Kitabı oku: «Chosen As The Sheikh's Royal Bride»

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS!”

Omar bin Saab al-Maktoun, King of Samarqara, replied coldly to his vizier, “Always.”

“But—a bride market?” The vizier’s thin face looked shocked beneath the brilliant light from the throne room’s high windows. “It hasn’t been done in Samarqara in a hundred years!”

“Then it is past time,” Omar replied grimly.

The other man shook his head. “I never thought you, of all people, would yearn for the old ways.”

Rising abruptly from his throne, Omar went to the window and looked out at his gleaming city. He’d done much to modernize Samarqara since he’d inherited the kingdom fifteen years ago. Gleaming steel and glass skyscrapers now lined the edge of the sea, beside older buildings of brick and clay. “Not all my subjects are pleased by my changes.”

“So you’d sell your private happiness to appease a few hardliners?” His adviser looked at him blankly. “Why not just marry the al-Abayyi girl, like everyone expects?”

“Half of my nobles expect it. The other half would revolt. They say Hassan al-Abayyi is powerful enough without his daughter becoming queen.”

“They’d get over it. Laila al-Abayyi is your best choice. Beautiful. Dutiful.” Ignoring Omar’s glower, he added, “Marrying her could finally mend the tragedy between your families—”

“No,” Omar said flatly. He’d spent his whole reign trying to forget what had happened fifteen years before. He wasn’t going to marry Laila al-Abayyi and be forced to remember every day. Shoulders tight, he said, “Samarqara needs a queen. The kingdom needs an heir. A bride market is the most efficient way.”

“Efficient? It’s cold as hell. Don’t do this,” Khalid pleaded. “Wait and think it over.”

“I’m thirty-six. I’m the last of my line. I’ve waited too long already.”

“You’d truly be willing to marry a stranger?” he said incredulously. “When you know, by the laws of Samarqara, once she has your child, you can never divorce her?”

“I am well acquainted with our laws,” Omar said tightly.

“Omar,” his vizier said softly, using his first name by the rights of their childhood friendship, “if you marry a stranger, you could be sentencing yourself to a lifetime of misery. And for what?”

But Omar had no intention of sharing his feelings, even to his most trusted adviser. No man was willing to lay his deepest weakness bare. A king even less. “I’ve given my reasons.”

Khalid narrowed his eyes. “What if all the kingdom united, and begged you to marry Laila al-Abayyi? Then you would do it?”

“Of course,” Omar said, secure in the knowledge that it would never happen. Half of his nobles were Hassan al-Abayyi’s minions, while the other half violently opposed the man and insisted Omar must choose a bride from a competing Samarqari family. “All that matters is my people.”

“Yes,” his vizier said, tilting his head thoughtfully. “So for them, you’d risk everything on an old barbaric tradition.”

Omar’s jaw tightened. “A thousand times and more, rather than risk Samarqara falling back into war.”

“But—”

“Enough. I’ve made my decision. Find twenty women who are brilliant and beautiful enough to be my queen. First make sure they are all willing to be my bride.” Omar strode out of his throne room in a whirl of robes, calling back coldly, “And do it now.”

* * *

Why had she been stupid enough to agree to this?

Beth Farraday looked right and left nervously inside the ballroom of the elegant Paris mansion—hôtel particulier, they’d called it, a private eighteenth-century palace with a private garden, worth a hundred million euros, in the seventh arrondissement, owned by Sheikh Omar bin Saab al-Maktoun, the King of Samarqara. Beth knew those details because she’d spent the last twenty minutes talking to the waitstaff. They were the people Beth felt most comfortable talking to here.

Gripping her crystal flute, she nervously gulped down a sip of expensive champagne.

She didn’t belong with these glamorous women in cocktail dresses, all the would-be brides who’d been assembled here from around the world. Like a modern-day harem, she thought dimly, from which this unknown sheikh king would choose his queen.

The other nineteen women were so incredibly beautiful that they wouldn’t have needed to lift a finger to get attention. Yet they’d all achieved amazing things. So far, Beth had met a Nobel Prize–winner, a Pulitzer Prize–winner, an Academy Award–winner. The youngest female senator ever to represent the state of California. A famous artist from Japan. A tech entrepreneur from Germany. A professional gymnast from Brazil.

And then there was Beth. The nobody.

She so didn’t belong here, and she knew it.

She’d known it even before she’d taken the first-class commercial flight from Houston yesterday, and gotten on the private jet awaiting her in New York, where she’d met the other women traveling from North and South America. She’d known it from the moment her brainiac twin sister had asked her to take her place in this dog and pony show.

