The Desert King / An Affair with the Princess

He stared at them for minutes before his gaze gravitated to the name in the address bar. Aliyah…

How could it still wield such influence, strike such disturbance in a composure he’d thought unshakable?

It had to be echoes of the weakness he’d once had for her. Echoes of an illusion. As unreal as everything they’d ever shared.

He ground his teeth and hit Send.

The phone slipped from Aliyah’s fingers, hit her lap.

She leaned forward, fighting down a fresh wave of nausea.

She’d almost forgotten how that malignant turmoil used to seize her, contort her emotions and reactions. She’d fought too long, too hard for control, and feeling it ebbing away again…

She should cling to one thing. This time, her upheaval wasn’t being generated inside a chemically imbalanced mind. She had major-with-a-skyscraper-high-M reasons to thank for her current state. This was no overreaction brought on by drug residues, or worse, a resurrection of her old volatility, as had been implied.

Oh, no. This wasn’t a pathological reaction. She’d bet every cent she’d ever made—and she’d made heaps—that no one would react differently if, after twenty-seven years of a turbulent enough existence on this planet they discovered that everything they’d thought they knew about their life was one convoluted lie.

And what a lie. It had been perpetuated by the very people who’d been the pillars of her existence, who’d now brought it all down around her ears.

Could she accept it all one day? That Randall Morgan wasn’t her father but rather her adoptive one, that Bahiyah Aal Shalaan wasn’t her mother but her paternal aunt, that King Atef wasn’t her uncle but her biological father, and her biological mother was some American woman she’d never met in her life?

Yet everyone begrudged her her shock. They’d dropped the bomb on her and had expected her to gasp in surprise then shrug and carry on as if nothing had changed. They’d implied that her distress lasting for more than a couple of days indicated a return of her instability. They made her feel unreasonable for demanding time to grapple with the revelations, for resisting being shoved into this new persona and accepting her fate with a smile. That last call from her uncle/father/whoever-he-was had made her feel cruel for not rushing back to Zohayd to meet the woman who’d given her up for adoption, starting the chain reaction that had led to this point. This mess.

Well, she was entitled to her freak-out time. As she was entitled not to see said woman, or any of them. Not just yet.

And no, it wasn’t only because they’d managed to twist the course of her life, past and future. She would eventually come to terms with the rewriting of her history and her identity. What she couldn’t bear hearing or thinking about was the main disaster they were railroading her toward…

A sharp ping startled her. She set her teeth as she sat up. She had to change that irritating “new e-mail” alert. But to what? All available alerts were equally aggravating.

Sighing, she clicked the track pad and the laptop’s screen woke up. Her e-mail program window swam into view.

It took three beats for her heart to stop.

Just when she thought it wouldn’t restart, all the missed beats converged in a detonation that almost blasted the organ out of her ribs.

She choked as the name rippled across her vision, passed through the barrier of shock, sank into her brain, into the brand it had long seared there.

Kamal Aal Masood.

She collapsed back, lungs burning, stomach churning.

An e-mail. From him. The man she despised above all, the man who’d taken all the love and passion and dreams of her too-stupid-to-live twenty-year-old self and ripped them to shreds.

The man everyone was insane enough to say she had to marry.

Every muscle twitched with the enervation that followed the blow as her vision wavered over the screen again. There was nothing in the subject line. Just his name in the “from” area.

Figured. What could the subject line be, from the man who’d thrown her out of his life like so much garbage? To Clinging Idiot? Re: Sickening Slut? Parting Threat Renewal Notice?

There was nothing to say. He’d said it all then.

So what had he sent her? More abuse? She’d welcome that now. It would be written proof of the ludicrousness of the political marriage everyone was talking about as fait accompli.

Her hand trembled over the track pad. The cursor shook across the screen, missed its target. Hissing, she squeezed her hand to steady it, returned it to the track pad, clicked the e-mail open.

She stared at the words for what could have been an hour.

We will have dinner to discuss the situation. You will be picked up at 7:00 p.m.

That was all. No closing. No signature.

