The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

freedom.

      He smiled, with contempt glittering in his deep-set eyes.

      ‘You will eat because you have a long day ahead of you.’

      The thought of the long day ahead and what it involved drew a weak whimper from Hannah’s throat. Ashamed of the weakness, she shook her head. ‘This can’t have been Dad’s idea.’

      She looked and sounded so distraught, so young and bewildered that Kamel struggled not to react to the wave of protective tenderness that rose up in him, defying logic and good sense.

      ‘It was something of a committee decision and if there is an innocent victim in this it is me.’

      This analysis made her jaw drop. Innocent and victim were two terms she could not imagine anyone using about this man.

      ‘However, if I am prepared to put a brave face on it I don’t see what your problem is.’

      ‘My problem is I don’t love you. I don’t even know you.’

      I am Kamel Al Safar, and now you have all the time in the world to get to know me.’

      Her eyes narrowed. He had a smart answer for everything. ‘I can hardly wait.’

      ‘I think you’re being unnecessarily dramatic. It’s not as if we’d be the first two people to marry for reasons other than love.’

      ‘So you’re all right with someone telling you who to marry.’ Sure that his ego would not be able to take such a suggestion, she was disappointed when he gave a negligent shrug.

      ‘If I weren’t, you’d still be languishing in a jail cell.’

      She opened her mouth, heard the tap, tap of the uniformed officer’s stick on the floor and closed it again. ‘Don’t think I’m not grateful.’

      He arched a brow. ‘Is that so? Strange, I’m not feeling the love,’ he drawled.

      Her face went blank. ‘There isn’t any love.’

      ‘True, but then basing a marriage on something as transitory as love—’ again he said the word as though it left a bad taste in his mouth ‘—makes about as much sense as building a house on sand.’

      Was this a man trying to put a positive spin on it or was he genuinely that cynical?

      ‘Have you ever been in love?’ It was a weird thing to ask a total stranger, but then this was a very weird situation.

      And just as weird was the expression she glimpsed on the tall prince’s face. But even as she registered the bleakness in his eyes his heavy lids half closed. When he turned to look directly at her there was only cynicism shining in the dark depths.

      ‘I defer to you as an expert on that subject. Two engagements is impressive. Do you get engaged to every man you sleep with?’

      ‘I’m twenty-three,’ she tossed back.

      He tipped his dark head. ‘My apologies,’ he intoned with smiling contempt. ‘That was a stupid question.’

      Hannah didn’t give a damn if he thought she had casual sex with every man she met. What made her want to slap the look of smug superiority off his face were the double standards his attitude betrayed.

      How dared a man who had probably had more notches in his bedpost than she’d had pedicures look down his nose at her?

      ‘And this is all about money and power. You have it and you’re prepared to do anything to keep it. You carry on calling it duty if it makes you feel any better about yourself, but I call it greed!’

      Kamel struggled to contain the flash of rage he felt at the insult. ‘Only a woman who has always had access to her rich daddy’s wallet and has never had to work for anything in her life could be so scornful about money. Or maybe you’re just stupid.’

      Stupid! The word throbbed like an infected wound in her brain. ‘I do work.’ If only to prove to all those people who called her stupid that people with dyslexia could do as well as anyone else if they had the help they needed.

      ‘I think you might find your role is no longer available.’

      ‘You couldn’t say or think anything about me that hasn’t been said,’ she told him in a voice that shook with all the emotion she normally cloaked behind a cold mask. ‘Thought or written. But enough about me. What’s your contribution to society? I forget,’ she drawled, adopting a dumb expression. ‘What qualifications do you need to be a future King? Oh, that’s right, an accident of birth.’ She stopped and released a long fractured sigh. ‘That’s not what I wanted to say.’

      He stared at her through narrowed eyes, resisting the possibility that a woman with feelings, that a woman who could be hurt, lurked behind the icy disdain.

      ‘Well, what did you want to say?’

      Relief rippled through her. This was not the response she had anticipated to her outburst.

      ‘Would this marriage be a...paper one?’

      ‘Will...get the tense right,’ he chided. ‘There will be official duties, occasions when we would be expected to be seen together.’ He studied her face. ‘But that isn’t what you’re talking about, is it?’

      She gnawed on her lower lip and shook her head.

      ‘It will be expected that we produce an heir.’

      Shaken by the image that popped into her head, she looked away but not before her mind had stripped him naked. The image refused to budge, as did the uncomfortable feeling low in her belly.

      ‘You might find it educational.’

      The drawled comment made her expression freeze over; it hid her panic. ‘The offer of lessons in sex is not a big selling point!’ My God, he was really in for a disappointment.

      His laugh cut over her words. ‘I wasn’t referring to your carnal education, though if you want to teach me a thing or two I have no problem.’

      The riposte he had anticipated didn’t come. Instead, astonishingly, she blushed. Kamel was not often disconcerted, but he was by her response.

      Hannah, who had conquered many things but not her infuriating habit of blushing, hated feeling gauche and immature. From somewhere she dredged up some cool. ‘So what were you referring to?’

      ‘I’m assuming that your average lover is besotted. I’m not.’

      ‘What, besotted or average?’ Stupid question, she thought as her eyes slid down his long, lean, powerful frame—average was not a word anyone would use when referring to this man. ‘I can’t just jump into bed with you. I don’t know you!’

      ‘We have time.’ He produced a thin-lipped smile. ‘A lot of it. But relax, I don’t expect our union to be consummated any time soon, if you can cope with that?’

      ‘With what?’

      ‘No sex.’

      Her lashes came down in a concealing curtain. ‘I’ll manage.’

      ‘Because your little adventures will be over. There can be no questioning the legitimacy of the heir to the throne,’ he warned.

      ‘And does the same rule apply to you?’ Without waiting for him to reply she gave a snort of disgust. ‘Don’t answer that. But perhaps you could answer me this...’

      He turned and she dropped the hand she self-consciously had extended to him. ‘Do you know...’ he seemed to know everything else with a few exceptions ‘...did they get the vaccinations to the village in time?’

      The anxiety in her blue eyes was too genuine to be feigned. Perhaps the woman did have a conscience, but not one that stopped her doing exactly what she wanted, Kamel reminded himself.

      ‘It is a pity you didn’t think about the village when you decided to cross a