by Trish Morey
She arrived at an opening in a wall, keyhole-shaped, potted palms on either side. A path to another garden? she wondered. But as she looked through it she could see it was not one but a series of archways through which she caught a glimpse of greenery and whispering palms that beckoned to her.
She looked back, trying to get her bearings so she would not get lost, saw what must be her balcony above the tangle of vegetation and realised she was in the far corner of the square, the other side of the palace to where the library lay.
Further from Zoltan, she figured, so maybe it wouldn’t hurt to venture a little further, especially not if this was to be her new home.
She encountered only one other person, a maid, who blinked up at her, bowed and soundlessly and quickly moved on.
She passed by a bird-bath with a bubbling fountain where birds splashed happily, oblivious to her passing, and the breeze whispered through the palms, the promise of the archways luring her on. She loved them all. Every one of them was decorated slightly differently, one whose walls were covered with blue-and-white mosaic, another inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the last with a pair of peacocks with bright and colourful plumage, every one of them a work of art.
It was as she passed beneath that last richly decorated arch and wondered what she would find beyond that she heard it, a voice, a shout, and then splashing and laughter. Men’s laughter, coming from some kind of pool. She swallowed as she swung around, pressing her back hard against the cool, tiled wall, grateful she had heard their voices before stumbling unknowingly into their midst. She should not be here. She had come too far.
And then she heard his voice amongst the others, Zoltan’s, and the bitter taste of bile rose in her throat as she remembered how supremely difficult it had been to walk from that library with her back straight and her head held high when all she had felt like doing was collapsing in a heap in despair—how it had taken every shred of her self-control to force herself to wait until she had walked through the door of her suite before she could let her tears go. She could not bear to see him again with those memories so vivid in her mind.
His voice rang out again, issuing some kind of challenge. There were calls and laughter, and the challenge seemed to be accepted by another. The unfairness of it all grated on her raw nerves, rubbed salt into her still-fresh wounds. Clearly Zoltan was not agonising too much over the stress of a forced marriage, for all his protests about not wanting to take a wife. Clearly he was not suffering unduly, if he could take time out to frolic in a pool with his friends without a care in the world. And clearly he had not felt the need to cry his heart out on his bed at the unfairness of it all. The truth of it struck home again. She was nothing in this world but a pawn in a game where she didn’t even merit a move.
There came a splash then, the sound of thrashing water and cheers, and curiosity got the better of her. Who were these men with Zoltan? Could they be the ones who had accompanied him to the desert encampment last night? Maybe she could take one look. It wasn’t as though the pool was private; there was no gate and she was simply out walking.
Making sure she stayed in the shadows under the archway, she peered out past the garden surrounding the pool. There were two men there, neither of them Zoltan, standing cheering at the far end of a broad sapphire pool, partly shaded by twin lines of palms. Though it was nowhere near shady enough to hide the scars that marred one man’s back, the skin twisted and brutal-looking, and she wondered what could have caused such a mess as the water of the pool was torn apart by churning arms, going stroke for stroke as two more men devoured the length of the pool.
Until they reached the end and the water erupted as someone emerged, using powerful arms to springboard out a mere head before his rival.
‘I win,’ the first said, offering his hand to the second.
Zoltan, she realised, disappointed as her eyes drank in the sight of him dripping wet. How typical that he should win the race. How unfortunate. She would have loved to see him lose. She would love to see something or someone wipe that smug look of superiority off his face and the sheer arrogance that infused every part of his body, every glistening muscle, every hard-packed limb.
Of course he would not have an ounce of fat on him, she thought with added resentment, he would not allow such a thing. She had seen enough. And she almost managed to turn away until he flexed his shoulders as her eyes caught the play of muscles under broad shoulders and tracked down the vee of his torso, to where his hips were encased in black lycra above the start of those long, powerful legs.
She sniffed, refusing to be impressed. So maybe she had been wrong before. Maybe he was not exactly like Mustafa, at least not in this one respect, she thought as she remembered the fat man scratching the bulging of his gut through his robe with long, almost feminine fingernails ending fingers adorned with gaudy rings. She shuddered, knowing how close she had come to that repulsive fate.
Still, it made no difference to her how many muscles Zoltan had, and she did not care that his skin glistened a golden-olive in the light. Not when in essence he was exactly the same as his half-brother. Not when there were still so very many reasons to hate him with every fibre of her being.
And she was sure, with time, she would find more.
‘I gave you a head start,’ his vanquished rival claimed as she watched furtively from the shadows. ‘Let’s make it best out of three.’ Zoltan laughed and slapped his friend on the back, turning his face to the sky to shake the water from his dark hair. She had to blink and look again to make sure it was him.
Zoltan actually laughed? Was this the same man as the monster she had met today in the library? Was this the dark barbarian who had snarled and growled and so smugly informed her that she had no choice? For when he smiled, when he laughed so openly, his face was transformed. Not handsome, exactly. He would never be handsome. His face was too dark, his features too strong, like the strongest, bitterest cup of coffee imaginable. But with laughter lighting his dark features he almost looked human.
