“You are amazing.”

She could not speak to respond, merely shook her head. He was the incredible one, playing her boldly like a sitar’s strings.

“Making love to you will be my greatest pleasure.”

She forgave him the smug tones edging his voice. They were well-earned. Besides, his words weren’t smug at all. He could have said it would be her greatest pleasure, and they both knew that would be the case.

She was a virgin after all.

ROYAL BRIDES This month: FOR DUTY’S SAKE

An innocent princess and her promised husband

… Zahir is Crown Prince of a desert kingdom, master of

all he surveys—including the world’s most beautiful

women. Angele has waited for him and marriage for

ten long years. Maybe a wedding is no longer on

the cards, but can they still share that unforgettable

moment when he will claim her as his woman?

Coming soon:

The story of Asad and Iris

He’s the Sheikh of Kadar, she’s an American

geologist—he loved her once and lost her. Can he

win her back to his bed and to his side … as his wife?

Don’t miss these latest instalments of ROYAL BRIDES

Lucy Monroe’s enthralling sheikh saga!

FOR DUTY’S SAKE

LUCY MONROE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Abigail and Jordan,

a very special niece and nephew-in-law.

I’m so proud of both of you, of all

your accomplishments and the love you two share.

May it bless you and may you live out your own HEA

with true joy and a fulfilment

of the dearest dreams of both your hearts.

PROLOGUE

Did love die?

Angele had asked her mother that question once, after realizing her father, Cemal bin Ahmed al Jawhar—foster brother to the King of Jawhar and her own personal hero—was a serial adulterer. She’d been an extremely naive university freshman. So certain was she of her father’s integrity, she had at first believed the tabloid story about him stuffed in her student mailbox was a hoax, a cruel joke played by someone who would never be called a friend again.

To this day, she did not know who had disliked her so much they’d felt the need to shred her illusions and with them, her heart.

Her first hero had tumbled from his pedestal and shattered at her feet, and he had not even known. Not to begin with.

Her still beautiful Brazilian former supermodel mother had looked at Angele in silence for several seconds. Eyes the same espresso-brown as her daughter’s for once revealed her every emotion, and all of it staggering pain. “I would consider it a great blessing, but some of us are cursed to love unwisely and to do so until death.”

“But why do you stay with him?”

“I do not. We live quite separate lives.”

And another belief had been crushed under the pounding hammer of reality. They lived in the United States for the sake of Angele’s education and the chance for her to be raised in relative anonymity. They’d made the modern country their home because Americans had plenty of their own scandal, they didn’t have to go looking for it among the wealthy community from a small Middle Eastern country like Jawhar.

In a way, her mother had been protecting Angele. From the truth. But she’d also been protecting herself from the embarrassment of being the well-known wife of an undeniable philanderer. It had explained why their trips to Brazil and Jawhar were shorter and far less frequent than Angele had always wanted. It had also explained why her father’s visits were equally brief, though far more frequent.

“Why not divorce him?”

“I love him.”

“But he …”

“… is my husband.” Lou-Belia had drawn herself to her full five feet eleven inches. “I will not shame my family, or his, with a divorce.”

Considering the fact that Angele’s father was considered a de facto member of the royal family of Jawhar, that argument carried some weight. Nevertheless, Angele had vowed never to be her mother that day. She would not be trapped in a marriage by duty and a helpless love that caused more grief than joy.

She had believed she was safe making the vow. After all, while no formal announcement had been made,

Angele had been promised to Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra since she was thirteen years old. Heir to the throne of Zohra, no more honorable man existed in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.

Or so she had believed. But that had been before today, when she’d received a packet of pictures of Zahir in the mail.

A sense of déjà vu washed over her, bringing back old feelings and memories so clear, she could still smell the spring grass clippings that had scented the air on that other fateful day a little over four years ago. The same cold chills washed up and down her spine, leaving a strange clammy flush in their wake.

If someone had asked her even one hour ago what one certainty she had, it would have been that Zahir would never be the center of a tabloid scandal. Besides being far too aware of his duty to his family and his position, Crown Sheikh Zahir simply had too much integrity to be caught in flagrante delicto with some woman.

Right. Her other hero.

Now, staring down at the topmost picture—an almost innocent image of Zahir helping a busty blonde into the passenger side of his Mercedes, Angele choked out a strangled laugh. The barely there sound a pained constriction in her dry throat, the present took full hold with a snap.

Here, there was no smell of grass clippings, just the subtle scent of citrus her boss favored for the air ventilation system. No clatter of other students greeting one another in the common room of the University Center. Just the sound of her own breathing in the near-empty office.

The metallic taste of fear in her mouth mocked Angele and her hand shook as she pushed the topmost picture aside with her fingertip.

The next photo showed Zahir kissing the same busty blonde, though this time she was wearing a tiny bikini as they lounged beside a private pool. Angele did not recognize the couple’s surroundings; the large Mediterranean-style house behind the pool could have been almost anywhere.

It was a popular architectural style for warmer climates, from Europe to South America.

She did recognize the passion between the two lip-locked people in the glossy eight-by-ten, though.

And it brought back a memory she would rather forget.

She’d been eighteen and in love with Zahir since she’d started having sexual feelings. She had not cared if others understood, or believed such a young girl was capable of the emotion. She’d known what she felt and it was not a simple crush, having grown deeper with each passing year.

She’d assumed Zahir had treated her with such restraint and kept his distance since the deal had been brokered because she was too young. But at eighteen she was formally an adult. At least by standards of the country she’d been raised in, the United States.

