Читать книгу Conveniently His Princess - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 11
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Aram stared at the slight creature who faced him across the elegant office, radiating the impact of a miniature force of nature, and one thing reverberating through his mind.
She’d recognized him on the spot.
No. More than that. She knew him. At least knew of him.
She’d called him “The Pirate.” The persona, or rather the caricature of him that distasteful tabloids, scorned women and disgruntled business rivals had popularized.
She seemed to be waiting for him to make a comeback to her opening salvo.
A charge of electricity forked up his spine, then all the way up to his lips, spreading them wider. “So I’m The Pirate. And what do you answer to? The Tornado? The Hurricane? You did tear through Johara’s office with the comparative havoc of one. Or do you simply go with The Burglar? A very messy, noisy, reckless one at that?”
She tilted her head, sending her masses of glossy curls tumbling over one slim shoulder. He could swear he heard them tutting in sarcastic vexation that echoed the expression on her elfin face.
It also poured into her voice, its timbre causing something inside his rib cage to rev. “So are you going to stand there like the behemoth that you are blocking my escape route and sucking all oxygen from the room into that ridiculously massive chest of yours, or are you going to give a fellow thief a hand?”
His lips twitched, every word out of hers another zap lashing through his nerves. “Now, how is it fair that I assist you in your heist without even having the privilege of knowing who I’m going to be indicted with when we’re caught? Or are formal introductions not even necessary? Perhaps your spritely self plans on disappearing into the night, leaving me behind to take the fall?”
Her stare froze on him for several long seconds before she suddenly tossed her hair back with a careless hand. “Oh, right...I remember now. Sorry for that. I guess having you materialize behind me like some genie surprised me so much it took me a while to reboot and access my memory banks.”
He blinked, then frowned. Was she the one who’d stopped making sense, or had his mind finally stopped functioning? It had been increasingly glitch riddled of late. He had been teetering on the brink of some breakdown for a long time now, and he’d thought it was only a matter of time before the chasm running through his being became complete.
So had his psyche picked now of all times to hit rock bottom? But why now, when he’d finally found someone to jog him out of his apathy, even if temporarily; someone he actually couldn’t predict?
Maybe he’d blacked out or something, missed something she’d said that would make her last words make sense.
He cleared his throat. “Uh...come again?”
Her fed-up expression deepened. “I momentarily forgot how you got your nickname, and that you continue to live down to it, and then some.”
Though the jump in continuity still baffled him, he went along. “Oh? I’m very much interested in hearing your dissection of my character. Knowing how another criminal mastermind perceives me would no doubt help me perfect my M.O.”
One of those dense, slanting eyebrows rose. “Invoking the code of dishonor among thieves? Sure, why not? I’m charitable like that with fellow crooks.” That obsidian gaze poured mockery over him. “Let’s see. You earned your moniker after building a reputation of treating other sentient beings like commodities to be pillaged then tossed aside once their benefit is depleted. But you reserve an added insult and injury to those who suffer the terrible misfortune of being exposed to you on a personal level, as you reward those hapless people by deleting them from you mind. So, if you’re seeking my counsel about enhancing your performance, my opinion is that you can’t improve on your M.O. of perfectly efficient cruelty.”
Her scathing portrayal was the image that had been painted of him in the business world and by the women he’d kept away by whatever measures necessary.
When his actions had been exaggerated or misinterpreted and that ruthless reputation had begun to be established, he’d never tried to adjust it. On the contrary, he’d let it become entrenched, since that perceived cold-bloodedness did endow him with a power nothing else could. Not to mention that it supplied him with peace of mind he couldn’t have bought if he’d projected a more approachable persona. This one did keep the world at bay.
But the only actual accuracy in her summation was the personal interactions bit. He didn’t crowd his recollections with the mundane details of anyone who hadn’t proved worth his while. Only major incidents remained in his memory—if stripped from any emotional impact they might have had.
But...wait a minute. Inquiring about her identity had triggered this caustic commentary in the first place. Was she obliquely saying that he didn’t remember her, when he should?
That was just not possible. How would he have ever forgotten those eyes that could reduce a man to ashes at thirty paces, or that tongue that could shred him to ribbons, or that wit that could weave those ribbons into the hand basket to send him to hell in?
