LITMIR.BIZ

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smile inspired fear. He’d taken her father on, and now he was challenging her.

      He enjoyed power. Relished control. Keira blinked a little, overwhelmed by the differences between them.

      Kalen might live in London, might have left Baraka well over a decade ago, and perhaps his clothes were gorgeous Italian designs, and his accent British old school, but he was still a sheikh, and not just any sheikh, but one of the richest, most influential men in the world.

      His lashes lifted, his golden gaze met hers, holding her captive. He was looking at her as though she were naked, his eyes baring her, not sexually, but emotionally. He was seeing what she didn’t want seen. He was seeing the shadows in her, the places of anger and defiance, and heat seeped through her. A scorching heat that started in her belly and moved to her breasts, her neck, every inch of skin.

      She felt as if she were fighting for her life now. “I’m trying to be practical, Sheikh Nuri.”

      “Practical, how?”

      “It’s necessary I establish my independence from my father, that I demonstrate in his eyes, that I am not going to marry whomever he wants, just because he wants.”

      “Your father doesn’t care.”

      “Nor do you.”

      Her flash of resentment resulted in a low rough laugh that rumbled from his chest. “So much fire, laeela, so much defiance. But unlike your father, I could grow to want someone like you.”

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE jet took off an hour before midnight. It was Kalen Nuri’s private jet, a brand-new aircraft waiting at the executive terminal on the outskirts of Fort Worth.

      Sheikh Nuri had her shown to the private bedroom in the back even though the last thing Keira wanted to do was sleep. But later, after reaching cruising altitude, Keira did manage to stretch out on the bed and close her eyes.

      And then she was being woken, informed by the flight attendant on board that they were making the final approach into the business airport adjacent to Heathrow.

      On the ground, the jet taxied to the terminal. Disembarking took minutes and as the morning sun shone warmly overhead, they slipped into a private car, traveling in silence to Sheikh Nuri’s home in Kensington Gardens.

      “You’ve been exceptionally quiet,” Kalen said, as the car wound through the old elegant neighborhood, a neighborhood of grand Victorian mansions, all gleaming creamy-white in the pure morning light.

      “What’s there for me to say?” She couldn’t even bring herself to look at him. He’d forced her here, forced her to come to London as surely as her father’s men would have forced her to return to Baraka.

      “You’ll grow to enjoy the lifestyle.”

      Her head snapped around, eyebrows lowering. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

      “No.” The car stopped before a tall house with a glossy black door, iron railings at tall paned windows, the symmetry of the house more striking for the perfect boxwood topiaries framing the entrance.

      He stepped out. The front door of the house opened, a butler appeared on the front step even as the uniformed chauffeur moved around to the side of the car to assist them.

      “Welcome to your future,” Kalen said, upper lip curling with dark humor. Sheikh Nuri’s face was just as she’d always remembered—hard, perfectly symmetrical, classically beautiful—like a marble statue. His beauty was that precise. His control was that absolute.

      “My future?” she repeated.

      His lip curled further, emphasizing his harsh beauty. “Your life with me.”

      For a moment Keira could only stare at him, finding it all too incredible, too implausible for her to believe.

      She, who’d been infatuated with Sheikh Nuri for so long, was in his protection.

      She, Keira Gordon, was to live with the one man she’d most admired. The man she, as a schoolgirl, had secretly, passionately adored.

      Inside the house, Keira paced her bedroom suite like a caged tiger.

      Kalen’s house. Kalen’s guest bedroom. Kalen’s proximity would kill her.

      She still felt so hopelessly attracted to him, and she shouldn’t. He might be physically beautiful but he was hard, arrogant, insensitive.

      He was using her, too, using her to get to her father and yet instead of feeling contempt for him, she felt…curiosity. Desire.

      She wanted contact.

      Wanted warmth and nearness, wanted skin.

      She stopped pacing long enough to open a closet and look inside. Empty.

      Bureau drawers, empty.

      Good.

      Although the room was masculine, she was afraid she might be sharing another woman’s bedroom, and she couldn’t do that. She’d never be able to share Kalen Nuri with anyone. Funny how some things were so damn clear.

      Keira sat down on the arm of an upholstered chair. So this was her room. A high white ceiling. Mushroom painted walls. The velvet headboard a dark fern-green. Two small dressers flanked the bed—both dressers mirrored—and the large pillows butting against the headboard were various shades of moss, fern and forest velvet.

      Kalen’s house, she silently repeated. Kalen’s guest room.

      Kalen.

      Seven years ago she’d gone to the party to see him. Malik Nuri might be the older brother and heir to the throne, but Kalen was the Nuri all the girls were crazy about.

      Kalen was the one to get.

      Kalen wasn’t narrow, political, boring. Kalen lived in London, traveled extensively, spent money freely, spoiling friends…including his women.

      All the good girls among the Atiq upper class fantasized about being Kalen’s woman. What it would mean. What life would be like.

      And it wasn’t even his money the girls liked. It was his attitude.

      His arrogance. His cynicism. His physical beauty. For he was beautiful. Beautiful but forbidden. In Baraka it was a woman’s duty to remain pure, untouched, until her marriage. Women tended to marry young to protect their name and the family reputation. But when Kalen Nuri walked into a room, and when Kalen Nuri looked at a girl—woman—even if she was wearing a jellaba, even if only her eyes were showing—he looked at her as though he owned her. Owned her heart, mind, body and soul.

      He was a magician. A sorcerer.

      He was mystery and danger, sensuality and power. The ultimate fantasy.

      He’d been her fantasy, too.

      Which is why she’d snuck out, gone with a couple of the other girls, wilder girls, girls with parents less restrictive, less conservative than her father to the party hosted in Kalen Nuri’s honor.

      The party was supposedly segregated, as well as chaperoned. Turned out it was neither.

      Neither, Keira repeated silently, wearily, unable to escape the shadows and shame of the poor decision she had made.

      She’d never talked about it. Who would she tell? Her liberal intellectual mother? Her orthodox political father?

      There had been no one to talk to, no one to turn to for comfort or advice. And she’d done the only thing she could—she’d moved forward, moved on, moved emotionally and physically, leaving Baraka never to return, eventually leaving England to begin university studies in the States.

      A knock sounded at the locked bedroom door. Keira opened the door. A housemaid stood in the hall, holding a garment bag and assorted shopping bags from several of London’s most exclusive jewelry boutiques.

      “From

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