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Chosen As The Sheikh's Royal Bride
JENNIE LUCAS


Swept from her ordinary world… into the royal bedchamber! Amongst the many beautiful, accomplished candidates hoping to be chosen as Sheikh Omar’s wife, shop assistant Beth can’t believe this powerful desert king would even notice her. Yet Omar does select her—and his heated gaze sets her alight, making her innocent body crave caresses she’s only dreamed about! She’s instantly thrown into his world of unimagined luxury, but can this shy Cinderella ever be a queen…?







Swept from her ordinary world...

into the royal bedchamber!

Among the many beautiful, accomplished candidates hoping to be chosen as Sheikh Omar’s wife, shop assistant Beth can’t believe this powerful desert king would even notice her. Yet Omar does select her—and his heated gaze sets her alight, making her innocent body crave caresses she’s only dreamed about! She’s instantly thrown into his world of unimagined luxury, but can this shy Cinderella ever be a queen?

A Cinderella story with a royal twist!


USA TODAY bestselling author JENNIE LUCAS’s parents owned a bookstore, so she grew up surrounded by books, dreaming about faraway lands. A fourth-generation Westerner, she went east at sixteen to boarding school on a scholarship, wandered the world, got married, then finally worked her way through college before happily returning to her hometown. A 2010 RITA® Award finalist and 2005 Golden Heart® Award winner, she lives in Idaho with her husband and children.


Also by Jennie Lucas (#u6ebb7f7b-6485-55a5-a993-3773cf9efb36)

The Sheikh’s Last Seduction

Uncovering Her Nine Month Secret

Nine Months to Redeem Him

A Ring for Vincenzo’s Heir

Baby of His Revenge

The Consequence of His Vengeance

Carrying the Spaniard’s Child

Claiming His Nine-Month Consequence

Secret Heirs and Scandalous Brides miniseries

The Secret the Italian Claims

The Heir the Prince Secures

The Baby the Billionaire Demands

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).


Chosen as the Sheikh’s Royal Bride

Jennie Lucas






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


ISBN: 978-1-474-08760-5

CHOSEN AS THE SHEIKH’S ROYAL BRIDE

© 2019 Jennie Lucas

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

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


For Susan Mallery, Christine Rimmer,

and Teresa Southwick, in gratitude

for an amazing weekend full of laughter,

food, wine, and brainstorming.

I couldn’t have written this book without you.


Contents

Cover (#ucef31e78-1ccc-5387-821f-5f931dcf0b4a)

Back Cover Text (#u23654f2b-7d10-5db7-a22e-8358e56f4ac2)

About the Author (#u86b15b0a-358e-5751-bda6-d510b031d320)

Booklist (#u33a7203c-c4d8-57cd-a087-1e1bb8c8179a)

Title Page (#u4518d37a-ee26-534c-a165-1b4b5d28121a)

Copyright (#uc92ccae9-f6d0-54b7-bf11-ff3d2598982b)

Dedication (#u7953facf-1af3-555a-94c6-ee5f43cc3c19)

CHAPTER ONE (#u5ee3e9f7-f1ec-50f9-9642-edd2e483396c)

CHAPTER TWO (#u2b4452f4-99d5-5c9f-ae7c-3ce0d92d4c97)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE (#u6ebb7f7b-6485-55a5-a993-3773cf9efb36)


“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.”

“Which they will not.”

“The future is unknowable,” Khalid said.

“Not this,” Omar replied sourly. “I’m surprised she’d even agree. How can it not be humiliating for her to compete?”

His vizier had smiled, his dark eyes glinting strangely. “Like you, sire, Miss al-Abayyi puts Samarqara’s needs above her own. Her father was so insulted by your bride market plan that he was threatening to cause trouble. Then Laila announced that she approved of your plan, and that she, too, appreciates the old traditions. That calmed her father down. She accepted my invitation for diplomatic purposes, purely for the good of the nation.”

For the good of the nation, plus a million dollars, it seemed.

A million dollars per day.

Omar set his jaw. So be it. He’d avoided marriage for long enough. He was thirty-six years old, and if he died, there was no one to inherit the throne. His only family left was Khalid, a distant cousin who wasn’t even an al-Maktoun, but an al-Bayn. Omar needed an heir. He couldn’t risk a return to the violent civil war that had nearly destroyed Samarqara during his grandfather’s time.

Nor could he risk a love match. He’d never be such a fool again.

No. He was older now, wiser. Marriage was for dynastic reasons only. And in the month since he’d ordered Khalid to arrange the bride market, he’d successfully avoided thinking about it. It wasn’t difficult. Omar was always busy with affairs of state.

But tonight, after finishing a diplomatic meeting in the embassy, when he’d returned to the residence, he’d found himself on edge, knowing the women were there. The process had begun.

As king, Omar would only nominally make the final decision. According to the traditions of the bride market, his council would advise him of the woman they felt best suited to be his queen.

But she wouldn’t just be Omar’s queen. She’d also be his wife. The mother of his children. The woman in his bed and at his side. Forever.

