Cinderella's Royal Secret

‘And why would I care about that?’ Rafiq asked, stalking lazily into the bedroom as lithe as a panther prowling through the jungle.

‘Because I’ve already had a really horrible day! I’m sitting my final exams and I ran out of time before I could finish the paper, so I might’ve failed,’ Izzy told him flatly.

‘You’re a student?’

Izzy nodded jerkily.

‘Wait next door while I get dressed,’ he instructed. ‘I’ll speak to you then.’

Izzy drew in a quivering breath, deposited her pile of fresh linen on the ottoman at the end of the bed and backed out, the two goons on her heels.

‘Can you cook?’ the guy in the towel asked her abruptly.

Izzy blinked in bewilderment and turned her head. ‘Yes...er...but why?’

‘Later.’ As she was herded into the spacious reception area, the bedroom door thudded shut behind her.

‘You sit there,’ one of the goons told her in a thick accent.

‘I’ll get on with my job,’ Izzy overruled without hesitation, trundling her box of cleaning supplies into the other bathroom to start work.

Why on earth had he asked her if she could cook? Of course, she could cook. Learning had been a necessity with a mother who could barely handle toast without burning it. Both she and Maya had been making meals from an early age. Even her father was handier in the kitchen than her mother was, but she didn’t blame her mother for that failing because in all the ways that mattered in making children feel loved, appreciated and safe, Lucia Campbell excelled, she thought fondly.

She would finish the bathroom, head into the kitchen and then hopefully the bedroom would be free for her to change the bed, she planned, refusing to allow her brain to dwell on what had occurred...that guy, that totally unbelievably, indescribably gorgeous guy. Izzy blinked, shocked and mortified by her brain’s inability to suppress the images still shooting through it on constant repeat. Yes, like any normal woman she noticed attractive men but certainly not to the extent she had noticed bathroom guy, whose wide-shouldered, lean-hipped, long-legged perfection had imprinted on her like ink she couldn’t wash off.

In fact, until that very day she had never realised that a guy in all his half-naked splendour could even appeal to her in such a very physical way. She had truly believed that she was a little cool on that side of things because no previous man had ever sent an embarrassing flush of heat washing through her entire body and welded her attention to him as though there were nothing else but him. There in the midst of her most embarrassing moment she had been wholly mesmerised by those eyes of his, those hard, dark perfect features, that sleek bronzed torso indented with lean muscles that shifted with his every movement, not to mention the fabled V that ran down from his hip bones... Sucking in a steadying breath, Izzy blanked her mind and got on with the cleaning while scolding herself for behaving like a convent schoolgirl who had never seen a real man before.

There she was, an unapologetic feminist being sexist in the most mortifying way, she thought, shamefaced. She had objectified ‘bathroom guy’ in exactly the same way women complained that men did women, without seeing him as a person, an individual. And sheer lust had dug painful claws into her body, her nipples snapping taut, an awareness she had never felt before slicking over every inch of her exposed skin as insidious heat curled up from her core. It had been mind-blowing, terrifying to feel gripped by something that seemed so much stronger than she was. She had never dreamt that sexual attraction could be that powerful or that instantaneous. Way out of control, not at all the sort of thing she had ever expected to feel.

She had always been far too sensible for stuff of that nature, not remotely like Maya, who, for all her genius, remained a romantic dreamer at heart. No, Izzy was a realist and knew very well that such a very good-looking man would never look back at her with the same hunger. She also suspected that he was, very probably, another woman’s husband or boyfriend and guilt at that likelihood made her shudder at his effect on her. He was far too spectacular to be running around on his own, she thought crazily. No, had he belonged to Izzy he wouldn’t have got more than twenty feet from her and he certainly wouldn’t be stepping almost naked out of a shower in front of some random strange woman!

Rafiq strode out of the bedroom in search of his quarry and asked one of his guards where she was.

‘She doesn’t listen to orders,’ he was told.

Rafiq grinned at the sight of her bending over the bath, her peachy bottom twitching as she energetically scrubbed it. He had never gone for really skinny women. He loved curves and softness and femininity. The lush feminine swell of flesh above and below her tiny waist turned him on hard and fast. He checked his watch and lounged in the doorway. ‘So,’ he murmured softly, making her jump nervously and twist round. ‘Can you cook an omelette?’

