by Tara Pammi
The last night of their two-week itinerary, they were attending a charity fund-raiser gala. The charity named Hope supported young professionals who came from underprivileged backgrounds. Amalia had found it really interesting that four of its most important and generous patrons were the Dirty Four exposed in the Celebrity Spy! Article, including Zayn.
When she’d taunted him about how he would know anything about being underprivileged, he’d given her a scathing glance.
Yes, her remark had been irreverent but Amalia’s curiosity had been genuine. How could a man who had everything—power, good looks, intelligence—understand someone else? How could a mere woman hope to amount to something to a man like that?
Which was what she’d been doing. And yet, he had proved Amalia wrong.
From his discussion with the patroness to his highly detailed and involved questions about the candidate they’d chosen to receive the scholarship this year, she’d realized this wasn’t an impersonal event where he showed his face and disappeared.
Only when Amalia and Zayn had been introduced to a freshly graduated architect before the evening began had she realized the importance of the event and the charity itself to Zayn. This charity was Zayn’s project, not the sheikh’s.
When she’d asked the thrilled protégé what he was most excited about, his answer had been the project he’d been assigned to in Sintar. Amalia had seen the bittersweet smile in Zayn’s face, and for the first time, felt shame at how prejudiced she’d been. Zayn could’ve become bitter over what he was denied but he’d found a different way to find satisfaction.
Why hadn’t her mother done the same? For so many years after they had left Khaleej, Amalia had heard from her mother about all the things her father had forbidden her to do. And yet, she had only wasted her life, filled with that bitterness.
She could have pursued all the things she complained her father hadn’t let her do, she could have loved and cherished Amalia, she could have asked Aslam to visit them...instead, she had wallowed in that grief, given up interest on life.
How much of that bitterness had she passed on to Amalia herself?
She’d made so many assumptions about Zayn and he had proved her wrong every time. How many things in life had she denied herself because she had borne witness to her mother’s pain and her failures?
That evening she dressed in an ice-blue fitted shift dress that played hide-and-seek with her knees. The perfect cut made the most of the dip of her waist and the flare of her hip and her legs. It was both trendy and elegant, and Amalia never tired of that style.
Purple pumps had added a flash of color to her outfit. Her thick, wavy hair, had taken two hours to blow dry, straighten and then beat into submission into a chic chignon at the back of her head.
Unlike the last couple of weeks, she found pleasure in dressing up for the evening. Anticipation and excitement made her movements jumpy as she used the naked palettes and a black eyeliner, as the makeup artist had shown her to do, to achieve the kind of glamour she’d only seen on magazine covers before.
And when she had joined Zayn outside the banquet hall where the fund-raiser was being hosted, all of her breath had piled into her throat.
The black tux hugging his wide shoulders and tapering off, he looked like he belonged on the cover of GQ. Power and charm radiated from him. A frisson of knee-melting awareness snaked down her spine as he pushed off from the wall.
She was aware of a quiet hush descending around the guests that were already there. Her muscles shook all over, anticipation a bubble in her chest. Even though his gaze swept over her in a leisurely appraisal, all he said was, “You keep getting better and better at this.”
Swallowing her disappointment, Amalia stared back at him. It was a wonder she could speak at all. “At what?”
“At this touch-me-not ice-princess image you project. At making me believe that this is the real you.” There was a thread of something in his tone that Amalia couldn’t quite pin down. At his signal, his junior aide appeared, a box in his hand.
With that arrogance that seemed to be embedded in his very blood, Zayn waited while the man opened the velvet case and extended it toward him, all the while his brown eyes cataloged every small detail about her.
Heat she couldn’t fight flooded Amalia at this pointed, masculine appraisal. Her skin felt too tight, her nipples peaking to attention, and a low thrum began to beat in her lower belly. He was doing this on purpose, she realized with a horrified gasp; still, she couldn’t stop her reaction.
She would be damned if he let her use her attraction to him as some kind of weapon. Chin tilted, Amalia glared back at him. “If you tell me what I have done to—”
With a flick of his fingers, Zayn dismissed the aide. In the next blink, he had his powerful arms around her and she was drenched in the musky warmth of the man.
Every inch of her skin sang as his hard chest grazed her breasts, his thighs tangled with hers. Tension was so thick around them that she shivered when his fingers rasped against her nape.
The cold slide of something against her neck brought her head down. Diamonds, enough that she couldn’t even count, nestled around a delicate platinum wire settled against her heated skin. She fingered the dazzling, multifaceted stones, unable to quell the pleasure that rose through her. The gift didn’t matter so much as that he’d put it on. It seemed a romantic gesture although she was the last person who’d know anything about such gestures. “Thank you. I... I’ll make sure to...”
His fingers crawled up the sensitive skin of her nape and into her hair, while the other hand remained on her hip. The intimacy of his touch sent her pulse soaring. “It’s yours to keep,” he whispered at her ear. “I saw it and thought of you.”