No way. If he’d ever as much as exchanged a few words with her, not only would he have remembered, he would probably have borne the marks of every one. After mere minutes of being exposed to her, he felt her eyes and tongue had left no part of him unscathed.
And he was loving it.
God, to be reveling in this, he must be sicker than he’d thought of all the fawning he got from everyone else—especially women. Though he knew that had never been for him. During his stint in Zohayd, it had been his exotic looks but mainly his closeness to the royal family that had incited the relentless pursuit of women there. After he’d become a millionaire, then a billionaire... Well, status and wealth were irresistible magnets to almost everyone.
That made being slammed with such downright derision unprecedented. He doubted if he would have accepted it from anyone else, though. But from this enigma, he was outright relishing it.
Wanting to incite even more of her verbal insults, he gave her a bow of mock gratitude. “Your testimony of dishonor honors me, and your maligning warms my stone-cold heart.”
Both her eyebrows shot up this time. “You have one? I thought your species didn’t come equipped with those superfluous organs.”
His grin widened. “I do have a rudimentary thing somewhere.”
“Like an appendix?” A short, derogatory sound purred in the back of her throat. “Something that could be excised and you’d probably function better without? Wonder why you didn’t have it electively removed. It must be festering in there.”
As if compelled, he moved away from the door, needing a closer look at this being he’d never seen the likes of before. He kept drawing nearer as she stood her ground, her glare one that could have stopped an attacking horde.
It only made getting even closer imperative. He stopped only when he was three feet away, peering down at this diminutive woman who was a good foot or more shorter than he was yet feeling as if he was standing nose to nose with an equal.
“Don’t worry,” he finally said, answering her last dig. “There is no reason for surgical intervention. It has long since shriveled and calcified. But thank you from the bottom of my vestigial heart for the concern. And for the counsel. It’s indeed reassuring to have such a merciless authority confirm that I’m doing the wrong thing so right.”
He waited for her ricocheting blitz, anticipation rising. Instead, she seared him with an incinerating glance before seeming to delete him from her mind as she resumed her search.
By now he knew for certain that she wasn’t here to do anything behind Johara’s back. Even when she’d readily engaged him in the “thieves in the night” scenario he’d initiated, and rifling through the very cabinets he himself was here to search...
It suddenly hit him, right in the solar plexus, who this tempest in human form was.
It was her.
Kanza. Kanza Aal Ajmaan.
Unable to blink, to breathe, he stood staring at her as she kept transferring files from the cabinets, plopping them down on Johara’s desk before attacking them with a speed and focus that once again flooded his mind’s eye with images of hilarious cartoon characters. He had no clue how he’d even recognized her. Just as she’d accused him, his memories of the Kanza he’d known over ten years ago had been stripped of any specifics.
All he could recall of the fierce and fearsome teenager she’d been, apart from the caricature he’d painted for Shaheen of her atrocious fashion style and the weird, bordering-on-repulsive things she’d done with her hair and eyes, was that it had felt as if something ancient had been inhabiting that younger-than-her-age body.
A decade later, she still seemed more youthful than her chronological age, yet packed the wallop of this same primal force. But that was where the resemblance ended.
The Mad Hatter and Wicked Witch clothes and makeup and extraterrestrial hair, contact lenses and body paint were gone now. From the nondescript black clothes and the white sneakers that clashed with them, to the face scrubbed clean of any enhancements, to the thick, untamed mahogany tresses that didn’t seem to have met a stylist since he’d last seen her, she had gone all the way in the other direction.
Though in an opposite way to her former self, she was still the antithesis of all the svelte, stylish women who’d ever entered his orbit, starting with her half sisters. Where they’d been overtly feminine and flaunting their assets, she made no effort whatsoever to maximize any attributes she might have. Not that she had much to work with. She was small, almost boyish. The only big thing about her was her hair. And eyes. Those were enormous. Everything else was tiny.
But that was when he analyzed her looks clinically. But when he experienced them with the influence of the being they housed, the spirit that animated them...that was when his entire perception changed. The pattern of her features, the shape of her lips, the sweep of her lashes, the energy of her movements... Everything about her evolved into something totally different, making her something far more interesting than pretty.
Singular. Compelling.
And the most singular and compelling thing about her was those night eyes that had burned to ashes any preformed ideas of what made a woman worthy of a second glance, let alone constant staring.
