by Sue Swift
But when Kam did it… a sensual heat flared through her body. She closed her eyes, reliving the moment.
He’d held her foot in his big, brown hand. Kissed it.
She’d judged him as arrogant, but did an arrogant man kiss a woman’s foot?
Stop it, she told herself. People magazine says that Kam is one of the sexiest men in the world. He kissed your toe because it’s sexy, not because he likes you, and not because he’s Mr. Humility.
She went outside, where Grandpa Jerry and Kam occupied the deck chairs, talking. He’d set his cell phone on a nearby table. Selina eyed it, then dragged another chair forward and joined them, placing her untanned self in the shade of an umbrella.
“It’s the perfect cover story.” Grandpa Jerry leaned back into his deck chair and sipped iced tea.
“What’s perfect about it?” Kam frowned, his eyebrows forming a dark bar.
“The reporter will want to chase Selina, not you and me,” Jerry said. “While we’re talking, she can distract the press by pretending to choose a dress and order flowers.”
“Gee, thanks, Grandpa Jerry.”
“Sellie, you have nearly two weeks off. I checked with your boss.” Jerry shook a finger at her. “You don’t have to be back in the office until a week from next Monday. You can take an afternoon or two to look at some catalogs.”
Selina scrutinized Jerry, who’d put her into an untenable position. Last night, she’d promised that she’d be nice to Prince Kamar, but at the time she hadn’t known what “being nice” would entail. If she didn’t cooperate, Jerry would think she was reneging. He’d guilt trip her all the way to Timbuktu and Kalamazoo.
“Okay, I’ll pretend to be his girlfriend—under one condition.” She pointed her water bottle at Kam. “You have to be nicer to people.”
“Me? I am perfectly nice to people. Everyone loves me.”
“You are not perfectly nice to people, and people don’t love you. I saw you with that bartender last night.”
“She was quite negligent.” Kamar sipped juice.
“She was not negligent, and you were an arrogant buffoon.”
“Selina!” Jerome looked scandalized.
Ignoring her grandfather, she went on. “I won’t be the girlfriend or fiancée, or whatever, of an arrogant buffoon.”
“You are calling a prince of the Zohra-zbel an arrogant buffoon?” His unibrow was now punctuated by two deep furrows above his nose.
“If you’re a prince of the Zohra-z-whatever, then yes, I guess I am.”
He sat back, clearly bewildered. “I am an arrogant buffoon? No other woman has told me that.”
“Maybe you never made a spectacle of yourself the way you did last night,” Selina said, “but I doubt it.”
“Me? A spectacle? How was I a spectacle?” He twirled the stem of his Matrix-style sunglasses.
Selina grinned. “How were you not a spectacle?”
“The bartender was a complete twit.” Kam’s stuffy British accent had become more pronounced.
“A twit? Did you actually call her a twit?” Selina laughed.
“Yes. As in nitwit.”
“The bartender, whose name is Jam’s, by the way, politely left you alone rather than intruding so you could complete your phone call without interruption.”
“But I wanted to drink while I talked on the phone.”
“She’s not psychic. How’s she supposed to know that?”
“She’s supposed to ask.”
“But if she asked, she’d interrupt your conversation.”
His eyes shifted. “True.”
“On top of that, why were you on your cell phone in that bar to begin with?”
He looked nonplussed.
“Do you suppose that the rest of the world wants to hear your phone call?”
He recovered. “Of course not. That is why I was speaking in the tongue of my people.”
“You shouldn’t have been speaking at all.”
“Ah, you would have me seen but not heard.”
“Now you’re getting the idea.” Selina smiled sweetly. “It’s just simple PR.”
“What is this pee-are?”
“Public relations. I hope that the ambassador from your country to the United States doesn’t behave so boorishly in public.”
“It so happens I have been offered the job.”
“Oh, really? Did you take it?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Not yet. I’m considering it.”
“Well, consider this.” She leaned forward. “Being an ambassador requires diplomacy.”
“But of course. I will be wonderful. Like I told you, everyone loves me.”
