Royals: Claimed by the Prince

The Heartbreaker Prince

Kim Lawrence

Passion and the Prince

Penny Jordan

Prince of Secrets

Lucy Monroe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

The Heartbreaker Prince

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Passion and the Prince

Back Cover Text

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Prince of Secrets

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Copyright

The Heartbreaker Prince

Kim Lawrence

Out of the frying pan, and into…

Hannah Latimer, beautifully enigmatic socialite, has left her glamorous lifestyle behind to prove her worth by becoming an aid worker. But when she’s captured by an oppressive regime, her only means of escape is powerful and arrogant Prince Kamel of Surana. And the price?

Marriage!

Forced to take Hannah as a bride to avoid war with a neighboring kingdom, Kamel has little patience with the pampered princess he’s bound to, but it’s his duty, and that’s something he can’t ignore! There’s no love between them, but there must be heirs. And there will be passion….

KIM LAWRENCE lives on a farm in Anglesey with her university lecturer husband, assorted pets who arrived as strays and never left, and sometimes one or both of her boomerang sons. When she’s not writing she loves to be outdoors gardening or walking on one of the beaches for which the island is famous – along with being the place where Prince William and Catherine made their first home!

For Barbara, thanks for all your support.

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.

CHAPTER FOUR

THIS TIME HANNAH was aware of the man mountain before he appeared—just as they hit another air pocket, he entered apologising for the tea he had slopped over the tray he was carrying.

‘I will get a fresh tray.’

‘It’ll be fine,’ Kamel responded impatiently. ‘We need not stand on ceremony with Miss Latimer. She is one of the family now. Considering the nature of my trip I kept staffing down to a minimum.’ He murmured something in what she assumed was Arabic to the other man, who left the compartment. ‘Rafiq can turn his hand to most things but his culinary skills are limited.’ He lifted the domed lid on the plate to reveal a pile of thickly cut sandwiches. ‘I hope you like chicken.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ she said dully.

‘I don’t recall asking you if you were hungry, Hannah,’ he returned in a bored drawl as he piled an extra sandwich onto a plate and pushed it her way.

She slung him an angry look. ‘How am I meant to think about food when I’m being asked to sacrifice my freedom?’ That had been her comfort after the battering her self-esteem had taken after being basically told she was not physically attractive by two men who had claimed to love her. At the very least she still had her freedom.

He smiled, with contempt glittering in his deep-set eyes.

‘You will eat because you have a long day ahead of you.’

The thought of the long day ahead and what it involved drew a weak whimper from Hannah’s throat. Ashamed of the weakness, she shook her head. ‘This can’t have been Dad’s idea.’

She looked and sounded so distraught, so young and bewildered that Kamel struggled not to react to the wave of protective tenderness that rose up in him, defying logic and good sense.

‘It was something of a committee decision and if there is an innocent victim in this it is me.’

This analysis made her jaw drop. Innocent and victim were two terms she could not imagine anyone using about this man.

‘However, if I am prepared to put a brave face on it I don’t see what your problem is.’

‘My problem is I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.’

I am Kamel Al Safar, and now you have all the time in the world to get to know me.’

Her eyes narrowed. He had a smart answer for everything. ‘I can hardly wait.’

‘I think you’re being unnecessarily dramatic. It’s not as if we’d be the first two people to marry for reasons other than love.’

‘So you’re all right with someone telling you who to marry.’ Sure that his ego would not be able to take such a suggestion, she was disappointed when he gave a negligent shrug.

‘If I weren’t, you’d still be languishing in a jail cell.’

She opened her mouth, heard the tap, tap of the uniformed officer’s stick on the floor and closed it again. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful.’

He arched a brow. ‘Is that so? Strange, I’m not feeling the love,’ he drawled.

Her face went blank. ‘There isn’t any love.’

‘True, but then basing a marriage on something as transitory as love—’ again he said the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth ‘—makes about as much sense as building a house on sand.’

Was this a man trying to put a positive spin on it or was he genuinely that cynical?

‘Have you ever been in love?’ It was a weird thing to ask a total stranger, but then this was a very weird situation.

And just as weird was the expression she glimpsed on the tall prince’s face. But even as she registered the bleakness in his eyes his heavy lids half closed. When he turned to look directly at her there was only cynicism shining in the dark depths.

‘I defer to you as an expert on that subject. Two engagements is impressive. Do you get engaged to every man you sleep with?’

‘I’m twenty-three,’ she tossed back.

He tipped his dark head. ‘My apologies,’ he intoned with smiling contempt. ‘That was a stupid question.’

Hannah didn’t give a damn if he thought she had casual sex with every man she met. What made her want to slap the look of smug superiority off his face were the double standards his attitude betrayed.

How dared a man who had probably had more notches in his bedpost than she’d had pedicures look down his nose at her?

‘And this is all about money and power. You have it and you’re prepared to do anything to keep it. You carry on calling it duty if it makes you feel any better about yourself, but I call it greed!’

Kamel struggled to contain the flash of rage he felt at the insult. ‘Only a woman who has always had access to her rich daddy’s wallet and has never had to work for anything in her life could be so scornful about money. Or maybe you’re just stupid.’

Stupid! The word throbbed like an infected wound in her brain. ‘I do work.’ If only to prove to all those people who called her stupid that people with dyslexia could do as well as anyone else if they had the help they needed.

‘I think you might find your role is no longer available.’

‘You couldn’t say or think anything about me that hasn’t been said,’ she told him in a voice that shook with all the emotion she normally cloaked behind a cold mask. ‘Thought or written. But enough about me. What’s your contribution to society? I forget,’ she drawled, adopting a dumb expression. ‘What qualifications do you need to be a future King? Oh, that’s right, an accident of birth.’ She stopped and released a long fractured sigh. ‘That’s not what I wanted to say.’

He stared at her through narrowed eyes, resisting the possibility that a woman with feelings, that a woman who could be hurt, lurked behind the icy disdain.

‘Well, what did you want to say?’

Relief rippled through her. This was not the response she had anticipated to her outburst.

‘Would this marriage be a...paper one?’

‘Will...get the tense right,’ he chided. ‘There will be official duties, occasions when we would be expected to be seen together.’ He studied her face. ‘But that isn’t what you’re talking about, is it?’

She gnawed on her lower lip and shook her head.

‘It will be expected that we produce an heir.’

Shaken by the image that popped into her head, she looked away but not before her mind had stripped him naked. The image refused to budge, as did the uncomfortable feeling low in her belly.

‘You might find it educational.’

The drawled comment made her expression freeze over; it hid her panic. ‘The offer of lessons in sex is not a big selling point!’ My God, he was really in for a disappointment.

His laugh cut over her words. ‘I wasn’t referring to your carnal education, though if you want to teach me a thing or two I have no problem.’

The riposte he had anticipated didn’t come. Instead, astonishingly, she blushed. Kamel was not often disconcerted, but he was by her response.

Hannah, who had conquered many things but not her infuriating habit of blushing, hated feeling gauche and immature. From somewhere she dredged up some cool. ‘So what were you referring to?’

‘I’m assuming that your average lover is besotted. I’m not.’

‘What, besotted or average?’ Stupid question, she thought as her eyes slid down his long, lean, powerful frame—average was not a word anyone would use when referring to this man. ‘I can’t just jump into bed with you. I don’t know you!’

‘We have time.’ He produced a thin-lipped smile. ‘A lot of it. But relax, I don’t expect our union to be consummated any time soon, if you can cope with that?’

‘With what?’

‘No sex.’

Her lashes came down in a concealing curtain. ‘I’ll manage.’

‘Because your little adventures will be over. There can be no questioning the legitimacy of the heir to the throne,’ he warned.

‘And does the same rule apply to you?’ Without waiting for him to reply she gave a snort of disgust. ‘Don’t answer that. But perhaps you could answer me this...’

He turned and she dropped the hand she self-consciously had extended to him. ‘Do you know...’ he seemed to know everything else with a few exceptions ‘...did they get the vaccinations to the village in time?’

The anxiety in her blue eyes was too genuine to be feigned. Perhaps the woman did have a conscience, but not one that stopped her doing exactly what she wanted, Kamel reminded himself.

‘It is a pity you didn’t think about the village when you decided to cross a border without papers or—’

‘My Jeep broke down. I got lost.’ Hating the whining note of self-justification, she bit her lip. ‘Do you know? Could you find out?’ The report that had reached the storage facility where she had been organising local distribution had said the infection was spreading rapidly; the death toll would be horrific if it wasn’t contained.

‘I have no idea.’

She watched as he moved away, not just in the physical sense to the other end of the cabin, but in every way. He tuned her out totally, appearing to be immersed in whatever was on the laptop he scrolled through.

Studying the back of his neck, she had to crane her own to see more than the top of his dark head. Hannah envied him and wished she could forget he existed. Was this a foretaste of the rest of her life? Occupying the same space when forced to, but not interacting? She had given up on romance but the thought of such a clinical union lay like an icy fist in her stomach.

He didn’t even glance at her when the plane landed; he just left his seat, leaving her sitting there. It was the massive bodyguard who indicated she should follow Kamel down the aisle to the exit with one of his trademark tilts of the head.

She was between the two men as they disembarked. Hannah blinked in the bright sun—the blinds had been down in the cabin and for some reason she had expected it to be dark. She had lost all sense of time. She glanced down at her wrist and felt a pang when she remembered they had taken her watch. It was one of the few things she had that had been her mother’s. When she was arrested they’d taken everything she had, including her sunglasses, and she would have given a lot for dark lenses to hide behind.

Her eyes flew wide with alarm.

‘I don’t have my passport!’

At the bottom of the steps he paused and looked up at her, his cold eyes moving across her face in a zero-tolerance sweep. ‘You will not need your passport.’

‘One of the perks of being royal?’ Like the daunting armed presence and salutes, she thought, watching the suited figure who was bowing deferentially in response to what Kamel was saying.

Glad to be off his radar, she ran her tongue across her dry lips, frightened by how close to total panic she had come in that moment she’d thought that without a passport she would be denied entry. The thought of the cell she had escaped made her knees shake as she negotiated the rest of the steps and stood on terra firma.

There were three massive limos with darkened glass parked a few feet away on the concrete, waiting to whisk them away. One each? Unable to smile at her own joke in the presence of such an overt armed presence, she took a hurried step towards Kamel, who was striding across to the farthest car, only to be restrained by a heavy hand on her shoulder.

She angled a questioning look up and the massive bodyguard shook his head slowly from side to side.

She pulled herself back from another panic precipice and called after Kamel. ‘You’re leaving?’

She was literally sweating with her effort to project calm but she could still hear the sharp anxiety in her voice.

He turned his head and paused, his dark eyes sweeping her face. ‘You’ll be looked after.’

Hannah lifted her chin, ignoring the tight knot of loneliness in her chest. She hated the feeling; she hated him. She would not cry—she would not let that damned man make her cry.

Kamel ruthlessly quashed a pang of empathy, but remained conscious of her standing there looking like some sort of sacrificial virgin as he got into the car. He resented the way her accusing blue eyes followed him, making him feel like an exploitative monster. It was illogical—he’d saved her. He hadn’t expected to be hailed as a hero but he hadn’t counted on becoming the villain of the piece. It was a tough situation, but life required sacrifice and compromise—a fact that she refused to recognise.

He pressed a button and the dark tinted window slid up. She could no longer see him but he could see her.

‘What’s happening to me?’ She managed to wrench the question from her aching throat as she watched the sleek car draw away.

She had not directed the question at anyone in particular so she started when Rafiq, the man of few words, responded.

‘My instructions are to take you to Dr Raini’s home.’

He tipped his head in the direction of the open car door, clearly expecting her to get in. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she wouldn’t.

Hannah felt a tiny bubble of rebellion. She’d had her independence taken away from her during the past few days, and she would not allow it to happen again. She would not become some decorative, docile wife producing stage-managed performances to enhance her husband’s standing, only to become invisible when she was not needed.

Then show a bit of backbone, Hannah.

She lifted her chin and didn’t move towards the open car door. ‘I don’t need a doctor.’

The big man, who looked thrown by her response, took his time before responding. ‘No, you misunderstand. She is not that sort of doctor. She is a professor of philosophy at the university. She will help you dress for the ceremony, and will act as your maid of honour.’

He stood by the door but Hannah stayed where she was.

‘What about my father?’

‘I believe your father is to meet you at the royal chapel.’

The mention of a chapel drew her delicate brows into a bemused frown. She recalled the rest of the article in the Sunday supplement where she had garnered most of her knowledge about Surana—as well as being a peaceful melting pot of religions, the country was known for its royal family being Christian, which made them a rarity in the region.

After the car left the airport it turned onto a wide, palm-fringed boulevard where the sun glinted off the glass on the tall modern buildings that lined it. From there they entered what was clearly an older part of the city, where the roads were narrow and the design less geometric.

