She bit down on her lip, nodding. ‘And I went home, and I waited, and I thought of you, and I have missed you every single day and you’ve been nowhere. It was as though it never happened. And now you’re asking me to forget, and feel as I did then?’ Her heart was battered and mangled and yet it was also bursting. Her defiant speech felt good to throw at him, but it wasn’t really how she felt. She watched her words hit their mark, the pain in his face, the apology she felt in his eyes.
‘I came here knowing you might not want what you did then. But still I had to explain. I didn’t ask you to leave because I didn’t love you. I loved you too much to have you stay. And I love you now, too much to fight you. Just know that you will always be my reason for being, Johara. Whether you’re with me or not, everything I do will be for you.’
He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it lightly, and she tilted her head back to his, facing him. ‘I love you.’
He offered the words so simply, and they pushed inside her, shaking her out of the state she was in. This was really happening. He was standing in front of her pouring his heart out and she was holding onto the anger she’d felt. Was she doing exactly the same thing he had? Pushing him away because she was scared of being hurt again?
Maybe love always brought with it a sense of danger—and the gamble made the pay-off so much sweeter.
‘So what are you saying?’ she asked quietly, surprised her voice sounded so level when her insides were going haywire.
‘Is that not obvious?’
She shook her head. ‘I think I need you to say it.’
He nodded, his Adam’s apple shifting as he swallowed. ‘I wish I could go back to that night and change everything I said and did. I wish I had pulled you into my arms, thanked you for what you were offering and walked hand in hand with you to deal with the problems that faced us. Not me. Us. About our countries.’ Her lips parted as she drew in a shaky breath.
‘But I cannot go back in time, and I cannot change what I did then. So I am promising you my heart, and my future, and everything I can share with you. I am asking you to marry me, if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. I am asking you to be not just my wife, and the mother of my children, but a ruler at my side. You are brilliant and brave and your instincts are incredible. I would be lucky to have you as my wife, and Ishkana would be blessed to have you as its Queen. I’m asking you to look beyond the past to the future that we could have. And in exchange I promise that I will never again fail you. I will never again fail to see your strength and courage, to understand what you are capable of.’
Tears fell unchecked down her cheeks now. He caught one with the pad of his thumb, then another, wiping her face clean.
‘Don’t cry.’ The words were gruff. ‘Please.’
She laughed, though, a half-sob, a sign of how broken and fixed she felt all at once.
‘Damn it, Amir, I wanted to hate you,’ she said, stamping her foot. ‘I have missed you so much.’
‘I know.’ He groaned, pulling her towards him, holding her close to his body. ‘That is mutual.’
She listened to his heart and knew that it was beating for her, just as it always had. She stayed there with her head pressed to his chest, listening, believing, adjusting to the reality she was living, to the happiness that was within reach. They both had to be brave, but the alternative was too miserable to contemplate.
She blinked up at him, smiling. ‘Let’s go home, Amir.’
He made a growling sound of relief, pleasure, delight, and then he swooped his lips down to kiss her. ‘Yes, inti qamar. Let us go home.’
* * *
‘You can’t be serious.’
Amir couldn’t take his eyes off Johara. Through the glass of his bedroom, he watched her sleeping and felt as though nothing and no one could ever hurt him. She was here, in Ishkana, where she belonged. Seven months ago he’d pushed her away, believing the best thing he could do for her was arrange safe passage to Taquul. How wrong he’d been. And how fortunate he was that her heart was so forgiving...
‘We flew back a few hours ago.’ Behind him, the sun was beginning to break into the sky. ‘It’s all agreed.’
‘You cannot marry her. I forbid it.’
‘Your lack of consent will hurt Jo, Malik, but it will do nothing to change our plans.’
Silence met his pronouncement. If the past had taught them anything it was that neither wanted to risk another outbreak of violence. They both knew the cost too well. Malik might be furious, but he would not threaten military action.
‘You must have kidnapped her. Taken her against her will.’
Amir straightened at the very suggestion. ‘I will never, in my life, do anything against your sister’s will. She came here because we are in love, Malik, as you are well aware.’ The gentle rebuke sat between them. It was the reason, after all, that Malik had lied about an impending marriage to Paris.
‘Love,’ Malik spat with disbelief. ‘She is a princess of Taquul. Her place is here.’
‘Her place,’ Amir corrected with a smile that came from deep within his heart, ‘is wherever she wants it to be.’
* * *
Inside, Johara caught the statement through the open door, her eyes blinking open. She listened, her breath in a state of suspension as the man she intended to spend the rest of her life with spoke to—she could only presume—her brother.
