“Behold your work,” Tarek had said one morning in the great courtyard, years back, shaking his head as his firstborn son and heir ran in circles. Naked. “This is the future of my kingdom.”
Anya had only laughed.
“That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?” she’d asked him one afternoon, years later, when their tiny, perfect eldest daughter was found in one of the palace’s public rooms.
And refused to leave.
“No,” she kept saying. “No.”
With all the consequence of a king.
Tarek had laughed too, but he’d also pulled Anya close and kissed her soundly.
They tended to their duties, they were deeply involved in the raising of their children, and at night they repaired to the King’s royal suite and set themselves on fire.
Over and over and over again.
Year after year. Whether Anya was big with child or not. Whether they had fought for days or not.
They might not have always agreed with each other. They might have spent hours shouting. She was too direct and he was too arrogant and sometimes those things left bruises no matter how much they loved each other.
But they kissed each other’s wounds, there in the dark of their big, wide bed. And when he moved inside her and she clung tight to him, they found their way back to each other. Sooner or later, they always found their way.
As the years passed, Tarek became a powerful new voice in the region. And Anya found ways to use the power he’d given her to truly do her best to make the world a better place. She and her sister-in-law Nur first became friends, then partners in a charitable initiative that promoted women’s health and wellness.
“Finally,” she told Tarek at the charity’s inaugural ball. “A use for all my medical knowledge.”
“You will always be my doctor, habibti,” he’d told her, there in the center of the ballroom where his gaze told her what his hands and his mouth would, later. When they were alone and naked and making each other fall all over again.
Anya thought of her mother daily and never did have another panic attack, as she’d known she wouldn’t. Instead, she pursued the dreams of that long-ago little girl. She danced often, because she was a queen and her husband was a king and there were an endless array of balls for them to attend. She had tried painting things as a hobby, but had found herself both terrible and bored.
Her true artistic genius was still in the medium of crayons, in her opinion—something she discovered by coloring things with her children and then festooning them about the bedroom for Tarek to find. Then find creative ways to both laugh at her and praise her at the same time.
Usually he chose to take her flying, without wings or a plane, as only he could.
The most surprising twist had happened back in Seattle. Charisma had left Alzalam a new woman. She had stopped fluttering and had laid down a series of ultimatums, the crux of which was that she no longer intended to be a lapdog of any kind.
Anya’s father and his latest, youngest wife were still together, ten years later. With twins Preston doted on.
“Part of me wishes he could have been a better father to me,” Anya had confessed to Tarek one night, after one of her father and Charisma’s annual visits—something else her stepmother had insisted on. “But if he had, would I be here now?”
“That almost makes me like him,” Tarek had growled.
She and her father were not close. He had never apologized and never would. She didn’t understand him and never would. But they tried, in their way. And she and Charisma had become friends out of the bargain.
It was hard to imagine a better outcome.
And now a whole decade had passed, laced with its own share of disappointments, certainly. But brighter with hope, all the same. Stronger by far for the tests they’d faced along the way.
“Life is good, Mama,” Anya whispered into the night. “Life is so good.”
She heard Tarek come out of the tent, then. They liked to come here whenever they could, but that didn’t mean he could always leave the palace behind. After their long, leisurely dinner in that bright and sprawling room where he’d once tried to put her in her place, he’d taken an urgent phone call.
Anya had checked in with the children and their nannies, had taken care of a pressing matter with her own doctor, and had come outside to wait for him.
She tilted her head, listening to the cadence of Tarek’s voice and ready to be what he needed when he came to her. Sometimes he raged. Sometimes he grieved. Now and again he was lost.
He came to her as he was, however he was, and she held him. She challenged him. She was strong for her King and when he could be a man again, he was always hers.
Always and ever hers.
Tonight he sounded good. And then he ended the call and she heard him walk toward her.
And wasn’t at all surprised when he simply lifted her up, turning her so he could hold her in his arms.
“Happy anniversary, my love,” he said in a low voice, there against her mouth.
“Only a decade,” Anya replied. “It seems like a week. And forever.”
Tarek kissed her as he always did. As if it was the first time, desperate and needy.
And when she was panting against his mouth, he smiled. “Well?”
She laughed. “Why do you ask when you already know? You always know before I do.”
Tarek moved back, then went to his knees before her. This big, strong man. This powerful King.
He slid his hands over her belly and kissed her there. Then grinned up at her.
“Every centimeter of you is precious, and mine,” he said with all the dark arrogance she adored. “I know when something changes.”
“Yes, I’m pregnant again,” she said. “The doctor just confirmed it. But you knew that.”
“I did.” His grin faded, and something stark replaced it. Stark like the desert all around them, beautiful and vast. “You keep teaching me that no matter how much I love, there is always more. There is no end to it.”
