Chapter One #3
Amara had been burned when she was a young child in the kitchen when a family member had dropped a pan of boiling water.
Every day, Amara would diligently massage and moisturise the rough, dusky skin covering the front of her thigh and calf to keep it as supple and pain free as possible.
And in later years, Hana had been the one to offer the relief Amara needed.
The similarity in the burn marks left Hana to wonder how Malik had got his scar.
The regent, she mentally corrected; she would have to meet him tomorrow as if she’d never laid eyes on him.
Which would be hard now that she knew what he looked like. What he felt like, beneath her palms. A low hum rippled through her body, making her hot in a way that had nothing to do with the warmth of the room.
Her gaze flickered to the textured skin that spread out over his shoulder and wrapped around his bicep, and Hana realised that she was irritated by the rumours that had so misrepresented him.
Offended almost. There was nothing hideous about this.
Nothing monstrous enough to have earned him such a reputation.
Yes, he was curt and clearly quite grumpy.
But most people would be when they lived in the kind of pain he clearly managed on a daily basis.
Could it be that there was something else?
she wondered as she poured a little more of the almond-scented massage oil into her hands, warming it before it touched his body.
He had nice skin even taking his scar into consideration.
It was smooth, beautiful and tawny, flushing red beneath her ministrations.
She carefully placed her elbow into the knots beneath the puckered skin, and worked in small circles that made him groan again, and had the movements not been muscle memory for her, she would surely have lost her way.
Hana focused in on a particularly prominent knot while her mind thought about tomorrow. Now, she could meet the Regent of Al Surrahin and know that he wasn’t a terror or any of the other silly things people said.
Perhaps it was Malik’s shoulder, or just her thought of Amara, but if there was anyone Hana would have wanted with her on her wedding day it was Amara.
But she had passed on when Hana had been fourteen, and no one had been sent to replace her.
Why would they bother? Hana was old enough by then.
And…no one would have been able to replace Amara, Hana thought as an old familiar grief rose in her heart.
One that was always mixed with shame and guilt.
Because what kind of daughter grieved a nurse more than her own mother?
That’s what she’d overheard her sister say once. And Noor was right. So Hana did what Amara had taught her. Which was to hold her head up high and try harder.
Wallowing doesn’t get you anywhere.
What does?
Hard work and determination.
And with that you can do…?
Anything!
After hearing what her sister had said, Hana made sure not to grieve where anyone could see her, and redoubled her efforts to try to be of help, to be the daughter and sister they all wanted her to be.
Only they seemed to want different things and that kind of got her into trouble.
But as long as she was trying, that was the main thing.
Because if she tried hard enough, she could do anything.
Like earn her family’s forgiveness one day.
The regent groaned, a noise that raised goosebumps on her arms. It had sounded so…
carnal. She left the knots in his left shoulder and turned her attention to the other side of his body, knowing that it could be just as damaging to leave someone unbalanced.
She worked into the right shoulder, which had been overcompensating.
The breath left his chest in a whoosh. She felt it, his chest and ribcage expanding beneath her fingertips, relishing the powerful movements of a body so well honed.
Her fingers shaped and pressed against defined muscles and smooth skin, stretching and easing beneath her touch, as she followed her curiosity rather than his needs. Unknowingly her touch became less practical and more personal as she lost herself to the feel of him in her hands.
Imperceptibly she felt him still, his breathing more controlled than natural.
She couldn’t see his face, as it was cradled in the opening that ensured the best posture for her ministrations, so although she couldn’t see his facial expressions his body felt different. Aware, if such a thing was possible.
Funny how she had so much knowledge of his body and so little of her own.
Her pulse had picked up, her breath had become shorter, her skin flushed and parts of her warmed, pulsed slowly.
Her fingers traced the sides of his body, down to the base of his spine, tantalisingly close to the edge of the towel wrapped around such lean hips.
She felt him shift a little as she swept back up, pressing down either side of the vertebrae with the heels of her hands.
She was suddenly, achingly, aware of him as a man. The breadth of the shoulders she moulded with her hands, the grooves her fingers traced, the red thin trails left behind the scrape of her nails.
Her breath quivered and he shifted again, a little and then a little more, until he had levered himself upward and half turned, twisting to look at her as his hand sneaked out and trapped her fingers in his fist.
His gaze snared hers, catching it and holding it, the flare of gold in the espresso darkness of his pupils, the swathe of still-wet hair slicked back from his proud forehead.
Stuck. She was stuck still, rooted to the spot as his gaze seemed intent on penetrating her very thoughts.
But in that moment, she had none. Only shock, only confusion as to what on earth this was.
The hand capturing hers was hot, firm, a little calloused, and sent electricity shooting out across her entire body.
Until he opened his mouth. And the first word that came out brought her to her senses quicker than a bucket of iced water.
‘Who—’
Who are you?
That was all it took to bring Hana back to her senses.
She snatched her hand from his and fled.
She ran through corridors, ignoring the startled looks and calls from the spa staff, and pushed her way through the door she finally recognised as the exit.
But she didn’t stop there. She ran back through the streets of Omrhain and along the now-quiet walkways across the bridge, all the way to the palace staff entrance, which she managed to sneak through with only a mildly frustrated glance from the security team who were used to her comings and goings by now.
It was only when she was back in her room, her hand pressed against the heart pounding in her chest, when she realised what she had done.
He had seen her. And tomorrow, when their families met, he would remember her.
Oh no. What had she done?