Page 15 of Her Irresistible Sheik
Scowling, Mikail grabbed his jacket, yanked it on with unnecessary force, and stomped toward the door.
“Where are you going?”Desmond asked warily.
“To investigate a potential security breach.”
“In the kitchen?”
“It’s become a hostile zone.”
Then, under his breath as he stormed out: “She’s probably in there sprinkling powdered sugar on someone else’s day.Mine’s just bitter coffee and frustration.
And with that, the ruler of Tavista set off to reclaim his kitchen—and quite possibly his rapidly unraveling composure.
Chapter 9
“It didn’t work!”Nahla groaned, frowning down at the tray of scones with the soulful despair of a woman watching her dreams of domestic goddess-hood crumble—literally.
Heather, the palace chef and unofficial sass queen of the kitchen, laughed as she wiped her hands and walked over to inspect the tray of scone-shaped failures.“They can’t be that bad,” she offered diplomatically, reaching for one.
The second her fingers curled around the nearest one, her brows lifted.“Good grief.This thing has the density of a collapsed star.”
She tapped it against the stainless steel counter.The resultingthunkechoed like a warning bell.One of the junior kitchen staff flinched and dropped a spatula.
“Okay, wow,” Heather whispered in reverence.“You’ve created something new.A defense weapon disguised as a pastry.”She grinned at Nahla.“We could probably market these to the royal guard.”
“I followed your recipe exactly!”Nahla protested, picking up one of the traitorous scones and letting it drop back to the tray.It landed with a dullclunk.
Heather tilted her head.“Did you follow theorderof the recipe?”
Nahla bit her lip, then shrugged slightly.“Mostly.”
The chef’s eyes narrowed.“Define ‘mostly.’”
Nahla sighed helplessly.“There were steps.I just didn’t follow them in a strict…chronological way.”
Heather burst out laughing and returned to the stove.“You know that’s kind of the whole point of a recipe, right?It's not a choose-your-own-adventure novel.”
Nahla rolled her eyes.“Okay, fine.I’ll try again.But if this batch turns into hockey pucks too, I’m done.I’ll spend the rest of my time here alphabetizing your spice rack or knitting booties for the security guards.”
“You’d need to knit helmets at this rate,” Heather muttered, giving her sauce a stir.“I’ll supervise this time.But you have to promise not to wander off in order to invent new baking laws.”
Determined, Nahla smiled just as she reached for the flour bin again.She plunged her hand inside, mentally counting the scoops.But before she could finish, a voice thundered across the kitchen like Zeus spotting a mortal with a match.
“What thehellare you doing?”
Nahla jerked, startled.The cup of flour went airborne, creating a snowy cloud that engulfed her face, hair and shoulders.She sputtered, coughed, and blindly waved a hand in front of her eyes.“I was baking, not committing treason!”she gasped, trying to blink through the fog of flour coating her lashes.
And there he was—Sheik Mikail al Acantra, glowering like some avenging warrior with no patience for pastry.Great.Justperfect.Nahla had successfully avoided him for five whole days, and now here he was, crashing her impromptu bake-off.And he’d caught her just in time to make an absolute fool of herself.
She blinked up at him, wiping her face with her wrist.“What areyoudoing in here?”
He ignored the question and stalked closer, his gaze sweeping over her face and down to the flour-dusted front of her shirt.She half expected him to pull out a hazmat suit.
Then, inexplicably, he vanished.
Nahla blinked.Had she hallucinated that whole interaction?Was the flour in this kitchen laced with something?
Before she could chase the thought, Mikail returned—this time with a clean cloth in his hand.Without a word, he began brushing the flour from her cheek with a gentleness that didn’t match his frown.
