It was hard not to contrast the ice queen beside him with the woman whose soft warm lips he had tasted. That small taste, the heat that had flared between them, shocking with its intensity and urgency, had left him curious—and eager to repeat the experience.

Kamel was lusting after his bride. Well, life was full of surprises—and not all of them were bad.

‘Has it occurred to you that this marriage might not be something to be endured … but enjoyed?’

Hannah’s fingers slipped from the door handle. She turned around, her back against the wooden panels. He was standing too close … much too close. She struggled to draw in air as her body stirred, responding to the slumberous, sensual provocation shining in his dark eyes.

‘The only thing I want to enjoy tonight is some privacy.’

‘That is not what you would enjoy.’

She threw up her hands in a gesture of exasperated defeat.

‘You may be good to look at, but your ego is a massive turn-off.’

‘I could work on it. You would teach me.’

Big, predatory and sinfully sexy—she was willing to bet that that were quite a few things he could teach her! She tilted her chin, channeling all the coolness she could muster, and retorted haughtily, ‘I’m not into casual sex or tutoring.’

‘We’re married, ma belle. That is not casual … and I do not need instruction.’

ROYAL AND RUTHLESS

The power of the throne, the passion of a king!

Whether he is a playboy prince or a masterful king he has always known his destiny: Duty—first, last and always.

With millions at his fingertips and the world at his command, no one has dared to challenge this ruthless royal’s desire … Until now.

More Royal and Ruthless titles:

Kate Walker

A THRONE FOR THE TAKING

Caitlin Crews

A ROYAL WITHOUT RULES

The

Heartbreaker

Prince

Kim Lawrence

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Though lacking much authentic Welsh blood—she comes from English/Irish stock—KIM LAWRENCE was born and brought up in North Wales. She returned there when she married, and her sons were both born on Anglesey, an island off the coast. Though not isolated, Anglesey is a little off the beaten track, but lively Dublin, which Kim loves, is only a short ferry ride away.

Today they live on the farm her husband was brought up on. Welsh is the first language of many people in this area and Kim’s husband and sons are all bilingual—she is having a lot of fun, not to mention a few headaches, trying to learn the language!

With small children, the unsocial hours of nursing didn’t look attractive so, encouraged by a husband who thinks she can do anything she sets her mind to, Kim tried her hand at writing. Always a keen Mills & Boon® reader, it seemed natural for her to write a romance novel—now she can’t imagine doing anything else.

She is a keen gardener and cook and enjoys running—often on the beach as, living on an island, the sea is never very far away. She is usually accompanied by her Jack Russell, Sprout—don’t ask … it’s long story!

Recent titles by the same author:

A SECRET UNTIL NOW

CAPTIVATED BY HER INNOCENCE

MAID FOR MONTERO (At His Service) THE PETRELLI HEIR

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EXTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

HANNAH WAS NOT sleeping when the key turned in the lock. Apart from a few snatched moments she had not slept for forty-eight hours straight but she was lying down, her eyes closed against the fluorescent light above her head, when the sound made her sit bolt upright and swing her legs over the side of the narrow metal bed.

She made a few frantic attempts to smooth her tousled hair back from her face and clasped her shaking hands on her lap. She was able to mould her expression into a mask of composure, but recognised that it was no longer a matter of whether she lost it and cracked wide open, but when. For now at least she cared about maintaining an illusion of dignity.

She blinked against the threat of tears that stung like hot gravel pricking the backs of her eyes. Gouging her teeth into her plump lower lip, she found the pain helped her focus as she lifted her chin and pulled her shoulders back, drawing her narrow back ramrod straight. For the moment at least she was determined she wouldn’t give the bastards the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

This was what happened when you tried to prove...prove...what? And to whom? The tabloids? Your father? Yourself...?

She took a deep breath. Focus on the facts, Hannah. The fact is you messed up big time! You should have accepted what everyone else thinks: you are not meant for serious thoughts or fieldwork. Stick to your safe desk job, and your perfect nails... She curled her fingers to reveal a row of nails bitten below the quick and swallowed a bubble of hysteria.

‘Stiff upper lip, Hannah.’

She had always thought that was an absurd phrase.

About as absurd as thinking working a desk job for a charity qualified you for working in the field in any capacity!

‘I won’t let you down.’

Only she had.

She lowered her eyelids like a shield and tensed in every nerve fibre of her body just before the door swung in. Focusing on the wall, she uttered the words that had become almost a mantra.

‘I’m not hungry, but I require a toothbrush and toothpaste. When can I see the British consul?’

She wasn’t expecting a straight answer. She hadn’t had one to this, or any of the other questions she had asked, since she had been arrested on the wrong side of the border. Geography never had been her strong point. No answers, but there had been questions, many questions, the same questions over and over again. Questions and unbelieving silences.

Humanitarian aid did not translate into Quagani military speak. She told them she was not a spy and she had never belonged to a political party, and when they tried to refute her claim with a picture of her waving a banner at a protest to stop the closure of a local village infant school, she laughed—perhaps ill-advisedly.

When they weren’t calling her a spy they were accusing her of being a drug runner. The evidence they used to illustrate this was boxes of precious vaccines that were now useless because they had clearly not been kept refrigerated.

For the first day she had clung to her belief that she had nothing to worry about if she told the truth. But now she couldn’t believe she had ever been so naïve.

* * *

Thirty-six hours had passed, the news hadn’t even made the headlines, and the diplomatic cogs had not even thought about turning when the King of Surana picked up his phone and dialled his counterpart in a neighbouring country, Sheikh Malek Sa’idi.

Two very different men stood awaiting the outcome of that conversation, and both had a vested interest.

The older was in his early sixties, of moderate height with a straggly beard and shaggy salt-and-pepper hair that curled on his collar and stuck up in tufts around his face. With his tweed jacket and comically mismatched socks, he had the look of a distracted professor.

But his horn-rimmed glasses hid eyes that were sharp and hard, and his unkempt hair covered a brain that, combined with risk-taking inclinations and a liberal measure of ruthlessness, had enabled him to make and lose two fortunes by the time he was fifty.

Right now he stood once more on the brink of either major success or financial ruin, but his mind was not focused on his financial situation. There was one thing in the world that meant more to Charles Latimer and that was his only child. In this room, behind closed doors, his poker face had gone, leaving only a pale and terrified parent.

The other man wore his raven-black hair close cropped, and his olive-toned skin looked gold in the light that flooded the room through massive windows that looked out over a courtyard. He was several inches over six feet tall, with long legs and broad shoulders that had made him a natural for the rowing teams at school and university. Rowing was not a career in his uncle’s eyes, so his first Olympics had been his last. He had gold to show for it, even if the medal lay forgotten in a drawer somewhere. He liked to push himself, he liked winning, but he did not value prizes.

Charles Latimer’s restless, hand-wringing pacing contrasted with this younger man’s immobility—although he was motionless apart from the spasmodic clenching of a muscle in the hollow of one lean cheek, there was an edgy, explosive quality about him.

