Julia laughed croakily at his misunderstanding. “No, you idiot. Because I love you. You’ve blackmailed me, accused me of cheating on you, and let’s not even start with the fact you seduced me while I had amnesia…”
Zayn’s smile made her stomach flip over. “You seduced me, Sheikha, and not the other way around.”
“I think you’re right,” she agreed breathlessly. “Fine, letting me seduce you when you knew I had no concept of how our marriage had come about. And I loved you all the time. I would never, in a million years, for any compensation or out of any fear for dad, have married a man I didn’t love. Never.”
He closed his eyes as the surge of relief and gratitude made him strangely emotional. “You did love me?”
“I do love you, yes.” She corrected.
“I thought… that night, when I couldn’t sleep with you. I couldn’t take you to my bed, knowing that my love was one-sided, and that you were there only because you felt you’d been bought and paid for.”
She tilted a look of mock-crossness at her husband. “I thought I had been bought and paid for because you said as much at every opportunity you had.”
He stifled a groan. “How can you forgive me?”
“How can I not? This last month has been pretty agonizing. If you hadn’t arrived today, I would have been in Naman by the end of the week.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding and pulled her into his arms, so that he could kiss her properly now, as he’d been longin
g to do since she’d arrived.
“You are mine,” he said softly against her mouth, but Julia broke free of the kiss.
“No. I’m not anyone’s. I meant what I said. I’m not a possession. My heart is mostly yours, but you must always remember, Zayn, that I’m a person who is free to make decisions and choices. They won’t always match your wishes, but that’s life. And I want to share my life with you.”
Zayn held her face in his hands, staring down at the woman who did own him, body and soul, in every single sense of the word and grinned. “I suspect your wish will be my command, your highness, for the rest of my days.”
“And do you mind?” She asked, unable to resist lifting his shirt and running her hands over his muscular chest.
“Not one little bit, Sheikha.”
THE END
If you enjoyed reading BOUGHT BY THE SHEIKH, you will love THE SHEIKH’S VIRGIN HOSTAGE BY CLARE CONNELLY
CHAPTER ONE
“You, over there. You do not agree with me?”
Emma felt a trickle of danger run down her spine as she slowly raised her eyes to the all powerful leader of Amar’a, Sheikh Rafiq Al Sadini. His posture hadn’t changed. He sat, casually reclined, in the centre of the yacht’s luxurious saloon. Only a sixth sense alerted her to an inner tension. Like a spring, tightly coiled, and held in suspense. He was too still, too relaxed seeming.
“I asked you a question,” he repeated quietly, pinning her down with eyes as green and terrifying as a stormy ocean.
The full force of her hatred for this man made her body shake, but she fought to hide it.
Clearing her throat, she opened her mouth to speak. “I beg your pardon, sir. I’m not sure what you mean.”
His eyes narrowed. “You have two ears on the side of your head, do you not?”
Color stole into her lightly freckled cheeks. “Yes, sir.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “Listening is not a crime. I take it you didn’t agree with what I said?”
Since when did the exalted Sheikh of Amar’a care what commoners thought? She bit down on her lower lip, casting about for something acceptable to say. In the four weeks she’d been working for the royal family of Amar’a, she’d never thought about what she’d actually say if she got the chance to confront him. In those four weeks, she had only seen him a handful of times, and this was the first time he’d spoken to her.
“Come here.”
She swallowed away the urge to decline. She might hate him, but she feared him more. Tentatively, she crossed the room, unaware of how her body radiated trepidation as she went.