Read Online Slave to the Sheikh: by Nadia Aidan - Free Book Online

exoticism, and she oozed blatant sex appeal from her dark, sultry eyes, shimmering copper skin, and lush, full lips. 
    I was practically entranced by the beauty before me, but I still managed a polite greeting, as I took the woman’s delicate hand in a brief handshake. 
                  Her palm was cold, her lovely onyx eyes were equally so, and as she quickly assessed and then dismissed me, I was painfully aware that my awe was not returned. The silence that followed was brief, but awkward, as I tried to ignore Sabeen’s open hostility and the Sheikha’s aloofness. 
                  “Dr. Hamilton, I would like for you to meet Sabeen. The al-Mujahers are longtime family friends, and Sabeen is my god-daughter, as well as my son’s fiancé .”
                  Fiancé? What the fu—
    Oh clearly, I must have misheard, I was certain of it, but one glance at Sabeen’s smug, painfully beautiful face, told me I wasn’t losing my hearing after all.  I stood there wide-eyed, frozen in place as if every muscle had seized, but what else could one do as their heart was breaking into a million pieces.  That’s why I didn’t speak, because I just couldn’t, I could barely breathe with my heart aching, and thankfully I didn’t have to say a word, because Amir chose that moment to enter the room, and all of our gazes immediately snapped to him.
    *****
                  Amir frowned at the first sight of the black Lincoln Town Car parked within the driveway to his estate.
                  His parents.
                  More specifically, his mother. His father respected his privacy and trusted Amir’s authority over Sharjah and would never have shown up to his home unannounced, but his mother? Ayesha al-Durhan believed no such boundaries existed for any of her sons, but especially her eldest son.  More than thirty-six hours of labor she’d endured to bring her first born into the world, she was often heard recounting, and thus, that heroic act alone seemingly gave her a privilege that no others had, to interfere in his life.
                  As soon as his own town car came to a stop, the door was flung open by Khalil, whose anxious expression would have been indication enough that his nosy mother was present and actively meddling in his affairs.
                  “I know,” Amir said to Khalil’s scowling face as he climbed out of the car.
    “I tried to stop them.”             
    Amir wanted to laugh in the face of his first cousin at the notion that he would be the one to somehow stop his aunt, who was a force of nature, when no one else could.  But it was Khalil’s last word that captured all of his attention.
    “Them?”
    Once again, he knew his cousin all too well, and that look was worth more than a million words. With a curse, he spun away from Khalil and stalked to the front doors, wrenching them open with all the fury and fear that now drummed through his veins.
    Khalil matched his hurried strides, but Amir was no longer even aware of his cousin’s presence beside him.
    She wouldn’t.
    The gnawing dread in his gut told him that indeed she would. A hundred questions flickered through his consciousness.  How had she even known, being the foremost one? 
    Whenever he spoke with his mother of Daniella, of course he spoke highly of her because of the work she was doing, but he’d purposely guarded his innermost feelings because he knew if the Sheikha had any inkling he was in love with a Westerner, she would not hesitate to interfere.
    Daniella.
    Just thinking her name made his heart stutter. 
    She would never forgive him. 
    He should have told her the truth, he’d actually considered doing so, but how did he reveal he was engaged to marry some woman his parents had chosen for him when he was a child? How did he tell the only woman he’d ever loved, that he wanted to spend forever with her and had no