Sheikh's Pregnant Princess

by Sophia Lynn

  With a shout of outrage, she raised her hand. Nadim caught her wrist and realized with some anger that even this was becoming normal. She struck him or tried to strike him, as careless as the wild animal she sometimes acted like, and she did so with confidence because no matter what happened, there was no way in the world that he would ever strike her. It was a line that he refused to cross, and it was also one that he knew she would take grotesque advantage of whenever she could.

  She struggled against him for a moment, and then she tore away, her eyes bright with tears.

  "You are no man," she whispered. "You are some terrible half-man, half-dog thing. A true man would have given me a child by now, a true man would have children to carry his line..."

  That made him flinch, and no matter how many times she hurled it at him, it always would.

  Sometimes, Nadim thought that all of this, all of this misery and all of this sadness and wrongness, would have been all right if it had been for something. He and Malaya had married in order to provide an heir for the throne of Hadara, and somehow, despite the help of some of the most advanced doctors in the world, it simply wasn't happening.

  "It is difficult to give a woman children when she has barred me from her bed for the past six months," he snapped, and Malaya sneered.

  With a grand gesture, she opened her robe, revealing a dark blue negligee underneath. Once he had been so eager, thinking that that display was for him. Now he knew that she simply loved beautiful clothes, and it would not matter in the least if he was there to see it.

  "And if I told you to take me now, could you?" she said with scorn. "Would you have me as a man has a woman?"

  He snorted.

  "I would have to check for traps first."

  The look she gave him was oddly vindictive, but she belted her robe again.

  "Then it is time for a better solution,” she said.

  Nadim raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms over his broad chest. Malaya liked to rail and rage, but she had never talked about solutions before this.

  "And what does that mean?"

  "Find a surrogate," she said, as if the answer was obvious. "Keep it a secret, and for god’s sake, make sure that the child looks like us. I want to have done with you, and god only knows that the only way out for either of us is for the world to see that I have given you a child."

  "What you're speaking of is tantamount to treason," he said, but his mind was whirling. He had spent the last year thinking that he would never be free of Malaya, and that the only cold comfort available to him was that she would never be free of him either.

  "Who creates the law? Who holds the world in his hand?" Malaya said, a gleam in her eyes. For the first time, he truly wondered if she was mad. "You do. If you accept the child, so will I. And so will the world."

  For a moment, he only stared at her. That she could stand there and so broadly declaim this mad plan was terrifying, but it felt as if a cool wind whistled across his soul. It was the future, and for the first time, Nadim thought that he might have a place in it.

  Malaya came closer to him, and for a moment, Nadim was thoroughly grateful that they had never bred children in the first tumultuous years of their marriage. There was something poisonous about Malaya, and it was enough that he as a grown man was susceptible to it. God only knew what a young child would make of it.

  "You are the sheikh. You have the power," she whispered, and then she was gone.

  The library door closed behind her, and after a moment, Nadim dropped into the velvet wing chair near the empty mantle place.

  What the hell was she thinking? There was something suspicious about it, and of course there was the fear that she had something planned, some piece of blackmail that would be pulled out at the right time.

  However...

  Malaya had too much to lose, he realized. A sheikha who could not keep her sheikh engaged and seduced was a woman who would be humiliated for it, right or wrong. Malaya would never be able to tolerate that kind of embarrassment and shame.

  No, though he had to proceed with caution, there was something in him that told him that this was the way out. This was his chance for freedom, something that he had never even considered in the past few years.

  He thought of freedom, he thought of flight, and then, with a pang that went right through him, he thought of angels.

  Well, beautiful Elise, perhaps I shall see you again...

  ***

  Elise was just beginning to let her guard down when the enormous man walked into the bar. She was cleaning glasses in the mid-afternoon light, around the corner and able to spot the newcomer in the low mirror.

  There was something menacing about him, something lowering and somehow wrong, and she ducked out of view of the mirror so he couldn't spot her and demand a table. The problem was that now she couldn't see him either, but she could hear him clearly enough as the bartender arrived to speak with him.

  "What'll it be?" the bartender asked, and she could tell from his voice that he didn't like the customer any more than she did.

  "Information," the man responded, and Elise could imagine him laying some amount of money on the shabby bar.

  Right then and there, Elise knew that she should make her way out of earshot. Deals like this one did not mean good things, and knowing too much was far more dangerous than knowing too little, she had found.

  She was just edging her way towards the rear door as the bartender asked what the man wanted. She froze at the man's answer.

  "A blonde woman, short, but with big tits. Pale. She left with one of your customers, a man dressed very well."

  There was a pause, and Elise felt her heart beating harder in her chest. It would be all too easy for the bartender to tell him that a woman just like that worked at the bar, was working there right now as a matter of fact, and that such a well-paying gentleman could meet her if he wished to do so.

  "No one like that works here," the bartender said in his normal laconic tone. "Sure you're not thinking of Coco's across the street?"

