by Maisey Yates
“You’ve passed yours so proficiently. And it would be a way to while away the time. I am officially being crowned in less than a month, and look at me,” he said, sweeping a hand over his reclining figure. A fine figure it was, too. And she did look. For a little longer than she probably should have. “I am not the man that these people would want to have lead them.”
“Why not? You’re...strong and you are able to ransom damsels in distress when the situation calls for it, so...leadership qualities in my opinion.”
“And yet, I lack charm, you must admit.”
“Yeah, okay, you lack charm a little bit.”
“And that cannot be.”
“Just...be friendlier.”
“I don’t know how,” he said, the words scraping his throat on the way out. “I spent...countless days in the desert alone. Speaking to no one. Sometimes I traveled with men, but then I had to be a leader, and out there...out there manners don’t get things done. Diplomacy is not gutting someone when they make a mistake. I have spent the majority of the past fifteen years alone. And while my horse makes for decent company he does not talk back, which means my skills are limited.”
“What is your horse’s name? You never said.”
Zafar’s dark brows locked together. “He doesn’t have one.”
“How can he not have one?”
“He is the only horse. And besides that, it isn’t as though he’s likely to get mixed up with other horses, or that it would be unclear as to who his rider is. I travel mostly alone, remember?”
“It’s just...I name my pets.”
“My horse,” he bit out, “is not a pet. Do you name your cars?”
“No. But I mean...people do. Some men even name their...” She trailed off, her cheeks lighting on fire. Why had she said that? What had possessed her? She didn’t say things like that in front of men, or in front of trustees for charities she worked with. She knew when to keep quiet. Yeah, she got giggly with her friends, specifically the girls she’d gone on the desert tour with. They would talk about their boyfriends and their various and sundry names for their manparts, in a kind of superior way that always made Ana feel gauche. But she would laugh and blush, and generally play the part of group virgin, since that’s what she was.
But she didn’t just bust out the innuendo at random.
“I do not,” he said, no hint of humor in his face.
“I figured as much. Unnamed horses aside—” in that moment she decided she would name the poor thing “—you really do want my help?”
“I more than want it, I need it. I need to be seen as a man and not an animal. I need to be...a king in the eyes of my people, and if I go on like I did today, it will not happen. All things considered, you might find it in you to ransom me?” he asked.
She breathed the words before she had a chance to think them through. It was a job. A project. A purpose. And she always said yes to a project. “Of course.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ZAFAR WASN’T CERTAIN what had possessed him to be so honest. Except, why not? She would not be staying here; in fact, she would never speak of her being here at all. He would forbid it, and she would doubtless see the reasoning. It was all to protect his people, and her future people, after all.
Ana Christensen did not need to see him as an infallible leader, or as a fearsome warrior. Ana Christensen only needed to see him as a man, and see how she might help that man assume the throne with more ease. And preferably without being deposed by the neighboring country.
His gut kicked in at the thought of her seeing him as a man. He gritted his teeth. He did not mean it that way. He tightened the tape around his fists and repositioned himself in front of the bag he’d been pounding on only a moment earlier.
Being in the palace like this, being indoors, made him feel restless. Like he had too much energy and nowhere to channel it. That meant a lot of hours spent swimming laps in the pool, lifting weights or hitting a punching bag.
Anything that kept him from feeling like he had during his meeting with Rycroft. Like violence was a living beast just beneath the surface of his skin, waiting to tear its way out.
Anything to keep him from feeling like he was suffocating behind the walls. Or buried alive in a tomb. A tomb that held the spirits of those lives taken here.
He had spent the years since his exile in the desert. In the open. And he had not been back to the palace since he’d been driven out.
Those two made for a poor combination and created a sensation of claustrophobia he didn’t like.
Fortunately, he had little time to worry about it. In a few short weeks he would become the face of the nation, and that meant he had to figure out just what face he would show the world.
Not his real one, naturally. No one wanted to engage in diplomatic discussion with a hollow, emotionless stone. A man who had left weakness and feeling behind him so many years ago he couldn’t remember what it had felt like to have them inhabit his body.
Neither did he want to.
He just needed an appropriate mask. And Ana would help him fashion it.
“Kazeem told me that you were... Oh!”
He turned and saw Ana standing in the door to his workout room, her jaw slack, her blue eyes wide. Her eyes, he realized, were most definitely not on his face, but on his sweat-slicked torso. And he would be lying if he denied getting any pleasure from it.
But he would not touch her. Ever. It was impossible. A little lust was hardly worth the security of an entire nation.
And you’ve followed your cock down that path before, haven’t you?
He banished that insidious voice. The one that would see him curled up on the floor crying like a child rather than taking action. He had no room for regret. He could only move forward.
He could not erase his past mistakes. They would always stain. The ghosts would always haunt these halls. The best he could do was attempt to make the future better. For his people. People who had suffered for far too long at the hands of his uncle. Indirectly, his own hands.
