by Annie West
What she needed.
The family she longed for. Children to nurture and love. A partner she could respect and trust to share her life.
Eyes fixed on Tariq, she realised there was a way she could become part of a family. It was the perfect solution to her untenable situation. A solution not just for her, but potentially a win-win for all concerned. If she had the courage to pursue it.
The idea was so sudden, so outrageous, she swayed on her delicate heels, her heart thumping high in her throat, her stomach twisting hard and sharp.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Celeste grabbed her elbow as if afraid she’d topple over. ‘You weren’t yourself this afternoon either.’
‘I’m...’ Samira gulped, swallowing shock at the revelation confronting her. ‘I’m okay, thanks. Just a little tired.’
Celeste nodded and turned back to Tariq. ‘He’s a little overwhelming, isn’t he? Especially in formal dress. I swear, if he wasn’t a king someone would snap him up as a model.’
Samira pressed her hand against her churning stomach, only half-listening.
She stared at the powerful figure on the podium and the voice of self-doubt, the voice that had ruled the first twenty-five years of her life, told her she was crazy. Crazy to think about wanting what she could never have. After all, she and Tariq hadn’t been friends for years. There was no guarantee he’d even listen to her.
But another part of her applauded. The part that had grown stronger in the last four years, nurtured by her family and her determination to drag herself out of the mire of despair and make something of her life. The voice of the survivor she’d become.
She knew what she wanted.
Why not go for it?
Yet instinctively she shied away from such an action. That wasn’t her style. It never had been. The only time she’d defied convention and upbringing and had reached for what she desired, it had turned to dust and ashes, ruin and grief. She still bore the scars.
Yet what had she to lose by trying? Nothing that mattered when weighed against the possibility of winning what she so desperately craved.
* * *
In the mirrored lift, Samira straightened her neat, cinnamon jacket and smoothed her clammy palms down the matching fitted skirt. Her cream blouse was businesslike rather than feminine but this, she reminded herself, was a business meeting.
The most important business meeting of her life.
If only she felt half as confident as at her meetings with clients.
The door hissed open and she stepped out. A few metres took her to the door of the presidential suite and a dark-suited security man.
‘Your Highness.’ He bowed smoothly and opened the door, admitting her into the suite’s luxurious foyer.
Inside, another staff member greeted her.
‘If you’d care to take a seat, Your Highness?’ He led the way to a beautifully appointed sitting room furnished in shades of soft taupe and aubergine. Large windows offered an unrivalled view of Paris. ‘Can I offer you something to eat or drink?’
‘Nothing, thank you.’ Samira couldn’t swallow anything. Her insides felt like they’d been invaded by circling, swooping vultures.
The man excused himself and Samira darted a look at her watch. She was dead on time. It felt like a lifetime had passed since she’d stepped out of her suite downstairs.
Slowly she breathed out, trying to calm her rioting nerves, but nothing could douse the realisation her whole future rested on this interview.
If she failed... No, she refused to imagine failure. She had to be positive and persuasive. This might be unconventional but Samira would make him see how sensible her idea was.
She swallowed hard, squashing the doubts that kept surfacing, and walked towards the windows. Automatically she stretched out a hand to the luxurious silk of the sofa as she passed. It was cool and soft, the lush fabric reassuringly familiar. If she closed her eyes perhaps she could imagine herself in the quiet sanctuary of her work room, surrounded by delicate silks, satins and crêpe de Chine; by damask, velvet and lace.
‘Samira.’
She started and turned, her heart thumping out of kilter as her eyes snapped open. There he was, his powerful frame filling the doorway.
Her breath snared, just as it had time and again that last year. She’d been on the brink of womanhood and suddenly noticed her brother’s best friend as a man. A man who’d evoked disturbing new responses in her awakening body...
Samira dragged in a calming breath, squashing shock at the way awareness prickled the tender flesh of her breasts and belly. She wasn’t the untried girl she’d once been.
‘Tariq.’
How could she have forgotten those eyes, their remarkable colour legacy of marauding ancestors who’d intermarried along the way? Under slashing dark brows those eyes gleamed with the pure, rich green of deep water and were just as unfathomable.
His expression made her hesitate.
Was she welcome or did the hard set of his jaw indicate displeasure? Was he annoyed she’d used their connection to inveigle a meeting at short notice? No doubt he had huge demands on his time but he could hardly reject her request, given the close links between their kingdoms.
Samira’s brow puckered. The Tariq she recalled had been infallibly patient and friendly, even though she’d probably been a nuisance, tagging along behind him and Asim.
‘How are you, Samira?’ He stepped into the room and the air evaporated from her lungs. He seemed to fill the space even though he stood metres away, watching her with that penetrating stare as if he saw behind the practised façade to the nervous woman beneath.
‘Excellent, thank you.’ This time when he gestured for her to take a seat she accepted, grateful to relieve her suddenly shaky legs.
She’d known this would be challenging but Tariq was more unsettling than she’d imagined. Not simply because he had the power to grant or deny what she’d set her heart on. But because that useless, feminine part of her she’d thought long-dormant reacted to him in ways she didn’t like to contemplate.