The screen between the front and back seat came down.

‘We are nearly there, miss.’

Hannah nodded her thanks to Rafiq and realised they had entered what appeared to be a prosperous suburb. Almost immediately she had registered the air of affluence, and their car turned sharply through an open pair of high ornate gates and into a small cobbled courtyard hidden from the street by a high wall.

The driver spoke into his earpiece as the gates closed behind them and a suited figure appeared. The big bodyguard spoke to the man and then, with the manner of someone who habitually expected to find danger lurking behind every bush, he scanned the area before opening the door for her.

Hannah’s feet hit the cobbles when the wide wooden door of the three-storey whitewashed house was flung open.

‘Welcome. I’m Raini, Kamel’s cousin.’

The professor turned out to be an attractive woman in her mid-thirties. Tall and slim, she wore her dark hair in a short twenties bob, and her smile was warm as she held out her hands to Hannah.

‘I’d ask what sort of journey you had but I can see—’

The kindness and genuine warmth cut through all Hannah’s defences and the tears started oozing out of her eyes. Embarrassed, she took the tissue that was pushed into her hand and blew her nose. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t normally, it’s just...I know I look like a nightmare.’

The woman gave her a hug and ushered her into the house, throwing a comment over her shoulder to the bodyguard as she closed the door very firmly behind them.

Hannah half expected the door to be knocked down; her respect for the woman went up when it wasn’t.

‘No need to apologise. If I’d been through what you have I’d be a basket case.’

‘I am.’ Hannah blinked. Inside the house was nothing like the exterior suggested: the décor was minimalist and the ground floor appeared to be totally open-plan.

‘Of course you are.’ She laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s arm. ‘This way,’ she added, and opened a door that led into a long corridor. Several of the doors lining it were open, and it appeared to be a bedroom wing.

The older woman caught Hannah’s bewildered expression. ‘I know, it’s bigger than it looks.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘I’d love to give you the guided tour and I know you must be dead on your feet but we’re on the clock, I’m afraid. Just in here.’ She pushed open a door and waited for Hannah to enter ahead of her.

It was a big square room with tiled floors. One wall had French doors and another a row of fitted wardrobes. The large low platform bed was the only piece of furniture in the room.

‘I know, bleak. I love clutter, not to mention a bit of glitz, but Steve is a minimalist with borderline OCD.’ The thought of Steve, presumably her husband, brought a fond smile to her face.

The look reminded Hannah of what she wouldn’t have, what she had refused to acknowledge she still wanted. She looked away, conscious of a pain in her chest, and sank down onto the bed. It was a long way down but she barely noticed the soft impact as she landed on the deep duvet. She lifted her hands to her face and shook her head.

‘None of this should be happening.’

Watching her, the other woman gave a sympathetic grimace. ‘I know this isn’t how you envisioned your wedding day,’ she said gently, ‘but really it’s not the wedding that counts. Everything that could go wrong did at mine. It’s the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with that matters. How did you and Kamel meet?’

Hannah lifted her head. ‘Sorry?’

The other woman misinterpreted her blank look. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a story for another day, I’m just so glad he’s found someone. All that playboy stuff, it was so not like him, but he isn’t as bad as those awful tabloids painted him, you know.’

‘I never read the tabloids,’ Hannah responded honestly.

The other woman patted her hand and Hannah, who was more confused by these tantalising snippets of information than she had been before, realised two things: that his cousin thought the marriage was for real, and that she would be married to a man who, even his very fond cousin had to admit, had a horrific reputation.

‘I prayed he’d recover from Amira one day, but when you lose someone that way...’ She gave an expressive shrug. ‘I ask myself sometimes, could I have been as noble if I knew that Steve had fallen for someone?’

For a moment a frustrated Hannah thought the flow of confidences had ended, but then Raini’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper.

‘Amira told me that Kamel said she’d make a beautiful queen, and that all he wanted was for her to be happy. He and Hakim were like brothers—talk about triangles.’

Hannah gave a non-committal grunt, struggling to put the people and places mentioned in context, and then she remembered what he had said: ‘She found him...preferable.’ This love that Hannah was meant to be replacing was the woman who had married Kamel’s cousin, only to lose her life in the plane crash that had moved Kamel up the line of succession. He had acted as though he didn’t care but if his cousin had it right...? She shook her head, struggling to see the man who had showed her zero empathy caring for anyone. It was almost as strange an idea as him being rejected. Whether he wore a crown or not, Kamel was not the sort of man women ran away from.

‘She would have, too.’

Hannah wrenched her wandering thoughts back to the present and shook her head, mumbling, ‘Sorry?’

‘She would have made a beautiful queen. But she never got the chance...’ Raini breathed a deep sigh. ‘So sad.’ Then, visibly pulling herself together, she produced a warm smile. ‘But this is not a day for tears. You will make a beautiful queen, and you’re marrying a man in a million.’

Hannah knew she was meant to respond. ‘I would still be in the jail cell if it hadn’t been for him.’

The other woman looked mistily emotional as she nodded. ‘He’s the man you need in an emergency. When Steve was kidnapped...’ She gave her head a tiny shake and pulled open the wardrobe door. ‘Like I said, Kamel is a guy in a million but patience is not one of his virtues, and my instructions are to have you on the road in thirty minutes.

‘Take your pick of the dresses, Hannah.’ She indicated a row of white gowns. ‘They delivered a few.’

Hannah blinked at the understatement, and Raini continued to deliver the information at the same shotgun speed.

‘Your father wasn’t sure of your size so I got them to send them all in three sizes, but...’ Her bright eyes moved in an assessing sweep up and down Hannah. ‘You’re an eight?’

Hannah nodded.

‘Shower that way.’ Her efficient mother hen nodded at a door. ‘You’ll find toiletries and make-up by the mirror—anything you want just yell. I’ll just go and get changed into something much less comfortable.’

The shower was bliss. All the gowns were beautiful but she selected the simplest: a column with the hem and high neck heavily encrusted with beads and crystals. It fitted like a silken glove. Smooth and butter-soft, in dramatic contrast to the emotional rawness of her emotions. She took a deep breath and pulled the shattered threads of her protective composure tight about her shoulders, refusing to acknowledge the fear in her belly.

When Raini returned, looking elegant in a tailored silk trouser suit, Hannah was struggling with her hair. Freshly washed, it was evading her efforts to secure it in an elegant chignon.

‘You look beautiful,’ the older woman said, standing back to view her. ‘I thought you might like this.’

Hannah’s eyes travelled from the mist of emotional tears in the other woman’s eyes to the lace veil she held out and her armour of cool detachment crumbled.

‘It’s beautiful,’ she said, hating the fact she couldn’t tell this woman who was so genuine the truth—that this marriage was all an awful sham.

‘It was my grandmother’s. I wore it when I was married. I thought you might like it.’

Hannah backed away, feeling even more wretched that she was playing the loving bride for this woman. ‘I couldn’t—it looks so delicate.’

‘I insist. Besides, it will go perfectly with this.’ She presented what Hannah had assumed was a clutch bag, but turned out to be a large rectangular wooden box.

‘What beautiful work.’ Hannah ran a finger along the intricate engraving work that covered the rosewood lid.

‘Not nearly as beautiful as this.’ With a magician’s flourish Raini flicked the lid open. Her eyes were not on the contents, but on Hannah’s face. She gave a smile as Hannah’s jaw dropped.

‘No, you’re really kind, but I really couldn’t wear that. It’s far too precious. This is lovely,’ she said, draping the lace veil over her head, ‘but really, no.’ She stepped back, waving her hands in a fluttering gesture of refusal.

‘It’s not mine...I wish.’ Raini laughed, removing the tiara from its silken bed. The diamonds in the delicately wrought gold circlet glittered as she held it up. ‘Kamel had it couriered over. He wants you to wear it. Let me...’ Her face a mask of serious concentration, she placed the tiara carefully on top of the lace. ‘Dieu,’ she breathed reverently. ‘You look like something out of a book of fairy tales. You really are a princess.’

Hannah lifted her hands to remove it. ‘I haven’t put my hair up yet.’

‘If I were you I’d leave it loose. It’s very beautiful.’

Hannah shrugged. Her hairstyle was the least of her worries.

CHAPTER FIVE

HANNAH’S FIRST GLIMPSE of her future home drew a pained gasp from her lips.

‘I know.’ Raini was all amused sympathy. ‘I’d like to tell you it’s not as awe-inspiring as it looks, but actually,’ she admitted, directing her critical stare at the multitude of minarets, ‘it is. Even Hollywood couldn’t build a set like this. The family, as you’ll learn, has never been into less is more. When I lived here—’

‘You lived here?’ How did anyone ever relax in a setting this ostentatiously grand?

Raini gave a warm chuckle. ‘Oh, my parents occupied a small attic,’ she joked. ‘Until Dad got posted. He’s a diplomat,’ she explained. ‘By the time I was eighteen I’d lived in a dozen cities.’ They drove under a gilded archway into a courtyard the size of a football pitch, filled with fountains. ‘But nothing ever came close to this.’

Hannah believed her.

Rafiq escorted them into the building through a small antechamber that had seemed large until they stepped through the next door and entered a massive hall. The wall sconces in there were all lit, creating swirling patterns on the mosaic floor.

The awful sense of impending doom that lay like a cold stone in Hannah’s chest became heavier as they followed the tall, gowned figure down a maze of marble-floored empty corridors. By the time she saw a familiar figure, she was struggling to breathe past the oppressive weight.

‘Dad!’

‘Hello, Hannah! You look very beautiful, child.’

Hannah struggled to hide her shock at her father’s appearance. She had never seen him look so pale and haggard. Not even when he’d lain in a hospital bed attached to bleeping machines had he looked this frail. He seemed to have aged ten years since she last saw him.

Any lingering mental image of her walking into his arms and asking him to make everything right vanished as the tears began to slide down his cheeks. She had never seen her ebullient parent cry except on the anniversary of her mother’s death—her birthday. On that day he always vanished to be alone with his grief, and the sight of tears now was as painful to her as a knife thrust.

Intentionally or not, it always felt as if she was the cause of his tears. If she hadn’t been born the woman he loved would not have died and now this was her fault. About that much Kamel was right.

She had been doing a job that she was ill qualified to do and she’d messed up. But the consequences had not been just hers. Other people had suffered. She lifted her chin. Well, that was going to stop. She’d made the mistake and she’d take the nasty-tasting medicine, though in this instance it came in the shape of the dark and impossibly handsome and arrogant Prince of Surana.

‘I thought I’d lost you,’ her father cried. ‘They have the death penalty in Quagani, Hannah. It was the only way we could get you out. They wanted to make an example of you, and without the King’s personal intervention they would have. Kamel is a good man.’

It seemed to be a universally held opinion. Hannah didn’t believe it. Nonetheless, it was clear that he had not just freed her, he had saved her life.

‘I know, Dad. I’m fine about this,’ she lied.

‘Really?’

She nodded. ‘It’s about time I finally made it down the aisle, don’t you think?’

‘He’ll take care of you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘You’ll take care of each other. You know your mother was the love of my life...’

Hannah felt a heart-squeezing clutch of sadness. ‘Yes, Dad.’

‘She didn’t love me when we got married. She was pregnant, and I persuaded her... What I’m trying to say is that it’s possible to grow to love someone. She did.’

Incredibly moved by his confidences, she nodded, her throat aching with unshed tears. There was no point telling him the cases were totally dissimilar. Her father had loved the woman he had married, whereas Hannah was marrying a man who despised her.

A man who had saved her life.

Any moment she would wake up.

But it wasn’t a dream. However surreal it felt, she really was standing there with her hand on her father’s arm, about to walk down the aisle to be married to a stranger.

‘Ready?’ her father asked.

She struggled to relearn the forgotten skill of smiling for his benefit and nodded. Ahead of her the elegant Raini spoke to someone outside Hannah’s line of vision and the big doors swung open.

Hannah had anticipated more of the same magnificence she had encountered so far, but she had the impression of a space that was relatively small, almost intimate...peaceful. The tranquillity was a dramatic contrast to the emotional storm that raged just below her calm surface.

If you discounted the priest and choir there were only four people present: two robed rulers in the pews, and the two men who stood waiting, one tall and fair, the other...the other tall and very dark. She closed her eyes and willed herself to relax, to breathe, to do this... She opened them again and smiled at her father. He felt bad enough about this without her falling apart.

* * *

‘Nervous?’

Kamel glanced at his best man. ‘No.’ Resigned would be a more accurate description of his mindset. There had only ever been one woman he had imagined walking down the aisle towards him and he had watched her make that walk to someone else. He would never forget the expression on her face—she had been incandescent with joy. Yet now when he did think of it he found another face superimposing itself over Amira’s. A face framed by blonde hair.

