The Sheikh's Destiny

by Olivia Gates

  “You must have committed some nuclear-level stupidity to blast through her immutable worship of you.”

  “Listen, King Amjad,” he snarled. “I have only been in anything approaching this state once in my life. I was cut open and my life was bleeding out. And I still managed to kill all my torturers. There were eight of them. I am now far more desperate.”

  “Whoa. Are you aware you just threatened to kill a king right in his own palace? Or are you really as out of it as you look?”

  “That threat is a few more words from becoming reality. And don’t think your royal guard can help you. I can end you all without breaking a sweat.”

  “You know what?” Amjad gave him the once-over. “I believe you can, Super Soldier-man. But what next? You massacred your previous tormenters, who I assume gave you this delightful souvenir—” he flicked a hand at Rashid’s scar “—and escaped to live long and prosper. I don’t see a similar scenario here, as there’ll be no living long and prospering for you now. Not without Laylah.”

  Hearing her name slipped another notch of his control. “I am at the point where I don’t care what happens next. If you don’t get out of my way, I’ll kill you for the pleasure of it.”

  Amjad smirked. “Was that why Laylah canceled your wedding? She discovered your homicidal tendencies?”

  Rashid didn’t even try to hide the truth. “She believes I want to marry her only to have an alliance with Zohayd. With you.”

  “That’s not true. Sure, being Laylah’s husband will sweeten the deal when I take you under my wing. But that’s just collateral damage. You really love her.”

  “Love? Love is a conditional emotion tainted with self-serving. I’ve been using the word, making believe it means what I feel. But I can’t describe how I feel for Laylah. There is right and wrong and honor and disgrace, until it comes to her. Then there is only her. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do, nothing I wouldn’t endure or sacrifice for her.”

  Amjad held up his hands. “Hey, I’m not the one you should swing that sales pitch at. I believe you. It takes one colossal fool for love to know another. I almost alienated Maram forever, too. Good news is, those women of ours love once and all the way, no matter what. Yeah, Maram told me as much, after she nearly killed me, before taking me back. So even if you think your world is over and Laylah lost to you forever, if you grovel creatively enough, strip yourself to the bone until there’s not much left, she’ll relent, fish you out of hell and dunk you back in paradise.”

  Amjad’s assurances did nothing to dispel Rashid’s despair. “Maram discovered you used her to get the Pride of Zohayd jewels back. But your goal looked noble, as the conspiracy could have resulted in war. Laylah discovered I planned our engagement to become king, which looks purely self-serving. And while you kidnapped Maram under the pretext of a sandstorm, Laylah believes I approached her under the pretext of a kidnapping attempt.”

  Amjad scowled. “Okay, that’s where you not only lose all my sympathy, it’s where I might have you thrown in the dungeon. I might even let you sit on that throne just to squash you on it.”

  “If you think me capable of something like that, feel free to treat me like the criminal it would make me.”

  After a contemplative second, Amjad waved. “Nah. One thing I’m infallible at is reading people. Especially men. You have some terminally honorable syndrome, wouldn’t scare any woman like that, not even for a throne. So, where did she get the idea?”

  “Hasn’t she already told you everything?” he gritted.

  “She informed us the wedding was off, wouldn’t be persuaded to say why, adding only that she never wanted to see you again.”

  This bewildered him. “She said she would stop me from becoming king. I thought she would tell you what she believes happened, ending any chance of an alliance between us. Why didn’t she carry out her threat?”

  Amjad’s lips twisted. “See? A sign that she still cares.”

  “I know how much she cares—cared. Her agony and disillusion now is as absolute.”

  “Yeah, I know.” At his exasperated growl, Amjad tsked. “Seems I’m going to have a perpetually pissed off lion for an ally.”

  “You won’t have anything if you keep condescending to me.”

  “No condescension. This time. I told you, been there, done that, with Maram.” Amjad grinned. “Tell you what. I’ll work on Laylah. I’ll exasperate her until she has to talk to you again.”

