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CHAPTER TWO

ADHAM’S penthouse apartment in Paris’s seventh district wasn’t at all what she’d expected from a man who worked for the High Sheikh. It was patently obvious that he had money of his own, and likely the status to go with it. He was probably a titled man—another sheikh or something. No wonder he’d looked at her as if she was crazy when she’d expected him to collect her things.

That had been mortifying. She hadn’t meant to be rude. It was just that she was used to being served. She’d always devoted the majority of her time to studying, reading, cultivating the kinds of skills her parents deemed necessary for a young woman of fine breeding. None of those skills had included folding her own clothes. Or, in fact, any sort of household labor.

She’d always considered herself an intelligent person; her tutors and her grades had always reinforced that belief. But the realization of what a huge deficit she had in her knowledge made her feel … it made her feel she didn’t know anything worth knowing. Who cared if you knew the maximum depth of the Thames if you didn’t know how to fold your own clothes?

The penthouse didn’t provide her with any more clues about the man who was essentially her captor. Unless he really was as sparse and uncompromising as the surrounding décor. Cold as brushed steel, hard as granite. Arid, like the desert of his homeland. That seemed possible.

She looked around the room, searching for any kind of personal markers. There were no family photographs. The art on the walls was modern, generic—like something you might find in a hotel room. There was no touch of personality, no indication as to who he might be, what he liked. That just reinforced her first theory.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, without turning his focus to her.

“Can I get something besides bread and water?”

“Is that what you think, Isabella? That you’re my captive?”

She swallowed hard, trying to move the knot that had formed in her throat. “Aren’t I?”

Wasn’t she everyone’s captive? A puppet created by her parents and trained to respond to whoever was pulling the strings.

“It depends on how you look at it. If you try to walk out the door I can’t let you. But if you don’t make another escape attempt we can exist together nicely.”

“I believe that makes me a prisoner.”

Her words made no difference to him. It was as though he took a hostage every day of the week. The only change in his facial expression was the compression of his mouth. The scar that ran through his top lip lightened slightly at the pull of his skin, the small flaw in his handsome face only reinforcing the warrior image her mind had created for him.

“Prisoner or not, I was wondering if you might like some dinner. I believe I took you from the hotel before you had a chance to have yours.”

Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that she’d been hungry for a couple of hours now. “I would like some dinner.”

“There is a restaurant nearby. I have them deliver food whenever I’m here. I assume that will be all right for you?”

“I.” Now’s the time to do it … get what you want now or you’ll never have the chance. “Actually, I’d like to have a hamburger.”

His eyebrows lifted. “A hamburger.”

She nodded curtly. “Yes. I’ve never had one. And I’d also like chips. Fries. Whatever you call them. And a soft drink.”

“Seems a simple request for a last meal. I think I can accommodate my captive.” She thought she might have heard a hint of humor in his voice, but it seemed unlikely. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed, then spoke to whoever was on the other end in polished French.

“You speak French?”

He shrugged. “I keep a residence here. It’s practical.”

“Do you speak Italian?” she asked, moving to a sleek black sofa that looked about as soft as marble and sitting gingerly on the edge.

“Only a little. I’m fluent in Arabic, French, English and Mandarin.”

“Mandarin?”

His lips curved slightly in what she assumed might be an attempt at a smile as he settled in the chair across from her. “That’s a long story.”

“I speak Italian, and Latin as well, French, Arabic—obviously English.”

“You’re quite well-educated.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to devote to it.” Books had been her constant companion, either at the family home, or for those brief years she’d gone to an all-girl school in Switzerland. Her imagination had been her respite from the demands that her parents had placed on her. From their constant micro-managing of her actions. In her mind at least she’d been free.

But it hadn’t been enough lately. She’d needed more. An escape. A reality apart from the life she’d led behind the palace walls. Especially if she was expected to go and live behind more walls, to be shut away again. Set apart. Isolated even when surrounded by hundreds of people.

She shivered, cold loneliness filling her chest, her lungs, making her feel as if she was drowning.

