Page 12 of Hiding in the Sheik's Arms

Marianna missed her friends and her school. She missed her classes and even her teachers! She missed her life, and her home, and she didn’t understand what was going on. Desperately, she fought back the tears, refusing to let these behemoths know how desperately sad and lost she felt.

Never let them see you cry, she reminded herself.

She also hated the fact that she’d been abandoned by this family years ago, only to be told a half hour after her mother’s funeral that her brothers demanded that she come live with them in their “palace” in a country she knew nothing about.

She wanted her mother back! If that sounded pathetic, then so be it! She didn’t know her brothers, hadn’t even known that she had brothers until her mother’s lawyers told her that they wanted her to “report to the palace” immediately.

So, here she was. She’d reported to the palace. Marianna had no idea what to expect, but all she wanted was to go home to Paris and pretend that her mother was still alive and that everything was still the same as it had been last week.

“Excuse me?” one of the goons asked.

His tone was polite, but there was an arrogance in his demeanor. Both men were similar in coloring, but that didn’t tell her anything.

“I’m not going to be guarded by you two pricks!” she said, feigning a confidence that she didn’t feel. In fact, she felt…small and lonely. She wanted…? What?

She’d lost her mother, her friends, her school…everything she knew was gone! Her brother, some jerk who ruled this massive, painfully hot country, thought he was some big shot who could order her around.

Marianna blinked back tears and faked a confidence that she didn’t feel. Adding a sneer, she jerked her chin towards the two men blocking her entry. “Just get out of my way.” Her mother’s lawyer had warned her that she’d need bodyguards, but this was just one change too many. Why? How had her life changed so dramatically in just a few days?

Goodness, she missed her mother! She missed her mother’s soft hugs, her laughter, and the way she always listened when Marianna was upset. Like now!

“We’re not your bodyguards,” the one on the right announced flatly.

Marianna paused, letting her gaze take in everything from his head all the way down to his designer shoes. She knew those shoes cost about five thousand dollars. What a waste of precious money! Did that man know how many people that much money could feed?

“Whatever,” she sighed and walked forward, ignoring the men who clearly had no concern for the plight of the hungry and un-housed.

“Are you Marianna?” the one on the left asked.

Marianna paused and, since she’d already walked past them, turned and frowned back at them. They were big, she’d give them that. And the muscles covering their arms and shoulders meant that they worked out regularly. Another positive. She loved running and lifting weights. It gave her a mental “high” that she had never found anywhere else.

Still, she wanted to go back to Paris. She wanted to find her mother’s grave and sob out her anger and grief. She wanted to…? Marianna no longer knew what she wanted, other than to go home to Paris, where things were familiar. Where she could crawl into her mother’s bed and pull the covers over her head. She wanted to smell her mother’s perfume and sob out her heartache.

Sniffing back her sadness and resentment, she shrugged, pressing her lips together to stop herself from bursting into tears. “Yeah. Why?”

The one on the right stepped forward, extending his hand. Marianna noticed the clenched jaw and the blank look in his dark eyes. Eyes that, now that she thought about it, looked exactly like her own.

“I’m your brother, Joran. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She saw the truth in his eyes and forced a laugh. “That’s a lie. You aren’t pleased about any of this,” she argued. Marianna looked at the other man. “You? Are you going to lie to me too?”

“I’m Raj,” the other man said, but he didn’t bother to extend his hand in greeting, she realized with relief. “I’m also your brother.”

The first guy, Joran or whatever, shoved his hands into his pocket. She remembered her father doing that whenever she acted out during his sporadic visits to Paris. Marianna had despised her father. According to her mother, he had kicked them out of the palace as soon as he learned she was pregnant.

She’d hated her father because he’d hated her. And she now hated these two men even more. They’d gotten to know the father that had only shown up at their Paris apartment to inspect Marianna. He’d financially supported her and her mother, but that was it. She’d been required to show him her school grades and the bastard would interrogate her on her classes. He’d needed proof that she was intelligent.

But Marianna had quickly learned that there was no acceptable level of intelligence that would earn her father’s respect. And that knowledge festered inside of her, eventually growing into hatred.

“Just tell me where I’m supposed to sleep at night and I’ll figure out the rest,” she snapped, scared of this massive place and not sure where she should go. There were guards everywhere, some still rifling through her luggage, which Marianna thought was a serious violation of her privacy. She hadn’t missed the way the guards had even opened a box of tampons, sifting through the contents. Did they think she was going to hide a bomb in there?

She hated this place and vowed never to fit in. In fact, she was going to besoobnoxious that her brothers, whoever they were, would send her back to Paris, so that she could be back with her friends!

Chapter 10

“I need to go out there,” Khal snapped, staring at the screen in the security office showing the emergency crews rushing around a burning building.

“Not yet,” Tasha interjected. There was a long silence and she looked around, startled to realize that she’d just said the words out loud. Normally, she kept quiet until she was alone with Khal. Only in private did she offer her analysis of various situations. She’d learned the hard way to keep quiet and not let others know about her intelligence.

---