This man was of a different generation from the anguished parent—it was actually his thirtieth birthday that day. This was not the way he had planned to celebrate, though nothing in his manner hinted at this frustration. He accepted that his feelings were secondary to duty, and duty was bred into his every bone and sinew.

He got up suddenly, his actions betraying a tension that his expression concealed. Tall and innately elegant, he walked to the full-length window, his feet silent on the centuries-old intricate ceramic tiles. Fighting a feeling of claustrophobia, he flung open the window, allowing the sound of the falling water in the courtyard below to muffle his uncle’s voice. The air was humid, heavy with the scent of jasmine, but there was no sign of the dust storm that had blown up after he had landed.

It was a good twenty degrees hotter than it would have been in Antibes. Through half-closed eyes he saw Charlotte Denning, her lithe, tanned body arranged on a sun lounger by the infinity pool, a bottle of champagne on ice, ready to fulfil her promise of a special birthday treat.

Recently divorced and enjoying her freedom, she was making up for a year spent married to a man who did not share her sexual appetites.

In short she was pretty much his ideal woman.

She would be angry at his no-show and later, when she found out the reason, she would be even angrier—not that marriage would put him out of bounds. Knowing Charlotte, he thought it might even add an extra illicit thrill.

There would be no thrills for him. Marriage would put the Charlottes of this world off-limits. He had his memories to keep him warm. The ironic curve of his lips that accompanied the thought flattened into a hard line of resolve. He would marry because it was his duty. For a lucky few duty and desire were one and the same... Once he had considered himself one of the lucky ones.

He took a deep breath of fragrant air, and closed the window, refusing to allow the insidious tendrils of resentment and self-pity to take hold. If he ever thought he’d got a bad deal he simply reminded himself that he was alive. Unlike his little niece, Leila, the baby who might have become his, had things been different. She died when the plane that was carrying her and her parents crashed into the side of a mountain, killing all on board, starting an avalanche of speculation and changing his future for ever.

He had a future, one he had inherited from Leila’s father. Since becoming the heir and not the spare he had not thought about marriage except as something that would happen and sooner rather than later. With limited time he had set about enjoying what there was of it and in his determined pursuit of this ambition he had gained a reputation. At some point someone had called him the Heartbreaker Prince, and the title had stuck.

And now a freak set of circumstances had conspired to provide him with a ready-made bride who had a reputation to match his own. There would be no twelve-month marriage for him; it was a life sentence to Heartless Hannah. Those tabloids did so love their alliteration.

* * *

‘It is done.’

Kamel turned back and nodded calmly. ‘I’ll set things in motion.’

As the King put the phone back down on its cradle Charles Latimer shocked himself and the others present by bursting into tears.

* * *

It took Kamel slightly less than an hour to put arrangements in place and then he returned to give the two older men a run-through of the way he saw it happening. As a courtesy he got the plan signed off by his uncle, who nodded and turned to his old college friend and business partner.

‘So we should have her with you by tonight, Charlie.’

Kamel could have pointed out that more factually she would be with him, but he refrained. It was all about priorities: get the girl out, then deal with the consequences.

Kamel felt obliged to point out the possibility he had not been able to factor in. Not that this was a deal-breaker—in life sometimes you just had to wing it and he was confident of his ability to do so in most situations. ‘Of course, if she’s hysterical or—’

‘Don’t worry, Hannah is tough and smart. She catches on quick. She’ll walk out of there under her own steam.’

And now he was within moments of discovering if the parental confidence had been justified.

He doubted it.

Kamel thought it much more likely the man had not allowed himself to believe anything else. Clearly he had indulged the girl all her life. The chances of a spoilt English society brat lasting half a day in a prison cell before she fell apart were slender at best.

So having been fully prepared for the worst, he should have been relieved to find the object of his rescue mission wasn’t the anticipated hysterical wreck. For some reason the sight of this slim, stunningly beautiful woman—sitting there on the narrow iron cot with its bare mattress, hands folded in her lap, head tilted at a confident angle, wearing a creased, shapeless prison gown with the confidence and poise of someone wearing a designer outfit—did not fill him with relief, and definitely not admiration, but a blast of anger.

Unbelievable! On her behalf people were moving heaven and earth and she was sitting there acting as though the bloody butler had entered the room! A butler she hadn’t even deigned to notice. Was she simply too stupid to understand the danger of her position or was she so used to Daddy rescuing her from unpleasant situations that she thought she was invulnerable?

Then she turned her head, the dark lashes lifting from the curve of her smooth cheek, and Kamel realised that under the cool blonde Hitchcock heroine attitude she was scared witless. He took a step closer and could almost smell the tension that was visible in the taut muscles around her delicate jaw, and the fine mist of sweat on her pale skin.

He frowned. He’d save his sympathy for those who deserved it. Scared or not, Hannah Latimer did not come into that category. This was a mess of her own making.

It was easy to see how men went after her, though, despite the fact she was obviously poison. He even experienced a slug of attraction himself—but then luckily she opened her mouth. Her voice was as cut glass as her profile, her attitude a mixture of disdain and superiority, which could not have won her any friends around here.

‘I must demand to see the—’ She stopped, her violet-blue eyes flying wide as she released an involuntary gasp. The man standing there was not holding a tray with a plate of inedible slop on it.

There had been several interrogators but always the same two guards, neither of whom spoke. One was short and squat, and the other was tall and had a problem with body odour—after he had gone the room was filled with a sour smell for ages.

This man was tall too, very tall. She found herself tilting her head to frame all of him; beyond height there was no similarity whatsoever to her round-shouldered, sour-smelling jailors. He wasn’t wearing the drab utilitarian khaki of the guards or the showy uniform with gold epaulettes of the man who sat in on all the interrogations.

This man was clean-shaven and he was wearing snowy white ceremonial desert robes. The fabric carried a scent of fresh air and clean male into the enclosed space. Rather bizarrely he carried a swathe of blue silk over one arm. Her round-eyed, fearful stare shifted from the incongruous item to his face.

If it hadn’t been for the slight scar that stood out white on his golden skin, and the slight off-centre kink in his nose, he might have been classed as pretty. Instead he was simply beautiful... She stared at his wide, sensual mouth and looked away a moment before he said in a voice that had no discernible accent and even less warmth, ‘I need you to put this on, Miss Latimer.’

The soft, sinister demand made her guts clench in fear. Before she clamped her trembling lips together a whisper slipped through. ‘No!’

This man represented the nightmare she had kept at bay and up to this point her treatment had been civilised, if not gentle. She had deliberately not dwelt on her vulnerability; she hadn’t seen another woman since her arrest, and she was at the mercy of men who sometimes looked at her... The close-set eyes of the man who sat in on the interviews flashed into her head and a quiver of disgust slid through her body.

People in her situation simply vanished.

Staring at the blue fabric and the hand that held it as if it were a striking snake, she surged to her feet—too fast. The room began to swirl as she struggled to focus on the silk square, bright against the clinical white of the walls and tiled floor...blue, white, blue, white...