Almost—good.
Electricity sizzled down her spine and her mouth turned ashen. Tomorrow—tomorrow—this man would be her husband. This hated man would lie next to her in bed, wearing even less than he was wearing now. And expecting her…
She shivered, feeling a growing apprehension that the unknown would soon become known.
She clutched the flowers in her hands to her face, burying herself in their fragrant scent.
This was not how she had imagined it would be.
‘Princess Aisha?’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE flowers fell from her hand as she turned, the vizier behind her bowing respectfully. ‘One of the maids saw you walking. Is there something in particular you were looking for, Princess?’ He glanced across at the pool, and she followed his gaze to where all four men were now gathered at the near end, laughing together, all four of them bronzed and built, with strong masculine features, all of them impressive in their own way. Once again she wondered whether they might be the same men who had helped pluck her from Mustafa last night. Her gaze returned to the enigma that was Zoltan. There was something about him that set him apart and that caused her pulse to trip. ‘You are a long way from your suite.’
She turned to see him watching her. ‘I was enchanted by the garden,’ she said, her cheeks blazing with embarrassment at being caught peering covertly from the shadows and now openly staring. ‘I did not know where the path would lead me. I was about to head back.’
He nodded. ‘Rani has brought your meal. Perhaps you would permit me to show you back to your suite?’ he said, and she knew it wasn’t a question. She also knew she wasn’t about to refuse.
‘Of course,’ she said, wanting to be as far away from the mystery that was Zoltan—the laughing barbarian with the gleaming skin, the man who would be her husband tomorrow—as she could get.
‘Princess!’
Too late.
She felt his call in a searing sizzle of heat down her spine, gu
ilt-stricken that she had been discovered, a voyeur in the shadows, and not only by the vizier but now by Zoltan himself.
She wondered how much humiliation it was humanly possible to suffer in one day, for right now, the supply seemed endless. And this time she had no-one to blame but her own wretched curiosity.
Would he be angry with her for spying on him? Or would he laugh at her, the way he did, with unsubtle jibes, mocking words and that unmistakable upturn of his lips?
Either way, she hated him all the more for it. And she hated her own stupid lack of judgement for not leaving the moment she had realised he was here. Hated that he made her feel so off-balance and uncertain. Hated that he so badly affected her judgement.
She dragged in the scented air as she turned, praying for strength, steeling herself for the confrontation.
But nothing could have prepared her for the full impact of that near-naked body approaching. Her mouth went dry, her heart rate doubled and kept right on going, and her eyes didn’t know where to look. He was so big, his glistening golden-olive skin beaded with moisture, his chest sprinkled with black hair circling dark nipples before arrowing south, over a taut, hard-packed torso…
She dared not look too far south. Instead she focused on the white towel he had picked up and which he now used to pat his face dry as droplets continued to rain from the slicked-back tendrils of his hair. But the snowy whiteness of the towel only served to highlight the rich glow of his skin, to contrast against the darkness of his features, and would have been of much more help to her right now if he lashed it firmly around his waist.
‘You should have brought your swimsuit if you wanted a swim,’ he said, dismissing the vizier with a brief nod over her shoulder, before taking in the cool shell-top and her bare arms.
She realised he was not angry, as she had feared he might be, but was laughing at her again. Right now she would have preferred the anger.
‘Unless of course,’ he added, his dark eyes raking over her heated face, ‘you prefer swimming au naturel?’
‘No!’ Her prissy-sounding outburst escaped before she could stop it, just as she could no more prevent her cheeks flushing with embarrassment. The thought of being any more exposed to his scrutiny than she already was made her skin tingle and goose bump. But the thought of being naked in the same pool with him triggered an entirely new and more potent kind of reaction. She could already imagine the feel of the water cool against her tight nipples, the pull of the water tugging at her curls as it slipped between her aching, heated thighs…
She squeezed her legs together, wishing to God she’d bothered to find her jacket so that he might not witness any more of her body’s reaction to his presence, crossing her arms over her breasts so that they could not betray her. ‘I was just going for a walk,’ she said, her nails pressing into her arms, harder and deeper, while she wished fervently that he would use that damned towel and cover himself, if only so she was not so tempted to look there. ‘To clear my head.’
‘A good plan,’ he conceded, dashing her hopes when he balled the towel in one fist and flung it to one side. Yet another reason to hate him, she told herself, for any reasonable man would surely cover himself up in front of a lady—a princess. But this was clearly no reasonable man. He was a barbarian who had treated her, and continued to treat her, appallingly. Definitely a barbarian, arrogant, self-assured and clearly used to parading near-naked around women. So what if he managed to look almost human when he smiled and when he laughed? He did not smile for her, he did not laugh with her.
This man laughed at her.
And she hated him for it.
