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balcony outside the ballroom.
She balked in the shadows at the bottom of the steps. “My lipstick. People will know.”
“I thought you were ready to take control of your own life?”
In the slant of light, she saw a mercilessness curl at the corner of his mouth. He pivoted them a few steps into the shadows beside the wall of the steps.
She was more than ready to give herself to him, but this was her home. Her brother’s wedding. She was the Princess of Khalia. She was sober enough to know that she had to be discreet about having an affair, not parade it through the middle of a state ceremony.
But as her would-be lover pressed her to the stones that had barely cooled in the hours since sundown, she forgot her misgivings. Her hands found the heat of his neck and she parted her lips, moaning as he kissed her again.
He transported her to that place of magic they seemed to create between them.
As she lost herself to his kiss again, he stroked her hip and thigh, urging her to pick up her knee and make space for him between her legs. Cool air grazed her skin as he shifted her skirt up, up and out of the way, touching—
She gasped at the first contact of fingertips against the back of her thigh. Arrows of pleasure shot into her core, making her yearn so badly her eyes grew damp along with her underthings. She arched her neck as he trailed his mouth down her throat.
It was exquisite and joyful and...
Wait.
He was hard where he pressed between her legs, but something was off.
She touched the side of his face, urging him to lift his head. There was heat in his glittering eyes, but it was banked behind a cooler emotion. Something deliberate. His skin might have been flushed with arousal, but his expression was dispassionate.
He wasn’t as involved as she was.
Hurt and unease began to worm through her, but before she could fully react, she heard a gasp and a giggle above them. Someone said a pithy, “Get a room.”
“That’s the princess!” a female voice hissed.
“With who?” She knew that demanding masculine voice. She looked up to see several faces peering down at them over the wall of the balcony, one of them her brother’s. He did not look pleased.
Did her lover release her leg to find a modicum of decorum? Not right away. Not before she caught a dark look of satisfaction in his hard features.
Gaze solely on her, he very slowly eased his hold on her leg so his touch branded into her skin as she lowered her thigh. Humiliation pulsed in her throat, made all the more painful by the way he had gone from passionately excited to...this. Remote. Unaffected. Perhaps even satisfied by her public set down.
Angry and embarrassed as she was, her abdomen still tightened in sensual loss as he drew away from their full-frontal contact, which only added to her mortification.
“You were right,” he said. “We should have gone to your room.”
She had no choice but to take refuge there. Alone and fast.
GALILA WOKE TO a dull headache, some low-level nausea that was more chagrin than hangover and a demand that she present herself to her brother immediately.
Despite what she would have hoped was a fulfilling wedding night, Zufar was in a foul mood and fifteen minutes in, didn’t seem to be tiring of tearing strips off her.
“You can’t bring that sort of shame down on the palace and think it doesn’t matter.”
“What shame?” she cried, finally allowed a word in edgewise. “A few people saw us kissing. Malak behaves far worse all the time.”
“And you hate it when he gets the attention! You couldn’t put your own silly need to be in the spotlight on hold for one night? The night of my wedding? Is anyone talking about our ceremony or my bride? No. The buzz is all about the fact you were seen behaving like a tart.”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a glance at her manicure. “Because the things they were saying about your marriage to the maid weren’t all that flattering.”
“Mind how you talk to your king, little sister,” he said in a tone that should have terrified, but she refused to take him seriously. It was just the two of them in here and he was behaving like a Neanderthal.
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” she said, throwing up her arms. “I can’t undo it.”
“You could start by promising you’ll show more decorum in future. This shouldn’t even be happening. Why Mother let you go this long without marrying you off to someone who can control you, I will never understand.”
“Can’t you?” she bit out sharply.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She saw me as competition, Zufar.” It was plain as day.
“Get over yourself, Galila. You are the one who sees everyone as competition. Take heed now. I won’t have you upstaging my queen. You will learn to take a back seat.”
“I wouldn’t—”
They were interrupted by a servant. He entered after a brief but urgent knock and hurried to lean into Zufar’s ear. All Galila caught was “...very insistent...”
Zufar’s expression hardened. “Show him in.” As she turned, Zufar added, “Where do you think you’re going?” He glared at Galila’s attempt to exit.
“I assumed we were done.”
“You wish. No, I have no idea why he insists on speaking to me, but I imagine it concerns you, so you’ll stand here while he does.”
“Who?” She looked to the door the servant had left through.
“Sheikh Karim of Zyria.”
“Is that his name?” She had imagined he was one of their more illustrious guests but hadn’t realized—
Zufar slammed his hand onto his desktop, making her jump. “Do not tell me you didn’t even know the name of the man who had his hand up your skirt.”
She looked to the corner of the ceiling, biting the insides of her cheeks.
“Do you honestly think my life has room for your childish antics?” Zufar demanded.
She started to scowl at him, but he came in. Sheikh Karim of Zyria. He had exchanged his ceremonial garb of last night for a Western-style bespoke suit in slate gray sans headdress.
If possible, he was even more knee-weakeningly handsome. The crisp white of his shirt and blood-red tie suggested a man who commanded any world he occupied. He stole the breath from her body in a psychic punch, utterly overwhelming her.
His gaze spiked into hers as though he’d been waiting to see her again, but before her heart fully absorbed that sensation, he offered a terse nod and turned his attention to her brother, leaving her feeling promptly dismissed and inexplicably bereft.
* * *
After ensuring Princess Galila had indeed retired for the night, Karim had gone to his own guest apartment, somewhat disgusted with himself. He had been telling the truth when he’d claimed not to take advantage of women in a weakened state. He considered himself an honorable man.
But he hadn’t been able to take the chances that she would leak his secret to someone else after her next sip of brandy.
He had been wrestling with his conscience over whether he should seduce this tipsy woman to his room, where he could at least contain her, when she had thrown herself against him in the darkest