Sheikh's Princess Of Convenience

He stopped and steadied her, frowning. “Do I have to carry you?”

She laughed at the thought of it. She was worldly enough to have fooled around with men, but she knew who she was. She had kept her reputation intact along with her virginity for the sake of her family. Maybe even to avoid one more harsh criticism from her mother. The deep-down truth, however, was that she’d never been overcome with enough desire to give her body to anyone.

The compulsion to throw herself into the arms of this man, tonight, was intense enough to unnerve her. A drunk and stupid idea, indeed, but exciting. She didn’t even know his name!

“What were you doing over here? Following me?”

“Same as you.” A muscle in his cheek ticked. “Reflecting.”

“On?”

“Responsibility.”

“How boring. I’m surprised I didn’t find you drunk and facedown in that pool.”

The severity in his expression didn’t ease. His hold on her arm sent glittering sensations through her bloodstream. She ought to shake him off. What would people think if they returned together? Nothing good, that was certain.

Such a remarkable man, though. One she really didn’t want to share with a party full of beautiful women. She wanted him to be hers. To look on her with adoration and desire.

His expression in the moonlight was cool and decidedly intent. Ruthless, even. But there was hunger buried deep beneath his layers of control. Avid male need that she had seen often enough to recognize it. His narrowed eyes focused on her mouth, telling her his speculation was along the same lines as her own.

“Don’t you want to throw caution to the wind sometimes? I do.” She flipped her hair behind her shoulder again. Look at me. Want me. “Malak gets away with it all the time. I’m tired of being the good girl.”

“Are you?” Something in his silky tone and the way he flicked his gaze down her front wound around her like ribbons, exciting and wicked. Tightening and binding, compressing her breaths, yet making her feel free.

“Am I tired? Or a good girl? I’m both.” She thought of her charity work, her carefully cultivated image of kindness and purity, her endless striving to earn her mother’s approval and her stalwart presence beside the men in her life as they took their own self-destructive paths.

All her life, she had tried to be like her mother. They had all thought Queen Namani so perfect, but she hadn’t been. Why should Galila live up to something that was an illusion? Live up to the expectations of a woman who not only hadn’t held herself to such high standards after all but was also dead.

“I’m ready to do what I want.” She pressed herself to his front and lifted her mouth.

“I don’t take advantage of inebriated women,” he said, but with a glance toward the light of the party. His cheeks hollowed, giving his profile a chillingly ruthless appearance. His hands on her arms tightened in some internal struggle.

“I’m not that drunk,” she dismissed in a sultry voice. She was low on inhibition, certainly, but more intoxicated by the excitement he made her feel.

They were in a faraway, unlit corner of the garden, where the scent of roses and herbs, orange blossom and frangipani coated the air, making it feel thick as a blanket around her.

“Kiss me,” she demanded when he hesitated.

His hands almost began to push her away, but he only held her like that, staring into her uplifted face. For three heartbeats that shook the entire world, they stood like that, as he debated and came to a decision.

With a muttered imprecation, he circled his arms around her. His fingers dove into her hair, tilting back her head as his mouth came down to cover hers.

For another pulse of time, that was all it was. One mouth against another while the universe seemed to open itself, leaving her utterly vulnerable yet transfixed by the vast beauty of it.

With a harsh noise in his throat, he dragged his lips across hers. Instantly they were engulfed in a kiss that was beyond anything she had ever experienced. Intimate and passionate. Hot and damp and demanding. A statement of possession but with a quality that swept her into abandoning herself willingly. Joyfully.

The texture of his tongue met her own, boldly erotic. She reacted with a moan and mashed herself into him so hard her breasts hurt, but it felt good, too. The contact assuaged the tips that stung like bites. When he started to ease back, she whimpered and pressed her hand to the cloth covering his head, urging him to continue kissing her with this mad passion. She wanted to feel his hair, taste his skin, strip naked and know the weight of him over her.

She wanted to know how that hard flesh that was pressing against her belly would feel stroking inside her.

