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And then the survival instinct kicked in. She knew what she had to do. She had to get him matched and married and she had to get out of here. Soon. Because Zayed Fehr was dangerous. If she wasn’t careful, he’d take that too-warm, too-tender spot in her heart and rip it wide-open.
Lavender shadows dappled the courtyard outside her window by the time Rou finished inputting her information. It had taken her far longer than usual to complete the profile, but at last it was done and now the computer program she’d designed would match him with suitable candidates.
She waited while the computer sorted and then put together a list of possibilities. The program gave her thirty. Not bad.
Rou was still reading through the profiles when Manar returned. “His Highness would like to see you. Are you able to receive guests now?”
“Yes, of course,” Rou answered, rising, even as she reached up to touch her hair, thinking only now that perhaps she should have run a comb through it, or freshened herself a little.
But Zayed arrived immediately, and she remained on her feet as he entered the suite.
“I have your first candidates,” she said nervously. “I can print off the profiles and you can study them when you have time, or we could go through them now—”
“It is his plane.” Zayed’s voice was low, rough. “It doesn’t appear there were any survivors.”
Rou slowly sat back down in her chair. “No.”
“The bodies were charred, nearly unrecognizable….” He came to a stop, arms at his sides, and for the first time there was real despair on his face, in his voice. “They have to run tests. They’ve asked for dental records.”
Rou stared at him in mute horror. So it’d come to this. The jet. The remains of the bodies. Sharif’s body. Her mind shuddered in grief, in horror. “His wife,” she whispered.
“Beside herself.”
She bit down into her lower lip, biting hard to keep tears from welling in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he added roughly.
He was sorry? He was apologizing to her? Rou’s eyes filled with tears. Her chest burned with livid emotion, emotion she hadn’t felt in years. “I’m sorry,” she choked, “I’m so sorry for all of you—”
“I have to make this right.”
“Yes, of course.”
“I will make it right.” He walked toward her, crossing the sunken floor, and it wasn’t until he stepped into the light that she realized he was wearing a white robe. She’d never seen him in traditional Sarq dress. “But there isn’t a lot of time. The coronation is in forty-eight hours.”
She looked from the white robe up to his bronze profile. He was recently shaven and his cheekbones jutted high and hard against his skin. “So soon?”
“Can you find me a queen in forty-eight hours?”
Her gaze held his. This wasn’t a moment of celebration, it was a tragedy, a travesty. The whole country would be mourning. Sharif’s family would be mourning. “Perhaps we can find you prospects—”
“No, not prospects. A bride. I told you, I have to be married. There must be an actual ceremony.”
“But how does anyone expect you to marry and become king within two days of learning that your brother is dead?”
He stopped in the middle of the sunken living room, stared down at the bowl of lush, lavish roses. “Kings are not like other men. They sacrifice for the good of their country.”
He leaned down to snap a blossom from the stem and carried it to his nose. “These roses were planted after my sisters died. Sharif created the memorial garden for my parents and when the twelve rosebushes arrived, he dug each of the twelve holes, planting the roses personally.” Zayed lifted his head, looked at Rou. “I must honor my brother. I must serve my country. I must make the transition of power as smooth, as easy as possible. It is the least I can do.”
With the rose still cupped in his palm, Zayed turned to leave, but he paused on the steps. “I will have a printer brought to you and if you could please print off the profiles and bring them with you, we will discuss them later.”
“You don’t wish to look at them now?”
“I have to speak with Khalid. I’ve an emergency cabinet meeting. The press—” He broke off, jaw grinding hard, eyes glittering with unspeakable sorrow. “But I want to see them. I will meet you later.”
“Of course. Anytime.”
He nodded, staring blindly across the room. Silence stretched. Finally he spoke, his voice low and hoarse. “I thought he’d survive. I was sure he’d survive. I was sure …”
She swallowed around the knot filling her throat. “Maybe he did.”
Zayed shot her a sharp look. “You’re just as bad as I am.”
“Until they give you proof …?”
He shook his head, a short savage shake. “I clung to hope before. I won’t do it now. The disappointment is too severe.” He drew a breath, his chest rising, and then exhaled hard. “I’ll meet you for a late dinner. We’ll talk then. Bring the profiles.”
“Okay.”
And then he was gone.
