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Because I don’t want to be.
Who else but the king could choose whether he wished to attend such a gala in his own residence? Who else could be so arrogant, wear such a well-cut suit and be able to lounge in the residence’s garden at his leisure? She remembered the handler’s shocked look, and the handsome stranger’s small shake of the head.
You must work for the sheikh? she’d asked. Amused, he’d replied, Every day.
As she stood beside the vizier in the ballroom, her horrible suspicion built to certainty. Then she’d felt someone’s gaze behind her. Turning, she’d seen the handsome stranger himself now beside the door, watching her across the ballroom with cool, inscrutable eyes. And she’d remembered her own embarrassing words. I don’t know why any of these women would want to marry the king... This whole thing is just one camera short of a reality show.
At any time, the king could have revealed himself and stopped her. Instead, he’d just let her carry on making a fool of herself. Angry and humiliated, Beth had glared at him for a moment in the ballroom. Then she’d turned away, cheeks burning. When her interview with the vizier was finally over, the king was nowhere in sight.
She told herself she was relieved she’d never see him again. Just being near him had done crazy things to her. She shivered, her cheeks even now flooding with color at the memory.
He should have had the common decency to tell her who he was, straightaway. The man had no manners whatsoever. And if she ever saw him again—
The knock pounded again on her door, even harder and louder. Gripping the straps of her backpack, Beth answered the door with a sigh. “All right, I’m coming—”
Standing in the doorway, she saw King Omar himself, dressed from head to toe in regal sheikh’s robes.
Her jaw dropped as she took an involuntary step back. His black eyes pierced her. His powerful body seemed to fill every inch of the doorway as he looked down at her grimly.
“So. You know who I am.”
It was a statement, not a question. Trembling, she nodded. All her earlier ideas of pointing out his bad manners flew straight out the window. Her knees were trembling, and all she could think was that he’d discovered she wasn’t Edith. Why else would the king himself come to see her, rather than just having his servants escort her onto the Minibus of Shame?
“Why are you here?” she whispered through dry lips.
“I have good news and bad news, Dr. Farraday.” His husky voice was faintly mocking. “The good news is—you’re coming with me.”
Where? To jail? “Then what’s the bad news?” she blurted out.
“I’m afraid word has gotten out.” He paused, and fear rushed through her body, until he continued smoothly, “Paparazzi have surrounded this hotel. I’m here to escort you and the others out the back.” He motioned to a servant hovering behind him in the hotel hallway. “Saad will get your luggage.”
She indicated the backpack on her shoulder. “This is all I have. This, and the clothes on my back.”
The king’s dark eyes flickered over her. “I will send for more clothes for you.”
Beth shook her head in confusion. “It’s not necessary—”
“Isn’t it?” His gaze lingered over her oversize gray hoodie and baggy jeans as she stood in the hotel suite. She suddenly wished she had something nicer to wear. But that didn’t make sense. If he hadn’t learned her real identity, which it seemed he hadn’t, what did she care what the king thought of her as he took her to the airport?
And yet, somehow, she did care. Remembering how his darkly intense eyes had traced down her bare throat last night to her overflowing breasts, she blushed. Last night, it had felt like she’d wandered into a romantic dream, with the two of them alone in a moonlit Parisian garden.
Dream? No. He’d made a fool of her.
The third man to do that, she thought, and her heart lifted to her throat. “I don’t understand,” she said stiltedly. “The good news is that you’re taking me to the airport personally?”
“No.” His dark eyebrows lowered. “Back to the mansion.”
Beth frowned, bewildered. “All twenty of us are going back?”
“Only the ten who are staying another night.”
Beth stared at him.
“I made it to the top ten?” she whispered. It was so unexpected she hugged the thought close to her chest.
The sheikh frowned at her. “You are not pleased?”
Beth’s feelings were so mixed up she hardly knew how she felt. “Um...are you sure it’s not a mistake?”
He snorted, then tilted his head, considering her. “You are different.”
A flutter went through her heart. “I am?”
“Yes.” Their eyes locked, and his gaze electrified her body, from her fingertips to her toes and everywhere between. “So will you come?”
No. She had to say no. She’d gotten the million dollars for Edith. Only a fool would press her luck—
“Of course,” she blurted out.
A slow-rising smile lifted his sensual lips. “This way, if you please, Dr. Farraday.”
Dr. Farraday. As Beth walked with him down the hotel hallway, his servant following behind, her heart fell back to her canvas sneakers.
