by Olivia Gates
“You’re not saddling me with the responsibility for tonight’s attack. Tonight was a fluke...”
“You can’t afford flukes. Or to think that guards would ‘cramp your style.’”
“Is that why you think I don’t have guards? Seems you haven’t kept abreast with the latest developments.”
“Why don’t you update me?”
“Sure. Where did you last leave off the soap opera that is my family life? You know the basics, how the whole mess started. Two brothers marrying two sisters to unite two kingdoms, and instead of being satisfied with their enviable lots of wealth, status and healthy children, becoming each others’ worst enemies.”
His gaze plunged into his own realizations. “You discovered how things stood between your parents, and your uncle and aunt.”
“Only from the time I knew who they were.”
That she’d always known seemed to interest him. At least she thought that was what that last heavy-lidded glance signified.
She sighed. “Then it all came to an inevitably explosive end when my mother and aunt plotted against their husbands and got caught, divorced and exiled. That’s where the part about my guards comes in. All my life, until her exile, my mother was obsessed with one thing. That she, the lofty Princess Somayah of Azmahar, not end up as a second-rate princess, known only for being sister to Queen Sondoss of Zohayd and married to King Atef’s brother. She had me hounded by a platoon to safeguard the asset she hoped would bring her an alliance that would elevate her to her sister’s higher royal status, and rid her of dependence on my father’s family. My father, who’s always been mired in gold-digging mistresses, only sent guards after me to evict hers in his petty feud with her. Once their toxic relationship was thankfully over, they dismissed me from their minds, the one thing they’d rather forget bonded them forever. So, I’ve been guard-free since I left Zohayd.”
His jaw hardened. “Why didn’t you ask your uncle Atef or your cousins for replacements? Why don’t you hire some yourself?”
“I never ask anyone for anything, let alone round-the-clock protection. And while my software development business is taking off, my liquid assets are tied up in its operating capital. Most important, I really felt I didn’t need protection. I came here to start a new life as just another single woman living in the city. I paid attention to my safety. This was the first time I ran into any trouble.”
“It only takes once.”
She exhaled. “True. But it didn’t happen because I was negligent. Someone was determined to hurt me. They would have found a way no matter what I did. And I’m grateful you happened along.”
A long moment of silence followed her statement.
At length, he exhaled. “As a princess of Zohayd, you must never be without protection. And you should never be with a strange man, let alone offer to drive him home.”
Oh, man. He was going all protective and disapproving on her. As if she needed to find him any yummier.
“You are strange—” in a uniquely and incredibly exciting way, her grin told him “—but not a stranger.”
That majestic head inclined in delicious curtness. “Not a total stranger, granted, but still one.”
“Oh, come on, Rashid. Next you’re going to say I need a mehrem.” In other words, an adult male of her kin whom she couldn’t marry to chaperone her in the presence of males she could. “How about you stop behaving as if we don’t know each other?”
“We don’t.”
A huff of incredulity burst out at his emphatic declaration. “Yeah, right. I’ve known you all my life.”
“You’ve seen me from afar for a portion of it.”
“Yeah, a portion comprising its first seventeen years. And the ‘from afar’ bit was your doing. It sure wasn’t for lack of trying to come closer on my part.”
There. Her crass candor was getting into gear. But boy, had she tried to come closer.
She’d tried to be everywhere he was while he’d been in Zohayd, had found every reason to be in Azmahar when he’d been there, striving for a chance to talk to him. Yet no matter her ingenuity, she could count on one hand the quasi-exchanges they’d ever had. The one thing ameliorating her disappointment had been that Rashid was like that with everyone. Not that he’d been that reserved with others. And not that she’d ever given up.
After he’d joined the army and his appearances had become more sporadic, she’d obsessively done everything she could to be around for the rare visits. But war between Azmahar and Damhoor had erupted mere months after he’d enlisted. Then he’d been reported missing and thought dead....
Ya Ullah, she’d never known such desperation. Or such relief when he’d turned up weeks later, alive and leading his squad back to civilization. She’d almost died of frustration when she hadn’t been able to go with Haidar and Jalal to greet him at his return. But she’d gone to the ceremony where he’d received Azmahar’s highest medal of valor. She’d still had to ambush him to congratulate him, tell him how thankful she’d been for his safety. But he’d been more aloof than ever before.
He’d drifted farther away from then on until he’d seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He’d resurfaced almost three years ago, just as the upheaval in Zohayd had erupted, as her closest cousins’, Haidar’s and Jalal’s, enemy, and subsequently the enemy of her whole family.
No one knew what had happened between the former best friends to tear them apart so viciously. She didn’t even know if it was the same thing that had alienated Haidar and Jalal themselves. All she’d known was that she had to be resigned that she would never see him again. That she’d never had any chance with him, anyway.
Now fate had brought him exploding back into her life, only for her to find he’d become this exhilarating delight of a man who was still making her struggle for every inch closer...
The GPS announced that they’d arrived at their destination.
Bringing the car to a stop, she squinted up through the windshield.
He lived in a...warehouse?
