A Christmas Bride for the King

by Abby Green

  Salim did something with the stirrups on his horse, adjusting them, and then with enviably athletic ease vaulted onto the horse’s back. He wound the turban back onto his head, covering all that dark hair, and just before he pulled a piece back over his mouth he said, ‘See you soon, Miss McQuillan.’

  And then, with a flash of those blue eyes that seared right into her, he and the horse turned in one graceful fluid motion and he was gone, leaving nothing behind but swirling dust. Just to add to Charlotte’s general feeling of dishevelment and inadequacy.

  It got worse when she found her way to the small but functional toilet behind the catering area and looked at herself in the cracked mirror. She groaned out loud. Her hair was frizzy from the humidity and her nose was suspiciously red.

  She’d just sat through lunch with that man looking like a scarecrow. A sun-burned scarecrow.

  Damn him anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘CASSIDY IS FAR too beautiful for you, my friend.’ But even as Salim said the words they rang hollow. Even though they were true.

  His cousin’s lover stood a few feet away, talking to a small group. She was tall and striking, with dark red hair piled high on her head. A black sheath of a dress set off her pale skin and thoroughbred curves. She was one of the world’s most sought after supermodels.

  Riad Arnaud, who Salim had invited to the party in a somewhat futile attempt to entice his friend to reconsider his decision regarding becoming king, responded with a distinct bite to his voice, ‘She’s not available.’

  Salim turned to the other man, who was dressed in a classic black tuxedo, as he was, and whistled softly. ‘It’s not like you to be possessive. Maybe there’s another reason you don’t relish the thought of leaving your life in France behind to become a king. Is she different, then? Are you going to succumb to a life of domesticity, like my brother and everyone else we know?’

  He couldn’t quite keep his voice as light as he’d intended.

  Riad made a snorting sound. ‘I’ve paid my domestic penance, as you well know, and the only good thing to come out of that situation was my beautiful daughter. She’s all I need. I will never let another woman close enough to cause havoc in my life again—they can’t be trusted.’

  They both heard a small sound and turned to see Riad’s lover, Cassidy, with her hand to her mouth. Clearly she’d heard everything. Her eyes were huge and very blue. She turned abruptly and walked away.

  Riad cursed colourfully and Salim watched him stride after his mistress. Salim shook his head at his cousin’s folly—clearly the man was more involved than he wanted to admit.

  Something twisted in his gut as he took in the ceremonial ballroom where he would be crowned in two weeks. The scene before him was a glittering, sumptuous exercise in promoting Tabat as a desirable kingdom.

  His staff had worked tirelessly to bring the palace up to a standard it hadn’t seen in a long time. Rafa had been so pleased and excited, seeing it as proof that Salim was about to turn the country’s fortunes around.

  The twisting in Salim’s gut intensified as his conscience bit hard and a pair of familiar green eyes came into his mind. Eyes that he couldn’t get out of his mind.

  He turned around, irritation and frustration making his skin prickle. Would she turn up? Would she wear the dress he’d sent to her room after he’d heard nothing from her?

  The prickling intensified and he looked towards the main door just in time to see her arrive. As if he’d conjured her up with his sheer will to see her.

  Adrenaline surged in his blood as his far too avid gaze swept her from head to toe. And, even though she’d defied him, he couldn’t stop the smile curling his mouth upwards or the raging heat in his body as he stalked to where she stood, willing that green gaze that had been haunting him to meet his...

  * * *

  Charlotte stood inside the main door to the ballroom and instantly felt like an utter fool. She should have put on the dress.

  The dress that had been delivered to her room earlier that day. The most exquisite dress she’d ever seen. Green silk...strapless.

  She’d held it up and the material had dropped to the floor with a whisper of expensive fabric. She had imagined how it would mould to her body. Emphasising curves she didn’t even have and hiding any flaws and imperfections.

  She had imagined how she would feel... As if she was the kind of woman who could walk into a room and have men look at her. Desire her.

