Gambling With the Crown Read online

  Kyr. My God.

  It was perhaps the most foreign of any location he had ever taken her to, with the exception of Singapore and Hong Kong.

  “When?”

  Kadir blinked, and she wished she had her notebook. She felt professional with her notebook and pen. She also had a tablet computer, of course, but she liked the feel of the pen scratching over the paper as she made quick notes—and then she transferred them later so that she could access everything on the tablet. His calendar was there, too, but not until she’d jotted it out on paper first.

  “In the morning.”

  Emily bit her lip. Kadir didn’t take his eyes off her and she started to worry that he’d had a shock of some sort. He was not behaving like himself, that was certain.

  “I will be sure to have everything ready. What time would you like me to request wheels up?”

  “I have done this already.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked around her room as if he’d never seen it before. Which, she supposed, he hadn’t. “Do you perhaps have a bottle of wine? Some scotch?”

  “I—um, there might be wine. Just a moment.”

  She went to the small refrigerator tucked beneath the cabinets on one side of the room and pulled out a bottle of white she’d been nursing. Then she took down a glass and poured some in it. But when she turned, he was behind her. He’d moved so silently she’d not heard a thing.

  Or perhaps it was the way her blood beat in her ears that prevented her from hearing something so basic as a person walking across the floor. He loomed over her, so tall and vital and surprising. It jarred her to realize that without her heels, she really was much shorter than he.

  She thrust the glass at him without a word.

  “Please have a drink with me.”

  Emily turned and poured wine into another glass, thankful to have something to do that did not involve looking at Kadir. But when she pivoted again, he was still there. Still in her space, still big and dark and intense.

  She thought he might move, might go over and sit on her couch, but he didn’t. He simply stood there, staring at the liquid in his glass. And then he raised his gaze to hers, and she felt the blow of those eyes like a twist in her heart.

  She recognized pain when she saw it. His seemed to swallow him whole, turning those clear gray eyes to the darkest slate. She had an urge to lift her palm to his cheek, to tell him it would be okay.

  But that was a line she could not cross. He was her boss, though she was having a very hard time remembering it just now.

  “What is the matter, Your Highness?” The words were tight in her throat, but she forced them out anyway.

  His brow furrowed. And then he lifted the glass and took a deep swallow of the golden liquid. Once more, his eyes were on hers. As if she were an anchor. As if it were her alone keeping him tethered to the earth, keeping the pain from engulfing him.

  “My father is dying.” The words were simple, stark, and her heart squeezed into a tight ball in her chest. She knew the pain of those words, knew how they opened chasms in your soul. How they could change you.

  But she also knew the bittersweet joy of finding out there was a way to save the person you loved. The worry over if there would be enough money to pay for the procedure—not that this last was a worry a king would have.

  She reached for him automatically, gripped his forearm. She had never dared to touch him before, not deliberately. Not like this. The jolt of sensation buzzing through her should not have been so unexpected. But it was. Like touching a live wire and then being unable to let go.

  She had to push past it, had to speak. Had to get beyond the awkwardness and confusion when he needed so much more from her than this giddy schoolgirl behavior.

  “Is there nothing they can do?” Her voice came out a whisper, but he heard it. He’d been staring at her hand, at her pale fingers clasped over his golden skin, and he raised his gaze again.

  Once more, the blow of those eyes threatened to steal her breath away. Her sense. For a moment, she wished she were someone else. Someone beautiful and dynamic. Someone who could interest a man like this.

  But no, that was silly. She wasn’t a sensual creature. She was sensible. There was no room in her life for the kind of heat and exhilaration that went along with a man like Kadir. She’d seen how women burned for him, and how they burned out too soon. That kind of heat wasn’t worth the price.

  She’d almost been that sort of woman once, but she’d learned that it was far better to be sensible and staid. And if she ever doubted it, she had only to think of her mother’s tragic example of what could happen to a woman who followed her hedonistic tendencies too far.

  “No, it’s too late now. They’ve done everything.”

  He sounded almost detached and cool, but she knew it must affect him deeply. She squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

  He put his hand over hers and lightning sizzled into her deepest core. In four years’ time, their hands had brushed on occasion. It would have been impossible if they hadn’t.

  But this. This was too much, like walking out into full sunlight after having spent a year in a cave. The feelings swirling through her were too hot, too bright.

  Too confusing.

  Kadir was an attractive man, but she was not attracted to him. She liked lean blond men who weren’t quite so tall. Quiet men. Men who didn’t make her feel jumpy and achy just by touching her.

  She had to force herself to meet his eyes, because to continue to stare at his hand over hers would certainly be odd. The pain was still there, but there was something else, too. Something that flared bright for a moment and was extinguished.

  She’d always known that Kadir was a complicated man. But this felt as if someone had lifted the curtain to show her the gears and pulleys that ran the show.

  She’d seen beneath the veneer. Beneath the walls. But only for a moment.

  A moment she was not likely to forget any time soon.

  “I am angry, Emily.”