They were at a state dinner, their first time attending such an event as a couple. She’d thought it the perfect opportunity to share their first kiss and had brazenly cornered him in the courtyard. Or as brazenly as a rather shy woman who had not been blessed with her mother’s stellar beauty in the gene pool could be.

Filled with trepidation that could not stand against her determination, she had gazed up into eyes that had looked almost black in the dim light, though she knew they were gray. She’d grasped both his arms, her fingers curling around strong biceps that emanated heat even through his shirt and dinner jacket.

She’d tipped her head back, letting her own eyes close, and pleaded, “Kiss me.”

Certain this man who was to be her husband one day would comply, must comply, she had waited in silent anticipation for what had felt like hours before gentle lips brushed her forehead.

Her eyes had flown open. “Zahir?”

“This is not the time, ya habibti.” He had gently pushed her away. “You are still a child.”

Crushed, she had been able to do nothing but nod and try to blink back tears of mortification.

He’d shaken his head and patted her arm. “Shh, ya habibti, our time is not yet.”

As he’d escorted her back to the party, she had consoled herself with the implied promise and the fact he had called her his darling. Twice.

A harsh laugh barked out of her as the photo of him kissing that other woman blurred before her eyes. Angele was twenty-three and still waiting for him to realize she was no longer a child.

Without this photographic evidence, would she have ever realized that day was never likely to come?

Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, she focused on the pictures again, sliding one to the side and to reveal another beneath it until they were spread across her desk in undeniable evidence. This was not the first time she’d gone through the photos, but now she refused to look away, or stack them again neatly in an attempt to hide from what they represented.

Zahir did not think this woman was a child. No, Elsa Bosch was everything a man was looking for in a lover. Extravagantly beautiful, voluptuous, experienced.

Angele winced at her own assessment, knowing she was none of those things.

She was not sure Zahir’s honor was besmirched by his liaison with the German actress. Not yet. After all, their betrothal had never been formally announced and he’d treated Angele like a distant cousin, not a lover. Despite her clumsy attempt at eighteen to rectify the matter.

She’d allowed her own love and the future she’d believed they were meant to share to become the foundation for fantasies that shared no touch with reality. She’d believed that, one day, he would realize she was not the young girl the marriage contract had been negotiated around.

She’d been waiting ten years. Ten years. A decade in which she’d never dated, not even attending her high-school prom because she’d considered herself taken. She’d had male friends in college, but none that she’d allowed to see her as anything but a study-buddy.

She’d just assumed that like her, Zahir had filled his life with family, responsibilities and friends … not a particular woman friend.

Unlike her own father, Zahir had been discreet in his relationship with Elsa Bosch. But the fact was: he’d had one.

These pictures could not be denied. So much like that time when she was at university, shouldn’t her pain be every bit as profound?

But she felt hollow now. Empty. Devoid of the emotions that she’d nurtured in her heart toward him for so long.

Unlike that last time, this sender was demanding money in exchange for silence. If Angele did not pay, the note accompanying the pictures promised every American and European tabloid would get the opportunity to buy a set of photos along with a very embarrassing tell-all story.

The fact Zahir was having an ongoing affair with an actress who had starred in a skin flick was scandalous enough to cause considerable upset in the royal families of both Jawhar and Zohra. Angele shuddered when she considered their response to a full-on exposé. The moment she’d gotten the pictures, she’d started researching the German actress.

While the woman spent less time in the spotlight than someone might expect, she was in no way a suitable companion for the heir to a kingdom.

However, Elsa was clearly his companion of choice.

These photos showed a great deal of skin, but even more passion. And happiness. Zahir’s happiness. Angele had never seen him smile like he did in some of these shots. Even when he wasn’t smiling, he had an air of relaxation he did not have around her.

Love might keep a woman married to a philanderer, but it might give another woman, a different type of woman, the courage to set the man she loved free.

Looking at those pictures, Angele knew deep in her heart that she could not allow Zahir to be held to a contract which had been brokered by men who had never given love between the two people involved even a fleeting thought.

Her love for him demanded more.

His lack of love for her demanded freedom.

CHAPTER ONE

HEART heavy with guilt at his envy, Zahir listened to his youngest brother speak his wedding vows.

Amir’s voice came close to breaking as he promised, not just simple fidelity, but also love to his bride. Grace’s eyes glistened, but her smile grew as she gazed at her groom with rapt fascination. Her own voice trembled as she returned the promise of love.

Love.

Both his brothers had found it with women not altogether suitable. But as neither were heir to the throne, their choices were hardly world-shattering. It was not the same for him.

His choice of bride had been set by an agreement between Zohra and Jawhar a decade past. His gaze skimmed the guests nearest the bridal party, gliding past his beaming father, king of their small Middle Eastern country, and his teary-eyed mother, to the woman he would one day wed. Though they shared no blood relation, Angele bin Cemal was treated as a favored niece by his uncle, the King of Jawhar.

Their eyes met, but she broke the gaze immediately, firmly fixing her gaze on the couple saying their vows.

He felt the dismissal, but was not surprised by it. Not after the past months preparing for the royal wedding.

Shocking everyone, the woman both royal families acknowledged would one day be his wife had refused to be a member of the bridal party or to participate in any meaningful way in the wedding. Citing her lack of close relationship to either the bride or the groom as her excuse, Angele had stood firm against every attempt by his mother and even Grace to include her.

Zahir had taken her uncustomary intransigence for what it was: a demand that he formalize an engagement between the two of them. Clearly she was done waiting patiently for her own nuptials. And, after the events of the past month, he realized the time had come to do his duty.