With an abrupt move and a ragged hiss of indrawn air, he pulled back. “Not here.”

Had he read her mind? Her body?

“My room,” she whispered, already plotting their discreet path through the halls of the palace.

“Mine,” he stated. She couldn’t tell if it was a preference of location or if he was staking a claim on her. Either way, she let him take her hand and drag her from the garden toward the stairs that led up to the balcony outside the ballroom.

She balked in the shadows at the bottom of the steps. “My lipstick. People will know.”

“I thought you were ready to take control of your own life?”

In the slant of light, she saw a mercilessness curl at the corner of his mouth. He pivoted them a few steps into the shadows beside the wall of the steps.

She was more than ready to give herself to him, but this was her home. Her brother’s wedding. She was the Princess of Khalia. She was sober enough to know that she had to be discreet about having an affair, not parade it through the middle of a state ceremony.

But as her would-be lover pressed her to the stones that had barely cooled in the hours since sundown, she forgot her misgivings. Her hands found the heat of his neck and she parted her lips, moaning as he kissed her again.

He transported her to that place of magic they seemed to create between them.

As she lost herself to his kiss again, he stroked her hip and thigh, urging her to pick up her knee and make space for him between her legs. Cool air grazed her skin as he shifted her skirt up, up and out of the way, touching—

She gasped at the first contact of fingertips against the back of her thigh. Arrows of pleasure shot into her core, making her yearn so badly her eyes grew damp along with her underthings. She arched her neck as he trailed his mouth down her throat.

It was exquisite and joyful and...

Wait.

He was hard where he pressed between her legs, but something was off.

She touched the side of his face, urging him to lift his head. There was heat in his glittering eyes, but it was banked behind a cooler emotion. Something deliberate. His skin might have been flushed with arousal, but his expression was dispassionate.

He wasn’t as involved as she was.

Hurt and unease began to worm through her, but before she could fully react, she heard a gasp and a giggle above them. Someone said a pithy, “Get a room.”

“That’s the princess!” a female voice hissed.

“With who?” She knew that demanding masculine voice. She looked up to see several faces peering down at them over the wall of the balcony, one of them her brother’s. He did not look pleased.

Did her lover release her leg to find a modicum of decorum? Not right away. Not before she caught a dark look of satisfaction in his hard features.

Gaze solely on her, he very slowly eased his hold on her leg so his touch branded into her skin as she lowered her thigh. Humiliation pulsed in her throat, made all the more painful by the way he had gone from passionately excited to...this. Remote. Unaffected. Perhaps even satisfied by her public set down.

Angry and embarrassed as she was, her abdomen still tightened in sensual loss as he drew away from their full-frontal contact, which only added to her mortification.

“You were right,” he said. “We should have gone to your room.”

She had no choice but to take refuge there. Alone and fast.

CHAPTER TWO

GALILA WOKE TO a dull headache, some low-level nausea that was more chagrin than hangover and a demand that she present herself to her brother immediately.

Despite what she would have hoped was a fulfilling wedding night, Zufar was in a foul mood and fifteen minutes in, didn’t seem to be tiring of tearing strips off her.

“You can’t bring that sort of shame down on the palace and think it doesn’t matter.”

“What shame?” she cried, finally allowed a word in edgewise. “A few people saw us kissing. Malak behaves far worse all the time.”

“And you hate it when he gets the attention! You couldn’t put your own silly need to be in the spotlight on hold for one night? The night of my wedding? Is anyone talking about our ceremony or my bride? No. The buzz is all about the fact you were seen behaving like a tart.”

“You’re welcome,” she said with a glance at her manicure. “Because the things they were saying about your marriage to the maid weren’t all that flattering.”

“Mind how you talk to your king, little sister,” he said in a tone that should have terrified, but she refused to take him seriously. It was just the two of them in here and he was behaving like a Neanderthal.

“I don’t know what you want me to do,” she said, throwing up her arms. “I can’t undo it.”

“You could start by promising you’ll show more decorum in future. This shouldn’t even be happening. Why Mother let you go this long without marrying you off to someone who can control you, I will never understand.”

