CHAPTER THREE
He read the email with a smile, for he thought of Charlotte and the black and white words breathed to life as though she were speaking them.
Your Highness,
Thank you for your time yesterday. It was an honour to meet you. I have attached a document which includes my chief concerns for the marriage negotiations. I’d appreciate it if you’d take a look before our next meeting.
Many thanks,
Her Royal Highness
Charlotte Shareef.
So much for ‘call me Charlotte, we’re going to be family’, he thought with a grin. It wasn’t possible for her to have sent a more stilted or formal note, and for all that she’d tried to put distance between them, it had the opposite effect on Ash. He imagined her typing these words, pausing as she deleted and rephrased sentences, looking to convey just the right mix of professionalism and formality.
He hit reply and wrote,
Good morning, Charlotte. I trust you slept well. I find it hard to get used to the sounds of boats in the distance.
I will review the document over breakfast (guava fruit and toast). Shall we meet later today?
A.
He sent it imagining the effect his casual address and subjects would have on her. Would she come back with yet another stilted, rehearsed email? Or would she reply in kind?
He wasn’t disappointed. Only five minutes later, another email zipped into his phone.
Ashad,
I barely hear the boats anymore. If you think they’re loud at the embassy, you should see the marina! Today is fine. I have appointments this morning but can come to you again in the afternoon.
Charlotte.
He made a small sound and shook his head. He was playing with fire, he knew it. Despite Syed’s suggestion, there was no way Ash could act on his attraction for this woman. Was flirting with her the next best thing?
Charlotte,
This afternoon is fine. But I am in your debt already – let me make the effort of travel today.
A.
He clicked into the attachment and began to read his way through it.
- Country of residence – expectation of visits to home country.
- Home – expectation of privacy.
- Employment – expectation of being able to continue to perform functions beyond ‘princess’.
- Intimacy and family – expect input and clarity on this before wedding.
- Financial terms.
There was nothing new there. She had already enumerated these issues and he intended to get to each of them. Point four, intimacy and family, he would save for last. It was the only subject matter he dreaded discussing with her.
Ashad,
That’s fine. I have an apartment near the marina. You can be deafened by the boats. I’ll have my security detail contact yours with the address. Four o’clock?
Charlotte.
He smiled. A dangerous smile, because it was borne from a happiness he hadn’t felt in a long time – if ever.
I’m looking forward to it.
A.
What the hell are you doing, he groaned inwardly, polishing off his breakfast and draining his coffee. He had a full morning of business to attend to and he threw himself into it, desperate for a chance to be distracted by his obligations. As the afternoon sped past, he found himself looking at his watch frequently. Waiting. Anticipating. Wondering.
Would the sense of attraction still be there? Or had it been enhanced by surprise at seeing her unexpectedly? Would Ash discover today that Charlotte was beautiful, yes, but that she inspired no greater desire in him than any other attractive woman he came across? Would he find that instantaneous arousal he felt at the sight of her (hell, the thought of her) no longer the case?
He hoped so.
He needed to focus on extricating Syed from this betrothal without hurting Charlotte. Both concerns were now of equal importance to him. This was a task that required more finesse and skill than his libido made him feel he possessed – he was like a bull in a china shop, wanting to ravage his way past her objections and make her his, to hell with the consequences. To hell with what his uncle Adin would say, what Charlotte’s father would say.
He had never felt such an animalistic need to possess a woman.
He changed into jeans and a shirt for their meeting. The robes he wore with the colours of Kalastan weaved into the sleeve were conspicuous and he didn’t feel like seeing Charlotte as a prince of Kalastan today. He wanted to meet with her as a man.
Which was all the more reason he should have stuck with the robe, he thought, as his limousine pulled out of the embassy car park and turned onto a narrow road. He sat back and watched the city pass, waiting, waiting, wondering.
* * *
A kaleidoscope of wild butterflies was battering her stomach from the inside. Charlotte clamped a hand over her skin, willing them to settle. They didn’t. She moved around her apartment, checking it for the tenth time that hour. It was immaculate. How could it not be? Set high above the Royal Marina, this was Charlotte’s own private bolt-hole. Her home away from the palace, where she came when she wanted to be undisturbed; to pretend she was a normal woman, looking out at the world and seeing it for its possibilities. Imagining that she had every right to choose her own adventures in life rather than succumbing to the footsteps that had been painted on the ground before her many years earlier.
The rooms had been filled with flowers, as was usual before her arrival. There had been a time when the flowers had always been freshened but Charlotte had despised the waste. It had cost a small fortune and often she would go weeks without making it to her penthouse apartment. She had issued a directive that she only wanted flowers when she was in attendance.
“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Mika observed, propped against the door jamb.
