Читать книгу Royal Families Vs. Historicals - Annie West, Rebecca Winters - Страница 83

ASIDE FROM THE odd time when she had become tipsy from having too little to eat before having a glass of wine, Angelique had never been drunk or stoned. Kasim, however, provoked a feeling in her that she imagined one felt when ingesting party pills.

She walked around in a fog of euphoria after London, mood swinging wildly. One minute she was lost in recalling how they had essentially spent two solid days in bed, rising only to eat and make love elsewhere in the flat: the sofa, the kitchen chair, the shower. It made her too blissed out to care about the lost shipment of linen or the hundreds of euros in hand-made bobbin lace that wound up attached to the wrong gown.

The next minute she plummeted into a withdrawal depression, certain she’d never hear from him again. With his hand buried in her hair, he had kissed her deeply late Sunday afternoon, both of them aware cars and planes were waiting for them. He had finally released her, saying, “You won’t hear from me. I’ll be tied up in meetings. I’ll try to meet you in Berlin. If I can’t, we’ll figure out something for the following week.”

Would they, though? She wished they’d made a clean break of it. She could have handled that. This veering between hope and despair was too much!

If Trella noticed Angelique’s distraction, she didn’t say anything. She was immersed in finishing Hasna’s wardrobe, almost obsessing over each piece, working late and rising early to ensure everything was perfect. She seemed really wound up about it when she was usually the coolheaded one about deadlines and never lacked confidence that their work would be received with great enthusiasm.

Angelique had a fleeting thought that her sister was burying herself in work to avoid her, but they were behind, thanks to Angelique staying in London an extra day. It was probably her own distraction making it seem like her sister was off. She was grateful to Trella for picking up the slack and tried to set her own nose to the grindstone so they could ship everything as planned.

Then, even though time passed at a glacial pace, she suddenly found herself rattling around her hotel room in Berlin, phone in hand as she compulsively checked her messages for word from Kasim, behaving exactly like an addict needing a fix. She had sent him her agenda yesterday, mildly panicked at the lack of word from him. She absolutely refused to let herself text again.

Tonight’s event was taking place here in this brand-new hotel. Her suite was airy and ultra-contemporary, run by a firm out of Dubai that understood the meaning of luxury. She promised herself a soak in the private whirlpool tub when she returned later. It was already filled and warmed. Tiny whorls of steam wisped from the edge of its rollback cover and candles were at hand, awaiting a match.

She would need to drown some sorrows since it looked like Kasim wouldn’t turn up. She was devastated.

That shouldn’t surprise her. Right from the beginning he had pulled a formidable response from her.

She fought tears as she set out her gown and did her hair, then her makeup, saying a private Thanks, Trella, as her sister’s face appeared in the mirror to bolster her.

She wished now she had brought one of Trella’s designs. Her sister’s confections tended to have a self-assured cheekiness whereas Angelique’s evoked more introspective moods. Hers tonight was wistful and damned if it wasn’t blue.

A powder blue in silk, sleeveless, but abundant enough in the skirt to move like quicksilver. The bodice was overlaid with mist-like lace that split apart at her naval and fell into a divided overskirt that became a small train. She pinned her hair back from her face, but let it fall in loose waves behind her naked shoulders and painted her lips a meditative pink.

Her earrings were simple drop crystals that caught the light. A velvet choker with a matching stone collared her throat. A panic switch was sewn on the underside. She and her sister often joked about starting their own line of high-end security wear, but they didn’t want to tip off anyone that they wore it themselves.

Just for a moment, as she took in her reflection, she wondered what it would be like to live without so much vigilance. In a prince’s harem, for instance.

This lipstick really emphasized the pout she couldn’t seem to shake. Ugh.

She gathered her composure before facing the masses. It was better that Kasim wasn’t with her, she consoled herself. Events like this, when her presence was advertised ahead of time, were always particularly rabid attention-wise. Maurice wore special sunglasses to deal with the glare off the flashbulbs it was so bad.

Maurice was reading something on his phone when she came out the door. He tucked it away promptly, but took it out again when they were in the elevator, since they were alone.

“Je m’excuse,” he said. “It’s a report about some photos that have surfaced. I’m sending instructions to question their authenticity.”

