The Royal House of Niroli: Secret Heirs: Bride by Royal Appointment / A Royal Bride at the Sheikh's Command

She gave him a scathing look. “You’re not my friend. I barely know you.”

“To know me is to love me, so don’t worry about that.”

She frowned and he regretted his flip attitude. She deserved better.

“You make the rules, Elena,” he said quickly. “Whatever you say goes. I promise you that.”

She nodded slowly. “I’m considering it,” she admitted. “But I do have one condition,” she added.

He stood poised, waiting. “What’s that?”

She took a deep breath, then said in a calm, steady voice, “I have to see you first.”

He went very still. Something was prickling the hairs on the back of his neck. “What are you talking about?”

“I have to ‘see’ you. Until I really see you, I won’t know you well enough to know if I can let you stay here or not.” Coming toward him, she pointed toward where a straight-backed chair stood. “Sit down.”

“What for?” He resisted, strangely apprehensive.

“Sit down and I’ll show you.”

He really didn’t want to do this. “Are you going to do that touching my face thing? Because I don’t really think that’s going to tell you anything. I mean—”

“Sit down.”

He glanced at his watch, then looked over at the couch where his son was sleeping soundly. “Listen, I’ve got to be at the palace in a little over an hour for a meeting and—”

“This won’t take long. Sit down.”

He hesitated, looking at her. She meant it. He wasn’t going to talk his way out of this. He sat down.

She came toward him with a purposeful air and suddenly his mouth went very dry. He hadn’t been this scared since … since the night Melissa went into labor with Jeremy. But he didn’t want to think about that.

He stared straight ahead and she stood next to him for a moment. He had the impression she was taking in the sense of him, and maybe his smell, but that was just a feeling. He couldn’t pin it down to any solid clues. And he felt like a fool with his heart beating a mile a minute. At this rate he was going to start to sweat and then he would really feel oafish when she touched him.

She was going to touch him. He was sure of that. And the wait was beginning to drive him over the edge. Come on, he wanted to yell. Touch me! Get it over with. She was standing so still …

And then her fingers were lightly touching his hair, just barely tracing the outline of his head, so softly it could have been butterfly wings. It was as though she were probing his aura rather than needing a solid tactile experience. He closed his eyes and his pulse slowed. This wasn’t so bad. He could stand this. In fact, it felt pretty good. Even when her fingers stiffened and began to rake back into the thickness of his hair, it wasn’t so bad. He’d had massages that had felt a lot like this. So far, so good.

And then she shifted her position, as though she wanted to get a better angle on her approach to him. He felt her move and he opened his eyes to find her sliding in between his knees and reaching out with both hands to take hold of his head.

And suddenly he was drowning in sensation. Her hands were moving lightly over his face, touching his eyebrows, running along the ridges of his eye sockets, flattening across the planes of his cheeks. And at the same time her full, peaked breasts, barely covered by low-cut, gauzy cloth, were inches from his face and the outer muscles of her legs were pressing against the incredibly sensitive flesh of his inner thighs. Desire shot through him like a lightning bolt and he was hard as a rock in seconds—and terrified that she would feel it.

He hadn’t felt so out of control since he was a teenager and he couldn’t let her know. He tried holding his breath, thinking about nursery rhymes, singing old songs in his head. Nothing worked. He was afraid she would notice and be disgusted with him. He didn’t want her to think he was all untamed male aggression. She was so clean and genuine. She deserved to be treated with respect.

“I’m almost done,” she whispered to him. “Just a moment more.”

Her small hands curled around his ears, then slid down to cup his jaw bone. He made a strangled sound, but she didn’t seem to notice. She leaned closer in order to touch the back of his head. One tiny move and he could have taken her right nipple into his mouth. The cloth that barely covered her seemed like gossamer now, cobwebs, almost invisible. He could see the nipple, see it tighten. All he had to do was reach out with his tongue …

Oh, God! He was about to explode. He was so hard, he was in pain and it took all his strength not to writhe with it.

Her finger touched his lips, tracing them softly, and he thought, Just let me die now. And then it was over.

“There,” she said, drawing back in a matter-of-fact way. “All done. Now was that so bad?”

