Bound by His Desert Diamond Read online

  Raising her arms, Anna went to link them behind his neck. She had no clear thought of what she was doing except that maybe she could persuade him with flattery, or perhaps blackmail him after a kiss—he was certainly getting no more that—so that she could make her escape. It went against her feminist principles but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  But before she had the chance to do anything of the sort this hateful man snatched at her wrists, easily clasping them in one hand and bringing them down to her chest at the same time as swinging his other arm around her waist to pull her snugly against him. Anna gasped, the contact with his body, that part of his body, the particular swell of that part of his body, ricocheting through her with clenching waves. Granite-faced he may be, but that wasn’t the only part of his body she had managed to harden.

  And, judging by the look on his face, her captor had been taken by surprise too. He was glaring at her with a mixture of horror and hunger, the hand clasping her wrists shaking very slightly before he tightened its grip. Controlling the tremble of her own body, Anna stared back. If this was a small victory, though small was hardly the right word, she was going to make the most of it. Tipping back her head, she trained her eyes on his, forcing his to meet them, to see the temptations that they held, temptations that burned so brightly, even if she had no intention of honouring them. She could sense the quickening of his heartbeat beneath his white shirt, hear the faint rasp in his exhaled breath. She had got him.

  ‘Princess Anna!’

  Suddenly there was a blinding flash of light, illuminating their bodies, freezing them against the backdrop of darkness.

  ‘What the hell?’ A low growl rumbled from Anna’s captor as he spun around to face the photographer that had crept out of the shadows, the shutter of the camera clicking furiously.

  Blinking against the glare, Anna felt her wrists being released as this warrior man lunged towards the photographer, clearly intent on murder. But when she went to move, to make her escape or save the photographer’s life—she didn’t know which—he was right back by her side again, pulling her forcefully into his arms.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t. You’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘Come on, Anna. Show us a kiss!’ Bolder now, the photographer took a step closer, the camera flashing all the time.

  Anna had a split second to make a decision. If she wanted to get away from this man, avoid being frogmarched back to her own engagement party and forced to announce her betrothal to a man she could never, ever marry, there was one sure way to do it. Standing on tiptoes, she raised her arms to link them behind her captors head, shoving her fingers through the thick swathe of his hair and pulling against his resistance to bring him closer. If this was what the photographer wanted, this was what he was going to get.

  With one final, terrifically brave or wildly foolish breath—Anna had no idea which—she reached up to plant her lips firmly on his.

  * * *

  What the hell?

  Shock sucked the air from Zahir Zahani’s lungs, numbing his senses, closing his fists. Plump and firm, her lips had swiftly turned from cold to warm as they sealed his own, the pressure increasing as she raked her hands through his hair to pull him closer. Her breath rasped between them, her delicate scent filling his nostrils, temporarily freezing his brain yet heating every other part of his body. Zahir went rigid, and the arms that were supposed to be restraining her were no more than useless weights as Annalina continued her relentless assault on his mouth. With the blood roaring in his ears, he found his lips parting, his body screaming to show her just where this could lead if she carried on this very dangerous game.

  ‘Fantastic! Cheers for that, Anna.’

  The camera flashes stopped and Annalina finally released him, letting her arms fall by her side. Meanwhile the photographer was already on his scooter, his camera slung over his shoulder.

  ‘I owe you one!’

  Turning the scooter around, he noisily zoomed off into the Paris streets, giving a cheery wave over his shoulder.

  Zahir stared after him, suffering a split second of silent horror before his brain finally kicked into action again. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he grabbed his mobile phone. He’d have been able to catch the low life on foot if he didn’t have this vixen to deal with. But his security team would pick him up—get him stopped and get the camera tossed into the Seine, the photographer along with it, if he had any say.

  ‘No.’ Her cold, trembling fingers closed over the phone in his hand. ‘It’s too late. It’s done.’

