CONTENTS
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
More Sheikhs!
ONE
His Royal Majesty Sheikh Ithnan al Kalam lent one ear to his older brother's customary—and tedious—threats and accusations. He tightened his hands around the railing of the palace balcony, waiting for the tirade to end. Walid could be so unimaginative, boring. But Ithnan appreciated the break from the boisterous partygoers inside.
"... won't succeed," raged his brother, Walid's amber-rimmed eyes, mirrors to his own, managing to flash, despite the falling darkness.
He had grown accustomed to such things in the last nineteen months, since Uncle Sulaiman's will naming Ithnan heir to Zallaq had become public. To say the will went against his own father's wishes was an understatement the size of Zallaq's oil fields.
At first the criticism, and the demands for his abdication, had come from his father. Since their father's death thirteen months ago, his brother had taken up the task of berating him. Ithnan's custom of tuning out his brother's words came in useful, allowing him to focus on the woman hiding behind the potted palm swaying in the cooling air.
Except for these two things, tonight was another flawless night in his beloved desert country of Zallaq.
"Are you listening to me?" raged Walid.
Ithnan turned from his elder brother and looked out over his kingdom. His palace's many balconies provided optimal views, especially this public one off the main ballroom. The heat of the day dissipated as a clear moon shone white light over the modern metal and traditional stone buildings of Ismek below. For those who followed the practice, evening prayer had ended, and families were eating their final meal of the day.
"If I cannot succeed," he told his brother, "then I can do no possible harm."
Walid's normally controlled voice rose. If the party had been any quieter, all would have heard. "Why must you antagonize me? What vendetta do you imagine you have against me?"
Ithnan looked at the clear face of the moon, worshipped as a goddess by his ancestors, and considered his brother's words.
What Walid had said was not far from the truth, he decided. Nor was it the whole truth.
He merely acted in the best way to arrange the world into his own vision of how things should be. If the arrangement included taking something Walid felt belonged to him, well, that was an added benefit. Walid felt many things belonged to him that perhaps did not.
Such as Zallaq.
"If your goal in coming here was to ask me questions and then answer them yourself, I wonder why you bothered to leave Askar." As he said this, he adjusted the small gold pin he wore on his lapel, the serpent crest of Askar. Was he goading his brother? Probably. Did he enjoy goading Walid? Very likely.
"Insolence. Father would never have put up with such words." Walid's tone was so like their father's as he invoked their dead progenitor. The resemblance hardened something inside Ithnan, made him more determined to deny Walid everything he could.
"Very true," he said. "But you shall have to put up with insolence from me, since I have no desire to organize my life for your convenience."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Walid cross his tuxedo-clad arms over his chest. He and Walid looked like each other, he had been told repeatedly, as if saying so was a compliment. His brother was considered handsome, so he supposed he was as well. They had been born within two years of each other, and been playmates until the age of eight. Despite only reaching his thirtieth birthday, the silvering hair at Walid's temples made him look even more like their father.
"Your loyalty to Askar should be paramount in how you organize your life," his brother informed him.
"I am afraid I must disagree."
The potted palm ruffled, not from the breeze, but from the eavesdropper. Apparently his brother had not seen the woman who had snuck behind the plant as soon as he had followed Ithnan onto the balcony. The woman who now listened to every word of their conversation.
He considered slipping into Arabic to make the discussion private. Gwendolyn Spencer, beloved bastard daughter of pipeline magnate Sullivan Devoe, heiress to ADV Industries, might know some tourist Arabic, but he doubted she understood more than a few politenesses.
Why had she followed him onto the balcony? He couldn't understand her actions. They had met several times in the last week, at dinners he had arranged for her father. She had been pleasant enough, hanging back behind her father and speaking when spoken to.
Yet he had gotten the distinct, but intangible, impression she did not care for his company. She hadn't tossed her auburn hair, turned up her pert nose, or shot daggers at him with her lake-blue eyes. Nothing in her tone betrayed any bitterness toward him. All the same, when he saw her greet others, she seemed warmer toward them than she was to him. She faded into the background when he drew close, elegantly disappearing.
In fact, he felt she wished she never had to speak to him or be in the same room as him, so why attempt to have a private conversation?
He decided her overhearing the conversation could do no harm. She might report the content back to her father, but it could not surprise Devoe that encouraging Zallaq and Askar to compete for his planned pipeline would cause conflict between the two countries. If he hadn't realized this, then Devoe was a fool, and Devoe did not seem like a fool. He likely knew very well of the buildup of arms on the Askar/Zallaq border. So whatever Gwendolyn reported back to him could not be fresh news.
Walid seemed not to be aware of her presence. His brother joined him at the railing, but did not take in the organized beauty of his mathematically designed gardens. Instead, Walid stared at him, with seething rage on his features, as if knowing his brother was angry would influence any of his decisions.
"And so you will again attempt to abduct what rightfully belongs to Askar. Father should never have sent you to be fostered in Hidd."