She dismissed his concern with a flick of her brows. “Of me with the prince?”

“It says ‘prince,’ yes, but—”

“I don’t care,” she insisted, even though she cared a great deal.

The elevator stopped, the doors opened and some models joined them. One was beyond thrilled to be sharing an elevator with One of The Sauveterre Twins. Maurice put his phone away and remained alert while Angelique exchanged a few remarks with the strangers and consented to a selfie.

Moments later, the doors opened onto the ballroom floor. The paparazzi went mad as soon as they saw she had arrived.

Maurice guided Angelique down the narrow pathway toward the VIP entrance where greeters would be waiting to check off her name on a tablet and handlers would hand her a swag bag that she invariably gave to her mother.

As she approached, a man in a tuxedo turned to look at her.

Kasim.

* * *

He was asking if she’d already entered the ballroom when the madness behind him made him turn.

She was stunning. Like an ethereal creature surrounded by fireflies as a million flashbulbs went off behind her.

Even more riveting than her beauty, however, was the way her composed features softened with surprise, then dawned into warm recognition. Her eyes sparkled and a joyous glow suffused her. Her breasts rose as he moved toward her.

He caught his own breath. Him. The man who had decided this affair was too inconsequential to mention to his father, merely stating he had, indeed, resolved the situation with Sadiq’s “friend.” While he’d been so far away from her, he’d been able to convince himself their time together had been merely a pleasant diversion.

Nevertheless, he’d found himself bulldozing his way through his meetings, working late to negotiate agreements and pushing hard for resolution, a mental clock urging him to leave on time to be here with her. He had worked nonstop on the plane, barely sparing a moment to put on his tuxedo before finalizing a few last details over the phone in his car, arriving at the perfect moment to watch her emerge from the gauntlet.

Bulbs were still flashing as she unconsciously posed, awaiting his approach with that beautiful, reverent look on her face. He wondered what his looked like. Irritated and possessive, he imagined, since he wanted to steal her away from this madhouse. Now.

Mindful of her flawless appearance, he held back on crushing her even though he ached to feel her against him. Instead, he took her hand and detoured past her lips to press a light kiss to her cheekbone.

Her lashes fluttered closed and she breathed, “I’m so glad you’re here.”

He almost didn’t hear her, but the blush that stained her cheeks told him she’d said it and was adorably self-conscious for having revealed herself like that.

“Are you?” He straightened to bask in her look of adoration. “Because I think we’ve been found out.”

Behind her, the paparazzi had moved to completely block the passage. They had become a wall of strobing light and a din of clicks and whirs and shouts of her name.

“Is there anyone else here?” Angelique blinked her green, green eyes, mouth quirking with irony. “I only see you.”

“You’re stealing my lines.” Stealing something else if he wasn’t very careful. “Let’s get this evening over with so I can have you to myself.”

* * *

They created a huge stir and for once she didn’t care. She was proud, so delighted and proud, to stand beside this man. He was here. It wasn’t the most important occasion of her life, but it was important to her that he had made an effort.

He wanted to be with her.

Although, that could change if the attention didn’t lighten up. Kasim might not be as infamous as she was, but with those features, the camera had to love him. His air of detachment meant eyes followed him with a yearning for scraps of his notice.

“You weren’t exaggerating about the attention,” he said when she returned to her seat after her presentation and he rose to help her with her chair.

“No,” she agreed, then had to tease, “Scared?”

“Pah!” he dismissed.

They were an “it” couple before the final speeches had wrapped. “Kasimelique,” one of her colleagues teased her in a whisper as the trays of champagne began circulating and the networking portion of the evening began.

“I’m so glad to have that over with,” Angelique said to Kasim once they had the first rush of introductions over with and were able to move into a quieter corner for a moment alone. “Did I sound all right when I was onstage?”

“Perfect. You weren’t nervous, were you? You didn’t look it.”

“I told you, my trick is to pretend I’m Trella. Do you know that man?” She tried not to sound so keyed up as she flicked her glance to the right, but this crush of people was wearing on her. “The blond one with the sash,” she clarified.