Besides, her father had kept his part of the bargain; he’d long since cleaned up his behavior so that he no longer courted tabloid attention.

After Zahir’s mother had told him how devastated Angele was by her father’s string of infidelities and the fact she had not spoken to the man in more than a year, Zahir had decided the time had come to do something about it. He wasn’t close to his future bride, but Cemal would one day be a member of his family and Zahir wasn’t about to stand by while the older man embarrassed them with his lack of discretion.

So, Zahir had laid down the law to Cemal. He’d told the older man that he would not marry a woman whose father’s tabloid fame rivaled that of a European rock star.

Cemal had believed him. He’d patched things up with his wife and had not been featured in a scandal rag for almost five years, proving he took his daughter’s future more seriously than his own marriage vows. Zahir kept the grimace such thoughts brought from his face.

He would never be that man—loveless marriage, or not.

He suspected that, unlike her mother, Angele would never tolerate it. Her surprising streak of stubbornness gave him hope for the years ahead. He did not want to tie his life to a doormat.

Regardless of how intriguing Zahir found this new side of Angele, his patience grew thinner by the minute as the wedding festivities marched forward. She took her stubbornness to a new, inexplicable level. She repeatedly declined to be in any of the formal wedding photos.

“Come, my little princess, I believe your point has been made.” King Malik of Jawhar patted Angele’s shoulder, his words showing he had put the same interpretation on her actions as Zahir had done. “Do not be the camel that tries to drink with its tail.”

Angele smiled at her honorary uncle, though the expression did not reach her too serious eyes, and shook her head. “The formal shots are for family, not friends.”

Stunned, and a little impressed, Zahir frowned. He had never heard her deny the king before.

“You are nearly family.” And would be soon enough, Zahir implied, knowing she was intelligent enough to get his meaning.

She simply shook her head again and turned as if to go.

He reached out to grab her arm and then yanked his hand back, realizing what he’d almost done. They were not formally betrothed and to touch her so familiarly in this setting would be highly improper. As future king of Zohra, Zahir never acted without propriety.

At least in a public setting.

His behind-the-scenes impropriety was over as well, and he still felt a fool for pining after what he could not have.

A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.

King Malik laughed. “You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?”

Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he’d been shocked by the low burn of arousal he’d felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.

The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother’s supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele’s legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty’s today. And twice as sexy.

Add to that the fact that her stubborn refusal to participate in the wedding as a member-to-be of the family had intrigued him from her first refusal three months ago, and it was a lethal combination to his recently restrained libido.

Reminding him that his future wife had not been raised in the secluded environment inhabited by the women in the royal palace of Jawhar, she had continued to stand by her first denial. He’d been more than a little stunned to realize he liked it.

While his marriage would not be the love-match his brother had made, it would not be as much of a dry connection of two overly similar lives as he had always anticipated, either.

Frankly love could go hang, as far as he was concerned. This newfound passion and interest was all that he required, or wanted.

“Wasn’t the wedding beautiful?”

A bittersweet smile curving her lips, Angela looked up at her mother. “It was, but the love between Amir and Grace made it even more so.”

“It reminds me of your father and my wedding.” Lou-Belia sighed with a fond reminiscence that Angele found difficult to understand. “We were so much in love.”

“I do not think Amir is like my father.”

Lou-Belia frowned. “You know Cemal has settled down.”

Angele did know. She still floundered in her feelings for a man who spent the better part of two decades flaunting his marriage vows, only to become the model of propriety in the face of his only child’s betrayal-fueled rage and disapproval.

She was thrilled for her mother that the older couple’s marriage seemed to be working again. The two spent a great deal more time together now, going so far as to live in the same domicile even. Her father was quite affectionate toward her mother these days, too.

But it hurt something deep inside Angele that her father had not stopped his behavior until she had confronted him, and then refused to have anything to do with him for more than a year. What did that say of the strength of his love for his wife?

He’d pleaded with her mother to fix the breach between them and in the process, Cemal and Lou-Belia had found each other again.

“So, the past does not exist?” she asked helplessly.

“We let it go for the sake of the future.” Lou-Belia’s world-famous smile was soft but tinged with chiding. “It has been five years, menina.”

Little girl. Angele hadn’t been her mother’s little girl for a long time, no matter what Lou-Belia, or Zahir for that matter, believed.

Still, she gave her mother a tight hug. “You are a kind and forgiving woman. I love you.”

But I don’t want to be you, she thought to herself.

With that truth burning in her mind, she went looking for the man who would one day be king.

Some minutes later, Angele slid around the partially opened door to Zahir’s office. He had disappeared from the wedding feast and she’d known she would find him here.

“Shirking your duty, Prince Zahir?” Her arms crossed over the sweetheart neckline of her short-short designer original. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What would your father say?”

The room was very much like Zahir: masculine, rich and imposing. And yet there was something in the artwork and the old world furnishings that reflected more, something special—an appreciation for beauty that she knew few were aware of.

But while Zahir didn’t pay her any particular attention, she had watched him closely and probably knew more about the real man than most. She still wondered at her ignorance of the secret revealed short months ago.

She’d decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.

She was a twenty-three-year-old virgin with no prospects and she knew she was to blame for that fact. She had clung to hopes and fairy tales that would never come true in the real world. Her parents’ marriage should have made her realize that.

Zahir looked up from some papers on his desk, his gray eyes widening a fraction at the sight of her. He quickly stood to his full, impressive six feet four inches. He wore the traditional robes and head covering of a crown sheikh over a tailored suit that made him look mouthwateringly attractive to her.

