by Dani Collins
“Did you see that email about—”
“Yes. I told them not to bother.”
It was exactly the minimum exchange they had been keeping to for days. Was he sulking because she had refused to sleep with him? She might think so if he wasn’t so completely unmoved.
He was back to ignoring her the way he had most of her life. It stung. She didn’t expect an apology. He was hardly the type to go that far, but she would prefer anger, if that’s what he felt. Some kind of emotion. This stiff politeness was horrible. And why did it make her feel like she was at fault? Was it a woman thing?
She bit back a sigh and declined a glass of wine.
Taking her cue from him, she picked up the phone she had set aside. It was pinging with a notification anyway. Before she could read it, Ramon let loose a string of sharp curses.
“What?” she prompted, sensing disaster and hurrying to unlock her screen.
Ramon saved her the trouble by turning his phone so she could read the alert Etienne had just sent.
This English translation just hit. It’s been circulating in Arabic for an hour. The queen mother of Zhamair is quoted as stating her future daughter-in-law was not the twin in the photo kissing the Prince of Elazar last spring. True? How do I respond?
Trella still hadn’t publicly confirmed or denied her pregnancy. Now she was exposed as having been with one of the most sought-after bachelors in Europe, one who was rumored to be on the brink of an engagement to someone else. Isidora had been doing her job, keeping up with online gossip about the prince. She’d been secretly worried for her friend. If he married while he already had a child coming with Trella, that would be disastrous!
She blew out a dismayed breath. “There’s no pretending Kasim’s mother is not a creditable source, is there? I mean, I’ve always wondered why Kasim allowed people to think Angelique had been with both him and the Elazar prince, but why would his mother go on record with such an inflammatory statement?”
“Kasim kept quiet because Gili asked him to. That smudge on her reputation is the reason they haven’t announced their engagement. His highest-ranking advisors made it clear they wouldn’t accept her as queen. My guess is that his mother chose to repair Gili’s reputation by annihilating Trella’s. I’ve met her. She takes things into her own hands without a sense of consequence.” He was furious. She could hear it in his voice.
“I’ll tell Etienne we’re handling it.” She began texting.
Ramon’s phone buzzed and he swore again, then hitched his chair around to her side of the table, so they sat side by side and could both see his screen. She tingled with awareness at how close he suddenly was, but the message coming through from his sister was so shocking, it demanded her complete attention.
Apparently I’m married.
Angelique attached a breaking news story that contained a brief video of Kasim. He exited a closed-door meeting to be confronted with the storm surrounding his mother’s statement. Reporters were demanding he respond to whether he intended to marry Angelique. Surely not, given all this controversy.
His reaction, released minutes ago, was already going viral.
Isidora had only met Kasim once. He would have intimidated the heck out of her even without the title of king of Zhamair. He was tall and dynamic. The only things remotely soft about him were his long-lashed, dreamy dark eyes. They were especially heart-melting when his gaze rested on Angelique.
The rest of him was short beard, desert garb and an uncompromising air. His essence of supreme power came through even on the small mobile screen as he spoke in Arabic, his implacable words translated as English subtitles beneath his unyielding image.
“Let me resolve this once and for all. We are married. I am king. If I say she is my wife, she is my wife. Treat her with the respect my queen deserves. Gossip and speculation will not be tolerated. Move on.” He walked away.
Oh. She couldn’t help the small chortle that pushed into the back of her throat. That was one way to handle it.
A quick flick to the social sites on her own phone showed the video was already looped to a GIF meme and beginning to trend. If I say she is my wife...
“So much for worrying about an engagement announcement.” Isidora used a weak laugh to cover how envious she was. Kasim’s defense of Angelique was ruthless and sexist, sure, but swoon-worthy.
Ramon immediately placed a video-chat call to his sister. Angelique appeared next to Trella, with their office at the design house in the background.
“Wait,” Angelique said breathlessly. “Henri wants in.” She tapped and added his image to the screen.
Ramon’s twin held an infant swaddled in a pink blanket. Henri’s jaw was shadowed in stubble, exactly like Ramon’s. Their mother sat on one side of Henri, Cinnia sat on the other. Cinnia had a blanket draped over her shoulder, presumably nursing their second newborn. Cinnia looked tired, but healthy and happy as she said a warm “Congratulations!”
“Thank you.” Angelique wiped at the tears tracking to the corners of her smiling mouth. “That’s not the way we meant to do it. He just...said it. He’s not the least bit sorry and neither am I.”
She sighed, but it was a blissful one. Then she fanned her streaming eyes. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I’m happy. And relieved. His mother was trying to override resistance to our engagement. She wanted to start planning the wedding, but now it’s done. I’m married!” Her hands went up in bemusement.
“So no proper wedding?” their mother asked with a disappointed throb in her voice. “Henri’s was in the hospital. I was so looking forward to a big affair with yours, Gili.”
“We’ll plan something, Mama,” Angelique promised. “But right now a plane is waiting. I’m flying to Zhamair as soon as I throw a few things in a bag, but—”
She looked to Trella, who drew her in for a warm hug, then dried her sister’s cheek with a gentle touch. “Our leaky little Gili is married. Don’t worry about me. Go. Pack. Be with your husband.”
