‘Thanks.’
Sharif almost smiled at her sarcastic tone. ‘Believe me, you’re going to need all the armour you can get. As the wife of the Marchetti Group’s CEO, your every move and item of clothing will be scrutinised with a magnifying glass. But it shouldn’t be too daunting. After all, you are a princess, so you were always going to be on display to a lesser or greater extent.’
A short while later, after Sharif had excused himself to go to his study and make some calls—did the man never stop working?—Liyah was curled up in a chair in front of one of the big windows, her hands around a mug of herbal tea delivered to her by Thomas.
Manhattan looked like a magical carpet of diamonds outside. She could see the blinking lights of all the helicopters flying in the sky. Delivering more billionaires to their luxurious apartments?
Sharif’s words resounded in her head. ‘You were always going to be on display.’ Was she? She knew he was right, but somehow, she’d believed that by escaping to Europe to go to university she’d somehow slip under the radar. And then Samara had needed her.
The thought of being moulded to fit into Sharif’s world filled her with dread. She’d always preferred being in the background, even though she’d inevitably stood out. When she’d been a teenager she’d been gangly and uncoordinated, and then, seemingly overnight, she’d developed curves that she’d had no idea what to do with.
The women of the palace had always used to pass comment that she was too tall. Too ungainly. Not delicate and feminine like the rest of her sisters.
That had been one of the things that had attracted her to the guy who had shown her attention at university. The guy she’d trusted with her innocence when she shouldn’t have. He’d been tall, although not as tall as Sharif. He’d seemed glad that she was tall, even making a joke about how nice it was not to have to bend down to kiss someone.
It had all been smooth lies to fulfil a bet.
Liyah cringed now to think of how desperate she’d been to forge a life for herself, to fit in, and how starved of attention. Weak, for affection.
But Sharif hadn’t had to say anything. He’d just looked at her as if he wanted to devour her. She shivered now, even though the apartment was at the perfect temperature for comfort.
On an impulse, she went and retrieved her laptop from her luggage and brought it back to the living room. Sitting cross-legged on the chair, she did what she should have done days ago. She looked up her husband.
She was immediately bombarded with a slew of paparazzi shots of Sharif with women. Lots of women. And each one absolutely stunning. Redheads. Blondes. Brunettes. All pale and sleek and elegant.
None like Liyah, with her wild untameable hair and dark skin. Something twisted painfully inside her. She clearly wasn’t his type. What had happened between them at the oasis had been an anomaly. No wonder he didn’t want anything more to happen.
She delved further and noted that he was rarely seen with the same woman more than a handful of times. And then she came across the recent spate of ‘kiss and tells’. Women clearly unhappy with the way he’d unceremoniously ended their liaisons.
Liyah shivered again. She could imagine only too well how it must feel—like being under the scorching rays of the sun only to be suddenly thrust into the icy winds of the Arctic.
She shook her head at her fanciful imagination. It was a good thing to know what kind of a man he was and realise that she’d escaped relatively unscathed.
Unscathed? mocked a voice in her head. Unscathed doesn’t quite account for the fact that he’s ignited a wicked hunger inside you.
Liyah ignored the voice and purposely clicked on a link relating to the Marchetti business, moving away from incendiary images and thoughts. She read about Sharif’s deceased father, who sounded like a larger than life character, bullish in his ambition to build a global brand from a handful of boutiques in Rome. He’d been a dark, masculine man. Undeniably handsome. But there was something about him that Liyah thought looked cruel.
Then she read about the speculation that he would have been nothing without the vast fortunes of each of the women he’d married. Sharif’s mother was mentioned and pictured—Princess Noor, a stunningly beautiful woman. Liyah recognised her beauty in Sharif’s features. The deep-set eyes. High cheekbones. Proud, regal nose.
She read about how Sharif had rebuilt the company after his father had died, having left it tainted with scandals and rumours of corruption. She read about Sharif’s ruthlessness in going after legacy brands, only to strip them of everything but their name before hiring whole new teams to revitalise them.
She read about his half-brothers. Nikos and Maks. From different mothers. Both were gorgeous. Nikos was being called ‘a reformed playboy’, after marrying and settling down with a young family. There was a picture of him with his pregnant wife and a dark-haired baby that looked to be nearly a year old. Apparently, he hadn’t known about his son until after he was born.
Maks seemed to be much more elusive. But Liyah found a picture of his recent wedding to a petite and very pretty woman with honey-blonde hair. They were coming out of a civil office in London and smiling at each other. They looked as if they were in love, and Liyah felt a flash of envy that she quickly told herself wasn’t envy. It was pity—because their apparent happiness would undoubtedly be an illusion. Even staged for the cameras.
She thought of what Sharif had said about needing to marry to take the Marchetti Group to the next level. Perhaps that was why his brothers had married too. A joint effort to stabilise the brand. That made a lot more sense to Liyah than the fanciful notion that perhaps Sharif’s brothers were different from him and had married for love.
How could they possibly believe in love when they’d all come from broken marriages?
Clearly Nikos had married his ex-lover and the mother of his child only to protect the reputation of the company. What about Maks, though? And how had Sharif become the sophisticated and ruthless CEO of a vast conglomerate if he’d grown up on the other side of the world in a desert kingdom?
Liyah shut the laptop abruptly, not liking the swirl of questions in her head precipitated by the online search. She didn’t need to know about Sharif or his family. She just needed to get through the next year and then she would finally be free to pursue her own goals and her own life.
She waited for a spurt of excitement and joy at that prospect, but she felt nothing except a kind of...flatness.
She scowled at herself and put it down to weariness. In spite of her nap earlier, and the nap on the plane, she was tired, and a lot had happened. It was no wonder she couldn’t drum up much enthusiasm.
However, when she crept past Sharif’s office door a few minutes later, and heard the deep rumble of his voice on the other side, the instant rush of adrenalin and excitement made a complete mockery of any notion that her sense of anti-climax was fatigue-related...