The Sultan's Choice

‘You need someone who can stand up to you.’ She stopped and stood a few feet away, facing him. She had to make him see. ‘I had a chronic stutter until I was twelve. I’m pathologically shy. I’m so shy that I went to cognitive behavioural therapy when I was a teenager to try and counteract it.’ Which had precipitated another steady stream of taunts and insults from her stepmother, telling her that she would amount to nothing and never become a queen when she couldn’t even manage to hold a conversation without blushing or stuttering.

Sadiq had stood up and come closer to Samia while she’d been talking. He was frowning down at her now, arms folded across that impressive chest. ‘You don’t have a stutter any more, and I’d wager that your therapist, if he or she was any good, said that you were just going through a phase that any teenager might go through. And plenty of children suffer from stuttering. It’s usually related back to some minor incident in their childhood.’

Samia blinked. She felt as if he could see inside her head to one of her first memories, when she had been trying to get her new stepmother’s attention and was stuttering in her anxiety to be heard. She would bet that he’d never gone through anything like that. But he’d repeated more or less exactly what her therapist had said. It was so unexpected to hear this from him of all people that any more words dried in her throat as he started to move around her.

Sadiq was growing more intrigued by the second. Her hair had come completely undone by now, and it lay in a wavy coil down her back. His fingers itched to reach out and loosen it. It looked silky and fragrant … a little wild. It was at such odds with that uptight exterior.

So close to her like this, for the first time he noticed the disparity in their heights. She was a lot smaller than the women he was used to, and he felt a surprising surge of something almost protective within him. With the jacket gone he could see that she was slight and delicate, yet he sensed a strength about her—an innate athleticism. He could see the whiteness of her bra strap through her shirt, and how her shirt was tucked into the trousers, drawing his eye to a slim waist and the gentle flare of her hips. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a prospective lover so demurely dressed, and that thought caught him up short. She was to be his wife. Lovemaking would be purely functional. If he got any enjoyment out of i

t, it would be a bonus.

He came to stand in front of her and could see where she’d opened the top button of her shirt, revealing the slender length of her neck right down to the hollow at the base of her throat. It looked pink and slightly dewed with moisture. She must be hot. He had the most bizarre urge to push her shirt aside and press a finger there. His eyes dropped again, and he could see very plainly the twin thrusts of her breasts, rising and falling with her breath and fuller than he had first imagined.

To his utter shock, the unmistakable and familiar spark of desire lit within him. With more difficulty than he would have liked, he brought his gaze back up to hers and felt a punch to his gut at the way those aquamarine depths suddenly looked as dark blue as the Arabian sea on a stormy day. Tendrils of hair were curling softly around her face, and she looked softer, infinitely more feminine. In fact in that moment she looked almost … beautiful. Sadiq reeled at this completely unexpected development.

Samia was helpless under Sadiq’s assessing gaze. No man had ever looked at her so explicitly, his gaze lingering on her breasts like that. And yet she wasn’t insulted or shocked. A languorous heat was snaking through her veins. She was caught in a bubble. A bubble of heat and sensation. As soon as he had walked behind her she’d had to undo her top button because she couldn’t breathe—she’d felt so constricted. And now he was looking at her as though … as though—

‘You say I need someone to stand up to me and that’s what you’ve been doing since yesterday.’ His beautifully sculpted mouth firmed. ‘It’s a long time since anyone has refused my wishes. I encounter people every day who are overawed and inhibited by what they perceive me to be and yet I don’t get that from you.’ Before Samia could articulate anything, he continued. ‘Very few people would feel they had the authority to do that, but we’re the same, Princess Samia, you and I.’

Samia nearly blanched at that. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that she and this man were not the same. Not in a million years. Polar opposites. ‘We’re not the same,’ she got out painfully. ‘Really, we’re not.’

He ignored her. ‘I know you’ve got a closely knit and loyal group of friends.’