  “I believe that is normal.” She remembered being angry herself when they’d first learned that her father needed a new heart if he were going to survive. It had seemed impossible at the time—and she’d been so furious with fate—but then a heart had become available and he’d gotten his second chance.

  But every moment had been agonizing. The feelings, the fear. Not everyone in her family had handled it well. Her father had survived—but the family had not.

  Kadir’s gaze was searching. She had to remind herself, strongly, that he was still her boss, that this breach of their usual formal relationship was a temporary thing. If she handled this wrongly, if she did what she wanted to do—which was put her arms around him and pull his head down to her shoulder while she stroked the thick softness of his hair—she would be crossing a line that could never be redrawn.

  “I need something from you, Emily.”

  His voice was soft and mesmerizing and her stomach tied itself into a knot as she imagined what he might ask for. But then she told herself he was simply hurting and this change in their usual relationship was a temporary by-product of that. He needed someone to talk to and there was no reason why she couldn’t be that someone.

  “Anything I can do, Your Highness.”

  One corner of his sensual mouth lifted in a smile. She’d never spent a lot of time gazing at him—she was far too busy taking care of business—but she could certainly see why the women he dated seemed to melt so quickly beneath the power of his raw male beauty. His mouth begged a woman to press her own there. His hair needed a woman’s fingers in it. His shoulders needed someone’s arms around them. His waist needed to be surrounded by a woman’s legs—

  Oh, my. Emily clamped down hard on her wayward thoughts and tried to look like her usual professional self.

  Which would be far easier to accomplish if she were not standing here in her pajamas with her hair a dark tangle down her back.

  He put a hand on her shoulder, his fingers touching bar
e flesh. She couldn’t quite contain the gasp that escaped her as an arrow of flame shot through her belly, down into her deepest core. Oh, she was so going to the doctor the instant they returned to Chicago. There had to be a pill that would fix her raging hormones. She was entirely too young for this kind of wild fluctuation.

  Kadir’s brows drew down, his gaze searching hers. His eyes were dark, glittering slate, and she had to force herself not to shrink from the fire in them.

  “First, you are going to need to call me Kadir.”

  Her stomach flipped. “I—I don’t think that’s a very good idea. You’re my boss, and I prefer to keep that straight in my head. First names invite familiarity, and—”

  His finger over her mouth silenced her. And burned into her. Confusion set up a drumbeat in her brain, her blood. She had no idea what was going on here, or where it would lead if she let it.

  “Emily.”

  He said her name simply, but it had the effect of sending a wave of calm over her. She drew in a breath and waited. Whatever he was going to say, she could handle it.

  His next words shattered that illusion. “I need you to marry me.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  SHE WAS LOOKING at him as though he’d grown two extra heads. He didn’t blame her, really. What he was proposing was perfectly outrageous. But after that phone call with Rashid, he couldn’t stop thinking about how he wasn’t going to be forced to take his brother’s birthright.

  He wasn’t the next king of Kyr. Rashid was. And he wasn’t going to allow his father to use him as a bludgeon in his personal war with Rashid. Not any longer. When he was ten, he hadn’t understood. He understood now.

  He was returning to Kyr because his father was dying and he believed it was important to be there. But Kadir wasn’t going to make it easy for the old man to do what Rashid believed he was going to do.

  And for that, Kadir needed a very unsuitable bride. A woman who would horrify his father enough that he would believe Kadir’s judgment so poor he would not, under any circumstances, give the kingdom of Kyr into his keeping.

  An American woman with no connections or pedigree would fit the bill nicely. If he could persuade her to act a little more like Lenore—spoiled, entitled and manipulative—it would work even better, though it was not strictly necessary. Her origins would be enough for his father and the staunchly traditional governing council.

  King Zaid would turn to Rashid, regardless of their differences, and choose the son who was the only sensible choice. He would not risk his kingdom with a son who was blinded by the charms of a most unsuitable woman.

  Kadir knew it was an insane plan, born of desperation, but he was determined to carry it out. Nothing else would work. His father might be petty, but he was much too proud to allow Kyr to pass into the hands of a son who showed such a decided lack of judgment.

  “I…I…” Emily raised a hand to push a stray lock of hair from her face and he was once more confronted with a fact he had somehow managed to ignore for the past four years.

  Emily Bryant was not quite the unattractive automaton he’d believed her to be. Her brown hair was long, thick and shiny—and very tumbled. He’d never seen it down before. She either wore it scraped up on her head or pulled back in a severe ponytail.

  And now her mouth had somehow become enticing, with all that hair to frame her face.

  He’d known she was not shapeless. Indeed, her suits were well-fitted and crisp, if stark in color—it was only her shoes that were ugly. Sensible shoes, he believed they were called.

  She was almost boyish, with narrow shoulders and hips. But she had a waist, and her small breasts were shapelier than he’d realized beneath her suit jackets. That surprised him in ways he hadn’t expected. He knew it now because he’d had a devil of a time keeping his gaze from straying to where they jutted against the thin fabric of her top.

