The Sultan's Choice

The paparazzi.

Samia heard a colourful Arabic curse behind her even as she registered big burly bodyguards materializing as if from thin air to hold the photographers back. Strong arms came around her and pulled her into a lean and hard muscled body. Samia was plastered against Sadiq’s length as he all but carried her back over the threshold and into the house.

It took a second for her to register that it was quiet again and the door was shut behind them. Samia’s breath sounded laboured, and she realised that she was still clamped to Sadiq like a limpet. Breasts crushed to his chest. She scrambled backwards, face flaming.

Sadiq raked a hand through his hair. ‘Are you okay? I’m sorry about that. Sometimes they lie in wait once they know I’m here, and the bodyguards can’t do anything.’

He could still feel the imprint of her body—the firm swells of her breasts pressed against him just for that brief moment. How delicate she’d been. She’d fit into his body like a missing jigsaw piece. For someone used to women who almost matched him in height, it had been a novel sensation.

She was standing there, looking dishevelled and innocently sexy with colour high in her cheeks, and he knew that she had no idea how alluring she was—which only inflamed him more, because he was used to women being all too aware of their so-called allure.

‘You knew about that.’

He frowned, not liking the accusatory tone in her voice. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You just said that you know they lie in wait. I’m going to be all over the papers with you. Leaving your house.’

Samia realised she was shaking violently. She heard another curse and felt Sadiq take her arm in a firm grip. ‘Come back into the study. You’re in shock.’

Once in the big stately room, Sadiq all but pressed Samia down into a chair and went to get a tumbler of brandy. He came back and handed it to her. ‘Take a sip. You’ll feel better in a minute.’

Hating feeling so vulnerable, Samia took the glass and a gulp of the drink, coughing slightly. She watched Sadiq pour himself a drink and come to sit opposite her on a matching chair. The lights in the room made his amazing good-looks stand out. An awful alien yearning tugged low in her belly and she put down the drink and crossed her arms across her chest defensively.

Grimly he said, ‘I’d forgotten all about the paparazzi. Of course I had no intention of putting you in that situation.’

Samia gulped, her anger dissipating. She knew he was telling the truth. A man like him would not have to resort to such measures. Restless, Samia stood up. ‘Look, thank you for the dinner … I—’

She stopped when Sadiq stood too, and she had to curb the ridiculous urge to look for an exit, as if she were alone with a wild animal. Samia put out her hands wide in an unconsciously pleading gesture.

‘What happened just now should prove how unsuitable I am. That was my first time being caught by the paparazzi. You need someone who is used to that kind of thing—who knows how to handle it.’

Distaste curdled in Sadiq’s belly. That was exactly what he didn’t want. He was more sure than ever that he wanted her—and for reasons that went beyond the practical and mundane.

He came closer to Samia and an unmistakable glint of triumph shone in his eyes and she felt sick. She could talk till she was blue in the face but the game was up. He’d called her bluff. She’d shown her telltale confusion. He’d manipulated her beautifully. Bitter recrimination burnt her. He was so close now that all she could see were those mesmerising eyes, and all she could smell was that uniquely male scent.

‘Your reaction tells me you’re conflicted about this decision, Samia. So let me take the conflict out of it for you. Agree to become my wife because there simply is no other alternative. You are of royal blood, from an ancient lineage. You were born for this role, and nothing you do or say can change that. To fight this is to fight fate, me and your brother.’

From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small velvet box, and all the while his eyes never left hers. He opened it, and Samia couldn’t help but look down between them. The ring was surprisingly simple. It was obviously an antique—a square-cut stone in a gold setting, strikingly unusual and beautiful.

‘It’s a yellow sapphire. It was my paternal grandmother’s—a gift from my grandfather on one of their wedding anniversaries.’