Without a hint of self-pity and vaguely surprised that he knew this, she said, ‘That says more about who I am and the background I come from than anything else.’ Remembering one painful episode in college, she went on, ‘I could never fully trust that people weren’t making friends just because they thought they could get something out of me.’ When he still looked unmoved she said desperately, ‘I’m boring!’

He arched an incredulous brow. ‘Someone who is boring doesn’t embark on a three-woman trip across the Atlantic in a catamaran made out of recycled materials in a bid to raise awareness about the environment.’

Samia was immediately disconcerted. ‘You know about that?’

He nodded and looked a little stern. ‘I think it was either one of the most foolhardy or one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.’

She flushed deeper and couldn’t stop a dart of pleasure rushing through her at the thought she’d earned this man’s admiration. ‘I care about the environment … The other two were old friends from college, and they couldn’t raise the funding required on their own … But once I got involved …’ Her voice trailed off, her modesty not wanting to make it sound as if she’d been instrumental in the project.

Sadiq rocked back on his heels. ‘I have a well-established environmental team in Al-Omar that could do with your support. I often find I’m too tied up with other concerns to give it my full attention. We’ve both grown up in rarefied environments, Samia, both grown up being aware of public duty. If anything, your teenage and childhood experiences will make you more empathetic with people—an essential quality in any queen.’

Samia objected to his constant avowal of partnership, and the tantalising carrot of being able to work constructively for the environment, but her attempt to halt him in his tracks with a weak-sounding ‘Sadiq …’ made no impact.

‘You might find social situations intimidating, but with time they’ll become second nature. Also, you can’t deny that having grown up as a princess in a royal court you are aware of castle politics and protocol. You would have learnt that by osmosis. These are all invaluable assets to me in any marriage I undertake. I don’t have the time or the inclincation to train someone.’

Samia blinked up at him again. She couldn’t deny it. As much as she might want to. Even though she’d spent her formative years avoiding her stepmother, she knew castle politics like the back of her hand—she’d had to learn to survive. Her knowledge of the things he spoke had been engraved invisibly on her psyche like a tattoo from birth.

‘I want to create a solid alliance between Al-Omar, Merkazad and Burquat. We live in unstable times and need to be able to depend on each other. Marrying you will ensure a strong alliance with your brother. I already have it with Merkazad. Your father’s rule put Burquat firmly in an isolated position, which did your country no favours. Thankfully your brother is reversing that stance. I don’t see how you have any grounds at all—apart from your own personal concerns—to believe that you are not fit to become my queen, and in so doing ensure the future stability of your country.’

Samia swallowed painfully, glued to his glittering blue eyes in sick fascination. He was right. She could no more stand there and deny these facts than she could deny her very heritage and lineage. She might have hidden herself away in a college and then a dusty library for the past few years, but she’d always had the knowledge of this ultimate responsibility within her.

And her concerns were personal—selfish, in fact. She just did not have that luxury. She wasn’t the same as the average person on the street. She had obligations, responsibilities.

As if he could sense her weakening, Sadiq moved closer and Samia’s breath faltered. That embarrassing heat was back, rising inexorably through her body, and for the first time she recognised it not as the heat of embarrassment or shyness but as a totally different kind of heat. The heat of desire. The fact that he was having the same inevitable effect on her as every other woman he must encounter was humiliating. She was not immune.

‘I …’ She had to swallow to get her voice to work. He was standing so close now that all she could see was those dark blue irises, sucking her in and down into a vortex of nebulous needs she’d never felt before. She battled her own sapping will and focused. ‘I accept what you’re saying. They’re all valid points.’

‘I know they are.’

Had his voice dropped an octave? It sounded like it. They were standing so close now that Samia could feel his warm breath feather around her, could smell the intensely masculine scent of sandalwood and musky spice. It was the memory of that scent that had kept her awake for long hours last night.

To her utter shock he reached out a hand and touched his thumb to her bottom lip, tugging it. She had the most bizarre urge to flick out her tongue and taste his finger. Her heart slowed to about a beat a minute.

‘That’s better. You shouldn’t be so tense. You have a very pretty mouth.’