One Reckless Decision: Majesty, Mistress...Missing Heir / Katrakis's Last Mistress / Princess From the Past
with something darker.
“Is that so?” he asked in the same quiet voice, as if they were in the presence of something larger. She shoved the notion away, and had to restrain herself from reaching out and shoving him away, too. She knew better than to touch him.
“I’m sorry if you expected me to be sitting in an attic somewhere, weeping over your picture,” Jessa said, trying to inject a little laughter into her voice, as if that might ease the tension in the room and in her own body. Tariq’s eyes narrowed. “But I’ve moved on. I suggest you do the same. Aren’t you a sheikh? Can’t you snap your fingers and create a harem to amuse yourself?”
She thought for a tense, long moment that she had gone too far. He was, after all, a king now. And far more unnerving. But he looked away for a moment, and his mouth curved in something very nearly a smile.
“I must marry,” Tariq said. Then he turned his head and captured her gaze with his. “But before I can do that particular duty, it seems I must deal with you.”
“Deal with me?” She shook her head, not understanding. Not wanting to try to understand him. “Why should you wish to deal with me now, when you have had no interest in me for all these years?”
“You and I have unfinished business.” It was a statement of fact. His eyebrows rose, daring her to disagree.
Jessa thought for a moment she might faint. But then something else kicked in, some deep protective streak that would not allow her to fall before this man so easily. He was formidable, yes. But she was stronger. She’d had to be.
Maybe, on some level, she had always known she would have to face him someday.
“We do not have unfinished business, or anything else,” she declared, throwing down the gauntlet. She raised her chin and looked him in the eye. “Anything we had died five years ago, in London.”
“That is a lie.” His tone brooked no argument. He was the king, handing down his judgment. She ignored it.
“Let me tell you what happened to me after you left the country,” Jessa continued in the same tone, daring him to interrupt her. His nostrils flared slightly, but he was silent. She took a step closer, no longer afraid of his nearness. “Did you ever think about it? Did it cross your mind at all?”
How proud she had been of that internship, straight out of university that long-ago summer. How certain she had been that she was taking the first, crucial steps to a glittering, high-powered career in the city. Instead, she had met Tariq in her first, breathless week in London, and her dreams had been forever altered.
“You were the one who left—” he began, frowning.
“I left for two and half days,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s not quite on a par with what you did, is it? It wasn’t enough that you left the country, disconnected your mobile phone, and put your flat up for sale,” she continued, keeping her gaze steady on his. “Actually telling me you no longer wished to see me was beneath you, I suppose. But you also withdrew your investments.”
His frown deepened, and his body tensed. Did he expect a blow? When he had been the one to deliver all of them five years ago, and with such cold-blooded, ruthless efficiency? Jessa almost laughed.
“What did you think would happen?” she asked him, an old anger she had thought she’d forgotten coloring her voice. She searched the dark green eyes she had once artlessly compared to primeval forests, and saw no poetry there any longer. Only his carelessness. “I was the intern who was foolish enough to have an affair with one of the firm’s biggest clients. I had no idea you were the biggest client. And it was smiled upon as long as I kept you happy, of course.”
Jessa could picture the buttoned-up, hypocritical investment bankers she had worked for back then. She could see once more the knowing way they had looked at her when they thought she was just one more fringe benefit the firm could provide for Tariq’s pleasure. Just another perk. A bottle of the finest champagne, the witless intern, whatever he liked. But then he had severed his relationships—not only with Jessa, but with the firm that handled his speculative investments, all in the span of three quick days following the September Bank Holiday.
“I thought it best to make a clean break,” he said, and there was strain in his voice, as if he fought against some strong emotion, but Jessa knew from experience that his emotions were anything but strong, no matter how they might appear.
“Yes, well, you succeeded in breaking something,” she told him, the anger gone as quickly as it had come, leaving only a certain sadness for the girl she had been. “My career. Into tiny little pieces. They sacked me, of course. And once they did, who do you think wanted to hire the promiscuous intern who’d lost her previous firm so much money along with such a high-profile client?”
His mouth flattened and his eyes flashed that dark jade fire. But Jessa remembered the look of disgust on the senior partner’s face when he’d called her into his office. She remembered the harsh words he’d used to describe her behavior, the same behavior that had received no more than a wink and a smile the week before. She’d stood there, pale and trembling, unable to process what was happening. She was pregnant. And Tariq had not only left her so brutally, he had left England altogether, to become a king. On top of all that, he had never been the person he’d claimed to be, the person she’d loved. It was all a lie.
“And that was the end of my brilliant career in London,” Jessa said in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner. She tilted her head slightly to one side as she considered him. “I suppose I should thank you. It takes some people a lifetime to figure out that they’re not cut out for that world. Thanks to you, it took me only a few short months.”
“My uncle was killed,” Tariq said in a low, furious voice, his body seeming to expand as he stood in the middle of the office floor, taking over the entire space. “I was suddenly thrust upon the throne, and I had to secure my position. I did not have time to soothe hurt feelings half the world away.”
“They don’t have notepaper or pens where you come from, then,” Jessa said sarcastically, pretending she was unaffected by his magnetism, his power. “Much less telephones. Perhaps you communicate using nothing save the force of your royal will?”
He looked away then, muttering something harsh in a language she was just as happy she didn’t know. In profile, he was all hard edges except for his surprisingly mobile mouth. He looked like the king he was. Noble features, royal bones. The sort of profile that would end up stamped on coins.
When she thought about it that way, the absurdity of the situation was almost too much for her. They should never have met in the first place—it was all too fantastical. It was one thing to dream of fairy-tale princes when one was fresh out of university and still under the impression that the world was waiting only to be bent to one’s will. Tariq bin Khaled Al-Nur had always been too sophisticated, too dangerous, too much for the likes of Jessa Heath, and that was long before he became a king. She was a simple person, with a simple life and, once, a few big dreams, but she’d quickly learned the folly of dreams. She knew better now.
“Never fear,” she said, folding her arms over her chest. “I’m a survivor. I picked myself up, dusted myself off, and made myself a life. It might not be the life I wanted when I was twenty-two, but it’s mine.” She lifted her chin and fixed her eyes on him, unafraid. “And I like it.”
There was another silence. A muscle worked in Tariq’s jaw, though he was otherwise motionless. Jessa had said things she had once only dreamed about saying, and that had to count for something, didn’t it?
“There is no apology I can make that will suffice,” Tariq said then, lifting his head to catch her gaze, startling her with his seeming sincerity. “I was thoughtless. Callous.”
For a moment Jessa stared back at him, while something seemed to ease inside of her. Almost as if it was enough, somehow, that he had heard her. That he offered no excuses for what he had done. And perhaps it might have been enough, if that had been the end of what his abandonment had cost her. But