Angelique moved to where the French press had been sitting so long it bordered on tepid. She shakily pushed down the plunger and poured two short cups, needing something to calm her nerves.
Yes, let’s not cause a rift with the wedding, Angelique, by having the Prince of Zhamair shot dead in your office.
What had happened to her that she’d let him kiss her like that? From the moment he’d walked in here, he’d been tapping a chisel into her. Now she was fully cracked open, all of her usual defenses and tricks of misdirection useless. It took everything she had not to let him see how thoroughly he’d thrown her off her game.
“Cream and sugar?” she asked, buying time before she had to turn around.
“Black.”
She finished pouring and made herself face him.
He paused in using his handkerchief to check for traces of her lipstick against his mouth and tucked it away. He looked positively unruffled as he took one cup and saucer from her, his steady grip cutting the clatter of china down by half.
She quickly picked her own cup off its saucer and took a bolstering sip of the one she’d doctored into a syrupy milk shake.
The silence thickened.
She tried to think of something to say, but her mind raced to make sense of their kiss. What had he meant about starting something new? What did he even think of her now? Her level of security on its best days had suitors running for the hills.
He wasn’t a suitor, she reminded herself. He was an arrogant dictator who had his wires crossed. That’s why she’d grabbed his arm. She hadn’t been able to let him leave thinking the worst. Demanding the worst.
“I wondered about the gauntlet of security I had to run in order to get in here,” he said, eyeing her thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize this was still such an issue for your family.”
Yes, let’s talk about my sister’s kidnapping and how it continues to affect all of us. Her favorite topic.
“We’re very vigilant about keeping it a nonissue. As you witnessed.” She was trying to forget how horrifying it had been to have her guards interrupt the best kiss of her life because she’d been too dazed by it to prevent a rookie error with the panic button.
But she supposed the kidnapping was the reason this meeting had come about, ever rippling from the past into the future, so... Very well. There were days they revisited that dark time and this was one of them.
As she made that decision, she was able to move behind her desk and set her coffee aside with a modicum of control. Flicking her gaze, she invited him to take a chair.
“I’ll stand.”
“Suit yourself. Either way I know I’ve captured your full attention.” She clasped her hands on her desktop, trying to steady herself. “I mean that literally. You won’t be allowed to leave until I say you may.”
He snorted, but she could see she did, indeed, have his full attention. She felt the heat of his gaze like the sun at the equator.
She swallowed. Good thing she was still wearing her pendant. Too bad he knew about it. She resisted the urge to grasp it for reassurance.
“The advantage that you continue to possess,” she said, trying to mollify him, “is that you’re willing to refuse the clothes we’ve made for your sister. I’ve heard all you said about wanting to protect her. I feel the same toward my own sister.”
Empathy. Step two of a hostage negotiation. This was good practice, she told herself. Another drill.
“You’re obviously aware of the general details of Trella’s kidnapping.” She had to swallow to ease how quickly those words tightened her throat. Her knuckles gleamed like polished bone buttons, but she couldn’t make her hands relax.
“I know what was on the news at the time, yes.”
She glanced at him, not sure what she expected to see. Avarice, maybe. People always wanted gruesome details beyond the basics of a nine-year-old girl being set up by a math tutor as boarding school was letting out, held for five days and found by police before money changed hands. There’d been more than one probing question today from different women in Hasna’s bridal party.
Angelique was adept at dodging those inquiries, but they rubbed like salt in a cut every single time.
Kasim was next to impossible to read, but there was an air of patience in him, like he understood this wasn’t easy for her and was willing to wait.
Great. Now her eyes began to sting. She was a crier, unfortunately. She already knew there would be tears later, when she spoke to her brothers. It wasn’t because she was upset by the false alarm, just that when a roller coaster like today happened, she tended to fall apart at some point as a sort of release.
She pushed the Remind Me Later button on her breakdown and strained her back to a posture she thought might snap her in two, but was enough to keep her composure in place.
“What’s never been made public is Sadiq’s part in helping us retrieve Trella.”
Kasim set his cup into its saucer and placed it on the corner of her desk. Folded his arms. “Go on.”
“You can’t simply accept that this is the reason we feel a debt to him?”
“Your brother could give him shares in Sauveterre International, if that was the case. Your other one, the one who races, could buy him a car. Why this?”
“Sadiq is very modest. He has refused all the different times we’ve tried to offer any sort of compensation. He doesn’t brag about his connection to our family. In every way he can, he protects our privacy. That’s why we love him.”
She took another brief sip of her overly sweetened coffee, trying to find the right words.
“As you’ve pointed out, his family has plenty of money. Gifting him shares would be...a gesture, not something meaningful. He’s not the least bit into cars the way Ramon is, but when your sister mentioned she was going to approach us about making her gown, Sadiq was excited that he had an in.”
Maison des Jumeaux wasn’t exclusive because it was expensive—although it was obscenely so. No, their clothes were coveted because she and Trella were extremely selective about the clients they took on, always protecting their own privacy first. Gossipy socialites didn’t even get an appointment, let alone an original ball gown with a hand-sewn signature label.
“Sadiq only prevailed on our friendship to ask that we accept her as a client, but of course we wanted to do it and of course we wouldn’t charge him. He wanted to pay. I think the only reason he’s letting us get away with not charging is because it’s really Hasna who benefits, not him. For Trella, it’s a way to repay Sadiq herself. It’s very important to all of us, for her sake, that she be allowed to do that.”
It was part of her sister’s healing process. Attending the wedding had become a goal Trella was determined to achieve, come hell or high water.
“Is your sister having an affair with him?”
“That’s what you got from everything I just said? No! And neither is my mother, before you go there. Family money paid for the materials and Trella and I are doing the work. This isn’t a buy off or an attempt to hold something over Sadiq. We’re contributing to his special day in the way that makes him happiest. That’s all.”
He pondered that with a raspy scrape of his bent fingers beneath his jaw.
“You still don’t believe me?” What on earth would it take?
“How did he help solve the kidnapping? How old was he? Fifteen? Sixteen?” His voice was thick with skepticism. “How well did he even know your family? I understood he only went to Switzerland when he began prepping for university.”
“I trust this