  One man in particular.

  As that thought had entered her head she’d let the dress fall back onto the bed, aghast at how instantly it had seduced her. Seduced her into thinking for a second that she could risk the almost certain rejection she’d face.

  Sheikh Salim Al-Noury had sent her this dress to toy with her. To mock her for staying and not leaving. If she put on the dress and went to his party, no matter how ironically she did it, she would be exposing herself in a way that would make her unbearably vulnerable.

  Since her father had walked away from her all those years ago, effectively cutting himself out of her life, Charlotte had shunned intimate male attention and relationships. She was too fearful of experiencing that excoriating pain again. She knew it was irrational, and that no man could hurt her unless she allowed him to, but no man had slid under her skin so immediately and effectively as this reluctant king.

  So, galvanised by hurt and anger that he thought he could manipulate her so easily for his own amusement, Charlotte had stormed off to find the party. She’d collided briefly in the corridor with a tall, arrestingly handsome man who’d looked vaguely familiar, even though she was sure she’d never seen him before, but that hadn’t stopped her.

  And now she was here and she felt like an impetuous idiot.

  She’d never seen such a glittering scene. She wasn’t sure what she had expected, but it was not this restrained...elegance. Candles bathed the guests in golden light. Men were dressed in tuxedoes. Women were arrayed in stunning jewel-coloured dresses with diamonds sparkling at their throats and hands.

  A string quartet played on a dais in one corner. French doors were open to a long terrace, where more people mingled, and the dusk painted the vast sky outside purple and grey.

  She was used to exclusive events, but always in a peripheral sense, because she was usually working. And she’d never felt more peripheral than right now, in her very boring skirt and shirt, with her hair pulled back in a tidy bun. She looked as if she was about to take dictation.

  If Salim saw her now... She flushed with self-conscious heat to think of how he’d mock her—she’d have been damned if she’d worn the dress and was damned now that she hadn’t.

  She was about to turn to make her escape when she saw him, cutting a swathe through the crowd and coming straight for her, his eyes locked on hers. Intense.

  Too late.

  Even from here she could see the glint in his eye. The faintly turned up corner of that wicked mouth. It made a total mockery of her fantasy. He’d noticed her now for all the wrong reasons.

  Her heart thumped and her skin grew clammy when he came to a stop in front of her. He was breathtakingly handsome. The tuxedo moulded to his muscles and tall frame like a second skin. It lent him an air of civility that had never felt more like a token gesture. His hair was still unruly and his jaw dark with stubble. This man was wild, through and through. As wild as the desert outside.

  He drawled, ‘Miss McQuillan—welcome. I shouldn’t be surprised that you have chosen not to wear the dress; for someone whose career is all about diplomacy you’ve got a surprisingly rebellious streak.’

  His words landed like tiny poisonous darts. Charlotte had never felt remotely rebellious before meeting him. She refused to be made so acutely aware of how she stood out like a limp flower next to hothouse orchids.

  She curled her hands into fists at her sides. ‘Believe me, you bring out my worst traits. Thank you for the dress, but it wasn’t necessary. I’m not here for your amusement, I’m he
re to do a job, and that is to help you transition from your current role to your new one, no matter how long you choose to stay in it.’

  He folded his arms across that massive chest. ‘Haven’t you heard that all work and no play makes Miss McQuillan a very boring girl?’

  Charlotte sucked in air to try and calm her racing pulse and emotions. This man shouldn’t be appealing to her emotions. But he was. And that was bad. It made her feel threatened and she blurted out words before she could stop herself or think them through.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘maybe you’re right. Maybe I should just call your brother and tell him that he’s wasting his money.’

  She’d turned to walk away, but before she could move a hard hand clamped around her wrist. Her pulse hammered against his hand. She looked at him, recalling all too easily how his hands had felt on her the other day.

  Any mockery was gone from his expression now. ‘You disappoint me...admitting defeat so easily?’