  The hope that Laylah might speak to him again caused Rashid’s throat to almost close. “You’d do that for me?”

  “Yep. I’m magnanimous like that.”

  “You get her to speak to me again, Amjad, and I’ll hand you my neck on the end of a leash.”

  Amjad winked at him. “That’s how I like my allies. Done.”

  Then with one more smirk, Amjad turned and walked away.

  Rashid watched him leave, thoughts of tearing through the palace looking for Laylah roiling like thunderclouds through his mind.

  But what would he do when he found her? She was no longer his Laylah, but the woman who’d told him no one had hurt or degraded her like he had. What could he do to atone?

  Before he could make a move, Haidar and Jalal exploded through the palace doors. He watched them stride toward him, their steps and expressions laden with fury.

  Haidar almost slammed into him, did punch him in the chest. “You lied to me.”

  Jalal wrenched him around. “You did plan to use her to get the throne, didn’t you?”

  Haidar jerked him back. “And you’re here looking like a madman, to what? Beg for Amjad to still endorse you for the throne of Azmahar? Yeah, we know he thinks you’re the number one candidate. That weasel. But he turned out to be a stupid one. You had even him fooled.”

  Rashid shoved the twins away. “You two and the throne can go to hell. I’d send you all there if I had time for you. But I don’t.”

  He stormed away. Haidar and Jalal caught up with him on the first floor, dragged him into an empty meeting room.

  “You’re not walking away from us again,” Haidar hissed.

  “We’re getting everything out in the open once and for all.” Jalal turned from closing the door. “And I mean everything.”

  Images of cutting them both down where they stood, something he could do in his sleep, deluged his mind.

  Suppressing the mindless aggression with the last tatters of control, he glared at them. “You’re still pretending you don’t know why I hate you? You’re still trying to slither your way out of any responsibility, you sons of a serpent?”

  “Shut up, you exasperating son of a...” Haidar jerked his shoulders uneasily. “I have no idea what your mother was, but I sure as hell won’t call her names so I can insult you.”

  “Calling your mother a serpent is a terrible insult—” he bit off “—to the worst human snake who ever lived. But you want my version of what happened? So you can have a complete picture? Fine.”

  And with four years’ worth of anger and agony and betrayal churning up his insides, he told them.

  As they gaped at him throughout his account, one thing became indisputable. They hadn’t known.

  They’d had no hand in what had been done to him.

  He’d lived for years poisoned by the belief that they’d brutally betrayed him, for nothing.

  Finally, a shell-shocked Haidar said, “Ya Ullah ya Rashid—you spent all these years thinking we did that to you? And we’re still in one piece?”

  Jalal, seeming as stunned, nodded. “That’s what I’m wondering, too. That you believed what you did, and only tried to destroy us in business, gives me a whole new insight into your character. You must be part saint.”

  Rashid couldn’t bear another word. “I don’t care about what happened or who did it or why anymore. I only care about Laylah.”

  Haidar approached him tentatively. “But if you tell her what you just told us, she’d—”

  “No.” His shout went off like a guns
hot. “She will never hear anything about this. I’m not getting her back at this price.”

  Jalal approached from the other side, as if helping his twin contain the volatile quantity that was Rashid. “It might be the only price that’s good enough, Rashid.”

  “I said no. And if you tell her, I will stop at nothing this time to punish you for breaching my confidence.”

  Haidar ventured a hand on his shoulder. “Settle down, will you? We won’t say a thing.” He squeezed his eyes. “Ya Ullah—what I really want is to wipe everything you said from my mind. But then, a mental scar is nothing compared to what you suffered.”

  Any other time, Rashid might have felt relief that the scar of losing them would heal, that he could have them back in his life and heart. But now that he no longer had Laylah there, nothing meant anything.

  Haidar leveled his gaze on Rashid, anguish and regret gripping his face. “I can’t tell you how powerless I feel that I can neither change the past nor punish the culprits. But I will put this right if it takes the rest of my life. You’re my other twin, Rashid, and I’ve been...bereft all these years without you. I swear to you, we’ll make up for lost time.”