The wind turned suddenly chill. Ithnan welcomed the cold blast, which matched the sudden ice inside him. Any reference to Hidd had the same effect.
He had thought defeating Hidd and integrating the province into Zallaq would have warmed the ice inside him nineteen months ago. Lighting the fire to burn his former home to the ground had certainly been soothing.
"On that," he said, "we can agree."
"Instead of bringing the countries closer, you have driven them further apart," his brother accused.
Ithnan raised an eyebrow. "Bringing the countries closer? I always wondered what reason Father had given for my being sent to Hidd. I should have guessed."
"Our childhoods are far in the past," Walid shot back. "And have nothing to do with Askar now. Now, your duty to your family, and to the memory of our father, is to stop bribing Devoe and to encourage him to build his pipeline in Askar."
Ithnan noticed a small piece of dried palm leaf on his lapel. He picked the debris off with his right hand, the imperial seal of Zallaq glinting gold on his middle finger. He felt this was sufficient response to his brother.
"And nothing shall deter you?"
He controlled the urge to shrug. "You have given me no reason to be deterred in the slightest."
Ithnan found his brother's index finger pointed in his face, far too close. The attempt at intimidation had the opposite of its intended effect. He wanted nothing more than to remove the digit from the offending hand. With effort, he controlled the simmering rage that threatened to boil over.
"Your life of ease and comfort in Hidd has made you greedy. You think of nothing but grasping everything you can get. Or perhaps you seek to revenge yourself on me for some imagined slight. There is no reason for your jealousy, akhi al-sagheer."
Ithnan felt a pang at Walid's sarcastic use of the endearment. Walid had once called him "little brother" under very different circumstances.
"Thank you for explaining," he said to his brother, in a cordial tone. "I will take your opinion under advisement."
To his credit, Walid did not fire a parting shot at him. Instead, the ruler of Askar simply strode off the balcony, back to the party. The reception likely buzzed with the news the estranged brothers had spoken, and Walid had come away from the encounter looking thunderous.
He smiled to himself. Let them talk. Let them spread the news that Askar could not intimidate Zallaq.
Would their conversation result in Walid buying another dozen tanks to park on the border? Ithnan would respond by purchasing two dozen.
Time to deal with the other blight on a perfect night. Miss Gwendolyn Spencer, the one woman in the world who did not like him.
He strode to where she hid behind the magnificent potted palm. The plant was flawless, lush and green, with symmetry so perfect it looked the same from every viewing angle. Truly a marvel. He knew others admired flowers. To him, their bright colors looked gaudy, their delicate petals as if they would fall and die at any moment. Unlike them, the palm thrived in the harshest conditions and provided dates to sustain his ancestors on long desert voyages. The palm was the superior plant in every way.
"You may come out now," he told the woman. "Unless you have not listened your fill. I doubt you will hear any more intriguing conversations out here tonight."
The woman emerged from her hiding spot, her head bent low, lifting the skirt of her long black Valentino gown to take hesitant steps.
Moonlight glinted off shiny hair the color of a well-worn copper dirham coin, deep brown with a rusty red tinge. The locks swept up on her head in a complicated twist, leaving her long neck bare. Her brows drew together. She seemed to be biting the inside of her cheek.
"Uh," she said, her low, feminine voice making him think of whispers in the dark. "Sorry. I got stuck back there."
She smelled of citrus and soap, he noted. Every other woman at the party wore an expensive designer scent. But not Sullivan Devoe's bastard daughter.
"Certainly. I imagine getting stuck often happens to spies." He adjusted the length of white cuff emerging from his sleeve. He enjoyed this tuxedo, which he had been custom fitted in Paris by an up-and-coming designer. A man should care how he dressed. There had been a time in his life when he had worn dirty clothes. He would never do it again.
Gwendolyn's face became carefully blank. No doubt in an attempt to convince him of her sincerity. "I can see how you would think I was listening in, but it's not true. I'm sorry you got that impression."
"And what impression should I have gotten?" he asked.
"Right." She snapped her fingers in a casual gesture he hadn't seen from her before. Confusing. The few times they had met she had seemed to him nothing more than a business tycoon's poised and self-assured heiress, albeit one who subtly disliked him.
She fumbled in her tiny silver purse, searching for something. He waited with patience. White teeth bit into her full, scarlet-painted bottom lip.
He knew she held a firm place in her father's heart, as well as a middle-level job in the human resources section of the Chicago branch of his company, specializing in recruiting employees with disabilities. His investigation of her had shown she favored hiring American veterans. But in public, she rarely did anything but stand behind her father and look lovely. A quite generic and unnecessary accoutrement.
She was also not the daughter of Devoe's late wife, but of a long-term mistress. She had come into her father's care at the age of nine, after her mother died. Yet she had never taken her father's family name.
The dichotomy of her life served to illustrate what he had learned very early in his days in Hidd. All people had two faces. One they showed to the world, and one they kept secret. People's lives were full of lies. No one could be trusted. Miss Spencer was a liar, like her father, like his own brother. Ithnan had long since stopped feeling guilty about his own lies, the ones in his past, and the ones he was about to commit.
