He paused, dazed at his fluency. He should only be glad the pretense was coming so unaffectedly to him.
He turned to her, pain leveling, his sight back, found her looking smaller, her face shimmering with uncertainty. Stiff steps took him back to her. “I beg of you, ya ameerati, let’s start again, slowly…slower. Let me see you again…and again.”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. She’d actually whooped, jumped up and down. This couldn’t be an act, could it?
But why should he care? It was going his way so easily.
Though maybe he should feel bad, if she wasn’t the unfeeling creature he’d been intending to manipulate?
No. He shouldn’t. Even if she wasn’t acting, only her choices mattered. She’d talked of discovering her real father only in terms of how it had hurt her. She cared nothing for the pain she was causing that father or the damage she was causing his kingdom. She thought of nothing but her own comfort and convenience and, right now, her own pleasure.
Well, he’d make her wait for it. He’d drive her insane wanting it. And when the time was right, he’d take her, ensnare her. Then he’d marry her. Once the marriage was a reality, it wouldn’t matter what she thought. Or wanted.
She didn’t matter. Only Judar did. Only the throne.
Reiterating the resolve, he rasped, “Let me take you home.”
“That would be wonderful…” Her words trailed off and her passion-drugged face fell. “I forgot. I drove here.”
“I’ll have one of my chauffeurs collect your car.” He tugged her to his side, felt a rush as she nestled into him as if she were a missing part. Focus, ya rejjal. This rubbish is what you say to her, not what you think. He inhaled. “But don’t think I’ll leave you on your doorstep. I’ll change you out of this ruined gown, wait for you to shower, tuck you in bed, give you a massage, kiss you good-night…”
She trembled, clung tighter, making him wonder if she was far gone enough to say yes to marriage right now.
No. A no from her would be final, and he had no other leverage but her need. And it had to be great indeed for her to consent to marriage according to his culture. One she couldn’t terminate in any court of law when she wanted out.
He’d show his hand after he’d entangled her. In every way.
When they reached the parking lot, he reluctantly withdrew the hand he’d found inside her bodice hungrily cupping her breast, pushed a button on a wireless device in his pocket. He took another taste of her lips as he reiterated inwardly, any moment now.
Just as Farah was almost climbing him again, the night around them splintered into the bursts of a dozen flashes.
Three
One second, Farah was swathed in Shehab’s power and eagerness, buoyed by the promise of the night ahead and so many days and nights to follow. The next she crashed back to reality, as figures materialized out of the void that had existed beyond her and Shehab, shattering their cocoon of intimacy.
It still took the flashes burning her retinas with splotches of painful blindness to make her realize what the figures were. Paparazzi.
Helplessness and outrage lurched through her, against the merciless greed of the predators who’d invaded her life countless times, polluted her image and shattered her peace. No matter that she’d practically given them license to do so, with her arrangement with Bill. It still made her ill every time.
They were now catching her in her one moment of unguarded abandon to joy, turning her discovery of Shehab and her own unknown depths into photographic evidence that would turn all the magic into something cheap and sordid.
But before distress bubbled to her lips, Shehab offered her the refuge she hadn’t cried for yet, whirling her around, his clothes swirling around him like a magician’s cape, enfolding her into what felt like another dimension, where nothing existed but the duet of their heartbeats, hers a cacophony of irregularity, his the very rhythm of steadiness.
Then other sounds invaded her awareness. Stampeding feet, imploding flashes and shouted outrage. She clung to him, her heart invading her throat, breached, under attack.
Then she was no longer touching ground, swept up in his power, the world tilting then bounding on fast, steady thuds.
Suddenly a car screeched to a stop a few feet away from them. A gleaming black stretch limo.
Half a dozen men materialized out of nowhere, one opening the back door for them, the rest surging toward her and Shehab, overtaking them, putting themselves between them and the commotion at their back. Shehab lowered himself inside the spacious vehicle with her still held securely in his arms. The door immediately slammed shut with a muted oomph and the limo shot forward soundlessly.
Shehab’s hands ran all over her, soothing, caressing her own hands, which ached from clutching him to her.
“It’s over,” he murmured. “My men will detain them.”
She unclenched her grasp on him, squeezed her eyes shut. Yeah, sure. Good luck with that. The paparazzi had already gotten what they’d hounded her for more than two years to obtain—evidence that she was a promiscuous tart who constantly cheated on her sugar daddy. And she’d obliged them this time, leaving a party disheveled and climbing all over a man like a cat in heat.
But it was worse than that. What hurt most was his men. With the way they’d appeared on the spot, they must have been invisibly following Shehab all along, must have seen…everything…
Mortification made her struggle out of his arms, spilled her on the plush leather couch beside him.
She felt sick at heart, at the whole thing, was afraid she’d be sick for real. Her head flopped on the headrest as everything tumbled through her mind in a vicious spin cycle.
“Can you please ask your chauffeur to pull over?”
He hit a button, rapped the order in Arabic. Another button flipped open a compartment from which he produced wet towels, then with utmost gentleness he wiped her face, neck, arms and the tops of her breasts with their fragrant coolness.
Long moments later, he stopped, looked at her. “Better?”
Oh, she was so not better. His caresses had at first soothed her, but then they’d become fire, licking exposed nerve endings. Her womb was contracting so hard, it was almost painful.
How could he do this to her? Even now, when she was dying of embarrassment?
She nodded, mutely. Otherwise she’d tell him the exact truth. She’d told him enough of that for one night.
Giving her such a smile, that of an artist looking in satisfaction on his handiwork, he tried to move her again onto his lap. She resisted, and he only coaxed her with more insistent caresses, his lips rubbing against her temple. “Let me soothe you, ya jameelati. You really are shaken up by the paparazzi’s appearance, aren’t you?”
“I’ve developed a phobia where they’re concerned,” she admitted.
He pressed her harder into his containment. “They’ve pursued you before?”
* * *
Shehab pulled back when Farah made no response, watched agitation shudder over her face. It felt so real he almost felt sorry for arranging the incident.
The plan had come to him when he’d been informed paparazzi had followed her when she’d left to come to the ball without Hanson, as he’d planned. He’d known they’d swarm the park until she made an exit, hoping to succeed where they’d failed so far, to catch her in one of the infidelities everyone insisted she regularly indulged in. He hadn’t