effect of a truth serum. “I do.”
He nodded, as if he’d already been certain, but approved her corroboration. “This—” he swept the whole scene in a disdainful flick “—is unworthy of your tolerance or your presence.”
She had to force the mouth that kept dropping open closed. “Sometimes we’re forced to put up with much, for the sake of what’s more important than our own preferences or what we think we’re worthy of.”
His lips and eyes hardened, clearly disapproving. “Nothing is more important than your preferences. And your worth is not a matter of opinion. Only the best is good enough for you. The only thing you must always expect and get.”
The heart that seemed to have taken permanent residence in her throat expanded at his praise. Even if it was empty hyperbole, it sounded fantastic coming from him.
“Uh, thanks...but you don’t really know anything about me. And it’s clear you have no idea who I am.”
That dismissing wave again. “The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew everything I need to know about you. As for your identity, that makes no difference to who you really are, what you truly deserve.”
“Oh, believe me, it does.”
“Because you’re Jenan Aal Ghamdi, and this is supposed to be your engagement party?”
He knew who she was. And it didn’t seem to make a difference to him.
His next words made that clear beyond a doubt. “It’s all quite irrelevant to me. And should be to you, too. You don’t want to be here. But you want to be with me.”
“I—I do?”
“Yes. As much as I want to be with you.” His words were dripping in arrogant certainty. From another man, it would have been offensive. She’d handed other men their asses over way less. From him, though, it was just right. He had a right to such supreme self-assurance.
His eyes flared in the dimness as they caressed her half-open lips before settling back on her no doubt shell-shocked eyes. “Let me take you away from this farce. I’m the only one who can give you everything you need.”
She gaped up at him. Was she so traumatized by the idea of marrying Hassan that she was having a wish-fulfillment hallucination? Creating this god of a man and making it so she’d had the same instant, inexorable effect on him that he’d had on her?
But nothing she could conjure could be as outlandishly incredible as him. No, he was real. He had really followed her here, and he really was offering...offering...
She didn’t know exactly what he was offering. But anything coming from him sounded better than any fantasy she’d ever had. And more impossible.
Her situation might be irrelevant to him, but to her...
Suddenly, everything inside her hit Pause. In seconds, an urge took her over. A plan. It was rash, probably crazy, but it was all she could think of anymore.
This man was even more powerful than the monarchs she’d approached for help. His power was also unbridled by any of their tribal and political shackles, and it was more than enough to resolve Zafrana’s crisis without her sacrificing herself to this barbaric ritual of an arranged marriage. Of course, a man like him wouldn’t help out of the goodness of his heart.
She had a feeling he didn’t have one.
But if he was as interested in her as he seemed to be, they might come to an understanding.
Even if she couldn’t imagine he was that interested, he’d help with something that major. As a businesswoman, she was used to taking risks. The worst that could happen was he’d decline and just walk away. But since the stakes were so high and he was that tempting, she’d risk far more than his mere rejection.
Before she could think again, she said it out loud, making it too late to back down. “There is something I need.”
“Anything.”
His instant, unqualified statement gave her the last shove of courage she needed to make her request.
“I need you to get me out of marrying Hassan.”
“Done.”
Numair watched the impact of his one-word answer widening Jenan Aal Ghamdi’s magnificent eyes, spreading a deeper peach blush across the sculpted elegance of her cheekbones.
He was again almost overwhelmed by the need to trace that delectable color that kept surging across her face, the testament to his effect on this irresistible creature. And to luxuriate in every line of her masterpiece features, then drag her to him and taste each one before settling on her lush, dewy lips and devouring them.
It again baffled him, his response to her, the intensity, the immediacy of it. This was unprecedented, inexplicable. Yet it was most opportune. He’d come here for her after all.
He’d come knowing everything about her from the day she’d been born to the moment before he’d seen her. He’d compiled a dossier on her thicker than any he’d ever had on a quarry. From photographs, he’d noted her esthetic symmetry, but he hadn’t had any response to it, as usual.
Then he’d seen her in the flesh, and all thoughts of swallowing the bitter pill of necessity had been decimated by the thunderbolt of his response to her. Compulsions he’d never even imagined had taken him over the moment he’d laid eyes on her across the distance.
No. They’d done so even before he had. He’d felt her first.
Not that he’d realized what it had been he’d felt when a charge of energy had zapped him as soon as he’d entered this ballroom. He’d told himself it must have been a surge of resolve, obliterating any aversion to being here, to launching his mission. Those sensations had strengthened with each step he’d taken until he’d become certain it wasn’t internal, but a response to another person. A woman. Though he’d never felt anything like that toward one, the awareness he’d felt had been definitely...sensual.
Once sure of that, he hadn’t wanted to find the source of the disturbance. It would have been self-sabotaging to make contact with someone who’d triggered such an aberrant reaction in him when he was here in pursuit of a specific woman.
Then that beacon of sensations had moved, and before he could rein himself in, his gaze had been dragged toward it. And he’d found himself looking straight into her eyes. The heart that never faltered and barely sped under extreme conditions, that he almost never felt at all, had dropped a few beats before it had started thundering. It continued to do so.
As their gazes had meshed, so much had collided inside him. Disbelief, wonder, elation and a dozen other things. His target was the same woman who’d had this inexplicable influence on him. He hadn’t even thought what his mission would be like, but had been bound on seeing it through regardless. But this presented what he hadn’t even considered a possibility. That it would be enjoyable, even pleasurable.
Then he’d followed her, no longer out of calculation but compulsion. Everything he’d said and done since had been spontaneous. And real.
