LITMIR.BIZ

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article, back in the Bakrian palace.

      The old sheikh had been a connoisseur of flagrantly inappropriate women. He’d stopped marrying them after the mercenary Ukrainian dancer—the mother of the deeply disobedient Amaya, who was chief among Rihad’s many problems these days while she evaded her responsibilities and the fiancé she’d decided she didn’t want on the eve of her engagement party—had taken off and proceeded to live off the telling of her “my life in the evil sheikh’s harem” story for decades. The old man had gone off matrimony after that, but not women. If anyone knew how men treated their mistresses, it would be his father.

      “Perhaps a refresher course in your expectations of Omar might not go amiss,” Rihad had suggested drily. “His time in New York City appears to have affected his memory, particularly where his duties to this country are concerned.”

      His father had only sighed, as Rihad had known he would. Because while Rihad was his father’s heir, he had never been his father’s favorite. And no wonder. Omar and the old sheikh were peas in a deeply selfish pod, stirring up scandals left and right as they did exactly as they pleased no matter the consequences, while Rihad was left to quietly clean it all up in their wake.

      Because somebody had to be responsible, or the country would fall to its enemies. That somebody had been Rihad for as long as he could remember.

      “No man is without his weaknesses, Rihad,” his father had said, frowning at him. “It is only regrettable that Omar is making his so public.”

      Rihad had no idea if he had weaknesses or not, as he’d never been given any leave to indulge them. He’d never kept mistresses, inappropriate or otherwise. He’d known full well that as his father’s successor he’d been promised in a political marriage since birth. And he’d dutifully married the woman picked out for him when he’d finished his studies in England, in fulfillment of that promise.

      Tasnim might not have been a flashy model type, with masses of shining copper-blond hair and a sinful mouth like the woman Omar had holed up with all these years. But she’d been as committed to their marriage as Rihad had been. They’d worked their way to something like affection in the three short years before she’d been diagnosed with cancer at a routine doctor’s appointment. When she’d died five years ago this past summer, Rihad had lost a friend.

      Maybe that was what moved in him then, on the side of a New York City street as his brother’s worst and most public embarrassment sat waiting for him to drive her away from the comeuppance Rihad had planned to deliver upon her, in spades. Fury that Tasnim, who had kept all her promises, was gone. The same old mix of fury and bafflement that Omar had broken all the rules, as usual, and gotten this plaything of his big with child anyway—and then abandoned a Bakrian royal child to fate, its mother unmarried and unprotected.

      That or the fact her hand in his, her skin sliding against his in even so simple and impersonal a touch, had made him burn. He could feel it now. Still.

       Unacceptable.

      If he’d been anyone else, he thought, he might have been shaken by that astonishing burst of heat. Altered, somehow, by that fire that roared through him, making him feel bright and needy, and suggesting all manner of possibilities he didn’t wish to face.

      But Rihad was not anyone else. He did not acknowledge weakness. He rose above it.

      He pulled out his mobile, made a call and snapped out his instructions as he climbed into the driver’s seat, his decision made in an instant. Because it was the most expedient way to handle the crisis, he assured himself, not because he could still feel her touch as if she’d branded him. He could see Sterling in the back via his mirror—such a fanciful, ridiculous name—and the frown she aimed at him. It had nothing to do with the things that coursed through him at the sight of her, none of which he’d expected. He was a man of duty, never of need.

      “You can’t talk on your phone while you drive,” she told him. Scolded him, more like. “You know that, don’t you?”

      As if he was extraordinarily dim. It occurred to Rihad then that no one he was not related to by blood, in all his years on this earth, had dared address him with anything but the utmost respect—if not fawning deference.

      Ever.

      For a moment he was stunned.

      He should have been outraged. He couldn’t understand why instead there was a part of him that wanted only to laugh.

      “Can I not?” he asked mildly, after a moment, his tone an uneasy balance between the two. “I appreciate the warning.”

      “Aside from the fact it’s against the law, it’s not safe,” she replied in that same irritated way he’d never in his life had directed at him before, her voice tight. Annoyed, even. He saw her shift against the leather seat and put her hands over her swollen belly, in a way that suggested she was not quite the soulless, avaricious harlot he’d painted her in his head. He ignored that suggestion.

      “I don’t think I’d care if you ran this car into the side of a building if it was only me, but it’s not.”

      “Indeed it is not.” Rihad slid his phone into the interior pocket of his jacket and then started the vehicle. “Yet your husband would miss you, surely?”

      He was needling her, of course, and he couldn’t have said why. What could he possibly gain from it? A glance in the rearview mirror showed him her profile, however, not that cool frown he found he very nearly enjoyed. She’d turned her head as if to stare back at the building as he pulled the car into traffic. As if leaving it—this place she’d lived with his brother, or off his brother if he was more precise—was difficult for her.

      Rihad supposed it must have been. It would be much harder to find a patron now, no doubt. She was older, for one thing. Well-known—infamous, even—for her role as another man’s prize possession, across whole years. Soon to be a mother to another man’s child, which the sort of men who regularly trafficked in mistresses would be unlikely to find appealing.

      Because you find her so unappealing even now, when she is huge with your brother’s child, a derisive voice inside chided him. Liar.

      Rihad ignored that, too. He could not find himself attracted to his brother’s infamous leftovers. He would not allow it.

      “The father of my child is dead,” Sterling said, her voice so frozen that if he hadn’t stolen that glance at her, he’d have believed she really was utterly devoid of emotion.

      “And you loved him so much you wish to follow him into that great night?” He couldn’t quite keep the sardonic inflection from his own voice, and her head swung back toward him, her lovely brow creasing again. “That seems a rather desperate form of tribute, don’t you think? The province of the cowed and the cowardly, in my opinion. Living is harder. That’s the point of it.”

      “Am I having an auditory hallucination?”

      That was obviously a rhetorical question. Still, Rihad shrugged as he turned onto the narrow highway that clung to the east side of the city and led out of town, and replied, “I cannot answer that for you.”

      “Or are you quizzing me—in a snide manner—about the death of someone I loved? You’re a driver.”

      And her tone was withering, but there was something about it that spoke of repressed emotions, hidden fears. Or perhaps he was the one hearing things then.

      “I don’t care what you think about my life or my choices or my feelings, in case that’s not clear. I want you to drive the damned car upstate, no more and no less. Is that all right with you? Or do you have more unsolicited opinions to share?”

      Rihad smiled as he merged onto a different highway and headed toward the top of the island and the stately bridge that would lead to the airfield where his jet should be waiting, refueled and ready, upon his arrival. Or heads would roll.

      “Where are you going?” he asked her with deceptive casualness.

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