Read Online Guilty Pleasure by Lora Leigh - Free Book Online Page A

check out other possibilities. And perhaps to show him exactly what he was going to be missing.

3
    A week later, Khalid stepped into the secured meeting room Sebastian had prepared and faced a part of his past that he had avoided at all costs.
    Staring back at the man who could have been his twin brother, Khalid felt his chest tighten, felt the pent-up agony of guilt, and fought not to apologize once again for events he had been unable to control.
    Abram el Hamid-Mustafa rose slowly from the couch, his muscular frame standing tall and proud as fierce black eyes stared from a face that had turned to stone years before.
    A short, neatly trimmed beard and mustache now covered his lower face. Thick, heavy black lashes would have given his black eyes a sensual, drowsy look had it not been for the pure ice that filled his gaze.
    That ice melted as Khalid closed the door behind him and watched as Abram approached him. Behind the other man, Sebastian remained sitting, just as Shayne did.
    They were the only ones to attend this meeting, the first in more than two years.
    “Khalid, you are of course looking as decadent as ever.” A glimmer of a smile warmed Abram’s dark gaze as he took in the jeans, the untucked white shirt, and casual leather shoes that Khalid wore.
    Khalid grunted at the description as he shot a disgruntled look at his brother’s attire. “Slumming today?”
    Abram wore a baseball cap, jeans, and a black T-shirt with the name of a popular hard rock band emblazoned on it.
    “Ah, the things we must do to survive, eh?” Abram plucked at the front of his shirt before giving Khalid a brief, strong hug and murmuring quietly, “It is good to see you again, little brother.”
    “Five minutes doesn’t make me your little brother,” Khalid reminded him as they parted.
    “Of course it does.” It was their lifelong argument. “Just because you are the son of his prized, redheaded pigeon doesn’t make you any less younger than I. It simply makes you luckier.”
    Khalid’s mother, Marilyn Kobrin, a French college student who had been kidnapped while on vacation had had a brother, as well as a fiancé, who had been determined to find her. Marilyn hadn’t been the type to sit around and wait on rescue, however.
    No more than a few weeks after Khalid’s birth, she had wrapped her child in a blanket, tied him to her back, and escaped the palace she had been locked inside, for the desert beyond.
    She should have died. The desert was no place for a woman alone with a child to care for and very little water for her on her journey.
    Fortunately, her brother and fiancé had managed to track her to Azir’s lands and had been watching the palace as she scaled down the wall that had enclosed the gardens that the women were allowed to gather within.
    Azir’s “redheaded pigeon,” as he had called her, had flown the cage and quickly escaped with the son Azir had claimed as his second heir. An heir he hadn’t seen again for eighteen years.
    “I’m not so certain about the ‘lucky’ part.” Khalid shrugged. “It seems to me that neither us have much influence in the luck department.”
    “Luck is what you make of it.” Abram sighed wearily as they both moved to the bar.
    Sebastian and Shayne joined them, the two men remaining quiet as Khalid and Abram fought to find that comfort level they had once shared.
    They had been nearly inseparable after Khalid had returned to the desert to meet, and to destroy, the man who claimed to be his father. Now, more than ten years later, Khalid wondered if he and Abram weren’t the ones who would eventually be destroyed.
    “So, I hear from Shayne that your woman has you running in circles.” There was an edge of amusement to Abram’s voice, as well as something else. Something darker, something edged with danger or warning.
    “She’s definitely making life interesting,” Khalid agreed as Shayne poured their drinks and handed them across the bar.
    “She’s got him watching