leaving the kingdom. They hoped her presence would stimulate renewed interest in the facility.
Seemed they’d been right. Since she’d moved in, the influx of tenants had tripled. One neighbor had told her her reputation, and her mother’s, had preceded her, and her presence had many investors feeling secure enough to trickle back to Azmahar, considering it a sign things would soon be put back on track.
Yeah. Sure. No pressure whatsoever.
But the “privilege” she dreaded was being at ground zero with every big shot who would grace the kingdom as the race for the throne began. Word was, none of the candidates had announced a position or plans to show up. That only made stumbling across Haidar a matter of later instead of sooner.
She would give anything for never.
But then, she would give anything for a number of things. Her mother with her. A father. Any family at all.
In minutes, she was entering the interior-decorating triumph of an apartment that spanned one-quarter of the thirty-thousand-foot thirtieth floor. She sighed in appreciation as fragrant coolness and calibrating lights enveloped her.
She headed for the shower, came out grinding her teeth a bit less harshly.
She would have thrived on rebuilding the kingdom’s broken political and economic channels. But now the Aal Shalaan “hybrids,” as they were called here, would feature heavily in this country’s future—and consequently, partly in hers. Contemplating that wasn’t conducive to her focus or peace of mind. And she needed both to deal with the barrage of information she had to weave into viable solutions. Even if a new king took the throne tomorrow, and he and Zohayd threw money and resources at Azmahar, it wouldn’t be effective unless they had a game plan …
An unfamiliar chime sundered the soundproof silence.
She started. Frowned. Then exhaled heavily.
Cherie was almost making her sorry she’d invited her to stay.
They’d been best friends when they’d gone to university here, and they’d kept in touch. Roxanne’s return had coincided with Cherie’s latest stormy split-up with her Azmaharian husband. She’d left everything behind, including credit cards.
After the height of the drama had passed, Roxanne should have rented her a place to stay while she sorted out her affairs.
Though she loved Cherie’s gregarious company, her energy and unpredictability, Cherie took her “creative chaos” a bit too far. She went through her environment like a tornado, leaving anything from clothes to laptops to mugs on the floor, dishes rotting in the sink, and she regularly forgot basic order-and-safety measures.
Seemed she’d forgotten her key now, too.
Grumbling, Roxanne stomped to the foyer, snarling when the bell clanged again. She pounced on the door, yanked it open. And everything screeched to a halt.
Her breath. Her heart. Her mind. The whole world.
Across her threshold …
Haidar.
Air clogged in her lungs. Everything blipped, swam, as the man she remembered in distressing detail moved with deadly, tranquil grace, leaned his left arm on her door frame. His gaze slid from her face down her body, making her feel as if he’d scraped every nerve ending raw, before returning to her sizzling eyes, a slow smile spreading across his painstakingly sculpted lips.
“You know, Roxanne, I’ve been wondering for eight years.”
The lazy, lethal melody emanating from his lips swamped her. His smile morphed into what a bored predator must give his prey before he finished it off with one swat.
“How soon after you left me did you find yourself a new regularly available stud? Or three?”
Two
Something finally flickered in Roxanne’s mind.
Not an actual thought. Just … Wow.
Wow. Over and over.
She didn’t know how long it took the loop of wows to fade, to allow their translation to filter through her gray matter.
So this was what eight years had made of Haidar Aal Shalaan.
Most men looked better in their thirties than they did in their twenties. Damn them. A good percentage improved still in their forties, and even fifties. The loss of the smoothness of youth seemed to define their maleness, infuse them with character.
In Haidar’s case, she’d thought there had been no room for improvement. At twenty-six he’d seemed to have already realized his potential for perfection.
But … wow. Had photographic evidence and her projections ever been misleading! He’d matured from the epitome of gorgeousness into force-of-nature-level manifestation of masculinity. Her imagination short-circuited trying to project what he’d look like, feel like, in another decade. Or three.
His body had bulked up with a distillation of symmetry and strength. His face had been carved with lines of untrammeled power and ruthlessness. He’d become a god of virility and sensuality, hewn from the essence of both. As harsh as the desert’s terrain, as menacing as its nights. And as brutally, searingly, freezingly magnificent.
Whatever softness had once gentled his beauty, warmed the frost she’d always suspected formed his core, had been obliterated.
“Well, Roxanne?” He cocked that perfectly formed head, sending the blue-black silk that rained to his as-dark collar sifting to one side. She would have shivered had her body been capable of even involuntary reactions. She could actually hear the sighing caress of thick, polished layers against as-soft material. Mockery tugged at his lips, enhanced the slant in his eyes. He could see, feel her reaction. Of course. He was triggering it at will. “I’ve had bets about which of us found a replacement faster.”
“Why bet on a sure thing? I had to settle in back home, reenroll in university before I started recruiting. That took time. All you had to do was order a stand-in—or rather a lie-in—from your waiting list that same day.”
His eyebrows shot up.
If he was surprised, it wasn’t any more than she was.
Where had all that come from?
Seemed she had more resentment bottled up than she’d known. And his appearance had shaken out all the steam. Good to depressurize and get it over with.
“Touché.” He inclined his head, his eyes filling with lethal humor. “I was in error. The subject of the bets shouldn’t have been how long until you found replacements, but how many you found. I was just being faithful in quoting your parting words when I said a stud or three. But from … intimate knowledge of the magnitude of your … needs, I would bet you’ve gone through at least thirty.”
Her first instinct was to take off his head with one slashing rejoinder. She swallowed the impulse, felt it scald her insides.
No matter how she hated his guts and his nerve in showing up on her doorstep, damn his incomparable eyes, he was important. Vital even. To Azmahar. To the whole damn mess. His influence was far-reaching, in the region and the world. And he had the right mix of genes in the bargain.
And then, she wasn’t just a woman who was indignant to find an ex-lover at her door unannounced, but also one of the main agents in smoothing out this crisis. Whether he became king or not, he could be—should be—a major component in the solution she would formulate. She should rein in further retorts, drag out the professional she prided herself had tamed her innate wildness and steer this confrontation away from petty one-upmanship.
Then she opened her mouth. “By the rate you were going through women when I was around, you must be in the vicinity of three hundred.” Before she could give herself a mental kick, the bedevilment in his smile rose, prodded her on instead. “What? I missed a zero?