To Tame a Sheikh / His Thirty-Day Fiancée: To Tame a Sheikh. Catherine Mann

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ told him all about herself, which had amounted to what he did know of her family history, without the names, dates and places.

      And when he hadn’t clued in, so bowled over by her he hadn’t even connected the sun-size dots, she’d chosen to leave him in the dark. The apprehension he felt from her must be her anxiety about his reaction now that she knew he’d finally wised up.

      “Now that you’ve met your potential brides, how is your stomach holding up?”

      “Can we give you tips who not to choose?”

      Shaheen dazedly turned toward the two warm, musical female voices. Aliyah and Laylah flowed to him, hugging him on both sides, reaching up to kiss a cheek each, their exquisite faces brimming with vitality and joie de vivre.

      He automatically hugged and kissed them back as the ramifications of what had happened between him and Gemma … Johara expanded inside him, squeezing all his vitals.

      “The beauty in emerald over there, the one with the incredible black hair down to her feet?” Laylah pinched his cheek playfully as she turned his head in the direction of the woman she was describing, before turning his face back to her quickly. “Don’t even look at her again. Her unbelievable locks will turn to serpents at the first opportune moment.”

      “And the redhead over there.” Aliyah directed his gaze toward the woman she was mentioning with more discreet taps on his cheek. “Run if you ever see her again. She grows scales and blowtorches anyone within a mile radius.”

      Harres laughed. “If you’re trying to make Shaheen feel better about this, you’re going about it in bizarro fashion.”

      Laylah poked a teasing elbow into Harres’s abdomen. “Hey, we’re saving him from settling on the prettiest flower and being devoured alive.”

      “So now that you’ve eliminated the most beautiful flowers, do I surmise you think he should go for the ugliest one?”

      Aliyah gave a horrified shudder. “Oh, no, that one is just as monstrous, without the advantage of being nice to look at. What’s inside is on the outside in her case. In fact, we’ve narrowed down his choices to two.”

      Harres huffed a sound of pure sarcasm. “Don’t tell me. The candidates with the least monstrous qualities.”

      “Actually they’re both pretty decent. One is not as accomplished or worldly as Shaheen would prefer, but we believe she would become so as his wife. The other one is really nice, but doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. Again, with Shaheen for a husband, she’ll definitely develop one.”

      Shaheen felt as if he’d fallen into the twilight zone, expected to hear a laughter track burst into the background any moment now.

      He cleared his throat. “Shaheen is right here.” The two women squeezed him again, sheepishness coating their expressions. “Thank you, my dears, for vetting my bridal nightmares as only you two discerning ladies could. Write down your choices and hand them to Father. But if he decides one of the monsters is more beneficial to the negotiations, that is who I’ll end up with. Anyway, my life as I know and want it is over. So, as I told Father earlier, one catastrophe with which to meet my end is as good as another.”

      A pall fell on the duo in the wake of his words.

      Horror dawned in Aliyah’s and Laylah’s eyes, contrition twisting their features. They really hadn’t realized how much Shaheen hated this, were now mortified that they’d been oblivious to his own distress and teased him about it.

      “Oh, Shaheen, I didn’t know you were …”

      “Oh, Shaheen, I didn’t realize …”

      Aliyah’s and Laylah’s apologies stumbled over each other. They fell silent, Aliyah biting her lip, Laylah’s eyes filling with tears.

      His focus flowed back to its captor, to Gem—to Johara. Her eyes darted away the moment his fell on her. She’d been watching him.

      A bubble of agitation and elation expanded inside him.

      She might be avoiding him, but she wanted to look at him and did so the moment she could.

      Harres’s phone rang.

      He answered. After a few terse sentences, he turned his eyes to Shaheen. “I’m sorry to leave you. But something’s brewing at our borders. It may take hours or even days to defuse.”

      Shaheen nodded, accepted Harres’s bolstering hug, watched him hug the women and stride away.

      Shaheen looked back at the fidgeting Aliyah and Laylah, a calculating smile spreading his lips even as his heart twisted inside his chest. “How about you atone for your sins by granting this doomed man a last request?”

      They both jumped, voices intertwining with promises of anything at all if it would make him feel better.

      He looked back at Johara, who again turned her eyes away and bestowed a brittle smile on the group surrounding her.

      “Remember Johara Nazaryan?”

      Both women looked to Johara.

      “Oh, yes,” Laylah said. “My mother used to drag me away every time I tried to talk to her. Now look at her, flitting around Johara as if she were an A-list movie star.”

      Aliyah smirked. “It’s not only your mother. All our female relatives and acquaintances who never deemed to speak to her or her mother before are falling over themselves to be reintroduced.”

      Laylah giggled. “Bless their superficial souls. They never acknowledged what a classy, talented woman Jacqueline Nazaryan was, or what a sweet girl Johara was. But now that Johara has become the new designer on the cusp of international stardom, they all want to secure a chance to be the first to wear her latest exclusive designs.”

      “It’s amazing to see that they consider their next outfit more important than their husbands.” Aliyah’s lips twisted. “Their men are about to flood the ceremony hall in drool, and the women can’t care less.”

      Shaheen blinked, noting the people gathered around Johara for the first time. Women who’d treated her with condescension, or at best the dismissive courtesy due to a valuable employee’s family member, were now treating her not just as an equal but as a celebrity.

      But it was the men’s behavior that made aggression swirl inside him. Many were openly ogling her and courting her attention and favor. His muscles turned to steel as every territorial cell in his body primed for a to-the-death fight for his mate.

      Yes. No matter what she’d done or how impossible it all was, his body, his very being, considered her his mate. Accepted nothing else.

      Aliyah turned back to him. “What about Johara?”

      His burning conviction seemed to force Johara’s gaze to him. He muttered, low and hungry, “Bring her to me.”

      Shaheen was about to combust.

      With frustration.

      It had been two hours since he’d told Aliyah and Laylah to pluck Johara from СКАЧАТЬ