by Kim Lawrence
‘And I, ma belle, also value my independence, and I was not looking for a wife, but sometimes a man must make the best of an imperfect situation.’
Eva gave a gasp of wrathful indignation. ‘Some people would not think marrying me such an awful thing.’
Standing in the doorway, he turned back.
Eva shivered as his heavy-lidded eyes moved slowly across the soft angles of her heart-shaped face. ‘I can see,’ he admitted, ‘how that might happen.’ With a last enigmatic non-smiling look, he turned and left without a word.
She expelled the breath she had been holding in one gusty sigh. You had to hand it to the man—he knew how to do an exit! And that cryptic parting comment, what was that about…? Was he saying he would like to marry her?
Not that she cared. Right?
A frown knitting her brow, Eva walked slowly to the window. As she looked down onto the street below she saw Karim emerge.
As she tried to analyse what it was about the way he moved that made something as simple as walking across the street riveting she saw him approach the stationary vehicle.
He tapped the roof and almost immediately two beefy figures emerged.
She gave a little grunt of satisfaction at the sight of the men dressed in jeans and tee shirts. There was nothing at all covert about them; he was wrong!
Her feeling of smug triumph lasted as long as it took them to start bowing obsequiously towards Karim. Even when they stopped their body language remained visibly respectful.
They spoke, or rather listened, for several minutes, then got back into the car.
Karim turned his head and glanced up to her building. Eva guiltily jumped back, biting her lip and almost groaning when she thought about what a fool she must have looked, and she waited a few minutes before looking back out.
There was no sign of Karim or the men in the car.
‘Well…’ she sighed heavily ‘…I think you could safely say that that date did not go well.’
Chapter Six
LOST in her thoughts, her hood pulled over her head to protect against the rain, Eva didn’t see the long, low car with the blacked-out windows until it slowed down, spraying her skirt and boots with muddy water.
‘Great!’ She still had one more dog to deliver to its owner and didn’t know if she would have time to go back to the flat to change before she started her shift in the hotel bar.
‘Get in!’
The terse order made her stumble and forget her wet skirt and mud-spattered legs and the tiny dog she had popped into the conveniently big pocket of her duffel coat. Small in stature but large in personality, the Peke inevitably flagged after playing in the park with the bigger dogs.
She turned her head in disbelief. The voice was the same, but with his jaw cleanly shaven and his head covered in a traditional headdress he looked different from earlier…not different enough to make her consider for one second responding to the command with anything other than a laugh of sheer disbelief.
Ignoring him, she set off, her jaw set, her knees getting less shaky as she strode down the crowded street, hood up, shoulders hunched and staring fixedly ahead. As she weaved her way around people, Eva muttered the occasional rueful sorry when she collided with someone.
While she continued to ignore the car that shadowed her she was aware that the window had rolled up, but it continued its relentless but leisurely pursuit. She kept up a pace that just stopped short of running.
Not a single person came to her aid.
Typical, she thought as a group of teenagers made some laughing comments. I could be kidnapped in broad daylight and nobody would lift a finger. Eva let out a relieved sigh as she approached a busy intersection; the light showed red for pedestrians and green for the lane of traffic that the limousine occupied.
Her relief was short-lived when, rather than proceed, the gleaming monster hugging the kerb came to a total halt beside her, oblivious to the cacophony of hooting horns.
Eva turned her head. This was utterly ridiculous. ‘Go away!’ she wailed above the horns.
The window rolled down.
‘Why are you running away?’
Her chin went up a defiant notch. ‘I am not running away. I’m going home.’
‘Have you thought of taking regular exercise?’ Karim asked, his eyes moving from her flushed cheeks to her heaving bosom.
‘Have you thought of taking a hint?’ she cut back sarcastically. ‘And for your information there’s nothing wrong with my fitness levels.’ It was a shame that the same couldn’t be said of her hormone levels. ‘Even if I don’t have a stomach like a washboard.’ Like you, Eva thought as an inconvenient image of his lean, streamlined body flashed across her vision.