If you marry a stranger, you could be sentencing yourself to a lifetime of misery.

Grimly, Omar pushed Khalid’s warning away. The bride market had already begun, and in any event, his vizier and council could hardly choose worse for him than he’d once tried to choose for himself.

But still...

Tense and restless as he waited for the women to finish the interviews in the ballroom, he’d paced his private quarters. He’d known he couldn’t meet the brides. Not yet. It wasn’t protocol. But he’d found himself unable to either stay or go. So he’d gone outside in the dark, shadowy courtyard garden, trying not to think of either the future or the past.

Then he’d been interrupted by a beautiful, sensual, surprising woman. He’d been violently drawn to her, first by her incredible body, lush and ridiculously curvy in that tight dress. Then he’d been drawn by her frank, artless words. For a moment, he’d been distracted, even amused, as well as attracted.

Until even she had said that Laila, the half sister of his deceased long-ago fiancée, should be his bride.

Was there no escaping the past?

Looking up at the moonlight now, Omar felt a new chill. He’d thought the bride market would make it easier to have a clean break. Instead, tonight he was haunted more than ever by the memories of his first attempt at acquiring a bride, some fifteen years before. What a disaster that had been.

No, not a disaster. A tragedy.

One that must never happen again.

A low curse escaped him. Setting his jaw, he followed Dr. Edith Farraday back inside the ballroom. Standing quietly against the wall so he wouldn’t be noticed, he watched her from a distance, as she spoke earnestly to the vizier on the dais. Feeling his gaze, she glanced back, and their eyes met.

Then her gaze narrowed.

If she hadn’t known who Omar was in the garden, she must know it now. Her look was genuinely angry—even accusing.

A hot spark went through him as Omar looked slowly over her curvy figure in that tight dress.

His relationships of the last few years—shallow, sexual and short-lived—had been mostly with ambitious, cold, wickedly skinny blondes with a cruel wit. The opposite of black-eyed Ferida al-Abayyi, the fiancée he’d lost.

Dr. Farraday was different from all of them. She was neither a cool blonde nor a sensual, sloe-eyed brunette. Her long, lustrous hair was somewhere between dishwater blond and light brown. She had a dusting of freckles over her snub nose. Her heart-shaped face was rosy, her lips full and pink, and her eyes—it was too far to see the color, but they were glaring at him now in a way he felt all the way to his groin.

But if her face was innocently wholesome, her body was the opposite. She was a bombshell. That dress should have been illegal, he thought. Clinging to her curvaceous body, the silk whispered breathlessly that, at any moment, it might fall apart at the seams, and leave her incredible body naked and ripe for his taking. In that dress, Dr. Farraday could rule any man.

Or maybe it was just him. Looking at her in the brighter lights of the ballroom, all he could think about was taking her straight to his bed. Her skin, when he’d briefly touched her shoulder, had been even softer than silk. He could only imagine what the rest of her would feel like, naked against his own.

He took a deep, hoarse breath.

Omar could not seduce her, or any other woman here. The bride market was not about casual, easy seduction. In spite of Dr. Farraday’s remark about reality shows, it was a serious tradition, not an episode of The Bachelor.

The only way he would have the luscious Dr. Farraday in his bed would be after marriage. And she had far more to recommend her than just mind-blowing sex appeal. Her résumé had stood out from the other nineteen, because she was a research scientist specializing in the same childhood leukemia that had killed Omar’s older brother, long ago.

But if he hadn’t read that, he’d have had no idea that the woman had graduated from Harvard at nineteen with both an MD and a PhD in biochemistry. At twenty-six, she already led a team in Houston, doing bleeding-edge research. Edith Farraday rarely left the lab, he’d heard.

Someone like that should have been daunting, cold, formidable. But Dr. Edith Farraday didn’t act like her résumé. She was so different in person, Omar thought, that she almost seemed an entirely different woman.

She was warm, kind, self-effacingly funny. Even though she was different from his usual type, he was overwhelmingly attracted to her. Or maybe it was because she was so different.

Omar blinked when he heard the whispers in the ballroom suddenly explode, as a low rumble of shocked noise swirled around him. He’d been recognized by the other women in the ballroom. Without a word, he turned and disappeared back into the garden, and then to his private quarters in the residence.

But at the end of the evening, he stood alone in the upstairs salon, watching through the window as, below him, all twenty of the would-be brides climbed into limousines waiting to take them back to the luxurious, five-star Campania Hotel on the avenue Montaigne.

“The things I do for you, Your Highness.” His vizier’s voice came behind him. “Are you ready yet to just be sensible and marry the al-Abayyi girl?”

Not dignifying that question with a response, Omar turned. “You’ve made your decision which ten will be sent home?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Khalid paused. “Except for the last one. I barely spoke ten words to her before I knew she wasn’t your type.”

He was speaking of Dr. Edith Farraday, Omar realized, and said irritably, “I don’t have a type. Why does everyone think I have a type?”

