Jane Porter - Midnight at the Oasis - His Majesty's Mistake

The sun poured through his office window, casting a glare on the computer screen, making his eyes burn.

Makin felt like hell.

It had been a rough night. A long night. He’d ended up going to bed just hours ago, and then sleeping badly, and now he was back at his desk at seven drinking cup after cup of coffee, hoping to wake up, gain some clarity and, with any luck, shake his sense of guilt and shame.

He’d treated Hannah badly last night and he was still angry with himself for losing control, for allowing lust and desire to cloud his thinking. He shouldn’t have kissed her, shouldn’t have reached for her, but that wasn’t her fault. It was his.

He’d apologize to her later, just before he put her in the limousine on the way to the airstrip. And then he’d move forward. He wouldn’t look back.

It was good. Everything was good. Hannah would be off after breakfast, his guests would arrive midafternoon, and he had sorted out his priorities.

Ringing for a fresh pot of coffee, Makin woke up his computer and checked the headlines of the various international papers for world news. He usually devoted an hour to reading his preferred papers every morning, and was reading the online version of The New York Times when he came across a link with the heading Argentine Polo Star in Fatal Crash.

Alejandro’s accident had finally hit the newswire.

Curious to see if there was an update on Alejandro’s condition, Makin clicked on the link and pulled up the article. He skimmed the piece but the article didn’t cover anything new.

Makin looked at the three photos accompanying the story next. The first was one of Ibanez on his horse on the field, one posing with his team at the recent Palm Beach tournament, and one in which Alejandro was snapped talking with the Princess Emmeline of Brabant.

He ignored the first two photos, intrigued by the last. It was a recent photo, he saw, taken a week ago in Palm Beach at the polo tournament he’d hosted and Hannah had organized.

It wasn’t the most flattering photo of either Ibanez or the princess, and Makin suspected they probably weren’t even aware they were being photographed. Alejandro looked angry and the princess was in tears. It didn’t require a lot of imagination to figure out what the fight was about. Perhaps the princess had discovered that there were other women? Women like Penelope. Women like Hannah.

Thinking about Hannah, Makin clicked on the photo, enlarging it. He felt a flicker of unease as he studied the princess.

She looked far too familiar, as if he knew her, but how could that be? He’d only been in the same room with Princess Emmeline once and yet looking at this picture, he felt as if he knew her … intimately.

Impossible.

He studied the photo intently, drawn by Emmeline’s eyes and her expression.

He knew that expression. He knew those eyes.

His uneasiness increased.

He copied and pasted the photo onto his desktop and enlarged the picture once more, studying it carefully, analyzing the princess’s slender frame, the tilt to her head, the twist of her lips.

She was clearly desperately unhappy. And while that wasn’t his problem—the princess was most definitely not his problem—he recognized that face. It was the face he’d seen all night in his troubled dreams.

Hannah’s.

A thought came, unbidden, and it made him even more uncomfortable than before.

Holding his breath, Makin opened the photo folder on his computer, pulled up the photo taken in Tokyo last year at a business dinner. It was a photo of Hannah accepting a ceremonial kimono. The shot had been taken at an angle, just like the photo of the princess talking to Ibanez. Hannah’s hair had been pulled back in a low ponytail, much like the princess’s chignon at the polo match.

He enlarged Hannah’s photo and dragged it next to the shot of the princess.

The resemblance was uncanny. Their profiles were so similar. The chin, nose, brow. Even the eye color. Change the hair color, and they could be the same. Maybe identical. And to think they’d come so close to meeting each other in Palm Beach. They’d both been there at the polo field … they’d both attended Sunday.

Could they … could Hannah be.

No. No. It was too incredible, too impossible. People didn’t switch places … that was a ludicrous idea, something that only happened in Hollywood movies.

And yet, when he glanced from the photo of Emmeline to the one of Hannah and back again, comparing the faces, the profiles, the lavender-blue eyes, he thought, It could be done .

Change the hair, swap the clothes, mask the accents and Hannah and the princess could easily pass for each other. Makin was rarely truly shocked by anything but he was blown away now. Dumbfounded, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared through narrowed eyes at the computer screen.

Why hadn’t he seen it before? Why hadn’t he picked up on the differences … the changes? Hannah’s sudden extreme thinness. Her fragile beauty. The emotion in her eyes.

Hannah, the Hannah with him here in Raha right now, wasn’t Hannah at all. She was Princess Emmeline d’Arcy, the twenty-five-year-old royal from Brabant engaged to King Zale Patek of Raguva.

Which meant he hadn’t kissed Hannah, but Princess Emmeline.

It hadn’t been Hannah who had captured his imagination and turned him on, it was Emmeline.

It was Emmeline he’d wanted. Emmeline who had created a night of hot, erotic thoughts.

Unbelievable.

He drummed his fingers on the desk.

Unthinkable.

He didn’t know what game she was playing, but he’d soon find out.

Unforgivable.

He slapped his hand down hard on the desk and got to his feet. Time he paid a call on the princess.

EMMELINE answered the knock on her door, hoping against hope it was breakfast as she’d rung for eggs and toast a half hour ago, but it wasn’t anyone from the kitchen on her doorstep. It was Makin Al-Koury, looking elegant and polished, if a tad forbidding in his black trousers and black shirt.

He must have just showered and shaved because his dark hair still gleamed, the skin on his bronze jaw was taut and smooth and she caught a whiff of his spicy sandalwood cologne. “You’re up early,” she said, her pulse racing, her stomach a knot of nerves.

“We’re usually working by seven-thirty,” he answered. “You’ve been taking it easy and sleeping in.”

There was something rather chilling about his smile this morning and her heart faltered and plummeted, making a dramatic swan dive right to her feet.

Locking her knees, she forced herself to look up and meet his gaze head-on. His eyes were light and glacier-cool, like mist rising office.

Last night the kiss had felt so good, but now, in the clear light of day, she knew it had been a dreadful mistake. Sheikh Makin Al-Koury was too big, too powerful, and far from civilized. He might have millions and billions of euros, and expensive toys and homes scattered across the globe, but that didn’t make him easy, or comfortable or approachable.

“No wonder you’re sending me away. I’ve become unforgivably lazy,” she answered lightly, forcing a smile as she placed an unsteady hand over the narrow waistband of her ivory lace skirt, hoping he’d be fooled by her bravado.

“No one can be perfect all the time.” He smiled at her. “How are you this morning?”

“Good.”

“And you slept well?”

He was still smiling but she felt far from easy. “Yes, thank you.”

“Excellent.” He paused, gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. “In that case, I trust you feel well enough to take some dictation?”

“Dictation?” She hoped he didn’t hear the slight stutter in her voice.