“Please, Beth,” her sister had begged on the phone two days before. “You have to do it.”

“Pretend to be you? Are you crazy?”

“I’d go myself, but I just barely saw the invitation.” Beth wasn’t surprised. She knew Edith had a habit of letting mail pile up, sometimes for weeks. “You know I can’t leave my lab. I’m on the edge of a breakthrough!”

“You always think that!”

“You’re much better at schmoozing anyway,” her sister wheedled. “You know I’m no good with people. Not like you.”

“And I’m totally princess material,” Beth replied ironically, as she’d paused in pushing a broom around the thrift shop where she worked.

“All you have to do is show up at this event in Paris, and they’ll give me a million dollars. Just think what this could mean to my research—”

“You always think you can make me do anything, just by telling me you’re saving kids with cancer.”

“Can’t I?”

Beth paused.

“Yes,” she’d sighed.

Which was why Beth was in Paris now. Wearing a red dress that was far too tight, because she was the only potential bride who didn’t fit sample size. She didn’t fit in, full stop. After being driven in a limo, like all the other women, from their luxury hotel on the avenue Montaigne to this over-the-top mansion, she’d spent the last few hours in this airless, hot ballroom, watching beautiful, accomplished women go up one by one to speak to a dark-eyed man in sheikh’s robes, sitting in tyrannical splendor on the dais.

Except Beth. The sheikh’s handlers seemed bewildered by what to do with her. They’d apparently already decided that she wasn’t remotely their boss’s type. With that, she fervently agreed.

She looked up at the scowling man sitting in his throne on the dais. She watched as he imperiously motioned these amazing women forward, one by one, with an arrogant movement of his finger. And to Beth’s shock, the women obeyed, not with glares but with blushing smiles!

Why would they put up with that? Bewildered, Beth finished off her champagne. These other women were huge successes! Geniuses! She’d even recognized Sia Lane—the most famous movie star in the world!

Beth knew why she herself was here. To help her sister help those kids, and perhaps selfishly see a bit of Paris in the process. But the other women’s reasons mystified her. They were all so accomplished, beautiful and well known—they couldn’t need the money, could they?

And the king himself was no great shakes. Beth tilted her head, considering him from a distance. He was too skinny to be handsome. And he was rude. In West Texas, where she was from, any host worth his salt would have welcomed every guest from the moment they’d walked through his door. King or not, the man should at least have common manners.

Putting her empty flute on a passing silver tray, Beth shook her head. And what kind of man would send out for twenty women like pizza, to be delivered to him in Paris so he could choose his bride?

Even if Omar al-Maktoun was some super rich, super important ruler of a tiny Middle Eastern country she’d never heard of, he must be a serious jerk. Lucky for her, she wasn’t his type. A lump lifted to her throat.

Lucky for her, she was apparently no one’s type.

There was a reason why, at twenty-six, Beth was still a virgin.

Memories ambushed her without warning, punching through her with all the pain still lingering in her body, waiting to pounce at any moment of weakness. I’m sorry, Beth. You’re just too...ordinary.

Remembering Wyatt’s words, she suddenly felt like she was suffocating, gasping for breath in the too-tight cocktail dress. Blindly turning from the stuffy ballroom, she fled out the side door, where, like a miracle, she found a dark, moonlit garden in the courtyard.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath of the cool air, pushing away the memory of the man who’d broken her heart. She didn’t need to be loved, she told herself desperately. She was helping her sister, earning money for important research. She was lucky. She’d gotten to see a bit of Paris this afternoon. The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. She’d sat for an hour at a sidewalk café and had a croissant and a tiny overpriced coffee, and watched the world pass by.

That was the problem. Beth wiped her eyes hard in the dark courtyard garden. Sometimes she felt, unlike her super busy sister, that all she did was watch the world pass by. Even here, in this fairy-tale Parisian mansion, surrounded by famous, glamorous people, that was all she was doing. She wasn’t part of their world. Instead, she was hiding alone in the private garden.

Not entirely alone. She saw a dark shadow move amid the bare, early spring trees. A man. What was he doing out here?

She couldn’t see his face, but she saw the hard, powerful grace of his stride and the tightness of his shoulders in his well-cut suit. By the hard edge of his jaw, Beth presumed he was angry. Or possibly miserable. It was hard to tell.

