‘I’m not hungry,’ she said dully.
‘I don’t recall asking you if you were hungry, Hannah,’ he returned in a bored drawl as he piled an extra sandwich onto a plate and pushed it her way.
She slung him an angry look. ‘How am I meant to think about food when I’m being asked to sacrifice my freedom?’ That had been her comfort after the battering her self-esteem had taken after being basically told she was not physically attractive by two men who had claimed to love her. At the very least she still had her freedom.
He smiled, with contempt glittering in his deep-set eyes.
‘You will eat because you have a long day ahead of you.’
The thought of the long day ahead and what it involved drew a weak whimper from Hannah’s throat. Ashamed of the weakness, she shook her head. ‘This can’t have been Dad’s idea.’
She looked and sounded so distraught, so young and bewildered that Kamel struggled not to react to the wave of protective tenderness that rose up in him, defying logic and good sense.
‘It was something of a committee decision and if there is an innocent victim in this it is me.’
This analysis made her jaw drop. Innocent and victim were two terms she could not imagine anyone using about this man.
‘However, if I am prepared to put a brave face on it I don’t see what your problem is.’
‘My problem is I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.’
I am Kamel Al Safar, and now you have all the time in the world to get to know me.’
Her eyes narrowed. He had a smart answer for everything. ‘I can hardly wait.’
‘I think you’re being unnecessarily dramatic. It’s not as if we’d be the first two people to marry for reasons other than love.’
‘So you’re all right with someone telling you who to marry.’ Sure that his ego would not be able to take such a suggestion, she was disappointed when he gave a negligent shrug.
‘If I weren’t, you’d still be languishing in a jail cell.’
She opened her mouth, heard the tap, tap of the uniformed officer’s stick on the floor and closed it again. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful.’
He arched a brow. ‘Is that so? Strange, I’m not feeling the love,’ he drawled.
Her face went blank. ‘There isn’t any love.’
‘True, but then basing a marriage on something as transitory as love—’ again he said the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth ‘—makes about as much sense as building a house on sand.’
Was this a man trying to put a positive spin on it or was he genuinely that cynical?
‘Have you ever been in love?’ It was a weird thing to ask a total stranger, but then this was a very weird situation.
And just as weird was the expression she glimpsed on the tall prince’s face. But even as she registered the bleakness in his eyes his heavy lids half closed. When he turned to look directly at her there was only cynicism shining in the dark depths.
‘I defer to you as an expert on that subject. Two engagements is impressive. Do you get engaged to every man you sleep with?’
‘I’m twenty-three,’ she tossed back.
He tipped his dark head. ‘My apologies,’ he intoned with smiling contempt. ‘That was a stupid question.’
Hannah didn’t give a damn if he thought she had casual sex with every man she met. What made her want to slap the look of smug superiority off his face were the double standards his attitude betrayed.
How dared a man who had probably had more notches in his bedpost than she’d had pedicures look down his nose at her?
‘And this is all about money and power. You have it and you’re prepared to do anything to keep it. You carry on calling it duty if it makes you feel any better about yourself, but I call it greed!’
Kamel struggled to contain the flash of rage he felt at the insult. ‘Only a woman who has always had access to her rich daddy’s wallet and has never had to work for anything in her life could be so scornful about money. Or maybe you’re just stupid.’
Stupid! The word throbbed like an infected wound in her brain. ‘I do work.’ If only to prove to all those people who called her stupid that people with dyslexia could do as well as anyone else if they had the help they needed.
‘I think you might find your role is no longer available.’
‘You couldn’t say or think anything about me that hasn’t been said,’ she told him in a voice that shook with all the emotion she normally cloaked behind a cold mask. ‘Thought or written. But enough about me. What’s your contribution to society? I forget,’ she drawled, adopting a dumb expression. ‘What qualifications do you need to be a future King? Oh, that’s right, an accident of birth.’ She stopped and released a long fractured sigh. ‘That’s not what I wanted to say.’