Sadiq didn’t tell her that this distinctive ring had been in his mind’s eye ever since he’d met her, and that it was a lucky coincidence it had been in the family’s jewel vault in London. He’d sent back the diamond ring he’d planned on using, feeling absurdly exposed in acknowledging that he hadn’t been happy with a stock ring, which should have been perfectly adequate for what was essentially a stock wedding.

Samia looked up, and Sadiq took her hand in his. He looked so deep into her eyes that she felt as if she might drown and diappear for ever. She knew on some rational level that he was probably not even aware of his power. Unconsciously her fingers tightened around his as if to anchor herself, and something undefinable lit in Sadiq’s eyes, hypnotising her even more.

‘Princess Samia Binte Rashad al Abbas, will you please do me the very great honour of becoming my wife and Queen of Al-Omar?’

CHAPTER FOUR

AT that cataclysmic moment, while Sadiq’s words hung in the air, Samia had a flashback she couldn’t repress. She was hiding in the library of his castle after knocking over the table of drinks, cursing herself for being so clumsy and awkward. Her peace was shattered when a man walked into the room.

He didn’t spot her because the lights were dim, and all Samia knew as she sat there barely breathing was that he was tall, dark and powerful looking. Yet she wasn’t afraid. He walked over to the window which overlooked one of the castle’s numerous beautiful inner courtyards and stood there for long moments, as silent as a statue, with an air of deep melancholy pervading the air around him.

He sighed deeply and dropped his head to run a weary hand back and forth over his short hair. Something about this man was connecting with Samia on a very deep level, she felt his pain, empathised with his isolation. Without even thinking about what she was doing, responding to some impulse to do something, Samia was almost out of her chair when another person entered the room: a woman, tall and blonde and statuesque, and very, very beautiful.

The man turned around and to Samia’s shock she realised it was the charismatic Sultan she’d met only hours before. The melancholy and sense of isolation disappeared. She watched as his blue eyes glittered, taking in the woman’s approach. In the place of the vulnerability she might have imagined was the hard shell of a supremely confident and sexual man, and she knew then that she had witnessed something incredibly private—something of himself that he would hate to know had been witnessed by anyone else.

Samia watched the woman walk straight up to him. She twined herself around him and, perversely, Samia wanted the Sultan to push this woman away contemptuously. As if he was hers! But as she watched, mesmerised, he backed the blond beauty up against a wall and proceeded to kiss her so passionately that Samia made an inadvertent sound of dismay.

Two faces turned towards her and Samia ran from the room, mortified to have been caught watching like a voyeur.

And now she was looking up into those same blue eyes, and she felt as if a hole had opened up in her belly. All she could remember was that intense vulnerability she’d seen, or thought she’d seen, in the Sultan that night, and the connection she’d felt.

She couldn’t block out that image of the secret side of this man even as she sensed his steely determination. He would not rest until she said yes, and that made a curious sense of calm settle over her. He was right: to fight this was to fight fate, her brother and him. She denied to herself that that evocative memory was a tipping point, because that would mean that Sadiq was connecting with her on an emotional level, and she would deny that with every cell in her body.

This decision was about inevitability, logic and practicality, and the sheer weight of her lineage which put her in this position. She opened her mouth to speak and saw Sadiq’s jaw tense, as if warding off a blow. Immediately she felt the impulse to reach up and smooth his jaw. She clenched her hand.

‘I …’ Her voice sounded rusty. ‘Yes. I’ll marry you.’

For a second there was no reaction. She wasn’t even sure if she’d spoken out loud. But then Sadiq slid the ring onto her finger, bent his head and pressed his lips to it. They were warm and slightly parted, and her belly tightened with a need that was becoming horribly familiar. His head was so close to her breast.

He stood again and she saw that a shutter had come down over his expression, turning him aloof. He was the stern ruler again, and he had achieved his aim. No softness or charm now. Job done. Mission accomplished. Samia thought cynically of how he’d manipulated her emotions so beautifully. And yet she couldn’t turn back now. She’d sealed her fate and chosen the path she would take for the rest of her life.