Chosen for His Desert Throne Read online

  “Is that the question you wanted to ask me?”

  Tarek laughed at that, as if it was funny. And Anya took the opportunity to ask herself what she was doing here. Why wasn’t she on her way to the American embassy right now?

  Why was she sitting here next to Tarek, imprisoning herself by choice, as if he was cupping her between his palms?

  Worse still, she had the distinct sensation that he knew it.

  “It is more a proposition than a question,” he told her.

  And Anya did not need to let that word kick around inside her, leaving trails of dangerous sparks behind. But she didn’t do a thing to stop it. “Do you often proposition your former captives?”

  “Not quite like this, Doctor.” He didn’t smile then, though she thought his eyes gleamed. And she felt the molten heat of it, the wild flame. She thought she saw stars again, but it was only Tarek, gazing back at her. “I want you to marry me.”

  USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–nominated author Caitlin Crews loves writing romance. She teaches her favorite romance novels in creative-writing classes at places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, where she finally gets to utilize the MA and PhD in English literature she received from the University of York in England. She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her very own hero and too many pets. Visit her at caitlincrews.com.

  Books by Caitlin Crews

  Harlequin Presents

  Once Upon a Temptation

  Claimed in the Italian’s Castle

  One Night With Consequences

  The Italian’s Twin Consequences

  His Two Royal Secrets

  Secrets of His Forbidden Cinderella

  Passion in Paradise

  The Italian’s Pregnant Cinderella

  Royal Christmas Weddings

  Christmas in the King’s Bed

  His Scandalous Christmas Princess

  Secret Heirs of Billionaires

  Unwrapping the Innocent’s Secret

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Caitlin Crews

  Chosen for His Desert Throne

  For Eileen, of course.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  EXCERPT FROM THE KING’S BRIDE BY ARRANGEMENT BY ANNIE WEST

  CHAPTER ONE

  SHEIKH TAREK BIN ALZALAM had accomplished a remarkable amount in his first year as undisputed ruler of his small, mighty country.

  He had accomplished more than he’d lost.

  This was not only his opinion, he thought as he greeted the one-year anniversary of his father’s death. It was fact, law, and would become legend.

  He stood at the window of the royal bedchamber, gazing out on the ancient, prosperous walled capital city that was now his own. The city—and the desert beyond—that he had fought so hard for.

  That he would always fight for, he asserted to himself as the newly risen desert sun bathed his naked body in its light, playing over the scars he bore from this past year of unrest. The scars he would always wear as they faded from red wounds to white badges of honor—the physical manifestation of what he was willing to do for his people.

  His father’s death had been sad, if not unexpected after his long illness, twelve months ago. Tarek was his eldest son and had been groomed since birth to step into power. He had grieved the loss of his father as a good son should, but he had been ready to take his rightful place at the head of the kingdom.

  But his brother Rafiq had let his ambition get the best of him. Tarek hadn’t seen the danger until it was too late—and it was his younger brother’s bloody attempt to grab power no matter the cost that had required Tarek to begin his reign as more warrior than King. In the tradition of those who had carved this kingdom from the mighty desert centuries ago, one rebellion after another.

  Or so he told himself. Because his was not the only brother in the history of this kingdom who had turned treacherous. There was something about being close to the throne yet never destined to rule that drove some men mad.

  As King, he could almost understand it.

  As a brother, he would never understand it—but he rarely allowed himself to think of that darkness. That betrayal.

  Because nothing could come of it, save pain.

  His mother had always told him that love was for the weak. Tarek would not make that mistake again. Ever. His blind love for Rafiq had nearly cost him the kingdom.

  And his life.

  But now his brother’s misguided and petty revolution was over. Tarek’s rule was both established and accepted across the land—celebrated, even—and he chose to think of the past year’s turmoil as more good than bad.

  Some rulers never had the opportunity to prove to their people who they were.

  Tarek, by contrast, had introduced himself to his subjects. With distinction.

  He had shown them his judgment and his mercy in one, for he had not cut down his younger brother when he could have. And when he knew full well—little as he wished to know such things—that had Rafiq accomplished his dirty little coup he would have hung Tarek’s body from the highest minaret in the capital city and let it rot.

  Tarek could have reacted with all the passion and anguish that had howled within him, but he preferred to play a longer game. He was a king, not a child.

  He had made Rafiq’s trial swift and public. He’d wanted the whole of the kingdom to watch and tally up for themselves his once beloved brother’s many crimes against Tarek—and more important, against them. He had not taken out his feelings of betrayal on his brother, though that, too, would have been seen as a perfectly reasonable response to the kind of treachery Rafiq had attempted.

  His brother had tried to kill him, yet lived.

  Rafiq had been remanded to a jail cell, not the executioners block.

