by Dani Collins
She moved a miniature Christmas tree to the top of her column of gifts.
“That looks ridiculous.”
“I know. Isn’t it great? And look.” She showed him an envelope while making an O of her mouth. “What does that say?”
“Did you write that?” He took it and looked at his name neatly executed in Arabic.
“How’s my penmanship?” She wrinkled her nose.
“I’m impressed.” And confounded yet again. “You’re learning Arabic?”
“Nura is an excellent tutor. My maid,” she said at his blank look. “We’re starting with the basics. Colors, clothing, food. Printing the alphabet.”
He glanced at the name labels on the gifts, all written in her tidy hand. He knew the names of his key staff and approved raises and bonuses yearly, but he would never go to this sort of trouble.
He absently started to open the envelope, but she gasped in mock outrage and held out a hand to take it back.
“I don’t think so. If you want to know what this is, you can come back in two days.”
“I can’t take an entire day off and spend it with you, Hannah.” It was absolute fact, but he felt like a jerk when her cheeky smiled dimmed.
“It’s not a holiday you observe. I understand,” she said, covering up her disappointment. “But if you can spare a few minutes to drop by, I hope you will.”
So naive. “I don’t take any days off,” he clarified. “Even on the holidays we observe.”
“Why not? Tell me a little about what you do all day.” She waved invitingly toward the windows that looked onto the courtyard where her maid was setting a table.
What didn’t he do? He followed her outside, thinking it was odd to see the pool from this angle along with his own lounge through the screen of greenery. It didn’t bother him that she could see into his apartment. He was rarely there to do anything but sleep.
He sat and they served themselves from the tray of flatbread and dip, dates and cherry tomatoes. Hannah poured two cordials and tipped sparkling water into them.
“Is the supervision of the military still under your purview?”
“Completely. I meet with my commanding officers and advisers first thing every morning.” And read their reports well into the night. The country’s security required his constant attention. “I meet with members of parliament daily, as well.”
“I’ve been reading about Baaqi’s history. Your brother’s decision to move Baaqi to a democratic parliament sounds as though it happened very quickly.”
“Dreams happen overnight,” he said flatly. “One can’t expect to wake up and find they have become reality, though. It’s been two years, but our neighbors, even some of our citizens, find the idea too western. My brother was trying to appease those who conspire to abolish the monarchy, but history is loaded with horrific examples of what happens when there is a power vacuum. The worst of society’s evil moves in to seize it. My armed forces are kept busy ensuring our transition remains as civil as possible.”
She sobered. “Should I be concerned about our safety?”
“I stay vigilant so no one else has to be,” he said dryly.
She remained somber. “That’s a lot on you.”
“I’m used to it.” He lifted a shoulder, finding her acknowledgment unusual enough to be uncomfortable. “There’s no one else to do it when our government is still so new. My intention is that we’ll continue to transition peacefully to a broader share of power, one that Qaswar can rule without the threat of constant uprisings. It’s a delicate balance. When you saw me this morning, I was on my way into a trade negotiation. Those take time and they’re draining, but diversification is necessary so we won’t be dependent on oil resources forever.”
“And the King? Given his health challenges, I imagine some of his responsibilities fall to you?”
All of them. He bit back a sigh.
“My father finalizes newly passed laws, but he doesn’t have the stamina for reading long briefs. I review and approve them before he signs them off. He and my mother have ceased all of their ceremonial appearances, so I cut ribbons and visit hospitals. There is no end to petitions for our attention to smaller, more personal matters that we have historically settled. Today I learned of a Baaqi student who has gone missing in Australia. It’s likely a hiking accident, not foul play, but a telephone call and a release of some funds go a long way to resolving things like that. I do as much as I can.”
She closed her lips in thought. “That makes me sad. I mean, of course you should serve your country—you’re above reproach for all you do, but I had hoped you would have time for being a father to Qaswar. Was your father this busy? What sort of time did he spend with you and Eijaz?”
Akin silently scooped dip onto a triangle of bread and ate it, considering whether there was any value in telling her how it had been. He rarely let himself dwell on it, but it had shaped him into the abrupt, uncommunicative man he was today.
That shell he’d adopted was as much a repellent as a defense, though. Since Eijaz’s death, he had wondered if he and his father might find some approximation of the camaraderie or regard Eijaz had shared with the old man, but Akin was so used to not allowing himself to want it that he refused to let down his guard and make it happen.
Nevertheless, “I do want to be a father to Qaswar,” he stated, even as he wondered if he had the capacity, given the fathering he’d had. “Eijaz had nearly thirty years to prepare for a role he was ultimately unable to fulfill. Qaswar will begin assuming formal duties as a child. He will rule at eighteen, sooner if he shows himself capable and willing.”
“I was barely ready to look after myself at twenty-five. You really expect him to rule a country when he ought to be at college? I have very strong opinions about education, Akin.”