Though he was still staring after she’d deprived him of their contact, he was glad to be relieved of their all-seeing scrutiny. He needed respite to process finding her here.
How could Shaheen bring her up a couple of weeks ago only for him to stumble on her here of all places when he hadn’t crossed paths with her in ten years? This was too much of a coincidence. Which meant...
It wasn’t one. Johara had set him up.
Another realization hit simultaneously.
Kanza seemed to be here running his same errand. Evidently Johara had set her up, too.
God. He was growing duller by the day. How could he have even thought Shaheen wouldn’t share this with Johara, the woman where half his soul resided? How hadn’t he picked up on Johara’s knowledge or intentions?
Not that those two coconspirators were important now. The only relevant thing here was Kanza.
Had she realized the setup once he’d walked through that door? Was that why she’d reacted so cuttingly to his appearance? Did she take exception to Johara’s matchmaking, and that was her way of telling her, and him, “Hell, no!”?
If this was the truth, then that made her even more interesting than he’d originally thought. It wasn’t conceit, but as Shaheen had said, in the marriage market, he was about as big a catch as an eligible bachelor got. He couldn’t imagine any woman would be averse to the idea of being his wife—if only for his status and wealth. Even his reputation was an irresistible lure in that arena. If women thought they had access, it only made him more of a challenge, a dangerous bad boy each dreamed she’d be the one to tame.
But if Kanza was so immune to his assets, so opposed to exploring his possibility as a groom, that alone made her worthy of in-depth investigation.
Not that he was even considering Shaheen and Johara’s neat little plan. But he was more intrigued by the moment by this...entity they’d gotten it into their minds was perfect for him.
Suddenly, said entity looked up from the files, transfixed him in the crosshairs of her fiercest glare yet. “Don’t just stand there and pose. Come do something more useful than look pretty.” When she saw his eyebrows shoot up, her lips twisted. “What? You take exception to being called pretty?”
He opened his mouth to answer, and her impatient gesture closed it for him, had him hurrying next to her where she foisted a pile of files on him and instructed him to look for the very file Johara had sent him here to retrieve.
Without looking at him, she resumed her search. “I guess pretty is too mild. You have a right to expect more powerful descriptions.”
He gave her engrossed profile a sideways glance. “If I expect anything, it certainly isn’t that.”
She slammed another file shut. “Why not? You have the market of halawah cornered after all.”
Halawah, literally sweetness, was used in Zohayd to describe beauty. That had him turning fully toward her. “Where do you come up with these things that you say?”
She flicked him a fleeting glance, closed another file on a sigh of frustration. “That’s what women in Zohayd used to say about you. Wonder what they’d say now that your halawah is so exacerbated by age it could induce diabetes.”
That had a laugh barking from his depths. “Why, thanks. Being called a diabetes risk is certainly a new spin on my supposed good looks.”
She tsked. “You know damn well how beautiful you are.”
He shook his bemused head at what kept spilling from those dainty lips, compliments with the razor-sharp edges of insults. “No one has accused me of being beautiful before.”
“Probably because everyone is programmed to call men handsome or hunks or at most gorgeous. Well, sorry, buddy. You leave all those adjectives in the dust. You’re all-out beautiful. It’s really quite disgusting.”
“Disgusting!”
“Sickeningly so. The resources you must devote to maximizing your assets and maintaining them at this...level...” She tossed him a gesture that eloquently encompassed him from head to toe. “When your looks aren’t your livelihood, this is an excess that should be punishable by law.”
An incredulous huff escaped him. “It’s surreal to hear you say that when my closest people keep telling me the very opposite—that I’m totally neglecting myself.”
She slanted him a caustic look. “You have people who can bear being close to you? My deepest condolences to them.”
He smiled as if she’d just lavished the most extravagant praise on him. “I’ll make sure to relay your sympathies.”
Another withering glance came his way before she resumed her work. “I’ll give mine directly to Johara. No wonder she’s seemed burdened of late. It must be quite a hardship having you for an only brother in general, not to mention having to see you frequently when she’s here.”
His gaze lengthened on her averted face. Then suddenly everything jolted into place.
Who Kanza really was.
