Then the door crashed open and men burst in with guns drawn.
His heart exploded.
He instinctively tried to shove Angelique behind him, but she resisted, shouting, "I'm fine! Orchid, orchid! Stand down. Orchid!"
She held out a splayed hand like it could deflect bullets and tried to scramble in front of him, as if she could protect him with that soft, slender figure, but Kasim was pumped with as much adrenaline as the invaders. He locked his arms protectively around her while his brain belatedly caught up to recognize that these were guards he'd seen on his way in.
"I'm fine," Angelique insisted in a shaken tone. "Stand down. Seriously," she said with a look up at Kasim that was naked and mortified. "Let me go so I can defuse this." Her hand pressed his shoulder.
Kasim's arms were banded so firmly around her, he had to consciously force himself to relax his muscles.
"I'm fine," she assured her guards as she slid away from him. She was visibly shaking. "Honestly. This was my fault. He was looking at my necklace. I should have warned him to be careful."
Looking at her necklace? Her lipstick was smudged and she was bright red from her forehead to the line of her top. Her guards weren't stupid.
They were professionals, however. One said, "Second level?"
"Water lily, and did you really?" She went across to a panel and reset something, then sighed and crossed to her desk to pick up her smartphone with a hand that still trembled. "Thank you. Please resume your stations."
The guards holstered their weapons and retreated, closing the door behind them.
While her phone rang with the video call she'd placed, she plucked a tissue and leaned into a small desk mirror to hurriedly wipe her mouth. "This will only take a sec, but if I don't-"
A male voice barked a gruff "Oui."
"Bonjour, Henri." Angelique tilted the phone so she could see the screen. She still looked somewhere between dumbfounded and grossly embarrassed, but was trying to paste a brave smile over it.
Kasim was utterly poleaxed. That kiss had been so intensely pleasurable, all he could think about was continuing from where they'd left off. Get off the phone.
"Je m'excuse. Totally my fault," Angelique continued. "False alarm. Orchid, orchid. It was only a drill."
"Qu'est ce qui c'est passé?"
"Long story and I'm in the middle of something. Can I call you later?"
"I'm looking at the security records."
Angelique closed her eyes in a small wince. "Yes," she said in a beleaguered tone, as though answering an unasked question. "The prince is still here. May I please call you later?"
"One hour," he directed and they ended the call.
Angelique dropped the phone onto her desktop and let out an exasperated breath.
"Ramon will be next. My other brother," she provided, nodding as her phone dinged. "There he is. Spanish Inquisition." She clasped her hands and looked to the ceiling with mock delight. "So fun! Thanks."
"You're blaming me?" He hadn't thought he could be more astonished by all that had just happened.
She shrugged as she acknowledged the text, then dropped the phone again.
Moving to the shelf in the corner, she said, "How about that coffee?"
Angelique moved to where the French press had been sitting so long it bordered on tepid. She shakily pushed down the plunger and poured two short cups, needing something to calm her nerves.
Yes, let's not cause a rift with the wedding, Angelique, by having the Prince of Zhamair shot dead in your office.
What had happened to her that she'd let him kiss her like that? From the moment he'd walked in here, he'd been tapping a chisel into her. Now she was fully cracked open, all of her usual defenses and tricks of misdirection useless. It took everything she had not to let him see how thoroughly he'd thrown her off her game.
"Cream and sugar?" she asked, buying time before she had to turn around.
"Black."
She finished pouring and made herself face him.
He paused in using his handkerchief to check for traces of her lipstick against his mouth and tucked it away. He looked positively unruffled as he took one cup and saucer from her, his steady grip cutting the clatter of china down by half.
She quickly picked her own cup off its saucer and took a bolstering sip of the one she'd doctored into a syrupy milk shake.
The silence thickened.
She tried to think of something to say, but her mind raced to make sense of their kiss. What had he meant about starting something new? What did he even think of her now? Her level of security on its best days had suitors running for the hills.
He wasn't a suitor, she reminded herself. He was an arrogant dictator who had his wires crossed. That's why she'd grabbed his arm. She hadn't been able to let him leave thinking the worst. Demanding the worst.
"I wondered about the gauntlet of security I had to run in order to get in here," he said, eyeing her thoughtfully. "I didn't realize this was still such an issue for your family."
Yes, let's talk about my sister's kidnapping and how it continues to affect all of us. Her favorite topic.
"We're very vigilant about keeping it a nonissue. As you witnessed." She was trying to forget how horrifying it had been to have her guards interrupt the best kiss of her life because she'd been too dazed by it to prevent a rookie error with the panic button.
But she supposed the kidnapping was the reason this meeting had come about, ever rippling from the past into the future, so... Very well. There were days they revisited that dark time and this was one of them.
As she made that decision, she was able to move behind her desk and set her coffee aside with a modicum of control. Flicking her gaze, she invited him to take a chair.
"I'll stand."
"Suit yourself. Either way I know I've captured your full attention." She clasped her hands on her desktop, trying to steady herself. "I mean that literally. You won't be allowed to leave until I say you may."
He snorted, but she could see she did, indeed, have his full attention. She felt the heat of his gaze like the sun at the equator.
She swallowed. Good thing she was still wearing her pendant. Too bad he knew about it. She resisted the urge to grasp it for reassurance.
"The advantage that you continue to possess," she said, trying to mollify him, "is that you're willing to refuse the clothes we've made for your sister. I've heard all you said about wanting to protect her. I feel the same toward my own sister."
Empathy. Step two of a hostage negotiation. This was good practice, she told herself. Another drill.
"You're obviously aware of the general details of Trella's kidnapping." She had to swallow to ease how quickly those words tightened her throat. Her knuckles gleamed like polished bone buttons, but she couldn't make her hands relax.
"I know what was on the news at the time, yes."
She glanced at him, not sure what she expected to see. Avarice, maybe. People always wanted gruesome details beyond the basics of a nine-year-old girl being set up by a math tutor as boarding school was letting out, held for five days and found by police before money changed hands. There'd been more than one probing question today from different women in Hasna's bridal party.
Angelique was adept at dodging those inquiries, but they rubbed like salt in a cut every single time.
Kasim was next to impossible to read, but there was an air of patience in him, like he understood this wasn't easy for her and was willing to wait.
Great. Now her eyes began to sting. She was a crier, unfortunately. She already knew there would be tears later, when she spoke to her brothers. It wasn't because she was upset by the false alarm, just that when a roller coaster like today happened, she tended to fall apart at some point as a sort of release.
She pushed the Remind Me Later button on her breakdown and strained her back to a posture she thought might snap her in two, but was enough to keep her composure in place.
"What's never been made public is Sadiq's part in helping us retrieve Trella."
Kasim set his cup into its saucer and placed it on the corner of her desk. Folded his arms. "Go on."
"You can't simply accept that this is the reason we feel a debt to him?"
"Your brother could give him shares in Sauveterre International, if that was the case. Your other one, the one who races, could buy him a car. Why this?"
"Sadiq is very modest. He has refused all the different times we've tried to offer any sort of compensation. He doesn't brag about his connection to our family. In every way he can, he protects our privacy. That's why we love him."
She took another brief sip of her overly sweetened coffee, trying to find the right words.
"As you've pointed out, his family has plenty of money. Gifting him shares would be...a gesture, not something meaningful. He's not the least bit into cars the way Ramon is, but when your sister mentioned she was going to approach us about making her gown, Sadiq was excited that he had an in."