Royal Families Vs. Historicals

“Which is why I look out the window to see if I need an umbrella and ask my doorman for the news. Thank you,” she murmured as their wine was poured.

When they were alone, he said, “The story was very compelling. I was about your brothers’ age. Hasna was yours. I couldn’t help feeling invested in the outcome. I suppose the entire world presumed it gave them a stake in your lives.”

The world had presumed a stake in their lives long before her sister was kidnapped. It was one of the reasons her family had been targeted.

She didn’t bother lamenting it aloud. Her family had learned to accept what couldn’t be changed. Identical twin boys born to a French tycoon and his Spanish aristocrat wife had been fairly unremarkable, but when a pair of identical girls had come along six years later, and the four together had won the genetic lottery on good looks, well, the children had become media darlings without being consulted. She had never been Angelique. She was “one of The Sauveterre Twins.”

Which she would never for a moment wish to change. She adored her siblings and wore the designation with pride. It was the attention they relentlessly attracted that exhausted her.

“It’s been fifteen years. I would have thought the fascination would have died down,” she said with a self-deprecating smile.

“With your sister living in seclusion? It only adds to the mystery.” He eyed her as though he wondered if it was a ploy to keep the attention at a fever pitch. “The free exposure can’t be hard on business.”

“You’re wrong,” she said bluntly, amused by the way his expression stiffened at being accused of such a thing. “Discretion is one of the most valuable services we offer our clients. The planning of a maternity gown for the red carpet, for instance, when the pregnancy won’t be announced until closer to the event. Or a wedding gown when the engagement is still confidential. Sometimes the wedding itself is a secret affair. Trella and I live under such tight security it’s fairly easy to extend that amenity to clients.”

She sent a pithy look at the screen beside them.

“Until a tourist wants a selfie with me like I’m a historic fountain. Or a shopkeeper wants instant publicity and posts the brand of toothpaste I prefer. And yes, I know I can stay in and buy online. That’s what Trella does. But I like to be human and walk in the sun, browse shops for housewares and books. Being followed and photographed while doing it is far more nuisance than benefit and just makes poor Maurice’s job harder.”

Kasim flicked his gaze beyond her to where she knew Maurice would have been seated at a table with a sight line on her. He was likely sipping a coffee while awaiting a light meal, gaze monitoring the restaurant’s employees and patrons.

“It’s the reason I don’t date,” she said, noting where he was looking. “Men don’t care to be watched while they attempt to romance a woman.”

“It would be a special predilection, wouldn’t it? One I don’t possess, I’ll admit.”

She had to chuckle at that, relieved he had a sense of humor about it.

“And if I were merely attempting something that had little chance of success, I might be self-conscious,” he added, gaze clashing into hers. “But I’m not.”

Oh.

“You’re a very confident man.” She allowed herself to lean into the fire, to let the heat of his interest warm her cheeks and glow in her eyes. “You come on very strong.”

“I didn’t expect to find you so intriguing.” He held her gaze without actually looking into her eyes. Instead he visually caressed her face, touching her loose hair with his dark gaze. She couldn’t look away as he studied her like she was a painting. “A meeting in your office would have sufficed if you’d been less…impassioned. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever encountered.”

She had expected another compliment on her looks. This was far more disarming. It made her feel like he saw within her, to the real woman inside, the one few noticed or understood. Plus it was an acknowledgment of something she’d had to work on most of her life: being unique from her sister and being comfortable with her own powerful emotions.

If she wasn’t careful, she would be seduced without realizing it. He was very good at it.

“I like your sister, you know. I wouldn’t want to hurt her. She’s delightful.” She waited a beat, deliberate with her timing as she added, “Not much like you at all.”

His mouth twitched and he took a thoughtful sip of his wine. His lashes were so thick and long, they were almost pretty, but he was undeniably masculine as he lifted them to regard her. There was nothing soft in the dangerous air he projected.

She held her breath.

“Feel privileged, Angelique. I’m letting you get away with a lot.”

