He ruthlessly seduced her...

Now he’ll steal her for his heir!

Seeking revenge for his royal family’s rejection, warrior sheikh Adir seduces his brother’s innocent fiancée! But when he returns to steal Amira from the altar, he discovers their illicit encounter left her pregnant. Secluded in the desert, longing soon consumes them. But Adir’s baby must be legitimate—and he’ll claim his with a vow!

TARA PAMMI can’t remember a moment when she wasn’t lost in a book—especially a romance, which was much more exciting than a mathematics textbook at school. Years later, Tara’s wild imagination and love for the written word revealed what she really wanted to do. Now she pairs alpha males who think they know everything with strong women who knock that theory and them off their feet!

Also by Tara Pammi

Married for the Sheikh’s Duty

Bought with the Italian’s Ring

Blackmailed by the Greek’s Vows

The Legendary Conti Brothers miniseries

The Surprise Conti Child

The Unwanted Conti Bride

The Drakon Royals miniseries

Crowned for the Drakon Legacy

The Drakon Baby Bargain

His Drakon Runaway Bride

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Sheikh’s Baby of Revenge

Tara Pammi

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07238-0

SHEIKH’S BABY OF REVENGE

© 2018 Tara Pammi

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

“I’M ADIR AL-ZABAH, Your Highness, Sheikh of the Dawab and Peshani tribes.”

He had no respect for the old king, for a man who subjugated and forced a woman—a weaker being—to bend to his will.

But Adir added a half bow to his greeting. Savage though he might be in comparison to the royal siblings Princes Zufar and Malak and Princess Galila, he knew customs and traditions.

Adir Al-Zabah stared at King Tariq of Khalia, watching like a hawk that soared the vast expanse of his desert abode, waiting for a flicker of recognition in the sorrow-filled eyes.

It was sorrow he recognized, wretched and absolute—something he had spied in his own reflection since he had heard the news of Queen Namani’s death.

The genuine quality of it shocked him—one glimpse into King Tariq’s eyes was enough to understand that he had loved his wife.

Any sympathy Adir might have felt died under the resentment festering in his veins. He himself had not even been granted the right to mourn her publicly, the opportunity to honor her with the last rites.

He’d been denied the chance to set eyes on her even once in his life.

His last blood connection, gone in the flicker of a sunset. There would be no more letters telling him he was cherished, reminding him of the place he had left unclaimed for so long.

He was finally, completely alone in the world.

And all because of this king.

While King Tariq stared back at him with confusion clouding his eyes, one of the princes moved forward, blocking the sight of the old king’s bowed form, as if to shield the pitiful sight of his father from Adir’s eyes.

“I’m Crown Prince Zufar. If you have come to pay your final respects to Queen Namani, to pledge your allegiance to King Tariq—” Zufar’s words were filled with a resentment that mirrored Adir’s own, making Adir frown “—then consider it acknowledged.”

Adir gritted his teeth. “I am the ruling Sheikh of the Dawab and Peshani tribes. We’re independent tribes, Your Highness.” He injected every ounce of mockery he felt into that address. “I do not acknowledge your or your king’s authority over our tribes. Our way of living knows no liege.”

Something almost like admiration glinted in Prince Zufar’s eyes. Gone in the blink of an eye, it left Adir to wonder if he had only imagined it. Was he that desperate for a familial connection?

“This is a private time of mourning for the royal family. If you’re not here to pay your respects, why did you request an audience with my father?”

Having to go through this man who had everything Adir had been denied grated like the rub of sand on an open wound. “It is the king’s company I requested. Not yours.”

Satisfaction glinted in Zufar’s eyes, satisfaction that he had the right to deny Adir this. Or anything he could ask for. “My father is...swimming in his grief over his queen’s death.”

His queen’s death, not my mother’s death, thought Adir. The crown prince’s words were revealing.

There was no...grief in the prince’s eyes for his mother’s death, unlike in his father’s. No tenderness when he spoke of her. “He has not been in his right mind for several...months now.”

Adir tilted his head in the direction of Prince Malak and Princess Galila. He didn’t want to feel pity, he didn’t want to consider the fragility of their feelings so soon after their mother’s death. And yet he found himself doing just that. “You would have me open a cupboard full of skeletons in front of your younger siblings?” he added silkily.

Zufar paled under his dark, olive skin. Not that his arrogance dimmed even a bit. “Threats will get you nowhere, Sheikh Adir.”

“So be it. I’m your... I’m Queen Namani’s son.”

The statement he had repeated so many times to himself, in his own head, now reverberated in the chilling silence that ensued. A soft gasp emerged from the princess’s mouth while Prince Malak scowled.

The antagonism in Zufar’s eyes multiplied a thousand fold, roped with disbelief and a flash of fleeting pain.

Adir shifted his feet to gain a glimpse of King Tariq. His shoulders bowed, the old man stared at Adir searchingly. As if he could find a glimpse of his beloved wife, Adir realized with a frown. “Namani’s son? But—”

“Do not deny it, Your Highness. The truth shines in your eyes.”

Accusation painted every tense line of Zufar’s body. “Father?”

But King Tariq couldn’t shift his gaze from Adir. “You’re Namani’s son? The child she—”

“The newborn you banished to the vagaries of the desert, yes. The child you separated from its mother.”

“You’re our brother?” Princess Galila interjected. “But why—”

“Namani...she had an affair...” King Tariq stuttered.

“She fell in love with another man and was punished for it.” Adir didn’t pull his punches.

The king’s face crumpled.

“And what is it that you want, on the eve of her death, Sheikh Adir?” Prince Zufar said coldly.

“I want what my mother wanted for me.”

“How would you know what Queen Namani...what she wanted for you if you’ve never met her?” Princess Galila asked, her tone feather-soft.

“She was forced to give me up but she did not abandon me.”

Prince Malak who had been calmly watching the proceedings until now moved to stand beside his father. “What do you mean, she did not abandon you?” A caustic laugh fell from his mouth. “What is it that the queen gave you that makes you talk of her as if you knew her?”

His gaze swept over the royal siblings and Adir frowned. He was missing something. They did not pounce to defend their mother’s memory. No other interest showed on their faces except the shadow of fear about what he would ask.

“I did know her. Somehow, she found a way to keep in touch with me. She wrote me over the years, encouraged me to rise in the world. Told me how much she...cared for me. Told me what my place is in this world. It is proof enough,” Adir replied, choosing his words with cutting precision. “Every year on my birthday, she wrote letters and made sure they reached me. Letters telling me who I was.”

“She wrote to you? The queen?”

“By her own hand.”

