by Lucy Monroe
“You are amazing.”
She could not speak to respond, merely shook her head. He was the incredible one, playing her boldly like a sitar’s strings.
“Making love to you will be my greatest pleasure.”
She forgave him the smug tones edging his voice. They were well earned. Besides, his words weren’t smug at all. He could have said it would be her greatest pleasure, and they both knew that would be the case.
She was a virgin, after all.
ROYAL BRIDES
This month:
FOR DUTY’S SAKE
An innocent princess and her promised husband… Zahir is the crown prince of a desert kingdom, master of all he surveys, including the world’s most beautiful women. Angele has waited for him and marriage for ten long years. Maybe a wedding is no longer in the cards, but can they still share that unforgettable moment when he will claim her as his woman?
Coming soon:
The story of Asad and Iris
He’s the Sheikh of Kadar—she’s an American geologist. He loved her once and lost her. Can he win her back, to his bed and his side…as his wife?
Don’t miss these latest installments of ROYAL BRIDES
Lucy Monroe’s enthralling sheikh saga!
Available wherever Harlequin books are sold or online at eHarlequin.com.
Lucy Monroe
FOR DUTY’S SAKE
FOR DUTY’S SAKE
For Abigail and Jordan, a very special niece and nephew-in-law.
I’m so proud of both of you, all your accomplishments and the love you two share.
May it bless you and may you live out your own HEA with true joy and a fulfillment of the dearest dreams of both your hearts.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EPILOGUE
PROLOGUE
Did love die?
Angele had asked her mother that question once, after realizing her father, Cemal bin Ahmed al Jawhar—foster brother to the King of Jawhar and her own personal hero—was a serial adulterer. She’d been an extremely naive university freshman. So certain was she of her father’s integrity, she had at first believed the tabloid story about him stuffed in her student mailbox was a hoax, a cruel joke played by someone who would never be called a friend again.
To this day, she did not know who had disliked her so much they’d felt the need to shred her illusions and with them, her heart.
Her first hero had tumbled from his pedestal and shattered at her feet, and he had not even known. Not to begin with.
Her still beautiful Brazilian former supermodel mother had looked at Angele in silence for several seconds. Eyes the same espresso-brown as her daughter’s for once revealed her every emotion, and all of it staggering pain. “I would consider it a great blessing, but some of us are cursed to love unwisely and to do so until death.”
“But why do you stay with him?”
“I do not. We live quite separate lives.”
And another belief had been crushed under the pounding hammer of reality. They lived in the United States for the sake of Angele’s education and the chance for her to be raised in relative anonymity. They’d made the modern country their home because Americans had plenty of their own scandal, they didn’t have to go looking for it among the wealthy community from a small Middle Eastern country like Jawhar.
In a way, her mother had been protecting Angele. From the truth. But she’d also been protecting herself from the embarrassment of being the well-known wife of an undeniable philanderer. It had explained why their trips to Brazil and Jawhar were shorter and far less frequent than Angele had always wanted. It had also explained why her father’s visits were equally brief, though far more frequent.
“Why not divorce him?”
“I love him.”
“But he…”
“…is my husband.” Lou-Belia had drawn herself to her full five feet eleven inches. “I will not shame my family, or his, with a divorce.”
Considering the fact that Angele’s father was considered a de facto member of the royal family of Jawhar, that argument carried some weight. Nevertheless, Angele had vowed never to be her mother that day. She would not be trapped in a marriage by duty and a helpless love that caused more grief than joy.
She had believed she was safe making the vow. After all, while no formal announcement had been made, Angele had been promised to Crown Sheikh Zahir bin Faruq al Zohra since she was thirteen years old. Heir to the throne of Zohra, no more honorable man existed in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter.
Or so she had believed. But that had been before today, when she’d received a packet of pictures of Zahir in the mail.
A sense of déjà vu washed over her, bringing back old feelings and memories so clear, she could still smell the spring grass clippings that had scented the air on that other fateful day a little over four years ago. The same cold chills washed up and down her spine, leaving a strange clammy flush in their wake.
If someone had asked her even one hour ago what one certainty she had, it would have been that Zahir would never be the center of a tabloid scandal. Besides being far too aware of his duty to his family and his position, Crown Sheikh Zahir simply had too much integrity to be caught in flagrante delicto with some woman.
Right. Her other hero.
Now, staring down at the topmost picture—an almost innocent image of Zahir helping a busty blonde into the passenger side of his Mercedes, Angele choked out a strangled laugh. The barely there sound a pained constriction in her dry throat, the present took full hold with a snap.