She bit the inside of her lip, wondering if she should apologize. Was she ruining this little bit of rapport they’d arrived at?

“Hasna is a lovely person,” he agreed. “And you’re right. She and I are opposites. Women lead different lives in our country so they grow up with gentler personalities.” Something about that statement made him briefly pensive. “At least that’s what I’ve always thought made her so tenderhearted and me more practical and assertive.”

“Now you’re not so sure?” She tried to read his inscrutable expression. “Supporting her desire for a love marriage sounds rather sentimental, if you ask me.”

His cheeks hollowed as though he considered his words carefully.

“She was very upset about losing Jamal. I’m not incapable of compassion. I want her to be happy in her marriage and we’ve established that we both wish to protect our sisters from heartache, have we not? Is that how you came to open a fashion house with yours?”

She heard that as the shift in topic it was, which intrigued her because something about the way he was trying to compensate Hasna for their brother’s loss struck her as guilt. Or responsibility, maybe.

Because she was the sensitive, intuitive one. In some ways it was her burden, but she couldn’t deny that she often picked up on things others missed.

“Trella started making her own clothes,” she began, then recalled why. Those early years of recovery had been so brutal. As if the kidnapping hadn’t been traumatic enough, the press had crucified Trella, dubbing her The Fat One among other things.

“It’s not that interesting a story, actually. Just something that both of us enjoyed. We have an artistic flare and work well together so we gave it a shot.”

Trella was actually The Smart One. Her business plan had been excellent. The boys would have underwritten anything she’d proposed, to spoil her and give her something she could control and succeed at, but she had been determined to make her mark on the world in a very specific way. Feminine strength imbued every aspect of Maison des Jumeaux. Angelique was deeply proud to be part of it.

“The press makes a lot of the fact that family money gave us our start, but we’ve paid back the initial loan. I don’t know why it’s important to me that you know that.”

“So I don’t think you’re chasing Sadiq’s money, presumably.”

“No.” She couldn’t help smirking at the way he stiffened every time she contradicted him. “I think it’s because I know you respect women who are ambitious and independent. Isn’t that why you were so adamant Hasna finish school?”

“No.” He waited out the delivery of their appetizers before expanding on his reply. “The more accurate reason is that I didn’t want to give my support too quickly or easily because, in order to broker that deal with my father, I promised that my own marriage would be an arranged one. With a suitable bride from my own country, one he could choose. You understand why I’m telling you that.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“THAT’S QUITE A SACRIFICE.” Angelique’s eyelids shimmered with golden tones, shielding her thoughts.

“It’s duty. My father is not what anyone would call progressive. I have visions of a modern Zhamair. It would be good for our people, but I will never be given the chance to steer it that way if I don’t play by his rules. My uncle would be more than happy to accept the crown if my father decided I was too liberal. My uncle is even more of a throwback than my father. So I have agreed to my father’s condition. But I’m not in a hurry to give up my freedom.”

He let himself admire her smooth skin with its warm glow, her mouth gently pouted in thought. Their kiss was still branding a permanent pattern into his memories—exactly the sort of freedom he was loathe to relinquish by tying himself down.

“You intend to be faithful to your wife, then, once you’re married?”

“Certainly until heirs have been established. After that…” He scratched beneath his chin. “My father has two wives. I have not observed having more than one woman coming to your bed to be as idyllic as it sounds.”

Her lashes came up, gaze curious as all Westerners were when he mentioned it. “Jealousy?” she guessed.

“How did you know?” Kasim said drily.

He privately thought the polygamy was the reason his father was so ferociously implacable, refusing to evolve with the times or even hold a rational conversation. He consistently asserted his will and slammed doors on further discussion. If he didn’t control every aspect of his life with an iron fist, his wives might tear him in two.

That emotional turmoil bleeding all over his childhood was the reason Kasim had grown such a thick shield of detachment. How else could he have withstood the helpless agony of witnessing his brother’s struggle? How else could he have been ruthless enough to end it? Taken altogether, it was the reason he was just as happy to marry a stranger. Love provoked madness and pain of every variety.