“Because you do.”

Omar replied, annoyed, “And Dr. Edith Farraday isn’t it?”

“Beautiful girl, but a little too common for you, I thought. She’s put on weight since her last published photographs, too. Her dress looked outrageously tight.” Khalid blinked. “Am I wrong?”

Omar stared back out the window. He watched as Dr. Farraday got into the last limo. She looked back up wistfully at the mansion, as if she knew that she’d never come back, as if trying to remember everything.

It doesn’t take luck to fail, she’d said. I fail at everything. I’m a pro at it.

What a strange comment for a world-famous genius to make, he thought. Because she hadn’t yet found a cure for biphenotypic acute leukemia, all her accomplishments meant nothing?

But she would understand, as few could, how it felt to be single-minded in pursuit of one’s duty—for her, curing cancer, for him, the responsibility of leading a nation.

Common, Khalid had called her. And he was right. Edith Farraday didn’t have the imperious edge, the formality, the arrogance of a queen. She was unorthodox, a little undignified, and yet...

And yet...

Omar wanted her. Suddenly, and beyond reason.

No. A pulse of danger went through him. Any of the other women would be a safer choice, even Laila al-Abayyi. Because he could not, dare not allow emotion into this choice. Never again. The cost of loving, of wanting, was too high—it brought destruction, not just on him but upon innocent people.

In spite of knowing this, though, Omar gripped the edge of the translucent curtain as he watched the limo drive out past the gate. Dr. Farraday had warmed him in the garden. Warmed?

The image passed through his mind of her voluptuous figure, her full breasts pushing up against the ruched silk, fighting a battle for modesty and losing. Her eyes sparkling in furious indignation as she’d glared at him across the ballroom, unconsciously licking her full, pink lips—

A rush of heat went through him, straight to his groin. He nearly groaned aloud.

But he could not seduce her. He could not even kiss her. Not unless and until he formally proclaimed her his bride on the steps of his royal palace in Samarqara.

And he could never choose Dr. Farraday as queen. Khalid was right. She was too open, too honest, too sexy. Not at all appropriate. So he should send her away. At once, if not sooner.

“Sire?” his vizier asked. “Shall I send the Farraday woman home?”

But as Omar turned, all he could think about was how seeing her in the cold, dark garden had been like seeing the bright, warm sun after a long-dead winter. And he heard himself growl, “One more night.”




CHAPTER TWO (#u6ebb7f7b-6485-55a5-a993-3773cf9efb36)


SO THAT WAS THAT.

The next morning, when Beth heard the hard knock at the door, she lifted her backpack to her shoulder and looked at her luxurious hotel suite one last time.

In the soft morning light, the suite looked magical, like a princess’s bedchamber, with a fireplace and four-poster bed, a wrought-iron balcony edged with pink flowers, and a white marble bathroom bigger than her whole studio apartment back home. She’d taken pictures to show her friends back at the thrift shop.

Outside, the morning sun was soft over Paris. Beneath the Eiffel Tower, white neoclassical buildings glowed as pink as frosted cupcakes. She saw birds flying over the avenue Montaigne, soaring over the fresh blue sky.

Beth looked at her hoodie and jeans, which had been freshly cleaned and pressed by the hotel staff overnight. Unlike the other brides, she’d traveled light, with only a backpack, which was now stuffed with her neatly folded silk cocktail dress from last night. The king’s staff had made it clear they didn’t want it, and she knew someone at the thrift shop certainly would.

She took a deep breath. She was glad to be returning home. She didn’t belong here, in this glamorous world.

Her place was in her Houston neighborhood, in her studio walk-up apartment near the community college, where she’d been taking part-time classes until her heartbreak over Wyatt made her drop out. Since then, her part-time job at the thrift shop had become full-time, and she biked to work each morning, rain or shine, because she couldn’t afford car insurance, much less a car. She sometimes worked extra jobs to make ends meet, and in her spare time, she volunteered at the local soup kitchen, the food pantry and the senior center. That was the life she knew.

But Beth wanted to remember this Paris adventure, down to the last moment. Because she knew it would never happen again.

After her shock last night, realizing she’d been talking to the actual king the whole time in the garden, she’d expected to be awake all night, agonizing about what an idiot she’d been. Instead, she’d slept like a log, wrapped in soft cotton sheets that had a thread count higher than her paycheck. After a long, hot shower that morning in the palatial bathroom, she’d eaten breakfast in bed, brought by room service, with toasted baguettes called tartines slathered with butter and marmalade, and fresh, flaky chocolate croissants that melted literally like butter in her mouth, and drunk fresh-squeezed orange juice and strong coffee with fresh cream.

But her time as a princess was over. When her phone buzzed an hour before, she hadn’t even bothered to check the message. She already knew what it would say: she was being sent home.

Now, the knock. She hesitated, staring at the door. Once she answered it, she knew she’d find a servant waiting to escort her to the minibus that would take her back to the airport, along with the rest of the rejected ten. How could it be otherwise, when after criticizing a famous movie star, Beth had actually insulted the king as well—right to his handsome, sensual face?