She blinked hard to banish the image and added defiantly, ‘And I happen to think that people, especially men who are obsessed with their bodies, are narcissistic and boring!’
‘So do I.’
She gave a contemptuous snort. ‘Am I meant to believe that your six pack is natural?’
‘I am flattered that my…six pack has occupied your thoughts, but actually I don’t want to discuss my exercise regime.’ He tilted his head back and heard himself say, ‘I like your body.’ What man wouldn’t?
The low husky words had more effect on her breathing than the impromptu cardiovascular workout had. Eva was glad her face was already red as her heart attempted to climb into her throat.
‘Get in, Eva,’ he said, bored irritation in his voice and twin lines of dark colour etched across the crest of his chiselled cheekbones.
‘Yeah,’ yelled the man in the car behind, ‘do us a favour, Eva—for pity’s sake, get in!’ The comment was endorsed by several more voices from inside cars.
The limousine door swung open in silent invitation.
Muttering, ‘I know I’ll regret this,’ Eva threw her bag inside, deriving some satisfaction from the fact it hit him square in the chest before she followed it.
As the car pulled smoothly away from the kerb and into the now slowly moving traffic Eva maintained her grip on the door.
‘You are planning to jump out, possibly?’
Eva ignored the sarcasm and gave up waiting for her breathing to return to normal, finally accepting it wasn’t going to happen while she was in an enclosed space that amplified the testosterone-fuelled-aura thing her travelling companion radiated like a force field.
The car was so ridiculously big that there was no question of anything uncomfortable like touching thighs.
Not that he looked as if he wanted to touch her—strangle her, possibly…? Back rigid, she turned her head slowly, willing her expression to stay neutral. ‘If you have something to say, say it. I want to go home.’
‘That might not be possible.’
Karim saw the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, but a moment later she tilted her chin to a challenging angle. He fought off an unexpected stab of admiration. The lost princess might have a red-headed, bloody-minded attitude, but she also had spirit.
‘Is that meant to scare me?’ she jeered. ‘What is this?’ she added when a newspaper was placed unceremoniously on her lap.
She swallowed, conscious of the shiver of apprehension trickling like ice down her spine as her eyes flickered across the headline. Two phrases leapt out at her: VIRGIN PRINCESS and NIGHT OF PASSION.
She closed her eyes and thought, Let me die.
‘Tomorrow’s tabloid—it gets better inside,’ he promised.
‘Tomorrow’s…?’ Hope flared—did that mean there was still time to kill the story?
‘Read it,’ he suggested, watching the emotions flicker across her face. ‘It will save explanations.’
‘I’ve seen enough. I already feel sick. They can’t write this sort of stuff, can they? Not once you tell them it’s all lies.’
A spasm of irritation contorted his lean features as he leaned back in his seat. ‘The editor gave it to me as a courtesy, so he said, but it was clear he was hoping for a quote. Why would I give
him one?’
Eva pursed her lips and slung him a furious glare. ‘So you didn’t tell him it was all lies?’
He expelled a sigh through clenched teeth, muttered something in his native tongue and bowed his head before retorting, ‘It is one version of the truth and, frankly, a lot more believable than yours.’
Eva didn’t want to, but the lurid headline exerted a sick fascination and she found herself scanning it once more.
It did not read better the second time around…‘I feel sick.’
‘Feeling I can cope with. Do us both a favour, though, and control your gag reflex.’
This heartless response drew a narrow-eyed glare from Eva. ‘How did they get this?’ she choked, shaking her head in utter mystification.
‘From your reaction I’m assuming I can discount the possibility you are the source.’
Eva was not conscious she had raised her hand until he caught her wrist and leaned into her. The action was a signal for every nerve in her body to go haywire.
‘Bad idea.’ The unmistakable warning in his steely eyes belied the lightness in his tone.
