by Dani Collins
“It’s a generous act to arrange a private showing for such a large party at a world-famous and highly exclusive Paris design house.” It hadn’t been only his mother and sister, but Sadiq’s mother and sisters, along with cousins and friends from both sides.
The cost of something like today wasn’t so high as to imperil his riches, of course. The groom’s family could equally afford it and given the extent of the Sauveterre wealth, and the rumors that the family corporation had underwritten this folly of an art project in the first place, he imagined Angelique wouldn’t be too far out of pocket, either.
“Had this afternoon been the only line item offered at no charge, I wouldn’t have batted an eye,” he said. “But the gown? I know my sister’s taste.” He imagined it had easily run to six figures. “And to throw in wedding costumes for the rest of the party? Including mothers of the bride and groom?”
“Sadiq’s parents and sisters are also friends of the family.”
“Plus a full wardrobe for Hasna to begin her married life,” he completed with disbelief. “All at no cost? This is more than a ‘gift’ from a ‘family friend.’ If I had learned of it sooner, I would have taken steps long before today.”
Hasna had been chattering nonstop about her big day, but what did he care about the finer details? He was glad she was marrying for love, he wanted everything to go well for her, but the minutia of decor and food and colors to be worn had meant nothing to him. It wasn’t until he had noted she was grossly under budget—not like her at all—that he had quizzed her on when to expect an invoice for the dress.
“If I’m Sadiq’s mistress, then I should want the fat commission off this! I would have told him to make his bride come to us as a payoff for losing his support—which I don’t need, by the way.” The hiss in her tone sliced the air like a blade. “That is not the way it went at all. Hasna didn’t even know Sadiq knew us. She said we were her dream designer and he arranged it secretly, to surprise her. We’re the ones who decided not to charge him.”
“Yes, funny that he would have kept this tremendously close ‘friendship’—” he let her hear his disdain “—such a secret from the woman he had been courting for a year and professed to love. I might have understood if he was paying you off.” He wouldn’t have condoned it, not when Hasna had fought so hard for a love match and had managed to convince him that Sadiq returned her feelings, but at least he would have seen the why of this ridiculous arrangement.
“Have you discussed this with Sadiq?” she demanded frostily, arms crossed. “Because I am as insulted on his behalf as I am on my own.”
“Sadiq is plainly not capable of doing what is needed. I will advise him after the fact.”
“I am not sleeping with Sadiq! I don’t sleep with married men, or engaged ones, either.”
“I’m fairly confident you stopped sleeping with him once the engagement was announced. I can account for his whereabouts since then.”
“He knows you’re watching him like that? With these awful suspicions about him?”
“I don’t judge him for having lovers prior to settling down. We all do it.”
Although it annoyed him that his brother-in-law had slept with this particular woman. Kasim didn’t examine too closely why that grated. Or wonder too much about how such a soft-spoken man had managed to seduce her. Sadiq had always struck Kasim as being more book-smart than street-smart, earnest and studious and almost as naive as Hasna.
This woman was surprisingly spirited. She would dominate someone like Sadiq.
Which more than explained why Sadiq hadn’t been able to end things as definitively as he should.
“And I’m...what?” she prodded. “Trying to coax him back by outfitting his wife? Your logic is flawed, Your Highness.”
Her impertinence took him aback, it was so uncommon in his life. The most sass he heard from anyone was from his sister and she typically confined it to light teasing, never anything with this much bite.
He found Angelique’s impudence both stimulating and trying. She obviously didn’t understand who she was dealing with.
“Why are you arguing? I’m offering to pay you for the work you’ve done. The more you resist admitting the truth and promising not to see him again, the more likely I am to lose patience and pull the plug on this entire arrangement, Hasna’s tears be damned.”
“You would do that?” Her jaw slacked with disbelief. “To your sister?”
She had no idea to what lengths he would go—had gone—to protect his family.
He wouldn’t allow himself to be drawn into yet another inner debate about his actions on that score. It still wrenched his heart, especially when Hasna still cried so often, but he had done what he had to. Ruthlessly.
And would do it again.
But he would not see his sister’s heart broken again. She loved Sadiq and Sadiq would be the faithful husband she desired him to be. If that meant fast-tracking a new wedding gown, so be it.
He let Angelique read his resolve in his silence.
She stood there with her chin lifted in confrontation, trying very hard to look down her nose at him. “All I have to do is say that I’m Sadiq’s mistress and this goes away?”
“Plus send me the bill and never contact Sadiq again.”
“I can give your money to charity,” she pointed out.
“You can. The important thing is that you will not be able to hold the debt over Sadiq’s head.”
“Ah, finally I learn my real motivation.” Her arms came out in amazement. “I was beginning to think I was the stupidest mistress alive.”
“Oh, I’m quite in admiration of your cleverness, Angelique.”
* * *
His use of her name made her heart, which was already racing at this altercation, take a jump and spin before landing hard.
