Francesca—whom he had known all her life—could think so poorly of him. As if he were nothing more than some brainless stud. ‘And just where did you acquire this fascinating piece of information?’
‘The gossip columns are always full of your exploits—though I notice that they’ve tailed off since you became King. But prior to that, you were always being seen with some woman or other!’
‘How very naïve you are, Francesca.’ With a faint sigh of impatience, he shook his dark head and subjected her to a look of chilly censure. ‘Do you really believe everything you read in the papers?’
‘I believe the evidence of my own eyes! I’ve seen enough photos of you wit … with …’ To her fury and consternation, Frankie found that her breath was catching in her throat and that her mind was now being plagued with images far more vivid than that of Simon’s face.
Zahid with a Hollywood hottie gazing up at him, with naked adoration on her face. Zahid being papped with a sexy international lawyer who had been representing one of his rivals in some complicated court case. Except that she was pretty sure it wasn’t written into a legal code of conduct that a legal representative should look at her own client’s adversary as if she’d like to eat him up for breakfast. ‘With all kinds of women!’ she finished hotly. ‘Making you look like some sort of international playboy!’
Zahid winced and, to be fair, he conceded that she did have a point. He had always enjoyed a colourful and varied sex-life until the constraints of his unexpected new role as King had forced him to employ a little more prudence. But even so …
‘And you think that’s the only reason I travel?’ he demanded. ‘To have affairs with women?’
As his tone of indignation washed over her Frankie forced herself to remember all his humanitarian work. She thought about the money he’d poured into a world peace project and the well-received speeches he had made on the subject. Just because she had experienced the green-eyed monster when she’d seen the photos didn’t mean that she should make him out to be some kind of uncaring brute who was only interested in bedding members of the opposite sex.
She shook her head. ‘No, of course I don’t and I shouldn’t have implied that I did,’ she said stiffly, tipping boiling water into a pot containing two mint tea bags and glancing up to find his eyes on her. ‘But even you wouldn’t deny that it’s probably one of the perks of being away from all the restrictions in Khayarzah.’
He gave a brief nod. How well she knew him. Or maybe it was just that she was permitted the rare freedom to be able to voice such thoughts because of her long association with his family. And because of the great debt he owed to her father …
‘I’m sorry about your father,’ he said suddenly. ‘And I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the funeral.’
Frankie puckered her lips tightly as she picked up the teapot. Don’t show emotion, she told herself fiercely. It’s counterproductive because it will only get you upset—and it really isn’t done to break down in front of the sheikh, no matter how well you think you know him.
‘I understand,’ she answered, her voice sounding like a child’s squeaky toy. ‘You explained in your letter that you had only just acceded to the throne, and that you c-couldn’t get away.’
Zahid nodded, remembering back to those troubled days—when the crown he had never imagined he would wear had been placed on his head. ‘I couldn’t,’ he said simply.
‘It was good of your brother to come in your place. And that wreath you sent,’ Frankie added, with a gulp. ‘It was absolutely b-beautiful.’
He heard her voice wobble and he glared, getting up from the table to take the teapot from her trembling hands. ‘Here. Let me take that.’
‘You can’t pour your own tea.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous,’ he returned. ‘I can just about upend a pot of boiling water. Or do you think I have people waiting on me every second of the day?’
‘Pretty much.’
A faint smile edged the corners of his mouth. ‘Impertinent woman,’ he murmured, and as he said it found himself looking into her startled blue eyes as one word leapt out and hung in the air surrounding them. He felt a pulse of heat deep in his groin. Woman. He swallowed. He would never have said that to her before. Nor found himself looking at her lips and wondering what it would be like to kiss them—even though they weren’t wearing a scrap of make-up. Did Simon not like her wearing make-up? he wondered heatedly.
Frankie took one of the mugs of tea and quickly moved away—the fact that it was burning her hand hardly noticeable when measured against the hot burning in her cheeks which had followed that curiously intense moment back then. ‘I’ll … I’ll get some honey,’ she said.
Glad to have the distraction of moving away, she walked over to one of the cupboards. Her fingers were trembling as she brought out a half-filled jar and handed it to him, and she watched as he spooned a teaspoonful of honey in each cup, seeing it melt in a golden puddle into the pale green liquid.
He looked up then, a careless question in his eyes. ‘So when do I get to meet him?’
‘Meet him?’ Francesca’s heart thudded. Surely he didn’t mean what she thought he meant? ‘Wh-who?’
‘Simon.’
She stared at him, trying to disguise her horror—some instinct telling her that Zahid and Simon should be kept apart at all costs. ‘Wh-why on earth would you want to meet him?’
He shrugged and her obvious reluctance to have him do so only fired up his sense of determination that he should. ‘Why wouldn’t I? My country owes a great debt to your father and I am an old family friend. Since you don’t have any senior male relative to look out for you, I consider it my duty to meet the man you are intending to marry.’
Frankie hoped that her face didn’t betray her appalled reaction to his suggestion—and not just because he had painted a rather grim image of himself as a “senior male relative”. The last thing she wanted was for him to meet Simon—because surely Zahid would make any man look hapless in his presence.
‘Well, perhaps we can arrange something for the next time you’re in town,’ she said, with the confident air of someone who knew that tight royal schedules made such casual meetings almost impossible.
‘But aren’t you seeing him tonight? Aren’t you planning to cook him dinner?’
She wondered how on earth he could have known that until she saw him looking at the covered dish of chicken and the little heap of potatoes waiting to be peeled; the box of unopened candles which lay next to them. Perhaps he had been a detective in another life, she thought crossly. ‘Yes, I’m cooking him dinner. I’d ask you to join us except that you’re probably busy.’ She gave a weak smile. ‘And I’ve only got two chicken breasts.’
Zahid almost laughed at the sheer banality of her statement, but the truth of it was that her attitude was firing him up even more. He wasn’t used to people saying no to him. And his curiosity had been aroused. What was she trying to hide? ‘No woman should have to cook a meal when she’s just got engaged—she should be freed from the drudgery of domesticity and left to enjoy the romance,’ he said silkily. ‘So I’ll take you and Simon out to dinner instead.’
