The Sheikh's Stolen Lover - A Second Chance Sweet Romance (The Sheikh's New Bride Book 5)

by Holly Rayner

  He signaled to the helicopter that they were ready to depart and took the towel and picnic basket from Ellie. “Did you have fun?”

  “That’s a stupid question,” she said, smiling.

  “You have to answer. I’m the Sheikh. I command it.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” she said, dipping into a poorly-executed curtsy.

  “So?”

  She faced him, reached up hesitantly, and placed a hand along his jawbone where his beard began. “Yes,” she said. “I did have fun.”

  “We’ll come back sometime,” he said. He was losing control of his own breathing now; it was hard to focus.

  They boarded the helicopter and took off. On their approach, Ellie had been glued to the window, pointing out the sights like a child. Now she sat across from him so they were knee to knee, gripping the seat with both hands and staring into his eyes. He was glad she’d chosen the seat opposite his. If they had been next to each other, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her. It was all he could do not to dive across the cabin and pull her to him.

  I could do that, he realized. It doesn’t matter that the pilot is right here. It doesn’t matter that we’d be breaking regulations. I don’t have to wait until we get home. I can do what I want right now.

  He wanted to. So badly.

  But he couldn’t. Ellie deserved better. She deserved the big bed in his suite in the palace, the privacy his rooms afforded, soft blankets and deep pillows and the ability to fall asleep in each other’s arms afterward. He was going to wait, to be patient, and treat her right.

  But we’d better get there soon.

  The flight home seemed to take forever, with both of them locked in each other’s eyes, unable to speak or look away. Finally, as the setting sun began to cast shadows through the windows and onto Ellie’s face, Mahmoud felt the beginning of their descent. They had reached the palace.

  Chapter 26

  Ellie

  At any other time, she would have paused to look around Mahmoud’s suite. As the leader of the country, surely his room would make hers look simple and plain by comparison. But today her curiosity was drowned out by her passion.

  Kissing had never been like this. With other men, it had been a necessary part of the process, a stepping stone to whatever came next. With Mahmoud, it was different. He kissed her like he was breathing, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and she drank it in and thirsted for more.

  She lost track of what the rest of her body was doing. Usually she was so aware of her hands, but she kept finding them wandering to places she hadn’t meant to go—into his hair, down his back—and being surprised at her own boldness. It was as if all the barriers between them had simply melted away.

  He scooped her up in his arms and deposited her gently on the bed, and her mind whirled with disbelief that this was actually happening, that this was actually something that could happen.

  What comes tomorrow? she thought idly, but then he was beside her and she found she no longer cared.

  Chapter 27

  Mahmoud

  She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Had she always been this lovely? He couldn’t remember a moment when the way he’d thought about her had changed.

  He’d been drawn to her from the very first night they met; that much was certain. But looking at her now was like taking in a work of art by one of the great masters. He kept discovering nuances he hadn’t seen, like the scar that split her eyebrow or the way she rubbed her thumb against the side of her forefinger when she was nervous.

  “Don’t be nervous,” he whispered, now, taking her hand in his.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Not really.”

  “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “That’s okay,” he said. “We’ll figure it out together.”

  He removed the tie from her ponytail and felt her hair spill over his hand, cool and soft and almost like liquid. He combed through it with his fingers. Ellie closed her eyes and accepted his touch, accepted his arm slipping behind her back and pulling her body close against his. Could this be real?

  “I think I’m in love with you, Ellie,” he whispered.

  She kept her eyes closed. “I think I’m falling in love with you, too.”

  Chapter 28

  Ellie

  She had never been someone who could lose herself fully in her passion, but once their clothes came off, Ellie forgot who she was.

  She was no longer an American in a foreign land. She wasn’t an executive who’d spent years tirelessly climbing the ladder. She wasn’t the girl who had waited at the bar on her last night of college while her classmates stared at her with open curiosity and pity and wondered why she was all alone on the biggest night of her life.

  All of that was gone.

  She was nothing but skin and breath and heat.

  The weight of Mahmoud’s body against hers. The unfamiliar scratch of his beard. The way it felt when he smiled against her cheek. The sound of his laugh—that laugh—in her ear.

  First times were always awkward, but their awkwardness was a dance. Every little fumble brought them deeper toward each other instead of taking them out of the moment. The walls of the world they were building for themselves grew stronger and more solid, and soon Ellie was able to forget there was an outside world at all.

  Mahmoud was all strength and muscle, but she wasn’t afraid. His body felt as close to her as her own.

  Chapter 29

  Mahmoud

  He’d forgotten his feelings ran this deep. Not just for Ellie, but for anything. He’d forgotten he could feel this way.

  It was like nothing he’d ever shared with another human being. Royalty was lonely. Until now, he hadn’t realized just how lonely he was. To think he could have had this with Ellie five whole years ago, but he’d been pulled away because of his position. Five years of his life had been utterly wasted. He could never get them back.