Beth flinched, remembering how stupid she’d felt when she’d finally spoken to the man on the throne, only to discover it was just a regular chair, and the man was just a vizier and that only the ten women to make the next cut would have the honor of actually meeting the king in person.

“But where is he now?” she’d asked as a creeping suspicion built inside her.

The vizier replied with a disapproving stare, “His Highness is busy with affairs of state.”

And then, like a flash, Beth had known.

Why aren’t you in the ballroom?

Because I don’t want to be.

Who else but the king could choose whether he wished to attend such a gala in his own residence? Who else could be so arrogant, wear such a well-cut suit and be able to lounge in the residence’s garden at his leisure? She remembered the handler’s shocked look, and the handsome stranger’s small shake of the head.

You must work for the sheikh? she’d asked. Amused, he’d replied, Every day.

As she stood beside the vizier in the ballroom, her horrible suspicion built to certainty. Then she’d felt someone’s gaze behind her. Turning, she’d seen the handsome stranger himself now beside the door, watching her across the ballroom with cool, inscrutable eyes. And she’d remembered her own embarrassing words. I don’t know why any of these women would want to marry the king... This whole thing is just one camera short of a reality show.

At any time, the king could have revealed himself and stopped her. Instead, he’d just let her carry on making a fool of herself. Angry and humiliated, Beth had glared at him for a moment in the ballroom. Then she’d turned away, cheeks burning. When her interview with the vizier was finally over, the king was nowhere in sight.

She told herself she was relieved she’d never see him again. Just being near him had done crazy things to her. She shivered, her cheeks even now flooding with color at the memory.

He should have had the common decency to tell her who he was, straightaway. The man had no manners whatsoever. And if she ever saw him again—

The knock pounded again on her door, even harder and louder. Gripping the straps of her backpack, Beth answered the door with a sigh. “All right, I’m coming—”

Standing in the doorway, she saw King Omar himself, dressed from head to toe in regal sheikh’s robes.

Her jaw dropped as she took an involuntary step back. His black eyes pierced her. His powerful body seemed to fill every inch of the doorway as he looked down at her grimly.

“So. You know who I am.”

It was a statement, not a question. Trembling, she nodded. All her earlier ideas of pointing out his bad manners flew straight out the window. Her knees were trembling, and all she could think was that he’d discovered she wasn’t Edith. Why else would the king himself come to see her, rather than just having his servants escort her onto the Minibus of Shame?

“Why are you here?” she whispered through dry lips.

“I have good news and bad news, Dr. Farraday.” His husky voice was faintly mocking. “The good news is—you’re coming with me.”

Where? To jail? “Then what’s the bad news?” she blurted out.

“I’m afraid word has gotten out.” He paused, and fear rushed through her body, until he continued smoothly, “Paparazzi have surrounded this hotel. I’m here to escort you and the others out the back.” He motioned to a servant hovering behind him in the hotel hallway. “Saad will get your luggage.”

She indicated the backpack on her shoulder. “This is all I have. This, and the clothes on my back.”

The king’s dark eyes flickered over her. “I will send for more clothes for you.”

Beth shook her head in confusion. “It’s not necessary—”

“Isn’t it?” His gaze lingered over her oversize gray hoodie and baggy jeans as she stood in the hotel suite. She suddenly wished she had something nicer to wear. But that didn’t make sense. If he hadn’t learned her real identity, which it seemed he hadn’t, what did she care what the king thought of her as he took her to the airport?

And yet, somehow, she did care. Remembering how his darkly intense eyes had traced down her bare throat last night to her overflowing breasts, she blushed. Last night, it had felt like she’d wandered into a romantic dream, with the two of them alone in a moonlit Parisian garden.

Dream? No. He’d made a fool of her.

The third man to do that, she thought, and her heart lifted to her throat. “I don’t understand,” she said stiltedly. “The good news is that you’re taking me to the airport personally?”

“No.” His dark eyebrows lowered. “Back to the mansion.”

Beth frowned, bewildered. “All twenty of us are going back?”

“Only the ten who are staying another night.”

Beth stared at him.

“I made it to the top ten?” she whispered. It was so unexpected she hugged the thought close to her chest.

The sheikh frowned at her. “You are not pleased?”

Beth’s feelings were so mixed up she hardly knew how she felt. “Um...are you sure it’s not a mistake?”

He snorted, then tilted his head, considering her. “You are different.”

A flutter went through her heart. “I am?”

“Yes.” Their eyes locked, and his gaze electrified her body, from her fingertips to her toes and everywhere between. “So will you come?”

No. She had to say no. She’d gotten the million dollars for Edith. Only a fool would press her luck—

“Of course,” she blurted out.

A slow-rising smile lifted his sensual lips. “This way, if you please, Dr. Farraday.”

Dr. Farraday. As Beth walked with him down the hotel hallway, his servant following behind, her heart fell back to her canvas sneakers.

