Adham cut off whatever she was about to say. “Go and get to the High Sheikh, tell him I will not be put off.”
Isabella’s heart was hammering so hard she was certain it was audible. She had told Adham that she wouldn’t reveal it was he who had taken her innocence, but she had no idea of what he planned on saying to Hassan when the time came. He might intend to confess her sins for her.
Would Hassan break the agreement? Would he want her imprisoned or exiled? It shamed her now to admit that, while she knew a great many facts about Umarah, she didn’t know as much as she should about that aspect of society. One thing she knew for certain was that if Adham’s sense of honor was born of Umarahn beliefs, then that wouldn’t be an issue. So that concern was eased.
Her heart pounded harder, desperation pouring through her, her palms slick with sweat. “Adham.” She whispered his name. She knew that this was it. She would never touch him again. He was no longer her ally in any way.
But he never had been. Not really. She had fooled herself, and she had done a world-class job.
Then, so lightly she might have imagined it, he swept his finger along her jaw. One last touch. Barely there. But a connection she needed more than she needed her next intake of air.
“Adham? Has something happened?”
The deep voice entered the room before the man, but when the man followed she knew exactly who he was. His regal bearing gave him away immediately, and then there was his face, which she recognized from his picture. But as he got closer, as she observed the way his long strides carried him over the high-gloss floor, her heart caught. He looked so much like Adham—not precisely in features, but in manner—that she could hardly believe it.
“Everything is fine,” Adham responded, his voice even, not a hint of emotion evident.
Hassan’s eyes widened when he saw her, his body tensing. “Principessa, “ he said, his Italian even less polished than Adham’s.
She inclined her head, her throat tightening, words deserting her.
“Adham, I need to speak with you in private.”
Hassan’s words echoed the refrain playing in her own mind. She wanted to talk to Adham without anyone else in the room, to ask him who he really was. To ask him why he looked so much like her fiancé that they had to be related by blood.
Adham shifted, trying to calm the rush of adrenaline that was still racing through him. He turned and looked at Isabella. Her eyes were narrowed, glittering. She was naive, that was true, but she was smart, and she hadn’t missed the fact that Hassan so closely resembled him. In a picture it would be easy to miss, but when they were together it was impossible for anyone to ignore the way their mannerisms were so closely matched. The way they stood, the way they walked, the inflection in their voices. It had been pointed out on many occasions how alike they were.
One of Hassan’s servants came into the room as if summoned, which Adham had a feeling she had been. His brother, no matter how careless he might seem at times, never did anything without a plan.
Adham put his hand on Isabella’s back. Her heat seared him even as she jumped beneath his touch, but he kept his outward appearance neutral. “Isabella, go to your room and wait there.”
He could tell she wanted to argue, but instead she swallowed hard, nodded once, and followed the young girl out. He noticed how stiffly Isabella held her shoulders. He was powerless to ignore the sway of her hips, the way her waist dented in, so narrow, and then gave way to the curve of her round, lush bottom.
“You are familiar with her,” Hassan commented, when the doors had closed behind Isabella, blocking her from his view.
Adham swallowed. “I have been with her for over a week—at your bidding, I might add.”
“You do no one’s bidding but your own, Adham.”
It was said goodnaturedly, as a joke. And Adham would have taken it as such even yesterday. But now he could only agree. He had betrayed his brother, and while part of him wanted to confess it, another part of him wished to protect Isabella from the cost of such an admission. Yes, Hassan might know that she was not a virgin after they married, but Adham did not want to expose her.
And, in brutal honesty, he did not want to expose his own lack of control. What had happened with Isabella had been beyond anything in his experience. The way need, desire, lust, had melded together and taken hold of him, gripped him so tightly that he had nearly choked with it, had been completely outside of anything in his reality. He had always considered himself a man with supreme control. He’d always had to be. But Isabella had stripped him of it, unmanned him, and yet at the same time made him feel more of a man, more of a conqueror than he had ever felt he was on any battlefield.
But, as in war, the end result was total devastation.
“I am sorry about your situation with Jamilah, but I cannot be your babysitter any longer. You need to accept responsibility—reality.” His chest tightened, as though the words were meant for himself. “Isabella is your fiancée. She deserves to be treated with some level of respect. That means no more running around with your mistress while you use me to keep her busy.”
Hassan rubbed his hand over his forehead, suddenly looking much older than he was. Adham had never seen his brother look so torn, so broken. And they had been through the death of their parents together.
A long silence filled the room. Hassan’s eyes fixed on the wall behind Adham. Finally he spoke.
“I can’t do it, Adham. I know you think I am weak. You have always faced your duty—even when it took you into the middle of a war zone. You have protected our people, sacrificed so much of yourself, while I cannot bring myself to marry the woman who has been given to me. Compared to you, I am weak. But I want Jamilah. I need her.”