“What do you want, Sheikh Adir? Why are you here?”

Adir faced Prince Zufar, determination running in his veins. “I want the king’s acknowledgment that I’m Queen Namani’s son. I want the world to know that I’m royal-born. I want my rightful place in Khalia’s lineage.”

“No.” Zufar’s tone rang out before Adir had barely finished. “All it will cause is a scandal.”

He glanced at his father’s form, his faraway gaze. Despite himself, Adir felt a stirring of pity for the old king. It was clear that he mourned his queen with all his heart.

“My father will become a laughingstock of the entire country if your origins come out. She—” He broke off. “I will not let her selfish actions scandalize our family now, even after she’s gone. As if she hasn’t caused us enough harm. If you’re the great sheikh your tribes claim you to be, you’ll understand that I have to put Khalia first. There is no place for you here, Sheikh Adir.”

“I would like to hear it from the king.”

“My decision is the king’s decision. I will not bring scandal to our house by declaring to the world what my mother has done.”

“And if I refuse to follow your dictates?”

“Be careful, Sheikh Adir. You’re threatening the crown prince.”

“Are you worried that I will want to rule Khalia, Prince Zufar? That I will ask for a slice of your immense fortune? Because if so, then let me tell you, I have no intention of taking anything from you. I have no use for your wealth. All I want is recognition.”

“And you will not have it, not as long as I’m alive. You are nothing but my mother’s dirty secret, a stain on our family.”

The words came at Adir like invisible punches, all the more lethal for the truth in them that he had always tried to fight.

He was her dirty secret, banished to the desert without a second thought. “Watch your words, Prince Zufar. They carry heavy consequences.”

“Have you not wondered why she asked you to claim your right only after she was gone? Why she wrote to you but never confided in us that we have a brother?”

“She was protecting you and the reputation of the royal family. She was—”

“Queen Namani—” Prince Zufar’s words came through gritted teeth “—was a selfish woman who thought of nothing and no one but herself. Writing to you, I am sure, was nothing more than indulging in childish sulking. Behaving without considering the consequences...to you, to her or to any of us. It was cruel to lure you here when she knew nothing could come of it.”

“And if I spill the truth anyway?” Adir hated the bitterness in his tone, cringed inwardly at the fear in the king’s eyes. For years, he had watched his mother’s family from afar. His mother’s words about how spoiled they were, how undeserving of all the respect and privilege that were their due, had festered in his blood. “If I tell the world anyway?”

“I will not react to your threats, Sheikh Adir. The shame, if you spill it, will be yours and hers alone. Not ours. Leave now. Or I will have the guards throw you out as if you were nothing but a vulture circling at a time of mourning. If you had been anything but her bastard, you would have had better taste than to threaten my father at such a time of grief.”

* * *

In the flickering shadows of the darkness, punctured only by gaslights flickering here and there, the view from the window out of which she meant to jump looked like absolute nothingness to Amira Ghalib.

Emptiness with no relief in sight. An abyss with no bottom.

Like her life had been for the past twenty-six years. Like the prospect of marrying Prince Zufar, like her future as Queen of Khalia.

She snorted and smiled into the darkness.

Ya Allah, she was getting morbidly morose. But then that was what five days of being her father’s prisoner and a punch to the jaw had done to her.

Of pretending to her friend Galila that she had been clumsy again, that she had walked straight into a pillar. Of once again being the object of indifference to her betrothed. Of being nothing but a means to an end to her power-obsessed father.

She had even less freedom here at the palace of Khalia than her own home, and her house on the best day was a cage. Here, all eyes were on her.

But future queen or not, she needed escape. Just for a few hours.

Having failed to locate the flashlight she’d been looking for—her father’s watchdog had probably confiscated it from her suite—Amira looked through the window again. She remembered that there was a short ledge there, a rectangular protrusion to cover the window on the lower floor. Big enough for her to land on with both feet.

From there, it would be another sideways jump to the next ledge.

From there, another jump onto the curved stairway on the other side, the stairway that was unused even by servants and staff. And she would be free of the guard outside her suite, free of her father and free of her obligations.

She could walk to the stables, bribe the teenage boy there and go for a ride on the mare she had befriended the other day. She could just wander down the exquisitely manicured gardens the late Queen Namani had famously tended herself.

For a few hours, she could do whatever she wanted.

There is a ledge there, she repeated to herself.

All she had to do was hold her breath and jump.

Heart pounding, she climbed over the windowsill. Her legs dangled as she peered into the darkness, letting her eyes and ears adjust to the sounds and sights of the night. A horse’s whinny, the soft tinkle of water from the famed fountain in courtyard, the tap-tap of soles on the tiled walkway reached her ears.

Night-blooming jasmine filled her nostrils.

Already, she felt calmer. It was a lovely night to escape.

She smiled and jumped.

* * *

“You could have killed yourself. At best. At worst, broken all the bones in your body.”

Any breath that might have been left in her lungs after she’d landed wonkily on her knees whooshed out of Amira’s lungs.

She froze, the low, gravelly voice from the dark corner of the stairway sending shivers down her spine. Fear and something else swamped her. She blinked and peered through the quiet to see a shadowy outline.

Catlike eyes, amber-hued, stared back at her. Moonlight came in patches through the archway, outlining the man. He was blurry because she had forgotten her glasses.

But she could still make out broad shoulders that tapered to lean hips and powerful thighs. She searched for his face. Square jaw, sharp blade of a nose, high forehead.

Her gaze went back to his eyes. Eyes that were staring at her with unhidden curiosity.

Was he a royal guard? Another spy her obsessed father had set on her? Or worse, a guest of the palace?

No, anything would be better than her father’s spy. She would even prefer to brave her betrothed and explain herself than to face her father.

And if it was her father’s spy...

As if even her flesh remembered, a shaft of pain pulsed up her jawline and she flinched.

She could swear his scowl deepened the darkness as the man emerged from the shadows. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m...fine.” She dusted her palms on her thighs and winced. The skin of her palms had been pierced when she had tried to break her fall with them.

“You’re not a natural liar, ya habibiti.”

The upper-class aristocratic accent—similar yet different from her own or from the prince’s—caught her interest. With his perfect diction and the natural command in his very stillness, he could be a visiting royal—the last person she needed to be seen with. Or to have recognize her, come tomorrow.

He took another step toward her.

Still on her knees, Amira scooted back. Pains and aches forgotten, all she wanted was to get away from the...interesting stranger.

Whether he noticed her retreat or not, his long strides continued to eat up the distance between them. “Let me see if you’re hurt. You landed so hard you could have broken something.”

