Disappointment.
CHAPTER FOUR
ABOUT AN HOUR after they’d landed at the airfield Sharif watched Liyah walk around the vast space of his penthouse. A helicopter had brought them from the airfield to the building Sharif owned, where he had an apartment at the very top.
Liyah had looked mesmerised as they’d flown over the iconic city.
‘Have you been to New York before?’ he’d asked her.
She’d just shaken her head, eyes wide and glued to the canopy of tall sparkling buildings below. It had made Sharif look down too, for the first time in a long time. Normally he was in such a hurry to get to the next place, next meeting...
Now she walked through the vast open living space, and Sharif noted it dispassionately through her eyes. Impeccably decorated, with a neutral background of varying shades of grey. The furniture was sleek and elegant—antique. Works of art, on the walls and dotted around the room on tables, provided pops of colour and texture.
It struck him now that he’d never really felt fully connected with this space. He had no more attachment to this apartment than he did to any hotel suite.
Massive curtains were pulled back from floor-to-ceiling windows and a huge set of French doors that led out to a terrace overlooking Central Park. Liyah stood at the window and looked out.
Her hair was still up in a messy knot. The trousers and top she’d changed into did little to hide her body. She could be a model, with her height and proportions. But, her generous curves would put her in the plus size bracket —which was ridiculous, Sharif knew, because she was a perfectly healthy weight.
It was an aspect of the fashion industry that was slowly changing to reflect a far more accurate depiction of women’s bodies, and not before time.
He didn’t welcome the hum of electricity that seemed to have become a permanent fixture in his blood since she’d been revealed at the wedding. Since last night. He defended himself. She was truly stunning, even as pared back as she was right now. And he was only human. He’d always appreciated a beautiful woman.
But something prickled over Sharif’s skin as he contemplated what a knockout she would be when she was dressed to impress. He had a feeling that she would easily transcend the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. And he inhabited a world where beauty wasn’t just a given. It was expected. Demanded.
He resolved to speak to his team about making sure there were no skeletons in her closet that might derail his plans. But he was sure there weren’t. The Mansour royal family weren’t renowned for creating headlines—which was one of the reasons he’d decided to make the most of the diplomatic marriage.
Liyah was still trying to get her bearings after the helicopter ride that had whisked them over to the island of Manhattan, to this tall, gleaming spire of steel where they’d landed on the roof. She looked over the expanse of Central Park nearby—less lush than usual at this time of year, in late winter, but still beautiful.
A tiny bubble of hysteria rose inside her as she realised that it was no wonder she couldn’t get her bearings. Her feet had literally hardly touched the ground since they’d landed. And was this how her new husband lived? In the clouds? Far above the mere mortals below? He probably got whatever was the opposite of a head rush if he had to go down to ground level.
She could feel him behind her, albeit a few feet away. Looking at her. Was he trying to figure her out? Or was she so inconsequential to him that she wasn’t even worth that?
She turned around and felt an immediate rush of awareness when she found that he was looking at her. Hands in pockets. Supremely at home against this luxurious backdrop. She might be from a royal family but she knew that whatever riches and privileges she’d grown up with could never have prepared her for this world. They were at another level now. Literally. He could probably buy and sell her entire country a few times over and still have change.
Liyah folded her arms, feeling self-conscious. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, you look as if you were doing just fine without a wife.’
Sharif moved then, with a fluid athletic grace that made Liyah’s mouth go dry. He took off his jacket and draped it gracefully over a chair and then sat down on a couch, his large body all at once relaxed and yet alert. Primed. He had a stillness about him that was seriously unnerving, but also mesmerising. Like a predator that looked benign until it struck with deadly precision.
He put out a hand, ‘Please, sit—make yourself at home.’
Liyah’s mouth compressed as she took in the vast array of sumptuous couches and chairs covered in smooth soft velvet. Tactile and yet intimidating. Because they looked as if they’d never been touched. She chose an armchair at a right angle to his couch and sat gingerly.
Sharif said, ‘I can assure you that I do indeed need a wife at this particular juncture. But tell me something...why did you offer yourself up in your sister’s place?’
The thought that he could be here right now with Samara and not her sent a dark shard of something very disturbing deep into Liyah’s gut. Jealousy?
Liyah felt prickly after that disturbing revelation. ‘Samara is only nineteen.’
‘Which, as you know, in Taraq and Al-Murja is a perfectly respectable age to get married.’
Liyah responded stiffly. ‘I just think it’s too young to throw away your independence.’
Sharif raised a brow. His mouth quirked. ‘I’ve married a feminist?’
‘Is that a problem?’
Sharif laid an arm across the back of the couch and it pulled the material of his shirt and waistcoat across his broad chest. Distracting Liyah. She cursed him, because he probably knew exactly what he was doing.