Conveniently His Princess

He pressed the Bluetooth button and her voice poured its warmth over the crystal-clear connection.

“Aram, please tell me you’re not working or sleeping.”

He barely caught back a groan. This must be about the party, and he’d hate refusing her to her ears. It was an actual physical pain being unable to give Johara whatever she wanted. Since the moment she’d been born, he’d been a khaatem f’esba’ha, or “a ring on her finger,” as they said in Zohayd. He was lucky that she was part angel or she would have used him as her rattle toy through life.

He prayed she wouldn’t exercise her power over him, make it impossible for him to turn down the invitation again. He was at an all-time low, wasn’t in any condition to be exposed to her and Shaheen’s happiness.

He imbued his voice with the smile that only Johara could generate inside him no matter what. “I’m driving back to the hotel, sweetheart. Are you almost ready for your party?”

“Oh, I am, but...are you already there? If you are, don’t bother. I’ll think of something else.”

He frowned. “What is this all about, Johara?”

Sounding apologetic, she sighed. “There’s a very important file that one of my guests gave me to read, and we’d planned to discuss it at the party. Unfortunately, I forgot it back in my office at Shaheen’s building, and I can’t leave now. So I was wondering if you could go get the file and bring it here to me?” She hesitated. “I’m sorry to take you out of your way and I promise not to try to persuade you to stay at the party, but I can’t trust anyone else with the pass codes to my filing cabinets.”

“You know you can ask me anything at all, anytime.”

“Anything but come to the party, huh?” He started to recite the rehearsed excuse he’d given Shaheen, and she interjected, “But Shaheen told me you did look like you needed an early night, so I totally understand. And it’s not as if I could have enjoyed your company anyway, since we’ve invited a few dozen people and I’ll be flitting all over playing hostess.”

He let out a sigh of relief for her letting him off the hook, looking forward to seeing them yet having the excuse to keep the visit to the brevity he could withstand tonight.

“Tell me what to look for.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Aram was striding across the top floor of Shaheen’s skyscraper.

As he entered Johara’s company headquarters, he frowned. The door to her assistants’ office, which led to hers, was open. Weird.

Deciding that it must have been a rare oversight in their haste to attend Johara and Shaheen’s soiree, he walked in and found the door to his sister’s private office also ajar. Before he could process this new information, a slam reverberated through him.

He froze, his senses on high alert. Not that it took any effort to pinpoint the source of the noise. The racket that followed was unmistakable in direction and nature. Someone was inside Johara’s office and was turning it upside down.

Thief was the first thing that jumped into his mind.

But no. There was no way anyone could have bypassed security. Except someone the guards knew. Maybe one of Johara’s assistants was in there looking for the file she’d asked him for? But she had been clear she hadn’t trusted anyone else with her personal pass codes. So could one of her employees be trying to break into her files?

No, again. He trusted his gut feelings, and he knew Johara had chosen her people well.

Then perhaps someone who worked for Shaheen was trying to steal classified info only she as his wife would be privy to?

Maybe. Calling the guards was the logical next step, anyway. But if he’d jumped to conclusions it could cause unnecessary fright and embarrassment to whomever was inside. He should take a look before he made up his mind how to proceed.

He neared the door in soundless steps, not that the person inside would have heard a marching band. A bulldozer wouldn’t have caused more commotion than that intruder. That alone was just cause to give whomever it was a bit of a scare.

Peeping inside, he primed himself for a confrontation if need be. The next moment, everything in his mind emptied.

It was a woman. Young, slight, wiry. With the thickest mane of hair he’d ever seen flying after her like dark flames as she crashed about Johara’s office. And she didn’t look in the least worried she’d be caught in the act.

Without making a conscious decision, he found himself striding right in.

Then he heard himself saying, “Why don’t you fill me in on what you’re looking for?”

The woman jumped in the air. She was so light, her movement so vertical, so high, it triggered an exaggerated image in his mind of a cartoon character jumping out of her skin in fright. It almost forced a laugh from his lips at its absurdity yet its appropriateness for this brownie.

