The Sheikh's Stubborn Assistant (The Sharif Sheikhs 3)

Tentatively, she touched his chest. “You can do both.”

“Maybe.” He grabbed her wrist and kissed her hand. “But I haven’t wanted to paint in a long time.”

His eyes darkened as she leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “Maybe you just need the right person motivating you.”

His fingers stroked her cheek. “Why did you come here, Katie?”

“Your sister invited me.” Pulling back, she wrapped her arms around herself.

“Not here to the palace. Here to Dubai. You aren’t really here to find your mother’s roots, are you?”

“Yes.

” Under his steady gaze, she sighed and bit her lower lip. “Sort of. It’s difficult to explain.”

“We have all night.” Moving closer, Khalid wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “I want to hear what you have to say.”

“As long as it’s not about art?” Katie snorted.

He didn’t flinch or move away, and she sighed. “My parents’ marriage wasn’t a happy one. My mother was beautiful, and I think that’s all she was to my father. He never would have married her if it wasn’t for me. A brief affair that turned into a shotgun wedding.”

She laughed bitterly as she remembered the way that they used to fight. “He ordered her around like she was his slave, and she never stood up to him. I used to think that she died of a broken heart, but I don’t even know that she loved him.”

A lump formed in her throat, and she struggled not to cry. Khalid didn’t push her to continue, but his hold tightened gently, and he kept holding her, making her feel oddly secure in his arms, until she could keep going. “He used to tell me that I was going to be exactly like her. Pretty—and not worth anything. I did everything that he wanted. I was a good student. I kept to myself. I never partied or stayed out past curfew. I didn’t drink or do drugs. I went to the school that he wanted me to go to, and I picked the classes that he wanted me to take.”

“I take it that wasn’t art history?”

In spite of the pain, Katie laughed. “I signed up for summer school after freshman year so I wouldn’t have to go home. I was supposed to go to room 321, and instead, I stepped into 312. It was an upper-level art history class, and it focused on the transition of art between the Age of Reason and the Age of Imagination. I didn’t understand half of what was going on, but I was intrigued.”

A smile twisted on his face as he adjusted his grasp and pulled her under his arm. “Really? I figured you’d be the type to get up and immediately correct the mistake.”

“I did the good-girl thing and found the right class, but I skipped almost a third of my classes that semester to sneak back into art history. The pain . . . the love . . . the passion. It was everything I had yet to experience. I changed my degree at the end of that summer.” She snuggled against him and, despite the warm night, enjoyed the heat radiating from his body.

“Daddy didn’t like it?”

His arm tightened around her as she winced at the memory. It was painful to think about and even harder to voice. Her mouth was dry as she tried to push back the pain. “He screamed at me. He told me that when my looks faded, I’d have nothing if I didn’t go back to my business studies. He told me that I was just like my mother. Destined to use my sexuality like a weapon to get what I wanted. It was horrifying. He withdrew his financial support.”

She swallowed hard. “He withdrew his emotional support,” she went on numbly, “although that admittedly wasn’t much.” She took a deep breath and lifted her head higher, defiance creeping into her voice. “I graduated at the top of my class. I got a scholarship to get my master’s degree. I excelled in my internship, but knowing that my father hated me crushed me. The only other parent I had was dead.”

“So you hoped to find love here?” His tone was even, and she couldn’t help but search for some sign in those words, but he gave very little away.

Katie turned in his arms and pressed her head to his chest. She could feel the steady beat of his heart. “I just wanted to feel connected to something. I wanted to find myself outside of my father’s hatred and outside of my rebellion.”

“How’s that working out for you?” he asked dryly.

Poorly. Her connections had led her to love, but it was a love that would never be returned. “I’m still working on that.”

“Ah, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of her head and stroked the bare skin of her arms. “You’re strong. Independent. Frustratingly stubborn. I think you know exactly who you are.”

She wasn’t sure that she knew who she was, but she knew what she wanted. Slowly, she reached down and unzipped his pants.

“Katie,” he protested.

“I need you, Khalid. I wasn’t trying to push you away this week. I thought that you were pushing me away.”

His cock was rock hard when she fished him out and squeezed. As his eyes studied her, she slowly lowered herself to her knees.

“No,” he hissed as he stepped back.