She might have told him that too, but just then he reached down before her and picked up the flowers she had dropped and long forgotten. ‘It is a good time to walk in the garden. All the evening flowers send out their perfume to sweeten our sleep and make us forget the heat of the day and let us dream of cooler seasons.’ Then he held the floral sprigs to his nose, breathing in their heady scent, closing his eyes for a second, giving her the chance to study him more closely—his sooty lashes and brows, the strong blade of his nose and the three long, red marks left so unashamedly by her own raking nails. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, surprising her again. And then he looked across. ‘Did you drop them?’
When she nodded, because her throat was suddenly too tight to speak, he gently tugged one of the flowers and slipped it into the tumble of her hair behind her ear, presenting her with the rest of the scented bouquet.
‘I should go,’ she said, taking them and already backing away, disturbed beyond measure by even just the brush of his fingers in her hair, the touch of his fingers against hers. She was unsettled by his proximity and how it put all of her senses on high alert. Confused by a man who suddenly seemed once more like her rescuer of last night, the man whose warm body she had huddled against, rather than the barbarian who had attacked her today and so mercilessly dismantled her defences.
How could a man she hated on such a fundamental level stir such feelings within her?
For this was the same man, she battled to remind herself, the same ruthless man who had only rescued her so he could be king. But of course he could afford to look more relaxed now. He had no need to argue with her because he had got what he had wanted. He knew that she had been forced into compliance with this marriage, that she knew she had no choice. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere and that he had won.
He didn’t want a wife.
He just wanted to be king. She just happened to be the one who could make it possible. She was merely the means to an end.
Oh yes, there was good reason why he could laugh and smile with his friends now and afford to be more civil to her, and that knowledge only served to fuel the burning hatred she felt for him. Because he assumed she was a done deal. He assumed that, once her father had told her straight, she would do what she was required to do without any more complaint and become his compliant bride.
Like hell.
And that thought gave her strength.
It gave her back the power to be herself. ‘You are busy and I am interrupting,’ she said. But when she looked over to the pool and scanned its surrounds for the proof to support her argument, she found it empty, the sapphire surface of the water unbroken, his friends nowhere to be seen. She frowned. How had they left and she not even noticed? For now she was alone here with him, with him wearing nothing more than a stretch of black lycra. She looked down at the flowers in her hand and swallowed, trying hard to focus on them and not let her gaze wander from the detail of their cleverly sculpted petals, the delicate curve, the subtle shading of colours. Anything that might stop her gaze or her focus from wandering further afield where she might catch a glimpse of his powerful legs or that bulging band of black lycra hinting at what lay below. ‘I really have to go.’
‘So you said.’ He smiled, enjoying the start-again stop-again nature of her icy armour. For a moment she’d seemed to be regaining some composure, some of that haughtiness he’d witnessed in the library, but now once again she seemed unsure of herself, almost confused, like an actor having trouble staying in character.
How long had she been standing in the shadows watching? What had she been thinking that turned her cheeks such a deliciously guilty shade of red?
Whatever it was, she didn’t look haughty now, like she had when she had marched so erect and cold from the library. She looked shy and vulnerable, a woman again, rather than an ice princess. A woman who didn’t seem to know where to look.
‘Is something wrong, Princess? You seem—agitated.’
She looked up at him then, her once kohl-rimmed eyes now a smudgy grey and overflowing with exasperation. ‘You could cover yourself! I’m not used to talking to a near-naked man.’
‘Only watching them, apparently,’ he said, while secretly pleased to hear it. He didn’t want to think of her with other men. She would have had them. God, she was nearly twenty-four—of course she would have had them. But at least, unlike her sister, she
had chosen to be discreet about them.
‘I didn’t know you were here!’
‘And when you did, you left immediately.’ He was already reaching for the towel he’d flung down earlier. In one smooth movement he had it wrapped low around his hips and knotted it tight. He held his hands out by his sides. ‘Is that better?’
‘A little,’ she said, though still her eyes skated away every chance they got. ‘Thank you. And now I must go.’
‘Stay a moment longer,’ he said, enjoying his prickly princess too much to let her go just yet. She was a strange one, this one, moving through a range of emotions and reactions too fast for him to keep up with or to understand, frustrating him to hell because he didn’t know what he was dealing with on the one hand, intriguing him on the other. ‘There are some friends of mine you should meet. Or meet again, without their masks this time.’ Then he glanced over his shoulder, wanting to call them over so that he could introduce them, surprised when he found they had disappeared without his noticing. More surprised that they were not already queued up to congratulate the woman who had left her mark on him not just once but twice in the space of twenty-four hours.
Maybe they had realised that this was his battle and his alone and it was better to leave him to it. Not that they wouldn’t relish the opportunity to rub it in every chance they got.
But there would be time to introduce her to them tomorrow at the wedding and maybe by then the marks on his face and hand would have faded and they might have forgotten.
And maybe camels might grow wings and fly.
More likely they were just hoping that by tomorrow she might have added to his list of injuries.
‘Your friends have gone,’ she said. ‘And so must I.’
On an impulse he didn’t quite understand himself, but knowing his friends would understand a rapid change of plans, he almost asked her to dine with him.