felt her temper like a living thing between them, but then she ducked her head down and she didn’t argue. And he liked that too much.
“Good girl,” he said again, and he felt her shake at that, too. Almost as if she really were bent like him. Almost as if she found as much pleasure in the act of obeying him as he would have found in issuing orders, if any of this were real. If it weren’t dangerous. If there weren’t too many eyes on them already.
This is the sister of the famous Hunter Grant, Laurette had said in her arch, insinuating way, the fact that she spoke in her native French making it sound harsher, somehow. But you know this already, do you not? He is a great friend of yours, I believe.
We went to university together, Zair had replied mildly. But there is friendship between men, Laurette. And then there are whores. And he’d shrugged, letting his mouth flatten as he did. These things have very little to do with each other.
The woman had laughed. Enjoy breaking her in, Zair, she’d said. Try not to do any permanent damage.
He’d laughed, too, because that was what he did. It was who he was, who he’d been for long enough now that the edges had long since blurred. The boundaries were no longer clear.
I always leave my mark, Laurette, he’d said quietly. Or how will she know I was there?
And that was the trouble. That was always the trouble. The best lies, the best disguises, started with a kernel of truth. He knew his did. He wanted whatever Nora’s game was tonight to be rooted in the same kind of truth—and that was as crazy as it was unlikely. He’d seen her insipid boyfriends over the years. He’d seen the dynamics of her relationships, where she held all the power and was always bored. Even if, somewhere deep inside, she secretly longed to hand over her control in the most intimate of settings, he very much doubted she was ready to face that, and certainly not here. Not like this. Not with him. Those were dark imaginings and best kept locked deep inside him, he knew.
He wasn’t going to force her. Zair could barely tolerate himself as it was.
But his ace in the hole was that she didn’t know that.
He kept his grip on her as he steered her toward the exit, slightly harder than necessary. He pulled out his phone as they moved through the crowd, calling the embassy in Washington, DC, where it was just after 5:00 p.m. He talked business almost idly as his security detail fell into place on either side of him, letting go of Nora only when they were all settled in his private speedboat.
He saw Laurette watching him from up on the yacht’s deck and nodded at her the way he had every time he’d left one of these parties with another pretty girl in tow, but he didn’t end the call. He let his assistant relay his messages as the boat set off for Cannes, and when they hit the shore and were met by his driver, he looked around for cameras before he escorted Nora into the car with the same firm grip, like a bare-handed leash.
He caught his head of security’s dark gaze and the other man shook his head. Which meant a camera Zair hadn’t seen. He let out a breath, turning over the implications of that in his head…but there was no undoing this. There was no un-taking that picture and there was no letting Nora wander off to do this kind of thing again tomorrow night with God knows which monster. There was only hoping the paparazzo in question was too lazy or too glutted on all the Hollywood royalty in town this month to make the connection between another blonde woman on Zair al Ruyi’s arm and former tabloid staple Hunter Grant.
Once in the car, he sat back and made a few more calls to the usual people—the sultan’s primary aide for the daily update on his brother Azhil’s bad rulings and uncertain temper, his other liaison in the palace in Ruyi for the unofficial political mutterings from the regime’s enemies back home—as the car swept them away from the mad glitter of Cannes and up into the relative safety of the hills.
He finally put his mobile away when the car pulled into the long drive that took its time winding around to the sprawling villa he used when he was in the South of France, as befit the ambassador to and half brother of the great Azhil, Sultan of Ruyi. The car stopped at the foot of the curved steps that led to the massive carved entryway, but Nora didn’t move. Zair’s driver opened the passenger door, letting in a cool night breeze that danced around the interior, scented with rosemary and a hint of salt from the sea far below.
And Nora sat like a statue beside him, mute despair etched all over her lovely face.
Zair was certain, then, that whatever she’d been doing on that yacht, she’d never done it before. As certain as he was that she’d never do it again. Not if he had anything to say about it.
And he had quite a lot to say on that topic, in fact. As she would soon discover.
He inclined his head, a silent command that she exit the car ahead of him. For a moment he thought she might crack—but she climbed out instead, squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine as she stood there beneath the stars with the breeze in her hair, and he found he admired her for it. More than was at all wise.
That was as dangerous as anything else.
He ushered her into the villa, dismissing his guards as he went, knowing that only once they’d taken their positions on the grounds outside could he speak freely. Until then, he studied this bright, shining girl who shouldn’t have been here, with him, in this tainted place.
He was looking for clues as to why she’d come to Cannes, he told himself. Looking for weaknesses you can use to your advantage, you mean, the cynical voice inside him said. Or hints that she’s what you’d like her to be.
God, but he was tired of himself.
Nora walked in through the airy atrium, straight through the graceful sprawl of the open reception and living areas to the wall of windows on the far side. Zair followed at a distance. The night was clear and cool, and he thought she could see almost to Italy. The gemlike coastal cities stretched out like a necklace threaded along the shoreline, from Antibes to Cap Ferrat to Monte Carlo, and Nora had never looked more celestial to him than she did then, bracketed here in the hills of France with the whole of the Côte d’Azure at her feet.
But they were both playing deep games tonight, and there was no place for angels in this particular gutter.
He heard the faint beep that meant the villa was clear of any potential intruders and that his guards had retreated to the security quarters elsewhere on the property. And for the first time all night, Zair took a long, deep breath and felt something like himself.
“Nora.”
She turned around then and he didn’t recognize her. That girl he thought he knew was absent entirely from her face, her usually expressive eyes. She was an icy blonde stranger, a confection of smooth limbs and the glorious blond waves that surged over her shoulders. Her blue eyes were a wall he couldn’t see through, and if it was possible, he wanted this tough, unreadable version of her more.
He wanted to take her apart. He wanted her to want that as much as he did.
But it didn’t matter what he wanted. It mattered what he did. And Zair supposed it mattered what she was doing here—because he didn’t buy that she was looking for the kind of rough evenings that friend of hers returned for, year after year.
Everything else was fantasy. And would be reason enough for her brother—his friend, he reminded himself acidly—to kill Zair with