The laugh dissolved into a smile that hadn’t touched his lips in far too long as she turned to him.

He watched her, feeling as if time was decelerating, like one of those slow-motion movie sequences that signified a momentous event.

He heard himself again, amusement soaking his drawl. “I hear that while searching for something that evidently elusive, two sets of hands and eyes, not to mention two brains, are better than one.”

With his last word, she was facing him. And though her face was a canvas of shock, and he could tell from her shapeless black shirt and pants that the tiny sprite was unarmed, it felt as if he’d gotten a kick in his gut.

And that was before her startled expression faded, before those fierce, dark eyes flayed a layer off his skin and her husky voice burned down his nerve endings.

“I should have known the unfortunate event of tripping into your presence was a territorial hazard around this place. So what brings you to your poor sister’s office while she’s not around? Is no one safe from the raids of The Pirate?”

Two

Aram stared at the slight creature who faced him across the elegant office, radiating the impact of a miniature force of nature, and one thing reverberating through his mind.

She’d recognized him on the spot.

No. More than that. She knew him. At least knew of him.

She’d called him “The Pirate.” The persona, or rather the caricature of him that distasteful tabloids, scorned women and disgruntled business rivals had popularized.

She seemed to be waiting for him to make a comeback to her opening salvo.

A charge of electricity forked up his spine, then all the way up to his lips, spreading them wider. “So I’m The Pirate. And what do you answer to? The Tornado? The Hurricane? You did tear through Johara’s office with the comparative havoc of one. Or do you simply go with The Burglar? A very messy, noisy, reckless one at that?”

She tilted her head, sending her masses of glossy curls tumbling over one slim shoulder. He could swear he heard them tutting in sarcastic vexation that echoed the expression on her elfin face.

It also poured into her voice, its timbre causing something inside his rib cage to rev. “So are you going to stand there like the behemoth that you are blocking my escape route and sucking all oxygen from the room into that ridiculously massive chest of yours, or are you going to give a fellow thief a hand?”

His lips twitched, every word out of hers another zap lashing through his nerves. “Now, how is it fair that I assist you in your heist without even having the privilege of knowing who I’m going to be indicted with when we’re caught? Or are formal introductions not even necessary? Perhaps your spritely self plans on disappearing into the night, leaving me behind to take the fall?”

Her stare froze on him for several long seconds before she suddenly tossed her hair back with a careless hand. “Oh, right...I remember now. Sorry for that. I guess having you materialize behind me like some genie surprised me so much it took me a while to reboot and access my memory banks.”

He blinked, then frowned. Was she the one who’d stopped making sense, or had his mind finally stopped functioning? It had been increasingly glitch riddled of late. He had been teetering on the brink of some breakdown for a long time now, and he’d thought it was only a matter of time before the chasm running through his being became complete.

So had his psyche picked now of all times to hit rock bottom? But why now, when he’d finally found someone to jog him out of his apathy, even if temporarily; someone he actually couldn’t predict?

Maybe he’d blacked out or something, missed something she’d said that would make her last words make sense.

He cleared his throat. “Uh...come again?”

Her fed-up expression deepened. “I momentarily forgot how you got your nickname, and that you continue to live down to it, and then some.”

Though the jump in continuity still baffled him, he went along. “Oh? I’m very much interested in hearing your dissection of my character. Knowing how another criminal mastermind perceives me would no doubt help me perfect my M.O.”

One of those dense, slanting eyebrows rose. “Invoking the code of dishonor among thieves? Sure, why not? I’m charitable like that with fellow crooks.” That obsidian gaze poured mockery over him. “Let’s see. You earned your moniker after building a reputation of treating other sentient beings like commodities to be pillaged then tossed aside once their benefit is depleted. But you reserve an added insult and injury to those who suffer the terrible misfortune of being exposed to you on a personal level, as you reward those hapless people by deleting them from you mind. So, if you’re seeking my counsel about enhancing your performance, my opinion is that you can’t improve on your M.O. of perfectly efficient cruelty.”

