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Chapter 30 The Wedding Arrangement
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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
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 33 Her Feelings
The sound of the pistol firing echoed through the still air, bounced off the boulders, and rippled the still waters of the oasis.Dispassionately Abdullah watched as the snake leapt and twisted in the air before falling a few feet away, dead.He turned back to look at Amira and swore softly when he saw her sway, her face drained of color, her pupils dilated with terror. Without even considering what he was doing, or why, he strode forward, caught her in his arms, and drew her shuddering body to his chest.‘I killed it, Amira,’ he said as he stroked her dark hair. ‘It’s dead. You don’t need to be afraid now.’She pushed away from him, her whole body still trembling. ‘What’s dead?’Abdullah stared at her for several seconds as the meaning of her question penetrated. He swore again. ‘I shot the snake! Did you not see it, but three feet from you, and ready to strike?’She just stared at him with wide, blank eyes, and forcibly he took her jaw in his hand and turned her head so she could se
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 34 The Art Of War
She looked up, her gaze unfocused as she recalled the way Abdullah had held her; the soft words he had spoken; the way he’d stroked her hair; the thud of his heart against her cheek.She felt deep in her bones that he’d been sincere, and the realization both terrified and thrilled her. She didn’t have real relationships. She didn’t know how. She’d been shy as a child, her parents’ distant figures, her only company a nanny, and then a governess. Even if she’d wanted, yearned, for such things, she hadn’t known how to go about getting them—and then Paulo had broken her trust and destroyed her faith in other people and, even worse, her faith in herself and her judgment.Was she misjudging Abdullah now? Was it simply her pathetic inexperience with men and life that made her crave more of that moment, more tenderness, more contact?Nothing about their relationship, if she could even use that word, was real.Yet it felt real. She felt as if Abdullah understood and even liked her for who she
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 35 Ali Ahmed Ibrahim's Half-Brother?
Abdullah glanced away from Queen Amira, his gaze distant, unfocused. He’d said before he’d tell her his side of the story when she was ready to listen, and here she was—ready.The trouble was, he wasn’t.‘Abdullah,’ Amira said softly. His name sounded right on her lips in a way that made everything in Abdullah both want and rebel.What was he doing? How had he got to this place, with this woman? It had started, perhaps, from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. When, in what could be considered courage or folly or both, she’d attempted to escape. When he’d seen both fear and pride in her eyes and known exactly how she’d felt.When he’d held her in his arms she’d curled into him, seeking the solace that he’d freely, gladly, given.And now she wanted more. Now she wanted the truth, which he’d told her he would tell her, except now that she’d asked he felt wary, reluctant, afraid. What if she didn’t believe him? What if she did?Finally, Abdullah spoke. ‘My mother,’ he said slowly, ‘w
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 36 A Bond Between Them
Abdullah’s gaze had blazed anger but Amira saw something beneath the fury: grief. A grief she understood and felt herself. And, even though she didn’t want to, she felt a sympathy for Abdullah, a compassion and even an anger on his behalf. He’d been terribly wronged, just as Leila had said.She thought of him as a boy, being banished from his family and home. She imagined his confusion and fear, the utter heartbreak of losing everything he’d known and held dear.Just as she had.She’d been a bit older, but her family had been wrenched from her in a matter of moments, just as Abdullah’s had. She was fighting to keep her rightful title, just as Abdullah was.With a jolt she realized what this meant: she believed him. She believed he was the rightful heir. For a second everything in her rebelled. You believed before. You trusted before. And this man has kidnapped you—how can you be so stupid?Yet she’d heard the sincerity in Abdullah’s voice. She’d felt his pain. She knew him in a way sh
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 37 Change Of Heart
Her lips parted instinctively and her gaze rested on his mouth, making her realize yet again how sculpted and perfect his lips were. She wondered how they would feel. How they would taste. She’d never actually been kissed before, which suddenly seemed ridiculous at the age of twenty-three. But a convent-school education and becoming Queen at just nineteen had kept her from ever pursuing a romantic relationship. First, there hadn’t been any opportunity, and then she’d been so focused on protecting her crown and serving her country that there hadn’t been any time. Besides, suitable partners for a reigning queen were not exactly plentiful.Queen Amira knew she shouldn’t be thinking of kissing Abdullah now. With effort, she dragged her gaze up toward his eyes and saw they were molten gold. His fingers tightened on her cheek, his thumb grazing her jawbone, drawing her inexorably forward. And Amira went, her heart starting to hammer as she braced herself for that wonderful onslaught.Then A
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 38 Knowing Their Pasts
Amira felt the kind of thrill of exhilaration she hadn’t experienced since she’d been a child riding in Muscat as she followed Abdullah. It felt wonderful to be on a horse again, the desert flashing by in a blur of rocks and sand. She had had no time for such pursuits since she’d been queen. She hadn’t ridden like this in years.The only sound was her horse’s hooves galloping across the sand. She spurred the beast on, eager to catch up with Abdullah —or even pass him. Although he hadn’t said, she knew it had become a race.Glancing behind him, Abdullah pointed to a towering, needle-like boulder in the distance that Amira knew must be the finish line. She nodded back and crouched low over the horse as the wind whistled past. She was only a length behind him, and in the last dash to the finish line she made up half a length, but Abdullah’s horse still crossed a beat before hers.Laughing, she reined the animal in and patted his sweat-soaked neck. ‘That was close.’‘Very close,’ Abdullah
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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