“Pfft. You have no idea.”
“So you’re both in agreement?” Jerome Carrington looked from his granddaughter to Kamar. “You’ll play this game until the deal’s concluded?”
Kamar studied Selina, attempting to divine her involvement in this fiasco. She seemed…resigned. Not surprised but resigned, as though she knew what scheme Jerome planned, accepted it, but was not particularly happy about it.
Jerome’s countenance was as bland as the full moon. He opened his briefcase and removed a rubber-banded bundle of papers. Apparently taking their silence as assent, Jerry said, “Now, since that’s settled, shall we?” He snapped off the rubber bands, unrolling the tube of MLS printouts.
“Look here, nobody has asked me what I think,” Kamar said.
“What’s the problem?” Jerry asked. “The seed is already planted in Marta Hunter’s mind. All the two of you have to do is hang around together. She’ll see what she wants to see, hear what she wants to hear.”
“Hmm.” Kamar knew the old man was right. People tended to believe what they wanted to believe rather than what was true. “She does seem to be thrown well off the track. Dinner tonight, then, Selina?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I guess so.”
“What could be the harm?” Jerry asked.
Chapter Five
Selina didn’t know why, but as soon as they docked, she embarked on a mad orgy of purchasing and primping she ascribed to FDN, Feminine Dating Neurosis. She hated FDN, but it seemed to be a permanent, incurable condition. She did the same silly things every date night: checked her closet, found nothing to wear, went shopping to buy an outfit she’d never wear again, got her hair styled and her nails manicured.
Rationalizing, she told herself that here at La Torchere she had a real reason to shop. She literally had nothing to wear. When she’d arrived, she’d bought only one dress, the red one with feathers, and she couldn’t wear the same distinctive outfit two nights in a row. After she’d washed her hair, she hadn’t styled it, just let it dry, flopping to her shoulders. She’d gotten away with shoving it under a hat during the day, but the casual canvas number wasn’t suitable for dinner. On top of all that, she really needed a manicure. She really did.
She was pretty sure that Kam liked her pedicure, so she didn’t change it.
Though she recognized her bizarre behaviors, she didn’t know why she bothered. She didn’t know why she ever bothered, but especially tonight. She didn’t like Kam. She didn’t like any of the men she dated, but all the same, every Saturday she went through the same routine: closet, panic, shop, hair, nails.
By the time Kam tapped on her door, she was ready, her cool facade in place with none of her internal turmoil showing. She’d picked a white satin slip dress, which showed off her throat and shoulders. The stylist had swept her hair into a soft updo, leaving curls to brush her cheek and neck. Hammered silver crescents dangled from her earlobes, and she draped a silver shawl over her bare arms. She’d bought makeup and applied it.
Like the previous night, Kam wore loose white linen. As he walked her to one of the resort’s restaurants—the one by the beach—she decided that the look suited him.
When they entered the restaurant, the maitre d’ showed them to a table close to the kitchen’s bustle. Worse, Marta Hun
ter was seated two tables away from theirs. A frown crossed Kam’s face, and he asked, “Might we sit elsewhere?”
“Where would you prefer, sir?” the maitre d’ asked, his posture rigid.
“Away from the kitchen.”
With Kam’s tone bordering on rudeness, Selina intervened. “Um, could we sit near the beach?” she asked brightly. “I just love the ocean view from your restaurant.”
The maitre d’s features relaxed. “Sure, I can do that for you, ma’am.” He escorted them to a table next to an open window that admitted the sea breezes, and seated Selina facing west, toward the sunset. Sinking behind a bank of clouds, the sun flung coral and lemon ribbons across the darkening sky. The air, though cooling, remained sultry.
He showed Kam to the chair opposite hers, which he refused. “I’d like to sit next to my fiancée, so we can both watch the sunset,” Kam said, placing his cell phone on the table next to his bread plate.
“Of course, sir.” The maitre d’s voice remained bland.
Kam leaned closer to the maitre d’, slipping him a bill. “Make sure we are not interrupted,” he said in a low tone. “There is a woman seated near the kitchen, in the gray suit, who may try to approach us or take a photo.”