  Jalal joined his twin in his pledge. “That goes for me, too. But you’re right, Rashid. What matters now is Laylah. I swear to you, we’ll do everything to reunite you with her.”

  * * *

  Everything hadn’t been enough.

  It had now been eighteen days in a hell worse than anything he’d known, sinking deeper in the quicksand of Laylah’s rejection.

  Amjad had given him quarters close to hers so he could “stalk” her, or they’d do a “pincer” on her, with everyone herding her toward him until she was forced to confront him.

  She didn’t. She’d let them push her to within inches of him, only to pass him by as if he didn’t exist. A punishment for his present transgressions and past avoidance. Feeling nonexistent to her, no matter if it was on purpose, was excruciating.

  So he’d written his confessions in what had amounted to a small volume, which had been fated to the bin.

  And he’d been forced to do what he’d thought impossible.

  He’d poured his heart out to anyone who’d listen. That ultimate exposure had felt like he’d “stripped himself down to the bone” as Amjad had said. Not that it had any effect.

  She’d treated the explanations everyone transmitted with the same disdain she had his written ones. She’d had to grudgingly believe he hadn’t orchestrated the attack on her, under the deluge of proof he’d provided. But she believed his withdrawal from the race for the throne to be another convoluted plan to gain more sympathy and strengthen his position.

  He’d hit rock bottom when he’d realized how completely she’d lost her faith in him.

  “There is no line you won’t cross, is there?”

  His whole being seized in shock. In delight. Laylah. Here.

  His heart boomed so hard it swung him around to her.

  “Laylah...”

  She was closing the suite’s door and turning to him, indescribable in a floor-length silk turquoise dress that offset the perfection of every inch of skin it didn’t cover, intensified the burnished gloss of her hair.

  Brutal longing paralyzed him as she stopped two feet away, her eyes those of a stranger.

  “It was almost embarrassing, watching how far you went in ‘exposing’ your ‘inner self’ in your damage-control efforts. But what really surprises me is how totally you’ve taken my family in. I thought they, especially Amjad, were shrewd. I guess no one is immune to your powers of emotional manipulation.”

  “They are shrewd people,” he rasped. “That’s why they recognize my sincerity against all damning evidence.”

  Her laugh was mirthless. “You know, I was delusional to think someone with your life experiences had any emotions left. Logically, you can’t be faulted for that. The first thing you must have learned in order to deal with your personal situation, then your life as a soldier, was to turn off your emotions. It only makes sense that you feel nothing but ambition and hunger for power now.”

  He reached an aching hand to the thick lock of hair undulating over her breast. “If only that was true.”

  She stepped away, making the silk slip through his fingers just as she kept doing. “Please, stop the pretense. I’m not angry at you anymore.” She wasn’t? “Actually, most of my anger was directed at myself. For believing what I so fiercely wanted to believe. Nothing you did ever added up, but I was so desperate for you, I silenced my disbelief that you could fall for me at all, let alone that fast, that you’d tie yourself to me for life. Disillusion and damage were the only possible outcome for my stupidity.”

  He took her by the shoulders, wouldn’t let her shake him off this time, his grip gentling until she let him hold her.

  “Laylah, you have to listen to me. Not so that I can beg your forgiveness or exonerate myself. You need to listen for you. What pains me most is that this has reinforced your belief that no one has ever wanted you for you, when the reverse is true. You are valued and loved by everyone who knows you. You are worshipped by me. Even if you choose to never forgive me, please be secure in that, and that my crimes are a reflection on me, never on you.”

  For a long moment, as the setting sun struck russet in eyes that gazed at him as if realizing something profound, he started to hope that at least he’d succeeded in this endeavor.