Remembering how angry she’d been at him for not disclosing his identity in the garden, she felt ashamed. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.
And if he found out—when he found out—
Oh, this was getting dangerously complicated. She’d never imagined he’d choose her to stay another night, not in a million years!
But one more day would mean another million for Edith’s research. Then tomorrow, she’d go home for sure. Surely she could fake it for another twenty-four hours. No one the wiser, and no one hurt.
But as she left the Paris hotel, going out into the bright sunlight where the limos waited, Beth barely noticed the paparazzi with their lifted cameras and shouted questions, and the bodyguards holding them back. Looking up at the handsome, powerful billionaire king beside her, she felt equal parts intoxicated—and afraid.
For the first time since she could remember, she’d been chosen for something. The king didn’t think Beth was ordinary. He thought she was different. That she was special.
The thought warmed her all over. Until she remembered he hadn’t chosen Beth.
He’d chosen Edith.
* * *
“You collected the Farraday woman from her hotel suite? Yourself?”
Khalid’s voice was shocked.
“I had no choice. She wouldn’t answer the phone.” Standing in the grand salon back at his Paris residence, Omar looked out irritably at the hordes of paparazzi now clustered outside the tall wrought-iron gates. Someone had tipped off the press about the bride market. Who? He wondered grimly. One of his scorned would-be brides? Or perhaps one of the ten he’d kept?
Perhaps Sia Lane, the movie star Dr. Farraday had called “downright mean,” had decided to hedge her bets with a little more publicity?
Whoever’d done it, the story had exploded instantly. It was too juicy for the media to treat it otherwise, with the famous playboy king of a small Middle Eastern kingdom bringing women from around the globe to choose a queen. The story was making news everywhere.
It’s one camera short of a reality show, Dr. Farraday had said. She was right.
Dr. Edith Farraday. Just thinking of her warmed Omar. She’d looked shocked in the hotel suite two hours before, as if she’d never expected to be chosen.
Perhaps he’d been wrong to choose her. But how could he send away the one woman who was different—the one who made his body come alive? He’d told himself that all his initial concern was overcautious. So he was attracted to her. What of it?
Attraction wasn’t love, or the kind of mind-blowing lust that caused civilizations to crumble.
He just wanted her. And there was some mystery in her that he couldn’t quite understand. Her lovely expression, frank and honest, had a way of changing, becoming guarded. As if she were hiding something from him. But what?
Today, he’d find out.
Then he’d send her home tomorrow.
“You shouldn’t have escorted her yourself. It’s not how it’s supposed to be done,” Khalid continued, obviously disgruntled. “If you escort one lady from her hotel suite, you must do the same for the rest. Otherwise it gives the appearance of favoritism.”
Omar dropped the curtain abruptly and turned to face the other man. “Dr. Farraday is my favorite,” he said bluntly.
His vizier’s expression soured. “But surely, she isn’t as beautiful or elegant as—”
“Say Laila al-Abayyi’s name, and I’m sending you straight back to Samarqara.”
The other man paused, and his mouth snapped shut. Then he ventured, “Dr. Farraday does not seem to have the same polish as the others. Perhaps she has spent too much time in her lab. The brief time I interviewed her, she was far too artless and frank in her speech. The council would not approve of her obvious lack of diplomacy.”
Thinking of Dr. Farraday’s casual, accidental insults to him in the garden, Omar was forced to agree. He said shortly, “She amuses me. Nothing more.”
“Ah.” His vizier’s face looked relieved.
“I collected Dr. Farraday from her suite because it was expedient. And I did not escort her to her room here.”
Although heaven knew he’d wanted to.
That morning, the other nine women had all rushed from their hotel rooms immediately after the phone call informing them they’d made the top ten. They’d clustered together, filling up the first limousine. Leaving Omar alone with the luscious Dr. Farraday in the second limo.
Sitting beside her on the drive from the hotel back to his Paris mansion, he’d been aware of her, so aware. It had taken all his willpower to make polite conversation with her, when his mind had been on something else altogether. He’d wanted to pull up the privacy screen to block out the view of the driver and bodyguard in front, so he could push her against the soft calfskin leather of the wide back seat, pull off that ridiculously baggy sweatshirt and discover the delights of the amazing curves she’d flaunted last night.
“Very well, sire...” his vizier said haltingly. “Of course you must enjoy your amusements in the midst of a serious business. So long as you consider your actual choice wisely. It took some trouble to bring these women to Paris.”
