CHAPTER EIGHT

      THE OCEAN SIDE PALACE was an entirely different world to the main palace in central Attar. Here everything was washed white by the sun. The salt breeze coming in from the waves cooled the air, infused it with moisture, so unlike the arid heat found inland.

      Sayid had spent a great deal of time at this palace growing up. A retreat from the times spent in the desert, living in Bedouin tents and learning how to survive in the harshest of environments.

      Even now, walking into the cool, white stone foyer lifted a weight from him.

      And then the realization that he was getting married in less than twenty-four hours, on the beach in front of the palace, hit him full force and any sense of Zen was lost entirely.

      A wife. He had long given up the thought of having a wife. Thinking of marriage made him think of a different time. Of a beautiful girl with liquid brown eyes and a bright smile. Of the same girl, pale and terrified as she was forced into a car, taken from her home. Taken from him.

      As he stood, men holding him in place, preventing him from going after her. Keeping him from rescuing her. From saving the only person who had ever mattered.

      He put his hand on one of the white stone pillars, relished the chill that seeped through his skin. He looked out at the ocean, crashing into the rough, imposing rocks that stood sentry in front of the palace. He moved his palm over the pillar, so cold, like everything inside of him. As it had been since the day he’d lost Sura.

      “She’s upstairs, on the balcony. Getting her henna done.” Alik was standing at the foot of the staircase, his hands in the pockets of his dark slacks.

      “How long have you been here?” Sayid asked.

      He and Alik had been through hell and back together. He was Sayid’s only friend. The only person who understood what the kind of life he led was like. What it cost. But at the moment, happiness wasn’t his dominant emotion when he looked at the other man. It was something else. Something dark, visceral and unfamiliar.

      “Long enough to have bent her over the dining table out on the balcony once, taken her up against the wall in the bedroom twice, and in the bed…”

      “Alik,” he said, striding forward.

      “In theory,” Alik finished. “Every woman I desire is at my disposal, why would I touch yours?”

      “She’s not my woman,” he said.

      “She’s going to be your wife by this time tomorrow.”

      “Only in name. Only on paper.”

      “Not in your bed? A waste of a beautiful woman.”

      Sayid strode past Alik and started up the curved, white stone staircase. “I don’t require your opinion on the matter, Vasin.”

      Alik shrugged and walked to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll leave you to your fiancée. I have some security measures to check.” Alik disappeared around the corner, and Sayid continued on up the stairs, anger still coursing through his veins. There was no reason for it, not really.

      Had he not told Chloe he would be taking other lovers? And had he not extended the same courtesy to her? Neither of them were likely to be celibate for sixteen years, and if Alik was one of the lovers she chose, could he truly be territorial about it?

       Yes, dammit.

      There was a line. And Alik would not cross it. He would make sure the other man knew that.

      Sayid stalked down the hall and toward the open doorway that led out to the balcony that overlooked the sea. He saw Chloe, sitting in a plush chair, wearing a very small dress. Aden was in a bassinet at her feet, and an elderly woman was kneeling in front of her, singing softly and painting intricate designs on Chloe’s hands and feet.

      Chloe looked up sharply, shimmering strands of red hair catching the light, the backdrop of the blue ocean highlighting the depth of her eyes. She had no makeup on, but then, Chloe rarely did. Nothing beyond the minimum. But something about her struck him as different. Fresh, her freckles clearly visible, her skin pink.

      She was brighter, he realized. Not as exhausted. The dark circles under her eyes had faded away.

      “I wasn’t expecting you so soon,” she said.

      The woman who was working on the henna turned and bowed her head low, her forehead brushing the ground, then she turned back and continued on with her design. The display meant nothing to him. A customary show of servitude. But at this point, one he gladly took as a positive sign that he was being accepted in his temporary position. That his impending marriage to Chloe was having the desired effect.

      “When were you expecting me to show up? Just in time for vows?”

      “Something like that,” she said.

      “Well, I’m not quite so last-minute. I wanted to go over security measures with Alik.”

      “Oh, right.”

      He watched her face closely when he said his friend’s name. “You’ve met Alik?”

      “Of course. He’s very friendly.”

      “How friendly exactly?” he asked, his teeth gritted.

      “Well he…” She cut herself off. “Are you… irritated?”

      “No.”

      “You are. Are you… bothered by the fact that he was friendly to me?”

      He snorted. “That’s ridiculous. I would hope he was friendly to you. You are the future sheikha of Attar.”

      She tilted her head to the side and squinted, as if she was studying a specimen beneath a microscope. “You… are you jealous?”

      “I am not given to the emotion in any circumstance. Not even with a woman who is my lover. There is absolutely no reason I would feel it in connection with you.”

      “That’s very true. There isn’t a reason. Except that I’m marrying you tomorrow and while the institution is human in concept, the idea of a male possessing his mate with some form of exclusivity runs across species. How else can a male be certain his offspring is truly his?”

      “The offspring in this instance is not mine, as you well know. And as I don’t—” he looked down at the woman, still working on Chloe’s feet “—as you are well aware, our situation is different.”

      “But it’s a deep-seated male need, so the fact that your brain knows it doesn’t necessarily mean your body does.”

      He arched one brow and looked at her. Color crept into her cheeks slowly, staining the freckles a darker shade. “I suppose that is true,” he said, just for a moment, one moment, embracing the dark, restless ache that spread through his body whenever he looked at her. Acknowledging what it was. Attraction. Lust. Letting himself fully visualize all the fantasies that had been rioting through his brain in fuzzy, half-formed pictures for over a week.

      Her body, beneath his, arching into him as he chased his release inside of her. Bending her over, making her