by Olivia Gates
Unable to bear it anymore, Numair clamped his hand around Jenan’s arm and pulled her into his side. “I’ll put a stop to this.”
Najeeb blinked, as if it was the first time he’d realized Jenan wasn’t alone.
As he made eye contact with him, Numair barely held back from knocking him out. From doing far more. He’d killed many men with one blow when he’d felt none of the blind rage he felt now.
The damn man was not only handsome, he also looked noble, sophisticated, his highborn nature oozing from every pore. And he had this...warmth about him, this heroic vibe to boot.
Everything about him was the very opposite of his own savagery and rawness and coldness. Their radically different lives, what Najeeb’s father had been responsible for, were written all over them. And he hated him for it.
But he didn’t contemplate killing him for that. It was for daring to lay a hand on her, for calling her Jenan. But most of all, for existing and for suiting her far more than he ever could.
Najeeb’s surprise abated, righteous anger flooding over his face in its place. “Who the hell are you?”
Though he knew everything about Najeeb, he growled back, “I ask the questions here. Who the hell are you?”
As Najeeb bared his teeth and Numair took a step forward to meet his confrontation head-on, suddenly Jenan stepped between them.
Placing one flat palm on each of their chests, she calmly gave each a firm shove. The action itself, more than the power of it, made each of them stumble a step back, severing the chain reaction of aggression.
Looking from Numair to Najeeb, she smiled with mock demure sweetness. “Let this little, helpless, has-no-say woman make the introductions. Numair, meet Najeeb Aal Ghaanem, Saraya’s crown prince and my fiancé’s oldest son. Najeeb, meet Numair Al Aswad, mega intelligence and counterterrorism mogul...and my lover.”
Seven
Jen looked coolly between the two towering hunks who flanked her as they relinquished their visual and verbal duel and turned to gape at her.
Yep. She’d sure managed to shock them out of the impending explosion that had almost ignited out of nowhere.
Anyone might think she was insane, insisting on hiding the truth from her sisters, then blurting it out like that to Najeeb on sight. But though she hadn’t really given it any thought before doing it, she did think with Najeeb, the secret would certainly be in a bottomless well.
Najeeb was the most honorable person she’d ever known. Since she’d been a child, she’d always looked up to him, wished they could be closer. For he was exactly the older brother she’d always wished she’d had.
That was why she knew she could tell him anything. Najeeb was the material the knights of old had been made of. Those who would lay down their lives for you once you had their alliance.
Not that she wanted anything anywhere near that drastic from him. She just wanted to come clean to someone about her and Numair. Najeeb was the only one she could think of whom she could tell anything to and trust he’d never expose it at whatever price to himself.
Najeeb, surprisingly, was the first to recover from her bombshell. His gaze couldn’t decide what to be—stunned or amused. “Okay, Jenan, you achieved your purpose. You stopped me in my tracks. Very efficiently. I’m sorry I flew off the handle, but I was livid since I heard what my father made you agree to. I was ready to strike out at anything—” he flicked a withering glance at Numair “—or anyone in my path.”
Great. Najeeb had jumped right into denial, while Numair was over his surprise and seemed to grow bigger with Najeeb’s every word. The danger levels emanating from him entered a critical stage.
She sighed. “I did want to shock you into stopping, and that’s why I resorted to the truth. It’s always more shocking than any fabrication.”
Najeeb looked disbelieving for a few more moments, before he choked, “You’re not joking?”
“To borrow a favorite line from someone who’s standing right here, I’ve never been more serious.”
“How...?” He paused then realization dawned like a fireball in his sunlit eyes. He looked back at Numair with hostility turning to horror. “You’re Numair Al Aswad!”
“So now you recognize me.”
“Now I wish I don’t.” Najeeb turned to Jen in dismay. “How on earth did you get mixed up with a man like him?”
Something scary rolled from Numair’s gut. “You have questions, you have anything to say, you talk to me.”
Jen raised her hands. “Boys, please, hold your testosterone missiles. I’m standing right in the middle, and your aggression is literally turning my stomach.”
Both men apologized simultaneously, stopped, glared at each other, started again, overlapped each other’s words again, then fell silent. They stood there seething with frustration as they summed each other up. And she saw something she hadn’t realized before.
They looked so much alike.
If she’d been meeting them for the first time, she would have thought they were blood relatives, even brothers.
Apart from Najeeb having hazel eyes and close-cropped hair, what really distinguished them wasn’t genetic, but the result of their radically different characters and paths in life. Najeeb lacked the harshness that etched Numair’s features, the ruthless shrewdness that emanated from him. And while both men were almost the same breadth and height, their bodies displayed the difference between the supremely fit and powerful man that Najeeb was and the lethal juggernaut that Numair was.
But those differences only made them feel more kindred. She couldn’t explain why she felt that, but she did. And suddenly this whole situation became untenable.