Remembering how angry she’d been at him for not disclosing his identity in the garden, she felt ashamed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

And if he found out—when he found out—

Oh, this was getting dangerously complicated. She’d never imagined he’d choose her to stay another night, not in a million years!

But one more day would mean another million for Edith’s research. Then tomorrow, she’d go home for sure. Surely she could fake it for another twenty-four hours. No one the wiser, and no one hurt.

But as she left the Paris hotel, going out into the bright sunlight where the limos waited, Beth barely noticed the paparazzi with their lifted cameras and shouted questions, and the bodyguards holding them back. Looking up at the handsome, powerful billionaire king beside her, she felt equal parts intoxicated—and afraid.

For the first time since she could remember, she’d been chosen for something. The king didn’t think Beth was ordinary. He thought she was different. That she was special.

The thought warmed her all over. Until she remembered he hadn’t chosen Beth.

He’d chosen Edith.

* * *

“You collected the Farraday woman from her hotel suite? Yourself?”

Khalid’s voice was shocked.

“I had no choice. She wouldn’t answer the phone.” Standing in the grand salon back at his Paris residence, Omar looked out irritably at the hordes of paparazzi now clustered outside the tall wrought-iron gates. Someone had tipped off the press about the bride market. Who? He wondered grimly. One of his scorned would-be brides? Or perhaps one of the ten he’d kept?

Perhaps Sia Lane, the movie star Dr. Farraday had called “downright mean,” had decided to hedge her bets with a little more publicity?

Whoever’d done it, the story had exploded instantly. It was too juicy for the media to treat it otherwise, with the famous playboy king of a small Middle Eastern kingdom bringing women from around the globe to choose a queen. The story was making news everywhere.

It’s one camera short of a reality show, Dr. Farraday had said. She was right.

Dr. Edith Farraday. Just thinking of her warmed Omar. She’d looked shocked in the hotel suite two hours before, as if she’d never expected to be chosen.

Perhaps he’d been wrong to choose her. But how could he send away the one woman who was different—the one who made his body come alive? He’d told himself that all his initial concern was overcautious. So he was attracted to her. What of it?

Attraction wasn’t love, or the kind of mind-blowing lust that caused civilizations to crumble.

He just wanted her. And there was some mystery in her that he couldn’t quite understand. Her lovely expression, frank and honest, had a way of changing, becoming guarded. As if she were hiding something from him. But what?

Today, he’d find out.

Then he’d send her home tomorrow.

“You shouldn’t have escorted her yourself. It’s not how it’s supposed to be done,” Khalid continued, obviously disgruntled. “If you escort one lady from her hotel suite, you must do the same for the rest. Otherwise it gives the appearance of favoritism.”

Omar dropped the curtain abruptly and turned to face the other man. “Dr. Farraday is my favorite,” he said bluntly.

His vizier’s expression soured. “But surely, she isn’t as beautiful or elegant as—”

“Say Laila al-Abayyi’s name, and I’m sending you straight back to Samarqara.”

The other man paused, and his mouth snapped shut. Then he ventured, “Dr. Farraday does not seem to have the same polish as the others. Perhaps she has spent too much time in her lab. The brief time I interviewed her, she was far too artless and frank in her speech. The council would not approve of her obvious lack of diplomacy.”

Thinking of Dr. Farraday’s casual, accidental insults to him in the garden, Omar was forced to agree. He said shortly, “She amuses me. Nothing more.”

“Ah.” His vizier’s face looked relieved.

“I collected Dr. Farraday from her suite because it was expedient. And I did not escort her to her room here.”

Although heaven knew he’d wanted to.

That morning, the other nine women had all rushed from their hotel rooms immediately after the phone call informing them they’d made the top ten. They’d clustered together, filling up the first limousine. Leaving Omar alone with the luscious Dr. Farraday in the second limo.

Sitting beside her on the drive from the hotel back to his Paris mansion, he’d been aware of her, so aware. It had taken all his willpower to make polite conversation with her, when his mind had been on something else altogether. He’d wanted to pull up the privacy screen to block out the view of the driver and bodyguard in front, so he could push her against the soft calfskin leather of the wide back seat, pull off that ridiculously baggy sweatshirt and discover the delights of the amazing curves she’d flaunted last night.

“Very well, sire...” his vizier said haltingly. “Of course you must enjoy your amusements in the midst of a serious business. So long as you consider your actual choice wisely. It took some trouble to bring these women to Paris.”

“Some money, you mean,” Omar said coldly. “I heard about the payments.”

“You are displeased with my method?” Khalid shook his head. “It’s nothing to your fortune. A mere rounding error.”

He glowered. “That isn’t the point.”

“Then what is?” His friend looked stubborn. “A bride price is part of the tradition, you know that. Isn’t it better for the payment to go to the brides themselves, rather than the antiquated custom of paying their fathers?”

Omar could hardly argue with that. “Of course,” he bit out. “But still...”

“Still?”

