The Sheikh's Destiny. Olivia Gates

him coming closer. “So where’s today’s consignment?”

      He stopped before her. “I intended to have dinner out.”

      “Until me.”

      “Until you.”

      The way he said those words… Was there tenderness in his tone, or was it her imagination again?

      She cleared her tight throat. “So how am I supposed to feed you? You don’t even have dates, do you?”

      “I have all kinds of dried fruits.” He pointed toward the cupboards behind her.

      “I can use those. For dessert. For the main course, I bet you can get anything delivered at any time.”

      He brooded at her for what felt like an hour.

      Her gaze began to waver. He was going to outstare her and…

      He suddenly looked heavenward, as if asking the fates just what they’d thrown in his path tonight. Then he inhaled sharply, exhaled as forcefully.

      Wow. She’d done it. She’d dragged a full-blown reaction out of him. A human one, to boot.

      Her internal celebration hiccupped as he recaptured her in the crosshairs of his focus. “Fine. I’ll have whatever ingredients you require delivered. What do you want to feed me?”

      She barely managed not to jump and pump a fist into the air.

      Another minibattle won!

      Her smile was so wide she doubted her lips would revert to their former size. “What do you want to eat?”

      In response, he produced his cell phone, called someone named Ahmad then handed her the phone.

      As he walked away he said over his shoulder, “Surprise me. You’re superlative at it, after all.”

      Four

      Surprise had long given way to ever-expanding disbelief as Rashid watched Laylah prowling all over his place, “taking care of him.” She was now in his kitchen again, preparing him dessert.

      This was not going according to plan.

      Why was he letting her do this to him? He should be the one setting the pace, calling the shots.

      Yet, since she’d pounced on him with her scarf and concern in that alley, he’d been letting her steer him. And this alien experience of being taken care of only got more… incapacitating.

      No one had ever done anything like this for him, to him. He’d never let anyone near enough to even try. Not even Haidar and Jalal. He’d once rejected all their efforts to impose their brand of caring on him. He’d since lived happily alone.

      Zain. So “happily” didn’t apply. He had no idea what happiness was. He’d heard people describe it. He’d observed them living it. It was what Haidar and Jalal appeared to be eyeballs-deep in now, with their brides. He’d never experienced anything remotely resembling their conditions and he’d been fiercely thankful for that. They’d been… compromised. Their power was no longer their own; their priorities forever messed up. He’d been unwavering in his belief that he wasn’t equipped to succumb to anything like that so-called happiness, that there was nothing to jog his ironclad order and intentions. Happiness, and everything else that people wanted, was for other men. Men with no mission.

      Then tonight had happened. She had happened.

      Laylah Aal Shalaan. This… shock.

      Instead of the self-centered and self-serving spoiled witch he’d expected her to be, a budding edition of her black-hearted mother and aunt, there was this… being who seemed to exude a pristine nature and an overwhelming generosity of spirit. He’d spent the past hours looking for chinks in her act. He’d found none.

      So he was floundering. Not only because she was not following the script he’d had in mind but because he wasn’t.

      He kept doing the opposite of what he’d intended to do. He kept doing everything in his power to sabotage his own plans.

      Instead of grabbing this opportunity that had hurled itself at him, he’d found himself shaking it off as if it burned him. He’d done everything to push her away, when he’d been following her for weeks, planning how to get close. She’d had to push him and pull at him until he’d let her come here. When he should have suggested it, or at least not fought against it with all he had.

      But he had fought her every step of the way, his resistance becoming fiercer the more she’d clung. He’d tried all he could to talk her out of giving him what he’d planned to manipulate her into.

      So no, nothing was going as planned. Everything was going far better than anything he’d dared hope for.

      And that more than disturbed him.

      He’d never been in a situation like this. He always had a plan, then followed it to the last meticulous detail. Whenever he seemed to be improvising brilliantly, he was only following one of the contingencies he’d made allowances for.

      The only time he hadn’t done that to the letter, he’d almost paid with his life. He had paid with his mutilation.

      Even then, he hadn’t veered off his planned course that far. He’d never let anything or anyone sabotage his plans that much.

      But she was doing so by setting his plans on hyperdrive. What he’d hope to achieve in weeks had been condensed into hours. He hadn’t needed a strategy to get her where he wanted her. He was the one who needed to come to terms with how fast his plan was working when he hadn’t even meant to initiate it. He was the one who was wondering what had hit him. The one who had to struggle to catch his breath.

      Her enthusiasm might turn out to be as deleterious to his plans as her flat-out rejection could have been. Being so uncharted and unpredictable, it could prove even more catastrophic.

      His heart thudded as she flashed him a smile before resuming her work, humming some merry tune.

      Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe he should not question his good luck.

      But how could he not? Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He’d never been exposed to anyone like her. Was it any wonder he had no skill set in place to handle it or her?

      And that was why he was succumbing to her coddling. He kept searching through his head for a method to regain control of the situation. But he found no precedent with which to deal with her.

      The paradox was that she was overriding him with the sheer force of her… openness, her guilelessness. Her eagerness. Three qualities he had no experience with.

      He should be using her willingness to do anything for him, her unwillingness to leave him, to his advantage.

      Yet said advantage was the last thing on his mind. Thinking at all wasn’t among his capabilities right now. His faculties were all engaged in surrendering to whatever she wished to do, for him, to him. In dreading the time when she had to leave.

      These unknown reactions could be due to blood loss after all. Or the brush with resurrected insanity.

      He watched her move toward him, her undulations the essence of femininity, yet not in the least studied, as spontaneous as everything else about her. Her face was open for him to read, the smile that spread those full, flushed lips transmitting something he’d never thought to see. Pure pleasure at being with him. And it wasn’t gratitude. It was far more. He couldn’t think how this could be.

      But why think? Or analyze why she wanted to be here, why he wanted her here? Why everything was going so perfectly? It was an alien concept, but maybe he should just go along with it.

      Maybe this time, having his original plan destroyed wouldn’t end in disaster.

      “I’ve discovered one thing you’re not superlative at!”

      At