The Sheikh's Offer (9 page)

“Gee, Father, so wonderful to talk with you too. In English no less.”

“Yeah, it was nice...for both of us,” a cold, collected voice said behind him.

He turned around and gaped back at Kelly. Cold fury simmered in her emerald eyes. Asam knew then why his father had spoken to him in English, why he’d been so deliberate. The rat bastard had set everything up so perfectly to help drive Kelly away for good.

Jumping to his feet, he held out his hands in a placating gesture. “Kelly, I can explain.”

“Don’t bother,” she shouted, pulling off the rings and throwing them to the floor. “Were you even drunk that night? Did you just scheme to marry me? Did Daddy Dearest give you an ultimatum like he did your brothers?”

“Yes, but it’s not what you think.”

“It’s exactly what I think! I heard him. He was nice and clear, and in English on top of all of that. You needed a wife, so you snagged me with a little help from alcohol.”

“You didn’t seem to need help consuming it,” he said, his tone hard.

Flames danced in the green depths of her pupils, and she shook her head again. “That’s unbelievable. You really want to say that? I’d had one of the most humiliating days ever at work. I wasn’t expecting international marriage plots just so Sheikh Asam Hassem could get exactly what he wanted.
News flash.
I’m not the passport to keeping your charmed life. I thought you loved me. That this
was
about making up for everything that went so horribly at that damn bachelor party, but it never was!”

He strode across the room and pulled her to his chest. She struggled against him, but he needed her, craved her like a drug by now, like a heroin addict scraping for any needle he could find while chasing the dragon.

“Let me go!” she shouted, trying to pull back.

Even for all her soft curves, she was still a tiny woman, so short against his torso. It was easy to pin her there and try to make her see that they fit together—that they belonged. Leaning down, he stuck his nose in her hair, sniffing the sweet fragrance of strawberries and lilac from her shampoo. It was like heaven. Then the sharp pain in his groin sent him to his knees.

Kelly crossed her arms over her chest. Normally, such insolence carried harsh penalties in Al-Marasae. He’d seen a few of the horrors meted out on his father’s disobedient concubines, those poor women.

But he wasn’t like that.

He loved Kelly, and if what she wanted most was to leave him behind—even if that burned like lava in his veins—then he had to accept it. He’d seen the way women who didn’t want to be in the harem had loathed his father, even sometimes how his mother glared at him over stony silences at the dining table. He wanted Kelly to be with him of her own free will, or he didn’t want her at all. He could never bear to keep her with him if this was how she felt about him.

“You stay away from me,” she spat.

“I didn’t mean it. I came to Las Vegas to date you. I didn’t expect what happened at the Blue Suede Chapel any more than you did.”

“But you had a clock ticking down on you that I didn’t know about. Your father’s edicts are a huge thing to hide, Asam, and you could have would have benefitted from that stunt.”

“Yes, because he was so happy to speak about you,” he said, his tone low and wounded.

“But you lied, didn’t tell me the real reason for you being in town. I can’t do this anymore. I…”

“What?”

“Can you just take me to Al-Marasae? If I’m already in the Middle East, then I want to see my godson and Alana, but I can’t stand the sight of you,” she turned quickly on her heels and called back over her shoulder. “It’s a good thing the palace is the size of a city block. I can avoid you for a few days and you better pray you don’t sneak up on me or try begging me to be with you again, Asam. You won’t like it.”

“As you wish,” he said, slamming his computer to the tile below him anyway, gratified when it smashed into a dozen hunks of plastic and glass. At least something matched his mood now.

***

“I’m beyond confused,” Alana confessed, blinking her large, turquoise eyes back at Kelly. “You and Asam did what?”

“We got drunk and hitched in Vegas, then he offered me ten million dollars to try out the marriage either way with a vacation to Abu Dhabi. I just found out it was all some crazy plot. He had to do what Dharr did, and I was a crazy last-ditch effort to settle down or be disinherited. I mean, can you imagine? Who helps get a girl tipsy just to wed her?” she asked, slouching back on the couch.

