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Chapter 24 Promised Your Love
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DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 25 The Wedding
SIX MONTHS LATER Kyra's POVKyra smoothed her hair, feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement wash through her. Her dress was white and long, with traditional Al Jumeirah embroidery along the hem and sleeves. It was, as Noora had commented that morning, like the dress of a fairy-tale princess. Kyra couldn't help but agree. "Are you ready?" Maryam asked. Kyra glanced over at her soon-to-be mother-in-law, who was wearing a beautiful green dress and had allowed the palace's stylists to weave her hair into a stunning hairdo. "Yes." "I'm so happy for the both of you." Maryam reached out and squeezed Kyra's hand. "I thank my lucky stars every day that Ali Ahmed finally introduced us. I always wanted a daughter. And grandchildren." "I'm so happy that he did, too," Kyra agreed. "Can you believe that it was only six months ago?" "Not at all. If my darling son hadn't taken his sweet time telling me about you, it could have been six years ago!" Both women laughed softly. They still liked
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 26 Queen Amira Farouq
Queen Amira POVAmira Farouq, Queen of Muscat, Oman had barely registered the voice of the royal steward behind her when a man in a dark suit, his face harsh-looking and his expression inscrutable, met her at the bottom of the steps that led from the royal jet to this bleak stretch of desert.'Queen Amira. Welcome to Jumeirah, Dubai.''Thank you.'He bowed and then indicated one of three armored SUVs waiting by the airstrip. 'Please accompany us to our destination,' he said, his voice clipped yet courteous. He stepped aside so she could move forward, and Amira threw back her shoulders and lifted her chin as she walked towards the waiting cars.She hadn't expected fanfare upon her arrival to marry Sheikh Omer al Ibrahim, but she supposed she'd thought she'd have a little more than a few security guards and blacked-out cars.Then she reminded herself that Sheikh Omer wanted to keep her arrival quiet, because of the instability within Al Jumeirah. Ever since he'd taken the throne just ov
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 27 The Captor - Abdullah
Abdullah Abu Bakir Ibrahim glanced again at the woman by his side. She sat straight and tall, her chin lifted proudly, her pupils dilated with fear.Admiration for the young queen flickered reluctantly through him. Her escape attempt had been reckless and laughable, but also brave, and he felt an unexpected sympathy for her. He knew what it was like to feel both trapped and defiant. Hadn't he, as a boy, tried to escape from his captor, Abdul-Karim, as often as he could, even though he'd known how fruitless such attempts would be? Deep in the desert, there had been no place for a young boy to run or hide. Yet still he'd tried, because to try was to fight, and to fight was to remind yourself you were alive and had something to fight for. The scars on his back were a testament to his many failed attempts.Queen Amira would have no such scars. He would not be accused of ill-treating his guest, no matter what the frightened monarch might think. He intended to keep her for only four days un
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 28 Why Sheikh Omer Ibrahim?
'So you are one of the rebel insurgents Omer Ibrahim mentioned.'For a second Abdullah's gaze blazed fury but then he merely inclined his head. 'So it would seem.''Why should you be on the throne?''Why should Omer Ibrahim?''Because he is the heir.'Abdullah glanced away, his expression veiled once more. 'Do you know the history of Jumeirah, Your Highness? Why Ali Ahmed was crowned? And, suddenly he had a son from a Filipina woman?''I've read something of it,' she answered, although the truth was her knowledge of Jumeirah, history was sketchy at best. There hadn't been time for more than a crash course in the heritage of the country of her future husband.'Did you know it was a peaceful, prosperous nation for many years—independent, even, when other countries buckled under a wider regime?''Yes, I did know that.' Omer Ibrahim had mentioned it, because his own country was the same as in the Territory of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and had enjoyed nearly a thousand years of peaceful
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 29 Abdullah - The First Prince
Abdullah felt Amira's body tense beneath his touch and wondered why he had chosen to clean the cut himself. The answer, of course, was irritatingly obvious: because he'd wanted to touch her. Because, for a moment, desire had overridden sense.Her skin, Abdullah thought, was as soft as silk. When had he last touched a woman's skin? Seven years in the French Foreign Legion had given him more than a taste of abstinence.Of course, the last woman he should ever think about as a lover was Queen Amira, Omer Ibrahim's intended bride. He had no intention of complicating what was already a very delicate diplomatic maneuver.Kidnapping a head of state was a calculated risk and one he'd had to take. The only way to force Omer Ibrahim to call a national referendum was for him to lose his right to the throne, and the only way for that to happen was to prevent his marriage.His father's will, Abdullah mused, had been a ridiculous piece of legal architecture that showed him the brutal dictator he tr
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 30 The Wedding Arrangement
Amira paced the quarters of the elegant tent Fahad had escorted her to an hour ago. Abdullah had been right when he'd said he'd give her every possible comfort: the spacious tent had a wide double bed on its own wooden dais, the soft mattress piled high with silk and satin covers and pillows. There were also several teak chairs and a bureau for clothes she didn't even have.Had they brought her luggage from the jet? She doubted it. Not that she'd even brought much from Muscat. She'd only been intending to stay for three days: a quiet ceremony, a quick honeymoon, and then a return to Muscat, Sultanate of Oman to introduce Sheikh Omer Ibrahim to her people.Abdullah stepped inside the tent. Amira had already retreated to the far side, the copper tub between them like a barrier, her slight body swallowed up by the robe.'I'm sorry,' Abdullah said. 'I didn't know you were in the bath.''So you said.''You don't believe me?''Why should I believe anything you say?' she retorted. 'You haven
