The Inherited Bride

“But.” She was stalled by the look on his face, the blank hardness that conveyed both disinterest and contempt with ruthless efficiency. She took another bite of her hamburger and tried not to cry. Not in front of him. She wasn’t going to confirm what he thought—that she was some silly child who didn’t know what was best for her own life.

Although that was half true. She didn’t know. She realized that. How could she possibly know what was best for herself if she had no idea who she really was? She didn’t know her own likes, her own dislikes, her own moral code. She only knew what she’d been told she liked. What she’d been told was best for her. How could she go to a strange country, with customs entirely different from any she was familiar with, marry a man she didn’t know, if she still didn’t know herself? What would be left of her when she was stripped away from everything she knew?

When her surroundings changed, when the people who chose her clothing, dictated her actions changed, she was terrified she might lose herself completely. That was just one reason she needed some time to find out more about herself on her own terms.

Her throat felt tighter. It felt as if everything was closing in on her. The room, her family’s expectations. This was why she’d left in the first place. It was why she couldn’t stay now.

She took a deep breath and made an effort to smile. She had a limited amount of time to form a plan, and she couldn’t sacrifice her head start by tipping him off to what she was thinking.

“I’m tired,” she said. It was true. She was so tired she felt heavy with it. But she didn’t have the luxury of collapsing yet.

“You can sleep in the guest bedroom.” He gestured to a doorway that was situated across the open living room. She put her half-eaten dinner back on the wax paper, sad that she hadn’t been able to enjoy it more, and stood, making a move to grab her pink suitcase.

Adham reached over and put his hand on the suitcase. Over hers. The heat singed her, blazed through her body. It shocked her that his touch could be so hot.

“I’ll get it,” he said, standing. He kept his hand on hers, though and the warm weight was comforting and disturbing at the same time. “That’s called chivalry, not servitude.”

Her face felt warm, and it seemed as if her pulse was beating in her head. “I didn’t know you considered yourself chivalrous.”

His dark eyes clashed with hers. She pulled her hand away, shocked at the steady burn that continued even without his touch.

“Generally speaking, I don’t. Would you like to call your parents? Let them know you have not been kidnapped?”

“No.” She felt mildly guilty for not wanting to speak to them. But she also felt angry. She wasn’t certain she could even speak to her father without everything—all the repressed frustration she felt—flooding out of her. He could have let her have this time—realized how important it was. But he hadn’t.

The slight hitch of his eyebrow let her know that he disapproved. Well, fine. He could handle his parents the way he wanted, and she would handle hers her way.

Adham set the suitcase down just inside the door of the guest bedroom, not placing a foot inside. “I will call them, then. There’s a bathroom just through that door. If you need anything, I will see that you are provided for.”

She tried to force a smile. “When does the jailer make the rounds?”

His dark eyes narrowed. “You think you suffer, Isabella? You’re here in this penthouse and you think yourself in prison? You are to go from being Princess of Turan to Sheikha of Umarah and that seems lacking to you? You are nothing more than a selfish child.”

His words pounded in her head as he turned and walked away. How was it selfish to want some time for herself before she gave it all up for king and country? Sheikh and country? Why was it so wrong for her to want something—anything beyond what had been given to her by her well-meaning handlers? Because that was what it felt like. As though everyone in her life was directing her, guiding her. Forcing her. She knew her place. But she didn’t have to like it. And she was not going to let Adham bring guilt on her head for seizing what little time was available to her.

It was after midnight when Isabella was certain Adham was no longer awake. Waiting had been nearly impossible. She’d been lying in the plush bed, the only thing in the penthouse that wasn’t hard and modern, trying not to give in to the extreme exhaustion she felt. It had been twenty-four hours since she’d last slept, but the high of her escape from her brother’s Italian villa, coupled with her first day of freedom, had been enough to keep her from sleeping on the train and then when she’d gotten into the hotel room.

He had to be asleep by now—and she had to go now, or she wouldn’t have a chance to get far enough ahead of him. Sleep, for her, would have to wait.

She got out from under the covers, still fully dressed down to her shoes, and walked as quietly as she could across the room. She picked her suitcase up and took a deep breath. No point in wasting time. The faster she got out, the better.

She cracked open the bedroom door and scanned the darkened living room. She didn’t see him, and across the way there was no light coming from under his door. She said a quick, silent prayer before making her way to the front door, turning the deadbolts and letting herself out. She closed it silently behind her, and took a moment to catch her breath to calm her raging heartbeat.

Her second escape attempt in as many days.

The hallway suddenly seemed endless, the world extremely open. Her options were timed, but with that time she would grab hold of what freedom she could. And maybe she could find a way to satisfy that yearning ache inside her—that relentless thing that ate at her, made her so conscious of all of the emptiness that just seemed to sit there inside of her.