The stranger was tall and quite handsome with a regal bearing. He wore the red satin as a bold streak across his chest beneath his jacket.

“He keeps looking this way. Maybe he’s related to a client, but I can’t place him. I’m going to be so embarrassed if he comes over and I don’t know his name.” The Champagne probably wasn’t a good idea, but she took a sip anyway. This was still her first glass.

“I don’t know who he is, but I recognize the look.” Kasim seemed to stand taller and more alert. He took a half step closer to her.

“What do you mean? Like, Nordic heritage? Or do you mean you know the sash?” She lowered her glass, smile fading as she read the suspicion in the way he looked down his nose at her.

“I mean possessive. He’s resentful of my place beside you. Jealous.”

“Are you serious?” She tried a laugh, but realized very quickly that Kasim was more than serious. He was trying to see inside her head.

“Kasim.” She was deeply offended. “I swear to you, I don’t know him.” But she could see the reel of her online exploits playing behind his eyes.

“Believe what you want,” she said frostily. Don’t you dare, she silently railed, heart clutched in a vise. He didn’t trust her? After all they’d shared?

Well, honestly, what had they shared? A weekend of sex and not even some long-distance afterplay via text.

She looked at him with new eyes, thinking of how much she had anticipated his meeting her here, but now she had to wonder if she wasn’t simply a convenient booty call. It was so lowering, she had to remind herself to breathe.

“Excuse me.” He walked away into the throng, leaving her staring at his disappearing back, confounded and trying not to panic. That was it? He had just broken off their affair because a stranger looked at her in a way he didn’t like?

Before she could fully absorb that and succumb to fury or despondency or both, the stark white of a truly beautiful tuxedo parked itself before her. It was cut by the slash of red and there was a star-shaped pin at his shoulder with a shield inside it.

The man could have come out of a fairy tale, he was so patrician and perfectly hewn.

She hated him on sight and wanted to throw her champagne in his face, but he spoke with an exotic accent and impeccable manners.

“Your lost item, Cinderella.” He offered her a cupped hand.

Inside it was a gold hoop earring with a line of diamonds down the front. It looked exactly like a pair she owned. They’d been a gift from her father for her fifteenth birthday—not something run-of-the-mill that showed up in every low-budget jewelry shop. Trella’s were similar, but that one was definitely the match to her own.

She took it to examine it more closely, trying to recall when she’d worn them last.

“Where—?”

“Caught under the pill—” he started to say in a tone that was very throaty with latent passion, but he cut himself off. Something in his expression grew sharp and arrested as he studied her face. Whatever lightness might have been in his mood became something accusatory as his gaze moved restlessly over her like he was searching for something he couldn’t find.

She knew that look, but refused to believe she was interpreting it correctly. It was far too outrageous to imagine—

“I knew if I walked away, he would approach you,” Kasim said, reappearing beside her.

Angelique startled, not exactly guilty, but defensive. No. She needed time to figure out what was going on with this stranger. She searched his blue eyes, now distinctly frosted with hostility toward Kasim. And her.

Kasim’s gaze cut to the earring in her hand, making her close her fist around it.

“Introduce us.” Kasim’s tone was lethal.

Angelique was distantly aware of people sidling by them, glancing their way.

Kasim’s expression was positively murderous and this stranger was shifting his gaze from her to Kasim, contempt curling his lip.

“I told you,” she insisted to Kasim in an undertone. “I don’t know him.”

Trella, you didn’t.

“My timing is inconvenient,” the stranger said, flicking a look to Kasim that was a silent warning. Be careful with this one.

It was so infuriatingly male, like they were lofty equals who came across tarts like her all the time, she instantly wanted to smack him. Both of them. How dare he show up and throw her under the bus this way. How dare he touch her sister! Her heart began to race, trying to assimilate how it could possibly have happened.

Was she crazy? Could he have been with Trella? How? When?

At the same time she was trying to work it out, she could see she was dropping like a free fall elevator in Kasim’s estimation. That hurt, damn it. How could he think this of her?

“If you’re going to accuse me of being a slut, at least tell me who you are,” she bit out.