His next words confirmed it. “Now that you’ve driven me home, I’ll have someone tail you to yours.”
She took the key out and handed it to him. When he wouldn’t take it, she placed it on his lap and took off her seat belt. “Which part of ‘I’m taking care of you tonight’ didn’t you get?”
His gaze bathed her in such calm contemplation it had blood fizzing in her ears. “This comes from being one of the two prized female Aal Shalaans, right?”
“Uh...what does?”
“The expectation that men will do your bidding. You’re used to saying ‘jump’ only for your male kin to ask ‘how high?’”
One thing for sure, she’d jump if only he said to. She’d stay in the air until he said down, too.
No need to tell him that just yet. For now, she’d let him believe she was an old hand at getting her way. If he believed she was more effective than she really was, it made it more likely she’d sway him, too. Good press was everything, after all.
She smiled. “Invite me in, Rashid.”
“That’s an ill-advised demand, princess.”
“Will you stop with this ‘princess’ business? You’d better, if you don’t want me to ‘sheikh’ you.”
“‘Sheikh’ away. Boundaries are essential.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Can we take our boundaries inside? I’m dying for a cup of tea. I promise to make you one.”
“I don’t drink tea.”
He didn’t, huh? She might just discover he didn’t eat food, either, his sustenance being evil souls. And he’d already gorged on four for dinner.
“You must have other beverages in your place.”
“Tap water.”
Her lips twisted. “You won’t put me off, you know.”
“I’m stating facts.”
“Next you’ll say you have nothing to eat but dried dates.”
His shrug should have been immortalized on video as the template for nonchalance
. “It’s not far from the truth.”
Water and dates, huh? The sustenance of desert nomads. It actually fit that he, having lived years in survival mode through hardships and deprivation the likes of which she couldn’t imagine, would be programmed to exist on the bare necessities. Even now that he was a billionaire, he hadn’t gone soft or become dependent upon modern comforts and conveniences. He might drive a car only his kind of money could buy, but he reverted to his adversity-thriving true self in a heartbeat.
We remain who we are, no matter where we are.
And who he was, was the best thing she’d ever known.
She grinned into his brooding eyes. “Water and dates work for me.”
“Fine. You can come in.” Not much of an invitation, but she’d take it. She was sizzling with eagerness to. At least, she was before he doused it. “Until your escort arrives.”
Before she could object, he was out of the car in yet another impossibly effortless move.
Her exit wasn’t as graceful, nor was her progress to catch up with him at the door of what looked like a deserted warehouse below an equally empty, old, industrial-looking brick building.
As he pointed a remote at the huge steel door, she nodded at the deserted area. “See this? There’s no one around like there always is in our region. No malicious eyes to monitor my visit or wagging tongues to weave it into a scandal. Why are you worried?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Because I can’t worry about anything with you around. Because I feel safer with you than I ever did in my life. Why else?”
Another episode of inertness descended on him. She was quickly learning that indicated astonishment. Even shock.
His next words reinforced that belief, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “You believe I pose no danger of any sort?”
“Definitely not to me.” The words were out before she realized he might mean a different kind of danger...the sexual kind.
If only. With this avenging archangel, she was safer in that arena than she was in her currently all-female environment. A depressing thought if any ever was.
He pressed the remote and the door opened with the whirr of a perfectly oiled machine, belying its weather-beaten appearance.
Before he turned away, he belatedly commented on her wholehearted assertion. “Interesting.”
You can say that again, she thought, watching the receding streetlights paint shadows across his back as he forged deeper into the darkness, a sorcerer becoming one with his lair.
He left the lights off. On purpose, she was sure, to rattle her. Punishing her for behaving so “inappropriately”?
Too bad for him it wouldn’t work. Not only did she have no fear of darkness, it was true she’d fear nothing with him by her side. Maybe they did lack some knowledge of one another that closer interaction would have fostered, but she did know the essential him. His essence had touched hers so profoundly that he starred in her very first memory.
Deciding to call him out on his efforts to intimidate her, she said, “Let there be light, Rashid. Only so neither of us breaks a toe against a cabinet or something.”
At her mockery, there was light. Not a sudden burst, but a dawning of golden, sourceless illumination so gradual her vision didn’t have to adjust to take in her surroundings. A vast, 50-foot-ceilinged warehouse-to-loft conversion. There was one word for it: Spartan. She now truly knew what the word meant. It was this: a warrior’s dwelling. Sparse, utilitarian, austere. It was also more. A piece of ancient Azmahar, before oil and technology had transformed its distinctive heritage into yet another twenty-first-century Westernized hybrid. Every line and surface, and what little furniture there was, was steeped in Azmahar’s history, bearing the stamp of its authenticity in a muted palette of desert-inspired tones.
“Of course.” She realized she’d said that out loud when he turned to her. “Now that I’ve seen this place, I realize nothing else—and nothing less—could have suited you. Or...contained you.”
“Contained me?” His gaze swept the place before he leveled that bone-melting stare back on her. “Quite the bottle, isn’t it?”
