Penniless Cinderella for the Greek, page 16
And Sidonie’s whole world slowed down and stopped.
He was very, very tall, with the kind of wide shoulders and broad chest a Greek god would have been proud of, and he moved with all the grace of an apex predator. Which he most certainly was. His face was all sharp planes and angles, with the fierce beauty of a bird of prey, and his sharp black gaze missed nothing.
His dark, handmade suit was immaculate, his white cotton shirt serving only to highlight the burnished bronze of his skin, and he wore power and arrogance as if both had been tailor-made specifically for him.
There was nothing about him that was not beautiful.
In one hand he held a small but perfectly frosted chocolate cupcake with a candle in the centre and in the other a red balloon.
Sidonie felt as if her heart had stopped beating.
It was him. It was Khalil ibn Amir al Nazari. The man who’d once been her best friend in all the world. The man she’d fallen in love with and who’d walked away from her five years earlier, leaving her standing alone in a snowy street in London.
She hadn’t seen him since.
She’d met him when they were both students at Oxford. He’d been one of the ‘Wicked Princes’, a group of three young royals infamous among the colleges of the university town. Galen Kouros, Prince of Kalithera. Augustine Solari, Prince of Isavere. And him. Khalil, heir to the throne of Al Da’ira, a small but very rich country near the Red Sea.
She hadn’t paid much attention to the Wicked Princes—she was quiet and studious, and on a scholarship too, so she had no time for parties or any of the wild shenanigans they and their friends got up to.
Then one day, she’d been working at her part-time job stacking books in one of the college libraries, when a deep, dark male voice had peremptorily demanded her help, and when she’d turned around she’d found him standing there. Khalil, arrogant and so totally mesmerising she’d lost the power of speech. He’d repeated his question, even more arrogant and demanding than he’d been the first time, and she’d been so shocked and surprised that she’d laughed at him. Of course, then she’d felt terrible, and had apologised, but first he’d stared at her as if she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Then he’d told her that her apology wasn’t necessary and that he should be the one apologising, since he’d been very rude.
That had been the start of their friendship, a strange meeting of opposites: the Prince and the scholarship girl. It shouldn’t have worked. She’d been brought up by her working-class aunt, while he’d been brought up a prince. She was quiet and studious, while he was wild, going to all the parties with his friends, and barely attending lectures.
Yet they’d been drawn to each other and had become best friends, staying in contact even after they’d left university.
Or rather, they’d been best friends up until five years ago, when the disaster of that night in Soho had happened, and she’d said those things she should never have said, and he’d walked away from her. Then, a month later, she’d got that email from him telling her that he had no plans to return to England, and that it would better if she didn’t contact him again. He hadn’t given a reason why.
Not that he had to explain. She knew why.
He’d broken her heart that day, but she refused to let it be a mortal blow. Instead, she changed, armouring herself, guarding herself. Becoming a different person. A person who didn’t give her heart so readily to someone who didn’t want it.
She never thought she’d see him again, yet here he was, standing arrogantly in the middle of the pub like a god manifesting before his mortal worshippers, staring around until his black gaze finally settled on her.
All the breath left her lungs. There seemed to be no air anywhere in the room.
Derek started to say something but Khalil was already stalking towards them, the balloon bobbing with every step. It would have been amusing if the expression on his beautiful face hadn’t been suddenly so utterly intent.
Her heart began to race. She was a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, unable to move, unable to look away.
Five years since she’d seen him and he was still every bit the same mesmerising, utterly compelling man she remembered from their last meeting in London.
He’d been in England on a state visit, and they’d arranged to meet at a too-loud bar in Soho. That was when he’d broken the news to her that his father had died, and he had to return to Al Da’ira to take the throne. He wouldn’t be back for some time, he’d said. Probably years. His country was in trouble, and he needed to be there to help it through the transition in ruler.
She understood. His father had been a terrible king and Khalil’s presence was required for the nation’s stability. But she’d also been upset at the thought of not seeing him for so long, and had had a couple more Cosmopolitans than she should have, making him promise all kinds of ridiculous things.
But it hadn’t been until the time had come to say goodbye, as they’d stood outside the bar in the falling snow, that she’d made that terrible, costly mistake.
In a fit of wild emotion she’d told him she loved him, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth she knew she’d said the wrong thing. Because shock had flared in his dark eyes and then his beautiful face had shuttered, becoming as cold as the snow falling all around them.
He’d been gentle, prying her fingers from where they clutched at his coat, but he hadn’t said a single thing in response.
He’d simply turned on his heel and walked away, leaving her standing there alone, her heart slowly shattering to pieces in her chest.
She’d cried all night into her pillow after he’d gone, castigating herself for ruining things between them, because she quite clearly had. He’d never given her any indication that he felt anything for her but friendship, so why she’d told him that she loved him she still couldn’t understand. It had been the Cosmopolitans maybe, or the stupid promise she’d written on a serviette and made him sign. Or perhaps it had been simply that raw rush of emotion as she’d stood there looking up in his dark eyes and watching the snow settle in his black hair.