Her scathing portrayal was the image that had been painted of him in the business world and by the women he’d kept away by whatever measures necessary.

When his actions had been exaggerated or misinterpreted and that ruthless reputation had begun to be established, he’d never tried to adjust it. On the contrary, he’d let it become entrenched, since that perceived cold-bloodedness did endow him with a power nothing else could. Not to mention that it supplied him with peace of mind he couldn’t have bought if he’d projected a more approachable persona. This one did keep the world at bay.

But the only actual accuracy in her summation was the personal interactions bit. He didn’t crowd his recollections with the mundane details of anyone who hadn’t proved worth his while. Only major incidents remained in his memory—if stripped from any emotional impact they might have had.

But...wait a minute. Inquiring about her identity had triggered this caustic commentary in the first place. Was she obliquely saying that he didn’t remember her, when he should?

That was just not possible. How would he have ever forgotten those eyes that could reduce a man to ashes at thirty paces, or that tongue that could shred him to ribbons, or that wit that could weave those ribbons into the hand basket to send him to hell in?

No way. If he’d ever as much as exchanged a few words with her, not only would he have remembered, he would probably have borne the marks of every one. After mere minutes of being exposed to her, he felt her eyes and tongue had left no part of him unscathed.

And he was loving it.

God, to be reveling in this, he must be sicker than he’d thought of all the fawning he got from everyone else—especially women. Though he knew that had never been for him. During his stint in Zohayd, it had been his exotic looks but mainly his closeness to the royal family that had incited the relentless pursuit of women there. After he’d become a millionaire, then a billionaire... Well, status and wealth were irresistible magnets to almost everyone.

That made being slammed with such downright derision unprecedented. He doubted if he would have accepted it from anyone else, though. But from this enigma, he was outright relishing it.

Wanting to incite even more of her verbal insults, he gave her a bow of mock gratitude. “Your testimony of dishonor honors me, and your maligning warms my stone-cold heart.”

Both her eyebrows shot up this time. “You have one? I thought your species didn’t come equipped with those superfluous organs.”

His grin widened. “I do have a rudimentary thing somewhere.”

“Like an appendix?” A short, derogatory sound purred in the back of her throat. “Something that could be excised and you’d probably function better without? Wonder why you didn’t have it electively removed. It must be festering in there.”

As if compelled, he moved away from the door, needing a closer look at this being he’d never seen the likes of before. He kept drawing nearer as she stood her ground, her glare one that could have stopped an attacking horde.

It only made getting even closer imperative. He stopped only when he was three feet away, peering down at this diminutive woman who was a good foot or more shorter than he was yet feeling as if he was standing nose to nose with an equal.

“Don’t worry,” he finally said, answering her last dig. “There is no reason for surgical intervention. It has long since shriveled and calcified. But thank you from the bottom of my vestigial heart for the concern. And for the counsel. It’s indeed reassuring to have such a merciless authority confirm that I’m doing the wrong thing so right.”

He waited for her ricocheting blitz, anticipation rising. Instead, she seared him with an incinerating glance before seeming to delete him from her mind as she resumed her search.

By now he knew for certain that she wasn’t here to do anything behind Johara’s back. Even when she’d readily engaged him in the “thieves in the night” scenario he’d initiated, and rifling through the very cabinets he himself was here to search...

It suddenly hit him, right in the solar plexus, who this tempest in human form was.

It was her.

Kanza. Kanza Aal Ajmaan.

Unable to blink, to breathe, he stood staring at her as she kept transferring files from the cabinets, plopping them down on Johara’s desk before attacking them with a speed and focus that once again flooded his mind’s eye with images of hilarious cartoon characters. He had no clue how he’d even recognized her. Just as she’d accused him, his memories of the Kanza he’d known over ten years ago had been stripped of any specifics.