‘Breathe.’ Her legs folded as he pressed her down onto the bed and pushed her head towards her knees.

The habit of a lifetime kicked in and she took refuge behind an air of cool disdain.

‘I don’t need a change of clothing. I’m fine with this.’ She clutched the fabric of the baggy shift that reached mid-calf with both hands and aimed her gaze at the middle of his chest.

Two large hands came to rest on her shoulders, stopping the rhythmic swaying motion she had been unaware of, but not the spasms of fear that were rippling through her body.

Kamel was controlling his anger and resentment: he didn’t want to be here; he didn’t want to be doing this, and he didn’t want to feel any empathy for the person who was totally responsible for the situation, a spoilt English brat who had a well-documented history of bolting at the final hurdle.

Had she felt any sort of remorse for the wave of emotional destruction she’d left in her wake? Had her own emotions ever been involved? he wondered.

Still, she hadn’t got off scot-free. Some enterprising journalist had linked the car smash of her first victim with the aborted wedding.

Driven over the Edge, the headline had screamed, and the media had crucified Heartless Hannah. Perhaps if she had shown even a scrap of emotion they might have softened when it turned out that the guy had been over the drink-drive limit when he drove his car off a bridge, but she had looked down her aristocratic little nose and ignored the flashing cameras.

In London at the time, he had followed the story partly because he knew her father and partly because, like the man who had written off his car, Kamel knew what it felt like to lose the love you planned to spend your life with. Not that Amira had dumped him—if he hadn’t released her she would have married him rather than cause him pain. She had been everything this woman was not.

And yet it was hard not to look into that grubby flower-like face, perfect in every detail, and feel a flicker of something that came perilously close to pity. He sternly squashed it.

She deserved everything that was going to happen to her. If there was any victim in this it was him. Luckily he had no romantic illusions about marriage, or at least his. It was never going to be a love match—he’d loved and lost and disbelieved the popular idea that this was better than not to have loved at all. Still, it was a mistake he would not make in the future. Only an imbecile would want to lay himself open to that sort of pain again. A marriage of practicality suited him.

Though Kamel had imagined his bride would be someone whom he could respect.

Why couldn’t the brainless little bimbo have found meaning in her life by buying some shoes? Even facing financial collapse, Kamel was sure Daddy dear would have bought her the whole shop. Instead she decided to become an angel of mercy. While he could see the selfish delusion that had led her to do this, he couldn’t understand why any legitimate medical charity would have taken her on, even on a voluntary basis.

‘I asked you to put this on, not take anything off.’ Kamel let out a hissing sound of irritation as she sat there looking up at him like some sort of sacrificial virgin...though there was nothing even vaguely virginal about Miss Hannah Latimer, and that quality was about the only one he didn’t have a problem with in his future bride!

Digging deep into reserves she didn’t know she had, Hannah got to her feet.

‘If you touch me I will report you and when I get out of here—’ Don’t you mean if, Hannah? ‘—I’m going to be sick.’

‘No, you are not,’ Kamel said. ‘If you want to get out of here do as I say so put the damned thing on.’

Breathing hard, staring at him with wide eyes, she backed away, holding her hands out in a warning gesture. ‘If you touch me in an inappropriate way...’ You’ll what, Hannah? Scream? And then who will come running?

‘I promise you, angel, that sex is the last thing on my mind and if it was...’ His heavy-lidded eyes moved in a contemptuous sweep from her feet to her face before he added, ‘I’m not asking you to strip.’ He enunciated each scathing word slowly, the words very clear despite the fact he had not raised his voice above a low menacing purr since he’d come in. ‘I’m asking you to cover up.’

Hannah barely heard him. The nightmare images she had so far kept at bay were crowding in.

Kamel had had a varied life, but having a woman look at him as though he were all her nightmares come true was a first. Conquering a natural impulse to shake her rather than comfort her, he struggled to inject some soothing quality into his voice as he leaned in closer. ‘Your father says to tell you that...’ He stopped and closed his eyes. What was the name of the damned dog? His eyes opened again as it came to him. ‘Olive had five puppies.’

It had been a last thought: I need a detail, something that a stranger wouldn’t know. Something that will tell her I’m one of the good guys.

Hannah froze, her wild eyes returning to his face at the specific reference to the rescue dog she had adopted.

‘Yes, I’m the cavalry—’ he watched as she took a shuddering sigh and closed her eyes ‘—so just do as you’re told and cover up.’ His glance moved to the honey-blonde tresses that were tangled and limp. ‘And be grateful you’re having a bad-hair day.’

Hannah didn’t register his words past cavalry; her thoughts were whirling. ‘My father sent you?’

She gave a watery smile. Her father had come through! She exhaled and sent up a silent thank you to her absent parent.

She took the fabric and looked at it. What did he expect her to do with it? ‘Who are you?’

Possibilities buzzed like a restless bee through her head. An actor? Some sort of mercenary ? A corrupt official? Someone willing to do anything for money or the adrenalin buzz?

‘Your ticket out of here.’

Hannah tilted her head in acknowledgement. The important thing was he had successfully blagged or bribed his way in here and represented a shot at freedom.

Her jaw firmed. Suddenly she felt the optimism she had not allowed herself to feel during her incarceration. It had been an hour to hour—hard to believe there had only been forty-eight, but then, in a room illuminated twenty-four-seven by the harsh fluorescent light, it was hard to judge time.

‘Is Dad...?’

He responded to the quiver of hope in her voice with a stern, ‘Forget your father and focus. Do not allow yourself to become distracted.’

The tone enabled her to retain her grip on her unravelling control. He had the shoulders but he clearly had no intention of offering them up for tears, which was fine by her. If a girl didn’t learn after two failed engagements that the only person she could rely on was herself, she deserved everything she got!

‘Yes...of course.’

Her fingers shook as she took the shimmering blue fabric. It fell in a tangled skein on the floor, the fabric unravelling... Just like me, she thought.

She took a deep breath and released it, slowly able to lift her chin and meet his gaze with something approaching composure as she asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’

Kamel felt an unwilling stab of admiration.

‘I want you to keep your mouth closed, your head covered, and follow my lead.’

He bent forward and took the fold of fabric from her fingers. The fabric billowed out of his hands and she was suddenly swathed in the stuff, covering her head and most of the ugly shift.

He stood back to see the effect, then nodded and threw the remaining fabric over her shoulder. His hand stayed there, heavy, the contact more reassuring than his stern stare.

‘Can you do that?’

‘Yes,’ she said, hoping it was true.

‘Right. You are going to leave here and you are going to do so with your head held high. Just channel all your...just be yourself.’

She blinked up into his dark eyes, noticing the little silver flecks, and struggled to swallow a giggle—she knew that once she gave in to hysteria that was it.

‘And they are just going to let us out?’ His confidence bordered the insane but maybe that was a good thing for someone in charge of a jail break.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t know why they let you just walk in here but—’

‘They let me just walk in here because to refuse me access would have caused offence and they have a lot of ground to make up.’ They could arrest, interrogate and imprison a foreign national on charges that carried the death penalty, but not the bride-to-be of the heir to the Suranian throne.