  “Behold my mercy,” Tarek had said to him on the day of his sentencing. There in the highest court of the land, staring at his younger brother but seeing the traitor. Or trying to see nothing but the traitor his younger brother had become. “I do not require your blood, brother. Only your penance.”

  The papers had run with it. A Bright and New Day Has Dawned in the Kingdom! they’d cried, and now, standing in the cleansing, pure heat of the desert’s newest sun, Tarek finally felt as if he, too, was bright straight through.

  Now the dust was settled. His brother’s mess had been well and truly handled, cleaned away, and countered. It was time to set down sword and war machine alike and turn his thoughts toward more domestic matters.

  And while you’re at it, think no more of what has been lost, he ordered himself.

  He sighed a bit as he turned from the embrace of the sun. He did not need to look at all the portraits on his walls, particularly in the various salons that made up his royal apartments. Kings stretching back to medieval times, warlords and tyrants, beloved rulers and local saints alike. What all those men had in common with Tarek, aside from their blood, was that their domestic matters had dynastic implications.

  If Tarek had no issue and his brother’s co-conspirators rose again, and this time managed to succeed in an assassination attempt, Raf
iq could call himself the rightful King of Alzalam. Many would agree.

  It was time to marry.

  Like it or not.

  After his usual morning routine, Tarek made his way through the halls of the palace. The royal seat of Alzalam’s royal family was a sixteenth-century showpiece that generations of his ancestors had tended to, lavishing more love upon the timeless elegance of the place than they ever had upon their wives or children.

  “The palace is a symbol of what can be,” his wise father had told him long ago. “It is aspirational. You must never forget that at best, the King should be, too.”

  Tarek was not as transported by architecture as some of his blood had been in the past but he, too, took pride in the great palace that spoke not only of Alzalam’s military might, but the artistic passion of its people. Like many countries in the region, packed tight on the Arabian Peninsula, his people were a mix of desert tribesmen and canny oil profiteers. His people craved their old ways even as they embraced the new, and Tarek understood that his role was to be the bridge between the two.

  His father had prepared him. And before his death, the old King had arranged a sensible marriage for his son and heir that would allow Tarek to best lead the people into a future that would have to connect desert and oil, past and present.

  Tarek tried and failed to pull to his mind details of his bride-to-be as he crossed the legendary central courtyard, a soothing oasis in the middle of the palace, and headed toward his offices. Where he daily left behind the fairy-tale King and was instead the London School of Economics educated CEO of this country. He could not have said which role he valued more, but he could admit, as the courtyard performed its usual magic in him, that he was pleased he could finally set aside the other role that had claimed the bulk of his attention this last year. That of warlord and general.

  Everything was finally as he wished it. There had been no unrest in the kingdom since his brother had surrendered. And with him locked away at last, the kingdom could once again enjoy its prosperity. No war, no civil unrest, no reason at all not to start concentrating on making his own heirs. The more the better.

  He inclined his head as he passed members of his staff, all of whom either stood at attention or bowed low at the sight of him. But he smiled at his senior aide as he entered his office suite, because Ahmed had not only proved his loyalty to the crown repeatedly in the last year—he had made it more than clear that he supported Tarek personally, too.

  “Good morning, Sire,” Ahmed said, executing a low bow. “The kingdom wakes peaceful today. All is well.”

  “I’m happy to hear it.” Tarek paused as he accepted the stack of messages his aide handed him. “Ahmed, I think the time has come.”

  “The time, Sire?”

  Tarek nodded, the decision made. “Invite my betrothed’s father to wait attendance upon me this afternoon. I’m ready to make the settlements.”

  “As you wish, Sire,” Ahmed murmured, bowing his way out of the room.

  Tarek could have sworn his typically unflappable aide looked...apprehensive. He couldn’t think why.

  Again, Tarek tried to recall the girl in question. He knew he had known them once—if only briefly. His father had presented him with a number of choices and he had a vague memory of a certain turn of cheek—then again, perhaps that had been one of his mistresses. His father had died not long after, Rafiq had attempted his coup, and Tarek had not allowed himself the distraction of women in a long while.

  It was a measure of how calm things were that he allowed it now.

  Tarek tossed the stack of messages onto the imposing desk that had taken up the better part of one side of the royal office for as long as he could remember. He crossed instead to the wall of glass before him, sweeping windows and arched doors that led out to what was known as the King’s Overlook. It was an ancient balcony that allowed him to look down over his beloved fortress of a city yet again. These stones raised up from sand that his family had always protected and ever would.

  He nodded, pleased.

  For he would raise sons here. He would hold each one aloft, here where his father had held him, and show them what mattered. The people, the walls. The desert sun and the insistent sands. He would teach them to be good men, better rulers, excellent businessmen, and great warriors.

  He would teach them, first and foremost, how to be brothers who would protect each other—not rise up against each other.

  If he had to produce thirty sons himself to make certain the kingdom remained peaceful, he would do it.