Not that he was even remotely aware of the effect he had on her. She would have to be on his radar as an actual woman for that to happen.

“Princess Angele, what are you doing here?” He had always called her Princess, though she was not one.

But her godfather, King Malik, had nicknamed her such and the nickname had stuck. She’d always thought it sweet, but now realized it was one more barrier that Zahir kept between them.

His refusal to call her simply by her first name, as any man intent on marrying a woman might do.

He looked past her, no doubt expecting some kind of chaperone. But she’d left her mother and all other potential protectors of her virtue at the feast. She pressed the door closed, the snick of the catch mechanism engaging loud in the silent room.

“Have I forgotten we were to meet?” he asked, sounding perplexed, but not wary. “Did you expect me to escort you to the table?”

“I’m perfectly capable of walking to my own table.” At her request, they had not been seated next to one other. “I know about Elsa Bosch.”

She hadn’t meant for that to be her opening salvo, but it would have to do. She’d paid the blackmailer, not once, but twice. After this weekend, Zahir’s reputation would no longer be her concern. The picture taker would have to find another cash cow.

Distaste flicked over Zahir’s features, at what she was not sure. Was he disgusted by the gossip rag that had printed a picture of him and his lover at a tête-à-tête in Paris the week before last?

Compared to the pictures Angele had seen, the two sitting at an intimate table for two was a boringly tame image. But as she’d suspected, the very fact Zahir was “friends” with the actress was cause for speculation and scandal.

Or was he disappointed in his prim and proper almost-fiancée bringing the subject up? She’d worked so hard for so many years to be the perfect image of his future queen.

Little did he know it, but that Angele was in ashes on the floor of her office back in America.

“That is not something you need concern yourself with.”

Those words shocked her, hurting her when she thought no more wounds could be made. She had expected his anger. Disdain. Frustration, maybe. But not dismissal. She’d not expected him to believe that she had nothing to say about the women he shared himself with while leaving her untouched. Unclaimed. And achingly unfulfilled.

She wasn’t ignorant. She knew that sex could and should be wonderful for a woman, but she was entirely inexperienced and she intended for that to change. Tonight.

The realization that Zahir had more in common with her father than she had ever believed almost derailed her determination but, in some strange way, it made it okay for her to make her bargain.

“The picture was rather flattering, to you both.”

He stood up, “Listen, Princess—”

“My name is Angele.”

“I am aware.”

“I prefer you use it.” If only for this one night, he would see her as a person in her own right. “I am not a princess.”

And never would be now. Nor was she the starry-eyed child who had reacted with delirious joy upon the announcement of their future marriage. The past ten years had finally brought her not only adulthood, but a definitive check with reality.

The man she had loved for too long and if her mother was to be believed, would probably love until the day she died, had no more desire to marry her than he wanted to dance naked at the next royal ball. Perhaps even less.

“Angele,” he said, as if making a great concession. “Ms. Bosch is not an issue between us.”

He was so wrong. On so many levels, but her plan did not include enumerating them, so she didn’t. “You were smiling in the picture. You looked happy.”

Certainly he had never given Angele the affection filled gaze he’d given the German actress even in that single, oh so tame, picture in the tabloid.

Zahir looked at Angele as if she had spoken something other than one of the five languages he conversed in with extreme fluency.

“I read that you broke things off with her.” Angele had gone from supremely ignorant of her fiancé's social activities to an expert on the gossip surrounding him.

“I did.”

“Because you were photographed together.”

He frowned, but gave a quick jerk of his head in acknowledgment. “Yes.”

She found that sad. For Zahir. For herself. For Elsa Bosch even. Had the woman realized she was so expendable? Then again, she might well have been the person who had extorted money for silence from Angele.

Regardless, Elsa was not the real issue here. And Angele needed to remember that, no matter how hot her retinas burned with the images of the other woman in Zahir’s arms.

She pushed away from the wall and went to look at the statuary displayed in a dark mahogany case. Her favorite was a Bedouin rider on a horse, carved from dark wood. They looked like they would race off into the desert.

But she noticed a new piece. It was another Bedouin, but this figure was only the man, in the traditional garb of the nomadic people. He looked off into the distance with an expression of longing on his features so profound her heart squeezed in her chest. “When did you get this?”

“It was a gift.” “From whom?” He did not answer.

She turned to face him. “It was Elsa, wasn’t it?” His jaw locked and she knew he would not reply. She refused to let that hurt her. “She knows you well.”

“I will not lie. Our association was measured in years, not days.” His tone had an edge to it that Angele had no hope of interpreting.

And his use of the past tense did nothing to assuage Angele’s feelings.

“Yes, I gathered.” The photos she had been sent spanned a timeline that could not have possibly been anything less. Someone who did not know and watch him so closely would not have noticed perhaps, but it had been obvious to Angele.

“The tabloids print trash. I’m surprised you read it.”

She did not react to the taunt. Nor did she answer the implied question of where her information had come from. She said the one thing that needed saying. “You don’t want to marry me.”

“I will do my duty by my father’s house.” Which was more a confirmation of his lack of desire than she was sure he meant it to be.

“You’ll make a great king one day.” He was already an accomplished politician. “But that is not a direct answer and you neglected to note, I wasn’t asking a question.”

“If this is about Ms. Bosch and our now defunct association, please remember that you and I are not officially engaged.”

“I am to take comfort in the inference you would not be unfaithful if we were?” she asked carefully.

His brows drew together and for the first time since the discussion started, she saw anger make its way to the forefront. “Naturally.”

“I don’t.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Prin—Angele, I am not your father.”

