Sheikhs of Hamari: The Complete Series

by Leslie North

  “Good news,” said Chloe. “You don’t have to do that. I’m going to fix this for you.” Pride swelled in her chest. She could do this. This was what it meant to make the most of an opportunity like the one she’d seized with both hands back in Washington. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Iyad walked her to the front door and out into the joyful racket of the children playing on the playground. Chloe could feel the hope radiating from his skin. She wasn’t going to let him down.

  The SUV whisked her back to the palace, excitement thrumming under her skin. Getting the youth center working at its full potential would be her gift to Kishon. It would be repayment for the opportunities he was giving her. When this was all over, they would both have given equally. And she would have accomplished something other than marriage, which had never been the end goal for her.

  Chloe found him in his rooms—their rooms—and she came in on a gust of optimism that she saw reflected in his face.

  “Hi.” He took her into his arms, and a shiver of satisfaction fluttered through her. “I heard you visited the youth center.”

  “I have plans.” Chloe smiled up into his face, her heart missing a beat at the blue of his eyes, then rocketing back into its rhythm. “The programs…”

  “Tell me about the programs.” He took her face in his hands, studying her. “I want to hear what’s made you so excited.”

  She breathed in the scent of him, and desire pooled low in her belly. “Right now, it’s you.”

  He kissed her, a glancing press of his lips that teased her into throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him close. How many times had she imagined this while she stood behind the bar in DC? A hundred. A thousand. And nothing in her imagination had even come close to the reality of him. “Take me to bed,” she said breathlessly. “We can talk later.”

  “If you insist,” said Kishon, his voice blazing through her.

  She did.

  12

  “I’m seeing a lot of this lately,” Chakir said carefully, his voice caught up in what sounded like a breeze on the other end of the phone connection. “I wanted to be sure you were aware of it.”

  Kishon scrolled through the screen in front of him. “It’s tabloid nonsense.”

  Chakir laughed. “Is it really?”

  He bristled. “Yes, Chakir. I didn’t marry Chloe as part of a sponsored deal.”

  “But you have to admit that it was a publicity stunt more than anything,” Chakir pressed on. “Totally understandable, in the heat of the moment, but—”

  “Thanks for keeping me informed.” Kishon ended the call. He’d been planning to ask his brother where he was, exactly. He’d considered having Chakir come down to look at the more egregious articles with him and decide on a plan of attack. But the way Chakir had so flippantly dismissed his wedding, and his marriage…

  He swallowed a strange ache in his throat. Chakir was right, though he wasn’t about to admit that on the phone. He’d doubled down on his claim that Chloe was his fiancée because of the press.

  And the press had turned on him at record speed.

  He tried to focus on something else. His computer pinged at him to announce a new email—from Chloe, who had taken to sending him all her new ideas for the youth center. Guilt still stung at the center of him for the canceled honeymoon, and now he’d put her to work. Granted, she seemed to genuinely enjoy it, and any improvement to the youth center would look good. He trusted the staff to direct her energies and the carte blanche budget he’d given her to where they needed them.

  He read her ideas at lightning speed. Good, good, and good. He wasn’t going to question her too much—he had given her permission to do what she liked when it came to the youth center, and that meant letting her do it.

  But it was hard to focus on the email with all the tabloid news nagging at the back of his mind. The paparazzi had been pissed when their trip to Paris was canceled. Several of them had gone there to stake out the airports and get the first honeymoon shots of the newly married royalty. Now they were busy spreading rumors that the wedding had been staged—maybe the king of Hamari wasn’t quite so enamored with his American bride as they pretended, if he couldn’t be bothered to take her on a honeymoon.

  His desk phone rang. Kishon reached for it without taking his eyes off the computer screen. “Yes?”

  “Sheikh Kishon.”

  “Qamar.” He sat up straighter, even though nobody was in his office to see him. Kishon worked hard to maintain a good rapport with the elders—it was one of the foremost duties of a king in Hamari, after all—but hearing Qamar’s voice still sent a rush of adrenaline surging through his veins. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’ve become aware of some disturbing news reports,” Qamar said.

  “So have I.” Kishon laughed. “I hope you knew already that I would never plan a wedding and honeymoon as part of a PR campaign of any kind.” A beat of silence passed between them, and a chill blinked through Kishon’s gut. “Qamar?”

  “We’re troubled by rumors that the engagement was perhaps not legitimate. That it was faked.” The leader of the elders bit off the last word as if its very existence had offended him.

  “Of course not.” Kishon’s voice sounded gravelly and off, even to himself. “Of course not.”

  There was another pointed beat of silence. “Thank you, Sheikh Kishon,” Qamar said, then hung up on him.

  Kishon picked up his cell and dialed Chakir.

  “An interview. A puff piece.” Chakir stood confidently in the center of Kishon’s office, a fierce optimism on his face. “We all sit down together. The newlyweds and the engaged couple. We’ll give a pretty interview for the cameras, put out a few written articles, and show off all the love that’s going around the palace these days.”

  “This is not a traditional solution to bad press.” Kishon’s shoulders felt like they’d been wrapped in the world’s strongest rubber band.