A laugh burst out of her. “You do fit the genie profile. Especially with the way you materialized out of thin air tonight.”
Shrugging out of his coat, he moved deeper into the huge space. “I’m sure that satisfies your sense of dramatic license far more than the mundane explanation.”
Removing her coat as well and following him farther into the room, she faced him as he stopped before a fireplace and held out her arms for the logs he’d picked up. “I’ll do that. You sit down.”
“So it’s not ‘jump’ this time, but ‘sit,’ eh? What next? Roll over? Beg?”
A chuckle bubbled out as she tried to imagine him doing any of that. But the funny actions only turned to licentious images in her head. Oh, the images.
Trapping a moan, she grinned. “Maybe. And maybe I’ll ask you to jump to that mezzanine. I bet you can jump tall buildings in a single bound. But even superheroes need to put their feet up once in a while. As you’re going to do tonight.”
Without a shadow of a smile in return, he handed her the logs and left her to start a fire. He sank down on top of a woolen kelim woven in Azmahar’s national colors and motifs. Leaning on one of two huge complementing cushions, he proceeded to watch her like a black panther would contemplate a contrary gazelle.
His gaze made her more distressed with each breath; its touch unleashing impulses she’d believed would be forever banked with him forever out of her life.
As he would be after tonight.
But tonight was still here. As was she. And she would make the most out of this windfall.
With the fire going, she turned to him. “You’re hungry.”
“I am?”
“Judging by your size and muscle mass, you must require quite a lot of sustenance frequently. It’s been almost four hours since you came to my rescue. So yes, you’re hungry now.”
It could have been the play of firelight. But she could swear an obsidian flame started flickering in the depths of his eyes.
He inclined his head, casting his face in deeper shadow, depriving her of closer investigation. “So you don’t just order your males around, you tell them how they feel, too.”
“‘My males?’” A laugh overcame her. “Ya Ullah, what a concept.” His intensity ratcheted up until she had to look away, had to walk to the open-plan kitchen at the far end of the gigantic space. “So...food. Please tell me I’ll find something more than water and dates in there.”
“I can still call someone to follow you home now rather than later.”
“No, thanks.” Arriving at the kitchen, she looked around. “You weren’t exaggerating, were you? No fridge? So how do you eat? Out? Or do you exist on takeaway? Or have a cook come in regularly?”
“No cook. I get fresh ingredients delivered daily, use them up, rinse and repeat.”
That actually sounded like a very healthy way to live. He was the picture of vigor and virility, so he was doing it right. Very.
She leaned across the island, luxuriated in watching him coming closer. “So where’s today’s consignment?”
He stopped before her. “I intended to have dinner out.”
“Until me.”
“Until you.”
The way he said those words... Was there tenderness in his tone, or was it her imagination again?
She cleared her tight throat. “So how am I supposed to feed you? You don’t even have dates, do you?”
“I have all kinds of dried fruits.” He pointed toward the cupboards behind her.
“I can use those. For dessert. For the main course, I bet you can get anything delivered at any time.”
He brooded at her for what felt like an hour.
Her gaze began to waver. He was going to outstare her and...
He suddenly looked heavenward, as if asking the fates just what they’d thrown in his path tonight. Then he inhaled sharply,
exhaled as forcefully.
Wow. She’d done it. She’d dragged a full-blown reaction out of him. A human one, to boot.
Her internal celebration hiccupped as he recaptured her in the crosshairs of his focus. “Fine. I’ll have whatever ingredients you require delivered. What do you want to feed me?”
She barely managed not to jump and pump a fist into the air.
Another minibattle won!
Her smile was so wide she doubted her lips would revert to their former size. “What do you want to eat?”
In response, he produced his cell phone, called someone named Ahmad then handed her the phone.
As he walked away he said over his shoulder, “Surprise me. You’re superlative at it, after all.”
Four
Surprise had long given way to ever-expanding disbelief as Rashid watched Laylah prowling all over his place, “taking care of him.” She was now in his kitchen again, preparing him dessert.
This was not going according to plan.
Why was he letting her do this to him? He should be the one setting the pace, calling the shots.
Yet, since she’d pounced on him with her scarf and concern in that alley, he’d been letting her steer him. And this alien experience of being taken care of only got more...incapacitating.
No one had ever done anything like this for him, to him. He’d never let anyone near enough to even try. Not even Haidar and Jalal. He’d once rejected all their efforts to impose their brand of caring on him. He’d since lived happily alone.
Zain. So “happily” didn’t apply. He had no idea what happiness was. He’d heard people describe it. He’d observed them living it. It was what Haidar and Jalal appeared to be eyeballs-deep in now, with their brides. He’d never experienced anything remotely resembling their conditions and he’d been fiercely thankful for that. They’d been...compromised. Their power was no longer their own; their priorities forever messed up. He’d been unwavering in his belief that he wasn’t equipped to succumb to anything like that so-called happiness, that there was nothing to jog his ironclad order and intentions. Happiness, and everything else that people wanted, was for other men. Men with no mission.
