The Sheikh's Destiny (7 page)

A gasp escaped from her throat, as without tugging on her, just by tightening his grip, he was on his feet, towering over her. He was so close—his heat and scent flooded her, his aura cloaked her. For a haywire series of heartbeats she thought he’d...

He only stood there, looking down at their joined hands.

Then he raised them along with that delightful eyebrow. “Where do you want me now?”

Anywhere. Everywhere. As long as you’re in my life.

Good thing she wasn’t
that
candid. Not yet. No need to scare the poor man this early on.

Showing him where she wanted him for now, she led him back to the fireplace. Once he was seated again, she ran to the kitchen and brought him a mug of hot hibiscus tea, which he accepted with a direct gaze that she now knew meant he found no point in resisting anymore and would let her run her coddling routine with no more objections. If he’d had hair for her to ruffle, she would have ventured to do so.

She settled for a teasing smile as she sat beside him. “I’ve heard of being damned by faint praise, but you damn by the fervent variety. You included me when you mentioned women of a certain ‘caliber,’ right? And analyzing why Aliyah didn’t become a weapon of mass destruction was your roundabout way of telling me that because
I
was spoiled rotten, I remain deadly?”

He raised his mug to her in salutation of her accuracy. “If the roundabout way offends you, my apologies.”

Her head pitched back on a laugh. His wit, what he let her see of it, tickled her. What would it be like fully unleashed?

“Apologies will only be accepted if you stop burning calories skirting issues. It’s all I’ll ever ask of you, to be truthful with me. Always. I will never be anything but that with you.”

It was a long moment before he raised his eyes from the steaming depths of his drink. “If you think you can handle it.”

“Oh, you have no idea what I can handle.” She gave him a quirked eyebrow. “I hope you can take it as well as dish it out?”

“What do you think?” Those black lasers he had for eyes told her exactly what to think. “But I attempted a watered-down approach for my own sake. I hear your species subsists on a steady diet of fawning and flattery, and I wasn’t up to saving you again if an injection of the truth sent you into anaphylactic shock.”

At her hoot of delight, he continued watching her over the rim of his mug, taking more tranquil sips.

Wiping away tears, she rose to her knees, facing him. “Sir, you misjudge my species. Understandable, since it’s undocumented with me as its only member. The fluke female Aal Shalaan. Of which you know nothing, according to you. I guess all knowledge
is
on my side. I bet you never noticed I existed before tonight.”

A bolt of black lightning arced from his eyes.

Did that mean he
had
noticed her? When? How hadn’t
she
noticed, when she’d been analyzing his every nuance, scavenging for any sign of interest or attention?

She let out a choppy exhalation. “So you noticed me? And still think I was indulged? What on earth did you observe in my family’s treatment of me that could have been mistaken for indulgence? You thought my mother keeping me practically on a leash was that? Or my father making any excuse he could think of to escape giving me five minutes of his time? Or both using me as a pawn in their maneuvers with everyone else or a weapon in their own ongoing war?”

He frowned. She hadn’t seen him do that when he’d been about to kill her attackers; then, she had only seen that scarily empty expression.

But now she felt something emanating from him, far deadlier than the rage he’d exuded earlier tonight.

Wow. Was this in response to her account of how her parents had treated her? She hadn’t meant to sound bitter, but in reality, she’d “watered things down.” Not that she’d thought to appeal to his sympathy. Whatever she’d suffered at her parents’ self-serving hands had been nothing compared to what he’d suffered.

Needing to lighten the mood, she infused her voice with extra lightness. “Or maybe you believed I was indulged because my legions of cousins didn’t rough me up like they did each other? That had nothing to do with my being female, just being the youngest.”

As if consenting to play along, his lips twisted. “I didn’t see those who succeeded you to that position being spared, since these were disappointingly male. You can’t deny the Aal Shalaans’ situation goes against everything our region believes in. Instead of valuing males above females for offspring, having nothing but sons made the Aal Shalaan males a dime a dozen, and a female a treasure. Your aunt Bahiyah was that for decades. Then came you.”

