Crowned at the Desert King's Command

by Jackie Ashenden

  But she knew Alicia too well, and without a doubt this was her way of showing her some support. She didn’t need to do that—not publicly, anyway, and especially not on her wedding day. It was enough for her that Alicia had always been such a loyal, true ally.

  ‘Oh, Lissy, I’m just an amateur, really. And this is your big day.’ She was trying to gather herself together.

  ‘Isn’t that exactly what I said she’d say?’ Glancing at Philip, Alicia shook her head. ‘I wish I could make you believe in yourself like I believe in you.’

  Mimi rolled her eyes. ‘You’re a good friend, and it’s a lovely idea, but you’re biased.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that too.’

  Alicia smiled, and something in her smile snagged a tripwire in Mimi’s head.

  ‘And you’re right—I am biased. But it doesn’t matter because it wasn’t my idea. Or Philip’s,’ she added as Mimi glanced at her fiancé. ‘It was Basa’s.’

  Mimi froze. Her heartbeat was booming in her ears so loudly she was surprised everyone in the restaurant couldn’t hear it.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she said finally. And she didn’t.

  The Caines might not actually live in a castle, but after her stepfather and uncle had been arrested the family had pulled up a metaphorical drawbridge. Overnight she had simply stopped being invited into their world. There had been no drama about it. They were far too well-bred to make a scene. But she had known from what Alicia hadn’t said that Robert and Bautista thought she was bad news, and she’d never had any reason to believe they had changed their mind.

  Her breath felt jagged in her throat. All she had were those few hours at the party, when she’d mistakenly believed that Bautista felt about her as she felt about him.

  ‘And that’s why I asked him to join us so he could tell you himself.’

  Finishing her sentence, Alicia lifted her hand and waved excitedly at someone across the restaurant.

  Mimi glanced in the direction of her friend’s gaze and instantly felt the fine hairs at the nape of her neck stand on end. On the other side of the room, with a lock of dark hair falling across his face, his dark suit clinging to his lean, muscular body like the ivy that grew over his family’s Georgian mansion, was Bautista Caine.

  Her heart seemed to stop beating.

  Watching him move, she felt her body turn boneless. There was a swagger to the way he walked, a kind of innate poise and self-confidence that she had never possessed—except maybe briefly, when she was behind the camera. But even in a room like this—a room full of self-assured, beautiful people—he was by far the most beautiful, with his dark, almost black hair and eyes, and his fine features perfectly blending his English and Argentinian heritage.

  But his impact on the crowded restaurant wasn’t just down to his bone structure, or those mesmerising sloe-dark eyes, or even that easy honeyed smile that made you forget your own name. He had what directors liked to refer to as presence: a mythical, elusive, intangible quality that made looking away from him an impossibility.

  To her overstrained senses it seemed to take an age for him to reach the table. Quite a few of the diners clearly knew him and wanted to say hello. Her pulse skipped a beat as a famous Hollywood actress got to her feet and kissed him on both cheeks but Bautista seemed completely unfazed.

  Of course he did: this was his world. More importantly, it wasn’t hers, and no amount of lunching with A-listers was ever going to change that fact.

  Her understanding of that was the difference between now and two years ago when, high on the incredible thrill of finally being noticed by the object of her unrequited teenage affections, she’d let herself believe that their worlds could collide without any kind of collateral damage.

  She knew better now. His abrupt change of heart had been humiliating and devastating—although of course his heart hadn’t been the organ involved in that particular encounter.

  And that had made her humiliation complete. For although she might have been secretly hoping for a declaration of love, what she’d offered him had been sex. Simple, no-strings, walk-away-without-so-much-as-a-backward-glance sex.

  And he’d turned her down.

  Her heart felt like a jagged rock scraping against her ribs.

  She had gone to his room willingly, eagerly, hoping, almost believing, that she could pull it off. But of course all she’d managed to do was prove to herself that, as usual, she was punching above her weight.

  ‘Basa.’

  ‘Philip.’

  She watched numbly as the two men embraced.

  ‘No, don’t get up, Lissy.’ Leaning forward, Basa kissed his sister gently on both cheeks, and then Mimi felt her body tense as finally he turned towards her.

  As their eyes met the chatter of the dining room seemed to recede.

  Mimi stared at him in silence. It wasn’t fair.

  It wasn’t fair for him to be so devastatingly good-looking. She wanted to hate him. She needed to hate him. Only it was hard to treat him as the despicable human being he was when he was packaged so delightfully.

