SEDUCING HIS PRINCESS (6 page)

“And once I
awakened,
thanks to your expert...rousing...”

“Nothing happened. You didn’t replace me in your bed.”

She gaped at him. How did he...? Did that mean...?

Before she could blow a valve, he went on calmly, “
This
I know as the incomparable intelligence god that I am.”

* * *

If people could explode, Jala would have, Mohab thought.

He’d tripped the one wire that could set her off. One of
two
wires. The first was passion, which he was gratified he could still trigger with a touch. The second was privacy.

It had always been her biggest hang-up. She’d been near obsessive about it. Her insistence on never meeting him where anyone might recognize her had at first made him think it was a cunning effort to have his cake and eat Najeeb’s, too. But as his preconceptions had melted, and she’d opened up with details of her life in Judar, he’d understood how hard-won her autonomy had been. After a lifetime of having her breaths counted and steps monitored, she’d sworn...
no more.

He watched her rise, every inch aching to have her in his arms again. But that wouldn’t move anything forward. And he was afraid that if she surrendered again, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“You had me under surveillance?” she seethed.

He sighed. Not his favorite topic, discussing his obsession with her. “I’m not good at letting go.”

“Sure. Do you have a bridge to sell me with that? So what was it, really? You forgot to call off my surveillance detail and reports kept hitting your desk?”

At his raised eyebrow, she took a furious step toward him. “We’re in full-disclosure mode, aren’t we? So how about you not pretend you didn’t have my every move documented before you approached me? It’s evident you formulated a plan to entrap me in the most time-efficient manner based on my character analysis. But after you ended my supposed threat to your crown prince, what purpose did keeping tabs on me serve? Was it to make sure I didn’t go after another of your kingdom’s princes after you made sure Najeeb found me ‘ineligible’ to be his future queen?”

Wincing at the words that had haunted him with shame, he shook his head. “I didn’t tell Najeeb anything.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Her instantaneous rejection was what he deserved. Not only had he threatened to do just that, Najeeb
had
cut off all relations with her, proving to her that Mohab had carried out his threat.

But he hadn’t. He’d lived dreading news of her impending marriage to Najeeb. When that had never come to pass, he’d found out why. His uncle had told Najeeb that Mohab
had
fulfilled his mission in proving that Jala was dissolute, but if Najeeb desired her, he could enjoy her, as Mohab once had.

Even though he’d been hurt and jealous, believed she’d chosen Najeeb over him, he’d also come to admit that she’d had every right to change her mind about marrying him. And he’d been
furious
that Najeeb had ended what he’d professed to be a strong friendship based on hearsay, or even the truth of their relationship. If that made her dissolute in Najeeb’s eyes, when the man hadn’t staked a prior claim, it made him despicable.

He’d been unable to abide his uncle’s defamation and his cousin’s desertion of her. In a gesture of ultimate contempt, he’d resigned his job and left their and Saraya’s service.

He exhaled. “Ask Najeeb. He’ll tell you I haven’t talked to him since that night. You had every right to leave me, and I’ll be forever ashamed I threatened to slander you for it.”

Her glare wavered only to harden again. “Even if I believe that, you have other transgressions waiting in line. How dare you have me followed?”

Savoring the bewitching sight she made in her fury, he said, “As long as I’m already damned, and I have no hope of having the extenuating circumstances sanctioned, I might as well tell you that I’ve been keeping tabs on you far longer than you think. I started right after I first saw you attending a conference with your oldest brother Farooq in Washington.”

Her eyes rounded. “That was ten years ago!”

“
Aih.
You were only eighteen and the most incredible thing I’d ever seen. I felt the chemistry that sizzles between us singe me even then, even when you didn’t see me.”

Her disbelief was almost palpable. “It’s not
possible
I didn’t see you.”

“You do remember what I do for a living, don’t you? If I want to stay out of sight, that’s where I remain.”