“It’s nice to know all those languages when you move in the type of circles my family do. I’ve gotten to practice them with various diplomats and world leaders.” During their frequent trips to Italy they’d always met with politicians, wealthy socialites. The same kind of person, the same sort of conversation. Always supervised. She clenched her fists. “So, what have you used your linguistic skills for?”

Probably for seducing women all over the world …

“They have been a matter of survival for me. In my line of work, understanding the words of the enemy can be a matter of life and death.”

A chill settled over her, goosebumps rising on her arms. “You … that’s happened to you?”

He gave her a hard look, one void of expression, but conveying an intense amount of annoyance over having to carry on this extended conversation with her. “Yes. I am in the service of my country. My king. It’s my job to protect him, and now to protect you.”

The fierce loyalty in Adham’s voice shocked her. She didn’t know if there was anything in the world she felt so much passion for. She’d lived her life by the rules until recently, but she hadn’t followed the rules out of any great love for them. She had just done it. Existed. Her future, her marriage, was a given—her duty to her people. But there was no fire of conviction there.

“Is that why you’re here? To protect me?”

“He trusts you with me. He would not send just any man to search for his fiancée. He was concerned for your safety. And I will protect you. I will bring you back to him.”

“Why is it that everyone seems to think I can’t walk from room to room without someone holding my hand?” Frustration pulled at her, making her feel she might explode.

His jaw tightened. “Because you present yourself in such a way that suggests it.”

“That isn’t fair. I’ve never been given a chance to make my own decisions. It’s assumed I’m incapable.”

“If you show as much maturity in the rest of your life as you have with your decision to run from your duty, I can see why.”

“I’m not running from my duty. I understand what’s expected of me. I even understand why. But I realized something a few weeks ago. I’ve never been alone. Ever. Not really. I’ve always had a security detail following my every move, chaperones making sure I never put a toe out of line, dressers telling me what to wear, teachers telling me what to think—all leading up to a future that was predestined for me and that I have no control over.” Her throat tightened. “I just wanted time. Time to find out who I am.”

A buzzing sound echoed in the room, signaling the arrival of their food. Adham stood and walked to the door, punching in a security code that she assumed allowed the delivery man access. In a few moments Adham returned, holding two bags that looked as if they were packed full of food.

She tried to find some of the optimism she’d felt earlier, when she’d first boarded the train from Italy. She only had this one night of freedom, and a very limited amount tomorrow. There would be a lot of time for her to cry later. And she would. For now she was seizing the moment. She was going to enjoy her dinner. A dinner she had chosen—not the palace dietician.

Adham set the bags on a glass coffee table and opened them. The smell that filled the room made Isabella’s stomach growl more insistently. She lost focus on that, though, as she watched Adham remove the tightly wrapped food from the bag, her eyes transfixed on his hands. They were so masculine, so different from her own. Wide and square, with deep scars marring the golden skin of his knuckles.

What kind of man was he? What had he done to earn so many marks of pain on his body? He’d said he’d been in life-or-death situations. It was clear that he was still alive. Not so clear what had happened to his opponents. Not for the first time she wondered if she should be afraid of him. But she wasn’t. He unsettled her. Made her feel a strange sort of jumpiness, as though she’d had one too many shots of espresso—one of the only vices her parents allowed her.

One thing she knew for certain was that she wanted to be rid of the man. No one had babysat her brother while he’d gone out and had his taste of freedom. No one had doubted he would return to do his duty. She would do what she was meant to do. She’d always known that a love match wasn’t in her future, even before Hassan had been chosen for her. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be kept under lock and key her entire life. A few short weeks was all she’d asked for. A small concession when a lifetime of what amounted to servitude was in her future.

She wasn’t going to think about it now. All she was going to do was enjoy her dinner.

She took the first bite of her burger and closed her eyes, sighing with absolute pleasure. It was much better than she’d even imagined. A literal taste of freedom. She chewed slowly, savoring the experience and everything it represented for her.

Her last meal, he’d called it. He’d been joking, but it was true enough to her. Her first and last night on her own, making her own choices. Except she wasn’t really. He was here.