He could hardly explain that it had hurt his pride. His friend would say, with some cause, that it was well deserved. He growled, “I never gave you authorization.”

“You just told me to arrange it. And made it quite clear you didn’t wish to be bothered with the details.”

Another thing Omar could not argue with. He scowled.

Khalid’s eyebrows rose. “And surely you approve of the results. All these women are beautiful and brilliant. Just as you commanded.”

“Yes,” he was forced to concede. Based on their pictures and resumes alone, they were more accomplished than he’d ever imagined. “Assuming they are willing to give up those brilliant careers to be Queen of Samarqara.”

“And why would they not?” Khalid replied indignantly. “Being Samarqara’s Queen is surely the greatest honor any woman could imagine.”

Omar hesitated. He’d assumed the same thing himself, and yet suddenly he was not so sure.

He himself had been forced to leave college at twenty-one and ascend the throne, casting all personal ambitions aside after his father had died. But he’d known that would be his fate from the day his older brother had died. As the only heir of a country that could still remember the horrors of civil war, Omar had always known he must put his country’s needs above his own. Any man of honor would have done the same.

And so it was with this marriage. After the awful tragedy with Ferida, he’d put marriage off indefinitely. Until, in New York on a recent diplomatic visit, he’d seen an elderly couple walking down Fifth Avenue. They hadn’t been special, or rich, or beautiful. But they’d held hands tenderly as they walked together. The man had gazed down lovingly at his wife, and she at him. And Omar had felt a sharp pain in his throat.

He did not expect that kind of devotion. Why would he? His own parents’ marriage had been a disaster. Selfishly trying to find love only brought pain, or worse—death.

Coming home, Omar had ordered his vizier to begin the preparations for the bride market. He wanted this marriage finished. Done. Before he ever let himself again be tempted by something so destructive as a foolish dream.

He would take a bride who felt the same. A woman who’d put others first, as Omar did. Who would see the sacrifice not just as a burden, but an honor.

At least most of the time.

“One of the ten women would see it as a greater honor than the rest,” his vizier said slowly. “She has no other career than to be a dutiful daughter and the pride of her people. She already speaks our language, knows our customs—”

Omar cut him off with a glare. Setting his jaw, he said with some restraint, “Bring the ten in now.”

His vizier’s jaw tightened, and he looked as if he were biting back words. Then he bowed and went to open the door to the grand salon. Outside, in the elegant hallway, ten women were waiting.

Eight of them, he’d meet for the first time. The ninth, he was trying to avoid. The tenth, he could hardly stop thinking about. He’d speak with Dr. Farraday last. She would be his dessert. His whipped cream. His cherry on—

Realizing he was starting to get aroused, he stopped the thought cold.

Because his vizier was right. As much as he desired Edith Farraday, she seemed an unlikely queen. Aside from her lack of tact, it was almost impossible that she’d be willing to give up her life as a research scientist. It was obviously her obsession, in spite of her strange reluctance to talk about it. And Laila was a nonstarter.

So he needed to seriously consider the other eight. Any one of them could be an appropriate queen, one the council would approve of, and if he were lucky, one he could admire and respect. So, for the rest of the afternoon and evening, he’d meet with each woman privately, for as long or short a time as he deemed appropriate.

But the plans for today had been that he’d get to know his ten potential brides by touring the sights of Paris with each of them separately. That would be more difficult with paparazzi outside the gate, holding up their cameras as reporters yelled obnoxious questions. Anywhere they tried to go, the paparazzi would follow.

But at least it would not last long. Tomorrow morning, he’d send five more women home. The remaining five, the true contenders, would return with him to Samarqara to meet the council in preparation for the main event: the bride market itself.

Now, standing beside the banquet table, Omar watched as the ten women entered the grand salon of his Paris mansion.

Nine women looked like carbon copies, though all in different shades and colors—classically beautiful, slender, elegant, tall and perfectly dressed in sleek designer outfits.

Then there was the last one, shorter than the rest, and rounder. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes bright, her light brown hair wavy and wild. Against his will, his eyes traced over her. Her curves were invisible beneath the baggy hoodie and jeans. But his body stirred, becoming instantly hard.

Why her?

Omar couldn’t answer the question, even to himself.

As the women entered the grand salon one by one, he stood near the end of the banquet table in his full sheikh’s robes, making eye contact with each one, giving each a welcoming nod, as he did during any other diplomatic endeavor. The women each smiled, or preened, or nodded back coolly, in their turn.

And in spite of his best efforts to be open-minded, he found himself unimpressed, in spite of all their obvious charms. He was bored by them, beauty, success and all.

Except for the woman who came in last, looking pink-cheeked and miserable, hanging in the back of the salon. The one who wouldn’t meet his eyes.

Dr. Edith Farraday. And again he felt it, along with his powerful attraction—that mystery he couldn’t solve. As Khalid had pointed out, Omar had already made it clear by his attentions that she was his favorite. So why did she hang back, behind the rest? Why did her hazel eyes look haunted and guilty, as if she’d committed some crime?