  Before Charlotte could say a word her eye was caught by a stunning amazon of a woman dressed in a very revealing black lace dress. She was bearing down on them with a determined look on her vaguely familiar face. At the last second Charlotte realised she was a famous actress.

  Salim had looked around too, but instead of letting Charlotte go his grip tightened and he muttered something rude under his breath, quickly turning and walking away, dragging Charlotte with him.

  He’d taken her into an anteroom nearby and locked the door behind him before she’d even fully registered what had happened.

  He stood with his back against the door and Charlotte looked at him. The air between them was suddenly charged with electricity. She was barely aware that the room was dark and opulently furnished, with books on every wall. Some kind of private sitting room or study.

  Salim looked away from her and said, ‘This was my grandfather’s European room. He fancied himself in part as an English gentleman.’

  Charlotte dragged her gaze from the man in front of her and took in the room properly. The gleaming mahogany desk with a reading lamp. The high-backed leather chair. The tartan carpet. The massive stone fireplace, which was completely incongruous when the desert lay beyond these walls.

  ‘He always kept it to a colder temperature in here, so that he could pretend he was in England, or Scotland, and not the Middle East.’

  It might be colder, but Charlotte felt hot. Her blood was sluggish in her veins, and yet she was jittery. A disturbing mix.

  She looked back at the sheikh, saying unthinkingly, ‘Salim...why have we come in—?’

  But he interrupted her with a triumphant, ‘Finally. I knew I’d like the way you say my name.’

  He started coming closer again and she shook her head, feeling as if she was losing her grip on reality. ‘I don’t...don’t say it any differently from anyone else’s name.’

  He stopped in front of her. Too close. She took a step back.

  ‘Ah, but you do, Miss McQuillan. You say it with that slightly frosty tone that tells me I’m not behaving as I should.’

  She immediately felt defensive. ‘I have a name too—it’s Charlotte.’

  She wasn’t even aware that she was still backing away until she hit a solid surface. Shelves. She was breathing as if she’d just run a mile. All she could see were those blue eyes, boring into her.

  Why was he looking at her like this? Making her blood leap and her skin prickle? Making her think of illicit things?

  He stopped and put a hand over her head. Their bodies were so close they were almost touching. Charlotte felt threatened, but not by him. The threat came from the thought of her reaction to him...

  And then he said it. ‘Charlotte.’ And something she’d been clinging on to gave way inside her like a wall crumbling.

  Desperately she said, ‘You really should return to your guests—they’ll be wondering where you are.’

  He dismissed that with a quirk of his mouth. ‘They’ll survive.’

  Charlotte reacted to his louche arrogance and to the insidious suspicion that even now he was just toying with her for his own amusement.

  ‘Will they? Just like the people of Tabat will survive once you walk away from them?’

  The intensity in the air around them changed immediately, becoming even more charged.

  Salim’s body was full of tension, his eyes hard. ‘What do you care about Tabat and its people? You’ve only been here a week.’

  Charlotte cursed herself for reacting to him. For exposing herself. ‘I know I’ve only been here a week, but even in that time I can see that this is a great country and that the people deserve better.’

  Salim’s eyes were burning now, and his mouth was a hard line. ‘Can you, now?’

  Challenging him like this was heady in the extreme. All her life Charlotte had lived with the repercussions of being forced to choose one parent over the other in a bid to keep the peace—something that had inevitably had disastrous consequences. She’d built a life and a career out of keeping the peace. And yet now, here, with this man, something was breaking apart inside her...something incredibly freeing.

  All she could see was that he was no better than her feckless parents, who had used her as an unwitting pawn. He was using her for his own entertainment. Riling her up. Making her imagine all sort of crazy things...making her want things. Him.