* * *
‘I insist on speaking to her.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Amir agreed. ‘She is still asleep, but I have no doubt she will wish to speak to you about this. The purpose for my call is simple—I wanted to alert you to the state of affairs and to caution you against saying or doing anything to upset her.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘A threat? No. It’s a promise. If you push her away, you will lose her completely, Malik. She has chosen where she wants to be, and with whom.’ He sighed. ‘I love your sister. I plan to make her very happy by giving her everything she could ever want—and we both know that is for us to be, if not exactly friends, capable of existing harmoniously.’
Silence met this statement.
‘She and I are to marry. She will carry my children, the heirs to Ishkana. They will be your nieces and nephews. Can you think of anyone who will benefit from continued estrangement?’
* * *
Inside the bedroom, Johara smiled, her eyes fluttering closed. She was exactly where she wanted to be and, with all her heart, she knew that the decision she’d made had been the right one. The only one she could ever make. Her heart, the skies, fate and future had guided her here—it was where she was meant to be.
EPILOGUE
AMIR HAD BEEN WRONG. He had believed his people, and the people of Taquul, would revolt at the very idea of a union between himself and Johara. He had braced for that, and prepared Johara for the inevitable splashback.
There had been none.
Nothing but euphoric delight and anticipation. Every detail of their union was discussed at length. He could not turn on the television without catching some talk-show host speculating about which tiara she would wear down the aisle, and whether the jewel for her ring would be of Taquul or Ishkana.
Billboards were pasted across the city with a smiling photo of Johara, welcoming her to Ishkana. Despite the pain his people had felt—or perhaps because of it—they welcomed her, knowing that lasting peace was truly at hand. With this marriage, the war became impossible. Their union bonded the countries in a way no peace treaty alone ever could. They were family now. His children would be a mix of them, and of their countries, and he had every intention of their being raised in the light of both countries and cultures.
Separation was not the way forward. Unity was. Just as Johara had said.
In the end, she wore a tiara that had belonged to her mother, and a wedding ring that had been his mother’s. Her dres
s was made of spider’s silk, lace and beads, and when she walked towards him, he felt as though it were just him and her, and no one else in the world. When she walked towards him, he felt as though he might be about to soar into the heavens.
She smiled at him and he felt a thousand and one things—gladness, love, pleasure, relief, and a small part of him felt sorrow that his parents would never know her. But in a way, their happiness would be a part of this, because through their example he’d finally understood that being fearless was a necessity to love.
A year after their wedding, to the day, they were blessed with the birth of a son. Two years later, twin daughters followed. And for all the years into the future they’d hoped for, peace, happiness and prosperity favoured not only Amir and Johara, but the people of their kingdoms as well.
There was, as it turned out, never a story with less woe than that of Amir and his Jo.
* * *
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Stealing the Promised Princess
by Millie Adams
CHAPTER ONE
“I HAVE A debt to collect, Violet King.”
Violet stared out the windows of her office, glass all around, providing a wonderful view of the Pacific Ocean directly across her desk, with a view of her staff behind her. There were no private walls in her office space. She preferred for the team to work collaboratively. Creatively.
Her forward-thinking approach to business, makeup and fashion was part of why she had become one of the youngest self-made billionaires in the world.
Though, self-made might be a bit of a stretch considering that her father, Robert King, had given her the initial injection of cash that she needed to get her business off the ground. Everyone worked with investors, she supposed. That hers was genetically related to her was not unheard-of nor, she supposed, did it fully exclude her from that self-made title. But she was conscious of it. Still, she had made that money back and then some.
And she did not have debt.
Which meant this man had nothing to say to her.
“You must have the wrong number,” she said.
“No. I don’t.”
The voice on the other end of the phone was rich and dark, faintly accented, though she couldn’t quite nail down what accent it was. Different to her family friend, now her sister’s husband, Dante, who was from Italy and had spent many years in the States since then. Spanish, perhaps, but with a hint of Brit that seemed to elongate his vowels.
“Very confident,” she said. “But I am in debt to no man.”
“Oh, perhaps I misspoke then. You are not in debt. You are the payment.”
Ice settled in her stomach. “How did you get this number?”
In this social media age where she was seemingly accessible at all hours, she guarded her private line with all the ferocity of a small mammal guarding its burrow. She—or her assistants—might be available twenty-four hours a day on the internet, but she could only be reached at this line by business associates, family or personal friends. This man was none of those, and yet somehow he was calling her. And saying the most outlandish things.