Angelique was obviously torn. She looked to the screen as she rose. “Kasim’s team will take care of my PR going forward. I hate to leave you all in the lurch—”
“You’re not,” everyone said in unison, making her laugh-cry again. “I love you all so much.”
“We’ll issue a statement that we’re very happy for you,” Ramon said. “Which we are. Will you come to the engagement party this weekend?”
“I have no idea. Kasim said something about honeymooning at his oasis.” She blushed. “Either way, you’ll all come see me soon?”
“Count on it,” Henri promised, which was quite an offer considering he literally had his hands full. As if on cue, the daughter he held began to fuss. He exchanged a rueful look with his wife. “Time to switch out again. We have to go. But Trella—”
She bowed her head against her hand. “I know.”
“I’ve got this,” Ramon said to his brother. “Take care of your chicas. Besos, Mama.”
His mother blew them a kiss and Spain signed off. Angelique walked away, presumably to pack. Trella lifted her face from her hand. She sighed as she looked at her brother through the small screen. “Don’t start.”
“Is the prince of Elazar the father?” he asked. “Have you told him?”
“No.”
“No, he’s not the father? Or no, you haven’t told him?”
She skipped past clarifying. “For Kasim’s sake, Isidora can confirm that I was the twin in the photo. Hold off on announcing the pregnancy. I don’t want to link the two in people’s minds.”
“Trella,” Ramon growled.
“I’m handling this!”
“You’re not. A baby doesn’t go away, hermana.”
“Oh, you think? You’re just mad I’m not letting you handle it.”
“Trella,” Isidora interjected. Once these two started arguing they could go on for days. She had heard it with her own ears. “Do I say whether the prince knew it was you? Is he likely to comment one way or another?”<
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Trella dug her hands through her hair, and groaned, “Don’t say. We’ll see if he comments and deal with it if he does.”
“That’s hardly ‘handling it,’ is it?” Ramon said. “The more you play coy, the worse this will get. I will—”
“What?” Trella challenged. “Make out with Izzy on the bow of the boat? Let them catch her topless? Stop trying to fix this. You can’t. It’s my problem, Ramon.” She ended the call without another word.
With a feral noise, Ramon gripped his phone tightly and gave it a small shake. “Braguillas.” Brat. He made a noise of disgust and set down the phone with a clatter.
Isidora scratched her upper lip. “Just to be clear, we’re not, um, going to do those things, are we? I get to keep my top on?”
His gaze flicked across like a whip, his expression fierce. “Do you honestly think I would expect that of you?”
That arrogant tone got under her skin.
“I don’t know, do I?” In the back of her mind, she knew she was deliberately provoking him, looking for any sort of reaction beyond flat disinterest. “It’s something you would do. You always deflect attention from her. That’s how I wound up in this fake engagement, if you recall.”
She reached for her phone as a small shield, tensing with apprehension that he would come back with something about her chest not being enough to interest anyone.
His thundering silence was worse.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THIS WOMAN. SHE was driving him insane, revealing exactly what kind of fire burned inside her before tearing him down and locking him out.
The things she had revealed the night of the party had been a shock, and he hadn’t dealt with it well in the moment, had been too sexually frustrated to process all that she had revealed—and how much shame she had sent crawling up inside him. But he’d had plenty of time for self-castigation since.
He had underestimated her feelings for him over the years, thinking them superficial because from the time he had become sexually active, he’d been treated as a trophy. Even the racing fans who “preferred” him over his brother were more interested in the driver than the man. Besides, Isidora hadn’t been mature enough for anything more than surface infatuation, he had always believed.
But he couldn’t stop hearing her say “if I thought you wanted me.” Like she believed herself interchangeable with the women he’d encountered over the years.
She wasn’t. Deep down, he had always known an affair with Isidora would be the furthest thing from impersonal. That’s why he had held her off so uncompromisingly. Emotional intimacy made him close up inside.
He had told himself he was protecting her, denting her ego, not her heart, but he wasn’t so devoid of conscience he would pimp her out with topless photos, and it wasn’t just because the idea of any man seeing her naked was abhorrent to him.
Really abhorrent.
“No, I wouldn’t ask you to strip down to divert attention from my sister,” he stated, biting out each word. “Effective as that might be.”
She took up her fork and dipped her head, brows pulling with consternation as though she wasn’t sure whether he was complimenting her or what.
It struck him afresh that his discouragement over the years had affected her far more seriously than he had intended. Looking back, he could see that a young woman’s confidence could be impacted by such things, but at the time—He sighed with self-disgust.
“I shouldn’t have taken advantage of your loyalty as badly as I have. I know what a precious commodity it is. Anyone else would have sold us out, or pushed me into traffic by now.”
“If the doors to the terrace had been open the other night...” She stuffed a cherry tomato into her mouth, sealing her lips over the threat she didn’t finish. But even as she chewed, he saw the faint tremble in her lips. His few words of culpability affected her.