  But she wasn’t some love-struck girl living out a fantasy, she reminded herself quickly, and there was no excuse for feeling so jittery about a man who had treated her so badly.

  ‘Well, if it isn’t little Mimi Miller,’ he said softly. ‘In the flesh.’

  She felt her pulse pool between her thighs. His voice was the icing on the cake. Not some simpering frosted butter but a dark molten glaze—what chocolate would sound like if it could talk.

  He leaned down and she breathed in the faint hint of his cologne as his lips brushed against first one cheek and then the other. Her breath stumbled in her throat as he sat down beside her, stretching his long legs out in her direction so she quickly had to tuck hers under her chair to stop their limbs colliding.

  He held her gaze for a moment, and then his dark, mocking eyes dropped to her mouth. Instantly she felt her skin begin to tingle, her nipples tightening against the fabric of her dress in a way that made her want to duck under the table and hide.

  Breath burning in her throat, she watched him lean back in his seat, and then, turning to face Alicia, he said calmly, ‘So, what did I miss, Sis?’

  She shook her head. ‘Most of lunch. You were supposed to be here at one o’clock.’

  He grinned unrepentantly. ‘And I messaged you to say I’d be late.’ Reaching across the table, he grabbed his sister’s hand and squeezed it affectionately. ‘Hey, I’m sorry I missed lunch, okay? But, look, I can still have dessert.’

  Lowering his ridiculously long eyelashes, he gazed pointedly at Mimi’s untouched rum baba.

  ‘Here. Knock yourself out.’ Smiling stiffly, she pushed her plate towards him, wishing she could throw it at his head.

  ‘Thank you.’ His fingers brushed against hers as he took the plate. ‘Now, isn’t this civilised?’

  Their eyes met, and his cool, unblinking gaze made ice trickle down her spine, for it felt as if they were having a private and far less civilised conversation.

  Oblivious to the tension, Philip leaned forward, his eyes seeking out a waiter. ‘Do you want coffee with that?’

  Basa looked up from his food and nodded. ‘I could murder an espresso.’

  Philip glanced at Mimi.

  ‘Yes, please.’ She smiled stiffly, relief washing over her skin. At least coffee meant this would soon be over and she could escape Basa’s taunting gaze.

  ‘So four espressos, then.’

  ‘Actually, could you make that just two?’ Alicia nudged her fiancé in the ribs. ‘We’re meeting your aunt now, remember?’

  ‘We are?’ Philip looked blank for a moment and then a flicker of understanding crossed his face and he nodded slowly. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right. We are...meeting my aunt.’

  Basa rolled his eyes. ‘Really subtle, guys.’
>
  He tilted his face towards Mimi and gave her a long, slow smile that sucked the air from her lungs.

  ‘My sister has probably told you that she invited me along so that I could persuade you to film her wedding, but actually that was just an excuse. She thinks we need to have a little chat, just you and me—you know, to clear the air about our families’ shared history.’

  Mimi blinked.

  Absolutely. Not.

  She practically shouted the words inside her head, and she was just opening her mouth to repeat them out loud when Basa cut across her.

  ‘And I think she’s right,’ he said smoothly. ‘After all, a wedding is all about moving forward. But obviously if Mimi would rather not...?’

  His eyes held hers, dark, uncompromising, daring her to refuse. Beside him, Alicia was staring at her, her own eyes soft and hopeful.

  ‘Please, Mimi. You’re two of my favourite people in the world, and I know you’re worried about what happened with your family and mine and that’s why you don’t want to film the wedding.’ She bit her lip. ‘Look, Philip and I are going to go now, but will you promise me that you’ll stay and talk? Please? For me?’

  Mimi wanted to say no, to say that there was no point, because Basa wasn’t going to listen to anything she said. But the words wouldn’t form in her mouth. Not because she didn’t believe them or because they weren’t true—she did and they were—but because this was the first time she had found herself up against both Caine siblings and she knew she couldn’t fight the two of them.

  Lifting her face to meet her friend’s, she forced her mouth into a smile, and beneath the blood roaring in her ears she heard herself say lightly, ‘Okay, I’ll stay and talk. I promise.’

  Copyright © 2020 by Louise Fuller

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  ISBN: 9781488059193

  Crowned at the Desert King’s Command

  Copyright © 2020 by Jackie Ashenden

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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