“So how do you intend to play this in front of my family and yours?”

Mohab took Jala’s hands to his lips. “I intend to show everyone how proud I am to be your intended, that this was a hope I had since I first saw you.”

She withdrew her hands. “No need to go overboard or you’ll only make them suspicious.”

She didn’t believe him. He hadn’t thought of marriage in the years he’d craved her from afar, since he’d never thought marriage was in the cards for him at all.

But now, with the turn his life had taken, everything was different. He’d come here still not clear about what he wanted beyond that he wanted her for as long as he could have her. Now he wanted everything. “So your original agreement stands as is?”

He held his breath. Hoping against hope …

Then she breathed, “Yes.”

* * *

Seducing His Princess is part of the Married By Royal Decree series: When the king commands, they say “I do!”

Seducing His

Princess

Olivia Gates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.

She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.

When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.

To my endlessly loving and supportive mother.

Thank you for being there for me always.

Love you, always.

Contents

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

Excerpt

Prologue

Six years ago...

A fist of foreboding squeezed Mohab Aal Ghaanem’s heart.

Najeeb was back. And Jala had gone to see him.

Although he had contrived to keep her from seeing Najeeb for months now as part of his original mission to keep them apart, when Najeeb had returned in spite of all his machinations, there’d been nothing further Mohab could do. Nothing but demand Jala not see Najeeb.

And what reason could he have given for asking her not to see his cousin and crown prince? That he was jealous?

She would have been shocked by the notion. At best, this would have made her think he didn’t trust her, or that he wasn’t the progressive man she thought him to be. Personal freedom and boundaries were very touchy subjects with her, and she had serious issues with the “repressive male dinosaurs” prevalent in their culture.

At worst, she might have suspected that he had other motives for wanting to prevent that meeting with her “best friend,” motives that went beyond simple possessiveness. As he did.

So he’d stood back and watched her leave for that dreaded yet inevitable rendezvous. And she hadn’t returned.

Not that she’d said she would. Having an early business meeting the next day close to her house in Long Beach, it made sense for her to spend the night at her home. He wished he could have waited for her there, but though she’d given him keys, the gesture had been only as a token of trust. She’d been adamant about not making their relationship public knowledge before she was ready to do so. He was probably working himself up for nothing but...

B’Ellahi... What was he thinking? It was for nothing. Jala had agreed to marry him. She was his, body and heart. He’d been her first, and he’d always be her only. He should have stopped worrying about how their relationship had started long ago, shouldn’t have tried to keep Najeeb away once his...purpose had been achieved—even if the way it had been had taken him by surprise. He’d already been attracted to Jala, but he surely hadn’t imagined when he’d first approached her that he’d fall for her that hard, that totally.

Emptying his lungs, he strode away from the window. He could barely make out anything from sixty floors up anyway.

Though he was sure he would have seen her.

Since he’d first laid eyes on her, she’d been the only one he ever truly saw, even when others should have been in his focus. As on the day of the hostage crisis, when he’d been sent to save Najeeb and had saved Jala, too.

Najeeb. Again. Everything always came back to him.

Mohab had kept his cousin away from New York, away from Jala, for as long as possible. Any more contrivances would have made Najeeb suspect he was being manipulated. And since there were only a handful of people who had enough power to keep the crown prince of Saraya jumping—his father, King Hassan, his brothers and Mohab himself—Najeeb would have eventually drawn the proper conclusions.

By elimination, only Mohab, as the kingdom’s top secret-service agent, had the skills and resources to invade Najeeb’s privacy, to rearrange his plans, to nudge him wherever he wanted. The next step would have been finding out why.

So Mohab had been forced to let his cousin come back. To let Jala go to him. At nine o’clock this morning. That had been eleven hours ago.

What could be taking her so long?

Kaffa. Enough. Why not just call her instead of having a full-blown obsessive episode?

So he did. And it went straight to voice mail. Time and again.

When another hour passed and she hadn’t called back, he tore out of his penthouse, numb with dread.

By the time he arrived at her house his nerves had snapped, one at a time. What if she was lying unconscious or unable to reach her phone? What if she’d been mugged...or worse? She was so beautiful, and he’d seen how men looked at her. What if someone had followed her home?

He barged inside and was hit at once with the certainty. She was there. Her presence permeated the place.

He ran upstairs, homing in on her. As he approached her bedroom, he heard sounds. To his distraught ears, they sounded like distress. Coming from the bathroom.

He tore inside. And there she was. In the shower cubicle. Facing the door. She saw him as soon as he saw her.

At his explosive entry, she lurched, her steam-obscured face contorting, her lips parting. He assumed she’d gasped or even cried out. He could hear nothing now above the cacophony of his own turmoil and the spray of water. All he knew was that she was here. She was safe.

And he was tearing off his clothes, his only need to prove to himself both facts.

Then he was inside the cubicle, dragging her into his arms, groaning as he felt her warm resilience slamming against his aching flesh, her cry shuddering through him as he drove trembling hands into her soaked tresses, his feverish gaze roaming her water-streaked face. That face, that body, that essence, had taken control of his fantasies from the instant he’d seen her, from the very moment he’d claimed her. And she’d claimed him right back. Throughout these past five months, with each caress, with each passion-filled encounter, he found himself craving her more and more. His hunger for her knew no bounds.

“Mohab...”

He swallowed her gasp, drove his tongue inside her fragrant, delicious depths and she started squirming, building his fire higher. He needed to be inside her, possessing her, pleasuring her. Reassuring himself she was whole and all his.

His hand glided between her smooth thighs, sought her core. His fingers slid between her slick folds, and his head almost burst with the sledgehammer of arousal. Knowing she would love his urgency, that the edge of discomfort his ferocity would cause would amplify her pleasure, he cupped her perfect buttocks and opened her silky thighs around his hips. Capturing her lips again and again in ravaging kisses, he sought her entrance, flexed then sheathed himself in her molten tightness in one long, forceful thrust.

The sharpness of her cry, a testament to the intensity of her enjoyment, heightened his frenzy, her hot gust of passion expanding in his own lungs. Then he withdrew and pistoned back, needing to merge with her, dissolve in her, knowing it would send her berserk. It was unraveling him, too—acute sensations layering with every plunge, ratcheting with each withdrawal. The carnal groans torn from their depths rode him higher and higher. He felt his climax hurtling from his very essence, felt her shuddering uncontrollably, heard the sound of her tortured squeals telling him she’d explode in ecstasy if he gave her the cadence and force she needed.

Unable to prolong this torment a second more, he gave it to her, his full force behind his jackhammering thrusts, until she convulsed in his arms and her shrieks of pleasure snapped his own tension. He all but felt himself detonate in a violent release, the most intense he’d ever felt, his seed burning through his length, jetting into her depths to mingle with her own gushing climax.

At last, the severity of sensations leveled, leaving him so satiated, so depleted, he could barely stand. She collapsed in his arms as she always did. Taking her down to the floor, he soothed her, and she surrendered to his ministrations, letting him fondle and suckle her, pour wonder and worship all over her.

Then he carried her out of the shower and dried them both off. As he bent to take her to bed, she pushed out of his arms, unsteadily waddling away to fetch her bathrobe.

He winced. How insensitive could he be? He’d scared her witless bursting in here, made her limp with satiation for hours and could only think of continuing their intimacies?

He put on his pants as she turned to him, wrapped in the stark white bathrobe, her golden flesh glowing in contrast. The need to ravish her again almost overpowered him.

“What was that all about?”

He saw the hardness in her eyes before he heard it in her tone. Something he’d never been exposed to before.

Suddenly wary, he shrugged. “Wasn’t it self-evident?”

“Not to me. What brought you here in the first place?”

Disturbed by her coldness, especially after the inferno they’d just shared, he told her what he could. At the tail end of his account, he released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “And then I found you in there and all I could think was that you’re safe. And I was, as always, starving for you.” He tried a coaxing smile. “Finding you already unwrapped was most opportune.”

“So you thought it was okay to barge in here and just have your way with me?”

The harsh accusation hit him between the eyes. She’d never been angry with him before. And to be so for the first time today, of all days, jarred him.