‘I suppose you could call this a version of a shotgun wedding,’ the other man mused, glancing at the two royal personages who occupied the empty front pews. ‘She’s not...?’

He tried to imagine those blue eyes soft as she held a child. ‘No, she is not.’

‘There’s going to be a hell of a lot of pressure for you to change that. I hope she knows what she’s letting herself in for.’

‘Did you?’ Kamel countered, genuinely curious.

‘No, but then I didn’t marry the heir apparent...which is maybe just as well. Raini and I have decided not to go for another round of IVF. It’s been eight years now and there has to be a cut-off point. There is a limit to how many times she can put herself through this.’

Kamel clasped the other man’s shoulder. ‘Sorry.’

The word had never sounded less adequate. Kamel never lost sight of the fact that life was unfair, but if he had this would have reminded him. The world was filled with children who were unloved and unwanted and here were two people who had all the love in the world to give a child and it wasn’t going to happen for them.

One of life’s cruelties.

‘Thanks.’ Steven looked towards a security guy who nodded and spoke into his earpiece. ‘Looks like she’s arrived on time. You’re a lucky man.’

Kamel glanced at Steven and followed the direction of his gaze. The breath caught in his throat. Bedraggled, she had been a beautiful woman, but this tall, slender creature was a dream vision in white—hair falling like a golden cloud down her back, the diamonds glittering on her lacy veil fading beside the brilliance of her wide blue eyes.

‘That remains to be seen.’

Kamel’s murmured comment drew a quizzical look from his best man but no response that could be heard above the strains of ‘Ave Maria’ sung by the choir as the bride on her father’s arm, preceded by her matron of honour, began her progression.

A weird sense of calm settled on Hannah as she stood facing her bridegroom. It did not cross her mind until afterwards that the whole thing resembled an out-of-body experience: she was floating somewhere above the heads of the people gathered to witness this parody, watching herself give her responses in a voice that didn’t even hold a tremor.

The tremor came at the end when they were pronounced man and wife and Kamel looked directly at her for the first time. His dark eyes held hers as he brushed a fold of gossamer lace from her cheek and stared down at her with a soul-stripping intensity.

In her emotionally heightened state she had no idea who leaned in to whom; Hannah just knew she experienced the weirdest sensation, as though she were being pulled by an invisible thread towards him.

Her eyes were wide open as he covered her lips with his, then as the warm pressure deepened her eyelids lowered and her lips parted without any coercion and she kissed him back.

It was Kamel who broke the contact. Without it, her head was no longer filled with the taste, the texture and the smell of him, and reality came flooding back with a vengeance. She’d just kissed her husband and she’d enjoyed it—more than a little. That was wrong, so very wrong on every level. It was as if he had flicked a switch she didn’t know she had. She shivered, unable to control the fresh wave of heat that washed over her skin.

He took her hand and raised it to his lips, watching the rapt glow of sensual invitation in her velvet eyes be replaced by something close to panic. He was not shocked but he was surprised by the strength of the physical response she had shown.

‘Smile. You’re the radiant bride, ma belle,’ he warned.

Hannah smiled until her jaw ached. She smiled all the way through the formality of signatures, and all she could think about was that kiss. The memory felt like a hot prickle under her skin. For the first time in her life she understood the power of sex and how a person could forget who they were under the influence of that particular drug.

She was kissed on both cheeks by the leaders of two countries, and then rather more robustly by her father, who held her hand tightly.

‘You know that I am always there for you, Hannah.’

‘I know, Dad. I’m fine.’ She blinked away emotional tears but couldn’t dislodge the massive lump in her throat.

‘I will take care of her, Charles.’

His sincerity made her teeth ache. You couldn’t trust a man who could lie so well, not that Hannah had any intention of trusting him. Aware that her father was watching, she let it lie when Kamel took her hand in his, not snatching it away until they were out of sight.

His only reaction was a sardonic smirk.

It took ten minutes after the farewells for them to walk back to his private apartments. His bride didn’t say a word the whole time.

It was hard not to contrast the brittle 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.

He was lusting after his bride. Well, life was full of surprises and not all of them were bad. The situation suited a man who had a very pragmatic approach to sex.

The room they stood in was on the same grand scale as all the others. This one apparently connected two bedrooms, if she had understood him correctly. Her exhausted brain was filled with a low-level hum of confusion, and two images from the wedding kept flitting through her head—her father’s tired, ill face and the predatory heat in Kamel’s eyes when he claimed his kiss.

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

Hannah’s fingers slipped off 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. ‘Fine! So I find you attractive. Is that what you want to hear?’ She angled a scornful glance up at his lean dark face. ‘I find any number of men attractive, but I don’t sleep with them all.’

Make that none.

‘You’re discerning. I like that in you.’

‘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! Her stomach tightened in self-disgust. Shocked by the thought that had insinuated itself into her head, she tilted her chin, channelling all the ice princess 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.’

Hannah’s eyes went to the ring on her finger. It felt heavy. She felt...consumed. She frowned at the word that formed in her head. Consumed by feelings, a need. She gave her head a tiny shake. It was dangerous to imagine something that was not there. She blamed the bottle of champagne that Raini had cracked open in the limo. Had she had one or two glasses? Regardless of her alcohol consumption, the only thing she needed was sleep.

He laid a hand on the door beside her head and leaned into her. ‘Well, if you change your mind you know where I am.’ His eyes not leaving hers, he tipped his head at the door next to her own. ‘And for the record I’m fine with...just sex. I will not feel used or cheap in the morning.’

His throaty, mocking laugh was the last straw.

Her blue eyes narrowed and her chin lifted to a combative angle. She could actually feel something inside her snapping as she reached up and pulled his face down until she could reach his lips. In the instant before she covered his mouth with hers she saw his expression change—saw the mockery vanish and the dark, dangerous glow slide into his heavy-lidded eyes.

In the tiny corner of her mind that was still sane Hannah knew she was doing something incredibly stupid, but it was too late to pull back, and then he was kissing her back with a sensual skill that made her sleep-deprived brain shut down—she just clung on for the ride.

Kamel was a man who was rarely surprised—but Hannah had surprised him twice already. First when she kissed him, and second when lust slammed through his body.

Had he ever wanted a woman this badly?

Then he identified the flavour of her kiss. As he pulled away she clung like a limpet, a very soft, warm, inviting limpet, but he gritted his teeth. He knew that if he let it go on a moment longer he wouldn’t be able to stop. And when he made love to his wife he wanted her not just willing but awake and sober!

He studied her flushed face, the bright, almost febrile glitter in her eyes. He had seen the same look in the eyes of a friend who, after pulling three consecutive all-nighters before an exam, had fallen asleep halfway through the actual exam. Hannah was seriously sleep deprived, and more than a bit tipsy.

As a rule he thought it was nice if the person you were making love to stayed conscious. He gave a self-mocking smile. Being noble was really overrated—no wonder it had fallen out of fashion.

‘You’ve been drinking.’

She blinked at the accusation, then insisted loudly, ‘I’m not drunk!’

The pout she gave him almost broke his resolve. ‘We won’t argue the point,’ he said wearily. ‘I think we should sleep on this. Goodnight, Hannah.’

And he walked away and left her standing there feeling like...like...like a woman who’d just made a pass at her own husband and got knocked back. So not only did she now feel cheap, she felt unattractive. Rejected by two fiancés, and now a husband, but she couldn’t summon the energy to care as, with a sigh, she fell backwards fully clothed onto the bed, closed her eyes and was immediately asleep.

CHAPTER SIX

TOO PROUD TO ask for help, Hannah was lost. She finally located Kamel in the fourth room she tried—one that opened off a square, windowless hallway that might have been dark but for the daylight that filtered through the blue glass of the dome high above.

Like the ones before it, this room was massive and imposing, and also came complete with a built-in echo, and her heels were particularly noisy on the inlaid floor. But Kamel didn’t look up. The hawk on its perch followed her with its dark eyes while her master continued to stare at the screen of his mobile phone with a frown of concentration that drew his dark brows into a straight line above his aquiline nose.

Choosing not to acknowledge the strange achy feeling in the pit of her stomach, she walked up to the desk and cleared her throat.

When his dark head didn’t lift she felt her temper fizz and embraced the feeling. If he wanted to be awkward, fine. She could do awkward. She felt damned awkward after last night.

‘Is this your doing?’ Realising that her posture, with her arms folded tightly across her stomach, might be construed as protective, she dropped them to her sides.

Kamel stopped scrolling through his emails, looked up from his phone and smiled. ‘Good morning, dear wife.’

Kamel did not feel it was a particularly good morning and it had been a very bad night. He felt tired, and more frustrated than any man should be after his wedding night. A cold shower, a long run and he had regained a little perspective this morning. But then she walked in the room and just the scent of her perfume... He wanted her here and now. The difference between want and need was important to Kamel. He had not allowed himself to need a woman since Amira.

He needed sex, not Hannah. And the sex would be good—his icy bride turned out to have more fire in her than any woman he had ever met. But afterwards he would feel as he always did—the escape from the tight knot of brutal loneliness in his chest was only ever temporary.

Hannah’s lips tightened at the mockery but she did not react to it; instead she simply arched a feathery brow. ‘Well?’

‘I feel as though I am walking into this conversation midway through. Coffee?’ He lifted the pot on the desk beside him and topped up his half-filled cup and allowed his gaze to drift over her face. ‘Hangover?’

‘No,’ she lied. The delicious aroma drifted her way, making her mouth water. She felt shivery as she struggled to tear her eyes off his long brown fingers. ‘I don’t want coffee.’

‘So can I help you with something?’

She emitted a soft hissing sound of annoyance. Without looking back, she pointed to the open doorway where a suited figure stood, complete with enigmatic expression and concealed weapon. ‘Did you arrange for him to follow me?’

Kamel stood up from the desk and walked past her towards the open door. Nodding to the man standing outside, he closed it with a soft thud and turned back to Hannah, though his attention appeared to be on the lie of his narrow silk tie that lay in a flash of subdued colour against his white shirt. The jacket that matched the dove-grey trousers was draped across the back of the chair.

‘For heaven’s sake, you look ridiculously perfect.’

Her delivery lacked the scornful punch she had intended, possibly because the comment was no exaggeration. The pale grey trousers that matched the jacket were clearly bespoke and could have been cut to disguise a multitude of sins if he’d had any, but there was no escaping the fact that physically at least he was flawless.

He raised his brows and she felt her cheeks colour. ‘I despise men who spend more time looking in the mirror than I do.’

‘Rather a sexist thing to say,’ he remarked, his tone mildly amused and his eyes uncomfortably observant. ‘But each to his own. I’m sorry I don’t measure up to your unwashed grunge ideal.’

Having dug herself a hole, she let the subject drop. He could never fail to live up to any woman’s ideal, on a purely eye-candy level, of course. ‘I do not require a bodyguard.’

‘No, obviously not.’

Her pleased smile at a battle so easily won had barely formed when his next words made it vanish.

‘You will require a team of them.’

‘That’s ludicrous!’ she contended furiously.

The amusement in his manner vanished as he countered, ‘It’s necessary, so I suggest you stop acting like a diva and accept it.’

‘I refuse.’

His glance slid from her flashing eyes to her heaving bosom, lingering there long enough to bring her hand to her throat. ‘Refuse all you like, it won’t alter anything. I appreciate this is an adjustment and I’ll make allowances.’

That was big of him. ‘Allowances! This is a palace! How do I adjust to that?’

‘I have been to Brent Hall and it is hardly a council flat,’ he retorted, thinking of the portrait that hung above the fireplace in the drawing room. Had Hannah Latimer ever possessed the dreamy innocence that shone in the eyes of her portrait, or had the artist been keen to flatter the man who was paying him?

She opened her mouth to retort and then his comment sank in. ‘You’ve been to my home?’

He tipped his head. ‘I stood in for my uncle on one social occasion, actually two. I predict you will adjust to your change in status. After all, you have played the pampered princess all your life. The only difference now is you have an actual title, and, of course, me.’

‘I’m trying to forget.’

‘Not the best idea.’

Despite the monotone delivery, she heard the warning and she didn’t like it, or him.

Kamel gave a tolerant nod and picked up a pen from the desk. ‘It is a fact of life. You will not leave this building without a security presence.’

‘I wasn’t outside the building. He was waiting outside my bedroom. What harm was I likely to come to there?’

‘Oh, so your concern is for your privacy.’

‘Well, yes. Obviously.’ The idea of living like a bird in a golden cage did not hold any appeal. She’d given up her freedom but there had to be boundaries. Where were your boundaries last night, Hannah?

‘We will be private enough, I promise you.’

The seductive promise in his voice sent a beat of white-hot excitement whipping through her body. As it ebbed she was consumed by hot-cheeked embarrassment.