“There is never any end,” she agreed, her eyes getting glassy. “Not as long as we’re together.”
Tarek stood them. He bent to scoop her into his arms and then he held her there, gazing down at her.
“Come, habibti,” he said, the way he always did. The way he always would. “Let us fall the rest of the way together.”
And then he carried her off into the night, falling sweetly into the rest of their beautiful lives.
* * *
Captivated by Chosen for His Desert Throne? Find your next page-turner with these other Caitlin Crews stories!
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The King’s Bride by Arrangement
by Annie West
CHAPTER ONE
‘PRINCESS EVA OF TARENTIA.’
The chamberlain projected his voice across the glittering crowd that filled the ballroom’s gilded antechamber.
Heads turned, keen eyes sizing her up, from her brown hair, piled high, past the sapphire drop earrings to the ball gown of royal blue.
Eva felt their stares, as she always did, like hundreds of tiny pinpricks. But at twenty-four she’d learned to accept the public’s interest. She no longer shrank from the limelight as
she had when young.
Besides, there was only one person here whose opinion she cared about.
There he was, chatting to a blonde in silver sequins. At the chamberlain’s words, he looked up to where she stood on the staircase above the throng. His mouth lifted in a smile.
Eva’s heart tripped a beat then hammered faster. She felt the pulse high in her throat.
Even from this distance Paul did that to her. She was too far away to feel the full impact of those stunning indigo eyes but his smile always unravelled her. From the day at fifteen when she’d first seen him, thundering down the polo field, so athletic, so handsome and so nice. After the match her brother Leo, who’d been on the opposing team, had introduced them and Eva had been instantly smitten.
Because the then Prince Paul of St Ancilla hadn’t thought it uncool to talk to his acquaintance’s little sister. He hadn’t seemed to notice her braces or the lingering spots that had erupted thanks to her monthly cycle. He’d been kind and friendly even when she’d been tongue-tied.
Eva had been in love with him ever since.
She moved down the staircase with practised grace, keeping her chin high. Woe betide any princess who couldn’t descend a grand staircase without looking at her feet. Even in a full-length dress and high heels.
She reached the floor and pinned on her social smile for the St Ancillan Prime Minister, who enquired if she’d had a good journey. As the flight from Tarentia in northern Europe to the Mediterranean Island of St Ancilla wasn’t long, the question was a formality. Yet Eva felt herself relax. After four years of regular visits to St Ancilla, she and the Prime Minister were well acquainted.
‘Here’s His Majesty now.’ The Prime Minister turned and inclined his head in a bow.
Instantly Eva’s smile solidified, the muscles in her cheeks stretching taut as she fought the urge to grin up into Paul’s face. The inevitable rush of excitement she felt around him always undermined her and she strove not to reveal her feelings. It was never a problem with anyone else but around Paul it was a constant worry.
Because she felt so much while he felt so little.
Her heart beat an urgent tattoo and moisture glazed the back of her neck as he neared. She angled her head up to meet his gaze. Eva’s breath released in a sigh of resignation as she met those amazing dark-blue eyes.
What had she expected? That absence would make the heart grow fonder? That in the months since they’d last seen each other he’d realised what a treasure she was?
That he’d developed feelings for her?
Or, impossibly, that she’d read the eager heat of desire in his face?
Deep inside, disappointment stirred.
Paul’s easy smile was the same one he gave the Prime Minister. The same one he’d worn when he’d tilted his head to listen to the blonde siren in shimmery silver.
The blonde who’d defied royal protocol and stood so close to the King it was a wonder a discreet bodyguard hadn’t hauled her away. Eva had noticed and had to repress a spike of unreasonable jealousy.
‘Princess Eva. You look as delightful as ever.’ Paul’s deep voice tugged at her vulnerable heart.
He took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, and Eva fought to stop her expression betraying her. Her forehead twitched and the corners of her mouth compressed with the effort not to grin with delight.
As it was, she hoped Paul couldn’t see the way her nipples hardened into needy peaks just because he touched her.
He was everything a king should be. Hard working, decent, dedicated and caring of his people. She loved all those things about him. But, even after knowing him for nine years, it was the angle of his high-cut cheekbones, the handsome line of jaw and nose and his vibrant aura of energetic, virile maleness that got to her every time. Even the way his coal-black hair had a tendency to flop over his forehead turned her insides to mush.
Reluctantly Eva tugged her hand from his, too conscious that a tiny change in his grip would reveal the too-rapid flutter of her pulse at her wrist.
She caught a glimpse of something in his eyes. Annoyance? Surprise? But of course it was gone in an instant. Royals were trained to conceal rather than reveal emotions.
