Читать книгу One Night with a Seductive Sheikh: The Sheikh's Redemption / Falling for the Sheikh She Shouldn't / The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum - Fiona McArthur - Страница 14

I haven’t gotten my share of your payback yet?

What were the past two years all about then?

Haidar struggled not to pursue Rashid, tackle him to the ground in front of everyone and force him to explain.

One thing stopped him. Knowing Rashid wouldn’t explain, not even if he beat him to a pulp. Not that he could. Not without being pulped back. Which wasn’t a bad idea. They could just rip each other to shreds, get the bitterness exorcised and get it over with. Maybe even get back to the way they’d once been.

According to Rashid, that would require a time machine.

But for the present, the opening round was over. Rashid had pulled back to his corner, expecting Haidar to crush his peace offering underfoot as he stomped to his. Instead, he would get informed. He needed knowledge to convince Rashid to call off the fight. Now that he knew Rashid believed he had somehow been party to whatever had happened to him, he would pay any price to learn the truth.

Until then, he had other struggles to handle.

Roxanne. Jalal. Azmahar and its empty throne. Business conflicts with Rashid at their core … ya Ullah, Rashid …

He hadn’t thought anything could be worse than what had happened with Roxanne. Or Jalal. Or their mother. This was. This won the category of heart-wrenching developments, hands down.

He found himself entering the ballroom. Seemed he’d continued his path on Auto. The expansive space, decked like an Arabian Nights bazaar, only peripherally registered in his awareness.

Then something sharpened his focus. A decrease in the overlapping voices and clinking utensils, the cessation of melancholy Azmaharian music. He zeroed in on the cause.

Roxanne.

She was walking up the stage. Straight, brisk, no shadow of hesitation or self-consciousness, no hint of a sway or curves to distract from her purpose or undermine her efficiency. She was dressed sedately, the flame of her hair subdued in a twist at her nape, her face made up in neutral colors that downplayed her vivacious coloring and the sensuality of her features. How different from the mass of passionate fire he’d lost his mind over eight years ago. Or the bathrobe-decked firebrand he’d done the same with a couple of days ago. This facet of her still aroused the hell out of him.

Seemed she dialed the password to his libido no matter what.

It was incredible for someone of her youth and looks to be taken this seriously in a patriarchal society where chauvinistic tendencies survived to this day. Here it remained accepted that certain roles were male exclusive or dominated, with women like Roxanne being exceptions.

And what an exceptional rarity she was. He luxuriated in her every nuance as she took the podium, addressed the now pin-dropping-silent crowd, cordial, confident, in control. Something thrilled inside his chest. Admiration, pride …

He gritted his teeth. He didn’t have to like or appreciate her to give in to his hunger for her. Those sentiments could actually dampen his lust, hamper his plans to satisfy it. This insidious softening had to be curbed. Starting right this second.

He moved out of the shadows. Instead of keeping to the periphery, he cut right through the tables. Might as well get all the staring and exclamations out of the way en masse.

Sure enough, his passage caused a wildfire of buzzing and bustling to sweep through the ballroom.

His progress was unimpeded until he passed by a table populated by his recruiters. Elation replaced their surprise too soon. They pounced on him, eager to show everyone that he was on their coalition’s side. He answered them by insisting he was here to perform independent research, impatience rising as opposing brands of passion and compulsion burned into him. Rashid’s from the entrance, Roxanne’s at the podium.

People rushed to make a place for him at the table closest to her, flipping rabid curiosity between them as if watching an unfolding candid-camera show. She waited in seeming calmness for the disturbance to die down and for him to take his seat. But he sensed her fury.

He would have relished it if he wasn’t too raw to enjoy more hostility, even one fueled by a hunger as vast as his.

He had to deal with it. Just as she had to with his presence.

She did, glossed over the disruption he’d caused, resumed her opening address before turning over the mic to the first speaker.

He watched her descend the stage, walk to the end of the ballroom. She took a seat aligned with his view of Rashid, who stood alone at the entrance like a demon guarding the mouth of hell. Very symbolic.

He cast each a look, was hurled back a hail of antipathy.

All he needed now was for Jalal to walk in, and the triad of wrath and rejection would be complete.

