overly sweetened coffee, trying to find the right words.

“As you’ve pointed out, his family has plenty of money. Gifting him shares would be…a gesture, not something meaningful. He’s not the least bit into cars the way Ramon is, but when your sister mentioned she was going to approach us about making her gown, Sadiq was excited that he had an in.”

Maison des Jumeaux wasn’t exclusive because it was expensive—although it was obscenely so. No, their clothes were coveted because she and Trella were extremely selective about the clients they took on, always protecting their own privacy first. Gossipy socialites didn’t even get an appointment, let alone an original ball gown with a hand-sewn signature label.

“Sadiq only prevailed on our friendship to ask that we accept her as a client, but of course we wanted to do it and of course we wouldn’t charge him. He wanted to pay. I think the only reason he’s letting us get away with not charging is because it’s really Hasna who benefits, not him. For Trella, it’s a way to repay Sadiq herself. It’s very important to all of us, for her sake, that she be allowed to do that.”

It was part of her sister’s healing process. Attending the wedding had become a goal Trella was determined to achieve, come hell or high water.

“Is your sister having an affair with him?”

“That’s what you got from everything I just said? No! And neither is my mother, before you go there. Family money paid for the materials and Trella and I are doing the work. This isn’t a buy off or an attempt to hold something over Sadiq. We’re contributing to his special day in the way that makes him happiest. That’s all.”

He pondered that with a raspy scrape of his bent fingers beneath his jaw.

“You still don’t believe me?” What on earth would it take?

“How did he help solve the kidnapping? How old was he? Fifteen? Sixteen?” His voice was thick with skepticism. “How well did he even know your family? I understood he only went to Switzerland when he began prepping for university.”

“I trust this conversation won’t leave this room? Because the police asked us to keep it confidential and we always have. We never speak publicly about the kidnapping because there are many details we wish to keep private.”

“Of course,” he muttered testily, as though he was insulted she would question his integrity.

“You know Sadiq is a bit of a computer whiz? Well, the internet was quite young and few tools had been developed for online sleuthing. It probably wouldn’t even be legal now, the kind of hacking he’d done, but who cares? We have him to thank for Trella’s return. And you’re right that he only knew of us. We weren’t friends yet. He was in a few classes with my brothers, but when Trella was taken, he was on the steps beside Ramon. He saw it happen and was horrified. He wanted to help and used his own time, hours and hours I might add, to create software code that produced a lead that panned out for the police. If you want more information, you can take it up with Sadiq.”

The truth was, Sadiq was a security specialist. He’d merely been a nerd with a passion at that time, but now it was his private business—literally his confidential side job that she only knew about because her family had introduced him to the man who had the contract for their own security. She didn’t know if even Hasna was aware that Sadiq wrote code for Tec-Sec Industries.

“There aren’t many people we trust unequivocally, but Sadiq is one of them. He didn’t do us a favor. He saved my sister’s life. So if he wants me to make dresses for your sister for the rest of my life, I will. Happily. Without checking with you first.”

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.

“It seems I do have the advantage.” He shot his cuff as he leaned back to regard her. “In my defense, even the weather and financial pages have click-bait links with your name in them. I can’t help but see whichever headline is making the rounds.”

“Which is why I look out the window to see if I need an umbrella and ask my doorman for the news. Thank you,” she murmured as their wine was poured.

When they were alone, he said, “The story was very compelling. I was about your brothers’ age. Hasna was yours. I couldn’t help feeling invested in the outcome. I suppose the entire world presumed it gave them a stake in your lives.”

The world had presumed a stake in their lives long before her sister was kidnapped. It was one of the reasons her family had been targeted.

She didn’t bother lamenting it aloud. Her family had learned to accept what couldn’t be changed. Identical twin boys born to a French tycoon and his Spanish aristocrat wife had been fairly unremarkable, but when a pair of identical girls had come along six years later, and the four together had won the genetic lottery on good looks, well, the children had become media darlings without being consulted. She had never been Angelique. She was “one of The Sauveterre Twins.”

Which she would never for a moment wish to change. She adored her siblings and wore the designation with pride. It was the attention they relentlessly attracted that exhausted her.

“It’s been fifteen years. I would have thought the fascination would have died down,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.

“With your sister living in seclusion? It only adds to the mystery.” He eyed her as though he wondered if it was a ploy to keep the attention at a fever pitch. “The free exposure can’t be hard on business.”

“You’re wrong,” she said bluntly, amused by the way his expression stiffened at being accused of such a thing. “Discretion is one of the most valuable services we offer our clients. The planning of a maternity gown for the red carpet, for instance, when the pregnancy won’t be announced until closer to the event. Or a wedding gown when the engagement is still confidential. Sometimes the wedding itself is a secret affair. Trella and I live under such tight security it’s fairly easy to extend that amenity to clients.”

She sent a pithy look at the screen beside them.

“Until a tourist wants a selfie with me like I’m a historic fountain. Or a shopkeeper wants instant publicity and posts the brand of toothpaste I prefer. And yes, I know I can stay in and buy online. That’s what Trella does. But I like to be human and walk in the sun, browse shops for housewares and books. Being followed and photographed while doing it is far more nuisance than benefit and just makes poor Maurice’s job harder.”

Kasim flicked his gaze beyond her to where she knew Maurice would have been seated at a table with a sight line on her. He was likely sipping a coffee while awaiting a light meal, gaze monitoring the restaurant’s employees and patrons.

“It’s the reason I don’t date,” she said, noting where he was looking. “Men don’t care to be watched while they attempt to romance a woman.”

“It would be a special predilection, wouldn’t it? One I don’t possess, I’ll admit.”

She had to chuckle at that, relieved he had a sense of humor about it.

“And if I were merely attempting something that had little chance of success, I might be self-conscious,” he added, gaze clashing into hers. “But I’m not.”

Oh.

“You’re a very confident man.” She allowed herself to lean into the fire, to let the heat of his interest warm her cheeks and glow in her eyes. “You come on very strong.”

“I didn’t expect to find you so intriguing.” He held her gaze without actually looking into her eyes. Instead he visually caressed her face, touching her loose hair with his dark gaze. She couldn’t look away as he studied her like she was a painting. “A meeting in your office would have sufficed if you’d been less…impassioned. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever encountered.”

She had expected another compliment on her looks. This was far more disarming. It made her feel like he saw within her, to the real woman inside, the one few noticed or understood. Plus it was an acknowledgment of something she’d had to work on most of her life: being unique from her sister and being comfortable with her own powerful emotions.

If she wasn’t careful, she would be seduced without realizing it. He was very good at it.

“I like your sister, you know. I wouldn’t want to hurt her. She’s delightful.” She waited a beat, deliberate with her timing as she added, “Not much like you at all.”

His mouth twitched and he took a thoughtful sip of his wine. His lashes were so thick and long, they were almost pretty, but he was undeniably masculine as he lifted them to regard her. There was nothing soft in the dangerous air he projected.

She held her breath.

“Feel privileged, Angelique. I’m letting you get away with a lot.”

She bit the inside of her lip, wondering if she should apologize. Was she ruining this little bit of rapport they’d arrived at?

“Hasna is a lovely person,” he agreed. “And you’re right. She and I are opposites. Women lead different lives in our country so they grow up with gentler personalities.” Something about that statement made him briefly pensive. “At least that’s what I’ve always thought made her so tenderhearted and me more practical and assertive.”

“Now you’re not so sure?” She tried to read his inscrutable expression. “Supporting her desire for a love marriage sounds rather sentimental, if you ask me.”

His cheeks hollowed as though he considered his words carefully.

“She was very upset about losing Jamal. I’m not incapable of compassion. I want her to be happy in her marriage and we’ve established that we both wish to protect our sisters from heartache, have we not? Is that how you came to open a fashion house with yours?”

She heard that as the shift in topic it was, which intrigued her because something about the way he was trying to compensate Hasna for their brother’s loss struck her as guilt. Or responsibility, maybe.

Because she was the sensitive, intuitive one. In some ways it was her burden, but she couldn’t deny that she often picked up on things others missed.

“Trella started making her own clothes,” she began, then recalled why. Those early years of recovery had been so brutal. As if the kidnapping hadn’t been traumatic enough, the press had crucified Trella, dubbing her The Fat One among other things.

“It’s not that interesting a story, actually. Just something that both of us enjoyed. We have an artistic flare and work well together so we gave it a shot.”

Trella was actually The Smart One. Her business plan had been excellent. The boys would have underwritten anything she’d proposed, to spoil her and give her something she could control and succeed at, but she had been determined to make her mark on the world in a very specific way. Feminine strength imbued every aspect of Maison des Jumeaux. Angelique was deeply proud to be part of it.

“The press makes a lot of the fact that family money gave us our start, but we’ve paid back the initial loan. I don’t know why it’s important to me that you know that.”

“So I don’t think you’re chasing Sadiq’s money, presumably.”

“No.” She couldn’t help smirking at the way he stiffened every time she contradicted him. “I think it’s because I know you respect women who are ambitious and independent. Isn’t that why you were so adamant Hasna finish school?”

“No.” He waited out the delivery of their appetizers before expanding on his reply. “The more accurate reason is that I didn’t want to give my support too quickly or easily because, in order to broker that deal with my father, I promised that my own marriage would be an arranged one. With a suitable bride from my own country, one he could choose. You understand why I’m telling you that.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“THAT’S QUITE A SACRIFICE.” Angelique’s eyelids shimmered with golden tones, shielding her thoughts.

“It’s duty. My father is not what anyone would call progressive. I have visions of a modern Zhamair. It would be good for our people, but I will never be given the chance to steer it that way if I don’t play by his rules. My uncle would be more than happy to accept the crown if my father decided I was too liberal. My uncle is even more of a throwback than my father. So I have agreed to my father’s condition. But I’m not in a hurry to give up my freedom.”

He let himself admire her smooth skin with its warm glow, her mouth gently pouted in thought. Their kiss was still branding a permanent pattern into his memories—exactly the sort of freedom he was loathe to relinquish by tying himself down.

“You intend to be faithful to your wife, then, once you’re married?”

“Certainly until heirs have been established. After that…” He scratched beneath his chin. “My father has two wives. I have not observed having more than one woman coming to your bed to be as idyllic as it sounds.”

Her lashes came up, gaze curious as all Westerners were when he mentioned it. “Jealousy?” she guessed.

“How did you know?” Kasim said drily.

He privately thought the polygamy was the reason his father was so ferociously implacable, refusing to evolve with the times or even hold a rational conversation. He consistently asserted his will and slammed doors on further discussion. If he didn’t control every aspect of his life with an iron fist, his wives might tear him in two.

That emotional turmoil bleeding all over his childhood was the reason Kasim had grown such a thick shield of detachment. How else could he have withstood the helpless agony of witnessing his brother’s struggle? How else could he have been ruthless enough to end it? Taken altogether, it was the reason he was just as happy to marry a stranger. Love provoked madness and pain of every variety.

“Was your father’s marriage to the queen an arranged one?”

“It was.” He knew where she was going with that. “And it was a contented one until he brought Fatina into it. Which is why I don’t intend to do anything similar.”

“Because you want to rule,” she murmured, gaze narrowed as she weighed that.

“That concern you feel for your sister’s well-being? That’s how I feel for my entire nation,” he explained quietly.

He had never put it in so many words. As her lashes widened at the magnitude of what he was saying, he experienced a lurch in his heart. He had always thought of it as a goal, not a sacrifice. Suddenly he saw it differently.

“None of us are in a hurry to marry,” Angelique mused, dropping her gaze again. “We’re a tight bunch, my siblings and I. Letting someone into my life means opening all our lives. That demands a lot of trust and we’ve all been stung at least once, so we’re all wary. It’s why I don’t even bother with affairs anymore, contrary to reports online.” She flashed him an admonishing look. “Don’t you dare say that if I don’t have affairs, it should be a treat to spend a night with you.”

“Oh, I’m starting to see the honor will be all mine.” He meant it. Everything she had shared pointed to a woman who lived within her own restrictions. No wonder she had exploded in his arms. She was a powder keg of suppressed passion.

She sputtered with laughter, shaking her head. “You are an incredibly arrogant man.”

“There is an expression, isn’t there? About a kettle and a pot?”

“I’m not arrogant.” She dismissed that with a shake of her loose hair and a haughty elevation of her chin.

“You are,” he assured her. It was as captivating as the rest of her.

“No.” She looked him right in the eye. “My sister is the brash one. Deep down.” Her irises reflected the candlelight between them, mesmerizing as the glow of a fire in the blackest night in the desert. Tears gathered to brim her lashes. “I pretend to be.”

She blinked to clear the wetness and her eyes widened with forced lightness.

“I am her and she is me. At least, that’s how it feels sometimes. Can we talk about something else?”

“I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking you into my bed,” he pointed out, made cautious by that moment of acute vulnerability. Was it concern for her sister? Or an indication of a deeper sensitivity in her personality?

He recoiled inwardly from that. He had enough emotional drama in his life. He needed her to come to this with as light a heart as he had.

“I want you,” he stressed. “What will that take, Angelique? Reassurances about your security? I see you’ve changed your necklace. Is that one rigged?” He winced as he recalled her talk of suitors having to tolerate being constantly under observation. “We’re not being recorded, are we?”

“No. This one requires two hands to twist and set it off.” She ran the teardrop pearl back and forth on its chain. “So I rarely wear it. In terms of physical safety, I have no concerns about being alone with you. I’m not even worried you would write a tell-all afterward.”

“The sting you mentioned? A man did that to you?”

“One did. You can find him living under a false name in whichever Eastern European slum men use to hide when they’ve been financially ruined by defamation litigation and threatened with castration.”

“Your brothers went after him?”

“I went after him,” she said crossly. “Give me credit.”

“Is that a warning? I would never do such a thing,” he promised her. “I may be nonchalant about spending the night with a woman, but I don’t degrade myself or my partner. You can be assured of my discretion.”

Her shoulder hitched in acceptance, but she wore her Mona Lisa expression.

“You’re resisting temptation. Why?”

He reached across to take her hand in his, cradling her knuckles in his palm. He used his thumb to catch at hers, pressing her hand open so he held the heel of her palm gently arched open to his touch. He smoothed his thumb to the inside of her wrist, pleased to find her pulse unsteady and fast.

“Is it because it’s only one night?”

“No,” she said softly. “That’s actually a plus. Like I said, I don’t fit others into my life very well.”

“If you weren’t reacting to me, I would finish our meal and send you home, but I can see your struggle against your own feelings. What’s holding you back then? You clearly want to.”

He caressed that sensitive area at the base of her hand, where a former lover had once told him life and fate lines had their root. That’s why it’s such a sensitive place on a woman’s body, she’d said.

Angelique caught her breath.

He didn’t believe in the supernatural, but he did believe in nature’s ability to create sexual compatibility. That sort of gift should be relished when it was offered.

“My room is just down the hall. Anyone who sees us leave the restaurant will think we’re going to the elevators.”

He lifted her hand and pressed his lips into her life, into her fate, as he tasted and grew drunk with anticipation.

* * *

Oh, he was good.

Her pulse went mad under the brush of his lips and she had to concentrate to draw a breath.

“I told myself I was only coming out to prove to you I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“To scare me off? I don’t scare.”

I do, she wanted to say. She wanted to go to his room so badly it terrified her. And she didn’t understand why this want sat like a hook in the middle of her chest, pulling her toward him with a painful sting behind her breastbone. She didn’t know how to handle any of this because she wasn’t the bold, confident one.

What would Trella do?

It was a habitual thought, one that harked way back to her earliest years when her sister had been the one to stride eagerly forward while Angelique hung back.

She brushed aside thoughts of Trella. She shared almost everything with her twin, but not this. Not him.

That was what scared her. Who was she if not Trella’s other half?

An internal tearing sensation made her touch her chest. She immediately felt the beading on her dress and wondered why she had worn Trella’s creation. Armor, she supposed, but this wasn’t about Trella. That was what made this situation so starkly unique and put her at such a loss.