“You picked that label,” the stranger shot back derisively. “And I don’t care that you’ve moved on, but those are real diamonds. I was going to send it by courier back to Paris, but I read that you were going to be here and I was in Berlin.” He shrugged a dismissal, looking distinctly bored as he glanced away. “My mistake. Carry on.”

But he stood there like he was waiting for Kasim to give up and leave, as if he wanted to continue talking to her.

“Back to Paris,” she repeated, reclaiming the stranger’s attention while hotly aware that Kasim was glancing away as though looking for an exit. “When exactly was I there with you? Wait. Let me guess,” she insisted, because it finally hit her. It was completely impossible, but she knew. “Last Friday night? The charity dinner for the Brighter Days Children’s Foundation?”

The stranger’s cheeks went hollow. “You know it was.”

“Kasim, where was I last weekend? All weekend?”

Finally she had his attention. His resentful, derisive attention.

“You are both aware I have a twin. Aren’t you?”

* * *

Kasim couldn’t say that he was relieved when Angelique cleared herself of cheating on him. He was still too gripped by residual possessiveness. Maybe his jealous rage had eased enough that he was capable of rational thought, maybe he’d ceased wanting to kill the other man acting so proprietarily toward Angelique, but he was still pulsing with adrenaline. The sheer force of emotion that had overtaken him as he identified a rival was paralyzing.

Unnerving.

“I’ll need your name and contact details,” Angelique said while signaling Maurice to approach.

“His Highness, Xavier Deunoro,” Kasim supplied stiffly. “Prince of Elazar.”

Angelique and the prince both turned raised-brow looks his way.

Kasim shrugged. “I asked when I walked away.”

“Another prince. Charming,” Angelique said scathingly.

Upset that he’d been mistrustful? She should look at the facts before him: they hadn’t been together all week, her sister was never seen in public and this man had brought her damned earring from what was no doubt his bed. Shared intimacy was the only reason he would want to return it personally.

“She said she was you,” the prince said as he reached to an inside pocket of his tuxedo. “The resemblance is remarkable, but there is something…” He narrowed his eyes. “I can’t put my finger on it, but the moment I saw you tonight, I knew something was different.”

That made Angelique stiffen and flash a wary glance at the man, but she recovered quickly and took the prince’s card, relaying it to her guard with a hand that shook.

“That explains the photos you were questioning,” she said to Maurice. “My brothers will want that, but wait until I’ve spoken to Trella. I’ll head upstairs to do that now.” With a hard glance at her sister’s lover, she said, “If you tell anyone it was her and not me, I will personally hunt you down and unman you.” She looked as gloriously provocative as she had the day Kasim had met her.

“You can try,” the prince drawled. “Give her my regards.”

Angelique turned away only to be confronted by a Hollywood starlet.

“I’m sorry,” Angelique said with tested graciousness, briefly clasping the actress’s hand. “I’ve been called away. I’m looking forward to our appointment next month, though. We’ll talk then.”

“My people will need a copy of the press release before it’s sent,” Kasim said, taking out his phone as he fell into step with her, winding toward the nearest exit.

“What press release?”

“The one clarifying her identity.”

“That won’t happen.”

He checked briefly, not faced with any physical obstructions, but walking into the wall of his own ego.

“You will,” he informed her. “Or I will.”

“Do not make threats in that direction, Kasim.”

“It’s not a threat. It’s a statement. I can’t allow people to have a wrong impression.” His father would find Kasim’s means of putting Sadiq’s problem to bed rather crude as it was.

“After what you just thought about me, you might be surprised how little I care about how this reflects on you. I would rather the general public think the worst of me than know the truth, however.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Reasons.”

They approached the melee of reporters. He was forced to table his questions as they pushed their way through the chaos to the elevators.

Her guard efficiently plowed them a way and barred anyone from coming into the car with them, but Angelique still had the gall to look at Kasim like he was a hitchhiker who had hopped on from the highway.

“I’m going to my room to call my sister. You’re not invited,” she said.

“It’s my room,” he stated.

She shot a look to Maurice who was instantly alarmed. “That shouldn’t happen,” her guard said, reaching for his phone. “I’ll call—”

“I know the owners,” Kasim said tightly. “I pulled strings to take over the reservation. It’s fine.”