He exhaled, tried to focus on the proceedings. Though what he hoped to achieve here, he no longer knew.

The people who had mattered most to him hated his guts. He didn’t think his transgressions against each warranted that level of acrimony. Seemed just being himself was enough to earn it.

And he thought a whole nation would want him?

Another major point was they—even Rashid with his scars and transformation—were prospering with him gone from their lives.

Maybe that should tell him something. That there was no escaping his mother’s legacy. That all he could ever be was a malignant influence. That redemption was out of the question and the best thing he could do for Azmahar was stay the hell away.

He turned one last time to the two who thought that was a given. At the confirmation in their eyes, a conviction took root.

He turned around, giving them his back, one thing settled.

He’d prove them and everyone, starting with himself, wrong.

Three hours of moderating the self-important, conflicting, anachronistically tribal so-called elite would have been enough. But to do it while being subjected to Haidar’s burning focus had shot Roxanne’s nerves.

She and her team had worked hard to get all major movers and shakers in the kingdom together, find out their positions and see how they’d mix. She was supposed to come out with a firm idea of who could be part of the solution, and who’d better be sidelined.

Then Rashid Aal Munsoori had walked in.

She’d thought the introduction of that superpower this early would disrupt a balance that hadn’t yet been found. The man seemed like such a force of … darkness; he’d swayed people just by showing up. And scared them. She’d thought he was the worst thing that could have happened. Then, enter Haidar.

It had been his presence that had polarized reactions, incited passions and generally disturbed everything.

Seemed his effect on people was universally consistent. And that when he’d only sat there silently watching.

She’d barely stopped the situation from devolving into a mess.

Avoiding eye contact with anyone, she strode to get out before people could corner her with questions she couldn’t or wouldn’t satisfy. Before Rashid could cut his way through his detainers to her. Most important, before …

“So the question is—what was the point of all that?”

And she’d almost made it!

She just stopped herself from stomping her foot and screeching a chagrined no. From running the hell out of there. Right after taking off her high heels and hurling them at Haidar.

Unable to give their audience any indication of how much she’d like his head on a stick, she slowly turned. And almost toppled over.

He’d looked stunning from afar. It was far worse up close. If possible, he looked better than he had two days ago. In a steel-gray suit the exact color of his eyes that worshipped his every inch and flaunted his proportions, he looked like a sun god. Eyes gleaming in the soft-toned ambience, skin glowing like heated copper, hair shimmering like a black panther’s coat.

All in all, a divine masterpiece of masculinity. And born to exist in backdrops of such opulence, created to justify their extravagance, which showcased his grandeur.

To make it worse, that voice of darkest wine and velvet cascaded over her again. “Was that a drive for the up-for-grabs court? There are enough wannabes to turn the strongest stomach.”

Her teeth ground together as he left barely enough distance between them for public decorum, his scent and virility cocooning her senses, triggering desire and distress.

Somehow she found enough discipline to pretend an impersonal smile for their now-avid audience. “A king doesn’t a royal system make. It was agreed that we have to fill the lower slots in the hierarchy before the top is filled.”

“So you want the new king to come to a ready-made government. All I can say is, good luck getting Jalal or Rashid to return your calls once you reveal your figurehead intentions.”

If she made him think that was what was on offer, it would send him out of Azmahar within the hour.

Too damn bad she was too professional. “It will be a transitional government until a king sits on the throne.”

“Then said king will be free to toss whatever pieces he doesn’t approve of back in the box?”

“I don’t think such unilateral decisions would be welcome anymore in Azmahar.”

“You think any of the candidates will even consider such a deficient position? Such limitation of power? Such an upside-down process? You think I would?”

“We’re just trying to learn from the mistakes of the past.”

“Even in democracies, presidents pick their deputies. You expect a king in our region not to pick his trusted people?”

“As long as they are picked through merit, not nepotism.”

“That isn’t even an issue in my case, or Jalal’s or Rashid’s, for that matter. We were headhunted because we proved in the big bad world of business and politics that we know who to pick to help us run our multibillion-dollar enterprises. We’re not about to become tribal, blood-blinded throwbacks if we sit on a throne.”