She wouldn’t have to think about her own problems if she could help someone else with theirs. Going toward him, she said in halting, jumbled high school French, “Excusez-moi, monsieur, est-ce que je peux vous aider—?”

The man turned, and she gasped.

No wonder she hadn’t seen him at first amid the shadows. He was black-haired, black-eyed, in a black suit. And his eyes were the blackest of all.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was a low growl, in an accent she couldn’t quite place, slightly American, slightly something else.

The stranger was so handsome she lost her voice. She wished she hadn’t come over. She didn’t know how to talk to a man like this.

It’s not his fault he’s handsome, she told herself. She took a deep breath, and tried to smile. “I’m sorry. You just looked sad. I wondered if I could help at all.”

His expression became so cold, it was like ice. “Who are you?”

Beth wondered if she’d offended him. Men could be so touchy, as prickly as a cactus on the outside, even when they were all sweet beneath. At least that was her experience with her male friends, all of whom called Beth a “pal.”

“My name is—” She caught herself just in time. She coughed. “Edith Farraday. Doctor Edith Farraday,” she emphasized, trying to give him a superior, Edith-like look.

His sensual lips curved. “Ah. The child prodigy, the cancer researcher from Houston.”

“Yes,” she said, surprised. “You must work for the sheikh?”

That seemed to amuse him.

“Every day,” he said grimly. “Why aren’t you in the ballroom?”

“I got bored. And it was hot.”

His gaze lowered to her red gown, which was far too small for her. Involuntarily, she blushed. She yanked up the neckline, which barely covered her generous breasts. “Yes, I know the dress doesn’t fit. They didn’t have anything in my size.”

He frowned. “They were supposed to have every size.”

Beth rolled her eyes. “Every size from zero to four. It was either this or my hoodie and jeans, and those were wet. It rained this afternoon when I was walking around the city.”

He looked surprised. “You didn’t rest in the hotel today like the others?”

“What, beauty sleep, so I’d look extra pretty when meeting the sheikh tonight?” She snorted. “I already know I’m not his type. And this was my only chance to see Paris. I’ll be sent home tomorrow.”

“How do you know?”

“Because his handlers don’t know what to do with me. Plus, I’ve waited in that ballroom for hours, and the man still hasn’t done me the great honor of crooking his mighty finger in my direction.”

The man frowned. “He was rude?”

“It’s fine, really,” Beth said brightly. “The king’s not my type, either.”

The handsome stranger looked nonplussed. “How do you know? You obviously haven’t done any research on him.”

Beth frowned. How did the man know that? Did it show? “You got me,” she admitted. “I know I should have looked him up on the internet, read up on his likes and dislikes and whatnot, but I only found out about this two days ago, and I was just too busy working before the plane left yesterday...”

He seemed shocked. “Too busy?”

“Frantic.” She’d had to rush to set up the thrift shop’s spring sale before her boss had grudgingly agreed to let her take her first vacation days in a year. Beth coughed. “At the lab, I mean. Super busy at the lab.”

“I imagine. It’s important work you’re doing.” The man waited, obviously expecting her to continue. But beneath the intensity of his gaze, all her carefully memorized explanations of Edith’s highly technical research fled from her mind.

“Yeah. Uh. Cancer is bad.”

He stared at her like she was an idiot. “Yes. I know.”

“Right,” she said, feeling incredibly stupid but relieved he hadn’t pushed her further. She changed the subject. “So you work for the king? What are you doing out here? Why aren’t you in the ballroom?”

His dark eyes glinted.

“Because I don’t want to be.” It struck her as the obvious answer—and yet no answer at all. A cold breeze, a vestige of the last throaty gasp of winter, blew against her bare arms and chest. Looking at him, she shivered. But not from cold.

The man towered over her, his dark suit fitting perfectly over his broad shoulders and powerful, muscular body. She’d never been so attracted to anyone like this. She felt shivery inside, overwhelmed just from being close to him. He was taller than her, bigger in every way. She felt power emanating off his body in waves. But even more dangerous than his powerful body were his eyes.

Black pools reflecting scattered bits of light, they lured her, pulled her down like a dark sea, treacherous and deep, threatening to drown her.

Beth forced herself to look away. “Well,” she said unsteadily, “I should probably go inside. And wait for the king to crook his finger at me.” She sighed. “It’s what I’m getting paid for, after all.”

“Paid?”

She looked back in surprise. “Yes. Each of the women gets a million dollars, just for showing up. And an extra million for each additional day they’re invited to remain.” Her lips lifted.