“It really isn’t.” Angelique sailed out the doors as they opened, striding down the hall with her elegant dress trailing behind her like a visible whorl of her cloud of fury.

One of Kasim’s own guards had joined Maurice’s partner at the door to the suite, leaving Kasim’s bag just inside on the floor. Angelique gave both a baleful look and walked straight through the lounge into the bedroom where she quickly shut the door. Seconds later Kasim heard the dull ring of her placing a call and a greeting in a muted voice that held a tone that sounded much like her own.

He took out his own phone and searched for the most recent photos of Angelique Sauveterre. Most were from tonight, first the ones of them greeting each other outside the ballroom, then mingling within. A few showed her onstage, and one grainy snap across the restaurant last weekend was obviously a belated effort to pile on tonight’s revelation that they were dating.

Then there were a handful of images that showed her—it damned well looked exactly like her—in a clinch with the Prince of Elazar in a ballroom in Paris.

And someone had managed to snap her very tense expression as she had defended herself against two-timing right before they’d come up here.

Kasim gritted his teeth as he weighed Sauveterre security protocols against his own reputation. He could spare Angelique an hour to address this scandal in her own way, he allowed generously. After that, he would turn down the heat on this particular conflagration himself.

Twenty minutes later, Angelique emerged from the bedroom, cheeks flushed, brows pulled into a distraught line. Opening the door, she said, “Maurice, can you send a snapshot of that card I gave you to Trella? Merci.”

She closed the door firmly and turned to glare at Kasim.

“Does she do this often?” Kasim asked.

She pursed her lips as though deciding whether to answer. Then she huffed out a breath and crossed her arms defensively, but her shoulders fell a notch.

“It’s something she’s tried a few times in the last year, basically since she knew Sadiq was getting married. She wants to attend the wedding and is determined to get over…” She stopped herself. Sighed again. “It’s a way for her to test the waters of moving in public again. If she appeared as herself, the press would go stark raving mad. If she poses as me, however, and goes to Ramon’s race with Henri and Cinnia or something like that, it’s run-of-the-mill attention.”

Tonight was run-of-the-mill?

“Shouldn’t she get it over with? Coming out at my sister’s wedding is liable to take attention away from the bride and groom. Has she thought of that?”

“It will be a closed ceremony and don’t judge how she’s doing this.”

“Her actions deserve to be judged. I look like a fool. If you had had an actual affair with that man last year, I wouldn’t care.” That was a small lie, but he would be able to convince himself he didn’t care. “The fact you’ve been photographed with both of us in the same week makes all three of us look bad.”

“We’re all going to have to grin and bear it, aren’t we?”

“No,” he told her sternly. “You warned me about attention. You didn’t say your sister would ridicule me. I will give her the chance to come clean. If she doesn’t, I will make the completely true statement that you were with me in London all of last weekend.”

“No!” Her fists hit the air next to her thighs, arms straight and angry. “Don’t do that to her.”

“I didn’t take the photographs, Angelique. She’s bringing this on herself!”

“It could do so much damage, you can’t even comprehend.” She paced with agitation across the lounge. “The press was horrible to her for years after the kidnapping, printing every lurid scrap, fact or fiction, on what happened while she was captive. True or not, those things assaulted her every time, victimizing her again and again. Then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, they called her unstable and a drug addict and fat. She was barely a stone heavier than me, but there was this magnifying glass on her so she couldn’t buy a stick of gum without it being a cry for help, or a sign she was suicidal… It drove her to go the other way, until she was underweight and we were scared she would disappear completely. I’ll tell you, if anything is designed to break a person’s spirit, it’s that sort of relentless, vicious criticism.”

She paused to take a few panting breaths. Her face contorted in a wince of distant memory.

“Then, after my father’s funeral… I guess we finally looked like young women by then. It’s not like we were dressed for clubbing, you know, but photos circulated of us at the service and men stalked both of us online after that, saying the most disgusting things. Sending us—” She waved a hand toward her crotch. “Those sorts of pics. It was even worse for Trella. She knew what men like that are capable of.” Her voice broke on the last words, eyes haunted.

“Angelique,” he breathed, and started toward her.