But he’d been unable to stop following her after that first sighting. He’d known he’d never approach her, but she’d become his fantasy when he’d never had one before.

Then that hostage crisis had happened. Her name had been the only thing he’d seen on that hostage list before he’d stormed in, and he’d made the decision to save her first right then. Facing that had made him more enraged at himself, his anger mounting the more he found himself struggling not to go after her, and to hell with all the reasons to stay away.

“And you expect me to believe you were enthralled at first sight? A sight I didn’t even reciprocate?”

“Seems you never looked in the mirror.”

“C’mon...you have tons of gorgeous women littering your path, and I’m not even that. I’m too...androgynous.”

An incredulous laugh burst out of him. “Then I don’t know what that says about me, since you define femininity to me.” Before she ricocheted with another rebuttal, he cut her off. “Aren’t you going to hear my version of what happened?”

“Will you tell me Najeeb or I jumped to conclusions, or some other lameness like that? Don’t bother. I already told you I don’t care. It was just a welcome bit of news that made breaking up with you much easier.”

He had to accept that. It seemed he hadn’t realized how controlling his kind of life had made him, how severely allergic she had been, and still was, to any infringement on her free will. Her distress
had
been acute every time he’d pushed to announce their engagement. She’d kept saying she wanted more private time before their families and their feud infringed on their relationship. It seemed the more he tried to push for moving forward, the more she’d resented his attempts to herd her toward his objective. She would probably have ended it on that account alone. Her discoveries about his subterfuge had just rushed everything to its conclusion.

He patted the space beside him again. “You still need to know my side, just so you know ‘everything’ for real.”

She only flung a dismissing hand at him. “Suit yourself.”

“Thank you, Your Ungraciousness.” He bowed his head mockingly. “So...when my uncle assigned me the mission of sabotaging you and Najeeb, I pounced on it, but only as a pretext to finally approaching you. That alone made me wonder if you might be as dangerous as my uncle believed. After all, how could you be the sweet innocent I thought you to be if you affected
me
this way, when the world’s most lethal seductresses didn’t turn a hair in me? If I was so enthralled from afar, what chance did Najeeb have?”

He
had
approached her, hoping she’d turn out to be nothing like his fantasies and he could end her hold over him. Saving Najeeb would have been incidental.

But from that first night, he’d lost sight of the whole world in her company, then of his own reality in her arms. He’d forgotten who he was and what kind of life he led to the point he’d asked her to marry him.

“But you changed your mind once you were with me, right?”

“When I was with you I
had
no mind. But if anyone gets your reservations back then, it’s me. You had your reasons for shunning marriage, and I had mine.”

Not that his dread had stopped him from wanting to go through with it, from becoming progressively more impatient with her postponements, even when he hadn’t realized they’d been signs of trouble. This obliviousness had been why he’d been so shocked when she’d ended it. Then, after he’d found out why she hadn’t hooked up with Najeeb, she’d disappeared.

He’d turned the world upside down searching for her, to no avail. He’d only found her when she’d resurfaced on her own, following a yearlong humanitarian trek in uncharted areas in South America. He hadn’t let her out of his sight since.

And all the while, he’d been seeking a pretext to go after her again. Now that he’d finally found it, he would get her. She just didn’t know it yet.

He swept her in an aching glance. “But my proposal, as ill-advised as it was,
was
real.” At her disbelieving huff, his lips twisted. “Whatever you think I thought or felt, not even I can feign that much hunger, for that long or at all.”

“But men don’t have to feign anything. Put a willing woman in their bed and that’s all she wrote.”

“Your inexperience with anyone else but me is showing.” He rose, savoring every nuance of her chagrin at being unable to contest his exclusive ownership of her body. “Those indiscriminate men you describe are aroused by the novelty, the challenge. They are notorious for losing...steam quickly when with a familiar body, no matter how tempting. But the more I had you, the more my hunger for you raged. I craved you enough that I would have jumped into an inferno—or even into marriage—to keep you.”

