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Without looking at him directly, she could feel the man’s intense gaze on her mouth. Her lips quivered. “I... I walked out into the courtyard and I was too hot.”
“I see that you are too hot.” The dry statement jerked her gaze up. Intelligent and imperious, his brown eyes were wide-spaced and hooded under the dark slashes of his eyebrows. And brimming with amusement. “Why did you walk into the courtyard?”
That made her tongue come unstuck from the roof of her mouth. “I got tired of waiting. If I had to sit on my behind any longer, I’m sure it would have been flattened under me, that’s how long—”
“I hope our furniture didn’t cause your...posterior any lasting harm.”
Her hand went to the particular section of her anatomy. “It’s hard enough to find clothes that fit my height within a budget, so yeah, a flattened backside is not good. And nope, it’s perfectly fine,” she quipped. And only after she spoke the words did she realize this whole line of conversation was ridiculous.
Embarrassment sent heat flooding up her neck, blocked her throat. And she wished she had a genie in hand, like in her father’s elaborate stories, to make herself disappear. Or at least, start over this whole conversation.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt...”
“Apology not required,” he said, and Amalia bit down on the retort that she hadn’t been offering one. “The process is taking longer than it should.” A hint of irritation peeked through that sentence. From anyone else, it could have been an apology. But Amalia was pretty sure he didn’t intend it to be one.
She pushed her feet into the pumps. One hand went to her stomach as if to shoo away the butterflies rioting in there, and one went to her hair. She expelled a sigh of relief when she realized her tight ponytail had stayed put. Once she made sure all of her person was intact—she needed that assurance—she raised her gaze.
Between one rushing heartbeat and the next, she became aware that the man’s utter dominance, over everything in the
room, even over the very air she was struggling to breathe, was bred into his bones. His power clung to his skin, not his clothes or to this room or the throne.
It was centuries of legacy, she realized, a sheen of sweat covering her forehead now. He looked like a king because he was a bloody king. Or to use the right terminology, His Royal Highness, Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi of Khaleej. Brilliant statesman, inventive playboy that Celebrity Spy! claimed liked fast cars, fast technology and fast women.
Her first instinct was to mumble an apology and run from the room. The element of surprise was on her side and if she just went back through the unending corridor, back to the waiting area, she could lose herself and slither out of the palace.
Poised on the balls of her feet, Amalia forced herself to calm down and reconsider.
This was the sheikh, the man with all the power, the man who was responsible—fine, indirectly—for Aslam being wrongfully imprisoned. What were the chances that she would ever get an audience with him again?
No way could she tuck her tail between her legs and run away just because the man had to be the most dominating presence she’d ever felt.
Her breath seesawed through her chest as he stood up from the recliner, prowled the width of the room and then stood, leaning against an immense white oak desk. A sitting area to the right had a chaise longue.
Although lounging seemed like too still an activity for him.
The energy of the man, his sheer presence, filled the room and pressed at her from all sides, as if to demand acknowledgement and acquiescence.
A shining silver tea set on the side table made her aware of her parched throat.
As if she’d voiced her request out loud, he moved to the silver service, poured a drink—mint and lemon sherbet—into a tall silver tumbler and walked over to her.
That sense of being overwhelmingly pressed on a sensory level amplified. He had a sandalwood scent. And he gave off heat like there was a furnace inside him. Or was that she who was feeling the heat when really he was giving off none?
Sensations she didn’t like and couldn’t control continued to pour through her and Amalia just stood there, shuddering inwardly in the wake of them.
Where was the super-stalwart Amalia that Massi depended on? Where was the woman who’d been dubbed “the calm in the storm” by colleagues and coworkers?
“Drink. Strangers to the country forget that even when they do not sweat, the heat is still unrelenting.”
His command was supercilious, arrogant, exaggeratedly patient. Better if he thought her brain had short-circuited because of the heat than because of the sheer masculinity of the man.
“I’m not a stranger.”
His gaze swept over her. “You do not look like a woman from my country.”
She took the tumbler and drank the sherbet without pause. The liquid was a cool, refreshing breeze against her throat. Even her head felt better. Lowering the glass from her mouth, Amalia wondered if the man’s theory had credit.
Really, she’d been meandering for almost twenty minutes. Was it a stretch that she had lost her composure because of the heat? Armed with that defense, she extended the glass back to him. “Thanks, I needed that.”
