The Sheikh's Claim (Desert Nights 2)

Her heart choked on its beats waiting for Jalal’s answer. He would hit Rashid’s venom back with as much conviction.

But he didn’t. He didn’t answer at all.

She couldn’t even fathom his reaction from the quality of his silence. How was he looking at Rashid? Ridiculing? Exasperated?

Rashid was talking again. “Go ahead, shackle yourself with a woman and a child you don’t want in your desperate bid for the throne. It will be a fitting punishment for you to be literally left holding the baby with not as much as a cabinet seat to collapse in defeat on.”

She was shaking from head to toe when Jalal finally talked.

“Haidar told me how you had changed. I thought he was exaggerating. Turns out he’s been his usual reticent self and left out the juicy parts. What happened to you, Rashid?”

A long, nerve-racking silence followed.

Then in a voice as still as the grave, Rashid said, “Didn’t you just say your distorted mirror image told you?”

“He only told me the end result, not the process. We know nothing about you beyond the time when you joined the army and kept drifting farther and farther away until you disappeared on us totally. And then—” she could almost see Jalal’s frustrated gesture in the beat of silence “—this came back in your stead.”

“This is the real me.” Rashid’s voice remained expressionless, and more hair-raising for it. “The only me you’ll ever see again. So if either of you deficient hybrids thinks you have a prayer against me, spare yourself the indignity. You in particular are so pathetic I decided to show you the mercy of advising you not to sacrifice your freedom at the altar of the kingly ambitions that you are destined to never fulfill.”

Lujayn stood rooted as Rashid’s voice approached and as he opened the ajar office door. He saw her immediately, stopped.

He stared back at her, a force of darkness in male form.

And that scar…

She would have lurched if she wasn’t frozen, inside and out.

Then he exhaled. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Sheikha Lujayn. At least now you can make an informed decision.”

He bowed deferentially as he passed her even as Jalal’s shouted curse penetrated her numbness.

Jalal charged into the antechamber, aggravation blazing at Rashid’s receding back, morphing into anxiety as his eyes fell on her.

Before he could say anything, she whispered, “Is this why you want us, Jalal?”

His face twisted as if she’d stabbed him. “You still think that badly of me, Lujayn? You mistrust me that deeply?”

She swallowed, shook her head. She trusted him, but…

He took her shoulders in trembling hands. “Rashid was just messing with me, like he’s been messing with Haidar since he’s come back to Azmahar. Beside whatever has turned him against us personally, he considers us interlopers, more Zohaydan than Azmaharians. He’s employing psychological warfare to get us out of the way. But you must know everything you heard him say has no basis in fact. I want you, and Adam, for one reason only. Because I can’t live without you. Tell me you believe me, ya habibati!”

She threw herself at him, clung as if she’d escaped certain death. “I do, oh, God, Jalal, I do.”

He groaned against her cheek, her lips. “I can’t bear it if you have any doubts, ya’yooni. I’ll withdraw my candidacy.”

“No!” She pulled away so he could read her urgency, conviction in her eyes. “Don’t even think it! I just love you so much, am so happy, it’s making me jittery and unable to believe my luck.”

He pulled her once again into his embrace, agitation draining, indulgence flooding back. “It isn’t luck, it’s the least you deserve. And whether I become king or not doesn’t matter. I only want to love you and Adam and live to make you happier still.”

As she lost herself in his kiss, his safety and promise, something still told her there was no way life would let her have all that and not eventually interfere....

Eleven

The tables’ accents and the color of bridesmaids’ dresses had just been decided. Dahabi. As the “golden” girl, Dahab herself had decreed the color was a no-brainer.

What remained was everything else. The flower arrangements, the grounds’ ornaments and lighting, the hall decorations, the catering menu. The kooshah—where Lujayn and Jalal would preside over the festivities—was a matter of particular contention. And Lujayn didn’t even want to think what would happen when she had to give a final word on her dress. Not to mention accessories. Everyone had an opinion, and of course, it was the right one.

She’d been stunned when her mother had come passionately to life the moment Jalal had set the wedding date, becoming a whirlwind of organizing and decision-making. More stunning was her aunt’s all-out enthusiasm. She’d been recovering from her mastectomy at breathtaking speed, especially after knowing she wouldn’t need chemo or radiation. But Lujayn bet her mother’s and aunt’s soaring spirits had most to do with their restored social status, and Jalal treating them like queens. They almost grew wings every time he walked in, kissing their hands and calling them hamati and hamati el tanyah—my mother-in-law and second mother-in-law.

But he’d done way more. He’d turned the palace into a workshop for them. He had tailors, jewelers, chefs, florists and workmen from just about every trade at their beck and call to put together every detail of the wedding. Her womenfolk were getting more delirious by the second, feeling like they’d fallen into a wonderland where they’d fulfill every feminine fantasy. Dahab had told him he’d firmly earned the title of genie.

After the first day, when she’d realized the scope of the details, Lujayn had thought they’d have to postpone the wedding. Jalal wouldn’t hear of it. His rationalization? If they gave her womenfolk a year, they’d still come up with more details. Though she agreed, she couldn’t get around the slowing down that working in shifts caused so someone would always be with Adam. Jalal, always ready with a solution, had whisked Adam away till the wedding.

She’d smothered him in kisses. Not because he’d taken Adam off her hands, but because of the eagerness with which he had. She’d also pinched his luscious butt for maneuvering her into giving him this opening to have Adam all to himself. He’d pinched hers right back, telling her to get to work, triumphantly informing Adam that, as men, their part in that legendary wedding would consist of jumping into their costumes and showing up.