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A life of love and happiness, as his brothers were building for themselves, was not to be for him.
King Malik laughed. “You begin to see the child as a woman with her own will, do you not?”
Zahir could not deny it. He had never seen Angele dressed with such an evident intent to entice, either. It had worked. He found her quite alluring. Used to barely noticing her at all, he’d been shocked by the low burn of arousal he’d felt when she had arrived. With new highlights shining in her dark brown hair, she wore it swept up to show off the slender column of her neck and the creamy, delicate slope of her shoulders.
The soft peach color of her couture dress was the only thing demure about it. Clinging to her slight curves, it fell inches short of her knees. While she did not share her mother’s supermodel stature, in the dress and matching heels that added at least four inches to her height, Angele’s legs looked every bit as long as the Brazilian beauty’s today. And twice as sexy.
Add to that the fact that her stubborn refusal to participate in the wedding as a member-to-be of the family had intrigued him from her first refusal three months ago, and it was a lethal combination to his recently restrained libido.
Reminding him that his future wife had not been raised in the secluded environment inhabited by the women in the royal palace of Jawhar, she had continued to stand by her first denial. He’d been more than a little stunned to realize he liked it.
While his marriage would not be the love-match his brother had made, it would not be as much of a dry connection of two overly similar lives as he had always anticipated, either.
Frankly love could go hang, as far as he was concerned. This newfound passion and interest was all that he required, or wanted.
“Wasn’t the wedding beautiful?”
A bittersweet smile curving her lips, Angela looked up at her mother. “It was, but the love between Amir and Grace made it even more so.”
“It reminds me of your father and my wedding.” Lou-Belia sighed with a fond reminiscence that Angele found difficult to understand. “We were so much in love.”
“I do not think Amir is like my father.”
Lou-Belia frowned. “You know Cemal has settled down.”
Angele did know. She still floundered in her feelings for a man who spent the better part of two decades flaunting his marriage vows, only to become the model of propriety in the face of his only child’s betrayal-fueled rage and disapproval.
She was thrilled for her mother that the older couple’s marriage seemed to be working again. The two spent a great deal more time together now, going so far as to live in the same domicile even. Her father was quite affectionate toward her mother these days, too.
But it hurt something deep inside Angele that her father had not stopped his behavior until she had confronted him, and then refused to have anything to do with him for more than a year. What did that say of the strength of his love for his wife?
He’d pleaded with her mother to fix the breach between them and in the process, Cemal and Lou-Belia had found each other again.
“So, the past does not exist?” she asked helplessly.
“We let it go for the sake of the future.” Lou-Belia’s world-famous smile was soft but tinged with chiding. “It has been five years, menina.”
Little girl. Angele hadn’t been her mother’s little girl for a long time, no matter what Lou-Belia, or Zahir for that matter, believed.
Still, she gave her mother a tight hug. “You are a kind and forgiving woman. I love you.”
But I don’t want to be you, she thought to herself.
With that truth burning in her mind, she went looking for the man who would one day be king.
Some minutes later, Angele slid around the partially opened door to Zahir’s office. He had disappeared from the wedding feast and she’d known she would find him here.
“Shirking your duty, Prince Zahir?” Her arms crossed over the sweetheart neckline of her short-short designer original. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. What would your father say?”
The room was very much like Zahir: masculine, rich and imposing. And yet there was something in the artwork and the old world furnishings that reflected more, something special—an appreciation for beauty that she knew few were aware of.
But while Zahir didn’t pay her any particular attention, she had watched him closely and probably knew more about the real man than most. She still wondered at her ignorance of the secret revealed short months ago.
She’d decided it was willful blindness on her part, but that had not made her feel any better. Only mind-numbingly stupid.
She was a twenty-three-year-old virgin with no prospects and she knew she was to blame for that fact. She had clung to hopes and fairy tales that would never come true in the real world. Her parents’ marriage should have made her realize that.
Zahir looked up from some papers on his desk, his gray eyes widening a fraction at the sight of her. He quickly stood to his full, impressive six feet four inches. He wore the traditional robes and head covering of a crown sheikh over a tailored suit that made him look mouthwateringly attractive to her.