  ‘The hell it is.’ Shaking off her hand, he started to punch in numbers. ‘I can get him stopped. I will get him stopped.’

  ‘There’s no point.’

  He stopped short, the cold determination in her voice halting his hand. ‘And what exactly do you mean by that?’ A trickle of dread started to seep into his veins.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Dark-blue eyes shone back at him. ‘But I had to do it.’

  Hell! Realisation smacked him across the head. He’d been had. The whole thing was a set-up. This deceitful, conniving little princess had set a trap and he had walked right in. Fury coursed through him. He had no idea what her motive was but he did know that she would live to regret it. Nobody made a fool of Zahir Zahani.

  ‘You will be sorry, believe me.’ He kept his voice deliberately low, concentrating on controlling the rage that was pumping adrenaline dangerously fast around his veins. ‘You will be more than sorry for what you have done.’

  ‘I had no choice!’ Her voice was full of anguish now and she even reached out a trembling hand to touch his arm before demurely lowering her eyes to the ground.

  Nice try, Princess. But you don’t get to fool me more than once.

  Roughly grasping her chin, Zahir tipped back her head so she couldn’t escape his searing gaze. He wanted her to look at him. He wanted her to know exactly who she was dealing with here.

  ‘Oh, you had a choice, all right. You’ve chosen to bring scandal and disrepute to both our countries. And, trust me, you are going to pay for that, young lady. But first you are going to tell me why.’

  He saw her slender body begin to tremble, her bare shoulders hunch against the shiver that ran through her. Bizarrely he itched to touch her, to warm that tantalisingly goose-bumped skin with his hot hands. But he would do no such thing.

  ‘Because I am desperate.’ Clear blue eyes implored him.

  ‘Desperate?’ He repeated the word with disgust.

  ‘Yes. I can’t go back to that party.’

  ‘So that’s why you set up this little charade?’

  ‘No, I didn’t set it up, not in the way you mean. I just took advantage of the situation.’ Her voice lowered.

  ‘You tricked me into following you. You arranged for that photographer to be there.’

  ‘No! I had no idea that either of you had followed me.’

  ‘You’re lying. That guy knew you.’

  ‘He didn’t know me. He knows who I am. There’s a difference. The press have been following me around all my life.’

  ‘So you are telling me this wasn’t planned?’

  Annalina shook her head.

  ‘Think carefully before you speak, Princess. Because, I have to warn you, to lie to me now would be very foolish indeed.’

  ‘It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. And that is the truth.’

  Despite everything, Zahir found himself believing her. He dragged in a breath. ‘So that...that little display you just put on...?’ He curled his lip against the traitorous memory of the way she had leant into him, the way she had messed with his head. ‘What exactly did you hope to achieve? What makes you so desperate that you would bring disgrace upon your family? Fabricate a scandal to rock the foundations of both of our countries?’

  ‘Disgrace I can live w
ith. I’m used to it.’ Her voice was suddenly very small. ‘And the scandal will die down. But to be forced to marry Rashid Zahani is more than I can bear. That would have been a life sentence.’

  ‘How dare you disrespect the King in this way?’ Defensive anger roared in his voice. ‘The engagement will still be announced. The marriage will still go ahead.’

  ‘No. You can force me to go back to the party, even force me, with the help of my father, to go ahead with the announcement of the engagement. But, once those photographs go online, I’ll be dropped like a stone.’

  Zahir stared into the beautiful face of this wilful princess. Her skin was so pale in this ghostly light, so delicate, it was almost translucent. But her lips were ruby-red and her eyes as blue as the evening sky.

  He knew with a leaden certainty that she meant what she said. There was no way she was going to go through with this marriage. He could still find that photographer, destroy the photos, but ultimately what good would it do? What was to be gained?

