Was this a man trying to put a positive spin on it or was he genuinely that cynical?
‘Have you ever been in love?’ It was a weird thing to ask a total stranger, but then this was a very weird situation.
And just as weird was the expression she glimpsed on the tall prince’s face. But even as she registered the bleakness in his eyes his heavy lids half closed. When he turned to look directly at her there was only cynicism shining in the dark depths.
‘I defer to you as an expert on that subject. Two engagements is impressive. Do you get engaged to every man you sleep with?’
‘I’m twenty-three,’ she tossed back.
He tipped his dark head. ‘My apologies,’ he intoned with smiling contempt. ‘That was a stupid question.’
Hannah didn’t give a damn if he thought she had casual sex with every man she met. What made her want to slap the look of smug superiority off his face were the double standards his attitude betrayed.
How dared a man who had probably had more notches in his bedpost than she’d had pedicures look down his nose at her?
‘And this is all about money and power. You have it and you’re prepared to do anything to keep it. You carry on calling it duty if it makes you feel any better about yourself, but I call it greed!’
Kamel struggled to contain the flash of rage he felt at the insult. ‘Only a woman who has always had access to her rich daddy’s wallet and has never had to work for anything in her life could be so scornful about money. Or maybe you’re just stupid.’
Stupid! The word throbbed like an infected wound in her brain. ‘I do work.’ If only to prove to all those people who called her stupid that people with dyslexia could do as well as anyone else if they had the help they needed.
‘I think you might find your role is no longer available.’
‘You couldn’t say or think anything about me that hasn’t been said,’ she told him in a voice that shook with all the emotion she normally cloaked behind a cold mask. ‘Thought or written. But enough about me. What’s your contribution to society? I forget,’ she drawled, adopting a dumb expression. ‘What qualifications do you need to be a future King? Oh, that’s right, an accident of birth.’ She stopped and released a long fractured sigh. ‘That’s not what I wanted to say.’
He stared at her through narrowed eyes, resisting the possibility that a woman with feelings, that a woman who could be hurt, lurked behind the icy disdain.
‘Well, what did you want to say?’
Relief rippled through her. This was not the response she had anticipated to her outburst.
‘Would this marriage be a...paper one?’
‘Will...get the tense right,’ he chided. ‘There will be official duties, occasions when we would be expected to be seen together.’ He studied her face. ‘But that isn’t what you’re talking about, is it?’
She gnawed on her lower lip and shook her head.
‘It will be expected that we produce an heir.’
Shaken by the image that popped into her head, she looked away but not before her mind had stripped him naked. The image refused to budge, as did the uncomfortable feeling low in her belly.
‘You might find it educational.’
The drawled comment made her expression freeze over; it hid her panic. ‘The offer of lessons in sex is not a big selling point!’ My God, he was really in for a disappointment.
His laugh cut over her words. ‘I wasn’t referring to your carnal education, though if you want to teach me a thing or two I have no problem.’
The riposte he had anticipated didn’t come. Instead, astonishingly, she blushed. Kamel was not often disconcerted, but he was by her response.
Hannah, who had conquered many things but not her infuriating habit of blushing, hated feeling gauche and immature. From somewhere she dredged up some cool. ‘So what were you referring to?’
‘I’m assuming that your average lover is besotted. I’m not.’
‘What, besotted or average?’ Stupid question, she thought as her eyes slid down his long, lean, powerful frame—average was not a word anyone would use when referring to this man. ‘I can’t just jump into bed with you. I don’t know you!’
‘We have time.’ He produced a thin-lipped smile. ‘A lot of it. But relax, I don’t expect our union to be consummated any time soon, if you can cope with that?’
‘With what?’
‘No sex.’
Her lashes came down in a concealing curtain. ‘I’ll manage.’
‘Because your little adventures will be over. There can be no questioning the legitimacy of the heir to the throne,’ he warned.
‘And does the same rule apply to you?’ Without waiting for him to reply she gave a snort of disgust. ‘Don’t answer that. But perhaps you could answer me this...’
He turned and she dropped the hand she self-consciously had extended to him. ‘Do you know...’ he seemed to know everything else with a few exceptions ‘...did they get the vaccinations to the village in time?’
The anxiety in her blue eyes was too genuine to be feigned. Perhaps the woman did have a conscience, but not one that stopped her doing exactly what she wanted, Kamel reminded himself.
‘It is a pity you didn’t think about the village when you decided to cross a border without papers or—’
‘My Jeep broke down. I got lost.’ Hating the whining note of self-justification, she bit her lip. ‘Do you know? Could you find out?’ The report that had reached the storage facility where she had been organising local distribution had said the infection was spreading rapidly; the death toll would be horrific if it wasn’t contained.
‘I have no idea.’
She watched as he moved away, not just in the physical sense to the other end of the cabin, but in every way. He tuned her out totally, appearing to be immersed in whatever was on the laptop he scrolled through.
Studying the back of his neck, she had to crane her own to see more than the top of his dark head. Hannah envied him and wished she could forget he existed. Was this a foretaste of the rest of her life? Occupying the same space when forced to, but not interacting? She had given up on romance but the thought of such a clinical union lay like an icy fist in her stomach.
He didn’t even glance at her when the plane landed; he just left his seat, leaving her sitting there. It was the massive bodyguard who indicated she should follow Kamel down the aisle to the exit with one of his trademark tilts of the head.
She was between the two men as they disembarked. Hannah blinked in the bright sun—the blinds had been down in the cabin and for some reason she had expected it to be dark. She had lost all sense of time. She glanced down at her wrist and felt a pang when she remembered they had taken her watch. It was one of the few things she had that had been her mother’s. When she was arrested they’d taken everything she had, including her sunglasses, and she would have given a lot for dark lenses to hide behind.
Her eyes flew wide with alarm.
‘I don’t have my passport!’
At the bottom of the steps he paused and looked up at her, his cold eyes moving across her face in a zero-tolerance sweep. ‘You will not need your passport.’
‘One of the perks of being royal?’ Like the daunting armed presence and salutes, she thought, watching the suited figure who was bowing deferentially in response to what Kamel was saying.
Glad to be