by Olivia Gates
He did feel he’d known her all his life.
And now he couldn’t imagine his life without her. The life she’d derailed. And righted.
He sighed deeply as images and sensations of the previous night and early morning cascaded through his mind and body.
He had taken her as if he’d been craving her all his life. He hadn’t even been able to stop when he’d found he’d been her first. Or later, when he’d told himself he wouldn’t do it again that night. But she’d again hijacked his sense and control…
Suddenly unease slithered through him, unraveling his surreal state of bliss.
He’d approached her, taken her, as if he was free to make his own choices and pursue his own destiny. And he wasn’t.
How had he forgotten that for a minute, let alone a night?
But he had forgotten. Totally. And he remembered now.
Dammit, no. It made no difference what was demanded—no, needed—of him. There was no way he could blindly point at a bride from the royal catalogue now.
He had no idea how he’d be able to avoid the arranged marriage, but he would. No matter the pressures or the exigencies. Everything in him demanded that he make Gemma his.
He foresaw an epic battle.
He wiped both hands over his face, bunched them in his hair, pulled with a steady, stinging tension as if that would counteract the pressure building inside him.
What a mess.
But what a delight, too.
On the heels of visualizing the upcoming strife, images of her, of them together, conversing, caressing, joined, filled his mind again. In a balance where all the troubles he had piling ahead were weighed against being with Gemma, there was absolutely no contest. Claiming her outweighed the whole world.
He sat up, swung his legs off the bed. He ran his hands over the place where she’d slept—or at least lain—in between their lovemaking sessions. They hadn’t slept until morning, too busy talking and experiencing each other in every way, sensual, sexual, mental. His body, already hard, started to pound at him in demand for her.
He tried to convince it to subside. There was no chance it was having her. Not today. After what he’d done to her—twice—no matter how eager she was, she needed at least a couple of days to recuperate.
He got to his feet. “Gemma?”
Silence. He called again, and this time, when the same absence of any sound or movement answered him, the lips that had twitched at imagining her soaking away the aches of his initiation in his tub tightened with alarm. He rushed to the bathroom, burst through the slightly open door.
He almost slumped to the floor at finding it empty. He was in worse shape than he thought. Being with Gemma had just masked his condition. He’d imagined a dozen macabre scenarios during the minute his calls had met with silence.
She had to be in the kitchen. There was no way she could hear him there. Images of her tousled and glowing from a shower, dressed in one of his shirts or lost in one of his bathrobes filled his mind. And she’d be awkward and swollen in all the places that would make him ache until he could barely speak.
He considered walking to her naked, then pulled on pants. She’d let him expose her to every intimacy, had responded with every fiber of her being, but she was still shy when she wasn’t in the throes of pleasure. He didn’t want to test her more, for now. He’d already rushed her in so many ways. So what if she’d asked him to? That didn’t mean he should be so eager to comply. He was the experienced one here, and he shouldn’t behave like an overeager teenager.
Seconds after this self-lecture, he was almost running to the kitchen. Aih, he would embarrass her again.
The premonition hit him before he stepped into the kitchen. All through his penthouse. The feeling of…emptiness. Absence.
The feeling became fact in seconds. The kitchen was also empty.
He didn’t stop this time. He whirled around and bolted to inspect each room. Nothing.
Gemma was gone.
He stood in the middle of his living room, overlooking Manhattan, unable to process the knowledge.
She couldn’t have just left!
She must have had an overwhelming reason for leaving. Maybe some emergency. Yes. That made sense. But…if something had happened, why hadn’t she woken him up? To tell him, to let him help? She knew what kind of power he wielded. If any of her loved ones were in trouble, she knew he’d be the most qualified to help.
Was it possible she didn’t realize he’d do anything for her? Was it possible she didn’t believe, as he did, that they’d transcended all the conventions of relationship development, had taken a short cut to the highest level one could attain? Or was she so independent that she couldn’t bring herself to ask for help because she was determined to deal with whatever problem had cropped up on her own? Or maybe it hadn’t occurred to her to ask, in her rush to whatever the emergency was?
Stop. He was probably off base in all of his assumptions, was assigning a ludicrous interpretation to something that would be clear the moment she contacted him.
Something else hit him like a sledgehammer.
He hadn’t exchanged any contact info with her.
And it was even worse. He didn’t know her last name.
Just what had he been thinking last night?
That was it. He hadn’t been thinking. Of anything but her, what they’d shared from first sight onward. He had, for the first time in his life, lived totally in the moment.
He’d always held back from fully trusting others, even his closest people, despite believing in their best intentions. He’d guarded himself against the consequences of their mistakes and misdemeanors. But with Gemma, he hadn’t only dropped his guard—it hadn’t been raised in the first place. He’d not had a moment of doubt. She was the woman he’d dreamed of but never truly thought he’d find.
The one.
And she was gone. After giving him the most perfect night of his life, after giving him herself and a glimpse of a magnificent future filled with an unprecedented connection, she was just…gone.