“Then it’s fortunate Najeeb’s revelations pushed me to make the decision I’d been circling for a while, saving us both from a fate worse than hell.”

“I’m just telling you my side. And now that you’ve told me yours, I understand why you walked away. A combination of commitment phobia, resentment and outrage is pretty potent. You were doing what you believed was right for yourself. But that’s your mind. What about your body? How long did it ache in demand for mine? How severe were the withdrawal pangs?”

Something dark and enormous expanded in her eyes.

His heart hammered.
Ya Ullah,
was that...anguish?

The disturbing expression was gone before he could be sure he’d seen it. “I can tell you for a fact that for the next year there was no aching or withdrawal.”

That didn’t sound like a spiteful denial. She meant this.

Could it be she’d walked away at no cost to herself? There’d been no emptiness in her gut and loins, no burning in her senses and skin, needing his assuagement, his completion? Could the love she’d sobbed out loud in pleasure-drenched nights have evaporated so absolutely that not even a remnant of the physical yearning remained?

No. He wouldn’t buy that. She’d melted again at his touch. Her body still proclaimed him its mate and master.

As if to contradict his conviction, she said, “I haven’t had other men since because I was too busy with work, and I’m not the kind for one-night stands. It wasn’t because I was pining for you.”

“If you’d found the intensity of attraction and totality of arousal you had with me, you would have made time. But you wanted that or nothing at all. Sometimes hunger is so vast, nothing but what you crave would fulfill it.” Giving her no chance to back away, he took her in his arms. “I know, because nothing could fulfill my craving but you.”

“Yeah, sure.” She squirmed, only inflaming him more.

He hauled her tighter against him. “Fact is sometimes stranger than fiction. It was as unreal to me as it sounds to you now. This chemistry we share wasn’t only an aphrodisiac, but a mind-altering substance.”

“Sounds like something you wouldn’t want to abuse. So why are you doing this? Or are you just making the best of your ‘mission’ this time, too?’

“This time, it’s all me. How much has Kamal told you?”

Sullenly, she told him. Kamal had only told her the general situation, hadn’t even mentioned him by name. So he now filled in his part of the story, leaving out only that he could abort the hostilities without her marrying him.

She digested everything, inert in his arms, eyes somber. “So you’re going to be king. That’s unexpected. But it also enables you to resolve this without little Aal Masood me.”

Her analytical powers were unerring. As he well knew.

But he couldn’t corroborate her analysis or this was over before it began. “The peace through marriage is what my uncle would agree to.”

“How ironic. I was the only woman he couldn’t abide for his heir, now I’m the only one to serve his purposes.” She pushed away, hard. “He can go to hell, right along with you.”

He hated to play this card, but he’d run out of options. “You once said you would repay me one day.”

That made her go rock still, a world of reproach filling her cognac eyes. “I also said I won’t do that with my life.”

“I’m not asking for your life. Just your hand in marriage. Just your body in my bed.”

A scoff burst from her. “My choice, my future and my body. That just about wraps up what makes up my life.”

He shrugged. “Not really.”

“Oh? What else is there that you’re not laying claim to?”

“Plenty. Your heart, your mind, your soul.” At her immovable glare, he found no recourse but to push. “I
am
collecting my debt now, Jala. It is that imperative.” For him.

Apprehension gradually replaced ire on her exquisite face.

Then she finally exclaimed, “You’re all really going to do something insane if we don’t get married?”

And he seized that first wavering in her resolve, drove his advantage home. “We have to get married. Nobody said we have to
stay
married.”

Five

J
ala couldn’t believe it.

That gargantuan weasel had made her say yes.

He’d used his every weapon, from seduction to logic to cajoling, playing havoc with her vulnerabilities and convictions, making her revoke her edict consigning him to hell.

But then, the situation
was
dire.