Charlotte froze, turning to face her friend. “I know.”
“You’re nervous?”
“Yes.” She bit down on her lip. “I’m negotiating my wedding,” she said slowly.
Mika nodded, and Charlotte was drawn to confess her confusion to the woman she knew best in the world. “But it’s more than that.”
“Oh?” Mika moved deeper into the room, walking over to where Charlotte stood.
“It’s this man. Ashad.”
“I have heard that he is hugely intimidating. A man who will do whatever is necessary to achieve his goals, and those of his uncle.”
Charlotte swallowed. She didn’t want to think of Ashad being all dominant and determined. Her heart was already thumping at the thought of seeing him, and imagining him taking a room of diplomats or executives to task was impossibly sexy.
“I can see that,” Charlotte conceded, the words breathy.
“Does he intimidate you? Is that it?” Mika leaned closer, her tone solicitous. “Because I can stay with you if that helps? Let him try to bully me around when it comes to your marriage.”
Charlotte let out a weak laugh at the thought of Mika and Ash butting heads. But it wasn’t just that. A kernel of jealousy, hot and unwelcome, speared her gut. Mika was beautiful. Yes, she was older than Ashad, but any man who saw her would surely notice her long, lean figure, her tanned skin, her white blonde hair and exotic, aquamarine eyes. No way did Charlotte want Mika and Ashad spending time together.
“That’s okay,” she muttered, her cheeks colouring at the ungenerous direction of her thoughts.
“I mean it, Charlotte. You can’t let him override your opinions on this matter. You have fought to be included in the discussion, as you have every right to be. So discuss.”
Charlotte nodded. “The thing is, Mika,” she said, searching for the best way to admit that she stared at the man who was her groom’s cousin and wanted to peel his clothes off his body bit by bit. “I’m …”
There was a knock on the door. Sharp and imperious. Demanding attention.
A line formed between Mika’s brows and she leaned closer. “Go on.”
Charlotte nodded, but she was incapable now of giving voice to her feelings. Not when he was at the other end of the penthouse, minutes away – if that – from being right there in the room with her.
“Nothing, it doesn’t matter,” Charlotte murmured.
“You’re sure?”
She wasn’t; not even remotely. “I’ll be fine.”
“Then let me go and welcome him. I will leave him in doubts as to how I feel about this business.”
Charlotte’s smile was uneven. Her heart hammered. She moved across the room, positioning herself near the glass doors that led to the balcony. It wrapped around the apartment and showed views in every direction. It was stunning. She pushed the door open a little and caught a hint of the sea breeze, tainted only slightly at this height by the suggestion of fish that had been caught earlier that day.
She’d dressed with care for the meeting, choosing a white dress that fell to the floor. It was sleeveless and had a scooped neckline which made it cool and comfortable, but which hinted at her curves in a way that she had been ashamed to admit she wanted. She’d teamed the dress with a lightweight jacket and Chanel sandals, and chunky gold jewellery at her neck. It was the kind of outfit she would have worn with her friends, so why should she feel worried now that it was somehow inappropriate?
It must have been a fine outfit selection as Mika hadn’t said anything, and Mika was not one to let an objection go unexpressed.
Voices carried to her and she froze outwardly. Inwardly her organs were vibrating and screaming. The butterflies were frantic. Her mouth was dry; her pulse was a raging river. She turned, slowly, her eyes landing on the frame of the door at the moment Mika walked through, just a step ahead of Ashad.
He looked to her instantly and any doubts she’d had about the veracity of her desires were instantly dismissed. The same urge to run at him and push his clothes from his body assaulted her, just as it had in his office at the embassy the day before.
Her skin paled. Her body heated.
“Your highness,” he grinned, a smile that sparked fever and chills deep inside of her. “I am pleased to see you again.” He crossed the room and lifted one of her hands – it was like a cadaver’s limb, numb and unyielding. He squeezed it and then leaned forward, surprising her by placing a kiss on first one cheek and then brushing his stubbled jaw across her face and kissing the other.
It was nothing.
The work of an instant. But the effect was lasting and profound for Charlotte.
Oh, heavens. Charlotte could easily push his shirt off at this range. His masculine scent was tying her stomach in knots. She stiffened and stepped backwards, needing to not be touching him, smelling him, fantasising about him.
“Hello,” she murmured, the word a crisp rebuke of the overly-friendly greeting. “I see you’ve met Mika?”
He nodded. “I expected more pomp and circumstance,” he teased, taking her lead and putting distance between them.
Charlotte swallowed, forcing herself to look away from him even when she wanted to drink him in. Mika was standing near the door, unmistakable speculation in her eyes.