  “So I vow,” he said then, out loud, to the watching, waiting desert. To the kingdom at his feet that he served more than he ruled, and ever would. “So it shall be.”

  But later that day he stared at the man who was meant to become his father-in-law before him without comprehension.

  “Say that again,” he suggested, sitting behind his desk as if the chair was its own throne. No doubt with an expression on his face to match his lack of comprehension. “I cannot believe I heard you correctly.”

  This was no servant who stood across from him. Mahmoud Al Jazeer was one of the richest men in the kingdom, from an ancient line that had once held royal aspirations. Tarek’s own father had considered the man a close, personal friend.

  It was very unlikely that the man had ever bent a knee to anyone, but here, today, he wrung his hands. And folded himself in half, assuming a servile position that would have been astounding—even amusing—in any other circumstances.

  Had not what Mahmoud just told his King been impossible.

  On every level.

  “I cannot explain this turn of events, Sire,” the older man said, his voice perilously close to a wail—also astonishing. “I am humiliated. My family will bear the black mark of this shame forever. But I cannot pretend it has not happened.”

  Tarek sat back in his chair, studying Mahmoud. And letting the insult of what the other man had confessed sit there between them, unadorned.

  “What you are telling me is that you have no control over your own family,” he said with a soft menace. “No ability to keep the promises you made yourself. You are proclaiming aloud that your word is worthless. Is that what you are telling your King?”

  The other man looked ill. “Nabeeha has always been a headstrong girl. I must confess that I spoiled her all her life, as her mother has long been the favorite of all my wives. My sons warned me of this danger, but I did not listen. The fault is mine.”

  “The betrothal was agreed upon,” Tarek reminded him. “Vows were made and witnessed while my father yet lived.”

  He remembered the signing of all those documents, here in this very room. His father, already weak, had been thrilled that his son’s future was settled. Mahmoud had been delighted that he would take a place of even greater prominence in the kingdom. But it had taken Ahmed’s presentation of the dossier the palace kept on the woman who was to be his Queen to refresh his recollection of the girl in question, who had not been present that day, as it was not her signature that mattered.

  Perhaps that had been an oversight.

  “I would have her keep those vows,” Mahmoud said hurriedly. “She was only meant to get an education. A little bit of polish, the better to acquit herself on your arm, Sire. That was the only reason I agreed to let her go overseas. It was all in service to your greater glory.”

  “Those are pretty words, but they are only words. Meanwhile, my betrothed is...what? At large in North America? Never to be heard from again?”

  “I am humiliated by her actions,” Mahmoud cried, and this time, it was definitely a wail. And well he should wail, Tarek thought. For his daughter’s defection was not only an embarrassment—it would cost his family dear. “But she has asked for asylum in Canada. And worse, received it.”

  “This gets better and better.” Tarek shook his head, and even laughed, though the sound s
eemed to hit the other man like a bullet. “On what grounds does the pampered daughter of an international businessman, fiancée of a king, seek asylum?”

  “I cannot possibly understand the workings of the Western governments,” the man hedged. “Can anyone?”

  Tarek’s mouth curved. It was not a smile. “You do understand that I betrothed myself to your daughter as a favor to my father. An acknowledgment of the friendship he shared with you. But you and I? We do not share this same bond. And if your daughter does not respect it...”

  He shrugged. The other man quailed and shook.

  “Sire, I beg of you...”

  “If your daughter does not wish to marry her King, I will not force her.” Tarek kept his gaze on his father’s friend, and did not attempt to soften his tone. “I will find a girl with gratitude for the honor being done her, Mahmoud. Your daughter is welcome to enjoy her asylum as she sees fit.”

  Despite the increased wailing that occurred then, Tarek dismissed the older man before he was tempted to indulge his own sense of insult further.

  “You must take the part of the kingdom,” his father had always cautioned him. “Your own feelings cannot matter when the country hangs in the balance.”

  He reminded himself of that as he looked at the photograph before him of the blandly smiling girl, a stranger to him, who had so disliked the notion of marrying him that she had thrown herself on the mercy of a foreign government. What was he to make of that?

  Then, with a single barked command, he summoned Ahmed before him.

  “Why have I not been made aware that the woman who was to become my bride has sought, and apparently received, political asylum in a foreign country?”

  Ahmed did not dissemble. It was one reason Tarek trusted him. “It was a developing situation we hoped to solve, Sire. Preferably before you knew of it.”

  “Am I such an ineffectual monarch that I am to be kept in the dark about my own kingdom?” Tarek asked, his voice quiet.

  Lethal.

  “We hoped to resolve the situation,” Ahmed said calmly. No wailing. No shaking. “There was no wish to deceive and, if you do not mind my saying so, you had matters of far greater importance weighing upon you this last year. What was a tantrum of a spoiled girl next to an attempted coup?”