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Chapter 67 The Feelings Deep Inside
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2024-10-29 19:42:56Related chapters
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 68 Am I A Prisoner
But it wasn’t until she saw him wave that languid hand of his that she understood what he was doing. He was reverting back to type. Becoming that easy playboy of a prince she’d met long ago.The Prince his people expected, perhaps.She watched, strange suspicions gripping her, as he was welcomed home in a series of deep curtsies and informal bows. A rippling wave of them as he walked from the helicopter across the grand forecourt, and not the way he’d moved around the Hermitage last night.This version of Omar Farouq...sauntered. Aaliyah followed at a distance, aware that it was likely no coincidence that she was quickly flanked by a selection of royal guards as she moved, but she didn’t mind that. Maybe she should have, but she was too busy watching Omar Farouq as he put on his show.By the time they made it inside, she understood that he was striking a note somewhere between that grim, gruff man from the Hermitage and the lazy, pleasure-seeking wastrel he’d been when she’d so foolis
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 69 She Would Never Forget
Up on his dais, Omar Farouq was surrounded by a great many men and women dressed in fine dresses and many black suits, all of them holding folders or clipboards and frowning self-importantly. She found herself holding her breath as she studied him, as if looking for clues. Maybe she was. Maybe she thought that if she could find that long-ago lover in the King who stood above her now, all of this would make sense. Or even that man from last night, harsh and accusatory, yet somehow more accessible than the King he was now.Because even dressed in robes and a crown, this Omar Farouq was smiling. He seemed almost approachable, when he should have seemed anything but. It was the same thing she’d noticed earlier. As if he was somehow bridging the gap between the versions of him she’d already met.But thinking about that made her feel dizzy again, so she twisted in her seat and looked out once more to where the back wall seemed to dissolve into all that glass, creating a kind of optical illu
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 70 Omar Farouq Plans
OMAR FAROUQ THOUGHT he was keeping himself together masterfully, if he said so himself. And he was King now. What he said was as good as law.Yet he had underestimated how hard it would be to come back to the palace.Where his parents were not and never would be again.And he had been unprepared for how difficult it would be to see his own flesh and blood, his son, and not react. Not even approach him, there in that crowd, because it would draw too much attention to the child and it wasn’t time yet. Not yet.Not until he’d come to a better place with...all of it.He had even underestimated his own reaction to claiming Aaliyah as his future queen, something that sat uneasily on him even now. It had not felt like the chess move he’d thought it would. It had not felt tactical. It had been significantly more tactile, in fact.Omar Farouq had taken her hand, there at the foot of the stairs that led up to the dais, and it was as if the years had melted away. As if he was still that fool who
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 71 Mother Of An Heir
“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Aaliyah was demanding then, her hands on her hips and a distracting high color on her cheeks. “How dare you drag my son into this mess? In front of all those people and cameras? In this palace that isn’t fit for children in the first place!”“I was raised in this palace,” he said very mildly. “Though I’m guessing you won’t think that much of a draw.”He turned away from the view, leaning back on the rail so he could look at her instead. And also so he could practice that indolence that had once been such a part of him, because it no longer felt like second nature.That impossible prettiness of Aaliyah’s seemed to infuse everything, even the dusk settling around her shoulders like a shawl.That deep gold thread inside him pulled tight.That longing in him was something more like a roar—“Hear me,” she bit out, and whatever he might have been about to do disappeared, lost somewhere in the way she held her hands on her hips, her censorious gray
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 72 I Don't Care If You're A King
She sniffed, still glaring and, sadly, much less pink. “The very idea of ruling anything once had you collapsing in laughter on the floor. Yet here we are. Do you really want me to believe that the most reckless, careless man I’ve ever met is suddenly deeply concerned with the legitimacy of a child? Because I don’t believe it. I don’t believe you care. And I know you don’t care about me.” She lifted her gaze then and when it settled on him, it made him feel something he couldn’t understand at all. Small. When he had done nothing to earn that, save love her far too much and to his shame. “You never did. Why on earth would I shackle myself legally to that kind of misery?”She still would not put food on her plate, so he did it for her. And if busying himself with the serving was a way to avoid addressing what she’d just said to him, well.He was only a man, after all. As human as the rest.Even though she looked at him as if his serving her the island’s traditional food was a trick.“On
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 73 This Is Real Life
“This is real life.” And though her voice was quiet, he could hear the undercurrent in it that told him how deeply her feelings ran. But then, so did his. “It is Troy’s real life, Omar Farouq. This isn’t whatever game you think you’re playing with us. His life matters more than whatever dies are cast or whatever court intrigue is happening here. He has nothing to do with any of it.”“That is where you are wrong,” Omar Farouq replied, and he sounded almost regretful, there in the gathering night. Though he was not. There was nothing here to regret. Not when there was vengeance waiting in the coming night and, here between them, this same, simmering desire that had been there from the start. “You have had five years to enjoy being the sun and the moon and the whole of the stars for that little boy. That was not real life, Aaliyah. That was only ever a fantasy, and had I known sooner, it would not have lasted as long as it did. Because for all your talk of fairy tales and the things that
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 74 She Was On Fire
And later, after she’d whirled around and rushed off, he stared out at his city arrayed below him. The way he’d dreamed of doing these last two years. The dark came in at last, inky and thick, and he welcomed it.He exulted in it.For it was time to put the skills he’d taught himself at the Hermitage to good use at last. It was time to enact his vengeance.But he found he stayed there on that terrace—thinking of her mouth beneath his and the memories he wished he really had blocked from his own head—for much longer than he should have. When there was the whole of the island to reacquaint himself with under cover of night.No one would expect the King to tread in the places Omar Farouq intended to go in search of justice for his parents.And that was precisely what he was counting on.Ghosts or no ghosts.AALIYAH STAGGERED OUT into the hallway and then tried to walk along it as if everything was fine. As if she was fine when she very much doubted that she would ever be anything like fi
DUBAI THE CITY OF DREAMS Chapter 75 You're The King
The palace wedding machine lurched into gear, starting early the next morning. Squadrons of smartly dressed and impeccably cheerful staff members descended upon her in shifts, all of them insisting that everyone—by which, they meant Aaliyah needed to pitch in to get her ready for the role they’d decided she must take.But Aaliyah refused to play along.No matter how brightly her attendants told her that she needed to turn up at this time or in this place, she didn’t. Instead, she and her aunt took Troy for long walks when it was sunny, out on the rambling palace grounds, which she was sure had to be bigger than her favorite park in San Francisco. When the weather was less cooperative, they raced up and down the grand marble halls, as if the palace was no more than a playground.And in many ways, it was better than any playground they had ever been to before. The palace not only had hallways stuffed full of antiquities, but many of them also featured suits of armor and sharp weapons th
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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