We will have dinner. You will be picked up. Picked up…

Yeah, like he’d picked her up that night they’d first met.

She’d been so deluded she’d thought him the embodiment of the best of her dominant half’s culture, a knight of the desert, with chivalry and nobility running in his blood. She’d thought him her counterpart, her soul mate, a man burdened with inherited status, struggling with its shackles, its distorting effect on people, overcoming its limitations while making no use of its privileges to become his own person and a phenomenal success. She’d done the same, even if her success had been nowhere as phenomenal.

She’d thought he’d seen through her hyper surface to the vulnerable soul inside, struggling to conquer her weaknesses, the one man who wanted more than friendship from her, who’d valued her as a person, didn’t consider her as a means to access status and wealth or a pawn in royal games of pretense. She’d thought he’d never get enough of her. Then he had, had walked away without a word.

She’d gone up in flames of desperation, begging for an explanation, a reconciliation. He’d walked away time and again, as if she’d ceased to exist to him.

His dismissal had driven her over the edge. And she’d gotten what she deserved for disregarding all survival instincts. Kamal had smeared her face in the ugly truth. What she’d thought a powerful love affair with her perfect match had been nothing but the sick game of a twisted hypocrite who’d exploited her and reviled her for falling for it.

And here he was, reinvading her life. Relegating her to being picked up like a pile of dirty laundry he didn’t deem to touch himself.

That royal bastard. Literally royal. Regal even, in a matter of days, thanks to the weird game of musical chairs the heirs of Judar had played, leaving him the one poised to sit on the throne. Not that he needed a throne to be ruthless. He’d always swept through life like a scythe, cutting down anyone who didn’t make way for his advance. And she’d been pathetic enough to consider his cruelty a strength, one she’d been desperate to be close to, to absorb a measure of.

And she was supposed to marry that bulldozer.

Or so decreed some archaic tribal stupidity. Thanks to everything her two sets of parents had done before she’d been born, she was suddenly the main piece in that political game, her only purpose to make one move. Marry the crown prince of Judar—its king in a few days’ time—and produce heirs to the throne with Aal Shalaan blood in them.

To that she said, like hell.

And it seemed she’d get to say it to his face.

She looked in fascination at her hand. It was no longer trembling. And that was only the outward manifestation of the stillness that had spread inside her.

It was as if after two weeks of feeling like she was struggling to get free of an octopus, she’d figured out how to escape. Why keep beating away the octopus’s tentacles when she could bash it on the head?

Especially when said head was six foot six of despicable male heartlessness and chauvinism.

She rose to steady feet and walked to her dressing room.

She started to undo her buttons, then met her own gaze in the mirror.

He’d invited her to discuss the “situation,” as he’d put it. He hadn’t even deemed her worth picking up the phone to deliver the invitation. Not that it was an invitation. It was an order. One he fully expected her to rush to obey.

No. She wouldn’t bash the head.

She’d chop it off.

At the strike of seven, they’d arrived. Kamal’s men.

Or rather, the men of his new status. The king’s men. Dressed in black, deferential yet daunting. Two had come up to her condo and escorted her down to a three-stretch-limo cavalcade where half a dozen clones had been waiting. They’d turned every head on the busy street, some in alarm, the band of Middle Eastern not-so-secret service guys flitting around her as if she were their king himself, not just his summoned guest.

It had surprised her, this show of power. The bustle of pomp and ceremony. Kamal hadn’t had an entourage in the past, had rejected the fuss, the servitude, the imposition. Being royalty herself, she’d known that, as a prince of one of the most powerful oil states in the world, he’d had bodyguards following him. But she’d never felt them, let alone seen them. It had been another thing that she’d loved about him. Fool that she’d been.

Beyond lack of an entourage, he’d also never flaunted his inherited status or acquired power. Yet even people who didn’t know him had always responded to his innate authority and had launched themselves at his feet. She’d been a victim of that influence herself. And he’d found their—and her—fawning abhorrent. He’d told her so.

Seemed he’d changed his mind.