“No, you aren’t.” And she would never give him the opportunity to prove them both wrong, either. “This isn’t about Elsa Bosch, not really.”

Ultimately it was about love. It was about loving someone enough to let them go. Only that sounded so cheesy, she’d never speak the words aloud. And it was about knowing she deserved to be loved, fully and completely, by the man she would spend the rest of her life with.

He did not look like he believed her claim and she could practically see the thoughts zinging around in his facile brain. He was trying to figure out the right words to reassure, when in fact none existed.

None that he could say anyway.

Again it was time for truth. “Your brothers have both found wonderful happiness while you have been stuck in a promise made on your behalf by two men with too much power and too little comprehension of the cost of their dynastic plans.”

“I do not consider myself stuck. I was an adult when that agreement was made.” Yes, he’d been all of twenty-four and as bound by duty as any young adult male could be. “I chose my future.”

An alpha male like Zahir would have to convince himself of that, or he could not accept the limitations imposed on him by others. It simply was not in his nature. He had the heart of a Bedouin, if also the responsibilities of a landed royal.

“You do not wish to marry me,” she repeated, refusing to be sidetracked. “And I won’t let you be forced into doing so by duty.”

Nor would she allow herself to be railroaded into a marriage with the potential to be every bit as miserable as her parents were for so many years.

His eyes narrowed, his expression turning even more grim than usual. “You are not making any sense.”

“We’ve been promised for ten years, Zahir. If you had wanted to marry me, we would already be living in wedded harmony here in your family’s palace.” They would definitely at least be formally engaged.

“It has not been the right time.”

She’d heard that argument before. And believed it. First, she’d been too young. Then, his father’s health had been precarious. The idea of announcing an engagement during such a time was not appropriate, or so Zahir had claimed. Then, Khalil had gotten engaged and stealing his spotlight during the preparations for, celebration of and immediate time after Khalil and Jade’s wedding would have been wrong. The same excuse came convenient to hand when Amir and Grace became engaged.

For ten years, five—if you only counted the years since she became an adult—they had not found the right time to announce their engagement, much less actually get married. And they never would, if it meant finding a time when Zahir wanted the nuptials to take place.

Though Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra would no doubt eventually allow duty to force him into following through on a marriage he did not desire.

Since she would be the other half of that marriage, she wasn’t going to let it happen. Realizing that had meant giving up her dreams. And that had hurt, even more than seeing the photos of Zahir kissing Elsa.

But then who was Angele kidding? Certainly not herself. Seeing the unfamiliar happiness on Zahir’s face had lacerated her heart far more than the passion. The numbness having long since given way to a devastation she would have happily avoided for the rest of her life. And her heart was still bleeding.

Better that, than a lifetime of pricks from the knife edge of the constant knowledge that she was not the woman her husband wanted to be with however. When she’d conceived her current plan, a steel band had formed around her chest, and that constriction was still there. Sometimes, she felt like it was the only thing stopping her from falling apart.

But that, too, would fade. Eventually. It had to.

How much worse would it be to live the rest of her life married to a man who did not love her and never would? Who did not even like her enough to spend any time with her not dictated by their roles and responsibilities?

To watch Zahir find joy in the arms of other women as her father had done over and over again? Angele wasn’t about to go that route.

Even after receiving the packet of pictures, funnily enough it had been the announcement of Amir’s marriage that had settled the issue for her. Amir had been meant to marry another member of a powerful sheikh’s family, but Lina had refused the match and Amir had ended up married today to the woman who held his heart instead.

As Angele had told her mother, Amir and Grace’s very real love had made the wedding ceremony beautiful.

What she had not told her mother was that she had seen the envy in Zahir’s expression when he had looked at Amir as he stood up with him. No one else had noticed, of course, but Angele had spent a lifetime watching Zahir with more attention than research scientists gave their life’s work.

Lina’s courage had given Angele the courage to come up with her plan. And Amir’s happiness today had cemented her determination to follow through with it. If there was any chance Zahir could know his brother’s happiness, he deserved to have it.

She could do no less for the man she loved with her whole heart.

And she would accept nothing less than that, either, even if it meant spending the rest of her life alone.

“Zahir, I have always found you to be honest. A man of deep integrity.” His liaison with Elsa had not changed that.

As he’d pointed out, Angele and Zahir were not actually engaged. And he had never once lied about it. She’d simply never thought to ask point-blank if he had sex with other women. However, she was no longer rock-solid in her belief he would not take mistresses after their marriage. In fact, that certainty had died a pretty painful death.

No matter what he’d said today. “I am.”

“Are you in love with me?” One of those point-blank questions she could not avoid asking. Not now.

He did not even blink, his handsome features set in an emotionless mask. “Our association is not a matter of love.”

“No, I know it isn’t, but please, this once, just answer my question with a simple yes or no.” His jaw tightened. “Please.”

“I do not see why you would ask.”

“I’m not asking you to understand, simply to answer.”

“No.”

She almost asked if his negative was a refusal to answer, but then she looked into his gray eyes and saw the smallest glimmer of pity. He knew she had feelings for him he did not return.

The pain his answer caused wasn’t mitigated by the fact she’d been expecting it. Though she really wished it had worked like that. Knowing he did not love her and hearing it from his lips were apparently in totally different realms of experience.

She managed to nod. “That is what I thought.”

“Love is not necessary in a marriage such as ours.”

“I don’t agree. I will not marry a man who has no hope of loving me.”

“I—”

“Have not found something worthy of love in my person in ten years—you are not likely to find it now.” In fact, she was so certain of that impossibility, she was ready to take desperate action.