Maybe if she had chosen another moment to stray across the border his uncle’s influence alone would have been enough to gain her freedom, but with impeccable timing Hannah Latimer had wandered into an armed border patrol at a time when the ruling family of Quagani was politically vulnerable. Accused by rival factions of being unable to protect the country’s interests against foreign exploitation, the royals had responded by instigating a draconian zero-tolerance policy: no second chances, no leniency, no special cases...almost.

His uncle had not ordered, he had not played the duty card—instead he had spoken of a debt he owed Charles Latimer and asked with uncharacteristic humility if Kamel would be willing to marry Hannah Latimer.

‘She is not ideal,’ the King admitted, ‘and not the person I would have wanted for you, but I’m sure with guidance... She was a lovely child, as I recall. Very like her mother, poor Emily.’ He sighed.

‘She grew up.’

‘It is your decision, Kamel.’

This was the first thing ever asked of him by his uncle—who was not just his King but also the man who had stepped in after his father’s death and treated him as his own son. Kamel’s response had never been in doubt.

Hannah heard the irony in her rescuer’s voice but didn’t have a clue what it meant. ‘I don’t understand a word you’re saying.’ Though he said it in a voice that had a tactile shiver-down-your-spine quality.

‘You will.’ Despite the smile that went with the words, she sensed an underlying threat that was echoed in the bleakness of his stare.

‘Look, no one is about to ask you anything, but if they do, don’t say anything. Burst into tears or something.’

That would not require much effort. The walking might, though—her knees felt like cotton wool.

‘Just pretend you’re running away from some sucker at the altar.’

Her shocked violet eyes widened to their fullest extent. The reputation she pretended not to care about had followed her to a jail halfway around the world. Ironically she had come here in the hope of rebuilding her reputation, or at least escaping the cameras.

‘I believe you’ve had some practice,’ he murmured before seamlessly raising his voice from the soft, for-her-ears-only undertone, to an authoritative command to the prison guards.

The words were unintelligible to her but the effect was magic. The guards she recognised stood either side of the open door, their heads bowed. Along the corridor there were uniformed figures standing to attention.

The man beside her spoke and the guards bowed lower. Hannah stared, astonished—it wasn’t just their reaction; it was the man himself. He seemed to have assumed a totally new persona, and it fitted him as well as the flowing robes. He was clearly immersing himself in his role; even his body language had changed. The arrogance was still there but it was combined with an air of haughty authority as he strode along, shortening his step so that she could keep pace.

What the hell was happening?

She had expected to be smuggled out of some back entrance, not to receive the red-carpet treatment.

Like a sleepwalker, Hannah allowed her tall escort to guide her down the corridor. Nobody looked directly at her or her companion as they walked past. The silence was so intense she could feel it.

Outside, the heat hit her—it was like walking into a shimmering wall, but the sun was infinitely preferable to the ten-foot-square, white-walled cell. It was the thought of being discovered and ending up back there and not the temperature that brought Hannah out in a cold sweat.

A leashed guard dog began to bark, straining at the lead as they walked on. Could dogs really smell fear? As his handler fought to control the animal the man beside her turned, clicked his fingers and looked at the dog, who immediately dropped down on his belly and whimpered.

Neat trick, Hannah thought, momentarily losing her balance as a jet flew low overhead. She had heard the sound before many times over the last days but it was a lot quieter in her cell.

‘I’m fine,’ she mumbled as the hand on her elbow slid to her waist. In that moment of contact she registered the fact that his body had no give—it was all hard muscle. For a moment she enjoyed an illusion of safety before she was released.

Hannah, who had been totally disorientated when she had arrived in darkness, realised for the first time that she had been incarcerated on a military base.

Almost as if some of his strength had seeped into her, she felt more confident, enabling her to adopt a fatalistic attitude when they were approached by a mean-looking man with shoulders the size of a hangar, dressed similarly to the man she struggled to keep pace with.

Hannah wanted to run, every survival instinct she had was screaming at her to do so, but the hand that reached down and took her own had other ideas. Her escort had stopped when he saw the other man and waited. Under her blue silk and grubby shift Hannah sucked in a shaky breath and began to sweat—but the hand that held her own was cool and dry.

‘This is Rafiq.’

So clearly friend, not foe. She managed a shaky half-smile when the big man acknowledged her presence with a respectful tip of his covered head. He responded with calm, one-word replies to the questions her escort threw at him, even earning a tight smile that might have been approval.

Hannah, who hadn’t been able to follow a word, was unable to restrain herself. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘You mean are you about to escape justice?’

‘I’m innocent!’

Her protest drew a sardonic smile from her rescuer. She had the impression he wasn’t her greatest fan, but she didn’t mind so long as he got her out of here.

‘We are all guilty of something, angel. As the man said, there’s no such thing as a free meal, but, yes, your taxi awaits.’

Hannah spun to face the direction in which he had nodded and saw a jet with a crest on the side that seemed vaguely familiar.

CHAPTER TWO

AT THE SIGHT of the private jet Hannah felt her heart race. Her anticipation of imminent escape and the possibility that her father was inside waiting were mingled with the equally powerful conviction that any minute someone would catch on. To be caught when freedom was literally within sight, touch and smell would be so much harder than if she had never hoped.

‘Keep it together.’

She turned her head sharply, the action causing the silk to fall away from her cheek. She could not believe he could look so relaxed. Did the man have ice in his veins? No—she remained conscious of the warmth of his guiding hand on her elbow.

Hannah twitched the silk back into place and in doing so caught sight of someone who was approaching across the tarmac. Her eyes widened to large pools of blue terror in a face that had become dramatically pale.

‘Do not run.’

Fear clutched her belly. ‘He...’

Kamel watched as she licked her dry lips. Her eyes were darting from side to side like a cornered animal seeking an avenue of escape, but they kept moving back to the army colonel who carried a cane and an air of self-importance as he approached them, flanked by a small armed guard.

It didn’t take a second for Kamel to experience a flash of vengeful rage that reminded him strongly of a time in his youth when, after escaping the security that he hated, he had encountered three much older boys in a narrow side street. He had not known at first what was lying on the ground there, but he had seen one boy aim a kick at it, and they had all laughed. It was the laughter he had reacted to with sheer, blinding, red-mist rage.

He had arrived back at the palace later, looking worse than the poor stray dog the trio had been systematically kicking the hell out of. He had freed the dog in the end, not by physical means but by offering them the ring he wore.

His father, the antithesis of a tyrannical parent, had been more bemused than angry when he’d discovered the ring was gone.

‘You gave a priceless heirloom for this flea-ridden thing?’ He had then progressed to remind Kamel how important breeding was.

It was an important lesson, not in breeding but in negotiation. In a tight situation, it was often a clear head rather than physical force that turned the tide. He controlled his instinctive rage now. Summing up the man in a glance, he knew he had come across the kind before many times: a bully who took pleasure from intimidating those he controlled.