As the men started arguing again, she clamped each by his arm. “Will you stop alarming everyone in a mile’s radius?” She looked from one to the other as they brooded down at her. “Can we now go have this out somewhere private, or do we need some internationally sanctioned neutral ground and peacekeeping forces to keep you two in line?”
* * *
They ended up in Numair’s place.
The “hideaway” he’d prepared for them. With no roads leading to it, the only transportation was by helicopter.
Though she’d lived in a royal palace, this place still stunned her. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t even known it existed in her own homeland.
Contributing to the uniqueness of this resort-size property was its seclusion. For a hundred square miles she saw nothing but desert conservation land all around.
Once they’d entered through the semifinished palm wood and bronze gates into this desert paradise, she felt they hadn’t only left city life behind, but modern life altogether, too. The understated luxury was so at one with the environment, the villa lacked any trace of the artificial elements that had always put her off in the opulent places she’d been in in Zafrana, from the palace to the houses of the nobility and big businessmen. While all those places strived to belong to an era in architecture and decoration, this place had a timelessness about it.
It was made of the desert, its materials, its color palette, of its majesty and tranquility. Of the many things that took her breath away were the free-roaming oryx and gazelles just outside the gates, and the incredible infinity pool at the back of the sprawling villa. It looked like a swimming pool at its near end, with mosaic walls, steps and ledges in blues and greens, but on its far end it looked like a spring, like those found in major oases, its edge seeming to abruptly disappear into another realm. A mile-long barricade of palm trees separated the back of the property from the rest of the desert that stretched in gently undulating dunes all the way to the Anshar mountains on the horizon.
Inside the villa, spaces flowed onto each other; balcony doors opened to all directions. Every surface was made of stone, colored glass and bronze, and all the furniture and upholstery handmade, ever
ything in warm earth tones, with russets and reds adding splashes of vividness. The whole place felt like an escape into a mystical retreat of solitude.
Numair had somehow read her every preference, even those she’d never fully formulated. He’d known what would most delight her. And in those short days while he’d been always with her, he’d searched for it, found it and acquired it. She didn’t think this property was a lease. He moved around here with the assurance of someone who owned the place, even though it was his first time here. The one who’d flown here to close the deal, who now showed them around, was his right-hand man, Ameen. But then, Numair entered any place and owned it, and the people in it.
She couldn’t wait to be alone here with him. But for now she had to resolve this issue with Najeeb. Most important, she had to give it her best shot to fix that inexplicably catastrophic first impression between him and Numair.
Now Ameen left their trio in the great space that had many sitting areas, a dining room and four stone fireplaces. Numair handed her down on one of the divans strewn in pillows covered in hand-woven wool in colorful, geometric Zafranian designs. She tried to catch his eyes, exchange the intimacy they’d been reveling in since their first night together. But his focus was trained on Najeeb.
It was beyond clear he abhorred having Najeeb around. And he wasn’t thrilled with her, either, right now. He’d bowed to her wishes when she’d invoked what he called her binding spell, suppressing his aversion and inviting Najeeb here. But he wasn’t about to pretend he was okay with it.
It baffled her that his vexation with Najeeb hadn’t only persisted but seemed to be intensifying.
The two men had gotten off on the wrong foot, both of them having been in a volatile state. Najeeb had already been outraged and easily triggered by a strange man’s contention. And Numair, in the acute stage of excessive passion, had his territorial instincts at high alert. With both of their alpha-male levels at the maximum, a locking of horns had been inevitable, and the situation had shot to the danger zone with a few aggressive words.
But while Najeeb had reverted to his usual self-possession and equanimity, Numair’s hostility was still building.
Not that he displayed any aggression. On the surface he was even more neutral than Najeeb, coldly assessing. But she now had a direct line to his inner feelings. She felt a volcano seething inside him.
As soon as they were all seated, with her facing both men, Najeeb left the visual wrestling match with Numair and turned to her. “I’m all ears.”
Filling her lungs with air, she let it all out in a long exhalation. “What do you want to hear?”
“The truth.”
“I told you that right off the bat. But if you want it in chronological order, here’s a rundown of how things happened. You refused to be bundled with me in a marriage of state to serve your father’s expansion plans, and disappeared. He decided he’d do what you wouldn’t and marry me himself. He cornered my father, and my father in turn threw the ball in my court. I had to pick up the ball, since I knew if I didn’t, one of my sisters would be forced to. Then came that fateful evening five days ago, and I met Numair. The rest I already told you.”
“Ya Ullah, I leave for a couple of weeks, and this happens.” Najeeb seemed to struggle to process the events his father had set in motion, his fury again rising. Then suddenly his face turned into a mask of righteous rage. “Back in the airport, he said he’d put a stop to this. Is this what he promised you in return for becoming his lover? Is this how he forced you into his bed so soon?”
Before she could say anything, Numair said in a seething tone, “He doesn’t coerce women into sex. And suggesting that I have is an insult to Jenan. She would never be coerced into anything like that for any reason.”
Najeeb turned his wrath on Numair. “Jenan is a hero, and would pay any price to save her loved ones. She was being coerced to marry my father for their sakes.”
