Page 38 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child

“Do you think?” she asked him.

Miles nodded enthusiastically. “You’re queen and Papa is king. And I’m the prince.”

“You’re the crown prince,” she said, agreeing with him.

“And you have to marry Papa,” Miles continued, matter-of-factly. “Or it won’t work.”

“What won’t work?” She had to fight to keep her emotions out of her voice. After all, Miles was only four. He didn’t necessarily know what he was saying. For all she knew he was just parroting one of his nannies.

“The king and the queen have to be married, Mama,” Miles replied, looking at her as if she was crazy. “Everybody knows that.”

“Sometimes mamas and papas don’t get married,” she told him, ignoring the instant cluck of disapproval from Yadira, who was still bustling around inside the dressing room and could hear every word. Shona still wasn’t used to that—to never being truly alone. But this wasn’t the time to worry about that. “That’s perfectly okay, you know. Marriage isn’t for everyone.”

“Maybe for mamas and papas who aren’t kings and queens,” Miles said, rolling his eyes. “But you’re a queen, Mama.”

As if it was something that went without saying. And so obvious that only a fool could possibly think otherwise.

And Shona didn’t know why, but there was something about Miles’s easy acceptance of her as a queen that...eased its way inside her.

Or maybe, if she was honest, it had more to do with Miles’s father. The demanding, focused and inventive Malak, who never stopped playing games with Shona—especially because now, they both won.

Sometimes he would insist that she stand through part of dinner, so he could make good on his threat and eat her alive as his dessert. He took her to his bed every night, and Shona kept waiting for the things they did there to grow old. Familiar.

Because all she’d known of sex and men was that one night long ago. Until another night five years later.

But it turned out that nights with Malak grew better the more of them there were. Deeper. Darker.

More and more magical the more time she had to learn him.

It turned out that Shona was a much better student than she’d ever imagined, back when she’d struggled to make it through this or that high school. Always the new girl. Always temporary. Always behind or ahead of the rest of the class. Always out of sync.

But not here.

She made progress with her Arabic. She learned how to walk like a queen. How to sit like a queen. How to handle herself when faced with the sorts of world leaders who would inevitably find their way to Malak’s side and who would hope to weasel their way closer to him through her.

All day she studied how best to become a queen while at night she learned more and more ways to come alive beneath the hands of the only man who had ever touched her. The only man she wanted to touch.

As far as she was concerned, Malak was the only man in the world. And he made her feel as if she was the only woman he’d ever laid eyes on.

Shona wasn’t sure she had ever felt so alive in her life.

So alive. And so in love with him, despite herself. When she’d always thought she was immune to such things—that love was a failing, not a joy. It was as if every hour was electric now. As if everything was new, even if she’d done it time and time again.

And that was why, the next time Malak called her his queen, she nodded.

She was stretched over him in his bed, her heart still thundering inside her chest. And better yet, she could feel his beating hard, too.

She had ridden him until they both tipped over into bliss, and then she’d collapsed against him the way she always did. His hands still held her bottom, his thumbs moving in rhythmic little circles. This way, then that.

But he went very still when she nodded, moving her head against his chest.

“I beg your pardon? Are you trying to tell me something?”

Because this was Malak. He would not accept a quiet surrender when a loud one would do.

Shona pushed herself up into a sitting position again, sucking in a breath when she felt him, still deep inside her. She felt boneless and wrung out, but all he needed to do was shift his hips and that changed in an instant. She could feel that glorious fire turn over deep inside her, as if she had an ignition switch that only he knew. She could feel the flames begin to lick against her. Everywhere they touched.

The way they always did.