Or perhaps not so indirectly.
“That I was what?” he asked.
“Here. But he didn’t mention you were busy.”
“You thought I was in here reclining, perhaps?”
“No. But...maybe fencing or something. Not...boxing...with yourself.”
“This is how I keep fit. I hang the bag inside my tent when I travel.”
“That tiny thing?”
“The bag or the tent?”
“The tent. The bag isn’t tiny.”
“The tent I had the night I acquired you is not the one I normally travel with.” He turned and wiped the sweat from his forehead, then started unwinding the tape that was around his fists.
“Well, to what did I owe the pleasure of the mini-tent experience?” Her perfect, pale cheeks darkened, a pink stain spreading over them. And that blush, the acknowledgment that there was something in that night that might make her blush, threw his mind right back there.
To what it had felt like to have her in his arms. Soft. Petite.
Sweet.
So not for him. Not under any circumstances. Not even if she were just a woman he met on a city street. Even then, she wouldn’t be for him. All he could ever do with a flower was bruise the petals.
A flower would wither and die out in the desert. And he wasn’t just from the desert; the desert was in him. And his touch would only burn her.
A good thing, then, that she was not just a woman on the street. A fortunate thing that she was off-limits for a million reasons, because if the only reason were her well-being... Well, he simply wasn’t that good a man.
But with the fate of a nation resting on whether or not he kept it in his pants? He could keep them zipped.
“I saw no point
in carrying the extra weight. I traded with a man I met on the road. A smaller tent, food. And it’s fortunate for you I was able to trade or I might not have had the money to buy you.”
“Ransom.”
“If you like.”
She frowned. “I thought we agreed it was a lot less demeaning.”
“It makes no difference to me.”
“One makes you the hero...the other makes you a bastard.”
“You say that like you think I might have a preference between the two.”
“I...don’t you?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Not particularly. I don’t have to be good, Ana, I just have to win. In the end, Al Sabah has to win. The rest...the rest doesn’t matter.”
“And you’ll do anything to win?”
“Anything,” he said.
Ana believed him. There was no doubt. The way he said it, so dark and sure and certain, sent a shiver through her body, down into her bones. And yet it didn’t repel her. It didn’t make her want to run. Perversely, it almost made her want to get closer.
The shock of fear that ran through her body was electric. It sent ripples of warning through her body, showers of sparks that sent crackling heat along her veins.
She felt like a child standing before a fire. Fascinated and awed by the warmth, knowing there was something that might make it all dangerous, but not having any real concept of the damage it could do.
Even having that moment of clarity, she didn’t draw back. She did take a step toward him, though. Zafar, in all his shirtless glory.
She’d thought him arresting in his robes. Handsome in the linen tunic, moisture clinging to him from his shower. Without a shirt, his long hair escaping the bonds of the leather strap that normally kept it bound, his body glistening with sweat, a bead of it rolling down his chest, down his abs, sliding along the contours of his hardened muscles...well, just now he defied reality.
He was unlike any man she’d ever seen. All hard, harsh, assaulting masculinity. There was nothing soft about him, nothing to put her at ease or make her feel safe. He bound her breath up in her body, kept it from escaping. Made a rush of feeling whisper over her skin that she couldn’t identify or deny.
She knew attraction. She was attracted to Tariq. He was handsome; he gave her butterflies in her stomach. He was a great kisser, though, admittedly at his own insistence their kisses had been brief.
He was everything she could have asked for.
And yet suddenly it seemed like her eyes had just opened and she’d realized there was something more. Something more to men. To the way looking at a man could make her feel. And she wasn’t sure what the feeling was exactly. Attraction or something else, because it wasn’t attraction like she would have named it last week. Or even two days ago.
But it was something. Something deep and visceral and completely disturbing. And it was holding hands, tightly, perversely, with fear. Perhaps that was why it seemed so intense? Adrenaline combined with attraction, the kind any woman would feel toward a man with such...testosterone-laden qualities. It was like a biological imperative. Strong man, producer of much sperm and good offspring. It was basic high school science, was what it was.
She shook off that line of thinking and tried to focus on the conversation.
“The end justifies the means?” she asked.
“Yes. But the thing you have to understand is that I have a country to run and I must look acceptable while restoring order.”
“Please tell me you aren’t a crazy dictator, because I don’t want to help install a man who’s going to turn this country into a military state.”
“I won’t be any kind of ruler if I can’t get my people to accept me. A head is of no use without the body behind it. In two weeks time there is a reception planned, a party celebrating the new sheikh, a show of power for the rest of the world. All brought about by my adviser.”
“One of the big dusty, sand-pirate-looking guys?”
She thought he nearly smiled. “Yes.”
“And what do they know about that sort of thing?”