Calm down. She’d have an explanation, a perfectly reasonable one, for leaving without waking him up. It had to be the only thing she could have done, or she wouldn’t have done it. She wouldn’t have left him like that if it weren’t.
So he should cool it. He might not know her last name or her whereabouts, but she knew his. All he had to do was wait for her.
She’d come back the moment she could.
Gemma didn’t come back.
It seemed she’d disappeared off the face of the earth.
He’d thought his security detail would have kept tabs on her. But when they’d seen her leave in the early-morning hours, all they’d worried about was him. They’d called to make sure he was okay, and when he’d answered, what he’d remembered doing only when they reminded him, clearly fine but sleepy and brooking no further interruption, they’d let her go. They hadn’t seen any reason to follow her. That had destroyed his biggest hope of finding her, and the hope of doing so was becoming dimmer by the minute.
He’d widened his search until it had encompassed the whole United States. No one had heard of her.
With the evidence suggesting that she’d never existed on American soil, he’d begun to think that she and the enchanted night they’d spent together had been a figment of his imagination. Even with his one proof of her existence—the photo he’d taken of her—everyone insisted they’d never seen her. Everyone his people had questioned had commented that they would have remembered someone like her. And they didn’t. As for her name, it rang no bells.
It was as if she’d never existed.
An explanation had reared its head constantly during his frantic search. He’d knocked it out of the way, determined not to let it have a hearing. But once he’d breathed again with the certainty that she hadn’t had an accident or worse, he found his options narrowing down until they’d dwindled to nothing.
Nothing but that explanation made sense.
There was no escaping it anymore. He had to face it, no matter how mutilating it was.
She didn’t want to see him again.
She might have been the woman who’d turned his life upside down, but it seemed he’d been nothing to her but a one-night stand. A man she’d chosen to initiate her nubile body into the rites of passion and unlock her limitless sexual potential. Perhaps he’d seemed exotic to her, a man from a different culture and country whom she could cut out of her life once the adventure was over.
Now that resignation had replaced desperation and he’d given up on the dream of her, there was nothing to fight for anymore, nothing to keep him here.
It was time he returned to Zohayd to confront his duty.
To embrace his nightmare.
“Shaheen.”
That was all his father said, minutes after Shaheen had walked into his office.
It was enough. Disappointment and exasperation blared in the toneless delivery of his name.
Shaheen didn’t blame him. He had ignored his father and the rest of the world for the past eight weeks. After that single phone call telling his father he was not coming home as promised, he’d made himself unavailable to anyone. He hadn’t explained why.
His father had left him a dozen messages, had sent emissaries to bring him back or to at least get him to explain his reneging on the decision he’d arrived at only days before.
His father rose from behind his desk, majestic and packed with power and ire and wreathed in the full-blown regalia of the King of Zohayd.
Shaheen held his gaze as his father approached him. King Atef Aal Shalaan made no attempt to hug him as he usually did, but instead stood there, flaying him with his displeasure-radiating glower. His father was a couple of inches shorter, yet broader with more than three decades head start in maturity and responsibility. Shaheen had always thought his shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of the kingdom’s fate on them. And that was not to mention his overwhelming presence.
Yet King Atef needed far more than presence to keep the kingdom at peace, to keep his enemies in check and his allies in line. More than ever, he had to appease the most powerful of those who constantly snapped at the heels of the ruling house, demanding their cut of power, prestige and proceeds. And that was something only Shaheen could deliver by sacrificing himself at the literal altar.
His father exhaled, the golden eyes he’d passed down only to Shaheen’s brother Harres glittering from below intimidating eyebrows. “I won’t ask what made you disappear. Or what brought you back.”
“Good.” Shaheen didn’t attempt to temper his terse mutter. His father would have to be content that he had come back. Nothing else was his business.
“But,” his father went on, “I’m letting it go only because this is not the time to take you to task over your potentially catastrophic behavior. The reception is in full swing.”
The reception. Aka the bridal parade his father had put together the moment he’d been informed Shaheen was on his way to Zohayd onboard his private jet. He was trapping him into it, before he had a chance to change his mind again.
And there it was, brewing in the main ceremony hall—the storm that would destroy his life. Two thousand people were in attendance, all those with a stake in the marriage and all those involved in the negotiations and manipulations and coercions.
But Shaheen wasn’t expected to just flip through the women like he might a mail-order catalog and circle the model he thought most bearable. He was supposed to assess the merchandise in a more comprehensive fashion.
With marriages being what they were in Zohayd—especially the higher you went up the social scale—it was families who married, not individuals. He would have an extended family for a wife. And every potential family was here so that he could decide which one he could best stomach having as a constant presence in his life through their influence on his wife’s and children’s every thought and action.
“You’re not dressed appropriately.” His father’s reprimand brought him out of his distasteful musings. “I told your kabeer el yaweran what was expected of you tonight.”
