Sheikh's Desert Desire: Carrying the Sheikh's Heir. Maisey Yates

to apologize for.

      Don’t I?

      He had brought her to Kyr against her will, but what choice did he have? She could be pregnant with his child. Until he knew for certain, he was not about to let her stay in America, living alone and working. What if something happened? What if her store was robbed or someone broke into her apartment?

      He’d seen how flimsy her door locks were. Oh, she thought they were state-of-the-art, no doubt, but he’d hired some of the best lock pickers in existence when he’d been building his business from scratch. He’d wanted to test his security, and he knew how easily locks could be breached.

      If someone wanted to get to her, they could. And if it became known that she might carry an heir to the throne of Kyr? He shuddered to think of it.

      “You will not do anything so foolish again, Miss Sloane.”

      “I don’t intend to—but I also don’t want a companion. I want my freedom to come and go from this room, to talk to whomever I want to. And I want to talk to you from time to time. If there’s a baby, then I want to know its father as something more than an arrogant stranger. And if there isn’t, then I’ll go home and forget I ever met you.”

      Rashid stood stiffly and stared down at her sitting there like some sort of tiny potentate. She had nerve, this woman. But it was absolutely out of the question. He wanted nothing to do with her. If she was pregnant, he’d deal with it when the time came—he could hardly think the word wife—but for now she was safely stowed away and he could go about business and forget she existed.

      “You may come and go if that is what you wish. But you will have a servant to guide you, and you will do what you are told. You will not wear that clothing, Miss Sloane. You will dress as a Kyrian woman and you will be respectful.”

      Her chin lifted again. “I am always respectful of those who are respectful of me. But I refuse to be swathed head to toe in black robes—”

      His anger was swift as he cut her off. “Once more, you make dangerous assumptions about us. I will send a seamstress to you and you may choose your own colors. This is nonnegotiable.”

      Her mouth flattened for the barest moment. And then her lips were lush and pink again as she nibbled the bottom one. “And am I to see you, too? Have conversations with you that aren’t about what I’m wearing or where I plan to live?”

      He almost said yes. The word hovered on his tongue and he bit it back. Shock coursed through him at that near slip. Why would he want to spend any time with her? Why would he ever do such a thing? It was not in him. It was not what he did, regardless that he’d thought of that kiss for half the night during the flight home. He’d told himself it had simply been too long since he’d been with a woman and that was why he kept thinking about it.

      But this woman was not the one he was going to break his fast with. That road was fraught with too many dangers. Too many complications.

      “I think that is unnecessary,” he said curtly. “I have a kingdom to run and very little time.”

      “I think it is necessary.” Her voice was soft and filled with a hurt he didn’t understand.

      He refused to let her get to him. She was a stranger, a vessel who might be carrying his child. He did not care for her. He would not care for her.

      “Yet this, too, is nonnegotiable,” he told her before turning and striding from the room.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      SHERIDAN DIDN’T KNOW why it hurt so much to watch him walk out, but it did. She didn’t care about him at all—she actively disliked him, in fact—but his rejection stung. She might be carrying his child and he didn’t even care about who she was as a person. He didn’t want to know her, and he didn’t seem to want her to know him.

      She didn’t move when the workmen came back inside to continue cleaning the glass, or when Fatima—the woman who’d brought her food and had returned after Sheridan broke the window—came over and took the cloth from her to wipe the remaining cuts. They were small, but they stung.

      Oh, she’d been so stupid. So emotional. She’d behaved crazily—but it had worked because he’d come. And he’d promised her a small measure of freedom. That had to be a triumph. Fatima dabbed some ointment on her cuts, and then disappeared into the bathroom to put everything away.

      How had it come to this? Sheridan was a nice person. She was friendly to everyone, she loved talking to people and she’d never met anyone she didn’t like. Until yesterday when Rashid al-Hassan had shown up, she hadn’t even thought it was possible to dislike someone.

      There were people she got mad at, certainly. She got mad at Annie for not being stronger, but that only made her feel guilty. Annie hadn’t had all the advantages that Sheridan had—she wasn’t as outgoing, she hadn’t been popular, she didn’t know how to talk to people and make friends and now she couldn’t even have a baby—so it was wrong of Sheridan to get angry with her. Sheridan could hear her mother’s answer when she’d been a teen complaining that it wasn’t fair she had to stay home from the party because her friends hadn’t invited Annie, too.

      Annie’s not like you, Sheri. We have to be gentle with her. We have to watch out for her.

      Not for the first time, Sheridan wondered if maybe Annie would be tougher if everyone in her life hadn’t coddled her. If she’d had to stand up for herself, make her own friends, fight her own battles.

      Sheridan clenched her hand into a fist and sat there as still as a statue for what seemed the longest time. Even now, she felt like she should be calling Annie to ask how she was instead of worrying about her own situation.

      She looked up to see yet more men arriving in her room. They chattered in fast, musical Arabic, dragging out measuring tapes and writing things down on paper. Then they disappeared.

      Everything transpired quickly and efficiently over the next couple of hours. Sheridan didn’t see the new glass going in because by that time she was in her bedchamber—seriously, it was a chamber, not a bedroom—with three seamstresses, several bolts of fabric and ready-made samples hanging from a portable rack. A young woman who spoke English had come along to translate.

      “This one, miss?”

      Sheridan looked at the satiny peach fabric and felt a rush of pleasure. “Definitely.”

      The clothing the women wore was beautiful. Sheridan felt another wash of heat roll through her as she thought about her preconceived notions. She’d expected they would wear black burkas covering them from head to foot, but that was not at all the case.

      The garments these women wore were colorful, lightweight and beautiful. They were long, modestly fitted dresses with embroidery and beading on the necks and bodices. The hijab, or head covering, was optional. Two of the women wore them and two did not.

      But the possibilities there were beautiful, as well. The fabric was gossamer, colorful and draped in such a way that it created a sense of mystery and beauty.

      The women worked quickly, draping bolts of fabric over her body, slipping pins inside and pulling the fabric away only to replace it with a new bolt. Sheridan tried on two dresses they had on the rack—one a gorgeous coral and the other a pretty shade of lavender that brought out the color of her eyes. The seamstress in charge promised they could have those two ready in a matter of hours once they returned to their shop and got to work. The others would take a full day.

      Sheridan didn’t want to imagine that she needed many dresses for her stay, but how could she know for certain?

      The women packed everything up and left just as two men came in with Fatima. They were carrying a box with a flat-screen television in it and they proceeded to set it up on one of the credenzas nearest the bed.

      Sheridan wandered into the living area of the suite and found a new television