Rattled at being taken by surprise yet again, Izzy threw back her stiff shoulders, wishing for only the fiftieth time in recent years that she were tall enough to be taken seriously and not so small that she was regularly taken for an adolescent rather than the woman of twenty-one years that she actually was.

‘Yes...but why would you ask me that?’ she asked impatiently as she swung round to be welded to the spot by dark-as-midnight velvet eyes that had remarkable intensity.

Her mouth ran dry. He was lodged in the doorway, rampantly masculine in his infuriatingly complete relaxation.

‘I want you to cook for me. You have an hour before I have to go out to keep my appointment.’

‘Why wouldn’t you just order food in?’ Izzy prompted in wonderment.

‘I don’t eat junk food. I like a freshly cooked meal served in private,’ Rafiq told her, strangely entertained by the new experience of being treated like an equal by someone who clearly had not the smallest suspicion of his true status.

‘I’m only here to clean and change beds,’ Izzy pointed out abstractedly, taken aback by the demand.

‘But I could throw you out of here and complain about your intrusion if I so desired and you could lose your job,’ Rafiq reminded her with silken immediacy. ‘In return for my generosity in overlooking that offence, you could cook lunch for me and everybody will be happy.’

‘Is that so?’ Izzy gasped, shattered by the ease with which that blatant blackmail attempt had emerged from his perfectly shaped lips.

‘And if lunch is good, you can also cook dinner for me this evening and I will pay you handsomely for your services,’ Rafiq completed levelly.

‘How handsome is handsome?’ Izzy pressed tautly.

Rafiq almost laughed at her upward glance of sudden interest. ‘I’m very generous when it’s a question of my comfort and convenience away from home.’

Izzy nodded slowly. ‘So, I’ll cook lunch.’

‘I thought you would argue.’

Izzy rolled her bright blue eyes. ‘Not a chance if you’re offering to pay me and keep quiet about my late arrival here. I’m not too proud to admit that I’m as poor as a church mouse and that when money talks, I listen.’

Rafiq liked her frankness even if he was a little turned off by it. Of course, he was accustomed to gold-diggers with a little more flair at hiding their true natures, the type that admired diamond jewellery, designer clothing or dropped loaded hints to ensure that they benefitted richly from any time they spent in his bed. Yet the minute his thoughts went in that judgmental direction, he was angry with himself. This particular woman was an ordinary woman working in an equally ordinary job to make a living, a person far removed from the polished models and spoiled socialites of his experience. On her terms, money was a basic need to cover real-world expenses like shelter and food and clothing.

‘You said I’ve got an hour?’ Izzy checked, peeling her tunic off up over her head, copper curls bouncing as she went for the challenge. ‘There’s no food here but there’s a supermarket across the street. You’ll have to tell me your likes and dislikes first.’

With difficulty, Rafiq dragged his attention from the bounce of her full breasts beneath her faded tee shirt as she removed the overall. His groin throbbed as though a blowtorch had been turned on him, the hunger, the need almost painful and at that moment he reached a decision. If everything went the way it should, he would take her to his bed and spend the night with her. Cruising clubs for a suitable pickup wasn’t really his thing. Drunken or loud women turned him off. His guards drew attention to him. Photos would be taken. Discretion was always a problem. Conscious that those sapphire-bright eyes were still locked to him with an air of expectancy, Rafiq stopped plotting and replied.

Izzy checked her watch. ‘First, shopping,’ she told him.

‘One of my guards will accompany you,’ Rafiq informed her.

‘That’s really not necessary.’

The dark eyes went cool and hard. ‘I decide what’s necessary around here.’

‘Oh...’ Izzy succumbed to an involuntary grin as if his innate dominance was somehow amusing. ‘Do you want me to call you “sir”?’

Rafiq thought about it since, after all, that was what he was accustomed to in company. Yet, there was something ridiculously refreshing about her playful irreverence. It lightened his mood and stimulated his sense of humour because he had not the slightest doubt that she’d be ‘sir’-ing him all the way if she knew that he was a crown prince.

‘No. You may call me Rafiq,’ he informed her smoothly.

‘Do you live in the UK?’