A sigh escaped her mouth and brought his gaze level with hers. “You’re trembling. Until this evening, I would have bet my kingdom it was me.”
His cold tone sliced through the daze her senses seemed to be swimming in. Suddenly, his gift, the possessive way he’d put it on her, everything took on a different meaning. “What are you talking about?”
“Your... Massi is here.”
“Here?”
“Mysteriously, yes.” The tip of his finger traced the line of her jaw. “Tonight, at the exclusive fund-raiser whose guest list was decided months ago.”
Massi was here? In Paris?
A smile came to Amalia’s mouth, the thought of a friendly, familiar face filling her with pleasure. A smile that dominated the shock she felt. As far as she knew, Massi was not connected to the Hope charity in any way.
He was here because of her.
Which was exactly what the man in front of her was thinking. Except he’d gone two steps further and come to another conclusion, too.
He didn’t come out and say it, but Amalia saw the suspicion in the granite set of his jaw, in the hard contour of his mouth. In the way his beautiful eyes glittered without any real warmth.
The whole necklace and his putting it on her, it had all been a show. The embrace and the intimacy had been his way of staking claim in front of a man he didn’t even know. Hurt pinged inside Amalia’s chest.
It was her own fault for giving vague answers every time he’d asked about Massi. Now she wanted him to demand answers, to demand his right in her life...
But she would forever be waiting.
Zayn thought of her as the woman who’d blackmailed him. As the woman who wasn’t fit to be anything in his life. These two weeks, their exchanges, nothing had significance to the sheikh. For him, it was only a means to achieve his sister’s happiness.
The cold kiss of the diamonds on her skin made nausea whirl up through her throat. “If you have something to say, Zayn, say it.”
The jut of his stubborn jaw made Amalia want to growl. “No? Then please, let me go so that I can finish this damn pre
tense and we both can go back to our lives.”
Uniformed waiters circulated through the hall, supplying unlimited glasses of champagne. Amalia had sipped a few times from her flute and then passed it back. Even though she’d been sorely tempted to get drunk for the first time in her life and make a spectacle of herself.
That would show the arrogant sheikh how unsuitable she could be.
But too many fates hung in the balance and she decided her little rebellion wouldn’t be worth it.
An echo of the frisson that had shot through her when he had seen her went through her again as she looked around the banquet hall and found his dark head.
As if she’d telegraphed it, he looked straight at her and raised his champagne flute. Amalia forced a smile to her lips, a sort of sinking sensation in her stomach. Their little confrontation wasn’t over. It hadn’t even started, she realized.
He’d only postponed it to the privacy of the night. Because, of course, the sheikh couldn’t show even a smidgen of emotion, a weakness in front of the public. Even his anger over her supposed betrayal was under his supreme control, whereas she hadn’t been able to hide anything.
What would happen when they went back to the suite they shared?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I WOULD APPRECIATE it very much if you unhand my fiancée.” Zayn had no idea how he managed to make the warning sound dire when his heart was pounding in his throat. He’d spent a hellish two hours searching for Amalia on the streets of Paris, along with his security team while she...
The fist in his gut would not unclench.
He hadn’t known fear like this in...ever. The thought of Amalia hurt or worse had consumed him.
He had sworn to fire his entire security team once she had been found. He had called himself a hundred names for not making her aware of what a target she could be to so many different factions now that she belonged to him.
And here she was...in the arms of her lover.
“Stop fondling her at the same time, before some camera crew gets a picture of it and plasters it all over social media tomorrow.”
“Zayn, I wanted to...”
Her topaz gaze met his in defiance and slowly, softened. Even her temporary yielding did not calm him. Slowly, she moved in the man’s embrace, trying to extricate herself from him. “Massi wanted to catch up and I thought we would have more privacy away from—”
“You will explain later, habibti, in the privacy of our suite.” A shadow of fear he still could not subdue made his tone harsh. “I have no intention to provide your boss or some other sneaky reporter with a lovers’ spat.
“You are a sheikh’s fiancée, Amalia. Sneaking out with other men is exactly the kind of fodder that the media looks for.”
Her chin tilted up. “Even if it’s to catch up with an old—”
“Friend, or ex-lover or your boss...it doesn’t matter. After the last two weeks, I thought you understood that. Come, let’s return to the suite.”
The man turned and looked at Zayn, the cocky tilt of his head deepening the anger in Zayn’s stomach. “I’m not done ensuring that Amalia is not with you under some sort of coercion,” the Italian replied, his English only slightly accented.
Amalia cringed, but the man’s arm did not budge from her waist. “I have already told you the whole story. I know you mean well but Zayn is right.”
A tender smile curved the man’s mouth, the easy camaraderie between them too obvious to miss. “You have no one else to look after you and...”
Jealousy prowled like a monster in his blood, and it took all of Zayn’s carefully cultivated control to stop from pulling Amalia from her boss’s arms into his. This was how one of his barely civilized ancestors must have felt when their claim on their woman was challenged so blatantly.
Having always believed that a man could use his brains more effectively than fists, right now Zayn saw the appeal to the old approach.