In this moment she was only Angelique. Except she didn’t know what Angelique would do in a situation like this. Her other lovers had wanted one of The Sauveterre Twins and the fame or influence or bragging rights that came with it. She had gone with them hoping for a feeling of fulfillment, but had never found it.

Kasim wanted her. That’s what made him so irresistible.

And she had a feeling this would be more than fulfilling. Profound. Maybe life-altering.

Which was terrifying in its own way, seeing as it was only for one night, but if she refused him out of fear, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life.

* * *

The lights were set low in the opulent suite. Champagne chilled in a bucket next to an intimately set table overlooking the Eiffel Tower. The muted notes of a French jazz trio coated the air with a sexy moan of a saxophone, subtle bass strings and a brush on a drum.

Angelique was walking into a setup and wasn’t even sure how she had arrived here. It felt like she had floated. There had been a conversation with Maurice, who had escorted them down the hall. She had instructed him to go back and finish his own meal and put theirs on hold. Charles, her second guard, stood post at the door of the suite. He had assured her as she entered that he had inspected and secured these rooms prior to her arriving at the restaurant and had been at this door ever since.

They were very mundane details that were decidedly unromantic, but they had each been one of the many tiny steps that had carried her toward this moment.

“I am fascinated with this dress,” Kasim said, picking up her hand and carrying it over her head, urging her to twirl very slowly before him. “It is a work of art. I’m afraid to touch it.” He lowered her hand, but kept it in his, so they were facing one another. “But I want to touch you.”

His words made her heart stutter. She tugged free of his grip and walked to an end table where she set down her pocketbook.

“I’m not used to being touched.”

“I’m not going to chase you through these rooms, Angelique. If you’ve changed your mind, say so.”

She turned to face him. “I haven’t. I’m just nervous.”

“Don’t be. I won’t rush you.”

He didn’t have to. She was rushing herself, not ignoring misgivings so much as refusing to give in to the natural hesitation that had held her back one way or another most of her life. If her sister hadn’t pressed her toward this fashion house idea, she never would have had the nerve.

So part of her was saying, Don’t be impulsive. But the truth was, this moment had been brewing since their kiss this afternoon.

This was why she had come to dinner with him. She was a person of deep feeling and what he made her feel was too strong to resist. She had never felt so much like herself as she did with this man.

But she wanted to be herself. She wanted him to want Angelique.

She lowered the zip on the back of her dress, slowly drawing the shoulders down her arms and very carefully stepping out of it without letting the skirt brush the floor.

Kasim’s inhale was audible over the quiet music, sounding as a long, sharp hiss.

“You, however…” he said in a rasp. “Seem in a big hurry.”

“You said you were afraid to touch it.” Avoiding looking at him, she took great care with folding the dress in half lengthwise, then gently set it on the arm of the wingback chair.

She was naked except for her high silver shoes and a pair of lavender cheekies that cut a wide swath of lace across her hips and the top half of her buttocks. She had done enough quick changes backstage alongside half-naked models that she wasn’t particularly self-conscious.

Nevertheless, it was intimidating to turn and face him. At the same time, it was a rebirth of sorts, standing there naked and vulnerable. Tears flew into her eyes at the significance of shedding the shield of her sister and being only Angelique.

Would he like her?

“What’s this?” Kasim murmured, coming forward to cup her face and make her meet his gaze with her wet one.

“I don’t often let myself be.” Life was far easier when she kept her thoughts on the future or her sister or a piece of fabric. Allowing the moment to coalesce around her, so she experienced the full spectrum of emotions he provoked—impatience and sexual yearning, uncertainty and deep attraction—it was huge and scary.

She smoothed her hand down the lapel of his suit jacket, then warily looked up at him, fearful of what she might find in his gaze.

What she saw made the ground fall away beneath her feet.

His eyes were hungry and fierce, but there was something tender there, too.

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised in a low growl, then dipped his head to kiss her.

She started slightly as his arms went around her and a jolt of such acute pleasure went through her it was almost like a shock of electricity.

He paused briefly, gentled his kiss. Then, as she pressed into him, encouraging him to continue, he deepened it, sweet yet powerful, making her knees weaken.

They quietly consumed one another. She speared her fingers into his hair and met his tongue with her own and let herself flow wholly into the kiss.

Releasing a jagged noise, he pulled away and threw off his jacket. Yanked at the buttons on his shirt. “Damn you for being so far ahead of me. You do this.”

He left his shirt open but tucked in and set his hands on her bare waist, capturing her lips with his as he ran his hands around to her lower back, making her shiver then melt as he molded her closer. They were chest to chest, hot dry skin to hot hairy chest.

A sob of broken pleasure escaped her. More. She needed more of him, and pushed at his shirt, smoothing her hands over the powerful shape of his shoulders. With a brief pull back, she yanked his shirt free of his pants, then they were embracing again, her hands free to steal beneath the hanging tails of his shirt to caress the warmth of his flexing back.

Skin. Lips. A cold belt buckle against her bare stomach and a hard shape behind his fly that made her both nervous and excited. She had never abandoned herself to desire, had never allowed herself to be so vulnerable, but she didn’t have a choice. Time stopped. All she knew was the feel of him stroking her skin, pressing her closer, fondling her breast then looking at where her nipple stabbed at his palm.

He bent and covered the tight bead with his hot mouth, tongue playing in a way that had her shuddering as ripples of pure delight went straight down her middle to pool in her loins. When he moved to the other one, she ran her hands through his hair, loving the feel of the soft spiky strands between her fingers, and spoke his name like an endearment.

A moment later, he dropped to his knees, taking her underpants as he went and leaving them twisted on her shoes as he stroked his hands up and down her thighs, gaze so hot on the flesh he had bared that she felt it. Her inner muscles tightened and a press of moisture wet her lower lips in anticipation.

She closed her eyes, blocking out anything but the sensation of his light touch, so delicate she barely felt the caress at first, but she was so sensitive it took nothing but the graze of a fingertip to make her throb.

Her breath rasped over the music. He stole one taste and she fisted her hand in his hair. Her stomach muscles knotted with excited need.

His caress deepened and she sobbed as glittering sensations poured through her. Her knees wanted to collapse, but she held very still as his lovemaking intensified and her arousal doubled upon itself until she was saying his name over and over, pushing her hips in an erotic rhythm and she was dying, dying, because it was so good.

Climax arrived as a wave of pleasure that had her tipping back her head to release her cry of joy toward the ceiling, body shuddering, hard hands on her hips the only way she remained standing.

“Your guards might have heard that,” he said with smug lust, rising before her.

Her heart lurched.

His command of her and the moment stung. Not so much the guards hearing, although that was hideously embarrassing. No, it bothered her more that Kasim was significantly less affected by what had just happened than she was. She ought to be feeling like the selfish one, but it felt quite a bit like he had benefited from her giving up her self-control so thoroughly.

He guided her backward onto the sofa. She was so weak she fairly wilted onto it, body still shaking with aftershocks, but she was clearheaded enough to know she wanted him as carried away as she was.

He opened his belt, unzipped his fly and brought a condom from his pocket, all the while studying her like he had every right.

He covered himself and knelt between her knees, drawing her hips to the edge of the cushions and moving a pillow to the small of her back.

“That’s very pretty,” he said in a lust-filled voice.

The pillow arched her back so her breasts came up a few inches and he bent to suck her nipples again. It was proving to be her greatest weakness, making her close her thighs on his hips and urge him to soothe the ache he incited.

“Do you want me, Angelique?” He kissed her throat. “I want to hear it. Tell me.”

“I do,” she admitted on a helpless sob, not caring about propriety or modesty. But she did care that she not be alone in her abandonment to passion. She grasped the hot shape of him, feeling the muscle leap under her cautious caress, so hard and promising.

With a determination to make him as wild as she felt, she guided him to where she wanted him and caressed her folds with his tip.

He reared back, stole a look into her I-dare-you expression, and something untamed flashed in his gaze. He hooked his arms beneath her knees and nudged her for entry, pretty much daring her right back. Take me, then, he seemed to challenge.

She was very aroused and arched to accept him, but the press of him stretching her made her instinctively flinch. It had been a long time.

His grip on her legs prevented her from closing them, but he felt her reaction. He paused. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t stop,” she gasped, grabbing at his neck and pulling herself upward against him, angling her hips to take him in and releasing a stifled groan as he filled her.

He made a feral noise and shuddered.

“Gently,” he ordered, moving in small, abbreviated strokes, testing her body’s arousal and willingness to accept his intrusion.

She lolled back on the cushion, smiling at him in a way she had never imagined smiling at any man, inviting him to have his way with her. Thoroughly. Completely.

“Let them hear both of us this time,” she taunted, and ran her hands over her breasts, cupping them, letting her nipples poke from between her splayed fingers. “Unless you can’t wait for me.”

He muttered something that was probably an accusation of insolence, but he began moving with powerful strokes, deliberate and measured, watching her to ensure she liked it. She did, unable to help moaning and arching, hands stroking up his arms. She caught at his shoulders and pulled him down while bringing herself up, so they were chest to chest. She lifted her mouth to catch at his in soft, biting kisses.

Soon it became uninhibited and wild. Sweaty and earthy and abandoned. It was incredible. She would have laughed in triumph, but her breaths were nothing but jagged gasps and cries of pleasure. She received him with joy, basked in being his vessel, and told him how good he made her feel.

“Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

The tension built to impossible levels, both of them digging fingernails into the other as they mated, the enjoyment of the act no longer enough. They sought the culmination. It was coming. They were almost there. So close. Tense. Tight.

The world exploded and he covered her mouth with his own, so they were the only two who heard the sounds of ecstasy they made together.

CHAPTER FIVE

KASIM SHOULD HAVE been fast asleep. He was utterly relaxed. Sexually replete. He certainly didn’t want to move. The bedsheets were smooth beneath his back, the warmth of Angelique draped over him the only blanket he needed. Her hair felt pleasantly extravagant, spilled across his chest and neck in cool ribbons.

She was falling asleep, twitching lightly as she drifted into slumber, growing heavier against him. Equally sated.

The things they had done to one another. He closed his eyes and a banquet of remembered sensation washed over him. Smooth, soft hands. A wet, lavish mouth. Legs like silk slithering against his own. Her ripples of climax squeezing him again and again.

Not that they’d been particularly adventurous. He generally left the level of exploit to his lover, never needing fancy positions or toys to enjoy himself so long as he had an eager partner. But the sofa hadn’t been enough. They had come in here to the bedroom and consumed one another all over again.

It hadn’t been mere enthusiasm between them. It had been immersion. For a woman who “didn’t do this,” Angelique was tremendously willing to throw herself into the fire of passion. He couldn’t help but burn right alongside her.

Which was such a disturbing loss of self-governance, part of him was thinking he should rise and take her home right now.

His body reacted to the thought with an involuntary tightening of his arm around her. A fierce urge rocked through him to roll atop her and have her again.

One night was not enough.

Sleep, he ordered himself. Sleep and think clearly in the morning.

His eyes wouldn’t stay closed, preferring to stare at the decorative ceiling tiles, textured with shadows in the mellow light slanting like sunset from the lounge.

He likened his sleeplessness to those few times in his life when a day had been so perfect, he couldn’t make himself go to bed and end it. A day in the desert with his father as a child, when the king relaxed and they only concerned themselves with basic needs. Or his last day with his brother, knowing he would never see him again…

His heart gave a wrenching twist and he tensed, restraining himself from rolling into Angelique and seeking more than escape into physical pleasure. Comfort?

No. He refused to be that needy.

She drew a long inhale, disturbed by the tension that kept taking a grip on him. She repositioned herself, sighed and relaxed, but he could tell she was awake. He could feel her lashes blinking against his skin.

“I’m thirsty, but I don’t want to move,” she said in a husk of a voice.

He was starving, but only moved his hand to her head and caressed her scalp through the thick waves of her silky hair.

With a beleaguered sigh, she pulled away and climbed from the bed to go into the bathroom.

Kasim tucked his arm behind his head, listening to the tap run. When she came out of the bathroom in a robe, he rose onto his elbow.

“Come back to bed,” he ordered, voice graveled by sexual excess.

“It’s already been a very long dinner,” she said wryly. “I don’t want to give the press more fodder than they might already have.” She walked out to the lounge.

* * *

Angelique was trembling on the inside, reacting to something so intense it had left her dismantled and exposed.

She gathered her few pieces of clothing and dressed, aware of Kasim coming into the lounge behind her, but she didn’t turn to look at him. If she met his gaze, if he was naked, she feared she would find herself back in his bed in a matter of seconds.

With a practiced wriggle, she got the zip fastened up her back, then swept her loose hair back and behind her shoulders. The silk liner on the dress was cool and the beadwork made it feel heavy and stiff. Her sensitive, sensual soul was firmly tucked away behind walls and guards again.

Searching out her pocketbook, she glanced at her phone and saw her brother wanted her to text when she arrived home safely. She rolled her eyes and plucked her lipstick from the velvet interior of her purse. She had already tidied the rest of her face in the bathroom and was determined to look like she had not been rolling around with the prince all evening if she happened to be photographed leaving the hotel.

“You don’t have to go.”

“I should let you sleep,” she said, sending him a sly look in the mirror near the door. “You’ve worked hard.”

“That tongue,” he said on a breath of laughter, stalking close to catch at her and turn her, drawing her in front of his naked frame. “If you hadn’t used it to pleasure every inch of me, I would curse it completely.”

Oh, he did not just say that. She blushed. Hard. And she would not look to see if he was laughing. Or hardening. She stared at the flex of tendons in his neck.

He chuckled and bent his head to nuzzle against her mouth with his own, murmuring, “I’m rather fond of it, now. Let me say hello again.”

He meant “good night,” didn’t he?

Their lips parted and sealed in a mutual coming together, like polar opposites aligning and locking. His tongue found hers and caressed, making showers of pleasure tingle down her front. She hummed a pleasured noise and pressed into him, trying to assuage the instant rush of greedy desire.

She found him hard and famished. He clutched her with increasing passion, threatening Trella’s beautiful beadwork.

She drew back as far as he would let her and had to stifle a pant of pure need. His eyes were like midnight, his desire for her undisguised, from the flush of excitement across his cheekbones to the thrust of flesh pressing into her abdomen.

“Come back to bed.” Implacable determination was stamped into his face.

Her heart turned over with helpless yearning.

Defensive, flippant remarks like, I had a nice time, threatened to come to her lips, but she found herself speaking more earnestly. Almost begging for clemency. Her stupid eyes grew wet with the conflict inside her.

“I would prefer to keep tonight private, if at all possible.” Her voice reflected the arousal he incited and the powerlessness she felt in the face of it. If he pressed, she would stay the night. “If I get caught doing the walk of shame tomorrow morning, it will cheapen something that was actually very nice.” She couldn’t bear that. She really couldn’t.

His eyes narrowed in a brief flinch. His mouth tightened and she thought he was about to demand she stay anyway.

“I’m going to London tomorrow. Come with me.”

She blinked, thrown. She had geared herself up for this to be one night. A rush of hope flooded her. Yes. More.

Just as quickly, she thought, No. How?

Her mind splintered at the complexity of it. Obligation to Trella rushed in to make anything but these few hours impossible.

“I thought… You seemed pretty clear about there being no future.” She searched his gaze.

His expression grew shuttered. “One more night, that’s all I’m talking about.”

Ouch. Right. She smiled her regret, hoping he’d take it as regret at refusing, not the very real regret that this was such a dead-end road.

“The more we see each other, the more likely we are to become a sensation.”

“Still trying to scare me off? It is unrealistic to think we won’t be found out, that’s true. So what? If that’s the only obstacle, there is none.”

“It’s not,” she murmured with genuine reluctance, and tried to step away. Maybe when she went to Berlin next week? She would have to think about it. She was never impetuous, least of all about men and allowing them to impact her life.

He locked his arms, not holding her more tightly, but turning his muscles to steel so she was forced to stand quietly and look up at him. She did not hide her disapproval at being manhandled.

“What then?” he queried.

“Trella is coming to Paris.”