She bent to unfasten her shoes and kick them away, then kept moving, restless with heightened emotion, dress swirling like a cape each time she turned.

“She started having panic attacks because of it. That is not public knowledge.” She pointed at him as though warning him not to speak of it. Then she whirled away again. “She was terrified all the time. It was horrible for her. For all of us. It was like watching someone who is depressed to the point of being suicidal, or in chronic pain, and listening to them scream. You can’t do anything except sit there and watch. She spent, God, a good two years stoned on medications, trying to get it under control. Finally she left the public eye and it took a while, but she was able to stabilize. That was so hard-won, none of us rocks the boat. We don’t want to throw her off again.”

She hugged herself, gaze fixed on the past.

“For years, one of us has always been with her, never farther than the next room. We all know it’s not healthy. We want a normal life for her. Our version of normal, anyway,” she muttered, then waved with exasperation toward the guards in the hall.

“Even Trella is balking at how she lives. I just asked her how this happened and she told me she feels like she’s been doing time on a prison sentence for a crime she didn’t commit. What did she do wrong, Kasim? Are her kidnappers half so tortured? They might be in jail, but have they suffered one-tenth as much as she has? And even through all of what she has faced, she tries.”

Her eyes were wet and gleaming. She was visibly shaking with intense emotion, making his heart feel pinched and tight.

“She’s been trying so hard to get over all her mental blocks. She flew to Paris alone. You have no idea what a big deal that was for her. And then, when she realized you and I were keeping out of the spotlight and I was expected at that dinner, she stole the chance to go out as me. To see how she felt going out alone. It was a spur-of-the moment thing, which is exactly like her when she’s at her best. In certain ways this is such thrilling news.”

She began pacing again, her dress flaring around her as she pivoted, but halted to press a hand to her brow.

“Not the part where she went home with a stranger, of course. I asked her how that happened, but she didn’t want to talk about it, only apologized for not telling him who she really was. My brothers are going to kill me for not being there to stop her.”

Kasim folded his arms, observing drily, “She took acting like you to the highest level, didn’t she?”

Angelique jerked her head up, eyes narrowed with antipathy. “I had dinner with you first!”

They hadn’t even finished their drinks, let alone started on the appetizers, but okay.

“That has to be me in those photos, Kasim. If the press gets wind that it was her…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Trella is a tiny baby sea turtle making her way to the water. If we can just give her time to get there before unleashing the crabs and gulls…”

He snorted. “Laying it on pretty thick, aren’t you?”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s okay if you traumatize my sister by causing the hell of public attention to rain down on her again? It’s not.”

“What do you want me to say? That it’s okay if the world thinks you’ve slept with both of us? It’s not.”

“Who cares so long as you’re the one in this room with me tonight? Or, wait, am I invited to stay in the room I booked for myself?”

He scowled. “Don’t get bent out of shape about that. I don’t book weekends with women then ask them to foot the bill.”

“I see. That’s interesting.” She gave a considering nod, shoulders setting in a stiff line. “You realize that by mentioning these legions of other women for whom you have paid hotel bills, you’re saying it’s okay that you have a past, but not me. Is that what you were doing this week, by the way? When you were not texting me? Paying for hotel rooms with other women? Just because no one returned a cuff link downstairs doesn’t mean you weren’t making a fool of me, but do you hear me complaining? No. Because I’m well aware we haven’t made any commitments to each other—”

“Enough,” he cut in. “I paid for the room because I will put up with your pain-in-the-ass security protocols, but you will stay in my room. I will not ask permission from your guards to enter. As for the photos, I don’t want people to think that’s you because I’m jealous. All right? Is that what you need to hear?”

Her shoulders went back, but he could see he had finally pulled her out of her own interests into theirs.

“Which I might have hesitated to admit if you weren’t acting like a green-eyed shrew yourself. No, Angelique, I was not sleeping with other women. I was working. Nonstop. So I could come here and be with you. Future or not, we are damned well exclusive to one another until we’re over. Is that clear? Now, go warn your sister I won’t be so forgiving if she does this to me again.”

The line of her mouth softened. “You’re not going to expose her?”

“Do I look like someone who takes pleasure in feeding baby sea turtles to the gulls?”

She threw herself at him.