From her work in regions festering with conflict, she was too familiar with how wars ignited over much less than the current stakes. In places like their region, where pride and tribalism and other inherited, obsolete conventions still ruled to a great degree beneath the modernized veneer, once blood was spilled, enmities could—and did—rage for centuries.

Kamal and Mohab, damn them both to hell
,
had pegged her accurately. They’d both counted on her inability to stand by and let something like this happen if she could help it. They’d known that after her first shock and outrage, once she realized it was true only she could help, she would.

But she drew the line at marrying Mohab to do it. The best she’d do was agree to a fake engagement.

Yeah, another one. But one she
knew
was fake. She’d go through the motions for the sake of peace.

And that was
huge
of her. Engagements around here were excruciating, rife with maddening customs and obscene intrusions. Wedding preparations made some of the war zones she’d been to look peaceful.

But she’d use those torturous rituals to draw out this charade until treaties were signed. Then she’d bail out.

One thing still had her red-alert sensors clanging, though. The ease with which Mohab had agreed to her terms.

At first, he’d insisted only an actual marriage would appease King Hassan, that they’d have to dispense with an engagement to give him the quick union that would force him from his warpath. He’d suggested a six-month period before separating. According to him, that was enough time to settle all treaties and resolve all disputes.

But when she’d countered with the most she’d agree to, and that he’d have to convince King Hassan to sign the treaties
during
their pseudoengagement, he’d consented with disturbing equanimity.

Suddenly she felt as though a rocket had gone off inside her head. She knew
why
his acquiescence had disturbed her. Because it must have been what that insidious rat had been after all the time!

He must have anticipated her first point-blank refusal. So he’d let her get this out of her system. Being ruthlessly results oriented, he must have known an agreement wouldn’t be a possibility. The best he could expect from this first encounter was to stall her, stop her from leaving Judar and secure any level of cooperation.

So he’d kept applying pressure here so she’d sidestep there, pushed and pulled, kissed and caressed, laid bare secrets, exhumed heartaches, appealed to her ego and seared her senses in a steady barrage. When he’d felt her waver, he’d hit her with a solution that had too high a cost. At this point, he must have projected two outcomes. Since she’d already entered the cooperative zone, either she’d buckle and accept outright, or she’d counter with her own offer, bargaining a lower price. Either way, he’d achieve his objective. Her, here, playing along.

That it was only for now and not for real didn’t bother him. This was only round one to him. Being Machiavellian and a long-term thinker, he most certainly wouldn’t abide by the limits of what she’d granted. And as a master strategist, he had every reason to expect he wouldn’t have to. If he’d gotten her to concede that much in under two hours, he’d probably estimated he’d have her dancing to his tune in two days.

She was now certain he would keep on giving her as much rope as she asked for...and use it to lasso and truss her up.

Consternation bubbled on a stifled shriek. She even stomped her foot. It landed with a damp thud on the sand, not the satisfying bang she’d needed.

Groaning in frustration, her gaze jerked around the four-mile shore. Still alone. At least, apparently so.

But of course she wasn’t alone. Kamal must have given his guards orders to keep out of her sight. He wouldn’t want to infringe on her personal space, aggravating her more than he’d already had.

But there was no doubt dozens of eyes were watching
the
princess of Judar taking a stroll along the shore surrounding the royal palace. She wondered why they’d even bother. No one came within ten miles of the palace or its extensive grounds, by land or by sea. It wasn’t even one of those days when the palace and satellite buildings were open for tourists. The only way someone could target her would be by satellite or long-range missile.

Oh, well. She had known what kind of intrusions she’d signed on for the moment she’d agreed to stay in Judar and play Mohab’s game. The kind that had once had her running to the States and hiding in blessed anonymity and heavenly aloneness.

