Stars for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 8)

by Annabelle Winters

  And in that moment Di saw it, the last bit of herself vanishing into the mists of time, and she could see a million Diamantes roll into one, a point of infinite density, the size of a black pea, the size of a gray mole, all of her lives compressed into one, rage and desolation holding hands and dancing across time, those twin heads of sex and violence now merging into one gruesome visage, those horns now a crown, the crown of a queen, the crown of a goddess, roses and thorns, porcupines and worms . . .

  Suddenly through her rage she could see blood, she could taste blood, dark and fresh, and she watched herself as she smashed the edge of that laptop into his face, crushing the bridge of his nose, breaking his cheekbones as he screamed beneath her, choking on his own blood as she kept at it, harder and harder, the violence making her howl with glee as she let the madness take over, the strength of a thousand rejected princesses finally breaking his skull and stilling him, her body still heaving with laughter as she tossed the shattered laptop aside and wiped the blood from her face and neck. A silence descended over the room as Di stared down at the red-streaked bed, her dead husband, her own naked body stained with his blood. It was a heavy silence, punctuated by just her breath. Heavy, but clear. A silence of clarity.

  Carefully she cleaned herself, not bothering with the room or his body. She could think clearly, it occurred to her when she realized her mind was racing through real-world considerations of whether anyone had heard and called the police yet, how much time she had to get out of there, how much cash she could get from the bank in the next hour, how long before her passport would be locked and she wouldn’t be able to get across the border into Mexico.

  Oh God, this is incredible, Di thought when she looked inside herself and realized that the psychological shift had happened in a way no one could have ever predicted. Given the mathematical certainty of parallel worlds, there had always been speculation on how one might move between those worlds—indeed, that was what Sideways Through Time was about. But no one could have predicted how parallel personalities might somehow merge, integrating two strands of consciousness into one body, Diamante and Di into one.

  Because I can feel her in me, Di thought as she dressed in blue jeans and a black long-sleeved top, grabbing a dark scarf for her blonde hair, putting on sensible shoes. But I can also feel myself in me, still here, the same but different. I should be horrified by what I’ve done, but I only feel a calmness, a stillness, a coldness that Diamante has opened up in me. Which makes sense, because of course Diamante is me. We were one in the subconscious, but now we are one in the ego, the waking consciousness. The power of her unresolved emotions from that life is so strong that my own life’s events are running parallel, as if now it’s our shared responsibility to resolve all of it in this life, in this world! Together we have a power to change our destiny! I feel it!

  And so Hilda must feel it too, this need to direct fate, it occurred to Di as she grabbed her bag and keys, stopping in front of the mirror and smiling thinly at herself, a golden princess with fire in her eyes. Yes, Hilda is at the center of this somehow. Hilda, Rahaan, and their unborn child.

  And then Di froze. She understood what she needed to do. She couldn’t run to Mexico. No, she had to make sure her path merged with that of Hilda and Rahaan—which wasn’t going to happen in freakin’ Cancun.

  Do I head back to Hilda’s store, Di thought. Hotel security hasn’t called to check on a disturbance, and clearly the police aren’t here yet. Which means nobody heard anything, so I have some time. But there are still things I don’t know, don’t understand. I can feel Diamante’s consciousness merging with mine, rising from my own subconscious and becoming more clear to me, her memories joining with mine. But I need some time to study myself, figure out if I’m insane or if there’s a scientific basis for what’s happening to me. If this cold calmness I feel is standard dissociation or something else. Either way, I can’t just be running around stripping in public and killing people. I need to allow some time for this psychological, perhaps even spiritual integration of two strands of consciousness to take its course. Perhaps I’ll eventually get deeper access to Diamante’s memories, to find out how her story ends, to see if in this world we can change that ending!

  Because that’s why this is happening, isn’t it? That’s why the emotions are so strong that the barriers between worlds are collapsing, why we’re all dreaming of each other, why my consciousness opened up and let Diamante in, why I just killed my husband and don’t give a shit, why Hilda is miraculously pregnant with the Sheikh’s baby.