  “Faking a marriage isn’t very traditional, either.”

  “Shh,” hissed Kishon. “I don’t need anyone attributing that quote to you, brother.”

  Chakir shrugged one shoulder. “Your situation isn’t traditional. There is another solution to all of this, you know.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “You could change with the times and stop worrying about what everyone will say. Or…you could admit you actually do love your wife. Then there’s no truth to the tabloid rumors.”

  “There’s still truth to it,” Kishon grumbled. “I did propose to her because of the paparazzi that night.”

  “What does it matter, if you love her?” Chakir narrowed his eyes. “If you love her, then all we need to do is prove it to the press.”

  “No. No.” Worry wormed its way up through his stomach. “I don’t love her. I’m—not in love with her.” The words had a bitter taste and a sharp feel in his mouth, but he powered through them nonetheless. He couldn’t love Chloe. She probably preferred him when he wasn’t acting in his role as king, anyway, and that was his life. The time they’d spent in Washington had been a dream. A fantasy. “This is only meant to be temporary. Schedule the interview.”

  Chakir looked for an instant as if he might reply, then gave Kishon a nod and walked out.

  “Is there anything you don’t want me to say?” Chloe asked out of the side of her mouth, barely moving her lips. A makeup artist swiped a last layer of powder over her face.

  “We’ve gone over the story of how we met. If we stick to that, we’ll be fine.” Kishon took her hand and squeezed, painfully aware of the cameras that were already rolling and the staff members around them.

  He was uncomfortable on the stools that they’d been given for the interview. The silver lining was that they forced their occupants to sit up straight and tall. There was no other way to sit. Kishon longed for a traditional chair.

  He also longed to be anywhere but this interview. The royal family of Hamari didn’t do puff pieces like this. He and Chloe were probab
ly the first couple—along with Chakir and Hannah—to talk openly about their relationships to the press.

  It felt wrong.

  The rest of the room bustled around him. The film crew talked softly among themselves. The palace chef bustled around the catering table. And Chloe held his hand.

  The next thing he knew, the director was counting them in. The interviewer, a man named Abdul, launched into his opening speech, looking straight into the camera. “Today we’re with Sheikh Kishon. Who have you brought with you today, if I might ask?” Abdul turned in their direction, giving them a subtle smile.

  “This is my bride, Chloe.” He sounded like a robot. Worse than a robot. He heard Chakir’s stressed-out exhale.

  The interviewer jumped in. “Sheikh Kishon, tell us about how you met your lovely wife.”

  And Chloe—gorgeous Chloe—winked at Kishon. “That’s for me. I met Kishon when he visited the bar I worked at in Washington, DC. I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love across a bar top, but look at him—he’s irresistible.”

  “How did you get to know each other while you were serving drinks?” The interviewer wore an encouraging smile.

  “Oh, your classic back and forth. He’d tell me his favorite movie, I’d tell him mine.”

  “What is your favorite movie?”

  “Titanic,” Chloe said instantly, and Kishon flashed back to the moment Chloe had told him that. She’d been earnest, almost daring him to laugh at her. “And Kishon’s favorite movie is Casablanca.” She’d poked fun at him for choosing something so snobby.

  “It’s true,” he offered, and the mood in the room relaxed.

  The questions kept coming, and it dawned on him—he did have a relationship with Chloe. It wasn’t all fake.

  “—like to do, even though we’re on a live stream?” The mention of the live stream was like a vise around his jaw. A live video had triggered his engagement in the first place.

  “Kiss her,” Chakir said, and Kishon realized what the interviewer had asked. His brother leaned over and kissed his fiancée, so passionate that Kishon looked away.

  He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t have that. He could hold hands with Chloe; he could kiss her gently in the gardens, but he could never be as vulnerable as Chakir. Kishon was the leader. That kind of immodesty wasn’t for him.

  Kishon fought back a curdling jealousy. Chakir’s wedding would be a media event—of course it would—but the elders wouldn’t bat an eye so long as he stayed roughly within the bounds of tradition. They were always watching Kishon. Everyone was always watching Kishon.

  “Tell us about Chloe,” said the interviewer, and Kishon realized the question was for him.

  Everything he knew about her flew right out of his mind…everything except the most base, inappropriate things. The way she looked when she came. The way she arched her back when she rode him. The way she collapsed onto her pillow after sex and required at least a five-minute nap.

  “She’s very kind,” he said, the breath going out of his lungs. “Smart. Funny.” He could have been describing anyone. “My wife is wonderful,” he said, every word striking him like an out-of-tune violin. And then Kishon found himself standing up. “That’s all for today.”

  The interviewer didn’t miss a beat. He turned to the camera and started giving a wrap-up speech.

  Kishon left the room without a backward glance.

  13

  The internet was blowing up, and Chloe couldn’t tear herself away.

  The photos of her and Kishon at the gardens were plastered absolutely everywhere. There were even more shots from the wedding itself. Dozens of blogs dissected their expressions during the wedding ceremony to prove or disprove the theory that the relationship had been faked. Hundreds of websites shared that news over again. Every time Chloe refreshed her search page, there were new results.