His eyes were all gotcha when she had no ready answer.

Before she could regain ground, he changed direction. “So I understand why my uncle’s slew of successors was bypassed for the king’s position. Any reason they are now for all other positions?”

That she had an answer for. “For the same reasons you say you understand. Just as the clans’ council that formed after the king’s abdication refused to let his sons and brothers succeed him, they wouldn’t let them assume any significant roles. It was agreed the sons are too inexperienced and the brothers too same-school, and all are guided by the same entourage that damaged Azmahar.”

“And you think the bozos present here today are any better?”

“They’re here today so we can weed out the bozos.”

His lips spread. “It would be far easier to leave those in, and pick out the non-bozo types. Want my advice on how to do it?”

“No. But you’re going to blight me with it, anyway.”

His grin grew wider. “Play back the evening’s taped hoopla. Eliminate anyone who spoke out of turn or lost his temper. You’ll be left with five out of five hundred. I counted. Those are the only people I’d have in my cabinet.”

That was exactly what she’d thought, too. Damn him.

She wasn’t about to tell him that. “You’re founding a new kingdom and recruiting ministers for it?”

“Cute. But if you don’t heed my advice, just have a raffle. Anyone but those five would be equally disastrous, after all.”

“Thanks for the gems of wisdom. But we won’t do anything until we’re in possession of enough data.”

“And what else are ‘we’ going to do?”

“We won’t do anything. While I have to go.”

“Good. I’ll tag along.”

Yeah. Right. She’d sooner have a lion in tow. One just released after a month of captive starvation.

“Why don’t you stay and complete the chaos?”

His eyebrows shot up in what must be simulated surprise. “Chaos?”

Her genial expression didn’t waver even as her hiss attempted to disembowel him. “I planned this to be a relaxed event, even a bit festive—”

“That explains it. I thought you were trying to start a new tradition—Azmaharian Halloween.”

She sharpened her tone. “I wanted to put the attendees in the most cooperative frame of mind, to alleviate the mood of doom and gloom that permeates the kingdom. So thanks so much for spoiling everything.”

“Me? What did I do?” Those mile-long lashes swept up and down.

She almost felt their swoosh, certainly felt it fan her fire. “You have the superpower of discord sowing. And you have it on constantly, exercise it at will, actively or passively.”

She waited for him to volley back something inflammatory and incontrovertible. Lightness only drained, leaving his face bleak.

Then it got worse. Agony flitted through his eyes as they tore away. She followed their trajectory to the most disturbing presence around. Rashid.

As if feeling his gaze, Rashid half turned. And if looks could dismember, Haidar would have been in pieces.

She shuddered at the force that blasted between the two men. Surprisingly, the viciousness felt one-way. What emanated from Haidar was as intense, but different in texture. Something she’d never thought to feel from him. Despondency.

Haidar returned his gaze to her. “Rejoice, Roxanne. I’m taking my disruptive presence away from inhabited areas.”

Then he turned and strode out of the ballroom.

Roxanne stared at Haidar’s receding back for the second time in as many days. Then she found herself rushing after him.

She had to pour on speed to catch up with him. In a deserted corridor that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

It was only when she caught him back that her actions sank in.

What the hell was she doing?

He turned to her, something like … hurt filling his eyes, and she blurted out, “What’s wrong?”

She almost kicked herself. What did she care if anything—if everything—was wrong with Haidar Aal Shalaan?

It seemed he wouldn’t answer. Then he exhaled. “A lot, evidently. Probably everything.”

She should say something borderline civil, get the hell away.

Instead she asked, “So what did I say that triggered your sudden retreat?” At his surprise, she rushed to add, “I’m asking only so I can replicate my success in the future.”

She expected him to slam her with something bedeviling. He didn’t.

“You … confirmed something Rashid said to me earlier. It wasn’t the only time I’ve noted your corresponding opinions of me.”

“We have more in common where you’re concerned. I heard you were friends once. Now you’re relentless enemies.”

She expected him to say they weren’t enemies, just no longer lovers. A state of affairs he had no problem reinstating.

