Postcards From Paris. Sarah Mayberry

Rashid to such humiliation.’

      There was a second of silence.

      ‘But we can’t just swap!’

      ‘We can and we will. The arrangements are all in place. A commitment has been made between our two countries—between your father and the Kingdom of Nabatean. He has offered your hand and it has been accepted. Nothing will stand in the way of that.’ His shadowed face was as hard as stone. ‘The commitment will be honoured.’

      ‘But the commitment was to your brother—not you.’

      ‘Then perhaps you should have thought of that before you ran away and started this whole debacle, betraying the trust my brother had put in you.’ Anna lowered her eyes against the force of his biting scorn. ‘Fortunately for you, it makes no difference which brother honours the commitment. The same objectives will be achieved either way.’

      ‘And that’s it? Honouring the commitment is all that matters to you?’ She thrashed about, trying to find a way out. ‘How can you be so unemotional? This is a marriage we are talking about, a bond that has to last a lifetime.’

      ‘Don’t you think I know that, Princess?’ Lowering his head, Zahir hissed into her ear, sending a bolt of electricity through her. ‘Don’t you think I am fully aware of the sacrifice I am making? But, if it is emotion you are looking for, I must warn you to be careful. To expose my opinion of you would be straying into a dark and dangerous territory indeed.’

      Cloaked in menace, his words settled over her like a shroud. Anna bit down hard on her lip to control the shiver. She didn’t entirely know what he meant by that chilling statement. She wasn’t sure she wanted to.

      ‘And if I refuse?’ Still she tried, squirming like a worm on a fish hook.

      ‘All I can say is, to refuse would be extremely stupid.’ He paused, weighting his words with care. ‘I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that you already have one failed engagement behind you. Another might cause considerable speculation.’

      A sharp jab of pain went through her. So he knew about that, did he? About her humiliating broken engagement to Prince Henrik. Of course he did. Everyone did.

      Tears were starting to build now, blocking her throat, scratching at her eyes. Tears of frustration, self-pity and wretched misery that her life had come to this. That she should be forced to marry a man who clearly despised her. A man who was as terrifying as he was alien—an arrogant, untamed brute of a man the like of which she had never come across before. She hadn’t begun to process the extraordinary reaction between them when she’d kissed him, the shockingly carnal way his body had responded. That would have to be for another time. But she did know he would never make her happy—that was a certainty. He would never even try.

      ‘You have brought this upon yourself, Princess Annalina.’ Somewhere outside the buzz of her head she heard him relentlessly press home the point. ‘You have forced my hand, but I am prepared do my duty. And, ultimately, so must you.’

      His damning statement was the final nail in the coffin.

      And so it was that Anna found herself being unceremoniously marched back to the hotel to meet her fate. With Zahir’s arm around her waist, propelling her forward, she had had no choice but to stumble along beside him, needing two or three stiletto-heeled steps to match his forceful stride as he rapidly navigated them through the Parisian streets. Her heart was thumping wildly, her dry breath scouring her throat as she tried to come to terms with what she was about to do—tie herself to this man for ever. But with the heat of his arm burning through the sheer fabric of her dress she found herself trying to fight that assault, the whole shimmering force of his nearness, his muscled flesh, his masculine scent, leaving her brain no space to cope with anything else.

      Finally outside the hotel Zahir turned her around to face him, his gaze raking mercilessly over her pale face. With the light spilling from the hotel, they could see each other more clearly now, but Anna had to tear her eyes away from his cruelly handsome features, afraid of what she might see there. Her gaze slid down the broad column of his neck to the open buttons of his shirt, the grey silk tie tugged to one side. And there, plainly visible against the exposed olive skin, was the livid red mark—the bite, where she had sunk her teeth into him. Instinctively her hand flew to her chest.

      Alerted by her stare, Zahir swiftly moved to do up his shirt and straighten his tie, his knowing glare spelling out exactly what he thought of her barbarism.

      ‘We will go in together,’ he began coldly. ‘You will talk to our guests and behave in the appropriate manner. But say nothing to anyone about the engagement. I will find my brother and tell him of the new arrangement.’

      Anna nodded, swallowing down her dread. ‘But shouldn’t I be there when you speak to your brother? Don’t I owe him that?’

      ‘I think it’s a little late for the guilt to kick in now, Annalina. We are way past that. I will deal with Rashid and then explain the situation to your father. Only then can we announce our engagement.’

      Her father. In her frenzied state Anna had almost forgotten the man who had brought about this hideous debacle in the first place. It had been King Gustav who had insisted that his only child should marry King Rashid of Nabatean, leaving her no room to argue. Not after she had already let him down once, let her country down, by failing to secure a successful match between herself and Prince Henrik of Ebsberg—something that still both humiliated and swamped Anna with relief in equal measure.

      A cold, heartless man, King Gustav had never recovered from the death of his wife, Annalina’s mother, who had suffered a fatal brain aneurysm when Anna had been just seven years old. The shock had been too much for him and it seemed to Anna that a part of her father had died with her mother. The loving, caring part. It seemed that just when she had needed him most he had turned away from her. And had never turned back.

      He would be utterly furious to find out that she had messed up again—that she was refusing to marry Rashid Zahani and was chucking away the chance to provide financial stability for Dorrada. At least, he would have been, if she hadn’t had an alternative plan to offer him. For the first time Anna felt a tinge of relief about what she was doing. Zahir might be the second son but everything about him suggested power and authority, far more so than his elder brother, in fact. She suspected that her father would have no problem accepting the new arrangement. Somehow she had to find it inside herself to do the same.

      She looked down, concentrating on arranging the folds of her dress, all too aware of the fire in Zahir’s eyes as they licked over her, missing nothing.

      ‘You are ready?’

      She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

      ‘Very well, then, we will do this.’

      The arm snaked around her waist again and together they ascended the red-carpeted steps, the hotel doorman ushering them in with a polite bow.

      The scene inside the ballroom appeared even more daunting than when Anna had fled less than an hour ago. More people had arrived, swelling the numbers into the hundreds, and they were milling around beneath the magnificent domed ceiling of the gilded room, illuminated by dozens of huge chandeliers and watched from above by carved marble statues. The air of anticipation had increased too. Anyone who was anyone was here, the great and the good from a host of European and Middle Eastern countries gathered at the invitation of King Gustav of Dorrada for a celebration that had yet to be disclosed.

      Not that it took much working out. Presumably everyone in the room knew what this party was in aid of—or at least thought they did. It was common knowledge that King Gustav had been trying, and failing, to make a good marriage for his only daughter for some time. And the newly formed kingdom of Nabatean desperately needed entrée into the notoriously closed shop of ‘old’ Europe. The fact that the party was being held here, in one of the oldest and most exclusive hotels in Paris, right at the heart of Europe, bore testament to that and was certainly no coincidence.

      Anna looked around her, the heat and the noise thundering inside her head, shredding her nerves,