body? He’d said he’d been in life-or-death situations. It was clear that he was still alive. Not so clear what had happened to his opponents. Not for the first time she wondered if she should be afraid of him. But she wasn’t. He unsettled her. Made her feel a strange sort of jumpiness, as though she’d had one too many shots of espresso—one of the only vices her parents allowed her.
One thing she knew for certain was that she wanted to be rid of the man. No one had babysat her brother while he’d gone out and had his taste of freedom. No one had doubted he would return to do his duty. She would do what she was meant to do. She’d always known that a love match wasn’t in her future, even before Hassan had been chosen for her. But that didn’t mean she wanted to be kept under lock and key her entire life. A few short weeks was all she’d asked for. A small concession when a lifetime of what amounted to servitude was in her future.
She wasn’t going to think about it now. All she was going to do was enjoy her dinner.
She took the first bite of her burger and closed her eyes, sighing with absolute pleasure. It was much better than she’d even imagined. A literal taste of freedom. She chewed slowly, savoring the experience and everything it represented for her.
Her last meal, he’d called it. He’d been joking, but it was true enough to her. Her first and last night on her own, making her own choices. Except she wasn’t really. He was here.
She blinked back the tears that were forming in her eyes and took another bite. She sighed again, relishing the flavor. Relishing freedom. All she would ever have was a taste, before she was shipped off to marry a man she didn’t know. A man she didn’t love or even have a special attraction to. And she was prepared to do that—had been her entire life. Was prepared to face her duty for the sake of her country. But she’d wanted time out from it all first. She hadn’t thought it was too much to hope for. Apparently it had been.
Now the food felt dry in her mouth and heavy in her stomach.
“Isabella?”
She looked up, and her eyes locked with Adham’s. Being the subject of his intense focus made her insides feel jittery. She didn’t like being on the receiving end of that dark, knowing gaze. It was as if he could see into her, into every private thought and feeling she’d ever had.
She lowered her eyes, staring hard at her food. Anything to keep from showing him just how much he unnerved her. She was used to being at an advantage, used to being royalty and feeling like it. But it didn’t seem to matter to this man at all. There was no deference towards her position, not even the semblance of respect she was used to receiving from strangers by virtue of her status.
“You are thinking hard, Isabella.”
She looked up at him. He flexed his hand, curled it into a fist as if he’d been seized by sudden tension.
“Your emotions are easy to read,” he said finally.
“There are two months until the wedding,” she said, trying to cultivate her best vulnerable expression, trying to appeal to him in some way. If her emotions were easy to read, she would use everything she had. “Two months and ten days. I haven’t gotten to do anything I planned to do. I’ve never been to the cinema, or to a restaurant. I just want … I want something of life—my own life—before I … I get married.” She watched his face, hoping to see some expression of sympathy, a sign he was at least hearing her words. She got nothing but that coal-black impenetrable stare. She could feel the wall between them, feel the distance he’d placed so efficiently between them.
She pressed on, her heart beating faster. “Could you …? Why couldn’t I do some of the things I planned, only with you?”
This at least earned her a small response, in the form of a fractional lift of his eyebrow. “I am not a babysitter, amira.” The Arabic word for princess was tinged with mockery.
“And I’m not a baby.”
“I am here to bring you to your fiancé, and that is where our association begins and ends. After you’ve been to see the Eiffel Tower tomorrow we will fly back to Umarah. You will go to the palace there, and then I will leave you in the capable hands of the High Sheikh.”
“But.” She was stalled by the look on his face, the blank hardness that conveyed both disinterest and contempt with ruthless efficiency. She took another bite of her hamburger and tried not to cry. Not in front of him. She wasn’t going to confirm what he thought—that she was some silly child who didn’t know what was best for her own life.
Although that was half true. She didn’t know. She realized that. How could she possibly know what was best for herself if she had no idea who she really was? She didn’t know her own likes, her own dislikes, her own moral code. She only knew what she’d been told she liked. What she’d been told was best for her. How could she go to a strange country, with customs entirely different from any she was familiar with, marry a man she didn’t know, if she still didn’t know herself? What would be left of her when she was stripped away from everything she knew?
When her surroundings changed, when the people who chose her clothing, dictated her actions changed, she was terrified she might lose herself completely. That was just one reason she needed some time to find out more about herself on her own terms.
Her throat felt tighter. It felt as if everything was closing in on her. The room, her family’s expectations. This was why she’d left in the first place. It was why she couldn’t stay now.
She took a deep breath and made an effort to smile. She had a limited amount of time to form a plan, and she couldn’t sacrifice her head start by tipping him off to what she was thinking.
“I’m tired,” she said. It was true. She was so tired she felt heavy with it. But she didn’t have the luxury of collapsing yet.
“You can sleep in the guest bedroom.” He gestured to a doorway that was situated across the open living room. She put her half-eaten dinner back on the wax paper, sad that she hadn’t been able to enjoy it more, and stood, making a move to grab her pink suitcase.
Adham reached over and put his hand on the suitcase. Over hers. The heat singed her, blazed through her body. It shocked her that his touch could be so hot.
“I’ll get it,” he said, standing. He kept his hand on hers, though and the warm weight was comforting and disturbing at the same time. “That’s called chivalry, not servitude.”
Her face felt warm, and it seemed as if her pulse was beating in her head. “I didn’t know you considered yourself chivalrous.”
His dark eyes clashed with hers. She pulled her hand away, shocked at the steady burn that continued even without his touch.
“Generally speaking, I don’t. Would you like to call your parents? Let them know you have not been kidnapped?”
“No.” She felt mildly guilty for not wanting to speak to them. But she also felt angry. She wasn’t certain she could even speak to her father without everything—all the repressed frustration she felt—flooding out of her. He could have let her have this time—realized how important it was. But he hadn’t.
The slight hitch of his eyebrow let her know that he disapproved. Well, fine. He could handle his parents the way he wanted, and she would handle hers her way.
Adham set the suitcase down just inside the door of the guest bedroom, not placing a foot inside. “I will call them, then. There’s a bathroom just through that door. If you need anything, I will see that you are provided for.”
She tried to force a smile. “When does the jailer make the rounds?”
His dark eyes narrowed. “You think you suffer, Isabella? You’re here in this penthouse and you think yourself in prison? You are to go from being Princess of Turan to Sheikha of Umarah and that seems lacking to you? You are nothing more than a selfish child.”
His words pounded in her head as he turned and walked away. How was it selfish to