  She looked Salim straight in the eye. ‘Life is so easy for you, isn’t it? No wonder you don’t want to rule—it would put a serious cramp in your lifestyle and a dent in your empire. Have you ever had to think of anyone but yourself, Salim? Have you ever had to consider the consequences of your actions? People like you make me—’

  ‘Enough.’ Salim punctuated the harshly spoken word by taking her arms in his hands. He said it again. ‘Enough, Charlotte. You’ve made your point.’

  She couldn’t breathe after the way he’d just said her name. Roughly. His hands were huge on her arms, and firm but not painful. She knew she should say Let me go but somehow the words wouldn’t form in her mouth.

  Salim’s eyes were blazing down into hers and for a second she had the impression that she’d somehow...hurt him. But in the next instant any coherent thought fled, because he slammed his mouth down onto hers and all she was aware of was shocking heat, strength, and a surge of need such as she’d never experienced before.

  * * *

  Salim couldn’t recall when he’d felt angrier—people had thrown all sorts of insults at him for years. Women who’d expected more than he’d been prepared to give. Business adversaries he’d bested. His brother. His parents. But for some reason this buttoned-up slender woman with her cool judgmental attitude was getting to him like no one else ever had.

  The urge to kiss her had been born out of that anger and a need to stop her words, but also because he’d felt a hot throb of desire that had eluded him for so long he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

  Her mouth was soft and pliant under his, but on some dim level not clouded red with lust and anger he knew it was shock—and, sure enough, after a couple of seconds he felt her tense and her mouth tighten against his.

  He knew he should draw back.

  If he was another man he might try to convince himself he’d only intended the kiss to be a display of power, but Salim had never drawn back from admitting his full failings. And he couldn’t pull back—not if a thousand horses were tied to his body. Because he wanted her.

  He’d never tasted anything as sweet or felt anything as soft and enticing as her slender form. As if his harder edges had finally found their perfect match in spite of her tension.

  Salim took his hands off her arms and wrapped them around her back, pulling her closer. He moved his mouth on hers without releasing her, coaxing a response. The proximity of their bodies would leave her in no doubt as to how he felt. His rock-hard erection was pressed against her soft belly and he could feel the thrust of her breasts against his chest.

  He brought up a hand and cupped her jaw, a
ngling her face up to his, and nipped gently at her lower lip. It felt soft, cushiony and yet firm. That message went straight to his erection, making it even harder.

  Time was suspended for a long moment. This was a novelty for Salim, who found his lovers were usually so eager that they had laid themselves bare for his delectation before he’d even tried to take their clothes off.

  Charlotte quivered like a bow in his arms, taut and delicate, and yet with a steely strength that made his blood roar. Salim used every skill in his arsenal to seduce her. He caressed the line of her jaw and cupped the back of her head, fingers tangling in her silky hair, making it come loose from its tidy bun.

  He soothed her lip where he’d just nipped her and then he felt it...like a sigh moving through her body. The tension melted and her mouth softened under his.

  The sense of triumph Salim felt might have shocked him if he’d been able to analyse it. But he was too busy capitalising on this moment, and on the tiny sliver of opportunity that came when her mouth opened minutely and Salim could coax it open further so that he could taste her sweetness fully.

  When his tongue touched hers an electric current shot through his blood. His arm tightened around her even more, so that she was on tiptoe, the full length of her body flush against his, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Breathing quickened as their fused mouths tasted and drank from each other. Charlotte’s arms crept up around Salim’s neck and she mimicked his moves.

  He had an impression of shyness, and it was mind-bendingly erotic when he was used to women who thought being aggressive equated to being sexy.

  Fuelled by a rising fever, Salim moved his hand down between their bodies and cupped Charlotte’s breast through the slippery material of her silk shirt. It was fuller than he’d imagined, and that sent another electric frisson straight to his groin. She gasped into his mouth and went still. He could feel the bud of her hard nipple and pinched it lightly between his fingers, drawing back for a moment, finally taking his mouth from hers.

  He felt drunk. Dizzy. Her lashes were long and dark against her flushed cheeks and she was biting her lips. They were moist and swollen.