‘Did he interrogate you?’

Hannah shivered, not from the ice in Kamel’s voice, but the memory.

‘He watched.’ And tapped a cane on the floor, she thought, shivering again as she remembered the sound. The man’s silence had seemed more threatening to her than the men who asked the questions. That and the look in his eyes.

Kamel’s jaw was taut, and his voice flat. ‘Lift your head up. He can’t do a thing to you.’

* * *

‘Highness, I am here to offer our sincere apologies for any misunderstanding. I hope it has not given Miss Latimer a dislike of our beautiful country.’

And now it was his turn.

His turn to smile and lie through his teeth. It was a talent that he had worked on to the point where his diplomacy looked effortless even though it frequently veiled less civilised instincts.

He uncurled his clenched fingers, unmaking the fists they had instinctively balled into, but he was spared having to produce the words that stuck in his throat by sudden activity around the waiting jet.

As something came screaming down towards them, one man raised a pistol. Kamel, who had the advantage of faster reflexes, reached casually out and chopped the man’s arm, causing him to drop the gun to the ground. It went off, sending a bullet into a distant brick wall.

‘Relax, it’s just...’

He stopped as the hawk that had been flying above their heads dropped down, claws extended, straight onto the head of the uniformed colonel. His hat went flying and he covered his head protectively as the hooded hawk swooped again—this time escaping with what looked like a dead animal in his talons.

The colonel stood there, his hands on his bald head.

Releasing a hissing signal from between his teeth, Kamel extended his arm. The hawk responded to the sound and landed on his wrist.

‘You are quite safe now, Colonel.’ Kamel took the toupee from the bird and, holding it on one finger, extended it to the man who had curled into a foetal crouch, his head between his hands.

Red-faced, the older man rose to his feet, his dignity less intact than his face, which had only suffered a couple of superficial scratches, oozing blood onto the ground.

He took the hairpiece and crammed it on his head, drawing a smothered laugh from one of his escorts. When he spun around the men stared ahead stonily.

‘That thing should be destroyed. It nearly blinded me.’

Kamel touched the jewel attached to that bird’s hood. ‘My apologies, Colonel. No matter how many jewels you put on a bird of prey, she remains at heart a creature of impulse. But then that is the attraction of wild things, don’t you think?’

The other man opened his mouth and a grunt emerged through his clenched teeth as he bowed.

Kamel smiled. He handed back the pistol to the man who had tried to shoot it, having first emptied the barrel with a mild reproach of, ‘Unwise.’ He then turned to Rafiq and issued a soft-voiced command in French that Hannah struggled to make sense of.

The big man bowed his head, murmured, ‘Highness,’ and took Hannah’s elbow.

Hannah, who had remained glued to the spot while the drama had played out around her, did not respond to the pressure.

Kamel, his dark eyes flashing warning, touched her cheek.

Like someone waking from a deep sleep, she started and lifted her blue eyes to his face. ‘Go with Rafiq. I will be with you presently, my little dove.’ Without waiting to see if she responded, he turned to the bleeding and humiliated colonel. ‘Please forgive Emerald. She is very protective and responds when she senses danger. She is...unpredictable. But as you see—’ he ran a finger down the bird’s neck ‘—quite docile.’

Kamel could feel the effort it cost the man to smile. ‘You have an unusual pet, Prince Kamel.’

Kamel produced a smile that was equally insincere. ‘She is not a pet, Colonel.’

He could feel the man’s eyes in his back as he walked away. Still, a poisonous stare was less painful than the bullet he would no doubt have preferred to deliver.

* * *

‘No.’ Hannah shook her head and refused to take the seat that she was guided to. ‘Where is he?’ she asked the monolith of a man who didn’t react to her question. ‘My father! Where is he?’

As the door closed behind him the hawk flew off Kamel’s hand and onto her perch, the tinkle of bells making Hannah turn her head. ‘Where is my father? I want my—’

He cut across her, his tone as bleak as winter, but not as cold and derisive as his eyes. ‘You should know I have no taste for hysteria.’

‘And you should know I don’t give a damn.’

Kamel, who had anticipated her reaction to be of the standard ‘poor little me’ variety, was actually pleasantly surprised by her anger. If nothing else the girl was resilient. Just as well—as it was a quality she was going to need.

‘I suppose it was too much to hope that you have learnt anything from your experience.’ He arched a sardonic ebony brow. ‘Like humility.’

Now wasn’t that the ultimate in irony? She was being lectured on humility by a man who had just produced a master class in arrogance.

She hadn’t expected to be told she’d done brilliantly or receive a pat on the back...but a lecture?

‘You got me out of there, so thanks. But I’m damned if I’m going to be lectured by the hired help!’ It came out all wrong. But what did it matter if he thought she was a snob? She needed to know what the hell was happening and he wouldn’t even give her a straight answer.

At last she was now living down to his expectations. He peeled off his head gear, revealing a head of close-cropped raven-black hair. The austere style emphasised the classical strength of his strongly sculpted features. ‘I suggest that we postpone this discussion until we are actually in the air.’

It wasn’t a suggestion so much as an order, and his back was already to her. She had just spent two days in a cell experiencing a total lack of control—this man was going to give her answers!

‘Don’t walk away from me like that!’

Dragging a hand back and forth over his hair, causing it to stand up in spikes, he paused and turned his head towards her without immediately responding. Instead in a low aside he spoke to his massive stone-faced sidekick, who bowed his head respectfully before he whisked away—moving surprisingly quickly for such a large man.

His attentions switched back to Hannah. ‘It’s called prioritising, my little dove.’

Hannah felt her stomach muscles tighten at the reminder that the last hurdle was still to be negotiated. At least most of the quivering was associated with fear. Some of it...well, it wasn’t as if she were struck dumb with lust, but a little dry-mouthed maybe? Previously her fear levels had given her some protection from the aura of raw sexuality this man exuded, but she felt it even more strongly when he hooked a finger under her chin and looked down into her face for a moment before letting his hand drop away.

The contact and the deep dark stare had been uncomfortable, but now it was gone she wasn’t sure what she felt. She gave her head a tiny shake to clear the low-level buzz—or was that the jet engines? She was clearly suffering the effects of an adrenalin dip; the chemical circulating in her blood had got her this far, but now she was shaking.

‘Sit down, belt up and switch off your phone,’ he drawled, wondering if he hadn’t been a bit too tough on her. But she acted tough, and looked... His eyes slid over the soft contours of her fine-boned face. She was possibly one of the few women on the planet who could look beautiful after two days in a ten-foot-square prison cell.

She sat down with a bump because it was preferable to falling. Had she thanked him yet?

‘Thank you.’ Hannah had been brought up to be polite, after all, and he had just rescued her.

She closed her eyes and missed the look of shock on his face. As the jet took off she released a long, slow sigh and didn’t open her eyes again, even when she felt the light brush of hands on her shoulder and midriff as a belt was snapped shut.

