by Olivia Gates
He would claim the throne. And her…
For Prince Haidar Aal Shalaan, taking the reins of a kingdom in chaos is a matter of honor. Not that his rivals to the throne would be defeated easily. And then there is Roxanne Gleeson, the one woman whose memory he cannot erase, the lover who once rejected him. Now she pretends a cold disdain for their once—and still—desperate passion. But he will not be denied either the throne of his motherland or Roxanne back in his bed. One is his birthright, the other his heart’s desire. And together they are…his redemption.
It Was Fascinating, Shattering, This Glimpse Into His Past.
Another reminder that she hadn’t known him at all, another proof of how unimportant she’d been—that he hadn’t shared this with her, clearly a major incident in his life.
But it was worse than that. She’d believed he’d been born without the capacity for emotional involvement. It had been what had mitigated her heartache and humiliation. Believing he’d never given her what he hadn’t had to give.
But his emotions existed. And they could be powerful, pure. It seemed that it took something profound to unearth it, like what he’d shared with others. Not as trivial as what he had with her.
The discovery had the knife that had long stopped turning in her heart stabbing it all over again.
Dear Reader,
Writing Haidar Aal Shalaan’s story was a surprise with each word. He first appeared in Pride of Zohayd, his half brothers’ trilogy. In the last book, To Touch a Sheikh, he found out his mother was conspiring to depose his father and brothers to make him king. But even though he did all he could to abort her conspiracy, I knew then that it wouldn’t end with him a hero and the near-catastrophe forgotten, or forgiven.
And it wasn’t, least of all by him. As I wrote his story, he showed me his turmoil over his dichotomy, a man both blessed and cursed by birth. He shared with me how he’d had to fight all his life against what he thought to be his inherited nature, which he believed had cost him everyone he’d ever loved and stigmatized him forever. He was on a mission to redeem himself from the taint of his mother’s treachery, and to reclaim his heart from the woman who’d once trodden all over it. I thought he’d be a stoic, vengeful, hot-blooded knight of the desert as he accomplished both missions.
But he kept surprising me, demonstrating his duality in every word and action. He was fierce yet tender, unyielding yet flexible, unstoppable yet vulnerable and most of all, the last thing I expected him to be, he was funny. And fun. And boy, was he irresistible for it. His heroine, Roxanne, wholeheartedly agrees.
I truly hope you enjoy Haidar and his journey toward making peace with himself—and finally loving Roxanne well—as much as I did.
I love to hear from readers, so email me at [email protected]. And please stay connected with me on Facebook at my fan page, Olivia Gates Author, and on Twitter, @OliviaGates.
Thanks for reading!
Olivia
OLIVIA GATES
THE SHEIKH’S REDEMPTION
Books by Olivia Gates
Harlequin Desire
The Sarantos Secret Baby #2080
**To Touch a Sheikh #2103
A Secret Birthright #2136
††The Sheikh’s Redemption #2165
Silhouette Desire
*The Desert Lord’s Baby #1872
*The Desert Lord’s Bride #1884
*The Desert King #1896
†The Once and Future Prince #1942
†The Prodigal Prince’s Seduction #1948
†The Illegitimate King #1954
Billionaire, M.D. #2005
In Too Deep #2025
“The Sheikh’s Bargained Bride”
**To Tame a Sheikh #2050
**To Tempt a Sheikh #2069
*Throne of Judar
†The Castaldini Crown
**Pride of Zohayd
††Desert Knights
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
OLIVIA GATES
has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.
She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.
When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.
To my mom. The most courageous, persevering and accomplished woman I know. Thanks for being you.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
BPA
Prologue
Twenty-four years ago
The slap fell on Haidar’s face, stinging it on fire.
Before he could gasp, another fell on his other cheek, harder, backhanded this time. A ring encrusted in precious stones dragged a ragged line of pain into his flesh.
Disoriented, he heard a crack of thunder as tears misted his sight. Admonishments boomed again as more slaps tossed Haidar’s head from side to side. One finally shattered his balance, sent him crashing to his knees. Tears singed the fresh cut like a harsh antiseptic, mingling with the blood.
A tranquil voice broke over him. “Shed more tears, Haidar, and I’ll have you thrown in the dungeon. For a week.”
He swallowed, stared up at the person he loved most in life, incomprehension paralyzing him.
Why was she doing this?
His mother had never laid a hand on him. He’d never even gotten the knuckle raps or ear twists his twin, Jalal, drove her to reward his mischief with. He was her favorite. She told him so, showed him her esteem and preference in every way.