Shaheen’s head of entourage had said his father wanted him to wear Zohaydan royal garb. He’d scowled at the man and resumed staring blindly at the clauses in his latest business contract.
Now he scowled at his business suit and then at his father with the same leashed aggravation followed by the same pointed dismissal.
His father drew in an equally annoyed breath. “Since you’re flaunting yet another expectation, I demand that you at least wear an expression that doesn’t reveal your abhorrence for being here.”
Shaheen exhaled in resignation. “Don’t ask more of me, Father. A pretense that this isn’t torture is foremost among the things I don’t have to give.”
“You’re being unreasonable. You’re not the first or last royal to enter a marriage of state for his kingdom’s sake.”
“And you did it twice, so why not me, eh?” Shaheen knew he was stepping over the line talking to his father, and king, this harshly. But he didn’t care. He had no more stamina for observing protocol. “And I am here to do it, Father. So why should I even attend this farce at all? Why not spare me this added torment? I’d rather not choose the method of my own execution. I’ll leave it up to you to pick the most humane one.”
King Atef winced at his analogy. “That’s the problem. Many candidates have pros and cons that weigh each other out. It has to be your personal preference that tips the balance in one’s favor.”
“You think I care if I’m shot or electrocuted or cut to pieces? They’re all equal and interchangeable to me. Just pick one.”
“You’re exaggerating now. All your bridal candidates are fine young women. Beautiful, well-bred, highly educated, pleasant. You’ll get to like your bride, and maybe in time love her.”
“Like you love Queen Sondoss? And loved my mother?”
His father’s scowl deepened at Shaheen’s ready counter. The best he’d reached with Shaheen’s mother was peaceful coexistence. As for Queen Sondoss, leashed hostility was all he could hope for on a good day.
“There are Aliyah and Kamal. I believe no one can be any happier than they are.”
“Don’t bring them up, Father. They were already crazy in love when they married. Circumstances just forced them apart, and thankfully, forced them back together.”
His father’s gaze wavered. Then he let go of his kingly veneer.
Nothing remained but the loving father who looked and sounded pained at what he couldn’t save his son from. “I can’t tell you how much I regret that you’ll have to walk in my footsteps. But there’s no way around it. And that is why I’m asking you to pay attention to the candidates. At least you have more than one to choose from. I had no say in choosing either your mother or Sondoss. You may have better luck finding someone who’s compatible with you among the dozen possible brides.”
Shaheen’s teeth ground together. He’d already found someone who was compatible with him in every way.
Gemma had clearly not thought the same. She hadn’t even thought him worthy of a goodbye.
That didn’t change anything for him. He knew now that everything he’d ever dreamed of existed, even if she didn’t want him, even if he could never have her. What were the chances that fate would gift him with another woman who was even close?
He not only believed it wouldn’t, he didn’t want it to.
He refrained from saying anything. His father would have to roll the dice and decide Shaheen’s fate himself.
Finally his father gave up, brushed past him and walked out with heavy steps.
Shaheen watched him, compassion flickering through the deadness inside him.
His father hadn’t had an easy life. Certainly not a contented one. Shaheen had grown up believing that his father had never known happiness or love outside of what he felt for his job and children. It had been only a couple of years ago that they’d found out he’d once
tasted that happiness and love, with a woman. Anna Beaumont.
He’d had an affair with her during his separation from Queen Sondoss two years after Haidar and Jalal were born. Then Anna had fallen pregnant, and his efforts to end his marriage to Sondoss had failed. And though it had nearly destroyed him, he’d left Anna, telling her he could never be with her again, due to the threat of war with Sondoss’s home kingdom of Azmahar, and that it was imperative to abort their child.
Instead, Anna had put her baby up for adoption. Shaheen’s aunt Bahiyah, secretly knowing about her brother’s affair, had adopted Aliyah and passed her off as hers.
It was only many years later, while his father was recovering from a heart attack, that he’d searched for Anna again and discovered the truth. It was a timely discovery, as another flare of unrest in the region could only be resolved if a daughter of King Atef’s married the king of Judar. Now Aliyah was King Kamal’s worshipped wife and Judar’s beloved queen, and Anna Beaumont had become a constant presence in Aliyah’s and, by association, his father’s lives.
Shaheen believed that had only deepened his father’s unhappiness. For he could never have the only woman he’d ever wanted, and as Shaheen sensed, still did.
He and his father had that in common, too.
Shaheen kept his eyes fixed on his father’s slumped shoulders as they reached their destination, braced himself as they stepped into the ceremony hall.
Brightness and buzzing seemed to rise at their entry, but he couldn’t register the magnificent surroundings beyond the darkness and ugliness inside him. It was reflected on every surface, on every face that turned to look at him.
Suddenly every hair on his body stood on end.
What now?
His eyes panned the room, seeking the source of the disturbance that had drenched him. It now felt as if a laser beam was drilling through his gut.
Then everything came to a grinding halt.
His heart almost ruptured with one startled detonation.