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 31 Her Strategy
Amira opened her eyes slowly, blinking in the bright sunlight that filtered through the small gap in the tent's flaps. Her body ached with tiredness; her mind had spun and seethed all night and she hadn't fallen asleep until sometime near dawn.Now she stretched and stared up at the rippling canvas of the tent, wondering what this day would bring.She'd spent hours last night considering her options. She'd wondered if she could steal someone's mobile phone, and make contact. Yet who would she call—the operator, to connect her to the Muscat palace? Her Head of Council, who would probably be delighted by the news of her capture? In any case, she most likely couldn't get a signal out here.Then she'd wondered if she could make a friend of one of the guards, and get him to help her. That seemed even less likely; both of the guards she'd met had appeared utterly unmoved by her predicament.Could she cause a fire, so its smoke might be caught by a satellite, a passing helicopter, or a plane
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 32 A Book
After Abdullah had left, riding off into the desert with several of his men, great clouds of dust and sand billowing behind them, Amira went back to her tent. To her surprise, she saw a book—The Making of Modern United Arab Emirates—had been placed on her bedside table. Was Abdullah being thoughtful, she wondered, or mocking?Curious, she flipped through the book. She already knew the basics of UAE's history: its many years of peace, isolated as it was on a remote peninsula, jutting out into the Arabian Sea. While war had passed it by, so had technology, and for centuries it had remained as it had always been, a cluster of tribal communities with little interest beyond their nomadic life of shepherding. Then, in the early 1800s, Sheikh Ahmad al Bakir Ibrahim, the great-great-grandfather of Hashem Abu Bakir Ibrahim, had united the tribes and created a monarchy. He'd ruled the Arab States for nearly fifty years, and since then there had only been peace and prosperity.None of it told he
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DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 86 The Queen And Queen Of Sohar
Omar Farouq trailed kisses from her navel to one breast, then the other, anointing them both with his tongue. “I will make myself vulnerable. I will open myself to you, Aaliyah, and show you all these dark things in me. For you, and my son, I will give whatever you wish. Whatever is needed. Whatever makes us whole.”“And I will do the same,” she said, wiping at her face, though her smile was so wide he thought he could lose himself in it. “I promise you, I will not make up stories in my head and decide they’re real. Never again. I promise you that I will not treat our child the way my parents treated me, never good enough. Always on pins and needles, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I want him happy. So loved it never occurs to him to doubt it.”“How could he be anything else?” Omar Farouq asked.She moved against him, making him suck in a breath. “And I’d like him to be the first, Omar Farouq. Of many.”A family, Omar Farouq thought, letting the notion take hold of him. He had los
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 85 The King Needs A Queen
Aaliyah didn’t need to be urged out of the SUV when it drove her off the ferry that Angelique had commandeered, then brought her to that little parking area halfway up the lonely mountain. She thanked the driver, then charged up the narrow path cut into the side of the mountain as if she had something to prove.Because she did.And it was probably wiser to get as much of her jagged, furious energy out before she reached the Hermitage.Only because she didn’t think that it would serve anyone if she went in there after him, guns blazing.She already knew where that would lead. And she needed this to be different. She had to find some way to make this different from what had come before.Once she got to the Hermitage’s gates, she worried that it was entirely possible Omar Farouq might have locked her out. If he’d had the slightest suspicion that she would come up here after him.But when she reached the door, a simple push opened it up, and she found herself in that stone court once more
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 84 He Needed An Heir
AALIYAH has stayed on that beach for a long time.And when, at last, she turned and started back up the path, she hardly knew how she managed to put one foot in front of the other.She didn’t understand how she was here again. How had she given this same man her heart again only to have him smash it once more?She wandered without paying any attention to where she was going until it occurred to her that everything she’d said to Omar Farouq was true for her, too.Sohar seemed at times a fairy-tale kind of place, but it was all too real. Omar Farouq’s parents had been murdered, for God’s sake. It was just as dangerous for a future queen—or an ex-future queen, to be precise—to wander like this as it was for a king.Or anyway, it was putting an unnecessary target on her back.Aaliyah found it helpful to have something to concentrate on. To figure out where she was, which was easy enough in a place she hardly knew because all she needed to do was look up to see the palace standing there at
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 83 This Is About Justice
