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CHAPTER ONE
THEFIRSTTIMESheikh Riyaz al Hadid saw the sunlight in sixteen years, she was standing in it.
Her red hair seemed lit on fire by the pool of golden warmth she stood in, her skin glowing. Her lips were like cherries, her body a fever dream.
It had been as many years since he’d seen a woman as it had been since he’d seen the sun. And now, here they both were.
“This is Brianna Whitman.”
Riyaz turned toward his brother, Cairo, who gestured to the woman. The way his brother touched her arm, as if there was a physical familiarity between them, made a monster in Riyaz growl.
Apparently, not just within, for both Cairo and Brianna reacted to the sound.
Thoughts, words, feelings, sounds. All of it was the same to him.
Riyaz had been in the dungeon for sixteen years.
One week ago, Cairo and his men had stormed the palace and freed him, taken down the interlopers who had stolen the throne from their father all those years ago.
It had taken a week for Riyaz to go to the upper floors. Freedom was also a strange and elastic concept to him. He had been free in his mind all this time, but now his body was also free. And there was wide-open space, harsh light, too many sounds. He’d stayed where he could control some of what he saw and heard and felt.
But Cairo had come to see him, every day.
As had doctors. Psychiatrists. And now...this woman.
This woman who Cairo had said would not be seeing him in the dungeon, but Riyaz would have to greet in the throne room.
It was a strange thing, being told what to do. Yes, Riyaz had been a prisoner for many years. But it was strange how he had found ways to forget. The dungeon had become his world. He was not told what to do. He had free run of that world. He was brought food. And there was a guard who took pity on him and brought books. A rotation of them. They did not speak. They did not... Get to know one another, but there was no animosity either. And he would read each new book at least three times before the man traded them out.
He had created a workout facility, found ways to keep his body in shape, so that he would not atrophy during his time in captivity. And yet, there had been long stretches of time when he had forgotten why he was doing anything. There was no future to plan for. There was nothing.
He had never known for sure if Cairo had survived the attack on the palace.
When Cairo had returned, and set Riyaz free, he had asked that his brother show mercy to the guard who had brought him the books.
Time had a new meaning now. And there were tasks. He had spent the first sixteen years of his life in such a fashion. His days had been tightly scheduled. There had been expectations of him. He had learned other languages, had learned about other cultures. He had kept his language skills sharp through reading. He read in Arabic, English, French. Consuming information, stories, had kept him from losing his mind.
At least, entirely.
And now here he was, in the sun. Looking at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
That was something that had not been supplied for him.
Women.
Appetites were an interesting thing. One could learn to suppress them. He had done so while living in the dungeon. He had gone from living on a diet of rich, elaborately prepared foods, to eating nothing but the bland, boring foods of a prisoner. The same every day. Just enough to keep him going. Enough to keep him fit. They fed him quantity, especially as he added mass to his body, but variety was not the order of the day.
He had learned not to care. And then there were days when he would be overcome with the desire to eat a cheeseburger. He did not know why a cheeseburger specifically. It was not common fare in his family’s household. It was not traditional at all. And yet he had tried it before, and it was something that had stuck with him. And it was the thing that haunted him.
So too with sex.
He had been a teenage boy when he had been thrown in the dungeon, after all. His hormones had been in a heightened state.
At sixteen, he had not yet lain with a woman, but he’d thought about it often.
He had been promised to wed a girl who was often in the palace, though he had imagined he would take lovers prior to that marriage. He had thought of her, when Cairo had come to the dungeon. It was her father that had betrayed them. Dominic Hart.
The first thing he’d said when Cairo had come to collect him was that he wanted Ariel Hart. She would complete the contract that her father had broken. Would restore what had been destroyed.