He found his own voice hardening. “You loved every second. You came so hard you blew my brains out.”

She shrugged, not contesting that truth, those molten-gold eyes growing harder. “The point is, you disregarded my choice. Your overriding tactics have become a pattern.”

“What ‘overriding tactics’?”

“All your manipulation, ending with trying to keep me from seeing Najeeb. You think I’m so oblivious I didn’t notice? Oh, I noticed, all right...every time you nudged and cajoled. Every time you artfully overruled me. You’re almost undetectable, but I’ve had enough time and proximity to decipher your methods.”

So she’d caught on.

Either he’d underestimated her astuteness...or he couldn’t keep a cool enough head around her to maintain the seamless subterfuge he normally employed in his professional life.

Coming clean wasn’t an option, though. He couldn’t let her know why he’d originally approached her, or how he’d kept Najeeb away, or why. He couldn’t risk that she might suspect the genuineness of his current involvement. They already had too much working against their relationship to introduce internal strife. The feud that had long raged between their families was enough of an obstacle on its own. He had to deny any culpability. There was just too much at stake.

“Why would I want to stop you from seeing Najeeb?”

She glared up at him, then turned and walked out.

Unable to believe she’d turned her back on him, he watched her, that fist of foreboding squeezing his insides again.

Mohab finished dressing, then followed her into her bedroom. His mind churning, he approached her where she stood across the room in jeans and a T-shirt, raven hair starting to dry into a waterfall of gloss, looking heartbreakingly perfect.

“I’m sorry I got carried away in there,” he started. “I didn’t think you’d mind...didn’t think at all. I’ve never been so frightened in my life, and I overreacted....”

“I could have said stop. I didn’t. So let’s drop it.”

“Let’s not. If you’re angry with me, don’t just freeze me out.” He stopped before her, ran a finger down her velvet cheek. “I beg your forgiveness, ya habibati, if you felt I was disregarding your choices. I didn’t mean to, and I—”

“Don’t.” Her interruption was exasperated this time. “It doesn’t matter. I actually think it’s a good opportunity to finally tell you what I’ve been putting off for too long.”

“Tell me what?”

“That I wasn’t in any condition to make a rational decision when I accepted your marriage proposal.”

His heart faltered. “What do you mean?”

“I was experiencing a postsex high for the first time, which was heightened by the fact that I was already indebted to you for saving my life during the hostage crisis. So when you hit me with your proposal, I found myself saying yes. I’ve tried to take it back ever since, but you wouldn’t let me.”

“You did no such thing.” Denial rasped out of him. He shook his head, as if to snap out of the nightmare. “Is this why you kept putting off telling anyone about us? Not because you were afraid our families’ feud would impact our relationship, but because you were having second thoughts?”

“I’m not just having second thoughts. I’m certain I don’t want to get married.”

That was it? A case of commitment phobia? That was something he could deal with.

He drew a breath of relief into his tight chest. “I can understand your wariness. You struggled for your independence. You might think you’d lose it with marriage. But I’ll never encroach on your freedoms....” At her baleful glance, he insisted, “Whatever my transgressions, they were unintended. Guide me in navigating your comfort zones and I’ll always abide by them. If I pushed you into a commitment too soon, I’ll wait until you’re ready.”

“I’ll never be ready to marry you.”

He stared at her, beyond shocked, the ferocity of her rejection an ax cleaving into his heart.

Just yesterday, he’d thought everything was perfect between them. And she’d had all this resentment seething inside her? How had he been so oblivious?

This led him to the only possible explanation. A dreadful one. “Have you received a better offer?”

At his rough whisper, she turned away again. He wanted to pounce on her, to roar that she couldn’t do this to him, to them. He remained paralyzed, sick electricity arcing in his clenched fists, jumbling his heart’s rhythm.

He forced more mutilating deductions from numb lips. “Since this is coming right after you visited Najeeb, I assume he finally popped the question.”

She bent to pick up her laptop, as if she’d already dismissed him from her life. Heartache morphed into fury, all his early, long-forgotten suspicions about the nature of her relationship with Najeeb crashed into his mind.

“That’s why you wheedled into his life, isn’t it? But then he left, and you thought he wouldn’t come through, and you were...what? Keeping me as plan B in case he didn’t propose? And now you got the offer you were after all along, the one where you become a future queen, and I’m suddenly redundant?”

She turned the eyes of a total stranger to him. “I’d hoped we could part on civil terms.”

“Civil?” His growl sounded like a wounded beast’s. “You expect me to stand aside and let you marry my cousin?”

“I expect you to know you have no say in what I do.”

And he went mad with pain and rage. “You can’t just toss me aside and hook up with him. In fact, you can forget it. Najeeb will withdraw his offer as soon as I tell him how I made you...ineligible to be his princess. Regularly, hard and long, for five months. That I even took you after you said yes to him.”

Her eyes filled with something he’d never dreamed he’d see in them. Loathing. “And I expected you to take my decision like a gentleman. But I’m glad you showed me how vicious and dishonorable you can be when you’re thwarted. Now I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was right to end this.”

His blood congealed as she turned away. “You really think you can end it...just like that?”

Hearing his butchered growl, she turned at the door. “Yes. And I hope you won’t make it uglier than it has already become.”

His feet dragged under the weight of his heart as he approached her. “B’Ellahi...you loved me.... You said so.... I felt it.”

“Whatever I said, whatever you think you felt, it’s over. I never want to see you again.”

He caught her, the feel of her intensifying his desperation. “You might think you mean it now, but you’re mine, Jala. And no matter how long it takes, I swear to you, I will reclaim you. I will make you beg to be mine again.”

“I was never yours. If you think you have a claim on me, I will repay you for saving my life one day. But not with my life.”

His fingers sank into her shoulders, as if it would stop her from vanishing. “I don’t care who Najeeb is. I’ll destroy him before I let him have you. I’ll destroy anyone who comes near you.”

The disdain in her eyes rose. Everything he said sent her another step beyond retrieval.

“So now I know why you’re called Al Moddammer.” The Destroyer. The label he’d earned when he’d decimated conspiracies and terrorist organizations. “You annihilate anyone who becomes an obstacle to your objectives. Not to mention anyone who comes close to you.”

His heart seized painfully. He’d never thought she’d ever use that knowledge against him. What else had he been wrong about?

Her disgust as she severed his convulsive grip told him this was it. It was over. Worse still, it might never have been real. Everything they’d shared, everything he’d thought they’d meant to each other might have all been in his mind.

Before she receded out of his life, she murmured, “Find yourself someone else who might have a death wish. Because I don’t.”

One

Present day...

“Do you have a death wish?”

Mohab almost laughed out loud. A bitterly amused huff did escape him as he rose to his feet to meet the king of Judar.

What were the odds? That these exact words would be the first thing Kamal Aal Masood said to him when they’d been the last thing the man’s kid sister had flung at Mohab?

Guess it was true what was said about Kamal and Jala. That the two youngest in the Aal Masood sibling quartet could have been identical twins—if they hadn’t been born male and female and twelve years apart. Their resemblance was uncanny.

With the historical enmity between their kingdoms, Mohab had only seen Kamal from afar. He’d last beheld him at the time of his joloos—as he’d sat on the throne, five and a half years ago. Not that Mohab had manipulated his way into Judar that night to see him. Jala had been his only objective. But she hadn’t attended her own brother’s wedding. Yet another thing he’d failed to predict where she was concerned.

Something else he’d failed to predict was how it would feel seeing this guy up close. Kamal looked so much like Jala, it...ached deep in his chest.

It was as if someone had taken Jala and turned her into an older, intimidating male version of herself. They shared the same wealth of raven hair, the same whiskey-colored eyes and the same bone structure. The only differences were those of gender. Kamal’s bronze complexion was shades darker than Jala’s golden flawlessness, and at six foot six, the king of Judar would tower over his sister’s statuesque five-nine, just as he once had. Her big brother was also more than double her size, but they shared the same feline grace and perfect proportions. While all that made her the embodiment of a fairy-tale princess, Kamal was the epitome of a hardened desert raider, exuding limitless power. And exercising it, too.

