“I was the lord of everything I surveyed.”
Her breath hitched in her throat. The sheer, undiluted arrogance in his words, it was so much like the old him. “Fine. Like a….” She clicked her fingers. “You were like a peacock strutting your feathers or your mighty sword in this case,” she snorted in mock disgust. “It was so easy to see through you.”
Slashes of deep color marked his cheekbones. “Your vocabulary, I see, has become just as enriched as the rest of you, habeebi.” His eyes wide, he ran his fingers over his eyebrows, his mouth still wreathed in smiles. “Of all the things to remember, Nikhat? I never told them. At least, Ayaan, not until a couple of years later. I can’t believe you…”
Now it was her turn to blush under the dawn of a slow intensity in his gaze. “My obsession with you had already begun. I was years ahead of everyone else in biology. God, my fourteen-year-old self burned with jealousy. And I knew exactly what put that smug, self-satisfied smile on your face.” She pointed her finger toward her face, unable to stop smiling.
“I believe that’s what you see today.”
Shaking his head, Azeez studied her, wondered at how easy she made it to laugh, how she reminded him of everything that had been good about the past.
Because there had been good things in the past.
He could finally see the brilliance of Ayaan’s idea.
Nikhat, with her joyful stories about their family, with her infallible strength and loyalty, was the perfect medicine that his brother could have brought for Azeez.
And it was working.
Here he was, just weeks later. He had made love to a woman, the fact that it was she—he chalked it up to the curious quirk of fate—he had found invaluable information for Dahaar, he was laughing.
It would be so easy to get used to this. To having her in his bed, to laugh with her out of it. Already, she was insinuating herself into his life again, already the urge to share his shame with her, to find that relief, too, it was overwhelming.
She had him wonder if he wanted more from life, made him wonder about the future. And she made him want to forget and move ahead. And that hope, he did not deserve it.
He couldn’t let her be anything more than a temporary drug on the road to recovery, couldn’t let her distract him from his true purpose. He couldn’t let her believe that this had been anything more than a brief interlude. He would help Ayaan and then he would leave.
Suddenly, he couldn’t wait to be his brother’s prisoner again.
She blinked as he stood up. A stillness emerged in her body, her laughter inching into something else as he moved closer.
He silenced the clamor of regrets inside.
It was better this way. He had nothing to offer her.
His fingers moved over her mouth as he settled on the table in front of her. Frantic for another taste of her, he took her in a devouring kiss that had their lips clinging, sucking, drawing breath from each other in seconds. She clasped his cheek as he trailed his mouth over her temple.
“Ayaan has got this whole science of managing me down very well, it seems. You were exactly what I needed. I have been thinking of myself as a cripple, have let everything about me filter down to just that one fact. I will never be able to ride a horse again, or run or, apparently, make love to a woman the way I want to…But you have also made me realize everything I can do. Maybe have even given me a new lease on life.”
He couldn’t hold back the warmth in his words. It was her due.
He pushed a tendril of her hair back. “Last night will be as memorable to me as it is to you, Nikhat.
“Now, it is time we returned. I have some time-sensitive information for Ayaan. And I am sure you can’t wait to get back to being the stern doctor who has to get the dissolute, arrogant prince in shape so that he’s off your plate and your life can get back on track.”
CHAPTER TEN
PRINCESS ZOHRA REQUESTS your presence at dinner tonight in the Royal Hall.
The palace maid’s softly spoken instruction ringing in her head, Nikhat followed her down a corridor she had never visited before. The maid, after showing her to huge double doors, partially open, left. Pushing one door ajar, Nikhat stepped in.
And her jaw met her chest at the sight that greeted her.
Every surface she saw was either golden or silver, including the edges of the huge rectangular table. Intricately wrought silver-and-gold knives and forks and plates glinted in the light thrown from the crystal chandelier overhead. The crystal had a gold tint to it, casting a bright yellow glow on everything in the room.
There were portraits of generations of Al Sharifs on the walls. Vases were overflowing with exotic flowers. Velvet-cushioned heavy chairs sat around the table, the back of each intricately carved with the Dahaaran insignia of a sword.