LITMIR.BIZ

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narrowed down his choices to two.”

      Harres huffed a sound of pure sarcasm. “Don’t tell me. The candidates with the least monstrous qualities.”

      “Actually they’re both pretty decent. One is not as accomplished or worldly as Shaheen would prefer, but we believe she would become so as his wife. The other one is really nice, but doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. Again, with Shaheen for a husband, she’ll definitely develop one.”

      Shaheen felt as if he’d fallen into the twilight zone, expected to hear a laughter track burst into the background any moment now.

      He cleared his throat. “Shaheen is right here.” The two women squeezed him again, sheepishness coating their expressions. “Thank you, my dears, for vetting my bridal nightmares as only you two discerning ladies could. Write down your choices and hand them to Father. But if he decides one of the monsters is more beneficial to the negotiations, that is who I’ll end up with. Anyway, my life as I know and want it is over. So, as I told Father earlier, one catastrophe with which to meet my end is as good as another.”

      A pall fell on the duo in the wake of his words.

      Horror dawned in Aliyah’s and Laylah’s eyes, contrition twisting their features. They really hadn’t realized how much Shaheen hated this, were now mortified that they’d been oblivious to his own distress and teased him about it.

      “Oh, Shaheen, I didn’t know you were …”

      “Oh, Shaheen, I didn’t realize …”

      Aliyah’s and Laylah’s apologies stumbled over each other. They fell silent, Aliyah biting her lip, Laylah’s eyes filling with tears.

      His focus flowed back to its captor, to Gem—to Johara. Her eyes darted away the moment his fell on her. She’d been watching him.

      A bubble of agitation and elation expanded inside him.

      She might be avoiding him, but she wanted to look at him and did so the moment she could.

      Harres’s phone rang.

      He answered. After a few terse sentences, he turned his eyes to Shaheen. “I’m sorry to leave you. But something’s brewing at our borders. It may take hours or even days to defuse.”

      Shaheen nodded, accepted Harres’s bolstering hug, watched him hug the women and stride away.

      Shaheen looked back at the fidgeting Aliyah and Laylah, a calculating smile spreading his lips even as his heart twisted inside his chest. “How about you atone for your sins by granting this doomed man a last request?”

      They both jumped, voices intertwining with promises of anything at all if it would make him feel better.

      He looked back at Johara, who again turned her eyes away and bestowed a brittle smile on the group surrounding her.

      “Remember Johara Nazaryan?”

      Both women looked to Johara.

      “Oh, yes,” Laylah said. “My mother used to drag me away every time I tried to talk to her. Now look at her, flitting around Johara as if she were an A-list movie star.”

      Aliyah smirked. “It’s not only your mother. All our female relatives and acquaintances who never deemed to speak to her or her mother before are falling over themselves to be reintroduced.”

      Laylah giggled. “Bless their superficial souls. They never acknowledged what a classy, talented woman Jacqueline Nazaryan was, or what a sweet girl Johara was. But now that Johara has become the new designer on the cusp of international stardom, they all want to secure a chance to be the first to wear her latest exclusive designs.”

      “It’s amazing to see that they consider their next outfit more important than their husbands.” Aliyah’s lips twisted. “Their men are about to flood the ceremony hall in drool, and the women can’t care less.”

      Shaheen blinked, noting the people gathered around Johara for the first time. Women who’d treated her with condescension, or at best the dismissive courtesy due to a valuable employee’s family member, were now treating her not just as an equal but as a celebrity.

      But it was the men’s behavior that made aggression swirl inside him. Many were openly ogling her and courting her attention and favor. His muscles turned to steel as every territorial cell in his body primed for a to-the-death fight for his mate.

      Yes. No matter what she’d done or how impossible it all was, his body, his very being, considered her his mate. Accepted nothing else.

      Aliyah turned back to him. “What about Johara?”

      His burning conviction seemed to force Johara’s gaze to him. He muttered, low and hungry, “Bring her to me.”

      Shaheen was about to combust.

      With frustration.

      It had been two hours since he’d told Aliyah and Laylah to pluck Johara from her new rabid fans and bring her to him.

      After a brief surprise, the two women, who clearly weren’t aware of the seriousness of the situation that necessitated his making a marriage of state, thought it a brilliant idea.

      They thought he should flaunt the royal council’s decrees and marry whomever he liked. And with their former connection, who better than Johara?

      They’d gone after her as dozens of people inundated Shaheen again. He’d fended them off as he struggled to track the two women’s efforts to disentangle Johara from her companions.

      After sinking in the quicksand of the court’s convoluted maneuvers, the two women could only look on as they lost Johara to another tide of eager fans until she exited the hall.

      He had no doubt she’d thwarted them on purpose, had escaped. He had no idea where she’d gone, or if she’d even remain in Zohayd.

      By the time he’d freed himself, he’d had a choice between interrogating guards and servants and having the news that he was looking for her spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom, or inspecting every guest suite in the palace himself and causing an even bigger scandal for his—and her—father.

      So here he was, pacing his quarters, barely stopping himself from driving his fist through a wall.

      He couldn’t let her avoid him. He had to confront her. If only for one last time.

      Plans were ricocheting in his mind, each seeming more ludicrous than the next, when a knock floated to his ears from his apartment’s door.

      “Go away,” he growled at the top of his voice.

      He’d thought whomever was unfortunate enough to seek him now had heeded his order when the knock came again, more urgent.

      He stormed to the door, flung it open, ready to blast whomever it was off the face of the earth.

      And there she was. Gemma. Johara.

      She stood there, in the gold dress that echoed her hair’s incredible shades and luster, looking up at him with anxiety in her gaze, a tremor strumming those lush, petal-soft lips he’d been going mad from needing beneath his for eight agonizing weeks.

      “Shaheen …”

      The memory of that night when she’d said his name, looked at him like that and changed his life forever ripped through him.

      He didn’t give her a chance to say anything else.

      He swooped down on her with the same speed and determination he had two decades ago, when he’d snatched her away from death’s snapping jaws. He hauled her into the room, his feet feeling as if they were leaving the ground in his desperation to have her against him, beneath him, with him.

      Everything merged into a dream sequence. Gemma, Johara, filled his arms, her sweet breath mingling with his, her lips pressing desperately against his own, her flesh cushioning his, her heat and hunger enveloping

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