“Mika?” Charlotte smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “I’ll let you know when we’re finished.”
“I’m happy to stay,” Mika offered, hesitating at the doorway. And Charlotte understood why. The tension between her and Ashad was palpable.
Charlotte smiled and shook her head. “Thank you.”
Mika left, but her air of caution remained.
The apartment had been designed with Charlotte in mind. It boasted two completely separate spaces. Her own residence had five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a chef’s kitchen, formal dining room and library as well as the more comfortable lounge area that led to the balcony. This was Charlotte’s preferred room in the apartment, though now she was wishing she’d selected something more formal to give their talks gravitas. Mika was, effectively, in a different apartment. At the end of the corridor a door led to a two-bedroom flat with its own kitchen and lounge area. Her security detail would be there also, and presumably Ashad’s.
“Did Mika show your security somewhere comfortable to wait?”
He laughed. “I didn’t bring security.”
“You didn’t?” Her eyes flew wide.
“I’m a big boy,” he said with a timbre to his words that made her heart turn over in her chest. “I can take care of myself.”
Visions she really didn’t need pushed their way into the uppermost of her subconscious.
“Are you hungry?” She blurted, desperate to change the subject and retain some kind of upper hand in their relationship.
“No,” he smiled. “But don’t let that stop you.”
“I’m fine.” Charlotte was standing several feet away from him, and yet the way Ashad was looking at her, she might as well have been in his arms. “The way you greeted me just now,” she said softly, forcing herself to face him.
He frowned, as though he didn’t understand what she was referring to at first. “Today?”
“Yes. When you … kissed me…”
He laughed softly. “That was not a kiss,” he said after he’d sobered. “It was a polite acknowledgement, befitting our relationship.”
Her skin pricked with sensation. “It was a kiss. Two, in fact,” she corrected. “And it’s too familiar. I hardly know you.”
“Ah, but we are going to be family, remember?”
“Do you kiss your family like that?” She asked archly, padding across the room and pulling a water bottle from the fridge. She took a second out and threw it at him without warning. His reflexes were sharp. He stuck a hand up in the air and caught it easily, lowering it and cracking the lid without missing a beat.
“Yes. Well, my female family members,” he winked.
Charlotte’s heart was hurting, as though little monsters had moved into the cavity and were squeezing her aorta, just for fun. “Given that we are not yet family, please refrain from being so intimate with me.”
His eyes narrowed and she felt the strength of his reputation swirling around her. He was formidable, it was true. She shouldn’t choose to be in dispute with him, because she suspected no one who came up against Ashad ever won.
“I have seen photographs of you at nightclubs with your friends. Young men and women. You don’t seem to have any trouble letting them touch you. Kiss you. Be close to you.”
She gasped as his words clawed against her. “I do no such thing,” she said with indignation. She thought back to the last few times she’d been out with her circle. Yes, she supposed she did dance with her male friends, and yes, there had been photos in the press of her and Remi holding hands as they left a nightclub in Istanbul, but that had been because he’d become so drunk she wasn’t sure he could find his way to the limousines.
“Only my very close friends,” she amended, her eyes challenging him.
He met her challenge and finally shrugged. “If you would prefer me not to employ this perfectly harmless greeting then I won’t. I won’t kiss you again, Charlotte.”
Desolation was a storm cloud in her gut. I won’t kiss you again. She wanted to scream. To rail against the pronouncement that she’d all but demanded he make. “I think that’s for the best,” her voice was small and determined. It rung with cold detachment – something she definitely didn’t feel.
“You live here?” He seemed to have no difficulty moving on from the topic, looking around the space with interest.
She dipped her head forward in acknowledgement; her heart hammering hard and fast. “I split my time between here and the palace.”
Again, Charlotte had the sense he was looking at her and seeing everything. “Why?” He pondered after a moment, sipping his water without breaking eye contact.
“I like the privacy,” she said, seeing no need to be vague. “And I like the boats.” She moved towards the glass doors and stepped out on the balcony. He followed. They were high in the sky, towering over the Royal Marina that was home to some of the most expensive super yachts in the world. There were fishing trawlers too, contained in a separate pontoon. At water level there were restaurants; world class dining, bars, and exclusive boutiques. Tiffany & Co had a flagship store directly beneath them.
“As a child, I used to spend a lot of time here.” Her smile was nostalgic. “It was easier then. Now I like to spy on people from way up here.”
He studied her profile thoughtfully. “Why was it easier?”
“I thought you knew?”
“That you’re secretly a fraud?” He couldn’t resist teasing, watching the emotion flit across her face.
Charlotte turned to face him fully, then wished she hadn’t, when a slick of awareness assaulted her insides. “Yes. I killed the real princess and took her place. I’m an imposter.”
His smile lit her world on fire; she fought to quench the flames. “So calling you Charlotte makes sense after all.”
She laughed, turning back to the view. Her eyes watched a family, tiny in the distance, move along the esplanade. The father, mother, two children and a pram with a baby that, even from high in the air, she could see was pleasingly chubby. Its feet were bare, sticking up over the edge of the stroller.
