Page 4 of Her Vow to Be His Desert Queen

‘Blow,’ he ordered.

Sidonie blinked. ‘What?’

‘The candle.’ He didn’t take his gaze from hers. ‘Blow it out.’

Another shiver whispered over her skin as memories slowly filtered through her head. Of the way he’d used to look at her, the way he was doing now. Intense and focused, as if what she had to say was vital and he didn’t want to miss a word.

He’d always had the ability to make her feel she was interesting and special, as if what she said was worth hearing, an addictive thing to the kid who’d lost her parents at eight and had to go and live with her father’s cold and unemotional sister. Aunt May, who’d made it very clear to Sidonie that she was looking after her only as a duty to her brother. That Sidonie was an imposition she hadn’t looked for and didn’t want, but took anyway out of the goodness of her heart.

It’s still addictive...

No, absolutely not. She wasn’t going to fall into that trap again. She was a successful businesswoman with a charity dedicated to helping disadvantaged children, and she didn’t need his or anyone else’s validation, still less his. She’d graduated from Oxford with honours, had put all her drive and determination into making a difference to orphaned children’s lives, and she wasn’t lonely these days. She was secure and confident in herself, no matter how first her aunt and then Khalil’s abandonment had made her feel otherwise.

Shoving her physical reaction to him away, Sidonie let out a silent breath and held his gaze. Back when they’d been friends, she’d never let him get away with his high-handed behaviour, and she certainly wasn’t going to let him get away with it now.

She raised a brow. ‘Only if you sing “Happy Birthday”.’

‘Very well,’ he said and without hesitation began to sing, his deep voice making each and every word sound like an intimate caress. ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Sidonie, happy birthday to you.’

She shouldn’t have told him to sing. There were too many memories associated with him singing her ‘Happy Birthday’. Memories of the night he’d danced with her, and she didn’t need those in her head.

‘Now blow,’ he ordered once he’d finished.

Arguing about blowing out a candle was ridiculous, and after all, itwasher birthday, so she leaned forward and blew, watching as the flame flickered and went out.

Then she straightened. ‘So, I guess I should be honoured that you—’

‘You don’t remember, do you?’

Sidonie blinked again, derailed by the unexpected question. ‘Remember? Remember what?’

‘How you told me that if you had not married by the time your thirtieth birthday came around, then you would marry me.’

A flush of heat swept through her, closely followed by a tide of ice, and all the cool demands she’d been going to make, such as what he was doing here and why, abruptly vanished from her head.

That night in Soho, that was what he was talking about. The night she didn’t want to remember. Not the words that had come out of her mouth, that had driven him away, and definitely not the stained serviette she’d pulled out from under her cocktail glass and used to write down the most ridiculous promise. A promise she’d made him sign.

Heat worked its way up her throat, over her jaw and into her cheeks, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. The curse of being a redhead meant fine white skin that betrayed every single emotion. And, of course, he’d see it too. He missed nothing.

‘It was on that last night in London,’ Khalil went on smoothly, still watching her. Clearly, he had no problem with remembering it. ‘My father had just died and we met for a drink in Soho. I told you I didn’t know when I could come back for a visit, so you made me promise to return at least by the time you were thirty. You also promised that if you weren’t married by then, you’d marry me.’

The heat felt like a fire now, burning her skin, the awful, awful memories of that night and how she’d humiliated herself so clear in her head. They’d talked of Al Da’ira and all the changes Khalil would make now he was King, changes he’d often discussed with her when they’d been at university. They’d both been passionate about wanting to make people’s lives better, she already with plans for a charity, he with his plans for when he took the crown.

He’d told her that night that he would obviously need to marry at some stage and that was when she’d got it into her head that he could marry her. It had been the cocktails making her brave, the powerful feeling in her heart and the fact that he was leaving that had driven her to write it down as a promise. A vow.

It seemed so stupid now. So naïve. So...desperate. She wasn’t that woman any longer and hadn’t been for years.

So she ignored the blush burning in her cheeks and stared back into his dark eyes. ‘Oh, right, yes. And wasn’t there some kind of...?’ She pretended to grasp for the memory. ‘I wrote it down and made you sign something, didn’t I?’

If he knew she was lying, he gave no sign. ‘Indeed.’ Reaching into the breast pocket of his suit jacket, he withdrew a dog-eared piece of paper. ‘I think this is what you are talking about.’ He laid the paper down gently beside the cupcake and unfolded it, his gaze somehow growing even sharper.

She couldn’t help it—she glanced down at it. A stained serviette still with the slightly pink ring mark from her Cosmo, and her handwriting, untidy and rushed.

Khalil said nothing.

Half reluctant, half in the grip of a kind of horrified fascination, she picked it up and yes, there it was, all her embarrassing need writ large in black ballpoint. And there, damningly, at the end, her own scrawled signature beside his, because she knew she’d never change her mind. Never in a million years...

She stared at the serviette for a long minute. Then she did what she always did whenever he did or said something preposterous.

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