Other people had their whole lives to figure out what to do about it; their futures stretching wide before them, the unknown an exciting and beautiful thing. She had two months. Her future ended abruptly on Umarahn soil, with a title, expectations, and a husband who would be a total stranger. But she would have her time until then, and it would be her own. Not Hassan’s. Not Adham’s.

Her determination renewed, she walked to the elevator and pressed the button for the ground floor. In just a few moments she was down on the boulevard, dodging raindrops. Streetlamps reflected off the pooling water. Despite the late hour there were still people milling around, sitting at café tables, standing beneath awnings, talking, laughing, kissing.

It was the real world. And it was finally within reach—along with the keys to her identity.

She began to scan the darkened streets for a taxi. She wasn’t sure where she would take it when she found one, but she had quite a bit of cash on hand, so she imagined she could cover a lot of ground in the space of a few hours.

A hand clamped onto her arm, fingers biting into her flesh like a vice as she was pulled into an alleyway between the penthouse and the boulangerie next to it. She opened her mouth to scream, but one of her attacker’s arms locked like a steel bar across her chest, bringing her tight against a hard, warm body. Her assailant’s other hand clamped over her mouth and stopped her shriek before any sound could emerge.

She looked around wildly, trying to see if any of the people who lingered on the street had seen. No one had. She struggled impotently. The strong body behind her didn’t even move as she kicked and thrashed, spraying muddy water from the puddles into the air, throwing all her weight into her attempt to gain freedom. She might as well have been struggling against solid stone.

“Your manners leave a lot to be desired.” The sound of Adham’s familiar, faintly accented voice made her sag with relief. For a moment.

She swore violently in Italian—very colorful and inappropriate words she’d learned from her brother, muffled by Adham’s hold.

“Will you keep quiet if I remove my hand?” His tone had an edge to it—anger, extreme annoyance, and something else that she couldn’t place.

She nodded, and he let his hand fall away from her mouth but kept his arms around her.

He held her tightly against his solid body. She tried to wiggle out of his hold and his arms tightened, making her extremely conscious of all the hardened muscle of his body. All that finely honed masculinity. For a moment she could only be fascinated by the feel of him, by each and every minute difference between the male and female body.

Her breasts felt heavier, and she could feel her nipples tightening against the silken fabric of her bra. Her pulse beat heavily. In her neck, her head, down to the apex of her thighs.

“Do you have any idea what you’re asking for?” he asked, his voice rough.

No. She truly didn’t. Her body was asking for, craving, more of his touch. But she didn’t have a clue as to why. Why she wanted to lean into his strength rather than struggle against it. Why she wanted his arms to stay locked around her. Why she wanted more of the sweet languor that was spreading through her.

“You’re asking to be killed,” he growled. Clearly he was letting the subject of their mutual attraction drop. “I could have been anyone. You’re walking around out here in the middle of the night with designer luggage. You look as wealthy as you are. Worse, you look as ridiculously naive as you are. You’re asking to be robbed. Or worse.”

“I didn’t … I didn’t think of that.” Logically, she knew crime rates in urban areas were much higher than in the small island nation she was from. But the thought had never crossed her mind. Her only thought had been escaping Adham. She’d set out to prove a point about her ability to look out for herself, and she’d done a spectacular job of not thinking it through.

He turned her so that she was facing him, her arms still pinned tightly to her sides. His hands held her steady, preventing her from running.

“What do you think you’re going to do with all this freedom you seek, Isabella? You have no job, no skills. You are so naive you shouldn’t be allowed to cross the street on your own!”

His words hurt. They hurt because, as much as she hated to acknowledge the truth in them, it was there. He was right. She’d never had a job. She didn’t know how to go about getting one. Or an apartment. She didn’t know how to drive. She had a lot of knowledge, but all that had come from books. She had never had to apply the things she’d learned to anything real or practical.

“I can find something to do,” she said, pushing her reservations to one side.

“With a body like that there will be many men willing to help. For a price.” His eyes raked over her, hot, glittering. There was nothing passive in those black depths—not now. There was only fire.

She struggled against him. “Let go of me.” She needed to get away from him. It wasn’t about the broader scope, the two months of freedom. Now it was all zeroed in on getting out of his hold—away from him and the strange electric feelings that were zinging through her system.

A man who was walking by the alley turned toward them. His expression, barely visible in the light of the lamp he stood under, was concerned.

Adham backed her up a few steps, so that she rested against the brick wall of the boulangerie, and before she could protest his mouth was covering hers, his tongue sliding against the seam of her lips, requesting entry. She gave it.

Her mind was blank of everything but the feeling of his lips on hers. His hands roaming from her hips to her waist, to the swell of her breasts. She gripped his shoulders, steadying herself, grateful for the wall of the building behind her and the wall of his body in front. If not for those things she would have melted into one of the rain puddles at his feet.

He pulled away suddenly, his breathing harsh in the stillness of the night air. Isabella touched her lips, confirming that they were as swollen as they felt.