“I’m sure you do, but you have to stop thinking of him as one of your middle-class American children.” They had arrived at his purpose in coming here. “Qaswar is a prince, Hannah. And you are not a housewife who can throw Christmas parties for your staff and walk out with our future ruler as if you’re part of some 1950s’ television sitcom. We have protocols. Rules. I expect you to abide by them.”
One spoiled, unpredictable future king was enough for his lifetime. He wouldn’t raise another.
She sat straighter. “See, I knew you were annoyed with me, but how was I to know how you would react? This is the first conversation we’ve had in weeks.”
That annoyed him. He was stretched so thin he ought to be in half a dozen other places right now, but he was here taking flak from her because he hadn’t been dancing attendance like a newlywed?
“What did your staff say?” he challenged.
She hesitated before conceding, “That the dentist could come to me. But I was feeling cooped up. It’s not as if I took him out of the palace.”
“There was no need to take him out of these rooms.”
“Is this my cage? Am I one of these birds?” She flicked a hand toward one of the cages. “Because I didn’t see ‘prisoner’ in the fine print of our agreement.”
“You’re overreacting. I only want to be informed. We might have had guests.”
“And you don’t want anyone to see your hideous wife?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh, excuse me. Your ridiculous wife,” she shot back. “I have spent my whole life trying to justify my right to exist. Do you even realize how many allowances and compromises I’ve already made to come here? How homesick I am?”
“For what? Syracuse?” he snapped. “Because you didn’t make it sound as though you were that happy in America.”
She sucked in an injured breath and sat straighter. “I was trying to be happy. I had a plan.”
“You had a list.”
“Don’t disparage me for trying to achieve goals. I left everything that is famil
iar to me, and my goal is to make this feel like home,” she spelled out. “So I went for a walk with my son. I could have left him behind, but I feel sick every time he’s out of my sight. And you’re taking me to task for that? You need to back off.”
“I can’t!” He slammed his hand onto the table, making her jump.
And now she’d goaded him into reacting and he was angry with himself. He rose abruptly, making his chair scrape, and strode several paces around the edge of the pool.
“I just told you what I’m up against, Hannah. This—” He circled his hand to encompass the paradisiacal courtyard that was his only refuge and only when he stole an hour late at night. “This is not real life. I give this to you and everyone else by keeping a firm grip on everything that happens in Baaqi. Don’t fight me on that. For Qaswar’s sake, you and I cannot be in conflict.”
“I didn’t ask to go to an all-inclusive resort for the rest of my life!” She stood, too, gesturing wildly.
“Neither did I,” he bit out. “Yet here we are. And we can be enemies, or we can be allies. I make a particularly unpleasant enemy. Ask the ones I have.”
“I can stand having enemies.” She stalked toward him. “If you don’t like me, that’s your choice. What I won’t do is allow an enemy to bully me and change my behavior. I won’t buckle to your dictates and beg for your approval.”
“Do you understand...” Warning rang from deep in his chest as he stepped close enough to bracket her toes with his own. “How much power I have over you?”
“Yes.” She swallowed but met his gaze. Her lashes were quivering, her mousy brown eyes bright with fear behind her glasses, but she held his stare and crinkled her chin in determination. “You can threaten me and hurt me. Kill me, even. You can lie to my son and say I died or didn’t want him. You hold all the cards, Akin.” Her voice shook with intimidation that turned to resolve. “But I can never raise a son strong enough to face all he faces if I can’t stand up to the man who will have the most influence over his life.”
This woman. She had to know she was playing with fire. He wanted to crush her, he really did.
But there was something so glorious about the way she held his gaze and held her ground when her hands were in anxious fists and he could see her pulse racing in her throat. It wasn’t just her son she was standing up for. It was for herself.
That conviction of hers struck a match in him that was the furthest thing from anger. It was hot and passionate and possessive. It was a fire so bright it could destroy him, yet he wanted to throw himself into it.
“This is who I am.” Her voice shook. “I refuse to backslide into waiting around, hoping my life will drift in a certain direction. I’m going to go after what I want. Do whatever you have to in response to that, but this is who I am.”
He did. He gave in to the compulsion to set his hands on either side of her head and tilted her mouth up to his as he swooped down, remembering at the last second not to rake her lips against her braces as he fit his mouth to hers.
She gasped and stiffened, hands flying up to take hold of his arms.
He braced himself for a scream, for an attempt to shove him into the pool. He would have released her, he wanted to believe he would have, but she only dug her nails into the tender skin on the inside of his wrists and stood very still, mouth trembling against his own.
He had never touched a woman in anger and that was not what this was, although there was anger in him as he took ravenous possession of her mouth. Sexual frustration had its talons in him along with a deep, indignant fury that he was being overthrown in a way he couldn’t combat—because he didn’t know how to fight her. He didn’t want to fight. That was the issue. These lips said the most outrageous things and he wanted them to do outrageous things. He wanted them everywhere on him. Whispering against his ear and biting his neck and closing around his stiffening sex.
He wanted her.