For a moment she sat frozen in place, her mind reeling, her emotions chaotic. Sharif … Zayed … Sarq …
Her eyes burned and her throat felt raw and she didn’t know how long she sat there, but finally, the sound of footsteps in the hall roused her, and she turned as Manar appeared. “Your printer has arrived,” she said in her soft voice.
Rou had forgotten all about the printer, and wasn’t sure Zayed would even remember such a small unimportant detail when he had so much on his mind. But he had.
The printer wasn’t the only equipment that arrived. Zayed had also sent along a copier, another desk and reams of paper. Rou stood aside as the efficient staff assembled an office for her right before her eyes, creating an L-shaped work area for her, and then taping down extension cords onto the stone floor before disappearing.
She could still hear their retreating footsteps when she numbly sat down to print off the first ten profiles, and then she printed the next ten, just in case.
She worked without thinking, without feeling, worked just to stay busy. As she compiled the profiles as they emerged from the printer, her thoughts drifted to a former client, a difficult client. He was an American high-tech billionaire, and he believed first impressions were everything. He hated the first sixty head shots of the first sixty profiles she’d presented—no, no, no—but fell in love with sixty-one. He ended up marrying her and today they had three small children.
With her prep work complete, Rou still had several hours to fill. She took a nap, and then a long bath and after washing her hair she dressed again in the same gray suit she’d worn earlier. She didn’t have many choices, having brought only her small Vienna suitcase with her, but it was a good suit, she told herself, and Zayed wouldn’t care. Zayed wouldn’t even notice what she wore, anyway. To Zayed she was just a thing, an object, like the printer or copier now sitting on the desk.
After blow-drying her hair, Rou twisted it into another simple knot, and then slipped back on the same heels she’d worn in the morning. She applied no makeup; she never wore makeup, and rarely wore jewelry. She’d always prided herself on being sensible and practical, although a little part of her would have loved once—just once—to have been thought beautiful. To have maybe dazzled.
Manar arrived promptly at nine, bowed and asked Rou to come with her. Rou gathered her leather portfolio with the stack of profiles and followed Manar from her suite to a distant wing in the palace.
She was led to a small dining room softly lit by candles on the low table and in the oversize gold chandelier hanging above the table. Large, plump cushions in shades of blue were scattered on the floor around the table and the walls were covered in dark, carved screens. Above the chandelier the ceiling was domed and a dark midnight blue inlaid with bars of gold.
Manar bowed and left her, and Rou wandered around the room, studying the screen’s carvings of birds and flowers.
She’d nearly examined all the screens, and was just moving to the last when she turned her head and discovered Zayed in the doorway watching her.
She hadn’t realized he’d arrived and the surprise quickened her pulse, making her suddenly shy. “I didn’t hear you.”
He entered the room with that stealthy grace of his and in the candlelit room his hair gleamed onyx and his skin a burnished gold. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No. Just a few minutes. I was admiring the screens.”
He glanced at one of the ornate screens. “I like them, too. They’re one of my favorite antiques here in the palace. They’re Moroccan, and date from the sixteenth century. They were used in the harem as room dividers.”
“No wonder they’re so gorgeous,” she said lightly to cover her nervousness. “Beautiful ladies had to be surrounded by beautiful things.”
Zayed took a seat on the plump cushions before the table and gestured for her to join him on a pillow close to his. “Show me what you have.”
She sat carefully but awkwardly on the turquoise silk pillow he’d gestured to and blushed as her skirt rode up on her thighs. The hem wasn’t short but she also wasn’t used to showing a lot of leg, and she tried to hide her legs by opening the portfolio.
“These are the first ten profiles the program has matched you with,” she said, striving to sound brisk and professional. “Altogether I have thirty possibilities for you, but I only brought twenty profiles and you have them batched in groups of ten.”
She handed him the stack of photos with brief bios attached and watched as he silently leafed through them, reading the name, looking at each picture and then skimming the bio. He said nothing until he’d come to the end.
“Nothing?” she asked, prepared to give him the next ten.
“No. I can see there are definitely possibilities.”
“Good.” She tried to sound hearty and happy, but she wasn’t happy. She didn’t like doing this. And it was completely unreasonable, but she didn’t want him to like any of the women.
She wanted him to like her.
Which was horrible. Ridiculous. Impossible.
Impossible, she fiercely reminded herself as he handed the stack of ten back to her.
