two years. Ever since the palace was built. We are very lucky. After our parents died we were given a home in return for serving the King and Prince Zahir.’
So their parents were dead. Anna suspected there were going to be many tales of death and destruction in this country once ravaged by war. She wanted to ask more but Lena’s lowered eyes suggested to pry further would be insensitive. Layla, however, had edged closer to the bed, staring at her as if she had been dropped down from another planet.
‘I like your hair.’
‘Layla!’ Her sister admonished her with a sharp rebuke.
‘That’s okay.’ Anna laughed, looking down at the blonde locks that were tumbling in disarray over her shoulders. ‘Thank you for the compliment. It takes a lot of brushing in the morning, though, to get the tangles out.’
‘I can do that for you,’ Layla replied earnestly.
‘Well, that’s very kind of you but...’
‘We are honoured to be able to serve you, Your Royal Highness,’ Lena said. ‘Prince Zahir has instructed us to attend to your every need.’
He had? Anna found it hard to believe that he would concern himself with such trivialities as her every need. ‘Well, in that case, I will take you up on your kind offer. Prince Zahir...’ Anna hesitated. She wanted to ask what sort of an employer he was, what sort of a man they thought he was, but suspected that they wouldn’t be at liberty to tell her and it would be unfair to ask. ‘Do you see very much of him?’
‘No. He is away from the palace a lot. And, even when he is here, his needs are very few.’
‘Do you have many visitors, here in the palace?’
‘Not so many. Mostly foreign businessmen and politicians.’
‘We’ve never had a visitor as pretty as you before,’ Layla offered conversationally. ‘Do all the women in your country look like you?’
‘Well, the women of Dorrada tend to be fair-skinned and blue-eyed. The men too, come to that. Your dark beauty would be much prized in my country. As I’m sure it is here.’
‘So, Prince Zahir...’ Layla continued. ‘You think him handsome?’
‘Layla!’
‘I am only asking.’ Layla stuck out her bottom lip.
‘Obviously she thinks him handsome. She wouldn’t be marrying him otherwise.’
Anna suppressed a smile as the two sisters set about one another in their own language, waiting for them to finish before speaking again.
‘The answer to your question is yes—I do think him handsome.’
The sisters exchanged an excited glance.
‘And it is true that you will be marrying and coming to live here in the palace?’ This time Lena asked the question, her curiosity overcoming her sense of decorum.
‘Yes, that is true.’ Saying it out loud didn’t make it seem any the less astonishing.
Lena’s and Layla’s pretty faces broke out into broad smiles and they even reached to clasp each other’s hands.
‘That is very good news, Your Royal Highness. Very good news indeed.’
* * *
Staring at the screen, Zahir cursed under his breath. He had braced himself for a small photograph of the two of them on the bridge, prepared to suffer the mild humiliation of being caught kissing in public, or rather being kissed, when it was put in the wider context of the engagement party. But this wasn’t a small photograph. This was a series of images, blown up to reveal every minor detail. With his finger jabbing on the mouse, Zahir scrolled down and down, his blood pressure rocketing as more and more pictures of him locked in a passionate embrace with Annalina flashed before his eyes. There were even several close-ups of the engagement ring, worn on the slender hand that was threaded through his hair, before finally the official photographs of the party appeared, the ones he wanted the world to see. The ones where he and Annalina were standing solemnly side by side, displaying their commitment to each other and to their countries.
And it wasn’t just one newspaper. The whole of Europe appeared to be obsessed with the beautiful Princess Annalina, the press in France, the UK, and of course Dorrada itself taking a particular interest, feasting on the titbits that the photographer had no doubt sold to them for a handsome fee.
A rustle behind him made him turn his head and there stood the object of the press’s attention, Annalina. At last—it was over an hour since he had sent servants to her room to find out what she was doing, giving orders that she should meet him here in the stateroom at her earliest convenience. Clearly he was going to have to be more specific. Dressed in a simple navy fitted dress, she looked both young, chic and incredibly sexy at the same time. Her ash-blonde hair was loose, tumbling over her shoulders in soft waves, falling well below the swell of her breasts.
Zahir felt his throat go dry. He hadn’t been prepared for such hair, only having seen it secured on top of her head in some way before. He had had no idea it would be so long, so fascinating. He had had no idea that he would be fighting the urge to imagine how it would feel against his bare skin.
‘Have you seen this?’ Angry with himself, with his reaction and this whole damned situation, his voice rasped harshly. He hadn’t been able to concentrate all morning, hadn’t got through half the work he’d intended to.
She glanced at the laptop, screwing up her eyes. ‘Is it bad?’
‘See for yourself.’
A soft cloud of floral scent washed over him as she sat down next to him, tucking her hair behind one small, perfect ear. He almost flinched as she reached across him to touch the mouse, quickly scrolling through the images and scanning the text as she moved from one website to the next.
‘Well.’ She turned in her seat to look at him, her eyes a startling blue. ‘I guess it’s no worse than we were expecting.’
‘You, maybe. I certainly wasn’t expecting such mass coverage.’
‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now.’ She exhaled, the light breath whispering across the bare skin of his forearm and raising the hairs, raising his blood pressure. ‘Are the photos in the Nabatean newspapers too?’
‘Fortunately not. The official photographs from the engagement party are all that they will see. My people would not be interested in such a sordid spectacle.’
He watched as she wrinkled her small nose. Her skin was so pale, so clear, like the finest porcelain.
‘What?’ He didn’t want to ask, he hadn’t even meant to ask. But her disrespectful gesture refused to be ignored.
‘I’m just wondering how you know that—if they aren’t given the chance, I mean. That sounds like censorship to me.’
Temper snaked through him, slowing his heart to a dull thud. He narrowed his eyes, the thick lashes blurring his image of this infuriating woman. ‘Let me make something clear right from the start, Princess Annalina. I may, or may not, seek
