Stars for the Sheikh_A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel

by Annabelle Winters

  Hilda almost broke down as she realized she’d been trying her damnedest to push that to the back of her mind, perhaps out of her mind, out of her body even, if that were possible. She looked at Rahaan again, and she could see his eyes behind the shadow of his handsome face. He was looking right at her as Di babbled on excitedly to his left. He was looking right at her in absolute stillness, with an expression Hilda couldn’t interpret, didn’t want to interpret.

  “You had the dreams,” he said to her quietly. “Three dreams in one.”

  “Three?” Di said, glancing at Rahaan and cocking her head. “You had three dreams with you and Hilda? Oh, God, Rahaan, that’s significant. That’s . . .” She trailed off as she slowly turned to Hilda, and Hilda caught a flash of something in Di’s sand-colored eyes, a cloud passing through her, a cloud of emotion, dark emotion, emotion that Hilda swore she could feel even though of course it had to be her own damned imagination. “Listen, Hilda,” Di said quietly, swallowing hard as her eyes darted left to right, like she was trying to control some part of her that didn’t want to be controlled. “I don’t think you realize how big all of this is, how groundbreaking this could be. We have a chance to actually test out the ideas from Sideways Through Time, to actually bring a real-life example to—”

  “Ah, so that’s the end game here,” Hilda said abruptly, frowning down her nose at Di. “The book. You maneuver a real-life story into it, and it becomes more than a hypothesis. It goes beyond just the little world of academia. Perhaps they make a movie! You guys get to go to the Oscars! Mingle with the stars! That’s stuff that plain old cash can’t buy. You guys want the glory, the fame, the—”

  “What in Allah’s name are you talking about, Hilda?” the Sheikh said, his green eyes narrowing, jaw tightening. “Are you mad? You think this is . . . you think this is a trick? A bloody con?”

  I don’t know what to think! she wanted to scream, but she held on, she held back, she held it inside. She told herself she wasn’t going to unravel, that she was a match for anyone, that she wasn’t going to get sucked into a fake fairy tale where she’s the sucker.

  “You guys can leave now,” she said quietly, a slight tremble in her voice that she hoped wouldn’t come across to them. “I’m flattered that you went to these lengths, impressed that you managed to pull sweet Professor Norm into it as well. But I—”

  “What are you doing, Hilda?” the Sheikh said, rising and stepping around the table, grabbing her by the arms and leaning close. “You do not believe what you are saying. I know it. I see it. Why, Hilda? Why are you denying this? There is something to what Di is saying, and both of us damn well know it!” He dropped his voice down to a whisper, and Hilda almost melted when she allowed herself to look into his eyes and saw the depth, the sincerity, the urgency, the . . . the love? “There is something here,” he whispered. “There is everything here. I cannot understand what you are doing, Hilda. Why are you—”

  I can’t understand it either, Hilda thought as she held his gaze for as long as she could before blinking and looking away, slowly shaking her head as she tried not to cry.

  Di’s sharp voice broke through now. “So you actually think the most likely explanation is that Rahaan and I are masterminding some elaborate scheme? Did you read Sideways Through Time? I know you’re more than capable of understanding the science in it—Norm convinced me of that. And the science in there is solid, believe me. Norm and I have circulated it to our peers in physics departments at several well-respected universities. Quantum mechanics has long since backed up the parallel universe theory. The only thing missing was how all of it would play out at the level of human experience. And honey, this is how it plays out! With dreams mixing with reality, with sudden physical changes that force us to look beyond the normal explanations, with connections between strangers that are somehow packed with a depth of emotion that doesn’t make sense unless you accept that we are connected beyond this one, narrow life. Don’t you see it, Hilda? Don’t you feel it, Hilda?”

  I see it, Hilda said to herself. And I feel it. But I also can’t do it. I can’t bring myself to admit it out loud, to make that leap, and I don’t know why!

  Di took a long look at Hilda before glancing at the Sheikh, who had stepped away from the desk and was up near the side wall. He had his back to the two women, and he was staring at a framed photograph on a dark wood shelf.