“Some money, you mean,” Omar said coldly. “I heard about the payments.”
“You are displeased with my method?” Khalid shook his head. “It’s nothing to your fortune. A mere rounding error.”
He glowered. “That isn’t the point.”
“Then what is?” His friend looked stubborn. “A bride price is part of the tradition, you know that. Isn’t it better for the payment to go to the brides themselves, rather than the antiquated custom of paying their fathers?”
Omar could hardly argue with that. “Of course,” he bit out. “But still...”
“Still?”
He could hardly explain that it had hurt his pride. His friend would say, with some cause, that it was well deserved. He growled, “I never gave you authorization.”
“You just told me to arrange it. And made it quite clear you didn’t wish to be bothered with the details.”
Another thing Omar could not argue with. He scowled.
Khalid’s eyebrows rose. “And surely you approve of the results. All these women are beautiful and brilliant. Just as you commanded.”
“Yes,” he was forced to concede. Based on their pictures and resumes alone, they were more accomplished than he’d ever imagined. “Assuming they are willing to give up those brilliant careers to be Queen of Samarqara.”
“And why would they not?” Khalid replied indignantly. “Being Samarqara’s Queen is surely the greatest honor any woman could imagine.”
Omar hesitated. He’d assumed the same thing himself, and yet suddenly he was not so sure.
He himself had been forced to leave college at twenty-one and ascend the throne, casting all personal ambitions aside after his father had died. But he’d known that would be his fate from the day his older brother had died. As the only heir of a country that could still remember the horrors of civil war, Omar had always known he must put his country’s needs above his own. Any man of honor would have done the same.
And so it was with this marriage. After the awful tragedy with Ferida, he’d put marriage off indefinitely. Until, in New York on a recent diplomatic visit, he’d seen an elderly couple walking down Fifth Avenue. They hadn’t been special, or rich, or beautiful. But they’d held hands tenderly as they walked together. The man had gazed down lovingly at his wife, and she at him. And Omar had felt a sharp pain in his throat.
He did not expect that kind of devotion. Why would he? His own parents’ marriage had been a disaster. Selfishly trying to find love only brought pain, or worse—death.
Coming home, Omar had ordered his vizier to begin the preparations for the bride market. He wanted this marriage finished. Done. Before he ever let himself again be tempted by something so destructive as a foolish dream.
He would take a bride who felt the same. A woman who’d put others first, as Omar did. Who would see the sacrifice not just as a burden, but an honor.
At least most of the time.
“One of the ten women would see it as a greater honor than the rest,” his vizier said slowly. “She has no other career than to be a dutiful daughter and the pride of her people. She already speaks our language, knows our customs—”
Omar cut him off with a glare. Setting his jaw, he said with some restraint, “Bring the ten in now.”
His vizier’s jaw tightened, and he looked as if he were biting back words. Then he bowed and went to open the door to the grand salon. Outside, in the elegant hallway, ten women were waiting.
Eight of them, he’d meet for the first time. The ninth, he was trying to avoid. The tenth, he could hardly stop thinking about. He’d speak with Dr. Farraday last. She would be his dessert. His whipped cream. His cherry on—
Realizing he was starting to get aroused, he stopped the thought cold.
Because his vizier was right. As much as he desired Edith Farraday, she seemed an unlikely queen. Aside from her lack of tact, it was almost impossible that she’d be willing to give up her life as a research scientist. It was obviously her obsession, in spite of her strange reluctance to talk about it. And Laila was a nonstarter.
So he needed to seriously consider the other eight. Any one of them could be an appropriate queen, one the council would approve of, and if he were lucky, one he could admire and respect. So, for the rest of the afternoon and evening, he’d meet with each woman privately, for as long or short a time as he deemed appropriate.
But the plans for today had been that he’d get to know his ten potential brides by touring the sights of Paris with each of them separately. That would be more difficult with paparazzi outside the gate, holding up their cameras as reporters yelled obnoxious questions. Anywhere they tried to go, the paparazzi would follow.
But at least it would not last long. Tomorrow morning, he’d send five more women home. The remaining five, the true contenders, would return with him to Samarqara to meet the council in preparation for the main event: the bride market itself.
Now, standing beside the banquet table, Omar watched as the ten women entered the grand salon of his Paris mansion.
Nine women looked like carbon copies, though all in different shades and colors—classically beautiful, slender, elegant, tall and perfectly dressed in sleek designer outfits.
