Royals: Claimed By The Prince: The Heartbreaker Prince / Passion and the Prince / Prince of Secrets

He sounded almost human. He was human, she realised, noticing the lines of fatigue etched into his face—a fatigue that was emphasised by the shadow of dark stubble across his jaw. So he could get tired. It was a tiny chink in his armour, but she still struggled to see him suffering the same doubts and fears as the rest of the human race, and it went without saying that fatigue didn’t stop him looking stupendously attractive. No, beautiful, she corrected, her eyes running over the angles and planes of his darkly lean face, a face that she found endlessly fascinating. She compressed her lips and closed a door on the thought. She knew it would be foolish to lower her defences around him.

He pulled the tie through his long fingers and let it dangle there, arching a sardonic brow as his dark eyes swept her face. ‘So, no locked doors?’

‘That was childish.’

The admission surprised him but he hid it. It was harder to hide his reaction to the way she looked. The only trace of make-up was the pink varnish on her toenails. With her hair hanging damply down her back and her face bare she looked incredibly young, incredibly vulnerable and incredibly beautiful.

There was a wary caution in the blue eyes that met his, but not the hostility that he had come to expect.

‘I thought you’d be asleep by now.’ The purple smudges under her eyes no longer smoothed away by a skilful application of make-up made it clear she still desperately needed sleep. Kamel reminded himself that her nightmare had been going on forty-eight hours longer than his. He felt a flash of grudging admiration for her—whatever else the woman he had married was, she was not weak.

Hannah absently rubbed the toes of one foot against the arch of the other until she saw him staring and she tucked them under her. She pushed her hair behind her ears as she admitted, ‘I felt bad letting you make excuses for me. Was it awkward?’ She had probably broken about a hundred unwritten rules of protocol.

‘Awkward?’ He arched a brow. ‘You mean did anyone see you leave with—?’

‘I didn’t leave with him. He f—’

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘I know.’

‘Me not being there. What did you say?’

‘I did not go into detail. I simply told my uncle that you had retired early.’ He had actually told Charles Latimer a little more. He had made it clear to his father-in-law that if he wanted his daughter to spend any time under his roof he would guarantee that Rob Preston would not be there.

‘Did they believe you?’

He took a step into the room and dropped his tie onto a chair. ‘Why should we care?’

The we was not symbolic of some new togetherness so the small glow of pleasure it gave her was totally out of proportion.

* * *

‘So how long were you standing there watching?’ She had gone through the scene enough times to realise that Kamel could have heard some, if not all, of the exchange with Rob.

Grave-eyed, she looked up from her contemplation of her hands and heard him say, ‘Long enough.’

She ground her teeth in exasperation at this deliberately cryptic response.

‘So he cheated on you?’

Oh, yes, he would have heard that bit.

‘It happens.’

There was no pity in his voice; Hannah let out a tiny sigh of relief.

‘Dumping him on the actual wedding day was a pretty good revenge.’ Kamel understood the attraction of retribution, though, being a man to whom patience did not come easily, he struggled with the concept of a dish served cold.

‘I didn’t plan it.’ She looked startled by the idea. ‘That’s when I found out.’

He looked at her incredulously. ‘On the actual day?’

She nodded, experiencing the familiar sick feeling in the pit of her stomach as the memory surfaced. It had been an hour before the photographers, hairdressers and make-up artists were due to arrive. She had knocked on Sal’s door under the pretext of collecting the something blue her best friend had promised her, though what she had actually wanted was reassurance—someone to tell her she was suffering from last-minute nerves and it was all normal.

‘I walked in on him with Sal, my chief bridesmaid. They were... It wasn’t until later that I discovered he’d worked his way through most of my circle.’

She didn’t look at him to see his reaction. She told herself she was past caring whether she came across as self-pitying and pathetic, but it wasn’t true. She simply didn’t have the strength left to maintain the illusion. The last few days one hit after another combined with exhaustion had destroyed her normal coping mechanisms... What pride she had left had been used up in her encounter with Rob.

‘So he slept with everyone but you.’

Her eyes flew to his face. ‘So you heard that too.’

He nodded. He had heard, but not quite understood. It was not a new strategy, and she was the sort of woman who was capable of inspiring obsession in susceptible men, though why a man who was willing to marry to get a woman in his bed would then choose to sleep around was more difficult to understand. Especially when the woman in question would make all others look like pale imitations.

‘So the only way he could have you was marriage.’ Twenty-four hours ago the discovery would not have left him with a sense of disappointment. Twenty-four hours ago he’d had no expectations that could be disappointed—he had only expected the worst of her.

His cynical interpretation caused her cobalt-blue eyes to fly wide open in shocked horror. ‘No, I wanted to.’ She gave a tiny grimace and added more honestly, ‘I would have.’ The fact was she simply wasn’t a very sexual creature, which did beg the question as to why she couldn’t look at Kamel or even hear his voice without feeling her insides melt. ‘But he...’

Kamel watched her fumble for words, looking a million miles from the controlled woman reputed to have a block of ice for a heart, and felt something tighten in his chest.

‘Apparently he wanted to worship me, not—’

‘Take you to bed,’ Kamel supplied, thinking the man was even more of a loser than he’d thought.

‘I don’t actually think he thought of me as a woman. More an addition to his art collection. He likes beautiful things...not that I’m saying I’m—’

‘Don’t spoil all this honesty by going coy. We both know you’re beautiful. So why is it everyone thinks he’s the injured party?’

‘I’d prefer to be thought a bitch than an idiot.’ The explanation was not one she had previously articulated. She was startled to hear the words. It was something she had not admitted to anyone before.

‘And your father still invited the man here?’ If a man had treated his daughter that way he would have— Kamel dragged a chair out from the dressing table, swung it around and straddled it.

‘Oh, it was easier to let him think I’d had second thoughts. They’ve been friends for a long time and Dad had already had an awful time telling everyone the wedding was cancelled. A lot of people turned up and it was terrible for him—’

‘And you were having such a great day...’

Hannah’s protective instincts surfaced at the implied criticism of her father.

‘You were right. It was my fault. This is my fault, totally my fault.’

He shook his head, bemused by her vehemence, and protested, ‘You didn’t ask the guy to jump you!’

‘No, not Rob. Getting arrested, getting you mixed up in it, terrifying Dad half to death. If he has another heart attack, it would be down to me.’

It was news to Kamel that he had had one. The man certainly hadn’t been scared enough to change his lifestyle. ‘I think a doctor might disagree. Your father does not hold back when it comes to saturated fat.’

‘You’re trying to make me feel better.’

He studied her face. ‘It’s clearly not working.’