Hajar's Hidden Legacy

Hajar's Hidden Legacy
Maisey Yates

Beauty… Princess Katherine has always been destined for a political marriage. Her heart heavy, she prepares to meet her future husband – the man whisperers in his royal kingdom call The Beast of Hajar…and the Scarred Sheikh Concealing his disfigurement from public scrutiny, Sheikh Zahir rules his country from within the castle walls, allowing no one in.Until duty demands he carry on the Hajar family dynasty and allow his new bride to cross the threshold. Zahir expects Katherine to flee at first sight. Yet her unflinching gaze fires Zahir’s blood, their attraction burning hotter than the scorching desert sands…

His lip curled into a sneer, tugging at the scar tissue on his cheek. “Is this the man you want in your bed at night? For the rest of your life?”

Her eyes went then not to his face but to his hands. Large hands, wide and square. They bore scars too. But they also looked as if they possessed strength, confidence. The images in her mind were quick and hot…dark hands on pale skin.

Katharine’s body heated from the inside out, warmth pooling in her stomach and spreading slowly through her. The way that he said it was intended to sound like a threat, but his deep, smooth voice made it sound like a promise. Rather than repel her, it fascinated her—on a level she didn’t quite understand. No, he didn’t frighten her, but that feeling did. Foreign and strong, filling her with adrenaline and languor at the same time, weakness and strength.

She didn’t know how it had happened. How simple words had affected her like that. She threw it off, pushed ahead. She wasn’t here to be intimidated. She was here to get what she needed.

“There is an agreement.”

About the Author

MAISEY YATES was an avid Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance reader before she began to write them. She still can’t quite believe she’s lucky enough to get to create her very own sexy alpha heroes and feisty heroines. Seeing her name on one of those lovely covers is a dream come true.

Maisey lives with her handsome, wonderful, diaper-changing husband and three small children across the street from her extremely supportive parents and the home she grew up in, in the wilds of Southern Oregon, USA. She enjoys the contrast of living in a place where you might wake up to find a bear on your back porch and then heading into the home office to write stories that take place in exotic urban locales.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE ARGENTINE’S PRICE

THE HIGHEST PRICE TO PAY

MARRIAGE MADE ON PAPER

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Hajar’s Hidden Legacy

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

For Ellie. There’s nothing quite as special as a friend

who has always been there, and who always will be.

You’re that friend for me.

CHAPTER ONE

THEY called him the Beast of Hajar for a reason. Katharine could see that now. Zahir S’ad al Din was every bit as frightening as they said. He was an entirely different man from the one she’d met so many years ago. Cold, completely forbidding.

But Katharine didn’t have the luxury of being frightened by him. Anyway, she was used to cold, forbidding men.

“Sheikh Zahir,” she began, taking a step toward his expansive desk. He wasn’t looking at her, his dark head inclined, his focus on a paper in front of him. “I have been waiting for you to contact me. You haven’t.”

“No, I have not. Which makes me wonder why you are here.”

Katharine swallowed. “To marry you.”

“Is that right, Princess Katharine? I had heard a rumor about that, but I didn’t believe it.” He lifted his head and for the first time, Katharine saw his face.

Yes, he was every bit as frightening as they said. The skin on the left side of his face ravaged, his eye not as focused or sharp on that side. Yet she still felt like he was seeing all the way into her, as if the accident that had served to cloud his physical vision had made him able to see more than a mere mortal man.

That he was a ghost, or a god of some kind was part of his legend, and looking at him now, she understood why.

“I did call.” She hadn’t exactly talked to Zahir, but she’d talked to his advisor. And she hadn’t really been invited, either.

“I didn’t think you would travel all the way from the comfort of your palace to have your marriage proposal turned down, as I was certain I had relayed my thoughts on the matter.”

She straightened her shoulders. “I thought you owed me a conversation. A personal one, not your relayed response. And I didn’t come to be turned down. I came to make sure the contract was honored. The deal was struck six years ago … “

“For you to marry Malik. Not me.”

Thinking of Malik always made her feel sad. But her sadness was for a young life cut short, nothing deeper. He had been her destiny, her duty, for all of her adult life, and while she had liked him, cared for him in some ways, she had not loved him.

At first it seemed like losing him had changed everything, that her horizons had opened, that she might have a different future before her. It was clear now that nothing had changed.

Instead of Malik, it would be Zahir. But she was still destined to be sold into marriage for the sake of her country. She’d accepted it. Ultimately she hadn’t felt that the change in groom had mattered all that much.

Although, looking at him now it became a whole different matter than it had been in theory. He was … he was something much more than she’d counted on.

This was never about you. Never about your feelings. You have to be prepared to see this through.

“That’s what I thought. But when I examined the documents a little bit closer …” Her father had handled most of the legal portion of the marriage agreement that had been drawn up between her and Malik.

It hadn’t really been of personal interest to her. Her relationship with him had been nothing more than political maneuvering by their parents. She’d only met him on a few occasions. She’d simply accepted that it was what she could do for her country, that the marriage was what she could contribute. She had never personally studied the agreement.

Until recently.

“Well, yes. But really, if you look at the wording, I am promised to Malik. Unless he is not able to assume the throne of Hajar. In that case, it is his successor that I’m meant to marry. That’s you.”

So strange to be standing before him, all but begging him to marry her when a large part of herself wanted to run out of the room. She didn’t want to marry him, not on a personal level, any more than he wanted to marry her.

But her father was dying. Far too soon, and that put everything on a tight timetable. Her marriage had been pushed to some far off, fuzzy future after Malik’s death, and for a while, no one had bothered her about it. For a while she had been allowed to serve in more of a practical manner, visiting the sick in hospitals, doing vital networking to bring more tourism dollars into the country. It had been liberating in a way, to find some use for herself outside of her gender and appearance.

But that time was over.

Her father only had a few months left, and Alexander, her brother and future king, didn’t reach the legal age to rule for another six years. That meant someone had to be appointed Regent in the event of her father’s death, and she lacked the necessary physical equipment to be considered.

She was over being bitter about that. Now she was ready to act.

If she didn’t have a husband when her father died, the man placed in charge of her country would be her closest male relative. And what her closest male relative would do with that kind of power didn’t even bear thinking about. She couldn’t let it happen.

More than that, she had sworn to her father it would not happen. That she would secure the alliance with Hajar and the marriage to Zahir. That she would protect Alexander.