a rebel group had turned against the young Crown Prince and tried to stage an uprising.
‘All that I endured?’ How could he lace a single syllable with such black cynicism? ‘What do you know of it?’
‘Doesn’t everyone know?’
Even at just thirteen, she had been starkly aware of those shocking television images. The crack of gunfire, the way that everyone had frozen just for a moment. Then security men had rushed forward, some towards the steps of the library where Nabil and his young Queen had been standing, others in the opposite direction in search of the would-be assassin. How could anyone ever forget the image of Nabil sinking to the ground, ignoring the blood streaming from the wound on his left cheek, as he cradled his mortally wounded Queen in protective arms?
Wasn’t it this that had kept alive the flame of the torch she had carried for him from the first moment they had met? Even through the long years when he had been so distant, just a remote, untouchable figure glimpsed at one public event or another.
‘If you had behaved differently there might have been civil war—worse—but the example you gave when your wife died...’
Now what had she said? She had wanted to express her admiration for him, her respect for the way he had handled a difficult, tragic situation, but instead it was as if she had tossed some bitter acid right in his face. His dark head snapped back, burning eyes narrowing sharply as he turned a shockingly cynical glance in her direction. The cold moonlight caught on the white scar on his cheek, a stark reminder of that terrible day.
‘I don’t think about it,’ he stated flatly. ‘I don’t want to remember any of that.’
The words were so cold that they slashed at her like a blade of ice but the frightening thing was that at the same time just the simple action of speaking brought him closer to her. The aggressive jut of his jaw was now just inches away from her face, the brilliant glitter of his eyes like polished jet in the moonlight. His powerful body shut out the light from the windows, from the moon, and there was just him, a dark and dangerous shadow looming over her.
She should feel afraid. Common sense screamed at her that she should move hastily away from here, away from him. But, shockingly, something else spread through her body at his nearness, something that held her where she was, unable to move.
It wasn’t fear, or even apprehension that fizzed through her veins. No, Aziza had to admit that what she felt was a stinging, burning excitement that was purely and totally feminine and focused tightly on the forceful masculinity of the man before her. The scent of his body surrounded her. She could feel the heat of his skin reach out to her, and that powerful jaw was so close that if she was to lift one hand...
‘What the hell...?’
Nabil’s snapped response sliced through the air, making her start in shock and realise what she’d done. Impelled by forces that were more potent than rational thought, she had actually put her feelings into action and had stretched out her hand to stroke lightly over the black hairs of his beard, feeling their crisp softness beneath her fingertips.
‘What are you doing?’
She should listen to the dangerous note in his voice and heed the warning in it. She was sure she had broken some code of behaviour when in the presence of the Sheikh—and that touching him was positively forbidden—but she couldn’t regret it. The feel of his beard against her skin was intoxicating, sending electrical shivers down her nerves. There were grey wings in the glossy black hair, at each side of his head, revealing the way that the passage of time had affected him and there, on the left side of his cheek, was that raised and ridged line of scar tissue, not quite hidden under the luxuriant growth of facial hair. She felt him start and tense as she touched it, and knew a shiver of apprehension, but at the same time those feelings were tangled with a heartfelt sensation of concern and sympathy for the darkness of the memories he had tried to hide behind the words, ‘I don’t want to remember any of that.’
‘I can see why you feel that way.’
The faltering softness of her voice brought his head in closer to catch the words so that now his mouth was just inches above her own. She saw the tightness that had clamped his lips together ease and felt her own mouth soften, lips opening as she tilted her head to one side, feeling the warmth of his breath on her cheek.
‘I understand.’
Did he plan to kiss her? The words had barely had time to register in her thoughts before they were pushed away again, driven out by the violence of his response.
‘You understand?’ Nabil demanded in a dark undertone. ‘Oh, you do, do you? And what, precisely, is it that you understand?’
‘I— You...’
Caught up sharp when she was still drifting on the heated waves of awareness that just touching him had brought to the surface, Aziza found the words had tangled up on her tongue and she couldn’t get them out. How had she found herself in this situation, here on this darkened terrace with the man who was ruler of all of Rhastaan?
But he was more than a sheikh, he was a man, a dark, powerful male. A man who was like a force of nature, hard and strong as the mountains that bordered his country, and she had overstepped some mark with him, trampling in where angels feared to tread and so sparking off some terrible wave of rejection and fury that she didn’t understand.
‘What do you know of me? Of anything?’
Nabil moved forward, reaching out to capture her chin in long, powerful fingers, twisting her head so that she was looking up at him, unable to avoid his burning gaze unless she closed her own eyes. Something she didn’t dare to do.
‘What can you tell me that I don’t know already?’
Nabil was having such trouble controlling the force of his feelings that his voice was just a dark, intent hiss of sound. Her words had hit on things he didn’t want to remember; things he didn’t want to let into his mind. He’d faced them once and it had almost destroyed him. Not again. Not now.
Not when this woman was before him, curvaceous, dark-haired and wide-eyed, reminding him so much of Sharmila. The woman who had died in his arms, taking the bullet that had been meant for him in a bungled assassination attempt. He had felt the impact of that attack in the way she had shuddered in his arms before she had crumpled to the ground. It was only much later that he’d realised that the bullet had nicked his own face, gouging a raw wound along his cheekbone on its way to a much more vulnerable, more valuable target.
But by then he had been unable to care about anything that happened to him because the bullet that had ended his young wife’s life had also taken his country’s future. The hole her death had left in his own life was something he flinched away from even now. Sharmila had been pregnant with the heir to his throne when she’d died, and the gap that had left in the heart of the country was one he had yet to fill.
Which was why he was going to have to make a decision some time very soon. As everyone kept reminding him. Even Clemmie had advised him, gently of course, that the country desperately needed an heir. He had no time, should have no inclination, for any dalliance with a woman he had just met by chance.
The twist of Zia’s head, pulling away from his fingers, dragged Nabil back into the present, and he wasn’t any happier to be there. The bitterness of memory lingered, making him tighten his grip, holding her still for a moment.
‘You know