At forty, Kamal was one of the most influential individuals in the world, and had been so even before his two older brothers had abdicated the throne of Judar to him in a chain reaction of court drama and royal family scandals that still rocked the region and changed its course forever.

Now Kamal’s lupine eyes simmered with the trademark menace famous for intimidating anyone he seared with his gaze. “Anything you find particularly amusing, Aal Ghaanem?”

“Your opening remark revived a memory of another...person mentioning death wishes.” At Kamal’s fierce glower, Mohab’s smile spread. “What? You think I find you, or being escorted here like a prisoner of war, amusing?”

He’d expected worse arriving in Judar, with tensions between Saraya and Judar at a historic high. In fact, just yesterday, his king had all but declared war on Judar during a global broadcast from a UN summit. For Mohab, a prince of Saraya second in rank only to the king and his heirs, to land uninvited on Judarian soil in these fraught times was cause for extreme concern. Especially when said prince also happened to be the former head of Saraya’s secret service. He’d expected to be put on the first flight out of Judar. Or even to be taken into custody.

In a preemptive bluff, he’d asserted he had time-sensitive business with King Kamal and the king would punish whoever detained him. That sent border security officials at the airport scrambling for orders from the royal palace. Mohab had half expected his gamble to fall through, that Kamal would have him kicked out of the kingdom. But within minutes, a dozen of Judar’s finest secret-service men had descended on Mohab, breathing down his neck all the way here.

Apparently they considered him that dangerous. He was flattered, really.

“So you find death wishes a source of amusement? A daredevil by nature, not only by trade, eh? Figures. But aren’t you also supposed to be meticulous and prudent? I thought that’s why you’re still in one piece after all the crazy stunts you’ve pulled. Isn’t it the first thing you’re taught when you’re hatched in Saraya—that Judar doesn’t sustain life for your species?”

His species. The Aal Ghaanems. The Aal Masoods’ mortal enemies. Aih. There was that stumbling block, too.

“So again...do you have a death wish? Don’t you know that, now more than ever, a high-profile Sarayan like you at large in Judar could have been targeted for any level of retribution?”

Mohab flattened a palm over his heart. “I’m touched you’re concerned about keeping me in one piece. But I assure you, I behaved in an exemplary fashion, antagonizing no one.”

“No one but me. Arriving unannounced, terrorizing my subjects, forcing me to drop everything to investigate your incursion. Is this your king’s last hope now that he’s put his foot in his mouth on global feed? Is he afraid I’ll finally knock him off his throne, as I should have long ago? Has he sent his wild card to deal with the crisis...at the root?”

“You think I’m here to...what? Assassinate you?” A huff of incredulity burst from Mohab. “I may be into impossible missions, but I’m not fond of suicidal ones. And I was almost strip-searched for anything that could even make you sneeze.”

Kamal’s laserlike gaze contemplated Mohab’s mocking grin. “From my reports, you can probably take out my royal guard stripped and with both hands tied behind your back.”

“Ah, you flatter me, King Kamal. I’d need one hand to go through them all.”

The other man’s steady gaze told him Kamal believed Mohab was capable of just that—and more—and wasn’t the least bit fooled by his joking tone. “I have records of some true mission-impossible scenarios that you’ve pulled off. If anyone can enter a maximum-security palace with only the clothes on his back and manage to blow it up and walk away without a scratch, it’s you.”

Mohab’s lips twitched. “If you believe I can get away with your murder, why did you agree to see me?”

“Because I’m intrigued.”

“Enough to risk letting such a lethal entity within reach? You must be bored out of your mind being king.”

Kamal exhaled. “You don’t know the half of it—or how good you have it. A prince who is in no danger of finding himself on a throne, a black-ops professional who had the luxury of switching to a freelance career...emphasis on the ‘free’ part.”

“While you’re the king of a minor kingdom you’ve made into a major one, and a revered leader who has limitless power at his fingertips and the most amazing family a man can dream of having.”

“Apart from my incomparable wife and children, I’d switch places with you in a heartbeat.”

Mohab laughed out loud. “The last thing I expected coming here is that I’d be standing with you, in the heart of Aal Masood territory, with us envying each other.”

“In a better world, I would have offered you anything to have your skills at my disposal and you at my side. Too bad we’re on opposite sides with no way to bridge the divide.”

Mohab pounced on the opening. “That’s why I’m here. To offer not only to bridge that divide, but to obliterate it.”

Kamal frowned. “You deal in extractions, containments and cleanups. Why send you to offer political solutions?”

“I’m here on my own initiative because I’m the solution.”

His declaration was met by an empty stare.

Then Kamal drawled, “Strange. You seem quite solid.” Mohab chuckled at Kamal’s unexpected dry-as-tinder wit, drawing a rumble from Kamal. “I have zero tolerance for wastes of time. If you prove to be one, you will spend a few nights as an honored guest in my personal dungeon.”

“Is this a way to talk to the man who can give you Jareer?”

Kamal clamped his arm. “Kaffa monawaraat wa ghomood...enough evasions and ambiguity. Explain, and fast, or...”

“Put down your threats. I am here to mend our kingdoms’ relations, and there’s nothing I want more than to accomplish that as fast as possible.”

“Zain. You have ten minutes.”

“Twenty.” Before Kamal blasted him, Mohab preempted him. “Don’t say fifteen.”

Kamal’s gaze lengthened. “As an only child you missed out on having an older sibling kick your ass in your formative years. I’m close to rectifying your deficiency.”

Mohab grinned. “Think you can take me on, King Kamal?”

“Definitely.”

And Mohab believed it. Kamal wasn’t a pampered royal depending on others’ service and protection. This man was a warrior first and foremost. That he’d chosen to fight in the boardroom and now in the world’s political arenas didn’t mean he wouldn’t be as effective on an actual battlefield.

Before Mohab made a rejoinder, the king turned and crossed his expansive stateroom to the sitting area. Mohab suspected it was to hide a smile so as not to acknowledge this affinity that had sprung up between them.

Kamal resumed speaking as soon as Mohab took a seat across from him. “So why do you think you can give me Jareer...when I already have it, Sheikh Prince Solution?”

A laugh burst out of Mohab’s depths. That clinched it. He didn’t care that other people thought Kamal scary or boorish. To him, the guy was just plain rocking fun.

Kamal’s lips twisted in response, but didn’t lift.

“There is no law prohibiting an Aal Masood from smiling at an Aal Ghaanem, you know.”

Kamal’s lips pursed instead. “I may issue one prohibiting just that. The way you’re going, you might end up making the dispute between Judar and Saraya even more...insoluble.”

Mohab sighed. “So...Jareer, euphemistically referred to as our kingdoms’ contested region...”

“And currently known as our kingdoms’ future war zone,” Kamal finished.

Not if Mohab managed to resolve this.

Jareer used to be under Saraya’s rule. But the past few Sarayan monarchs had had no foresight. They’d centralized everything, neglecting then abandoning outlying regions. Jareer, on the border with Judar, had always been considered useless, because it lacked resources, and traitorous, because its citizens were akin to “enemy sympathizers.” So when Judar had laid claim to Jareer, with its people’s welcome, Mohab’s grandfather, King Othman, had considered it good riddance.

But when Mohab’s uncle, King Hassan, sat on Saraya’s throne, he’d reignited old conflicts with Judar. His favorite crusade had been reclaiming Jareer. Not because he’d suspected its future importance, but to spite the region’s inhabitants—and because he wanted more reasons to fight the Aal Masoods.

Then, two months ago, oil had been discovered in Jareer. Now the situation had evolved from an idle conflict between two monarchs to a struggle over limitless wealth and power. In a war between the two kingdoms, Saraya would be decimated for generations to come.

Only Mohab had the power to stop this catastrophe. Theoretically. There was still the possibility that Kamal would hear his proposition and reward his audacity by throwing him in that personal dungeon before wiping Saraya off the face of the earth.

One thing made Mohab hope this wouldn’t happen. Kamal himself. He was convinced that, though Kamal had every reason to crush Saraya, he would rather not. He hadn’t become one of the greatest kings by being reactionary—or by achieving prosperity for his kingdom at the cost of another kingdom’s destruction.