Another scoot back. At this rate, her knees were going to get skinned. “I did not...break anything.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

Her normally placid temper simmered. “Since I have a degree in nursing, I think I can judge whether I broke something or not.” She hissed a breath out. “Please...just leave. I’ll be on my way in a couple of minutes.”

“You don’t have to fear me.”

She was panicked, yes, but strangely, there was no fear in it.

She took a deep breath. Sandalwood, combined with something utterly masculine, filled her lungs as he reached her, settling into a strange tightness in her lower belly.

Arrested by her body’s reaction—neither flight nor fight but more of a languid uncoiling low in her belly—she looked up at him.

Straight white teeth flashed at her when he smiled. “You intend to stay there?”

She nodded, aware of how stupid she must look, mooning over him and yet unable to stop.

“I’m perfectly fine with having a conversation on the...dirty floor,” he said matter-of-factly. And before she could comprehend, he sank down on his knees with a fluid grace that was reminiscent of a jungle predator.

The traveling moon chose that exact moment to cast a bright, silvery glow through the archway, illuminating the planes of his face.

Breath arrested, Amira stared.

Deep-set amber eyes glinted with humor, and even that couldn’t stop her appraisal. As if hand-chiseled by a master sculptor, he was breathtakingly handsome.

There was almost something royal about those features, something familiar yet painfully elusive.

She could see a high forehead, the sharp blade of a nose, weather-beaten skin that glinted dark gold—which told her he spent quite a lot of time in the harsh sun—and a defined jawline that invited her fingers’ touch. Breathing shallowly, she fisted her hands in the folds of her gown.

His lashes flicked down to where she hid her hands and then up, that glimmer of humor deepening in his eyes.

“Tilt your head forward so that I may better look at you,” he said in a low voice, no less commanding for its softness.

Years of obedience browbeaten into her, Amira dutifully did. Only when his gaze moved over every inch of her face with a penetrating intensity did she realize what she had done.

Color filled her cheeks. Instead of moving back, instead of lowering her eyes as she had been taught again and again by her father, she used the moment to study him some more.

A sharp hiss from his mouth jerked her gaze to his. In the flash of a breath, the humor disappeared, replaced by a dark vein of anger. His amber eyes glowed.

He lifted his hand to her face and Amira instantly cringed back. The softening of his expression told her what she had done. Shame filling her, she looked down at her palms. Hard concrete at her knees pulled her back to reality.

It was high time she was on her way. He was tying her insides into strange knots.

“May I touch you?”

His husky question jerked her gaze to his face again.

She thought she saw him swallow and that was strange.

“I promise I mean you no harm.”

His eyes were deep pools, devoid of the barest expression, and yet there was an intrinsic trust deep in her belly that he would keep his word. That this was a man who didn’t raise his hands against the weaker sex or people dependent on his mercies, for any reason. Not the least of which would be to establish his own superiority or to enforce his will.

Yet power seemed to emanate from his very pores. He would command any room he entered. And as to his will—she would bet any man or woman would surrender to it easily. With pleasure, in the latter case.

Slowly, she nodded. Something in her leaped quietly—anticipation, she realized. With every cell in her being, she wanted to feel this man’s touch, however fleetingly.

She thought he would pull her to her feet. Instead, his fingers landed on her jaw with such gentleness that hot tears prickled behind her eyelids.

“These are fingerprints marring your lovely cheek.” The words were devoid of emotion, feeling. Contained violence shimmered in his stillness. He was furious at the sight of the bruise on her jaw.

That simple concern on her behalf sent sorrow spiraling through her.

She closed her eyes, loathe to betray her weakness in front of him. She had never shed a single tear, even when her father’s palm once landed on her jaw with such force that her head had jerked back, leaving her with neck pain for weeks. But now...she felt like stretched glass.

As she stoppered the emotion flowing through her, she felt other things. It was as if her senses were slowly opening up. His huge body gave out warmth on the chilly night, enveloping her like her childhood blanket—a reminder of her mother.

The scent of him—the more she breathed it, the more she wanted to—a tantalizing mixture of sandalwood and horse and pure man.

His fingers turned her jaw to the moonlight so that the bruise, which she hadn’t covered after washing off her makeup, was visible. The pad of his thumb traced it and she flinched. More from the heat his touch generated than from pain.

A sharp curse flew from his mouth. “Forgive me, I promised not to cause you harm.”

“You didn’t,” she said automatically.

He raised a brow. “No?”

“Our skin has thousands and thousands of nerve centers that react to external stimuli, did you know? Your palm is rough against my skin and also, I’m barely ever touched by anyone other than my father—and not in such a leisurely, soft way, either—so I feel a flash burn where your skin touches mine—” when his brows rose, she hurried to explain “—not like fire burns us, more pleasurable than that, and I believe that’s why I flinched. Because even pleasure, especially when it’s unexpected and unfamiliar to the recipient, causes flinching.”

The utter silence that ensued sent blood pooling up her neck and into her cheekbones. She clamped her palms over her mouth. No wonder her father got aggravated whenever she opened her mouth.

A slow smile dawned in his eyes, causing lines at the ends of his eyes and adorable creases in his cheeks. His teeth flashed at her again and that smile made him a thousand times more gorgeous.

“I state facts and run my mouth endlessly when I’m anxious or agitated or upset or sad or angry. My father thinks I do it to ignore his dictates and to insult him.”

“And when you’re happy?”

She smiled. “You’re very smart, aren’t you? You know, people think intelligence is...” She cleared her throat and she blushed fiercely again. “I do it when I’m happy, too, yes. Pretty much all the time, now that you make me think about it.”

His smile turned into laughter. It boomed out of him. Low, gravelly, utterly sensuous, but also a little rough and strange. As if he didn’t do it much.

Amira wanted to roll around in that smile. She wanted to be the one who caused his serious face to smile and laugh again and again. She wanted to spend an eternity with this exciting stranger who made her feel safe. She wanted to...

“I have to leave.”

He sobered up. And frowned. “So I can take your word that you’re not hurt?” He flicked another glance at her jaw. “Other than your jaw?”

“I misjudged the distance between the last ledge and the stairs, but I’m not hurt.”

He nodded. “And what is so irresistible that you took such a dangerous route...? What is your name?”

Zara, Humeira, Alisha, Farhat...

“You’re thinking up fake names.”

She blinked. Like a hawk, he watched with predatory intensity. And something else... Possessiveness, perhaps.

She swallowed. “I would get into trouble if word gets out that I escaped my room or that I was wandering the palace without guard or that I spent all this time in the dark with a stranger...a lot of trouble.”