It was tempting to wonder if he was disappointed at her withdrawal. But she was a pragmatist, despite her romantic feelings for him. She forced herself to face the truth. Paul might be surprised at her withdrawal but not saddened.
‘Thank you, Your Majesty.’ Meticulously, she used his title, as protocol demanded of their first meeting in six months. She sank to the polished floor in a deep curtsey.
‘Paul, please.’
‘Thank you, Paul.’
Protocol also decreed that, given their circumstances, she could address him by his first name in public, with his permission.
She bit down hard on the impulse to gush that he looked terrific himself.
The dress uniform of black, navy and gold showcased his tall, upright figure. He should have looked distant and untouchable in his regalia but instead he was mouth-wateringly attractive. Her fingers tingled with the desire to reach out and touch him. To follow the line of those wide shoulders and down across his powerful chest.
Paul didn’t hold out his hand to help her rise. Why should he when she’d just tugged away from him? Yet Eva noted the fact, just as she noted the hint of a frown marring his brow.
A little shiver of premonition scrolled down her spine.
Now she stood before him, she realised his smile looked pinched. It certainly didn’t reach his eyes.
‘You had a good flight, despite the delay?’
What was that note in his voice? Not censure, not annoyance, but definitely something strained.
Once more Eva experienced that inching shiver of disquiet. This time it felt like a chill cascading down her vertebrae.
‘Yes, it was fine.’ She’d only just arrived in time to change and meet him here at the ball rather than in private. ‘A mechanical problem held us up on the tarmac. But the flight itself was uneventful.’
Paul nodded. ‘You’re safely here. That’s the main thing.’
Yet, reading his expression, Eva felt something else was going on. Something she didn’t yet understand.
Not that she expected him to confide in her. They didn’t have that sort of relationship, no matter how much she wished they did.
‘Shall we?’ He lifted one hand and, after a moment’s hesitation in which she marshalled all her resources to appear cool, Eva put her hand on his.
Instantly heat rushed through her bloodstream from the point of contact and spread all through her body.
The one mercy was that Eva didn’t blush. Paul and all the people around them had no idea of her body’s hectic response to his touch.
He turned and they walked together across the room. The throng of guests parted to make way, men bowing and women curtseying. Eva noticed more than one woman followed Paul’s progress with longing in their eyes.
Before them a pair of gigantic gilded doors was flung open onto the ballroom. The blaze of light from rows of chandeliers, reflected in a wall of mirrors, dazzled. But, as she’d been trained to do, Eva entered the room with head held high, conscious of the swell of the crowd following them.
Paul led her to a point dead-centre under the biggest and brightest of the chandeliers. They stopped on the ornate star that marked the middle of the exquisite, heritage-listed parquetry floor.
Under the brilliant light she read lines bracketing his mouth that hadn’t been there six months ago. And around his eyes was a look of tension.
Impulsively, Eva squeezed his hand. ‘Paul, are you—’
‘The ball will be opened,’ boomed the chamberlain, ‘by His Majesty King Paul of Ancilla and his fiancée, Princess Eva of Tarentia.’
Applause filled the room as every eye focused on them.
For once Eva didn’t care. She leaned closer to the man before her, sure now that something was amiss.
‘What is it?’ she whispered. ‘Something’s wrong.’
For an instant his eyes widened, as if in surprise that she’d noticed, then his mouth curled up in a crooked smile that didn’t look in the least amused. ‘Not now, Eva. Not here. Later.’
Then King Paul, the man she’d been betrothed to for four long years, clasped her hand in his and curled his other arm around her back. Heat shimmered everywhere he touched and Eva froze, fighting hard not to respond.
For a second longer they stood, toe to toe, gazes locked, separated by the precise distance decreed by royal decorum. Then, as the music swelled, Paul swept her into a waltz with the superb grace of a natural athlete and all the warmth of an automaton.
* * *
Paul danced the last dance of the night with Karen Villiers, head of the new software company he’d lured to set up headquarters in the capital city’s business park. Lured with tax incentives designed to make St Ancilla an appealing long-term investment prospect.
Right now, though, it seemed it wasn’t St Ancilla that she saw as appealing. It was him.
Keeping a smile on his face, Paul put a little distance between himself and Karen’s sinuously seductive body. A curvaceous blonde, she was very attractive. He hadn’t missed how her minimalist silver dress showed off her spectacular body.
But he wasn’t in the market for a girlfriend. Not even a dalliance, especially under the glare of public attention.
He wasn’t free. He had a fiancée! Here, at the ball.
The thought of Eva tightened the iron bands clamping his skull and the dull pounding in his temples intensified.
It had been a long day, a long month, and the day was far from over. He couldn’t allow it to end without talking to his fiancée. No matter how little he relished the prospect.
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