Hajar's Hidden Legacy

“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.

“This agreement,” he said, “it is what my father saw as the right thing for Hajar. What Malik saw as right. Who am I to disagree?”

“Then I suppose it’s time for me to call my family with the good news.”

Zahir looked at her for a moment, those searing, dark eyes boring into her. “Why exactly are you doing this, Katharine? For honor? Truly and simply for the good of your people?”

“Yes,” she said. She thought for a moment about whether or not this was the place to speak words she’d never dare say out loud before. But why not? In this room she’d given him honesty, and he had listened. He hadn’t pretended there was no way she could have accomplished what she had.

“For that, and because it’s the light at the end of the tunnel.” She couldn’t believe for a moment she’d truly said it. Because it was something she’d hardly acknowledged to herself. She’d been too afraid to. Afraid that if she admitted she was becoming unhappy with a purely duty-filled life she would find herself unable to complete the tasks set before her.

“In what way?”

“After our marriage ends … Alexander will be king. And I’ll be … I will always feel responsibility for my people, loyalty to my family. I will always work for the improvement of my country, but … It won’t have to be my sole focus anymore.” Maybe then she would be free of that feeling. That gnawing sensation that no matter what she did, she wasn’t doing enough.

He only looked at her, his expression unreadable.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have a light you’re aiming for?”

His hands curled into fists again and his gaze shifted slightly, his throat working. “I’m glad you see a light, Katharine. For me, there is only darkness.” He looked down then, shifted his focus to the computer screen that sat on his desk. “Now that we have all that settled, I have work do to.”

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