‘You blush very easily.’

She slung him a belligerent glare. ‘I’m not used to the heat.’ The desert heat she might grow accustomed to, but being around a man who could make her feel...feel...she gave a tiny gusty sigh as she sought for a word to describe how he made her feel, and it came—hungry! That was something she would never get used to. She just hoped it would pass quickly like a twenty-four-hour bug.

‘So this is an example of how my life will not change?’ she charged shrilly. ‘I left one cell with a guard outside for another.’

‘But the facilities and décor are much better,’ he came back smoothly.

The languid smile that tugged the corner of his mouth upwards did not improve her mood. Neither did looking at his mouth. It was a struggle not to lift a hand to her own tingling lips. So far he hadn’t mentioned the kiss. Had he forgotten?

She wished she had, but her memory loss only lasted until she had stood under a shower and then the whole mortifying scene came rushing back.

‘This isn’t a joke.’

The shriller she got, the calmer he became. ‘Neither is it a subject for screaming and shouting and stamping your little foot.’

He glanced down at the part of her under discussion. She had very nice ankles but she had even nicer calves. He found his eyes drawn to the silky smooth contours and higher... The skirt of the dress she wore, a silky blue thing, sleeveless and cinched in at the waist with a narrow plaited tan belt, ended just above the knee. The entire image was cool, perfectly groomed...regal.

He refused to allow the image of his hands sliding under the fabric up and over the smooth curves—but the suggestion had been enough to send a streak of heat through his body where it coalesced into a heavy ache in his groin. He could have woken up this morning in her arms. Even while he had called himself a fool during the long wakeful night, he had known it was the right decision.

‘I did not stamp my foot,’ Hannah retorted and immediately wanted to do just that.

‘But you have a tendency to turn everything into a drama, angel.’

Her brows hit her smooth hairline exposed by the severe hairstyle she had adopted that morning. The woman who had looked back at her from the mirror after she had speared the last hair grip into the smooth coil did not even look like a distant relative of the woman with the flushed face, feverishly bright eyes and swollen lips she had glimpsed in the mirror last night before she had fallen onto the bed fully dressed.

‘If this isn’t a drama, what is?’

‘I appreciate this is not easy, but we are both living with the consequences of your actions.’

She threw up her hands and didn’t even register the discomfort as one of the pearl studs she wore went flying across the room. She sighed heavily and asked, ‘How many times a day are you going to remind me it’s all my fault?’

‘It depends on how many times you irritate me.’ Kamel left his desk and walked to the spot where the pearl had landed beside the window.

‘My breathing irritates you,’ she said.

He elevated a dark brow. ‘Not if you do it quietly.’ He half closed his eyes, imagining hearing her breath quicken as he moved in and out of her body.

Hannah was not breathing quietly now. The closer he got, the louder her breathing became, then she stopped altogether. ‘You are...’ The trapped air left her lungs in one soft, sibilant sigh as he stopped just in front of her, close enough for her to feel the heat from his body.

‘Have you ever heard of personal space?’ she asked, tilting back her head to meet his challenging dark stare as she fought an increasingly strong impulse to step back. Her cool vanished into shrill panic as he leaned in towards her. ‘What are you doing?’

More to the point, what was she doing?

She had tried so hard not to look at his mouth, not to think of that kiss, it became inevitable that she was now staring and not in a casual way at his mouth and the only thing she could think about was that kiss—the firm texture of his lips, the heat of his mouth, the moist...

‘You lost this.’

It took a few seconds to bring into focus the stud he held between his thumb and forefinger. When she realised what he was holding her hand went jerkily to her ear...the wrong one.

‘No, this one.’ He touched her ear lobe, catching it for a moment between his thumb and forefinger before letting it drop away. ‘Pretty.’ Her head jerked to one side, causing a fresh stab of pain to slide like a knife through her skull. How long before the headache tablets she had swallowed kicked in?

The strength of her physical response to the light contact sent a stab of alarm through Hannah. She swayed slightly and shifted her position, taking a step back. It no longer seemed so important to stand her ground. Live to fight another day—wasn’t that what they said about those who ran away?

‘Thank you,’ she breathed, holding out her hand as she focused on his left shoulder.

He ignored the hand and leaned in closer. Help, she thought, her smile little more now than a scared fixed grimace painted on. Her nostrils quivered in reaction to the warm scent of his body, his nearness. She could feel the heat of his body through his clothes and hers...imagine how hot his skin would feel without...

And she did imagine; her core temperature immediately jumped by several painful degrees as she stood there in an agony of shame and arousal while he placed a thumb under her chin to angle her face up to him.

She’d decided that the only plus point in being married to a man she loathed was that she would never again suffer the pain and humiliation of rejection. She wouldn’t care. A lovely theory, but hard to cling to when every cell in her body craved his touch. She had never felt this way before.

She bit her lip, fearing that if she set free the ironic laugh locked in her throat there would be a chain reaction—she would lose it and she couldn’t do that. Pretty much all she had left was her pride.

Listen to yourself, Hannah, mocked the voice in her head. Your pride is all you have left? Go down that road of self-pity and you’d pretty much end up being the spoilt shallow bitch your husband thinks you are.

Husband.

I’m married.

Third time lucky. Or as it happened, unlucky. She knew there were many women who would have envied her unlucky fate just as there had been girls at school who had envied her.

The influential clique who had decided to make the new girl’s life a misery even before they’d discovered she was stupid. She’d thought so too until she’d been diagnosed as dyslexic at fourteen.

For a long time Hannah had wondered why—what had she done or said?—and then she’d had the opportunity to ask when she’d found herself sitting in a train compartment with one of her former tormentors, all grown up now.

Hannah had immediately got up to leave but had paused by the door when the other woman had spoken.

‘I’m sorry.’

And Hannah had asked the question that she had always wanted to ask.

‘Why?’

The answer had been the same one her father had given her when she had sobbed, ‘What have I done? What’s wrong with me?’

‘It’s got nothing to do with you, Hannah. They do it because they can. I could move you to another school, sweetheart, but what happens if the same thing happens there? You can’t carry on running away. The way to cope with bullies is not to react. Don’t let them see they get to you.’

The strategy had worked perhaps too well because, not only had her cool mask put off the bullies, but potential friends too, except for Sal.

What would Sal say? She closed off that line of thought, but not before she experienced a wave of deep sadness. She didn’t share secrets with Sal any more; she had lost her best friend the day she had found her in bed with her fiancé. It was to have been her wedding day.

And now here she was, a married woman. Kamel’s touch was deft, almost clinical, but there was nothing clinical about the shimmies of sensation that zigzagged through her body as his fingers brushed her ear lobe.

Hannah breathed again when he straightened up, keeping her expression as neutral as his.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured distantly. ‘Could you tell me where the kitchen is?’

He looked surprised by the question. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’

‘You don’t know where your own kitchen is?’

Kamel, who still looked bemused, ignored her question. ‘Why were you going to the kitchen?’ he persisted. ‘If you want a tour of the place the housekeeper will...’

‘I didn’t want a tour. I wanted breakfast.’ She had eaten nothing the previous evening. Unfortunately she had not shown similar restraint when it came to the champagne.

‘Why didn’t you ring for something?’

‘Do you really not know where your kitchen is?’

He arched a sardonic brow. ‘And am I meant to believe you do? That you are a regular visitor to the kitchens at Brent Hall?’ It was not an area he had seen on the occasion he had been a guest at Charles Latimer’s country estate, a vast Elizabethan manor with a full complement of staff. The daughter of the house had not been home at the time but her presence had been very much felt.

There was barely a polished surface in the place that did not have a framed photo of her and her accomplishments through the years—playing the violin, riding a horse, looking athletic with a tennis racket, looking academic in a gown and mortar board.

And looking beautiful in the portrait in the drawing room over the fireplace.

‘He really caught her,’ the proud father had said when he’d found Kamel looking at it.

* * *

His sarcastic drawl set her teeth on edge. ‘I left home at eighteen.’

And by then Hannah had been a very good cook, thanks to her father’s chef at Brent Hall. Sarah Curtis had an impressive professional pedigree, she had worked in top kitchens around Europe and she had a daughter who had no interest in food or cooking. When she’d realised that Hannah did, she’d encouraged that interest.

For Hannah the kitchen was a happy place, the place her father came and sat in the evenings, where he shed his jacket and his formality. She had not realised then why...now she did.

‘Yes, I can imagine the hardship of picking out an outfit and booking a table every night must have been difficult. What taxing subject did you study?’

‘Classics,’ she snapped.

‘So you spent a happy three years learning something incredibly useful.’

‘Four actually. I needed extra time because I’m dyslexic.’

‘You have dyslexia?’

‘Which doesn’t mean I’m stupid.’

It was a taunt she had obviously heard before, and taunts left scars. Kamel experienced a swift surge of anger as he thought of the people responsible for creating this defensive reflex. In his opinion it was them, not Hannah, who could be accused of stupidity...ignorance...cruelty.

Kamel was looking at her oddly. The silence stretched. Was he worried their child might inherit her condition? He might be right, but at least she’d know what signs to look for—he or she wouldn’t have to wait until they were a teenager before they had a diagnosis.

‘You have dyslexia and you got a degree in Classics?’ Now that was something that required serious determination.

‘Not a first, but I can make a cup of tea and toast a slice of bread, and at least I don’t judge people I don’t know...’ She stopped and thought, Why am I playing it down? ‘I got an upper second and actually I’m a good cook—very good.’ She’d be even better if she had accepted the internship at the restaurant that Sarah had wangled for her: awful hours, menial repetitive tasks and the chance to work under a three-star Michelin chef.

For once she hadn’t been able to coax her father around to her way of thinking—he had exploded when he’d learnt of the plan. It hadn’t just been to please him that instead she had accepted the prestigious university place she had been offered; it had been because she had realised that the contentious issue of her career had become a major issue between her father and his cook.

His mistress.

The smile that hitched one corner of Kamel’s mouth upwards did not touch his eyes; they remained thoughtful, almost wary. ‘I have married a clever woman and a domestic goddess. Lucky me.’

Her jaw tightened at what she perceived as sarcasm.

‘Lucky me,’ he repeated, seeing her in the wedding dress, her face clustered with damp curls, her lips looking pink and bruised, her passion-glazed eyes heavy and deep blue, not cold, but hot. He rubbed his thumb absently against his palm, mimicking the action when he had stroked her cheek, feeling the invisible fuzz of invisible downy hair on the soft surface.

The contrast with the cold, classy woman before him could not have been more dramatic; they were both beautiful but the woman last night had been sexy, sinfully hot, available—but married. He didn’t sleep with drunk women; the choice was normally an end-of-story shrug, not hours of seething frustration while he wrestled his passion into submission, cursing his black and white sense of honour.

The same honour that had made him push Amira into Hakim’s arms.

He was either a saint or an idiot!

Hannah gave a mental shrug and turned a slender shoulder, telling herself that it didn’t matter what he thought of her...she still wanted to hit him.

Or kiss him.

Dusting an invisible speck off her silk dress, she gave a faint smile and thought about slapping that expression of smug superiority off his hateful face.

‘Relax, we leave at twelve-thirty.’

Relax, no. But this was the best news she had had in several nightmare days.

‘Where are you off to?’ She didn’t care but it seemed polite to ask.

‘We.’

Her expression froze. ‘We? What are you talking about? There is no we!’

‘Please do not treat me to another bout of your histrionics. Behind closed doors there is no we.’ Lips twisted into a sardonic smile, he sat on the edge of the desk. ‘But in public we are a loving couple and you will show me respect.’

‘When you stop lying to me. You said we would not have to live together.’

‘You didn’t really believe that. I said what you wanted to hear. It seemed the kindest thing at the time.’

She let out a snort of sheer disbelief—was this man for real? ‘Perhaps I should thank you for kindly lying through your teeth.’

He glanced at the watch on his wrist, exposing the fine dark hairs on his arm as he flicked his cuff. ‘Quite clearly we have things to discuss,’ he conceded.

Hannah, who was breathing hard, flashed a bitter smile. ‘Discuss’ implied reasonable and flexible. It implied listening. ‘You think?’

He refused to recognise the irony in her voice. ‘Yes, I do think.’

‘You are giving me a time slot?’ She was married to a man she was expected to make an appointment to talk to? Now that really brought home how awful this entire situation was. She had walked into it with her eyes wide open and her brain in denial. The fact was that deep down she had never stopped being a person who believed in happy ever after, who believed that everything happened for a reason.

A spasm of irritation crossed his lean, hard features.

She shook her head and gave a laugh of sheer disbelief. ‘Or should that be granting me an audience?’ she wondered, letting her head tip forward as she performed a mocking curtsey.

The childish reaction made his jaw clench.

