She drew in breath and seemed to grow taller then, her chin raised, her eyes resigned but still, he noted, with a glimmer of defiance, even if still glassy. ‘I would not do that to my family, of course.’
‘Of course.’
‘In which case, it seems there is no choice. Apparently I am stuck with this marriage.’ Her chin grew higher then, her eyes grew colder, with an icy surface you could skate over. ‘And so, it would seem, stuck with you.’
He watched her leave, her head held high, her posture impossibly straight and regal.
Haughtiness becomes you, he thought as she swept from the room, back to her princessly best, if you didn’t count the riotous freefall of her hair tumbling down her back, hair that had felt like a silk curtain in his hands. He remembered the feel of her in his arms, the heat from her mouth, the softness and suppleness of her body against his, and he growled low and deep in his throat.
For all her protests, for all her pretence, there was a live woman under that haughty exterior, hot and wanting, and he would take great pleasure in peeling that harsh shell away piece by inevitable piece.
‘What happened to you?’ There was laughter in Rashid’s words as he led the other two friends into the library and caught sight of Zoltan’s cheek.
‘Let me guess,’ Bahir said with a knowing grin. ‘The princess happened to him.’
Kadar perched himself on the edge of the desk where Zoltan sat and studied the three lines down his friend’s cheek. ‘No wonder she wasn’t impressed by my fire-works. Looks like she’s packing her own.’
Zoltan leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers, his head full of ancient verse after hours of study. No surprise that his friends would find this intensely amusing. They would no doubt find it doubly so if they knew exactly what he had been doing right before she had raked her claws down his cheek.
‘I’m glad you all find this so entertaining. What are you doing here anyway? I thought you were falconing today.’
‘We thought you might be lonely,’ Rashid said, picking up a paperweight from the table and tossing it from one hand to the other. ‘Didn’t realise you were otherwise occupied.’
‘Don’t drop that,’ Zoltan warned, thankful for the opportunity to change the subject. ‘It’s Murano glass, three-hundred years old. A present from the then-king to his sheikha. Worth a fortune, apparently.’
Bahir stopped tossing the paperweight for a moment, peering into the colours of its mysterious depths. ‘Oh well,’ he said, tossing it in Rashid’s direction. ‘Easy come, easy go.’
Kadar spun around the heavy tome sitting in front of Zoltan and peered down. ‘What’s this?’
‘The Sacred Book of Al-Jirad. I have to know it by the coronation.’
‘What? All of it?’
‘The entire thing, chapter and verse. Ready to be quoted from at the appropriate moment, to spout the wisdom of the ages.’
Rashid whistled. ‘Then, brother, you really do need rescuing.’
Kadar slammed the book shut before Zoltan could stop him. ‘Come on, then,’ he said, jumping to his feet.
‘I don’t have time,’ he growled. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’
‘What, you’re too busy to spend a few minutes with your best friends when we’ve all come so far to help you? Nice one.’
‘Lame,’ Rashid agreed, tossing the paperweight casually in one hand. ‘Besides, you have to exercise some time. We’re heading for the pool.’ And he threw the paperweight at Zoltan so fast he almost fumbled the catch and dropped it to the marble floor.
‘Reflexes a bit slow today?’ he teased, looking at his cheek. Zoltan knew he wasn’t talking about the paperweight. ‘I reckon I might actually beat you over twenty laps today. What do you say?’
Zoltan was already on his feet. ‘Not a chance.’
Aisha could not believe it had come to this. She lay on the big, soft bed, her pillows drenched with tears. But now, hours after she had returned from that fateful meeting in the library, her tears were spent, her eyes sore and scratchy, and she was left with just the aching chasm in her gut where hope had once resided.
There was no hope now. There was nothing but a yawning pit of despair from which she could see no way out.
For tomorrow she was required to marry Zoltan, an arrogant, selfish, impossible man who clearly thought her no more than a spoilt princess and who had made it plain he considered she was getting the better end of the deal in having to marry a barbarian like him, and that there was not a thing she could do to avoid it. To renege on the deal would result in bringing down the royal families of two countries and smashing apart the alliance that had kept their countries strong for centuries.