  Hell and damnation. After all the planning that had gone into this union, the careful handling, the wretched party... It had taken all his powers of persuasion to get Rashid to agree to marry this European princess at all. Months of negotiations to get to this point. And for what? To have the whole thing thrown back in their faces and Rashid humiliated in the most degrading way. No, he could not let that happen. He would not let that happen. He had been a fool to trust this wayward princess, to believe the empty promises of her desperate father. But the situation had gone too far now—he had to try and salvage something from this mess. He had to come up with a clever solution.

  Decision made, he took hold of Annalina’s arm.

  ‘You will accompany me back to the party and we will seek out the King and tell him what has happened. Then we will announce your engagement.’

  ‘Didn’t you understand a word I said?’ The fight was back in her eyes. ‘The King won’t marry me now. That’s the reason I just did what I did.’

  ‘We will announce your engagement—not to the King, but to his brother, the Prince.’

  ‘Yeah, great idea! I take it you must be employed more for your brawn than your brains.’ Zahir felt every muscle in his body stiffen at her mocking jibe. He was going to enjoy punishing her for her insolence. ‘The Prince is hardly going to want to marry me either, is he?’

  ‘As of five minutes ago, the Prince has no choice.’

  Narrowing his eyes, Zahir watched defiance turn to confusion turn to a creeping realisation. A strangely perverse sense of pleasure stole over him.

  Her trembling hand flew to her mouth then made a fist as she stuffed it between her lips, biting down onto her knuckles to stifle her cry.

  ‘Ah, yes, Princess, I see the truth is dawning.’ Zahir threw back his shoulders, almost enjoying himself. ‘I am Zahir Zahani, Prince of Nabatean, brother of King Rashid. And, as of five minutes ago, your future husband.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ANNA FELT FOR the railings of the bridge behind her, grabbing at the bars to stop herself from sliding to the ground.

  ‘You...you are Prince Zahir?’

  One arrogant, scowling dark brow raised fractionally in reply.

  No. It wasn’t possible. The full horror of what she had done gnawed away at her brain. Being caught in a clinch with a bodyguard to get out of her engagement was one thing, but for the ‘bodyguard’ to be the fiancé’s brother was quite another. This went far beyond the realms of scandal. This could cause an international incident.

  ‘I... I had no idea.’

  He shrugged. ‘Evidently.’

  ‘We need to do something—quickly.’ Panic caught up with her, squeezing her vocal cords, spinning her brain around in her head. ‘We must stop that photographer.’

  Still Zahir Zahani didn’t move. What was wrong with him? Why wasn’t he doing anything? Anna felt as if she were in a terrible dream, running and running but getting no further away from the monster.

  Finally he spoke. ‘To use your phrase, Princess, it’s too late. It’s done.’

  ‘But that was before I knew... There’s still time to find him, pay him off, stop him.’

  ‘Possibly. But I have no intention of doing any such thing.’

  ‘Wh...what do you mean?’ Confusion and frustration held her in their grip, hysteria not far behind. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Because, like you, I intend to take advantage of the situation. We will go back to the party and we will announce our engagement. Just as I said.’

  Horror now joined the bedlam in her head. He wasn’t serious. Surely he didn’t mean it? She stared into his cold, forbidding features. Oh, God. He did—he really did!

  Releasing the railings, she pushed herself upright, immediately dwarfed by this towering figure of a man who was blocking her way, her vision, her ability to think clearly. ‘No! We can’t. The idea is preposterous.’

  ‘Is it, Princess Annalina? He glowered down at her. ‘How will you feel tomorrow when those photographs are published? When you have to face your father, your people and the rest of the world? Are you prepared for the consequences?’

  Her face crumpled.

  ‘As I thought.’ His mocking voice echoed in the dark around them. ‘Not quite so preposterous now, is it? You have no alternative but to do as I say.’

  ‘No. There has to be another way.’ Think, Anna, think. Why did her poor brain seem to have turned to sludge? ‘If the photographs are published I’ll simply explain that it was all a misunderstanding—that I didn’t know who you were...that it meant nothing.’