  “This is your cat when he was a kitten?” Rahaan said, holding up the photograph, his face tight, eyes burning right through her. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Yes, it is the same cat. I see the patch on his left flank. I see the way his right ear is slightly misshapen.” He placed the photograph on the desk and stood above the two women, crossing his thick, muscular arms over his broad chest. “And I see his eyes, Hilda. Green eyes. Green eyes that I could swear are now red. You lied to us, Hilda. You lied to me, Hilda. You said nothing has changed around you, and it was a lie. So now tell me. What else has changed? About you, Hilda. What has changed about you?”

  He glanced at the photograph again, which also had a younger (and thinner . . .) Hilda in it. Then he strode across the room and grabbed a few other photographs that were on that shelf, grunting as he placed them back in their spots. “Nothing external that I can see,” he said, turning and looking at Hilda again, accusation in his glare, a strange confidence in his voice, like he knew . . . “So it is something inside, is it not? Something inside you that has changed! Something inside you that is unexpected, inexplicable . . . something new. Something you’re not telling me. Something you think you can keep secret.”

  “Get out!” Hilda shrieked, standing so quickly her hands hit the edge of the desk, her knuckles getting the brunt of it. She winced and rubbed her left hand, and as she did it she realized that holy shit, that immovable ring had twisted around on her finger!

  She blinked in confusion as she looked at that diamond, and it looked back at her, its shine a bit duller, its twinkle a bit softer. Slowly she pulled at the ring, feeling a sickening chill as she watched it slide smoothly down her finger until it was all the way off. She could feel the color drain from her face as she stared at the ring, now looking up at Rahaan, finally at Di, who was on her feet as well.

  “Your denial is the final bit of proof that all of this is goddamn real,” Di said softly, crossing her arms over her tight chest and looking right into Hilda’s eyes. “I bet you don’t even understand why you’re lying to us, why you’re hiding whatever it is you’re hiding. I had one dream that I believe connects us. But Rahaan said he had three intertwined dreams. I think you had them too, Hilda. And I think your answer lies in the intersection of those dreams.”

  “The answer to what?” Hilda said, trying to keep her voice steady as she carefully placed the ring on the table, trying even harder to fight the inexplicable feeling of dread that was seeping through her. She could only faintly remember the details of those three dreams from two months ago, and now she almost kicked herself for not writing them down. Yes, the Sheikh was in all of them. But God, she’d just met the guy and she had sensed an attraction between them. He was handsome and exotic, confident and direct. Hell yeah, he stood out. Damn right he was attractive! All of that could easily work its way into a dream. And so what if he dreamed about her as well? A totally reasonable coincidence. Three dreams though . . . yes, it was weird they’d both apparently had three dreams. But were they the same dreams?

  “Doesn’t matter,” Hilda said finally, looking at the Sheikh but unable to hold eye contact for long. She couldn’t look at those green eyes that seemed to know her, seemed to actually care. “It’s too late now. I don’t remember those dreams clearly enough,” she said to Di. “And Rahaan doesn’t seem the kind of man who keeps a goddamn dream journal, so I doubt he remembers them too well either. He can make up anything and end up convincing both himself and me that we had the same dreams. There’s nothing here. A good story, maybe. But nothing else.
Nothing real.”

  “Except our child,” the Sheikh said, his voice unsteady with emotion, like he wasn’t certain of what he was saying but was somehow compelled to say it. “Except our unborn child, Hilda.”

  31

  The Sheikh couldn’t believe his own ears, barely recognized his own voice. A part of him roared that he was mad, that he had crossed the line between imagination and insanity, that he was coming across as precisely that eccentric, insane, Arab billionaire whose head was in the clouds, mind up in the stars, believing things that only happened in fairy tales or in the twisted minds of kings closed off from the real world, living in their own fantasies.