“No one will know,” he said. “I will get you back to your room unharmed and undiscovered.”

And all the while he tempted her, he watched her. As if he found her endlessly fascinating. “I don’t know if I can trust you,” she said.

His fingers pushed back a strand of hair that brushed her jaw. Featherlight and tender, his touch knocked down the little sense remaining in her skull. “I think you do trust me. Which is why you have lingered here so long already. All you need to do is take the final step, ya habibiti. We’re strangers passing a few moments together in a long life.”

Another rough-padded finger lifted her chin until she was gazing into his eyes. His nostrils flared, the set of his jaw resolute. “I would have your real name.”

If he had commanded her, Amira would have prevailed. But beneath that request was a thread of longing that resonated in her soul. What could such a commanding man want that he was ever denied?

He was harshly beautiful, like the rugged landscape of the desert, and yet he looked at her with such pure need.

The last of her good sense and diffidence melted. Innocent she might be when it came to men but she already felt like she knew him.

He wouldn’t hurt her.

“Amira...my name is Amira.”

Fire awakened in his eyes. They both knew she had given him more than just her name in that moment.

He tilted his head—a regal nod for granting him the privilege of her real name. Warmth filled her chest. “I’m Adir.”

“Salaam-alaikum, Adir.”

“Walaikum-as-salaam, Amira.”

He took her hand in his, completely engulfing hers. Sensations shimmered through her, flowing like a river from where their hands touched to spread all over her body. And then he was softly tugging her to him. Raising their clasped hands, he placed a soft kiss to the tender skin at her wrist.

It was a chaste kiss—nothing more than a buss from those lips to her skin. And yet her pulse skittered under his mouth. “Meeting you has made an awful night a thousand times better.”

The way he held her gaze, the banked fire in it...she wanted to answer it with her own fervor. For one night, she just wanted to be Amira and not a power-obsessed man’s daughter, nor the fiancée of a mostly indifferent prince. She wanted to sink into Adir’s arms and let him carry her away.

“You know, when you smile, you get two dimples. Did you know that dimples are caused when a facial muscle called zygomaticus major is shorter than normal? Sometimes, they’re also caused by excessive fat on your face. Although, in your case, it’s definitely not excessive fat, because you look hard as those rock structures we see in...in...”

His smile dawned as slow and bright like the sun over the horizon.

Amira buried her face in her hands and groaned loudly.

“So you’re informing me that my facial structure is flawed, yes?”

She tried to tug her hand from his. He didn’t let her. “Oh, please, you know you’re flawless.”

That seemed to take him aback. Didn’t he look at himself in mirror? Did he not have women flocking to him for a glimpse of that wicked smile?

Still smiling, he pulled her to her feet. “You’re...like a desert storm, Amira.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Do you want a compliment, ya habibiti?”

“Yes, please.”

Again that pure laughter—a reward for her boldness. “You’re precious. Now, do me the honor of letting me check you.”

When she straightened all the way, he patted her down in an impersonal manner. As if he was used to her antics and had done it a thousand times before. As if he cherished his right to indulge her.

A hard knot made its place in Amira’s throat.

His hands rested on her shoulders. The sheer breadth of him took her breath away anew.

“So what was it this time?”

Caught staring at him once again, Amira frowned. “What was what?”

“What caused you to divulge all those important facts about dimples to me? Was I making you sad, perhaps? Upset? Angry?”

“You’re shamelessly goading me into admitting something I shouldn’t. Isn’t it enough that I made a fool of myself?”

“Please, ya habibiti.”

She raised a brow, stalling for time. “Why do I have the feeling you never say that word?”

He shrugged. “A couple of times in the last decade.”

She sighed. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know. “I’m attracted to you. I could steal all kinds of romance novels from the library and read about all the feelings that hit a woman when she finds a man attractive, but it’s not even close to what I feel. You could be forgiven for thinking it was all cooked up to sell books, this whole chemistry thing. And yet...it’s new and it’s strange and it’s utterly scary and it’s...”

Heartbreaking and painful.

Despair swamped her so fully and so suddenly that she pulled away from him. Looking up, she fought for composure.

Stars glittered in the sky above, winking at her. The fragrant night with its whispers and taunts seemed like a punishment now. It promised something she could never have.

Warmth coated with his scent reached her back. She tensed as he stilled behind her. Her pulse zigzagged all over at the closeness. He didn’t even touch her.

“Come away with me, Amira. Just for a few hours. I promise you again I would never harm you.”

“It’s wrong.”

“Why?”

“I’m not free to be attracted to you like this. I’m not free to indulge in this...this late-night stolen moment with you. And not just because my father would skin me alive if he found out.” Longing curled through her and she tried to shut it away. “I’m a betrothed woman.”

There was that contained energy within him again. Like walking too close to fire. “Is it your fiancé that...” the words choked in his throat “...that hurt you?”

“No. He...is a perfect gentleman who barely even looks at me. If you ask him what color my eyes are, I’m sure he wouldn’t know.”

“Then who is it?”

“My father. He...his temper gets away with him.”

Whatever it was that made him cover the last step between them, she didn’t care. His arms enveloped her on either side and unlocked her tight grip on the sill.

The graze of his hard chest against her back ripped open a longing inside of her. One, two, three...four seconds before she fell into his embrace. Sensations beat upon her. He was so shockingly hard all over—his abdomen against her back, his thighs resting against the back of hers, his muscular arms wound tightly around her own... He didn’t press the part of him that she wanted to feel most, to her wicked shame.

And yet, she felt consumed by him.

She closed her eyes and leaned back into him. The scent of him filled her every breath. His heart thundered against her back. She rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand, curious for the feel of him.

His skin was rough and tanned, his fingers long and square-nailed. A dark emerald jewel sat on his ring finger and Amira traced it, too, carving it into memory.

It was the first time in her life that she had been held like this by a man. It was both exhilarating and comforting—just like the man himself.

“Is that why those shadows linger in your beautiful eyes? Because you love this man you are to marry but he does not love you in return?”

“Love? I would settle for acknowledgment as a person. My father is King Tariq’s closest friend. I have been betrothed to Prince Zufar for most of my life.” A bitter laugh escaped from her mouth. “I’m to be the future Queen of Khalia, Adir.

“I’ve been trained, educated, groomed, molded to within an inch of my life to complement Prince Zufar in every way. My life has never been my own. My will can never be mine. My dreams and desires...are not mine.”

CHAPTER TWO

SHOCK BARRELING AT him with the might of a sandstorm, Adir struggled to hold himself still. She was Zufar’s betrothed... The future Queen of Khalia!