  She was asleep now, worn out from the intensity of their lovemaking, and he held her against him and watched her through half-closed eyes. It could have always been like this. What if she had been with him when his father had died? How much less horrible, less lonely, would that time have been? What if she had been around when he had been learning the responsibilities of leading the country? What if he could have come home to her every day?

  Mahmoud shook the thought away. There was no reason to get caught up mourning what hadn’t been. Ellie was here, in his arms, and he wouldn’t indulge a single moment of sadness now that he had her. It was more than he’d ever dared to hope for when he’d brought her to the palace. At most, he’d imagined they’d become friends. But this?

  Could he possibly deserve this?

  Could anyone?

  He brushed her hair out of her eyes. Her sleep was peaceful, but she murmured a little at his touch. Perhaps she was dreaming. Maybe when she woke up, they’d stay in bed for a little while. He smiled at the thought. They could have breakfast sent up and spend the whole day together, talking and kissing and doing whatever else came to their minds. Perfection.

  Eventually, of course, they would have to get up. But when they did, Mahmoud thought, they could talk about the future. If Ellie was to be a permanent part of his life, it would change everything.

  Mahmoud leaned over and kissed her forehead, then curled up alongside her, wrapping one arm around her body. She snuggled into him with a sleepy little sigh.

  I am the luckiest man alive, he thought, before sleep finally claimed him.

  Chapter 30

  Ellie

  She woke, as she often did, in the middle of the night, beset by panic and regret.

  What did I do?

  Had she actually told Mahmoud that she loved him? She tried to remember. In the heat of things last night, the words just might have slipped out.

  He said it first, she told herself, trying to reason away her fear, but it was scant comfort. Mahmoud had certainly said
things to her that had turned out not to be true before.

  But he always had a reason.

  What if he has a reason this time?

  She rolled away from the warmth of his body. The bed was massive, larger than her California king back home. She hadn’t known beds came in this size, but he’d probably had it specially made. It provided ample room for her to distance herself from him now, and she inched over to her side until one foot was dangling off the edge, out from under the blanket. Ready to flee.

  How could it be that, lying here in bed with him, she was still thinking about college? How could she still be hung up on the time he’d abandoned her. It wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself. He didn’t even want to go. But, she found, it wasn’t so easy to dismiss her feelings about the episode.

  She’d been to the Red Rooster many times in college, but now she couldn’t think of it without feeling echoes of the humiliation she’d experienced that night. In fact, a lot of her memories of the college experience were tainted by the way it had ended. That night wasn’t the first thing she thought of when she remembered her Stanford days, but it did come up in her memory early enough that she avoided reminiscing.

  And she also avoided dating, she realized, feeling numb. She had told herself for years that she was focusing on her career, that she didn’t need a relationship to complete her, but now that she found herself in bed with a man, she understood that she’d been fooling herself. She had always wanted the warmth of human connection and a partner to go through life with. Why had she insisted it was something she didn’t care about?

  Because if I didn’t care, I couldn’t get hurt.

  She sucked in a breath.

  Could so much of her life be traced back to that night?

  It wasn’t Mahmoud’s fault. She knew that. His explanation of what had happened made sense. She believed him. She forgave him.

  But how could she stay here with him?

  She rolled onto her side and gazed at him. He was attractive even in sleep, and she longed to push these thoughts from her mind, to curl into him, and go back to sleep. But she couldn’t. She would wake up with the same doubts. Maybe she did love him. But this was no foundation to build a future on.

  Besides, he was a sheikh. She was just Ellie. What future had they ever possibly had?

  Ellie’s phone had died on her first day in the palace, and although she’d plugged it into the charger, she’d quickly been distracted from it by her many adventures with—and feelings for—Mahmoud. Now, however, she missed it. How long had it been since she’d checked her email, or read the news? Ellie wasn’t used to feeling unplugged from the world like this. She itched to go back to her own room and find her phone.

  There was a computer in the adjoining office, she knew.

  Ellie slipped through the door and tiptoed over to it. She expected to find it password-locked and pledged to herself that she wouldn’t try to guess the password—hacking into Mahmoud’s computer was probably high treason or something—but to her surprise, as soon as she moved the mouse she was on the desktop. There was no password.

  It made sense, she supposed. Getting into this room was probably much harder than decoding any password could ever be.

  She clicked open the browser and navigated to her email inbox. Over a thousand new messages. The outside world was clearly going on without her. Is there even a place for me at Noralli anymore? she wondered. Or have they decided Mark can do my job as well as I did?

  Suddenly, she very much did not want to be here.

  She pulled up the website for the airline that had flown her into Al Fahad. There was a plane for California leaving in six hours. The last-minute rate was exorbitant, but Ellie couldn’t wait another minute. She was suddenly itching for home, for the familiar. She couldn’t wait to leave this palace and Mahmoud in memory, where, she imagined, they would look best.

