This man laughed at her.
And she hated him for it.
She might have told him that too, but just then he reached down before her and picked up the flowers she had dropped and long forgotten. ‘It is a good time to walk in the garden. All the evening flowers send out their perfume to sweeten our sleep and make us forget the heat of the day and let us dream of cooler seasons.’ Then he held the floral sprigs to his nose, breathing in their heady scent, closing his eyes for a second, giving her the chance to study him more closely—his sooty lashes and brows, the strong blade of his nose and the three long, red marks left so unashamedly by her own raking nails. ‘Beautiful,’ he said, surprising her again. And then he looked across. ‘Did you drop them?’
When she nodded, because her throat was suddenly too tight to speak, he gently tugged one of the flowers and slipped it into the tumble of her hair behind her ear, presenting her with the rest of the scented bouquet.
‘I should go,’ she said, taking them and already backing away, disturbed beyond measure by even just the brush of his fingers in her hair, the touch of his fingers against hers. She was unsettled by his proximity and how it put all of her senses on high alert. Confused by a man who suddenly seemed once more like her rescuer of last night, the man whose warm body she had huddled against, rather than the barbarian who had attacked her today and so mercilessly dismantled her defences.
How could a man she hated on such a fundamental level stir such feelings within her?
For this was the same man, she battled to remind herself, the same ruthless man who had only rescued her so he could be king. But of course he could afford to look more relaxed now. He had no need to argue with her because he had got what he had wanted. He knew that she had been forced into compliance with this marriage, that she knew she had no choice. He knew she wasn’t going anywhere and that he had won.
He didn’t want a wife.
He just wanted to be king. She just happened to be the one who could make it possible. She was merely the means to an end.
Oh yes, there was good reason why he could laugh and smile with his friends now and afford to be more civil to her, and that knowledge only served to fuel the burning hatred she felt for him. Because he assumed she was a done deal. He assumed that, once her father had told her straight, she would do what she was required to do without any more complaint and become his compliant bride.
Like hell.
And that thought gave her strength.
It gave her back the power to be herself. ‘You are busy and I am interrupting,’ she said. But when she looked over to the pool and scanned its surrounds for the proof to support her argument, she found it empty, the sapphire surface of the water unbroken, his friends nowhere to be seen. She frowned. How had they left and she not even noticed? For now she was alone here with him, with him wearing nothing more than a stretch of black lycra. She looked down at the flowers in her hand and swallowed, trying hard to focus on them and not let her gaze wander from the detail of their cleverly sculpted petals, the delicate curve, the subtle shading of colours. Anything that might stop her gaze or her focus from wandering further afield where she might catch a glimpse of his powerful legs or that bulging band of black lycra hinting at what lay below. ‘I really have to go.’
‘So you said.’ He smiled, enjoying the start-again stop-again nature of her icy armour. For a moment she’d seemed to be regaining some composure, some of that haughtiness he’d witnessed in the library, but now once again she seemed unsure of herself, almost confused, like an actor having trouble staying in character.
How long had she been standing in the shadows watching? What had she been thinking that turned her cheeks such a deliciously guilty shade of red?
Whatever it was, she didn’t look haughty now, like she had when she had marched so erect and cold from the library. She looked shy and vulnerable, a woman again, rather than an ice princess. A woman who didn’t seem to know where to look.
‘Is something wrong, Princess? You seem—agitated.’
She looked up at him then, her once kohl-rimmed eyes now a smudgy grey and overflowing with exasperation. ‘You could cover yourself! I’m not used to talking to a near-naked man.’
‘Only watching them, apparently,’ he said, while secretly pleased to hear it. He didn’t want to think of her with other men. She would have had them. God, she was nearly twenty-four—of course she would have had them. But at least, unlike her sister, she had chosen to be discreet about them.
‘I didn’t know you were here!’
‘And when you did, you left immediately.’ He was already reaching for the towel he’d flung down earlier. In one smooth movement he had it wrapped low around his hips and knotted it tight. He held his hands out by his sides. ‘Is that better?’
‘A little,’ she said, though still her eyes skated away every chance they got. ‘Thank you. And now I must go.’
‘Stay a moment longer,’ he said, enjoying his prickly princess too much to let her go just yet. She was a strange one, this one, moving through a range of emotions and reactions too fast for him to keep up with or to understand, frustrating him to hell because he didn’t know what he was dealing with on the one hand, intriguing him on the other. ‘There are some friends of mine you should meet. Or meet again, without their masks this time.’ Then he glanced over his shoulder, wanting to call them over so that he could introduce them, surprised when he found they had disappeared without his noticing. More surprised that they were not already queued up to congratulate the woman who had left her mark on him not just once but twice in the space of twenty-four hours.
Maybe they had realised that this was his battle and his alone and it was better to leave him to it. Not that they wouldn’t relish the opportunity to rub it in every chance they got.
But there would be time to introduce her to them tomorrow at the wedding and maybe by then the marks on his face and hand would have faded and they might have forgotten.
And maybe camels might grow wings and fly.
More likely they were just hoping that by tomorrow she might have added to his list of injuries.
‘Your friends have gone,’ she said. ‘And so must I.’
On an impulse he didn’t quite understand himself, but knowing his friends would understand a rapid change of plans, he almost asked her to dine with him.
Almost, except he stopped himself at the last moment. For the dinner he had planned with his friends would take no time at all, and then he would be back to his books and his study, which was where he needed to be if he was ever going to be prepared for the requirements of his new role.
Whereas dinner with this woman? Who knew where that would lead, given the startling turn events had taken today? He didn’t even know how it had happened. But he did remember the feel of her in his arms, the way she’d turned so suddenly from a rigid column of shock to lush feminine need with just one heated, molten kiss. Would he be tempted to linger if he dined with her to-night, tempted to make her truly his before she became his bride? It made no difference to him.
But then he remembered the cold slash of her claws down his cheek.
He did not need another reminder of how much she objected to this marriage, certainly not before the wedding. And they would be married soon enough. She would be his tomorrow night in every sense of the word, and he could wait that long. He didn’t need another battle at this stage, not when he had already won the war.
‘Then good night, Princess,’ he said with a bow. ‘Sleep well. And when next we meet, it will be at our marriage.’
And he let her go. He watched her turn and walk purposefully away from him, watched the sway of her hips as she moved through the arched walkway to where Hamzah joined her to