She blinked back the tears that were forming in her eyes and took another bite. She sighed again, relishing the flavor. Relishing freedom. All she would ever have was a taste, before she was shipped off to marry a man she didn’t know. A man she didn’t love or even have a special attraction to. And she was prepared to do that—had been her entire life. Was prepared to face her duty for the sake of her country. But she’d wanted time out from it all first. She hadn’t thought it was too much to hope for. Apparently it had been.

Now the food felt dry in her mouth and heavy in her stomach.

“Isabella?”

She looked up, and her eyes locked with Adham’s. Being the subject of his intense focus made her insides feel jittery. She didn’t like being on the receiving end of that dark, knowing gaze. It was as if he could see into her, into every private thought and feeling she’d ever had.

She lowered her eyes, staring hard at her food. Anything to keep from showing him just how much he unnerved her. She was used to being at an advantage, used to being royalty and feeling like it. But it didn’t seem to matter to this man at all. There was no deference towards her position, not even the semblance of respect she was used to receiving from strangers by virtue of her status.

“You are thinking hard, Isabella.”

She looked up at him. He flexed his hand, curled it into a fist as if he’d been seized by sudden tension.

“Your emotions are easy to read,” he said finally.

“There are two months until the wedding,” she said, trying to cultivate her best vulnerable expression, trying to appeal to him in some way. If her emotions were easy to read, she would use everything she had. “Two months and ten days. I haven’t gotten to do anything I planned to do. I’ve never been to the cinema, or to a restaurant. I just want … I want something of life—my own life—before I … I get married.” She watched his face, hoping to see some expression of sympathy, a sign he was at least hearing her words. She got nothing but that coal-black impenetrable stare. She could feel the wall between them, feel the distance he’d placed so efficiently between them.

She pressed on, her heart beating faster. “Could you …? Why couldn’t I do some of the things I planned, only with you?”

This at least earned her a small response, in the form of a fractional lift of his eyebrow. “I am not a babysitter, amira.” The Arabic word for princess was tinged with mockery.

“And I’m not a baby.”

“I am here to bring you to your fiancé, and that is where our association begins and ends. After you’ve been to see the Eiffel Tower tomorrow we will fly back to Umarah. You will go to the palace there, and then I will leave you in the capable hands of the High Sheikh.”

“But.” She was stalled by the look on his face, the blank hardness that conveyed both disinterest and contempt with ruthless efficiency. She took another bite of her hamburger and tried not to cry. Not in front of him. She wasn’t going to confirm what he thought—that she was some silly child who didn’t know what was best for her own life.

Although that was half true. She didn’t know. She realized that. How could she possibly know what was best for herself if she had no idea who she really was? She didn’t know her own likes, her own dislikes, her own moral code. She only knew what she’d been told she liked. What she’d been told was best for her. How could she go to a strange country, with customs entirely different from any she was familiar with, marry a man she didn’t know, if she still didn’t know herself? What would be left of her when she was stripped away from everything she knew?

When her surroundings changed, when the people who chose her clothing, dictated her actions changed, she was terrified she might lose herself completely. That was just one reason she needed some time to find out more about herself on her own terms.

Her throat felt tighter. It felt as if everything was closing in on her. The room, her family’s expectations. This was why she’d left in the first place. It was why she couldn’t stay now.

She took a deep breath and made an effort to smile. She had a limited amount of time to form a plan, and she couldn’t sacrifice her head start by tipping him off to what she was thinking.

“I’m tired,” she said. It was true. She was so tired she felt heavy with it. But she didn’t have the luxury of collapsing yet.

“You can sleep in the guest bedroom.” He gestured to a doorway that was situated across the open living room. She put her half-eaten dinner back on the wax paper, sad that she hadn’t been able to enjoy it more, and stood, making a move to grab her pink suitcase.

Adham reached over and put his hand on the suitcase. Over hers. The heat singed her, blazed through her body. It shocked her that his touch could be so hot.

