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

He kept doing everything in his power to sabotage his own plans.
    Instead of grabbing this opportunity that had hurled itself at him, he’d found himself shaking it off as if it burned him. He’d done everything to push her away, when he’d been following her for weeks, planning how to get close. She’d had to push him and pull at him until he’d let her come here. When he should have suggested it, or at least not fought against it with all he had.
    But he had fought her every step of the way, his resistance becoming fiercer the more she’d clung. He’d tried all he could to talk her out of giving him what he’d planned to manipulate her into.
    So no, nothing was going as planned. Everything was going far better than anything he’d dared hope for.
    And that more than disturbed him.
    He’d never been in a situation like this. He always had a plan, then followed it to the last meticulous detail. Whenever he seemed to be improvising brilliantly, he was only following one of the contingencies he’d made allowances for.
    The only time he hadn’t done that to the letter, he’d almost paid with his life. He had paid with his mutilation.
    Even then, he hadn’t veered off his planned course that far. He’d never let anything or anyone sabotage his plans that much.
    But she was doing so by setting his plans on hyperdrive. What he’d hope to achieve in weeks had been condensed into hours. He hadn’t needed a strategy to get her where he wanted her. He was the one who needed to come to terms with how fast his plan was working when he hadn’t even meant to initiate it. He was the one who was wondering what had hit him. The one who had to struggle to catch his breath.
    Her enthusiasm might turn out to be as deleterious to his plans as her flat-out rejection could have been. Being so uncharted and unpredictable, it could prove even more catastrophic.
    His heart thudded as she flashed him a smile before resuming her work, humming some merry tune.
    Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe he should not question his good luck.
    But how could he not? Nothing like this had ever happened to him. He’d never been exposed to anyone like her. Was it any wonder he had no skill set in place to handle it or her?
    And that was why he was succumbing to her coddling. He kept searching through his head for a method to regain control of the situation. But he found no precedent with which to deal with her.
    The paradox was that she was overriding him with the sheer force of her...openness, her guilelessness. Her eagerness. Three qualities he had no experience with.
    He should be using her willingness to do anything for him, her unwillingness to leave him, to his advantage.
    Yet said advantage was the last thing on his mind. Thinking at all wasn’t among his capabilities right now. His faculties were all engaged in surrendering to whatever she wished to do, for him, to him. In dreading the time when she had to leave.
    These unknown reactions could be due to blood loss after all. Or the brush with resurrected insanity.
    He watched her move toward him, her undulations the essence of femininity, yet not in the least studied, as spontaneous as everything else about her. Her face was open for him to read, the smile that spread those full, flushed lips transmitting something he’d never thought to see. Pure pleasure at being with him. And it wasn’t gratitude. It was far more. He couldn’t think how this could be.
    But why think? Or analyze why she wanted to be here, why he wanted her here? Why everything was going so perfectly? It was an alien concept, but maybe he should just go along with it.
    Maybe this time, having his original plan destroyed wouldn’t end in disaster.
    * * *
    “I’ve discovered one thing you’re not superlative at!”
    At her triumphant declaration, Rashid raised his eyes in utmost deliberateness from the bowl he’d just wiped clean.
    Anyone would have quaked under the impact of his gaze.
    Laylah did quake. With an