Page 23 of Her Vow to Be His Desert Queen

He was absolutely mesmerising.

And he was looking straight at her.

Khalil had been waiting for Sidonie to wake up for a good ten minutes and, while he’d tried for patience, this time he found each passing second a trial. He hadn’t slept during the flight and he’d purposefully not visited her since they’d taken off either.

He’d had a lot of work to do and didn’t want to waste time sleeping, and he’d also decided that the key to her agreeing to marrying him would be to keep her hungry for him and his presence.

You wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway. Not after that kiss.

Khalil ignored the thought. He’d never allowed his hungers to affect him in such a way and he wasn’t going to start now.

Yet the moment Sidonie stepped out of the plane’s bedroom, glowing in the green silk gown he’d had made especially for her, all he was aware of was his hunger.

Green had always been his favourite colour on her. It made her skin seem pale as cream and drew emerald sparks from her eyes.

She’d used to wear a loose, silky green blouse almost exactly the same colour as the gown she wore now, and it had been his favourite. Once, when she’d invited him out to dinner at a restaurant one evening with some of her friends, she’d leaned across him to get something, and the fabric had brushed against his bare arm. He’d been transfixed. All he’d been able to think about was whether her skin would feel as soft and silky as her blouse, and how he wanted to find out.

She’d only been his friend for a couple of months at that stage, but that had been the first moment he’d realised he wanted her.

He could feel that want now, sparking in the air between them, along with an intense satisfaction that she’d put on the dress he’d bought for her and that she looked as beautiful in it as he’d thought she would.

No. She looked better. She was perfection. Exactly how he’d wanted her to look as he brought her back to his country as his bride. Bright and beautiful and all wrapped in green, like a spring morning. A sign of hope and a kinder, gentler change.

He didn’t move for a second, taking her in.

A flush stained her lovely cheeks, but her gaze was cool. Clearly, the veneer was back in place. It didn’t matter. Tonight he would shatter it once more, or at least put a few more cracks in it, and by the end of the two weeks she’d allowed, it would be gone completely. And his Sidonie would finally be what she’d always meant to be: his.

She is supposed to be for your country, not for you.

Well, of course. But he could have a small piece of her for himself. It was only physical hunger, and she would be his wife. Heirs had to be got somehow.

‘Thank you for the dress, Khalil.’ Her voice was as cool as her gaze. ‘It’s beautiful. But it’s really more suitable for a ball than getting off a plane.’

‘The arrival of my intended bride requires some ceremony.’ He got to his feet, unable to stop staring at her and the way the gown wrapped around her, clinging to the generous curves of her breasts, waist and hips. ‘And green is the colour of change.’

Her red brows drew together. ‘But I’m not your intended bride. I told you that I was—’

‘Youhave decided that you are not,’ he interrupted gently. ‘Butmydecision remains. You are the bride I have chosen and I will announce you as such.’

Her chin firmed, little sparks of anger glittering deep in her eyes. She was holding it back. He could see that now. Her veneer was not perfect. ‘So what happens when I leave? After you’ve made such a big song and dance about me?’

He shrugged. ‘Then you will leave.’

‘But what will your people think? After you’ve told them that I’m going to be your queen?’

‘I thought it did not matter,’ he said silkily, ‘because they are not your people.’

She reddened. ‘No, but I don’t want to be presented as something I’m not. It’s a bit too much like lying for comfort.’

‘If it makes you feel any better, I am not lying to my people. I truly believe that you will be my intended bride.’

‘But I don’t, Khalil. I don’t believe that.’

The thing inside him, the predator, shifted. The way she challenged him excited him, the way it had always excited him. He was used to people doing whatever he said and certainly no one argued with him, and the fact that Sidonie was resisting him at every turn both annoyed and fascinated him.

She’d done the same back when they’d been friends, refusing to bow to his arrogance and always calling him out on it.

‘You’re being ridiculous, Khal,’she’d say, laughing.‘You’re not a prince here, remember?’

---