The maitre d’ stiffened. “Not on my watch.” He shoved the bill into an inner pocket of his dinner suit, then moved a potted ficus away from the wall so it screened their table from the rest of the dining room.
After the maitre d’ left, Kam sat next to Selina, moving his chair closer than she liked, but she wasn’t going to make an issue out of it. It was part of the trick they had to play on the reporter, she supposed.
He’d called her his fiancée. What a joke, especially since the evening was developing into another awful dinner date with a bore who thought that arrogance to the wait staff would impress a woman. Nothing could be further from the truth, as far as she was concerned. She was never rude to staff; each person she met was a potential consumer of her products.
And to make the situation worse, she was trapped. Trapped on this island, trapped by her promise to Grandpa Jerry to be nice to Prince Kamar, trapped by Jerry’s crazy plan to pretend she and Kam were an item.
She was glad Marta Hunter had shown up. If not, Selina would have had to suffer through a horrible date for no reason.
She asked Kam, “How did that woman know we were here?”
“I made a reservation.” He stretched out long legs beneath the table, crossing them at the ankles. “She must be getting information from the hotel staff.”
A server brought water, bread and menus in a bustle of activity. Kam perused the wine list as though he researched the secret to eternal life.
With no patience for wine snobs, Selina instead watched the dusk deepen. As the sky darkened from cobalt to indigo, a silvery moon came out. Close to full, it shone through the palms fringing the shore, casting feathery shadows across the sand. Seabirds’ cries, plaintive and shrill, occasionally rose above the soft sigh of the waves breaking against the beach.
“Would you prefer burgundy or Pouilly-Fumé?” Kam asked her.
“I don’t know. Maybe we should order first, or ask the wine steward.”
“I do not need to ask a hired hand what to order.”
Selina raised her brows. “The sommelier’s an expert.”
“So am I.”
The sommelier arrived to take their wine order. Kam opened his mouth to speak, but Selina nudged his leg with her shoe. “Let me,” she said.
In a big show of pain, Kam rubbed his calf while she sweet-talked the sommelier, trying to resurrect the good will of the restaurant staff. Otherwise, she and Kam could be victimized by bad service the entire evening.
She smiled at the wine steward. “Would you recommend the burgundy or the Pouilly-Fumé?”
His chest puffed out a tad. “That depends upon your dinner order. Should you order the lobster—and I would highly recommend it—I’d steer you toward the Pouilly-Fumé. But, I happen to know that a fresh shipment of lamb arrived today, which is our chef’s specialty. A red burgundy would be my choice with the lamb.”
“Oh.” Selina fluttered her lashes. “May I ask how long you’ve been a connoisseur of fine vintages?”
The man preened. “Twelve years, ma’am.” He glanced at Kamar, who scowled. The sommelier backed away, saying, “Um, shall I give you two a moment to decide?”
“I’ll bet you anything that he’ll return with wine samples from what’s open at the bar—if you didn’t scare him off with that frown.” Selina compressed her lips, settling back into her chair. Her thigh pressed against his.
He felt warm and wonderful, so she quickly edged away. She might have to pretend to like him, but she wasn’t going to get involved. Touching him was a bad idea. And there would be no more toe kissing.
Kam’s glower deepened. “A prince of the Zohra-zbel does not need to manipulate a wine server.”
The next two weeks would be purgatory if Kam kept up the prince act. “I’m not being manipulative, I’m being nice. I’m acknowledging the man’s expertise and allowing him to feel good about himself.”
“You smile at him, but there is no joy or sincerity within you. It is but a sham, a game you play to toy with others.”
Selina’s mind blanked. Trying to collect her thoughts and respond, she looked at their table, noting the immaculate white cloth, the moonlight glittering on cut crystal and fine silver.
Kam continued, “You believe that I am arrogant. I merely ask for what I want.”
She found her tongue. “You don’t ask, you order.”