“Just the chance to be Queen of Samarqara should be enough,” he said irritably. “A bribe shouldn’t be necessary.”

“Yeah, right,” Beth scoffed. “I’m not sure why all these incredibly accomplished women are here, but I’m guessing the money might be a part of it.” She frowned, thinking of her own sister. “After all, even if you’re famous and really good at your job, you might still need money.”

“And you?” Opalescent, dappled moonlight caressed the edge of his dark brows and slash of high cheekbones. “Is that the reason you’re here?”

“Of course,” she whispered. She’d never had a man like this pay attention to her. What was she saying? She’d never met a man like this before, never, not in her whole life. He was straight out of a fairy tale, straight out of a sexy dream.

Every time this stranger looked at her, every time he spoke, her heartbeat grew faster. He was just a foot away now, and she was starting to hyperventilate. With each rapid breath, her full breasts pressed up against the overly tight sweetheart bodice of her red strapless cocktail dress. They were threatening to pop out entirely. Especially as he drew closer in the shadowy Parisian garden.

“So you’re only here for money,” he said flatly.

“Cancer research is expensive.” Her voice trembled a little in spite of her best efforts.

“I imagine so.” He stopped, looking down at her. “But I never imagined the women would be paid just to come here.”

“You didn’t?” Beth exhaled. He obviously wasn’t close to the sheikh, then. She was relieved. At least he wouldn’t tell his boss what an idiot Dr. Edith Farraday had looked like in the garden, trembling and panting over a few careless words from a stranger. The real Edith would be horrified. Or—she paused suddenly—maybe she shouldn’t make assumptions.

“Who are you to the king?” she said hesitantly. “An attaché? A bodyguard?”

He shook his head, staring down at her incredulously. “Do you really not know?”

“Oh, are you some kind of cousin? Someone famous? I’m sorry. I told you, I’ve been busy. I was so tired I fell asleep on the plane. And today, I’ve been walking around Paris...”

She was babbling, and she knew it. The man lifted a dark eyebrow, his towering, powerful body now just inches from her own. In the play of moonlight and shadow, his hard, handsome face held hers, as if she were a mystery he was trying to solve.

Beth, a mystery? She was an open book!

Except she couldn’t be, not this time. Whoever this man was, she couldn’t let him find out her secret: that she wasn’t Dr. Edith Farraday.

Until this moment, it had all just seemed like a favor, a chance to help sick kids, and see a bit of Paris. But the king was paying all that money for a reason. To meet Dr. Edith Farraday, not some ordinary shop girl from Houston.

And to her horror, she suddenly realized there was a legal name for what she and Edith were doing: fraud.

Nervously, Beth yanked up the stupid neckline of the red silk gown. She was in danger of falling out of it, especially as the man drew closer and her breaths became hoarse. No wonder he kept glancing down at her, then sharply looking away.

She felt ashamed, cheap and out of place. She wished she’d never come here, and was safely back at home wearing her usual baggy outfits she got for almost nothing at the thrift shop. No man ever looked at her in those for long.

“I should go,” she choked out. But as she turned to go back inside the ballroom, the man’s voice was husky in the shadows behind her.

“So what do you think of them?”

She turned. “Who?”

“The other women.”

Beth frowned. “Why?”

“I’m curious about the opinion of someone who, as you say, doesn’t have a chance with the king. If you don’t, then who does?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Do you promise you won’t tell the sheikh?”

“Why would you care if I did?”

“I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone’s chances.”

He put his hand to his heart in a strangely old-fashioned gesture. “I promise I won’t repeat it to anyone.”

She believed him.

Reluctantly, she said, “The movie star is his obvious choice. She’s the most famous beauty on earth right now.”

“You’re talking about Sia Lane?”

“Yeah. It’s true she’s incredibly beautiful. And charming.” She paused. “She’s also just plain mean. She harassed the flight attendants for hours on the private jet from New York, just because they didn’t have the sparkling water she wanted. Then when we arrived at the hotel this morning, and the porter nearly dropped her designer suitcase, she threatened to destroy his whole family if she saw a single scratch. She’s the kind of person who would kick a dog.” She tilted her head. “Unless, of course, she believed the dog might be helpful to her career.”

He snorted. “Go on.”

Guilt made her pause. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She shook her head. “I’m sure she’s a lovely person. Perhaps I just caught her on a bad day.”

His dark eyes gave nothing away. “If she’s the worst choice, who’s the best?”

