The Last Prince of Dahaar. Tara Pammi
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу The Last Prince of Dahaar - Tara Pammi страница 4
Название: The Last Prince of Dahaar
Автор: Tara Pammi
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781472042392
isbn:
He thought she was a servant paid to gather information about him? “No one sent me here, Prince Ayaan.”
He became stiffer, if possible, the rigid line of his shoulders obvious in the feeble light. The bones at the crook between his neck and shoulders stood out in stark relief.
She didn’t want to antagonize him any more than she already had. She didn’t want to ponder about his nightmare, his reaction to her being a witness to it. If she did this right, she wouldn’t need to see him ever again nor hear the gut-wrenching pain she had heard in his cries.
“I...came here of my own volition. It was important for me to talk to you before you left tomorrow morning.”
Slowly, the annoyance in his expression shifted to watchfulness. And she fought the need to shy away from it, to hide from his intense scrutiny.
He knew.
She could pinpoint the exact moment he realized—the watchfulness turned into realization, a flare of color in those beautiful eyes.
That gaze moved over her in a slow sweep, lingering over her face for the longest time, seeing her with new eyes. This time, it wasn’t mere anger that colored it, but wariness, almost as if she had suddenly become dangerous to him.
“Of course you’re not a servant.”
He stepped off the bed as though he couldn’t breathe the same air for another moment. She stared at the broad expanse of his back. The scar streaked through his back too, like a rope bound around his body.
He pulled on a T-shirt and stood by the foot of the enormous bed, his hands behind him, as though waiting for her to come to her senses.
Heat spread up her neck and she gritted her teeth.
She had nothing to feel guilty or ashamed about. She had seized the only opportunity available to her. She had seen a man in the throes of a violent nightmare and tried to help.
She slid to her feet, the muscles in her legs trembling.
“What was so important that it had to be said in the middle of the night?”
This was it. This was why she had risked coming into his suite. And yet, her tongue felt as if it was glued to the roof of her mouth.
“Should I send word to King Salim?”
She stared at him, the sudden threat in his words, the raw command showing a different man. “There’s no need to involve my father in a matter that concerns me...us. I’m sure we can settle this between ourselves and come to a conclusion that is agreeable to both of us.”
CHAPTER TWO
SHE WAS HIS betrothed.
Ayaan felt the world tilting at his feet as what he had guessed curdled into undeniable reality.
This slip of a woman, who had the nerve to climb onto his bed and hold him through a nightmare, this woman, who was even now meeting his gaze with an arrogant confidence, was the woman he had agreed to marry just a few hours ago?
He hadn’t given her a moment’s thought. She was nothing more than a bullet point in the list of things he had agreed to in the name of duty.
He stood unmoving, the need to vent his spiraling frustration burning his muscles.
Her light brown hair was combed away into a braid. Her eyes were brown, huge in her long face. A strong nose and mouth followed, the stubborn jut of it saying so much about the woman.
She wore a light pink tunic over black leggings, a flimsy shawl wrapped loosely around her torso. Her outfit was plain for a princess, giving no hint as to what lay...
With a control he had honed tight over the past few months, he brought his gaze back to her face. He had indulged himself enough. How the woman looked, or what kind of a body she had, held no significance to him.
Her mother had been American, someone had mentioned it to him. But she was a copy of King Salim. The same no-nonsense air about her, the proud chin, the dogged determination it must have cost her to be near him during his nightmare.
He had no doubt about how violent he could get when caught in one of those nocturnal episodes. It was the reason he detested having anyone even within hearing distance. And despite every precaution he took to hide the truth, to spare his parents, they had already earned him the title of Mad Prince.
If only the world knew what a luxury madness was compared to his lucidity.
He didn’t want to marry this woman any more than he wanted the mantle of Dahaar. The latter, he had been able to postpone. The former...?
The people of Dahaar need reassurance that all is well with you, they need a reason to celebrate. They haven’t had one in five years. And Siyaad needs our help. King Salim stood by me when I had no one else to rely on, when I was crumbling under the weight of Dahaar.
Now it is time we return the favor.
Ayaan wasn’t prepared for it. He would never be.
How could he be, when he didn’t trust himself, when he didn’t know what could break him again, when he was constantly hovering over the thin line between lucidity and lunacy?
But he couldn’t refuse his father, not after everything he had gone through to rule and protect Dahaar, after losing his eldest son and daughter, losing Ayaan to insanity.
His parents had lost everything in one night, but they hadn’t broken. They hadn’t failed in their duty. He couldn’t either.
But suddenly, King Salim’s profuse excuses at tonight’s dinner made sense. His daughter’s absence had been an act of defiance. Not that Ayaan had cared that she was absent. On the contrary, he had been glad that he didn’t need to give the concept of his betrothed a concrete form until that moment was absolutely upon him.
And now here she was, pushing herself into his mind in a way he couldn’t just undo. Within five minutes spent in her company, he already knew more about her than he wanted to learn in a lifetime. She was stubborn, she was brave and the worst? She wasn’t conventional.
“I understood you were too ill to be out and about, Princess Zohra,” he said, forcing utter scorn into his words. “And yet here you are, walking around the palace at night, disrupting a guest’s privacy, offering insult.”
“Do not call me a princess. I have never been one.”
He was too...irritated to even ask her why.
He was chilled to the bone, as he always was when he woke up from one of his nightmares. “Fine. Please tell me why you are in my bed, in my suite, in the palace wing that is strictly forbidden to women, at the stroke of midnight. What was so important that you had to—”
“You СКАЧАТЬ