The Sheikh’s Reluctant Bride by Teresa Southwick Read Free Book Online

her squint and she resisted the urge to raise a hand and shield her eyes from the constant flashes of light. It was blinding; it was disorienting. It was weird not to be able to see who you were answering.
    “What do you do?”
    “Will you keep working?”
    “When are you going to have a baby?”
    “Are you already pregnant?”
    The personal questions shouted out so indifferently, so publicly, felt like a personal violation. The last one made her gasp as if she’d been slapped.
    Kardahl put his arm around her waist and drew her to his side. “Enough. This interview is over.”
    The next thing she knew, he was escorting her from the room. After he’d guided her through several doors and shut each one after them, the noise finally receded. He took her hand and led her through a set of French doors and outside onto a balcony with a view of the city lights in the distance. Blessed quiet embraced her along with the pleasantly warm night air.
    She breathed in deeply. “I take it back.”
    “What?”
    “When I said you wouldn’t be the right person to advise me about dealing with the media. I was wrong. That escape was well done.”
    He bowed slightly. “I am pleased that you approve.”
    This knight-in-shining-armor impersonation didn’t fit her formed opinion of him. Was it flawed along with her family sensibilities? Her only legacy from her mother was caution toward men. And this man’s exploits chronicled in publications around the world had proven that he wouldn’t know commitment if it walked up and shook his hand. So was she wrong about that, too? Or was he a heroic rogue? Was that an oxymoron? Or was she simply a moron for giving this situation more thought than it warranted.
    She stood on the tiled balcony in a puddle of moonlight. The last time she’d been outside with him alone, he’d kissed her. The memory made her mouth tingle and she needed to say something to take the edge off her tension.
    “You’re good at handling the press.”
    “I have had much practice. As a member of the royal family, I was born into the life of public servant. It is my duty to serve the people of Bha’Khar.”
    “Female people?” she couldn’t help asking. Apparently the tension still had an edge. The words popped out before she could stop them. She didn’t mean to be abrupt, opinionated and abrasive. She wasn’t normally like this. But he, and more to the point his kiss, had brought out the worst in her. Maybe it was her defense mechanism.
    With the French doors behind him, he was backlit and his facial expression concealed in shadow. But the statement had barely left her mouth when his body went rigid with tension.
    “I am the minister of Finance and Defense.” The words were clipped and precise.
    “I’m surprised you have the time, what with pursuing women all over the world.” There was the legacy of caution rearing its ugly head again.
    “Is it so hard for you to believe that I can put my responsibilities before personal pleasure?”
    “In a word? Yes.”
    “Little fool.” His tone made her shiver even though the evening was far from cold. “I am not an unfeeling man.”
    “Then the scandalous photos are misleading? And everything I’ve read about you is wrong?”
    “You should not believe everything you read in anything but an approved interview.”
    “So, in spite of what they print, you are open to love?”
    He slid his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo pants, marring the perfect line of the matching black jacket. When he turned to the side, light from inside revealed the muscle tensing in his jaw. She thought he wasn’t going to answer.
    “No,” he said. “I am not open to love.”
    She was surprised he would admit it. “Have you ever been in love?”
    She hoped her voice was calm because the rest of her was anything but. His answer shouldn’t matter to her but she found every one of her senses finely tuned as she waited for his response.
    “Yes,” he finally bit out. “I have loved.