Little Gabriel whined a little from his place in Alana’s arms and snuggled in more deeply into his mother’s side. Her best friend shushed the tot and rolled her eyes back at Kelly. “Freak out a little quieter, Kel.”

“Alright, I just…I felt so betrayed. I rarely get out this far. It’s way easier to have a free hop from the UAE to here than to just head back to Vegas. All I wanted was to try and make a real attempt with him...to put it the way I thought it should have been from the beginning. I don’t even know how we got here.”

“Maybe you need to think about it logically,” Alana said, placing her son gently back in his crib.

“I am being rational. Asam is a liar.”

“Yes, but you heard his father. He picked a bride that would never be acceptable. He completed the whole thing in the spirit of the law but not to the letter.”

Despite her dour mood, despite everything horrible that had happened lately, Kelly had to laugh. You could take the girl out of the American courtroom at least, but you couldn’t take the lawyer out of the girl. Leave it to Alana to dissect everything like a trial.

“He didn’t seem thrilled with an American at all.”

Alana snorted. “I know Azhaar. I’ve spent almost two years being polite where I can be and ignoring him otherwise. Hell, I don’t even leave poor Gabriel alone with his grandfather. The man’s a shark and gets more bitter as ages and becomes sicker. He knows the boys and their reforms are the future of Al-Marasae and, more than that, they’re what the public wants here. What they’re doing will help fix everything.”

“And he’s jealous?”

“Extremely so. His liver is failing, and he knows it. I doubt he’ll be around three years from now, and I’m sorry in the abstract because I know, despite logic, Dharr—all of them really—still love that ass. Still, he’s angry and bitter. If Asam really wanted to please his father, he’d have consented to an arranged marriage or brought home an Al-Marasaen girl.”

“But there’s an edict.”

“So? Everything with Dharr and me started even worse with him abducting me. It’s not always what you think it’s going to be, but you’re not mad he returned because of an ultimatum.”

She arched a skeptical eyebrow back at her friend. “I’m not? Because I feel
extremely
pissed about it. Believe me.”

“No, you’re scared because you’re not sure Asam is actually sorry. You’re scared he’ll break your heart again, whether it’s ten days down the line or ten years.”

“I trusted him again, thought we’d really connected, and he stomped on everything. I can’t risk my heart again. I just need to rest a few days, go home, and then strike out to find my fortune from New York,” she said, brushing her tears from her cheeks. “At least this terrible week was worth something.”

Alana hugged her tight. “I think it was worth far more than you think.”

***

Chapter Eight

Asam should have been on the other side of the country. Oasis
needed him back at his best making sure everything came to fruition for his project. But he didn’t care. He’d stayed in his wing of the compound, stewing over all of it and waiting for one final thing. He’d sent for a special package from the Blue Suede Chapel. It had taken almost a week to come from the United States, but he had it in hand and a plan to pull his life back together.

He’d lied to himself.

He could try to wish Kelly well, but the thought of her away in New York, starting her life and eventually finding comfort with another man, burned him. He might never force her, might not drag her into the harem, which would technically be his right as a sheikh, but he’d be damned if he’d give up without a fight.

He grinned to himself and rushed out the doors. First, he had needed to speak with his father, then he was going to sweep a certain woman off her feet. It didn’t take long to find his father. He was in the damn harem room to begin with and, even after over thirty years of this part of his life, this annoyed Asam. There was everything to love about his mother. She was smarter than the harem women were and had stood by his father for decades. Asam knew it dug into her soul every time his pig of a father slipped in here.

Some days he hoped he’d just have a heart attack in the middle of his romps and do them all a favor.

“My son, have you come for some fun?” his father leered, even as one of the youngest women in the harem tickled at the chest hair.

“No, Father, I’ve come to say goodbye.”

“Heading out to your pet hotel project then? Good. Say the word, and I’ll work with your mother to arrange the proper bride for you.”

“It’d be novel if you ever did anything with mother,” he said then bit off quick orders for the woman to back away to the concubines’ corner of the harem.

“Never stop the pleasure of an old man,” his father said, getting to his feet and coming to stand before him. Once he’d been tall and towered over him. If osteoporosis hadn’t started working on his back and hunched him over, Azhaar would still be tall, but now he was the frailest of creatures, almost not worth hating.