She should have known better than to say it out loud, though. Her aunt had always told her she was too needy and demanding, and it was obvious from Khalil’s response to her that he thought so too. Which was confirmed a few weeks later when his email had arrived to tell her it would be easier on both of them if she didn’t contact him again.
So she didn’t. By that stage the charity she’d started up after leaving university was gathering steam and she’d moved to London, and it was easy to immerse herself in work. Easy to bury the remains of her broken heart and become someone else. Someone with purpose and determination and steel. A strong woman. A woman who didn’t cry into her pillow all night because of some man. A woman who needed nothing and no one.
Now, though, despite all of that, her heartbeat was racing the way it always did whenever he was around, and she fought to find the steely determination that had helped her drive her charity to the top, meeting his dark gaze steadily.
It didn’t matter that he was back five years after he’d broken her heart.
It didn’t matter at all.
‘Khalil,’ she began, pleased with how level her voice sounded. ‘What are—?’
‘Get out,’ Khalil interrupted. And there was no doubt about who he was talking to, because Derek was on his feet and through the door before Sidonie could get another word out.
Anger prickled over her skin.
So here he was, presumably for her, since there was no other reason for him to be in Blackchurch, having tracked her down after five years of silence. And the first words out of his mouth weren’t ‘I’m sorry, Sidonie, for walking away’. Or ‘I’m sorry for telling you not to contact me again’. No, they were ‘Get out’ to the one man who’d actually had the decency to take her for a birthday treat.
She wanted to tell him how rude he was and how dared he come here and frighten away the first date she’d had in years? But that would make her sound angry with him. That would make her sound as if she cared, and she didn’t.
She was over him. She’d been over him for years.
So she said nothing as he calmly slid into the booth, taking Derek’s place as if the poor man hadn’t ever been there. He deposited the cupcake on the table before holding the balloon out to her. ‘Happy birthday, Sidonie,’ he said in his dark, deep voice, as if he’d only been away a couple of days and not five years.
For a second she had no idea what response to make, her brain still trying to process the fact that he was here, in England, in this pub, let alone that he’d just wished her happy birthday as if they were still friends. Then, when the reality of his presence finally hit, despite all her assurances to herself, those hot, angry words filled her mouth anyway, and she had to swallow them down to stop them from coming out.
Shouting at him was pointless. It didn’t matter that he’d broken off their friendship as if it had meant nothing. As if she meant nothing.
It didn’t matter how he treated her; she didn’t care. She was successful and happy and didn’t need him any more.
Ignoring the anger that sat hot and burning in the pit of her stomach, she also forced down the betraying leap of joy that tightened around her heart. And gave him a cool, measuring look. ‘Khalil. This is a surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you, obviously. But I was actually in the middle of a date.’ Really, he should know he’d interrupted something. She hadn’t been sitting around all these years just waiting for him.
Those dark, winged brows arrowed down. ‘A date? With whom?’
It seemed some things hadn’t changed. The Oxford colleges had had their fair share of arrogant people, but Khalil’s arrogance was really something else. So far, so prince, she’d thought. Yet even his two friends, Galen and Augustine, who were also princes and whom she’d met very briefly a couple of times, weren’t as arrogant as he was.
Then she’d found out that Al Da’ira was an absolute monarchy where the rulers were viewed as semi-divine, and their word was law. In that context his arrogance had made sense, though she hadn’t put up with it. He’d liked that about her, or so he’d said. He liked that she treated him as an ordinary person, not a prince.
Except the man sitting opposite her now didn’t look like an ordinary person. He didn’t look like the friend she remembered either, the intense, brooding young man he’d once been. He’d been like a stormy, dark sea, she’d often thought back then. Full of complex, dangerous currents, and yet when the sun shone through the water there was such lightness and aching beauty. His rare smiles. His compassion. His deeply hidden, wry sense of humour.
None of that was in evidence now, though. The lines of his face were hard and set and cold. He wasn’t the sea any more. He was the rock that lay at the bottom of it.
‘It was a birthday date,’ she explained coolly. ‘With Derek.’
‘Derek?’ Khalil glanced around. ‘I see no Derek.’
‘No. Because you just rudely ordered him out of the pub.’
‘Him? He was in my way.’ Khalil gestured insistently with the balloon. ‘Take it.’
Her heart gave a tiny jolt that he’d remembered, but she’d told herself she wasn’t going to let anything he did or said mean anything, so again she ignored it.
You want it to mean something, though.
No. No, she absolutely did not. She’d got rid of the last remaining feelings she had for him years ago. And if her heart ached and she felt breathless on seeing him now, it was only shock. Nothing more.
However, it seemed silly not to take the balloon, so she reached for it. Only to fight yet another jolt, this time physically as his fingers brushed hers and a familiar spark of electricity leapt between them.