At least, Mohab hoped he was right. He had read Kamal’s “twin” all wrong once before after all....

“I will be disappointed if, after all this staring at me, you can’t draw me from memory.”

Jarred out of his thoughts by Kamal’s drawl, Mohab blinked at him. “You just remind me of someone so much, it keeps sidetracking me.”

“The same someone who made the death wish comment, eh?”

Not only brilliant, but intuitive, too. Mohab nodded.

“And there I was under the impression I was unique.”

Mohab sighed. “You are...both of you. Two of a kind.”

Kamal sat forward, ire barely contained. “As charmed as I am by all this...nostalgia of yours, I have a date with my wife in an hour, and I’d rather be late for my own funeral than for her. I might make you early for yours if you don’t talk. Fast.”

“All right. I am the rightful heir to Jareer.”

Kamal’s eyebrows shot up. He hadn’t seen this coming. No one could have.

Mohab explained. “For centuries, Jareer was an independent land, and my mother’s tribe, the Aal Kussaimis, ruled it up till a hundred and fifty years ago. But with my great-great-grandmother marrying an Aal Ghaanem, a treaty was struck with Saraya to annex the region, with terms for autonomy while under Sarayan rule and with provisions for secession if those terms weren’t observed.

“When Jareer found itself on its own again under my grandfather’s rule, it saw no reason to enforce the secession rules, as it was effectively separated from Saraya anyway. Then Judar offered its protection. But in truth, Jareer belongs to neither Judar nor Saraya. It belongs to my maternal tribe. I would have brought you the records of our claim for as far back as a thousand years, but after yesterday’s fiasco, I had to rush to intervene before I could get everything ready. However, rest assured, the claim is heavily documented by the tribe’s elders and historians.”

Kamal blinked as if emerging from a trance. “That’s your solution? Inserting the Aal Kussaimis as preceding claimants? Widening the dispute and adding more fuel to the fire?”

“Actually, I am ending the dispute. The Aal Kussaimis’ claim trumps both the Aal Ghaanems’ and the Aal Masoods’. Any regional or international court would sanction that claim.”

Kamal’s eyes burned with contemplation. “If all this is true, shouldn’t I be talking to the tribe’s elder? Who can’t be you since you’re...how old? Thirty?”

“Thirty-eight. But while it’s true I’m not the tribe’s elder, I am the highest-ranking tribe member by merit. I was elected the tribe’s leader years ago. Which effectively makes me the king of Jareer.”

Kamal’s lashes lowered. A testament to his surprise.

When his gaze rose again, it was tranquil. That didn’t fool Mohab for a second. He could almost hear the gears of Kamal’s formidable mind screeching.

“Interesting. So you’re claiming to be King Solution. Even if you prove to be the first, how do you propose to be the second?”

“Proving my claim is a foregone conclusion. The second should be self-evident.”

“Not to me.”

Jala’s exact words that fateful night. Said in the same tone. Kamal’s likeness to her had suddenly ceased to be reminiscent and had become only grating.

Mohab gritted his teeth. “My uncle assumed I would never invoke my claim, that I would always let him speak for me concerning Jareer’s fate. And he was right—I didn’t have time to be more than an honorary leader and had no desire to upset a status quo my people were perfectly content with under Judar’s protection. But now things have changed.”

Kamal huffed. “Tell me about it. Just two months ago, you were the ‘rightful heir’ to a stretch of desert with three towns and seven villages whose people lived on date and Arabian coffee production, souvenir manufacturing and desert tourism. Now you’re the king of a land sitting on top of one of the biggest oil reservoirs ever discovered.”

“I have no personal stake in Jareer’s newfound wealth. I’m not interested in being richer, and I never wanted to be king. However, my people are demanding I declare Jareer an independent state and that I become their full-fledged ruler. But business and politics aren’t my forte. So while I will do my people’s bidding, I think it’s in their best interests to leave their new oil-based prosperity to the experts.”

“By experts, I assume you mean oil moguls.”

“With you in charge of every step they take into Jareer.”

Kamal raised one eyebrow. “You want me to run the show?”

“Yes.”

Kamal digested this. “So that’s Judar and Jareer and the oil companies. What about Saraya?”

“As a Sarayan, too, and because I admit the treaties with Saraya were never properly resolved before entering into the new ones with Judar, I will recognize its claim.”

“So you claim Jareer, and split the cake between us all. Why do you assume I’ll consider it? If I can have the whole cake?”

He sat forward, holding Kamal’s gaze. “I do because you’re an honorable man and a just king. Because I believe you’ll do everything in your power to avoid escalating hostilities between our kingdoms. Before, it was about family feuds and pride. Now we’re talking staggering wealth and power. If you decimate my claim and take all of Jareer, those who stand to lose that much would cause unspeakable damage. I regularly deal with situations that rage over way less, and believe me, nothing is worth the price of such conflicts.”

“So how do you propose we split the cake?”

“For its historical role and ties to Jareer, and because both Judar and Jareer will need its cooperation, Saraya will get twenty percent of Jareer’s oil. In recognition of Judar’s more recent claim and its much bigger role in Jareer till this day, Judar gets forty percent. Jareer gets the other forty percent. Plus, its inhabitants would be first in line for all benefits and job opportunities that arise, and you will also be responsible to provide training for them.”

“You’ve got it all worked out, don’t you?”

“I have been working on my pitch since the oil’s discovery. I was far from ready, but my uncle’s theatrics at the UN yesterday forced my hand prematurely.”

“What if I don’t like your percentages or terms?”

“I would grant you whatever you wish.”

“Even if you wanted to, as kings, we’re not omnipotent. Why would your people agree to let you be so generous with their resources?”

Here it was. Moment of truth. The point of all this.

He took the plunge. “They would because it would be the mahr of your sister, Princess Jala.”

Kamal rose to his feet in perfect calmness. It screamed instantaneous rejection more than anything openly indignant would have.

“No.”

The cold, final word fell on Mohab like a lash. As Jala’s rejection once had.

He resisted the urge to flinch at the sting. “Just no?”

“Consider yourself honored I deemed to articulate it. That you dared to voice this boggles the mind.”

“Why?”

Kamal glared down at him. “I’ll have my secretary of state draw you up an inventory of the reasons.”

“Give me the broad lines.”

“How about just one? Your bloodline.”

“You’d condemn a man by others’ transgressions?”

“We do inherit others’ mistakes and enmities.”

“And we can resolve them, not insist on regurgitating hatreds and spawning warring generations.”

“The Aal Masoods aren’t angels, but there is good reason why we abhor you, why all attempts at peacemaking fell through for centuries. Surely you remember the last marriage between our kingdoms and what your great-grandfather did to my great-aunt. I’m not letting my sister marry a man who comes from a family where the men mistreat their women.”

“My great-grandfather and uncle don’t represent the rest of us. I am nothing like them. You can investigate me further. And then consider the merits of my proposal. Once I claim Jareer, my uncle can retreat from his warpath. We’d appease his pride while going over his head in forging peaceful relations between all sides, to the benefit of all our people.” Mohab rose to his feet to face him. “What I’m proposing is the best solution for all concerned, now and into the far future. And you know it.”

After a protracted stare, Kamal finally exhaled. “We can forge peace with other kinds of treaties. Why bring marriage into this? And more important, why Jala? If you want to solidify the new alliance in the oldest way in the book, and the most enduring in our region, the Aal Masoods have other princesses who would definitely be more acceptable to your stick-in-the-mud family.”

“My family has nothing to do with it. Jala is my choice.” Kamal’s astonishment made Mohab decide to come clean, as much as it was prudent to. “I had a...thing for Jala years ago, and I thought she reciprocated. It didn’t end as I hoped. Now, years later, with both of us still unattached, I thought it might be fate’s way of telling me I had to make another attempt at claiming the one woman who captured my fancy...and wouldn’t let go. So while resolving our kingdoms’ long-standing conflicts would certainly be a bonus, she’s always been my main objective.”