“You are all that is admirable in a future princess and eventual queen.”

But not as a woman he could love. She left the words unsaid as he did. “You deserve the happiness your brothers have found.”

“It is not in my stars.” His tacit agreement sent another javelin of pain straight through her, but she refused to buckle under the fresh wound.

She had a plan and in the end, it would be best for both of them. “It can be.”

“I will not turn my back on my duty.” And his tone censured her for suggesting he try.

“I will.”

CHAPTER TWO

ZAHIR felt those two small words like they were blows from the strongest of sparring partners. Part of him had always expected some kind of betrayal from Elsa Bosch, though not to the extent she had gone to. He had never been able to give her what she craved: commitment for the future.

However, he had believed Angele a woman of supreme honor and understanding of her duty.

“You are not serious.” He looked closely, trying to see evidence of too much champagne, but her pupils were not dilated.

Her cheeks were flushed, but the topic of their conversation could easily account for that.

“I am.” She looked down at the Bedouin figure and reached out to touch it almost wistfully. “I will not allow you to be locked into a marriage with a woman you cannot love.”

“And you expect to be loved by your husband.” Where had she gotten her romantic notions of marriage? Certainly not from her parents.

“Yes.”

“You appear to forget the importance of duty and family obligation.”

A deep, burning anger flickered briefly in Angele’s dark eyes. “My mother’s adherence to duty is one of the primary reasons I am so determined not to follow through on this farce of a marriage.”

“There is no farce in joining the royal houses of Zohra and Jawhar.”

“I am not of the royal house of Jawhar, no matter how indulgent King Malik is toward me and my father.”

It was true. From one of the most influential families in Jawhar, Cemal had been fostered in the royal household when his parents died. He’d been raised like a brother to Malik, but they shared no blood relation. Which had actually played in favor to the agreement drawn up ten years before as Zahir and Angele had no blood common between them.

“I did not think this bothered you.”

“It doesn’t.”

“You cite it as reason for not keeping your commitment.”

“I never made a commitment. When I was thirteen I was informed that one day we would marry.”

A mere girl. He had felt compassion for her. “But you never complained. Why now?”

“I spun fairy castles in the air, dreams that took me too long to realize they had no basis in reality.”

Dreams of love. Didn’t she know? That commodity was not for such as them. “You need to consider this more carefully.”

“Zahir, I’m giving you your freedom.” Exasperation and a tinge of anger laced her tone. “Instead of trying to talk me out of it, you could simply say thank you.”

Did she really believe she was doing him a favor? He did not think so. “Our families will be shamed.”

“Oh, please. Nothing official has ever been announced.”

“Nevertheless, the expectation exists.”

“So?” She shrugged, as if really, this did not matter. “Those who have expectations will have to be disappointed.”

“Like my father. Like the man you call uncle. They will be humiliated.”

The look she gave Zahir said she did not buy his calamity scenario. “Disappointed maybe but, in that regard, not as much as they would be by a divorce.”

“Why divorce?” Though he admitted he did not know her as well as he could, he had never considered her a pessimist. “You are not making any sense.”

“Zahir, can you honestly tell me that you are not feeling even a little niggle of hope right now? That relief isn’t warring with your need to talk me out of doing what you know you want?”

Shock held him silent. Her words implied that she actually believed she was doing him some sort of favor; that somehow he would and even should thank her for threatening to break her word. He tried to think of what could have caused her to draw such a ridiculous conclusion, but despite his superior intellect he came up with nothing.

No possible reason for her outlandish ideas.

She sighed, her shoulders slumping just enough that he knew she was not as calm about this as she was pretending to be. “Your silence speaks better than your words could. I will take full responsibility for the aborted engagement with our families and the media.”

“No.” He surged up from his desk, realizing that perhaps now was not the time to intimidate with that barrier between them.

“I have only one request.”

He halted on his way around the desk. “What is it?”

“I want one night in your bed, the wedding night I will not now have.”

If she had shocked him with her threat to break their agreement, this request practically had him catatonic. What in blue blazes was she thinking?

“Why?” he ground out while trying to somehow make sense of his prim and proper princess-to-be offering him, no, demanding from him, something that should not be indulged in until after their marriage.

The next heir could not be conceived under a cloud.

“I want you to be my first.”

Well, naturally. “But you do not wish to marry me.”

Did she truly believe there was any sense, even the smallest modicum of logic in such a scenario?

“Did you want to marry Elsa Bosch?”

He’d indulged in fantasies at one time. He’d believed himself in love. More fool him. But even then he’d known it was pure fantasy to even consider such a thing. He’d soon realized that more than her career made her the wrong choice as future queen of Zohra.

Even in his most youthful exuberance of untried emotion, he had not been a fool. “It was not a consideration.”

“But you had sex with her.” The blunt words falling from Angele’s usually prim mouth added to his sense of falling down the rabbit hole.

It was time to put a stop to this conversation. “That is not something I will discuss with you.”

“I’m not asking you to—I’m simply making an observation.”

“This entire conversation is insane.”

“No, what is insane is two people prepared to marry for the sake of nothing but family obligation in the twenty-first century.”

Her American upbringing had much to answer for.

“I will one day be king. The woman who rules Zohra by my side must be a suitable match.” Angele knew this. He should not have to repeat it for her. “Love has nothing to do with the obligations you and I must uphold.”

“You say it like it’s a dirty word.”

It was his turn to shrug. In his life? That particular emotion had caused more pain than pleasure.

“Your brothers have both found love.”