But there had been times lately when she’d been displeased with him, when he’d done nothing wrong. Actually, when he’d done something praiseworthy. It had bewildered him. Still, nothing could have prepared him for her out-of-the-blue, ice-cold fury just when he’d expected her to shower him with approval.
She stared down from her majestic height, looking as he’d always imagined a goddess of myth would, her eyes arctic. “Don’t compound your stupidity with whimpering. Stand up and take your punishment like your twin always does—with dignity and courage.”
Haidar almost blurted out that it was Jalal—and their cousin Rashid—who deserved the punishment. The “experiment” he’d warned them against and had refused to take part in had caused the fire that had consumed a whole chamber in the palace and ruined his and Jalal’s tenth birthday party.
Being habitually wild and reckless, Jalal and Rashid had long depleted their second chances with their elders. Their punishment would have been severe. Being the one with a track record of caution and commitment, his reserve of leniency was intact. So he’d stepped forward as the accidental culprit.
Just when his confessio
n had garnered what he’d expected from his and Jalal’s father and Rashid’s guardian—surprise followed by acceptance of his explanation and dismissal of the whole debacle—his mother had walked up to him.
Her eyes had told him she knew what had really happened, and why he’d stepped forward. He’d expected admiration to follow the shrewdness that made him feel she could read his slightest thought. What had followed were the slaps that hadn’t stopped even when her husband, the king of Zohayd, had ordered her to cease.
Haidar rose and lifted a trembling hand to the sticky warmth oozing across his left cheekbone. She swatted it away.
“Now beg your twin’s and cousin’s forgiveness for being slow in coming clean about your thoughtless transgression, almost causing them to be punished in your stead.”
Disbelief numbed him, chagrin seared his chest. It was one thing to take punishment for them, another to apologize to them, and in front of everyone present, relatives, servants…girls!
His mother clamped his face in a vicious grip, her long nails digging into his wound. “Do it.”
She released him with a shove, made him stumble around to face Jalal and Rashid. They were staring at their feet, faces red, chests heaving.
“Jalal, Rashid, look at Haidar.” His mother now spoke as Queen Sondoss of Zohayd, her voice clear and commanding, carrying to the whole ballroom. “Don’t spare him the disgrace of groveling for your forgiveness in front of everyone.”
Jalal’s and Rashid’s gazes wavered up to her before turning to him, apology and contrition blazing in their eyes.
His mother prodded him with a head whack. “Tell them you’re sorry, that you’ll never do anything like this again.”
Burning with mortification, he looked into his twin’s eyes, then into his distant cousin and best friend’s, and repeated her words.
* * *
“I didn’t do it!”
Haidar blurted the words out as his mother finished dressing his wound. Now that they were in the privacy of her chambers, he had to exonerate himself, if only in her eyes.
Her smile was filled with pride and love as she kissed the injury she’d inflicted. “I know.” So he’d been right! “I know everything. Certainly about you and Jalal and that rascal Rashid.”
His confusion deepened. “Then…why?”
She cupped his cheek tenderly. “It was a lesson, Haidar. I wanted to show you that even your twin and best friend wouldn’t say a word to spare you. Now you know that no one deserves your intervention or sacrifice. Now you know to trust no one. Most important, you know what humiliation feels like, and you’ll always do anything you must to never suffer it again.”
His head spun at her explanations, their implications.
He didn’t want to believe her, but—she was always right.
Was she about this, too?
She came down beside him, hugged him. “You’re the only true part of me and I’ll do anything so that you never get hurt, so that you become the man who will get everything you deserve. This world at your feet. Do you understand why I had to hurt you?”
Shaken by the new perspective she’d shown him, he nodded. Mainly because he wanted to get away, to think.
She stroked his hair and crooned, “That’s my boy.”
Eight years ago
“You’re just like Mother.”
Haidar flinched as if from a teeth-loosening slap.
Jalal was twisting the knife that had been embedded in his chest ever since they’d been old enough to realize what their mother was. What she was called. The Demon Queen.
To Haidar’s heartache, no matter his personal feelings for her, he’d been forced to concede the title had been well earned.
While his mother possessed unearthly beauty and breathtaking intelligence and talents, she wielded her endowments like lethal weapons. She flaunted being unpolluted by the foolish weakness of benevolence. Instead of using her blessings to gain allies, she collected cowed servants and cohorts. And she relished making enemies, the first of which being her own husband.
If it weren’t for her fierce love for her sons, or for him mainly and to a lesser degree, for Jalal, he would have doubted she was human at all.
But what had always tormented Haidar was that the older he got, the more he realized what a “true part” of her he was. He’d felt the taint of her temperament, the chronic disease of her traits spreading inside him. He’d lived in fear that they’d one day obliterate his decent and compassionate components.