“I am honest and straightforward.” He put one finger on her chin and turned her head, forcing her to see him. His dark eyes shone with intelligence. “When we met, you flirted with me as though you liked me. You had already decided what you felt, but you were not honest. I was just something to play with, a toy.”
“Sauce for the goose.” She tilted her chin away from his hand but continued to watch him. His insight had surprised her, and she wanted to understand that, and him, without revealing anything of herself. He had already figured out too much, and she didn’t want to give herself away. If she gave too much, she might have nothing left.
He dropped his hand, covering hers, which lay on the table.
She didn’t move, knowing that to show fear to a predator was fatal. She said, “I can’t help but guess that a man known as the ‘sexy sheik’ toys with women.” Despite herself, her hand trembled beneath his.
“That may be true.”
Score one for me, she thought. “So?”
“So perhaps we both play the same game. Why do you play this game, Selina?” His hand pressed down on hers, his palm warm and possessive.
To distance herself, she looked away, toward the waves sliding up the sand. “To amuse myself.”
“Oh, I do not think you are truly amused.” He played with her hand, tapping each of her newly painted nails, starting from the pinky and going toward her thumb. His touch burned. “You are beautiful, yes, but so unhappy.”
She cut him a hard stare. “Says who?”
“I say so.”
“Therefore it must be true.” She managed to keep her tone light, despite her rising fury. No matter what he said, she wouldn’t cause a scene. To the reporter, or anyone else who might be watching, they must have looked like a happy couple: he caressing her hand, she smiling. No one else could know that he growled his words while her mouth was open in a snarl.
“I believe it is true. Do you deny it, Selina?” He leaned toward her, his warmth enveloping. “I play games with women, yes, but I have fun. And I can truly say that no woman has left my bed unhappy. But you, you play games but are not happy. What, then, is the purpose?”
The sommelier returned, a server in tow. Kamar said, “No wine tonight, I think.” He glanced at Selina. “What would you like to eat?”
She didn’t dispute his refusal of wine. Allowing alcohol to loosen her up around Kamar would be s
tupid. He’d shown unexpected depth, and she wanted to be clear-headed when dealing with him. “The lobster, please,” she said through tight lips.
“Two lobster dinners, salad and so forth,” Kamar said to the server.
“Certainly, sir.”
“Try, at least, to look happy.” Kam continued to play with her fingers. “The mighty Hunter, as you have called her, is approaching.”
“Great,” Selina said, just before he used one big hand to turn her head toward his for a kiss.
He started out slowly, sliding his full, seductive mouth over hers before nibbling on her lower lip as though asking for admittance. Not to be outdone, she opened to him, and he slipped his tongue inside, searching for hers. She met him halfway, darting only the sharp tip of her tongue against his, then withdrawing, challenging him to follow and chase.
His hand clenched in her hair, and he tugged her head back, leaving her mouth, trailing open, wet kisses along her throat.
She hadn’t expected such a blatant public display, but she wouldn’t be the first to show the white feather. He returned to her lips with a full-on soul kiss that spun her mind into space and her body into heaven.
A rustle told her that a server had arrived. She blinked, pulling away from Kam’s embrace, but he didn’t let her go far. Keeping a possessive arm around her bare shoulders, he fingered her neck while the server put salads in front of them. Another set a votive candle in a crystal holder on their table; while they’d kissed, full night had fallen.
Selina pulled herself together, realizing People magazine hadn’t lied. In addition to his blatant good looks, Prince Kamar’s kiss packed one heck of a wallop. Jerry’s plan had definite merits, as long as it didn’t go too far. Kissing was okay, but anything more wasn’t on her schedule.
With his fork, Kam stabbed a lettuce leaf. After swirling it in the dressing, he guided the fork to her lips.
“Why?” she asked.
“It’s your goddess attitude,” he said. “Divinities exist to be served, do they not?”
She hesitated, wondering if he mocked her, then decided it didn’t matter. She let him feed her the bite of salad. With deliberation she chewed and swallowed, immersed in his gaze, which held her even more tightly than his embrace. Dark and mysterious as the midnight sea, his eyes captivated her. What lay behind those seductive pools?