Expecting Kamal, as Jala’s brother, to be offended—or at least to grill him about the nature of the “thing” he’d had for Jala—Kamal surprised him again, a hint of a smile dawning. “You mean discovering oil in Jareer and the crisis that ensued just presented you with the best bargaining chip to propose? And you didn’t propose before because you never had enough leverage?”

Mohab shrugged, tension killing him. “Do I have enough now?”

Kamal’s smile became definite. “If I disregard the stench of your paternal lineage and consider you based on your own merits, this might be a good idea. A perfect one, even. Knowing Jala, she’d never marry of her own accord and I hate to think she’ll end up alone. And you, apart from the despicable flaw of having the Aal Ghaanem blood and name, seem like a...reasonably good match for her.”

“So you’re saying yes?”

“A yes isn’t mine to say. I can’t force her to marry you and wouldn’t even if I could. Clearly this marriage quest of yours is hardly a done deal, since you require my intervention to even reach her. I won’t ask what earned you a place on Jala’s viciously strict no-approach list. Ullah knows I’m the last man to go all holier-than-thou on you for whatever transgression you committed to deserve this kind of treatment.”

What would Kamal say if Mohab told him he didn’t know exactly why he’d deserved that till this day?

Kamal gazed into the distance as if peering into a distasteful past. “I once did unforgivable things to the one woman who’d captured my fancy and wouldn’t let go, and it took the intervention of others to give me that second chance with her.”

“So you’re paying it forward.”

Kamal’s eyes returned to his, the crooked smile back. “I am. But if she agrees to marry you, I’ll take sixty percent as her mahr. If she refuses, the whole deal is off—and we’ll draw up another treaty that saves your king’s face so he can go sit in his throne and stop throwing war-agitating tantrums.”

Mohab’s first impulse was to kiss Kamal on both cheeks. This was beyond anything he’d come here expecting.

He extended his hand to Kamal instead, his smile the widest it had been in...six years. “Deal. You won’t regret this.”

Kamal shook his hand slowly. “You were wrong when you said you don’t know much about business. You know nothing. You could have gotten me to agree to thirty percent. You’re holding all the cards after all.”

Mohab’s smiled widened more. “I’m not so oblivious that I don’t know the power I wield. But I would never haggle over Jala’s mahr. If my decision didn’t affect millions of people in both Saraya and Jareer, I would have given you the whole thing.”

“You got it that bad?” Kamal drilled him with an incredulous gaze. “Do you love her?”

Love? He once had...or thought he had. But now he knew it hadn’t been real. Because nothing real could ever exist for a man like him. He only knew he couldn’t move on. And that she hadn’t moved on, either. He was still obsessed with their every touch, had starved for her every pleasure. Love didn’t enter into the equation. Not only was it an illusion, it was one he couldn’t afford.

But the pact he’d struck with Kamal was real. As was his hunger for Jala. That was more than enough. In fact, that was everything.

Kamal waved his hand. “Don’t answer that. I don’t think you can answer. If you haven’t seen her in years, whatever you felt for her back then might be totally moot once you come face-to-face with each other again. So I won’t hold you to this proposal for now. But since Jala is the most intractable entity I have the misfortune to know and love...” At Mohab’s raised eyebrow, Kamal sighed. “Aih, she takes after her older brother, as Aliyah tells me.”

Mohab did a double take. It was amazing, the change that came over Kamal’s face as he mentioned his wife and queen. It was as if he glowed inside just thinking of her.

Kamal went on. “But for this to have a prayer of working, I need to give you much more of a helping hand than putting you in the same room with her. I need to give her a shove. I’ll make it sound as if refusal isn’t an option. Of course, if she really wants to refuse, she will, no matter what.” His lips spread into a smile again. “All I can hope is that if I make things sound drastic enough, it’ll give you that chance to make your approach. The rest...is up to you.”

Two

“You...what?”

Jala stared at Kamal, her shrill cry ringing in her own ears.

Staggering, she collapsed on the nearest horizontal surface, gaping up at Kamal who came to stand over her.

“I lied.”

Ya Ullah. She had heard right the first time.

Another cry of sheer incredulity scratched her throat raw. “How could you do this to me? Are you insane?”

Kamal shrugged, not looking in the least repentant. “I had to get you here. Sorry.”

“Sorry? You let me have a thousand panic attacks during the hours it took me to get here, thinking that Farooq was lying in hospital, critically injured, and you say...sorry?”

Even now that she knew Farooq was safe, the horror still reverberated in her bones. She’d never known such desperation, not even when she’d been held hostage and thought she’d die a violent death.

Fury seethed inside of her. “Don’t you know what you did to me? As I thought of beautiful, vital Farooq lying broken, struggling for his life, how I wept as I thought how much he had to live for, as I thought of Carmen losing her soul mate, of Mennah growing up without her father.... You’re a monstrous pig, Kamal!”

Kamal winced. “I said he was injured but that he was stable. I wanted you here, but didn’t want to scare you more than necessary. How am I responsible for your exaggerations?”

“How? How?” She threw her hands up in the air in frustration. “How does Aliyah bear you?”

Kamal had the temerity to flash her that wolfish grin of his. “I never ask. I just wallow in the miracle of her, and that she thinks I’m the best thing that ever walked the earth.”

“Then Aliyah, although she looks sane, is clearly deranged. Or under a spell....”

“It’s called love.” Kamal raised his hands before she exploded again. “I am sorry. But you said you’d never set foot here again, and I knew you wouldn’t come unless you thought one of us was dying.”

“I know you’re ruthless and manipulative and a dozen other inhuman adjectives but...argh! Whatever you needed to drag me here for, you could have tried telling me the truth first!”

Kamal smirked. “Aih, and when that didn’t work, I would have tried the lie next. I would have ordered you to come, but knowing you, you would have probably renounced your Judarian citizenship just so I’d stop being your king. If you weren’t that intractable I wouldn’t have had to lie, and you wouldn’t have had those harrowing sixteen hours.”

“So it’s now my fault? You—you humongous, malignant rat! What could possibly be enough reason for you to drag me back here with this terrible lie?”

“Just that Judar is about to go to war.”

She shot back up to her feet. “Kaffa, Kamal...enough. I’m already here. So stop lying.”

His face was suddenly grim. “No lie this time.” He put his hand on her shoulder, gently pressed her down to the couch, coming down beside her this time. “It’s a long story.”

She gaped at him as he recounted it, plunging deeper into a surreal scape with every word.

But wars did erupt over far less, especially in their region. This was real.

When he was done, she exhaled. “You can’t even consider war over oil rights, no matter how massive. Aren’t you the wizard of diplomacy who peacefully resolves conflicts to every side’s benefit?”

“Seems you’re not familiar with King Hassan.” A scoff almost escaped her. Oh, she was so very familiar with King Hassan. “Some people are immune to diplomacy.”

“And you’re not posturing and allowing your council to egg you on with hand-me-down rivalries and vendettas?”

It was Kamal’s turn to scoff. “Give me some credit, Jala. I care nothing about any of this bull. I don’t have an inflamed ego and don’t borrow others’ enmities.”

“Yet you’re letting someone who has and does drag you down to his level, when you should contain him and his petty aggressions.” She exhaled her exasperation. “No wonder I did everything I could to get out of this godforsaken region and had to be told my oldest brother was dying to set foot here again. All this feudal backwardness is just...nauseating. You’d think nothing ever changed since the eleventh century!”

“War over oil rights is very twenty-first century.”

“Congratulations to all of you, then, for your leap into modern warfare. I hope you’ll enjoy deploying long-range missiles and playing high-tech war games.” She muttered something about monkeys under her breath. “I still don’t get why you conned me back here. You want me to have a front row seat with you lunkheads when the war begins?”

He reached for her hand, his eyes cajoling. Uh-oh.

“You actually play the lead role in averting this catastrophe.”

“What could I possibly have to do with resolving your political conflicts?”

“Everything really. Only you can stop the war now, by marrying an Aal Ghaanem prince.”

“What?”

“Only a blood-mixing union will end hostilities and forge a long-lasting alliance.”