‘No. I live in Zenara,’ he divulged with greater reluctance.

But Izzy wasn’t even looking at him; she was gathering up her cleaning tools. ‘Never heard of it,’ she told him apologetically.

‘It’s in the Middle East,’ Rafiq felt moved to explain with amusement. ‘I gather you’re not a geography student.’

‘No, I’m doing English. My final year, final exams,’ she burbled with a wince, sidling past him, her hip bumping his. ‘Sorry, but I had better get on with that shopping...’

And just like that Rafiq’s attention was dismissed by a woman. Irritation and surprise and something perilously like pleasure warred within him because a woman had never walked away from him before. No, they always lingered, chatting, flirting, batting eyelashes and desperately trying to hold his interest. She wouldn’t be a pushover, that was for sure, he acknowledged with satisfaction, at that moment loving the prospect of a challenge.

As soon as she crossed the street, a hefty bodyguard at her side, Izzy unfurled her cheap mobile phone and rang her sister, Maya. ‘Well,’ she said cheerfully in a voice laden with sisterly mystery and promise. ‘Have I got a story to tell...’

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M NOT USED to you describing a guy as “hot”,’ Maya complained worriedly. ‘Are you sure you’ll be safe with him in that apartment? Is he the sleazy type? All over you like a rash?’

‘Totally not. I’m not even sure he’s noticed I’m female,’ Izzy burbled, with the phone tucked between her chin and neck as she settled eggs and butter into the trolley, which was being steered by the guard. He had looked at her aghast when she’d thrust it at him. But as far as she was concerned if she was stuck with him, he might as well make himself useful. ‘I was just there in the right place at the right moment when he wanted a cook, and you know we need the money.’

‘Don’t we always?’ Maya sighed. ‘Look, I’m heading home for a couple of nights. Mum has a chest infection and she’ll need help with Matt for a couple of days. It’s not serious but you know how out of breath and tired she gets.’

Izzy nodded while piling vegetables into the trolley for a side salad. ‘Give them my love,’ she urged, cruising by the milk and then the coffee, adding sugar and then condiments, reminding herself that she was returning to a totally empty kitchen while wondering if she should be shopping for dinner ingredients as well. No, for that she would require the official stamp of approval, she decided, because he might be a really picky eater, in fact probably was...for goodness’ sake, who didn’t eat takeout food? Nobody she had ever met.

On the other hand, she had never met anyone who used bodyguards either. What was the security all about? Maybe he was a diamond dealer? A dangerous criminal with a lot of enemies? An assassin on a top-secret government mission? Izzy entertained herself with such colourful ideas while she finished the shopping, anxiously checking her watch because the time limit Rafiq had given her was approaching fast.

It was a relief when the guard pulled out a card to pay at the checkout and, suddenly, she realised why he had been sent with her. Izzy flushed, embarrassed that she had contrived to overlook the reality that she wouldn’t have been able to cover the costs that week because she had had to cut back on shifts while swotting for her finals. Once again Maya was picking up the slack because her earning power was so much greater and Maya had already almost completed her doctorate. Still, Izzy only had one more year of living on a student budget to face, she reminded herself, but, of course, that plan was reliant on her passing her degree at an acceptable level...

There was no sign of Rafiq when she returned to the apartment and whirled around the kitchen like a maniac, quickly discovering the deficiencies of a kitchen space that nobody really expected to see much actual use. And when, rising above those deficiencies, she slid a bowl of side salad and a plate containing a perfect crisp golden omelette down on the table in front of him, she was justifiably proud of her achievement, but it still wasn’t what she would have considered to be an appropriate meal for a powerfully built man who stood at well over six feet tall.

‘You should’ve asked for something more filling,’ she scolded him helplessly. ‘I could have bought sourdough or added potatoes or rice. Of course, maybe you watch your weight or count carbs or something...’

As her flood of speculation dragged to a halt, their eyes collided and for Izzy it was like being speared by a trident. Suddenly her chest was constricted, and she couldn’t breathe and the saliva in her mouth had dried up and her heart was hammering fit to burst.

‘Are there men who count carbs?’ Rafiq asked with sudden interest, utterly ignoring the hovering guard who was supposed to first taste every dish set in front of his Prince and hoping he took the hint that that rule was finally being broken.

