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Chapter 58 Why I Am Here?
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DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 59 He Was There
Inside, she blinked as she looked around, because she was still outside, if beneath the outcropping above. She’d walked into what looked like some kind of castle keep and realized that what she’d taken for an ornate window between one floor and the next was actually a perfect place to pace around, staring down at the world far below. On clear days, Hannah Ynnah Russo’s assistant had informed her on the plane, it was possible to see the entire sweep of Sohar from the hallowed heights of the Hermitage. Aaliyah hadn’t cared much about that while flying. But now that she was up here, she found herself almost wishing that it was clear today. Because she imagined the view must be spectacular enough to almost make even her forced march worth it.And that was when some faint little movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. So she turned her head, and there he was.Her breath caught.Seeing him, it turned out, was significantly worse than imagining seeing him had been all these y
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 60 Omar Farouq Abu Bakir
A thousand possible responses to that flooded her. There was outrage and insult aplenty. She couldn’t deny that. And maybe, buried way down beneath it, some kind of hurt, too.Because she certainly remembered him. Every single day, whether she liked it or not.But in all of this, it had never occurred to her that he would fail to remember her in turn.She wasn’t sure she believed him. Even so, she wanted to remind him exactly who she was and who she’d been to him, if briefly. So much that she ached with all the things she didn’t say. She wanted to give him dates and times and even produce the one photograph she had of the two of them together, but she didn’t.Because if he didn’t remember her, Aaliyah couldn’t influence him one way or the other, and that was her entire reason for being here.And if she couldn’t influence him, if she didn’t have the leverage on him that Hannah Russo had imagined she would, Aaliyah might as well turn right around and leave.There was a different kind of
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 61 First Meeting With Omar
Omar Farouq Abu Bakir had never imagined he would see Aaliyah again, and that had suited him fine. He had imagined that she was off having a gleaming little life, telling stories of her glory days. He had made sure his glory claimed a prominent place on every tabloid going, lest she imagine for a second that he had even noticed her departure.He had been halfway to forgetting her before his parents died.And now he couldn’t think of anything that mattered less. But he knew this was not the time for self-loathing—or, rather, anymore self-loathing than he already indulged in regularly. There were things to be done and a whole lifetime that yawned out before him with ample opportunity to hate him as he deserved.“Wait,” he ordered her.Because Omar Farouq Abu Bakir could admit that he was faintly intrigued that a woman like her had turned to go in the first place. And it only grew when she didn’t stop walking. When she didn’t turn to stone or fawn all over herself while awaiting his next
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 62 Aaliyah, daughter of Sheikh Omer Ibrahim
Omar Farouq did not react to that. Not outwardly. For his treacherous, murderous cousin Khalid Abu Bakir would take that throne over Omar Farouq Abu Bakir’s dead body.Something his cousin would no doubt take great pleasure in producing for the country, but Omar Farouq was ready for Khalid Abu Bakir and his machinations. He had done nothing these last two years but prepare for the day he would come down from this mountain and clean up the mess Khalid had made.“The throne is not in jeopardy,” he said now. “I’ve told Hannah and all the rest of my ministers this myself. The Hermitage might look ancient, but I assure you, it is sufficiently wired to carry the concerns of my country to my ears at all times of the day and night. Sohar is not running itself. I am removed from the palace, but I have not abdicated my responsibilities.”Only after he said that did he realize that he...was justifying himself to Aaliyah Ibrahim, who had already walked away from him twice. As if he was not the Sh
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 63 Omar, Son Of Abdullah Abu Bakir
Until now, Omar Farouq had been grateful for all of these things. He found he resented this woman for awakening all the other parts of him that he’d cast aside when he’d come here, broken and grieving and determined to fix what had happened the only way he could.“Aaliyah,” she offered. Eventually. But she didn’t sound agreeable or obedient. Her gaze darkened as she glared back at him, as if she resented him right back. As if she dared that, too. She cleared her throat. “Aaliyah Ibrahim.”And her name in her own voice rang in him. Like a scrap of a forgotten song. A lyric, maybe, though the melody was lost. Though he told himself he was no singer, and he knew no good could come of recalling that long-ago night in a Cambridge pub, he said, “I know that name.”“My last name is Ibrahim.” Her tone was as suspiciously bland as her gaze was a storm cloud. “People do tend to recognize it. What with it being common as dirt and all.”“Was that an attempt to be scathing?” he asked, and then he
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 64 Aaliyah's Son
He turned then and strode back across the courtyard without as much as a glance over his shoulder to see if she might follow.And Aaliyah had the same internal battle all over again. She could turn on her heel now that he’d walked off. She could run back out that door and then charge down the side of the mountain. She assumed that Hannah still waited there, but whether she did or didn’t, there was no way to know how she might react to anything Aaliyah might do. She might not allow Aaliyah back in the vehicle. She might order her to turn around and head right back up to the Hermitage until she’d accomplished whatever it was the older woman imagined Aaliyah could accomplish here.There was no safe space. Not here on this island, plunked down in the middle of an uncaring ocean. Maybe not anywhere. The only safe space Aaliyah had known since she’d run out of that house in Cambridge was back in Tahoe, there in the little house tucked away in the woods that she shared with her aunt and her
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 65 A Dominant King
Something in her had died on that landing as surely as if one of the guards had struck her down. She had never been the same, even in those strange months she’d moved through her old life like a ghost, unaware that there was a new life inside of her.As if the dawning of that hideous understanding of what she and Omar Farouq really were to each other—no matter how deeply she had loved him—really had killed her where she stood.“So you mean to tell me that it was pettiness, nothing more.” His voice was a black ribbon of sound, and it hurt to hear. “The wounded feelings of a jilted lover. This, you felt, was sufficient reason to hide from me the existence of a son for five years.”Aaliyah felt small and ashamed—but then, nothing she had ever felt about this man was petty. Her hands curled into fists, but she made herself carry on.“I didn’t know I was pregnant until I was in the third trimester,” she told him quietly, choosing every word with care. “Maybe I didn’t want to know.” Or mayb
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 66 Her Past Life
“I live in a tiny town near Lake Tahoe,” she told him, keeping her tone even. Calm. “If you don’t know it, Lake Tahoe is a very large and beautiful lake on the border between California and Nevada in the Sierra Nevadas, notable for its ski resorts, its rustic charm, and its stunning scenery. There are quite a lot of tourists and resorts on the lake, in all seasons. I actually live a bit further out, in the hills.”Where life was much more affordable. Most of her neighbors worked on the lake the way she did but, like her, preferred a little space between themselves and the relentless influx of visitors requiring service.Omar Farouq did not question her further on the demographics of Lake Tahoe. He turned back to face her and seemed to be content to do nothing but study her while the silence grew. A muscle clenched and unclenched in his jaw, as if somewhere beneath the surface, that temper she could still scent in the air between them was getting the best of him.Aaliyah couldn’t imagi
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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