  ‘And that would achieve what, exactly? Apart from prove that you are the sort of tramp who goes around seducing total strangers on the eve of your engagement and that your fiancé’s own brother was caught in your trap. I would never subject Rashid to such humiliation.’

  There was a second of silence.

  ‘But we can’t just swap!’

  ‘We can and we will. The arrangements are all in place. A commitment has been made between our two countries—between your father and the Kingdom of Nabatean. He has offered your hand and it has been accepted. Nothing will stand in the way of that.’ His shadowed face was as hard as stone. ‘The commitment will be honoured.’

  ‘But the commitment was to your brother—not you.’

  ‘Then perhaps you should have thought of that before you ran away and started this whole debacle, betraying the trust my brother had put in you.’ Anna lowered her eyes against the force of his biting scorn. ‘Fortunately for you, it makes no difference which brother honours the commitment. The same objectives will be achieved either way.’

  ‘And that’s it? Honouring the commitment is all that matters to you?’ She thrashed about, trying to find a way out. ‘How can you be so unemotional? This is a marriage we are talking about, a bond that has to last a lifetime.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that, Princess?’ Lowering his head, Zahir hissed into her ear, sending a bolt of electricity through her. ‘Don’t you think I am fully aware of the sacrifice I am making? But, if it is emotion you are looking for, I must warn you to be careful. To expose my opinion of you would be straying into a dark and dangerous territory indeed.’

  Cloaked in menace, his words settled over her like a shroud. Anna bit down hard on her lip to control the shiver. She didn’t entirely know what he meant by that chilling statement. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  ‘And if I refuse?’ Still she tried, squirming like a worm on a fish hook.

  ‘All I can say is, to refuse would be extremely stupid.’ He paused, weighting his words with care. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that you already have one failed engagement behind you. Another might cause considerable speculation.’

  A sharp jab of pain went through her. So he knew about that, did he? Abou
t her humiliating broken engagement to Prince Henrik. Of course he did. Everyone did.

  Tears were starting to build now, blocking her throat, scratching at her eyes. Tears of frustration, self-pity and wretched misery that her life had come to this. That she should be forced to marry a man who clearly despised her. A man who was as terrifying as he was alien—an arrogant, untamed brute of a man the like of which she had never come across before. She hadn’t begun to process the extraordinary reaction between them when she’d kissed him, the shockingly carnal way his body had responded. That would have to be for another time. But she did know he would never make her happy—that was a certainty. He would never even try.

  ‘You have brought this upon yourself, Princess Annalina.’ Somewhere outside the buzz of her head she heard him relentlessly press home the point. ‘You have forced my hand, but I am prepared do my duty. And, ultimately, so must you.’

  His damning statement was the final nail in the coffin.

  And so it was that Anna found herself being unceremoniously marched back to the hotel to meet her fate. With Zahir’s arm around her waist, propelling her forward, she had had no choice but to stumble along beside him, needing two or three stiletto-heeled steps to match his forceful stride as he rapidly navigated them through the Parisian streets. Her heart was thumping wildly, her dry breath scouring her throat as she tried to come to terms with what she was about to do—tie herself to this man for ever. But with the heat of his arm burning through the sheer fabric of her dress she found herself trying to fight that assault, the whole shimmering force of his nearness, his muscled flesh, his masculine scent, leaving her brain no space to cope with anything else.

  Finally outside the hotel Zahir turned her around to face him, his gaze raking mercilessly over her pale face. With the light spilling from the hotel, they could see each other more clearly now, but Anna had to tear her eyes away from his cruelly handsome features, afraid of what she might see there. Her gaze slid down the broad column of his neck to the open buttons of his shirt, the grey silk tie tugged to one side. And there, plainly visible against the exposed olive skin, was the livid red mark—the bite, where she had sunk her teeth into him. Instinctively her hand flew to her chest.