“Have we arrived at first names, Kasim?” It was a deliberate lob back, not unlike when she played tennis with her siblings and she was so well matched she had to throw everything she had into each swing of her racket.
This man! She had spent years developing a shield against the world and he brushed it aside like it was a cobweb, making her react from a subterranean level. It was completely unnerving.
His lashes flinched at her use of his given name.
Good.
“Your insolence toward me is unprecedented. Take extreme care, Angelique.”
Her fingernails were digging into her own upper arms, she was so beside herself. She used the sharp sting to keep a cool head. She had training for this type of negotiation, she reminded herself. He thought he was holding a small fortune in seed pearls and silk hostage, but he was actually holding a knife to the throat of her sister’s happiness along with the debt their family owed to Sadiq.
Given that, there was no way Angelique wanted to jeopardize the wedding arrangements or cause a long-term rift.
Listen. That was the first step, she reminded herself as her ears pounded with her racing pulse. Apparently Kasim felt he wasn’t being heard.
“To be clear,” she said with forced calm, “you believe I’ve orchestrated this to put Sadiq into my debt?”
“Perhaps not financially. His family is wealthy in resources and political standing as well as actual gold. You’ve managed to neutralize yourself in my sister’s eyes, so she couldn’t possibly see you as a threat if you were to move in at a later date for whatever Sadiq was deemed useful for.”
“Can I ask how you concluded that I’m so cold-blooded? Because even the online trolls don’t accuse me of this sort of thing.” She was nice! Her family regularly told her she was too nice.
“If your heart was involved, you would have refused this commission altogether. If you wanted to retaliate for a broken heart, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to please Hasna. No. I’ve told you, I’ve had mistresses. I understand exceedingly
practical women. This is an investment in your future. I accept that on a philosophical level, but not when it risks my sister’s happiness. That I cannot allow. So.” He nodded decisively at the card he’d left on the desk. “Send me the bill. Do not contact him again.”
He made as if to leave.
“Wait!” She leaped forward and grabbed his arm.
He froze, gaze locking onto her hand on his sleeve for one powerful heartbeat before he lifted his eyes. His face was filled outrage and something else, something glittering and fiercely masculine.
“Have we arrived at that level of familiarity, Angelique?” He pivoted in a swift move to face her, taking her own arm in his opposite grip.
It was the sudden dive and snatch of a predatory bird catching prey in its talons.
They stood like that in what seemed like a slowdown in time. Her heart pounded so hard her lungs could barely inflate against it.
“We’re not finished t-talking.” Her voice came out painfully thin. She knew she should release him and step back, but she was quite blown away by the masculine interest that flared to life in his gaze.
She wasn’t falsely modest. She knew she was beautiful. It was one of the reasons camera lenses so often turned on her. Men looked at her with desire all the time.
There was no reason she should react to this man’s naked hunger. But she did.
A very animalistic sexual reaction pierced deep in her loins, flooding her with heat and... Yes, it was reciprocal desire. He was looking at her as if he found her appealing and she certainly found him as attractive as they came. There might even be something chemical here because her gaze dropped involuntarily to his mouth. Longing rose within her.
His lips quirked.
She knew he was reading her reaction and was amused. It stung. She felt raw and gauche. It was the bane of her existence that she couldn’t always stop whatever feelings were overtaking her. This was so intense it was unprecedented, touching her at all levels. Physical, mental, emotional... He held her entire being enthralled.
“We are finished talking,” he said, while his arm bent against her grip. His hand arrived at her waist, hot and sure. His other hand tightened slightly on her arm, drawing her forward a half step, commanding, but not forcing. “If you would like to start something new, however...”
Don’t, she ordered herself, but it was too late. His mouth was coming down to hers and she was parting her lips in eager reception.
CHAPTER TWO
HE KNEW HOW to use that sexually explicit mouth of his, firmly capturing her lips in a hot, hard kiss. He slid a hand to the back of her head, rocked his damp mouth across hers, and damn well made love to her mouth like he had the absolute right!
She knew immediately that he was punishing her, but not in a violent way. He wanted her response, wanted to make her melt and succumb to him, to prove his mastery of her and this situation.
And he was doing it, sliding right past her resistance, ready to make her his conquest.
Hard-learned shreds of self-protection rallied. She had trained to meet any attack with an attack of her own.
She kissed him back with all the incensed outrage he had provoked in her, all the frustration that he affected her this powerfully.
She didn’t accept his kiss. She matched it. She stepped into his space so the heat off his body penetrated the silk she wore, branding her skin through it. Then she scraped her teeth in a threat across his bottom lip and stabbed her own fingers into his hair. It was completely unlike her to be sexually aggressive, but how dare he come in here with his accusations and intimidations?
Did this feel like she was daunted? Did it?
She felt the surprise in him, and the hardening as he grew excited.
His reaction fed hers. The quickening of arousal in her swelled, rising like a tide that picked her off her feet, washing her in heat, sensitizing her skin and making her hyperaware of her erogenous zones. Her back arched to crush her breasts against his hard chest. Her pelvis nudged into the shape behind his fly, inciting both of them.
