Annie West - The Sheikh's Reluctant Queen - The Sheikh's Destiny

Ya Ullah, she’d never known such desperation. Or such relief when he’d turned up weeks later, alive and leading his squad back to civilization. She’d almost died of frustration when she hadn’t been able to go with Haidar and Jalal to greet him at his return. But she’d gone to the ceremony where he’d received Azmahar’s highest medal of valor. She’d still had to ambush him to congratulate him, tell him how thankful she’d been for his safety. But he’d been more aloof than ever before.

He’d drifted farther away from then on until he’d seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. He’d resurfaced almost three years ago, just as the upheaval in Zohayd had erupted, as her closest cousins’, Haidar’s and Jalal’s, enemy, and subsequently the enemy of her whole family.

No one knew what had happened between the former best friends to tear them apart so viciously. She didn’t even know if it was the same thing that had alienated Haidar and Jalal themselves. All she’d known was that she had to be resigned that she would never see him again. That she’d never had any chance with him, anyway.

Now fate had brought him exploding back into her life, only for her to find he’d become this exhilarating delight of a man who was still making her struggle for every inch closer…

The GPS announced that they’d arrived at their destination.

Bringing the car to a stop, she squinted up through the windshield.

He lived in a… warehouse?

His next words confirmed it. “Now that you’ve driven me home, I’ll have someone tail you to yours.”

She took the key out and handed it to him. When he wouldn’t take it, she placed it on his lap and took off her seat belt. “Which part of ‘I’m taking care of you tonight’ didn’t you get?”

His gaze bathed her in such calm contemplation it had blood fizzing in her ears. “This comes from being one of the two prized female Aal Shalaans, right?”

“Uh… what does?”

“The expectation that men will do your bidding. You’re used to saying ‘jump’ only for your male kin to ask ‘how high?’“

One thing for sure, she’d jump if only he said to. She’d stay in the air until he said down, too.

No need to tell him that just yet. For now, she’d let him believe she was an old hand at getting her way. If he believed she was more effective than she really was, it made it more likely she’d sway him, too. Good press was everything, after all.

She smiled. “Invite me in, Rashid.”

“That’s an ill-advised demand, princess.”

“Will you stop with this ‘princess’ business? You’d better, if you don’t want me to ‘sheikh’ you.”

“‘Sheikh’ away. Boundaries are essential.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Can we take our boundaries inside? I’m dying for a cup of tea. I promise to make you one.”

“I don’t drink tea.”

He didn’t, huh? She might just discover he didn’t eat food, either, his sustenance being evil souls. And he’d already gorged on four for dinner.

“You must have other beverages in your place.”

“Tap water.”

Her lips twisted. “You won’t put me off, you know.”

“I’m stating facts.”

“Next you’ll say you have nothing to eat but dried dates.”

His shrug should have been immortalized on video as the template for nonchalance. “It’s not far from the truth.”

Water and dates, huh? The sustenance of desert nomads. It actually fit that he, having lived years in survival mode through hardships and deprivation the likes of which she couldn’t imagine, would be programmed to exist on the bare necessities. Even now that he was a billionaire, he hadn’t gone soft or become dependent upon modern comforts and conveniences. He might drive a car only his kind of money could buy, but he reverted to his adversity-thriving true self in a heartbeat.

We remain who we are, no matter where we are.

And who he was, was the best thing she’d ever known.

She grinned into his brooding eyes. “Water and dates work for me.”

“Fine. You can come in.” Not much of an invitation, but she’d take it. She was sizzling with eagerness to. At least, she was before he doused it. “Until your escort arrives.”

Before she could object, he was out of the car in yet another impossibly effortless move.

Her exit wasn’t as graceful, nor was her progress to catch up with him at the door of what looked like a deserted warehouse below an equally empty, old, industrial-looking brick building.

As he pointed a remote at the huge steel door, she nodded at the deserted area. “See this? There’s no one around like there always is in our region. No malicious eyes to monitor my visit or wagging tongues to weave it into a scandal. Why are you worried?”

“Why aren’t you?”

“Because I can’t worry about anything with you around. Because I feel safer with you than I ever did in my life. Why else?”

Another episode of inertness descended on him. She was quickly learning that indicated astonishment. Even shock.

His next words reinforced that belief, his eyes narrowing a fraction. “You believe I pose no danger of any sort?”

“Definitely not to me.” The words were out before she realized he might mean a different kind of danger… the sexual kind.

If only. With this avenging archangel, she was safer in that arena than she was in her currently all-female environment. A depressing thought if any ever was.

He pressed the remote and the door opened with the whirr of a perfectly oiled machine, belying its weather-beaten appearance.

Before he turned away, he belatedly commented on her wholehearted assertion. “Interesting.”

You can say that again, she thought, watching the receding streetlights paint shadows across his back as he forged deeper into the darkness, a sorcerer becoming one with his lair.

He left the lights off. On purpose, she was sure, to rattle her. Punishing her for behaving so “inappropriately”?

Too bad for him it wouldn’t work. Not only did she have no fear of darkness, it was true she’d fear nothing with him by her side. Maybe they did lack some knowledge of one another that closer interaction would have fostered, but she did know the essential him. His essence had touched hers so profoundly that he starred in her very first memory.

Deciding to call him out on his efforts to intimidate her, she said, “Let there be light, Rashid. Only so neither of us breaks a toe against a cabinet or something.”

At her mockery, there was light. Not a sudden burst, but a dawning of golden, sourceless illumination so gradual her vision didn’t have to adjust to take in her surroundings. A vast, 50-foot-ceilinged warehouse-to-loft conversion. There was one word for it: Spartan. She now truly knew what the word meant. It was this: a warrior’s dwelling. Sparse, utilitarian, austere. It was also more. A piece of ancient Azmahar, before oil and technology had transformed its distinctive heritage into yet another twenty-first-century Westernized hybrid. Every line and surface, and what little furniture there was, was steeped in Azmahar’s history, bearing the stamp of its authenticity in a muted palette of desert-inspired tones.

“Of course.” She realized she’d said that out loud when he turned to her. “Now that I’ve seen this place, I realize nothing else—and nothing less—could have suited you. Or… contained you.”

“Contained me?” His gaze swept the place before he leveled that bone-melting stare back on her. “Quite the bottle, isn’t it?”

A laugh burst out of her. “You do fit the genie profile. Especially with the way you materialized out of thin air tonight.”