“Can’t you?” she bit out sharply.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“She saw me as competition, Zufar.” It was plain as day.

“Get over yourself, Galila. You are the one who sees everyone as competition. Take heed now. I won’t have you upstaging my queen. You will learn to take a back seat.”

“I wouldn’t—”

They were interrupted by a servant. He entered after a brief but urgent knock and hurried to lean into Zufar’s ear. All Galila caught was “...very insistent...”

Zufar’s expression hardened. “Show him in.” As she turned, Zufar added, “Where do you think you’re going?” He glared at Galila’s attempt to exit.

“I assumed we were done.”

“You wish. No, I have no idea why he insists on speaking to me, but I imagine it concerns you, so you’ll stand here while he does.”

“Who?” She looked to the door the servant had left through.

“Sheikh Karim of Zyria.”

“Is that his name?” She had imagined he was one of their more illustrious guests but hadn’t realized—

Zufar slammed his hand onto his desktop, making her jump. “Do not tell me you didn’t even know the name of the man who had his hand up your skirt.”

She looked to the corner of the ceiling, biting the insides of her cheeks.

“Do you honestly think my life has room for your childish antics?” Zufar demanded.

She started to scowl at him, but he came in. Sheikh Karim of Zyria. He had exchanged his ceremonial garb of last night for a Western-style bespoke suit in slate gray sans headdress.

If possible, he was even more knee-weakeningly handsome. The crisp white of his shirt and blood-red tie suggested a man who commanded any world he occupied. He stole the breath from her body in a psychic punch, utterly overwhelming her.

His gaze spiked into hers as though he’d been waiting to see her again, but before her heart fully absorbed that sensation, he offered a terse nod and turned his attention to her brother, leaving her feeling promptly dismissed and inexplicably bereft.

* * *

After ensuring Princess Galila had indeed retired for the night, Karim had gone to his own guest apartment, somewhat disgusted with himself. He had been telling the truth when he’d claimed not to take advantage of women in a weakened state. He considered himself an honorable man.

But he hadn’t been able to take the chances that she would leak his secret to someone else after her next sip of brandy.

He had been wrestling with his conscience over whether he should seduce this tipsy woman to his room, where he could at least contain her, when she had thrown herself against him in the darkest corner of the garden.

Their kiss had been the most potent drug imaginable, jamming into his veins and bringing him throbbingly alive at the first taste of her. As if he’d been dead for three decades. Existing, yet not seeing or tasting or smelling. Not feeling.

Then, for heart-stopping minutes, he had been resurrected. Sunlight had dawned upon him, shaking him awake from a long freeze. Everything in him had wanted to plunge into that world and never leave it.

Somehow, he had pulled back, much the way any sane man would catch himself before teetering like a crazed addict into a hallucinogenic abyss.

That shockingly intense reaction had been a lesson. One he would heed. Now he knew exactly how dangerous she was. It meant he was now prepared to withstand the power of her effect on him.

He kept telling himself his abominable actions were for honorable ends. He was protecting her family as much as his own. His deliberately public display had worked beautifully to put an end to any inquiries she might have made about the man who had impregnated her mother.

Temporarily.

The rest of his strategy would play out now.

With one brief glance, he took in her suitably demure dove-gray skirt and jacket with a flash of passion-pink blouse beneath. Her hair was rolled into a knot behind her head, but she was every bit as beautiful as she’d been last night, if looking a little haunted around the eyes and pouty around the mouth.

He didn’t allow his gaze to linger, even though the flush on her skin was a sensual reminder of her reaction to him last night. She had worn a similar color when their kisses had sent the pulse in her neck racing against the stroke of his tongue. That response of hers had been as beguiling as the rest, and not something he could allow himself to recollect or he’d embarrass himself.

For the most part, Karim kept his emotions behind a containment wall of indifference. It wasn’t usually so difficult. He’d been doing it his whole life.