The first eighteen years of her life here had surely taken their toll. Though she loved her brothers fiercely, her experience in Judar had been the opposite of theirs in every respect. Even if, at the time, they’d just been three of the former king’s multitude of nephews, they’d been everything the region and the royal family valued. Male, magnificent, with personal assets running out of their ears. They’d had every freedom, along with privilege and power, to counter all the responsibilities, expectations and pressures.

While she, the unplanned child her parents had had twelve years after they thought they were done having children, had been a mistake—and a female one at that. To compound her problems, when she’d been only three her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. After a long struggle, when she’d been forced to relinquish Jala’s upbringing to others, she’d died when Jala was ten. Less than a year later, her father, totally destroyed by his wife’s long illness and death, had died, too, leaving Jala to the care of her older brothers, relatives and hired help.

The next years had been a nightmare. Her brothers, while they’d doted on her, had been too busy forging their success to have much time for her. As one who hated to ask for help or attention, she’d never let them know of her dismal state of mind. She’d felt isolated from the royal family, and from her culture, where she’d never felt she fit in.

But as she’d grown older, she’d been progressively more besieged by the restrictions that being female in Judar entailed, compounded by the fact that she had no mother to fend for her. And while she had enough royal status to suffer its downsides, she had enjoyed none of its advantages. Her situation had been further complicated when she’d refused the privileges offered women here, which she considered condescending and sexist, making her an outcast among her peers. By the time she was finished high school, she’d felt she’d do something drastic if she didn’t get away.

Then her maternal aunt’s husband was appointed the ambassador of Judar to the United States. Frantic to make use of this possible ticket out, she’d hounded her brothers until they’d agreed to let her go with their aunt to continue her education there. She’d arrived in the States four months before her eighteenth birthday and had left her aunt’s custody the day after her birthday party.

Seizing on her freedom of choice at once, she’d started fulfilling her lifelong ambition to follow Farooq in his humanitarian relief efforts.

It had been while attending that ill-fated conference in Bidalya that she’d first set eyes on Mohab. And it had been during the ceremony where she’d received her first work-related award that he’d effectively entered her life.

Now he’d reentered it. And she was back in Judar.

And it was all because of him.

Mohab.
Even his name aggravated her right now. His parents had to give him such a lofty one, didn’t they? And he had to be an exasperating bastard and live up to it, didn’t he? Awe-inspiring. Feared. Even frightening. And he’d gone on to be far more. Spellbinding. Overwhelming. Devastating.

Okay. It wasn’t all because of him. This impending war wasn’t of his orchestration. And the cruel twist of fate that made her the king of Judar’s sister, and Mohab the imminent king of Jareer, was also beyond him.

But now she thought of it, another thing was his fault. Their whole confrontation last evening.

After that preemptive opening seduction scene, he’d proceeded to scramble her entrenched belief that she’d just been another body and mission to him, asserting that he’d wanted her for far longer than she’d even thought. He’d claimed he’d monitored her for years, compromised his duty and disregarded his orders for her, craved her so much that he’d proposed for real. And all along, he’d kept pulling her back into mindlessness, as if he’d been unable to keep his passion in check.

Then she’d agreed to play her part and he’d just...stopped. He’d stood by calmly and just let her leave.

Did that mean everything he’d told her had been more manipulation designed to shove her into the slot where he needed her? Then, once he had, he’d just retracted his tentacles and settled back into neutral mode?

That made the most sense. She
had
long ago become reconciled to the fact that a man who’d chosen Mohab’s line of work must be made of a different material than other human beings. To deal with the atrocities he was required to face head-on, he must have long since shut down his basic human emotions. And to fulfill his stealth missions, he must have become an expert at simulating those emotions at will.

But even knowing that, he’d managed to fool her again. He’d anesthetized her judgment and nullified her instincts. She’d actually begun believing his claims and had all but drowned in his passion. His nonexistent passion.

And that was the worst of it all. That after everything that had happened, her senses and responses would forever remain dependent on a mirage. Like Tantalus, she was destined to shrivel up with thirst for an illusion.