That must be just one of many things that had changed about him. All for the worse, no doubt. If there could be worse than what he’d been. Whatever worse was, she was sure he’d managed it.

God help Judar and its entire surrounding region.

As for her, she’d help herself, just as she’d learned to do, thank you very much.

She inhaled on renewed purpose and stared at Los Angeles rushing by through the smoky, bulletproof window. She recognized their route. She’d taken it many times before. To his mansion by the ocean.

He’d always world-hopped, he’d told her, never staying in one place outside his kingdom long, never bothering with more than rented, serviced lodgings. Then he’d bought that mansion a week after they’d met. He’d given her the impression that he’d bought it for her. He’d implied he’d leave only when necessary, would always come back. He’d given her every indication that he’d been thinking long-term.

Now she guessed that a thirty-million-dollar mansion had been the equivalent of a thirty-thousand-dollar car to her. Too affordable to indicate commitment. And to a playboy of his caliber, six months must have been his definition of eternity.

Even though that mansion had been a beacon of hope to her, she’d never risked staying there overnight. She’d never stayed the night with him at all. She’d been terrified that during the intimacy of nights under the same roof, he’d see more manifestations of the imbalance she’d been battling, that he might have despised her for it.

She shouldn’t have worried. He’d despised her anyway.

Suddenly it was there, at the end of the palm-lined road that sloped up the hillside to overlook the breathtaking panorama of the Pacific. The mansion that had dominated her stupid dreams just as it did the parklike gardens it nestled amongst.

She’d been there only in passing but knew that it boasted over thirty thousand feet of living space—not counting the porches, terraces and interior patios—and spread over two hectares. He’d told her it was perfect for all purposes—entertaining, accommodating guests, nurturing a large family.

She’d weaved a whole tangled web of fantasies around those last words, which he’d tossed in without meaning a thing. She’d thought this mansion the most beautiful place she’d ever seen.

It wasn’t really. Being born of the royal family of Zohayd, she’d seen and lived in some mind-boggling places. Nothing in the States had ever come close to their sheer opulence and artistic extravagance. But this modern, pragmatic mansion had sheltered Kamal and her dreams of a future with him there, and so had surpassed perfection in her eyes. No wonder he’d thought her sickeningly pathetic.

The cavalcade stopped in the driveway. She exhaled a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding, rolled her shoulders as if in preparation for a wrestling match and stepped out of the car.

The two men who’d escorted her from her condo rushed ahead of her up the dozen stone steps leading to the columned patio. Two others followed, while two more materialized out of nowhere to open the main oak double door for her.

The moment she stepped inside, she felt enveloped by a presence. His. Could it be she remembered it still?

Seemed she did. She felt it in the austerity and grimness of the open spaces, the minimalist furnishings, the neutral color scheme and ingenious, indirect lighting. Strange. The decor had been exactly the same before, but then it had felt warm, welcoming.

Those impressions must have been all in her lust-hazed mind. Now she was seeing the place for what it was—a sterile space infected by the black soul of its owner.

They approached a ten-foot-high paneled double door. She didn’t know what kind of room lay beyond it. Probably some waiting room for her to stew in while their lord was fashionably late.

She reached out to the handle and both men almost fell over her to open it for her.

She sighed. She’d lived in the States the last ten years, had almost forgotten how it felt to be part of a royal family, guarded and served and smothered 24/7. Not that she thought this rising sense of oppression had anything to do with them. It had to be all about laying eyes again on the man she’d once worshipped and who’d almost destroyed her…She stopped just before she crossed the threshold.

What the hell was she doing, coming here? Answering said man’s summons like one of his almost-subjects?

She made up her mind within a heartbeat, spun around. “On second thought, tell your boss…or prince…or king…or whatever he is to you, that I won’t see him, since I do know what’s good for me. Thanks for the ride. It was nice. I’ll find my way back home.”

They gaped at her as if she’d grown another head, remained standing there like a barricade when she started back toward the main door.

“Okay, if you know what’s good for you, move out of my way.”