Last night, however, this woman had put more than one fracture in his composure. Those tiny cracks had to be sealed before they spread. His reaction to her would be controlled. His command of this situation would be logical and deliberate. Effectual—as all his actions and decisions were throughout his life.

He started by refusing to react with any degree of emotion when her brother offered a blistering, opening attack.

“I expected better of a man in your position, Karim.” Zufar didn’t even rise, lifting only one sneering corner of his mouth. “You should have had the grace to be gone by now.”

“Allow me to make reparation for any harm to your family’s reputation,” Karim said smoothly. “I’ll marry her.”

Galila gasped. “What? I’m not going to marry you.”

Karim flicked a glance to her outraged expression. “Do not tell me you are promised elsewhere.” He had to fight to control his reaction, never having experienced such a punch of possessiveness in his life. He would shed blood.

“No.” She scowled. “But I’m not ready to marry anyone. Certainly not a stranger. Not just because I kissed you. It’s ridiculous!”

“It’s highly practical and a good match.” He had spent much of the night reasoning that out, determined emotions wouldn’t enter into this arrangement. “You’ll see,” he assured her. Her flair of passion could wait for the bedroom.

“I will not see!”

“Quiet.” Zufar held up a hand, rising to his feet.

Galila rushed forward and brushed it down.

“Don’t tell me to be quiet,” she hissed. “I will decide whom I marry. And while it’s a kind offer—” she said in a scathing tone that suggested she found Karim’s proposal anything but, she stared Karim right in the eye as she said emphatically, “No.”

Her crackling heat reached toward him, licking at the walls he forced himself to keep firmly in place.

“Clearly your sister has a mind of her own.” She was the kind of handful he would normally avoid, but greater things were at risk than his preference for a drama-free existence. “Was that the problem with your first bride?” Karim asked Zufar with a blithe kick below the belt. “Is that why she ran off with your brother?”

“What?” Zufar’s voice cracked like a whip, but Karim kept his gaze on his intended bride, watching her flush of temper pale to horror.

“Half brother, I mean,” he corrected himself very casually, despite feeling nothing of the sort. This was high-stakes gambling with a pair of twos he was bluffing into a straight flush.

“Galila.” Zufar’s tone was deadly enough that Karim shifted his attention—and the position of his body—to easily insert himself between the two if necessary.

Incensed as her brother looked, he didn’t look violent. And culpable as Galila grew, she didn’t look scared. She was glaring blame at Karim.

“Why are you doing this?” Her voice was tight and quiet.

“I am in need of a wife. Or so my government takes every opportunity to inform me.” It wasn’t a lie. “You are of suitable... What was the word you used when describing your mother’s lover? Station? Stature. That was it.”

“This goes beyond even your usual nonsense,” Zufar said in a tone graveled with fury. “A moment ago, you didn’t even know his name, yet you talked to him about our family’s most intimate business?”

“I was drunk.” She looked away, cheeks glowing with guilt and shame. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s been a very trying time, Zufar. You know it has. For all of us.”

Zufar’s eyes narrowed on her and his cheeks hollowed, almost as if he might accept that as reason enough for her imprudent behavior.

“Allow me to assure you,” Karim said with scalpel like precision, “that if you agree to our marriage, your family’s secrets will stay between us.”

The siblings stood in thunderous astonishment for a few moments.

“And if I don’t agree to the marriage?” Zufar asked, but Karim could see they both already knew the answer.

“Blackmail?” Galila asked with quiet outrage. “Why would you stoop so low? Why do you have to?” she challenged sharply.

He didn’t. He hadn’t made marriage a priority for a number of reasons, most of them superficial and convenience-related. He was a workaholic who barely had time for his mother, who still very much needed him. Women expected things. Displays of emotion. Intimacy that went beyond the physical.

“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Karim scoffed. “I’ll treat you as gently and carefully as the pretty little bird you are.”

“In a gilded cage? You know, you could ask me to marry you, not trap me into it.”

“Will you marry me?”

“No. I would never have anything to do with someone as calculating and ruthless as you are.”

