The Sheikh's Defiant Bride

The sultan sighed. “There is no time to waste, my son.”

Tariq looked at his father in alarm. “Are you ill?”

“Only if old age is illness,” the sultan said quietly. “But Sharif’s death is proof, as if we needed it, that Kismet rules our lives. You are my heir now, Tariq. I tremble at the thought, but if anything should happen to you…”

There was no need to say more.

The burden of succession had fallen to Tariq. And to ensure that succession, the unbroken line of rulers that stretched back centuries, it was now his responsibility to marry and produce a son.

If only Sharif had married and created sons…

If only Sharif had lived, Tariq thought, and felt the unaccustomed sting of tears in his pale gray eyes.

“Think of what has happened elsewhere in the Nations, when there has been a question about succession,” the sultan said, misinterpreting Tariq’s silence. “Would you wish that for our people?”

Tariq cleared his throat. “I don’t need convincing, Father,” he said gruffly. “I will do what must be done.”

The sultan gave a faint smile. “That is good. Come now. We shall ride back to the palace and celebrate your brother’s life.”

“You go on with the others. I—I want to be alone for a while.”

The sultan hesitated. Then he swung his horse around and signaled to his men. They rode off as they had come, single-file, in respectful silence.

Tariq dismounted. He patted the stallion’s arched neck, then looked once more at the sky.

“A wife, Sharif,” he said, quietly. “That is what I must find because of you.” He smiled; his brother, if he could hear him, would understand this kind of banter. They’d shared it since they were boys. “And how will I do that, hmm?”

The sigh of the wind was his answer.

“Shall I let Father and the council choose my bride? You know who she’d be. Abra, who would talk me to death. Lilah, who will surely soon outweigh me.”

The wind sighed again.

“Surely a man has the right to choose his own bride.”

Beside him, the stallion snorted and pawed the sand.

“Where shall I find her, Sharif? In the Nations? In America? What do you think?”

Of course, Sharif was not there to answer but it wasn’t necessary. Tariq knew what he’d have said.

The perfect wife would not be American.

There were only two kinds of American females: those who were flighty and interested in things of no consequence, and those who were headstrong and breathed the fire and brimstone of equality.

Neither would do.

Yes, he wanted a wife who would be attractive but there were other requirements. She would have a pleasant personality. She would be capable of carrying on appropriate dinner conversation in the circles in which he moved in a manner that would never be confrontational.

In other words, the perfect wife would understand her role as his consort but not as his equal.

A man who would one day ascend the throne needed such a woman. The truth was, any man would want such a woman. And the place to find her was here, among his own people.

The wind moaned and a tiny whirlwind of sand spun before him.

He had been educated in the States; he lived and worked there but from now on, his way of life would be grounded in the customs of Dubaac, where a man ruled his home and his wife.

A harsh cry rang out across the desert. Tariq shaded his eyes, looked up and saw Bashashar sailing high above him.

A sign, some would say. Not that he believed in signs. Still, the more he considered finding a bride, the more appeal he saw in confining his search to Dubaac and, if necessary, the other Nations.

The stallion nuzzled his shoulder. Tariq gathered the reins and mounted.

Problem solved. He would stay in Dubaac a week. Perhaps two, but no more than that.

After all, how difficult could finding a suitable wife possibly be?

CHAPTER ONE

New York City, two months later:

IT WAS not often that His Excellency Sheikh Tariq al Sayf, Crown Prince and Heir to the Throne of Dubaac, made an error in judgment.

Never in business. Even his enemies, who’d said he was too young for the task and had predicted failure when he’d taken over the New York offices of the Royal Bank of Dubaac four years ago, had to admit that the bank had flourished under his hand.

He rarely made mistakes in his personal life, either. Yes, an occasional former lover had wept and called him a cold-hearted bastard when he ended a relationship but it wasn’t his fault.

He was always truthful, if perhaps a bit too blunt.

Forever was of no interest to him. He went out of his way to make that clear to women. Forever meant a wife, marriage, children—things that he’d known he must have in the future…

But the future had turned out to be now.

And so he’d stood under the hot desert sun of his homeland and told himself he would find a wife in a week. Two, at the most. After all, how difficult could that be?

Standing at the wall of glass in his huge corner office, Tariq looked out over the Hudson River in lower Manhattan and scowled.

Not difficult at all, as it had turned out.

Impossible, was more like it.

“Idiot,” he muttered through gritted teeth.

Two weeks at home had stretched into three and then four. His father had hosted an elegant state dinner to which he’d invited every high-ranking family in the country that had an eligible daughter.

Tariq had found fault with all of them.

Next, his father had hosted a dinner and invited high-ranking families with eligible daughters from all the Nations of their world. Tariq still flinched at the memory. All those young women, lined up to be presented to him, every one of them fully aware of why she was there…