‘The bodybuilding ones do. For goodness’ sake, I know men who wear more make-up than I do!’

Deeply entertained by the conversation, because the people he met were usually very careful to steer the dialogue through safe, very conservative and often boring channels calculated not to offend him in any way, Rafiq sent her a flashing smile of appreciation. ‘Sit down and talk to me while I eat,’ he urged.

Taken aback by the suggestion and spellbound by that smile that lit up his lean, darkly handsome face like the sun, Izzy hovered, feeling overheated and oddly boneless as if her knees had somehow lost all necessary contact with her lower legs and feet. ‘Well...er... I was about to make you coffee and you haven’t much time.’

‘Skip the coffee. The water is fine and the omelette is superb,’ Rafiq asserted, leaning back to yank out the dining chair to his right. ‘Sit,’ he said again. ‘Do you realise that I don’t even know your name yet?’

‘Izzy Campbell. Izzy is short for Isabel but I’ve been called Izzy since I was a baby.’ Stiff with indecision, Izzy settled down into the seat. She was so close to him that she could smell him, and he emanated an inexplicably attractive aroma of sandalwood and soap and clean fresh male. For a split second she was tempted to bury her nose in him as if he were a pile of fresh laundry and colour ran up her throat to tinge her cheeks. He affected her in the weirdest ways, she acknowledged ruefully.

‘So, tell me about the men who wear make-up,’ Rafiq encouraged in the humming silence, recognising her discomfiture but spellbound by the strong zing of sexual attraction dancing in the air between them. On her part, it seemed so natural, so real, so utterly unforced and practised.

His lashes were as long and lush as black velvet fringes, Izzy noticed abstractedly as she told him about an acquaintance who, to impress a girl, had had a spray tan done in such a way as to fake the muscle definition he lacked, and Rafiq laughed in seeming astonishment. As well he might, Izzy conceded, when his own body was a masculine work of art, roped with lines of lean, strong muscle and hard abdominal definition. And then she mentioned a good friend who regularly used eyeliner to accentuate his pretty blue eyes.

With a sigh of annoyance, Rafiq checked the time on his phone and thrust away his empty plate. ‘I must leave for my appointment.’

‘You never said where you were going,’ Izzy dared to remark.

‘A business appointment,’ Rafiq lied, because the instant he mentioned the Zenara research facility he was officially opening at the university he too had attended, the game of secrecy and discretion would be blown to the four winds. And once she knew that he was who he was—Zenarian royalty—it might change her, might change the way she behaved and the way she treated him, and he already knew that he didn’t want that to happen.

Springing upright, Rafiq gazed down at her with a flare of scorching gold brightening his eyes as his scrutiny rested a second too long on her full pink lower lip and his imagination went crazy. Long brown fingers clenched hard on the back of the chair he had sat on because it was that much of a challenge not to reach for her and drag her into his arms. But it was too soon for that, way too soon when she wasn’t even flirting with him yet. And if she didn’t flirt, what then? It dawned on Rafiq then that he was too habituated to sure-fire hook-ups in very definite hook-up places and that for the first time he was trying something distinctly different. The realisation unnerved him just a little, for his entire experience of women outside marriage came down to eighteen months and a handful of one-night stands...

‘This evening,’ he breathed huskily, fighting off those uncharacteristic doubts, ‘you will make dinner for us both and you will join me for the meal.’

Her smooth pale brow furrowed. ‘Are you sure you want that?’

‘Yes,’ Rafiq delivered without hesitation. ‘I would enjoy your company.’

Rafiq departed with his guards and Izzy continued to operate on automatic pilot by immediately abandoning the messy kitchen to complete the cleaning tasks she had still to accomplish. She changed the beds, cleaned the en suite bathroom and pulled out the vacuum cleaner and all the time she was fighting off constant feelings about Rafiq’s invitation. It wasn’t a date, it was just what he had called it, ‘company’, she told herself repressively, a totally casual arrangement. Even so, that still meant that he had to be interested in her to some degree, she reasoned. She glanced down at her worn jeans and tee. Did she want to eat with him looking so very obviously shabby? Even so, she didn’t intend to get all dressed up and trowel on the make-up either lest she look madly keen. But, hey, there was nothing wrong with tarting herself up a little...