Almost
.

“So, my son,” he said, spitting those words like a curse. “You must truly want to be disinherited. Like I said, it’s not wise to insult me and ruin my night.”

“It’s not wise to harass me either. I’m not a little kid anymore, and I’m done with you. Faaid and Dharr might feel some lingering filial loyalty to you, but I don’t anymore. You can take my inheritance and shove it up your ass.”

His father reached up to slap him. It was pathetic to see such an old and frail not even realize that his time had passed him by.

Asam snatched his father’s hand out of the air and tightly gripped his wrist, putting just enough pressure to make his tendons stretch. His father let out a low moan, and his face flushed purple with the discomfort. “No, you useless old man. You’re the failure here, and no one will miss you or your edicts when you go. Let my brothers keep running Al-Marasae and our interests. I’m through with this.”

“You will never be through with me.”

Asam shook his head and pushed his father just hard enough to send him sprawling onto the cushioned pillows scattered across the floor. “Yes, I am. Starting now...”

***

“I thought you promised not to stalk me through the palace,” Kelly said, her tone clipped.

Asam sidled up next to her in the garden. He set up his new laptop before her and popped open the media player. “I lied.”

She started to stand, but he grabbed her hand tightly. “You’re good at lying. That’s all you do.”

“But this is about the truth,” he said, playing the DVD the chapel sent him. They had that option, and he’d been shocked as hell when he’d called them for details about the ceremony to realize he’d gotten the deluxe package. It included the DVD of happy memories with it. It had been torture to watch it this morning but also a sweet relief because it could show Kelly everything.
Say
it all to her in a way he couldn’t. “The Blue Suede Chapel sent us a souvenir.”

“Goody,” she said, her tone still as cutting as knives. “Now I can relive the joy of a fake, one-week marriage nightmare.”

“Well, you did at least lap Britney Spears about seven times over.”

“That’s not helping!” she snapped, even though her upper lip quirked just a little as a sign of her mirth.

That was something. It was more kindness than she’d shown him after his father’s call at the Yas Beach. He could work with that.

As the screen came up, he scrolled through the basics and made sure to skip to the vows. Hers were first and mostly garbled bunch of “you’re the bests.” His were next, and despite him weaving back and forth on his feet and being clearly as intoxicated as she was, at least Asam’s own words were far easier to understand.

Thank Allah for small favors, like intelligible speech.

“This isn’t going to change—”

“Shh,” he said, holding up his hand. “You’ll see.”

On the screen, the old Asam, the deliriously happy one just a week ago, began to speak...

“I’m not going to say I loved you since the moment I met you. I’m not…I’m not good at big thoughts. I always make the big mistakes though. I’d do anything to not have walked away that night, and I’m so glad, ugh...” For a minute, his onscreen double paused to belch. “Anyway, sorry, I’m glad I walked back into your life. You’re the only woman I could ever want, Kelly Kentworth, and with this ring, I marry you.”

He clicked pause on the video player and strode over to the nearest rosebush to pluck a gorgeous red rose for Kelly.

When he handed it to her, she was crying then. Tears streaked down her cheeks. “You do mean it.”

“Maybe there’s hope for you yet,
mon amie
,” he said. “I do love you, and I came to Vegas to win you back however I could. I don’t care about what my father wants. In fact, I told him to shove his rules. I’d rather be poor with you in the States than under his thumb here as the type of son he wants.”

She blinked up at him, her eyes wide. “You can’t mean that.”

“I can, and I do,” he added, stroking her beautiful spun-gold hair back from her face. “I love you, Kelly, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.”

“If I’ll have you?”

He grinned and kissed her, reveling in the soft strokes of her tongue against his own. They stayed like that for what felt like forever, locked in an intimate embrace. Finally, he pulled back and kissed the tip of her nose. “
Mon amie
, you’ll have me. Together, we’re going to create our own Oasis and bring your most delicious creations to New York City. With my public relations and management skills and your amazing food, we can’t lose.”