The city seemed to mute itself around them, the parking lot fading, the bright sky above and the slight breeze from the Rocky Mountains in the distance disappearing. There was only this dangerous, compelling warrior of a man in place of the boy she had once known, and too many emotions to name. She felt … pulled to him. Drawn. As if he’d cast a spell with that fascinating mouth and that commanding, resolute gaze of his, and she was helpless to resist, no matter how many reasons she had to avoid him and how little she wanted to hear what he might have to say.
But if there was one thing she refused to be, it was helpless.
“Wonderful,” she said, pulling herself back from the brink of disaster. Her tone was acerbic, as much to defend herself against this man as to convince herself he was not getting to her in so many odd, uncomfortable ways. “I’m glad you traveled across the world to tell me all of this. You can consider our absurd betrothal ended.”
“As you wish,” he said again. But he did not move. His gaze seemed to sharpen, as if he was some great predator and she nothing but prey. She fought off an involuntary shiver. “You need only pay me the bride price.”
“The bride price?” she repeated, caught as much by the sudden ferocity in his dark gaze as by the words themselves.
“Your dowry was the throne of Alakkul, Princess,” Adel said quietly, deliberately. “I am afraid that the sum my family paid for you was significant, give or take such things as the exchange rate, the rate of inflation, and so on.”
He named a number that she could not possibly have heard right—a number so astronomically high that it, too, made her laugh. It was as patently absurd as him suddenly appearing in a parking lot and announcing he was going to marry her, just as she’d dreamed when she’d first left Alakkul—and as impossible.
“I have nothing even approaching that amount of money, and never will,” she said flatly. “I am an accountant. I live an entirely normal and ordinary life. That amount of money is a fantasy.”
“Not to the Queen of Alakkul,” he said, and something flared between them, hot and bright, making her breath tangle in her throat, making her ache low in her belly. “Or to me.”
“That is another fantasy, one I have no interest in.”
“I am a compassionate man,” Adel said after a moment, though the expression he wore made her doubt it. “I will release you from your obligations to me, if that is your desire. You need only repay what your mother stole from the palace when she disappeared twelve years ago. It is not so much. A mere nine hundred thousand dollars, and some precious jewels.”
“Nine hundred thousand dollars,” Lara repeated in disbelief. “You must be joking. I don’t have it—and if my mother took it, it is no more than she deserved, after what my father subjected her to!”
Adel merely inclined his head. “I will not argue with you about your mother,” he said. “Nor will I debate your choices with you. They are simple. Marry me, or pay the price.”
He held up an autocratic hand when she started to speak, and she knew deep in her bones that he was every inch a king as well as a warrior. She should hate that—him. And yet her treacherous body, instead of finding him repulsive, yearned.
“There is not much time, Princess,” he said. “I regret the necessity, but you must make your decision. Now.”
CHAPTER TWO
HE APPROVED of the woman she’d become, Adel thought, her fierceness and her attempts at fearlessness, and was not certain why that surprised him.
“Do you accept credit cards?” she asked icily after a moment, her silver-blue eyes glittering in the late-afternoon light, even as she held herself so rigidly, so determinedly still. “If so, I am certain we can work something out.”
Adel only smiled, enjoying her, even under these circumstances. The girl he had never forgotten for a moment had become a woman he wanted to know better. “You are stalling.”
“Of course I am.” She shifted her weight and let the paper sack she carried fall to the ground at her feet. He heard the faint crunch of glass against the pavement, but she only glared at him. “It will take me more than thirty seconds to choose between marriage to a man I hardly know or a lifetime in debt I’ll never pay off. The interest rates alone would kill me! You’ll just have to wait.”
He liked that, too. She was as much the child of the late King Azat, his revered mentor, as she was of the faithless woman who was her mother. Brave. Vibrant. And she would be his wife. His queen, as had been decided so many years ago. The warrior in him appreciated the way she stood so straight, emotion darkening her eyes but not overtaking her, her body lean and supple and strong. The king in him imagined the future her blood assured, the children they would bear together, the way they would rule his beloved Alakkul. And the man in him wanted to taste the fullness of her mouth, and sink his fingers into the dark glossy waves of her long hair.
Just as he’d always wanted her, even back when they were both young.
He had wanted her even after her lying mother had spirited her away, taking her far from her home—far from Adel. He had wanted her in all the years in between, when the old King insisted they leave her to her new life and Adel had wondered when he could ever lay claim to the woman who had always been his. He wanted her as she denied him, as she fought with him, as she looked at him as if he was her enemy.
He had wanted her so long, it had become as much a part of him as his own name. It did not matter what she’d done in all the intervening years. It did not even matter if she’d forgotten him. He was here now, and she was his.
She was far too Western. She was dressed for summer in America—all bare skin and tight clothes that outlined curves his hands itched to touch. Her hair was untamed, uncovered, a silken black mass of curls spilling around her creamy shoulders. Her high, full breasts filled out the tight, V-necked shirt she wore to perfection, while her slim hips and long legs were encased in scandalously tight denim. Her feet were bare to his sight, her polished pink toenails in thonged sandals.
These things should have displeased him. Perhaps even angered him. Yet they did not. She did not.
At all.
He was fascinated.
“Explain this to me,” she said after a moment, her eyes meeting his and then falling, as if she could sense the direction of his thoughts. “My father signed me away to you? When I was twelve? And you are the sort of man who wants to honor that kind of archaic, misogynistic agreement?”
“Your father was the King of Alakkul,” Adel said swiftly, not rising to the obvious bait. “And I am his chosen successor. You are his only daughter, and the last of your bloodline. It is fitting that you become my queen.”
It was more than fitting—it was necessary, though he did not plan to share that with her. Not now. Not yet.
Her throat worked. Her eyes clouded over, though with temper or hurt, he could not tell. “How romantic,” she managed to say.
“Surely you have always known this day would come, Princess,” he replied, keeping his voice even, wondering why he felt the urge to comfort her. There was no point addressing that bitter note in her voice. “You have been permitted to live freely for years. But it was always on borrowed time.”
“Interestingly, I was under the impression that I was simply living my life,” she said, her gaze freezing into a glare. “I had no idea you were lying in wait!”
“You cannot tell me you do not remember me.” He saw the tell-tale brush of color on her cheeks, heard the catch of her breath. He remembered the sweet taste of their first, stolen kiss. The music of her sigh of pleasure when he touched her. He could see she did, too. “I can see that you do.”
“It might as well be a dream!” she said fiercely, though her flushed cheeks told a different tale. “That’s