Izzy walked home at speed to the flat she shared with Maya and rifled frantically through her slender wardrobe before extending her search to her twin’s. Some of Maya’s stuff fitted her, even though Maya was taller and thinner. And it was one of her sister’s dresses that she ended up choosing to wear. After washing her hair in the fastest shower on record, she put on the dress. It was green, stretchy and it hugged her curves but it was rather too long; however, it was the best option she had. At least it wasn’t glittery or too short or too low-necked, which would give her the look of a woman who was trying too hard to impress, she reflected ruefully.

Even if she was trying the hardest she knew how to impress, a little voice prompted in the back of her head. She reddened as she added a little subtle cosmetic enhancement and crammed her feet into a pair of her sister’s shoes. For dinner with a guy that hot, it was normal to make a big effort, she told herself forgivingly.

On the way back to the apartment she was forced to go shopping for the meal. She regretted her reluctance to buy the ingredients earlier because she didn’t have much in her bank account and that reality shrank the range of meals that she could cook. Having settled on a Thai curry, she utilised the pass key she had yet to return and walked into the kitchen.

She had only been there about five minutes before Rafiq strolled in with a bottle of wine in his hand as if he had been awaiting her arrival, which bucked up her self-esteem no end. ‘How was your afternoon?’ he enquired lazily.

And she thought, God bless him, he doesn’t have a clue. It didn’t even cross his mind that she had spent the majority of his absence cleaning the apartment. Izzy simply smiled forgivingly, recognising that he came from a vastly different level of daily life from her own and she was tickled by that revealing question. ‘Nothing special,’ she said quietly, choosing not to embarrass him with an honest response.

‘Let us hope this evening will be different,’ he murmured almost awkwardly, settling the wine down on the counter right in her way where she was dicing vegetables. ‘Where are the glasses?’

Yes, totally clueless, she thought with even stronger amusement, like a guy who had never been in a kitchen in his life. Rafiq was not accustomed to a woman cooking for him and even less accustomed to the working requirements of a kitchen in the midst of the preparation of a meal. She reached into the china cabinet to withdraw wine glasses and set them out for him while trying not to stare at him, because he had dressed down for the occasion. The formal business suit that had fitted him with designer-tailored perfection was gone, replaced with form-fitting denim jeans and a black shirt open at the neck. He still looked amazing. She reckoned he could even have rocked a dustbin bag with that lithe and powerful physique of his and those startling, stunning good looks. She no longer marvelled at her own susceptibility, reckoning that no man would ever provide her with so much temptation. Rafiq was in a class of his own: he was unique.

He poured a foaming golden liquid into the glasses and she squinted at the label on the bottle and her brows flew up. Champagne, the very best! She felt out of her element, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he lounged up against the hob where she was trying to cook, and almost groaned, recognising that she was dealing with a guy who was acting as if he had never been in a working kitchen in his life. It was weirdly cute, him striving to look cool and relaxed when the tension in his stance revealed that he was anything but relaxed and she took pity on him.

‘Why don’t you go and sit down next door while I finish up here?’ Izzy suggested gently as she lifted her glass and sipped.

Rafiq’s wide sensual mouth compressed, a muscle tightening in his strong jaw line. ‘If that is what you want...but it doesn’t seem very sociable to leave you alone.’

‘It’s fine,’ Izzy murmured soothingly, wanting to smooth away the frown etched between his brows. ‘I’ll only be a few minutes.’

‘You look amazing in that dress,’ Rafiq breathed thickly, scanning her shapely figure with a hungry intensity that she could feel.

For an instant that appraisal unnerved her and then that anxious feeling evaporated. Only a few weeks earlier she and her twin had talked about whether or not they were too choosy about men and how uncomfortable, immature and secretive it felt to be the only virgins they knew. They had decided that they were too fussy, too busy holding onto something that that they had got tired of holding onto while everyone else their age moved on into another, seemingly more adult phase of life. When they were teenagers, they had assumed that Mr Perfect would come along, Mr Right, but now they were no longer so naïve about the society they lived in. The men they met weren’t looking for sexual innocence and wouldn’t place any value on it and as a result both of them had reached the conclusion that their restraint was pointless.