“I’ll get it,” he said, standing. He kept his hand on hers, though and the warm weight was comforting and disturbing at the same time. “That’s called chivalry, not servitude.”

Her face felt warm, and it seemed as if her pulse was beating in her head. “I didn’t know you considered yourself chivalrous.”

His dark eyes clashed with hers. She pulled her hand away, shocked at the steady burn that continued even without his touch.

“Generally speaking, I don’t. Would you like to call your parents? Let them know you have not been kidnapped?”

“No.” She felt mildly guilty for not wanting to speak to them. But she also felt angry. She wasn’t certain she could even speak to her father without everything—all the repressed frustration she felt—flooding out of her. He could have let her have this time—realized how important it was. But he hadn’t.

The slight hitch of his eyebrow let her know that he disapproved. Well, fine. He could handle his parents the way he wanted, and she would handle hers her way.

Adham set the suitcase down just inside the door of the guest bedroom, not placing a foot inside. “I will call them, then. There’s a bathroom just through that door. If you need anything, I will see that you are provided for.”

She tried to force a smile. “When does the jailer make the rounds?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “You think you suffer, Isabella? You’re here in this penthouse and you think yourself in prison? You are to go from being Princess of Turan to Sheikha of Umarah and that seems lacking to you? You are nothing more than a selfish child.”

His words pounded in her head as he turned and walked away. How was it selfish to want some time for herself before she gave it all up for king and country? Sheikh and country? Why was it so wrong for her to want something—anything beyond what had been given to her by her well-meaning handlers? Because that was what it felt like. As though everyone in her life was directing her, guiding her. Forcing her. She knew her place. But she didn’t have to like it. And she was not going to let Adham bring guilt on her head for seizing what little time was available to her.

It was after midnight when Isabella was certain Adham was no longer awake. Waiting had been nearly impossible. She’d been lying in the plush bed, the only thing in the penthouse that wasn’t hard and modern, trying not to give in to the extreme exhaustion she felt. It had been twenty-four hours since she’d last slept, but the high of her escape from her brother’s Italian villa, coupled with her first day of freedom, had been enough to keep her from sleeping on the train and then when she’d gotten into the hotel room.

He had to be asleep by now—and she had to go now, or she wouldn’t have a chance to get far enough ahead of him. Sleep, for her, would have to wait.

She got out from under the covers, still fully dressed down to her shoes, and walked as quietly as she could across the room. She picked her suitcase up and took a deep breath. No point in wasting time. The faster she got out, the better.

She cracked open the bedroom door and scanned the darkened living room. She didn’t see him, and across the way there was no light coming from under his door. She said a quick, silent prayer before making her way to the front door, turning the deadbolts and letting herself out. She closed it silently behind her, and took a moment to catch her breath to calm her raging heartbeat.

Her second escape attempt in as many days.

The hallway suddenly seemed endless, the world extremely open. Her options were timed, but with that time she would grab hold of what freedom she could. And maybe she could find a way to satisfy that yearning ache inside her—that relentless thing that ate at her, made her so conscious of all of the emptiness that just seemed to sit there inside of her.

Other people had their whole lives to figure out what to do about it; their futures stretching wide before them, the unknown an exciting and beautiful thing. She had two months. Her future ended abruptly on Umarahn soil, with a title, expectations, and a husband who would be a total stranger. But she would have her time until then, and it would be her own. Not Hassan’s. Not Adham’s.

Her determination renewed, she walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. In just a few moments she was down on the boulevard, dodging raindrops. Streetlamps reflected off the pooling water. Despite the late hour there were still people milling around, sitting at café tables, standing beneath awnings, talking, laughing, kissing.

It was the real world. And it was finally within reach—along with the keys to her identity.

She began to scan the darkened streets for a taxi. She wasn’t sure where she would take it when she found one, but she had quite a bit of cash on hand, so she imagined she could cover a lot of ground in the space of a few hours.