“Mika?” Charlotte smiled in what she hoped was a reassuring manner. “I’ll let you know when we’re finished.”
“I’m happy to stay,” Mika offered, hesitating at the doorway. And Charlotte understood why. The tension between her and Ashad was palpable.
Charlotte smiled and shook her head. “Thank you.”
Mika left, but her air of caution remained.
The apartment had been designed with Charlotte in mind. It boasted two completely separate spaces. Her own residence had five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a chef’s kitchen, formal dining room and library as well as the more comfortable lounge area that led to the balcony. This was Charlotte’s preferred room in the apartment, though now she was wishing she’d selected something more formal to give their talks gravitas. Mika was, effectively, in a different apartment. At the end of the corridor a door led to a two-bedroom flat with its own kitchen and lounge area. Her security detail would be there also, and presumably Ashad’s.
“Did Mika show your security somewhere comfortable to wait?”
He laughed. “I didn’t bring security.”
“You didn’t?” Her eyes flew wide.
“I’m a big boy,” he said with a timbre to his words that made her heart turn over in her chest. “I can take care of myself.”
Visions she really didn’t need pushed their way into the uppermost of her subconscious.
“Are you hungry?” She blurted, desperate to change the subject and retain some kind of upper hand in their relationship.
“No,” he smiled. “But don’t let that stop you.”
“I’m fine.” Charlotte was standing several feet away from him, and yet the way Ashad was looking at her, she might as well have been in his arms. “The way you greeted me just now,” she said softly, forcing herself to face him.
He frowned, as though he didn’t understand what she was referring to at first. “Today?”
“Yes. When you … kissed me…”
He laughed softly. “That was not a kiss,” he said after he’d sobered. “It was a polite acknowledgement, befitting our relationship.”
Her skin pricked with sensation. “It was a kiss. Two, in fact,” she corrected. “And it’s too familiar. I hardly know you.”
“Ah, but we are going to be family, remember?”
“Do you kiss your family like that?” She asked archly, padding across the room and pulling a water bottle from the fridge. She took a second out and threw it at him without warning. His reflexes were sharp. He stuck a hand up in the air and caught it easily, lowering it and cracking the lid without missing a beat.
“Yes. Well, my female family members,” he winked.
Charlotte’s heart was hurting, as though little monsters had moved into the cavity and were squeezing her aorta, just for fun. “Given that we are not yet family, please refrain from being so intimate with me.”
His eyes narrowed and she felt the strength of his reputation swirling around her. He was formidable, it was true. She shouldn’t choose to be in dispute with him, because she suspected no one who came up against Ashad ever won.
“I have seen photographs of you at nightclubs with your friends. Young men and women. You don’t seem to have any trouble letting them touch you. Kiss you. Be close to you.”
She gasped as his words clawed against her. “I do no such thing,” she said with indignation. She thought back to the last few times she’d been out with her circle. Yes, she supposed she did dance with her male friends, and yes, there had been photos in the press of her and Remi holding hands as they left a nightclub in Istanbul, but that had been because he’d become so drunk she wasn’t sure he could find his way to the limousines.
“Only my very close friends,” she amended, her eyes challenging him.
He met her challenge and finally shrugged. “If you would prefer me not to employ this perfectly harmless greeting then I won’t. I won’t kiss you again, Charlotte.”
Desolation was a storm cloud in her gut. I won’t kiss you again. She wanted to scream. To rail against the pronouncement that she’d all but demanded he make. “I think that’s for the best,” her voice was small and determined. It rung with cold detachment – something she definitely didn’t feel.
“You live here?” He seemed to have no difficulty moving on from the topic, looking around the space with interest.
She dipped her head forward in acknowledgement; her heart hammering hard and fast. “I split my time between here and the palace.”
Again, Charlotte had the sense he was looking at her and seeing everything. “Why?” He pondered after a moment, sipping his water without breaking eye contact.
“I like the privacy,” she said, seeing no need to be vague. “And I like the boats.” She moved towards the glass doors and stepped out on the balcony. He followed. They were high in the sky, towering over the Royal Marina that was home to some of the most expensive super yachts in the world. There were fishing trawlers too, contained in a separate pontoon. At water level there were restaurants; world class dining, bars, and exclusive boutiques. Tiffany & Co had a flagship store directly beneath them.
“As a child, I used to spend a lot of time here.” Her smile was nostalgic. “It was easier then. Now I like to spy on people from way up here.”
He studied her profile thoughtfully. “Why was it easier?”
“I thought you knew?”
“That you’re secretly a fraud?” He couldn’t resist teasing, watching the emotion flit across her face.
Charlotte turned to face him fully, then wished she hadn’t, when a slick of awareness assaulted her insides. “Yes. I killed the real princess and took her place. I’m an imposter.”
