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Chapter Eighteen

T he following evening, Zynara sat in Sami’s bar in the medina with something amber from his private collection sliding smoothly down her throat and the voice of Lottie Finch like the song of an angel in her ears.

The lights were low and the air was heavy with smoke and nostalgia. Old songs from another age spilled from the piano and swirled around like beautiful possibilities. Lottie Finch sang about heartbreak and love—and Zynara tried not to stare.

It was futile.

Lottie stood cradled in the belly of the piano in a red sheath dress with an outrageous split up her thigh that Zynara had had tailored for her.

She swayed in the light, her hips stealing every rational thought from Zynara’s mind.

Her eyes were hooded but fixed—deliberately and seductively—on Zynara.

She was singing to the room, but it was obvious to everyone who she meant it for.

“She’s good,” Sami murmured, lounging back in the cushions beside her.

He was watching them like it was a game he already knew the outcome of.

He smoked shisha from an elaborate and elegant pipe on the low table in front of him and directed a lazy stream of double apple—too sweet for Zynara—at the stage. “I don’t just mean her voice.”

Zynara regarded him drily. “If you’re any good at your job, you already know I’m besotted with her. There is no need to rub it in.”

Sami shrugged, unbothered. “You’ve looked more relaxed this past week than you have in the last five years.

How you’ve managed that despite a global energy summit, your brother attacking your hydrogen facility, and your old man lumping you with the lot is all down to that bombshell up there currently singing her heart out just for you.

I think I’m entitled to a small victory lap. ”

“She’s competent,” Zynara said.

Sami snorted smoke. “She’s magnificent. She’s jumped through every hoop you’ve thrown at her. She’s a gift.”

It was true.

Zynara had spent the last few days tidying up after Malik.

He’d done some quality screaming about his destroyed superyacht and ‘eco-terrorists’ and insisted the Green Futures summit be cancelled.

He’d only shut up when one of the Q’sar’s own aides whispered discreetly in his ear on camera in front of the world’s media.

Zynara had had to hide a chuckle as Malik practically hiccuped to a halt.

Baba was still confined to the palace, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t clip his youngest child around the ears every now and then.

Malik covered for that humiliation by signing a major deal on a trans North Africa oil pipeline.

It was more pipe dream than reality, but he did it on the summit’s media stages, Green Future Alliance logos prominently displayed as he shook hands with Saudi moguls and they smarmily oozed crude all around.

The death of a Saudi prince on Malik’s own yacht never even made it to the media. Sami had done his job well. The Q’sar heard about it, though, of course. He’d summoned Malik and eyed him with disappointment.

“This is why I postponed my abdication,” he told his son.

“I give you the opportunity to prove yourself to me, and this is how you respond? You have a year to improve yourself. Leave my presence, Malik.” He didn’t even wait until his son was out of earshot before engaging Zynara in questioning about the summit.

He didn’t see the look of hatred Malik directed at him as he left.

None of this was particularly difficult to deal with—defusing her little brother’s tantrums had been the story of Zynara’s life since Rayan died—but doing it with Lottie at her side made it strangely tolerable.

Lottie Finch was extremely good. In almost every way.

She’d attended the summit at Zynara’s side that day, and as much as Zynara admired how the woman looked in the flimsy little frocks she’d worn for Malik, she looked just as tantalising in the bespoke business suit Zynara had bought for her.

With her curls tamed into a stylish chignon, Lottie Finch dialed down her usual sass and settled into the role of diplomat as if she’d been born to it.

With the skill of a life-long actor, Zynara thought. She was very convincing.

The sheer audacity with which she’d blanked Malik, heir to the throne of Ain Zargiers, when he’d leered at her with a slight air of puzzlement, had Zynara smiling up her sleeve.

She decided to see how good Lottie really was.

The press gaggle asked Zynara if she thought the two recent explosions—her hydrogen facility and Malik’s superyacht—were related.

Zynara introduced Lottie Finch as her spokesperson on the matter and squeezed her arse out of sight between their bodies.

Lottie blinked, fixed Zynara with a swift look more thrilled than panicked, and thoroughly owned the rest of the interview.