The realization drummed in tune with his heartbeat even as desire filled every inch of his body. “You’re shivering,” he whispered, moving his hands up and down her arms.

Thoughts came and went through his head like sand held in a palm. His fingers must have tightened over her shoulders for she let out a soft gasp.

Adir gentled his grip, but for reasons he couldn’t fathom, he didn’t want to let her go.

The bones at her shoulders jutted under his palms as he tried to soothe her. And himself.

Desire for her, he understood. She was beautiful, brave, smart, funny.

But this fierce possessiveness that coursed through his blood... It stemmed from something else.

That she was his half brother’s most precious possession perhaps? Now in his hands?

“I should walk away.” Her words were a whisper in the night—a plea, a demand on herself. Yet she didn’t move from the cradle of his arms. “From you. From this moment. It only tells me how much I cannot have. This...” she brought his arms up to her face, burying it in his palms. The soft buss of her kiss against his skin burned him “...only pains me. Only reminds me of how much I never had. And never will have.”

“Shh... I only want to hold you, Amira,” he said, even as his mind raced. “Whatever you need, it is here, now, with me.”

Turning, she burrowed into him. Her arms wrapped around his waist, her face hidden in his chest. The scent of her hair filled his own breath. He wrapped thick strands of her hair around his fingers, coiling and uncoiling, not unlike his own thoughts.

She was so damn innocent and trusting. Such a gift. A gift Zufar didn’t deserve. A gift Zufar didn’t even value, for why else would she crave a stranger’s company so much?

A gift that had unwittingly fallen into Adir’s hands.

He raised her chin until she was looking into his eyes. The transparent desire he saw there banished any doubts he might have had. Feral possessiveness filled him and he touched his mouth to hers in a soft press that sent lust punching through him.

She was so beautiful and young and soft.

So easy to seduce.

If anything inside of him revolted at the idea, Adir suppressed it with a ruthlessness learned through years of surviving the harshest desert conditions.

Shocked at first, she stilled underneath his kiss. But it was already there, the heat he had felt between them, a small spark waiting to be ignited.

Adir ran his hands over her back, soothing the tremors, learning her curves, all the while gently nibbling at her lips.

Honey and heat, she was the most perfect thing he had ever tasted. An urgency he had never known before filled his blood, pounding at him to push her against the wall behind them. To lock her body against his hungry one. To thrust his tongue into her mouth while he entered her heat in the same way...to make her his, here, in this moment, to stamp his...

No!

A small voice inside him whispered. Whatever his reasons for doing this, he wanted to make it good for her, too. And that meant he couldn’t let his libido run rampant.

“Adir?” she whispered, blinking owlishly. Making him smile. “Why did you stop?”

“I wanted to make it good for you.”

“It is good. It is so... I didn’t know a simple kiss could be so animalistic. So powerful.”

For an innocent, sheltered beauty, how could she be saying the one thing that fired his blood? He dug his teeth into her lower lip. And licked it when she moaned. “Between the right couple, a kiss can be a lot more.”

“So, it is this good for you, too?”

“You have quite the scientific mind, don’t you?”

She shrugged, studying him with those big eyes. “I wondered.”

He rubbed his nose against hers, a gesture of tenderness that shocked even him. It was only a prelude, he reminded himself. She had been his for the taking from the moment she had glanced up at him and sighed that feminine sigh.

What was wrong with blending into her fantasy a little? Giving her what she wanted? “You wondered what, Amira?”

“If it felt the same to you. I... I have never shared such a passionate kiss with any man.”

“Not even your fiancé?” The question slipped past his lips.

“No. The most he has ever done is hold my hand. At public ceremonies.” She blinked and he knew he would never forget that earnest expression in those wide eyes. The transparent desire. “Coming back to us... You’ve obviously been with a lot of women.”

He couldn’t remember a time he had enjoyed a conversation with a woman as much as he enjoyed having sex. But then, when had he had the inclination or time to have a proper relationship?

For him, women were for sex. To sate his body’s needs. And only when he was on his overseas visits because he could not disrespect any of his own tribes by taking a daughter or a sister or another’s wife as a lover.

Not when all the power rested in his hands.

“Why obviously? And are you asking?” he teased.

“No,” came her resounding answer. “I think it is tacky and I really don’t wish real life to interrupt this...dream. The only reason I brought it up is because it makes me curious if it feels just as powerful and passionate for a man who is sexually experienced and has had a variety of partners, in contrast to a woman who has lied to her own best friend when she told her that her fiancé had done more than kiss her because she feels too pathetic to admit that he barely even looks at her.”

This time, her admission, instead of giving that high again, made his chest contract in a strange sensation. No...chemistry was a strange thing, and he didn’t need to understand it. It was a tool tonight and he was using it. As he had always done—to carve his own path in life. To rise from orphan to sheikh of warring tribes.

To be the man who had done the impossible.

He brought her palm to his chest where his heart was thundering. Down his chest to the flat plane of his abdomen and farther down.

Eyes wide like a dark oasis on a moonlight, she gasped when her hand reached his groin. He covered her hand with his and let her feel the shape and hardness of him. It was a bad idea that made him grit his teeth when she explored him with that innate curiosity, her breath hitching in and out in the dark silence.

He leaned his forehead against hers, locking her wrist. “I have been like that from the moment I touched you. That kiss between us, Amira, is no common thing. It is a spark waiting to burn and I can’t breathe for wanting to set it alight.”

An incandescent joy lit up her face, and in that smile, he felt like a king.

Clasping her cheeks with his palms, he kissed her gently. He licked at the seam of her lips. Again and again. He sank his fingers into the thick mass of her hair and pulled her toward him until she was a perfect fit for him. He licked a damp trail from her neck to her jaw, dropping soft little butterfly kisses over her cheek, her nose, her eyelids, her temple. Everywhere but the sweet offering that was her mouth.

He did it again and again, until it felt like he had been waiting an eternity to taste her. Until every muscle in his body was coiled tightly, until the innocent rub of her belly against his erection was sensuous torture.

“I could do this all night, habiba,” he whispered, his own contrary nature fighting the pull she had on his own control. This was a means to an end—a pleasurable means, though.

“I can’t,” she threw back at him, her eyes daring him.

Adir laughed and decided to give in.

She groaned into his mouth and he deepened the pressure, hungrier than he could ever remember being for the taste of a woman’s lips.

No, for this woman’s lips. This woman’s body, her innocence and the desire she expressed with such fierceness and generosity.

Her hands caught between their bodies while he pressed her against him. When he demanded entry into the sweet cavern of her mouth, she gave it, clinging to him with a deep moan. He licked the inner curve of her lower lip, using every ounce of skill he had at his disposal.