  She curled on the sofa in Kishon’s rooms, balancing a tablet on her lap. She’d showered and put on makeup as soon as he’d gone to his first meeting of the day, which made her obsession with the news coverage seem more respectable. She scrolled and read, scrolled and admired the photos of them from the wedding, scrolled and laughed, scrolled and seethed.

  The puff piece had done its job. This morning, it was dominating the internet coverage, spawning thousands of reactions from people around the world. They took screen grabs of every micro-expression on her face and spent paragraphs analyzing each one.

  It was exhausting.

  It was exhilarating.

  She couldn’t stop reading it.

  The people who thought the relationship was fake thought she’d done it for the money. The exposure. They thought she, a woman who would forever be unworthy of a sheikh, had trapped him in a marriage so she could cash in on the coverage for herself.

  In other words, she was in this for the money, and nothing else.

  It wounded her deep inside at a spot she hardly ever acknowledged, right in the center of an old ache. It made her feel hollow, to think that she’d only agreed to marry him out of selfishness. It made everything she did seem hollow. Horrible.

  She unfolded her legs and stretched. That was it. No more websites.

  Maybe just one more website.

  This one started out with a few kind words about the wedding, but quickly devolved into a supposed exposé about Chloe’s bartending days, complete with the video from the night of his proposal. She flinched at the sight of herself punching that guy. It could have really hurt her painting hand.

  Her cell phone rang. Mom came up on the screen, and guilt wrapped itself around Chloe’s throat and squeezed. Her mom had remarried five years before and moved out to Arizona with her new husband, and since all of this had happened, they’d barely had time to talk. Nancy and her husband had dipped in and out of Hamari for a scant couple of days for the wedding, and Chloe totally understood—Steve was dedicated to his business, and his business kept her mother stable and happy, along with everything else about him.

  “How’s the greatest mother in the world?”

  Chloe’s mom laughed. “I’m not sure, Chloe. A greater mother would still be in Hamari.”

  “Ew, no. We’re supposed to be on our honeymoon. All you’d have to do here is talk me up to all the staff.”

  “Supposed to be on your honeymoon?”

  Chloe cursed under her breath. “Yeah—it’s been delayed. Kishon is needed to plan his brother’s wedding. Apparently, there are a lot of traditional duties for the king when his brother gets married, so…we put it off.”

  “Chloe.” In that Chloe, she heard all the echoes from her childhood. How many times had her mom said her name in just that way, when Chloe was pretending everything was fine? She always knew. She always knew when something had gone wrong, no matter how much Chloe tried to hide it. “What happened?”

  “Exactly that,” Chloe insisted. “Chakir’s wedding is coming up, so we have to wait. It’s nothing.”

  “It’s something. Tell me.”

  A ridiculous, wild pain speared into the center of Chloe’s heart like a weaponized breath. A delayed honeymoon was nothing to complain about—not in the context of her life. They had been so poor when Chloe was growing up. A memory swam up from somewhere deep—her mother going through Chloe’s piggy bank so they could buy groceries, her face frozen in shock and embarrassment in the light spilling through Chloe’s open door.

  “I—” She wheezed in a breath and got herself back under control. “It’s different than I expected.”

  “How could you have had any expectations about marrying a sheikh?”

  “I just thought…” I thought I would be able to marry him without falling for him. “I thought I would be doing more painting than I’ve had time for.” A laugh tore from her throat. “We’ll get there. Marrying Kishon is going to let me paint all over the world, like I’ve always dreamed. I just have to be patient.”

  “Sure,” her mother said. “Sure, money can buy you international travel, but it doesn’t s
olve everything.”

  “What’s to be solved?”

  “If marrying Kishon hurts your heart, Chloe, how are you going to paint? You’ve always painted with your heart.”

  Chloe gritted her teeth. How did she know? How did she know about the tension that came with every beat of her heart, like all the love in her body pulled her toward Kishon as inexorably as gravity?

  “I’ll get to paint,” she said. I won’t get to keep him. “But I’ve got to get going. I love you, Mom.”

  Chloe’s mother loved her, too.

  She hung up without saying another word and let the tears come.

  “Chloe, what happened?” The door to Kishon’s rooms shut with a sharp crack. He rushed across the room and dropped to his knees in front of the sofa. He took her face in his big hands and looked into her eyes. Thud. Her heart still reacted just the same way to that particular shade of blue.

  “I made a stupid mistake.” She laughed through her tears. “I looked online, and I read all the things people are saying about me. I know I don’t look like a sheikh’s wife, but all the rest—”

  “Don’t ever look up those things again.” The authority in Kishon’s voice sent a pleasant shiver rocking through her muscles. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.” He kissed her then, his lips soft and searching.

  “There was more.”

  He pulled her back into another kiss. “None of it’s true. At least—none of it should matter here.” His eyes heated, an answering desire gathering between Chloe’s legs. She’d been so determined to come clean with him, but now her body took over. She arched her back and let him kiss down her neck. Let him take her shirt off. Let him peel off her leggings, let him strip her down until she was spread out naked underneath him on the sofa.