Again, he thwarted her expectations, nodded, his eyes returning to the deadness, the defeat, that so disturbed her. “I somehow thought our enmity wasn’t such common knowledge.”

“Are you kidding? Even if my job didn’t revolve around keeping track of the honchos of economy, it would have been kinda hard to miss the two most meteorically rising players in the tech world butting heads. You’ve been giving Clash of the Titans a run for its money for the past two years.”

“It might be hard for you to believe, but I didn’t start it.”

“I believe you.”

He frowned. “You do?”

“You never ‘start’ anything. You drive people to the point where they want to take you apart. When they try, you retaliate, viciously, and to the world it seems it’s only legitimate for you to do so.”

His laugh was bitter. “Of course, that’s what you believe. And you might even be right. But not in Rashid’s case.”

“He is too powerful for even you to decimate and assimilate.”

“I meant I didn’t drive him to it. And since you asked, that’s what’s wrong—being unsure what did. And the … conversation we had.”

“It shed light on his motivations?”

“More like caused an avalanche that buried them totally.”

She hated feeling dismayed on his behalf, glared at him. “It’s not possible you don’t know.”

“I thought I knew. That it was another escalating, self-perpetuating train accident of a mess, which the sweeping majority of my relationships have turned into.”

Good thing to be reminded of that salient point.

He might be unable to connect his actions to the mess he made of people’s lives. Didn’t make him innocent of the crime.

Hackles rising, she smirked. “Why wonder if it’s your M.O.?”

“Because once I saw him again, it ripped me out of the depersonalized war we’ve been waging on each other and back to the realm of the personal. And none of it made sense anymore.”

A knot formed in her throat at his disconsolate tone. “Did you retrace incidents to what could have started this?”

His gaze clouded, as if he had plunged into his memories, before he said, “We were twenty, he was twenty-one.” Her chest tightened more when he said we, as if he and Jalal were one indivisible unit. “Rashid and I were taking the same courses, already starting up our tech-development projects. Then his guardian died. He hadn’t truly needed a guardian beyond early childhood—he’d been earning his own living since his early teens. But his guardian left a mess of debts. And Rashid took it upon himself to repay them. That was our first fight.

“I was angry that he’d take on the debts of someone who hadn’t taken him in willingly to start with. A man whose sons were living in the luxury their father’s debts had provided them with. It was they who should repay that money, not Rashid, whom they’d never treated like family and would have mistreated if not for his closeness to us. But Rashid would sit there and take my anger, and after I exhausted every argument, he would just say the same thing again. His honor demanded it.”

“But what did he think he could do? At twenty-one, without a college degree or capital, I can understand he could support himself, but pay off massive debts …?”

He grimaced in remembered exasperation. “He had it all figured out. An American military base was being erected in Azmahar, and the Azmaharian army was having a recruitment drive, promising top recruits incredible financial and educational advancements. He was confident he’d be among those, calculated he’d pay off the debts in five years while doing something he’d always admired and gaining an education he could have never afforded on his own.”

“That does sound like a solid plan.”

“Not to us. Not to me. It was a shock that he’d chosen his university not because it was close to his girlfriend but because it was what he could afford. We were determined to help him, said we’d get the money from our father or older brothers, or make them find a way to get the debts dropped. But the pride-poisoned idiot refused. He would honor his guardian at whatever cost.”

“I still don’t understand why you so objected to his plans.”

“Because the cost might have been his life.”

“Uh … come again?”

“At the time, due to some major stupidities by my uncle and clan, an armed conflict between Azmahar and Damhoor seemed certain. We took turns telling him what a self-destructive fool he’d be to join the army just in time to be sent to war. Ya Ullah … how I never throttled him, I’ll never know.”

Haidar mimed the violent gesture, his whole body bunching, his face contorting with relived frustration and desperation.

It was fascinating, shattering, this glimpse into his past. Another reminder that she hadn’t known him at all, more proof of how unimportant she’d been that he hadn’t shared this with her, clearly a major incident in his life.

But it was worse than that. She’d believed he’d been born without the capacity for emotional involvement. That had mitigated her heartache and humiliation.

But his emotions did exist. And they could be powerful, pure. Seemed it took something profound to unearth them, such as what he’d shared with Rashid. Nothing so trivial as what he’d had with her.