“So?”

“We have to finish your sister’s trousseau.”

“Hasna will not be wearing everything you’re giving her on her first day of marriage. I will personally take responsibility for anything that arrives late.”

“That’s not the point.” She tried again to pivot away from him.

He kept her in place, not allowing her to screen her emotions or remove herself from his thought-scattering touch. Infuriating.

“I never leave Trella alone when she’s here.” She’d never even considered it because she’d never been tempted. She set her hands on his wrists where he gripped her hips, trying to extricate herself from the lure of him. “Most especially not overnight.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four. And don’t pass judgment.” She could see opinions forming behind his eyes and it was true that they all babied Trella, but there were reasons.

Trella was traveling on her own tomorrow, though. Did that mean she was ready for other acts of independence?

Angelique found herself standing acquiescent in Kasim’s embrace, considering her own arguments to her brothers about allowing Trella room to find her own confidence.

What if she had a rebound crash as a result, though? She was trying to justify deserting her sister. What was wrong with her?

Berlin, she thought again, because it was further into the future and gave her time to think. This man moved way too fast for her.

“Is security the issue? Your detail can travel with us,” he said.

“No. I mean, yes, they would have to. And Henri keeps a flat in London that is completely secure. No, it’s Trella. I could ask her…”

“I do not ask permission from strangers to go away with my lover.”

“That’s not—You don’t understand.” Lover. Her heart pounded with excitement at the sound of that.

“Enlighten me.”

“No,” she said bluntly. She never talked about Trella’s experience. It was hers and nearly killed Angelique every time she revisited it. Her nostrils stung with unshed tears just thinking about it.

His fingertips dug in just a little against the soft flesh of her hips, insisting on possessing her full attention.

“Am I sleeping with you or your sister, Angelique?”

“That’s the problem, Kasim. That is exactly the problem,” she said as her eyes filled.

* * *

Kasim had begun to think she was playing coy, attempting a manipulation as some women were inclined, but the anguish in her beautiful features was real. It caused such a twist of protectiveness in him, he instinctively tightened his arms to draw her nearer.

The old habit of standing between Jamal and the constant threat of harm rose in him, mentally pushing him between Angelique and her sister, making him even more determined to separate her from something that was obviously harming her in some way.

She resisted his attempt to enfold her, bottom lip caught in her teeth, brow pulled into a wrinkle of angst.

With a flex of agitation at the stiffness of her, he pulled away and sought out his pants from the floor where he’d shed them.

“Explain,” he commanded as he stepped into them and zipped. He reached for his shirt, slipping it on but leaving it unbuttoned.

“It’s hard,” she said in a small voice, one hand lifting helplessly. “It doesn’t even make sense, really. But it’s how I feel.” She sighed heavily. “And I am the sensitive one, ruled by my emotions.”

She sounded so forlorn.

He folded his arms, trying not to let that niggle at him. He had learned to shield himself against expressions of deep emotion. Too many times in his childhood he’d been bombarded by the pain of others—his mother and Fatina, the king’s warring wives, trying to draw him to their side. Jamal’s inner torture then Hasna’s unrelenting grief…

There was no way to fix the emotional pain of others. He could only protect himself from becoming wound up in it.

Seeing Angelique had demons warned him to cut short whatever this was, but he found himself rooted, willing her to speak. He wanted to understand why she was resisting him. He wanted to help her.

“It was supposed to be me,” she said, gaze naked and filled with guilty torment. “The kidnapping. I was the quiet one. The shy one. The one who was bad at math and needed a tutor. It was end of semester and our chauffeur was coming. Trella was already outside. She was the extrovert who wanted to say goodbye to everyone. My tutor called out to her. He thought she was me. She went over to tell him I would be out soon and he grabbed her.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. Ramon came out in time to see it happen and chased the van as far as he could, but they’d plotted their getaway very well…”

Her lips were white. Her hand shook as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“Was she…?” He didn’t want to finish the question. What kind of person assaulted a nine-year-old child?

“What happened in those five days is Trella’s to tell or not,” Angelique said in a voice that quavered. She knew, though. The answer was in her eyes. Hell. Whatever it was, it had been hell.

Kasim moved to take her cold hands in his, trying to rub warmth into them.

“You’re suffering survivor’s guilt,” he said quietly. “I understand that.” He did. Jamal should be living the life Kasim enjoyed. They were both sons of the king. There was no difference between them except those small characteristics that made every person unique unto themselves.

“The guilt is only part of it. We were already legendary, not that we ever wanted that sort of notoriety, but that’s why we were targeted. The Sauveterre Twins, one of Europe’s treasures, right? Of course payment would be made for Trella’s return. Of course the press went mad at the sensationalism of it.”

She cleared her throat, obviously struggling.

“My father had to use that circus to our advantage. I looked just like Trella so they used me as Trella’s face, to plea for her return. Any tiny thing could have been the key to getting her back. It was horrible exploitation. He hated himself for doing it to me, but when you’re desperate…”

Her eyes filled and she pulled her hand out of his to press the knot of her fist between her breasts.

“All the while… The connection between twins is a real thing, Kasim. It is for Trella and me. I knew she was terrified and suffering. It was unbearable. And then she came back to us so broken and I felt that, too.” Her lips quivered.

He had to enfold her in his arms. Had to.

She shook like a tiny animal that had barely escaped certain death.

“She’s safe now, hmm?” he coaxed gently into her hair. “Come back, Angelique. That was a long time ago and she’s safe. You’re both safe now.”

She nodded and sniffed once, but he could feel the shudders of dark memory running through her. Her arms went around his waist, beneath his open shirt. The beadwork on her dress abraded his bare skin. He stroked her hair, imparting as much comfort as he could, rubbing his chin against her temple.

“You’re afraid to leave her alone, in case something happens again,” he surmised.

“I’m afraid all the time of everything.” Her cheek was damp where she pressed it to his chest. “That’s who I am, Kasim. I’m the worrier. I’m the introvert. But I had to become the strong one. The only way I’ve ever been able to do that—God, the only way I could find the courage to stand in front of cameras and beg for her return was to pretend I was her. I had to become her in some ways. How could I ever go back to being quiet, shy Angelique who leaned on her sister for confidence? My support was shattered. She needed me to be that person.”

She wiped at her cheek and settled against him again.

“We should be two carefree young women, but she was cheated. I know she would have risen to the challenge if it had been me so I have to do that for her. Everything I do is for both of us. Sometimes I feel like I am her and I don’t know how to be just me.”

Her odd comment at dinner about being each other, which he had thought was a bit of twin peculiarity, now made more sense. So did the one about her not letting herself “be.”

“Who were you tonight?” he asked, cupping the side of her neck, invaded by a prickling tension as he urged her to look up at him.

She drew back, but her gaze stayed on her own fingertips as she smoothed the hairs down his breastbone in a petting caress that made shivers of delight travel up his spine.

“I stole tonight for myself.”

“Good. That is the correct answer.”

She tsked and gave him a little shove. He only settled her closer, pleased when she relaxed and rested her head against his shoulder again, arms looped around his waist.

“But I can’t be selfish and take what I want. I can’t do that to Trella. Do you understand?”

“You know you cannot live someone else’s life for them, don’t you?” How many times had he tried to solve Jamal’s “problem” to no avail? “You cannot shelter someone forever. It’s not fair to either of you. We are each responsible for our own lives.”

“I know,” she murmured. “Separating my life from my sister’s has to happen. We both know that. But I can’t force that on her and I certainly won’t let you force it. And the truth is…” She tilted back her head to look up at him with a solemn expression. “I am not impulsive. I am a thinker. If you want Angelique to go anywhere with you, you have to give Angelique time to put it all together in her pretty little head.”

He pondered that, distantly aware he didn’t have much time. His father was already talking about finding him a bride as soon as Hasna’s wedding was out of the way.

“How much time do you need? I was going to leave first thing in the morning and it’s already…” He looked around and swore lightly. “There are no such things as clocks anymore.”

Releasing her, he found his cell phone and clicked to see it was nearing midnight. He dropped the phone into his pocket, then left his hand there with it. He raised the other to pinch his bottom lip.

“I have meetings in the morning. Come later in the day. I’ll make the arrangements.”

“I can make my own arrangements,” she informed him, but with a rueful purse of her lips. “Which I realize you just heard as agreement.” She sighed and touched her brow. “I could call my mother, see if she feels like spending the night in Paris with Trella. Does anyone ever say no to you, Kasim?”

“They realize very quickly that it is a waste of both our time. You, apparently, are a slow learner.”

“Don’t,” she said with a little flinch. “It’s still a sore point for me. I can cut out a perfect square meter of fabric by sight, but ask me to add one half to three quarters and I just embarrass myself. Now I’m going to put on fresh lipstick.” Her hand shook as she picked up the little golden tube and pointed it at him. “Keep your lips to yourself.”

“Come here first,” he commanded, compelled to reinforce the connection between them.

She paused in winding up the stick of color, sent him a pert look. “Saying ‘no’ would just be a waste of a layer of lipstick, wouldn’t it?”

“Look at you. You’re actually very quick to learn.”

She rolled her eyes, but she came across to kiss him.

CHAPTER SIX

IF I NEED YOU, I’ll call.

Trella’s words dogged Angelique as she stole off to London. They weren’t telling any of the family that Angelique was leaving Trella for a night on her own in Paris. Better to let it be a fait accompli, they decided, given how reluctant their brothers had been to let Trella make the short flight alone.

Trella had passed her own test “with flying colors,” she had excitedly said about her solitary flight, quite triumphant in her achievement.

Angelique had been so proud, she’d had a little cry about it, which had made Trella laugh and hug her and call her their sensitive little Gili.

Nevertheless, Angelique felt guilty for leaving. Trella was very safe. Situated on the top floor of the design house, the Paris flat was ultra-secure. Seamstresses and other staff came and went from the lower floors, working into the night if the mood took, but the flat had its own entrance, a panic room and a private passage to the office.

Trella had been very heartfelt in her plea for Angelique to do something for herself for a change.

I’ve held you back too long, Trella had insisted, then added with a sly look, Besides, I’m curious about Henri and Cinnia. See what you can find out.

Angelique had laughed at that, but if Trella had a setback, she would never forgive herself.

Deep down, however, she was anxious to see Kasim again. It was a foreign state of mind for her. After Trella’s experience, she’d spent her adolescence wary of boys and sex. When she finally started to date, she had been hard-pressed to find men who measured up to the standards her father and brothers had set. When her suitors had fallen off because her life was too restrictive, or proved to be social climbers or other opportunists, she’d been annoyed and disappointed, but never truly hurt.

She had never been taken with any man. None had engaged her feelings very deeply and she had never, ever, allowed a man to come between her and her family.

In some ways, she was terrified of the influence Kasim was having on her. He fascinated her and thus had power over her. He was confident and secure in himself, almost brutally honest, but that lack of subterfuge was as seductive as the rest of him.

And oh, did he seduce! From a physical standpoint, she was completely infatuated. Her blood raced as she silently willed the driver into London after the family jet landed at the private airfield.

She hadn’t given Trella many details about her evening with Kasim, but her sister had said with a sensual lift of her own hair, I know you slept with him. Don’t deny it. I’m kind of jealous, actually. In a good way. It makes me realize what I’m missing.

That had made Angelique very self-conscious, but she knew Trella was interpreting her body language. They had the same expressions and mannerisms so even though Angelique could disguise her thoughts and feelings from many, her sister would read the indolent stretch or the warmed cheek and soft gaze of pleasant memory without effort.

Trella didn’t tease her for it, and when Angelique studied Trella, she saw nothing but determination in her sister at being left alone this evening.

Kasim had been right about Angelique suffering survivor’s guilt. She wondered if it was the reason she had given up so easily on her previous relationships. Being happy when her sister had been struggling had always felt incredibly disloyal.

She still felt disloyal, haring off to London to be with a man, but it was only one night, she told herself. Kasim hadn’t promised anything else and neither had she for that matter, even though she felt a yearning for more.

Not that she’d defined exactly what “more” would be. The artist in her appreciated that whatever they had was too new and special for close examination. Deconstruction could kill it. Sometimes you had to go with instinct, then determine after the fact what you had.

Was this instinct? Or greed and selfishness? Or old-fashioned blindness to obvious facts?

Exactly the type of scrutiny she had to avoid, she thought with a stifled sigh.

Whatever it was, it drew her inexorably. Her pulse was racing over a single text from Kasim, promising to meet her at her brother’s flat within the hour.

It was actually the family flat. Knowing Henri was in New York, Angelique assumed Cinnia was staying in her own flat, but texted her as a courtesy, mentioning that she was in town and asking if Cinnia wanted to get together for a meal.

Cinnia’s reply came through as Angelique was letting herself in. It was a simple regret that she was staying with her mother and was sorry she had missed the chance to visit.

Angelique put her bag in the room she and Trella used, checked that there was a decent bottle of wine in the fridge and moved restlessly into the lounge, wondering if she and Kasim were going out for dinner and if so, where? What should she wear?

Paparazzi. Ugh, she thought with another sigh, but for once she wasn’t filled with as much dread as usual. She would have hated to have her night with Kasim reduced by the online trolls to a one-night stand, sullied and mocked, even though she’d gone to his room last night convinced it would be only that.

Having this affair extend into a second night made it feel—Well, it still felt so rare and precious she wanted to guard it jealously, but she was so thrilled to see him again, she was willing to pay the price.

“Oh, no,” she murmured, jerked from introspection as she caught sight of the coffee table.

A courier envelope had been torn open and the contents spilled out. It was at least a hundred thousand euros in jewelry, probably more. It looked like the contents of Ali Baba’s cave, glittering and sparkling innocently against the glass tabletop.

Angelique sat down hard on the sofa, chest tight. She thought about texting Trella, but Henri was the most private of all of them. He would kill her if he knew she had seen this. She couldn’t share it like tawdry gossip, not even with Trella.

But what had gone wrong?

Henri was adamant in his decision never to marry, but he and Cinnia had seemed so good together. Angelique would have bet real money that Cinnia genuinely loved him. How had those tender feelings become something as harsh as throwing his gifts back in his face?

It was a cool, disturbing reminder that relationships fell into one of two categories: those with a future and those that ended. Her heart chilled, starkly confronted with the kind she had with Kasim.

There wouldn’t be a moment of callous rejection between them, though. Not like this. She and Kasim were never going to spend two years together the way Henri had with Cinnia.

Upset for Henri and Cinnia—and disturbed on her own behalf—she pushed the jewelry into the envelope, but the artist in her was drawn to examine the tennis bracelet. She’d never taken a proper look at it. It was a string of alternating pink and white diamonds, one Cinnia had always seemed to be wearing. Angelique was really shocked she’d given it up, especially now that she saw how exquisite it really was. The craftsmanship in the setting was extraordinary. She searched it for an insignia that might tell her where it had come from.

When the door opened behind her, she stood with surprise, expecting Maurice, but it was Kasim. She had told Maurice to expect him, but had thought she’d have to ring him through the main doors downstairs before he would appear up here.

“How did you get in the building?” she asked as she moved to meet him, flushing uncontrollably with instant pleasure.

His mouth tilted with a hint of smugness, as if he read her infatuation and knew how slowly the minutes had passed for her before seeing him again. It was disconcerting, making her feel defenseless and obvious, but she still found herself crossing toward him, tugged by an invisible lasso around her middle.

He waited for the door to shut before he hooked his arm around her and kissed her.

It was proprietary and given how fleeting this affair was likely to be, she should be keeping better control over herself, but her heart soared. She quickly melted into him, instantly transported to the languorous memories of last night and anticipation for more of the same incredible pleasure he’d delivered.

“You missed me,” he said when he drew back.

“You didn’t miss me?” She tried to sound blasé, tried to pull away, but she was hyperaware of how needy that sounded. How completely easy she was being.

His hand slid to her tailbone and pressed her hips into his enough that she felt how he was reacting to her. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he allowed.

Fluttery joy invaded her abdomen and she tried not to reveal how quickly and thoroughly he’d bowled her over.