She snatched her hand from his grasp, erupting to her feet. “Did I say you were stuck in the eleventh century? You’ve just stumbled five more centuries backward. Not so good seeing you, Kamal. And don’t expect to lay eyes on me for a long while. Certainly never in Judar again.”

Kamal gave her that unfazed glance that made her want to shriek at the top of her lungs. “It’s this or war. The war you know full well would come at an unthinkable price to everyone in Judar—and in Saraya and Jareer, too.”

Wincing at the terrible images his words smeared across her imagination, she gritted out, “Let’s say for argument’s sake that I don’t think you’re all insane to be still dabbling in marriages of state to settle political disputes. The Aal Masoods have many princesses who’re just right for the role of political bride. In fact, some have been born and bred for the role. So how are any of you foolish enough to consider me—aka the Prodigal Princess?”

Lethal steel came into Kamal’s eyes. “Others’ opinions are irrelevant. You’re the princess of Judar. Only your blood could end centuries of enmity and forge an unbreakable alliance. So it’s not a choice. You are getting married to the Aal Ghaanem prince.”

“Wow. If you wore a crown, I’d think it got too tight on your swelling head and gave you brain damage. Anyway, if you think you can sacrifice me at the altar of your tribal reconciliations, you’re suffering from serious delusions.”

“We all offer sacrifices when our kingdom needs us.”

“What sacrifices?” She coughed a furious chuckle. “To remain married to Carmen, Farooq tossed his crown-prince rank to Shehab when our kingdom needed him. Shehab did the same with you, to marry Farah. You grabbed the rank and sacrifice only because it got you Aliyah in the bargain. You’re all living in ecstatic-ever-afters because you did exactly what you wanted and never sacrificed a thing for ‘our kingdom.’”

“Farooq and Shehab had the option of passing on their duty. I didn’t, like you don’t now. And I thought it was a sacrifice when I accepted my duty.”

“No, you didn’t. You knew nothing less than another threat of war would get Aliyah to say good-morning to you again. You pounced on the ‘duty’ that would make her your queen and pretended to hate your ‘fate.’” At his raised eyebrows, she smirked. “I can figure things out pretty good, ya akhi al azeez. So spare me the sacrifice speech, brother dear. You’re out of your mind if you think you can sway me into this by appealing to my patriotism.”

“Then it will be your steep humanitarian inclinations. You’ve been in war zones. You know that once war starts, there’s no stopping the chain reaction that harvests lives in its path. As a woman who lives to alleviate the suffering of others, and who can stop this nightmarish scenario, you’ll do anything to abort it, even if you abhor Judar and the whole region. And the very idea of marriage.”

The terrible knowledge that he was right, if there was no other choice, seeped into her marrow. “So now what? You’ll line up Aal Ghaanem princes and I’ll pick the least offensive one? And the one I pick would just accept being sacrificed for his kingdom’s peace and prosperity?”

“If a man considers marrying you a sacrifice, he must be devoid of even a drop of testosterone.”

“You won’t appeal to my feminine ego, either. Any man in the region would rather jump out of a ten-story window than marry a woman like me, the princess of Judar or not.”

“A woman like you would be an irreplaceable treasure to any man in any region.”

“Blatant brotherly hyperbole aside, no, a woman like me wouldn’t. A woman living alone in the West since she was eighteen is the stuff of region-wide dishonor around here. It had to be something as dire as the threat of war and the promise of unending oil to sweeten my scandalous pill for one of those stuck-in-the-dark-ages princes.”

“The new generation of princes are nowhere as bad as that.”

“The only one I know who isn’t is Najeeb. But I bet he won’t be joining the lineup.” Her lips twisted with remembered bitterness. “King Hassan would never sacrifice his heir to such a fate as me, no matter the incentives.”

Kamal waved his hand. “You won’t suffer the discomfort of a lineup. The Aal Ghaanem prince has already been chosen.”

She almost had to pick her jaw off the floor this time. “How can I express my gratitude that you’ve gone the extra mile and abolished whatever choice I had in this antiquated process?”

Kamal’s lips twitched. “Let me rephrase my extremely misleading statement. The Aal Ghaanem prince volunteered. And he is already here. But he had the consideration to let me prepare you before he came in. So shall I send him in...or do you need some more time before you meet your groom-to-be?”

She sank back onto the couch, objections and insults swarming so violently it was impossible to pick one to voice.

Calmly disregarding her apoplectic state, Kamal bent and kissed her cheek. “Give this a chance, and it’ll all work out for the best. You have me as the best example for assa ann takraho shai’an wa hwa khairon lakkom.”

You may hate something and it’s for your best.

Before she could do something drastic, like poke him in the eye, he straightened, turned on his heel and walked away.

She watched him disappear, all her mental functions on the fritz.

What had just happened?

Was she really back in Judar? Only to find herself being pushed into a far worse cage than anything her previous life here had been? Could it be true that refusal wasn’t an option?

Suddenly a suspicion cleaved into her brain.

The logical progression to this nightmare.

The identity of this “volunteer.”

The man who was the reason she’d sworn never to return to this region. He was an Aal Ghaanem prince, even if the world forgot that most of the time.

But he would never volunteer to...to...

You’re mine, Jala. And no matter how long it takes, I swear to you, I will reclaim you. I will make you beg to be mine again.

The promise...the threat...that had circulated in her being for six long years, burning her to the core with its malicious arrogance and possessiveness, reverberated in her bones.

No. He’d just said that out of spite, to poison whatever reprieve walking away would grant her. He hadn’t really wanted to reclaim her. Not when he’d only claimed her as a means to an end. An end he must believe he’d long achieved....

Her heart kicked, had her pitching forward to the edge of her seat. The door of the reception room was opening.

The next moment, her heart battered her ribs. Time ceased. Reality fell away. Everything converged on one thing. The shadow separating from the darkness. A shape she remembered all too well.

Him.

No. No. Not when she’d finally managed to purge his malignant memory. She must stop this confrontation from coming to pass, flee...now.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Could only sit there, her every nerve unraveling as soundless steps brought him into the circle of light where she sat exposed, besieged.

His eyes were the first things that emerged out of the gloom. Those fire pits had haunted her dreams and tormented her waking hours since she’d last seen them.

But the tremors arcing through her weren’t from what she saw in them, or the blow of his presence or its implications. It was the awareness that had swept her from the first moment she’d ever encountered him. Even amidst the terror of the hostage crisis, it had yanked her out of reality, plunged her into a stunned free fall where only he existed. For that same feeling to mushroom again now, after all that had happened...

He blinked, and the vice garroting her snapped, propelling her to her feet and to the French windows.

Her steps picked up speed as her exit to the palace gardens neared...then it disappeared. Behind a wall of muscle and maleness. It was as if he’d materialized in her path.

He didn’t try to detain her, didn’t need to. His very aura snared her. And that was before her gaze streaked up, found him looking at her with that trance-inducing intensity.

Finding him so near, after all these years, after what he’d cost her....

Her grip on consciousness softened. The world swirled as she stared up at him, a prisoner to her own enervation. And again the sheer injustice of it all hit her.

No one should be endowed with all this. He was too...everything. And even in the subdued lighting and through the veil of her own wavering senses she could see he was even more than she remembered. Six years had taken him from the epitome of manhood to godlike levels.

He towered over her, even though she was six feet in her heels, his physique that of an Olympian, his face that of an avenging angel, every inch of him composed of planes and hollows and slashes of power and perfection. Adding to his lethal assets, his wealth of sun-gilded mahogany hair was now long enough to be gathered at his nape, the severe scrape emphasizing the ruggedness of his leonine forehead and the vigor of his hairline. A trim new beard and mustache accentuated the jut of his cheekbones and the dominance of his jawline and completed the ruthless desert raider image. Maturity had added more of everything to that supreme being of bronze and steel who’d taken her breath away and had held it out of reach for as long as he’d had her under his spell. Something she’d thought she’d broken.

But if, after all she’d been through, all the maturation she’d thought she’d undergone, he could still look at her and take control of her senses, then the spell couldn’t be broken.

But this unadulterated coveting in his eyes... She couldn’t be reading it right.

Still, when he took a step closer, he vibrated with something that simulated barely checked hunger. Which would be unleashed at the slightest provocation—a word, a gasp....