  Still, she was Emily, his PA. Not some woman he could take to his bed and discard. He needed her in his life, and at this moment he very much needed her to agree to his plan.

  “I don’t know what to say.” The words tumbled out of her in a breathless rush. Her green eyes, usually the color of polished jade, had darkened in what he supposed was confusion. Or horror. There was always that possibility, he decided.

  “Say yes.”

  She did the one thing he did not expect. She took a step backward, out of his space, and wrapped her arms around her body. The wineglass was still clutched in one hand and tilted precariously to the side.

  Her chin dropped and he got the distinct impression she was meditating. When she looked at him again, her gaze was clear.

  “Why are you asking me this? Do you need to be married for a business deal? Is there some piece of property you cannot do without and a wife would ease the way with the owner?”

  He could only stare at her. She was so close to the truth it astounded him. And yet not quite.

  “I need to take a wife home to Kyr.”

  Her brows drew down. “I don’t understand.”

  He blew out a breath. “It is very complicated. But suffice it to say that a wife is necessary. Think of this as a promotion.”

  She blinked. And then she laughed. He was almost insulted.

  “This is the strangest promotion I have ever heard of.” She drew in air, straightened her spine. “And it’s impossible, Your Highness. I cannot do what you ask.”

  He felt the sting of her rejection as if it were a blow. It stunned him, if he was truthful with himself. Women did not typically refuse him.

  “And why is that? This is a job, Emily. The same as always.”

  “You will forgive me, Your Highness—”

  “Kadir.” He spoke sharply, but he could not seem to help it. For once, he wanted her to call him by his name. For once, he needed to know that he was more to her than a paycheck. It was beyond insane, and yet he’d not felt quite right since he’d spoken with his father earlier.

  It was as if everything he’d known had flipped upside down. As if his life had started out one way this morning—a lifetime ago now—and ended up in a completely different place. He was at the bottom of a pit, trying to find a handhold to pull himself back up again before the walls caved in and crushed him.

  She swallowed. He didn’t think she would say it, but then she did. “Kadir.” Her voice was so small, so quiet, as if she feared that saying his name would call down a bolt of lightning.

  “Was that so difficult then?”

  Her eyes glinted in the dimly lit room. “No.”

  “Good.” He retreated a few steps, gave her space. He sank onto her couch, ignoring the scattered papers. “Do I pay you well, Emily?”

  She moved to one of the chairs set around a small table several feet away and sank down on it as if she feared she would break it. “Yes.”

  “Then you can hardly object if I give you an extra year’s salary once you complete the task. All you need do is pretend to be my wife.”

  Her eyes were wide. “Pretend? We wouldn’t actually be married?”

  “We would, but it won’t be a real marriage. I don’t want you to think I expect anything other than the pretense of devotion.” Because they would need to appear ridiculously besotted with each other for this to work.

  She looked doubtful. “Won’t someone figure it out?”

  “How? We will act our parts.”

  She shook her head. “No one will believe it. Just yesterday, you were with Lenore Bradford. You were probably photographed with her. And now you are marrying me—when, tonight? After you were with Lenore at her party last night?”

  He felt the noose tightening around his neck. “I did not say it was a perfect plan. But we will sell it, Emily.” He twisted the stem of the wineglass in his fingers. “Besides, Kyr isn’t precisely connected to the outside world. Not in the way you would think. It is modern, certainly. But gossip and tabloids are hardly my father’s daily reading material. If I arrive with a wife, a wife who I am clearly crazy about, that will
suffice for him.”

  He could see her throat work. “You want to deceive your family?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He sighed and leaned his head back, staring up at the ceiling. She would never understand. And yet he had to make her do so if this were to work. It went against his nature to explain himself, but he had to acknowledge that she could just as easily turn him down if he did not. “It’s about the throne, Emily. I don’t want it.”

  She blinked. “Why not?”

  A riot of emotion twisted through him. He wanted to lash out. To tell her it was none of her business. And yet, if he was asking her to do this thing, it surely was her business. He could tell her the truth without delving into his personal reasons. His guilt. That was private.

  “Because a king cannot travel the world and erect buildings. My business will be finished. And you will be out of a job.”

  He didn’t like pointing it out so cruelly, but what choice did he have? Because that was, ultimately, what was at stake for her. If he became king, he couldn’t keep her in Kyr. He’d have an entire legion of assistants and she would not be needed. Even if he wanted her there.

  There was a hierarchy in serving the royal family in Kyr, and Emily Bryant did not fit into it.

  She put her forehead in her palm and slanted her gaze toward him. It was an unconsciously attractive look. A twinge of heat flared to life in his belly. He tamped it down ruthlessly. His life was upside-down, he reminded himself. He was not attracted to his very ordinary assistant. If he had been, he would never have hired her. Besides, if he hadn’t found her sexually appealing in four years thus far, he wasn’t going to start today.

  In spite of the awareness that slid through him when she’d put her hand on his arm. In spite of the urge he’d had to bend his head and fit his mouth to hers, just to see if the sparks would continue or if it was simply the incongruity of her touching him so deliberately.