Chapter Three #2
She just hadn’t expected him to be so angry. Hana tried to remember the speech that she had prepared, in an attempt not to make things worse.
‘Forgive me, Your Highness, for taking such drastic measures. I wouldn’t have done so had I thought I had any other option. But you left before I could—’
‘Make a fool of me? Force my hand in marriage to someone who is deceitful, cunning, secretive and manipulative?’
Hana had never been described in such a way before. Pathetic, irritating, accident prone, a walking disaster, yes, but cunning? A part of her thought she could grow to like that, if it didn’t have such negative connotations.
‘I mean, I don’t think I’d use those words—’
‘You donned a disguise,’ he said, striking his thumb with the forefinger of his other hand.
‘You managed to slip into the spa without staff noticing,’ he said, striking two more fingers, ‘and now you have kidnapped me, quite possibly inciting a border skirmish at best and a war at worst. Why is it that you think “those words” aren’t appropriate? ’ he demanded.
‘Well, because…because I didn’t really mean any of this to happen,’ she said her tone pleading.
She was having to raise her voice above the wind, which had picked up in the last twenty minutes that she’d been waiting out here for him.
‘I…’ she tried, but her hair whipped about her face in another gust of wind.
‘Your Highness, if we can get out of this wind, I’d really like the opportunity to explain properly,’ she said, and it was only then that he seemed to notice how much effort it was for her to stay standing upright, while he—in contrast—looked as if he were carved in marble and would withstand Armageddon.
For a moment she thought he’d make her stand there, with what was looking rather worryingly like a storm of epic proportions on the horizon, but thankfully with one swift nod of his head he consented to have her lead him away from the helipad and down towards the villa that was at least ninety percent finished.
She sent Malik a hopeful smile as he followed her into the villa, but when he simply glared back at her, she squashed her relief and led him down the corridor towards the large expanse of the living area.
Floor-to-ceiling windows wrapped around much of the structure, displaying the length of the island all the way to where it dropped into the sea.
The horizon line was a hazy blue, beneath a grey, cloud-heavy sky.
‘How did you get here? Before me?’ he asked.
She bit her lip. ‘My nursemaid’s nephew brought me out here as soon as I…’ As soon as she’d heard her family discussing how badly she’d messed up. Her stomach swirled again at the thought. ‘As soon as I realised that we needed to speak. He returned then to get you.’
A swift, sharp nod of a dark, furrow-browed head acknowledged his understanding of her explanation.
‘And where is “here” exactly?’ he demanded.
‘The villa belongs to a Swiss billionaire.’
‘A friend?’
‘No,’ she said turning to him. ‘I don’t know him at all.’
Malik frowned and then half growled. ‘Does he know we’re here?’
Hana pressed her lips together and shook her head.
‘So now, we’re breaking and entering too? And I’m an accomplice to this?’ he demanded.
‘I haven’t broken a single thing!’ Hana cried back, outraged that he would think she could do such a thing.
‘That’s not…that’s not what it means,’ the regent replied as if suffering her ineptitude was some kind of forbearance.
‘Oh, that hardly matters right now,’ Hana said, wishing he’d stop being so difficult.
‘Are you out of your mind? Has a clinical diagnosis been made?’ he asked, taking a step closer to him, with all his six-foot-four height bearing down on her.
She gasped, outraged. ‘No. Our families had an agreement and I am here to make sure that it happens,’ she insisted, closing the distance between them and apparently taking the Regent of Al Surrahin by surprise, because his next step faltered at the realisation that it would bring them almost chest to chest.
‘This isn’t going how I planned,’ Hana confessed, rubbing her forehead and not quite sure how and why things seemed to escalate so dramatically between them.
‘Does it ever, for you?’ Malik asked.
This time she glared at him.
A part of Malik, a long-forgotten, deeply buried part, almost wanted to laugh.
Almost. He had been kidnapped by a tiny, haphazard sheikha who bore more resemblance to a jinn than a princess in that moment.
And now that he knew the danger was over, the swell of relief was going to his head.
The moment he returned to Al Surrahin, he’d be investigating his security detail to find out how someone so inept had accomplished such a thing.
It is kind of impressive, whispered his brother’s voice in his ear.