But she was incapable of even those. She’d expended all her power in her escape effort. Now she was caught in stasis, waiting for his next move to reanimate her.

None came. He stared down at her, as if her nearness affected him just as acutely. When he’d been the one who’d planned this ambush, who’d been lying in wait for her.

The barricades around her resentment melted, shattering her inertia, imbuing her limbs with the steadiness of outrage as she put the distance he’d obliterated back between them.

“Guess your memory must be patchy from all the head blows I hear is an occupational hazard in your line of work. Your presence can only be explained by partial to total amnesia.”

Another blink lowered his thick, gold-tipped lashes, eclipsing the infernos of his eyes and his reaction. Then they swept up, exposing her to a different kind of heat. Surprise? Challenge? Humor?

Just the idea that it could be the latter poured acid on her inflamed nerves. “Let me fill one paramount hole in your recollections. What I last said to you remains in full force now. I never want to see you again. So you can take whatever game you think you’re playing and go straight to hell.”

She swept around then, desperation to get away from him fueling her steps...and her arm was snagged in a hard, warm grip.

Before she could fully register the bolt that zapped her, a tug swirled her around smoothly, as if in a choreographed dance, and brought her slamming against him from breast to calf.

Before she could draw another breath, one of his hands slipped into the hair at her nape, immobilizing her head and tilting her face upward. The other hand trailed a heavy path of possession down to her buttocks. Then, as he held her prisoner, exerting no force but that of his will, he let her see it. The very thing she’d once reveled in experiencing—the lethal beast he kept hidden under the civilized veneer. Its cunning savagery had assured his survival in the dangerous existence he’d chosen, his triumph over the most deadly enemies. That beast appeared to be starving—and she was what would sate its cravings.

Holding her stunned gaze, his own crackling with a dizzying mixture of calculation and lust, he lowered his head.

Feeling she’d disintegrate at the touch of his lips, she averted her face at the last moment.

His lips landed at the corner of her mouth, plucking convulsively at her flesh. The familiarity of his lips, the unfamiliarity of his facial hair, sparked each nerve ending individually. The gusts of his breath filled her with his scent, burying her under an avalanche of memory. Of how it used to feel to lose herself to the ecstasy of his powerful possession.

The hand on her buttocks pressed her closer, letting her feel his arousal, wringing hers from her depths. Before she could deal with this blow, the hand holding her head combed through her hair. Each stroke sent delight cascading from every hair root, spilled moans from her depths in answer to the unintelligible bass murmurings from him. Then his other hand caressed its way beneath her jacket, freeing her blouse from her skirt...and delving below.

A gasp tore out of her as those calloused fingers splayed against her sizzling flesh, imprinting it like a brand, making her instinctively press closer. And then he took his onslaught to the next level.

Yanking up her skirt, he slipped below her panties to cup her buttocks, kneading her taut flesh hungrily before hauling her against him. Weightless, in his power, she keened as the long-craved steel of his erection ground against her core. A scalding growl rolled in his gut as he tugged one thigh, opening her around his hips, spreading her for his domination, while the hand at her back plastered her heaving chest against his. Her breasts swelled with each rub against his hard power, the abrasion of their clothes turning her nipples to pinpoints of agony.

She writhed in his hold as he singed kisses down her neck, ravaged her in suckles that would mark her skin, sending vicious pleasure hurtling through her blood, lodging into her womb with each savage pull.

All existence converged on him, became him—his body and breath, his taste and feel, his hands and mouth—as he strummed her flesh, reclaimed her every inch and response. With just a touch, she’d ceased to be herself, becoming a mass of need wrapped around him, open to him, his to exploit and plunder...to pleasure and possess.

She could no longer hear anything but her thundering heart and their strident breathing as he raised her up and slid her down his body in leisurely excursions. He had her riding his erection through their clothes. He dipped his head to capture her nipple through her bra in massaging nips, sending never-forgotten ecstasy corkscrewing through her every nerve ending.

Her moans droned, interrupted only by sharp intakes of breath. The flowing throb between her thighs escalated into pounding, tipping from discomfort into pain until she cried out. At her distressed if unmistakable demand, he shuddered beneath her, snapping his head up. Then, eyes glazed with ferocity, he crashed his lips onto her wide-open mouth and thrust deep.

She plunged into his taste, fierce wonder spreading in her flickering awareness. How did she remember it so accurately, crave it so acutely still?

Then everything ceased as his tongue invaded her, commanded hers to tangle and duel and drink deeper from the well of passion she’d once drowned in.

Then something stirred in her, shutting down her mind; something cold and ugly tore through the delirium. A realization.

This had happened before. This had been what he’d done to her that last time. He’d taken over her senses, exploited her responses, inundated her with physical satisfaction...and almost decimated her soul and psyche in the process.

Now he’d taken her over again, as if a mountain of pain and resentment didn’t exist between them. She was letting him pull her strings again when he only ever saw her as a means to an end. Having an even bigger end this time, he’d decided to go into all-out invasion mode from the get-go. And she was letting him. No.

Anger and humiliation shattered the spell, had her struggling in his arms as if fighting for her life.

Stiffening for a long moment, as if unable to make up his mind whether that was an attempt to get away or to press closer, he finally tore his lips from hers and slid her down his body and back to the ground.

Every muscle burning from the slow poison of need with which he’d reinfected her, she staggered, groping for equilibrium. She’d taken barely a step away when his hands descended on her shoulders and pulled her back against him.

She couldn’t even tremble, the control she’d long struggled for shattered, leaving her drained. She could only lean back against him limply, her head rolling on his shoulder.

Taking this as consent, he cupped her breasts, pressing against her as he groaned in her ear. “I didn’t intend to do this. I still have no control over what I’m doing right this second. I walked in here and it was as if time hit Rewind, as if we’d never been apart. And just like you always do, you overrode my every rational thought and impulse with a look, a word. Then I touched you and you responded...like you’re responding still....”

This zapped her with just enough energy to push out of his arms. “Sure. It’s my fault.”

He let her put distance between them this time. “There’s no fault here. Just the phenomenon that exists between us, this absolute physical affinity we share. But I really didn’t intend to kiss you.”

“Kiss me? That’s what you call a kiss?”

A rough huff of self-deprecation escaped him. “So I almost took you standing up, probably would have, not giving a second thought that we’re in the middle of your brother’s stateroom, if you hadn’t stopped me. You have that effect on me. I see you and I can only think of pleasuring you.”

Once she’d believed his every word. She’d been certain that what they did share was a phenomenon, as undeniable and unstoppable as a force of nature. Then she’d found out the truth. It was clear he thought she didn’t know, that he didn’t need to invent a new deception.

He approached her again, one of those hands stroking a gossamer touch down her cheek. “But you’re wrong. About the last thing you said to me. No matter how many blows to the head I sustain, nothing could make me forget it. You said, Find yourself someone else who might have a death wish. Because I don’t.”

He remembered. Word for word.

Figured. He was said to possess a computerlike mind, always archiving, networking, extrapolating. On top of his fighting prowess and weapons mastery, it was what made him the ultimate modern warrior and strategist in this information age.

She pulled away from the debilitation of his touch. “And that statement has been solidified by the passage of time and reinforced by this new stunt. So, since you have a flawless memory, what else is wrong with you? Haven’t I already turned down your marriage proposal once before?”

Perfect teeth sank into his lip, making her feel they’d sunk into hers again. “I prefer to dwell on when you said yes.”

She ignored the tingling of her lips. “Only to follow it with a resounding no, when I came to my senses. Now you’re using an impending war to reintroduce the subject? Since it’s not faulty memory, I assume these are your new orders?”

Something blipped in his gaze. It was gone before she could fathom it. But even that much from him was telling. He was taken aback and clearly had no idea that she was onto him.

Infusing her tone with all the cool derision she could, she cocked her head at him. “This surprises you? Hmm, maybe I must reconsider all I heard about your reputation as a know-it-all spymaster. Anyway, if you’re still not sure what I mean... Yes, I do know. Everything.”

Three

She knew. Everything.

