Prince Under Cover. Adrianne Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ green polo shirts and black pants. He grinned at Miah and hollered above the din, “Princess, what brings you slumming on the eve of your wedding?”

      Princess. Miah slid onto a bar stool. She had to admit that aside from the money for her mother, the fact that she would be an honest-to-God princess after saying “I do” touched a chord inside her, as though something internal had aligned, connected.

      Cailin snapped her brother’s backside with a bar towel. “She’s not officially a princess until tomorrow, you doof.”

      The Finnigans all had fiery red hair and mischievous blue eyes. Cailin was the only girl, a natural beauty. She greeted Miah with a smile. “Hey, girlfriend, nice to see you looking like your old self.”

      “Thanks.” Miah caught her friend’s gaze darting to the door. Bobby “The Buzzard” Redwing, Cailin’s ex-boyfriend, had been hassling her. Miah had no more interest in encountering the Buzzard than Cailin; he was a reporter for the very tabloid to which she feared the blackmailer would sell his story of Grant Mohairbi.

      She drew a shaky breath. She had to lose this mood. Quit thinking about the blackmailer. Determined to do just that, she forced a smile. “Hey, Rory, can ‘almost royalty’ get an ice-cold one and a slice of pizza in this dive?”

      Cailin laughed and drew the attention of a couple of men at the end of the bar. She had a knockout figure, round where Miah was lean, skin like peaches and cream. Rory set a frosted mug of foaming beer before Miah, then went to fetch her pizza, leaving Miah and Cailin to chat. But the first thing out of Cailin’s mouth was “Uh-oh.”

      Her gaze fixed on something over Miah’s shoulder.

      Miah tensed. “Is it ‘The Buzzard’?”

      “Nope. This one’s all yours. The Gorgeous One.”

      Miah’s heart thumped. Talk about stress-inducing. He would not be happy to see her dressed like this. She gathered her poise and glanced around at her fiancé. Six feet of gorgeous male animal, the most handsome man she’d ever encountered. Hollywood should have come knocking on his door years ago. Prince Zahir Haji Haleem. His dark, heated gaze landed on her like a sensual stroke played over her body. There was something possessive in that look, something that sent heat into her belly and fire through her blood.

      She swallowed hard against the knot forming in her throat. It scared her, this heat she felt every time he was near. If his look, his casual touch could make her this flustered, this hot, he might just burn her up during serious intimacy. And she didn’t doubt for a minute that this man—who had, before their engagement, been linked in tabloids with several of Chicago’s top socialites, married and single, and who had so obviously majored in Pleasing Women 101—would be more than proficient at lovemaking.

      Miah was no prude herself, no innocent. But she felt such shyness around this man. This stranger. Could she actually go through with marrying him? The thought brought an image of her mother’s smiling face, and Miah knew she not only could, she would. Nothing must cause her mother’s smile to vanish.

      She took a swig of the beer, then thumped the mug onto the bar, slipped off the stool and, on her three-inch sandals, crossed to where he waited as though he’d sent her a silent command to come to him.

      “Hello, Zahir.”

      “Miah.” His gaze did a lazy climb from her gaily painted toenails, up the strappy heels and skimpy clothing to her face. She clenched her hands against the blush his sexy perusal brought to her flesh, lifted her chin and stared him in the eye. “Like what you see?”

      He smirked. “Every man in the bar seems to.”

      “And you object to that?”

      “I believe objections, were I to have any, would fall on deaf ears.” He wore a black, Armani three-piece suit. His raven hair curled against the virgin white of his shirt collar. He smelled of a spicy autumn afternoon, and seemed somehow able to defy the heat.

      “I like color,” she said. If he had his way, she’d be covered from head to toe in flowing veils all fit for a funeral. But that she would never do.

      “Color likes you back.” He caught her chin in his big hand, startling her.

      The blush swept her body again, gaining heat this time as it reached her face. She could pull away, but sensed the room watching them. She whispered, “What are you doing?”

      He leaned closer, as though to kiss her. Her breath jammed in her throat at the raw sexuality in his very touch, his very nearness. The pad of his thumb traced the soft flesh above her upper lip. “Foam…from the beer.”

      “Tha—thank you.” She took a faltering step back. “How did you know to find me here, Zahir?”

      “Actually, I wasn’t looking for you, love.” His voice was a mix of Northeastern crisp and Middle Eastern mellow. “I had no idea you were here. I was passing by and spotted that tabloid reporter—what’s his name— Redwing, outside.” He glanced at the door as though he half expected The Buzzard to burst through it, camera flashing. “The last thing I want is him getting wind of where and when the wedding is coming down.”

      Coming down? That was a strange way to refer to their wedding. She lowered her voice. “Bobby Redwing has been hassling Cailin. He’s probably not after you or me.”

      “In the past, he’s been very persistent, very good at ferreting out…secrets,” Zahir said in a distracted voice as though he were speaking to himself. He touched his chest near his heart and an odd expression played around his alluring mouth. Then he seemed to shake himself and flashed her a too-quick, too-bright grin. “You don’t have anything to hide, do you, love?”

      Miah flinched. “No. Nothing.”

      Nothing except a blackmailer’s secret.

      “What about you, Zahir?” What don’t I know about you?

      His gaze flicked away from hers, a sure sign he was hiding something. Miah felt the uneasiness returning, the second-guessing. She was marrying a man she didn’t know. A stranger. One who could have secrets she didn’t even suspect.

      Maybe dangerous secrets.

      Chapter Two

      Javid blew out a taut breath and stepped from the dark interior of Finnigan’s Rainbow into the blinding afternoon on Michigan Avenue. Pretending to be Zahir was taking its toll. He hated lying, even necessary lying. Just now, he’d have sworn Miah knew, sworn she was going to expose him right there in the pub. He tugged sunglasses from his suit pocket and glanced around, but saw no sign of Redwing. This game of hide-and-seek he was constantly playing with that damn snoop was wearing thin.

      Tomorrow. It would all be over tomorrow. Thank God. He’d survived more than one tight situation in recent days, but none that had left him this rattled…and that was her fault.

      Heat sizzled off the sidewalk, several degrees cooler than the fire in his belly, a fire for a woman he didn’t want to want, a woman he wanted so badly he ached. He took long strides away from the pub, berating himself with every step, unable to abolish the image of her long luscious legs in that scrap of hot pink, her shapely feet in those high-heeled, mind-numbing sandals, the way that green top made her amber eyes shimmer like spun gold.

      “Damn СКАЧАТЬ