The Sultan's Choice

Distaste curdled in Sadiq’s belly. That was exactly what he didn’t want. He was more sure than ever that he wanted her—and for reasons that went beyond the practical and mundane.

He came closer to Samia and an unmistakable glint of triumph shone in his eyes and she felt sick. She could talk till she was blue in the face but the game was up. He’d called her bluff. She’d shown her telltale confusion. He’d manipulated her beautifully. Bitter recrimination burnt her. He was so close now that all she could see were those mesmerising eyes, and all she could smell was that uniquely male scent.

‘Your reaction tells me you’re conflicted about this decision, Samia. So let me take the conflict out of it for you. Agree to become my wife because there simply is no other alternative. You are of royal blood, from an ancient lineage. You were born for this role, and nothing you do or say can change that. To fight this is to fight fate, me and your brother.’

From his jacket pocket he pulled out a small velvet box, and all the while his eyes never left hers. He opened it, and Samia couldn’t help but look down between them. The ring was surprisingly simple. It was obviously an antique—a square-cut stone in a gold setting, strikingly unusual and beautiful.

‘It’s a yellow sapphire. It was my paternal grandmother’s—a gift from my grandfather on one of their wedding anniversaries.’

Sadiq didn’t tell her that this distinctive ring had been in his mind’s eye ever since he’d met her, and that it was a lucky coincidence it had been in the family’s jewel vault in London. He’d sent back the diamond ring he’d planned on using, feeling absurdly exposed in acknowledging that he hadn’t been happy with a stock ring, which should have been perfectly adequate for what was essentially a stock wedding.

Samia looked up, and Sadiq took her hand in his. He looked so deep into her eyes that she felt as if she might drown and diappear for ever. She knew on some rational level that he was probably not even aware of his power. Unconsciously her fingers tightened around his as if to anchor herself, and something undefinable lit in Sadiq’s eyes, hypnotising her even more.

‘Princess Samia Binte Rashad al Abbas, will you please do me the very great honour of becoming my wife and Queen of Al-Omar?’

CHAPTER FOUR

AT that cataclysmic moment, while Sadiq’s words hung in the air, Samia had a flashback she couldn’t repress. She was hiding in the library of his castle after knocking over the table of drinks, cursing herself for being so clumsy and awkward. Her peace was shattered when a man walked into the room.

He didn’t spot her because the lights were dim, and all Samia knew as she sat there barely breathing was that he was tall, dark and powerful looking. Yet she wasn’t afraid. He walked over to the window which overlooked one of the castle’s numerous beautiful inner courtyards and stood there for long moments, as silent as a statue, with an air of deep melancholy pervading the air around him.

He sighed deeply and dropped his head to run a weary hand back and forth over his short hair. Something about this man was connecting with Samia on a very deep level, she felt his pain, empathised with his isolation. Without even thinking about what she was doing, responding to some impulse to do something, Samia was almost out of her chair when another person entered the room: a woman, tall and blonde and statuesque, and very, very beautiful.

The man turned around and to Samia’s shock she realised it was the charismatic Sultan she’d met only hours before. The melancholy and sense of isolation disappeared. She watched as his blue eyes glittered, taking in the woman’s approach. In the place of the vulnerability she might have imagined was the hard shell of a supremely confident and sexual man, and she knew then that she had witnessed something incredibly private—something of himself that he would hate to know had been witnessed by anyone else.

Samia watched the woman walk straight up to him. She twined herself around him and, perversely, Samia wanted the Sultan to push this woman away contemptuously. As if he was hers! But as she watched, mesmerised, he backed the blond beauty up against a wall and proceeded to kiss her so passionately that Samia made an inadvertent sound of dismay.

Two faces turned towards her and Samia ran from the room, mortified to have been caught watching like a voyeur.

And now she was looking up into those same blue eyes, and she felt as if a hole had opened up in her belly. All she could remember was that intense vulnerability she’d seen, or thought she’d seen, in the Sultan that night, and the connection she’d felt.