Anger shot through Adham—instant and powerful. “It is not a matter of what you want, but what must be done. The alliance with Turan is a necessity. Our people need it. Their people need it. We need the loyalty of their military, an ease in trading, the increase in jobs it will provide. And you would cast that aside?” Even as he spoke Adham knew he was a hypocrite—knew that if anyone had compromised the future of their countries it was him. That if, of the two of them, one was weak, he was the one. And yet that knowledge only fanned the flame of his rage.
“What else am I to do, Adham? Sacrifice myself, Jamilah … our child?” On the last word Hassan’s voice cracked. “All for duty and honor? It would make me the better man to many, but it would make me a villain to those who matter most.”
“She’s pregnant?” As Adham spoke the words he realized it was possible that he had made Isabella pregnant. He hadn’t thought of protecting her. He had thought of nothing. He had simply embraced the need that had been pounding through him. He hadn’t thought of the consequences, and that included conceiving a child. It seemed a stunning reality when faced with Hassan’s inadvertent admission.
“Yes. Would you have me abandon my son or daughter? Should I allow them to become the royal bastard, hiding in hallways, living with the servants, a part of nothing and ridiculed quietly by everyone?”
Adham could suddenly easily imagine Isabella being pregnant. The child being his. He had never wanted children, still didn’t, and yet he knew he would never be able to deny that child his birthright. He would never be able to let another man raise that child in his place either.
He tried to force himself to consider his brother’s problems and not his own. “Then what do you propose, Hassan?”
Hassan looked away again. “I would not ask this of you, Adham, if it were only for me.”
Everything in Adham’s body tensed. Always the possibility of his assuming the throne had existed, yet he had never truly imagined it coming to pass. Had never wanted it. He craved action. The physical act of protecting his country. Not signing documents and crafting laws. When he saw a need—like the need for more oil rigs in the desert—he brought it to Hassan, who worked out the finer points of it while Adham set to work on making it a reality in the physical sense.
He disliked the idea of being a figurehead. Hassan was more than that, was a man gifted at creating relationships with world leaders and bringing people around to his way of thinking, but Adham had never envied him the job.
And a part of him—the selfish part, the part that had been in command tonight when he had made love to Isabella—rebelled. Had he not given enough? How much more blood did he have to spill on the sand for the sake of his country? How much more could be taken from him? He didn’t want to rule. He didn’t want that sort of … confinement. But if not him, who else? There was truly no other choice.
“You want to abdicate.” Not a question, for he already knew what his brother intended.
“I don’t want to. I find myself in an impossible situation, and I … I feel it is what I have to do.”
“What of Isabella?” Adham asked.
“You will marry her,” he said, as though it were that simple. As though she could be simply handed from one man to another. “The contract will not be violated, and the alliance between our countries will go forward.”
And Isabella would be his.
For a moment he allowed his body to revel in that victory. But then he let his mind take over. Yes, physically he desired Isabella, but he did not wish to marry her. As miserable as she thought she would be with Hassan, she would be even more so with him. He had nothing to offer her. Hassan, at least, would have grown to love her in time. Adham had lost the ability for such fine emotions.
His heart was too scarred.
As he’d watched the life drain from his mother he had vowed he would not let men like those who had killed his parents, men with a lust for money and power—commit such an act on Umarahn soil again, and he had set about making sure it was so. Personally, ruthlessly, until every last one of the dissident factions had been rooted out and destroyed.
The price for that had been his soul, in many ways, and yet he would not have changed it. But it left nothing for a wife—especially for a woman like Isabella.
“I am not suited to her,” he said roughly.
“You do not desire her? She’s a beautiful woman.”
“Yes,” Adham bit out. “She is a beautiful woman. Desire is not the issue.”
“But you have no desire to marry?” Hassan said, his voice quiet.
No. He didn’t want to marry—more for the sake of whoever his bride might be than for himself. He didn’t want to rule. But it didn’t matter. What he wanted, what he desired, had never mattered.
“What I want is not the issue. You are right. You cannot marry another woman when Jamilah is carrying your child. You are too good a man to let your son or daughter go without recognition. But the contract cannot be broken. You do what must be done, brother, and I will see that everything else is taken care of. I will assume your position as High Sheikh. I will marry Isabella.”
Isabella had been putting her personal items away ever since they had been brought to her by one of Hassan’s young servants. She had waved off the girl’s request to let her see to it. Isabella needed to stay busy—needed to keep her hands occupied.
Adham hadn’t told her he was related to Hassan, but she saw it clearly now. That meant she would see him often during her marriage to Hassan.
Hassan. He was a handsome man, but she felt no fire when she saw him. He did not move her. He seemed like a good man—a man who would smile easily, a man who could sleep at night without all of his demons haunting him. But he did not call to her heart. How much easier life would be if he did.
How she felt about him didn’t matter, though. What mattered was honoring the contract, doing the best thing for her people, for Adham’s people. She had already made a mess of things, but she would not compound her sins by turning her back on her duty.