Her hands moved to his shoulders, her breasts pressing into his chest, her mouth so addictively hungry for more. It sealed the night.

He would give her what she desperately needed for one night. She would come with him willingly, he knew that—the fire between them, it was unlike anything he’d ever seen or felt.

“Come away with me, Amira. For one night. A few hours. Steal something for yourself from your own life, ya habibiti.”

Her swollen pink lips trembled, her eyes shining with desire along with something else. He didn’t have to ask, she was his for the taking—the pulse beating madly at her throat, the hunger in her gaze—and yet Adir wanted her to make the choice.

He would take what he wanted—revenge. He would steal something that belonged to his half brother, just as Zufar had stolen from him. His revenge on Zufar so much fuller if his betrothed came away with him out of her own choice.

If she chose Adir over Zufar even for a few hours...

“A choice, Amira,” he said, running his thumbs over her trembling lips, his body primed for possession, and yet he carefully used the words that would shred the last bit of her fear and doubts, a ruthless strategy he had learned from his mother’s letters. “You can go back to your bed and wonder what magic could have happened between us for the rest of your life. Or...” He bent his head and licked the pulse throbbing at her neck and felt her jerk toward him. He smiled wickedly before sucking the tender skin with his lips before releasing it with a popping sound. This time, she writhed against him, looking for relief from the ache between her legs, he knew. She was ready for him, even if she didn’t know it. And the knowledge filled him with a primal pride, not unlike the rulers before him who had mastered the harsh desert. “...you can choose me. This. For a few hours.”

When she kissed his knuckles, when she looked up at him with tears shining in her eyes, as if he was the sun and moon and stars all combined together, he pushed away the fragile thread of unease in his gut.

You’re a dirty stain.

He would pay Zufar back for those words. He would take what had been handed to him without guilt.

Victory thrummed through him when she said, “Yes, I... I would like to spend the...a few hours with you.”

He pressed his mouth against her temple, holding her tight until the shivers that had overtaken her subsided. She was courageous, this fragile beauty, and he would make this night worth that courage. He would show her infinite pleasure.

“I will return you unharmed, yes?”

When she nodded, he took her mouth in a fierce kiss, forgetting in that instant that she was innocent. He bit the lush pillow of her lower lip and when she moaned, tangled his tongue with hers. Heat built inside of him, goaded on and on by a dark need to possess her. To take what should have been Zufar’s by right.

His mother’s legitimate son, the man who was poised to be King of Khalia, the man who had never doubted his origins or his place in the world, the man who even now denied Adir his rightful place when he himself held Khalia in his palm...

It was a fitting revenge.

His body vibrated with the need to be inside her, here...in the dark stairway. But whatever his half brother thought of him, Adir was no savage.

He pulled the threads of his control together and pulled away from the lush temptation of her mouth. Already, her lips were swollen and her hair mussed with his questing fingers.

And yet Amira didn’t back away, her breaths falling and rising rapidly. “Where shall we go?” Her eyes shone with an impish delight, even as she shivered. “I have to return before—”

“I have heard so many tales about her gardens,” he said, remembering the beautiful words with which his mother had painted the gardens. “That she toiled hours and hours there, that they were her true love.”

“The Queen’s Gardens? You know of them?”

He simply nodded.

A wide smile curved Amira’s lips. “That’s exactly where I wanted to go tonight.”

He took her hand in his and led her down the steps. “Then it must be fate that I came upon you tonight, of all nights.”

A small frown tied her brows and she halted his steps. Her chin tilted up, a fierce resolve in her eyes. “Not fate, Adir. No. You and I... We ended up in this darkened corridor because we both made choices, yes? Tonight, there is no fate, there is no destiny, there are no forces commanding us. Just you and me.”

“You and me,” Adir agreed and pulled her on, before she could see the shadow of his dark thoughts in his eyes.

She was his tonight. Not Zufar’s. That was all he had to remember.

* * *

Amira felt as if she had been floating on clouds for the last two hours. Two whole hours she had spent with Adir by her side, touring Queen Namani’s famed gardens. Two hours spent smiling, talking, laughing, teasing.

Two hours in which she had been more herself than she had been her entire life.

Whatever it was Adir did in his real life, it had taken him mere seconds to maneuver them both out of the stairway and through another corridor of the palace manned by armed guards.

Almost as if he had been trained in subterfuge in the military division of Khalia. Or perhaps the map of the Khalian Palace was embedded in his head, because he had known ins and outs through the lit and unlit corridors that wound down to the paths of the garden, routes that even Amira who had visited for years didn’t know.

Was that it? Was he a member of the visiting guard called upon as security for the queen’s funeral? Someone who traveled all over the region but never stayed still in one place?

Was Amira one of a number of women he did this with?

Seconds after the thought occurred, Amira discarded it. She didn’t really care what he did or how he lived. She couldn’t afford to. Not if she wanted to steal away this night for herself. Not if she wanted to believe that she deserved a few hours with a man who really saw her. Who admired her and liked her and was attracted to her.

Except for that shock she had glimpsed in his eyes when she had confided to whom she was betrothed, he hadn’t mentioned Prince Zufar again. Or the royal family. Only Queen Namani filtered into their conversation once in a while. If she sensed a certain veneration in his tone for the dead queen, Amira ignored it. What she thought of Queen Namani, however contrasting to his view, was irrelevant to tonight.

This night was hers.

So she let herself be Amira and she didn’t press him for any answers. Not that she doubted he would give her answers if she demanded them.

For all his charming wit and teasing taunts, there was a remoteness to him. And that was after coming up against that smooth arrogance of a man who knew he was an alpha among men. And also a protector at heart, for she had seen the fierceness of his expression when he saw her bruise.

“Cold?” he asked as she shivered at the thought and Amira nodded.

Instantly, she was surrounded by the warmth of his jacket.

Moonlight carved the deep planes of his face with an even harsher outline. Even with the fragrance of the night-blooming jasmines filling the night breeze with a pungent scent, the scent of him clung to her skin instead. They walked along the walls of the small maze until they reached the famed fountain in the center, lit up by huge brass containers holding lights.

She had visited the palace innumerable times and yet had never seen this cozy spot in the middle of the maze. There was a sense of secrecy about it, amplified by her knowledge that King Tariq had had it built as a present to please his wife Queen Namani.

Galila had never told her if her mother had appreciated it or not.

But it was a beautiful, magical night—as if the universe itself were conspiring to give Amira what she wanted.

The center of the maze felt as if it had been designed for them. The tall hedges provided privacy and the water at the intricately sculpted fountain was a tinkling backdrop that drowned out everything else.