Eva twisted her wrist and to her intense relief his fingers unfolded and his hand fell. She sat there, rubbing her wrist. ‘You actually thought that I would…?’
‘It was a possibility, but your friend was always the obvious candidate.’
‘Luke!’ she exclaimed. ‘He would never betray…’
‘You would be surprised how often people will betray you when there is a cheque involved…and sometimes,’ he added, dragging his hair back from his broad brow with a hand, ‘it doesn’t even take a cheque.’ In his experience revenge for an imagined slight was often enough.
Eva began to shake her head in instinctive rejection of the cynical interruption. Was he born this distrustful or had life made him this way?
‘Luke is the least avaricious person I know. He definitely wouldn’t…’ She stopped, recalling how he became very willing to confide his life history to total strangers after a beer or two.
Reading the sudden flicker of doubt in her face, Karim shrugged. ‘Or maybe he would?’ he suggested.
Eva lifted her eyes, her lips thinned in distaste as she glared at him. At that moment she would have given a lot to be able to wipe that smug look off his face.
‘It’s possible the information leaked through Luke,’ she conceded, able easily to imagine the scene. ‘But he didn’t do it deliberately and he definitely didn’t do it for money.’ She shook her head and added firmly, ‘He wouldn’t.’
Karim, whose initial strong dislike of the blond man had not faded in the last few hours, observed with a sceptical sneer, ‘You have a lot of faith in your boyfriend.’
It contrasted strongly with her determination to assign the worst possible motives to his own actions.
‘He is not my boyfriend,’ Eva said, even though she didn’t think her denial would have any more effect on his opinion now than it had on the previous occasion.
‘So you do not have an exclusive relationship, but you have been together for…?’
‘I’ve known Luke for some time and he’s not…’ She stopped and threw up her hands in frustration. ‘What is it—don’t you think a man and woman can be platonic friends?’
‘No.’
‘Just because you look on women as sex objects…’ Eva gave a contemptuous sniff and promptly lost the thread of her argument as her glance drifted across the strong contours of his amazing face.
‘Friendship between…’ Her voice trailed away to nothing as she recognised the powerful sensuality carved into every perfect line, every plane and hollow of his face. Some women might not consider it a trial to have him consider them as sex objects…actually quite a lot of women.
He shrugged. ‘I do not pretend to be a modern man.’
Her laugh almost tipped over into hysterical, but it did help break the spell that had her in its grip.
‘You’re a throwback to the Dark Ages.’
‘And that is a bad thing? If you have any doubt turn to page eight. I believe the multiple-choice quiz there will tell you whether you are turned on by a sensitive contemporary man in touch with his female side or if you are one of that number who is drawn towards the masterful macho lover—in the “treat them mean keep them keen” vein.”
‘Very funny,’ she began, then stopped, adding in a hoarse horror-struck whisper, ‘Page eight…there’s more inside?’
‘Oh, yes, quite a lot more. I’m especially fond of the insightful little piece on page five…’
Eva flicked through the pages and went paper-white. ‘This is not funny!’
The anonymity that had allowed her to take up her old life had gone—the consequences would be a lot more serious now than bodyguards watching her flat.
Karim’s mobile lips twisted into a grimace of angry distaste. ‘You think I enjoy having my personal life made gossip fodder?’
Eva realised for the first time that the mocking repartee hid an underlying anger…More than anger, she corrected, studying his face. Karim was incandescent with rage.
‘This is your fault!’ she accused as panic clutched like an icy fist in her belly.
‘On what do you base that charge?’
‘I’m ordinary—people do not write about me in tabloids. Is this even genuine?’
‘Your lack of realism is beginning to irritate,’ he observed. ‘Your father was a prince, you are part of a powerful family, your actions have consequences and you did not spend the night with just anybody, you spent it with me.’
‘You have to do something to stop them printing it!’
‘There is such a thing as a free press.’
Until now Eva had always thought this was a good thing. ‘It’s all a lie!’
