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Yes, last night she’d spoken to him about avoidance. And then he’d tried to intimidate her by reminding her whose country she was in. But she wasn’t easily intimidated. She’d spent her life surrounded by strong men, holding her own against a father who expected the worst and never praised her for her best. She always had to show strength.
She would never inherit the throne of Austrich. She was a woman, and for some reason, her lack of male member made her ineligible. But she was involved in the politics of her country, and she did not have a reputation as a shrinking violet. She didn’t avoid conflict. She faced them head-on. And right now, she was looking for the tall, muscular conflict she’d tangled with the night before.
She looked into a couple of empty rooms before pushing open a door that revealed what could have been a modern, state-of-the-art gym. A lap pool, every sort of exercise equipment anyone could ever want.
And there was Zahir. Flat on his back on a weight bench, his breath hissing between his teeth as he pressed two massive dumbbells up over his chest.
She crossed the room tentatively, her mouth dropping open slightly at the sight of his body. Every muscle was chiseled, as though it were carved into rock, the only sign it could possibly be part of a real man, and not a statue, was the bunching and shifting that happened with each breath and movement.
Golden skin, some smooth and perfect, some ravaged by injuries, all of it fascinating. Unlike any man she’d ever seen.
She blinked and took a sharp breath. “Aren’t you supposed to have a spotter or … something?”
He stopped midmotion and swung his legs over the side of the bench, sitting up quickly, his ab muscles putting on a show with the swift motion. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to find you.”
“What made you think that would be well received?”
“I didn’t really think it would be,” she said, fighting to keep her eyes on his face. She traced the scars on his cheek with her eyes, hoping it would keep her mind off his naked chest. “It didn’t really bother me.”
The tendons in his neck stood out, a muscle in his jaw jumping. “It wouldn’t.”
Her eyes drifted lower. “No … I … well, that’s not really the point … I … “
“Seen enough?” He voiced the question in a near growl.
Her eyes flew back to his face. His expression was cold. Closed. His lip curled into a sneer.
“Yes,” she said, feeling heat creep into her face. It wasn’t that she’d never ogled a man before. But they weren’t usually this naked, and she’d never been caught. Or at least, the men in question had been too polite to say, because she was a princess after all. Zahir didn’t seem to care.
He bent over and picked up a white T-shirt from the floor, his fingers trembling slightly as he held it out. And then her eyes were drawn to an intricate web of scar tissue, places where she knew he’d been hit with shrapnel, burned by fire, and her stomach tightened.
He pulled the shirt on and covered her guilty pleasure and the pain that was threatening to steal every last rational thought from her head.
“I thought you might show me around a little bit today,” she said. She hadn’t thought any such thing but now she had to say something because it was awkward.
“You thought wrong, latifa. I have work to do.”
“What sort of work?”
“The kind rulers do—you must know something of that.”
“Truly, not so much. The royal family makes appearances, and gives speeches.” It was a lie. She did a lot. Organized charities, budgets, fundraisers, and yet, it was what he seemed to think of her.
“Ignorance isn’t your color,” he said.
“Got me there,” she shot back.
“I thought I might.”
“I think we need to go over the original agreement drawn up by our fathers and make any alterations we see fit,” she said.
“Do you?”
“Better now than after the vows, don’t you think?”
“Are you always like this?” he asked.
“Yes. I’ve been told I’m impossible to deal with. I’m okay with that, actually, because I usually get my way.” In some circles anyway.
He made a sound, short and harsh, that might have been a laugh. “I imagine you have your ways of making sure your needs are met.”
She frowned. “If you’re implying what I think you were, don’t. I don’t use my body to get what I want. I use my mind. Or were you not aware that women were capable of that?”
“I wasn’t making a commentary on women, only on you.”
“Well, I don’t like the commentary.”
“I’ve been told I’m impossible to deal with,” he said, repeating her earlier words back.
“I’m imagining that’s very true.”
“I always get my way,” he said, turning away from her.
He was so broad. His shoulders, his back. All the better to carry the weight of the world on them. And he did. She sensed that. Mostly because she felt like she did, too, sometimes.