“Amalia knows perfectly well what she means to me, Massimiliano. And I always take care of that which belongs to me.”
Instead of backing off, the man frowned.
Amalia’s laugh, forced and brittle, tinkled in the oppressive silence that was only punctured by the greeting called out by Parisians taking advantage of a beautiful night. Clearly, she didn’t understand that men, arrogant, powerful men, used to getting their own way, communicated on a different level with each other.
Massimiliano wanted Amalia, was doing everything to show he knew her better than Zayn did. But it didn’t matter.
Amalia was his, at least for now.
“Didn’t I tell you meeting in secret like this is not the best idea, Massi?” Her topaz gaze flicked to him only for an instant. Finally, she moved toward him and Zayn felt a wild elation, a primal satisfaction as if he’d won a war.
She stood by him, even as every inch of her was stiff like a pole. Zayn thought she might shatter if he held her too hard. The smile that curved her lips had a tremble to it, as if she was working very hard to keep it together. “Zayn is a little too possessive.”
“I’m aware of the sheik’s personality, Amalia. And I’ve known you for five years. Which is why I find it hard to believe that you would fall for a man like him,” Massi replied from behind her.
Something glittered in Amalia’s eyes then, a shadow of vulnerability when she looked at him before she turned back to the Italian. “There’s more to my fiancé than the world knows. And apparently, I’m no less susceptible than the next woman to a powerful sheikh’s arrogant charm,” she finished, her tone curiously flat.
But Zayn was far too angry to care what it meant.
All he could think of now was if she had betrayed their pact...she had reason to go to the press about their little deal; she had means through her champion to create a furor about Aslam and his release; she owed no loyalty to Zayn...
Why would she when Zayn didn’t know how to inspire trust in a woman? He knew how to charm, seduce and blackmail one...
And it wasn’t Mirah’s happiness that mattered to him in that moment. It was, he was shocked to discover, his own emotions that were blindsiding him from all sides.
The anger that burned through him was still coated with that fear, was not the cold ire that he kept a lid on. This was hot, fiery.
Zayn didn’t know when his hand had descended to her waist, or that he was even keeping her by his side. Her body stiffened next to him, her mouth a flat line.
Slowly she undid his arm from around her, walked up to her boss and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Massi, I’m with Zayn because I want to be.” She said the words with conviction; still, a disquiet unfurled in Zayn’s gut.
With mounting irritation, he realized he wanted Amalia to choose to be with him, to want to spend this time with him. To give in to the attraction that had been getting out of control over the past two weeks between them.
To choose him even though he was fully aware that he could give her nothing but a temporary affair.
A more ridiculous, nerve-racking thought, he’d never had.
With a start, he realized how used he’d become to seeing her face every morning over breakfast while his aide rattled off their schedule. Intermittently during the day when she played the part of his fiancée seamlessly and to utter perfection. And then at night, when she worked alongside him into the long hours without missing a beat.
That he’d begun to think of Amalia as his. He’d always been possessive about the women he slept with, demanding fidelity for as long as they were with him. With Amalia, that feeling went even deeper.
He’d become used to her irreverent humor, the paradox of cynicism and naïveté in her view of the world. Even the smile that broke through that reserve when he asked her opinion on something. Or the way she chewed her lower lip when she was either nervous or excit
ed.
It was a relationship he’d never had with another woman, ever. Even the most time he’d spent with one—the deep understanding he was gaining of how her mind worked. That was all this fascination had to be. Had never waited to bed a woman he wanted...that was all this frustration, this restlessness in his blood, was.
Zayn Al-Ghamdi could not be losing his head, his cool, over a mere woman. But the statement sounded hollow to his ears and full of that arrogant confidence that riled her so much.
“I appreciate you looking out for me, Massi. You’ve always been a good friend,” she finished with a soft smile. There was affection in her eyes, in her smile, when she looked at the Italian, and only a wary reserve when she turned to Zayn.
Of all the ridiculous things in the world to bother him...
“Should I consider this your resignation, then?” Massimiliano asked, his gaze locking with his over Amalia’s head.
The slump in her slender shoulders twisted Zayn’s gut. Did the man matter to Amalia or was it the job?
She squeezed Massimiliano’s fingers. “We’ll talk soon, and at length. Zayn is right. The media watches us relentlessly. I have to go.”
The Italian kept his gaze on Zayn while he kissed her cheeks. “Remember you can count on me, Amalia. Against anyone and anything.”
Amalia nodded, took Zayn’s outstretched arm, her topaz eyes for once hiding her expression from him.
* * *
“Your knee is bleeding.” Zayn’s clipped words rang around the silent corridor. Amalia waited with bated breath as he slipped his key card into the door and opened it for her.
Feeling the sting in her knee now that he had pointed it out, she walked into the suite and shivered. The room was in a disarray, from papers strewn all over the room to several laptops and walkie-talkies sitting on every available surface. They had even set up a comm center in the suite, she thought, flushing with shame all over again.