He didn’t like ambiguity. He wanted her mystery solved. Now. Tonight.

And in a perfect world, he would have solved the mystery with them both naked in bed.

“Welcome,” his vizier said formally, spreading his arms wide in his robes. “I will be presenting each of you in turn to His Highness, the King of Samarqara. Please—” he indicated the tables full of drinks and lavish food “—until your name is called, please feel free to mingle and relax.”

Omar sat down at the chair at the end of the table. Standing beside him, Khalid motioned to the first woman.

“Miss Sia Lane.”

The beautiful blonde came forward and gave a slightly ironic nod, then at his motioned invitation, sat down in the chair beside him. His vizier said gravely, “Sire, Miss Lane is a very well-known actress from Los Angeles, California.”

“Pleased to meet you, Your Highness,” she said.

“And you, Miss Lane.” It wasn’t surprising that his vizier had chosen her to make the cut. She was the world’s most famous beauty, and her chilly glamour reminded him of many of his past mistresses. On paper, Sia Lane would make an excellent bride, a prestigious new member to join any royal family, as when Grace Kelly had become Princess of Monaco or Meghan Markle became Duchess of Sussex.

But when Omar reached out to shake Sia Lane’s hand, her skin felt cold and dry. He felt nothing, in spite of her beauty. He dropped her hand.

“Welcome,” he said gravely. “Thank you for coming to meet me.”

“My pleasure,” the blonde murmured, fluttering her eyelashes at him, arrogantly sure of her own appeal. He recalled Dr. Farraday’s tart assessment: She’s the kind of person who would kick a dog, unless, of course, she believed the dog might be helpful to her career.

Taking his wry smile for praise, the movie star tilted her chin in a practiced move he’d seen in her films. They spoke briefly, then he dismissed her with a polite nod. She seemed almost surprised, as if she’d expected to be proclaimed his queen, here and now.

Khalid called the next woman forward. “Dr. Bere Akinwande.”

“Your Highness,” she said politely, with a short bow. Speaking with her as she sat beside him, he thought Dr. Edith Farraday’s character assessment was correct once again. She seemed an excellent choice to be his queen—a doctor, she spoke six languages, and had been nominated for a Nobel prize. She spoke earnestly of the work she was doing, the difference it could make in the world, and thanked him twice for the “donation” he’d given her. She did not try to flirt. She’d clearly come for the money, but then—he thought again of Dr. Farraday’s important research—could he blame her for that?

Dr. Bere Akinwande was accomplished, intelligent and pretty, but when he shook her hand, again, he felt nothing.

“Laila al-Abayyi,” his vizier intoned, his voice solemn.

Omar repressed his feelings as he was formally introduced to the young Samarqari heiress. Looking in her lovely face, he saw the same black eyes, the same dark beauty, the same masses of long, shiny dark hair that he remembered seeing in her half sister Ferida, fifteen years ago. Ferida, whom he’d arrogantly demanded as his bride, before it had all ended in death and sand—

Dropping her hand, he said shortly, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” Laila said, looking bewildered at being cut off when she’d been in the middle of shyly praising the improvements of his rule.

“You may return to your room. I will not meet with you later.”

“You—you won’t?”

“I thank you for your intercessions with your father. But any further contact between us would be unwelcome.”

Laila turned pale. “Oh. I—I see...” With a hurt glance toward the vizier, the brunette fled the salon.

“Sire,” his vizier said in a low voice for his ears alone, “that was unconscionable—”

“She should not be here.” Omar’s jaw was hard as stone as he turned on him. “Do you understand? I will not marry her. Ever.”

His vizier’s eyes narrowed, then he gave an unsteady nod. Turning, he called the next potential bride’s name.

Omar was glad of the chance to calm the rapid, sickening beat of his heart, as he offered the same polite courtesy to the next woman, then the next, expressing gratitude for their visit to Paris. They always thanked him in return, smiling, their eyes lingering appreciatively over his face and body. So far, so good.

But after that, he started to feel like a bank manager, not a king. The entrepreneur from Germany, tossing her hair, explained in detail that she was seeking investors for her tech start-up. The gymnast from Brazil, smiling flirtatiously, told him of her desire to build an expensive new training facility in São Paulo. The senator from California, her gaze falling to his mouth, wished to discuss favorable trade negotiations for her state’s dairy farmers. And so on.

Many of the women had clearly come to Paris to pursue their career goals, as Dr. Farraday had. Only a few of them seemed blindly ready to toss their important careers away for a Cinderella fantasy that had little to do with the rigors of actual leadership.

He wasn’t sure which was worse.

But he was always aware of the one woman in the background, standing by the wall, hovering in the corners, moving in the shadows. One woman who, in spite of her obvious determination to be invisible, shone out for him like no other.

Finally, his vizier’s voice said grudgingly, “And finally, sire, Dr. Edith Farraday. A well-known cancer researcher from Houston, Texas.”

Watching her as she came forward, Omar could have sworn that she flinched at the sound of her own name. Why? Was she so unwilling to meet with him?