‘You’re used to people dropping everything when you require attention. But I’ve got a newsflash...’ He let the sentence hang, but the languid contempt in his voice made it easy to fill in the blanks as he glanced down at the stack of papers spread out on the inlaid table.

It wasn’t that she wanted to be important to him, but a little empathy—she’d have settled for civility—would have made him human. Instead he intended to map out just how insignificant she was in the scheme of things from the outset. Did he really think she didn’t know she was on the bottom rung of his priorities?

Hannah could feel the defensive ice forming on her features. ‘Sorry,’ she said coldly. ‘I’m still living in a world where people have marriages based on mutual respect, not mutual contempt! It was unrealistic of me, and it won’t happen again,’ she promised. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. Have your people talk to my people and...’ The ice chips left her voice as it quivered... My people. I have no people. The total isolation of her position hit home for the first time.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

‘I need an hour.’

She opened her eyes and found he was looking right at her. Her stomach immediately went into a dive.

‘I could postpone this but I assumed you would prefer to arrive early at Brent.’

Her eyes flew wide. ‘Brent!’ She gave a shaky smile. ‘You’re taking me home?’

‘This is your home.’

Swallowing the hurt and annoyed with herself for leaping to conclusions, she lifted her chin and stared at him coldly. ‘This will never be my home.’

‘That, ma belle, is up to you. But your father wanted to hold a wedding party for us, and for your friends. I think it would only be polite for us to be there. I will have some breakfast sent up to your room.’

Jaw clenched at the dismissal, Hannah left the room with her head held high.

CHAPTER SEVEN

HER FATHER WAS there to greet them at the private airstrip where they landed, and Hannah was relieved he looked better than the previous day, almost his old self. She was sandwiched between the two men in the back seat of the limo and by the time they arrived at Brent Hall the effort of maintaining a reassuring pretence for her father’s sake had taken its toll, her persistent nagging headache showing signs of becoming a full-blown migraine.

‘I think I might go to my room, unless you want me to help.’ There was evidence of the preparations for tonight everywhere.

‘No, you have a rest. Good idea. Tonight is all under control. I got a new firm in and they seem excellent—they’re doing the lot. I have a few ideas I want to run past your husband.’ He glanced towards Kamel and joked, ‘Not much point having a financial genius in the family if you don’t make use of him, is there? I’m sure he’ll even write your thank-you letters.’

Hannah laughed and her father winked conspiratorially at her. ‘A family joke.’

And one that was at his daughter’s expense, thought Kamel, who had seen the flinch before the smile. How many times, he wondered, had she been on the receiving end of such jokes? For a man who cared deeply for his daughter, Charles Latimer seemed remarkably blind to her sensitivity.

‘I am aware of Hannah’s dyslexia. Is that the family joke?’

‘She told you?’ Hannah’s father looked startled.

‘She did. But even if she hadn’t I would have noticed how uncomfortable the family joke made her.’

Hannah’s father looked horrified by the suggestion. ‘It’s just that some of her mistakes have been so...’ His stammering explanation ground to a halt in the face of his new son-in-law’s fixed, unsmiling stare. ‘Hannah has a great sense of humour.’

‘I don’t.’

* * *

Instead of heading for her room, Hannah made her way down to the kitchens. But finding the place had been taken over by outside caterers, she made her way to Sarah’s private flat.

The cook was delighted to see her. So was Olive, the dog sitting in her basket, surrounded by her puppies, who licked Hannah’s hand and wagged her stumpy little tail.

Without being asked, Sarah produced some painkillers along with the coffee and cakes. ‘Now, tell me all about it.’

Hannah did—or at least the approved version. She stayed half an hour before she got up to leave.

‘Where are you going?’ Sarah called after her.

‘To my room. I need to get ready.’ She pulled a face.

‘Not that way, Hannah.’ Sarah laughed. ‘You can’t sleep in your old bedroom. You’re a married woman now.’

‘Oh, God, I forgot!’ Hannah groaned.

If the cook thought this was an odd thing to say she didn’t let on. Instead she enthused about the complete refurbishment of the guest suite that Hannah was to stay in. ‘Mind you, if you’re used to palaces...’

‘I’m not used to palaces. I’ll never be used to palaces. I hate them and I hate him!’ Then it all came tumbling out—the whole story.

‘I knew something was wrong,’ Sarah said as she piled sugar in a cup of tea and made Hannah drink it. ‘I don’t know what to say, Hannah. I really don’t.’

‘There’s nothing to say. I’m sorry I dumped on you like this.’

‘Heavens, girl, that’s what I’m here for. You know I’ve always thought of you as my second daughter.’

‘I wish I was,’ Hannah replied fiercely, envying Eve her mother. ‘Dad thinks I’m all right with it. You won’t tell him, will you? I worry so much that the stress will...’ She didn’t have to explain her worries to Sarah, who knew about the heart attack. She’d been with Hannah when she’d got the call and had travelled with her to the hospital.

Having extracted a firm promise that Sarah would not reveal how unhappy she was, Hannah made her way to the guest room and discovered that Sarah had not exaggerated about the makeover.

She explored the luxurious bedroom. An opulent silk curtained four-poster bed occupied one end of the room. She quickly looked away, but not before several illicit images slipped through her mental block. Her stomach was still flipping lazily as she focused on the opposite end of the room where a bathtub deep enough to swim in sat on a raised dais.

Behind it there were two doors. One opened, she discovered, into a massive wet room—she pressed one of the buttons on a glass control panel that would have looked at home in a space station and the room was filled with the sounds of the ocean. Unable to locate a button that turned it off, she closed the door and pushed open the other door. The lights inside automatically lit up, revealing a space that was the size of her entire flat, lined with hanging space, mirrors and shelves.

It was not a full wardrobe, but neither was it empty. The selection of clothes and shoes that were hung and neatly folded were her own. Shoes, bags, underclothes—there was something for every occasion, including an obvious choice for this evening where all eyes would be on her. She pushed away the thought of the evening ahead and lifted a silk shirt to her face. Feeling the sharp prick of tears behind her eyelids, she blinked them back.

After the last few days Hannah had imagined that nothing could shock her ever again. But when she opened the large velvet box on the dressing table and looked at the contents displayed on the silk lining, she knew that she had been wrong!

* * *

Kamel glanced at the closed door, then at his watch. He was expecting her to be late and he was expecting her to be hostile; she was neither. At seven on the dot the door opened and his wife stepped into the room.

Kamel struggled to contain his gasp. He had seen her at her worst and that had been beautiful. At her best she was simply breathtaking. The satin gown she wore with such queenly confidence left one shoulder bare, Grecian style. The bodice cut snugly across her breasts, continued in a body-hugging column to the knee where it flared out, sweeping the ground. Her skin against the black glowed with a pearly opalescence.

The silence stretched and Hannah fought the absurd urge to curtsey. What was she meant to do—ask for marks out of ten?

Anxiety gnawed her stomach lining and tension tied the muscles in her shoulders but her expression was serene as she took a step towards him and fought the ridiculous urge to ask for his approval. ‘Am I late?’

‘You are not wearing the diamonds,’ he said, noticing the absence of the jewels he had had removed from the vault that morning.

‘I’m a “less is more” kind of girl.’ She could not explain even to herself her reluctance to wear the jewels.

He arched a sardonic brow. ‘And I’m an “if you have it flaunt it” sort of guy.’

‘All right, I’ll put them on,’ she agreed without good grace before sweeping from the room. ‘Satisfied now?’ she asked when she returned a short while later wearing the jewellery. On the plus side, nobody would be looking at her now—they’d be staring at the king’s ransom she wore.

Hannah watched the lift doors opening and felt her stomach go into a steep dive. She did not question the instinct that warned her not to be in an enclosed space with this man. She picked up her skirt in one hand. ‘I’m fine with the stairs.’

‘I’m not.’

Not anticipating the hand against the small of her back that propelled her forward, she tensed before retreating into a corner and standing there trying not to meet her own eyes in the mirrors that covered four walls of the lift.

She exited the lift a step ahead of him, almost falling out in the process.

‘Relax.’

The advice drew a disbelieving laugh from the resentful recipient, who turned her head sharply and was reminded of the chandelier earrings she wore as they brushed her skin. ‘Seriously?’

The man had spent most of their flight giving her a last-minute crash course in how princesses were meant to behave. The consequences of her failing had not been spelt out, but had left her with the impression the political stability of a nation—or possibly even a continent—could be jeopardised by her saying the wrong word to the wrong person or using the wrong fork.

So no pressure, then!

‘If I’d been listening to a word you said I’d be a gibbering wreck, but happily I’ve started as I mean to go on. I tuned you out.’ She smiled at his expression, catching the flicker of shock in his eyes, and chalked a mental point in the air. Then, producing a brilliant smile, she laid a hand on his arm as they reached the double doors of the ballroom.

‘I do know how to work a room, you know.’

Despite the assurance, she was actually glad to enter the room beside a figure who oozed authority. She’d been acting as a hostess for her father for years, but it was a shock to find few faces she recognised in the room.

Despite her initial misgivings, a glass of champagne later she was circulating, accepting congratulations, smiling and doing a pretty good job of lying through her clenched teeth. Until she saw a familiar figure. She went to wave, and then the man he was speaking to turned his head.

She knew, of course, that her father and Rob Preston still saw one another on a personal and professional level, but her ex-fiancé had never been invited to any event when she was present previously.

Hannah moved across the room to where her father stood chatting.

‘Excuse me, can I borrow my father for one minute?’

‘What’s wrong, Hannah?’

‘Rob is here!’

‘He is one of my oldest friends. You’re married now, and I think it’s time we drew a line under what happened, if Rob is willing to forgive and forget.’

‘I should too.’ She took a deep breath. This was what happened when you put your pride before the truth. ‘You’re right, Dad. Fine,’ she said, thinking that it was so not fine.

As the party progressed a few people began to drift outside into the courtyard, and Hannah joined them, having spent the evening avoiding Rob, who to her relief had shown no inclination to speak to her.

With the tree branches filled with white lights and the sound of laughter and music from inside drifting out through the open doors, it was a magical scene. Most people had sensibly avoided the damp grass and remained on the paved area around the pool, laughing and talking, all except a middle-aged couple who reappeared from amongst the trees. The woman’s hair was mussed and her shoes were in her hand.

Hannah looked down at her own feet—they ached in the high heels that matched her gown. She wriggled her cramped toes, forcing blood back into the cramped extremities and wincing at the painful burn. What page on the princess handbook said you weren’t allowed to take off your shoes and walk on the grass? It would be there along with anything else spontaneous and fun. The wistful ache in her throat grew heavier as she watched the man...maybe her husband...slide a shoe back onto the pretty woman’s foot while she balanced precariously on the other. The woman tottered and her partner caught her. There was a lot of soft laughter and a brief kiss before they went back indoors.

Hannah was taking a last deep breath of fresh air and painting on a smile just as a figure emerged, his eyes scanning as if he was searching for something or someone. Her bodyguard stood out like a sore thumb, albeit one in black tie.

Hannah found herself moving backwards into the shadow of a tree. She realised she was holding her breath and closing her eyes like a child who wanted to disappear. She looked down at her hands clenched into tight fists and slowly unfurled them. The sight of the deep grooves her nails had cut into the flesh of her palm drew a fleeting frown of acknowledgement but didn’t lessen her defiance.

The buzz lasted a few moments, but as the exhilaration of her small rebellion faded away she stared at her shoes sinking into the damp ground. Was this going to be her life in future? Ignoring ‘don’t walk on the grass’ signs just to feel alive?

As rebellions went it was pathetic.

She was pathetic.

She took a deep breath and, taking her shoes off and holding them in one hand, she used the other to lift her skirt free of the damp grass as she straightened her slender shoulder. ‘Man up, Hannah,’ she muttered to herself as she moved towards the lights that filtered through the bank of trees.

‘Hello, Hannah. I knew you wanted me to follow you.’

Hannah let out a soft yelp of shock and dropped both her shoes and skirt. The fabric trailed on the wet ground as she turned around.

The comment came from a man with a massive ego, a man who thought everything was about him.

The acknowledgement shocked Hannah more than the fact Rob had followed her. Even after she had discovered his infidelities there had been a small, irrational corner of her brain that had made excuses for him.

There were no excuses, not for him and not for her either for being so damned gullible—for not seeing past the perfect manners, the practised smile and the thoughtful gifts. She’d seen little flashes of the real Rob and she’d chosen to ignore them and the growing unease she had felt. If she hadn’t walked into Sal’s room and found them...

She closed her eyes to blot out the mental image, and lifted her chin. She had been dreading this moment but now that it was here...how bad could it be? She’d spent two days in a prison cell. She could definitely cope with an awkward situation.