“Good to know,” she said lightly. “But I am genuinely curious how you got into the building. It’s supposed to be locked down for residents only.”

“It is. I was given the codes when I bought my flat this morning. Shall we go look at it?” He finally released her and stepped toward the door with a low wave for her to accompany him.

“You—you bought a unit in this building this morning?” She had grown up with wealth, but they only owned a flat here because her father had bought it during the design stage, just before his death. The address was obscenely exclusive with a wait list a mile long of international dignitaries and techno-billionaires trying to get in.

Perhaps she had underestimated how wealthy and powerful Kasim was. The cost to jump queue must have been exorbitant.

“It’s a good investment. My mother likes London,” he said with a shrug. “She’ll use it if I don’t. Mostly I thought you’d appreciate the privacy. By some miracle, there is nothing online about us. I thought we’d celebrate our lack of infamy by staying in and extending our lucky streak. I’ve ordered dinner to be delivered in a couple of hours.”

“We could have stayed here!” she pointed out.

He offered a pained frown. “I do not steal into a girl’s bedroom at her parents’ home.”

No, he dropped a few million pounds on a suite he was only using for one night. For her.

She urged herself not to let that mean too much.

“Shall I change?” She was still wearing her travel clothes, a dark blue jersey skirt with a pale yellow top, both her own design. They were quietly feminine, breezy yet classic and a tiny bit waifish.

“You look beautiful.” He skimmed his gaze down and back. “And whatever you wear is only for the elevator.”

“You’re not even going to pretend you’re inviting me to look at etchings?” She planted her hands on her hips, only realizing as she did that she was still holding Cinnia’s bracelet. Shoot. She was instantly self-conscious on her brother’s behalf. “Um. I just have to put this down and grab my phone.”

“What is it?” Kasim asked, catching at her wrist as the snaking sparkle caught his attention.

She opened her hand. “Something Henri bought for Cinnia,” she prevaricated.

Her brother’s long-term relationship was well documented in the press, but she wasn’t going to be the one to start the rumors about its demise.

“I want to ask him where he got it because the work is outstanding. Look at the detail here. You can tell each of these claws has been crimped individually to create this effect all the way along. I’m in awe at how painstaking that would be. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

Kasim’s nostrils flared as he picked up the bracelet and gave it a thorough study, his expression pulling into a tension that bordered on agony. As if suddenly realizing how hard he was staring, and that she was watching him, he quickly straightened his features and handed her the bracelet.

“No,” he answered belatedly and rather abruptly. “Let’s go.”

Her heart did a little thump. The mood had definitely shifted. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She was hurt that he would lie so blatantly to her, but moved across to tuck the bracelet into the envelope and picked up her phone.

The silence in the elevator was not precisely thick, but it was significant.

Kasim’s cheeks were hollow, his mouth flat.

Maurice was with them, so Angelique kept her own counsel. Her guard went through Kasim’s new flat ahead of them, even though Kasim’s team had been here all day, ensuring it was not only clean and secure, but furnished and well stocked.

The layout was similar to her family’s suite with a lounge opening onto a balcony overlooking the Thames. She imagined the door next to the wet bar led to the kitchen, as it did in their own. Down the hall would be the bedrooms and baths.

This one smelled faintly of paint and was filled with contemporary furniture and a handful of decent art pieces. His decorator was competent, if unimaginative, having fallen back on the latest issue of Colors of the Year for lack of inspiration.

The moment Maurice left them alone, Kasim drew her into his arms again and kissed her quite passionately. Almost aggressively, questing for a response. It was as if he was trying to propel them into the mindless state they’d experienced last night in Paris.

It was breathlessly exciting, yet made her feel… She wasn’t sure and, as her blood began to heat, started not to care.

“Do I not even get a chance to explore the place myself?” she gasped when his mouth traveled to the side of her neck. Arousal suffused her, but she had the sense she was being used as much as desired. It scraped her insides raw.

“If you like,” he said, straightening and not looking pleased.

“Have you even seen it?” she asked, trying to recover and stung by the distance she sensed between them.

“I’m more interested in this.” His lashes cut downward as he slid his gaze to her toes and came back to her lips.

His ravenous gaze made her skin tighten, but her heart squeezed at the same time. She knew he was sublimating something.

“Kasim.” She cupped his jaw. “What has upset you?”

“I’m not upset.” He pulled away from her touch and moved to the bar. “Children get upset. Do you want wine?”

He was speaking shortly. Irritably. Like he was upset, she thought drily.

“Something about the bracelet bothered you. Did you recognize it?” She was intuitive that way. She just was. “You can tell me what it was, or I can make up stories of my own to explain your reaction.”

“I’ve never seen it,” he said flatly, setting out two wineglasses. “But the workmanship reminded me of Jamal’s. He designed jewelry.”

He wound the screw into the cork with a little squeaking noise and pulled it out with a pop, movements jerky, facial muscles still tense.

“My father hated it. He took it as a reflection against his own masculinity. An insult. He was ashamed to have a son who was…artistic,” he pronounced with disdain. “My mother used that to her advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

He poured, steadying the bottoms of each glass with two fingers as he did.

“Jamal is—was Fatina’s son. My father’s second wife. My mother…”

He set aside the bottle. For a moment he was a man on the verge of exploding, wrapped tightly, but packed to the eyebrows with dynamite, fuse burning in his eyes.

“Children should not be used as weapons, but my mother loved to find fault with him. To his face, to my father, in public. However she could humiliate him and Fatina, she did it. In sly ways, though. Small little stabs. Death by a thousand cuts,” he said grimly.

“That’s horrible.”

“It was. And my father was determined to turn him into something he could be proud of. That was his way of countering my mother’s attacks, by telling Jamal he was to blame for her criticisms. If he only changed, we would all have peace. I’m furious every time I’m reminded of how it was for him.”

“You couldn’t make your father see reason?”

He snorted. “This?” He lifted his glass and touched it to the rim of hers. “I don’t care one way or another for alcohol, but it is completely outlawed in Zhamair. It’s not a religious restriction. We have as many citizens who are Christian or Jewish as we do Muslims in our country, but my father’s word is rule. My father is a dictator in the way that political scientists define one.”

“But you do what you want when you’re away,” she noted with a glance at his Western clothes. “Couldn’t your brother have done that? I’m sorry, I know it’s very easy to say that he should leave his country and turn his back on his father. It’s not something anyone would do without deep struggle, but…”

“No,” Kasim agreed in a hard, grim voice. “It’s not. Especially since it meant leaving his mother and the rest of his siblings. Fatina has four younger children, as well. And he felt my father’s rejection very deeply. He wanted desperately to earn his respect. It was an impossible situation for him.”

“That’s so awful.” Her heart ached for not just his brother, but for Kasim. No wonder he wanted to take the reins from a man who possessed no hint of compassion or empathy. No wonder he had fought so hard for Hasna to have a love marriage.

“How did he die?” she asked softly, then clutched where the pang in her chest had intensified. She could see the anguish still fresh in Kasim’s face. “It wasn’t suicide, was it?”

Kasim didn’t speak, only stared into his wine for a long moment. His fingernails were so white where he clutched the stem of his glass, she though he would snap the crystal. His gaze came up and she thought he looked about to say something.

In the next second, he shut down, mouth flattening into a sealed line before he finally said in a neutral, almost practiced, voice, “It was a car crash. We were in Morocco on business. He was out on his own along a stretch of road near the ocean. He wasn’t reckless by nature, but he was under a lot of pressure from my father to give up the jewelry design, work with me full-time and marry suitably.”

His expression was filled with perturbed memories.

“The car went through the guardrail into the rocks below. Calling my father with the news was hard, but facing Fatina and Hasna, and my younger brothers and sisters…”

The torment in his expression was too much to bear. So much guilt, but how could he have prevented it? It was just a terrible accident. He shouldn’t blame himself.

She set aside her glass and came around the bar to slide her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry.”

“Why? You had nothing to do with it.” He continued to hold his glass, his other arm hanging at his side, stiff and unresponsive to her embrace. He looked down his nose at her.

“I shouldn’t have forced you to revisit his loss.”

She felt the flinch go through him. He sipped, stony as a column of marble that didn’t give under the lean of her weight, only supported her with cold, indifferent strength. “The bracelet did that.”

“And you wanted me to help you think of nicer things.” She traced her fingertips up the line of his spine through the back of his shirt, trying to reach him through physical contact since he seemed to have shut her out emotionally. “Now I will. If you like.”

“What about your great explore?” He didn’t bend at all.

“I’ve seen a flat just like this one. But this…” She brought her hands around to climb his chest and brush his suit jacket open, nudging it to fall back off his shoulders. “This territory is still new to me.”

She was trying to be bold, to find the affinity they had shared in Paris, but was highly unsure when he failed to respond. Self-doubt, her great nemesis, twisted through her.

“I plan to be very thorough in my mapping of it,” she said, voice wavering as she became convinced he was about to reject her.

“You’re liable to see nothing but this ceiling for the next hour,” he warned, setting aside his glass and clasping her hips in heavy hands.

“Maybe that’s all you’ll see,” she said with a tremble of relief. “Did you think of that?”

* * *

Kasim had almost told her the truth about Jamal. It was a stunning break in his normal vigilance against any woman’s intrusion into his inner world.

Idly caressing from the back of her thigh over the curve of her buttock to the hollow in the small of her back, he wondered how this smooth golden skin had come to get so far under his own in such a short amount of time.

He didn’t regard women as a Western indulgence he allowed himself when he traveled, but he did treat his sexual relationships much as he did his business ones. Some were brief transactions, some longer term, but they were exchanges and trades, always agreements with clear parameters. Paramours didn’t cause him to rearrange his life and they rarely stimulated more than his libido.

This one, however… He had made a ridiculously large transfer this morning so he could protect their privacy, mindful of her request last night to keep the world from cheapening their association.

Why? What did he care if their association was known or in what context? He would eagerly show her off. The idea of staking a public claim held a great deal of pleasure for him, in fact.

He very carefully blocked the vision of any other man thumbing into the small dimples at the top of each of her firm, round cheeks, then he lightly traced the line that separated them, fingertips claiming Angelique’s backside along with the rest of her, sweeping the back of her thigh and taking possession of her calf.

He had grown up watching his father deal with the fallout of indulging unfettered lust. Every person was susceptible to being attracted to the wrong person—or rather, an inconvenient person in relation to the life they led. Giving in to that desire was the root of whatever problems arose.

Kasim had always regarded himself as superior to his father and brother. He was capable of rising above the temptations that foretold complications.

Was he kidding himself, believing this thing with Angelique was a trouble-free dalliance that could end tomorrow morning with a light kiss and a “pleasant knowing you”?

An uncomfortable bolt of rejection shot through him, not just resisting the idea of walking away, but outright refusing to countenance it. His reaction was so visceral, his hand closed in a small squeeze where it rested above the back of her knee. He was literally holding on to her and he’d only thought about the inevitable parting that awaited them.

It was a sobering confrontation with his inner animal, the one he had always been so sure he governed without effort.

“I’m awake,” she murmured on a contented sigh, as if she took his grip to be a test of her level of consciousness.

She turned her head so she could blink dreamy eyes at him while keeping her face mostly buried in her folded arms and the fall of her magnificent hair. “Just thinking. Do you want to meet me in Berlin next weekend? I have a thing.”

He had places to be, people to rise above.

“I thought we were staying out of the spotlight.”

Her sleepy smile slowly warmed to something vulnerable yet elated. It made his heart swerve and swell.

“I was really asking if you wanted to see me again after tonight.” The tone in her voice caused a pleasant-painful vibration through him.

He looked at where his hand was still firm on the back of her thigh. “I fear for our lives at the rate we’re going, but I was going to ask you to stay the weekend. I have to escort my mother and sister back to Zhamair on Sunday, but I will arrange to take them back late.” He would also cancel his lunch arrangements for tomorrow with his foreign secretary and the British counterpart.

“I wasn’t planning to spend the weekend,” she said, last night’s troubled light coming into her eye. Her sister again.

“No?” He tensed and felt her hamstring flex against his light grip.

Guilt and longing fought for dominance in her gaze. She released a soft moan of struggle and gave a taut stretch beneath his touch.

“I will if I can arrange it.” Her tone echoed with something like defeat.

He began to pet her again, blood tingling as he fondled her with more purpose. He wasn’t used to a woman resisting him. It made him restless for her capitulation. Not something forced. No, he needed her to give herself up to him.

Rolling her over, he began to kiss her, running his mouth to all the places that made her arch and moan under him, impressing on her the benefit of belonging to him. As he felt the tension in her, the clasp of nearing climax, he kissed his way back up the center of her torso.

“Tell me what you want.”

“You know,” she sobbed, moving against his hand, but he followed her undulations, keeping his penetration shallow and light.

“You want this?” he very slowly and gently deepened his caress, deliberately holding her on the plane of acute pleasure she occupied, not letting her tumble into orgasm. “Or this?”

He rolled atop her and loved the saw of her breath as she gasped in a sensual agony. Holding himself in a tight fist, fighting back from his own approaching peak, he rubbed his aching tip against her slick folds, nudging at her with promise.

She danced and angled her hips, trying to capture him.

He shook with want, barely able to see straight, but made himself hold off and only kiss her. “What will you do for me?”

“Anything,” she gasped, but opened her eyes. They were shiny with helpless torture, a hint of resentment even. She knew what he was demanding. Her.

He cupped her head and slowly, slowly sank into her. Their breaths mingled as their bodies joined, both of them parting their lips to release jagged noises of intense pleasure.

How could she resent this? How?

He made love to her then, sending her over the edge, then keeping her aroused so they were damned near clawing each other when the next crest approached. He didn’t think he could wait for her, but he wanted her with him. Demanded it with the hard thrust of his hips against her. Needed it.

She locked herself around him and released a keening noise, shuddering beneath him. The greedy clasp of her sheath triggered his own climax and he shouted in triumph as he joined her in the paroxysm.

* * *

Angelique was a little stunned by what she’d just experienced. Not just the ferocity of Kasim’s lovemaking. She’d been so aroused, she had craved that intensity, but there’d been a loss of self in that joining. He had been the only thing important to her. It left her scrambling to recover her sense of autonomy, while he made it impossible by rolling back into her and running proprietary hands over her still-tingling skin.

The condom was gone along with his urgency. Now he was the tender man whose touch was soothing and reassuring. He almost lulled her back into thinking everything about him was safe, but it wasn’t. He imperiled the very heart of her.

She put up an instinctive hand against his chest, resisting his effort to pull her into a sprawl across his sweat-damp body.

“What’s wrong?” He picked up her hand and lightly bit her fingertip, then kissed the same spot. “I can’t make promises about Berlin, but I will try. Good enough?”

He sounded languid and satisfied while she was completely dismantled.

“Is it because we might be found out?” She had been trying to think how they could continue on the sly, but couldn’t see a way, not unless he wanted to go broke buying private flats. He hadn’t seemed particularly worried about exposure anyway. “Would it be complicated for you with Hasna if something wound up in the press?”

He snorted. “I don’t consult my sister on how I conduct my private life.”

There. That was the issue. He resented her sister. She stiffened and tried to pull away.

“That was a cheap shot,” he allowed, arms clamping like a straitjacket around her. “I take it back.”

“No!” She turned her face away. “You don’t get to kiss me into forgetting you said it.”

He sighed against her cheek.

“I’m spoiled,” he stated without compunction. “Never second fiddle to anyone except my father and that is a finite situation, not that I wish his life away. I only mean that I am his heir and aside from him, I am autonomous.”

“Yet I’m supposed to be content as a second fiddle in your life.”

A long pause that was so loaded, she had to glance warily at him, fearful she’d truly angered him.

Maybe she hadn’t angered him, but she’d scored a point. She could see echoes of his mood earlier when he’d talked about his mother’s brutal treatment of his father’s second wife and his half brother.