Malik ignored him and looked down at the earnest expression on Hana’s face—Hana, the name that had crept into his thoughts, despite the fact that they’d never even officially been introduced.
No, you left before that could happen, his brother chided.
For good reason! he defended.
Which was why he missed the way that the princess had taken a deep breath, preparing to speak just before he asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘Right now, I want to wring your neck,’ she growled, apparently forgetting herself. ‘My intention was to explain myself but you keep interrupting me!’ she cried, turning her back on him and beginning to pace before the wide expanse of windows.
He opened his mouth and closed it again, realising she was right.
If she said what she needed to say, he could get out of here more quickly and then figure out what kind of retaliation was needed.
At this point, ensuring that she remained very much un-married and stuck with her family seemed the most apt punishment for Omrhain.
Spying the large caramel leather sofa, he stalked over to it and sat down, an ankle crossed over his knee, and turned to her with a raised brow.
‘I am ready,’ he said, sweeping a hand between them.
Her gaze flicked over him from head to toe and she swallowed, before nodding to herself that she was too.
‘Your Royal Highness—’ she began.
‘That’s my brother,’ Malik said from between clenched teeth.
‘Oh.’ The word escaped her lips and he saw the moment she remembered flashing across eyes that showed far too much. ‘I’m—’
‘Don’t apologise, just get on with it,’ Malik insisted through a jaw tight with tension.
‘Right, yes. Okay. Your Highness, I want to apologise, sincerely and truly for the deception,’ she stressed, ‘that took place in the spa.’
And then she just stopped. Stared. And blinked.
‘Is that it?’ he demanded.
‘Yes?’ she replied.
‘Why are you asking me?’
‘Because I want to know what it will take,’ she pleaded.
‘Take?’
‘For you to agree to marry me.’
The words of denial on Malik’s tongue caused a log jam, caught in his throat by his own surprise.
‘Nothing,’ he eventually bit out.
‘What?’ she asked, as if genuinely surprised by his answer.
‘Nothing. There is literally nothing you could do that would ever, ever, see me marrying you,’ he said, surer than he’d ever been of anything in his life. There was no way that he could tie himself to her, not now.
Her eyes grew impossibly wide. So much so that he could see shards of jade among the amber depths. She paled beneath the smooth bronze of her skin, her lips a perfect rosebud parted on a shocked exhale. But, he wouldn’t, couldn’t, let that sway him.
‘But I—’
‘Enough. We are done here,’ he said resolutely. ‘So call back your pilot.’
‘No,’ the woman in front of him replied, just as stubbornly as he felt.
He peered at her, framed by the increasingly dramatic skyline behind her. There was most definitely a storm coming and he didn’t intend to be here when it hit.
‘You can contact your pilot, can’t you?’ Malik asked, discomfort swirling in the pit of his stomach.
He couldn’t imagine this situation had been anything other than hastily thrown together, given the time frame, and now that he knew the mastermind was this diminutive, dark-haired, expressive-eyed…
jinn hell-bent on bringing chaos to his life, he was suddenly very concerned.
‘Of course I can,’ she scoffed.
But when he gestured for her to do so, she shook her head.
‘Not until you agree to marry me again.’
Malik threw his hands in the air, got up and stalked from the room. He needed air. Fresh air. To clear his head enough to ensure that he didn’t strangle the youngest princess of Omrhain.
The most obvious thing would be to lie to her and tell her that he’d do whatever she wanted until he got out of there.
But lying was abhorrent to him. He was a man of honour, if even just to himself.
So no, he wouldn’t do that. And besides, his people would find him before he needed to cave to her demands.
He looked at his phone once again. But the signal was still dead.
She must have a satellite phone on her, but just as thoughts of seizing it from her, of his hands on her body, the feel of her skin exploded in his mind, Malik was slapped with the first spatter of rain.
He glared up at the thick clouds above his head and he clenched his jaw.
He made it back into the villa just before the heavens opened.
By the time he’d stalked into room where he’d left Hana, he found her staring out at the storm that was almost on top of them.
‘You need to call your pilot now,’ he commanded.
She whirled around, pinning him with wide, fearful eyes.
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘He’s not picking up.’
‘Then call someone else.’