Here, there was no smell of grass clippings, just the subtle scent of citrus her boss favored for the air ventilation system. No clatter of other students greeting one another in the common room of the University Center. Just the sound of her own breathing in the near-empty office.
The metallic taste of fear in her mouth mocked Angele and her hand shook as she pushed the topmost picture aside with her fingertip.
The next photo showed Zahir kissing the same busty blonde, though this time she was wearing a tiny bikini as they lounged beside a private pool. Angele did not recognize the couple’s surroundings; the large Mediterranean-style house behind the pool could have been almost anywhere.
It was a popular architectural style for warmer climates, from Europe to South America. She did recognize the passion between the two lip-locked people in the glossy eight-by-ten, though.
And it brought back a memory she would rather forget.
She’d been eighteen and in love with Zahir since she’d started having sexual feelings. She had not cared if others understood, or believed such a young girl was capable of the emotion. She’d known what she felt and it was not a simple crush, having grown deeper with each passing year.
She’d assumed Zahir had treated her with such restraint and kept his distance since the deal had been brokered because she was too young. But at eighteen she was formally an adult. At least by standards of the country she’d been raised in, the United States.
They were at a state dinner, their first time attending such an event as a couple. She’d thought it the perfect opportunity to share their first kiss and had brazenly cornered him in the courtyard. Or as brazenly as a rather shy woman who had not been blessed with her mother’s stellar beauty in the gene pool could be.
Filled with trepidation that could not stand against her determination, she had gazed up into eyes that had looked almost
black in the dim light, though she knew they were gray. She’d grasped both his arms, her fingers curling around strong biceps that emanated heat even through his shirt and dinner jacket.
She’d tipped her head back, letting her own eyes close, and pleaded, “Kiss me.”
Certain this man who was to be her husband one day would comply, must comply, she had waited in silent anticipation for what had felt like hours before gentle lips brushed her forehead.
Her eyes had flown open. “Zahir?”
“This is not the time, ya habibti.” He had gently pushed her away. “You are still a child.”
Crushed, she had been able to do nothing but nod and try to blink back tears of mortification.
He’d shaken his head and patted her arm. “Shh, ya habibti, our time is not yet.”
As he’d escorted her back to the party, she had consoled herself with the implied promise and the fact he had called her his darling. Twice.
A harsh laugh barked out of her as the photo of him kissing that other woman blurred before her eyes. Angele was twenty-three and still waiting for him to realize she was no longer a child.
Without this photographic evidence, would she have ever realized that day was never likely to come?
Blinking away the moisture in her eyes, she focused on the pictures again, sliding one to the side and to reveal another beneath it until they were spread across her desk in undeniable evidence. This was not the first time she’d gone through the photos, but now she refused to look away, or stack them again neatly in an attempt to hide from what they represented.
Zahir did not think this woman was a child. No, Elsa Bosch was everything a man was looking for in a lover. Extravagantly beautiful, voluptuous, experienced.
Angele winced at her own assessment, knowing she was none of those things.
She was not sure Zahir’s honor was besmirched by his liaison with the German actress. Not yet. After all, their betrothal had never been formally announced and he’d treated Angele like a distant cousin, not a lover. Despite her clumsy attempt at eighteen to rectify the matter.
She’d allowed her own love and the future she’d believed they were meant to share to become the foundation for fantasies that shared no touch with reality. She’d believed that, one day, he would realize she was not the young girl the marriage contract had been negotiated around.
She’d been waiting ten years. Ten years. A decade in which she’d never dated, not even attending her high-school prom because she’d considered herself taken. She’d had male friends in college, but none that she’d allowed to see her as anything but a study-buddy.
She’d just assumed that like her, Zahir had filled his life with family, responsibilities and friends…not a particular woman friend.
Unlike her own father, Zahir had been discreet in his relationship with Elsa Bosch. But the fact was: he’d had one.
These pictures could not be denied. So much like that time when she was at university, shouldn’t her pain be every bit as profound?
But she felt hollow now. Empty. Devoid of the emotions that she’d nurtured in her heart toward him for so long.
Unlike that last time, this sender was demanding money in exchange for silence. If Angele did not pay, the note accompanying the pictures promised every American and European tabloid would get the opportunity to buy a set of photos along with a very embarrassing tell-all story.
The fact Zahir was having an ongoing affair with an actress who had starred in a skin flick was scandalous enough to cause considerable upset in the royal families of both Jawhar and Zohra. Angele shuddered when she considered their response to a full-on exposé. The moment she’d gotten the pictures, she’d started researching the German actress.
