The Sheikh's Unexpected Wife (Zahkim Sheikhs 3)

Turning to the guests, the imam asked everyone in Arabic, “You have heard?" They answered they had—a marriage required witnesses, and a royal marriage needed more than average.

The imam turned to Nasim's bride to have her speak her agreement to the marriage. She answered, her voice soft and stumbling over her words, almost as if she could barely get them out or her Arabic was rusty. Nasim glanced down at her bent head, her heavy veil, and her robes covering her from head to toes. He could only see the backs of her hands. Odd—she had not had the traditional bridal henna applied.

Well, he would see more of her later. He wished she would look up, however, so he could see if she was resigned to this. Or had she been coerced by her father?

He looked over his shoulder at Sheikh Ahmad, who beamed at them like a benevolent grandfather—no doubt already naming his grandchildren to come. Movement next to him drew Nasim's stare back to his bride.

She swayed and started downwards into a puddle of red and gold silk. The imam gasped, and so did several in the crowd. Nasim caught his bride before she hit the tiles under their feet. He swept her up in his arms. It had to be the heat.

Calling out to make way, he carried his bride out of the sunlight and toward the library. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and the swell of her hips left his mouth dry. He could wish he had her in his arms under other circumstances. She smelled of something sweet—like candy, almost. Arif got the French window open in front of Nasim, and turned—thank you, cousin—to hold the curious and the intrusive out of the room. Nasim heard someone calling for a doctor, Sheikh Ahmad spoke up in a gruff voice about how his daughter never fainted or been ill a day in her life, and then the French windows closed, leaving them in the cool of the library.

Thick carpets with an abstract geometric design in gold and beige covered the stone floors. Bookcases lined the walls. Nasim glanced around and chose a long sofa covered in gold brocade to settle his bride. The room offered several chairs—some in leather, some not—side tables in mahogany, and a low brass table for tea. Once he had his bride deposited on the sofa, her face to one side, he straightened to glance around. Tarek had ordered that every room in the palace be stocked with water, so where were the bloody carafe and glasses?

He'd no sooner straightened than his bride sat up and pulled off her veil. "Cho co! It's gotta be hotter than the south side of Hades out there." A light drawl accented her words. She sat fanning herself with one hand.

Nasim's mouth fell open.

He'd expected the dark brown hair, but not the tight curl to it or the warm, café au lait skin that had him wanting to take a sip of her. Brown eyes flecked with gold—wide, amused, and bright—stared up at him. He couldn't see much of her figure under the robes, but what he'd felt had been a pleasant armful. She had to be American—who else could be so brazen? And that drawl…he placed it as coming from New Orleans, where he'd once spent a most memorable week.

Straightening, Nasim faced the woman he'd just married. "You're not—"

"Jasmine?" She wrinkled her nose and scooted around on the couch, struggling to get her robe sorted out. "No, but I can explain about that."

Heat flooded Nasim. He yanked off his keffiyeh and threw it onto the nearest side table. It slid off. "Explain? Really? You are somehow going to explain how you have managed to destroy the alliance I was about to make with Dijobuli. I signed a marriage contract. Sheikh Ahmad is going to be furious. In fact, I think I will join him in that emotion."

She chewed on her lower lip, utterly distracting Nasim. She had lush lips, plump, and he wanted to be the one nibbling.

Dragging his stare off that mouth, he met her uncertain gaze. He stuffed one hand into his jacket pocket. "Bloody hell, do you realize this prank's put my country, our oil business, and possibly even my family's throne in jeopardy? Now there’s no bloody deal for bloody access to Dijobuli's bloody harbor. What in all the heavens were you thinking?" He bit out the words, clipped and short, and heard his old Oxford accent creeping in.

Instead of being cowed, his bride stood, brushed her robe as if dusting herself, and faced him, chin up, her stare direct, and that smooth, sweet voice of hers trying to work some kind of charm on him.

"I'm thinking I've got you an offer from Leeland Enterprises that'll be a lot more attractive. In fact, I'm Virginia Leeland—Ginni to friends—and I hope we'll become very great friends indeed." She stuck out her hand to shake it. "Partners, as we say back home.

"

He glanced down, saw she had on the ring he had given to Jasmine, a solitary, square-cut emerald, which meant Jasmine was well aware this Ginni had stepped into the role of bride to a sheikh of Zahkim.

Nasim crossed his arms and looked Ginni Leeland over from her sandaled feet—no heels, but she had painted her toenails gold—up to her rather curly-haired head. Her stare faltered. She pulled back her hand but didn't look away. He had to give her credit for more courage than sense.

He shook his head and lifted one eyebrow. "No, Ginni Leeland, we will not be friends…or partners, as you say back home. We are far more. You are, in fact, now my wife."

Chapter Two

Ginni almost burst out with a laugh. "Married? You got that wrong." She looked for some humor glinting in those tawny eyes of his. She didn't see it. She kept eyeing him. Was he pulling her leg?

She'd timed her faint just like Jasmine wanted, so Ginni would interrupt the ceremony before anything got cemented but late enough that Jasmine had time to elope with the guy she'd met in Paris. Jasmine had fallen madly in love with Eric Welle, some guy from Germany. Right now, Ginni was having a hard time seeing why Jasmine would want skinny Eric with his Hipster-tight clothes and his couldn't-quite-grow beard when she could have had this hunk.

The hunk had a stare fixed on her that looked one part mad as a cat with his tail in a knot and one part hot—very hot—smolder. She liked that second part.

He looked good in a suit with his tie askew, all swarthy with his hair curling and rumpled from that dishcloth a lot of guys here wore, probably to keep the sun off their heads. She'd been broiling in her veils, covered up to her eyeballs and hardly able to breathe.

"That faint hadn't been good acting so much as a need to get into some shade—this place could beat New Orleans in July for its heat and humidity, and here I always figured on the desert being dry." She bit off the words. She'd slipped from thinking into talking, a habit her daddy kept saying she needed to break if she was ever going to be any good at business.

She tugged at the robe she was wearing, wishing it had more business in it, and lifted her chin. She was here to prove she was ready to take over Leeland Enterprises, and she'd taken the first step by finally getting face time with Sheikh Nasim Said. Now she just needed an agreement from him to show to her daddy.

"You're a hard man to get a meeting with."

His mouth flattened. He had a face made for sin, all interesting angles with dark eyebrows flat over tawny eyes that would do him well at a poker table. The corner of his mouth twitched.