Sheikh's Princess Of Convenience. Dani Collins
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or tasting or smelling. Not feeling.
Then, for heart-stopping minutes, he had been resurrected. Sunlight had dawned upon him, shaking him awake from a long freeze. Everything in him had wanted to plunge into that world and never leave it.
Somehow, he had pulled back, much the way any sane man would catch himself before teetering like a crazed addict into a hallucinogenic abyss.
That shockingly intense reaction had been a lesson. One he would heed. Now he knew exactly how dangerous she was. It meant he was now prepared to withstand the power of her effect on him.
He kept telling himself his abominable actions were for honorable ends. He was protecting her family as much as his own. His deliberately public display had worked beautifully to put an end to any inquiries she might have made about the man who had impregnated her mother.
Temporarily.
The rest of his strategy would play out now.
With one brief glance, he took in her suitably demure dove-gray skirt and jacket with a flash of passion-pink blouse beneath. Her hair was rolled into a knot behind her head, but she was every bit as beautiful as she’d been last night, if looking a little haunted around the eyes and pouty around the mouth.
He didn’t allow his gaze to linger, even though the flush on her skin was a sensual reminder of her reaction to him last night. She had worn a similar color when their kisses had sent the pulse in her neck racing against the stroke of his tongue. That response of hers had been as beguiling as the rest, and not something he could allow himself to recollect or he’d embarrass himself.
For the most part, Karim kept his emotions behind a containment wall of indifference. It wasn’t usually so difficult. He’d been doing it his whole life.
Last night, however, this woman had put more than one fracture in his composure. Those tiny cracks had to be sealed before they spread. His reaction to her would be controlled. His command of this situation would be logical and deliberate. Effectual—as all his actions and decisions were throughout his life.
He started by refusing to react with any degree of emotion when her brother offered a blistering, opening attack.
“I expected better of a man in your position, Karim.” Zufar didn’t even rise, lifting only one sneering corner of his mouth. “You should have had the grace to be gone by now.”
“Allow me to make reparation for any harm to your family’s reputation,” Karim said smoothly. “I’ll marry her.”
Galila gasped. “What? I’m not going to marry you.”
Karim flicked a glance to her outraged expression. “Do not tell me you are promised elsewhere.” He had to fight to control his reaction, never having experienced such a punch of possessiveness in his life. He would shed blood.
“No.” She scowled. “But I’m not ready to marry anyone. Certainly not a stranger. Not just because I kissed you. It’s ridiculous!”
“It’s highly practical and a good match.” He had spent much of the night reasoning that out, determined emotions wouldn’t enter into this arrangement. “You’ll see,” he assured her. Her flair of passion could wait for the bedroom.
“I will not see!”
“Quiet.” Zufar held up a hand, rising to his feet.
Galila rushed forward and brushed it down.
“Don’t tell me to be quiet,” she hissed. “I will decide whom I marry. And while it’s a kind offer—” she said in a scathing tone that suggested she found Karim’s proposal anything but, she stared Karim right in the eye as she said emphatically, “No.”
Her crackling heat reached toward him, licking at the walls he forced himself to keep firmly in place.
“Clearly your sister has a mind of her own.” She was the kind of handful he would normally avoid, but greater things were at risk than his preference for a drama-free existence. “Was that the problem with your first bride?” Karim asked Zufar with a blithe kick below the belt. “Is that why she ran off with your brother?”
“What?” Zufar’s voice cracked like a whip, but Karim kept his gaze on his intended bride, watching her flush of temper pale to horror.
“Half brother, I mean,” he corrected himself very casually, despite feeling nothing of the sort. This was high-stakes gambling with a pair of twos he was bluffing into a straight flush.
“Galila.” Zufar’s tone was deadly enough that Karim shifted his attention—and the position of his body—to easily insert himself between the two if necessary.
Incensed as her brother looked, he didn’t look violent. And culpable as Galila grew, she didn’t look scared. She was glaring blame at Karim.
“Why are you doing this?” Her voice was tight and quiet.
“I am in need of a wife. Or so my government takes every opportunity to inform me.” It wasn’t a lie. “You are of suitable... What was the word you used when describing your mother’s lover? Station? Stature. That was it.”
“This goes beyond even your usual nonsense,” Zufar said in a tone graveled with fury. “A moment ago, you didn’t even know his name, yet you talked to him about our family’s most intimate business?”
“I was drunk.” She looked away, cheeks glowing with guilt and shame. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s been a very trying time, Zufar. You know it has. For all of us.”
Zufar’s eyes narrowed on her and his cheeks hollowed, almost as if he might accept that as reason enough for her imprudent behavior.
“Allow me to assure you,” Karim said with scalpel like precision, “that if you agree to our marriage, your family’s secrets will stay between us.”
The siblings stood in thunderous astonishment for a few moments.
“And if I don’t agree to the marriage?” Zufar asked, but Karim could see they both already knew the answer.
“Blackmail?” Galila asked with quiet outrage. “Why would you stoop so low? Why do you have to?” she challenged sharply.
He didn’t. He hadn’t made marriage a priority for a number of reasons, most of them superficial and convenience-related. He was a workaholic who barely had time for his mother, who still very much needed him. Women expected things. Displays of emotion. Intimacy that went beyond the physical.
“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Karim scoffed. “I’ll treat you as gently and carefully as the pretty little bird you are.”
“In a gilded cage? You know, you could ask me to marry you, not trap me into it.”
“Will you marry me?”
“No. I would never have anything to do with someone as calculating and ruthless as you are.”
“You already know me so well, Princess, you’re practically made for me. It certainly seemed that way last night.”
Zufar made a noise of outrage while Galila stomped her foot, blushing deep into her open collar.
“Stop talking about that! There are other women,” Galila insisted. “Pick one.”
“I want you.”
“I won’t do it.”
Karim only swung his attention back toward her brother. “I’ve made it clear what I’m prepared to do to get her.”
“Why? What else do you want?” Zufar flared his nostrils in fury.
Above all, Karim wanted to forestall any speculation about who might be the mysterious man their mother had fallen for. If it became known that Queen Namani’s lover had been his father, King Jamil, the news would not only destroy his mother, but it