She was the new partner that Johara had been waxing poetic about. Now he replayed the times his sister had raved about the woman who’d taken Johara’s design house from moderate success to household-name status, this financial marketing guru who had never actually been mentioned by name. But he had no doubt now it was Kanza.
Had Johara never brought up her name because she didn’t want to alert him to her intentions, making him resistant to meeting Kanza and predisposed to finding fault with her if he did? If so, then Johara understood him better than Shaheen did, who’d hit him over the head with his intentions and Kanza’s name. That had backfired. Evidently Johara had reeled Shaheen in, telling her husband not to bring up the subject again and that she’d handle everything from that point on, discreetly. And she had.
Another certainty slotted into place. Johara had kept her business partner in the dark about all this for the same reason.
Which meant that Kanza had no clue this meeting wasn’t a coincidence.
The urge to divulge everything about their situation surged from zero to one hundred. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face as the truth of Johara and Shaheen’s machinations sank in and to just stand back and enjoy the fireworks.
He turned to her, the words almost on his lips, when another thought hit him.
What if, once he told her, she became stilted, self-conscious? Or worse, nice? He couldn’t bear the idea that after their invigorating duel of wits, her revitalizing lambasting, she’d suddenly start to sugarcoat her true nature in an attempt to endear herself to him as a potential bride. But worst of all, what if she shut him out completely?
From what he’d found out about her character so far, he’d go with scenario number three as the far more plausible one.
Whichever way this played out, he couldn’t risk spoiling her spontaneity or ending this stimulating interlude.
Deciding to keep this juicy tidbit to himself, he said, “Apart from burdening Johara with my existence, I was actually serious for a change. Everyone I meet tells me I’ve never looked worse. The mirror confirms their opinion.”
“I’ve smacked people upside the head for less, buddy.” She narrowed her eyes at him, as if charting the trajectory of the smack he’d earn if he weren’t careful. “Nothing annoys me more than false modesty, so if you don’t want me to muss that perfectly styled mane of yours, watch it.”
Suddenly it was important for him to settle this with her. “There is no trace of anything false in what I’m saying—modesty or otherwise. I really have been in bad shape and have been getting progressively worse for over a year now.”
This gave her pause for a moment, something like contrition or sympathy coming into her eyes.
Before he could be sure, it was gone, her fathomless eyes glittering with annoyance again. “You mean you’ve looked better than this? Any better and you should be...arrested or something.”
Something warm seeped through his bones, brought that unfamiliar smile to his lips again. “Though I barely give the way I look any thought, you managed what I thought impossible. You flattered me in a way I never was before.”
She grimaced as if at some terrible taste. “Hello? Wasn’t I speaking English just now? Flattering you isn’t among the things I would ever do, even at gunpoint.”
“Sorry if this causes you an allergic reaction, but that is exactly what you did, when I’ve been looking at myself lately and finding only a depleted wretch looking back at me.”
She opened her mouth to deliver another disparaging blow, before she closed it, her eyes narrowing contemplatively over his face.
“Now I’m looking for it. I guess, yeah, I see it. But it sort of...roughens your slickness and gives you a simulation of humanity that makes you look better than your former overly polished perfection. Figures, huh? Instead of looking like crap, you manage to make wretched and depleted work for you.”
He abandoned any pretense of looking through the files and turned to her, arms folded over his chest. “Okay. I get it. You despise the hell out of me. Are you going to tell me what I ever did to deserve your wrath, Kanza?”
When she heard her name on his lips, something blipped in her eyes. It was gone again before he could latch on to it, and she reverted back to full-blast disdain mode. “Give the poor, depleted Pirate an energy bar. He’s exerted himself digging through his hard drive’s trash and recognized me. And even after he did, he still asks. What? You think your transgressions should have been dropped from the record by time?”
“Which transgressions are we talking about here?”
“Yeah, with multitudes to pick from, you can’t even figure out which ones I’m referring to.”
“Though I’m finding your bashing delightful, even therapeutic, my curiosity levels are edging into the danger zone. How about you put me out of my misery and enlighten me as to what exactly I’m paying the price for now?”
Her lips twisted disbelievingly. “You’ve really forgotten, haven’t you?” At his unrepentant yet impatient nod, she rolled her eyes and turned back to the files, muttering under her breath. “You can go rack your brains with a rake for the answer for all I care. I’m not helping you scratch that itch.”