Her hairs stood on end at the way he said those words. It got worse when he leaned closer, and she was hit with another wave of his vigor and virility.

He only placed his empty mug on the floor between them. “It’s the one thing that made your family tolerate your Hydra of a mother. That she managed the miracle of giving the Aal Shalaans a female child.”

She grimaced. “Hydra, huh? Ouch.” Then she laughed. “But, yeah, apt description. Though in anything else, you must be talking about an alternate universe. In this one, I never noticed any tolerance toward my mother. Not that I blame anyone for that. My mother, as you so bluntly noted,
is
intolerable. I also never had any evidence that I was such a big deal to the family for achieving the feat of being born female. In fact, I mostly experienced the opposite. Being the lone estrogen bubble floating in an ocean of testosterone was no fun.”

A contemplative look greeted her words. “I expect it must have had its drawbacks.”

Her laugh was mirthless this time. “For my first decade I couldn’t understand that I wasn’t a boy, then I
wouldn’t
accept I wasn’t, tried my best to be one, so I’d fit in. My mother did her best to flog me, emotionally and sometimes physically, out of my efforts. Then puberty hit and I began to feel some good sides to being a girl.”
Like growing a whole new appreciation of his masculine wonder.
“But those did not outweigh the bad. I was such a disappointment to everyone. Not male, so couldn’t be shoved into the roles in need of a steady supply of Aal Shalaans, and not the type of female they had in mind. The older I got, the more disgusted with me my mother and aunt became for not inheriting their refined genes, for manifesting the looks and temperament of the Neanderthal-like Aal Shalaans. I was ‘tainted’ by my Aal Shalaan blood, as my mother put it when she was trying to ‘cleanse’ me of its disadvantages. And though I cleaned up good when they had their way with me, when left to my own devices, I slipped back into my graceless, disgraceful self. Not that they gave up. They kept hoping that through constant pressure they’d prove the ancient proverb right.”

“Which proverb is that?”

“Ekfi’l edrah ala fommaha, tet’la el bent l’ommaha.”

“Set the cauldron on its face, after mother the girl takes.”

She whooped. “And it almost rhymes, too.”

He tutted. “Almost doesn’t count. Either it rhymes, or it’s lame. That
was
lame.”

Another man would have accepted her praise of his translation. He’d accept nothing he hadn’t fully earned. The self-made, self-sufficient entity that he was would care nothing about others’ approval, anyway.

She waved his dismissal away. “Details. It was good enough. And clever. Not to mention instantaneous.”

Not one to continue a subject he’d already dismissed, his gave her what felt like a mind and soul scan. “So your mother and aunt couldn’t ‘turn’ you.”

A chuckle overcame her. Yes, he was disparaging her family, but he did it deliciously, not to mention accurately. “Like vampires would, huh? Another spot-on analogy, sorry to admit. And nope. To their escalating frustration, I remained an inferior human with loads of abhorrent failings that made them break out in hives. The worst of it was the traits you had a demonstration of tonight.”

Was that teasing that simmered in the blackness of his eyes? Was it even possible?

“Being overriding and unstoppable?”

“
Hah.
They’d have a stroke if they heard anyone describe me as
that.
Their dissatisfaction with me was based on what they said formed the foundation of my character. In their words, a ‘total lack of discretion, insight and shrewdness and a genetic absence of poise, presence and influence.’”

Yep, she’d memorized the slurs. They’d been said in too many variations often enough.

His eyes told her he’d made a note of that fact. “It’s clear they didn’t know you well.”

Her lips relaxed, as did her heart. “Do you mind if I take that as a compliment?”

A perfectly formed hand—strength, skill and command wrapped in bronze and adorned by raven silk—waved her a
knock yourself out.
What she’d give to know those hands better.

She sighed. “Then I began to mess up their plans for me and was exposed to the full measure of their ruthlessness. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, their conspiracy to depose Uncle Atef and take over Zohayd was exposed. Not only didn’t I see any of it coming, when I was the closest anyone ever got to either of them, I never realized they were capable of such...malevolence. Guess they were right about my lack of insight and shrewdness.”

“You feel guilty that you didn’t realize what they were planning.”

