To Tame a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 1)

Shaheen…he’d done all this. For her. But when? How? Where was he? She couldn’t be here, face all this, without him… “Johara! Breathe!”

She gulped a breath at Laylah’s prodding. Then another.

“Stop. You’ve hyperventilating,” Aliyah exclaimed.

She forced herself to regulate her breathing. She could just see the headlines if she fainted.

Pregnant Aal Shalaan Bride Passes Out At Wedding Ceremony.

Her vision had cleared and her steps had firmed when the openly gawking crowd parted to stand on two sides as she and her procession made their way through. She felt she was treading the insubstantial ground of a dream as the thunder of clapping rose and the music, which she realized issued from an extensive live ensemble, began the distinctive percussive melody of the most popular Zohaydan wedding song, the one that called everyone to come wonder at the bride’s splendor and her groom’s phenomenal luck. By the time Aliyah and Laylah were singing along, she was floating on auto.

Then she saw her father.

He was mounting three gold-satin covered steps to a gold-satin-covered platform at the epicenter of the hall. She’d chosen him to act as her proxy, the one who would put his hand in Shaheen’s during the ritual. She’d thought they’d all sit down and it would be over in minutes. Now it seemed his role included taking her to her groom with all the ceremony of this carefully choreographed piece.

She’d seen him for minutes last night with Shaheen and the king and only to tell him of the situation. To say he’d been shocked would be the understatement of the century.

He now waited for her, the litheness of his figure accentuated in a tight-fitting bronze silk tunic and pants, his chest heavy with the shining and colorful medals of honor and distinction he’d received throughout his service, his broad shoulders bearing the tags of the highest rank he’d quit. She felt Aliyah and Laylah fall behind as she climbed the steps, each diverging on one side of the platform to lead a portion of her procession to form a circle around it. As she reached the top, her father took her hands in his, his earlier shock replaced by lingering bewilderment tinged by guarded joy.

But it was the apology that lurked in the depths of his black eyes that made her pull him to her in a fierce hug.

He let out a ragged breath as his arms trembled around her. “I’m sorry I was so absorbed in my own problems I didn’t notice what was going on with you. Is that why you felt you couldn’t tell me? You thought I couldn’t be there for you?”

Mortification rose inside her. She wasn’t letting him in on more than he could think. She hugged him tighter. “No. If it concerns only me, I will always let you in, Daddy.”

“But it concerned Shaheen, too, and you were protecting him.” She nodded into his shoulder. He sighed, pulled back to look at her, his eyes level with hers. “You love him?” She nodded again, knew she didn’t have to say how much or for how long. It was there in her eyes. “Then this is the best thing that ever happened to me, to see you marry the man you love. I can’t think of a better man for you, or a better man, period. I do think Shaheen is the best of all the princes. And you know how highly I think of them all.”

“Even me, Berj? You think highly of me?” Johara jerked as Amjad descended on her and father’s tête-à-tête, clamping her father’s shoulder and tugging him under his, looking down into his startled eyes, his radiating that ruthless shrewdness and uncanny emerald fire. “Now, where could I have possibly gone wrong?”

“Crown Prince Amjad…” Her father looked totally confused. “I meant no offense…”

“Oh, don’t apologize to him, Dad.” Johara glared up into Amjad’s merciless teasing, trying to gauge if he was going to do more than tease, all but baring her teeth, warning him off.

“My impending sister-in-law has spoken.” Amjad did that thing he did so well, looking one in the eye and talking about them in third person, sidelining them. “Seems you’ve been granted license to offend, Berj. And I hope you’ll also reconsider your high opinion. We wouldn’t want to give me a good name, now would we?”

As her father smiled like someone who’d just walked into the middle of a conversation and was too embarrassed to ask what it was about, Amjad’s eyes traveled down the mind-boggling simulation of the pure gold cascading choker necklace, encrusted in two hundred fifty carats of diamonds ranging from pure ice to golden yellow, that covered her from high on her neck to the edge of her décolleté. “So which, in your opinion, is the real Pride of Zohayd, Berj? Your daughter or this?”

He touched the necklace. She stamped her foot on top of his.

Amjad didn’t even wince as her high heel jammed between his bones, his only response an intensifying of the bedeviling in his eyes. The tug of war had been subtle enough to go unnoticed by all, so her father almost jerked in shock when Amjad threw his head back on a guffaw as if out of the blue. The sound was so predatory it would have scared her if she weren’t so furious.

She was about to hiss to Amjad that she wasn’t above making a more overt retaliation if he dared renege on their deal when a storm of murmurs mushroomed, drowning out the music and her intentions.

As the crowd turned in a wave toward the new focus of attention, she knew. It was Shaheen.

“Grandstander,” Amjad murmured. Then he bent to deliver his next words in her ears. “Enjoy. But not so much that you forget what this is all about.”

“And don’t you forget my special forces gathered right outside this hall.”

Harres had materialized on her other side. He gave her a bolstering smile and Amjad a subtle tug, making him fall back, gesturing for her and Berj to precede them.

The moment their quartet descended from the other side of the platform, the lights dimmed, until the hall was dipped in darkness with only a spotlight following her procession, focused on her. She couldn’t see anything beyond her next step.

Her stampeding heart shifted into higher gear. She could feel that she was moving deeper into Shaheen’s orbit, felt his eyes on her, caressing her, loving her.

And though she couldn’t see him, she opened herself, letting him see everything inside her. Along with all of her that he knew he had, she gave him her gratitude that he hadn’t let this be a rushed apology of a ceremony. Even if she was dying of embarrassment, would have preferred something far more private and far, far less extravagant, she knew this was his way of shouting to the world his pride of being hers the loudest he could.