A hand clamped onto her arm, fingers biting into her flesh like a vice as she was pulled into an alleyway between the penthouse and the boulangerie next to it. She opened her mouth to scream, but one of her attacker’s arms locked like a steel bar across her chest, bringing her tight against a hard, warm body. Her assailant’s other hand clamped over her mouth and stopped her shriek before any sound could emerge.

She looked around wildly, trying to see if any of the people who lingered on the street had seen. No one had. She struggled impotently. The strong body behind her didn’t even move as she kicked and thrashed, spraying muddy water from the puddles into the air, throwing all her weight into her attempt to gain freedom. She might as well have been struggling against solid stone.

“Your manners leave a lot to be desired.” The sound of Adham’s familiar, faintly accented voice made her sag with relief. For a moment.

She swore violently in Italian—very colorful and inappropriate words she’d learned from her brother, muffled by Adham’s hold.

“Will you keep quiet if I remove my hand?” His tone had an edge to it—anger, extreme annoyance, and something else that she couldn’t place.

She nodded, and he let his hand fall away from her mouth but kept his arms around her.

He held her tightly against his solid body. She tried to wiggle out of his hold and his arms tightened, making her extremely conscious of all the hardened muscle of his body. All that finely honed masculinity. For a moment she could only be fascinated by the feel of him, by each and every minute difference between the male and female body.

Her breasts felt heavier, and she could feel her nipples tightening against the silken fabric of her bra. Her pulse beat heavily. In her neck, her head, down to the apex of her thighs.

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” he asked, his voice rough.

No. She truly didn’t. Her body was asking for, craving, more of his touch. But she didn’t have a clue as to why. Why she wanted to lean into his strength rather than struggle against it. Why she wanted his arms to stay locked around her. Why she wanted more of the sweet languor that was spreading through her.

“You’re asking to be killed,” he growled. Clearly he was letting the subject of their mutual attraction drop. “I could have been anyone. You’re walking around out here in the middle of the night with designer luggage. You look as wealthy as you are. Worse, you look as ridiculously naive as you are. You’re asking to be robbed. Or worse.”

“I didn’t … I didn’t think of that.” Logically, she knew crime rates in urban areas were much higher than in the small island nation she was from. But the thought had never crossed her mind. Her only thought had been escaping Adham. She’d set out to prove a point about her ability to look out for herself, and she’d done a spectacular job of not thinking it through.

He turned her so that she was facing him, her arms still pinned tightly to her sides. His hands held her steady, preventing her from running.

“What do you think you’re going to do with all this freedom you seek, Isabella? You have no job, no skills. You are so naive you shouldn’t be allowed to cross the street on your own!”

His words hurt. They hurt because, as much as she hated to acknowledge the truth in them, it was there. He was right. She’d never had a job. She didn’t know how to go about getting one. Or an apartment. She didn’t know how to drive. She had a lot of knowledge, but all that had come from books. She had never had to apply the things she’d learned to anything real or practical.

“I can find something to do,” she said, pushing her reservations to one side.

“With a body like that there will be many men willing to help. For a price.” His eyes raked over her, hot, glittering. There was nothing passive in those black depths—not now. There was only fire.

She struggled against him. “Let go of me.” She needed to get away from him. It wasn’t about the broader scope, the two months of freedom. Now it was all zeroed in on getting out of his hold—away from him and the strange electric feelings that were zinging through her system.

A man who was walking by the alley turned toward them. His expression, barely visible in the light of the lamp he stood under, was concerned.

Adham backed her up a few steps, so that she rested against the brick wall of the boulangerie, and before she could protest his mouth was covering hers, his tongue sliding against the seam of her lips, requesting entry. She gave it.

Her mind was blank of everything but the feeling of his lips on hers. His hands roaming from her hips to her waist, to the swell of her breasts. She gripped his shoulders, steadying herself, grateful for the wall of the building behind her and the wall of his body in front. If not for those things she would have melted into one of the rain puddles at his feet.

He pulled away suddenly, his breathing harsh in the stillness of the night air. Isabella touched her lips, confirming that they were as swollen as they felt.

“What …?” she breathed, unable to speak any more coherently than that.