  Then they filled with cool disdain as she removed his hands with utmost tranquility. “That’s your latest strategy? Feed my need for validation and heal my fractured self-image? Sorry, but I’ve beaten you to it. I’ve come to terms with the fact that my worth has nothing to do with how others see it, starting with my parents and ending with the queue of men like you. I value me. If others don’t, no matter who they are, screw them.”

  “I’ll do anything to solidify your certainty. Ask for the impossible, impose any punishment...”

  “It’s me who’ll be punished. When I marry you.”

  Was his mind disintegrating at last? He’d thought he heard her say...

  “I’ve already told my family that the wedding is on again.”

  He could only stare at her.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Power drained from his body, coherence from his mind, beats from his heart.

  The wall suddenly slammed into his back. He’d staggered under the blow of shock. Of joy. And grief. At the way she’d said it. As if it was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

  “Laylah, habibati...”

  She warded off his embrace. “I’m not sharing the happy news with my adoring groom, I’m informing my ingenious manipulator that your plan has worked to the last detail.”

  “It was not a plan—”

  “I don’t care what you call it. But you were not only right in predicting the outcome of me ‘shredding your ironclad control,’ but in anticipating what I’d do, even if I discovered your plot prematurely. You knew me well enough to realize that even if I kept saying I don’t care about my family, I do. Even if I don’t care about tradition, they do. Especially when it comes to legitimacy. I won’t impose illegitimacy on my baby, when there’s a father so eager to put his claim on it, even for all the wrong reasons.”

  Could he have destroyed her love so absolutely he’d become so unredeemable in her eyes?

  Her cold stare said he had and was. “Go ahead, Rashid, don’t struggle to keep a straight face. Your charade is out in the open and it won’t hurt your agenda anymore to celebrate your success. An Aal Shalaan blood bond, and after the masterful lovelorn, honorable knight act you plied my family with, a sure path to the throne of Azmahar. If the baby turns out to be male—and I bet it will, since you seem to will fate to obey you—you’ll even get the heir you need right away.”

  “None of this has any truth to it anymore.”

  “The only truth here is that history is repeating itself. I was the result of a toxic marriage of convenience and I
swore no child of mine would ever suffer anything like that. And here I am, repeating my parents’ terrible pattern. But I’ll be damned if I’ll live a life filled with hostility and resentment. I’ll play into your hands willingly. I will give you the one thing you wanted from me and suffer through this wedding, only so that it will legitimize the baby in our society’s eyes. This ordeal will assure that our baby gets all its rights from you, no matter what happens, so after we announce my pregnancy and convince people the baby was conceived within wedlock, this travesty of a marriage ends.”

  Leaving him suffocating on her rejection again, she turned and walked away. The need to rush after her, catch her back, kiss her and melt her almost had him roaring.

  Two things held him back. Knowing that he could swear and beg and produce a thousand proofs, and she’d remain immovably distant and irretrievably injured.

  And that in spite of everything, she was going to marry him.

  That she would, for any reason, was a miracle. That she carried his child was beyond imagining.

  This cold, finite arrangement she’d made was still more than he’d dreamed he would have.

  It was another chance.

  Fourteen

  “Have I told you lately how much I hate you?”

  Laylah gazed at Aliyah, her cousin and that third precious Aal Shalaan female. Aliyah was scowling at her after wheeling in a hanger teeming with wedding dresses for Laylah to try on.

  Laylah sighed. “In the last hour? No.”

  The other women in the room chuckled. The wives of her cousins had all been recruited for the emergency wedding preparations. It was surreal to be home among so many women, with whom she had so much in common, from age to education to temperament.

  There was one thing, however, she didn’t share with them. They all had the unequivocal love of their men, and they all ranged from being ecstatically pregnant to delighted mothers many times over.

  Johara, whom Laylah had helped prepare for her wedding to her cousin Shaheen almost three years ago, grinned. “Give it up, Aliyah. Every time we say we’re never going to put together a royal wedding on short notice again, we end up with even less time in which to do it. Maybe next time we should say we’ll do it in hours, and we’ll end up with months on our hands?”