  Now she knew what to do, and she knew where to go. So Di headed out the door and took the elevators to the parking garage, her mind racing again as she calculated how long it would take to drive back to Santa Fe, pick up her passport, stop by the bank and clean out the cash accounts, get a plane ticket, and make it out of the country. The flight would take over twelve hours, she knew, looking at her watch and counting forward. She’d put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door before leaving, so hotel housekeeping wouldn’t enter the room. And Norm and her weren’t due to check out until the end of the week. So yeah, she probably had a solid twenty-four hours, if not more, before they’d find Norm. So she could make it. She could make it out of the country, across Europe, into the Middle East, all the way to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Then she could hire a car and driver to take her across the desert highways to the small, obscure kingdom of Kolah. It sounded insane, but it was her best shot. After all, if Hilda was really pregnant with the Sheikh’s child, then eventually the two of them would travel to Kolah, would they not? And hell, once word got out that Norm had been killed and his wife was the prime suspect, perhaps Rahaan would decide to whisk away his fat-assed baby-mama to that fortress in the desert even sooner!

  Yes, the Sheikh will want to protect his woman and his child, and he will take her there, she thought as she drove out of the garage and headed for the highway. After they hear about poor Norm, there will be fear and doubt in those two. Because you know what, maybe the king and his queen didn’t get their happy endings in those worlds either!

  Oh, God, she thought as she turned onto the open road and hit the gas, driving into a future that was fated but also still being written . . . . perhaps being re-written. Maybe they’re trying to change how it ends too!

  36

  “This ain’t gonna end well,” Hilda heard the large boy sneer when she closed her eyes and trusted her body to the Sheikh. She could feel her arousal mix with the fear and dread that was coming through time, from that world where a white girl and a brown boy were stealing away into the night, their precious cargo innocent and unborn within her young womb.

  “Please,” Hilda heard herself say through that girl, who seemed to know the enormous boy who stood in their way. “Don’t tell anyone. Not until tomorrow, at least. By then everyone’ll know, anyway.”

  “I know you,” said the Sheikh in that world, her young protector who had stepped out in front of her and was standing tall before the other boy. Somehow Hilda could feel her fear recede in that world even as she felt the Sheikh kiss her in this world, and she felt herself smile at him in both worlds. It was so strange to be in two worlds at once, her body alive and electric with both fear and passion, excitement and arousal, her mind somehow expanding to access both realities as her man took her there. “Youse the pastor’s boy from the next town. This ain’t none of your concern. What’re you doin’ here in the middle of the night, anyways?”

  “I ain’t no boy,” said Pastor-kid, and Hilda could smell the country liquor on his breath. “And you ain’t no man. There’s been talk o’ the two of youse. And now I seen it, and Pa’s gonna hear it.” He pointed at Hilda. “My pa, and your pa, little girl.”

  “People don’t know nothing and they just talk,” said Rahaan, his body tightening.

  “What do they say?” Hilda said, feeling safe behind her man, safe enough to get angry. “Huh? W
hat? Say it if you dare, you bully!”

  “Don’t,” the Sheikh whispered, reaching behind him in that world and touching her side, the touch making her moan and tremble in this world.

  “They say you two been sinning,” said Pastor-kid. “You been married in secret, in the forest, at midnight, by a . . . by a goat! Yeah, you been sinning, and inside you there’s a child now, an unholy child, a bastard that’s—”

  She screamed in this world and she howled in that one, and the young Sheikh roared as he leapt at Pastor-kid in her dream. Hilda could feel Rahaan’s body against hers even as she watched him batter the larger boy with his fists, the two boys shouting as she screamed. The Sheikh was inside her now as the candles flickered to life in the windows of that dark farmhouse in the background, lights and action driving Hilda wild as the young Rahaan broke Pastor-kid’s nose in a furious explosion of blood before lowering his blood-red fists and stepping away from the wailing boy.

