LITMIR.BIZ

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just had sex with a stranger.

      Gracie tested the words out in her mind, but they didn’t feel right. Malik wasn’t a stranger, and what they’d had wasn’t simply sex. It had been the most intimate and powerful and frankly amazing thing she’d ever done or felt. And she wanted to do it again rather soon.

      But did he? Inexplicably shy considering all the things they’d done, Gracie glanced over at Malik. He lay on his back, his bronzed skin gleaming from their recent exertions, a faint smile on his proud and beautiful face.

      Sensing her glance, he turned towards her. ‘Are you... Are you all right? You’re not... I didn’t hurt you?’

      Gracie felt a sloppy grin spread over her face. The initial twinge of pain had been replaced by a deeper pleasure than she’d ever known. ‘I’ve never been better.’

      Malik’s widening smile made her insides leap and writhe with joy. ‘I can say the same.’ He reached for her again, and Gracie went all too willingly, her body curving deliciously into his, desire and anticipation swirling in her veins like liquid gold, when the sound of the door to the suite being thrown open with force made them both freeze.

      ‘What the...?’ Malik began under his breath, but before he could say anything more, a man appeared in the doorway of the bedroom. Gracie registered a stern, autocratic face, a tall, gaunt body swathed in a traditional linen thobe. She shrank beneath the sheets, one hand reaching for Malik, but to her shock he pulled away from her.

      ‘So,’ the man said in a cold voice. ‘I leave you to your own devices for a single night and this is what happens.’ He raked Gracie with a scathing glare. ‘You bring some tramp back to your room.’

      Malik rolled from the bed in one swift movement, yanking on his trousers before Gracie could even blink. ‘Let us discuss this in a civilised manner in the other room.’ He didn’t even look at Gracie as he bit out, ‘You should dress.’

      Gracie watched as Malik stalked from the room, preceded by the older man. Her brain felt frozen, her whole body numb. After a few stunned seconds where she simply lay there, the sheet still drawn up protectively over her naked body, she finally forced herself into gear and rose from the bed.

      Her whole body shook as she found her clothes and pulled them on, raking her fingers through her tangled hair. A glance in the mirror of the en-suite bathroom showed how wretched she looked—pale face, huge, shocked eyes, hair like a bird’s nest. She could hear low, terse voices from the next room, but she had no idea what Malik was saying. Was he defending her? Explaining to this stranger, whoever he was, that he and Gracie had a connection? Somehow Gracie feared he wasn’t. Since the awful moment that man had come in, Malik had seemed like a different person. A hard, cold stranger.

      A few minutes later Malik opened the door and Gracie took an instinctive step backwards at the terribly impassive look on his face.

      ‘You should go.’

      That was it? Gracie blinked, opened her mouth and closed it again. ‘Malik...’

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his voice flat and his tone not apologetic at all. ‘This was a...memorable evening. But that’s all.’ He folded his arms, biceps rippling, drawing Gracie’s gaze even now. ‘You knew that.’ Had she? What about all their talk about a connection? ‘I’ll call you a cab.’

      A sudden, rolling wave of fury crashed over her. Did he think he was being generous? ‘No, thanks,’ she choked out. She stuffed her feet into her sneakers, not bothering with the laces. All her focus was on keeping from bursting into tears. She wouldn’t give Malik the satisfaction, and she could certainly do without the humiliation. But now she had to do the hideous walk of shame, holding her head high as she walked past both Malik and the older man, whose malevolent glare could have singed her hair.

      ‘Don’t think,’ the stranger said, his voice cold and clear, ‘that you will gain a penny from selling your story to the tabloids.’

      Gracie turned, her mouth dropping open. ‘What...?’

      ‘This is not necessary, Grandfather,’ Malik cut across her. He was glaring at the other man; Gracie might as well have not existed.

      ‘You are still innocent, Malik,’ the man snapped. ‘Women like this—’

      ‘Why would I sell my story?’ Gracie gasped out, before he could insult her further. ‘Who are you?’

      The man drew himself up. ‘I am Asad al Bahjat, the Sultan of Alazar, descended from a thousand years of princes and kings. And you,’ he said, his eyes narrowing to nasty slits, ‘are nothing but a cheap whore.’

      Gracie reeled back at the insult. She looked at Malik, but his expression was unreadable. He said nothing, didn’t defend her in any way. Choking on a cry she didn’t want to give Malik the satisfaction of hearing, Gracie turned and fled.

      * * *

      ‘You did not need to be quite so harsh.’

      Malik gave his grandfather Asad a level look as the door slammed behind Gracie. The ensuing silence felt like the aftermath of a storm, the emotional wreckage all around them. The emptiness inside him he would not contemplate.

      ‘You do not know what she could have been capable of,’ Asad said.

      ‘She did not even know I was heir to the sultanate,’ Malik returned. ‘She wouldn’t have realised there was a story to sell.’ Not that he thought Gracie would do such a thing, but he knew he could not afford the naïve sentimentality of such a belief. Not with the weight of the kingdom on his shoulders, the expectation of his role. Dallying with a stranger in a strange city, where anyone could have seen them, had been stupid. Stupid yet wonderful.

      And now it was over, as he’d known it would be.

      ‘She would have found out,’ Asad scoffed.

      ‘In your arrogance you revealed something that was best kept hidden.’

      ‘Do not think to challenge me,’ Asad began, but Malik cut him off.

      ‘And do not think to control me. I am not a boy any longer, subject to your cruel whims. I will be Sultan one day, and one day soon, I have no doubt.’ He raked his grandfather with a single look before turning away, furious with both Asad and himself, with the circumstances that had led to this moment. He had always known it would only be a night, but he hadn’t wanted it to end like this. And yet how else could it have ended? He had no future with Gracie Jones, American nobody. He hadn’t even wanted one.

      ‘Is this what a night with a woman has given you?’ Asad scorned. ‘A little boyish bravado? You probably think something stupid, like you love her.’

      Malik’s mouth tightened into a hard line. ‘Of course not.’ He had no interest in the illusion of love. It had made his father weak, turned him into a hollow wreck of a man, a failure. He would never choose the same for himself.

      ‘You did take precautions, I hope?’ Asad asked in a sneer.

      Malik swung around to stare at him, his jaw bunched, a muscle flickering in his temple. Asad made a sound of disgust. ‘How unbelievably stupid. How like your father, putting sentiment and romance above basic practical concerns.’

      ‘I am not like my father,’ Malik snapped. ‘In any regard.’

      Azim shook his head. ‘If only Azim had lived. We would never be in such a state as this...’

      It was a lament Malik had heard often over the last decade, and one he had no patience for now. If only Azim had lived, the older brother, the true heir. Over the years Asad had built up Azim into a hero, the fourteen-year-old boy stolen from his youth who would have been the perfect heir, the rightful Sultan, unlike Malik, who was there in proxy, an unwanted second choice, too like his father, according to Asad. Soft. Weak.

      Asad had done his best to mould Malik, sending him to military school, beating duty into him whenever he could. Malik had learned

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