  And besides, she thought, clicking the “purchase” button, it’s best to end this rendezvous on a high note, and there’s no way anything is going to top last night.

  She hesitated at the foot of his bed. Should she wake him and tell him she was leaving?

  No. He’d only try to stop her. She didn’t want to be persuaded.

  She found a pad of paper on the desk by the computer and wrote:

  Dear Mahmoud,

  Thank you for this week. I’m glad we got the chance to get to know one another again. I’ll remember it forever.

  Ellie.

  She thought it best to sign off simply. She wouldn’t say she loved him. Not again. She wouldn’t create that sort of confusion. This way both of them could close the door on their time together and not look back. It was the neatest, most elegant solution.

  Then why do I feel crappy about it?

  Ellie forced her mind away from that question as she crept along the hallways to her own suite to pack.

  From her suite, she was able to call for a taxi. She couldn’t ask one of Mahmoud’s drivers to take her back to the airport, she knew—there was no way they would facilitate her quiet exit without waking him, and the last thing she wanted was an awkward conversation about why she was trying to leave in the middle of the night.

  Actually getting out of the palace was harder. The night staff was on the move. Ellie walked with her roller suitcase cradled in her arms so as to make as little noise as possible. Fortunately, there were no doors to open and close between her corridor and the entrance hall, and she made it outside without being seen. She slipped down the drive and out to the main road, where she’d asked the cab to meet her.

  It was already waiting when she got there.

  “Where are we heading, ma’am?” the driver asked, his tone obsequious. He must have imagined she was someone important, some visiting dignitary or head of state. If he wondered why she would leave in the dead of night via public transportation, he did her the courtesy of keeping his questions to himself.

  “The airport,” she said, fastening her seatbelt and slumping against the door of the car. Her days of feeling like a princess—of being part of a fairy tale—were over now.

  It was time to return to the real world.

  Chapter 31

  Ellie

  The first twenty-four hours back in the U.S. were a torment.

  Ellie felt jittery, as if Mahmoud’s guards, the ones who had picked her up at the airport, were going to show up at any minute and drag her back. She arrived home on a Thursday night and opted to stay home from work on Friday—there was no reason they needed to know she was back just yet. She spent the entire weekend holed up in her apartment watching recordings of her favorite TV shows and ordering takeout. But every time the doorbell rang, it sent a chill down her spine. What if it’s them?

  It wasn’t until Saturday afternoon, after taking delivery of Thai food, that she realized she wanted it to be them.

  Mahmoud didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t have her email address. She very much doubted he was on any social media platforms. She’d left him with no way to contact her. At the time, in the middle of the night, that had seemed like a wise choice. After all, wasn’t it better to be the one in control of their relationship? She had felt, sneaking out of the palace, that there was no way she’d be left this time with the feeling of abandonment she’d have after their night together in college. It couldn’t happen.

  And yet, here it was.

  What did she expect him to do?

  He couldn’t actually come after me, she told herself. That’s ridiculous. But, of course, he could come after her if he really wanted to. He knew her name and the city she lived in. He had virtually unlimited means and his own personal fleet of aircraft. If he wanted to follow her, there was nothing stopping him.

  He was choosing not to.

  And it was a rational choice. He must have assumed she didn’t want to be followed. It was respectful of him to keep his distance, she told herself. It would be stalker-like behavior for him to fly to San Francisco and hunt her down.

 
So why was she so irritated?

  Why was she so…heartbroken?

  This is stupid, she told herself. I’m the one who left. I’m the one who made the choice.

  It was just that it felt like it had been no choice at all.

  It felt like, once again, the ball was in his court.

  Maybe she was always going to feel like that.

  Chapter 32

  Ellie

  Monday arrived, and Ellie knew she could no longer put off her return to work. To her surprise, she wasn’t anxious about it. Her thoughts were still far away, in a palace in the desert. Maybe a return to her everyday routine would distract her from her woes, at least.

  She dressed for the day in her sharpest suit, even going so far as to wear stilettos instead of her usual boots, and spent extra time pinning up her hair, but her efforts to lose herself in the mundane proved futile. All she could think about was Mahmoud. What would he think of my hair like this? He’d probably hate it. He liked it best when it was down, so he could touch it…

  She shook off the memory. No point in dwelling on the past.

  Her return was greeted with the expected fanfare. Mark and Vince both jumped to their feet as she walked by their desks to her office. “Ellie!” Mark said. “You’re back! We were starting to wonder.”

  “Wonder what?” she hung her purse on its usual hook and looked around the room. Her office was just as she’d left it. It was hard to believe she’d even been gone.

  “Whether you were coming back at all,” Vince said. “Nobody could tell us anything.”