  But then the Sheikh saw the answer in Hilda’s eyes, and he knew he was not mad even though the truth was dragging him to the edge of insanity. And he stayed still and strong, nodding slowly at the woman who was carrying his child.

  “You’re pregnant?” Di blurted out, taking a step back in shock as she looked back and forth between Rahaan and Hilda, her voice thick with an emotion that Rahaan couldn’t name. “Oh, my God, this is . . . this is . . . oh, God, when I walked in on you two earlier this week . . . tell me that wasn’t the first time you had sex! Tell me you two had made love before that . . . before you got pregnant! It wasn’t the first time, was it? Oh, God, it was! Oh, this is insane. Hair color changing is one thing. But getting pregnant . . . a new life . . . that’s off the charts. Oh, my God. Do you guys realize how . . .” She was sputtering and swaying, her face going red one moment, turning to the color of ash the next.

  The Sheikh glanced at Di and saw her eyes cloud over again, and now she looked at him, golden hair fierce like the sun, angry like the wind. Her sand-colored eyes blazed with a darkness, and the Sheikh watched her lips move silently as she backed away from him, those eyes still full of fire, the fire of a woman scorned, of a princess scorned . . .

  Now it came rushing back to him, and the Sheikh reeled as the image of Princess Diamante emerged in the theater of his mind, the princess he had rejected in another life, instead choosing his true love in that dream, his true love for whom he had also chosen exile.

  Ya Allah, he thought as he watched Di storm out of the store, golden hair flashing in the sun before she was gone. He turned as another flash caught his eye, and it was the diamond ring on the table, twinkling as the sun coming through the slowly-closing front door bounced off its sharp edges, almost blinding him with something brighter than light, a light that seemed to shine from the inside, from inside him, from inside her, from inside time itself.

  The Sheikh looked up at Hilda, his eyes narrowing with a sort of perplexed clarity as something from that book came back to him:

  But the reason we titled this book SIDEWAYS Through Time is that even our past lives are actually PARALLEL lives. Those past lives are indeed in the past, but they are also being lived right now in a way, just like your birth event and your death event both exist right now as two different places on the map of time. Which means that somewhere in the cosmos, in those parallel worlds, those past lives are STILL unfolding, with events still in flux, emotions still strong and real, unresolved and raw.

  That is the paradox of time, the fight between destiny and free will, a contradiction that can drive us mad if we try to use logic to understand it. Only intuition can explain it. Only instinct can approach it. Only emotion can make sense of it.

  And the only way to handle emotions these complex, channel intuition this strong, access instinct this deep is when our own normal consciousness is altered. People reach that altered state in different ways: dreams, drugs, alcohol . . . even sex, which can be the most transcendent of all if a couple can lose themselves in one another with absolute abandon. Yes, transcendent sex can be a path to making sense of the madness. Sadly, not many of us are blessed with such a connection, with a lover who can take us there.

  The Sheikh straightened as he looked at Hilda, holding her gaze as he felt a clarity take over his being, like he knew what he needed to do, what they needed to do.

  “You are correct,” he said quietly as he felt the heat rise in him, sensed an invisible mist begin to swirl around the two of them, like the cosmos was forming a protective cocoon around this couple. “The details of those dreams are hazy, and I cannot be certain if what I recall is memory or imagination. I also believe that you speak the truth about not remembering them. But if the answer lies in those dreams, then we will need to go back there, to that place where our consciousness opens up again, expands again, perhaps breaks down again.”

  “So a sleeping pill and a dream journal? Sure, Rahaan. That should pop us right back to those dream worlds. Yup, let’s just—”

  But he was on her before she could finish her sentence, and he shut her damned mouth with a kiss so ferocious she stumbled back, gasping in shock as he grabbed a fistful of her hair and held her steady as he kissed her again, hard and with authority, his heat rising so fast he could barely see.