“A lot. Before he lost his family Rahm was the leader of the largest tribe in Al Sabah. But after...he couldn’t continue on. Needless to say, he is a man who understands power and how to obtain and maintain it.”
“He lost his family?”
Zafar swallowed hard. “Yes. Do you know what my uncle did in his time as ruler?”
She looked away from him. “My Al Sabahan history is rusty.”
“He raised taxes, most especially on the Bedouins. And trust me when I say it was collected. Even if it had to be taken from their herds. From their tents. Skins and other wares. He took it. He cut services. Mobile medical units, schools. People lost their lives because of the neglect, the poverty.”
“Rahm...”
“He suffered, as well. And unlike me...Farooq did have a harem. And when possible...he stole their daughters and brought them here. Unlike me...my uncle did like sweet innocent virgins.” His voice was rough, his manner filled with disgust. The rage radiating from him spoke volumes about what manner of man he really was. That at his core, no matter what he said, no matter what he claimed about the end justifying the means, he was a good man. A man who despised hurting the weak. A man who sought justice, no matter the cost.
“Did you save Dalia from that fate?” she asked, her voice choked. She was starting to understand. Zafar had a collection of the broken in his country, surrounding him tightly, acting as his helpers, his staff. And in doing that, he was holding them together.
“Yes,” he said. “Thankfully. She is one I was able to help before he managed to take her too far.”
“How?”
His expression turned cold. “The men who captured her did not walk away. Let us leave it at that.”
She nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“I told you, habibti,” he said, “I have blood on my hands. I will fight for my people. To the death. To the end. But in order to do that...they have to trust me, and while I am confident in my ability to frighten enemies, to seek out justice and destruction for those who would seek to hurt us...I am not confident in my ability as a speaker. Or a diplomat. The guest at a nice dinner.”
“If we play things right, maybe I can help you, and you can repair relations between Al Sabah and Shakar. We could have dinner together after Tariq and I marry.”
“There. Vision for the future.”
“Yes.” Except it would be awkward. And terrible, really. Could she ever tell Tariq about this? Would they have to start their marriage out with a lie?
She just didn’t like any of it.
There was always the phone. She could always call.
She looked up at Zafar, at his eyes, and she knew she couldn’t yet. Not just yet.
She couldn’t just leave him. She couldn’t just leave him and his people the way things were. He had ransomed her. He could have left her. He could have used her. But he wasn’t that man. He was the man who saved girls from being kidnapped. The man who had blood on his hands from saving those who couldn’t save themselves.
And that was when she knew she would do it. She could do this. And she wouldn’t feel so useless. So at loose ends. If she was going to stay here, then she would accomplish something.
And civilizing Zafar would be no small accomplishment.
“So, do you have a...plan for how you want this to go?”
“I had thought that you might...give me tips?”
“Well, you can’t go to a royal dinner wearing only pants.”
He laughed, and she felt it all through her body. “Probably true.”
“How long has it been since you had a Western-style dinner? At a tall table? And really with a salad fork?”
“A long time.”
“Of cour
se, when you entertain here, then it will be up to those visiting you to observe your customs.”
“You truly are royally trained.” He leaned back against the wall, his shoulders flexing, abs shifting. The man didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh on his body.
“It didn’t start with Tariq. My mother left when I was really small. And it was just me and my father. My father is a very important businessman. Oil tycoon, actually.”
“Ah, and your connection to Tariq and Shakar begins to make sense.”
Her face heated. She didn’t like the implication. That it was all oil. She knew it was mostly oil, but there were feelings. There were. The fact that she was important on more than one level strengthened things, but it was more than that.
“Anyway, as I got older I used to help him coordinate dinners. Parties. I was hostess a lot of the time. It was hard for him to be a single dad, and he was as involved as he could be with me, and it was...it was nice to be able to help him that way. So you could say that hostessing is one of my talents. As is diplomacy. I went to the kinds of schools people think of as ‘finishing schools,’ but it’s so much more than that. It’s a very real education along with intense training for dealing with social situations. I’m versed in handling all kinds of scenarios. Any time you mix a lot of people, some of them competing for jobs or oil rights or money of any kind, things can be tense.”
“I assume you have tricks for defusing those situations.”
“The art of conversation. Or, more to the point, the art of bland inoffensive conversation. In your case, you’ll be dealing with politicians of all different world views, and that will be...”
“A nest of vipers.”
“Something like that.”
She was starting to feel a little energized now. Starting to feel a renewed sense of purpose. This was giving her something to focus on. A plan, a goal. She liked feeling like she was being useful. Like she was accomplishing things.
This suddenly felt bigger than she was. Fixing a country, changing the shape of things for people. Making a positive impact. Zafar was going to make things better. Zafar wouldn’t let the Bedouin people’s daughters be taken from their homes to serve some sadistic ruler’s fantasies.