Was it possible that she had jumped from the proverbial frying pan straight into...what? And with whom? It was only the knowledge that he carried the personal message from her father that had stopped her tipping over into panic as her imagination threatened to go wild on her.

‘If you would like anything, just ask Rafiq. I have some work to do.’

She opened her eyes in time to see her rescuer shrug off his imposing desert robes to reveal a pale coffee-coloured tee shirt and black jeans. The resulting relaxed image should have been less imposing, but actually wasn’t—even though he appeared to have shrugged off the icy-eyed hauteur that had reduced the aggressive colonel to red-faced docility.

He might be dressed casually, his attitude might be relaxed when he glanced her way, but this didn’t change the fact that he exuded a level of sexuality that was unlike anything she had ever encountered.

He took a couple of steps, then turned back, his dark, dispassionate stare moving across her face. So many questions—Hannah asked the one that she felt took priority. ‘Who are you?’

His mouth lifted at one corner but the dark silver-flecked eyes stayed coolly dispassionate as he responded, ‘Your future husband.’

Then he was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

‘IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?’

The words roused Hannah from her semi catatonic state. She surged to her feet and flung the man mountain before her a look of profound scorn before pushing past him into the adjoining cabin, which contained a seating area and a bed on which her tall, rude rescuer was stretched out, one booted foot crossed over the other, his forearm pressed across his eyes.

‘I thought you were working.’

‘This is a power nap. I want to look good in the wedding photos.’

Breathing hard, she stood there, hands on her hips, glaring at his concealed face—noticing as she did the small bloody indentations on the sides of his wrist, presumably from where the hawk had landed on his bare skin.

‘Can you be serious for one moment, please?’

He lifted a dark brow and with a long-suffering sigh dropped his arm. Then, in one sinuous motion, he pulled himself up into a sitting position and lowered his feet to the ground.

He planted his hands on his thighs and leaned forward. ‘I’m all yours. Shoot.’

Hannah heard shoot and shuddered, recalling the scene on the tarmac where but for his lightning reflexes there might have been more than one bullet discharged—a disaster narrowly averted.

‘You should put some antiseptic on those.’

His dark brows twitched into a puzzled line.

She pointed to his arm. ‘The bird.’ She angled a wary glance at the big bird. ‘You’re bleeding.’

He turned his wrist and shrugged in an irritatingly tough fashion. ‘I’ll live.’

‘I, on the other hand, am feeling a little insecure about being on a plane with a total stranger going...’ she gave an expressive shrug ‘...God knows where. So do you mind filling in a few blanks?’

He nodded. She didn’t sound insecure. She sounded and looked confident and sexy and in control. What would it take to make her lose it? It could be he was about to find out.

‘My father sent you?’

He tipped his head in acknowledgement and she gave a gusty sigh of relief. ‘He sends his love.’

‘I’m sure Dad appreciates your sense of humour, but I’m a bit...’

‘Uptight? Humourless?’

Her blue eyes narrowed to slits. She had very little energy left, and being angry with him was using it all up. She took a deep breath and thought, Rise above it, Hannah. People had said a lot worse about her and she’d maintained her dignity.

It was a power thing. If they saw it got to her they had the power and she lost it. It didn’t matter who they were—school bullies, journalists—the same rule applied. If you showed weakness they reacted like pack animals scenting blood.

‘I’d prefer to know what’s happening, so if you could just fill me in...? Tell me where the plane is headed and then I’ll let you sleep in peace.’

‘Surana.’

The mention of the oil-rich desert state fired a memory. That was where she’d seen the crest on the plane before, and it fitted: her father had called in some favours. She knew he counted the King of Surana as a personal friend; the two men had met forty years earlier at the public school they had attended as boys. The friendship had survived the years—apparently the King had once dandled her on his knee but Hannah had no recollection of the event.

‘So Dad will be there to meet us?’

‘No, he’ll be waiting at the chapel.’

Hannah fought for composure. Was this man on something? ‘Hilarious.’ She tried to laugh but laughing in the face of the ruthless resolve stamped on his hard-boned face was difficult. She hefted a weary sigh and reminded herself she was free. It was all up from here, once she got a straight answer from this man. ‘This is not a joke that has the legs to run and run.’

His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug that suggested he didn’t care. ‘Look, I wish it were a joke. I have no more wish to marry you than you have me, but before you start bleating for Daddy ask yourself what you would have preferred if I’d offered you the option back there: marrying me, or spending twenty years in a boiling-hot jail where luxury is considered a tap shared by several hundred. Or even worse—’

‘How does it get worse?’

‘How about the death penalty?’

‘That was never a possibility.’ Her scorn faltered and her stomach clenched with terror. Had she really been that close? ‘Was it?’

He arched a sardonic brow.

‘So if I’d signed the confession...?’ Her voice trailed away as she spoke until ‘confession’ emerged from her white lips as a husky whisper.

‘You didn’t.’ Kamel fought the irrational feeling of guilt. He was only spelling out the ugly facts; he was not responsible. Still, it gave him no pleasure to see the shadow of terror in her wide eyes. ‘So don’t think about it.’

The advice brought her chin up with a snap. ‘I wouldn’t be thinking about it at all if you hadn’t told me.’

‘Maybe it’s about time you faced unpleasant facts and accepted that there are some things we cannot run away from.’

Not several thousand feet off the ground, but once they landed Hannah intended to run very fast indeed from this man. ‘I’m grateful to be free, obviously, but I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘You entered a sovereign state illegally, carrying drugs.’

Hannah’s clenched teeth ached. His righteous attitude was really getting under her skin.

‘I got lost and I was carrying medicine. Vaccines and antibiotics.’

‘Morphine?’

Feeling defensive, Hannah rubbed her damp palms against her thighs. With his steely eyes and relentless delivery he was a much more effective interrogator than her captors had been. ‘Yes.’

‘And a camera.’

‘No!’

‘Isn’t there a camera on your phone?’

He would have thought better of her if she had the guts to hold up her hands and take responsibility for her own actions, but that obviously wasn’t her style.

‘Weren’t you told to stay with the vehicle if it broke down?’

How did he know? ‘It was an emergency.’ And that was the only reason she had been entrusted the responsibility. There simply had been no one else available.

‘And you were the one on the ground and you made a tough call...fine. But now you have to take the consequences for that decision.’

Struggling to keep pace with the relentless pace of his reasoning, she shook her head. ‘So I have to marry you because you rescued me? Sure, obvious. I should have realised.’

The bored façade and the last shades of cynical amusement in his manner fell away as he vaulted to his feet.

He towered over her, eyes blazing with contempt. She could feel the anger spilling out of him and presumably so could the bird sitting on its perch—it began to squawk and Hannah lifted her hands to her head to protect herself.

The act of soothing the spooked creature seemed to help Kamel regain some semblance of control. ‘She won’t hurt you.’

Hannah dropped her hands, cast a quick sideways glance at the fascinating wild creature, and then returned her attention to the man. ‘I wasn’t worried about the bird.’