She couldn’t block out that image of the secret side of this man even as she sensed his steely determination. He would not rest until she said yes, and that made a curious sense of calm settle over her. He was right: to fight this was to fight fate, her brother and him. She denied to herself that that evocative memory was a tipping point, because that would mean that Sadiq was connecting with her on an emotional level, and she would deny that with every cell in her body.

This decision was about inevitability, logic and practicality, and the sheer weight of her lineage which put her in this position. She opened her mouth to speak and saw Sadiq’s jaw tense, as if warding off a blow. Immediately she felt the impulse to reach up and smooth his jaw. She clenched her hand.

‘I …’ Her voice sounded rusty. ‘Yes. I’ll marry you.’

For a second there was no reaction. She wasn’t even sure if she’d spoken out loud. But then Sadiq slid the ring onto her finger, bent his head and pressed his lips to it. They were warm and slightly parted, and her belly tightened with a need that was becoming horribly familiar. His head was so close to her breast.

He stood again and she saw that a shutter had come down over his expression, turning him aloof. He was the stern ruler again, and he had achieved his aim. No softness or charm now. Job done. Mission accomplished. Samia thought cynically of how he’d manipulated her emotions so beautifully. And yet she couldn’t turn back now. She’d sealed her fate and chosen the path she would take for the rest of her life.

Her belly churning with the sudden realisation of what she’d just done, and a whole host of other scary emotions. She tried her best to m

atch his dispassionate look and took her hand from his, stepping back. The ring twinkled and sparkled in her peripheral vision, and it was heavy. ‘I’ve got to be up early, so if there’s nothing else …?’

A ghost of a smile touched Sadiq’s mouth and he too stepped back, letting Samia breathe a little easier. He shook his head. ‘No, not right now. I’ll have my assistant set up a schedule and send it over to you tomorrow. It’s going to be a busy three weeks before we return to Al-Omar for our wedding.’

‘Three weeks?’ Samia squeaked, all pretence of insouciance gone at the terrifying thought. For some reason she’d imagined the wedding happening at some far-off distant time.

He nodded, all businesslike as he escorted her to the door. ‘Three weeks, Samia. That should give you plenty of time to hand over your job and prepare for the wedding. I’ll be in touch. There will be a press release issued next week. You might want to let your brother know the happy news before that happens.’

The following morning at work Samia finally found five minutes to steal away somewhere private and look at the tabloid she’d furtively bought on her way to the library. She held her breath as she took in the full glory of the lurid photo. She looked like a rabbit startled in the headlights, her eyes huge and her hair wild. And that suit! She could hear her stepmother’s derisive voice in her head right now, exclaiming over Samia’s general incompetence. She could have wept. Sadiq loomed behind her with a stern look on his gorgeous face, like an avenging dark angel, big hands on her waist making it look tiny. She looked more like an ill-dressed PA to the Sultan rather than his fiancée.

Fiancée. Her stomach churned as she crumpled up the offending paper. She’d left the engagement ring at home that morning and her skin prickled, as if somehow he would know and pop out from behind a corner to chastise her. She still couldn’t really believe it, but a long conversation with her brother the previous night, and his palpable relief that they would have Al-Omar’s cooperation, had helped reality sink in. It only eased her discomfort slightly.

The disturbing sense of equanimity that had washed over her when she’d said yes to Sadiq’s proposal had long disappeared. It would be the wedding of the decade, and she would be annihilated when people realised she was nothing like his long line of mistresses. Not to mention the other aspects of their marriage—like the physical one. Samia felt a dart of despair. She was so far out of Sadiq’s league in that respect that she fully expected he would have to take a mistress to stay satisfied.

The really galling thing was that she was as innocent and pure as the virgin brides rulers like Sadiq would have expected for millenia. She’d had a bad experience in college when a boy who had been pursuing her had become very pushy after a couple of dates. Samia had turned his advances down and he’d stormed off, saying, ‘I was only trying to get you into bed for a dare anyway, because of who you are, but I’m glad I didn’t! Life is too short! ‘