The Sheikh's Destiny by Olivia Gates Read Free Book Online

looked around. “You weren’t exaggerating, were you? No fridge? So how do you eat? Out? Or do you exist on takeaway? Or have a cook come in regularly?”
    “No cook. I get fresh ingredients delivered daily, use them up, rinse and repeat.”
    That actually sounded like a very healthy way to live. He was the picture of vigor and virility, so he was doing it right. Very.
    She leaned across the island, luxuriated in watching him coming closer. “So where’s today’s consignment?”
    He stopped before her. “I intended to have dinner out.”
    “Until me.”
    “Until you.”
    The way he said those words... Was there tenderness in his tone, or was it her imagination again?
    She cleared her tight throat. “So how am I supposed to feed you? You don’t even have dates, do you?”
    “I have all kinds of dried fruits.” He pointed toward the cupboards behind her.
    “I can use those. For dessert. For the main course, I bet you can get anything delivered at any time.”
    He brooded at her for what felt like an hour.
    Her gaze began to waver. He was going to outstare her and...
    He suddenly looked heavenward, as if asking the fates just what they’d thrown in his path tonight. Then he inhaled sharply, exhaled as forcefully.
    Wow. She’d done it. She’d dragged a full-blown reaction out of him. A human one, to boot.
    Her internal celebration hiccupped as he recaptured her in the crosshairs of his focus. “Fine. I’ll have whatever ingredients you require delivered. What do you want to feed me?”
    She barely managed not to jump and pump a fist into the air.
    Another minibattle won!
    Her smile was so wide she doubted her lips would revert to their former size. “What do you want to eat?”
    In response, he produced his cell phone, called someone named Ahmad then handed her the phone.
    As he walked away he said over his shoulder, “Surprise me. You’re superlative at it, after all.”

Four
    S urprise had long given way to ever-expanding disbelief as Rashid watched Laylah prowling all over his place, “taking care of him.” She was now in his kitchen again, preparing him dessert.
    This was not going according to plan.
    Why was he letting her do this to him? He should be the one setting the pace, calling the shots.
    Yet, since she’d pounced on him with her scarf and concern in that alley, he’d been letting her steer him. And this alien experience of being taken care of only got more...incapacitating.
    No one had ever done anything like this for him, to him. He’d never let anyone near enough to even try. Not even Haidar and Jalal. He’d once rejected all their efforts to impose their brand of caring on him. He’d since lived happily alone.
    Zain. So “happily” didn’t apply. He had no idea what happiness was. He’d heard people describe it. He’d observed them living it. It was what Haidar and Jalal appeared to be eyeballs-deep in now, with their brides. He’d never experienced anything remotely resembling their conditions and he’d been fiercely thankful for that. They’d been...compromised. Their power was no longer their own; their priorities forever messed up. He’d been unwavering in his belief that he wasn’t equipped to succumb to anything like that so-called happiness, that there was nothing to jog his ironclad order and intentions. Happiness, and everything else that people wanted, was for other men. Men with no mission.
    Then tonight had happened. She had happened.
    Laylah Aal Shalaan. This... shock.
    Instead of the self-centered and self-serving spoiled witch he’d expected her to be, a budding edition of her black-hearted mother and aunt, there was this...being who seemed to exude a pristine nature and an overwhelming generosity of spirit. He’d spent the past hours looking for chinks in her act. He’d found none.
    So he was floundering. Not only because she was not following the script he’d had in mind but because he wasn’t.
    He kept doing the opposite of what he’d intended to do.