Every sense she possessed tingled with awareness of the man holding her hand.

“Why a nursing degree?” he asked.

Warmth spread through her chest. “When I was a little girl, my mother talked a lot about how she had always dreamed of studying medicine. She bought me this cute doctor’s toy set and we used to play... She would be the patient and I the doctor.

“I think she had just as much fun as I did. And then suddenly, she fell ill. I used to sit by her and study and then just like that, it seemed, she was...gone.

“I was a good student, made the top of my grade always. But when I broached the subject of studying medicine with my father, he was dead against it. Said I was destined for better things.

“Soon, Zufar and I were officially betrothed and then...at some royal dinner after our engagement, I told him that I wanted to study nursing. That it would bring a nice background to the various children’s charities I would be working with in the future. And that I needed his permission to trump my father’s refusal. That if he gave me his accord in that moment, I would never ever ask him for anything else for the rest of our lives. It was the only time I think he really looked at me. Not just this...placeholder of a wife that had been chosen for him, but a real, breathing woman.”

“What did he say?”

There was a strange intensity in Adir’s voice and Amira smile faltered. “That he...much preferred a wife who knew how to keep herself happy than one who ruined everyone else’s life. He...told my father that my education, my future all belonged to him as my future husband. I could have kissed him just for that.”

“Did you?”

She shook her head, trying to find again that fun, easy footing between them. An uneasy light came into his eyes whenever she mentioned Zufar. “No...even if I had, it would have been only from gratitude. Nothing like the one we shared.” She couldn’t imagine ever kissing Zufar like that. Ever sharing this sense of camaraderie with him. Ever feeling a fraction of what she felt with Adir even if she spent a hundred years with him.

Adir turned her toward him, his face wreathed in shadows. “For a woman who recites every inconsequential fact as if her life depends on it, a woman who looks so beguilingly innocent, you’re quite cunning.”

“You make me sound...wicked.”

He laughed, and the sound surrounded her in waves. “You took the situation you were handed and turned it to your advantage to realize your dream. It is a compliment, Amira.”

And because the genuineness of his emotion reverberated in his words, Amira went on her toes and pressed her mouth to his. She wanted his laughter and his compliments. But she also wanted to soak in the heat and hardness of his body. To learn what it was to be a woman who desperately desired a man.

She needed to be the woman who reached for what she wanted. This time, she opened up for him, like a sunflower turning toward the sun, trusting him to take her wherever he wanted. This time, when he devoured her, she was ready and more than willing for it.

The male heat of him surrounded her, his fingers moving, touching, digging into her body, waking her up.

She clung to him, to the raw heat he evoked with his wicked mouth, to the rough urgency of his tongue as it slid in a spine-tingling dance against hers.

His fingers buried in her hair, he tugged her face up. “I would love to be there on the day when Amira Ghalib decides to be truly wicked.”

She traced the outline of his lips with her thumb, the press of his lengthening erection against her belly searing her skin. “This is the moment, Adir. I want to be wicked. With you.”

His dark eyes flared with fire, with need. With deep desire. “Here, with me?”

When he pulled the jacket off her shoulders and laid it on a thick grassy bank, Amira’s heart pounded. When he turned her around and undid the zipper holding her long gown together all the way to the curve of her buttocks, her breath grew shallow.

When he pushed the dress off her shoulders and kissed a line down of her spine, all the way to the curves of her buttocks, she thought she would incinerate from the inside out.

And when he fell to his knees, when he turned her around to face him, when he buried his face in the flat curve of her belly, when he gripped her hips and took a deep breath as if to inhale the scent of her arousal, she gasped at the rush of wetness at her core.

When he slid his fingers through the thin strings of her panties and pulled them down, when he delved into the folds of her sex while his dark eyes held hers captive, when he licked the wetness on his finger with a wicked, all-consuming smile and asked if it was all for him, her knees refused to hold her up and she fell into his waiting arms.

If she lived a hundred years, Amira wouldn’t forget the sounds, the scents, the sights of that night. Of the night-blooming jasmine he had pinched between his fingers and rubbed over her belly as he licked her before declaring that no scent in the world could beat the scent of her arousal.

Of the stars shimmering in the sky overhead because he had taken her nipple in his mouth in such a carnal caress that she had thrown her head back into the grass.

Of the throaty sounds she had made, again and again, unashamed, begging whispers when he penetrated her with two long fingers so gently that she thought she would explode for the want of more.

Of the sensations that poured through her, like buffeting waves of the sea when he thrust into her—the quick, sharp flash of pain, the overwhelming fullness when he was seated all the way in her, the feeling that she would never again be whole without him; the sweat beading on his forehead and the tautness of the lean angles of his face; the flutter of butterfly wings of pleasure in her lower belly when she shifted to relieve the fullness, the tight friction that sent arrows of sensation firing in all directions when he moved, the building vortex of need in her lower belly every time he drove into her...

She wanted to drown in the pleasure their bodies created together. She wanted to give herself over to the moment, let him cast her about as he pleased.

But for the even more desperate need to watch his face.

Silvery moonlight caressed the sharp planes, etched tight with need as he thrust in again. The grunting sound he made in the back of his throat wound around her senses. And then when he looked into her eyes, his amber eyes lit with desire, Amira pushed up onto her elbows and kissed him.

He tasted like sweat and horses and masculinity.

“You want something,” he whispered and Amira nodded.

“I want to touch your skin.”

He nodded.

Amira sneaked her hands under his buttoned shirt, greedy for more and more of him. Velvet rough, his skin was warm, his heart racing under her fingers. She moved her hands restlessly over his chest, discovering the roped muscles of his abdomen she couldn’t see, and lower where he was joined with her.

When she snatched her hands back, he smiled. And kissed her on her mouth.

“You like this?” she asked, desperate for more of him, just as he thrust in again.

He wiggled his hips in some swirly motion and Amira’s eyes rolled back. “Do you doubt it still, habiba?”

And then his fingers were at the throbbing spot where pressure had been building with his every thrust, and then he was rubbing and pinching in between his smooth thrusts and Amira thought she would die if she didn’t...

Finally she released a thready, wicked sound when pleasure beat upon her in waves and waves.

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he said in a husky voice and Amira’s eyes flew open.

And when he moved faster and rougher inside her, when he pressed a rough, biting kiss to her mouth, when he gazed into her eyes and whispered her name as his own climax rushed him, when the indescribable pleasure he found with her laid him out in all his vulnerability, stripping from him the arrogance and the command and whatever darkness that dwelled in him, Amira knew she had made the right decision.