“You already know me so well, Princess, you’re practically made for me. It certainly seemed that way last night.”

Zufar made a noise of outrage while Galila stomped her foot, blushing deep into her open collar.

“Stop talking about that! There are other women,” Galila insisted. “Pick one.”

“I want you.”

“I won’t do it.”

Karim only swung his attention back toward her brother. “I’ve made it clear what I’m prepared to do to get her.”

“Why? What else do you want?” Zufar flared his nostrils in fury.

Above all, Karim wanted to forestall any speculation about who might be the mysterious man their mother had fallen for. If it became known that Queen Namani’s lover had been his father, King Jamil, the news would not only destroy his mother, but it would rock both kingdoms right down to their foundations. Not to mention what this newly discovered half brother might do with the knowledge.

So Karim only asked, “Is it so remarkable I might want her?”

“You didn’t even introduce yourself. Last night was a setup,” Zufar said.

“Oh, thank you very much,” Galila interjected hotly, but hurt and accusation lingered behind her glossy eyes as she glared at Karim. “I don’t care what you threaten. I’m not some camel you’re trading.”

Karim had given his explanation some thought as he had lain awake last night, having anticipated that Zufar would be a man of intelligence, capable of seeing his sister was being used for reasons that went beyond her obvious charms.

“I’m not the only man who noticed last night that the princess is very beautiful,” he said to Zufar. “She’s unmarried and much is changing in Khalia with you taking your father’s place. An alliance with the sister of the new king could only be an advantage to me.”

“And you think I want to form an alliance with a man of your methods?” Zufar scoffed.

“If I’m married to your sister, yes. I think we will both work toward aligning our countries’ goals. And I believe, in the long run, you’ll appreciate my methods. I’m saving you months of fielding offers from lesser men and having to play politics in refusing them.”

“Such magnanimity,” Zufar said with venom-like sarcasm, adding darkly, “But I can’t refute the logic.”

“Try harder, Zufar,” Galila said scathingly. “Because I won’t marry him and you can’t make me.”

“I’m your king, Galila.” He said it flatly, but not unkindly.

As she tried to stare down her brother, her cross expression slowly faded into something disconcerted. She clearly began to realize what she was up against and grew pale.

“Zufar, you can’t.”

“I am not Mommy and Daddy whom you can manipulate with your crocodile tears. You have stepped way over the line this time. I can’t put this back in the box for you.”

It was tough love in action, something Karim would normally subscribe to, but he sensed genuine distress in the way she reached for a tone of reason, though her voice trembled.

“This isn’t like our parents’ time when everything was arranged and Mommy was promised to Daddy from when she was a girl. We are allowed to marry for love—”

“Did I get the bride I wanted?” Zufar interjected. “The time we are in, Galila, is one where we all have to make sacrifices for the crown of Khalia. You made this bed you’re already half in.” He sent a dark look at Karim. “Whether you were seduced into it or tricked or went there of your own volition.”

Karim didn’t bother explaining that as far as that side of it went, she had been a willing partner. He might not be a man who indulged his passions, but he and Galila certainly hadn’t lacked any. That was the one thing that made him cautious about this arrangement, but that was a worry for a later time, after he got what he wanted.

Which was her.

Even though she looked shattered by his demand for her hand. She visibly shook but found the courage to turn and confront him. “I refuse. Do you understand me?”

“Come,” Karim responded, holding out his hand, almost moved to pity by her anxiety but not enough to change his mind. “It is done.”

“It is not,” she insisted. “I’m going to talk to my father.”

“You should inform him,” Karim agreed. “Do that while I negotiate our marriage contract with your king.”

* * *

Her father offered no help whatsoever. He gave her a halfhearted pat on her cheek, eyes red and weary.

“It’s past time you married. Listen to your brother. He knows what is best for you.”

No, he doesn’t!

Malak didn’t even answer her text. Her friend Amira was gone—seduced into running away with Adir. Galila was jealous of her friend. Amira’s escape might have been dramatic, but at least she wasn’t forced into a marriage she didn’t want.