The plaintive cry elicited an unexpected twinge of sympathy from Karim. He ignored it; sympathy was not what she needed.
She needed to wake up.
‘You think that makes any difference?’
‘Of course it makes a difference.’
‘Do not be so naïve!’ Karim, his expression contemptuous, studied her indignant features.
‘I’m not naïve!’ A hopeful look appeared on her face. ‘What about an…injunction?’
‘A good idea,’ he conceded. ‘If what they had printed was not essentially true.’
‘True!’ she yelped. ‘It’s total rubbish!’ She opened the paper with a rustle and found a headline. ‘Right,’ she said, stabbing it with her finger. ‘For a start I’m not a—’
‘Virgin, true,’ he said, picking up on a totally different aspect. ‘The virgin princess stuff makes a good headline, but as I imagine every lover you have ever had will be coming out of the woodwork to contradict that in rival papers, demanding a retraction would be pointless. Do you not think,’ he added grimly, ‘I would kill this story if I could? It is not in my power to do so—believing the world is the place you wish it to be does not make it so. Your grandfather hoped that you would gradually accept that your life had to change. He clearly underestimated your stubbornness.’ His mouth lifted briefly in a humourless smile as he added half to himself, ‘Or possibly overestimated your intelligence…?’
Eva’s eyes flashed, but before she could respond to the insult he added, ‘He now accepts that it was a mistake.’
‘You have been discussing me with my grandfather? How dare you!’
‘The announcement of our marriage will appear in the relevant places tomorrow.’
The autocratic pronouncement took Eva’s breath away. It was unbelievable but he really seemed to think she would agree. ‘And I have no say in this?’ she asked, adopting an interested tone.
He shrugged and, leaning back into his seat, closed his eyes. ‘Not a lot. Now, if you don’t mind, I have things to do.’
Eva ground her teeth and fixed the impossible man with a glimmering glare. Did he really think that she was going to sit still for this manipulation?
‘I do mind.’ If he actually fell
asleep she would kill him, she really would…Now that, she thought longingly, would really make a headline worth reading. ‘Let me tell you…’
Karim opened his eyes. ‘No, let me tell you, Princess,’ he said with the manner of a man who had exhausted his patience, ‘or better still let me show you…’ This alternative would be admittedly brutal, but effective.
‘Show?’ she echoed, unable to understand a word of what he said to the man sitting up front in the driver’s seat. ‘What are you doing? What did you say to him? Stop this car immediately!’ she added, tugging at the door handle, which didn’t budge.
Eva, fighting the rising tide of panic, turned her head sharply, causing her hair to whip around her face as she faced him. ‘You do know we have a law in this country about kidnap?’
As she studied his profile with angry eyes her expression grew abstracted; he looked like a man who made his own laws.
Which was, she reminded herself, not an admirable quality. Fitting her scowl back in place, she grumbled crankily, ‘Just what sort of world would it be if we all went around making up the rules as we went along?’
It would be chaos…much as her life was at the moment. She was suddenly filled with a nostalgic longing for a time when she was oblivious to the existence of her exotic relations and the only prince she knew existed in the pages of books and magazines!
The blacked-out glass panel that separated them from the two men in the front of the car was back in place before Karim responded.
‘You want to get out, fine…feel free.’
She tilted her head to look at him with confused suspicion. ‘What?’
‘I’m not kidnapping you, I’m rescuing you, Princess,’ he murmured softly.
‘I do not need rescuing.’ Not until now, anyway, she thought as his platinum eyes captured her own. ‘And I’m not a princess.’
‘You really do struggle with reality, don’t you, Princess?’
The throbbing ache between her thighs was real and utterly mortifying. ‘This is not real.’ Any minute now she would wake up, and she would not be lying in anyone’s arms.
‘This is a theme I have already touched on, but as you are clearly a slow learner I will repeat myself…Saying something, even with shrill conviction, does not make it so, Princess.’