‘Hello, Rob.’ He’d been drinking heavily. She could smell it even before he stepped into the patch of moonlight and she was able to see his high colour and glazed eyes. Seeing Rob when she had thought he was the love of her life had always made her stomach quiver, but now it quivered with distaste.

‘No, I didn’t want you to follow me. I really didn’t.’

He looked taken aback by her reaction. Clearly I’m not following the script he wrote, she thought. Drunk or not drunk, he was still a very handsome man, the premature silvered wings of hair giving him a distinguished look, along with the horn-rimmed glasses that she had been amazed to discover were plain glass, though they gave a superficial impression of intellect and sensitivity.

But then Rob always had been more about style than substance. Deep down Hannah had always known that, she had just chosen not to think about it. But for the first time now she was struck by a softness about him. Not just the thickness around the middle that regular sessions with a personal trainer could never quite eliminate, but in his features... Had he always looked that way or was it just the contrast? She had spent the last two days in the company of a man who made granite look soft.

An image of Kamel floated into her mind: his strong-boned aristocratic features, his mobile, sensual mouth.

‘Just like old times. Remember the time we brought a bottle of champagne out here and—?’

Hannah stiffened and matched his hot stare with one of cold contempt. ‘That wasn’t me.’

He stopped, his eyes falling as his lips compressed in a petulant line. ‘Oh! She never meant anything—’

Did he even remember who she was? The anger and bitterness was still there, and most of all the knowledge that she had been a total fool. But now she could see the black humour in it...in him.

He was a joke.

‘And now you mean nothing to me.’

As he sensed her shift of attitude, sensed he had lost his power, his expression darkened. ‘That’s not true and we both know it.’

‘Look, Rob, Dad wanted you to be here and that’s fine. But you and I are never going to be friends. Let’s settle for civil...?’ She gave a sigh and felt relief. This was the moment she had been dreading—coming face to face with the man she had considered the love of her life only to discover he meant nothing.

Her relieved sigh became a sharp intake of alarm as Rob lumbered drunkenly towards her, forcing Hannah to retreat until her back hit the tree trunk. She winced as the bark grazed her back through the thin fabric of her gown.

‘You were meant to be with me. We are soul mates... What went wrong, Hannah?’

A contemptuous laugh came from Hannah’s lips. She was too angry at being manhandled to be afraid. ‘Maybe all my friends—the ones you bedded after we were engaged?’ She made the sarcastic suggestion without particular rancour. Rob was pathetic.

‘I told you, they meant nothing. They were just cheap...’ His lips curled. ‘Not like you—you’re pure and perfect. I was willing to wait for you. It would have been different after we were married. I would have given you everything.’ He clasped a hand to his heart.

The dramatic gesture caused Hannah’s discomfort to tip over into amusement. He looked so ridiculous.

His eyes narrowed at her laugh, then slid to the jewels that gleamed against the skin of her throat. ‘But I wasn’t enough for you, was I?’

She swallowed; the laugh had been a bad idea. ‘I think I’d better go.’

‘A love match, is it? Or should that be an oil deal?’ He saw her look of shock and smiled. ‘People talk, and I know a lot of people.’

On the receiving end of his fixed lascivious stare, she felt sick. ‘Well, I’m not pure or perfect but I am extremely pis—’

Rob, in full florid flow, cut across her. ‘A work of art,’ he raved. ‘Sheer perfection, my perfect queen, not his—he doesn’t appreciate you like I would have. I’d have looked after you...the other women, they meant nothing to me,’ he slurred. ‘You must know that—you are the only woman I have ever loved.’

How did I ever think he was the man of my dreams? she wondered, feeling queasy as he planted a hand on the tree trunk beside her head and leaned in closer.

Struggling not to breathe in the fumes, she countered acidly, ‘Well, you know, you can’t miss what you’ve never had.’

Having followed the spiky imprints of her heels across the wet grass, Kamel took only a few minutes to locate the couple in the tree. He didn’t pause. Unable to see them, he heard their voices as with a face like thunder he charged straight through a shrub.

This wasn’t a moment to stop and consider, not a moment for subtlety. He’d bent over backwards to be reasonable but she wasn’t a woman who responded to reasonable. Was she pushing boundaries, checking just how far she could push him? Or maybe she simply lacked any normal sense of propriety? This wasn’t about jealousy. It was one thing to have a pragmatic approach to marriage, but she had not just crossed the line, she had obliterated it!

The couple came into his line of vision about the same moment that he mentally processed the interchange he had just heard. It was astonishing enough to stop him in his tracks.

‘Well, he’s welcome to you!’

Hannah struggled and failed to swallow a caustic retort to this petulant response. ‘Well, the idea that I was your soul mate didn’t last long, did it?’

‘Bitch!’ Rob snarled. ‘You think you’ve landed on your feet now, but we all know what happens to people when they get in your husband’s way...’

Hannah was shaken by the malice and ugly jealousy in his face. Jealousy...! She shook her head in disbelief. Perhaps he’d been acting the injured party so long he actually believed it.

The full realisation of just how lucky she had been hit home. She could have been married to him.

Her stomach gave a fresh shudder of disgust as she pulled in a breath, trying to surreptitiously ease away from him. As nice as it would have been to drop the icy dignity that had got her through that awful day, this wasn’t the time and definitely not the place, she thought, to have the last word.

This could get ugly.

‘They have a habit of disappearing.’ He mimed a slashing action across his throat. ‘So watch yourself.’

The sinister comment drew a startled laugh from her. It was clearly not the reaction Rob had wanted, as his face darkened and he grabbed for her. Things happened with dizzying speed so that later when she thought about it Hannah couldn’t recall the exact sequence of events.

Kamel surged forward but Hannah was quicker. Unable to escape, she ducked and her attacker’s head hit the tree trunk with a dull thud.

Her attempt to slip under his arm was less successful, and by the time Kamel reached her the man, with blood streaming from a superficial head wound, had caught her arm and swung her back.

‘Bitch!’

Hannah hit out blindly with her free hand and then quite suddenly she was free. Off balance, she fell and landed on her bottom on the wet grass. When she looked up Rob was standing with one hand twisted behind his back with Kamel whispering what she doubted were sweet nothings into the older man’s ear, if the white-lipped fury stamped on his face was any indication.

Rob, who had blood seeping from a gash on his head, seemed to shrink before her eyes and started muttering excuses in full self-preservation mode.

‘If I ever see you in the same postcode as my wife...if you so much as look in her direction...’ Kamel leaned in closer, his nostrils flaring in distaste at the smell of booze and fear that enveloped the man like a cloud, and told him what would happen to him, sparing little detail.

Hannah struggled to her feet imagining the headlines. ‘Don’t hurt him!’

The plea caused Kamel’s attention to swivel from the man he held to Hannah.

‘Please?’

A muscle along his jaw clenched as he stared at her. Then, with a nod that caused two invisible figures to emerge from the trees, he stood aside and the trio walked away.

‘Sure you don’t want to go and hold his hand?’

‘I wasn’t protecting him. I was protecting you.’ Why are you explaining yourself to him? she wondered. It’s not as if he’s going to believe you and it’s not like you care what he thinks.

A look of scowling incredulity spread across his face. ‘Me? You are protecting me?’ He had no idea why her caring about someone who was clearly an abusive loser bothered him so much, but it did.

Her eyes moved slowly up the long, lean length of his muscle-packed body. It was hard to imagine anyone who looked less like he needed looking after.

‘The press could dub you something worse than The Heartbreaker Prince.’ She paused and saw him absorb her comment. His anger still permeated the air around them but it simmered now where it had boiled before. ‘Rob likes to play the victim. I can just see the headlines now...’

‘I wasn’t going to hit him, but if I had he wouldn’t have been running to any scandal sheet,’ he retorted, managing to sound every bit as sinister as Rob had implied he was. While Hannah believed Rob’s comments were motivated by malice, there was no escaping the fact that she knew very little about the man she had married and what he was capable of.

Unwilling to release his image of her as a cold-hearted, unapproachable ice bitch, he asked, ‘What the hell were you thinking of meeting him out here?’

What the hell had she been thinking about getting involved with him to begin with? The man had been mentally filed in his head as a victim. Stupid, but a victim, and now he turned out to be a... His fists clenched as he found himself wishing he had not shown restraint.

Temper fizzed through her body, sparking wrathful blue flames in her eyes. ‘Are you implying that I arranged this? Rob followed me!’

‘And I followed him.’ It was an impulse that he had not checked even though it was a situation that had not required his personal intervention. In fact his abrupt departure had probably caused more speculation than Hannah’s.

‘Why? I thought you delegated all that sort of thing.’

‘There are some things that a husband cannot delegate.’ She might not be wife material but she was definitely mistress material. She might be the sort of woman he would normally cross the road to avoid, but there was no denying that physically she was perfect.

‘So you thought it was your duty to rescue me.’ She had about as much luck injecting amusement into her voice as she had escaping his dark, relentless stare. It was becoming harder to rationalise her response to his strong personal magnetism, or control the pulse-racing mixture of dread and excitement whenever he was close by.

‘Little did I know you had it all under control.’

Her clenched teeth ached at the sarcasm. ‘My hero riding to the rescue yet again.’

‘I thought I was rescuing your...’

‘Victim?’

He dragged his smouldering glance free of her cushiony soft lips and found himself staring at her heaving bosom. ‘The man is...’ He said a word that she didn’t understand but it was not hard to get the drift. ‘What is your ex doing at our wedding party?’

The accusation made her blink. ‘The word party suggests celebration. Tonight has felt more like a punishment. And yes, we all know this is my fault, though I have to tell you that line is getting a bit boring. I’m willing to take my medicine and make nice and pretend you’re almost as marvellous as you think you are, but if this marriage is going to last, and I’m talking beyond the next few seconds, it won’t be on a speak-when-you’re-spoken-to, walk-two-steps-behind-me way. I am not willing to be a doormat!’

She released a shuddering sigh and warmed to her theme. ‘So from now on I expect to be treated with some damned respect, and not just in public!’ Oh, God! Overwhelmed with a mixture of horror and exhilaration, she could not recall losing control of herself quite so completely in her life. Hannah brought her lashes down in a protective veil as she gulped in several shallow breaths while her heart rate continued to race.

The ice queen is dead! Long live the princess of passion! His mental headline tugged the corners of his mouth upwards, but the curve flattened out as he felt his body stir lustfully. It wasn’t the physical response that bothered him; it was the strength of it and the fact it kept intruding.

Mentally and physically, discipline and order were important to Kamel. He had never made a conscious decision to compartmentalise the disparate aspects of his life, but he took the ability for granted and it enabled him to combine the role he had unexpectedly inherited and any sort of personal life.

It had not crossed his mind that being married would lead to any overlap. Tonight came under the heading of duty, with a capital D. Such occasions were more than useful, they were essential, and he definitely shouldn’t be thinking about how she’d look naked, and how soft and inviting her mouth was. Had she just said what he thought she had? He clenched his teeth and struggled to regroup his thoughts. Focus, Kamel—but not on her mouth.

‘Would I be right in thinking that was an...’ he spoke slowly, winged brows drawn into a straight line, and shaking his head slightly as though the concept he was about to voice was just so off the planet as to be unreal ‘...ultimatum?’

Hannah didn’t pause to analyse the weirdness in his voice. If he wanted to call it that it was fine by her! Like an angry curtain, the protective veil of her lashes lifted, but her militant response was delayed as their glances connected and the subsequent sensual jolt caused her brain to stall.

‘I if...I...?’

The nerve endings in her brain might have stopped sending messages, but during that long, nerve-shredding pause those elsewhere had stepped up to fill the vacuum. She could almost feel the blood racing through her veins—it felt dark and hot like the ache low in her pelvis. She snatched a breath, let it out in a quivering sigh, and lifted her chin.

‘Yes, it is, and,’ she added, wagging her finger as she took a squelchy step towards him, ‘if you want to know about the damned guest list why ask me? Ask Dad. I probably know half a dozen people here by first name. You’re the one in the loop. I’m here to smile and take one for the team.’

‘Take one for the team?’

‘What else would you call it?’ His outrage struck her as the height of hypocrisy. ‘Apologies to your ego, but don’t expect me to pretend I like the situation when we’re alone!’

‘No. You’ll just pretend you haven’t thought about what it will be like.’

‘What what would be like?’

His slow predatory smile sent a pulse of sexual heat through her body.

‘Oh, that.’ She faked amusement to cover her embarrassment. ‘Now? Here?’ She laughed a high-pitched laugh. ‘Has anyone ever mentioned your awful timing?’

‘Actually, no.’

She swallowed hard, thinking, That I can believe. ‘Silly me! Of course, even if you were lousy in bed they’d still tell you how marvellous you were because you’re—’ She broke off and finished lamely, ‘You’re...a prince.’

‘You’re a princess.’

‘What?’

‘You’re a princess.’