“Since there’s no way I’ve forgotten anything I did to you that could cause such an everlasting grudge...” He paused, frowned then exclaimed, “Don’t tell me this is about Maysoon!”
“And he remembers. In a way that adds more insult to injury. You’re a species of one, aren’t you, Aram Nazaryan?”
Before he could say anything, she strode away, clearly not intending to let him pursue the subject. He could push his luck but doubted she’d oblige him.
But at least he now knew where this animosity was coming from. While he hadn’t factored in that this would be her stance regarding the fiasco between him and Maysoon, it seemed she had accumulated an unhealthy dose of prejudice against him from the time he’d been briefly engaged to her half sister. And she’d added an impressive amount of further bias ever since.
She slammed another filing cabinet shut. “This damn file isn’t here.” She suddenly turned on him. “But you are. What the hell are you doing here, anyway?”
So it had finally sunk in, the improbability of his stumbling in on her here in his sister’s office.
Having already decided to throw her off, he said, “I was hoping Johara would be working late.”
She frowned. “So you don’t know that she and Shaheen are throwing a party tonight?”
“They are?” This had to be his best acting moment ever.
She bought it, as evidenced by her return to mockery. “You forgot that, too? Is anything of any importance to you?”
He approached her again with the same caution he would approach a hostile feline. “Why do you assume it’s me who forgot and not them who neglected to invite me?”
“Because I’d never believe either Johara or Shaheen would neglect anyone, even you.”
When he was a few feet away, he looked down at her, amusement again rising unbidden. “But it’s fully believable that I got their invitation and tossed it in the bin unread?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Why not? I’d believe you got a dozen phone calls, too, or even face-to-face invitations and just disregarded them.”
“Then I come here to visit my sister because I’m disregarding her?”
“Maybe you need something from her and came to ask for it, even though you won’t consider going to her party.”
He let out a short, delighted laugh. “You’ll go the extra light-year to think the worst of me, won’t you?”
“Don’t give me any credit. It’s you who makes it exceptionally easy to malign you.”
Hardly believing how much he was enjoying her onslaught, he shook his head. “One would think Maysoon is your favorite sister and bosom buddy from the way you’re hacking at me.”
The intensity of her contempt grew hotter. “I would have hacked at you if you’d done the same to a stranger or even an enemy.”
“So your moral code is unaffected by personal considerations. Commendable. But what have I done exactly, in your opinion?”
Her snort was so cute, so incongruous, that it had his unfettered laugh ringing out again.
“Oh, you’re good. With three words you’ve turned this from a matter of fact to a matter of opinion. Play another one.”
“I’m trying hard to.”
“Then el’ab be’eed.”
This meant play far away. From her, of course.
Something he had no intention of doing. “Won’t you at least recite my charges and read me my rights?”
She produced her cell phone. “Nope. I bypassed all that and long pronounced your sentence.”
“Shouldn’t I be getting parole after ten years?”
“Not when I gave you life in the first place, no.”
His whole face was aching. He hadn’t smiled this much in...ever. “You’re a mean little thing, aren’t you?”
“And you’re a sleazy huge thing, aren’t you?”
He guffawed this time.
Wondering how the hell this pixie was doing this, triggering his humor with every acerbic remark, he headed back to Johara’s desk. “So are we done with your search mission? Or going by the aftermath of your efforts, search-and-destroy operation?”
“Just for that,” she said as she placed a call, “you put everything back where it belongs.”
“I don’t think even Johara herself can accomplish that impossibility after the chaos you’ve wrought.”
She flicked him one last annihilating look, then dismissed him as she started speaking into the phone without preamble. “Okay, Jo, I can’t find anything that might be the file you described, and I’ve gone through every shred of paper you got here.”
“You mean we did.” Aram raised his voice to make sure Johara heard him.
An obsidian bolt hit him right between the eyes, had his heart skipping a beat.
He grinned even more widely at her. He had no doubt Johara had heard him, but it was clear she’d pretended she hadn’t, since Kanza’s wrath would have only increased if Johara had made any comment or asked who was with her.
And he’d thought he’d known everything there was to know about his kid sister. Turned out she wasn’t only capable of the subterfuge of setting him and her partner up, but of acting seamlessly on the fly, too.
