by Tara Pammi
“Hello, Zayn.”
Zayn covered his shock at his cousin’s sudden appearance. He had known he was back in Sintar but he had been avoiding Zayn. Karim had always been snakelike, elusive and sneaky, which was why he was here today of all days.
Showing his face to Zayn here when he was busy with Mirah’s wedding and the guests almost guaranteed that Karim could sneak away without causing himself any problems. One look at his cousin’s fake smile reminded Zayn why he had never quite liked the man, even though they were of a similar age.
Suddenly now, it seemed Karim enjoyed everything—all the perks and pleasures of belonging to the royal family without any of the responsibilities and duties. An understanding that he had never resented before and yet was never far from Zayn’s mind these days...
“You arrived in Sintar ten days ago. Why take this long to show yourself?”
“I didn’t realize it was the sheikh’s summons,” Karim whined in that nasally voice.
Zayn gritted his jaw. How had he not known Amalia was right? Of course Karim had let someone else take the fall. “You were told it was official business.”
“If it is to prod me toward some state job again, I will tell you the same as I told my mother, Zayn. I’m busy with my charities and business. I do not need a job at some junior level in your administration. Neither do I—”
When his words drifted off into ether, Zayn turned to his cousin.
Karim became pale beneath his untanned skin. “What is that woman doing here?”
Zayn followed his gaze to Amalia. Who turned in their direction just then. The last fragment of doubt he’d held on to even after evidence had been found, shattered at the pale cast of his cousin’s face.
“Which hole have you been hiding in, Karim? That woman is my fiancée.”
The entire vista of Amalia’s face changed instantly. Her smile vanished and that same combative look that she had used on him those first few days entered her eyes. Alarm and amusement vied within Zayn, rendering him incapable of action for a few minutes.
She was loyal, passionate and generous, and he no longer wondered why Massimiliano had come after her or why he’d been so protective. Even with her independence and self-sufficiency, Amalia would always have that kind of effect on a man.
He sighed as she marched through the crowd toward them, a definitive set to her shoulders.
“That woman is stubborn, argumentative and a hound dog. You must be thinking with your—”
Zayn let Karim see the full force of his fury. Pounding his fists into his cousin at Mirah’s wedding, he reminded himself, was a bad idea on many levels. “Careful, Karim. She is a woman I respect and admire. Do not force me to clean up your act with my own hands.”
Karim stayed mute, a sulky light in his eyes.
“Now, you have two minutes before Amalia is here and raises the valid question of why I am not having you arrested right here, right now.”
His face was chalk-white. “Arrested for what?”
“For possession of drugs, which you conveniently passed off on her brother.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t even know her brother was—”
“I found the third man, Karim. He confessed to knowing that Aslam had nothing of that sort in his backpack. That leaves you. If you confess now, you can at least stop this from becoming a ruckus right now in front of the whole family. Even—”
“You can control your woman and stop it.”
“No, I can’t,” Zayn said, another small fissure opening up in his chest. He could not control Amalia, neither could he control this irrational, inconveniently growing attachment of his to her, it seemed.
There were too many voices crowding in his head and the fact that he wanted to smash them all into silence told him he had become far too invested in his own facade and very little in the end.
The harshness in his voice when he spoke again was self-directed as much as it was on this weak man who had brought her into Zayn’s life. “Though you deserve no such concession, I cannot shame my aunt in front of others. So leave now, and I better learn from the case detective by tonight that you have confessed your role in this.”
Whatever spurious righteousness Karim had drummed up for this meeting disappeared when he noted the set tilt of Zayn’s mouth. With no word, Karim left in the same sneaky way.
Leaning back into his chair, Zayn studied the woman rushing toward him like a sandstorm. Nothing had stayed the same since she’d marched into his life that day. Even now he felt as though he was standing on shifting sands, everything he had known in his life so far shaking in front of his eyes.
But he was Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi and he had to do what was right for Khaleej, what was his duty.
Not what felt right in his gut.
His childhood friend, a fellow architect he had admired when he had been at college, a woman with revolutionary theories in medicine he had befriended, people who could have been friends and confidants, Zayn had bid goodbye because they were not suitable company for the Sheikh of Khaleej. But in months, if not days, they had become mere memories and he had moved forward with his life.
In mere weeks, Amalia would make her exit, too.
He would move forward again and she would become one of those memories.
* * *
“You let him go.” Amalia forced the words past the disappointment turning her throat raw.
She rubbed the sleeve of her dress between her fingers, her entire body restless. It felt as if she was constantly trying to slow down time with her mind and each tick of every second, every sunrise, was pulling at her, trying to break her apart.
Only one more night before Mirah was married. As if that wasn’t hard enough to come to terms with. Seeing the man who was responsible for her brother’s plight calmly leave the hall twisted the knot in her stomach.