As in dignified, serene, gracious, aloof...qualities that when she’d been plain old Hannah Latimer she’d had in abundance. Now she was the real deal—a real princess—she’d turned into some sort of fishwife!

It isn’t me, it’s him, she thought, levelling a look of breathless resentment up at his impossibly handsome face. He was the one who was making her act this way, the one who was making her feel...out of control. Because of him she was saying the first thing that popped into her head. She’d lost every vestige of mental censorship; she was saying things she didn’t know she felt...

‘Oh, God!’ Without warning, the adrenalin wave that she’d been riding suddenly broke and she started shaking.

Watching her wrap her arms around herself, an action that didn’t disguise the fact she was shaking like a leaf, Kamel felt a sharp stab of guilt. ‘You’ve had a bad experience.’ A fact he was a little late acknowledging.

She slung him a look. Anybody hearing him would think he gave a damn. ‘I’m fine. Look, it was handy you turned up when you did.’ He was the last person in the world she would have wanted to see her in that position, but that didn’t alter the fact she had needed saving. ‘And if the opportunity ever arises and some ex-girlfriend of yours comes to scratch your eyes out I’ll return the favour.’ By the time the last syllable had left her lips Hannah was utterly drained; her ironic smile was not weak, it was non-existent.

‘So you will rescue me?’ He was torn between amusement, astonishment and an uncharacteristic impulse that he firmly quashed. Comforting embraces were so not his style.

She felt the colour rush to her cheeks. ‘You think that’s funny because I’m a woman.’ Hopping on one foot while she bent to try and retrieve the shoe that had been sucked into a patch of mud, she turned her head and threw him a look of frowning dislike. ‘You going to stand there and watch?’

He held up his phone, his eyes trained on her bottom, the firm, curvy outline very clear against the silk of her gown. ‘That really is a good look for you!’

‘You dare!’ she growled.

Still grinning—the grin made him look normal and nice and far too good-looking—he shrugged and slid the phone back into his pocket before he bent and grabbed the protruded strap of her shoe. It came free with a massive slurping sound.

‘Well, Cinderella, you can go to the ball but I don’t think that you’re going to be doing much dancing in this,’ he said, shaking free the larger dollops of mud that clung to the heel. His brows suddenly lifted.

‘What?’

‘I never realised,’ he said, his glance transferring from the wrecked shoe to her foot and back again, ‘that you actually have really big feet.’

Hannah’s jaw dropped.

‘As for women being weaker...Have you ever seen a tigress protecting her young?’ It was not the image of a tigress that formed in his mind, though. It was Hannah with a baby in her arms at her breast.

‘I suppose you have.’ There was an air of resignation in her response. He’d done all the things she hadn’t... An image that she had seen in a magazine during her last hairdresser’s appointment superimposed itself over his face: the gorgeous scantily clad model strutting her stuff at a red-carpet event while her escort looked on indulgently.

‘I have no doubt that a woman can be fierce in defence of what she considers hers.’

‘You’re not mine,’ she blurted, embarrassed by the suggestion and slightly queasy. In her head the damned supermodel was now doing things to the man she had married that Hannah knew she never could...which was a good thing, she reminded herself.

‘And I’m not fierce. I’m...I just like to pay my debts.’

‘And you shall.’

Promise, threat...Hannah was beyond differentiating between the two even in her own head. ‘By having sex with you?’

Anger drew the skin tight across his hard-boned features. ‘I have no intention of negotiating sex with my own wife,’ he asserted proudly.

‘You think I’m going to have sex with a man I don’t like or respect?’ She barely spoke above a whisper but her low voice sounded loud in the charged silence.

‘You don’t have to respect or like someone to want to rip off their clothes.’

‘My God, you do love yourself.’

‘This isn’t love, but it is a strong mutual attraction.’

Heart thudding, she dodged his stare and snatched the shoe from him, grimacing as she slid her foot back in. ‘Thank you.’ She managed two steps before the heel snapped and threw her off balance. The jolt as she struggled to stay upright caused her chignon to come free, effectively blinding her. She took several more lopsided strides forward before she stopped and swore.

Throwing him a look that dared him to comment, she took off both shoes and threw them in a bush. Hitching her skirt a little higher, she continued barefoot, feeling his eyes in her back.

‘Go on, say it!’ she challenged him.

‘Say what?’

‘Say whatever sarcastic little gem you’re just aching to say. Go ahead,’ she said, opening her arms wide in invitation. ‘I can take it.’

Their eyes connected and her challenging smile vanished. She dropped her arms so fast she almost lost her balance. She would have lowered her gaze had his dark, glittered stare not held her captive. The silence settled like a heavy velvet blanket around them. She had to fight for breath and fight the weird compulsion that made her want to...

‘You want to take me, ma belle?’ His eyes cancelled out the joke in his voice.

She could feel the heat inside her swell and she thought, Yes, I do. ‘You can’t say things like that to me.’

‘What do you expect? You are a very confrontational woman.’

‘I’m cold.’

‘So the rumour goes, but we both know different. What were you doing with a man who wants to put you on a pedestal and worship you from afar?’

‘Many girls dream of that.’

‘Not you, though. You want to be touched and you looked like you’d seen a ghost when you saw him.’ Kamel had made it his business to find out who the man was who was responsible for her shaken look.

Hannah heaved in a deep breath. She longed to be touched. She shivered; he saw it and frowned. ‘You’re cold.’

‘Oh, and I was just getting used to the idea of being hot,’ she quipped back.

He threw her a look. ‘I will explain to the guests that you are feeling unwell. Rafiq will see you to your room.’

On cue the big man appeared. Hannah was getting used to it—she didn’t jump, but she did accept with gratitude the wrap he placed across her shoulders.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HANNAH ACTUALLY PERSUADED Rafiq to leave her in the hallway and made her way upstairs alone. It was an area of the house that no guests had entered and it was very quiet. She found herself walking past the door to the guest suite, drawn by a need to experience the comfort of familiar things. She took the extra flight of narrow winding oak stairs hidden behind a door that led up to the next floor.

The attic rooms had been the servants’ quarters years before. Later on they became the nursery and more recently a semi self-contained unit, complete with mini kitchen. She opened the door of her old bedroom and stepped inside. The paintwork was bright and fresh but it was the same colour scheme she had chosen when she was twelve. The bed was piled high with stuffed toys, and the doll’s house she had had for her tenth birthday stood on the table by the window. It was like being caught in a time warp.

She picked up a stuffed toy from the pile on the bed and flicked the latch on the doll’s house. The door swung open, automatically illuminating the neat rooms inside.

She stood there, a frown pleating her brow, and waited. She didn’t even recognise she was waiting until nothing happened. There was no warm glow, no lessening of tension. She didn’t feel safe or secure.

In the past, she realised, this room had represented a sanctuary. She had closed the door and shut out the world. But even though the familiar things that had given her a sense of security were still the same—she had changed.

She closed the door of the doll’s house with a decisive click. It was time to look forward, not back.

* * *

In the guest suite she showered and pulled a matching robe on over her silk pyjamas. Her hair hung loose and damp down her back. Leaving the steamy bathroom, she walked across to the interconnecting door and, after a pause, turned the key. Locked doors were no solution. Hugging a teddy bear had not helped, and hiding from the situation was not going to make it go away. Would talking help? Hannah didn’t know, but she was willing to give it a try.

So long as he didn’t construe the open door as an invitation to do more than talk.

She cinched the belt of her robe tight and walked across to the bed, trying not to think about the flare of sexual heat in her stomach as she heard his voice in her mind—You don’t have to respect or like someone to want to rip off their clothes.

‘Oh, God!’

She didn’t know if the dismayed moan was in her head or she’d actually cried out, but when she opened her eyes there was no room for debate—he was no creation of her subconscious. A very real Kamel stood framed in the doorway, one shoulder wedged against the jamb, as he pulled his tie free from his neck.

‘I’m glad that’s over.’

He sounded almost human. He was human, she realised, noticing the lines of fatigue etched into his face—a fatigue that was emphasised by the shadow of dark stubble across his jaw. So he could get tired. It was a tiny chink in his armour, but she still struggled to see him suffering the same doubts and fears as the rest of the human race, and it went without saying that fatigue didn’t stop him looking stupendously attractive. No, beautiful, she corrected, her eyes running over the angles and planes of his darkly lean face, a face that she found endlessly fascinating. She compressed her lips and closed a door on the thought. She knew it would be foolish to lower her defences around him.

He pulled the tie through his long fingers and let it dangle there, arching a sardonic brow as his dark eyes swept her face. ‘So, no locked doors?’

‘That was childish.’

The admission surprised him but he hid it. It was harder to hide his reaction to the way she looked. The only trace of make-up was the pink varnish on her toenails. With her hair hanging damply down her back and her face bare she looked incredibly young, incredibly vulnerable and incredibly beautiful.

There was a wary caution in the blue eyes that met his, but not the hostility that he had come to expect.

‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’ The purple smudges under her eyes no longer smoothed away by a skilful application of make-up made it clear she still desperately needed sleep. Kamel reminded himself that her nightmare had been going on forty-eight hours longer than his. He felt a flash of grudging admiration for her—whatever else the woman he had married was, she was not weak.

Hannah absently rubbed the toes of one foot against the arch of the other until she saw him staring and she tucked them under her. She pushed her hair behind her ears as she admitted, ‘I felt bad letting you make excuses for me. Was it awkward?’ She had probably broken about a hundred unwritten rules of protocol.

‘Awkward?’ He arched a brow. ‘You mean did anyone see you leave with—?’

‘I didn’t leave with him. He f—’

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I know.’

‘Me not being there. What did you say?’

‘I did not go into detail. I simply told my uncle that you had retired early.’ He had actually told Charles Latimer a little more. He had made it clear to his father-in-law that if he wanted his daughter to spend any time under his roof he would guarantee that Rob Preston would not be there.

‘Did they believe you?’

He took a step into the room and dropped his tie onto a chair. ‘Why should we care?’

The we was not symbolic of some new togetherness so the small glow of pleasure it gave her was totally out of proportion.

* * *

‘So how long were you standing there watching?’ She had gone through the scene enough times to realise that Kamel could have heard some, if not all, of the exchange with Rob.

Grave-eyed, she looked up from her contemplation of her hands and heard him say, ‘Long enough.’

She ground her teeth in exasperation at this deliberately cryptic response.

‘So he cheated on you?’

Oh, yes, he would have heard that bit.

‘It happens.’

There was no pity in his voice; Hannah let out a tiny sigh of relief.

‘Dumping him on the actual wedding day was a pretty good revenge.’ Kamel understood the attraction of retribution, though, being a man to whom patience did not come easily, he struggled with the concept of a dish served cold.

‘I didn’t plan it.’ She looked startled by the idea. ‘That’s when I found out.’

He looked at her incredulously. ‘On the actual day?’

She nodded, experiencing the familiar sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as the memory surfaced. It had been an hour before the photographers, hairdressers and make-up artists were due to arrive. She had knocked on Sal’s door under the pretext of collecting the something blue her best friend had promised her, though what she had actually wanted was reassurance—someone to tell her she was suffering from last-minute nerves and it was all normal.

‘I walked in on him with Sal, my chief bridesmaid. They were... It wasn’t until later that I discovered he’d worked his way through most of my circle.’

She didn’t look at him to see his reaction. She told herself she was past caring whether she came across as self-pitying and pathetic, but it wasn’t true. She simply didn’t have the strength left to maintain the illusion. The last few days one hit after another combined with exhaustion had destroyed her normal coping mechanisms... What pride she had left had been used up in her encounter with Rob.

‘So he slept with everyone but you.’

Her eyes flew to his face. ‘So you heard that too.’

He nodded. He had heard, but not quite understood. It was not a new strategy, and she was the sort of woman who was capable of inspiring obsession in susceptible men, though why a man who was willing to marry to get a woman in his bed would then choose to sleep around was more difficult to understand. Especially when the woman in question would make all others look like pale imitations.

‘So the only way he could have you was marriage.’ Twenty-four hours ago the discovery would not have left him with a sense of disappointment. Twenty-four hours ago he’d had no expectations that could be disappointed—he had only expected the worst of her.

His cynical interpretation caused her cobalt-blue eyes to fly wide open in shocked horror. ‘No, I wanted to.’ She gave a tiny grimace and added more honestly, ‘I would have.’ The fact was she simply wasn’t a very sexual creature, which did beg the question as to why she couldn’t look at Kamel or even hear his voice without feeling her insides melt. ‘But he...’

Kamel watched her fumble for words, looking a million miles from the controlled woman reputed to have a block of ice for a heart, and felt something tighten in his chest.

‘Apparently he wanted to worship me, not—’

‘Take you to bed,’ Kamel supplied, thinking the man was even more of a loser than he’d thought.