“Was your father’s marriage to the queen an arranged one?”

“It was.” He knew where she was going with that. “And it was a contented one until he brought Fatina into it. Which is why I don’t intend to do anything similar.”

“Because you want to rule,” she murmured, gaze narrowed as she weighed that.

“That concern you feel for your sister’s well-being? That’s how I feel for my entire nation,” he explained quietly.

He had never put it in so many words. As her lashes widened at the magnitude of what he was saying, he experienced a lurch in his heart. He had always thought of it as a goal, not a sacrifice. Suddenly he saw it differently.

“None of us are in a hurry to marry,” Angelique mused, dropping her gaze again. “We’re a tight bunch, my siblings and I. Letting someone into my life means opening all our lives. That demands a lot of trust and we’ve all been stung at least once, so we’re all wary. It’s why I don’t even bother with affairs anymore, contrary to reports online.” She flashed him an admonishing look. “Don’t you dare say that if I don’t have affairs, it should be a treat to spend a night with you.”

“Oh, I’m starting to see the honor will be all mine.” He meant it. Everything she had shared pointed to a woman who lived within her own restrictions. No wonder she had exploded in his arms. She was a powder keg of suppressed passion.

She sputtered with laughter, shaking her head. “You are an incredibly arrogant man.”

“There is an expression, isn’t there? About a kettle and a pot?”

“I’m not arrogant.” She dismissed that with a shake of her loose hair and a haughty elevation of her chin.

“You are,” he assured her. It was as captivating as the rest of her.

“No.” She looked him right in the eye. “My sister is the brash one. Deep down.” Her irises reflected the candlelight between them, mesmerizing as the glow of a fire in the blackest night in the desert. Tears gathered to brim her lashes. “I pretend to be.”

She blinked to clear the wetness and her eyes widened with forced lightness.

“I am her and she is me. At least, that’s how it feels sometimes. Can we talk about something else?”

“I wasn’t talking about her. I was talking you into my bed,” he pointed out, made cautious by that moment of acute vulnerability. Was it concern for her sister? Or an indication of a deeper sensitivity in her personality?

He recoiled inwardly from that. He had enough emotional drama in his life. He needed her to come to this with as light a heart as he had.

“I want you,” he stressed. “What will that take, Angelique? Reassurances about your security? I see you’ve changed your necklace. Is that one rigged?” He winced as he recalled her talk of suitors having to tolerate being constantly under observation. “We’re not being recorded, are we?”

“No. This one requires two hands to twist and set it off.” She ran the teardrop pearl back and forth on its chain. “So I rarely wear it. In terms of physical safety, I have no concerns about being alone with you. I’m not even worried you would write a tell-all afterward.”

“The sting you mentioned? A man did that to you?”

“One did. You can find him living under a false name in whichever Eastern European slum men use to hide when they’ve been financially ruined by defamation litigation and threatened with castration.”

“Your brothers went after him?”

“I went after him,” she said crossly. “Give me credit.”

“Is that a warning? I would never do such a thing,” he promised her. “I may be nonchalant about spending the night with a woman, but I don’t degrade myself or my partner. You can be assured of my discretion.”

Her shoulder hitched in acceptance, but she wore her Mona Lisa expression.

“You’re resisting temptation. Why?”

He reached across to take her hand in his, cradling her knuckles in his palm. He used his thumb to catch at hers, pressing her hand open so he held the heel of her palm gently arched open to his touch. He smoothed his thumb to the inside of her wrist, pleased to find her pulse unsteady and fast.

“Is it because it’s only one night?”

“No,” she said softly. “That’s actually a plus. Like I said, I don’t fit others into my life very well.”

“If you weren’t reacting to me, I would finish our meal and send you home, but I can see your struggle against your own feelings. What’s holding you back then? You clearly want to.”

He caressed that sensitive area at the base of her hand, where a former lover had once told him life and fate lines had their root. That’s why it’s such a sensitive place on a woman’s body, she’d said.

