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The man looked relieved. He shot a glare at Malik and a look of gratitude at Zynara. Lottie looked smug.

Zynara had a question of her own. “None of you considered CPR?”

The Saudi hung his head. He was probably too high for the thought to have crossed his mind.

Beauty sniffed. “He just— He just died .” She still sounded shell shocked. Zynara was interested to note the other woman didn’t appear half as traumatised. She had her arm protectively over Beauty’s shoulders.

She snapped her fingers to get the woman’s attention. “And you are?”

“Bili.”

Zynara shot an eyebrow. Bili’s eyes flicked to Lottie.

“I arrived last week with Lottie.”

Zynara pressed her lips into a thin line. That was convenient .

Malik seemed to think so too. “Did you kill him? Are you some kind of leftist greenie terrorist here to derail my energy deals? I’ve never even seen you before last week.”

“For fuck’s sake, Malik,” Zynara muttered. She couldn’t resist the jab, though. “Maybe this is what you get when you invite strangers into our house.”

“I didn’t do it!” Bili protested.

Sami strolled into the room, hands in the pockets of a casual linen suit and a disarming smile on his face. Two of his suited security officers were behind him.

“Of course she didn’t,” he announced. “Don’t be so theatrical, Malik. Men like him drop dead all the time. Too much coke, too much sex, wrong mix of pills and a weak heart. It’s tragic, really. And it’s not the first time I’ve had to clean up one of your little messes.”

The Saudi gave a strangled moan and put his head in his hands. He was shaking.

Malik seemed to want to make something of it. This wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. He swirled his whisky and waved a lazy hand at the women on the sofa. “You can both pack your bags.”

“We didn’t do anything—” Bili cried.

“He just died —” Beauty whimpered again. Her eyes were too wide.

Zynara was extremely interested to see Lottie step forward.

“Neither of them did anything wrong, Qasirim,” she said. “In fact, they were doing what you asked them to do. And it’s not like they can tell anyone. You’re paying them for their discretion—”

Malik exploded. “I’m not paying them anything. They can fuck off back to London. Immediately. You too.”

A slow, sly smile crossed Lottie’s face. The woman flashed her eyes once at Sami— which was interesting— and then she brazenly winked at Zynara. Lottie Finch owned the moment and looked very much like she enjoyed it.

“This is already perfectly contained, Qasirim,” she said smoothly.

“ You can’t release the fact that Prince Tareq bin Nassar Al-Farouqi overdosed in a drunken, drug-fucked, sex-crazed stupor on your floating brothel—you know the Saudis tend to be a little uptight about those kinds of things—because if you did, it would cancel any deal you might be planning with them.

So, more than anything you need our silence. ”

Malik froze. He glared. There was a long moment. “And what will that cost?” he snarled.

“Excellent question, Qasirim.” Lottie bowed with a smile like the sunshine and Zynara nearly laughed. “Beauty, Bili and I would be delighted to discuss that with you at a more appropriate time.”

Sami muffled a snort.

The other Saudi leapt gallantly—desperately—to his feet. “I would be more than happy to assist in that discussion. You may name your price.”

Lottie fluttered her eyes at him. “Thank you so much, your Highness.”

Zynara had to put her hand over her mouth to cover a smirk.

Malik grumbled but the whole moment was defused.

Sami’s people began herding the entire group of guests and crew off the boat and back to Malik’s party house.

It would be a long evening of lawyers and yet more non-disclosure agreements, though she was pretty sure her little brother would still be able to turn that into a party.

The last she heard from Malik was him toadying up to the Saudi as they strolled down the gangway in the twilight. “This won’t have any effect on our current negotiations, I hope…”

Her little brother was still a greedy, insensitive arsehole, then.

Outside on the dock, Lottie Finch sashayed to her side.

The swing in her hips indicated she was very pleased with herself, and Zynara took a moment to admire her.

Another tiny dress that looked so fucking good on her Zynara found herself licking her lips, and dangerous heels that did incredible things to her legs.

Her smile was cocky and her hair—that gorgeous halo of curls that actually looked heavenly in the sunset—bounced with her success.

She swaggered up to Zynara with the kind of presumption that treated Zynara as an equal and didn’t care about her title. Zynara could get used to that kind of impertinence. Especially now she knew Lottie liked being spanked for it.

But the woman had just seen a dead man and she wasn’t the slightest bit bothered. On the contrary, Lottie Finch looked cunning . And Zynara was in danger of finding that very attractive too—which was stupidly reckless.

She stared Lottie down, and in the silence, the girl’s grin faded.

She dropped her eyes—so prettily, so submissively—and Zynara knew she was worth the risk.

“That was an impressive performance.” She gestured toward the garden and they strolled—away from Malik’s house and toward the palace. “Hammers home how little I know you.”

“I told you. I’m Lottie Finch.”

“And why are you here?”

Lottie swallowed. She was beautiful in the half light. Part the angel one half of Zynara was longing for, and the other part an intriguing puzzle Zynara wanted to solve with her mind, her fingers and her tongue. She was exactly the kind of foolish temptation Zynara needed to banish from her life.

So what was she doing inviting her home?

“I told you that too,” Lottie said softly.

She tossed her head and Zynara realised she was beginning to decipher the woman’s tells.

The next bit was going to be a lie. “I’m doing my MBA at Oxford and I sing the old jazz standards in a piano bar in Blackcroft.

I met your brother’s recruiter in a club in Park End.

It seemed like a bit of fun. A chance to pay off my MBA faster than I’d planned and put a deposit on a place in west London.

