Sheikhs of Hamari: The Complete Series

by Leslie North

  “What’s that?” He headed for the airport exit. The wheels of his carryon bounced over the ridges in the floor. They were slowing him down. He didn’t want to slow down—he wanted to run.

  “First, I need to apologize. For...keeping you out of my life all these years.”

  “Matek, it’s not really...” Her voice softened. “I forgive you. But it was on both of us, and—”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. But there’s something else I need to do, and I should have done it a long time ago. Only I couldn’t see it until right now.”

  “What’s is it?” Her voice was filled with hope and suspicion in equal measure.

  “I need to ask for your help.”

  17

  Nina’s heart was as empty and scattered as Matek’s apartment.

  She paused just inside the door, a hand to her chest. How long had he been gone? Three hours? It was as long as she could stand to be with the other women. Even getting down on the floor and playing with the children hadn’t dispelled the thundercloud that wrapped itself around her spine.

  The suitcase wasn’t helping.

  Matek had clearly been in a state when he left, because one of his suitcases lay abandoned on the coffee table in the middle of the living room. It hung open, and clothes spilled out the sides—as if he’d thrown them in and run away. She could hardly picture him doing it. When they’d packed to come to Damarah he’d been fast, but precise. Every shirt folded. Everything in its place. This wasn’t right.

  All the outrage from their fight seeped out of her and drained through the floor, disappearing in one breath. What had she been thinking, telling him to leave like that? Why couldn’t she swallow her pride and fight for what she wanted? Because an empty apartment wasn’t it. The space he left behind didn’t seem like an open door for new possibilities. It seemed like a basement with no windows. A dead end.

  Nina pushed herself away from the door. Whether Matek came back or not, she wasn’t going to leave the room like this. If he came back, she wanted him to come back to someplace nice. Cozy. The place she’d built for them both. She lugged the suitcase out of the living room and down the hall to the master bedroom.

  Oh, he’d been here too. The clothes were slightly askew on the hangers, and he’d pulled one of the robes almost all the way off before leaving it behind. A throb of pain shuddered over her body. One of the items on her agenda had been talking to him about the clothes for the party. Matek might not care very much about his wardrobe at these events, but she knew his sister did—and the rest of his family took note. So she’d split the middle. Matek wouldn’t have to spare the time to choose the clothes, and his family would see that the two of them as a unit did care.

  Caring for the others like this came naturally to Nina, even if her childhood hadn’t been that way. All that had mattered in her parents’ house were appearances for people outside the family. The nice clothes they bought were only to show off how much money they had. Within their own household, they didn’t have habits that were shorthand for I love you, I care about you, and I’m committed to being part of this.

  Tears gathered at the corners of Nina’s eyes, but she wiped them briskly away. No getting lost in her feelings. She could take at least one page from Matek’s book.

  Nina stood in the closet and put away the clothes, piece by piece. She folded a shirt and put it back into place.

  I love him.

  She folded another shirt.

  I love him.

  Nina slipped a pair of pants into their spot on a shelf, and clarity came like a splash of the ocean against her skin. Folding the clothes, running her hands along the fabric, putting them away—

  She dropped her hands to her sides. Putting the closet back together wasn’t an act of trying to earn Matek’s love. She did it because she loved him. Simple as that. As a finishing touch, she snugged the carryon suitcase up against the wall, straightened the clothes on the hangers, and closed the door softly behind her.

  Nina looked back through all the years of her life, flickering up in her memories like an old-fashioned film reel. The hours she’d spent making a cake for her mother’s birthday, followed by the way her mom hadn’t had time to see it. She’d been too busy preparing for the main event of the evening: a date with Nina’s father at an exclusive restaurant. The two siblings out of seven who’d bothered to show up for her high school graduation. It hadn’t mattered that Nina got excellent grades or put the prettiest frosting on cakes. She still hadn’t earned their love.

  And maybe...maybe life wasn’t about earning love. Maybe it was giving it, even if there wasn’t anything on the other side of the equation.

  She looked down at the swell of her stomach and felt a rush of love as powerful as a hundred people all hugging her at once. She caught that love in her heart and sent it to the baby. Whoever he or she was. Whatever they accomplished or didn’t accomplish—it didn’t matter. Nina dropped a hand to where she thought the baby was, suspended peacefully in her womb.

  “You don’t have to worry about being loved,” she said, feeling only slightly awkward. “The thing about love...” She took a big breath and released all the pent-up worry about Matek and the regret she held about telling him to leave. “The thing about love is that it’s either freely given, or it doesn’t exist. And mine exists for you. That’s all I know for sure.”

  Matek stuck a finger in his collar and pulled it away from his neck. “I don’t know about this, Devra.” He stood next to his sister outside the door to his own apartment. It didn’t seem like his own apartment. He’d only been gone a few hours, but he felt for all the world as if he stood in front of a stranger’s house.

  Devra’s hand on his elbow steadied him. “You can do this. And she’ll love the ring.”