‘I don’t actually think he thought of me as a woman. More an addition to his art collection. He likes beautiful things...not that I’m saying I’m—’

‘Don’t spoil all this honesty by going coy. We both know you’re beautiful. So why is it everyone thinks he’s the injured party?’

‘I’d prefer to be thought a bitch than an idiot.’ The explanation was not one she had previously articulated. She was startled to hear the words. It was something she had not admitted to anyone before.

‘And your father still invited the man here?’ If a man had treated his daughter that way he would have— Kamel dragged a chair out from the dressing table, swung it around and straddled it.

‘Oh, it was easier to let him think I’d had second thoughts. They’ve been friends for a long time and Dad had already had an awful time telling everyone the wedding was cancelled. A lot of people turned up and it was terrible for him—’

‘And you were having such a great day...’

Hannah’s protective instincts surfaced at the implied criticism of her father.

‘You were right. It was my fault. This is my fault, totally my fault.’

He shook his head, bemused by her vehemence, and protested, ‘You didn’t ask the guy to jump you!’

‘No, not Rob. Getting arrested, getting you mixed up in it, terrifying Dad half to death. If he has another heart attack, it would be down to me.’

It was news to Kamel that he had had one. The man certainly hadn’t been scared enough to change his lifestyle. ‘I think a doctor might disagree. Your father does not hold back when it comes to saturated fat.’

‘You’re trying to make me feel better.’

He studied her face. ‘It’s clearly not working.’

‘Why are you being nice? It’s my fault we had to get married. I should have waited for help. I shouldn’t have left the Land Rover. I shouldn’t have been there at all.’ She shook her head, her face settling into a mask of bitter self-recrimination as she loosed a fractured sob. ‘All the things you said.’

‘The village did get the vaccines, and the help they needed.’

Lost in a morass of self-loathing, she didn’t seem to hear him. ‘I couldn’t even help myself, let alone anyone else. I was only there to prove a point. I’ve spent my life playing it safe.’ She planted her hand flat on her heaving chest and lifted her tear-filled eyes to his.

‘I always played by the rules. I even wanted a safe man... I didn’t even have the guts to do what I really wanted.’ She shook her head slowly from side to side and sniffed. ‘I went to university and did a course I had absolutely no interest in rather than stand up to my dad. I got engaged to a man who seemed safe and solid, and when he turned out to be a total bastard did I learn? No, I got engaged to a man I knew would never hurt me because...I always go for the safe option.’

He let out a long, low whistle. ‘Dieu, I wanted you to take responsibility for your own actions—not the financial crisis, world hunger and bad days in the week that have a Y in them.’

Startled, Hannah lifted her head. Her eyes connected with his and a small laugh was shaken from her chest. ‘I just want...’ She stopped, her husky voice suspended by tears, her control still unravelling so fast she could not keep pace.

With a muttered imprecation he dropped down to his knees beside the bed and pushed the hair back from her damp face.

‘What do you want?’

Her wide brimming blue eyes lifted. ‘I just want to be...to feel...not like this.’ She gnawed at her lower lip and brought her lashes down in a protective veil. ‘Sorry, I don’t know why I’m saying this stuff to you.’

Responding to the painful tug in his chest, Kamel stood up and gently pushed her down. Sliding his hand behind her knees, he swung her legs onto the bed, pulling a pillow under her head before joining her.

‘Go to sleep,’ he said, lowering his long length onto the bed beside her.

‘I can’t sleep. I have dreams that I’m back in that cell and he is...’ She struggled to sit up. A light touch on her breastbone stopped her rising and after a moment she stopped fighting. ‘I can’t sleep.’

He touched a finger to her lips. ‘Move over.’ Pausing to slide an arm under her shoulders, he pulled her head back onto his shoulder.

‘Why are you being nice to me?’ she whispered into his neck—and then a moment later she was asleep.

Kamel, who preferred his own bed, realised this was the first time in his life that he had slept with a woman, in the literal sense. Only he wasn’t sleeping and he seriously doubted he would. A state of semi-arousal combined with seething frustration was not in his experience conducive to sleep, especially when there was zero chance of doing anything to relieve that frustration.

On the plus side at least the scenery was rather special. Asleep she looked like a wanton angel. There were probably a lot of men out there who would be willing to give up a night’s sleep to look at that face. He was aware of an ache of desire somewhere deep inside him so strong it hurt. Ignoring it didn’t make it go away, and not looking at her was not an option because his eyes, like the north arrow on a compass, kept going back to the same place.

So in the end he didn’t question it; he just accepted it.

* * *

Hannah fought her way out of a dream, struggling to shake off the lingering sense of dread.

‘Wake up. You’re safe.’

Still half asleep, she opened her eyes, saw his face and sighed. ‘I love your mouth,’ she said before pressing her own lips to the sensual curve.

‘Hannah.’ He pulled away.

She blinked, the confusion slowly filtering from her.

‘Sorry, I thought you were a dream.’ She had kissed him and he hadn’t kissed her back. He hadn’t done anything. Once was bad, but twice was humiliating.

‘I thought you were a bitch.’ And that had made the politically expedient marriage not right, but not this wrong. ‘I was wrong.’

‘Not a bitch.’ Great, I feel so much better.

Suddenly she felt very angry. She struggled to sit up. ‘So what is wrong with me?’ she asked, looking down at him for once. ‘I mean, there has to be, doesn’t there? I’ve been engaged twice, and no sex.’ Hannah could hear the words coming out of her mouth. She knew she shouldn’t be saying them but she couldn’t stop. ‘Now I’m married, and you don’t even want to kiss me!’

With a dry sob she flung herself down and rolled over, her back to him.

It was the sight of her heaving shoulders that snapped the last threads of Kamel’s self-imposed restraint. ‘Don’t cry,’ he begged.

‘I’m not crying,’ she retorted, sniffing. ‘I’ve just realised something. I don’t know why I was so bothered about marrying you.’

‘I’m flattered.’

Hannah rolled over until she was able to stare straight at him. She had barely registered his dry comment, as her thoughts—dark ones—were turned inward.

‘I can’t even do sex so what would the point have been of waiting for someone who can give me...more?’

Kamel had never felt any driving desire to be a with a woman who considered him her soul mate. On the other hand, being basically told that you were an all right consolation prize for someone with low expectations was a bit below the belt even for someone with his ego.

Well at least the pressure is off, he thought. She’s not expecting much of you!

His sudden laugh made her look up.

‘So you are willing to settle for me?’

A small puzzled indent appeared between her feathery brows as she struggled to read his expression. ‘Doesn’t seem like I have a lot of choice in the matter, does it?’ She glanced at the ring on her finger.

‘So you are willing to...how did you put it—take one for the team?’

‘I thought you’d have been glad to know that you don’t have to pretend, that I don’t expect—’

‘Much?’

This drew an exasperated hiss from Hannah.

‘Well, the mystery of why you’re a virgin is solved,’ he drawled. ‘You talked them to sleep.’

With an angry snort Hannah reached behind her for one of the pillows that had been spread across the bed while she slept.

‘I don’t think so, angel.’

Somewhere between picking it up and lobbing it at him she found the pillow was removed from her fingers and a moment later she was lying with her wrists held either side of her head, with his body suspended above her.

She could hear a sound above the thunderous clamour of her frantic heartbeat—it was her panting. She couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs to stop her head spinning. His mouth was a whisper away from hers; she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips.

The dark intent shining in his heavy-lidded eyes made the heat prickle under her skin.

‘Just—’ he ran his tongue lightly across the surface of her lips ‘—how—’ he kissed one corner of her mouth ‘—much—’ he kissed the other corner, smiling as she gave a deep languid sigh and lifted her head towards him ‘—are you willing—’ he kissed her full on her trembling lips before trailing a series of burning kisses down the smooth column of her neck ‘—to take for the team?’

‘I...don’t...God...stop...please don’t stop!’ she moaned, terrified at the thought he might.

Her beating heart stumbled as his beautiful mouth came crashing down to claim her lips. The relief she felt as she opened her mouth to him in silent invitation was quickly consumed by the response of her body to the thrust of his tongue: low in her belly each carnal incursion caused a tight clenching; between her legs the dampness ran hot.

While he kissed her with something approaching desperation his hands were busy in her hair, on her face, sliding under her nightdress to caress the warm skin of her smooth thighs then reaching to curve over one taut, tingling breast. As he found the loop of the top button and slipped it off his patience snapped and he tugged hard, causing the remainder to tear from the fabric as he pushed the two sides apart to reveal her breasts to his hungry stare.

She arched up into him as he took first one turgid rosy peak and then the other into his mouth, leaving her gasping and moaning; her entire body reached fever pitch in seconds. He pressed a kiss to her belly and the frustration building inside got higher and higher as his finger slid lower and lower, inscribing a tingling line between her aching breasts and then down her quivering belly.

Nakedness turned out not to be inhibiting—it was liberating. She lifted her arms and tugged him down to her. The slow, drugging kisses continued as she arched, pushing her breasts up against his hard chest, frantic for skin-to-skin contact. Her hands ran down the strong, smooth lines of his back, revealing his strength, his sleek hardness.

The liquid heat in her belly had a new urgency as he began to fumble with the buckle on his belt. A moment later she heard the sound of his zipper.

Afflicted by a belated bout of virginal modesty, she closed her eyes, opening them only when he took her hands in his and curled them around the hot, silky, rock-hard erection.

She couldn’t prevent the little gasp that was wrenched from somewhere in her chest.

At least make an effort to look like you know what you’re doing, Hannah.

The voice in her head was critical but he was not.

A deep feral moan was wrenched from his throat as her fingers began to experimentally tighten then release the pressure around the throbbing column. His eyes drifted shut and he began to breathe hard. Then without warning he took her hand and tipped her back onto the pillows.

She let out a series of fractured gasps that terminated in a higher-pitched wailing moan as he touched the dampness between her thighs.

‘This is good?’ he slurred thickly as he continued to stroke and torment, making her ache everywhere.

She nodded vigorously and pushed against the heel of his hand. ‘Oh, yes...very good.’

He raised himself up, took her hand and, holding her gaze, laid it against his chest. Not looking away from her eyes for an instant, he fought his way out of his shirt and flung it away.

‘You’re beautiful,’ she breathed, unable to take her greedy stare off his tautly muscled, gleaming torso.

Kamel swallowed. He wanted her badly. At that moment he could not think of anything he had wanted more.

‘I’ve wanted to be inside you since the moment I saw you.’ He pushed against her, letting her share the relentless ache in his groin.

‘I want that too.’ Delighting in the discovery of an inherent sensuality, she parted her thighs.

Responding to the silent invitation with a fierce groan, he came over her and settled between her legs. She had expected to tense at that final point of no return, but she relaxed. It was easy, not so painful as she’d imagined—and then as her body tightened around him she felt her blood tingle and squeezed her eyelids tight, just focusing on all the things that were happening inside and Kamel filling her so wonderfully, Kamel moving, pushing her somewhere...

Then just as the itch got too intense to bear, she found out where she was going and let go. She heard Kamel cry out, felt the flood of his release and wrapped her legs around him, afraid that she’d be washed away, lost.

She wasn’t. She finished up where she’d started, under Kamel.

* * *

Some time later she did recover the power of speech but she couldn’t do full sentences.

‘Wow!’ she said, staring at the ceiling. Beside her, his chest heaving, Kamel was doing the same.

He turned his head. ‘For a first effort, I have to say you show promise.’

This time he did not prevent her lobbing the pillow at his head, but in the subsequent tussle it ended on the floor and they ended up in a tangle of limbs.

CHAPTER NINE

WHEN HANNAH WOKE it was light and she was alone.

She felt the bed beside her—it was still warm. She gave a wistful sigh. She hadn’t expected him to be there but it would have been...no, nice was not part of their relationship. Though yesterday she would have said the same about sex. It was crazy, in a good way, that the area of this marriage she’d thought would be hardest—that she had been dreading—turned out to be the easiest and the most pleasurable.

She gave a voluptuous sigh and smiled. It had been easy, natural, and totally incredible.

She sat up suddenly, her eyes flying wide in dawning alarm. She was assuming that it would be happening again soon and often. But what if last night wasn’t going to be something that happened regularly? While she hadn’t known what she was missing, celibacy had been easy—but now she did know. She gave an anxious sigh.

It would be...terrible. One night and Kamel was her drug of choice; she was a total addict.

She showered and dressed in record time, wondering if she should just come out and ask him. She was on her way to see Sarah when she literally bumped into him. He was dressed in running shorts and a tee shirt and looked so gorgeous that she was struck dumb.

‘I’ve been running.’

She nodded, and thought that there really was such a thing as being paralysed with lust. If she’d stayed in bed, would he have walked in? Her eyelids drooped as she imagined him peeling off his top and—

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