LITMIR.BIZ

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Hannah pressed a hand to her forehead, feeling as if she was close to losing her mind. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

      “I’m in Kadar.”

      “Kadar? Sheikh Makin’s country? Why?”

      “He thinks I’m you.”

      “Tell him you’re not!”

      “I can’t.”

      “Why not?”

      “It’d ruin everything!”

      Hannah darted another quick look over her shoulder and added more urgently. “But everything’s already ruined! You have no idea what’s happened—”

      “I’m sorry, I am.” Emmeline cut Hannah short, tears thickening her voice. “But everything’s out of my control.”

      “Your control. Your life. It’s always about you, isn’t it?”

      “I didn’t mean it that way.”

      “But you did mean to send me here in your place and you didn’t intend to come right away.” Hannah was so angry she was practically shouting. “You used me. Manipulated me. But how do you think I feel being trapped here, pretending to—” She broke off as the floorboards creaked behind her.

      She wasn’t alone. Hannah spun around.

       Zale.

      She felt the blood drain from her face and for a moment there was just the roar in her ears and then nothing. Silence and nothing.

      She snapped the phone closed and it nearly slipped from her fingers.

      “How is our good friend Alejandro?” Zale asked, taking a step into the room and closing her bedroom door behind him.

      Hannah’s heart thudded hard and she darted a panicked glance at the now closed door. “W-w-who?”

      “Emmeline.”

      “It wasn’t what you think.”

      “Of course you’d make it a game. Nothing is ever straightforward with you.” He walked to the bed and sat down on the edge and then patted the mattress beside him. “So come, sit, we’ll try to make this fun.”

      He smiled at her but his expression was cold. Angry. “Shall we play twenty questions? I’ll ask, you answer—”

      “Zale, it wasn’t a man. It wasn’t Alejandro. It was one of my girlfriends.”

      “And you expect me to believe that?”

       “Yes.”

      “I know what I heard. You were begging him to come get you and take you home.”

      “No! That wasn’t it. I promise. Cross my heart—”

      “Don’t.” His voice dropped, his tone pitched low and dangerous. “Don’t do that.”

      Hannah crossed the carpet, shaking from head to toe. She thrust her phone out to him. “Call. Call the last number back. See who answers. It’s not a man.”

      But he refused to take the phone and it fell between them, hitting the mattress and then sliding onto the floor next to the bed.

      She’d never seen him this angry. He seethed with fury, amber eyes glittering like cut stone. After a moment he rose from the bed, circled her where she stood.

      “Every time I get comfortable with you, you do this. Every time I commit to you, you play me for a fool.”

      “No.” She laced her fingers together, skin prickling with unease. He was dangerous like this. Unpredictable. “I would never do that to you. Never.” And then she heard herself and her vehemence and realized she was playing him for a fool. She had ever since she arrived.

      Pretending to be Emmeline.

      Pretending to be working out the differences in their relationship.

      Pretending to get to know him before they married, when in reality, she wasn’t even the one he’d ever marry …

      “You’re not a damsel in distress, Princess.” He spit the words out as if they hurt his mouth. “There’s no lock on any door. No guard keeping you here. If you want to go. Go. As for me, I have things to do and I’m not going to stand here and waste another minute with you.”

      “Zale—”

      He lifted a hand to silence her. “Enough. Have some respect. Please.” Hand still lifted, he walked out the door.

CHAPTER TWELVE

      ZALE left his room and returned to the old castle keep, crossing through the once grand medieval hall still lined with heraldic banners and suits of armor, to the new wing on the far side, a wing which he’d had built five years ago to house his personal gymnasium and sport facility.

      The sport facility was really a world-class sport complex, containing a regulation football field on the first floor with real grass, nets and stadium lighting. The second floor was divided into various sport courts—one for tennis, basketball and handball—plus a weight room where he still trained every other day.

      A locker room adjoined the weight room, outfitted with a sauna, a whirlpool and a massage table for rehabilitating injuries.

      Not that Zale got injured anymore. But it made him feel connected to the person he’d been, the one who’d lived and breathed sport above everything. The sport facility hadn’t been cheap, either. It’d cost him millions to build, but he’d used his own money and he maintained it with his own money, too. In this part of the palace he wasn’t a king but a man. A man who needed nothing but a ball, a net, an expanse of grass.

      In his locker room he stripped out of his dress shirt and trousers, changing into sweatpants, a T-shirt and his running shoes.

      Today he wouldn’t run on the treadmill. Today he ran on the track that circled his field, running fast, hard, one kilometer and then another and another but no matter how fast he ran he couldn’t escape himself.

      Couldn’t escape his thoughts.

      It was madness to have trusted her. Madness to have cared.

      They hadn’t signed the prenup and they had had sex. But she was cheating on him, still seeing Alejandro. It was within his rights to send her away. But ending it with Emmeline wouldn’t be a small thing. It would be a huge crisis, personally and politically. But once she was gone, and once the shock of the news had worn off, people would move on. He’d move on.

      But when Zale imagined her leaving, when he imagined her gone, he didn’t feel relief.

      He felt … pain.

       Loss.

      Her fault, he thought. The hollow emptiness within him, this sense of loss, was her fault. She was a witch, not a princess, and she’d cast a spell on him.

      But it was a spell he had to break. Sooner than later.

      And so he ran harder, ran faster, leaving the track to do tortuous wind sprints down the center of the field, again and again, pushing himself for an hour, running until his legs shook, and his heart pounded and he couldn’t catch his breath.

      Finally, finally his mind was calm. His thoughts were quiet. Yes, his chest still ached, but now it was due to exhaustion not emotion. And he could handle that.

      In the Queen’s Chambers, Hannah paced the sitting room for a half hour after he left her, in case he should change his mind and return. He didn’t.

      After thirty minutes she went to his rooms but he wasn’t there, either. She returned to her room, sank onto the small pink silk couch and picked up one of the French fashion magazines

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