As if the lessons of four years ago had been completely forgotten. More, as if the years had peeled back further and she was seventeen again, sexually aware for the first time and fantasising over Tariq. Heat washed her.
‘And you? Are you well? You seemed in fine form last night. The crowd responded so well to your speech.’ She snapped her teeth shut before she could babble any more. The last thing she needed was for him to think her a brainless chatterbox.
‘I am. The evening was a resounding success. Did you enjoy yourself?’
He strolled across the room, making her aware of the flex and bunch of taut muscle under the superb suit as he sat down opposite her, stretching out long, powerful legs that ate into the space between them. She wanted to tuck her feet back under her seat but kept them where they were, determined not to show nerves.
She fixed on her most charming smile, the one that worked no matter how stressed she felt. ‘It was a bit of a crush but worth it for the end result.’ Her donation—two gowns to be designed exclusively for the highest bidder—had garnered far more than even Celeste had dared hope.
‘Are you staying long in Paris?’ It was a simple question, a polite conversation starter, yet the keenness of Tariq’s scrutiny invested it with extra significance.
Samira shivered. He could have no idea of her mission here. Suddenly panic hit at the thought of how he’d react when he found out. It would be easy enough to turn this instead into a brief, social catch-up. She could walk out the door with her head high and her secret safe.
But the black void of desolation would be waiting to consume her again. Surely she had the gumption to fight for what she craved, rather than admit defeat so easily?
She was the daughter of generations of warriors.
It was time she remembered that.
‘I’m not sure how long I’ll stay.’ She smoothed a damp hand over her fitted skirt, telling herself he couldn’t see how her fingers trembled. ‘It depends.’
He didn’t ask the obvious question, giving her an opening, however tenuous, for her proposition. Nervously she shifted in her seat, then realised what she was doing and stilled.
‘I was very sorry to hear about your wife.’ She’d added her condolences to Asim’s note when Tariq’s wife had died giving birth to their twins, but this was the first time Samira had seen Tariq since it had happened.
It was the first time she’d seen him in twelve years. Since the winter she’d turned seventeen and his sudden departure had devastated her. He’d even missed Asim’s wedding three years ago due to emergency surgery on his appendix.
Now he looked like a stranger, despite those familiar features.
He nodded, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Thank you.’
Silence fell.
‘I saw your boys yesterday in the hotel.’ It wasn’t what she’d meant to say but her carefully rehearsed words disintegrated under his silent regard. ‘They look like a happy pair.’
He nodded. ‘They are.’
‘And full of energy.’
Samira bit her lip. She was babbling again. She had to get a grip.
‘They’re never still, except when they sleep.’ A hint of a smile lurked at the corner of Tariq’s mouth and suddenly he wasn’t a stern stranger but the friend she remembered from years ago.
Friends she could deal with. It was the potently masculine Tariq who unsettled her. The man whose deep laugh and imposing body awoke longings that had no place in her life.
‘They must keep you very busy.’ This time her smile was genuine.
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
Samira nodded. The Tariq she knew would find time for the demands of his small sons, just as he’d found time for his best friend’s kid sister. He took duty seriously but, more than that, he was kind. He was the sort of man you could trust.
That was why she couldn’t shake the outrageous idea that had taken root as she’d watched him last night at the gala. The idea that he held the key to her future happiness.
Samira swallowed hard. She’d known only one trustworthy man, her brother, Asim. The other men in her life, even her father, had let her down terribly. Could she trust Tariq not to do that too?
‘Samira.’
‘Yes?’ She looked up to see him lounging back in his chair, the picture of ease. Yet his eyes were intent.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing’s wrong.’ Her laugh sounded woefully unconvincing and caught her up short. She was stronger than this. Here was her chance to reach out for the one thing she really wanted in life. Surely she wasn’t coward enough to give up without trying?
‘On the contrary.’ She sat forward, projecting an air of certainty she’d mastered in her professional dealings. She could do this. ‘I wanted to see you because I have a proposal to put to you.’
‘Really?’ Interest sparked in his eyes.
‘A rather unusual proposal, but a sound one. I’m sure you’ll see the benefits.’
‘I’m sure I will.’ He paused. ‘When you tell me what it is.’ Those slashing dark eyebrows angled up in query.
Samira leaned closer, suddenly urgent to get this done. She licked her dry lips, holding his keen gaze.
‘I want to marry you.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘MARRY YOU?’ ANGER SPLINTERED through Tariq that Samira should make him the butt of some jest. He sat bolt upright, hands curling tight around the arms of his chair. ‘What game is this?’
Marriage was an institution to be taken seriously, as he knew first-hand. Sharp talons dragged deep through his chest; claws clutched at what passed for his heart.
No, marriage wasn’t something to joke about, even between old family friends.
Though Samira was more than an old friend, wasn’t she?
At one point he’d wanted much more from her. Long-buried sensations bombarded him—lust, regret, weakness. Above all, guilt. For despite the years apart, even throughout his marriage, Tariq had never completely managed to forget her. His one consolation was that no one, least of all Samira, had known. It had been his secret shame.