His smile lit her world on fire; she fought to quench the flames. “So calling you Charlotte makes sense after all.”
She laughed, turning back to the view. Her eyes watched a family, tiny in the distance, move along the esplanade. The father, mother, two children and a pram with a baby that, even from high in the air, she could see was pleasingly chubby. Its feet were bare, sticking up over the edge of the stroller.
“So what changed?” Ashad brought the conversation back to her original statement. Tenacity. She noted the quality, and that it didn’t bother her.
“It was forbidden to photograph me until I was fourteen,” she murmured.
“Seriously?”
“You didn’t know?” She looked at him with surprise. “I presume you had similar protections.”
“No. Nothing like it.”
“It’s not just a guideline, either,” she said with a nod. “It’s an actual law. If photographs were taken and printed, it would have resulted in an automatic jail sentence. My father was very, very serious about my privacy.”
“I hadn’t realised.”
She shrugged. “I can see why. Once I turned fourteen, my world tipped on its head.” A small frown pulled at her lips as her mind wandered back to those days, many of them dark and unpleasant.
“But until then,” he murmured, “you could wander the marina without being noticed?”
She nodded. “No one knew who I was. Mika and a single bodyguard would bring me here and we would sit for hours. I loved watching the boats come and go. I still do.”
“Do you have one?”
“A boat?” She shook her head. “No. I’m terrified of the water.”
His laugh was short. “You’re terrified of something? I’m surprised.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem fearless.”
“Ah,” Charlotte loved that he thought that of her. It made her feel like a sort of super hero, rather than a princess. “You’re right. I am. Except for water, which might as well be barbed wire.”
“Your kryptonite?” He said, almost as though he’d read her mind.
“Like a tonne of it.”
“Have you always felt like that?”
“No.” She turned to look at him again and then wished she hadn’t. His eyes were loaded with such interest that her heart thumped hard against her ribs.
“No?” He prompted when she didn’t expand.
“You know how it goes. Bath tub. Too much water. I’m a stereotype.”
“You, Charlotte, are anything but.” He propped his elbows on the railing. Her eyes were drawn, against their will, to his broad chest. She swallowed, looking back down at the marina. “How old were you?”
“Five.”
“I would have thought at five you’d have had nannies and carers making sure you were watched around the clock.”
“Mmm.” She blinked at him, a grin tickling her lips. “I don’t think I should tell you what I used to be like. It might lead you to poison your cousin against me before we are married.”
Charlotte was caught up in their conversation and didn’t notice the way he stiffened.
“Rest assured, I have no interest in doing that.”
“I was joking,” she said with a small shake of her head.
“What were you like?” He moved closer, as though anticipating that she would whisper and he didn’t want to miss her words.
Charlotte suppressed the flush of adrenalin that coursed through her at his nearness. “Naughty.”
Again, an involuntary stillness descended on Ashad as he digested her description of herself. “Naughty?” He repeated after a moment, the word a single, deep inflection.
“Uh huh. So naughty. I loved to swim,” she remembered. “And I’d been at the pool all day. I’d been put into bed, and my nanny had left the room. I sneaked into the bathroom, filled the bath to overflowing and climbed in.” She knitted her brows together as the memories, so far in her past, seemed to be playing out before her. “I lost my footing. The bath was slippery and so enormous. I went under water and I couldn’t do anything. I swallowed and water seemed to be filling me up.”
“You must have been terrified.”
“Well, I was five,” she said with an attempt at humour. “So, yes.”
“And you’ve been afraid since?”
“Oh, yes. I couldn’t approach the bath for years.”
He arched a brow. “No bathing?”
“Yes. I was a princess who didn’t wash.” She rolled her eyes. “I showered instead. That’s where Mika and I met. She came into service a month after it had happened and slowly helped me get over the trauma of it.”
“Not enough though, if you still can’t go on a boat.”
She smiled at him, and it spread across her face like a ribbon of red. “What’s wrong with watching?”
“There’s something incredible about being on the water. For people like you and me, who live such constrained lives, it is …”
She held her breath, waiting for him to finish the sentence. He turned to her, his eyes clashing with hers, locking her in a vice from which there was no escape.
“Freedom,” he expelled the word into the sky and it carried away, high above them.
“Freedom,” she repeated, imagining that. The freedom to be whoever she wanted. To study, to work, to live, to run, to play, to marry where she chose. It was a sobering thought, because it was so far from the reality she faced.
“We should get started.” A business like shift. Charlotte flicked the briefest smile at him, but it was no longer comfortable and relaxed. She was drowning again, but there was no water. It was life itself that was dragging her under, and she feared there would be no rescue this time.