For stunned moments that was all that filled Mohab’s mind. Then alarm diminished and questions crowded in its place.

What was “everything” according to her? Whatever she thought that was, could that be the reason behind her sudden rejection six years ago?

He stared at her as she stood safe feet away, tall and majestic in a cream skirt suit that made her skin glow, still the most magnificent thing he’d ever seen. Even more than he’d remembered. And he’d thought he remembered everything about this woman whose memory had refused to relinquish its hold over him, whose feel still seethed beneath his skin, whose taste still lingered on his tongue.

But he’d come here today hoping what he remembered had been exaggerated, that his many sightings of her during the past years had perpetuated the delusion, that one up close look would dissipate it.

Then he’d walked into Kamal’s stateroom, and one look at her had dashed any hopes he’d ever entertained of finally purging her from his system. Everything he’d remembered about her had been diluted. Or maturity had only intensified her effect on him. He hadn’t meant to drown in her. But the years of separation, instead of dampening his responses, had only made it impossible for him to ration them.

His gaze swept her ripe curves. His every inch ached, remembering how they’d fit against his angles, how her supple softness had filled his hands, cushioned his hardness, accommodated his demand. His fingers buzzed as they relived skimming her warm, velvet skin, overflowing with her resilient flesh, winding in her silky, raven tresses. His lips and tongue stung with the phantom sensations of feeling hers again, hot and moist and fragrant, surrendering to his invasion, demanding his dominance.

He’d almost taken her, in a near-literal reenactment of their last time together, before saying one word to her. And how she’d responded. He’d felt her every inch vibrate to his frequency, every nerve resonate with his urgency. Even now, after she’d collected herself and retreated behind a barricade of cold contempt, he could still feel it seething. Her mind was another matter, though. If outrage could flay, he’d be minus skin now. He certainly felt as raw as if he was.

So was her rage a reaction to his incursion, or did the developing situation only pile on top of the “everything” she claimed to know?

He could ask, since she seemed to be forthcoming all of a sudden. But he wasn’t here to dredge up the past. And if he could still just touch her and they’d both go up in flames, that was all he needed to know.

All he needed, period.

But she was waiting for him to make some kind of response to her revelation. He’d give her one, all right. Just not what she might expect.

He walked back to where she’d retreated. “So you know everything?” At her curt nod, he shoved his hands into his pockets so they wouldn’t reach for her again. “Let’s test this claim, shall we?”

That twist surprised her. Zain. Good. He shouldn’t be the only one not knowing if he was coming or going here.

He cocked his head at her. “Do you know that I committed a cardinal sin during that hostage crisis?”

The tangent seemed to confuse her.

When she answered, the modulated voice that had sung its siren song in his ear for years was lower, huskier. “If you mean killing, I know all too well. Those moments, when you stormed the conference hall with your black-ops team and took out our captors, is forever branded in my memory. I watched you...terminate six of our captors single-handedly, with a precision I only thought happened in movies.” Those slanting, dense eyebrows he’d loved to trace and lips drew together. “But I didn’t think you considered killing a sin. Not in your line of work.”

“Killing is my line of work. At least, it’s part of the job description. Though ‘killing’ isn’t what I call it. I prefer ‘eliminating lethal threats to innocents.’”

Her eyes turned a somber cognac as she nodded. She didn’t contest that he spoke the simple truth, that people like him were a necessity to control the monsters who roamed the earth. She’d obviously seen enough in her line of work to know that his extreme measures were indispensable at times. Just as they had been that day when she’d been taken hostage with five hundred others at that conference in Bidalya.

But she could have contradicted him to score a point. That she didn’t, that she remained objective even to the detriment of her own attack, thrilled him.

He sighed. “But the sin I committed had nothing to do with the violence I perpetrated. I committed the cardinal sin of my line of work.”

“How so?”

“I deviated from the plan, improvised. I could have gotten so many killed.”

Again, counter to his expectations, her eyes grew impassioned as she contradicted him, in his defense. “But you saved hundreds, all of us who remained. And you didn’t seem to be improvising. You acted with such certainty, such efficiency, it was as if everything had been rehearsed. To the point that it felt as if the captors themselves were playing an exact role in the sequence you designed.”

“If it seemed like that to you, it was because of my men’s outstanding skills, and because I managed to compensate on the fly. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t make a huge mistake.” Her eyes were puzzled but engrossed. He could tell that she couldn’t wait to see where he was taking this. “Do you remember what I did when we stormed in?”

She nodded stiffly, as if it still pained her to think of that harrowing time. And who could blame her? She’d watched three people get killed in cold blood as proof of their captors’ resoluteness. She’d once told him that knowing the true meaning of helplessness, failing to protect those people, had damaged her more than her fear of meeting the same fate.

“What do you remember?”

Her exquisite features contorted with the reluctance to conjure up the memories. Still, she answered, “It was so explosive, but I remember it frame for frame. You burst in while one of them was threatening Najeeb that he’d start blowing parts off him. Then I met your eyes across the distance and...and...”

“Go on.”

She swallowed. “You streaked toward me, blowing away those men left and right, and then you were in front of me—shielding me—as you and your team finished off the rest.”

“And that was my sin. Najeeb was my mission. And I took one look at you across that hall and made the instantaneous decision to save you first.”

Her eyes widened; her lips opened on a soundless exclamation. She’d evidently never thought to question what he’d done.

When she finally talked, her whisper was impeded. “But you blasted away the one who was threatening him as you ran to me. You gave no one a chance to use him as shield or to harm him.”

“I should have run to him, should have shielded him. As my crown prince, he should have been my only priority. Instead, I made that you.”

“But you managed to save him and everyone else.”

“Only because I managed to compensate, as I said. Najeeb could have gotten shot before I ended the threat to him. And knowing full well the widespread damage his injury or death would have caused, retaliations that would have reaped far more than five hundred lives, I still risked that.”

Time seemed to stretch as bewilderment glimmered in her gemlike eyes.

She let out a shaky breath. “So what are you saying? That you took one look at me and were so bowled over you decided to risk everyone’s lives—including your own—for me?”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying. I was...bowled over a bit before that.”

He watched her mouth drop open. This was news to her. He’d never intimated that he’d seen her before that day. But he’d seen her over two years earlier, had searched her out many times afterward.

“But it was the first time I’d seen you!”

“I saw no upside in letting you see me, or in acting on my interest. You were, as you pointed out so many times when we were together, an Aal Masood...and I was an Aal Ghaanem. The Montagues and Capulets didn’t have a thing on our moronically feuding houses. I also didn’t think it would be wise or fair to ever involve a woman in my crazy existence.” He exhaled. “Then I saw you in danger and every rational thought flew out the window.”

Her eyes filled with so much; he struggled not to drag her to him and kiss them closed.

Then they emptied of everything, leaving only hardness. “Why are you telling me this now?”

He shrugged. “I am testing your claim that you know everything. I just proved that you don’t.”

“You proved only that you spin a good yarn. As I already knew you did. Is this one supposed to appeal to my ego?”

A mirthless huff escaped him. “You think I’m making this up? Why? To butter you up for my current purposes? I wish. As someone who knows what a bullet feels like ripping through my flesh, I would have preferred one to admitting how fallible I am, how unprofessional I was, how I risked everyone’s lives to protect a woman who didn’t know me...whom I believed could never be mine.”

Steel mixed with gold in her gaze, clearly not buying his admissions. Funny. If he’d ever thought he’d confess this to her, he wouldn’t have dreamed this would be her reaction.

Might as well confess the rest, let her make whatever she wished of it. “When I burst in and I met your eyes, saw that mixture of terror and courage and fury...I couldn’t imagine I wouldn’t be able to look in those eyes again, to get the chance to know you. My instincts took over...and I let them.”

She averted those eyes, depriving him of their touch. “Yet after you went to such lengths to save me, you didn’t follow up on your wish to ‘know’ me. Not for over a year.”

He exhaled heavily. “I might have saved the day, for you and for everyone else, but I knew how badly I messed up. I guess I was punishing myself for failing to fulfill my duty and couldn’t reward my failure by giving myself the gift of knowing you, the one behind my lapse.”

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