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He’d have happily hauled her on board like that, too, even with the risk of paparazzi camped out nearby, but the steps had been too narrow. So he’d shifted his grip, swept his arms about her torso and pulled her back against his chest, her naked toes dangling.
As he’d carried her into the cabin she’d felt so slight, her curves more girl than woman. Except where the weight of her breasts had pressed against his arm.
Khaled tugged at his sleeve, still feeling that sweet, warm pressure. Irritated for allowing it even to register.
Frowning, he looked up, and their eyes clashed again. This time, before she turned away, he caught a flash of fear in her expression.
He felt a prickle of guilt. Why? He wasn’t to blame for her predicament. Had she not broken into his rooms she’d be safely at home right now.
He massaged the bridge of his nose, eyeing the papers before him—documents he wanted to get through before they landed. At this point on a flight he’d normally be engrossed in work, but tonight his powers of concentration had deserted him—or, more accurately, been hijacked by the young woman sulking in her seat.
‘Can I get you anything, sir?’
Stella, the flight attendant, stood beside him. A great favourite of his family, she’d served them since Khaled had been a boy.
She’d presumed on that level of familiarity tonight, admonishing him as he’d set Lily back on her feet inside the jet. To his annoyance, he’d actually blushed.
And now his appetite appeared to have gone the same way as his concentration. ‘Nothing, thank you.’
‘Then I’ll attend to Miss Marchant. She’s seems a little...discomforted.’
He watched Stella approach Lily, wishing it had been one of the other stewards on duty tonight. They’d never dare show any reaction to him bringing a woman on board.
But the problem wasn’t really that Lily was female. Girlfriends had often joined him on flights. The difference was that they never travelled with him to Nabhan. Other destinations, yes. Wherever his duties took him. Just never to his home. He knew if they did it would be assumed he had serious intentions about the woman.
Always he was careful to keep such speculation to a minimum. Much good it did him. The media seized upon any titbit, real or otherwise, about the Sad Prince.
That blasted moniker—how he despised it, and the endless attention that went with it. Anyway, damn it all, he did smile sometimes. His mother even had a photo to prove it.
But right now he’d never felt less like smiling.
Speculation was rife that he was about to announce his engagement and press attention had intensified—which, in turn, increased the risk of the charity theft becoming public.
How his enemies would love that.
There’d be questions again about his decisions, his choice of friends, whispers about nepotism and corruption. And the loudest dissenter of all, disguised beneath the pretence of loyalty and concern for the country, would be George Hyde-Wallace—his mother’s seventy-four-year-old cousin, and Leader of the Council of Families. The Englishman who, in his thirties, had quit British Special Forces to take a post in Nabhan as bodyguard to the young King Bassam, and years later introduced his widowed employer to his beautiful cousin, gaining him the King’s grateful patronage.
Intelligent, ambitious, with a genius for politics and a passion for all things Nabhani, he’d risen to a position of great influence in the country. He’d married into one of its senior families, and eventually become the only European ever to serve on the Council.
Hyde-Wallace had been elected leader by the other families a month after the King’s first heart attack.
He’d been a thorn in Khaled’s side ever since.
Having become related to the crown by marriage, he’d thought to control his young cousin. When he’d found that wouldn’t be the case, he’d tried undermining him instead. Speaking against the Prince’s reforms. Claiming they would destroy traditional Nabhani values.
But Hyde-Wallace didn’t really care about tradition; he cared about power. Khaled’s move towards greater democracy would strip that from him.
Many Nabhani people had made donations to the new charity, but the most substantial had come from Hyde-Wallace. If the theft were discovered he’d be sure to make capital out of it.
And all this when the six-month-long secret negotiations for his marriage were nearing conclusion.
The irony was that the match had been suggested by George. And, much as it irked Khaled to admit it, it was a sound proposition. The daughter of the King of Qaydar had been raised to the royal life, and would be equipped to deal with its demands. More importantly, with her would come much-needed access to water for the remote western reaches of Nabhan, with an agreement to build a new dam in the mountains straddling their shared border.
But the talks had been difficult. Stalled again and again by the King of Qaydar demanding a curb on the Prince’s reforming policies. Khaled had quickly recognised that Hyde-Wallace had brokered the alliance to yoke his cousin to a conservative, backward-looking father-in-law.
Once the engagement was announced, no doubt the union would be spun into some great love affair.
As if.He would have no truck with sentiment.
