Richard’s devil eyes flared with challenge, and Numair’s body bunched in preparation for that climactic fight he’d been burning for since he’d been fifteen. But a deep sound doused his aggression.
The helicopter bringing Jenan to him.
As he relinquished his confrontation with Richard and rushed down the stairs to the helipad, Richard huffed a laugh.
“Saved by the copter.” Numair turned his fed-up gaze to him, and Richard wiggled an eyebrow. “You were.”
He stopped where he always waited for her, watching the helicopter landing, and Richard appeared beside him.
“I expect this is your beloved. What opportune timing. I’ll get to meet her after all.”
Suspicion exploded inside Numair’s mind. “You timed your arrival so you’d intercept her.”
Richard’s eyebrows shot up in what looked like genuine incredulity. “Bloody hell, Phantom, you’re in a far worse condition than I thought. How would I have known when she comes to visit? Or if she comes at fixed times at all?”
“You know anything you want to know.”
“True. But that’s only if I wanted to know. And a few minutes ago I didn’t even realize that woman’s significance to you. Why would I have tried to intercept her?”
That made sense to Numair. It was possible he was just being paranoid.
But he’d learned it always paid to be that and more. And with someone like Richard, nothing was ever at face value. Richard might have long realized his true feelings toward Jenan and was here to do some kind of mischief. He couldn’t afford that. He had enough worries where she was concerned. He couldn’t add a whiff of trouble to them. And Richard was trouble in its most concentrated form.
He grabbed Richard by his lapels, hauled him closer until their noses almost touched. “Listen, Cobra, if you think I was ever your enemy, it’s nothing to what I’ll be if you step a millimeter out of line. I’m indebted to you for acquiring the original signed documents releasing the last of Zafrana’s stocks and bonds, but you’re here only because you insisted they were too crucial to be entrusted to a messenger. I should have known you didn’t come because you cared about the documents or my plans.”
“No? If I don’t care, why did I even help you in the first place? I could have just told you to sod off.”
“Are you telling me you care now? If I live or die? This is you and me, Cobra, remember?”
Richard gave a gruff exhalation. “As if you ever let me forget. But I also remember we were once best friends.”
“Yes, until you reported that I was planning to escape so you could gain your superiors’ favor. My body still bears the scars of the sixty days straight they tortured me within an inch of my life in punishment.”
There. He’d gotten it out in the open at last.
Richard stared at him for a long, charged moment. Then he exhaled. “Did you ever wonder why I did it?”
“No. Because I already knew why. You were a monster by choice and preference, Cobra. You still are.”
After holding his eyes for another moment with an inexplicable expression filling his own, Richard finally shrugged. “As are you. Or at least, as you were, until Princess Aal Ghamdi.”
Numair looked back as the helicopter landed, seething with urgency. “Don’t think my feelings for her tame me, Cobra. A predator with a mate is even more deadly.”
“But more vulnerable.”
Before he could snarl a response, the copter’s door was flung open and Jenan jumped out, hitting the ground running as usual. Forgetting Richard within a heartbeat, he swung around and rushed to meet her halfway.
Watching her run to him was, as always, an agonizing joy. Her hair caught the declining rays of the sun and reflected it into tones of fire and ruby. Her eyes rivaled its golden heat. Her smile was everything he lived to see anymore, her body everything he lived to feel and her whole being everything that embodied his reasons for existence.
Suddenly her expression sobered, and her steps faltered. Something sharp stabbed him in the gut at the loss of her eagerness, even when he realized it was on account of Richard’s presence. She’d only just noticed that hulk. And it doused her spontaneity. Another thing for which to wish Richard an eternity in the deepest abyss.
As he covered the remaining distance and took her in his arms, Jenan asked, “Who is that?”
He gritted his teeth over the expletives on the tip of his tongue. “Richard Graves. My associate.”
“Not one of your Black Castle brothers, is he?”
Numair’s heart fired. Every time she mentioned his brothers or made a comment that correctly diagnosed a truth he hid, the need to tell her everything almost overpowered him. With those uncanny instincts of hers, she’d realized there was far more to him than what he’d made known.