  “How can you be so sure?” The floor rocked beneath him, and he struggled to find his balance. He had to seize it bodily from the air and concentrate on the sturdy connection between his feet and the polished wood beneath them. “I’ve never asked Nina about birthstone jewelry.”

  Devra arched an eyebrow, a smile flitting across her face. “I have. She’s admired my jewelry more than once. And before you say she was only being nice, she wasn’t, I promise you.”

  Matek leaned hard into the past version of himself who had trusted Devra implicitly. That person had been a little boy, but he could bring back the feeling if he concentrated.

  “All right.” He looked back at her one more time. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s a family tradition, brother mine. If there’s anything your fiancée loves, it’s family traditions. She’ll love this one, too.” Devra rose up on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Good luck.”

  Then she left him, looking over her shoulder only once.

  Matek went into the apartment and found Nina standing stock-still in the center of the living room, staring at him, her blue eyes standing out against her red cheeks and her hands resting on her bump. On their child. His heart exploded in a burst of regret and he slapped a hand to his chest.

  “You’re here.”

  “Where else would I be? I live here.” Her chin gave a telltale quiver. “Shouldn’t you be halfway to Germany by now?”

  He went to her, remembering only at the last second that he had the teddy bear from the airport shop tucked tightly under his arm.

  “I never left the country. I never left the airport.” Her lips pressed tightly together, and her eyes shone with tears. “I was a fool. I never should have set foot outside the palace. Not without you.”

  “Yes, well.” Nina’s eyes darted to the side, then came back to his. “You wanted to leave, and I couldn’t stop you.”

  “I should have stopped. I’m sorry, Nina. I was wrong. I was wrong about everything. I was wrong to think that professionalism—” A laugh burst out of him. How absurd was that? Unbelievable. “That professionalism was the answer in this situation. The answer’s love.” It sounded almost ridiculous, but the emotion welled from deep down, beneath
everything else in his soul. “I was in the toy shop at the airport today, and I saw this little boy, holding onto a bear just like this one. And he—” The last of the walls around Matek’s heart crumbled and fell. “He loved it. Just the way I did when I was a kid. I—I had this same bear.”

  Nina put her palms on his face, and at her touch, the awful sensation of being unmoored from the world disappeared. “I understand, Matek. I really do.”

  “I thought holding you at arm’s length would make things easier. But I don’t want that. I don’t want it now, and I don’t want it for our baby.”

  She grinned at him, a slow smile that lit up the room. “What do you want?”

  “To be better. To do better. With you. For you.” He took the ring box out of his pocket and opened it. “Pearl. Your birthstone. It’s the same kind of jewelry my sister loves, that her family buys for her. I wanted to start a tradition with it for us. And I wanted to propose something to you.”

  “Technically,” Nina said with a laugh, “we’re still engaged, I think.”

  “A bigger proposal than that.” He took her hands in his, the two of them cradling the bear between them. “I want to spend our summers in Hamari, with the other side of my family. I want to spend most of our time here. No more moving. There’s plenty of security work to be done right here in Damarah. I don’t have to go anywhere until you’re ready.”

  Nina looked deep into his eyes. “I accept. And now there’s something I want to show you.”

  She led him down the hall to his guest bedrooms and paused outside one of the doors. “Ready?”

  Nina hadn’t mentioned anything about this room, but his heart was so light and free he couldn’t imagine that anything behind the door would disappoint him. “I’m ready.”

  She opened the door, grinning even wider. “Here.”

  Matek stepped into his child’s nursery. He and Nina were both represented here, by the clean, white walls he liked. The colorful accents she liked. And the sensation that nothing could hurt, and everything was soft—and that was perfectly acceptable. Nina took his hand, and together they looked into the crib.

  “I have the perfect place for that bear. Right here.”

  Epilogue

  Matek hefted his glass high, and all the guests at the party focused on him in a wave of heat. The royal ballroom was full, and even more guests spilled out into the auxiliary ballrooms and the hallways. It was a good thing they’d hired Matek for security. The event had ended up being much larger than anticipated. It turned out that despite Matek’s feelings about the way his father ruled, lots of people thought very highly of him.

  “To my father, Armon,” he said into the handheld mic his own team had installed. “A blessed birthday, and many happy returns.”

  “Many happy returns,” echoed hundreds of voices from the tables in front of the low stage where the head table sat proudly. Every table had a gleaming white tablecloth and an arrangement of flowers, designed by Devra and Nina and the other women of the household. Against the stark white of the cloth underneath, they looked like miniature riots of joy.

  The guests drank to Armon. Matek was cocooned in their affection, here with his family. Here with every part of his family, other than his mother. His sister. His brother Jaleel, who sat at his father’s right hand. His father himself, smiling over all of it and pretending that he hadn’t wanted the party.

  And Nina. She was radiant in a wine-colored dress that reminded him of late nights in Hamari and even later nights in Damarah, though they’d had to replace the wine with grape juice. Nina talked about grape juice constantly. “I haven’t had it since I was a kid,” she’d say, every time he had the kitchen staff bring up a new pitcher. Next to Matek, she lifted her sparkling water and joined in the toast.