  The man made a sound that Elise could only describe as a growl. It was a sound she knew would haunt her nightmares if she was lucky enough to be alive to have them.

  "Coco's sent me here," the man spat. "That little bitch and her fancy man got two of my men picked up last night."

  The bartender laughed, and for the first time, Elise thought of what a very good actor he was. There was no trace of fear or disgust in his voice, while Elise was practically shivering in the shadows.

  "I'm happy to take your money, but no one like that works here," he repeated. "I might look at Coco's again, friend, it looks like they're trying to protect someone."

  The other man growled something unintelligible, and then there was a bang as he walked out, slamming the door as he went.

  Elise forced herself to resume breathing, and then she was walking towards her locker in the back. She needed to get out, she needed to get safe.

  She shrieked as the bartender grabbed her wrist. He was an older man with a handlebar mustache that was immaculately groomed. With a pang, she realized she had never gotten to know him as well as she should have.

  "You heard all that?" he asked, his voice blunt and no-nonsense.

  "Yes," she whispered, and he nodded approvingly.

  "Good. Then there is no need to explain. You need to leave tonight. You can stay in the city, perhaps, but you certainly cannot stay in this district. The men that you troubled, they are not terrible, but they are bad enough, and there is no one to protect you. That was the most I can do, and I can do no more than that."

  "You've done more than enough," she said. "Thank you."

  Impulsively, she threw herself into his arms for a powerful hug, and then she was off, throwing off her apron and picking up her light jacket.

  On her way out, she rifled through the lost and found box and swiped a thin scarf from it. When she tied her hair back and looped the scarf over it, her hair was mostly hidden, and that was the best sh
e could do with it.

  With a last glance over her shoulder, she slipped out the back, catching a single glimpse of the bartender behind the bar again as she went. There was a pain in her chest, but not a severe one. This was the way it always went. Something went wrong, and then she was on the run again.

  She wondered where on earth she could go now, but she was possessed with a strange sense of denial. She did not want to leave Hadara. She did not want to leave the streets and the sky that she had come to know so well. An image flickered across her mind of a man with broad shoulders, his eyes and hair as dark as ink. He had awakened such strange and powerful things in her, and for a brief and dizzying moment, she wondered if it was him that she couldn't leave.

  Then she shook her head. No. She had met him once, he was a married man, and she would likely never see him again

  Well, the bartender had told her that she was going to be all right if she stayed out of the district. Perhaps she would not have to leave the city after all...

  Chapter Five

  A little less than a week later, she was not sure about that. The hostel turned out all of the tenants at seven in the morning, whether they were returning for the night or not. Some of the backpackers complained bitterly about it, but Elise was on the verge of tears.

  She realized now that she had made a mistake. She did not know Hadara as well as she had thought, and she had no friends, no one to watch her back. Her money had dwindled faster than she had thought it would, and she was down to one meager meal a day. She had enough to stay at the hostel for another night, but by tomorrow, she would be on the streets and without food.

  Elise tried to tell herself that she had been in worse scrapes before, and she had gotten by. Sometimes, however, it had come a lot closer to the line than she would have liked, and before, she had never had a gang hunting for her either.

  Okay, calm down, she tried to tell herself. You've got a full twenty-four hours before things even start to really get bad. That's enough time to turn things around.

  With a shiver, Elise remembered the advice she had been given when she was fresh out into the world, how an older girl had taken her under her wing and showed her valuable tricks for getting by, how to tell an honest man from a liar, where she could sleep and what she could eat.

  "And of course, if things get real bad, you can always sneak off with a guy who has some cash for a quick ten minutes."

  Elise had been so young at the time that she barely understood what the older girl meant, and then she had been horrified. She had looked so horrified that the other girl had started laughing raucously at her. Elise had blushed bright red at her own ignorance, but she had inwardly resolved to never get that desperate.

  Elise straightened up, telling herself that she still wasn't that desperate yet, that there were things she could still do.

  By that evening, however, with a number of doors slammed in her face and nothing to show for it, she wasn't so sure.

  Everything is going to be fine, Elise told herself, walking dejectedly back to the hostel, because giving up was death. Giving up was the end.

  That was when she heard her name being called.

  There was a moment of sheer panic, and then she realized that the gang that was looking for her would never have had a member like this. He was tall and spare, with the look of a minor government official. He was unforgettable in every way, and for a moment, she simply looked at him, confused.

  "Are you Elise?" he asked again, and without thinking, she nodded.

  "Who wants to know?"

  "It does not matter right now," he said crisply. "When you need to know, it will be revealed to you. In the meantime, you should simply rest assured that you are safe."

  Elise knew that her laugh was more than a little bitter.

  "Sorry," she said, "you're going to have to do a little better than that."

  He sighed, and she remembered all of those counselors in school who had told her that all of the browbeating and borderline abuse from the teachers were for her own good. It certainly didn't help the man's case.

  "My employer has a bargain for you. He wants you to get a full medical examination at Zahra al Attia Memorial Hospital."