“She is sitting right here.” Jen exhaled. “How about we talk to each other?” She looked at Najeeb. “I am with Numair because I want to be, because I want him. I hope this answers your questions and closes this subject.”
Najeeb stared at her, evidently still stunned that she was talking so openly about her affair with Numair, that dangerous stranger he seemed to know even more about than she did. They’d never talked about anything that even neared such candor and sensitivity.
But he was one of the most flexible, progressive people she’d ever met, and she’d always known that if she needed, she’d be able to talk to him about anything.
He finally nodded. “You’re one of the most enterprising and advanced people I know, Jenan.” A huff of surprise escaped her. Good to know they held each other in equal regard. Without inquiring about her amusement, he went on, “For a woman from our region to achieve what you have, you had to be far more powerful than a man who achieves the same things. I always admired your strength and will, how you escaped the shackles of your status and stood in the face of our culture’s condemnation and our society’s persecution. I’m proud of everything you’ve achieved, and I am proud that your decisions and actions have always proved to be the best thing for you. I also always thought you a most astute judge of character. But I won’t lie and say I’m not skeptical this time.”
“You think I don’t know what I’m doing, huh?” She shrugged. “It’s your prerogative to feel any way you want about this, and it’s mine to do as I want—and being with Numair is certainly what I want. I only ask that you keep what I divulged to you to yourself, until further notice.”
“If you don’t want others to know, maybe it’s an indication that you feel it might be wrong.”
“C’mon, Najeeb, you know better than that. In our region it’s best to hide anything you truly care about. People have no concept of boundaries, and they swarm over anything that’s made public knowledge, thinking it their right to poke and prod, to interpret it according to their own set of narrow-minded values, to cheapen and sabotage it. You know that when it comes to me alone, I care nothing about what people think, that I always announced all of my tradition-busting decisions before, but this time—”
Najeeb raised his hand. “You don’t need to convince me of anything, or to even ask me to keep what you told me a secret. There was never a possibility I’d share anything you told me or anything I find out about you on my own.”
Her lips spread. “Why do you think I told you in the first place when I didn’t even tell my sisters?”
Alarm spread over his painstakingly sculpted face. “Don’t even think of telling them. They and their friends must be speculating enough as it is just seeing you with him. Don’t add fuel to the fire by any confirmations.”
She chuckled. “Just what I thought, and that’s why only you know.”
He exhaled heavily. “Aih. Only I know. Ya Ullah, ya Jenan... I only hope you won’t live to regret this, and it won’t come at as big a price as I fear.”
She felt another wave of aggression blast from Numair, but when he spoke his voice was chillingly calm. “So you’ve changed your strategy. Now that you failed to shame her or make her doubt her decision, you’re trying to plant fear of me in her heart.”
Najeeb regarded him with the same arctic composure. “If she doesn’t fear you, then she doesn’t know what you really are. You, Mr. Al Aswad, are a man to be dreaded. A man to avoid at all costs.”
Numair inclined his head. “You’re absolutely right, Prince Aal Ghaanem. I am far more than that. With anyone but Jenan.”
It was clear Najeeb got Numair’s message loud and clear, that he was foremost among the anyones who should dread and avoid him. From Najeeb’s nonchalance, he was answering with his own unspoken “Anyone but me, buster.”
Out loud he said, “You’re saying you’re changing your ways for her? Or that you’re different with her?” Najeeb turned to her,
his eyes reproachful. “And you fell for that?”
In one of those imperceptible moves, Numair was sitting on the edge of his seat, like a crouched panther seconds from a neck-gouging attack. “I said you talk to me. I won’t say it again.”
“How about you keep your threats to anyone who might actually give a damn about them, Mr. Al Aswad?”
“If you don’t, Prince Aal Ghaanem, then you don’t know what I really am as well as you think you do.”
“And it’s clear you know nothing about me if you think you can get away with threatening me.”
Having heard enough, Jen surged to her feet. “Okay, my neck is really starting to hurt watching your delightful volleys.” She planted her fists at her waist. “May I interject with a tiny reminder that you gentlemen are on the same side?”
Numair and Najeeb turned to her in surprise and not a little affront at her suggestion.
An incredulous chuckle burst from her. “Ya Ullah, you’re both so busy posturing and being macho and trying to wrestle each other under the table that you didn’t stop to realize that.” At their darkening scowls, she sighed. “I hate to break it to you, but you are. You both want to stop Hassan’s nefarious plot and help Zafrana get out from under his thumb. And most important, you both want what’s best for me.” At their stubborn irresponsiveness, she prodded. “You do both want what’s best for me, right?”
“You know that I...”
“You know that I...”
As soon as both men realized they were chorusing their response, they flung each other furious glances.
And she burst out laughing. “See? You not only want the same thing, you’re saying the exact same thing, too.” At their continued belligerence, she sighed again. “If you both do want my best, promise me you’ll stop making me worry you’ll tear each other apart the moment I turn my back. Do I have your words?”