But when she’d countered with the most she’d agree to, and that he’d have to convince King Hassan to sign the treaties during their pseudoengagement, he’d consented with disturbing equanimity.
Suddenly she felt as though a rocket had gone off inside her head. She knew why his acquiescence had disturbed her. Because it must have been what that insidious rat had been after all the time!
He must have anticipated her first point-blank refusal. So he’d let her get this out of her system. Being ruthlessly results oriented, he must have known an agreement wouldn’t be a possibility. The best he could expect from this first encounter was to stall her, stop her from leaving Judar and secure any level of cooperation.
So he’d kept applying pressure here so she’d sidestep there, pushed and pulled, kissed and caressed, laid bare secrets, exhumed heartaches, appealed to her ego and seared her senses in a steady barrage. When he’d felt her waver, he’d hit her with a solution that had too high a cost. At this point, he must have projected two outcomes. Since she’d already entered the cooperative zone, either she’d buckle and accept outright, or she’d counter with her own offer, bargaining a lower price. Either way, he’d achieve his objective. Her, here, playing along.
That it was only for now and not for real didn’t bother him. This was only round one to him. Being Machiavellian and a long-term thinker, he most certainly wouldn’t abide by the limits of what she’d granted. And as a master strategist, he had every reason to expect he wouldn’t have to. If he’d gotten her to concede that much in under two hours, he’d probably estimated he’d have her dancing to his tune in two days.
She was now certain he would keep on giving her as much rope as she asked for...and use it to lasso and truss her up.
Consternation bubbled on a stifled shriek. She even stomped her foot. It landed with a damp thud on the sand, not the satisfying bang she’d needed.
Groaning in frustration, her gaze jerked around the four-mile shore. Still alone. At least, apparently so.
But of course she wasn’t alone. Kamal must have given his guards orders to keep out of her sight. He wouldn’t want to infringe on her personal space, aggravating her more than he’d already had.
But there was no doubt dozens of eyes were watching the princess of Judar taking a stroll along the shore surrounding the royal palace. She wondered why they’d even bother. No one came within ten miles of the palace or its extensive grounds, by land or by sea. It wasn’t even one of those days when the palace and satellite buildings were open for tourists. The only way someone could target her would be by satellite or long-range missile.
Oh, well. She had known what kind of intrusions she’d signed on for the moment she’d agreed to stay in Judar and play Mohab’s game. The kind that had once had her running to the States and hiding in blessed anonymity and heavenly aloneness.
The first eighteen years of her life here had surely taken their toll. Though she loved her brothers fiercely, her experience in Judar had been the opposite of theirs in every respect. Even if, at the time, they’d just been three of the former king’s multitude of nephews, they’d been everything the region and the royal family valued. Male, magnificent, with personal assets running out of their ears. They’d had every freedom, along with privilege and power, to counter all the responsibilities, expectations and pressures.
While she, the unplanned child her parents had had twelve years after they thought they were done having children, had been a mistake—and a female one at that. To compound her problems, when she’d been only three her mother had been diagnosed with cancer. After a long struggle, when she’d been forced to relinquish Jala’s upbringing to others, she’d died when Jala was ten. Less than a year later, her father, totally destroyed by his wife’s long illness and death, had died, too, leaving Jala to the care of her older brothers, relatives and hired help.
The next years had been a nightmare. Her brothers, while they’d doted on her, had been too busy forging their success to have much time for her. As one who hated to ask for help or attention, she’d never let them know of her dismal state of mind. She’d felt isolated from the royal family, and from her culture, where she’d never felt she fit in.
But as she’d grown older, she’d been progressively more besieged by the restrictions that being female in Judar entailed, compounded by the fact that she had no mother to fend for her. And while she had enough royal status to suffer its downsides, she had enjoyed none of its advantages. Her situation had been further complicated when she’d refused the privileges offered women here, which she considered condescending and sexist, making her an outcast among her peers. By the time she was finished high school, she’d felt she’d do something drastic if she didn’t get away.
Then her maternal aunt’s husband was appointed the ambassador of Judar to the United States. Frantic to make use of this possible ticket out, she’d hounded her brothers until they’d agreed to let her go with their aunt to continue her education there. She’d arrived in the States four months before her eighteenth birthday and had left her aunt’s custody the day after her birthday party.
Seizing on her freedom of choice at once, she’d started fulfilling her lifelong ambition to follow Farooq in his humanitarian relief efforts.
It had been while attending that ill-fated conference in Bidalya that she’d first set eyes on Mohab. And it had been during the ceremony where she’d received her first work-related award that he’d effectively entered her life.
Now he’d reentered it. And she was back in Judar.
And it was all because of him.
Mohab. Even his name aggravated her right now. His parents had to give him such a lofty one, didn’t they? And he had to be an exasperating bastard and live up to it, didn’t he? Awe-inspiring. Feared. Even frightening. And he’d gone on to be far more. Spellbinding. Overwhelming. Devastating.
Okay. It wasn’t all because of him. This impending war wasn’t of his orchestration. And the cruel twist of fate that made her the king of Judar’s sister, and Mohab the imminent king of Jareer, was also beyond him.
But now she thought of it, another thing was his fault. Their whole confrontation last evening.
After that preemptive opening seduction scene, he’d proceeded to scramble her entrenched belief that she’d just been another body and mission to him, asserting that he’d wanted her for far longer than she’d even thought. He’d claimed he’d monitored her for years, compromised his duty and disregarded his orders for her, craved her so much that he’d proposed for real. And all along, he’d kept pulling her back into mindlessness, as if he’d been unable to keep his passion in check.