Beside them both, Romaissa’s jaw fell open and Sami chortled merrily.

Lottie appeared to enjoy herself very much.

“I hate you,” she whispered as soon as they were done, but if the way she’d fallen so eagerly to her knees in their private room during the luncheon was any indication, that was just another lie.

Zynara played with her new toy a little more after that, dropping Lottie into other conversations, testing just how far her skills stretched.

Quite a significant way, it turned out. She introduced Lottie to players well over most peoples’ pay grades, and Lottie barely even squirmed.

Renewable energy export deals to Spain and Germany that pretty much guaranteed they’d achieve net zero within twelve months.

A subsea interconnector that linked France to Ain Zargiers’ grid for which Lottie ensured France bled through the nose.

“Laggards,” Lottie told the French energy minister right to his face.

He gaped at her, clearly having trouble reconciling her beauty with her extraordinary directness.

“This is what happens when you rely too heavily on nuclear power for too long. Your country is trailing the rest of Europe and your targets are unimpressive. This deal will balance your energy portfolio while your development of wind and solar catches up with the baseline. Allow me to introduce you to the head of solar here in Ain Zargiers—”

That had been a very tidy deal. Lottie had also been ridiculously convincing during a negotiation that locked in British Aerospace to Ain Zargieri green fuels for the next decade and dropped a cool 400 million into Zynara’s personal bank account and ten times that into the country’s sovereign wealth fund.

The hydrogen deal with Petrov was poised on a knife’s edge too. Zynara wasn’t sure when Petrov’s designer dogs had become crucial to the negotiations, or his daughters for that matter, but the way Lottie cooed and laughed with Antonin over the videos they sent gave Zynara confidence.

Lottie had either done an incredible amount of research in an extremely short time, or she was blagging her way through Zynara’s summit without a care in the world.

Both possibilities were extremely attractive—even if they were festooned with red flags.

Right now, Lottie sang love songs from the previous century like she was pouring them straight from her heart.

“She is good,” Zynara agreed.

Sami chuckled. “Thought I’d lost you there for a minute. You’ve been staring at her like you want to devour her. Not in my club, Highness.”

“You never said which agency she works for. Who is she? Can I trust her? Can I trust you? If I—”

Sami blew smoke and sooky big brother vibes at her in a way that both irritated her and made her long for simpler times. “If you what, Niz?” he asked gently.

It was the question she’d been avoiding ever since she first laid eyes on Lottie Finch back in London. Every rational, sensible and scientific instinct told her to resist the feeling that was welling up inside her. Some soft, desperate, longing deep inside her chest wanted to give in.

“If I fall— ” she murmured, barely hanging onto the wobble in her voice. “If I fall for this one, if I let myself like her and she’s just some spook in one of your interminable spy games—”

“Hey. Even spooks have hearts. You wound me, darling.” Sami huffed double apple in mock outrage, then smiled one of his perfect fucking smiles. “There’s many who wouldn’t believe it, but you have a heart too. This one makes you laugh. Makes you happy. Trust that, Niz. You need this.”

By the piano, Lottie crooned her way through a song that was pure sex. She winked at Zynara.

That was cheeky. Lottie was asking for it. Zynara felt it zing through her body, the heat between her thighs boiling over into urgency. She crossed her legs.

Sami’s laugh was profoundly irritating.

“Is the green room available?” she murmured.

“I said not in my club!”

“This was your idea. Green room. Yes or no?”

“Yes, but at least let her finish her set first—”

Zynara ignored him. She strode to the small podium at the piano and waited, extremely impatiently, for Lottie’s song to end. When it did, while the polite applause was still swelling around the room, she held up one expectant hand.

Lottie responded beautifully. She dropped her eyes, let her chest heave with a sudden breath, plunged her teeth into her lower lip, and slipped her hand into Zynara’s.

She stepped off the stage and waited respectfully at Zynara’s side, her face perfectly tilted for Zynara to drop a kiss on those luscious lips.

Zynara led her away, up the stairs to one of the club’s private rooms, tore that incredible red dress from her body, and fucked her until the woman was singing for her once more.

Malik attacked a desalination plant the next day.