“I promise you can get back to the business of ignoring me … after we go over the agreement. And after you give me a tour of the grounds because I’m tired of feeling like I’m lost.”
He wanted her gone. That much was clear. But she was committed. To seeing this through, to doing the best she could.
To proving she could do this.
“I’ll go shower and I’ll meet you in my office.” He strode across the gym, headed to the shower, she supposed. He would uncover that amazing body again. For a moment she let herself envision it. Just for a moment.
“I’ll see you there,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice just how delayed her response was.
The woman didn’t take hints well. When he walked into his office, she was there, perched in the chair adjacent to his desk, her posture perfect, her legs crossed at those dainty ankles of hers. She didn’t wear nylons, though. Her legs were bare.
That stuck out to him. Mostly because it was rare for a woman in her position. But then, it was much hotter here than it was in Austrich. It could also account for what seemed to be a wardrobe entirely populated by brief, fitted dresses. All very modest in the technical sense, but showing just enough to light his imagination on fire.
It would almost have been better if she’d been dressed in something completely transparent. At least then the mysteries would be solved. If she was as pale and smooth all over as she looked, how full and round her breasts were without the aid of undergarments … important questions that were now overtaking his brain.
If he had known that all it would take was the presence of a woman to reawaken his hibernating sex drive he might have brought one in a long time ago.
To what end? To treat her to a front row show of your inner demons? To watch her run away screaming?
Like Amarah had done.
He couldn’t even blame her. He might be edging into beast territory now, but then … just after the attack … he had been nothing short of a monster.
He pushed all thoughts of Katharine’s body to the side and chose instead to embrace the extreme annoyance, the muscle-clenching tension that crowded in on him when she was around.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said.
“Like what?” He rounded his desk and sat in the plush leather chair that was positioned behind it. It was too short for him. Made for another man. His brother. He had never replaced it.
“Like you’re shocked to see me here. I said I’d meet you here to discuss the agreement, and I am. It’s complicated stuff. With my father’s history of health problems there has always been the chance that whoever I married would have to stand in as Regent until Alexander reaches age, and that was, of course, taken into account when Malik was selected to be my … “
“Let me see.” He held out his hand, palm up, and she produced a folded stack of papers, placing them in his hand.
He skimmed the documents. Most of the information pertained to the marriage. Heirs. Alliances and trade agreements. Toward the end was the section talking about what might happen if the king died prior to his heir coming of age.
“The decision-making power is yours. I don’t want it,” he said. “Write that in.” He pointed to the spot.
She blinked rapidly, looking a bit like a stunned owl for a moment before shaking her head and leaning forward in her chair. “I can’t. Not without bringing it to parliament. And I would need my father’s permission and I … I don’t think you’ll get it.”
“Is he too ill to hold a pen?”
Color crept up her neck, into her cheeks. “He would rather have the power rest with you.”
“He doesn’t trust you?”
She sucked in a breath, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “Well, I’m a woman.”
“I fail to see why that should matter. You have more guts than most men I’ve met.”
Her lips curved slightly and a strange, heated sensation, almost like satisfaction, spread through his chest. It was warm, almost too much after so many years of experiencing nothing more than bitter cold.
She almost made him want to feel. Made him want to let go.
“He’s a product of a different generation,” she said. “I don’t hold it against him.” And yet he could tell she did. That it lived in her, drove her forward. He knew about things like that. All too well. “This is my responsibility as far as he’s concerned. Protect the country by marrying a man capable of serving as Regent.”
He looked at her face, so earnest, so determined. So beautiful. His pulse sped up, the heat spreading through him. “I have my own country to run, I would be absentee at best, negligent at worst.”
“You couldn’t be as negligent as my cousin would be in your sleep.”
“Austrich will be your responsibility, whether we write it in the paperwork or not.”
“I … thank you.” She looked down at her hands, feigning an interest in her fingernails. “We have a parliament in place. It isn’t as though I can change laws or budgets or anything like that. It’s not terribly involved. Stand on the balcony and wave to the crowd.”