He cleared his throat to cover the fact that he couldn’t speak just yet. “Uh … no, not at all,” he managed to croak out at last. Looking at her, he shook his head. How could one slender blind woman pack such a wallop? He didn’t think he would ever be the same again.

She dropped down to sit on the piano bench, facing where he still sat. He didn’t move. He didn’t dare to.

“You’re a very handsome man, aren’t you?” she said calmly.

He swallowed hard and tried to focus. “What makes you say that?”

“The evenness of your features.” She smiled. “And your cocky attitude. But that doesn’t matter, because I can’t see you the way other people do. What does matter is how beautiful your character is. Tell me about that, Adam. What kind of shape is your character in? What kind of a person are you?”

Her words might have been just the cold shower he needed. Talk about turning a pleasure into something painful. Contemplating his character was not something he did very often. Probably because he wasn’t sure he was going to like what he found there.

“My character has its ups and downs,” he said evasively. “But I can promise you this. I won’t do anything to hurt you while I’m here. I swear it.”

She sat quietly, mulling that over. She knew which way she was leaning but she forced herself to slow down and think it through. This man was planning to become King. That put him way out of her circle. He was one of the most cynical men she’d ever known. That should have put him even further out of her range. And finally, she found herself dangerously drawn to him—an attraction that had no future. All the elements for disaster were there. So that meant she was going to turn him down, didn’t it? Make him leave—never see him again. Save herself and her “bulletproof” love life. It was only logical.

But this was the new Elena she was dealing with, the woman who’d awakened from her sleepwalk and wanted to engage with the world. He needed a place to stay. She could certainly use the money. It was only logical.

He finally confronted her with the question of the hour.

“Well? Do I pass muster? Are you going to rent me a room?”

Slowly, she nodded. “Yes,” she said almost regretfully. “Yes, Adam. I’m going to rent you a room. At least for a little while.”

Moving in didn’t take any time at all. Once the bargain had been made, Adam used Elena’s telephone to make a few calls and soon his things were brought over from the hotel. He transferred Jeremy from the couch to the second twin bed in the little house. And before she knew it he was off for the palace, and she sat down to catch her breath and mull over what she’d done—and whether she was likely to survive this experience as the same person she’d been up to now.

There were so many reasons why she shouldn’t have done it. When she actually let herself dwell on the possible results that could apply, her heart nearly stopped. Here she was, playing with fire again. The last thing in the world she needed was a man hanging around, making her crazy. What was wrong with her? Just that morning she’d tried to avoid speaking to him. Now she was preparing to practically live with him! She had to be crazy.

She knew Gino would be furious. “You’re not like a regular person,” he would fume. “You can’t risk things like this with a stranger.”

Gino was one of her very best friends and had been for years. In the past she’d always thought his watchfulness a bit touching. Now she began to realize it was becoming patronizing and overbearing. As sure as could be, he would make plans to sleep on her couch to protect her. She’d better think fast to be prepared with reasons why that would be impossible. She didn’t want him there— and she wasn’t going to think about why that might be.

Still, she knew he was probably right. She did need protection—from herself.

That thought made her laugh, and she knew it wasn’t really true. No, she wasn’t yet that crazy. But she had to admit she was intrigued with Adam.

When she’d told Adam she’d never been in love, she’d been telling the honest truth. Growing up, she’d had the same hopes and dreams as all girls had, but that had always been tempered by the knowledge that she couldn’t expect to have the same sort of life her friends had. She was different.

Her mother and grandmother, when they were alive, had both agreed that she was different, but they’d emphasized the fact that she was special, not strange. She’d always known she had an exceptional talent for music. It came naturally. Her grandmother had been a soloist in the Nirolian National Choir when she was young and her mother had worked as a music archivist for years. She’d always known, one way or another, music would be her life.

And that had given her the strength to shy away from romance all these years. When her grandmother urged her to date one of the many young men who pursued her, she would laugh and shake her head. “The man for me will be unique,” she would say. “I’ll know him when I hear his voice.”

Was she dreaming or merely making excuses to fend off the advice? As she looked back now that young woman seemed utterly naïve. What did she think—her ideal man would walk into her life and she would know it by the sound of his voice? That was indeed dreaming.