“I’m not suggesting otherwise.” She moved closer, there in his arms, to press her fingertips on his chest. “They sound like truly wonderful people. I’m sorrier than you know that I never got the chance to meet them. That Troy never will. But that’s not my point. I spent a lot of time these last year’s thinking about the many ways I could get revenge on my parents for turning their backs on me when I needed them the most. Sometimes it was all I thought about. And do you know what I finally understood tonight?”“I do not want—”“Revenge is a poison, Omar Farouq. It mires you in your worst moments while time marches on without you. It chains you to darkness. I know this. I lived this. And all the while I made up revenge scenarios in my head, my son—our son—was growing up. They tried to make me give him up. And I still spent far too much time in my head, which means I might as well have let them take him.” She let out a soft breath. “Tonight made it all too clear. They don’t have any powe
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 82 Hidden Feelings
Every night, they came together and followed the fire that had always been between them, wherever it led. In the aftermath, they would lie together, with their breath coming fast and hard. And it would nearly burst out of him, the need to confide in her.The way it always had.“You can tell me,” she said quietly, watching him far too closely. “Whatever it is.”And there was something in her voice then that made him pause. He barked out a laugh. “Do you think it’s a woman?”She didn’t reply to that, which was a reply in itself, and he raked his hands over his face. He could not quite bring himself to laugh again. “You credit me with far more stamina than any man could have. Or do you not imagine that the demands we make on each other are more than enough for one person in one day?”“I have always thought so,” she replied, and he could see her eyes flash, there in the dark. Omar Farouq did not miss the emphasis on the word always.“I was in my bedchamber when you returned that day,” he
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 81 Tonight Is Different
She hadn’t even bothered to change out of the gown she’d worn to the party tonight. Her hair was as he’d rendered it personally, after several hours of tearing each other apart. It hung down to her shoulders and looked as if there had been hands in it.There had been. His, and they ached to get back to it.All this while she stood there, fully exposed. Anyone who happened by could see her, the future Queen of Sohar, wandering around in the dark for no good reason.He made as if to go to her, then stopped before he could. Maybe he shouldn’t reveal himself. She clearly couldn’t see where he’d got to. She was scowling, her hands finding her hips the way they often did when she was out of patience. Then she turned in circles, completely heedless of the fact that she was standing beneath the lantern and therefore in full view of anyone who might care to glance out a window.She was not exactly stealthy.The fact that he should stay hidden and make sure she failed to locate him was clear to
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 80 Omar's Cousin Khalid
“We received the news from an emissary of your...of the King,” her father said after several moments inched by. He scowled at her. “He insisted that we come and support you.”“And, naturally, since a random king I doubt you’ve ever heard of insisted, you came at once.”“We heard of him when those rude journalists camped out on our doorstep,” her father barked at her. “The neighbors will never look at us the same way.”“The horror,” Aaliyah murmured, with a bit more sarcasm than befitted an almost-queen.“I see that the years haven’t softened you any, Aaliyah,” her mother said with a sigh that made it clear she considered herself the victim here. “That’s a shame.”Aaliyah let out a laugh. “I didn’t want to give Troy away. You wanted nothing to do with me unless I did. I’m not sure what softening would have done to make that scenario any better.”Her father made a low noise as if registering how concerning he found this conversation. But Aaliyah kept her focus on her mother.As ever, An
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 79 Roller Coaster of Emotions
Especially when she found her aunt sitting on a swing in the rose garden, watching Omar Farouq and Troy kick a soccer ball back and forth on the royal lawn.Her heart squeezed so tight she had to stop walking and fight to breathe. Aaliyah had to remind herself—sternly—of the six hard years she’d struggled through.Almost entirely alone.She found she had to do that a little too much as the days wore on.“Maybe it’s not all bad,” said Corrine on one of their walks through the extensive palace gardens.Back home in Tahoe: They had often tried to put in a bit of a summer garden in what summer there was so high up in the mountains. Unkillable geraniums seemed to be the height of their gardening prowess.It felt a bit like a metaphor that even the gardens here were unutterably lush.“There are worse things, of course,” Aaliyah allowed, trying not to sound disgruntled.When, in fact, she felt disgruntled. She’d woken from strange, dark dreams to find Omar Farouq in the shower. He had bid he
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 78 There Is Only Eternity
Molten gold, impossible flame, and that maddening, glorious, drugging heat that was only and ever Aaliyah.Each thrust was better than the one before. Each gasp, each touch, a revelation.There was the fury, the rage. There was the hurt, the need.But beneath it was a deep kind of recognition.A truth he was not sure he could name.They tumbled this way and that. She rolled on top and stayed there for a while, riding him with abandon. Then he could take it no longer and flipped her again, coming over her once more. He took her hands and hauled them up over her head so she arched against him, and both of them sighed out the sweetness of it.All of it was sublime. None of it was enough.Maybe he had known all along, back then and in all the years in between that it never could be. That it never would be.That there was only this woman for him.No matter how he’d tried to pretend otherwise.No matter how he’d failed to forget her.Omar Farouq levered himself down, getting his face as clo