What kind of fate was it that always made her his target, his chess piece? Why had fate infected her with this unremitting hunger that nothing had ever eradicated, when he felt none for her, for real, in return? Why, after she’d suppressed it for years until she’d thought she’d been cured, had it taken only his reappearance to drag it out of her depths? And now that the fever had spiked again, how could she subdue it, at least enough to keep on functioning?

A wave of too-familiar dejection crashed over her as she slit her eyes against the brilliant setting sun, suddenly cold to her marrow in the balmy March breeze.

Legs heavy and numb, she started back to the palace. And, in spite of everything, it took her breath all over again.

Anyone looking at it would think it was a historical monument, but she’d attended its inauguration as the new seat of power in Judar just eleven years ago during her late uncle’s rule. It had since become a monument as important as the Taj Mahal, and sure gave that legendary edifice a run for its money. It was still as mind-boggling to her as it had been the first time she’d seen it.

Nestled in an extensively landscaped park and surrounded by silver beaches and emerald waters, it crouched in the middle of the peninsula, its grounds almost covered like a massive starship from beyond the stars. Now in the golden drape of a breathtaking sunset, it felt as if it had been conjured by magic from another realm.

That wasn’t too far from the truth. Thousands of unique talents, all masters of art and architecture, had put this place together. And from what she’d seen of its interior, modern magicians of technology had imbued it with the ultimate in luxury and functionality, too.

Approaching the palace from its shore-facing side took her through street-wide paths paved in earth-colored cobblestones and lined by soaring palm trees and flower beds. She strode through gates, courtyards, pavilions, everything bearing the intricacies and influences of the cultures that had melded together to form Judar. If she’d been in anything approaching a normal frame of mind, she would have savored the magnificence of this place. But now the majesty that surrounded her—and what it signified of her royal connections and their current implications for her life—oppressed her.

Scaling the convex stone steps that converged like a fan from a hundred feet at the bottom to thirty at the top, she gazed up at the massive palace that soared on four levels, echoing every hue of the desert, topped by a complex system of domes covered in mosaics and gold finials.

As she approached the entrance, two footmen in ornate uniforms seemed to materialize out of nowhere to open the twenty-foot mahogany double doors inlaid with gold and silver.

Smiling at them or offering thanks was useless, since they looked firmly ahead, avoiding eye contact. She crossed into the circular columned hall that had to be at least two hundred feet in diameter with a ceiling dome at least half that.

Her gaze swam around the superbly lit sweeping spaces, getting only impressions of neutral color schemes and sumptuous decor and furnishings. Again it felt deserted. Or everyone was giving her space. Which was very welcome. She didn’t want to meet anyone right now, even in passing.

At the end of the hall, she entered an elevator that transported her in seconds to her fourth-floor quarters.

As she entered the expansive three-chambered wing and crossed to the bedroom, the sensory overload of sweet incense and opulence hit her. Yearning for her simple, cozy, two-room American abode twisted inside her like a tornado.

“Oh, you’re here!”

The bright exclamation had her swinging around, almost severing her already compromised balance.

Aliyah. Kamal’s wife and her queen. And a more fitting queen she’d never seen. As a former model, Aliyah was even taller than Jala, but now boasted the lush curves of a woman who’d ripened with the passion of a virile man, and with bearing his son and daughter. Her mahogany hair was in a thick braid over her shoulder, and she was swathed in a floor-length dress the color of her chocolate eyes.

She had Carmen with her. As Farooq’s wife, Carmen was the crown prince’s consort and yet another specimen of feminine gorgeousness, looking like a statuesque Rita Hayworth in her garnet-haired period but with turquoise eyes. Farah, the wife of her second-oldest brother, Shehab, was the only one missing. Shehab called her his Emerald Fairy for her eyes, and in Jala’s opinion he was right all around, and Farah was the most ethereally stunning of the three.