Angelique caught her breath.

He didn’t believe in the supernatural, but he did believe in nature’s ability to create sexual compatibility. That sort of gift should be relished when it was offered.

“My room is just down the hall. Anyone who sees us leave the restaurant will think we’re going to the elevators.”

He lifted her hand and pressed his lips into her life, into her fate, as he tasted and grew drunk with anticipation.

* * *

Oh, he was good.

Her pulse went mad under the brush of his lips and she had to concentrate to draw a breath.

“I told myself I was only coming out to prove to you I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

“To scare me off? I don’t scare.”

I do, she wanted to say. She wanted to go to his room so badly it terrified her. And she didn’t understand why this want sat like a hook in the middle of her chest, pulling her toward him with a painful sting behind her breastbone. She didn’t know how to handle any of this because she wasn’t the bold, confident one.

What would Trella do?

It was a habitual thought, one that harked way back to her earliest years when her sister had been the one to stride eagerly forward while Angelique hung back.

She brushed aside thoughts of Trella. She shared almost everything with her twin, but not this. Not him.

That was what scared her. Who was she if not Trella’s other half?

An internal tearing sensation made her touch her chest. She immediately felt the beading on her dress and wondered why she had worn Trella’s creation. Armor, she supposed, but this wasn’t about Trella. That was what made this situation so starkly unique and put her at such a loss.

In this moment she was only Angelique. Except she didn’t know what Angelique would do in a situation like this. Her other lovers had wanted one of The Sauveterre Twins and the fame or influence or bragging rights that came with it. She had gone with them hoping for a feeling of fulfillment, but had never found it.

Kasim wanted her. That’s what made him so irresistible.

And she had a feeling this would be more than fulfilling. Profound. Maybe life-altering.

Which was terrifying in its own way, seeing as it was only for one night, but if she refused him out of fear, she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life.

* * *

The lights were set low in the opulent suite. Champagne chilled in a bucket next to an intimately set table overlooking the Eiffel Tower. The muted notes of a French jazz trio coated the air with a sexy moan of a saxophone, subtle bass strings and a brush on a drum.

Angelique was walking into a setup and wasn’t even sure how she had arrived here. It felt like she had floated. There had been a conversation with Maurice, who had escorted them down the hall. She had instructed him to go back and finish his own meal and put theirs on hold. Charles, her second guard, stood post at the door of the suite. He had assured her as she entered that he had inspected and secured these rooms prior to her arriving at the restaurant and had been at this door ever since.

They were very mundane details that were decidedly unromantic, but they had each been one of the many tiny steps that had carried her toward this moment.

“I am fascinated with this dress,” Kasim said, picking up her hand and carrying it over her head, urging her to twirl very slowly before him. “It is a work of art. I’m afraid to touch it.” He lowered her hand, but kept it in his, so they were facing one another. “But I want to touch you.”

His words made her heart stutter. She tugged free of his grip and walked to an end table where she set down her pocketbook.

“I’m not used to being touched.”

“I’m not going to chase you through these rooms, Angelique. If you’ve changed your mind, say so.”

She turned to face him. “I haven’t. I’m just nervous.”

“Don’t be. I won’t rush you.”

He didn’t have to. She was rushing herself, not ignoring misgivings so much as refusing to give in to the natural hesitation that had held her back one way or another most of her life. If her sister hadn’t pressed her toward this fashion house idea, she never would have had the nerve.

So part of her was saying, Don’t be impulsive. But the truth was, this moment had been brewing since their kiss this afternoon.

This was why she had come to dinner with him. She was a person of deep feeling and what he made her feel was too strong to resist. She had never felt so much like herself as she did with this man.

But she wanted to be herself. She wanted him to want Angelique.

She lowered the zip on the back of her dress, slowly drawing the shoulders down her arms and very carefully stepping out of it without letting the skirt brush the floor.

Kasim’s inhale was audible over the quiet music, sounding as a long, sharp hiss.

“You, however…” he said in a rasp. “Seem in a big hurry.”