When she drew a handful of what seemed like toilet tissue from her purse, he noticed a tiny scarlet tinge of lipstick on her front tooth. Should he make her aware of the stain? He decided not. Looking after her was not his responsibility.
"I was trying to catch you alone," she told him, smiling and unwittingly displaying her stained tooth. "I found something of yours in my room."
She offered the wad of tissue. He hesitated to take the mass of paper from her, but when the object was in his hand, its weight intrigued him. He held far more than tissue. Something heavy and cold, like a stone.
He pulled back the layers of paper to reveal a treasure. A treasure stolen from him, specifically. His entire body tensed at the sight of the dark jewel.
The Heart of Zallaq. A roughly cut ruby redder than any shade of lipstick.
As he pulled back the paper to reveal more, a thick gold chain crusted with sparkling diamonds slid over the side of his hand.
The Heart had been stolen from the palace a month earlier. He had used all the power at his disposal—called in favors owed, engaged in threats, sworn promises—to keep the theft of the famous jewel out of the media. There were those superstitious people who would claim its loss cursed his reign.
Now, Gwendolyn Spencer had restored the Heart to him. What did she intend to extort in return?
"Okay, well, anyway, I can see you're glad to have your ruby again. I'm heading back to the great reception you're throwing for the prince and princess of Ramadi. Talk to you later."
Before she took two steps on her Louboutin heels, he manacled his hand around her wrist. She was going nowhere until she explained herself.
"Impossible. You did not find the Heart of Zallaq in your room. Every inch of my palace has been searched many times over. Tell me the truth," he demanded.
Why did he bother asking for honesty? Could anyone ever expect another person to tell the truth?
She set her scarlet mouth in a straight line. "I told you, I found the necklace in my room."
Each word was strong and precise. She had practiced her lie more than once.
"A room that had been searched thoroughly. I know you did not steal the jewel, Miss Spencer, yet you are lying. And not very well." He considered her lack of skill to be her greatest sin. She was a terrible liar, as if she did not even care to try. "Why? Who are you protecting?"
She sighed, another casual gesture that clashed with her haute couture gown, manicured nails, and flawless makeup mask.
"Crap. Okay, maybe I didn't find the Heart in my room. But you your property back, so—" She gave her arm a sudden twist, wrenching her wrist out of his grip. She didn't break his hold through strength, he noticed. She twisted against the weak point of his grip, where his fingers came together. A clever tactic. She had received some self-defense training, he was certain.
"Please let the matter drop."
"I do not feel like letting anything drop." Imprisoning and interrogating her would harm Zallaq's chances of her father building his pipeline in the country. Instead, he looked for the logical explanation for how she came to have the jewel.
Someone had given the Heart to her, of course. He was certain. Who? The thief, of course. She must be protecting whoever had stolen the necklace.
"Tell me who gave this to you. Now."
"You want to know what went on here. I understand. I probably would, too. But things are better if you don't." She turned her hands outward, showing him her palms in a subtle gesture. Either she told the truth, or she had studied body language and wanted him to believe she told the truth.
"Let me put it another way," she cont
inued. "What if I told you sometimes good people do bad things out of desperation and then regret them?"
He considered her words. "So you are saying a member of my staff took the opportunity to steal my property due to some financial need."
Even in the moonlight, he saw the blush creeping up her décolletage. "First of all, I didn't say that. Second, you're jumping to conclusions."
"A domestic, most likely." The palace employed many maids, and they were paid the least of the servants and were therefore most likely to seize an opportunity. He should look into who had cleaned Gwendolyn's room over the course of her stay.
"Have you ever been given a second chance?" she asked.
Never, to his knowledge. On his one visit to Askar after being sent to Hidd, he had begged and begged his father to bring him home. Asked repeatedly why he was being punished and how he could redeem himself. The answer was always silence.
"I do not see the relevance."
"The person who returned your jewel is the kind of person who needs a second chance. Can't you please let this go?" She sighed, which he took as a signal she was about to offer up additional information. He was not wrong. "The person is really, really sorry. They can't forgive themselves. You can't imagine the torment they've put themselves through."
She reached out to him and laid her hand on his arm. Her pale hand, tinged blue with reflected moonlight, contrasted with the dark fabric of his sleeve. He recognized the tactic inherent in a woman touching a man she wanted something from, but for some reason, the action did not annoy him as usual. Strange. Instead, he felt the slight warmth through the fabric of his tuxedo pleasant.
"I know you probably won't agree," she said, "but I believe the person has been punished enough. Nothing you could do to them would be worse. I think they might even be relieved at being arrested. But if you don't arrest them, you will have the most trustworthy and loyal servant ever."
She paused for a careful intake of breath. "So, I'm asking you to take what I say at face value. I found the Heart in my room. Please trust me."
"In my experience, people who ask you to trust them are least likely to be worth of trust."
Handcuffed to the Sheikh, Too Page 1
