Rita’s stomach flipped at his words, her heart fluttering at the same time.
It was the beginning of something, she knew. She just wasn’t sure she’d use the wordbeautiful.
Maybe impeccable...a sly voice teased in her mind, but she tamped it down.
The Prince had been clear, and she had agreed: theirs wasn’t that kind of arrangement.
For her, it was about the dream that she had formed at her father’s knee, a dream she was going to make come true, whether he was around to witness it or not.
Across from her, the Prince stood, his form simultaneously still and thrumming, activating every area of her being—her imagination, her appreciation for beauty, her determination, her humor, her acknowledgment of fantastic design, her curiosity and even her body.
Though that isn’t what this is about, she reminded herself.
Had she ever met a man who made machines seem primitive and weak in comparison to before?
She didn’t think so. Humans were lopsided and prone to imperfection, but he was symmetrical, beautiful and strong.
Even her father had seemed small beside their family’s fleet of big rigs.
She couldn’t think of anything here the man who was going to be her husband would seem small beside.
With his car and his exhibition, and access to the world stage as a gorgeous prince’s pretend wife, the Prince had just handed Rita a very real opportunity to change the way the world drove—far more of one than she had ever even had as NECTAR, boutique auto engineer for the globe’s rich and famous.
Reaching into the pocket of her jumpsuit, she dug out her phone and dialed a number.
When she looked back up, the Prince had a slight furrow to his brow, as if he had not liked the fact that she had escaped his gaze.
He would have to just learn to deal with that kind of frustration, though, because, as per their agreement, there were a lot of things she would be keeping to herself.
Her thoughts, for example.
He might be her fiancé, but they were still strangers, after all.
Infusing her voice with the cheerful distance she used for client phone calls, Rita offered, “I don’t know what your transport plan was for the Ferrari, but I’m happy to arrange to include her in my barge.”
She could hire services to transport the irreplaceable items she would need from her garages, as well as to prepare the rest of her small compound—built with the money she’d earned as NECTAR—for a long absence.
Retaining the groundskeepers on their regular maintenance schedules would ensure that the landscaping retained its private oasis-like charm while she was gone, as well.
Her cars, however, she would coordinate the care and transport of herself.
“Barge?” the Prince questioned, breaking into her preparations with a faint trace of distaste darkening his remarkable face. “You need to bring so much that you have to coordinate a barge? There is nothing you have here that I cannot replace to your liking in Hayat.”
Looking at him as if he’d made the most ludicrous statement in the world,because he had, Rita lifted an eyebrow and said, “Except for my cars.”
As if he had temporarily forgotten about her private fleet and only now remembered, the Prince’s face lit with delight.
If he were truly a boy, rather than a man whose dominating presence had just had a devastating effect on her five-year plan, he might have clapped and jumped for joy at the reminder of her fleet.
The man she was now engaged to might be stranger, but he had a passion for cars, and that was something.
Great love stories had been kindled out of less.
Not that theirs was a love story.
CHAPTER THREE
JAGHADCOMEto get his car, and along the way he had picked up a wife.