At her growl they exchanged anxious glances then rushed away, disappearing outside the mansion in the space of two blinks.

Whoa. What was that all about? She wasn’t that scary.

Suddenly that sense of oppression seemed to expand, and the influence that she now realized had sent those men running sharpened. It impaled her between the shoulder blades, just before a deep, deep drawl did the same.

“It seems you’ve forgotten how things work. You can go only when I tell you to.”

Two

Aliyah froze.

That voice. The rough-velvet caress, the hypnotic spell that had once sent her spiraling into a realm of extremes.

It was coming from behind her. From the room she’d decided not to enter. Tranquil, indolent. A laser drilling into her from back to front, passing dead-center through her heart.

Somehow, her heart kept beating. More like rattling like a half-empty piggy bank in her chest. Her nerves kept discharging. Not that having a heartbeat and nervous transmission meant she could move. She couldn’t.

The split second she could, she’d continue on her way out, show that overbearing lout how things worked. Surely not his way.

The spike of outrage thawed the grip of paralysis, freeing her legs, fueling three long strides on her charted path out of his trap. On the fourth she faltered.

What was she doing, walking away? She was here to see about one overripe head. She should go harvest it.

She turned around, walked back. The hardwood floor beneath her feet felt like soggy sand, and her legs felt powered by someone else’s will.

As long as it wasn’t his, she was fine with it.

She crossed the threshold this time, scanned the dimly lit room. For the first dozen heartbeats, she saw nothing.

Then he seemed to materialize out of nowhere, registering on her retinas, facing her in a high-backed black leather armchair at the far end of the room, framed by French windows that opened to the terrace leading down to the gardens. His body was relaxed, silhouetted in the golden light of a side lamp. His face was in darkness.

Her heart jangled into a higher gear. He was so still, looked so…sinister crouching there like a supernatural creature, half here, half in another realm, his face, his intentions obscured…

What a load of spectacular stupidity. There was nothing supernatural about Kamal. Except his supernatural ability to piss her off, playing all mysterious and lordly and…bored.

She moved, one foot in front of the other, each one a triumph of steadiness, advancing into the field of light cast by another tall lamp, her eyes fixed where his eyes should be, trying to discern whether he was looking at her, or if, as in the past, he was pretending she didn’t exist.

One thing she did know—he was baiting her.

Expecting her to lose her cool? Or her nerve, as she had done so dependably in the past? Well, he was in for a surprise.

Meet the new Aliyah Morgan, buster. Or as it had turned out, Aliyah Aal Shalaan.

He was moving now, sitting forward as if her every step nearer was tugging at him, light creeping across his face like the sun at dawn.

She almost squeezed her eyes shut, dreading the moment his eyes would be illuminated. Then they were, striking a flare that knocked the breath from her lungs as he’d once knocked sanity from her mind.

It was his expression that jogged sanity back into place now.

Stunned? How could he be, when he’d been ready for her? When he had no human components to stun?

Now he was getting up, slowly, eyes narrowing to slits below the intimidating brows, a dark, towering force inundating her with emanations she felt would knock her off her feet if she didn’t watch it.

Had he always been this way? Or had she forgotten?

With her photographic memory, was that even a question? While it had helped her forge a career for herself as an artist, the inability to forget had always been her curse.

She’d forgotten nothing. Not an inch, not a hair. He had changed. And infuriatingly, not for the worse as she’d been hoping on the way here. The twenty-eight-year-old sleek panther of a man who’d ruled her emotions for six months then abandoned her to the most chaotic, traumatic time of her life had been upgraded. And how.

But one thing was the same. His clothes. He was dressed the same way he had been the night she’d first laid eyes on him.

Had he done that on purpose? Could he even remember what he’d worn then? He’d once told her that he, too, forgot nothing.

But if he had remembered, had done it on purpose, why? To mock her? To goad her? To rewind to the beginning and start over?

Heh. Sure. As if.

He could start over in hell, where he belonged.