“I have meetings all next week,” he said in a cool tone. “Roundtable discussions with a dozen of our region’s most powerful leaders. You must have an idea of our political and economic landscape? The stakes are always high. I go so my father won’t or he’ll send us back to the Stone Age. The conference could easily go into next weekend. That is the only reason I am avoiding saying yes to Berlin.”

“Fine.” Now she felt like she’d pressured a concession of sorts from him, but it was a hollow victory. “It was just a thought.”

“What are you doing there?” His tone wasn’t patronizing, but she read his question as an attempt to mollify her and move past their conflict.

“A fashion awards night.” She glossed over it. “There’s a white tie and champagne thing after. I’m presenting so I can’t skip it. You’d probably find it boring anyway.”

“Do you do a lot of these things? Who do you usually go with?”

She would not kid herself that he sounded jealous.

“Colleagues. Sometimes one of my brothers. Honestly, it’s fine. I’m supposed to be at a thing tonight and—” She’d forgotten to cancel, she realized. She had decided not to go once she realized Trella would be in town, but had paid the plate fee because it was a charity she liked to support. It wasn’t a big deal that she was a no-show. She shouldn’t be experiencing this stab of guilt.

All part of Kasim’s magnifying effect on her emotions, she supposed. She frowned, aware of a cloud of traitorousness blanketing her too, along with a niggling desire to rebel. She put it all down to letting him extract that surrender to his seduction at the expense of thinking of—

She scrambled out of his arms to sit up. Trella.

“What—?” Kasim made a noise.

She kicked away the covers as she scooted off the bed. “I have to check in with Trella.”

“Why?”

“I just do,” she muttered and quickly shrugged into his robe, tying it tight then leaving to scour the lounge for her cell phone.

* * *

Angelique had put down the agitation in her belly to the sound of an invisible clock ticking down on her time with Kasim and all the things that she was doing that were out of character: engaging in an affair, leaving her sister, shunning work responsibilities.

But there was that other plane of awareness that her sister occupied in her unconscious…

Kasim came into the lounge, pants pulled on, but wearing nothing else, blanking her mind. Lord, he was beautiful, moving with economy, sculpted muscles rippling under smooth, swarthy skin. For a moment she forgot to breathe, she was so captivated.

He prowled to where the food had been received and abandoned on the dining table an hour ago. They had been too busy with each other when it arrived to do more than set it aside and get back to bed.

He opened the wicker basket and said, “We should eat before this is stone cold.”

When he glanced at her, he caught her ogling. A light smirk touched his gorgeous mouth. He hooked his thumbs in his waistband, so sexy her mouth watered.

“Unless you’re hungry for something else?”

She swallowed and ignored the fact her blood turned to lava. It was better that he wouldn’t be in Berlin. He had way too much power over her as it was.

“I could eat.” She hid her reaction by gathering their still-full wineglasses and bringing them across to the table under his watchful eye.

“Your sister?” he prompted.

“Fine.” She bit her lip, flashing him an uncertain look. “She told me not to hurry back.”

Take advantage of flying under the radar as long as you can, Trella had texted, but Angelique was still aware of her sister in that peripheral way. Trella wasn’t frightened precisely, but she was disturbed.

They had used their authentication codes, though. She knew it was definitely Trella telling her to stay in London, coming across like an adolescent pushing for independence, insisting she was completely fine.

Angelique hadn’t tried a video call, too embarrassed at how much she would betray, especially wearing Kasim’s robe.

“So you’ll stay the weekend.” Kasim looped his arm around her.

“Do I have a choice?” she challenged tartly.

He stroked the back of his bent finger along her jaw, perhaps looking apologetic, but all he said was “Not if I have anything to do with it, no.”

Then he kissed her until she was leaning into him, utterly spellbound.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASIDE FROM THE odd time when she had become tipsy from having too little to eat before having a glass of wine, Angelique had never been drunk or stoned. Kasim, however, provoked a feeling in her that she imagined one felt when ingesting party pills.

She walked around in a fog of euphoria after London, mood swinging wildly. One minute she was lost in recalling how they had essentially spent two solid days in bed, rising only to eat and make love elsewhere in the flat: the sofa, the kitchen chair, the shower. It made her too blissed out to care about the lost shipment of linen or the hundreds of euros in hand-made bobbin lace that wound up attached to the wrong gown.

The next minute she plummeted into a withdrawal depression, certain she’d never hear from him again. With his hand buried in her hair, he had kissed her deeply late Sunday afternoon, both of them aware cars and planes were waiting for them. He had finally released her, saying, “You won’t hear from me. I’ll be tied up in meetings. I’ll try to meet you in Berlin. If I can’t, we’ll figure out something for the following week.”

Would they, though? She wished they’d made a clean break of it. She could have handled that. This veering between hope and despair was too much!

If Trella noticed Angelique’s distraction, she didn’t say anything. She was immersed in finishing Hasna’s wardrobe, almost obsessing over each piece, working late and rising early to ensure everything was perfect. She seemed really wound up about it when she was usually the coolheaded one about deadlines and never lacked confidence that their work would be received with great enthusiasm.

Angelique had a fleeting thought that her sister was burying herself in work to avoid her, but they were behind, thanks to Angelique staying in London an extra day. It was probably her own distraction making it seem like her sister was off. She was grateful to Trella for picking up the slack and tried to set her own nose to the grindstone so they could ship everything as planned.

Then, even though time passed at a glacial pace, she suddenly found herself rattling around her hotel room in Berlin, phone in hand as she compulsively checked her messages for word from Kasim, behaving exactly like an addict needing a fix. She had sent him her agenda yesterday, mildly panicked at the lack of word from him. She absolutely refused to let herself text again.

Tonight’s event was taking place here in this brand-new hotel. Her suite was airy and ultra-contemporary, run by a firm out of Dubai that understood the meaning of luxury. She promised herself a soak in the private whirlpool tub when she returned later. It was already filled and warmed. Tiny whorls of steam wisped from the edge of its rollback cover and candles were at hand, awaiting a match.

She would need to drown some sorrows since it looked like Kasim wouldn’t turn up. She was devastated.

That shouldn’t surprise her. Right from the beginning he had pulled a formidable response from her.

She fought tears as she set out her gown and did her hair, then her makeup, saying a private Thanks, Trella, as her sister’s face appeared in the mirror to bolster her.

She wished now she had brought one of Trella’s designs. Her sister’s confections tended to have a self-assured cheekiness whereas Angelique’s evoked more introspective moods. Hers tonight was wistful and damned if it wasn’t blue.

A powder blue in silk, sleeveless, but abundant enough in the skirt to move like quicksilver. The bodice was overlaid with mist-like lace that split apart at her naval and fell into a divided overskirt that became a small train. She pinned her hair back from her face, but let it fall in loose waves behind her naked shoulders and painted her lips a meditative pink.

Her earrings were simple drop crystals that caught the light. A velvet choker with a matching stone collared her throat. A panic switch was sewn on the underside. She and her sister often joked about starting their own line of high-end security wear, but they didn’t want to tip off anyone that they wore it themselves.

Just for a moment, as she took in her reflection, she wondered what it would be like to live without so much vigilance. In a prince’s harem, for instance.

This lipstick really emphasized the pout she couldn’t seem to shake. Ugh.

She gathered her composure before facing the masses. It was better that Kasim wasn’t with her, she consoled herself. Events like this, when her presence was advertised ahead of time, were always particularly rabid attention-wise. Maurice wore special sunglasses to deal with the glare off the flashbulbs it was so bad.

Maurice was reading something on his phone when she came out the door. He tucked it away promptly, but took it out again when they were in the elevator, since they were alone.

“Je m’excuse,” he said. “It’s a report about some photos that have surfaced. I’m sending instructions to question their authenticity.”

She dismissed his concern with a flick of her brows. “Of me with the prince?”

“It says ‘prince,’ yes, but—”

“I don’t care,” she insisted, even though she cared a great deal.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened and some models joined them. One was beyond thrilled to be sharing an elevator with One of The Sauveterre Twins. Maurice put his phone away and remained alert while Angelique exchanged a few remarks with the strangers and consented to a selfie.

Moments later, the doors opened onto the ballroom floor. The paparazzi went mad as soon as they saw she had arrived.

Maurice guided Angelique down the narrow pathway toward the VIP entrance where greeters would be waiting to check off her name on a tablet and handlers would hand her a swag bag that she invariably gave to her mother.

As she approached, a man in a tuxedo turned to look at her.

Kasim.

* * *

He was asking if she’d already entered the ballroom when the madness behind him made him turn.

She was stunning. Like an ethereal creature surrounded by fireflies as a million flashbulbs went off behind her.

Even more riveting than her beauty, however, was the way her composed features softened with surprise, then dawned into warm recognition. Her eyes sparkled and a joyous glow suffused her. Her breasts rose as he moved toward her.

He caught his own breath. Him. The man who had decided this affair was too inconsequential to mention to his father, merely stating he had, indeed, resolved the situation with Sadiq’s “friend.” While he’d been so far away from her, he’d been able to convince himself their time together had been merely a pleasant diversion.

Nevertheless, he’d found himself bulldozing his way through his meetings, working late to negotiate agreements and pushing hard for resolution, a mental clock urging him to leave on time to be here with her. He had worked nonstop on the plane, barely sparing a moment to put on his tuxedo before finalizing a few last details over the phone in his car, arriving at the perfect moment to watch her emerge from the gauntlet.

Bulbs were still flashing as she unconsciously posed, awaiting his approach with that beautiful, reverent look on her face. He wondered what his looked like. Irritated and possessive, he imagined, since he wanted to steal her away from this madhouse. Now.

Mindful of her flawless appearance, he held back on crushing her even though he ached to feel her against him. Instead, he took her hand and detoured past her lips to press a light kiss to her cheekbone.

Her lashes fluttered closed and she breathed, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

He almost didn’t hear her, but the blush that stained her cheeks told him she’d said it and was adorably self-conscious for having revealed herself like that.

“Are you?” He straightened to bask in her look of adoration. “Because I think we’ve been found out.”

Behind her, the paparazzi had moved to completely block the passage. They had become a wall of strobing light and a din of clicks and whirs and shouts of her name.

“Is there anyone else here?” Angelique blinked her green, green eyes, mouth quirking with irony. “I only see you.”

“You’re stealing my lines.” Stealing something else if he wasn’t very careful. “Let’s get this evening over with so I can have you to myself.”

* * *

They created a huge stir and for once she didn’t care. She was proud, so delighted and proud, to stand beside this man. He was here. It wasn’t the most important occasion of her life, but it was important to her that he had made an effort.

He wanted to be with her.

Although, that could change if the attention didn’t lighten up. Kasim might not be as infamous as she was, but with those features, the camera had to love him. His air of detachment meant eyes followed him with a yearning for scraps of his notice.

“You weren’t exaggerating about the attention,” he said when she returned to her seat after her presentation and he rose to help her with her chair.

“No,” she agreed, then had to tease, “Scared?”

“Pah!” he dismissed.

They were an “it” couple before the final speeches had wrapped. “Kasimelique,” one of her colleagues teased her in a whisper as the trays of champagne began circulating and the networking portion of the evening began.

“I’m so glad to have that over with,” Angelique said to Kasim once they had the first rush of introductions over with and were able to move into a quieter corner for a moment alone. “Did I sound all right when I was onstage?”

“Perfect. You weren’t nervous, were you? You didn’t look it.”

“I told you, my trick is to pretend I’m Trella. Do you know that man?” She tried not to sound so keyed up as she flicked her glance to the right, but this crush of people was wearing on her. “The blond one with the sash,” she clarified.

The stranger was tall and quite handsome with a regal bearing. He wore the red satin as a bold streak across his chest beneath his jacket.

“He keeps looking this way. Maybe he’s related to a client, but I can’t place him. I’m going to be so embarrassed if he comes over and I don’t know his name.” The Champagne probably wasn’t a good idea, but she took a sip anyway. This was still her first glass.

“I don’t know who he is, but I recognize the look.” Kasim seemed to stand taller and more alert. He took a half step closer to her.

“What do you mean? Like, Nordic heritage? Or do you mean you know the sash?” She lowered her glass, smile fading as she read the suspicion in the way he looked down his nose at her.

“I mean possessive. He’s resentful of my place beside you. Jealous.”

“Are you serious?” She tried a laugh, but realized very quickly that Kasim was more than serious. He was trying to see inside her head.

“Kasim.” She was deeply offended. “I swear to you, I don’t know him.” But she could see the reel of her online exploits playing behind his eyes.

“Believe what you want,” she said frostily. Don’t you dare, she silently railed, heart clutched in a vise. He didn’t trust her? After all they’d shared?

Well, honestly, what had they shared? A weekend of sex and not even some long-distance afterplay via text.

She looked at him with new eyes, thinking of how much she had anticipated his meeting her here, but now she had to wonder if she wasn’t simply a convenient booty call. It was so lowering, she had to remind herself to breathe.

“Excuse me.” He walked away into the throng, leaving her staring at his disappearing back, confounded and trying not to panic. That was it? He had just broken off their affair because a stranger looked at her in a way he didn’t like?

Before she could fully absorb that and succumb to fury or despondency or both, the stark white of a truly beautiful tuxedo parked itself before her. It was cut by the slash of red and there was a star-shaped pin at his shoulder with a shield inside it.

The man could have come out of a fairy tale, he was so patrician and perfectly hewn.

She hated him on sight and wanted to throw her champagne in his face, but he spoke with an exotic accent and impeccable manners.

“Your lost item, Cinderella.” He offered her a cupped hand.

Inside it was a gold hoop earring with a line of diamonds down the front. It looked exactly like a pair she owned. They’d been a gift from her father for her fifteenth birthday—not something run-of-the-mill that showed up in every low-budget jewelry shop. Trella’s were similar, but that one was definitely the match to her own.

She took it to examine it more closely, trying to recall when she’d worn them last.

“Where—?”

“Caught under the pill—” he started to say in a tone that was very throaty with latent passion, but he cut himself off. Something in his expression grew sharp and arrested as he studied her face. Whatever lightness might have been in his mood became something accusatory as his gaze moved restlessly over her like he was searching for something he couldn’t find.

She knew that look, but refused to believe she was interpreting it correctly. It was far too outrageous to imagine—

“I knew if I walked away, he would approach you,” Kasim said, reappearing beside her.

Angelique startled, not exactly guilty, but defensive. No. She needed time to figure out what was going on with this stranger. She searched his blue eyes, now distinctly frosted with hostility toward Kasim. And her.

Kasim’s gaze cut to the earring in her hand, making her close her fist around it.

“Introduce us.” Kasim’s tone was lethal.

Angelique was distantly aware of people sidling by them, glancing their way.

Kasim’s expression was positively murderous and this stranger was shifting his gaze from her to Kasim, contempt curling his lip.

“I told you,” she insisted to Kasim in an undertone. “I don’t know him.”

Trella, you didn’t.

“My timing is inconvenient,” the stranger said, flicking a look to Kasim that was a silent warning. Be careful with this one.

It was so infuriatingly male, like they were lofty equals who came across tarts like her all the time, she instantly wanted to smack him. Both of them. How dare he show up and throw her under the bus this way. How dare he touch her sister! Her heart began to race, trying to assimilate how it could possibly have happened.

Was she crazy? Could he have been with Trella? How? When?

At the same time she was trying to work it out, she could see she was dropping like a free fall elevator in Kasim’s estimation. That hurt, damn it. How could he think this of her?

“If you’re going to accuse me of being a slut, at least tell me who you are,” she bit out.

“You picked that label,” the stranger shot back derisively. “And I don’t care that you’ve moved on, but those are real diamonds. I was going to send it by courier back to Paris, but I read that you were going to be here and I was in Berlin.” He shrugged a dismissal, looking distinctly bored as he glanced away. “My mistake. Carry on.”

But he stood there like he was waiting for Kasim to give up and leave, as if he wanted to continue talking to her.

“Back to Paris,” she repeated, reclaiming the stranger’s attention while hotly aware that Kasim was glancing away as though looking for an exit. “When exactly was I there with you? Wait. Let me guess,” she insisted, because it finally hit her. It was completely impossible, but she knew. “Last Friday night? The charity dinner for the Brighter Days Children’s Foundation?”