  “Oh, God, Rahaan,” she moaned as her eyelids fluttered with the gift of second sight, her mind swirling like a cauldron of bubbling emotion, her body burning with the heat of passion and the flames of fear. She could feel the Sheikh inside her, driving into her, her arousal alive and alert and in control, lighting her consciousness with a dark energy that was somehow fueling her secret sight, bathing her with a cosmic light through which she could see both worlds so clearly, too clearly.

  She saw that girl’s Pa and Ma step outside the farmhouse gates as more folks gathered, and Pa was shouting as Ma shook her head and sobbed. People were talking and pointing, and the young Rahaan, brown and hard, blood on his shirt, was shouting that she was his wife and they were leaving and no one could stop them.

  “You speak like that and I swear to God I’ll—” Pa was shouting.

  “Don’t you think of your family, you wretched girl?” Ma was wailing.

  “I am thinking of my family!” Hilda heard herself yell through that pregnant young girl as the Sheikh grunted and flexed inside her, his strong hands holding her firm as her body writhed and flailed beneath his. “The three of us are a family. We’re a family now! This is my family! I’m gonna be a mother too, and we’re gonna—”

  Then in her dream she saw Rahaan’s face, his taut brown features going limp for a moment as he looked at her as if to say what have you done, my love. You’ve finished us. All three of us. We are done.

  She moaned and muttered as the Sheikh drove into her, and she could feel herself getting close as he moved on top of her, the weight of his body crushing her as she gasped for breath, the weight of the vision whipping her body as she wailed in both worlds, screamed in both lives, howled in both realms.

  She watched her Pa run back into the house as the townsfolk gasped. She watched her Ma tear at her own hair and point to the heavens and then at the hellish truth in her daughter’s womb. She heard herself obstinately say no one could stop them and it was God’s will, it was fate, it was good, it was right. It was love.

  Her orgasm came crashing in as she saw them pull Rahaan away while he fought for his life, her climax ripping through her as saw the men of the town drag her man, her husband, her king away to the dark woods beyond the town well, his green eyes searching for her one last time, green eyes in which she could see despair rising, hope dying, life bleeding, bleeding across time as she wailed and thrashed, tried to go to him in that world even as she came for him in this world, those green eyes finally softening in forgiveness before he was dragged out of her sight.

  “Oh, God,” she sobbed as she felt her body rock and heave from the force of her emotion, the force of her vision, the force of her climax. “Oh, God, I can’t. Bring me back, Rahaan. Please. Now!”

  “I am here,” he whispered against her as he held her firm. “I am here, Hilda. I am always here, with you, holding you, protecting you. Open your eyes, Hilda. Come. It is I, Rahaan. Come now. You are OK. You are with me.”

  Finally her eyelids fluttered open and she looked up at him, relief pouring into her throbbing body and swirling mind when she realized she was safe in his arms, that he was safe by her side, the baby safe in her womb. But the despair and helplessness of that girl was too strong, and Hilda could still feel the emotion of that powerless girl watching her boy-king get taken to the dark woods by the men of the town, never to emerge, never to return, never to forget . . .

  “Oh, God, Rahaan,” she muttered as she forced herself to hold on to the memory. “I saw her. I saw you. And . . . and . . . oh, God, Rahaan.”

  37

  “You think I died in that dream,” the Sheikh said, handing her a cup of the hot tea he’d ordered from room service. It was thirty-six hours after he’d brought the almost hysterical Hilda to his hotel suite, leaving the store unattended, sending one of his men back to lock up and bring the cat to the hotel.

  He'd calmed her down and then they’d slept in each other’s arms, slept all the way through the night. No dreams. No drama. Nothing but a man and a woman. They’d woken up intertwined like they were one person, one body, one soul. They ordered breakfast and fed the cat. They talked and laughed like a familiar old couple. They giggled and flirted like teenagers who’d just told each other their secrets, all the while pushing aside what needed to be talked about.

  But it could not be avoided forever, and finally Hilda told the Sheikh what she remembered, what had ripped her consciousness apart in that dream, forced her to reach out and ask him to bring her back to the real world, to the world where he was alive and she was in his strong arms.

