Page 42 of Her Arabian King

But she hadn’t, and now it was too late.

She was dangerously, foolishly close to falling in love with the sheikh.

AS THE SHEIKH’S PRIVATE plane encountered turbulence while crossing the Mediterranean Sea, he closed his eyes, and less than a moment had passed before memories, too damn vivid against the monochromatic state of his existence, flashed behind his eyelids.

He remembered how she looked as they waved goodbye to the locals who had gone out of their way to take care of them in the few instances they had managed to leave their room. She had tears in her eyes, her nose red, her lips trembling. The sheikh had asked her about it, of course, and she had snapped at him. I have sensitive eyes, okay? They get easily irritated, is that a crime?

No, he had answered solemnly. What is a crime, however, is lying to your husband and king. He hadn’t let her answer after that, but instead hauled her into his arms as soon as the doors closed and the plane’s elevator started moving.

Are you crying because you’ll miss the place, he had asked.

His wife had hidden her face against the crook of his neck, mumbling, I’m crying because...I’ll miss you. Her fingers had then curled against his chest, gripping the thin cloth of his robe. I’ll miss who you were here.

Her words had clawed at his heart, catching him off guard. He had not expected her to confront the matter head on, but in hindsight he knew he should have. She was simply that kind of girl.

A girl who was as tough as she was fragile, a girl who loved fearlessly even when the men in her life could never be completely hers, a girl who deserved the right words from him—-

But the sheikh hadn’t been able to say them.

And so he had only kissed her, and as she kissed him back, she cried, and he had kissed her harder, his arms locking around her sweet body in a futile attempt to absorb her pain. They had made love after that, and it had been rougher than it usually was. Almost savage. Raw. Real.

A storm patch rocked the plane once more, and Harper stirred beside him, her brows furrowing in her sleep. A moment later, she snuggled closer to the sheikh, her body instinctively molding against his hardness. A sigh escaped her, and then her face relaxed as if being in contact with the sheikh was all she needed to feel safe...and loved.

The sheikh was neither blind nor stupid. He had seen – felt – how his Harper had changed. She was different with him now. It used to be that there had always been a distance between them, a part of herself that she kept out of his reach. But that distance was gone now.

He knew what he should do about it. This was a marriage of convenience, and it would not succeed if one of them forgot that. He knew he should remind her of this, subtly or directly – it didn’t matter as long as he made sure that she remembered why they had married.

If he had been an ordinary man, he could make himself forget the lessons his own life taught him. He could lie to himself, make himself believe that love existed and love could last. He could pretend that his mother hadn’t been a selfish bitch who had only given birth to him hoping she could be Ramil’s queen. He could pretend that his grandfather hadn’t been a bigot and a tyrant who treated his half-blood grandchild like trash, could pretend that his father hadn’t been so weak he had chosen a life of comfort over his own son.

If he had been an ordinary man, no risk was too great. He would give her – them – a chance. For Harper, he would take a fucking leap of faith, let himself believe that she would always love him, would never abandon him the way all the people who were supposed to love did.

If he had been an ordinary man, the words Harper wanted to hear would have been hers from the start, and she wouldn’t even have to ask for them.

But he was not an ordinary man. He was a sheikh, and more than that, a king whom millions depended on. His life did not belong to him alone, and the words she wanted to hear must come from both man and king. The man in him could afford to lose his heart, even if she ended up destroying it in the process, but the part of him that wore a crown was not as blessed. The king in him only had the freedom to love a woman willing to cut her own heart out for him and his people – and Khalil wasn’t fucking sure if Harper could ever be that woman.

Chapter Twelve

The weeks following their return to the kingdom were frenetic, not only for the sheikh but Ramil’s new queen as well. Aside from her ongoing lessons with the court tutor, Harper was now expected and made to appear in various functions as a bona fide member of the royal family. In a few instances, she would be accompanied by one of the sheikh’s cousins: Altair for military affairs, Tarif where foreign dignitaries are concerned, Rayyan during economic conferences, and Malik when addressing the scientific and educational sectors. More often than not, however, it was just Harper facing the public while her security triumvirate stood in stoic vigilance from backstage, and it was during these instances that Harper would experience the greatest trouble.

Court members who had treated her with the utmost courtesy would then show their true colors whenever they chanced upon Harper minus the company of one of the sheikhs. They would arrive late for meetings, snigger at her botched accent when she spoke Rami, and loudly uttered snide remarks the moment she turned her back.

For the most part, Harper was able to shrug this off, thinking it wasn’t that much different from her high school days. Her bodyguards, however, were a different matter. As the sheikh had promised, the AFK had become accustomed to her cranky ways and was now very much protective of their queen. These days, the three didn’t hesitate at all in speaking their mind with her, and most of it involved reprimanding Harper for being too nice.

It is not right for a queen to be so accommodating of everyone’s wishes, Your Majesty.

You must assert yourself more, Your Majesty – remind them that such disrespectful treatment is punishable by our laws.

Our king must be made aware of these transgressions. Protecting such foul creatures will only encourage them to continue with their shameful ways.

To all of these Harper only nodded, with a large part of her believing the AFK was simply making a huge fuss out of nothing. It was only to be expected that the most traditional members of the sheikh’s government would treat her with scorn and suspicion. She was a foreigner, and even worse – she was neither an extremely rich or drop-dead gorgeous foreigner. In the eyes of most people, she was a woman completely undeserving of the sheikh, where her only good point was her filial relation with one of the kingdom’s present-day heroes.

But other than that, she brought nothing to the table. Harper knew this, accepted this, and it was why she was determined to earn the trust and respect of the sheikh’s officials on her own. No matter what it took, she would be the kind of queen the kingdom of Ramil could be proud of and maybe – just maybe – the sheikh would stop avoiding Harper like she had become his greatest mistake.

Even without the sheikh saying a word, Harper knew that something had changed between them. Ever since their return from Contini, the sheikh had noticeably cooled towards her, but every time she would attempt to ask him what was wrong or talk about what was bothering would him, the sheikh would only gaze at her with polite interest. And then he would lie—-

There is nothing wrong.

I’m merely busy.

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