While the woman spent less time in the spotlight than someone might expect, she was in no way a suitable companion for the heir to a kingdom.
However, Elsa was clearly his companion of choice.
These photos showed a great deal of skin, but even more passion. And happiness. Zahir’s happiness. Angele had never seen him smile like he did in some of these shots. Even when he wasn’t smiling, he had an air of relaxation he did not have around her.
Love might keep a woman married to a philanderer, but it might give another woman, a different type of woman, the courage to set the man she loved free.
Looking at those pictures, Angele knew deep in her heart that she could not allow Zahir to be held to a contract which had been brokered by men who had never given love between the two people involved even a fleeting thought.
Her love for him demanded more.
His lack of love for her demanded freedom.
CHAPTER ONE
HEART heavy with guilt at his envy, Zahir listened to his youngest brother speak his wedding vows.
Amir’s voice came close to breaking as he promised, not just simple fidelity, but also love to his bride. Grace’s eyes glistened, but her smile grew as she gazed at her groom with rapt fascination. Her own voice trembled as she returned the promise of love.
Love.
Both his brothers had found it with women not altogether suitable. But as neither were heir to the throne, their choices were hardly world-shattering. It was not the same for him.
His choice of bride had been set by an agreement between Zohra and Jawhar a decade past. His gaze skimmed the guests nearest the bridal party, gliding past his beaming father, king of their small Middle Eastern country, and his teary-eyed mother, to the woman he would one day wed. Though they shared no blood relation, Angele bin Cemal was treated as a favored niece by his uncle, the King of Jawhar.
Their eyes met, but she broke the gaze immediately, firmly fixing her gaze on the couple saying their vows.
He felt the dismissal, but was not surprised by it. Not after the past months preparing for the royal wedding.
Shocking everyone, the woman both royal families acknowledged would one day be his wife had refused to be a member of the bridal party or to participate in any meaningful way in the wedding. Citing her lack of close relationship to either the bride or the groom as her excuse, Angele had stood firm against every attempt by his mother and even Grace to include her.
Zahir had taken her uncustomary intransigence for what it was: a demand that he formalize an engagement between the two of them. Clearly she was done waiting patiently for her own nuptials. And, after the events of the past month, he realized the time had come to do his duty.
Besides, her father had kept his part of the bargain; he’d long since cleaned up his behavior so that he no longer courted tabloid attention.
After Zahir’s mother had told him how devastated Angele was by her father’s string of infidelities and the fact she had not spoken to the man in more than a year, Zahir had decided the time had come to do something about it. He wasn’t close to his future bride, but Cemal would one day be a member of his family and Zahir wasn’t about to stand by while the older man embarrassed them with his lack of discretion.
So, Zahir had laid down the law to Cemal. He’d told the older man that he would not marry a woman whose father’s tabloid fame rivaled that of a European rock star.
Cemal had believed him. He’d patched things up with his wife and had not been featured in a scandal rag for almost five years, proving he took his daughter’s future more seriously than his own marriage vows. Zahir kept the grimace such thoughts brought from his face.
He would never be that man—loveless marriage, or not.
He suspected that, unlike her mother, Angele would never tolerate it. Her surprising streak of stubbornness gave him hope for the years ahead. He did not want to tie his life to a doormat.
Regardless of how intriguing Zahir found this new side of Angele, his patience grew thinner by the minute as the wedding festivities marched forward. She took her stubbornness to a new, inexplicable level. She repeatedly declined to be in any of the formal wedding photos.
“Come, my little princess, I believe your point has been made.” King Malik of Jawhar
patted Angele’s shoulder, his words showing he had put the same interpretation on her actions as Zahir had done. “Do not be the camel that tries to drink with its tail.”
Angele smiled at her honorary uncle, though the expression did not reach her too serious eyes, and shook her head. “The formal shots are for family, not friends.”
Stunned, and a little impressed, Zahir frowned. He had never heard her deny the king before.
“You are nearly family.” And would be soon enough, Zahir implied, knowing she was intelligent enough to get his meaning.
She simply shook her head again and turned as if to go.
He reached out to grab her arm and then yanked his hand back, realizing what he’d almost done. They were not formally betrothed and to touch her so familiarly in this setting would be highly improper. As future king of Zohra, Zahir never acted without propriety.
At least in a public setting.
His behind-the-scenes impropriety was over as well, and he still felt a fool for pining after what he could not have.
A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.
King Malik laughed. “You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?”
Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he’d been shocked by the low burn of arousal he’d felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.
The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother’s supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele’s legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty’s today. And twice as sexy.