A cold smile in his eyes, Zayn looked distinctly unruffled. “Good morning to you, Amalia. Is it true that you took one of Mirah’s fiancé’s cousins by the collar yesterday afternoon?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He...was mouthing off.”
“About you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, because I had to smooth it over with his parents and apologize on your behalf for the emotional trauma you caused the boy.”
“That’s...you’re impossible, Zayn. You immediately assumed I was guilty. I got a little physical with him because he was saying nasty things about you and when I called him on it, he started mouthing off about our relationship. The kid was a bully in the making and really, have you seen how big he is?”
“Apparently, now the parents think he will never get over his shock that women, especially tall, beautiful, angelic-looking women, could be so...offensive.”
“You’re laughing at me.”
“I’m amused that you think I needed your defense.”
“At that time I forgot what an arrogant ass you are,” she said just to say something.
Because, like every morning and every evening and pretty much every time he looked at her, Amalia’s breath ballooned in her chest at how gorgeous he was.
His pristine white shirt contrasted with the burnished bronze of his skin, emphasizing the virile masculinity of the man. Flutters emanated in the depth of her lower belly. Amalia shifted her gaze from his face to his throat. The strong column of it, her fingers longed to shape it like she had done last night. To feel the muscles in his shoulders clench under her fingertips, to feel the taut pressure when he moved inside her...
Flushed with unbidden heat, she moved to the table. His long, clever fingers drummed on the table, the same fingers that had been deep inside her heat...that drove her to maddening ecstasy every night...
“As flattered as I am by that look in your
eyes, you’re making me very uncomfortable in a public area, in the midst of everyone, and it will be at least afternoon before I can give you what you want, habibti.”
A furious flush claimed her, and she looked away from him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I came to talk to you about that sneaky man and Aslam, not to—”
“It’s nothing to feel defensive or shamed about, latifa. Believe me, I know exactly how you feel.”
She lifted her gaze to him, her gut folding in on itself in anticipation. “You never...you don’t...”
“Do I have to speak about how crazy you drive me with need for you to know, Amalia? We have spent every night together in the last month. Every night I tell myself that one more night will end the madness between us, that one more night of taking you, of feeling you writhe under me, will be enough...but it never works.”
Dark hunger made the rugged landscape of his face even more breathtaking. “You know, it is only when this fire flares between us do you let me see all of you.”
“I could say the same about you,” Amalia whispered, longing coursing through her very blood. She looked around her to focus on something else, anything other than the words that fought to rise to her mouth, words that would push him away from her before she was ready to let go.
It didn’t help the entirety of the guests being served in the vast hall had all focused on them. If not for Aslam, if not for Mirah, Amalia would have long happily... Aslam! Damn it, how could she forget why she couldn’t wait to speak to Zayn?
Her gut felt like a hard knot. “Your cousin...how could you let that man leave?”
“I let him leave only from here.”
“It took all these weeks to locate him and you just—”
“I told you I will take care of it.”
“And Aslam continues to be in—”
“Amalia, sit down and calm yourself. You’re drawing far too much attention.”
“Because I am not shutting up about you, the Sheikh of Khaleej, letting a criminal slip out because he’s your family.”
His lips pulled back, a hardness entering his eyes. “No, you’re drawing attention because you’re raising your voice at your fiancé, who is currently surrounded by his guests, some of whom are state dignitaries and a wedding party, and all of whom would like nothing better than to point out that you lack the finesse and sophistication to deal with this in a sensitive and adult manner.”
Amalia swallowed her gasp, his words pinching like sharp needles. It was one thing to hear from Mirah that Zayn’s family, his advisers and the entire world did not think her suitable for the sheikh, quite different when he put it that way.
Dear God, she hadn’t been hoping that something would change in the last few weeks, had she?
She felt like that little girl, confused and yet somehow aware of the painful reality of life. It felt like her heart was punctured inside her chest.
But she had come too far to give up now. “I don’t care what they think about me.”
“I do. Care about what they will say about you.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Your reputation directly affects me.”
Amalia had never felt this desperate struggle inside to be something she was not. Had never dreamt that falling in love would mean finding herself so inadequate to the man she loved. Being with Zayn was cleaving her within. “God forbid the sheikh is perceived as a weak man, a man who did not control his wayward fiancée, as a man who actually paid attention to anything coming out of a woman’s mouth.”
His eyes darkened into hard chips, his mouth a forbidding line. “Amalia, do not turn an age-old prejudice that has nothing to do with us into our fight. Do not turn your parents’ disagreement into ours. I have never treated you with anything less than the respect you deserve. You forget that I’m not your lover, Zayn, all the time. I’m the sheikh and yes, I cannot be seen as not being able to stop my unruly fiancée from turning my sister’s wedding breakfast into a ruckus about the justice system of Khaleej.
“Especially men and women I’ve been trying to appease with this whole charade.”
He was not just angry, Amalia realized, her temper slowly losing its edge. It was more than his usually amused, tolerant annoyance at one of her blunt opinions. This was different.