“How I got this number is not important to the conversation.”
She huffed. “To the contrary, it is extremely important.”
Suddenly, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she turned around. The office building was empty, just as she thought it was. It was late in the day and everyone had gone home. Her employees often worked from home, or at the beach, wherever creativity struck them.
Her team wanted to be there, and she didn’t need to enforce long office hours for them to do their work. The glass walls of the building made it possible for her to see who was in residence at all times, again, not so she could check up on them, but so there was a sense of collaboration.
It also made it easy to see now that she was alone here.
Of course she was. A person couldn’t simply walk into this building. Security was tight, and anyone wanting entrance would have to be buzzed in.
But then suddenly she saw a ripple of movement through the outermost layer of glass, motion as a door opened. A dark shape moved through each clear barrier, from room to room, like a shark gliding beneath the surface of clear water. As each door opened, the shape moved closer, revealing itself to be the figure of a man.
Her chest began to get tight. Fear gripped her, her heart beating faster, her palms damp.
“Are you here?” she whispered.
But the line went dead, and she was left standing frozen in her office, her eyes glued to the man steadily making his way deeper and deeper into the office building. The glass, however transparent, was bulletproof, so there was that.
There were so many weirdos in the world that an abundance of caution never went amiss. She had learned about that at a fairly early age. Her father being one of the wealthiest businessmen in California had put her in the public eye very young. The media had always been fascinated with their family; with her brother, who was incredibly successful in his own right; her mother, who was a great beauty. And then, with her for the same reason.
It had always felt so...unearned to her. This great and intense attention for doing nothing at all. It had never sat well with her.
Her father had told her to simply enjoy it. That she was under no obligation to do anything, considering he’d done all the work already.
He’d always been bemused by her desire to get into business, but he’d helped her get started. He’d been humoring her, that much had been clear. But she’d been determined to prove to him that she was smart. That she could make it on her own.
Even now she had the feeling he regarded her billion-dollar empire as a hobby.
The only one of them who had seemingly escaped without massive amounts of attention was her younger sister, Minerva, who Violet had always thought might have been the smartest of them all. Minerva had made herself into the shape of something unremarkable so that she could live life on her own terms.
Violet had taken a different approach, and there were times when the lack of privacy grated and she regretted living the life that she had.
Sometimes she felt an ache for what might have been. She wondered why she had this life. Why she was blessed with money and a certain amount of success instead of being anonymous or impoverished.
Some of that was eased by the charity she ran with her sister, which made it feel like all of it did mean something. That she had been granted this for a reason. And it made the invasions of privacy bearable.
Though not so much now. She felt vulnerable, and far too visible, trapped in a glass bowl of her own making, only able to watch as a predator approached her, and she was unable to do anything but wait.
She tried to call the police, her fingers fumbling on the old-fashioned landline buttons. It wasn’t working. She had that landline for security. For privacy. And it was failing her on every level.
Of course she had her cell phone, but it was...
Sitting on the table just outside the office door.
And then suddenly he was there. Standing right on the other side of her office door. Tall
, broad, clad all in black, wearing a suit that molded to his exquisitely hard-looking body, following every cut line from the breadth of his shoulders to his tapered waist, on down his long muscular legs. He turned around, and how he saw she was thinking of him in those terms she didn’t know. Only that he was a force. Like looking at a sheer rock face with no footholds.
Hard and imposing, looming before her.
His face was...
Like a fallen Angel. Beautiful, and a sharp, strange contrast to the rest of him.
There was one imperfection on that face. A slashed scar that ran from the top of his high cheekbone down to the corner of his mouth. A warning.
This man was dangerous.
Lethal.
“Shall we have a chat?”
The barrier of the glass between them made that deep, rich voice echo across the surface of it, and she could feel it reverberating inside of her.
She hated it.
“How did you get in here?”
“My darling, I have a key.”
She shrank back. “I’m not your darling.”
“True,” he said. “You are not. But you are my quarry. And I have found you.”
“I’m not very hard to find,” she said. She lifted her chin, trying to appear confident. “I’m one of the most famous women in the world.”
“So you are. And that has me questioning my brother’s sanity. But I am not here to do anything but follow orders.”
“If you’re here to follow orders, then perhaps you should follow one of mine. Leave.”
“I answer to only one man. To only one person. And it is not you.”
“A true regret,” she said tightly.
“Not for me.”
“What do you want?”
“I told you. I am here to collect payment. And that payment is you.”
Their Impossible Desert Match Page 17