Kanza was frowning now. “What do you mean it’s okay? It’s not okay. You need the file, and if it’s here, I’ll find it. Just give me a better description. I might have looked at it a dozen times and didn’t recognize it for what it was.”
Kanza fell silent for a few moments as Johara answered. He had a feeling she was telling Kanza a load of ultra-convincing bull. By now, he was 100 percent certain that file didn’t even exist.
Kanza ended the conversation and confirmed his deductions. “I can’t believe it! Johara is now not even sure the file is here at all. Blames it on pregnancy hormones.”
Hoping his placating act was half as good as Johara’s misleading one, he said, “We only lost an hour of turning her office upside down. Apart from the mess, no harm done.”
“First, there’s no we in the matter. Second, I was here an hour before you breezed in. Third, you did breeze in. Can’t think of more harm than that. But the good news is I now get to breeze out of here and put an end to this unwelcome and torturous exchange with you.”
“Aren’t you even going to try to ameliorate the destruction you’ve left in your wake?”
“Johara insisted I leave everything and just rush over to the party.”
So she was invited. Of course. Though from the way she was dressed, no one would think she had anything more glamorous planned than going to the grocery store.
But it was evident she intended to go. That must have been Johara and Shaheen’s plan A. They’d invited him to set him and Kanza up at the soirée. And when he’d refused, Johara had improvised find-the-nonexistent-file plan B.
Kanza grabbed a red jacket from one of the couches, which he hadn’t noticed before, and shrugged it on before hooking what looked like a small laptop bag across her body.
Then, without even a backward glance at him, she was striding toward the door.
He didn’t know how he’d managed to move that fast, but he found himself blocking her path.
This surprised her so much that she bumped into him. He caught an unguarded expression in those bottomless black eyes as she stumbled back. A look of pure vulnerability. As though the steely persona she’d been projecting wasn’t the real her, or not the only side to her. As though his nearness unsettled her so much it left her floundering.
A moment later he wondered if he’d imagined what he’d seen, since the look was now gone and annoyance was the only thing left in its place.
He tried what he hoped was the smooth charm he’d seen others practice but had never attempted himself. “How about we breeze out of here together and I drive you to the party?”
“You assume I came here...how? On foot?”
“A pixie like you might have just blinked in here.”
“Then I can blink out the same way.”
“I’m still offering to conserve your mystic energies.”
“Acting the gentleman doesn’t become you, and any attempt at simulating one is wasted on me since I’m hardly a damsel in distress. And if you’re offering in order to score points with Johara, forget it.”
“There you go again—assigning such convoluted motives to my actions when I’m far simpler than you think. I’ve decided to go to the party, and since you’re going, too, you can save your pixie magic, as I have a perfectly mundane car parked in the garage.”
“What a coincidence. So do I. Though mine is mundane for real. While yours verges on the supernatural. I hear it talks, thinks, takes your orders, parks itself and knows when to brake and where to go. All it has left to do is make you a sandwich and a cappuccino to become truly sentient.”
“I’ll see about developing those sandwich-and cappuccino-making capabilities. Thanks for the suggestion. But wouldn’t you like to take a spin in my near-sentient car?”
“No. Just like I wouldn’t want to be in your near-sentient presence. Now ann eznak...or better still, men ghair eznak.” Then she turned and strode away.
He waited until she exited the room before moving. In moments, his far-longer strides overtook her at the elevators.
Kanza didn’t give any indication that she noticed him, going through messages on her phone. She still made no reaction when he boarded the elevator with her and then when he followed her to the garage.
It was only when he tailed her to her car that she finally turned on him. “What?”
He gave her his best pseudoinnocent smile and lobbed back her parting shot. “By your leave, or better still without it, I’m escorting you to your car.”
She looked him up and down in silence, then turned and took the last strides to a Ford Escape that was the exact color of her jacket. Seemed she was fond of red.
In moments, she drove away with a screech right out of a car chase, which had him jumping out of the way.
He stood watching her taillights flashing as she hit the brakes at the garage’s exit. Grinning to himself, he felt a rush of pure adrenaline flood his system.
She’d really done it. Something no other woman—no other person—had ever done.
She’d turned him down.
No...it was more that that. She’d rebuffed him.
Well. There was only one thing he could do now.
Give chase.