His jaw tightened in response to the pointed comment, and he stared at the mouth that delivered it...her wide, full, sexy lower lip. Hers was a mouth actually made for kissing.

‘I wouldn’t marry you even if you were sane!’

She might have a point. Wasn’t it insane to be checking out her impossibly long legs? Wasn’t it even more insane to actually like the fact she didn’t back away from him, that her pride made her give as good as she got?

‘And came gift-wrapped!’ Hannah caught herself wondering how many women would have liked to unwrap him, and felt a lick of fear before she told herself that she was not one of them.

‘You want facts? Fine. When we land in Surana in—’ He turned his wrist and glanced at the watch that glinted against his dark skin.

‘Thirty minutes. There will be a red carpet and reception committee for Your Royal Highness,’ she finished his sentence for him, and, keeping her eyes on his face, she performed a graceful bow.

He took her sarcasm at face value.

‘There will be no official reception under the circumstances. Things will be low-key. We will go straight to the palace where my uncle, the King—’

Her eyes flew wide. ‘King? You’re asking me to believe you’re really a prince?’

He stared at her hard. ‘Who did you think I was?’

‘Someone my father paid to get me out of jail. I thought you were pretending to—’

‘I can’t decide if you’re just plain stupid or incredibly naïve.’ He shook his head from side to side in an attitude of weary incredulity. ‘You thought all I had to do was walk in, claim to be of royal blood and all the doors would open to release you?’ What alternative universe did this woman live in?

Her eyes narrowed with dislike as he threw back his head and laughed.

‘What was I meant to think?’

‘That you were extremely lucky you have a father who cares so much about you, a father who is waiting with my uncle and Sheikh Sa’idi of Quagani. The only reason you are not now facing the consequences of your actions is because the Sheikh has been told that you are my fiancée.’

‘And he believed that?’

‘I think the wedding invite swung it.’

‘Well, I’m out, so job done. You can tell him the wedding’s off.’

‘I can see that that is the way things work in your world.’ A world with no honour.

‘What is that meant to mean?’

The plane hit a pocket and he braced himself as it sank and rose while she staggered and grabbed the back of a chair. ‘That you step away from commitment when it suits you.’

Hannah was waiting for her stomach to find its level but this not so veiled reference to her engagements brought an angry flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m fine, thanks for asking,’ she murmured, rubbing the area where her wrist had banged against the chair.

He continued as though she had not spoken. ‘But that is not the way it works here. My uncle feels indebted to your father and he has given his word.’

‘I didn’t give my word.’

‘Your word!’ he echoed with acid scorn.

She felt the burn of tears in her eyes and furiously blinked to clear them. ‘I won’t be lectured by you!’

‘Your word means...’ he clicked his fingers ‘...nothing. It is otherwise with my uncle. He is a man of integrity, honour. I suppose I’m speaking a foreign language to you?’

‘So your uncle would be embarrassed. I’m sorry about that—’

‘But not sorry enough to accept the consequences of your actions?’

Consequences...consequences... Hannah fought the urge to cover her ears. ‘This is stupid. What terrible thing is going to happen if we don’t get married?’ Hannah hoped the question didn’t give him the false impression that she would even consider this.

‘I’m glad you asked that.’

He opened the laptop that lay on a table and spun it around, stabbing it with his finger. ‘We are a small country but oil rich, and we have enjoyed relative political stability. Since the discovery last year of these new reserves, we are set to be even more rich.’

She pursed her lips at his lecturing tone and stuck out her chin. ‘I do read an occasional newspaper.’

‘Don’t boast about your IQ, angel, because,’ he drawled, ‘stupidity is the only possible excuse for your little escapade.’

An angry hissing sound escaped her clenched teeth. ‘I know the country is a shining light of political stability and religious tolerance. What I didn’t know was that the ruling family had a history of insanity—but that’s what happens when you marry cousins.’

‘Well, you will be a new injection of blood, won’t you, angel? This will happen, you know. The sooner you accept it, the easier it will be.’

Hannah bit her lip. Even her interrogators had never looked at her with such open contempt and, though she refused to admit it even to herself, it hurt. As had the headlines and the inches of gossip all vilifying her.

‘Shall I tell you why?’

He waited a moment, then tipped his head, acknowledging her silence.

‘We have a problem. We are landlocked and the oil needs to get to the sea.’ He flicked his finger across the screen and traced a line. ‘Which means we rely on the cooperation of others. The new pipeline is at present being constructed in Quagani, and it crosses three separate countries. Did you know your father is building the pipeline?’

Hannah didn’t but she would have died before admitting it. ‘I’m surprised they haven’t already married you off to some Quagani princess to seal the deal.’

‘They were going to, but she met my cousin.’ Kamel had fallen in love with Amira slowly. It had been a gradual process and he’d thought it had been the same for her. Had he not seen it with his own eyes, Kamel would have laughed at the idea of love at first sight. He had tried very hard not to see it. ‘When she found him...preferable, her family were fine with it because he was the heir and I was, as they say, the spare.’

‘Then where is the problem? If your families are linked they’re not going to fall out.’

‘He died...she died...their baby died.’ The only thing that linked the rulers now was shared grief and a need to blame someone.

Like a sandcastle hit by a wave, Hannah’s snooty attitude dissolved. Despite some throat-clearing her voice was husky as she said softly, ‘I’m so sorry. But my father wouldn’t force me to marry for any amount of money.’

He looked at the woman who sat there with spoilt brat written all over her pretty face.

‘Has it occurred to you that your father, being human, might jump at the chance to get you off his hands? And if he did I don’t think there are many who would blame him.’

‘My father doesn’t think of me as a piece of property.’

He might, however, think of her as a lead weight around his neck.

‘Do you care for your father as much as he does you?’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means if Quagani closes the new pipeline it won’t just be the school programme in our country that suffers. Your father has a stake in the new refinery too.’

It was the mention of a school programme that brought a worried furrow to her brow. In her job she knew what a difference education could make. ‘My father has a stake in many things.’

‘My uncle let your father in on this deal as a favour. He knew of his situation.’

She tensed and then relaxed.

‘What situation? Are you trying to tell me my father has lost all of his money again?’

Over the years her father’s reckless, impulsive approach to business had led to dramatic fluctuations in fortune, but that was in the past. After the heart attack he had actually listened to the doctors’ warnings about the danger of stress. He had promised her faithfully that the risky deals were a thing of the past.

‘Not all of it.’

Hannah met his dark, implacable stare and felt the walls of the cabin close in. Even as she was shaking her head in denial she knew deep down that he was telling her the truth.

Kamel watched, arms folded across his chest, as the comment sank in. The prospect of being the daughter of a poor man seemed to affect her more than anything he had said so far. The idea of slumming it or being forced to make her own way in the world without the cushion of Daddy’s money had driven what little colour she had out of her face.

‘He has made a number of unfortunate ventures, and if the pipeline deal fails your father faces bankruptcy.’