His arms tightened around her and he kissed her harder. Not taking control so much as pressing his foot to the accelerator so they burned hotter and faster down the track they were on. His hand slid down to her backside, possessively claiming a plump cheek through silk.
The sensation was so acutely good, the moment rushing so fast beyond her control, Angelique pulled back to release a small moan and gasp for air.
He growled and ran his mouth down her throat, now angling her hips into his so he ground himself against her with blatant intention.
She let him, completely overcome by the moment. She was used to being treated somewhere between a trophy and a revered goddess on a pedestal. No man had ever kissed her like a woman who was not just wanted, but craved. This was real.
It felt earthy and elemental.
Pure.
She let her head hang back, hair falling freely, and maybe, yes, she was succumbing, but not to him. To this. Them. What they were creating together.
He muttered something that sounded like an incantation and his lips moved from her collarbone to the line of her camisole.
She gasped, “Yes,” aching for him to bare her breasts to his mouth, she felt so full and tight. When his hand moved up to her chest to caress along the edge—
Wait.
“Don’t—” she tried to say, but he had already picked up the silver disk of her pendant to move it over her shoulder.
* * *
One second, Kasim was sunk deep in arousal, well on his way to making love with a woman of exceptional passion.
Then the door crashed open and men burst in with guns drawn.
His heart exploded.
He instinctively tried to shove Angelique behind him, but she resisted, shouting, “I’m fine! Orchid, orchid! Stand down. Orchid!”
She held out a splayed hand like it could deflect bullets and tried to scramble in front of him, as if she could protect him with that soft, slender figure, but Kasim was pumped with as much adrenaline as the invaders. He locked his arms protectively around her while his brain belatedly caught up to recognize that these were guards he’d seen on his way in.
“I’m fine,” Angelique insisted in a shaken tone. “Stand down. Seriously,” she said with a look up at Kasim that was naked and mortified. “Let me go so I can defuse this.” Her hand pressed his shoulder.
Kasim’s arms were banded so firmly around her, he had to consciously force himself to relax his muscles.
“I’m fine,” she assured her guards as she slid away from him. She was visibly shaking. “Honestly. This was my fault. He was looking at my necklace. I should have warned him to be careful.”
Looking at her necklace? Her lipstick was smudged and she was bright red from her forehead to the line of her top. Her guards weren’t stupid.
They were professionals, however. One said, “Second level?”
“Water lily, and did you really?” She went across to a panel and reset something, then sighed and crossed to her desk to pick up her smartphone with a hand that still trembled. “Thank you. Please resume your stations.”
The guards holstered their weapons and retreated, closing the door behind them.
While her phone rang with the video call she’d placed, she plucked a tissue and leaned into a small desk mirror to hurriedly wipe her mouth. “This will only take a sec, but if I don’t—”
A male voice barked a gruff “Oui.”
“Bonjour, Henri.” Angelique tilted the phone so she could see the screen. She still looked somewhere between dumbfounded and grossly embarrassed, but was trying to paste a brave smile over it.
Kasim was utterly poleaxed. That kiss had been so intensely pleasurable, all he could think about was continuing from where they’d left off. Ge
t off the phone.
“Je m’excuse. Totally my fault,” Angelique continued. “False alarm. Orchid, orchid. It was only a drill.”
“Qu’est ce qui c’est passé?”
“Long story and I’m in the middle of something. Can I call you later?”
“I’m looking at the security records.”
Angelique closed her eyes in a small wince. “Yes,” she said in a beleaguered tone, as though answering an unasked question. “The prince is still here. May I please call you later?”
“One hour,” he directed and they ended the call.
Angelique dropped the phone onto her desktop and let out an exasperated breath.
“Ramon will be next. My other brother,” she provided, nodding as her phone dinged. “There he is. Spanish Inquisition.” She clasped her hands and looked to the ceiling with mock delight. “So fun! Thanks.”
“You’re blaming me?” He hadn’t thought he could be more astonished by all that had just happened.
She shrugged as she acknowledged the text, then dropped the phone again.
Moving to the shelf in the corner, she said, “How about that coffee?”
* * *
Angelique moved to where the French press had been sitting so long it bordered on tepid. She shakily pushed down the plunger and poured two short cups, needing something to calm her nerves.
Yes, let’s not cause a rift with the wedding, Angelique, by having the Prince of Zhamair shot dead in your office.
What had happened to her that she’d let him kiss her like that? From the moment he’d walked in here, he’d been tapping a chisel into her. Now she was fully cracked open, all of her usual defenses and tricks of misdirection useless. It took everything she had not to let him see how thoroughly he’d thrown her off her game.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked, buying time before she had to turn around.
“Black.”
She finished pouring and made herself face him.
He paused in using his handkerchief to check for traces of her lipstick against his mouth and tucked it away. He looked positively unruffled as he took one cup and saucer from her, his steady grip cutting the clatter of china down by half.