Her earlier words came floating back: I don’t know why any of these women would want to marry the sheikh.

Was it possible that, even though he was so attracted to her, she wasn’t attracted to him at all?

No, surely not. Women always fell at his feet. He was the King of Samarqara, billionaire, absolute ruler of a wealthy kingdom.

But then, was Dr. Edith Farraday, child prodigy, high-minded scientist, the sort of person to be impressed by money and power? For all he knew, she had a boyfriend back home. An ordinary but perfectly satisfying man who was content to let her be the superstar, while he cooked her dinners and rubbed her feet. She might find that sort of man much more appealing to her lifestyle than some playboy king who, until this very moment, had been unable and unwilling to commit to anything beyond his own rule.

It was a discomfiting thought.

“Oh. Hello again,” Edith said uneasily, her eyes darting to the right and left, as if she felt guilty. Guilty?

Was there a boyfriend?

The question set him on edge.

“It’s a pleasure to finally be properly introduced,” Omar said gravely. He looked over her outfit, the exact same hoodie and jeans that she’d worn when he’d knocked on her hotel room door that morning, and tilted his head curiously. “Did the new wardrobe I had sent to your room not meet with your approval?”

“The clothes are beautiful, thank you,” she said, her eyes guarded.

“And yet you are not wearing them.”

“They really weren’t necessary. I’m only going to be here one more day.”

“And a night,” he pointed out.

She looked away evasively. “I suppose. But I knew if I wore them, your people couldn’t return them to the store. So I didn’t touch them.”

Omar stared at her incredulously. “You’re worried about the cost?”

She actually blushed. “I suppose it’s silly but... I don’t like taking advantage of people...”

Then her voice abruptly cut off. Her cheeks turned from pink to bright red.

He frowned, puzzled by her reaction. “You’re not taking advantage. You’re my guest. I want you to be comfortable.”

“Oh, I am,” she said in a strangled voice. She tried to smile, but her face was stiff and awkward.

“Is there some reason you wish to rush back to Houston?” He watched her. “A boyfriend back home?”

Her eyes flashed wide. “What?” she said quickly. “No!”

Omar relaxed. “So you miss your work at the lab, then.”

“Oh. Yes. Of course I do.” She paused, then blurted, “I’d hoped to see more of Paris today. But I was just told that we won’t be allowed to leave the mansion this afternoon?”

“An unfortunate circumstance, with all the paparazzi outside the gate.”

She bit her lip. “I know I’m being silly, it’s just... I didn’t get a chance to see the Louvre yet, or climb the Eiffel Tower. The line for tickets was too long. I was hoping...” Squaring her shoulders, she shook her head. “Ah, well, it doesn’t matter.”

“The Louvre? You like art?”

“I wanted to see the Mona Lisa. Who doesn’t?”

“You’ve never seen it?” It seemed strange she’d never been to Paris before. He was sure the other women had visited many times, for school trips or family vacations, or, as in the case of Laila al-Abayyi, because their families owned lavish penthouses with a view of the Seine.

Dr. Farraday was indeed very busy in the lab, it seemed. Totally and utterly dedicated to her cause since she was a teenager.

Not a bad quality for a queen, an important part of him argued. Sadly it was the part of him that wanted her in his bed.

But Dr. Farraday had a quiet beauty, in a way that perhaps a man wouldn’t notice right away, especially in those baggy jeans and hoodie, with her hair pulled up in a ponytail. She wasn’t even wearing makeup.

As accustomed as Omar was to women constantly trying to get his attention, it was strange indeed to meet a woman who seemed determined to evade it. In fact, if he hadn’t seen her in that tight red dress yesterday, he might have easily overlooked her even now.

Surely not. Was he so shallow as that?

When she didn’t sit down beside him, Omar rose abruptly to his feet. “Thank you for coming to Paris to meet me, Dr. Farraday.”

“No problem.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Thanks for the two million for cancer research.”

He couldn’t look away from her smile, or the way her eyes suddenly sparkled beneath the chandeliers. “You must tell me about your latest scientific breakthroughs.”

The smile on her face dropped away. Why? Because he’d reminded her of the important cancer research she was neglecting to be here? She gave an awkward laugh. “I, uh, don’t like to talk about it. Most people find the details very dull.”

“Try me. I’m not a scientist, but I do keep up on developments in the search for the cure for biphenotypic acute leukemia.”

Her voice was a croak. “You do?”

Omar gave a short nod. “Perhaps later, while discussing your research, we could also discuss an additional donation from my country’s charitable fund.”

There. The perfect bait to make any scientist talk.

And yet she still didn’t.

“Uh—maybe later,” she managed. She glanced around the salon, then leaned forward to whisper, “Why did you really want me to stay in Paris? For an insider’s opinion on your potential brides? Or just for comic relief?”

“Maybe I like your company,” he said. “I enjoyed talking to you in the garden.”

“You should have told me who you were...” Then she shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”




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