Hannah’s heart started to thud faster and her heart was healthy. Stress...what could be more stressful than bankruptcy? Unless it was the humiliation of telling a cathedral full of people that your daughter’s wedding was off.

She had accepted her share of responsibility for the heart attack that very few people knew about. At the time her father had sworn Hannah to secrecy, saying the markets would react badly to the news. Hannah didn’t give a damn about the markets, but she cared a lot about her father. He was not as young as he liked to think. With his medical history, having to rebuild his company from scratch—what would that do to a man with a cardiac problem?

Struggling desperately to hide her concern behind a composed mask, she turned her clear, critical stare on her prospective husband and discovered as she stared at his lean, bronzed, beautiful face that she hadn’t, as she had thought, relinquished all her childish romantic fantasies, even after her two engagements had ended so disastrously.

‘So you have made a case for me doing this,’ she admitted, trying to sound calm. ‘But why would you? Why would you marry someone you can’t stand the sight of? Are you really willing to marry a total stranger just because your uncle tells you to?’

‘I could talk about duty and service,’ he flung back, ‘but I would be wasting my breath. They are concepts that you have no grasp of. And my motivation is not the issue here. I had a choice and I made it. Now it is your turn.’

She sank onto a day bed, her head bent forward and her hands clenched in her lap. After a few moments she lifted her head. She’d made her decision, but she wasn’t ready to admit it.

‘What will happen? If we get married...after...?’ She lifted a hank of heavy hair from her eyes and caught sight of her reflection in the shiny surface of a metallic lamp on the wall beside her. There had been no mirrors in her cell and her appearance had not occupied her thoughts so it took her a few seconds before she realised the wild hair attached to a haggard face was her own. With a grimace she looked away.

‘You would have a title, so not only could you act like a little princess, you could actually be one, which has some limited value when it comes to getting a dinner table or theatre ticket.’

‘Princess...?’ Could this get any more surreal?

The ingenuous, wide-eyed act irritated Kamel. ‘Oh, don’t get too excited. In our family,’ he drawled, ‘a title is almost obligatory. It means little.’

As his had, but all that had changed the day that his cousin’s plane had gone down and he had become the Crown prince.

That was two years ago now, and there remained those conspiracy theorists who still insisted there had been a cover-up—that the royal heir and his family had been the victims of a terrorist bomb, rather than a mechanical malfunction.

There was a more sinister school of thought that had gone farther, so at a time when Kamel had been struggling with the intense grief and anger he felt for the senseless deaths—his cousin was a man he had admired and loved—Kamel had also had to deal with the fact that some believed he had orchestrated the tragedy that wiped out the heirs standing between him and the crown.

He had inherited a position he’d never wanted, and a future that, when he allowed himself to think about it, filled him with dread. He’d also inherited a reputation for bumping off anyone who got in his way.

And now he had a lovely bride—what more could a man want?

‘My official residence is inside the palace. I have an apartment in Paris, and also a place outside London, and a villa in Antibes.’ Would the lovely Charlotte still be there waiting? No, not likely. Charlotte was not the waiting kind. ‘I imagine, should we wish it, we could go a whole year without bumping into one another.’

‘So I could carry on with my life—nothing would change?’

‘You like the life you have so much?’

His voice held zero inflection but she could feel his contempt. She struggled to read the expression in his eyes, but the dark silver-flecked depths were like the mirrored surface of a lake, deep and inscrutable yet strangely hypnotic.

She pushed away a mental image of sinking into a lake, feeling the cool water embrace her, close over her head. She lowered her gaze, running her tongue across her lips to moisten them.

When she lifted her head she’d fixed a cool smile in place...though it was hard to channel cool when you knew you looked like a victim of a natural disaster. But her disaster was of her own making.

Her delicate jaw clenched at the insight that had only made her imprisonment worse. The knowledge that she was the author of her own disaster movie, that she had ignored the advice to wait until a driver was available, and then she had chosen not to stay with the vehicle as had been drilled into them.

‘I like my freedom.’ It had not escaped his notice that she had sidestepped his question.

‘At last we have something in common.’

‘So you...we...?’ This was the world’s craziest conversation. ‘Is there any chance of a drink?’ With a heavy sigh she let her head fall back, her eyes closed.

Exhausted but not relaxed, he decided. His glance moved from her lashes—fanning out across the marble-pale curve of her smooth cheeks and hiding the dark shadows beneath her eyes—to her slim, shapely hands with the bitten untidy nails. Presumably her manicure had been a victim of her incarceration.

She had some way to go before she could collapse. Would she make it? It appeared to him that she was running on a combination of adrenalin and sheer bloody-minded obstinacy. His expression clinical, he scrutinised the visible, blue-veined pulse hammering away in the hollow at the base of her throat. There was something vulnerable about it... His mouth twisted as he reminded himself that the last two dumb guys she’d left high and dry at the altar had probably thought the same thing.

‘I’m not sure alcohol would be a good idea.’

Her blue eyes flew open. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of tea.’

‘I can do that.’ He spoke to Rafiq, who had a habit of silently materialising, before turning his attention back to Hannah. ‘Well, at least our marriage will put an end to your heartbreaking activities.’

‘I didn’t break anyone’s—’ She stopped, biting back the retort. She’d promised Craig—who had loved her but, it turned out, not in ‘that’ way—that she’d take responsibility.

‘You’re more like a sister to me,’ Craig had told her. ‘Well, actually, not like a sister because you know Sal and she’s a total...no, more like a best friend.’

‘Sal is my best friend,’ Hannah had replied. And Sal had been, before she’d slept with treacherous Rob.

‘That’s why I’m asking you not to tell her I called it off. When we got engaged she got really weird, and told me she’d never ever forgive me if I hurt you. But I haven’t hurt you, have I...? We were both on the rebound—me after Natalie and you after Rob.’ He had patted her shoulder. ‘I think you still love him.’

Somehow Hannah had loved the man who had slept his way through her friends while they were together. She had only known about Sal when she had given him back his ring after he stopped denying it.

She hated Rob now but he had taught her about trust. Mainly that it wasn’t possible. Craig, who she had known all her life, was different. He was totally predictable; he would never hurt her. But she had forgotten one thing—Craig was a man.

‘You know me so well, Craig.’

‘So, are you all right with this?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘So what happens now?’

People who had never met you felt qualified to spend time and a lot of effort ripping you to shreds. ‘I don’t know,’ she lied.

Her lips twitched as she recalled her ex-fiancé’s response. Craig never had been known for his tact.

‘Well, what happened last time?’

Hannah had shrugged guiltily. The last time her dad had done everything. Even though pride had stopped her revealing that her fiancé had slept with all her friends—pride and the fact that her father would have blamed himself, as Charles Latimer had introduced her to Rob and had encouraged the relationship.

The second time he’d run out of understanding. He’d been furious and dumped the whole nightmare mess in her lap. Her glance flickered to the tall, imposing figure of her future husband and she struggled to see a way through the nightmare he represented.

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