She still remembered the first time she’d felt it, the night Khalil had thrown her a birthday party for her twenty-first. She’d never had a party before, because her aunt had never celebrated her birthday, still less a surprise party.
It had been the most wonderful night. She didn’t have many friends, but he’d invited all of them, plus his own bigger, wilder crowd. There had been lots of music and laughter, and dancing. There had been balloons. There had been a cake. Everyone had sung her ‘Happy Birthday’, and she’d nearly cried because it had been so lovely.
Her first birthday party ever and it had been a huge success.
Much later that night, Khalil had pulled her into his arms and danced with her, and she’d become aware, all at once, of his warmth. The hard-muscled plane of his chest. His scent. She’d always thought of him as beautiful, dazzling even. But that was the night she’d realised she wanted him.
An echo of that old longing hit her now, making her hand jerk and the balloon bob violently in response. Luckily, he didn’t seem to notice.
‘Thank you,’ she said, with what she hoped was some degree of calm. ‘Both for the balloon and the cupcake. But really, you were inexcusably rude to Derek and I should go and make sure—’
‘I will deal with it,’ Khalil interrupted with the same arrogance she remembered from years ago. Or maybe not the same. There was a hard edge to it now that hadn’t been there before.
He turned his head and instantly one of his men was there. He issued a curt command in the lyrical Arabic dialect of his home country, and the man darted away.
Sidonie frowned. ‘What did you say to him?’
‘I told him to go and find your Derek and pay him a suitable amount of money for the inconvenience of ending your date early.’ Khalil smiled, his teeth flashing white against his bronzed skin, but his black eyes remained sharp as obsidian. ‘Do not worry.’
That smile wasn’t the same either. There was no warmth in it at all. A tiger’s smile.
He is not the man you knew. Not any more.
‘So, what are you doing here?’ she asked in the most neutral voice possible, repressing the odd shiver that went through her. ‘Apart from being terribly rude to a friend of mine, of course. I didn’t know you were in the country.’ She wasn’t going to point out exactly how long it had been since he’d last contacted her, because naturally she hadn’t been keeping track.
Khalil didn’t reply. Instead, he frowned down at the cupcake. Then abruptly he held out his hand and one of the men in black suits sprang over and put a lighter in it. Khalil didn’t look at him, proceeding to light the candle on her cupcake before holding his hand out again so the same man could take the lighter from it. Then he leaned back in the booth seat, powerful arms resting across the back of it, and fixed her with an intense stare.
‘Blow,’ he ordered.
Sidonie blinked. ‘What?’
‘The candle.’ He didn’t take his gaze from hers. ‘Blow it out.’
Another shiver whispered over her skin as memories slowly filtered through her head. Of the way he’d used to look at her, the way he was doing now. Intense and focused, as if what she had to say was vital and he didn’t want to miss a word.
He’d always had the ability to make her feel she was interesting and special, as if what she said was worth hearing, an addictive thing to the kid who’d lost her parents at eight and had to go and live with her father’s cold and unemotional sister. Aunt May, who’d made it very clear to Sidonie that she was looking after her only as a duty to her brother. That Sidonie was an imposition she hadn’t looked for and didn’t want, but took anyway out of the goodness of her heart.
It’s still addictive...
No, absolutely not. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. She was a successful businesswoman with a charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged children, and she didn’t need his or anyone else’s validation, still less his. She’d graduated from Oxford with honours, had put all her drive and determination into making a difference to orphaned children’s lives, and she wasn’t lonely these days. She was secure and confident in herself, no matter how first her aunt and then Khalil’s abandonment had made her feel otherwise.
Shoving her physical reaction to him away, Sidonie let out a silent breath and held his gaze. Back when they’d been friends, she’d never let him get away with his high-handed behaviour, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him get away with it now.
She raised a brow. ‘Only if you sing “Happy Birthday”.’
‘Very well,’ he said and without hesitation began to sing, his deep voice making each and every word sound like an intimate caress. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Sidonie, happy birthday to you.’
She shouldn’t have told him to sing. There were too many memories associated with him singing her ‘Happy Birthday’. Memories of the night he’d danced with her, and she didn’t need those in her head.
‘Now blow,’ he ordered once he’d finished.
Arguing about blowing out a candle was ridiculous, and after all, it was her birthday, so she leaned forward and blew, watching as the flame flickered and went out.
Then she straightened. ‘So, I guess I should be honoured that you—’
‘You don’t remember, do you?’
Sidonie blinked again, derailed by the unexpected question. ‘Remember? Remember what?’
‘How you told me that if you had not married by the time your thirtieth birthday came around, then you would marry me.’
A flush of heat swept through her, closely followed by a tide of ice, and all the cool demands she’d been going to make, such as what he was doing here and why, abruptly vanished from her head.
That night in Soho, that was what he was talking about. The night she didn’t want to remember. Not the words that had come out of her mouth, that had driven him away, and definitely not the stained serviette she’d pulled out from under her cocktail glass and used to write down the most ridiculous promise. A promise she’d made him sign.