The crowd.
He closed his eyes and braced himself, a sharp flash, hazy, fast-moving images assaulting his mind as reality, his office, the desk, broke away piece by piece to make room for the memories. The crowd. Thick and loud. Surrounding the motorcade. It took a moment to realize that the barricade had been broken. That the people surrounding them weren’t citizens offering their greetings to the royal family.
It was all he could see. The sound deafening, roaring in his ears. The smell of smoke and sulfur filling his nose, the smoke choking him, his lungs burning. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.
“Zahir?” Her voice broke through the fog.
He opened his eyes again and saw only his office. And Katharine, sitting there, looking at him. He could see concern in her clear green eyes. She had noticed. What had he done? He realized then that his fist was clenched tight, resting on the desk, so tight that his tendons were screaming at him.
He had lost himself for a moment. Lost where he was.
It didn’t happen as often now as it had. Because he knew better than to let his guard down now. Than to let emotion take over control. She had distracted him. And now she’d seen him … She had seen his weakness.
“I don’t do that,” he said, his throat constricted. Dammit. “The crowd thing, I mean.” He took a breath and tried to reorient himself. “I have more of a face for radio.”
She smiled again, this time the expression was tinged with a bit of discomfort, as if she wasn’t certain what the appropriate response was.
“You can laugh, it’s okay,” he grated.
She did then, a soft laugh, but it brought that feeling back, the warm one, stronger, spreading. He stopped it this time, cutting it off with the force of a tourniquet on a wound.
“Well, I make a lot of appearances,” she said.
“I know. You always seem to be in the news. Your fashion sense is much written about.”
She nodded. “Of course. Although, I often wonder if anyone would care what color tie I wore if I was a man, but I can’t really complain. It’s nice to have my country featured in international news. Even if it is just for my shoes. It boosts tourism.”
“Do you have a lot of tourism in Austrich?” He reached deep for control, for total control, to find that kind of blessed numbness he was so accustomed to.
“Only recently. But that’s been part of what I’ve been involved with over the past five years.”
Since his brother’s death. She needed to stay busy, he supposed. If everything had gone according to plan, she would have married Malik on her twenty-first birthday.
She seemed to miss his train of thought, because she breezed on. “We have a tram system that takes people up into the Alps. You can’t beat the views. And then there’s various resort properties I personally have funded the development of. We were in need of luxury vacation spots, and now, Austrich has become a very popular spot for vacationing royalty.”
“And that is partly due to your personal campaigning, I would think.”
“Do you think I go to all those parties for the canapés?” She arched her brow.
“I did. But I would not think so now.”
Katharine swallowed, hard to do around the sudden lump in her throat. Zahir, who wanted her here about as much as he might want a root canal, had just had a longer conversation with her about what she did than anyone in her family ever had.
Not only that, he seemed to understand. To see her as more than just a peripheral. Oh, her father was counting on her, he’d made that very clear. But he was counting on her to marry someone. Not to do anything that required her specifically. This had nothing to do with her skills or talents.
You’re beautiful. Of course he will say yes.
Oh, yes, she was beautiful. Her father had been confident in that being her ticket to marriage with Zahir. Funny, but Zahir didn’t seem to care at all. And if she didn’t possess anything more than a pretty face she would have failed.
Something her father would probably never know. She loved him, she truly did, but he saw so little of her it was stunning at times. Heartbreaking at others. But she didn’t have any energy to waste on feeling sorry for herself. Dealing with Zahir took everything she had.
“You might be surprised that some people do invite me to parties, though. Seeing as you’ve spent the better part of two days hoping to evict me.”
“I have agreed to this now, Katharine, I will not back out. You have my word. My protection, as does your country. I don’t give any of those things lightly.” His hand tightened into a fist and she wondered if he was going to pound it on the desk again, as he had done a few minutes earlier. It had been so strange, as though he wasn’t looking at her anymore. Like he was seeing something else. And then he’d been back, she’d seen the change in him.
It had scared her a little. Not for herself, but for him.