It was ironic that Jalal had thrown that similarity in his face now, when he’d been feeling his mother’s shadow recede, her legacy loosening its noose from around his thoughts and inclinations. Ever since he’d met Roxanne…
“I take it back.” Jalal, the twin who resembled him the least of probably anyone in the world, shook his head in disgust. “You’re worse than her. And that I didn’t think was possible.”
“You talk as if she’s a monster.”
They’d never spoken this openly about their mother. They’d been speaking less and less about anything at all.
Jalal shrugged, the movement nonchalant but eloquent with leashed force. A reminder that though they were similar in size and strength, Jalal was the…physical one.
“And I love her nonetheless. But that’s the unreasoning affection a mother wrings from her child. You don’t get the same leniency. Not on this. This is one instance where I cannot, will not, rationalize or forgive your heartlessness.”
Unable to deal with his twin’s disapproval any better than he ever had, he let the fury and suspicion that had brought him to this confrontation take over. “So this is your strategy? Like they say in Azmahar, ‘Yell accusations lest your opponent beats you’?”
“It’s you who are resorting to ‘Hit and weep, preempt and cry foul.’”
Jalal’s derision scraped his already raw nerves. “I never suspected you’d be such a sore loser when Roxanne chose me.”
Jalal snorted, his eyes smoldering like black ice. “You mean when she was manipulated by you. Conned by you.”
Haidar suppressed another spurt of indignation, the frost at his core resurfacing. “Can’t find a more realistic excuse for trying to steal her from me? We both know I can get any woman I want without even trying, no manipulation involved.”
“You couldn’t have gotten Roxanne without it. She saw you for the ice-cold fish that you are that first night. It must have taken some Academy Award–winning acting to create the fictional character that she fell for.”
Haidar had never resorted to violence, not even while growing up among an abundance of male-only relatives who relished rough…resolutions. He’d always suppressed his temper, used cold deliberation to outmaneuver them. Now he wanted to smash in Jalal’s well-arranged face.
He gritted down on the urge. “The fact remains—she’s mine.”
“And you have been treating her like property. Worse, like a dirty secret, making her hide your intimacies from even her mother, forcing her to watch you flaunt the other women ‘you have without even trying’ in public. You told her they’re decoys to draw suspicion away from her, right? It must be killing her, even if she believes your self-serving lies. I can’t imagine what it would do to her if she knew you’d been playing her from the start, that she’s just another source to feed your monstrous ego.”
Haidar vibrated with a charge that seemed as if it would burst his every cell if it wasn’t released. “And you know all about her supposed turmoil because you’re her selfless confidant, right? And you want to take your so-called friendship from your squash dates into her bed. Well, hard luck. That’s where I am. Constantly.”
Jalal’s snarl felt like an uppercut. “Very gentlemanly of you, to kiss and tell.”
“No need for evasions since you know we’re intimate. And still y
ou try to take her away from me.”
“You don’t even want her,” Jalal hissed. “You seduced her to beat me. She’s just a pawn in another of your power games.”
“You were the one who started that game, as you’ve conveniently forgotten.”
“I forgot about that silly bet in five minutes. But you took it like you take everything, with obsessive competition. You went all out to entrap her.”
“And you’re out to save her from monstrous me? You’re admitting you want her for yourself?”
Jalal’s jaw hardened. “I won’t let you use her anymore.”
Rage blotched Haidar’s vision. He wanted to pulverize Jalal’s convictions. Arguments and defenses pummeled his mind. Then he opened his mouth and something from the repertoire of his lifelong rivalry with his closest yet furthest person came out.
A taunt. “How are you going to stop me?”
Jalal shot him a lethal glance. “I’ll tell her everything.”
His head almost burst.
Out of the rants clanging there, he snarled only “Good luck.”
If he’d thought he’d seen antipathy in his twin’s eyes before, he was wrong. This was the real thing. “Nothing good can come of this. You’re not only like Mother—you inherited the worst of both sides of our families. You’re manipulative and jealous, cold and controlling, and you have to win no matter the cost. It’s time I exposed your true face to her.”
Haidar’s blood charred with the futility of watching this train wreck. “There’s one hitch in that plan. If you do, it won’t only be my face she won’t want to see again, but yours, too.”
“I’m okay with losing Roxanne, as long as you lose her, too.”
The detonation of fury and frustration shattered his brakes. “If you tell her, Jalal, never show me your face again.”
Bleakness spread in Jalal’s eyes. “I’m okay with that, too.”
A door closed, aborting the salvo of reckless bitterness he would have volleyed at his twin’s intention.