“So what changed?” Ashad brought the conversation back to her original statement. Tenacity. She noted the quality, and that it didn’t bother her.
“It was forbidden to photograph me until I was fourteen,” she murmured.
“Seriously?”
“You didn’t know?” She looked at him with surprise. “I presume you had similar protections.”
“No. Nothing like it.”
“It’s not just a guideline, either,” she said with a nod. “It’s an actual law. If photographs were taken and printed, it would have resulted in an automatic jail sentence. My father was very, very serious about my privacy.”
“I hadn’t realised.”
She shrugged. “I can see why. Once I turned fourteen, my world tipped on its head.” A small frown pulled at her lips as her mind wandered back to those days, many of them dark and unpleasant.
“But until then,” he murmured, “you could wander the marina without being noticed?”
She nodded. “No one knew who I was. Mika and a single bodyguard would bring me here and we would sit for hours. I loved watching the boats come and go. I still do.”
“Do you have one?”
“A boat?” She shook her head. “No. I’m terrified of the water.”
His laugh was short. “You’re terrified of something? I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem fearless.”
“Ah,” Charlotte loved that he thought that of her. It made her feel like a sort of super hero, rather than a princess. “You’re right. I am. Except for water, which might as well be barbed wire.”
“Your kryptonite?” He said, almost as though he’d read her mind.
“Like a tonne of it.”
“Have you always felt like that?”
“No.” She turned to look at him again and then wished she hadn’t. His eyes were loaded with such
interest that her heart thumped hard against her ribs.
“No?” He prompted when she didn’t expand.
“You know how it goes. Bath tub. Too much water. I’m a stereotype.”
“You, Charlotte, are anything but.” He propped his elbows on the railing. Her eyes were drawn, against their will, to his broad chest. She swallowed, looking back down at the marina. “How old were you?”
“Five.”
“I would have thought at five you’d have had nannies and carers making sure you were watched around the clock.”
“Mmm.” She blinked at him, a grin tickling her lips. “I don’t think I should tell you what I used to be like. It might lead you to poison your cousin against me before we are married.”
Charlotte was caught up in their conversation and didn’t notice the way he stiffened.
“Rest assured, I have no interest in doing that.”
“I was joking,” she said with a small shake of her head.
“What were you like?” He moved closer, as though anticipating that she would whisper and he didn’t want to miss her words.
Charlotte suppressed the flush of adrenalin that coursed through her at his nearness. “Naughty.”
Again, an involuntary stillness descended on Ashad as he digested her description of herself. “Naughty?” He repeated after a moment, the word a single, deep inflection.
“Uh huh. So naughty. I loved to swim,” she remembered. “And I’d been at the pool all day. I’d been put into bed, and my nanny had left the room. I sneaked into the bathroom, filled the bath to overflowing and climbed in.” She knitted her brows together as the memories, so far in her past, seemed to be playing out before her. “I lost my footing. The bath was slippery and so enormous. I went under water and I couldn’t do anything. I swallowed and water seemed to be filling me up.”
“You must have been terrified.”
“Well, I was five,” she said with an attempt at humour. “So, yes.”
“And you’ve been afraid since?”
“Oh, yes. I couldn’t approach the bath for years.”
He arched a brow. “No bathing?”
“Yes. I was a princess who didn’t wash.” She rolled her eyes. “I showered instead. That’s where Mika and I met. She came into service a month after it had happened and slowly helped me get over the trauma of it.”
“Not enough though, if you still can’t go on a boat.”
She smiled at him, and it spread across her face like a ribbon of red. “What’s wrong with watching?”
“There’s something incredible about being on the water. For people like you and me, who live such constrained lives, it is …”
She held her breath, waiting for him to finish the sentence. He turned to her, his eyes clashing with hers, locking her in a vice from which there was no escape.
“Freedom,” he expelled the word into the sky and it carried away, high above them.
“Freedom,” she repeated, imagining that. The freedom to be whoever she wanted. To study, to work, to live, to run, to play, to marry where she chose. It was a sobering thought, because it was so far from the reality she faced.
“We should get started.” A business like shift. Charlotte flicked the briefest smile at him, but it was no longer comfortable and relaxed. She was drowning again, but there was no water. It was life itself that was dragging her under, and she feared there would be no rescue this time.
CHAPTER FOUR
Ash looked at the print out she’d prepared with her topics listed down the side and stifled a smile. “You’ve gone to a lot of effort to make sure this is business-like.”
Across from him, Charlotte lifted a brow. “Isn’t that what it should be?”
He nodded, a slow, thoughtful gesture. How could he have this wedding voided without hurting her feelings? There had to be a key to releasing Syed from the union without embarrassing Charlotte in any way.
“Tell me,” he tapped his pen on the side of the table, his eyes refusing to let go of hers. “Why Syed?”
She blinked, her confusion apparent. And for a moment he felt sorry for her. But not as sorry as he would if the betrothal was ended in a public way. He would not have Charlotte pilloried in the papers as The Bride Syed Didn’t Want.