“You said you were afraid to touch it.” Avoiding looking at him, she took great care with folding the dress in half lengthwise, then gently set it on the arm of the wingback chair.

She was naked except for her high silver shoes and a pair of lavender cheekies that cut a wide swath of lace across her hips and the top half of her buttocks. She had done enough quick changes backstage alongside half-naked models that she wasn’t particularly self-conscious.

Nevertheless, it was intimidating to turn and face him. At the same time, it was a rebirth of sorts, standing there naked and vulnerable. Tears flew into her eyes at the significance of shedding the shield of her sister and being only Angelique.

Would he like her?

“What’s this?” Kasim murmured, coming forward to cup her face and make her meet his gaze with her wet one.

“I don’t often let myself be.” Life was far easier when she kept her thoughts on the future or her sister or a piece of fabric. Allowing the moment to coalesce around her, so she experienced the full spectrum of emotions he provoked—impatience and sexual yearning, uncertainty and deep attraction—it was huge and scary.

She smoothed her hand down the lapel of his suit jacket, then warily looked up at him, fearful of what she might find in his gaze.

What she saw made the ground fall away beneath her feet.

His eyes were hungry and fierce, but there was something tender there, too.

“I’ll take care of you,” he promised in a low growl, then dipped his head to kiss her.

She started slightly as his arms went around her and a jolt of such acute pleasure went through her it was almost like a shock of electricity.

He paused briefly, gentled his kiss. Then, as she pressed into him, encouraging him to continue, he deepened it, sweet yet powerful, making her knees weaken.

They quietly consumed one another. She speared her fingers into his hair and met his tongue with her own and let herself flow wholly into the kiss.

Releasing a jagged noise, he pulled away and threw off his jacket. Yanked at the buttons on his shirt. “Damn you for being so far ahead of me. You do this.”

He left his shirt open but tucked in and set his hands on her bare waist, capturing her lips with his as he ran his hands around to her lower back, making her shiver then melt as he molded her closer. They were chest to chest, hot dry skin to hot hairy chest.

A sob of broken pleasure escaped her. More. She needed more of him, and pushed at his shirt, smoothing her hands over the powerful shape of his shoulders. With a brief pull back, she yanked his shirt free of his pants, then they were embracing again, her hands free to steal beneath the hanging tails of his shirt to caress the warmth of his flexing back.

Skin. Lips. A cold belt buckle against her bare stomach and a hard shape behind his fly that made her both nervous and excited. She had never abandoned herself to desire, had never allowed herself to be so vulnerable, but she didn’t have a choice. Time stopped. All she knew was the feel of him stroking her skin, pressing her closer, fondling her breast then looking at where her nipple stabbed at his palm.

He bent and covered the tight bead with his hot mouth, tongue playing in a way that had her shuddering as ripples of pure delight went straight down her middle to pool in her loins. When he moved to the other one, she ran her hands through his hair, loving the feel of the soft spiky strands between her fingers, and spoke his name like an endearment.

A moment later, he dropped to his knees, taking her underpants as he went and leaving them twisted on her shoes as he stroked his hands up and down her thighs, gaze so hot on the flesh he had bared that she felt it. Her inner muscles tightened and a press of moisture wet her lower lips in anticipation.

She closed her eyes, blocking out anything but the sensation of his light touch, so delicate she barely felt the caress at first, but she was so sensitive it took nothing but the graze of a fingertip to make her throb.

Her breath rasped over the music. He stole one taste and she fisted her hand in his hair. Her stomach muscles knotted with excited need.

His caress deepened and she sobbed as glittering sensations poured through her. Her knees wanted to collapse, but she held very still as his lovemaking intensified and her arousal doubled upon itself until she was saying his name over and over, pushing her hips in an erotic rhythm and she was dying, dying, because it was so good.

Climax arrived as a wave of pleasure that had her tipping back her head to release her cry of joy toward the ceiling, body shuddering, hard hands on her hips the only way she remained standing.

“Your guards might have heard that,” he said with smug lust, rising before her.