He wasn’t someone who apologized, and barely had just now, but she was moved. In that moment, he understood, really understood, what kind of power he had over her.
Maybe he had always known, because he tensed even now, wanting to turn away. He had the intelligence to know that the flip side of a power coin was responsibility. He already carried a lot of obligations. He didn’t want more.
But there she perched, teetering in the place between his conscience and his sense of duty, whether he wanted to accept her presence or not. Something unsteady seesawed in his chest, making him look to the horizon, hoping it was only the yacht listing on the waves.
He heard her draw a breath as though preparing to say something, but when he looked back at her, he saw hesitation. A change of mind.
“What?” he prompted.
“Nothing.” She pushed at the greens on her plate with the tines of her fork. “I know that my loyalty is both my strength and my weakness, that’s all.”
That hadn’t been what she had been about to say, he was sure of it, but now he wondered if that was why she hadn’t pushed her mother out of her life, despite how much anguish Francisca’s actions had caused her. Her mother was still keeping a secret that could devastate her, he recalled, and wished like hell he didn’t know about it. If she ever found out he knew and hadn’t told her, she really would push him into traffic.
“For instance, my loyalty to Trella demands that I ask why you’re still playing human shield for her, even though I know you’ll say it’s not my place to ask.”
“I do take a zero-tolerance approach to discussing my family.” He felt like an ass as he said it, especially when she nodded, as if he had behaved as expected, but still slid her attention sideways to hide that she was stung.
“Even though I’m directly affected in this case.” Her voice quavered with emotion. “I mean, I know you and Henri have reason to be protective, and I know she was hiding her panic attacks from the press. That’s why she stayed out of the public eye all those years, but she has that under control now, right? So after all those years of her struggling to get a handle on things, she’s finally ready to steer her own life. Why don’t you want to let her? Why go the route of keeping me here, doing this? Don’t say it’s because she’ll make mistakes. We all kiss frogs on the way to growing up.”
Like him?
She cleared her throat, not meeting his gaze, but her chin took on a haughty angle. “For what it’s worth, I agree with you. I think the prince is the father and that she should tell him. But it’s not my life and it’s not yours, either.” “So there” was heavily implied.
She dropped her gaze to the face of her phone, chin set with belligerence, but he had the distinct feeling she was sitting there braced for a blast.
His knee-jerk reaction was to not just nip that sort of intrusion in the bud, but yank it out by the roots.
Yet here he sat, using a woman who only wanted to defend his sister. On the brink of hurting Isidora again, because she dared ask why he was using her.
The fluttering snap of the flag at the stern filled the silence.
“Whatever,” she muttered, shoving aside her plate. “I’ll chalk it up to that childish contrariness you two have been locked in all your lives and get back to doing my ‘job.’”
She started to rise.
“I’ve been called a lot of things. ‘Childish’ is not one of them.”
“But you’re willing to own ‘contrary?’”
He curled his lip, not exactly warm to the idea, even though there was some truth to it. He and Trella were contrary. If he said black she had to say white. To this day, his little sister would always claim “he started it,” even though she invariably picked their fights.
“I don’t have brothers and sisters. I’ve never understood why you fight so much. I’ve always thought you two were lucky to have each other and should be nicer. Especially—”
She didn’t finish, but he knew what she meant. He was lucky to have Trella, considering how close they had come to losing her.
“I don’t fully understand it, either,” he admitted, not sure if
he was relieved or dismayed when Isidora let her hands and napkin fall back into her lap as she stayed to listen. “Henri has the patience to deal with Trella being headstrong and impulsive. Gili is so sensitive, she cries if they disagree. With me, Trella seems to challenge every single thing I say. There’s six years between us. I don’t antagonize her for the sake of it, but she has never accepted that I might know a few things.”
Isidora’s brows went up. She set her elbow on her armrest and propped her chin on her fist, wearing an expression of polite interest, but she rolled her lips inward to suppress a smile.
“Why is that funny?”
“I’m just wondering how much you know about being pregnant? By accident. By a prince.”
He let out a heavy breath, hating this, but supposed he owed her an explanation.
“I left her to deal with her own problems once before. It didn’t work out well.” He moved his gaze to the endless horizon of blue on blue, holding that blankness inside him so he didn’t have to deal with the roiling emotions beneath the surface.
“Ramon! No, you didn’t.” Her touch settled on his wrist, her fingertips cool against his skin, far more profound than her voice. He found himself holding very still, not wanting to startle her into lifting her hand and removing that tentative contact.
“Don’t ever blame yourself for not catching up to that van before they got away.”
“I’m not talking about the kidnapping.” They’d all had therapy ad nauseam after Trella was recovered. He knew in his head he wasn’t responsible for Trella’s kidnapping. Gili’s math tutor was. Ramon had been fifteen, a top athlete, and had chased the van until he collapsed with exhaustion. He still had sick moments when he went over and over that memory, thinking maybe and if only.
Therapy could only accomplish so much, but for the most part they had all put that trauma into the past. They had still been coming to terms with the rest, however, when Trella had been pulled into a fresh hell and they had all been sucked in with her.
