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Chapter One
Yasmine Al-Fasih slipped like a wraith into the bedroom suite that had been prepared for her father’s esteemed and honored guest, Sheikh Jamal Qadir.
Her eyes narrowed as she glanced around the suitably luxurious accommodation with its sitting room, sunken bedroom with huge circular bed, the adjoining theatre room and bathroom with plunge pool. The only thing missing was a kitchen, but no guest was expected to cook when there were Michelin five star chefs on hand to create the finest dining at any hour of the day or night.
That her father kept five overpaid chefs never ceased to amaze her. It was so unnecessary when their economy had taken a huge nosedive these last three years. Even parts of the palace were bordering on rack and ruin.
But despite the fact they were an oil-dry country, her father liked to pretend they were one of the wealthiest countries in the Middle East. A pity he’d relied on the now failing tourism for far too long. He hadn’t diversified and she wondered if he’d left it too little too late, and that perhaps even negotiations with Sheikh Jamal wouldn’t save them.
She paused at the top of the trio of steps that led to the huge bed and its occupant, whose potent rose petal fragrance filled her nostrils. Yasmine wasn’t surprised to find her dad’s favorite concubine, Shakira, lying in wait for their visitor. Nothing less than the best was expected for Jamal, Sheikh of Ishmat.
His pleasure and happiness was paramount.
Although many of the old-school sheikhs didn’t allow the women of their harem to be shared around, it was becoming quite the fashion for the modern sheikhs of some countries to enjoy the status and bragging rights that came with giving esteemed guests a favorite harem woman for a night. Particularly if they wanted a favor in return like her father did from Sheikh Jamal.
She swallowed hard as all her hard won confidence drained away. How could she possibly measure up to someone of Shakira’s seductive looks and experience in the bedroom? Yasmine might be considered a beauty and royalty to boot, but she was as shackled by tradition—it was forbidden for a man to touch a sheikha—as surely as her father’s harem women were by their looks and their sexual duties.
Yasmine’s dad, Sheikh Zameer Al-Fasih, went to great measures for those men who were more powerful than him. That included the beastly Sheikh Arif Hakim, whom her father had ordered Yasmine to marry in a little over three weeks. That Sheikh Arif was older than her father and twice as cruel left her insides weak and her throat raw.
She refused to marry him!
The thought propelled her forward once again. She took the trio of steps, her nose wrinkling as she inhaled the overpowering rose petal scent, hiding her distaste at seeing Shakira lying on the bed in a seductive pose and a sultry smile, one that disappeared the moment she saw Yasmine.
Shakira sat up, her dark eyes flashing and her full lips twisting into a pout. “What are you doing here? I was expecting Sheikh Jamal.”
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Yasmine refuted coolly. “But your services aren’t required tonight. You may go.”
Shakira’s full breasts quivered through her gauzy top. “Says who?”
Says me.
“What does it matter?” Yasmine wasn’t above using her superior voice to get things done. The last thing she wanted was for Sheikh Jamal to arrive before Shakira had obeyed her marching orders. “Your replacement has already been decided.”
“Replacement?” Shakira threw her mass of dark hair over one shoulder, her eyes that were lined heavily with kohl blinking suspiciously. “I’m your father’s favorite. He gives me to all his important friends.”
Yasmine hid a grimace. It turned her stomach that these harem women wanted to service other men. That her dad regularly visited his harem while his wife, Valentina—Yasmine’s English mother—was expected to stay faithful, was even worse. Her mother was miserable and it made Yasmine resent her dad’s other lovers even more.
It was an effort just to stay civil. “Yet my dad keeps my mother all to himself. What does that tell you?”
Shakira’s eyes flashed, her envy of Sheikha Valentina all too clear. “I’ll be speaking to Sheikh Zameer about this!”
“Go ahead. Though you’ll have to make your complaint in the morning.” At Shakira’s ugly frown, Yasmine added, “My dad is spending the night with my mother.”
Liar.Her father rarely spent any night with her mother these days. But it wasn’t like it never happened. The occasion was just becoming less and less frequent.
But hopefully Yasmine’s bluff would work and give her all the time she needed to seduce Sheikh Jamal and force his hand in marriage. She couldn’t suffer a miserable existence with the old goat, Arif. Being married to him would be even worse than what her mom endured with her dad.
Although chaining Sheikh Jamal to Yasmine for life would see him hate her, at least he wouldn’t deliberately hurt her. She’d done her research. He wasn’t cruel. He was known for his fairness. But he wasn’t a pushover, either. He was merciless when needed. She sighed. She would just have to learn to live with his resentment and whatever justice he might mete out.
“Why are you here?” Shakira asked. “You’re not the usual messenger girl.”
Yasmine glowered. No other harem girl would question the daughter of their sheikh. Though Yasmine didn’t class herself as a sheikha, the title belonged to her. It was past time she remembered it. “Go. Now. Or I’ll be the one to speak to my father first thing in the morning.”
“Fine,” Shakira muttered. She climbed off the bed in a cloud of sickening floral perfume and billowy, ethereal fabric, then stalked up the steps and out of the bedroom suite, her bare feet making no sound.
Yasmine exhaled slowly as the door clicked shut, her stomach tightening with a fresh batch of terror that threatened to change her mind.No.It was now or never. If she left now and yielded to her dad’s command to marry old Sheikh Arif she’d be subjected to a life of tyranny and cruelty. If she stayed and seduced the famed Sheikh Jamal, at least she wouldn’t suffer a lifetime of abuse.
Would she?