Still, it was the sameness of the sans-tie, formal charcoal suit with its unbuttoned silk shirt that echoed the color of his whiskey eyes that made the change so obvious, that detailed how the leanly muscled, broad-shouldered six-foot-six frame she regretfully remembered in distressing detail had bulked up with premium maturity to reach a new zenith of virility.

Problem was, the upgrade didn’t stop there. The same magic had taken a chisel to his incredible face, turning his singular features from arresting to overwhelming. Worse still, the jet-black satin that was his hair and that he’d always cropped close to his awesome head now lay in luxurious layers down to his collar.

Worst of all was the addition of a trimmed beard and mustache. Those betrayed his true nature, showed him for what he really was. One of nature’s most menacing entities. Not to mention one of its grossest examples of injustice.

No two ways about it. The years had been criminally kind to him. Seemed infinite wealth and power agreed with him. He’d no doubt improve exponentially the longer he had them, the older he got. And judging by his notorious reputation as a womanizer—the double-standard pig had dared call her depraved—every female with a brainwave agreed. And wanted a part of him.

And they could have him, could pick his bones clean, preferably. He no longer affected her…Liar.

Fine. So she’d be dead and buried before a male of this caliber didn’t access her hormonal controls. What did it matter that he was the most magnificent male to walk the earth, a species of one? It changed nothing. Out of the few billion men alive, he was the one who she knew from mutilating personal experience was a soulless bastard. She wouldn’t come near him with a ten-foot pole. Unless it was to poke out his eyes with it.

But none of that mattered now. Now she hoped only that she hadn’t gawked at him too long. Not with her mouth hanging open, at least. What mattered now was that she regained the composure he always seemed to rob her of just by training those eyes on her. For once she needed to stand with him on equal ground.

She inhaled, cocked her head, forced her gaze to sweep him, down then back up to his eyes, smearing him with disdain.

“These sure are desperate times we live in.”

For a moment she was stunned to hear her own voice.

So it was a husky wisp of sound, but at least she got it to work. Encouraged, enraged further by the way he remained staring at her as if at an unsavory species, she elaborated.

“They have to be, if your countrymen are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find themselves a king.”

Kamal almost lurched. At the satin lash of the voice he’d just discovered had never stopped echoing in his mind. At the slap her condescension had landed on his stunned senses.

He would have if he could.

He couldn’t even blink, couldn’t access one voluntary action or thought. And the loss of control only spiked his outrage.

Was he doomed to react this way whenever he laid eyes on her? What was it about this woman that deactivated his rational centers? And activated his incoherent ones?

And she wasn’t even the same woman. She’d changed, almost beyond recognition. Contrary to his every projection. And, e’lal jaheem…to hell with it, for the best.

His senses soaked in the changes, making feverish comparisons with her past self.

Gone were the wild clothes, the reed-thinness and crackling energy. In their place was a superbly dressed woman with a measured grace, a steady gaze and a body that had filled with a femininity so distressing it had everything male in him overriding all. His mind might be averse, but his body roared for its mate….

She isn’t your mate, ya moghaffal. She’s anybody’s.

But his body was oblivious, was fighting all connections with his mind, bucking off its reins, struggling to break its control and claim the body that had stopped him from finding anything beyond frustration with others.

It was merciful that she contributed her own deterrent as she now made a dismissive, derisive gesture in his direction.

“That they’ve stooped to settling on you is the loudest possible statement that this world is going to hell in a handbasket. Judarians must be mourning not only their king’s death, but their once-great nation’s future.”

There they came again. The insults. White-hot pokers designed to prod him into an uncalculated response.

He bit into the surge of tingling in his lower lip, into the urge to retaliate, to override.

So, that had changed, too. Her methods. Her approach. There’d clearly be no more breathless adulation spilling from those deep rose lips. Instead she seemed bent on bombarding him with condescension and contempt. And she was letting him know right off the bat, in lieu of the greeting they didn’t owe each other. She had even before she’d laid eyes on him, coming all the way here only to turn around and hurl his parting words back at him, and through his men, too, just to make sure the slap landed effectively.