  The dinner service passed in a blur of laughter and congratulations and old stories that Matek soaked in as if he’d never heard them before. In a way, he hadn’t—not from this perspective, anyway. They didn’t have the sharp edges they’d once had.

  And then he and Nina found themselves at a table in the corner, listening to the music ramp up for dancing. The DJ shouted enthusiastically into the microphone, and Nina laughed at his terrible puns.

  Matek held out his hand in invitation, but she shook her head. “I’m good,” she said. “No dancing.”

  “What’s this I hear about no dancing?” Kishon, king of Hamari, put a hand on both their shoulders. He had come in three days earlier on his private jet, ready to celebrate. “Surely you two aren’t going to leave us on the dance floor alone.”

  “Leave her alone,” chided Chloe. “She’s pregnant.”

  “I am,” said Nina. “I need to put my feet up.” She fanned her face with her hand, then laughed. “But not quite yet. I can dance, if the rest of you are going to.”

  Matek took her hand under the table. “Only if you’re up for it.”

  Hannah and Chakir were the next to arrive at the table, faces already pink from a hasty turn at the center of the dance floor. Hannah dropped into a seat next to Nina and leaned in close.

  “Is everything good?” Matek heard her say. “You can tell me if it’s not.”

  “It’s good. It’s very good.” Nina shot a look at him, and Matek gave her a quick nod. “In fact, now that—Devra, come over here. Jaleel.”

  Devra made her way over from the next table, where she’d been chatting with some of the other guests. Jaleel did the same, hooking his arm through Armon’s on the way.

  Matek marveled at them all around the same table. His cousins. His siblings. His father. Now was the perfect time to give them the news. The feeling of being surrounded by people who cared about you overwhelmed him all over again. He cleared his throat. “Nina and I have some news to share. We had some testing done to make sure the baby’s healthy, and—”

  Chloe clapped, rising up on tiptoe. “Oh, tell us, tell us.” She clapped her hands over her mouth. Matek could see the smile shining through her eyes.

  “The baby is a girl,” burst out Nina, and the family cheered. Every single one of them.

  Kishon pulled Matek into a hug, pounding him on the back. “A girl! Congratulations, Matek. You’ll be an excellent father.”

  “I’ll try my hardest,” he said, and then Chakir, Hannah, Chloe, and Devra embraced him one after the other. His brother Jaleel stepped in next, shaking his hand hard, then pulling him in, too.

  Armon’s turn came last. The older man’s eyes shone with emotion. He took both of Matek’s hands in his and clasped them tight. “There’s something wonderful about having a daughter,” he said, in that gravelly voice that was familiar and strange all at once. “I’ve loved having sons, but—” Over Armon’s shoulder, Devra looked down at the floor, face flushed. “Having a daughter is something special indeed. I’m so happy for you.” Armon paused, then seemed to make a decision. “Do you think you’ll stay in Damarah? At least until the baby is born?”

  “Yes,” Nina said, slipping her arm around Matek’s waist. “You don’t have to worry, Armon. We’re staying right here.”

  End of The Sheikh’s Pregnant Nanny

  Do you love hot blooded sheikhs? Then keep reading for exclusive extracts from The Sheikh’s Convenient Bride.

  Thank You!

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  About Leslie

  Leslie North is the USA Today Bestselling pen name for a critically-acclaimed author of women's contemporary romance and fiction. The anonymity gives her the perfect opportunity to paint with her full artistic palette, especially in the romance and erotic fantasy genres.

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  BLURB

  In a desperate attempt to get out from her father’s control, Nora Williams agrees to marry a man she doesn’t love. But she’s shocked when her old friend, Sheikh Rashid, whom she hasn’t seen in years, begs her not to go through with it. Even more surprising? Rashid has a proposal. Literally. Nora should marry him instead. She had a secret crush on Rashid when they were younger, so the offer is awfully enticing. But Rashid is the crown prince of Omirabad—how could she possibly fit in with his royal family? And will she be able to follow her calling for midwifery the way she wants—needs—to? Worse, Rashid’s proposal feels more like a business contract than a marriage proposal. Until they kiss, that is.

  Rashid never had any illusion that his marriage would be one of passion. As a member of the royal family, he’s expected to marry before thirty and doesn’t have time to find a woman he actually loves. Until he hears of Nora’s predicament… He’d wanted to be more than friends when they were younger, but they’d never done more than exchange looks across a study table. Unfortunately, even with his proposal, he’s still only a friend to her. Their marriage of convenience, though, lasts about two hours before unraveling into a state of wedded bliss—at least for Rashid. What he doesn’t realize is how much Nora misses her midwifery work, or how very unhappy she’s become trapped in the palace. But the wife of a sheikh has no business working with his country’s poor or being reckless about her safety.

  As the two slowly grow closer, they must reconcile Nora’s calling with Rashid’s responsibilities to his country. And discover if this marriage of theirs is real or just a terrible mistake.