“They do not have the responsibilities of the crown to uphold.” And neither man had had a particularly smooth road to true love, either.

Zahir had no desire to follow in their footsteps in that regard. He had enough of his own challenges in life to face as ultimate leader and servant to his people.

“Your father doesn’t wear a crown.”

“Don’t play semantics with me—this is too important.” He could not believe she was saying these things. “I believed you understood the importance of your obligations.”

“My greatest obligation is to myself. I know you don’t see it that way.” She quoted an Arabic proverb he often used that was strangely apt to their situation. “I’m not that person. I don’t believe countries will topple if their leaders seek personal happiness in a manner of integrity.”

“What is honorable about breaking our engagement?”

“We aren’t engaged.” “As good as.”

“Really? You truly believe that?” she asked as if his answer carried great import.

“Yes.”

Unutterable sadness came over her features and the light in her eyes dimmed. “I’m sorry.”

“You will give up this idea of backing away from our wedding?”

“No.” Her voice was laced with determination, but there was a flicker of fear in her expression.

And suddenly, he thought he understood. Things that made no sense began to fall into a picture he could comprehend. She was concerned about their compatibility in the bedroom. As well she might be.

In one respect, she was spot-on. They were not a nineteenth-century couple where the bride and groom had been expected to go to the marriage bed untouched. Or, at the very least, the bride.

She’d spent her life in the United States, surrounded by a culture that had demystified sex and frequently glorified it. He had never made improper advances because, despite his claim, they were not actually engaged.

At first, Angele had been too young, and later he’d had his liaison with Elsa. A relationship doomed from the beginning, but one that allowed him to come as close to escaping the stranglehold of his everyday responsibilities as he ever would, if only for the brief moments they’d had together.

He had foolishly allowed his emotions to get involved. So, when he’d discovered he was not her only lover, he had been hurt. And he was still angry with himself for being that vulnerable.

In the midst of his own self-allowed turmoil and the growing crush of his responsibilities without outlet, he had neglected to notice the impatient discontent in the woman he was slated to marry. Yet another casualty to the folly of allowing emotions to reign in one’s life.

Angele shook her head and glared at him. “Stop it.”

“Stop what exactly?”

“Thinking so hard. I just know you’re trying to figure out a way to guilt me into maintaining the status quo. And that is not going to happen.”

“No, I can see it is not.” Angele needed reassurance that their marriage would not be devoid of passion.

Something he had done nothing to convince her of in the intervening years since the original contract was negotiated. Considering how his member stirred in his trousers at the sight of her in the sexy dress, he knew he would have no problem reassuring her now, however.

“You want to have sex with me.”

She flinched, but squared her shoulders and nodded. “I’m offering you your freedom. I do not think a single night of lovemaking too high a price to pay for that.”

The words were just noise to cover her sexual fears and insecurities. He understood that, but one thing stood clear. She considered a night in his bed a gift.

He looked deep into her eyes and made another realization—one that both inexplicably pleased him and stirred pity in his heart. “You are in love with me.”

Zahir had always known Angele fancied him something rotten, but he’d considered it a mere girlish crush. However this woman before him was no child and the feelings so apparent on her features had a depth that shocked him. Love was not a comfortable or safe emotion. From this point forward, it would not hurt her to love him, but she did not know that. He would never betray her as Elsa had betrayed him.

“What was your first clue? My clumsy attempt at a kiss at eighteen, or my slavish devotion and refusal to date other men despite the fact we are not formally engaged?”

If he expected shock from her at his revelation, or horror, he would clearly receive neither.

He did not point out that her love for him made no sense in light of her demands and threats to back out of their families’ arrangements. He had already decided she had no real desire to do that, she was simply looking for reassurances.

The need for which made even more sense in the light of her feelings for him.

Nor did he point out that her love was based on a distant relationship. How could she know him well enough to love him? But she believed herself in love and that was enough to cause her pain and worry in their current situation.

“I apologize for not realizing your feelings sooner.”

Acknowledging the hurt she must have experienced over the years of their pseudoengagement, was not comfortable, but he was not a man to shirk from his responsibilities. “Love is a painful emotion.”

“You’re telling me?” she asked with disbelief and then the horror came. The color drained from her face as her eyes registered a mortal wound. “You are telling me … that you loved her.”

For the first time in his life, he was tempted to outright lie. He had learned the art of misdirection and when it was most politic to withhold information at an early age, but he made it a practice never to tell a direct falsehood. Even for the sake of politics.

His honor would not stand for it.

“It does not matter. Ms. Bosch and I are finished.”

“But you loved her, didn’t you?”

“That is not something I’m ever going to discuss with you.” The past was over. He and Angele had a future to build.

His youthful feelings embarrassed him and they were over regardless.

“You don’t need to. The photos show the truth, if you look for it. I didn’t … I don’t think I wanted to believe it was possible. It was painful enough to accept you were so much more relaxed and happy with her.”

“You gleaned all this from a single photo?”

“No, but that’s not something I want to discuss right now.”

No, right now, she wanted reassurances he was more than happy to give. Nevertheless … “We can hardly disappear from my brother’s wedding feast.”

“Why not? You did.”

“I had business to attend to if my father was to remain free to preside over the festivities.” “You often sacrifice for your family.” “It is my privilege to do so.” “I believe you mean that.”

“I do.”

“You’re an amazing man.”

“And you love me.” He had no intention of opening himself to that depth of emotion again, but he would protect hers. It was his duty to do so.

And he always did his duty.

“The wedding festivities will last into the wee hours of the morning. Tonight is not the ideal time for us to share our bodies for the first time.”