His fingers curled more tightly around the pen, and his stare intensified.
“Because my father wished it,” she said after a moment, but the words were dragged from her as if by force.
“That’s not good enough,” Ash responded swiftly. “You have shown me that you are a woman who knows her own mind –,”
“There’s a difference between knowing my mind and being free to act as it wills me,” she said quietly. “And the marriage is important. Not just to my father but to the kingdom. We have the hangover of civil unrest that only an alliance with Kalastan will properly end. I want peace for my people.” She squared her shoulders. “I presume Syed feels the same.”
Ash tilted his head, studying her. “Your devotion to your country is admirable.”
“But,” she prompted.
His laugh was silk on her overwrought nerve endings. “There is no ‘but’.”
“Oh.” She blinked, lowering her gaze to the table. “I was sure you were going to contradict me.”
“No. Your marriage to Syed exists to placate our peoples. Yours, and mine.”
Her eyes flew to his, and he wondered if it was just occurring to her that he had the same place in the royal line of succession as his cousin. That marrying him would have achieved the same ends. Why had Syed been suggested before Ashad? Only Adin could answer that, but Ash was inclined to think it boiled down to dumb luck.
“Shall we start with where we’ll live?”
Ash expressed a low breath that flared his nostrils and fanned the papers in front of him. “Where do you want to live, azeezi?” The term of endearment issued from his lips without consent.
If it had surprised her, she gave nothing away.
“I can’t imagine being anywhere other than Falina,” she said thoughtfully.
“My cousin plays a vital role in our politics. He is a main figure of government and aside from that has many significant business interests in Kalastan.”
“I wasn’t saying I won’t move,” she said with a hint of frustration. “Only that it’s a little odd to think of doing so.” She crossed her legs beneath the table. The breeze coming off the marina was lovely, but her face was pink and she lifted a page and fanned herself a few times before reaching for her water. The day was hot. Stifling, in fact, but Ashad was used to the heat. As, he would have said, was Charlotte. So why was she looking as though she were being boiled alive?
“Are you okay?” He murmured.
Her gaze flicked to him. “Fine.”
He dropped his attention to her outfit, a frown pulling at his lips. “Why don’t you take off your jacket?”
Her eyes were the size of saucers in her pretty face but she stood. Turning away from him and removing the scrap of fabric at the same time she stepped out of her shoes. He imagined her bright red toenails and his body clenched hard.
But it was a rock when she returned to her seat without the modesty of the jacket. His own temper was the one in danger of reaching boiling point now. The dress was beautiful. Perfectly acceptable attire, and indeed, most women got around in clothes that showed a lot more skin. But the skin it did show? The curves it hinted at? His pulse was bursting through him, demanding attention. His body wanted to move closer to her. It was as if an ancient force of testosterone and pheromones were swirling through the room, Ash and Charlotte’s bodies merely the hosts to a desire that was far bigger.
“Syed wants to remain in Kalastan?” She prompted, seemingly completely unaware of the surge of need Ashad was battling.
“Yes.” Why was he sitting opposite this woman discussing a wedding that was most unlikely to take place? Anger at the futility of his position was exploding inside of him.
“And there’s no flexi
bility in this?”
What if Ashad made Syed sound so unreasonable that Charlotte had no choice but to cancel the wedding? Or to express her doubts to her father.
“Syed must remain in Kalastan. As his bride, you would do likewise.”
She clenched her jaw, her eyes dropping to the table to hide whatever it was she was thinking.
“So my betrothed is an intractable, inconsiderate despot?”
Ash laughed at the description. “No. Syed is a good man.” He had intended to make her think ill of Syed but he couldn’t allow her to believe those things of the cousin he both admired and adored. “But his place in the royal family of Kalastan is more … prominent than yours is to the palace of Falina.”
“Because I’m a woman,” she snapped. “And my role has never been allowed to expand into policy and politics.”
“Would you have wanted that?” Ash asked, drawn to her mind, her body, her essence.
She nodded, but it was cautious, concerned, as though she was revealing a great secret. “I want to be of use to my people. Beyond volunteering for charities and appearing at photo opportunities.”
Admiration swelled inside him.
“I wasn’t allowed to attend university. My parents wanted me to remain in Falina, but my mother knew how important it was to me that I study. They flew various professors in to complete my tertiary education. I chose world leaders in international affairs, diplomats, lawyers. I speak five languages fluently, not including sign language and two ancient dialects of our tribal regions. I don’t want to be a piece of flotsam wife. I want to do something.” Her eyes showed the passion of her desire and for the first time, Ash found himself wondering at the sense of this marriage. Not because Syed didn’t want it, and not because Ashad was lusting after the bride-to-be.
“I want to get married because I hope – I hope with everything I am – that Syed will be the kind of man who realises my interests and encourages me to utilise them. Am I wrong? Am I wrong to believe that a man of our generation will have a different outlook to that of our parents?”
The Sheikh's Stolen Bride: The only way to make her happy was to make her his... (The Sheikhs' Brides Book 2) Page 4