He couldn’t deny it any longer. He absorbed that undeniable fact as he roamed his mouth across hers, learning her edges and corners and softness and taste, coaxing her to kiss him back with a soft cling of her lips to his own. It became the tenderest act of punishment he had ever delivered. He was the one being punished. He understood that at a hidden level as a wildfire he couldn’t douse swept through him, burning past any good sense that remained, urging him to beg for her to meet his expectations.
A baby’s cry reached them, and Hannah gave a fresh gasp as she jerked her head back, staring at him in abject shock.
CHAPTER SIX
AKIN LET HIS hands fall to his sides while she turned and hurried inside. Shame hit him in another lash of punishment. They couldn’t be enemies, if only for his nephew’s sake, but he’d taken the first steps of aggression himself. How would she retaliate?
Akin watched her through the glass. Her voice carried in a muted, flustered sound. Her body language was tense, but her entire demeanor changed as she gathered the baby and crooned to him, nuzzling his cheek.
Firstborn, Akin thought enviously, punched in the gut so hard he had to look away. Another proverbial welt rose as he realized he could never give her another baby. He couldn’t put his own child through the agony of being the unchosen one.
I feel sick each time he’s out of my sight.
The Queen still felt that way about Eijaz but had never once behaved as if she wanted Akin anywhere near her.
He hadn’t realized his gaze had fallen into the middle of the pool until a noise drew his attention back to the table where Hannah was retaking her seat. She’d draped a light blanket over her shoulder. Qaswar fussed with growing ire.
“I know, I know. I’m hurrying,” she assured the baby. “Poor starving thing. You’d think you were abandoned on a doorstep. If this king thing doesn’t work out, you definitely have a career on Broadway.”
“What are you doing?” Akin hadn’t expected her to come back out, let alone—
“He’s hungry. So am I.” She fiddled beneath the blanket and adjusted the baby.
The frantic wails ceased. She sighed and took a long drink from her glass. “Nursing makes me thirsty, too.”
Akin looked toward the pool entrance into his own quarters. “Should I leave you alone?”
“Does it make you uncomfortable to be here while he eats?”
Was that what he was? This wasn’t a circumstance he’d ever encountered. He wasn’t used to being drawn into private moments of any kind. It felt like an overstep, the same way it had when he discovered she read romance novels and had a happiness list.
“Can I say something before you go?” Her voice was tentative and not quite steady. Her lashes stayed down, hiding her eyes while her cheeks wore scorched flags of heightened emotion.
He folded his arms, certain she would berate him for kissing her. He ought to regret it, but it wasn’t that simple. Not when she had responded with a sweet heat that had been as unexpected as it was exciting. He was still hard and wanted more. He wanted to delve the very depths of her passion and she was going to call him a brute and tell him to go to hell.
“I’m trying to make the best of this, but it’s been a difficult adjustment. Motherhood is. You can’t imagine any of this has been easy for me, Akin. But every time I hold my son, I’m reminded that I’m here because your brother helped me make him. Not intentionally, but the stars aligned, and now this is my life. You’re right that I can’t deny him his birthright. I want to prepare him as best I can, and I want him to be safe while he grows into it. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful for all that you do for his sake. I’m incredibly grateful for him.”
She lifted earnest, damp eyes, saying nothing about their kiss.
He was arguably the most powerful man in this country and definitely on the top ten list in the world. He was revered and feared in military circles, known for his clever strategies and triumphs against grim odds.
Yet Hann
ah undermined him with a few words that weren’t even flattery. They weren’t about him directly, just sincere sentiments that took all the air out of him. He would be furious at this ability of hers if he wasn’t so fascinated by how artlessly she wielded that particular weapon.
He sighed, pushed his hand through his hair.
“My brother was very unpredictable, Hannah. It’s disloyal of me to criticize him, but his nature was very mercurial, and he was always given absolute freedom.” Never held to account. Never forced to pick up pieces. That was Akin’s job. “Thankfully, he was essentially good at heart. He wanted progress for Baaqi, but in a very idealistic way, not with a desire to do the hard work of it.”
Akin pressed his lips flat, glancing toward the open doors and lowering his voice so only she would hear him.
“In many ways, he was motivated by the fact that ruling a country is work. With my father ailing, Eijaz was being called upon to do more. He thought he could delegate to a parliament and continue living however he liked. There was no sense of order when he declared we would hold a general election. No plan. He threw a rock into a nest of hornets and ran away to post photos of himself climbing glaciers in Antarctica. I had to deal with the fallout from all his whims. This has been a particularly challenging one.” Akin sealed his lips against any further disparagement of a dead man.
“You’re worried that I’m like him, doing things you can’t predict.”
“I know you’re like that. You surprise me every time we interact.” And much as he wanted to dislike her for it, he found it made her that much more appealing.
“I want to reflect well on my son, you know. And you.” She said that with a deeply vulnerable look.
You don’t want anyone to see your hideous wife.
Her self-esteem had been thoroughly trampled and he didn’t know how to address that. He wouldn’t have kissed her if he didn’t find her desirable, but he was regretting that he’d lost control and broken his word. The one thing he’d always prided himself on was having more self-discipline and forethought than his brother. A sense of consequence to his actions.