  Elise couldn't stop herself from laughing. Was this what a fall from innocence really looked like?

  "Are you kidding me?" she asked, her voice thick with derision. "That sounds like something you should be negotiating with a working girl, and that is definitely not me, so..."

  "This offer is only available to you," he said sternly. "An appointment has been made for you at ten in the morning tomorrow. If you attend it..."

  He handed her a black envelope, and she almost didn't take it, because this was how people got stuck holding the bag, wasn't it? It was even fairly literal in this case. When she looked inside and saw the thick stack of dirham, however, she couldn't help but gasp.

  "Get a doctor's examination, and this is all mine?" she gasped.

  "Get a doctor's examination, and you will get double this," the man said with a slight smile. "The rest is yours upon finishing the exam, and it will be given to you as you depart."

  "What's the catch?" she asked suspiciously.

  A part of her told her to simply take the money that was in her hand and run. A wiser part of her, the part that had told her to stay behind the bar when the gang leader came looking for her, told her that that would be very foolish indeed.

  "The deal is simply as it is. If you wish, there is a room that has been booked for you at the Attia Hotel and Suites as well. It is close to the hospital, and if you wish to be on time, you can take a cab there and stay the night."

  "What the hell is this all about?" she asked, feeling even more helpless than before. There must have been a small part of her dismay in her voice because the man relented.

  "Nothing untoward. I will tell you that the examination will be very thorough, but it will be no worse than what all women who are looking after their health will go through. You can end the examination at any point if you wish to do so and keep at least half the money. You will only know more after the examination."

  It was too strange, far too clandestine for her taste. There was something dark in the wings here, something that was far larger than she was and far more dangerous. She wasn't a fighter. She was someone who survived by running and hiding, and this man had found her too easily. The questions ran rings around her head, and she knew that there were no answers.

  There was only one question that mattered right now, however.

  "How do you know that I won't just take the cash and try to get out of the country? There's enough here for a ticket anywhere I want and then some."

  The smile he gave her was cold and polite.

  "Believe me when I say that that was the least of our worries."

  Then whoever you work for, he is a lot scarier than the gang, and I'm screwed either way.

  Elise felt something in her give in. Perhaps she would have made a different decision if she had been less hungry or less tired. Instead, it was all she had, and she decided to rely on her native wit and toughness to get out if things got difficult.

  "All right," she said, wondering what the next day could bring. "I'm in."

  ***

  Nadim was looking over the accounts for his international affairs when Khalif appeared in the doorway. The man could move like smoke when he wanted to, and that made him an excellent member of the household security team.

  "Well?"

  Khalif didn't bother to ask him what he was inquiring about. There was only one objective that Nadim cared about in this moment.

  "We found her," Khalif said without mincing words, and Nadim breathed a deep sigh of relief.

  "And did she accept?"

  "I think it was a near thing," Khalif said slowly, "but yes, she did. She is safely at the hotel now. I wasn't sure if she was going to, a few times. Whatever other kind of trouble the girl is in, she is not short on courage."

  "No, she is not," N
adim said with a grin. "And has the gang been dealt with?"

  Khalif snorted.

  "Give me some credit. I took care of them first. They are going to be too scared to poke their heads out of their hole for months, let alone be of any harm at all. I put the fear of the secret service in them."

  "That's too good for them, but I'll take it."

  He paused for a moment, and Khalif raised an eyebrow at him, knowing there was something else he wanted to ask.

  "Is the property in Greece prepared?" he asked, and Khalid nodded.

  "All of the more recent servants have been reassigned, and my men are stationed throughout. Everyone who is there is firmly loyal to the family and to you personally. I would stake my life on it."

  "Your word was enough, my old friend," Nadim said, rising to take Khalif's hand.

  When Khalif excused himself, Nadim sat back in his desk chair, tilting it back to look up at the ceiling.

  He could suddenly feel a tide of weariness come over him. The last few days had been exhausting. Finding out that she was missing, finding out that the gang was after her, finding out where she had run after that, it was like a roller coaster ride. Now that he had found his songbird, however, all he wanted to do was to go to her. He had her hotel room, he could sweep her into his arms.

  Nadim shook his head. This was something different. This wasn't an affair. This couldn't be an affair. He would wait. He would be patient, and he would move only when he was sure. This was the only way to keep her safe.

  Tomorrow he would know.

  Chapter Six

  Whether the hospital was a twenty-story glittering tower of steel and glass like the one she was in or a stumpy little free clinic like she had been used to, paper gowns spared no one's dignity, Elise thought with some wry humor. They all gaped, they all pulled away from the body, and when the nurse had told her that she was all done, she couldn't get into her clothes fast enough.

  It had been one of the most thorough examinations she had undergone in her entire life, but there had been nothing untoward about it. The doctor had introduced herself with a firm handshake, and Elise had a moment of disbelief as to how she had gotten here. This professional-looking woman in this state-of-the-art hospital couldn't be part of some horrible scam, could she?