The stranger’s cheeks went hollow. “You know it was.”

“Kasim, where was I last weekend? All weekend?”

Finally she had his attention. His resentful, derisive attention.

“You are both aware I have a twin. Aren’t you?”

* * *

Kasim couldn’t say that he was relieved when Angelique cleared herself of cheating on him. He was still too gripped by residual possessiveness. Maybe his jealous rage had eased enough that he was capable of rational thought, maybe he’d ceased wanting to kill the other man acting so proprietarily toward Angelique, but he was still pulsing with adrenaline. The sheer force of emotion that had overtaken him as he identified a rival was paralyzing.

Unnerving.

“I’ll need your name and contact details,” Angelique said while signaling Maurice to approach.

“His Highness, Xavier Deunoro,” Kasim supplied stiffly. “Prince of Elazar.”

Angelique and the prince both turned raised-brow looks his way.

Kasim shrugged. “I asked when I walked away.”

“Another prince. Charming,” Angelique said scathingly.

Upset that he’d been mistrustful? She should look at the facts before him: they hadn’t been together all week, her sister was never seen in public and this man had brought her damned earring from what was no doubt his bed. Shared intimacy was the only reason he would want to return it personally.

“She said she was you,” the prince said as he reached to an inside pocket of his tuxedo. “The resemblance is remarkable, but there is something…” He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t put my finger on it, but the moment I saw you tonight, I knew something was different.”

That made Angelique stiffen and flash a wary glance at the man, but she recovered quickly and took the prince’s card, relaying it to her guard with a hand that shook.

“That explains the photos you were questioning,” she said to Maurice. “My brothers will want that, but wait until I’ve spoken to Trella. I’ll head upstairs to do that now.” With a hard glance at her sister’s lover, she said, “If you tell anyone it was her and not me, I will personally hunt you down and unman you.” She looked as gloriously provocative as she had the day Kasim had met her.

“You can try,” the prince drawled. “Give her my regards.”

Angelique turned away only to be confronted by a Hollywood starlet.

“I’m sorry,” Angelique said with tested graciousness, briefly clasping the actress’s hand. “I’ve been called away. I’m looking forward to our appointment next month, though. We’ll talk then.”

“My people will need a copy of the press release before it’s sent,” Kasim said, taking out his phone as he fell into step with her, winding toward the nearest exit.

“What press release?”

“The one clarifying her identity.”

“That won’t happen.”

He checked briefly, not faced with any physical obstructions, but walking into the wall of his own ego.

“You will,” he informed her. “Or I will.”

“Do not make threats in that direction, Kasim.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement. I can’t allow people to have a wrong impression.” His father would find Kasim’s means of putting Sadiq’s problem to bed rather crude as it was.

“After what you just thought about me, you might be surprised how little I care about how this reflects on you. I would rather the general public think the worst of me than know the truth, however.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Reasons.”

They approached the melee of reporters. He was forced to table his questions as they pushed their way through the chaos to the elevators.

Her guard efficiently plowed them a way and barred anyone from coming into the car with them, but Angelique still had the gall to look at Kasim like he was a hitchhiker who had hopped on from the highway.

“I’m going to my room to call my sister. You’re not invited,” she said.

“It’s my room,” he stated.

She shot a look to Maurice who was instantly alarmed. “That shouldn’t happen,” her guard said, reaching for his phone. “I’ll call—”

“I know the owners,” Kasim said tightly. “I pulled strings to take over the reservation. It’s fine.”

“It really isn’t.” Angelique sailed out the doors as they opened, striding down the hall with her elegant dress trailing behind her like a visible whorl of her cloud of fury.

One of Kasim’s own guards had joined Maurice’s partner at the door to the suite, leaving Kasim’s bag just inside on the floor. Angelique gave both a baleful look and walked straight through the lounge into the bedroom where she quickly shut the door. Seconds later Kasim heard the dull ring of her placing a call and a greeting in a muted voice that held a tone that sounded much like her own.

He took out his own phone and searched for the most recent photos of Angelique Sauveterre. Most were from tonight, first the ones of them greeting each other outside the ballroom, then mingling within. A few showed her onstage, and one grainy snap across the restaurant last weekend was obviously a belated effort to pile on tonight’s revelation that they were dating.

Then there were a handful of images that showed her—it damned well looked exactly like her—in a clinch with the Prince of Elazar in a ballroom in Paris.

And someone had managed to snap her very tense expression as she had defended herself against two-timing right before they’d come up here.

Kasim gritted his teeth as he weighed Sauveterre security protocols against his own reputation. He could spare Angelique an hour to address this scandal in her own way, he allowed generously. After that, he would turn down the heat on this particular conflagration himself.

Twenty minutes later, Angelique emerged from the bedroom, cheeks flushed, brows pulled into a distraught line. Opening the door, she said, “Maurice, can you send a snapshot of that card I gave you to Trella? Merci.”

She closed the door firmly and turned to glare at Kasim.

“Does she do this often?” Kasim asked.

She pursed her lips as though deciding whether to answer. Then she huffed out a breath and crossed her arms defensively, but her shoulders fell a notch.

“It’s something she’s tried a few times in the last year, basically since she knew Sadiq was getting married. She wants to attend the wedding and is determined to get over…” She stopped herself. Sighed again. “It’s a way for her to test the waters of moving in public again. If she appeared as herself, the press would go stark raving mad. If she poses as me, however, and goes to Ramon’s race with Henri and Cinnia or something like that, it’s run-of-the-mill attention.”

Tonight was run-of-the-mill?

“Shouldn’t she get it over with? Coming out at my sister’s wedding is liable to take attention away from the bride and groom. Has she thought of that?”

“It will be a closed ceremony and don’t judge how she’s doing this.”

“Her actions deserve to be judged. I look like a fool. If you had had an actual affair with that man last year, I wouldn’t care.” That was a small lie, but he would be able to convince himself he didn’t care. “The fact you’ve been photographed with both of us in the same week makes all three of us look bad.”

“We’re all going to have to grin and bear it, aren’t we?”

“No,” he told her sternly. “You warned me about attention. You didn’t say your sister would ridicule me. I will give her the chance to come clean. If she doesn’t, I will make the completely true statement that you were with me in London all of last weekend.”

“No!” Her fists hit the air next to her thighs, arms straight and angry. “Don’t do that to her.”

“I didn’t take the photographs, Angelique. She’s bringing this on herself!”

“It could do so much damage, you can’t even comprehend.” She paced with agitation across the lounge. “The press was horrible to her for years after the kidnapping, printing every lurid scrap, fact or fiction, on what happened while she was captive. True or not, those things assaulted her every time, victimizing her again and again. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they called her unstable and a drug addict and fat. She was barely a stone heavier than me, but there was this magnifying glass on her so she couldn’t buy a stick of gum without it being a cry for help, or a sign she was suicidal… It drove her to go the other way, until she was underweight and we were scared she would disappear completely. I’ll tell you, if anything is designed to break a person’s spirit, it’s that sort of relentless, vicious criticism.”

She paused to take a few panting breaths. Her face contorted in a wince of distant memory.

“Then, after my father’s funeral… I guess we finally looked like young women by then. It’s not like we were dressed for clubbing, you know, but photos circulated of us at the service and men stalked both of us online after that, saying the most disgusting things. Sending us—” She waved a hand toward her crotch. “Those sorts of pics. It was even worse for Trella. She knew what men like that are capable of.” Her voice broke on the last words, eyes haunted.

“Angelique,” he breathed, and started toward her.

She bent to unfasten her shoes and kick them away, then kept moving, restless with heightened emotion, dress swirling like a cape each time she turned.

“She started having panic attacks because of it. That is not public knowledge.” She pointed at him as though warning him not to speak of it. Then she whirled away again. “She was terrified all the time. It was horrible for her. For all of us. It was like watching someone who is depressed to the point of being suicidal, or in chronic pain, and listening to them scream. You can’t do anything except sit there and watch. She spent, God, a good two years stoned on medications, trying to get it under control. Finally she left the public eye and it took a while, but she was able to stabilize. That was so hard-won, none of us rocks the boat. We don’t want to throw her off again.”

She hugged herself, gaze fixed on the past.

“For years, one of us has always been with her, never farther than the next room. We all know it’s not healthy. We want a normal life for her. Our version of normal, anyway,” she muttered, then waved with exasperation toward the guards in the hall.

“Even Trella is balking at how she lives. I just asked her how this happened and she told me she feels like she’s been doing time on a prison sentence for a crime she didn’t commit. What did she do wrong, Kasim? Are her kidnappers half so tortured? They might be in jail, but have they suffered one-tenth as much as she has? And even through all of what she has faced, she tries.”

Her eyes were wet and gleaming. She was visibly shaking with intense emotion, making his heart feel pinched and tight.

“She’s been trying so hard to get over all her mental blocks. She flew to Paris alone. You have no idea what a big deal that was for her. And then, when she realized you and I were keeping out of the spotlight and I was expected at that dinner, she stole the chance to go out as me. To see how she felt going out alone. It was a spur-of-the moment thing, which is exactly like her when she’s at her best. In certain ways this is such thrilling news.”

She began pacing again, her dress flaring around her as she pivoted, but halted to press a hand to her brow.

“Not the part where she went home with a stranger, of course. I asked her how that happened, but she didn’t want to talk about it, only apologized for not telling him who she really was. My brothers are going to kill me for not being there to stop her.”

Kasim folded his arms, observing drily, “She took acting like you to the highest level, didn’t she?”

Angelique jerked her head up, eyes narrowed with antipathy. “I had dinner with you first!”

They hadn’t even finished their drinks, let alone started on the appetizers, but okay.

“That has to be me in those photos, Kasim. If the press gets wind that it was her…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Trella is a tiny baby sea turtle making her way to the water. If we can just give her time to get there before unleashing the crabs and gulls…”

He snorted. “Laying it on pretty thick, aren’t you?”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s okay if you traumatize my sister by causing the hell of public attention to rain down on her again? It’s not.”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s okay if the world thinks you’ve slept with both of us? It’s not.”

“Who cares so long as you’re the one in this room with me tonight? Or, wait, am I invited to stay in the room I booked for myself?”

He scowled. “Don’t get bent out of shape about that. I don’t book weekends with women then ask them to foot the bill.”

“I see. That’s interesting.” She gave a considering nod, shoulders setting in a stiff line. “You realize that by mentioning these legions of other women for whom you have paid hotel bills, you’re saying it’s okay that you have a past, but not me. Is that what you were doing this week, by the way? When you were not texting me? Paying for hotel rooms with other women? Just because no one returned a cuff link downstairs doesn’t mean you weren’t making a fool of me, but do you hear me complaining? No. Because I’m well aware we haven’t made any commitments to each other—”

“Enough,” he cut in. “I paid for the room because I will put up with your pain-in-the-ass security protocols, but you will stay in my room. I will not ask permission from your guards to enter. As for the photos, I don’t want people to think that’s you because I’m jealous. All right? Is that what you need to hear?”

Her shoulders went back, but he could see he had finally pulled her out of her own interests into theirs.

“Which I might have hesitated to admit if you weren’t acting like a green-eyed shrew yourself. No, Angelique, I was not sleeping with other women. I was working. Nonstop. So I could come here and be with you. Future or not, we are damned well exclusive to one another until we’re over. Is that clear? Now, go warn your sister I won’t be so forgiving if she does this to me again.”

The line of her mouth softened. “You’re not going to expose her?”

“Do I look like someone who takes pleasure in feeding baby sea turtles to the gulls?”

She threw herself at him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ANGELIQUE GLIMPSED THE velvet box on the romantically set table when she arrived at Kasim’s Paris penthouse.

She was getting to know him very well, but wouldn’t have pegged him as a man who celebrated a one-month anniversary. His sentimentalism touched her. It told her he valued what they had as deeply as she did.

“We’re staying in tonight?” she asked as she kissed him without even taking off her jacket or setting down her purse.

He had already shed his suit jacket and tasted faintly of Scotch and…tension? He lingered over their kiss, drawing it out with a quest for her response, waiting until they were both breathless and hot before drawing back.

“Do you mind?”

“No.” She tossed her purse toward the sofa then hugged her arms around his waist again. Nestled her mons into his hardness, pleased with the evidence his desire wasn’t letting up any more than hers. “It’s been a long week. I missed you. I’d rather have you all to myself.”

“Me, too.” His voice was sincere, but…off. He started to pull her into another kiss.

She hesitated. “Are you angry?”

A flash in his eyes, then, “Not at you.”

He combed his fingers into her hair and gently pinned her head back, so her neck was arched, her chin tilted up for the press of his damp lips. The stamp of hot kisses went down her throat, making her skin tighten and tingle.

“And you can’t talk about it so you want to forget it. Perhaps I can help with that,” she allowed with another press of her hips into his groin. It was her cross to bear that she was the lover of a man with great responsibilities.

His breath hissed in and he straightened to his full height, seeming to wage an inner debate. He bit out a soft curse and his hands fell away from her.

“We will have to talk about it,” he said, twirling his finger to indicate she should turn and let him help her with her coat. “Much as I’d rather make love to you first, you probably wouldn’t forgive me if I did. Let’s get it over with.”

Wary now, she watched him drape her jacket over the back of the sofa and move to the chilled wine in the bucket.

“A votre santé,” she said when he brought her a glass.

He only made a face of dismay and said bluntly, “You can’t come to the wedding.”

Angelique held the wine in her mouth until it was warm and sour. She swallowed.

“Sadiq and Hasna’s wedding?” Obviously, but she couldn’t process how he could say such a thing. “I know we can’t…be together when I’m there. I wasn’t expecting—” To stay in his room. Maybe she’d fantasized about it. “I mean, I thought I’d stay with my family and you and I could…” She shrugged. “Dance?” Steal time somewhere? They were very adept at that.

“My father is inviting the woman he would like me to marry. It would be awkward and disrespectful for my mistress to be there.”

And the hits just kept on coming.

His marriage was supposed to be some far-off thing that would happen one day, but in the mists of a distant future, like death. Unavoidable, but not something the average person worried about as an immediate concern.

“Did you explain my family’s relationship with Sadiq?” Her hand began to shake. She leaned to set her glass on the coffee table before she spilled wine all over his antique Persian rug.

“My father is still convinced you had a personal relationship with him. Bringing up the complimentary wardrobe does more harm than good.”

“I’m not going to miss Sadiq’s wedding, Kasim. He asked us to be there. It’s a big deal for all of us, especially if Trella is going to be with us. I have to be there for her.”

“I’m not happy about it either, but it’s one day.”

“Does Hasna know?”

“I’m not about to play those sorts of politics,” he said, sharp and hard. “That is my mother’s game, to stir up tears to manipulate my father. Hasna understands our father very well along with my promise to marry the wife he chooses for me.”

“Why—?” Why had he ever agreed to such a thing? But she knew. So he could rule differently. Better.

That selflessness on his part ought to inspire her to make peace here and act in the greater good, but she was too appalled at how casually and callously he was brushing aside her feelings in this.

He set down his wine and grasped her arms. “Angelique, it’s one day. Then we can carry on as normal.”

“Normal being this.” She broke away from his hold to wave at the room.

The impermanence of their association penetrated. What she had seen as a relationship, one where she could reveal her deepest thoughts and worries, was nothing more than a convenience for him.

She caught sight of the table and its narrow velvet box. Its significance struck like a bludgeon.

“Silly me, I thought that was for our anniversary,” she said dumbly.

“Anni—?” He pinned his lips shut. Such a man. One hundred percent oblivious.

She walked around the far end of the sofa and moved to open the box.

The necklace was a stunning confection of thin chains and cushion-cut emeralds set in gold.

This was all she would be left with when their affair was over. Some token of his. It wasn’t even affection, was it? Appreciation? For the orgasms she’d given him?

And this affair would end. She had managed to ignore that reality these past few weeks of meeting him in hotel rooms across Europe.

He was marrying. Sooner than later. And his chosen wife would be at the wedding.