This man was hers, in this moment.

And she had chosen it.

CHAPTER THREE

Four months later

AMIRA TURNED SIDEWAYS and stared at her reflection in the gilt-edged, full-length oval mirror standing on clawed feet digging into the lush carpet on the floor. Everywhere around her was gilt furniture and priceless rugs and...it was all a cage.

A golden cage from which she had no freedom, a place where no one even knew the real her.

Her hands went to the swell of her stomach, utterly undetectable in the voluminous folds of her jeweled wedding gown.

Her wedding gown...her wedding day...and she was pregnant with another man’s child.

Adir’s child.

The thousands of gems sewed onto the tight bodice glinted in the mirror. Under the sun’s rays cast into the room through the windows, the glitter of the gems reflected everywhere, even catching her in the eye every time she looked up.

At least they made the tears in her eyes look like an illusion of light. Already, her friend Galila and the maid she’d been assigned had given her strange looks when she had insisted on getting herself into the dress that weighed a ton.

But maybe she should have let them see the evidence of her one night of freedom. Maybe it would have been better if the dress had showed her growing belly.

Her father’s rage when she’d told him had known no bounds. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much the powerful connection, the status of being the queen’s father mattered to him. Until that night, when he had roughly pushed her and locked her in her room, she had always made excuses for his autocratic, even sometimes violent behavior.

What did he think Prince Zufar would do when he discovered his wife was pregnant with another man’s bastard? A word she hated with every inch of her being, a word her father had used again and again to drill it into her that that was what her child would be called if she didn’t marry Zufar.

Ya Allah, she hated deception.

Zufar had never been interested in her, but he didn’t deserve this.

Her father meant to force her to give her child away. Like an unwanted package thrown onto the streets. A stain on her reputation to be swept away...

A growl emerged from her throat, startling Galila and the maid.

Despite her father’s threats, she had made every effort to see Prince Zufar alone last night. Somehow, she would have muddled through the explanation about why the wedding needed to be called off. But her father had caught her two steps away from the prince’s private study where he had agreed to see her.

He had dragged her back to her room and backhanded her with such brutal force that she had lost consciousness. And by this morning, it was too late.

Prince Zufar had already left for the parade walk with King Tariq and would meet her at the hall where their wedding ceremony was to be held.

In every guard, in every visiting dignitary, in every man she came across, she had searched for those broad shoulders, that serious face. That wicked, warm smile.

She had searched because she needed a way out of her predicament, she reminded herself. Because she desperately needed to stop this farce her father was bent on having played out. Nothing else.

But there had been no sign of Adir.

“Amira...is everything all right?” asked her childhood friend, Galila—Prince Zufar’s sister.

Fear made Amira’s mind leap from one useless fact to another. “Did you know that the money that has been spent on the future queen’s wedding dress throughout history could have fed and clothed Khalia’s poor more than ten times over? That it takes three hundred days and twenty women working from sunup to sundown to create a dress like this?”

Her gaze concerned, Galila took her friend’s hands in hers. “My brother might not be...the ideal man. But he’s not a monster, Amira.” Galila knew of her friend’s father’s temper and she must think that was why Amira was afraid.

Unable to meet her eyes, Amira pulled away.

Galila sighed. “The maid and I will bring the royal jewelry. Will you be all right for a few moments?”

“Yes, of course,” Amira answered automatically. But ten minutes later, her panic multiplied.

Could she run away before Galila and the maid returned with the jewelry? On the way to that vast throne hall, could she claim to be sick and then steal away somehow from the palace?

The gems on the dress itself would probably pay for a few months of food and shelter. Although how far would she go weighing a ton and seriously lacking in energy? For almost a week now, she had barely kept down anything she ate in the morning.

Also, the extravagantly expensive dress would be a dead giveaway. Which meant she would have to get rid of it if she meant to escape without being seen. And to shed the dress, she needed to...

Hysteria bubbled up in her chest as she dipped her head between her knees.

She would keep her baby somehow, no matter what. She wouldn’t let anyone separate them.

Just that promise to herself gave her a renewed purpose.

She was gulping down a glass of water when the catch on the huge window rattled. She frowned. It was not a windy day. In fact, Galila and the maid had both noted what a gloriously beautiful day it was to get married and she had snorted...

Her breath hitched as the top of a dark-haired head appeared outside the window. And then a hard, striking face—a face that had haunted her dreams for four months.

The intricately carved silver tumbler slipped from her hand, the loud clang of it softer than her thudding heart.

Broad shoulders. Tapered waist. Hard, powerful thighs that had straddled her hips when he had stroked himself into her, causing such indescribable pleasure that Amira was swamped with heat even now.

Amber eyes. A cruel slash of a mouth that was incapable of infinite tenderness. Adir landed on the floor with sure-footed grace.

“Salaam-alaikum, Amira.”

She reached for the back of an armchair, blinking rapidly to clear the fast approaching tears. It was only relief. Only relief. She repeated it like a mantra.

Adir’s presence meant help. Meant she didn’t have to go through with the wedding.

Why he was here didn’t matter. He had made no promises and she wouldn’t expect anything. But he would help her escape. And then she could make a life for her and the baby, a life that she designed for herself, a life that wasn’t ruled by anyone else but her. Once she had settled into a new life, maybe she could tell him. She would not force this on him. She would not change his plans for his own life.

Maybe he would agree to visit her child whenever he was between assignments, or in the country? Maybe they could reach some...

“Amira?”

She startled, her mind a jumble of thoughts. “I’m afraid to blink for fear you’ll disappear. It’s not rational, I know, because I see you. My body remembers your scent—horses and sandalwood and...you. And yet the mind is such a powerful thing, you know? It weaves such illusions. I used to see my mother like that, months after she was gone. Hallucinations are caused by...”

“How much time is left before you marry your prince?”

She flinched at the open rancor in the question. This was not the charming, laid-back man she had given her virginity to. Something was different. Something had altered.

He wasn’t smiling. No, it wasn’t just the absence of his smile. He hadn’t smiled a lot that night, either. It was the presence of something else in his eyes today.

A dark intensity full of shadows.

A cloud of some intense emotion...resentment? Anger? Why?

He reached her with silent footfalls. His lower lip curled into a sneer as he took in her glittering wedding dress. As if she were nothing but a fake, tawdry imitation of what the future queen should be.

When his gaze returned to her face, that resentment smoothed out for an instant. There was a flash of that tenderness she’d seen that one incredible night.

“My father will arrive to escort me an hour before,” she said calmly before the hurt turned into words. “Why do you look at me like that? With such contempt?”

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