The discovery had the knife that had long stopped turning in her heart stabbing it all over again.

Which was beyond ridiculous. This was ancient history.

What was important here was the history in the making. This was an unrepeatable opportunity to learn vital information about two of the candidates for the throne. It could be crucial to the critical role she was here to play.

Swallowing the stupid personal pain, she forced out the steady words of the negotiator she was. “It sounds like he should have loved you more for caring so much about his well-being and safety.”

“Then you don’t know much about how young men can be with each other. Our response to fear, for him, of losing him, wasn’t pretty. I especially … got carried away.” He wiped a palm over his eyes wearily. “We were drawn to Rashid as children when we recognized that he had big problems, too. We had our share, growing up in Zohayd when our non-Zohaydan half belonged to a family everyone despised and a queen everyone hated. But we had a family. Rashid had only us. And we used that. Jalal pressured him through his loyalty to us. But I knew him better, knew pressuring him wouldn’t work, knew how to push his buttons. I played as dirty as I thought I had to.”

Another reminder what a prince Haidar could be. How he considered any means justifiable to get his end.

“And you failed?” He nodded dejectedly. “So he still left, only with your creative cruelty as his last memory of you.”

“Aih.” His eyes let her see into a time of personal hell. “Then war broke out. Zohayd and Judar intervened, but not before thousands died on both sides. Rashid was among the missing. We went insane searching for him for weeks. Then he returned, exhausted but unharmed, leading his platoon across the desert.”

Wow. Colorful past that Rashid Aal Munsoori had. And undocumented. Beyond basic data, he seemed to have popped fully formed into the business world two years ago.

Haidar went on. “He was decorated a war hero, paid off his guardian’s debts, accumulated graduate degrees and promotions at supersonic speed, and took part in two more armed conflicts by the time he was twenty-eight. We were still speaking then.”

Which meant it was around the time she’d left Haidar that his breakup with Rashid had also occurred. “So whatever you did before he joined the army wasn’t what caused the rift?”

“It caused a rift. He’d answer one call out of five, and when he came back on leave, our relationship was never the same. He wasn’t. He rarely went out with us, together or one on one, and when he did, he was subdued, weighing every word. It made me so resentful, so damn worried, I think I …” He gave an exasperated wave.

“Overcompensated?” she put in.

His lips twisted in agreement. “Then one day he told me he’d been offered a major promotion, wouldn’t say what it was, but that he’d be traveling all the time and off the grid for most of it. I sensed he was telling me not to expect to hear from him again. And again I …”

“Made it sound as if it wouldn’t matter to you either way.”

“Will you stop retro-predicting what I did?” He drove his hands into his hair, every move loaded with self-recrimination. “But aih. Though it didn’t happen quite so … peacefully.”

She could fill in the spaces with the worst she could imagine.

“He dropped off the face of the earth. Then three years ago, he suddenly called me. He sounded as if he was drunk or high. I was stunned, since the Rashid I knew was a health and sobriety freak. But what did I know about what he’d become in the years since I last saw him? He said he needed help, gave me an address then hung up. I rushed there, found nothing.”

“You didn’t find him?”

“I found literally nothing. No such place existed. I kept calling him, but the number he’d called from was out of range. Days later, he texted me, saying he’d been drinking, and to please forget it. I texted back, begged to see him. He never answered me. Frustrated with his on-off behavior, I did my best to forget it. And him. A year later, right after the mess in Zohayd was resolved, he came back into my life. As enemy number one.

“I thought he was giving me a hard time to get payback, and to prove that he was ‘a year older and a light-year better.’ So I called him, offered him a partnership, the one we’d dreamed of as boys. He responded that the only and last time he’d put his hand in mine again would be after I’d signed everything I had over to him, and to never contact him again. I was so frustrated with him and his grudge-holding that I never spoke to him again. Until today.”

He was telling her things she already knew—how he couldn’t see beyond what he wanted and felt. He’d done the same with her. With Jalal. She shouldn’t sympathize. But she did.

Maybe because he was explaining the motives behind his actions for the first time …? It changed him from a callous brute to someone who’d never learned how not to appear so. It painted him in grays instead of blacks.