All he could recall of the fierce and fearsome teenager she’d been, apart from the caricature he’d painted for Shaheen of her atrocious fashion style and the weird, bordering-on-repulsive things she’d done with her hair and eyes, was that it had felt as if something ancient had been inhabiting that younger-than-her-age body.

A decade later, she still seemed more youthful than her chronological age, yet packed the wallop of this same primal force. But that was where the resemblance ended.

The Mad Hatter and Wicked Witch clothes and makeup and extraterrestrial hair, contact lenses and body paint were gone now. From the nondescript black clothes and the white sneakers that clashed with them, to the face scrubbed clean of any enhancements, to the thick, untamed mahogany tresses that didn’t seem to have met a stylist since he’d last seen her, she had gone all the way in the other direction.

Though in an opposite way to her former self, she was still the antithesis of all the svelte, stylish women who’d ever entered his orbit, starting with her half sisters. Where they’d been overtly feminine and flaunting their assets, she made no effort whatsoever to maximize any attributes she might have. Not that she had much to work with. She was small, almost boyish. The only big thing about her was her hair. And eyes. Those were enormous. Everything else was tiny.

But that was when he analyzed her looks clinically. But when he experienced them with the influence of the being they housed, the spirit that animated them...that was when his entire perception changed. The pattern of her features, the shape of her lips, the sweep of her lashes, the energy of her movements... Everything about her evolved into something totally different, making her something far more interesting than pretty.

Singular. Compelling.

And the most singular and compelling thing about her was those night eyes that had burned to ashes any preformed ideas of what made a woman worthy of a second glance, let alone constant staring.

Though he was still staring after she’d deprived him of their contact, he was glad to be relieved of their all-seeing scrutiny. He needed respite to process finding her here.

How could Shaheen bring her up a couple of weeks ago only for him to stumble on her here of all places when he hadn’t crossed paths with her in ten years? This was too much of a coincidence. Which meant...

It wasn’t one. Johara had set him up.

Another realization hit simultaneously.

Kanza seemed to be here running his same errand. Evidently Johara had set her up, too.

God. He was growing duller by the day. How could he have even thought Shaheen wouldn’t share this with Johara, the woman where half his soul resided? How hadn’t he picked up on Johara’s knowledge or intentions?

Not that those two coconspirators were important now. The only relevant thing here was Kanza.

Had she realized the setup once he’d walked through that door? Was that why she’d reacted so cuttingly to his appearance? Did she take exception to Johara’s matchmaking, and that was her way of telling her, and him, “Hell, no!”?

If this was the truth, then that made her even more interesting than he’d originally thought. It wasn’t conceit, but as Shaheen had said, in the marriage market, he was about as big a catch as an eligible bachelor got. He couldn’t imagine any woman would be averse to the idea of being his wife—if only for his status and wealth. Even his reputation was an irresistible lure in that arena. If women thought they had access, it only made him more of a challenge, a dangerous bad boy each dreamed she’d be the one to tame.

But if Kanza was so immune to his assets, so opposed to exploring his possibility as a groom, that alone made her worthy of in-depth investigation.

Not that he was even considering Shaheen and Johara’s neat little plan. But he was more intrigued by the moment by this...entity they’d gotten it into their minds was perfect for him.

Suddenly, said entity looked up from the files, transfixed him in the crosshairs of her fiercest glare yet. “Don’t just stand there and pose. Come do something more useful than look pretty.” When she saw his eyebrows shoot up, her lips twisted. “What? You take exception to being called pretty?”

He opened his mouth to answer, and her impatient gesture closed it for him, had him hurrying next to her where she foisted a pile of files on him and instructed him to look for the very file Johara had sent him here to retrieve.

Without looking at him, she resumed her search. “I guess pretty is too mild. You have a right to expect more powerful descriptions.”

He gave her engrossed profile a sideways glance. “If I expect anything, it certainly isn’t that.”

She slammed another file shut. “Why not? You have the market of halawah cornered after all.”