  “Rahaan, stop, you fucking animal! What the hell do you—”

  But he kissed her again, holding her head in place by the back of her neck and the roots of her hair, ignoring her as she beat her fists against his hard back, tried to kick at him even as he pinned her tight against the dark red wall with his heavy body. He stayed with the kiss, stayed with it as he felt that surreal mist get stronger, that diamond shine brighter. He stayed with the kiss as she sputtered and whimpered, sobbed and spat. He stayed with the kiss until slowly she went loose, those fists going limp against his back, her fingers slowly sliding into his thick hair as she kissed him back.

  “I will take you there,” he whispered as he finally pulled away for a moment and looked upon her tear-streaked face, saw the need in her big brown eyes, sensed the desperation in her short, gasping breaths, like she understood how the mind was powerless to make sense of this, that it was time for the body to take over. “I will take you there, Hilda. Back to that place where time and space breaks down, where there is nothing but you and I, nothing but our love, our passion, what is timeless and eternal about us, what connects our bodies to our dreams. I will take you there, my queen. I will take you there and then bring you back again. Now let go. Let go, my love. Let go and ride with me. Let go and run with me. With your king, your prince, your lover, your man. With me.”

  32

  “Ride with me,” said the exiled king in her dream as Hilda felt the red walls of the store melt away, a rocky plain opening up before her and the Sheikh, snow-capped mountains in the distance, the snorting of horses heavy in her ears, the smell of crisp mountain air filling her lungs. “Let us ride to the corner of that wood and be alone for a moment, because tomorrow we reach the mountains and then the journey will be slow and hard. Come, my queen. Ride with your king into the warm shade of the forest before we head to the cold of the mountain passes.”

  “I am the farthest thing from a queen,” she said to him, looking into his green eyes that seemed warm as that nearby wood. “And because of me, you will never be king. Because of me, and because of what I carry within me. The fruit of our sin.”

  “What is done is done,” said Rahaan, his gaze unwavering, jaw tight as the wind blew through his long black hair, making his unruly strands look like battle flags against the gray mountains in the background. “A king does not apologize for his actions. And there is no sin when two fated lovers join together and create a new life.”

  “Fated,” Hilda whispered under her breath as she let the long-haired king of her dream lead her to that wood, away from the eyes of their loyal attendants who had joined them in exile. “And is your exile also fated?”

  “What is fated is that I am a king,” he said smoothly into the wind as he led their horses past the row of dark trees. “And once a king, always a king. Remember that, my queen. Always a king.”

  33

  “I will be king once I claim the throne,” he said to her as that carriage bounce
d through the country road, the horses heaving and pulling as she tried desperately to lace up her bodice and pat down her skirts before they arrived.

  She hadn’t meant to give herself to him so easily—certainly not in the back of a carriage like some harlot from the rookeries of North London. Of course, she was no whore—though she was not an untouched maiden either. Far from it.

  But it is he who was the first. And though I was married once, it is still only he who has truly had me. Yes, only he who has had me, she told herself as she straightened up in her seat and glanced over at his sharp, swarthy profile, his strong jawline peppered with a stubble more befitting a pirate than a king. He is the only man who has had me, even if he does not remember the first time.

  Well, certainly he might remember, she told herself as she caught sight of the outskirts of London in the distance, smoke from a thousand chimneys rising up into the blue sky, turning it gray as if reminding her of her deceit, of her sin. Yes, he might remember that night from three years ago. He just doesn’t know that it was me that night, my hair hidden beneath a kitchen-maid’s bonnet, my mind loose from a surreptitious swig of red wine, my body even looser, my virginity taken quickly and harshly by the Lord’s personal guest at the manor—a stranger with broad shoulders and thick arms, a sharp profile and dusky green eyes. A stranger. This stranger.

  She closed her eyes as the carriage slowed and took a turn, and she knew they were close now. Eventually he would know she had manipulated her way into crossing paths with him again, allowing him to seduce her again, in a way seducing him with her deception. And then what was to become of her? What was to become of them?

  Most importantly, what was to become of the one who was most innocent but yet irrevocably stamped with the mark of sin? What was to become of the child? The child of sin born two years ago, born to her, born in secret.