His eyes narrowed and Ghizlan felt that stare as if it penetrated her silk-lined suit to graze her flesh.
Then in one swift movement he hauled his dagger from his belt and threw it.
Ghizlan’s breath stopped in her throat and she knew her eyes widened but she didn’t flinch when the unsheathed blade skidded across the desk an arm’s length away.
Slowly she turned her head, seeing the jagged cut in the polished wood. Her father had prized that desk, not for its monetary value, but for the fact it had belonged to an ancestor who had introduced Jeirut’s first constitution. A visionary, her father had called him. His role model.
Ghizlan stared at the deep, haphazard scratch on the beautiful wood and anger welled, raw and potent. An anger born of shock and loss. She knew the stranger’s aim was deliberate. If he’d planned to attack her he wouldn’t have missed.
Why inflict such wanton damage except to make a point of his rudeness? And, of course, to frighten her. Yet it wasn’t fear bubbling up inside her. It was wrath.
Her father had devoted his life, and hers, to the betterment of their people. He may not have been a loving father but he deserved greater respect in death.
She made no move to grab the weapon. She was fit but no match for the sheer bulk of the man filling her father’s study with his presence. He could probably snap her wrist with a single hand and no doubt he’d enjoy demonstrating his greater physical strength like a typical bully. But she refused to be cowed. She swung to face him.
‘Barbarian.’
He didn’t even blink. ‘And you’re a pampered waste of space. But let’s not allow name-calling to get in the way of a sensible conversation.’
Ghizlan almost wished she had lunged for the knife. She wasn’t accustomed to such rudeness and for the first time ever her blood surged with the desire to hurt someone. Slapping him would probably only bruise her palm when it came into contact with that high, sharp cheekbone. But with a knife...
She dragged in a fortifying breath and squashed the errant bloodlust. She blamed it on the creeping certainty that something terrible had happened here. Something that brought unfamiliar faces and armed guards to the royal palace that had epitomised the peace her father had worked so hard to win.
Mina! Where was her sister? Was she safe?
Fear skittered through her but Ghizlan wouldn’t let it show. She wouldn’t reveal it to the man looking so predatory. His eyes never wavered from her face as if he searched for weakness.
Ignoring the tremor in her knees, Ghizlan crossed the fine silk carpet and pulled out her father’s chair from the desk. Deliberately she sank onto the padded leather and planted her arms on the chair, for all the world as if she belonged in her father’s place.
If she was going to face this lout she’d do it from the position of power.
Too late she realised that while he stood, dominating the space with his size and raw energy, she was forced to tilt her neck to view him.
‘Who are you?’ She was relieved to hear her voice revealed none of the emotions roiling inside.
An instant longer that clear, cold gaze rested on her, then he bowed, surprisingly gracefully. It made her wonder what he did when he wasn’t trespassing and threatening unarmed women. There was a magnetism about him that would make him unforgettable even if he hadn’t barged, uninvited into this inner sanctum.
‘I am Huseyn al Rasheed. I come from Jumeah.’
Huseyn al Rasheed. Ghizlan’s stomach plunged and her brow puckered before she smoothed it into an expression of calm.
Trouble. That was who he was. Trouble with a capital T.
‘The Iron Hand of Jumeah.’ Fear prickled her nape.
‘Some call me that.’
Ghizlan sucked in a surreptitious breath between her teeth. This grew worse and worse.
‘Who can blame them? You have a reputation for destruction and brute force.’
She paused, marshalling her thoughts. Huseyn al Rasheed was son to the Sheikh of Jumeah, leader of the furthest province from the capital. Though part of Jeirut it was semi-autonomous and had a reputation for fearsome warriors.
Huseyn al Rasheed was notorious as his father’s enforcer in the continuous border skirmishes with their nation’s most difficult neighbour, Halarq. It had been her father’s dearest hope that the peace treaties he’d been negotiating with both Halarq and their other neighbouring nation, Zahrat, would end generations of unrest. Unrest Huseyn al Rasheed and his father only fed with their confrontational behaviour.
Ghizlan gripped the leather armrests tight, wishing her father were here to deal with this. ‘Did your father send you?’
‘No one sent me. My father, like his cousin, your father, is dead.’
Second cousin, Ghizlan almost blurted, wanting to deny the connection he claimed, but she was well trained in holding her tongue.
‘My condolences on your loss.’ Though she saw nothing in that tough, determined face remotely resembling grief.
‘And my condolences on yours.’
Ghizlan nodded, the movement jerky. She didn’t like the way he stared at her. Like a big cat who’d found some fascinating new prey to torment.
She curled her fingers until her nails dug into leather. This was no time for flights of fantasy.
‘And your reason for entering here, armed and uninvited?’
Was it imagination again or did something flicker in those grey eyes? Surely not because she’d called him on his deplorable behaviour? If the rumours surrounding this man were true she needed to tread very, very carefully.
‘I’m here to claim the crown of Jeirut.’
Ghizlan’s heart stopped then sprinted on frantically.
‘By force of arms?’ Vaguely Ghizlan wondered at her ability to sound calm when horror was turning her very bones cold. A man like the Iron Hand in control of her beloved country? They’d be at war in a week. All her father’s work, and her own, undone.
Pain lanced her chest and her lungs cramped. She blinked and forced herself to breathe.
‘I have no intention of starting a civil war.’
‘Which doesn’t answer my question.’
He shrugged and Ghizlan watched, mesmerised, as those impossibly broad shoulders lifted.
Terror, loathing, anger. That’s what she should feel. Yet that tingling sensation across her breasts and down to her belly didn’t seem like any of those.
She ignored it. She was stressed and anxious.
‘I have no intention of fighting my own people for the royal sheikhdom.’
The constriction banding her chest eased a little. Yet she didn’t trust this man. Everything about him set alarm bells ringing.
‘You think the elders will vote for a man like you as leader?’ She couldn’t sit still. She surged to her feet, her hands clenched in fists on the desk as she leaned forward. How dared he walk in here as if he owned the place?
‘I’m sure they’ll see the wisdom of choosing me.’ He paused, long enough for a flicker of heat to pass between them. Banked fury, Ghizlan decided. ‘Especially given the other happy circumstance.’
‘Happy circumstance?’ Ghizlan frowned.
‘My wedding.’
Ghizlan opened her mouth but realised she would only parrot what he had said. Instead she stood, tension racking her body as she watched his mouth curve up in a smile that