Until they reached the end and the water erupted as someone emerged, using powerful arms to springboard out a mere head before his rival.
‘I win,’ the first said, offering his hand to the second.
Zoltan, she realised, disappointed as her eyes drank in the sight of him dripping wet. How typical that he should win the race. How unfortunate. She would have loved to see him lose. She would love to see something or someone wipe that smug look of superiority off his face and the sheer arrogance that infused every part of his body, every glistening muscle, every hard-packed limb.
Of course he would not have an ounce of fat on him, she thought with added resentment, he would not allow such a thing. She had seen enough. And she almost managed to turn away until he flexed his shoulders as her eyes caught the play of muscles under broad shoulders and tracked down the vee of his torso, to where his hips were encased in black lycra above the start of those long, powerful legs.
She sniffed, refusing to be impressed. So maybe she had been wrong before. Maybe he was not exactly like Mustafa, at least not in this one respect, she thought as she remembered the fat man scratching the bulging of his gut through his robe with long, almost feminine fingernails ending fingers adorned with gaudy rings. She shuddered, knowing how close she had come to that repulsive fate.
Still, it made no difference to her how many muscles Zoltan had, and she did not care that his skin glistened a golden-olive in the light. Not when in essence he was exactly the same as his half-brother. Not when there were still so very many reasons to hate him with every fibre of her being.
And she was sure, with time, she would find more.
‘I gave you a head start,’ his vanquished rival claimed as she watched furtively from the shadows. ‘Let’s make it best out of three.’ Zoltan laughed and slapped his friend on the back, turning his face to the sky to shake the water from his dark hair. She had to blink and look again to make sure it was him.
Zoltan actually laughed? Was this the same man as the monster she had met today in the library? Was this the dark barbarian who had snarled and growled and so smugly informed her that she had no choice? For when he smiled, when he laughed so openly, his face was transformed. Not handsome, exactly. He would never be handsome. His face was too dark, his features too strong, like the strongest, bitterest cup of coffee imaginable. But with laughter lighting his dark features he almost looked human.
Almost—good.
Electricity sizzled down her spine and her mouth turned ashen. Tomorrow—tomorrow—this man would be her husband. This hated man would lie next to her in bed, wearing even less than he was wearing now. And expecting her.
She shivered, feeling a growing apprehension that the unknown would soon become known.
She clutched the flowers in her hands to her face, burying herself in their fragrant scent.
This was not how she had imagined it would be.
‘Princess Aisha?’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE flowers fell from her hand as she turned, the vizier behind her bowing respectfully. ‘One of the maids saw you walking. Is there something in particular you were looking for, Princess?’ He glanced across at the pool, and she followed his gaze to where all four men were now gathered at the near end, laughing together, all four of them bronzed and built, with strong masculine features, all of them impressive in their own way. Once again she wondered whether they might be the same men who had helped pluck her from Mustafa last night. Her gaze returned to the enigma that was Zoltan. There was something about him that set him apart and that caused her pulse to trip. ‘You are a long way from your suite.’
She turned to see him watching her. ‘I was enchanted by the garden,’ she said, her cheeks blazing with embarrassment at being caught peering covertly from the shadows and now openly staring. ‘I did not know where the path would lead me. I was about to head back.’
He nodded. ‘Rani has brought your meal. Perhaps you would permit me to show you back to your suite?’ he said, and she knew it wasn’t a question. She also knew she wasn’t about to refuse.
‘Of course,’ she said, wanting to be as far away from the mystery that was Zoltan—the laughing barbarian with the gleaming skin, the man who would be her husband tomorrow—as she could get.
‘Princess!’
Too late.
She felt his call in a searing sizzle of heat down her spine, guilt-stricken that she had been discovered, a voyeur in the shadows, and not only by the vizier but now by Zoltan himself.
She wondered how much humiliation it was humanly possible to suffer in one day, for right now, the supply seemed endless. And this time she had no-one to blame but her own wretched curiosity.