“Give me your expert opinion,” he said. “Pick out your three favorites from this group. Which are the top three you’d pick for me?”
Her hand shook ever so slightly as she smoothed the pages into a neat stack. “You want me to pick?”
“Three women you think would be perfect for me.”
She looked up at him, her heart thumping, her stomach churning like mad. “I can’t do that.”
His dark gold eyes bored into hers. “Why not?”
“I’m not you.”
“So?”
“I don’t have the same values or tastes. What I like isn’t what you’d like.”
“You don’t know that.”
She flashed back to the wretched e-mail Zayed had written to Sharif, the one where he’d mocked her and said he found her so dull. “Oh, but I do,” she answered, remembering how she’d loved the night of Lady Pippa’s wedding and how she’d enjoyed Zayed’s company immensely, and yet he’d been bored to tears.
Zayed sighed his frustration. “I’m not looking for a love connection, just compatibility.”
“Fine.” Cheeks burning, she flipped through the profiles and selected Jeanette Gardnier, a beautiful brunette French-Canadian law professor; Sarah O’Leary, a stunning redhead journalist from Dublin; and Giselle Sanchez, a golden-brunette corporate banker from Buenos Aires. “There. Three brilliant, strong, successful, independent women. And they’re also all tens. Exceptionally beautiful every one.”
But he didn’t take the profiles. He just looked at her. “Why these women?”
Rou hated how her eyes burned and her throat ached. She hated how this trip had become endless emotion. “They’re what you asked for.”
His brows pulled. “You’re upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Then why won’t you look at me?”
“I don’t need to look at you.”
“You’re near tears,” he said with some surprise.
“Please.” She averted her head, bit her lip, feeling utterly betrayed by her own emotions and weaknesses. She was supposed to be a woman of science. She was supposed to be focused and dedicated to her craft.
Zayed reached out and brushed his fingertip beneath her eye, catching a small single tear. “You’re crying.”
“I’m not.” And yet her chest felt tight and pressure was building behind her eyes. She shouldn’t have come here, shouldn’t have ever agreed to this horrible, awful proposition. She was impervious to men, all men but Zayed Fehr apparently.
He turned the tip of his finger toward her so she could see the tear. “What is this then?”
“It’s a tear.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Her voice sharpened indignantly. “Because I’m sad, that’s why. I am a woman and I do have feelings. And maybe you think I’m a museum or a robot, but I’m not. I never have been.” She shook her head, undone. How could she function like this? How could she think like this? She could only be a cool, controlled, logical scientist if she were in a cool, controlled, logical environment, which this wasn’t. Ever since Zayed had appeared at her hotel in Vancouver she felt pushed and pressed, torn and stressed. It was madness, and it was reckless, and she had never felt so stupid.
“I’ve never said anything to imply that you’re a robot.”
“No, you just think I’m like a museum of science, dull, dull, dull!”
Her words were greeted by silence. Zayed’s eyes narrowed and after a moment he spoke. “You knew?”
She flushed, already regretting her outburst. “Sharif didn’t mean for me to find out. I wish I hadn’t found out.”
“That’s why you hate me so much.”
“You probably thought you were being funny, but it hurt—”
He cut off the rest by reaching for her and covering her mouth with his. Rou stiffened, shocked, and her hands moved to his chest to push him away. And yet his chest felt warm and the broad planes were hard beneath her hands. She could feel the thud of his heartbeat and smell the spice of his skin. The press of her palms turned to something else and she found herself clasping his robe instead.
Zayed’s lips had been gentle until that moment, but as if sensing surrender, his kiss hardened, deepened, moving over hers with a fierceness that left her breathless.
Rou had been kissed, but never like this, never with so much heat or hunger or blatant aggression and her head spun and her senses swam.
The pressure of his mouth parted hers and his tongue flicked slowly at her tingling lower lip before curling inside her warm, soft mouth, tasting, possessing, sending shock waves of hot, sharp, dizzying sensation throughout her body.
This had to stop, she thought woozily, she had to stop it, but her body refused to act. It was feeling too many strange and wonderful things, from her heavy useless limbs to the weakness of her muscles. Even her heart seemed to have slowed, thudding with a maddening tempo, a tempo echoed by the shivers licking her spine and the curling, coiling sensation in her belly.