It was absolutely true that she couldn’t meet that woman then carry on with Kasim until… When? The day his engagement was announced? Days before he married? Her heart was pulsing like a raw wound just thinking of it.

Each breath she drew felt like a conscious effort and burned both directions. In and out. Her throat closed and her eyes swam. Her voice came out strained with insult.

“I’m not a woman you buy off, Kasim.”

She looked up in time to see him flinch and avert his gaze.

“I know you’re disappointed,” he began. “That is not—”

She cut him off with a hoot of disbelief. “Is that what I am? Disappointed?” Her chest was caving in on itself. “Are you?”

“It’s one day.”

“It’s you turning me into your mistress, then letting your father call me a whore who’s not good enough to be seen in his palace. One who is paid well, I admit, but no thanks. I’m not interested.” She gave the velvet box a thrust of rejection so it tipped off the table onto the floor.

“You’re overreacting,” he bit out, trying to catch the necklace.

“No, you should have told me this could happen before you took me to your bed! That is information I needed because you know what Sadiq means to us.”

“And what? You would have passed on all of this so you could attend one damned wedding?”

“All of what?” she charged, waving at the necklace he now held. “You’ve just reduced our relationship to an exchange of sex for jewelry. Do you know what I’ve given up so I could be with you? The sacrifices I’ve made? I’ve pushed Trella away so I could be close to you. What have you given up? Nothing. And now I know why. Because I mean nothing to you. So, yes, the wedding is a deal breaker. Tell your father your mistress won’t be there because you no longer have one.”

She turned toward her coat.

He caught her arm. “Angelique—”

“Don’t,” she said in the deadly, assertive voice she’d been trained to use, free hand snatching up her pendant in warning.

His mouth tightened and he lifted his hand to splay it in the air, like she’d turned a gun on him.

“Really? You’ll call in your guards rather than have a civilized conversation about this?”

“How do you see this conversation ending? In your bed? Yes, I will call in my guards rather than let you seduce me into accepting this kind of treatment. You had chances to end this before my—” Don’t say “heart.” “Before my emotions were involved.” Her voice shook. “Did you really think, after all that I’ve shared with you, that I was only here for a necklace?”

The control that she had cultivated through a lifetime of having to buck up and be strong was never harder to find. She shot her arms into her coat and picked up her purse.

“You’re as emotionally tone-deaf as your father.”

* * *

If she had been trying to stab him in the heart, she had picked up the most efficient knife with which to do the job, then snapped it off against the bone for good measure.

As he gathered the necklace from the floor, he thought of Jamal showing it to him a decade ago. It was one of his brother’s first efforts at a big piece, not perfect, designed with more passion than attention to the finer details, but it was genuinely beautiful. Jamal had been rightfully proud and Kasim sincerely impressed.

Kasim had bought it, wanting to be his brother’s first patron, declaring, Someday it will be worn by a queen, as it should be.

But lately, as he regularly saw green and gold tones in the eyes of his lover when she woke beside him, he had decided to give it to Angelique. He had known she wouldn’t like what he had to say today, but he had hoped to soften the blow by giving her something that was genuinely precious to him, that was hard to give up because it was one of the few remnants of his brother he had.

Of course she wasn’t aware of that. There had been no point in trying to explain. He had let the door slam and the quiet set like concrete around him.

Because they had no future. His father was choosing him a wife. The goal today had been to keep her from attending the wedding and that task was definitely accomplished.

Sometimes hard choices had to be made. Jamal had been one of them and Angelique another.

It made him furious and sick, but it was done.

* * *

Angelique heard the door, but didn’t get out of bed. She was too devastated. Her eyes were swollen and gritty, her throat raw, her nose congested and her heart sitting in a line of jagged pieces behind her breastbone.

She had tried to brave it out on her own, but sometime in the darkest hours of the night, when her sister had texted, asking if she was all right, her willpower had collapsed.

Please come, she had texted.

Trella hadn’t asked why. She had only texted back that she would leave as soon as the family jet could be cleared for takeoff. Now her sister’s shoulders fell as she walked into the bedroom and took in the shipwreck that was her twin.

“What happened?” Trella asked gently.

“We broke up,” Angelique said in a voice rasped by hours of crying. “I’ve been so stupid.”

“No.” Trella came to the bed and swept away the crumpled tissues to lie down in front of her. “You fell in love. That’s not stupid.” She stroked Angelique’s hair back from where it was stuck to her wet cheek.

“I didn’t mean to.” Fresh tears flooded her eyes. “I never let anyone in. You know I don’t. It’s too painful.”

“You were always so full of my suffering there was no room for anyone else.”

“No.”

“Yes, Gili.” Trella stroked her hair, petting and soothing. “I tried not to put it on you, but you carry it because that’s who you are. I’m not surprised you fell for him when he was the first person who didn’t lean on you emotionally. When you finally felt like I didn’t need you every minute. That must have felt like such a relief.”

“He didn’t lean on me because he didn’t love me!” Angelique pushed a fresh tissue under her nose and sniffed. “And I feel so pathetic, crying like this when a bruised heart is nothing compared to—”

“Shh…” Trella said, stroking her hair. “Don’t ever compare, bebé angel.”

Angelique closed her eyes and tried to level out her breathing. “I thought I had learned how to be strong and I’m so…” Sad. Scorned. Heartbroken.

“Do you know how I get through my worst moments?” Trella’s fingers gently wove in and picked up Angelique’s hair, combing to the ends. Her voice was pitched into the tone they had used as children, when telling each other secrets in the night. “Every time I’ve wanted to give up, I’ve always thought to myself, I have to be there when she needs me. You gave me a gift, asking me to come. You’re telling me I’m strong enough to be your support. It was worth fighting through all that I have so I could be with you here, in your hour.”

Angelique had seen her begging Trella to come as pure weakness, but wondered now if she had failed to see what a comeback her sister was really making—because she’d been so wrapped up in Kasim.

“You didn’t hesitate, even though I’ve been letting him come between us.” Her lips quivered and she looked at her twin through matted lashes. “That was wrong. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” Trella crooned. “Don’t apologize for offering your heart to him. It’s his loss that he didn’t see how tender and precious it is. And no matter what happens, we will always be us. I will be here for you, Gili.”

Angelique’s smile wobbled and she let out a breath she’d been holding for years. “I love you, Trella bella.”

“I love you, too.”

* * *

Angelique wasn’t going to Zhamair. She wasn’t buckling to Kasim’s demand that she stay away, though. It was the other way. She couldn’t bear to see him, fearing she would make a fool of herself at the first glance.

Or, at the very least, have to face what a fool she already was.

She had always seen easily through men who asked her out. They wanted to date her because she was beautiful, a prize. Some had wanted to get closer to her brothers, others had been so overcome in her presence it had been a burden to live up to what they imagined her to be. It had been fairly easy to maintain a certain distance.

Kasim had been different. He was strong, confident, honest. She had felt safe with him and it had allowed her to put her true self out to him. That inner soul of hers was as shy and hesitant as she’d ever been, only coming out when she trusted she wouldn’t be hurt.

Yet he had treated her like one more mare in the stable and she should have seen it coming, which left her feeling like she’d set herself up for this heartache. She had failed herself.

Be the tough woman Trella is, she kept urging herself, but she had never managed to be that woman when it came to Kasim. That was her downfall.

So she finished drafting her email to Sadiq mentioning the “terrible flu” that had her deeply under the weather and hit Send.

She was fooling no one. Her family knew that things were over between her and Kasim. Hasna had to be aware of it, as well.

She sniffed and glanced at her red eyes in her desk mirror. She certainly looked like she was battling a serious ailment. Heartsickness took a toll.

Trella, bless her, was doing everything she could to support her.

It was the great reversal Angelique had longed for and it wasn’t nearly as relieving or satisfying as she’d imagined. For starters, her brothers looked at her reliance on Trella as a small betrayal of their unspoken pact. They had all worn the mantle of protector for so long, they couldn’t put it down long enough to see that Angelique’s pulling back had actually been a good thing for their baby sister.

Trella was stepping up on her own volition now. She had planned to attend the wedding, but it was her suggestion that she take on the wedding day with Hasna so Angelique could skip going to Zhamair. This morning, Trella had even volunteered to make a quick run to London by herself to meet in private with a certain longtime client who belonged to the royal family and had a confidential occasion coming up.

Trella was also talking of doing more of the front end work once she returned from Zhamair, which was something to look forward to, but for now the task of greeting prospective clients still fell on Angelique.

Thus, when her guard rang from the front doors, stating that her eleven o’clock was here, she could only sigh and agree to come downstairs.

As she rose, she glanced at the appointment details. Girard Pascal. Something about a gift for a bride. Since she had no other reference on this prospective client, he would be shown into the small receiving room off the front foyer.

The room was a quaint little conversation area filled with Queen Anne furniture that served as a border crossing of sorts. Technically inside the building, it was still on the perimeter. Staff and accepted clients went through a second controlled door to enter the hallowed interior.

The reception room had two doors and a window onto the foyer, giving the illusion of a more spacious chamber, but the glass was really there to allow the guards to monitor her safety if the doors happened to be closed.

Girard Pascal looked Arabic, that was her first impression, but there were many Parisians with Middle Eastern heritage who had been here for generations. With that name, she assumed he was French.

He looked like Kasim, was her second thought, as he stood to a height that was very close to her former lover’s. The resemblance was only in his coloring and ancestry, she told herself. Maybe something indefinable across his cheekbones. His eyes, too. That bottom lip. His build and the commanding way he held himself.

She ignored the leap of her heart and told herself she was making more of the superficial similarities because she missed Kasim. That was all.

Then he opened his mouth and spoke with the same accent, almost the same tone and intonation. “Please call me Girard. Thank you for seeing me.”

He smiled warmly, looking nervous in a way that she almost thought was male attraction, but it wasn’t. Nor was it the fan-based giddiness some people showed in meeting a Sauveterre. It was affection and admiration and a searching of her expression for something she couldn’t define.

“I’m Angelique. Please sit and tell me what sort of gift you had in mind. If I can’t help you, I’m sure I’ll be able to suggest someone who can.” It was her stock greeting, something to give her an out if she decided not to take on a client.

She was already leaning toward not. She didn’t feel threatened, precisely, but she did feel prevailed upon. He wanted something from her. Not just a spring ensemble, either.

He held up a finger and went to the door, waiting while one of her guards brought over a black pouch smaller than his palm.

“Nothing showed on the X-ray. It’s fine,” her guard told her.

“Do you mind?” Girard said as he stepped back into the room and started to close the door.

Angelique moved to close the second door, then joined him at the coffee table, sitting in the opposite armchair from his.

“My request is very…” He frowned, searching for words, then poured out the contents of the pouch onto the coffee table.

It was a necklace, the chain three delicate strands of white gold, the pendant complex and simple at once. The stones were blue, set into a graceful sweep that almost looked like a cursive letter.

“Arabic?” she guessed, caught by both its whimsy and the suggestion of joy.

“It means ‘with.’” His smile flashed.

“It’s beautiful.” She was instantly taken by it and moved to the settee so she could examine it more closely.

“May I?” She reached out, adding in a murmur, “You want me to design something to go with it?” She would love to. The well of her creativity began to burble just feeling the weight of the piece against her fingers. It had a certain magic that penetrated her skin right into her blood.

“I believe you already have.”

“Pardon?” She dragged her stunned gaze off the crimping on the claws, experiencing a shiver as she recognized the workmanship. “Did you make something for my brother, Henri? A tennis bracelet with pink and white diamonds?”

“I don’t discuss my clients.” His mouth twitched as if he knew that she’d said that same thing more times than she could count. “But my work is carried by a jeweler here in Paris and one in London. And I did make something like that when I first moved to France. It’s quite possible the bracelet is mine.”

“I meant to ask him where he got it,” she murmured, but her brother wasn’t speaking to her, primarily because she had dared to invade the family flat and discovered that Cinnia had left him. “I would love to work together,” she blurted. “I’m bowled over by your skill.”

He smiled with shy pleasure, eyes gleaming. “That touches me. You can’t imagine how much. But let me ask my favor first. Then we’ll see what you think of working with me on something else.”

“Yes, right. Did you see a piece of mine somewhere? You know it’s just as likely designed by Trella?” She looked at the pendant again, trying to imagine how she could have inspired something so beautiful. She was utterly in love with it.

“I made this for my sister. I was hoping you could take it to her.”

“Your—Oh, my God!” If she hadn’t been so enthralled with the necklace, she would have put it together sooner. Now she quickly dropped the pendant on the table and jerked to her feet, backing away from a ghost. “Oh, my God!”

Charles shot in.

She held up her hand.

“I’m fine. Just a shock,” she insisted to her guard. “What is today’s word? I can’t even remember. Daffodil?” She touched her forehead. “Honestly, I’m fine. I just need a moment with…”

She waved at Kasim’s dead brother. Her hand trembled.

“I’m so sorry,” Jamal said with a wince. “I thought you might know.”

“How—? No.” She had to be white as a sheet, but managed to shoo Charles out.

He continued to watch her closely through the glass.

“Oh, my God, Jamal,” she breathed. “How on earth would I know? Your whole family thinks you’re dead.” She held her hand to her throat where she felt her own pulse thundering like a bullet train.

“Kasim didn’t tell you? He helped arrange it. The death certificate and name change…”

“No he didn’t tell me!” It caused her quite a pang to admit it, but she had already processed that however much she had thought she meant to Kasim, she had actually meant a lot less.

“Good God, why?” She moved to the settee and sank down, wilting as the shock wore off and her mind jammed with questions. “I mean, he told me that your father didn’t like that you were an artist, but—”

“Is that what he said?” His smile was crooked and poignant. “Our father couldn’t accept that I was gay.”

“Oh,” she breathed. More secrets with which Kasim hadn’t trusted her. She had been so open about her own family. It made her feel so callow to think of it. Where had her precious speech gone? The one from her first dinner with Kasim, when she had told him she was reticent out of respect for her siblings. But had he entrusted her with Jamal’s story? No.

“You couldn’t just…live in exile? Here?” she asked.

“My lover was already here and beaten to within an inch of his life for…leading me into that life.”

“No! Oh, dear God. Your father couldn’t have arranged that?”

“People in his government. There are those in Zhamair who are still very prejudiced. They said they were protecting the reputation of the crown, but my father did nothing to prevent or punish them.” Deep emotion gripped him for a moment and he struggled to regain his composure, swallowing audibly before continuing. “Either way, I couldn’t risk Bernard’s life again. I feared for my own. Merely leaving wouldn’t have been enough. I was afraid to even see Kasim again, in case it made things difficult for him, or exposed us.”

He propped his elbows on his thighs, back bowed with the weight of the world, expression weary. He rubbed his hands over his face, then looked at her over his clasped fingers.

“My mother’s life is not easy. The queen is very resentful of her. If my mother had had a gay son living flagrantly abroad…” He shook his head. “No. It was terribly cruel to tell her I was dead, but if the queen picks on her now, my father stands up for her out of respect for her grief.”

“I can’t imagine,” she murmured, appalled anew at the ugly aggression Kasim had grown up in. “I’m so sorry, Jamal.”

“Why?” he said, looking and sounding so much like Kasim, her throat tightened. “You had nothing to do with it.”

“I wish I could do something, I guess.” She realized immediately that she had backed herself into a corner.

His smile was sharp and amused. “Thank you. I would like that.”

She shook her head. “You’re so much like him it’s unnerving. But I can’t take that to Hasna and tell her it’s from you. You think I was shocked!”

“No,” he agreed. “She can’t know I’m alive, but Kasim could tell her it was in my old collection and that he had been saving it for her wedding day. It would mean a lot to me for her to wear this. I know she would.”

“We’re not, um… Kasim and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.” The press hadn’t quite caught on, so she wasn’t surprised he didn’t know. The words still abraded her throat. “I’m not going to Zhamair.”

“Ah. I didn’t realize.” His expression fell. “I’m sorry. From the photos I saw, you both looked quite…” He didn’t finish, only looked at the necklace, crestfallen.