The door to her bedroom opened. Horror stole over her as she turned, half expecting to find Hassan standing there, wanting to stake some sort of claim on his fiancée. There was no way she could do that. No way she could be with him like that now.
Of course she would have to be with him in that way someday. But not now. Oh, not now. Not when Adham’s touch still burned on her skin. In her body.
But it wasn’t Hassan. It was Adham, his body still, backlit in the doorway, his broad frame highlighted to perfection. Her stomach tightened with need, desire, want, regret—all swirling together, making her dizzy.
When he walked into the room, his face hard, immovable like stone, a chill emanating from him, she felt her heart drop. He was a stranger now, this man who had touched her, taught her what it was to be a woman. The man she loved. In his place was a man guarded by stone—a man even more unknowable than the Adham she had first seen standing at her hotel room door, all hell and fire and determined to bring her back to Umarah if he had to do it by force.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, gripping her elbows, trying to keep from shivering, to keep herself from betraying just how much he did to her by merely walking into a room.
“Hassan and I have spoken.”
She noticed his use of the High Sheikh’s first name, not his title. “What did you speak to him about?” Part of her hoped he’d confessed their sins, while another part of her had no idea what to want. What had happened between her and Adham had changed her forever, and yet in the real world it changed nothing. She still had to marry Hassan.
In a strange way her journey of self-discovery was responsible for cementing that in her. Being an adult, being her own person, meant nothing if she didn’t do all she could for her people. Yes, she had been born into royalty—no choice about it—but, like Adham, she was determined to fulfill her purpose, to serve where she was required to serve. She had great power, great influence, and if she didn’t do all that she could with it, it served no purpose.
“Hassan does not wish to marry you.”
Her thoughts stalled completely, her brain refusing to function. “I. He doesn’t. But he had you. What about the contract?” Then her thoughts started again, her mind racing at top speed. “What does this mean for the military alliance? For the trade routes and oil prices? My country is counting on it. My people. Your people. The wedding has to go forward.” She said it, and she believed it with a burning conviction even while her emotions, her heart, her very soul, rejoiced at the thought of not having to marry Hassan.
“You will still marry the ruler of Umarah. But Hassan has decided to step down. He is in love with his mistress and she is carrying his child. Under those circumstances, he has decided he must do what is best for his growing family.”
Heat prickled her arms, the back of her neck. “Who is the new ruler of Umarah? Who am I meant to marry now?”
“You will marry me, amira. I am the new High Sheikh of Umarah.”
CHAPTER NINE
THERE was no triumph in his voice. No warmth. Nothing to signal that the news he was delivering was positive or negative in any way. It simply was. But that was Adham’s way. If something needed to be done, he did it. He picked up the slack when others failed. He came through when others fell short. It was who he was.
“So now might be a good time to explain your relationship to Hassan, then,” she said, her throat tight and dry like sandpaper.
“He is my brother. Older by two years.”
“I thought your family had been killed.”
“All but Hassan and myself. He is the only family I have left.”
The knife of guilt that had been sticking sharply into her ribs twisted again. He was not simply Adham’s friend, he was his brother. That made those stolen moments at the oasis seem even worse.
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” There were a lot of other questions she needed to ask, a lot of other bases to cover, but she had to know that first.
“That I was Hassan’s brother? Because I wanted to gain your trust, and I knew that would not happen if you knew of my relationship to him.”
“So you lied to me?”
“And we both cheated.”
She knew instinctivel
y that it didn’t matter if she was no longer marrying Hassan. What had happened between them was still an aberration in Adham’s eyes. The sin had been committed, and it was not forgiven. And she knew that he would never forget her part in it, or his.
“Yes. We can’t take it back, though.”
“No. But we will move forward.”
“And you’re intent on marrying me in order to honor the contract? “
“I said that I would.”
She remembered the conversation they’d had on the street in Paris—a conversation that seemed as though it had taken place in another lifetime. He’d said he didn’t want to marry, but that if he had to, if others were dependent on him doing so, he would. She had become to him what Hassan had been to her. It made her feel sick.
“Yes. You did.”
“The country is going to be shaken by this. Hassan is a beloved leader, and though I have served Umarah all my life the people don’t know me well. That is by design. It is easiest for me to conduct my duty if I’m not highprofile. But that will make this transition difficult.”
Isabella took a breath. “I’ll do what I can to help it go smoothly.”
“Our marriage will help. The Umarahn people were expecting you as their Sheikha.”
“There isn’t a better man to rule than you, Adham. I’m certain of that. You have given everything for your country, for your people …”
“I think I have proven that I am as capable of weakness as anyone else.”
She could tell it physically hurt him to say it—that the words scraped raw as they left his throat.
“You’re not weak, Adham,” she whispered.
“I never will be again.”
There was finality in his tone—a coldness that chilled her straight to the bone.
“Hassan and Jamilah are leaving tomorrow. We will stay here while we prepare a formal announcement of the passing on of leadership and our wedding,” he said.
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