  “What about the other two dreams?” the Sheikh asked

  Hilda exhaled and shook her head. “Just what I told you. There’s a great deal of anxiety in both those worlds, an overwhelming sense that things hang in the balance, that it’s not clear how things will end.”

  “They will end the way they started,” the Sheikh said firmly, putting his arm around her still-shaking shoulders and pulling her into his broad, warm body. “With you and I together.”

  “Did you not hear me?” Hilda said, almost spilling the tea as she turned her head. “You die in that world, Rahaan! You die because we’re together! That’s why there’s a part of me that wants to push you away in this world . . . wants to even push the baby away! What if it’s a choice I need to make, Rahaan? What if I need to choose walking away from you, from this, from us? What if I need to walk away before . . . before . . . oh, God, I don’t even know what I’m saying!”

  “You mean walk away before I die,” the Sheikh said, frowning as he searched himself for the emotion she spoke of, the despair—perhaps even anger—of a young man torn from his woman because she couldn’t hold back their secret. “You believe it is guilt, anguish, the inability to forgive yourself in that world. You think that’s why you had this inexplicable urge to keep the baby a secret for two months even though you suspected it was mine? Because revealing that secret led to my death in that parallel world? That’s why you were compelled to deny everything to me and Di earlier, even though you knew it was true?”

  Hilda took another sip and shrugged. “I think so. God, Rahaan, the emotion was so raw, so intense . . . I can still feel how much that girl hated herself for what she’d done, what she’d said.”

  The Sheikh forced himself to chuckle as he kissed her gently on her hair. “Well, neither of us is in any danger in this world, Hilda. There is no sin, no shame, no judgment. There are certainly no racist townsfolk ready to drag me into the woods and lynch me or whatever you believe happened. I am sorry you had to live through those powerful, wrenching emotions again, Hilda, but now at least we have an explanation.”

  “Not really,” said Hilda, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead.

  “Of course we do. It is clearly the unresolved emotions from that world which have pulled us together, launched us into this parallel world where you are pregnant with my child. It is your yearning for a second chance, our y
earning for a second chance!”

  She nestled into him as he spoke with complete assurance, absolute authority, and he could feel her relax a bit. “So now it’s no longer a secret-baby romance but a second-chance romance?” she said finally, a chuckle escaping her lips. “What about the fake-marriage plot twist? That kinda fizzled out before it ever really got going, yeah?”

  He grunted. “Yes. You lost the second-chance at your fake-marriage when you took that ring off. And considering the baby is no longer a secret, I believe we are done here, my love. Happy ending achieved! Onward to the epilogue!”

  Hilda snorted and playfully smacked his chest. “Speaking of diamonds and second chances, what about Di?”

  The Sheikh grunted again. “What of her?”

  “Well, if she’s Princess Diamante in that parallel world, then she’s got some pretty strong emotions to resolve as well. Emotions that involve you, my dear king!”

  “Ah, I will just sleep with her and that should take care of it. Happily ever after for everyone, yes?”

  Hilda swatted at him again, this time significantly harder as her face scrunched up with shocked indignation even though she was holding back a smile. “OK, that’s so not appropriate! You think an orgasm can fix anything, don’t you! God! Typical romance-novel hero with his mighty cock. Please note the eye-roll.”

  He studied her slow-motion eye-roll with a raised eyebrow. Then he kissed her on the nose. “I do not think Di will be a problem. She is interested in this for her book, so I imagine she will just get over her jealousy or whatever and appreciate this from a scientific standpoint. It might actually be fun to talk it out. Perhaps we all go on television! One of those daytime talk shows!”

  “No, Rahaan. I’m kinda serious. The dream with Diamante is the most unclear, the most unresolved. And that’s the one with all three of us in it! So if we’ve been pulled back to those parallel lives to fix what broke for us, then Di probably feels the urge to fix what broke for her too. And like I said, you are the missing piece in her story! Maybe she wants her happy ending too!”