But it still made no difference to those he’d injured.

He looked at her as if he needed her to tell him he wasn’t crazy. “But none of that explains his enmity, does it? It was all just … words. And he had to know I didn’t mean them.”

“So he’s a mind reader, too, among his other talents?”

He grimaced. “I mean he should have put what I said in context. Even if he bought every word I said, that still wasn’t a good enough reason to want to bury me alive.”

“Depends on what you said.”

Admission blared in his eyes. “Unforgivable things.”

Another shock to hear him admit that.

“And at first I felt so guilty, I let him tear into me. But soon his actions made me so mad, I threw myself into what escalated into a war. I was resigned I was responsible for our conflict, deserved his enmity and could do nothing but continue our battles. But seeing him in person again today jolted through me like a thousand volts.”

She had to nod. “Quite understandable. He’s one scary dude.”

“But that’s the problem. That’s not the ‘dude’ I knew. And that scar … Ya Ullah.”

She frowned. “Scar?”

He looked at her as if she was crazy. “How can you miss it? How isn’t it common knowledge?”

“I haven’t seen him up close. And according to my sources, Rashid’s first appearance in Azmahar in the past seven years was today. Seems no one has seen him before to spread the news.”

He nodded slowly. “That makes sense.”

Not to her. “That’s what shook you so much? The change in his appearance?”

“It’s not only that. He’s become someone totally different.”

“Being a soldier can change you. Being in armed conflicts certainly will.”

He shook his head. “I thought that, too, but it’s more. Something happened to him. Something terrible.”

“More terrible than being in a war?”

“Yes. And he believes I had a hand in it.”

Her heart kicked her ribs, hard. “Is he right?”

His whole being stiffened, as if she’d kicked him in the gut. “What do you think?”

Haidar was many things. A criminal wasn’t one of them. And he would be worse, a monster, if he’d had a hand in his former friend’s physical and psychological disfigurement.

She bit her lip. “What will you do to prove him wrong?”

Tension seeped from him—something like … thankfulness?—staining his gaze as he acknowledged her exoneration. “I need to investigate before I can formulate a plan. It’ll be harder because I can’t have anyone finding out anything I discover when Rashid has gone to such lengths to cover it up.”

“Let me know what I can do to help.”

This time when his eyes bored into hers, there was no mistaking it. He was grateful. More. Moved.

Tears suddenly stung her eyes. “Haidar …”

Before she could utter another word, she found herself pressed against the wall with two hundred–plus pounds of hard maleness and demand pressing into her every inch. Her gasp of shock was swallowed by his openmouthed possession. His tongue breached her, thrust into her, driving, claiming, conquering.

The taste of him, the heat and feel of him, what he was doing to her, the way his hands sought all her secrets, sparked her ever-simmering insanities. She writhed against him, nothing left inside her but the need for his long-yearned-for assuagement.

He bent, bit her nipples through her blouse, rose to receive her sharp confessions of pleasure. He resumed devouring her as his big, rough hands slid up her thighs, bunching her skirt, pushing beneath her soaked panties, cupping her buttocks with strength and greed, lifting her, spreading her for his domination.

Falling into an abyss of mindlessness, she clung around him, delighting in his bulk and power as he filled the cradle of her thighs, the one thing left to hang on to in her world.

A storm raged through her, rising from the core his hardness thrust and thrust against. Moans spilled from her with his every wrenching kiss as he escalated the rhythm simulating possession into a fever. She opened wider for him, mouth and legs, to do whatever he wanted to her, to give her everything she needed.

“Haidar …”

The coil of tension in her core suddenly snapped. She cried out into his mouth as the pulse of pleasure tore through her. He had no mercy, his every grind against her bucking body continuing to feed it, unwind it, until she was a lax mass of stunned satisfaction in his arms.

He slowed then stopped his thrusts. Then, still hard and pressed against her quivering flesh, his lips relinquishing hers in one last clinging kiss, he raised his head, looked down at her with eyes raging with arousal, heavy with promise.

“I know what you can do to help me, ya naari. Let me pleasure you properly, repeatedly, for the rest of the night.”