This felt like withdrawal. Like he was retreating behind that damned mantle of his position. Like he was using her lack of discretion this moment to remind himself how unsuitable she was for him.
She wanted to scream; she wanted to walk away and hide in the privacy of her bedroom. But she did neither. She settled down into the chair he had pulled out for her, a morass of emotions churning through her.
Her stomach slipped to her feet at all the curious faces that were watching her and Zayn. His parents’ disapproval was like a force field even across the hall. No, she wouldn’t feel as if she’d done something wrong just because she had lost her temper a little.
Then she saw Mirah and Farid at the main table and the fear mixed in with shock in Mirah’s face. Shame filled her then. Mirah had been nothing but affectionate and welcoming to Amalia, even as she had realized that Amalia created waves among her family, even as she learned that some of Farid’s family members disapproved of her.
Whether she had a right to be angry or not was moot. This was Mirah’s day, a day she’d been looking forward to for quite a while.
She forced a smile to her lips and pulled her chair closer to Zayn’s. With trembling fingers, she pushed at some imaginary speck on his collar. Filled the nerve-racking silence by telling him the morning she had had with a staff member and her stylist.
If it killed her, she’d not make a spectacle of herself. And him.
“Are you planning to kill me with that uncharacteristic inane chatter?” Zayn interrupted her in a dry voice that scratched against her senses. His thumb drew circles over her wrist, spreading a soft languor through her skin to every inch of her.
“Isn’t that what you wanted?” she asked with fake sweetness.
“For you to act like there’s nothing but cotton wool between your ears?” He sounded distinctly put out. “For you to simper at me with that fake smile and no real warmth in your eyes, no.”
She sighed. “Sometimes I don’t know what you want from me. Except—”
“Except?”
“Except when we’re making...when we’re having sex.”
Something hard glittered in his eyes. Whatever anger she’d seen in his eyes until now, it was nothing like this fiery blaze that set his gaze alight. “You were going to say making love. You changed it to sex. Has your attitude toward that intimacy changed so much? Has it become so casual, then?”
“No, of course not,” she protested hotly. She sighed and hid her face in his arm. How could she be angry with him when she’d provoked him on purpose? When it was this answer that she wanted from him?
When she probed him for answers while she couldn’t tell him how she felt? Her time with him was counting down, mere days now, yet all she wanted was to forget Aslam, or Mirah or their respective positions in life and just be Amalia and Zayn.
The last thing she wanted to be was clingy when it was time to leave, but she wasn’t able to harden her heart, either.
“I’ve never been this confused in my life,” she said into the stretching silence. It was not the complete truth, but it was not a lie. “All I did in the last three weeks was accompany you to all the social events you bid me to, and look at some interesting issues when people courted my interest.
“And yet I’m called opinionated and too forward-thinking. All I was doing was just being—”
“You were just being yourself,” Zayn finished for her, taking her hand in his on top of the table. “That is not your fault, Amalia. You’re right, you did everything that I asked you to do.”
But she was never going to be the right woman for him. In a million years, she could not change herself and become the sort of woman everyone would approve of. Was this how her mother had felt with her father? Had there been no easy way to love her father without changing who she was?
She nodded, feeling a strange gush of tears at the back of her eyes. “How can I not be furious when you let him go?”
“Do you trust me, Amalia?”
Every logical thought said she shouldn’t. It had been eight weeks since she’d walked into his study and except for allowing her to visit Aslam once and now letting the real culprit go, Zayn had done nothing to help her cause.
But every instinct, every irrational impulse that had absorbed everything about the man, screamed yes. “Yes, I do,” Amalia finally whispered. “I think I trusted you from the beginning, Zayn, even when you were blackmailing me.”
He laughed then, a hard, but genuine sound, and Amalia gazed up at him. Once again, they drew the attention of the crowd. But this time she knew it was because they were as mesmerized at the sight of him laughing as she was.
“I owe you an apology for not trusting your word. And that you had to resort to blackmail for what was right.”
His apology, the tenderness in his eyes, sparked a joy inside her. “I liked blackmailing you, Sheikh.”
Wicked amusement lit his gaze. “If my calculation of my cousin’s character is right, he will confess in the next day. After that it will be a matter of days before Aslam is released. Just a matter of hours before you can see him.”
Amalia shivered and instantly he held her close. “I can’t wait to see him, to hug him.”
“He is lucky to have you for his champion. I hope he learns to not throw away his life like this again. There’s so much he could do.”
The wistful note in his voice shook Amalia from within, that glimpse of the dreamer within. “And your cousin? Will he go to jail?”
“I do not know.”
“But we both know that he is culpable. You told me yourself that your policy is harsh against drug offenders.”
“Yes, but it is not in my hands to see his punishment matches his crime. My father or someone high up will interfere, because they will fear the reputation of the royal family, and his sentence will be lesser for that fact.”