As usual, he was right. “I felt almost responsible. It’s one of the main reasons I left Zohayd.” She gave a self-deprecating shrug. “And here I am.”

“Here you are.”

The words hung in the warm air like intoxicating incense. They sounded as if he was glad that she was.

Okay, so a man like Rashid—though there were no men like him—didn’t do ‘glad.’ But there’d been an emotion, as powerful as everything else about him, attached to those three words. Whatever it was, it warmed her, contented her.

Silence enveloped the gigantic space, enfolded them. She soaked up its peace and profundity. She couldn’t believe she’d shared with him things she hadn’t even told her best friends. How he’d listened, become involved, interested, letting her unburden herself, letting her come closer.

If only he’d reciprocate.

For now he was giving her what she’d never hoped to have. The pleasure of basking in his nearness and communion, the sense of being isolated with him in a world that contained no one but them. She felt sequestered from everything—the past, the future, existing in a sheer state of presence, in
his
presence.

Then poignancy passed from soul to senses, took hold...and wrenched. The need to smooth her hands down his scar, over that glorious head and shoulders and chest became an ache. But it was the expression on his half-turned face that had tenderness sweeping through her. It was as if he’d forgotten to put on his mask, as if he couldn’t hold it in place.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered.

The expression was gone. “Nothing.”

“I think it’s a fourth impossibility that your mind isn’t in high gear every single second you’re awake. I bet you’re thinking even when you’re asleep. It feels as if you’re perpetually observing, analyzing, concluding and deciding how to use each and every detail of what’s going on around you.”

Both eyebrows rose. But he only said, “And the first three impossibilities are?”

“You don’t know? But it’s a very common saying.”

“In Zohayd, I assume. Contrary to common belief, Azmahar was never an extension of Zohayd that splintered into oil-fueled if ill-fated autonomy. It wasn’t destined to return to the motherland’s bosom begging to be annexed back. Not until ex-king Nedal, that is.”

“Whoa. That’s a huge nerve you got exposed there. But sheathe your claws, Rashid. I, of all people, don’t subscribe to any of that. With said king being my uncle, I’m half-Azmaharian through the side of my family who’re responsible for Azmahar’s decline. I can do nothing about anyone’s actions or what they led to, but I’ve always loved Azmahar and am proud to call it my second home.”

His gaze stilled on her face.

Was that welcome news? Or was he only adjusting another misconception in that fathomless mind of his?

He finally exhaled. “You wouldn’t be faulted if you didn’t. Azmahar, as it stands today, doesn’t have much to it to love or to be proud of. It was mismanaged and misrepresented by its rulers and constrained and condescended to by its allies for decades. Most of its people have either forgotten what it is to be proud to be Azmaharian, or never learned it was possible to be so.”

That urge to touch him, hug him, almost overwhelmed her. “But not you. You’re Super Azmahar Man who’ll rectify all that, now that you’re a candidate for the throne.”

His expression changed as if a steel door had slammed shut. It made her realize how much he’d opened up. Another off-limits topic?

When he answered, it seemed she’d imagined all the tension. His shrug was easy. “Candidacy means nothing.”

“Only winning does, huh?”

Again he didn’t pursue the subject she’d introduced. Which she was burning to know more about.

Since her uncle had been forced to abdicate the throne after a long reign of gross “mismanagement,” and his heirs had been rejected for succession, Azmahar had called for a new king. But the country was now divided into three fronts, each supporting a different candidate.

The other two candidates were Haidar and Jalal, her paternal
and
maternal cousins. They’d been dubbed the Princes of Two Kingdoms and so many said they were perfect for the throne of Azmahar.

Which was ridiculous. Though she loved them and they were incredible men and businessmen, she couldn’t see how anyone would consider them, or anyone else, when Rashid was in the picture. Apart from being beyond compare as a man, in her own humble opinion, he was full-blooded Azmaharian and a war hero many times over, and the wealthiest, most successful businessman in Azmahar’s history.

Rashid’s deep-velvet voice interrupted her musings. “You still haven’t told me what the first three impossibilities are, according to Zohaydan folklore.”