‘It’s no game.’ Her voice, uneven before, rang clear and proud. Her gaze, which previously had skittered around the room, meshed with his and Tariq breathed hard as fire heated his veins. Those soft sherry eyes had always been amazing. Now, fixed on him so earnestly, they might have melted a lesser man.
But Tariq’s strength had been forged and tested well. He wouldn’t be bowled over by a beauty’s wide eyes. Even if the beauty was Samira, the most stunning woman he’d ever known, the woman he’d once craved body and soul.
‘What is it, then?’ he barked. ‘If not a joke?’ His initial instinct—to avoid this meeting—had been right.
‘It’s a proposal of marriage.’ Her voice was crisp and even, as if she had no notion how bizarre her words were.
Slowly Tariq shook his head. He couldn’t be hearing this. Asim’s little sister proposing marriage! Didn’t she know it was a man’s place to choose a wife? A woman’s to accept?
What sort of tame lapdog did she take him for? The years since they’d known each other yawned into a fathomless gulf. She didn’t know him at all.
He shot to his feet and stalked across the room, staring blankly at the city beyond the sound-proofed glass. ‘Whatever the game, I don’t appreciate it, Samira.’ He swung round. ‘Does your brother know about this?’
‘It has nothing to do with Asim.’ She folded her hands in her lap, for all the world as if they were politely discussing the weather. As if she hadn’t offered herself to him in marriage.
An image of her last night, svelte and flagrantly feminine in that dark-red dress, filled his head and his temperature soared, his body tightening in all the wrong places. His hands curled into fists as he fought to focus on her words, not her sensual allure. Anger bit deep that, even now, just one look could ignite the fire in his belly.
‘What is this about?’ Savagely he reined in his temper, drawing on years of practice at patient diplomacy.
‘I want to marry you.’
Those brilliant eyes looked up at him and again shock punched him hard in the gut. She looked, and sounded, serious.
For one disquieting moment he felt a quickening in his body, the sharp clench of arousal in his groin, a welling of possessiveness as he took in the pale honey perfection of her features, the sheen of her lush, dark hair and the Cupid’s bow of the sexiest mouth he’d ever known.
When she’d been seventeen that mouth, those eyes, the promise of incandescent beauty to come, had sent him back to his homeland, shocked and ashamed by the hot, hungry thoughts that stirred whenever he’d looked at Asim’s little sister.
He’d known then that she’d be breath-stopping, just like her mother, who’d been one of the world’s great beauties. But the sight of Samira in the flesh, after twelve years of seeing only photos, took his breath away.
He stiffened, forcibly rejecting his body’s response.
She sat there with her ankles primly crossed, her hands folded in her lap, saying she wanted to marry him! It was enough to drive a man crazy.
Tariq cupped the back of his neck, tilting his head and rubbing his skin to ease the tightness there.
‘I have no idea what foolishness prompted this, Samira.’ He paused, telling himself it was impossible that he tasted pleasure at her name on his tongue. ‘But you of all people know royal marriages are carefully arranged. You can’t just come in here and—’
‘Why not?’ She cut across his words and it struck Tariq that no one, not even
Jasmin when she’d been alive, interrupted him. As Sheikh, his word was law, his status respected. Except, it seemed, by the Princess of Jazeer.
She stood and his eyes lingered on her delectable body in that figure-hugging suit. ‘Why can’t I arrange my own marriage? My brother didn’t wait for advisors to find him a wife. He found Jacqui by himself.’
‘That was different.’ Tariq gestured with one slashing hand. ‘That was a love match. They’re crazy for each other.’
Seeing his friend in the throes of love made Tariq uncomfortable. He’d thought Asim was like himself, too focused on the wellbeing of his nation to choose a partner because of emotion.
Tariq’s lips flattened. He didn’t do emotion. Not that sort. And especially not now. He had no interest in marrying for love.
The idea ate like acid in his belly.
‘If you want to get married, ask your brother to find you a suitable husband. He’ll do anything to make you happy.’
Tariq was one of the few who understood Asim’s fierce protectiveness of his sister. Their childhood, at the mercy of their parents’ volatile on-again, off-again relationship, had left them both reluctant to trust anyone.
Was that why Samira was still single at twenty-nine? Traditionally, Jazeeri princesses married much younger, but he suspected his friend Asim had been in no hurry to rush his sister into matrimony after those early experiences of a dysfunctional family.
‘I don’t want Asim to arrange a suitable match.’ She jutted her chin. In a woman less gorgeous, he’d call her expression mulish. ‘I know what I want. I want you.’
Again that sudden blast of blistering arousal low in his body. For an instant he was tempted to forget his duty, his dead wife and his self-control, and haul Samira close, teach her the danger of trifling with him.
Only for an instant.
Tariq reminded himself she wasn’t talking about sex. If she had been she’d have used a different approach—soft blandishments and seductive caresses. And she’d have worn something slinky and provocative. His nostrils flared as he sucked in air to tight lungs, imagining that soft mouth on him. Arousal weighted his lower body.