“Laila al-Abayyi,” she said instantly. The man looked oddly pained, but she continued eagerly, “Everyone loves her. She’s, like, Mother Teresa or something. And she’s from Samarqara, so she knows the language and culture—”

“Who else?” he cut her off.

Confused at his sharp reaction, Beth frowned. “Bere Akinwande is beautiful and kind and smart. She’d make a fantastic queen. And there are others. Though to be honest, I don’t know why any of these women would want to marry the king.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“Oh, I don’t know, because he’s the kind of man who set up something like this to find a wife?” She rolled her eyes. “Seriously. This whole thing is just one camera short of a reality show.”

“It is not easy for a man in his position to find a worthy partner,” he said stiffly. He tilted his head. “Any more, I imagine, than it is easy for a lauded scientist such as yourself to take time from your important work to waste on the painful process of finding a husband the old-fashioned way.”

Beth stared at him, disgruntled, then sighed as her shoulders relaxed. “You’re right. Who am I to judge? At least he’s paying us for our time. We’re not paying him. I should thank him,” she said cheerfully. “And I will, if I ever get the chance.”

A voice came behind her.

“Dr. Farraday? What are you doing out here? You’re needed in the ballroom.”

One of the handlers was standing in the open doorway to the ballroom, impatiently motioning her inside. Then his eyes widened as he saw the stranger behind her. Glancing back, she saw the handsome stranger give a small shake of his head.

“Forgive me, Dr. Farraday,” the handler’s voice changed strangely, “but if you’d be so kind as to return to the ballroom, we’d be very grateful.”

“Well, well. It seems I finally get to meet His Highness.” Beth gave the handsome stranger a crooked grin. “Wish me luck.”

Reaching out, he touched her bare shoulder. He looked into her eyes. His voice was deep and low, and made her shiver. “Good luck.”

Beth’s knees went weak. Trying to act cool, she pulled away and said good-naturedly, “It doesn’t take luck to fail. I fail at everything. I’m a pro at it.”

The man frowned, puzzled. And she remembered too late: Beth had failed. Edith hadn’t.

“I mean—never mind. Bye.” Turning, she quickly followed the handler out of the garden.

But as she went back into the hot, crowded ballroom, and saw the sheikh sitting on the dais, she wasn’t nervous anymore. She wasn’t thinking about the powerful king who’d moved heaven and earth to bring together the most accomplished women in the world, merely to choose a potential bride.

Instead, Beth couldn’t stop picturing the handsome stranger who’d nearly brought her to her knees with a single touch, in the moonlit shadows of a chilly Parisian garden.

* * *

In the garden, Omar stared after her, still in shock.

Was it possible that he’d just had an entire conversation with Dr. Edith Farraday without her realizing who he was?

No, surely. She had to know.

But if this was a come-on, at least it had novelty value. No woman had ever pretended not to know him before.

He’d arrogantly assumed that every woman who’d agreed to come to the palais tonight wished to marry him. Was it possible one didn’t even know his identity? That she’d actually had so little interest in him that she hadn’t bothered to read newspapers, gossip magazines, or just look him up online? It seemed incredible.

But his instincts told him that Dr. Edith Farraday hadn’t been pretending. She truly had no idea who Omar was.

Just as he himself hadn’t known that Khalid was paying the twenty women to come to Paris. It made sense—as the potential brides his vizier had selected were all so famous and successful—that they could hardly be expected to toss their busy schedules aside, merely for the chance to become Omar’s queen. But still... It might have bruised a lesser man’s ego, to realize that the chance of marrying him hadn’t been enough to make women fly here from the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Which was why Khalid hadn’t told him the details, obviously. He’d told his vizier to arrange it, and arrange it the man had. It was Khalid sitting in the ballroom of his Paris mansion right now, meeting each woman personally. His friend was the one who’d winnow the twenty down to the ten whom Omar would meet personally tomorrow.

Khalid was the one who’d created the criteria for choosing the twenty potential brides, and arranged for them to be brought to Paris. When Omar had first seen the list that morning, he’d been surprised to discover how career-driven and ambitious the women were. But then, hadn’t he himself insisted the women must be brilliant to be his queen? Surely the woman he chose would be willing to give up her career, no matter how illustrious. What greater fate could any woman aspire to than becoming Queen of Samarqara?

There had just been one name on the list that had immediately displeased him.

“Why did you invite Laila al-Abayyi?” he’d demanded that morning. “I told you I cannot marry her.”

“No,” his old friend said cheerfully. “You told me you’d only marry her if all our nobles agreed she should be queen.”