Halawah, literally sweetness, was used in Zohayd to describe beauty. That had him turning fully toward her. “Where do you come up with these things that you say?”

She flicked him a fleeting glance, closed another file on a sigh of frustration. “That’s what women in Zohayd used to say about you. Wonder what they’d say now that your halawah is so exacerbated by age it could induce diabetes.”

That had a laugh barking from his depths. “Why, thanks. Being called a diabetes risk is certainly a new spin on my supposed good looks.”

She tsked. “You know damn well how beautiful you are.”

He shook his bemused head at what kept spilling from those dainty lips, compliments with the razor-sharp edges of insults. “No one has accused me of being beautiful before.”

“Probably because everyone is programmed to call men handsome or hunks or at most gorgeous. Well, sorry, buddy. You leave all those adjectives in the dust. You’re all-out beautiful. It’s really quite disgusting.”

“Disgusting!”

“Sickeningly so. The resources you must devote to maximizing your assets and maintaining them at this...level...” She tossed him a gesture that eloquently encompassed him from head to toe. “When your looks aren’t your livelihood, this is an excess that should be punishable by law.”

An incredulous huff escaped him. “It’s surreal to hear you say that when my closest people keep telling me the very opposite—that I’m totally neglecting myself.”

She slanted him a caustic look. “You have people who can bear being close to you? My deepest condolences to them.”

He smiled as if she’d just lavished the most extravagant praise on him. “I’ll make sure to relay your sympathies.”

Another withering glance came his way before she resumed her work. “I’ll give mine directly to Johara. No wonder she’s seemed burdened of late. It must be quite a hardship having you for an only brother in general, not to mention having to see you frequently when she’s here.”

His gaze lengthened on her averted face. Then suddenly everything jolted into place.

Who Kanza really was.

She was the new partner that Johara had been waxing poetic about. Now he replayed the times his sister had raved about the woman who’d taken Johara’s design house from moderate success to household-name status, this financial marketing guru who had never actually been mentioned by name. But he had no doubt now it was Kanza.

Had Johara never brought up her name because she didn’t want to alert him to her intentions, making him resistant to meeting Kanza and predisposed to finding fault with her if he did? If so, then Johara understood him better than Shaheen did, who’d hit him over the head with his intentions and Kanza’s name. That had backfired. Evidently Johara had reeled Shaheen in, telling her husband not to bring up the subject again and that she’d handle everything from that point on, discreetly. And she had.

Another certainty slotted into place. Johara had kept her business partner in the dark about all this for the same reason.

Which meant that Kanza had no clue this meeting wasn’t a coincidence.

The urge to divulge everything about their situation surged from zero to one hundred. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face as the truth of Johara and Shaheen’s machinations sank in and to just stand back and enjoy the fireworks.

He turned to her, the words almost on his lips, when another thought hit him.

What if, once he told her, she became stilted, self-conscious? Or worse, nice? He couldn’t bear the idea that after their invigorating duel of wits, her revitalizing lambasting, she’d suddenly start to sugarcoat her true nature in an attempt to endear herself to him as a potential bride. But worst of all, what if she shut him out completely?

From what he’d found out about her character so far, he’d go with scenario number three as the far more plausible one.

Whichever way this played out, he couldn’t risk spoiling her spontaneity or ending this stimulating interlude.

Deciding to keep this juicy tidbit to himself, he said, “Apart from burdening Johara with my existence, I was actually serious for a change. Everyone I meet tells me I’ve never looked worse. The mirror confirms their opinion.”

“I’ve smacked people upside the head for less, buddy.” She narrowed her eyes at him, as if charting the trajectory of the smack he’d earn if he weren’t careful. “Nothing annoys me more than false modesty, so if you don’t want me to muss that perfectly styled mane of yours, watch it.”

Suddenly it was important for him to settle this with her. “There is no trace of anything false in what I’m saying—modesty or otherwise. I really have been in bad shape and have been getting progressively worse for over a year now.”

This gave her pause for a moment, something like contrition or sympathy coming into her eyes.