SEDUCING HIS PRINCESS by Olivia Gates Read Free Book Online Page B

perpetrated. I committed the cardinal sin of my line of work.”
    “How so?”
    “I deviated from the plan, improvised. I could have gotten so many killed.”
    Again, counter to his expectations, her eyes grew impassioned as she contradicted him, in his defense. “But you saved hundreds, all of us who remained. And you didn’t seem to be improvising. You acted with such certainty, such efficiency, it was as if everything had been rehearsed. To the point that it felt as if the captors themselves were playing an exact role in the sequence you designed.”
    “If it seemed like that to you, it was because of my men’s outstanding skills, and because I managed to compensate on the fly. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t make a huge mistake.” Her eyes were puzzled but engrossed. He could tell that she couldn’t wait to see where he was taking this. “Do you remember what I did when we stormed in?”
    She nodded stiffly, as if it still pained her to think of that harrowing time. And who could blame her? She’d watched three people get killed in cold blood as proof of their captors’ resoluteness. She’d once told him that knowing the true meaning of helplessness, failing to protect those people, had damaged her more than her fear of meeting the same fate.
    “What do you remember?”
    Her exquisite features contorted with the reluctance to conjure up the memories. Still, she answered, “It was so explosive, but I remember it frame for frame. You burst in while one of them was threatening Najeeb that he’d start blowing parts off him. Then I met your eyes across the distance and...and...”
    “Go on.”
    She swallowed. “You streaked toward me, blowing away those men left and right, and then you were in front of me—shielding me—as you and your team finished off the rest.”
    “And that was my sin. Najeeb was my mission. And I took one look at you across that hall and made the instantaneous decision to save you first.”
    Her eyes widened; her lips opened on a soundless exclamation. She’d evidently never thought to question what he’d done.
    When she finally talked, her whisper was impeded. “But you blasted away the one who was threatening him as you ran to me. You gave no one a chance to use him as shield or to harm him.”
    “I should have run to him, should have shielded him. As my crown prince, he should have been my only priority. Instead, I made that you.”
    “But you managed to save him and everyone else.”
    “Only because I managed to compensate, as I said. Najeeb could have gotten shot before I ended the threat to him. And knowing full well the widespread damage his injury or death would have caused, retaliations that would have reaped far more than five hundred lives, I still risked that.”
    Time seemed to stretch as bewilderment glimmered in her gemlike eyes.
    She let out a shaky breath. “So what are you saying? That you took one look at me and were so bowled over you decided to risk everyone’s lives—including your own—for me? ”
    “No. That’s not what I’m saying. I was...bowled over a bit before that.”
    He watched her mouth drop open. This was news to her. He’d never intimated that he’d seen her before that day. But he’d seen her over two years earlier, had searched her out many times afterward.
    “But it was the first time I’d seen you!”
    “I saw no upside in letting you see me, or in acting on my interest. You were, as you pointed out so many times when we were together, an Aal Masood...and I was an Aal Ghaanem. The Montagues and Capulets didn’t have a thing on our moronically feuding houses. I also didn’t think it would be wise or fair to ever involve a woman in my crazy existence.” He exhaled. “Then I saw you in danger and every rational thought flew out the window.”
    Her eyes filled with so much; he struggled not to drag her to him and kiss them closed.
    Then they emptied of everything, leaving only hardness. “Why are you telling me this