eyes. Her elbow-length gloves left the soft skin of her upper arms temptingly bare. A hairdresser brought in from town had done wonders with her hair, piling it on top of her head in a style that exposed the seductive curve of her neck.
The princess glided toward them, cool and elegant. Rasyn sensed Libby's body tensing beside him.
"Cousin."
Rasyn turned to see Imaran at his side, looking regal in his tuxedo jacket, which had nearly as many medals as the prince's. When Prince Hani approached, Rasyn stepped back to let Imaran manage the greetings.
"And this is my cousin's companion, Miss..." Imaran let the word drop away.
Rasyn's teeth clenched. Companion. Imaran might as well have called her a whore. And he hadn’t bothered to learn her name.
Libby smiled, seeming to ignore the insult.
"Actually," Rasyn broke in smoothly, "Miss Libby Fay is my fiancée."
The old prince raised a wild gray eyebrow in disbelief. At his shoulder, the princess's lips curved into a pink moue.
"As-salaam alaikum, Miss Fay," Prince Hani said.
"Wa alaikum as-salam, Your Highness." Libby made a decent attempt at a curtsey. "May I say that you're blessed to have such a beautiful daughter."
Rasyn's maintained his calm, though his skin prickled cold, and it wasn’t from the air conditioning. Princess Sanurah's chin lifted. Prince Hani's back stiffened. Not only was it inappropriate, in his country, to tell a man that his daughter was pretty, but Libby had made another mistake. Despite the title, Princess Sanurah was not Prince Hani's daughter.
"Princess Sanurah is my wife." Prince Hani no longer smiled.
Libby pressed her lips together, the flush returning to her cheeks. "I beg your pardon. I’m sorry for my mistake."
"Please, let us sit," Imaran said.
There was a little too much sparkle in his cousin's eye for Rasyn's liking. Rasyn ignored it as he held out a chair for Libby, right next to Princess Sanurah's.
This was what he wanted, wasn't it? Libby, exhausted from jetlag and their earlier activities, was thrown off. The more she tried to be dignified, the more she came across as common. The more she humiliated herself.
His plan to ease Imaran's ascendance to the throne was working. He'd just expected to be happy about it instead of resenting that no one in the room had any compassion for her situation. He had attended so many diplomatic events that they were second nature to him, but this was her first. It was only to please him that she faced the situation with as much bravery as she did.
He took his place across the circular table from her. Their gazes caught, just for an instant. Her eyes shone bright with mortification.
General el Shaji began to make small talk with him, but Rasyn couldn't really pay attention to what the mustached military commander said. Instead, he noticed that Imaran had turned to the Prince on his left and the Princess had turned to the general's wife on her right, leaving Libby to talk to her empty soup bowl.
"Shukran." Libby smiled broadly. Thank you. "You're doing a wonderful job. No one ever says that at these things."
Who was she talking to? Surely not... Rasyn's jaw practically dropped. The waiter. He hadn't even noticed the young man with a dark mole on his face filling the water glasses out of a crystal jug.
The waiter blinked at her, frozen for an instant in pure disbelief. When he recovered, he bowed stiffly before moving to his next duty.
Most of the conversations around the table had stopped to witness the odd event. It took a moment for Libby to notice that the table had gone quiet. When she did, she glanced at Rasyn with a puzzled look, her lips pursed in a confused bow.
The Princess gazed at Libby. Rasyn might have been imagining it, but there didn't seem to be condemnation in her looks. Her drawn-together eyebrows seemed to show curiosity. "Who are your parents, Miss Fay?"
Libby inhaled harshly, her lips parting. A long heartbeat went by before any words came out of her.
"No one important," she said.
He let it go. Of course he'd had a professional look into her background. The file was on his computer. Sadly, there were no skeletons in her family closet. Her father had died when she was young, like his own, but her family held no scandalous secrets. Which was a shame. A terrible family background, perhaps a brother with a criminal record or a thrice-divorced sister, would have made her even less suitable to be queen. And more suitable for his purposes.
The Princess