She looked at it, too.

With. He wanted to be with his sister in the only way he could.

She couldn’t tell this to Trella or one of her brothers. It was Kasim’s secret. Jamal’s life.

I am a sucker, she thought. Trella would have a far better sense of self-protection. Kasim didn’t even want her there. She would be an embarrassment. He might even throw her out.

But Jamal looked so disconsolate. And Hasna missed her brother so much. It would mean the world to her to have this…

She closed her eyes, defeated. “I’ll go. I’ll go to Zhamair and give this to Kasim.”

CHAPTER NINE

THERE HAD BEEN many times over the years that Kasim wondered how his father could be such a pitiless, dictatorial bastard. These days, he understood the liberation in such an attitude as he adopted the same demeanor, contemptuous of those around him for being ruled by their emotions. What did the desires of others’ egos and libidos and hearts matter when his own had to be ignored? Everyone made sacrifices.

Don’t think of her.

Were it not for his sister marrying in two days, he would ride into the desert and take some much needed time to regroup. Instead, he was part of a ceaseless revolving door of relatives and dignitaries. One branch of the royal family had no sooner arrived and joined him and his parents for coffee, when a foreign dignitary was in the next room awaiting a chance to express felicitations.

This morning the parade had begun with an ambush. The king had introduced him to the father of the woman he thought would make a fine queen someday—when she grew up. Did his father seriously expect him to marry a child of barely eighteen?

To his prospective father-in-law’s credit, a concern for the age difference was expressed. Kasim smoothly stated he could wait until she completed her degree if that was preferred. It would serve the kingdom better if the future queen was well educated.

The king had correctly interpreted it as an effort to put things off and took him to task the minute they were alone.

“Did you give me your word or not?”

“I cleared the field for her, didn’t I?” Kasim replied in a similar snarl. A glance over the guest list a few days ago had shown that Angelique had sent her regrets. “Surely we can get one wedding over with before we host the next?”

Sadiq’s family were announced, cutting short the clash. Kasim sat down with Sadiq and their fathers to sign off on the marriage contracts, then they joined the queen and Sadiq’s mother.

“Hasna isn’t here?” Sadiq said, morose as he glanced around the room.

“The gown has arrived,” the queen said with a nettled look toward the king. “Fatina has been pestering to see it. Such a nuisance when Hasna has guests. What if she ruins it?”

“The girls will not let that happen,” Sadiq’s mother soothed. “They have been ever so careful this week, watching the unpacking of Hasna’s wardrobe.”

“The Sauveterres were staying with you?” the queen asked in her most benign yet shrewd tone.

“Oh, yes,” Sadiq’s mother said with a smile of pleasure. “The men went into the desert for what the Westerners call…a stag? Is that correct, Sadiq? I had a nice visit with their mother. We are all friends for many years.”

“And they all came with you here?” the king asked, gaze swinging like a scythe to Kasim. “Both girls?”

“Yes, Trella was the one we worried wouldn’t make it, but then Angelique came down with the flu. She recovered, though, and…” Sadiq’s mother lost some of her warm cheer as she sensed the growing tension. “Is there a problem?” She touched the draped folds of her hijab where it covered her throat. “I know we said she was not coming, but she shares a room with her sister so I didn’t think it would be an imposition when she made it after all?”

“It’s no problem,” Kasim said firmly, aiming it at his father.

Get rid of her, he read in the flick of his father’s imperious glance.

* * *

If she had left things as they’d been in Paris, Kasim brooded as he strode down the marbled hall of the palace, he would be resentful, but not furious.

This. This was unacceptable. Now he would be in for it with his father. Threats would be made. His uncle and several cousins were coming to the wedding. Tensions were high. Impulsive autocratic decisions could easily be made in a fit of temper.

Not only was he now courting that disastrous possibility, thanks to Angelique coming here against his orders, but he was raw all over again. Her rejection stung afresh and his intense feeling of being hemmed in by impossible circumstances was renewed.

He had resigned himself to never seeing her again, damn her! Now she was in his home.

He started to ask a passing servant which suite the Sauveterres had been given, but glimpsed a face he knew down near the end of the hall, standing outside the door to his sister’s apartment.

His heart rate spiked as he approached the guard.

“Charles,” he said, ears ringing. Angelique was behind this door.

“Your Highness.”

Kasim knocked.

Female laughter cut off and his youngest half sister cracked the door to peer out at him. Her smile beamed as she recognized him.

“Kasim!”

“Is Hasna dressed? May I come in?” He fought for a level tone. Distempered as he was, he would never take out his bad mood on a six-year-old.

There was a murmur of female voices, then Hasna called, “Yes, come in.”

He entered, picking up his baby sister as he did, kissing her cheek and using her small frame to cushion the rush of emotion that accosted him as he anticipated seeing Angelique.

Hasna’s suite was half the size of his, yet still one of the most opulent in the palace, decorated in peacock blues and silver, with high ceilings and the same sort of delicate curlicue furniture his mother favored.

She was in her lounge and stood on something because she was a foot taller than normal. He couldn’t see what it was because her wedding gown was belled over it, flaring a meter in each direction. A filmy veil was draped over her dark hair and all of it was covered in more seed pearls than there were in the ocean.

Fatina rose from her chair and came to kiss his hand, tsking as her older daughter charged at him, arms raised in a demand to be lifted and hugged.

Kasim concentrated on setting down his one sister and lifting the eight-year-old so she could squeeze his neck with her skinny little arms and press her lips to his cheek.

“You’re growing too fast,” he told her. “You’ll be wearing one of these soon and then who will draw me pictures? You look very beautiful, Hasna.”

He set down his sister and pretended he was taking in the extravagance of the gown when he was far more focused on the flash of movement behind the flare of her skirt.

The veil rippled slightly and Angelique rose, her attention remaining stubbornly fixed on her creation.

His heart skyrocketed as he took in the graceful drape of her pink dress and the way she’d covered her head in an ivory scarf so she looked like she was a part of his world—

She turned her head to meet his gaze.

The mercury shooting to the top of his head stalled and plummeted.

Trella.

He didn’t know how he knew. The resemblance was remarkable and he couldn’t say that her eyes were set closer or farther apart, or that her face seemed wider or thinner. He just knew this wasn’t Angelique, even though her greenish-hazel eyes stared at him.

Given the antagonism he sensed coming off her in waves, the straight pins poking out of her mouth were unabashedly symbolic.

He knew how she felt. He was ready to spit nails himself. Where the hell was her sister?

“Angelique has done an amazing job, hasn’t she?” Hasna said. He could hear the lilt of trickery in her voice, hoping to fool him.

“I understood this to be a collaboration between the twins. Hello, Trella. It’s nice to meet you. Is your sister here?” He looked around the lounge, returning to a state of tense anticipation.

“Oh! You can’t tell this is Trella!” Hasna accused. “I can’t. I still think this is Angelique and she’s tricking me.”

Trella pinned a place on the veil that she had marked with her fingers, then removed the rest of the pins from her mouth to say lightly, “I showed you my passport.”

Hasna chuckled and Trella glanced at Kasim, smile evaporating.

“She went back to our suite.”

He couldn’t stop staring, feeling as though he was looking at a film of Angelique. She was a faithful image of her sister, but there was a sense of being removed by time or space. She made him long to be in the presence of the real thing.

“Still recovering from her flu?” he said with false lightness. “Perhaps she should have stayed home after all.”

“It was minor. She’s over it.” Trella’s glance hit Kasim with pointed disparagement.

Did she recall that he had done her a favor, hiding her night with the Prince of Elazar? An attitude of deference wouldn’t be amiss here, he told her with a hard look, but he didn’t have time to teach her some manners.

He had to get her sister on the next plane back to Paris.

* * *

Angelique was normally at her most relaxed around her family, but not today. She was wound up about being here, feeling like she was smuggling drugs, that pouch of Jamal’s was so heavy on her conscience.

Ramon was not helping. He was growing restless away from work and began badgering her to play tennis.

“I thought Henri said he would?” She was actually dying to see more of the palace. As they had come in by helicopter with Sadiq’s family, Angelique had been awestruck. And taken down a peg. What had made her think she had any place in Kasim’s life when his home sprawled in opulent glory over more area than a dozen football fields against the stunning backdrop of the Persian Gulf?

She told herself that it was the heat of the desert sun that caused her to sweat as they were taken by golf cart along a palm-lined path overlooking a water feature. It was actually anxiety. Kasim was here. Somewhere behind those columns and tall windows, beneath the domes and flags, he was carrying on with his life, perhaps already having moved on to another lover, completely unaware she had defied him and come to Zhamair after all.

She searched across the gardens, noting small gatherings in gazebos and colorful tents, trying to see if he was among any of the groups. Guilty and eager at once for a glimpse of him.

Maybe she wouldn’t see him until the wedding. She’d been trying to decide whether to contact him outright and request a meeting prior to the wedding—and probably be asked to leave—or just hope she came across him and was able to say her piece before he deported her.

Being special guests of the groom and traveling with the groom’s parents, her family was given a luxurious suite of four rooms with a stunning stained glass window set high on the exterior wall of the lounge. It poured colored light onto the white tablecloth of the dining table, where fruit, cordial, sweets and flowers had been waiting on their arrival.

“Gili!” Ramon said. “Are you listening?”

“Are you? I said you and Henri should play. I have to hem these for Hasna’s sisters.” She lifted the silk dresses she’d brought back from Hasna’s suite.

Fatina had cried when Hasna revealed that her daughters hadn’t been overlooked in the wedding preparations.

Now that Angelique had met Jamal and had an even broader understanding of the family’s painful dynamic, she was thrilled to be part of including Fatina’s children in the wedding. And, as much as it pained her, she had accepted payment from Fatina for them. Fatina had insisted, worried what the queen would say if she didn’t. Angelique had kept it very nominal, doing what she could to keep the peace.

Ramon sighed.

“You have to come with us so we can talk to any women we meet.” He spoke like he was explaining it to a child. “I don’t know how Sadiq survived these restrictions,” he muttered, resuming his pacing.

Ah. It wasn’t work he was missing so much as his extracurricular activities.

“Ask Mama to go with you,” she suggested drily.

“Siesta or I would,” he shot back. “Desperate times.”

She shook her head at him.

Henri emerged from his room. He had changed into light gray sweatpants and a white long-sleeved tunic. He made a small noise of disgust as he saw that was exactly what Ramon already wore. They didn’t try to dress alike, but it happened constantly. Even their panama hats had been purchased on two different continents, but their tastes were so in sync, they had each brought one to Zhamair.

When they set them on their heads, they did so facing each other, moving like mirror images—because that’s what they were. She and Trella were stamps, both right-handed, both wearing their hair parted on the left because that’s where their crowns were.

The boys were left and right, but were still difficult to tell apart for most people. They wore their hair in the same short, spiked cut, favored the same clothes and had such even features they easily passed for the other, not that they played that game.

Well, Ramon had tried with Cinnia a couple of times, because he was a tease, but she had always caught him. Her ability to tell both sets of twins apart from the get-go was one of the reasons Angelique had been so sure Cinnia was right for Henri.

Her brothers left and she sat down to work.

A knock sounded a few minutes later.

Most of Trella’s security detail were women so they’d been given much-deserved vacation time, rather than coming to work where they would have been hampered in performing their regular duties. When the family was together like this, in a secure location, they needed fewer guards anyway.

Maurice was outside this door and she paused to listen, expecting him to ask for identification.

Nothing.

Weird. Unless he already knew the person knocking?

Angelique faltered, suddenly paralyzed with nerves, then forced herself to rise and open the door.

She caught her breath.

He looked so exotic in his bisht and gutra.

She had studied menswear to design her brother’s wedding cloaks, but even though she’d taken great care with them, Kasim’s was obviously of royal quality and tailored by hands that were intimately familiar with the engineering of such garments. His robe fit his shoulders perfectly. It was stark black with its V opening trimmed in gold, his white gutra framing his face and secured with a cord of matching gold.

He had let his beard grow in, but it was trimmed to a sexy frame that accentuated his mouth and the hollows of his cheeks. The contrast of white and black and gold made his eyes look all the more like melted dark chocolate.

He stole her breath.

His expression flashed something that might have been exaltation as he looked at her, but it was quickly schooled into the stern, confrontational look he’d worn the day she had met him.

“You can’t be here,” he said.

She searched for the woman she’d been in her office that first day, the one who had stood up to this man, but it was far harder to find her backbone when he looked right through her and saw all her weaknesses.

Her weakness for him.

Somehow she managed to speak despite the earthquake gripping her.

“You’ll feel differently when I tell you what brought me here.”

Instantly alert, he stepped in, crowding her into stumbling backward. His expression was grave as he firmly closed the door behind him and left his hand flat on the carved panel. His lips barely moved as he said in an undertone, “Pregnant?”

“What? No!” Her heart fishtailed, then did it again as his mouth tightened.

Disappointment? Don’t be stupid, Angelique.

He smoothed his expression into something aloof and pitiless, sweeping his gaze around the empty lounge. He tensed and swore under his breath.

“Are you alone?”

As his gaze slammed back into hers, practically knocking her onto her back, her skin tightened with anticipation and a rush of heat hit her loins.

“My m-m—” How was she supposed to speak when he looked at her like that? “Mama is asleep in her room,” she blurted, pointing to the one closed door. “Trella will be back any minute.” Quit making me think you still want me.

His nostrils flared and he swung away, moving into her lounge like he owned it, which he did. He cast a glance around to take in the litter of tablets and purses, her open mending kit and his young sisters’ dresses in vivid green and yellow.

“Damn you for coming,” he said, pitching his voice low, but it was still overflowing with restless emotion. “What do you think you’re accomplishing?”

Angelique moved to her purse and dug for the velvet pouch, hand shaking as she offered it to him.

* * *

Kasim hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how they’d ended things, the bitterness of it. He hated that the acrimony would be even deeper after this. He had lived in that sort of thorny forest all his life and knew how unpleasant it was.

That Angelique had forced his hand and was making him reject her outright, forcing her to leave his country, seemed cruel on her part—which was the last word he would use to describe her. He hadn’t expected this of her and that made it doubly hard to accept and behave as he knew he must.

Yet there was only the anticipation of pain as he stood here. Duty and reputation hung like anvils and pianos over his head, but in this moment, the bleak anger that had consumed him had become radiant light in her presence.

Angelique turned, expression solemn, and stood where the stained glass poured colors over her golden skin and pale blue dress.

He drank in the picture she made. Memorizing it.

Then she offered something to him and her expression was so grave, so filled with deep compassion, it made his heart lurch. All the hairs on his body stood up as he took the pouch and poured its contents into his hands.

He recognized the workmanship if not the piece. New. Better than anything else he’d made yet. His brother had definitely found his calling in this.

The piano landed.

She knew.

“Your family knows this is why you came?” His mind raced while cold sweat lifted in his palms. He tried to imagine how he would contain this, but his mind was as empty as the shifting dunes in the desert. Old protectiveness warred with fresh, fierce aggression while betrayal washed through him.

“No,” she dismissed, barely speaking above a whisper. Her eyes stayed that soft, mossy green. “They think I decided to brave the wedding. That’s all.”

“How did you find him?”

“He came to me. Asked me to bring that to you for Hasna.”

Trella walked in, making both of them start guiltily. Kasim let his arm fall so his sleeve fell over his fist where he clutched the pendant. He slipped it into the side pocket of his robe.

Trella’s gaze flicked between them, sticking upon her sister’s pale face. “Shall I come back?”

“No,” Kasim said on impulse, probably a self-destructive one. “You can tell your family that she’s with me.” He clasped Angelique’s hand in an implacable grip.

“Kasim—”

“We have to talk.” He had to ensure Jamal would stay dead. That’s what he told himself, even though he knew at a cell-deep level that he could trust Angelique with this secret. She hadn’t told her family, had she?

“Gili, your phone,” Trella urged, handing it to Angelique as Kasim tugged her toward the door.

There’s no point, he thought, as he decided on the fly where they were going.

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