Never thought I’d be using my business skills to negotiate a deal like that. ”

“Hmm.” Zynara waited. They walked past a drift of jasmine in full blossom and the fragrance lifted Lottie’s chin again. She breathed it in deep. Her shoulders shrugged to her ears and she blew out a sigh.

“Yeah, okay,” Lottie admitted. “How do you do that to me? Why do I always find myself wanting to tell you the truth? That was a shit cover anyway. The MBA is a lie and I’ve never been to Oxford in my life, but the piano bar in Blackcroft is true.

That was quite a night when you walked in. I wasn’t sure you recognised me.”

“Oh, you’re very memorable,” Zynara said. The cocky, preening egotist was back in a second. Lottie’s grin was unbearable. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late,” Lottie laughed.

A sudden blast of music from the party house pounded through the twilight. It was ear-splittingly loud, the pulse of the bass probably audible across the whole city. A raft of garish lights flicked on too—search lights strobing up into the sky, laser beams picking out patterns on the evening air.

They turned to look. The party was in full gear already. They both winced.

“Is it wrong to hate my own brother?” Zynara wondered.

Lottie said nothing.

Zynara was astonished at her impudence when she took Zynara’s hand.

They turned so that the view of Malik’s house was behind them.

From this angle, from between the arches and columns and shadows of the trees, all of Azzouan was laid out beneath them—from the tumble of the medina to the spires of the city, from the curve of the beach to the silhouette of the mountains in the distance.

Zynara’s city. Her country. Her home. For some reason, the warmth of a woman’s fingers between her own felt especially right tonight.

Lottie’s fingers seemed to fit so perfectly.

“Explain yourself,” Zynara demanded.

“I grew up poor, princess. Like, really poor. Council housing on Hackney Road in North Bethnal Green. A wasteland of unemployment benefits, small-time drug dealers and forgotten ambition. This is me trying to dig myself out.” There was something in her tone now that suggested this was the truth—or part of it, at least.

Zynara tugged gently on her fingers and they kept walking.

“My mother was a hooker,” Lottie went on. “There were always men in our flat, so I spent a lot of time with the woman who lived next door. She was like a grandmother, I guess, not that I had one I knew. I called her Memeti anyway—”

“She was Amazigh?” Zynara was surprised. That particular word for grandmother was peculiar to her region of north Africa.

“She was born in Ain Zargiers. Came to London in the sixties with a husband who died not long after. She spent her life raising sons who all took off in pursuit of something better and left her alone in her final years. I think I was the granddaughter she never knew.” Lottie paused.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” Her voice was soft. No play-acting or pretence.

Zynara squeezed her fingers.

“Memeti was the only reason I didn’t end up a junkie like my mother.

She had a thing for jazz and black and white movies, and I think I loved them because she did.

She used to make the most amazing orange cake and we’d watch the midday movie, Memeti making eyes over Gary Cooper and me transfixed by Marlene Dietrich in a tuxedo. ”

Zynara chuckled.

Lottie bristled. “You better not be laughing at me. You know I’m weak for a hot woman in an amazing suit.

” She swept her eyes up and down Zynara’s body and her flush was visible even in the half light.

It was gorgeous—almost as delectable as her sass.

Zynara wanted to lick it from her skin, but she let Lottie finish her story.

“Memeti was the one who made me believe I was clever enough to do whatever I wanted to do, and that I shouldn’t settle.

That something wonderful was waiting for me out there if I just left Bethnal Green and went looking for it.

” There was a tiny pause. “So when I met your brother’s recruiter, maybe I felt Ain Zargiers was where I might find it. ”

“You like meskouta?” Zynara asked.

“Best orange cake in the world. Memeti’s was delicious.”

There was a silence that could almost have been gentle and companionable.

“That’s a very nice story,” Zynara said eventually. “How much of it is true?”

Lottie met her eyes and didn’t flinch. “Enough,” she admitted, simply. “What was a princess like you doing in a shitty piano bar in Blackcroft?”

“None of your business.”

“Guess we’re square then,” Lottie said. There was a beat, and then she added, “Qasira.” And she ducked her head with that pretty lowered gaze and her teeth on her lower lip that Zynara was beginning to find hopelessly addictive.

It was, as Lottie said, enough. Zynara knew the woman was an intelligence agent of some sort, even if she wasn’t MI6.

She’d have words with her father, with Sami, damn it, with Queen Alexandra of England if she had to, for placing another sexy agent in her way again, but for now, Lottie was exactly the crazy, chaotic burst of life she needed, and there were stirrings in Zynara’s heart she couldn’t deny.

She doubted she’d ever truly know Lottie Finch, but the blend of bravado and cheek, genuine care and compassion was intoxicating enough that that didn’t matter. Not right now, anyway.

Fireworks erupted from Malik’s garden, the noise of them only adding to the cacophony.

“You’re not like any of the others,” Zynara said, stepping into Lottie’s space and feeling something fall into place when the woman leaned against her.

“In your brother’s harem?” Lottie was trying to be cocky, but her eyes were stuck on Zynara’s lips and her heart didn’t seem to be in it. “Worked your way through it, have you?”

“Careful,” Zynara murmured.

“I can one-hundred-percent guarantee there is no one else in your brother’s harem quite like me.”

Zynara sighed. “You are insufferable.”

“Insatiable?”

“Will you stop boasting for five seconds and let me kiss you?”

True to form, Lottie gave her sass. She was perfect.

“Princess, I thought you’d never ask.”