“It’s Paris,” he bit out. “No one is going to interrupt lovers. Even if they are having a disagreement.”

He took her arm and led her out of the shadows and back toward the main door of his building. Her rage mingled with something else—something hot and dangerous and completely unsettling. She put a hand to her mouth again, to confirm she hadn’t hallucinated the entire event.

When they were back in the building he propelled her into the lift, the doors shut behind them. She couldn’t believe he had done that. Kissed her as though he had every right to touch her, as though he … he had some claim on her. And only to shut her up. Her first kiss had been a diversion.

Worse than all of that, she couldn’t believe the restless ache that was building in her body. The curiosity. The need to know what it would be like to kiss him again. Only this time longer and gentler, slowly so she had time to process it, to learn the texture of his lips, the rhythm of his movements.

She shut that traitorous part of her brain down. He’d had no right to do that. She wore another man’s ring. Even in her wildest fantasies of escape she had never imagined betraying her fiancé in that way. She didn’t know the man. She certainly didn’t love him. But they had a signed agreement, and she had no intention of violating it.

He’d done it to shut her up. That stung her pride. Much more than it should.

“I can’t believe you did that,” she said icily.

He looked at her, his dark eyes unreadable, his lips—lips that had just claimed hers with what had felt like hunger—now pressed into a flat, immovable line. There was no passion there. He was unaffected. A man made of cold, unyielding stone.

“If you learn one thing about me learn this, and learn it quickly,” he said, his voice hard. “I will do whatever it takes to ensure my objective is met. I intend to take you back to Sheikh Hassan, and I will do it.”

She believed him. Her scarred captor with the fathomless eyes was most certainly capable of getting his way. Of seeing that she didn’t get hers. She felt as if she’d stepped into water, expecting a wading pool, only to find she had swum out into the middle of an ocean. Out of her depth didn’t begin to describe it.

She walked from the lift back into the penthouse, and tried not to imagine a barred cell door swinging shut when Adham closed the door behind them.

“How did you know? How did you get down there so fast?”

“I was expecting it. I deal with masterminds, Isabella, one naive princess is not going to pull one over on me. There’s an alarm on the door that’s linked to my mobile phone, and the stairs are faster than the elevator.”

She closed her eyes against mounting anguish, tried to fight the tears that were threatening. She didn’t want to dissolve in front of him. Didn’t want him to see how defeated she felt. How could a man who was allowed to do whatever he wanted, a man who roamed the world, lived by his own rules, possibly understand the preciousness of two months and ten days worth of freedom?

She looked at his hardened face, the scars. Appealing to him for a show of kindness would be like attempting to squeeze water from a rock. It was impossible. You couldn’t extract what wasn’t there.

“Go to bed, Isabella.” His voice was as hard as everything else about him.

She felt as if she was going to break, but she wouldn’t do it in front of him.

She nodded jerkily and stumbled into her bedroom, closing the door behind her with a click.

Adham stalked across the room and retrieved his phone from the coffee table, hitting the speed dial for his brother, not caring what time it was in their home country.

“Salaam, brother,” Adham said curtly.

“Salaam, “ Hassan returned the greeting, his tone questioning. “You’ve found Isabella?”

“I have found your wayward fiancée, as requested.”

“And she is well?”

“She is uninjured, if that’s what you mean. But she did make another escape attempt.”

“She’s unhappy?” His brother sounded genuinely concerned.

“She is a spoiled child. She has no reason to be so discontent. She wants for nothing.”

Hassan sighed heavily into the phone. “I regret that she is reluctant about the marriage. But it’s a much needed alliance, and marriage is the best way to seal such bargains. It is necessary insurance in something so critical.”

“I understand the reason for your union. But I find her childish.”

“You do not think she will make a suitable bride?”

“I will gladly hand her over to you and see that she becomes your problem as quickly as possible.”

Hassan laughed. “You make me eager for her to arrive.” He paused for a moment. “Is there nothing that can be done to make her happy? A gift, perhaps? A ring that is more to her liking?”