“What do you suggest?”

“You are in the country for the next three days?” “Yes, we’re staying for the full wedding celebration.”

Despite Angele’s refusal to play a role in the wedding, her family had been at the palace since the prewedding festivities began. He had seen very little of her because he had been busy with state business. He had believed she was busy with the bridal party, even if she wasn’t an official member of it.

“I will make arrangements for your last night here. There are no official events after the final breakfast that day.”

He put his arm out. “Now, I believe it is time we returned to the feast.”

She laid her small hand in the crook of his arm and let him lead her from his study, the stress this discussion had caused her evident in the fine tremors of her delicate fingers against his jacket sleeve.

Two nights hence, he would show her she had nothing to fear from him in any way.

Despite the sun having set an hour before, the tile floor on the balcony off Angele’s room warmed her bare feet. She’d long since discarded the expensive but uncomfortable glittery heels she’d worn for the final celebratory feast of Amir and Grace’s nuptials.

She still wore the figure hugging silk sheath. By an as yet undiscovered New York designer, its subtle composition made the most of her figure, hinting at bedroom seductions while having no single element that could be pointed to as anything other than proper.

Her father had been angry she’d foregone the traditional dress the women of the Jawharian royal family had opted to don for the evening feast. Only Angele wasn’t a Jawharian princess, no matter how much her father might wish otherwise.

Her mother had stood up for her. Looking like American royalty in a beautiful European-designed gown, Lou-Belia had told Cemal to take a chill pill. The look on Angele’s father’s face had been worth the price of admission and then some.

But the expression that flashed over Zahir’s features when he’d seen Angele’s dress had been even better. His gray eyes had heated to molten metal and his lids had dropped in a look of pure sexual predatory interest before he’d schooled his features into diplomatic blank-ness. It hadn’t been just the once, either.

She’d caught that heated stare directed her way more than once over the course of the evening. Each time, it increased her desire for the feast to be over, for her one night with Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra to begin.

The celebration was over now and she could go to Zahir as soon as she wanted. The only thing stopping her was the garment lying so innocently on her bed.

She’d discovered the galabeya upon returning to her room. The traditional wedding dress in this part of the world, the white silk gown embroidered with gold thread looked like it belonged in an Arabian Nights fantasy. The Arabic lettering in the intricate embroidery told the story of the first Sheikh’s marriage to the wife that helped him found the house of Zohra.

A note from Zahir lay atop the galabya.

My dear Angele,

You indicated a wish to have a wedding night. Please do me the honor of wearing this gown, worn by my grandmother in her wedding to my grandfather.

I look forward to seeing you in and out of it.

Zahir

The day before, he had told her to come to him via the secret passages she’d never known for certain existed. She’d guessed, since the palaces in Jawhar all had them, but Angele had never been privileged with that information regarding the royal palace of Zohra. Until now.

Now, when she planned to leave the palace of Zohra tomorrow and never return to it.

With a deep sigh, she turned from the darkness toward the warm light emanating from her bedroom. The galabeya shimmered under the glow, calling to and repelling her with equal fascination.

He wanted her to wear a wedding dress on their single night together. It was mind-boggling, but not nearly as shocking as it should have been. Part of her wanted the fantasy. Her subconscious at least was on the same page as her soon to be former almost-fiancé.

So, why balk at his request? The galabeya was easily the most beautiful one she had ever seen, the needlework making the Arabic letters look like art and perfect in each stitch. The matching slippers were beyond elegant. And looking at them, she knew they were exactly her size.

How had Zahir managed that?

A tiny voice warned against the cost tomorrow to that kind of indulgence tonight. But it was her one night, the only time for her to be with the man of her dreams. Perhaps it would make the morrow harder, but she would not balk at letting it fulfill every fantasy possible.

She changed into the galabeya, shivering with a sensuality she’d kept locked deep inside since her first sexual feeling, as the silk whispered against her skin. She’d opted to wear a modern bra and panties in matching white silk and lace, rather than the traditional underclothes Zahir had left with the dress. After all, this wasn’t a wedding, but a seduction.

Though she was not at all sure any longer who was seducing whom. Certainly Zahir showed none of the reticence about bedding her that he always had done before.

Perhaps it was because his relationship with Elsa had ended. The one and only time their picture together had featured in the media, it had quickly been followed by a discreet announcement that any liaison there might have been between the two had ended.

In addition, Angele could not let herself forget the offered price for this night was ultimately Zahir’s freedom. Perhaps that, if not she directly, accounted for his increased ardor in her regard. Whether or not he was willing to admit it, he clearly wanted out of their pseudoengagement.

Or had he always been attracted to her in some fashion, but unwilling to act on it because to do so would force the issue of their marriage?

She preferred that scenario to the one where he found the prospect of freedom so appealing, it alone birthed lust in him over her body.

Refusing to analyze the confusing situation any further, she brushed out her hair and changed her makeup to a neutral palette with eyes that were rimmed in kohl.

If not for the highlights in her hair and barely there underclothes, she could have been a bride of Zohra from a hundred years ago. She saw no one in the secret passageways, but heard a peal of feminine laughter as she passed the access to what must have been Amir’s rooms.

It sounded much too close to be muffled by walls. Having no desire to be caught on her way to Zahir’s room, Angele scooted into a crevice as the sound of bare feet padded down the passage she had just passed.

“Shh … the operative word here is secret,” Amir said in a loud whisper to his still giggling wife.

“How did I not know they existed all the times I stayed in this palace?”

“You were not yet my wife.”

“I am now.” Grace sounded both awed and very pleased by that fact.

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