Heir to a Desert Legacy - By Maisey Yates Page 0,37

that it was. Sex, the desire for it, for a woman, should not make him shake inside. And yet she did.

Which was why he could never touch her.

“I...that’s okay. I don’t need you to.” Thankfully, Chloe was as wary as he should be. She bent down and scooped Aden into her arms, holding him tight against her chest, using him as a shield.

“As you wish.”

“And I do. Wish it. That way.”

“I have business to take care of before the wedding. I’ll meet you at the coastal palace.”

“Is that where the wedding will be?”

“Yes. A small ceremony on the beach.”

“You have all of this figured out, don’t you?”

He chuckled, no humor behind the sound. There never was with him. No happiness. No lightness. And it made her heart burn. “At this point, there is very little I would claim to have figured out, Chloe James.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE OCEAN SIDE PALACE was an entirely different world to the main palace in central Attar. Here everything was washed white by the sun. The salt breeze coming in from the waves cooled the air, infused it with moisture, so unlike the arid heat found inland.

Sayid had spent a great deal of time at this palace growing up. A retreat from the times spent in the desert, living in Bedouin tents and learning how to survive in the harshest of environments.

Even now, walking into the cool, white stone foyer lifted a weight from him.

And then the realization that he was getting married in less than twenty-four hours, on the beach in front of the palace, hit him full force and any sense of Zen was lost entirely.

A wife. He had long given up the thought of having a wife. Thinking of marriage made him think of a different time. Of a beautiful girl with liquid brown eyes and a bright smile. Of the same girl, pale and terrified as she was forced into a car, taken from her home. Taken from him.

As he stood, men holding him in place, preventing him from going after her. Keeping him from rescuing her. From saving the only person who had ever mattered.

He put his hand on one of the white stone pillars, relished the chill that seeped through his skin. He looked out at the ocean, crashing into the rough, imposing rocks that stood sentry in front of the palace. He moved his palm over the pillar, so cold, like everything inside of him. As it had been since the day he’d lost Sura.

“She’s upstairs, on the balcony. Getting her henna done.” Alik was standing at the foot of the staircase, his hands in the pockets of his dark slacks.

“How long have you been here?” Sayid asked.

He and Alik had been through hell and back together. He was Sayid’s only friend. The only person who understood what the kind of life he led was like. What it cost. But at the moment, happiness wasn’t his dominant emotion when he looked at the other man. It was something else. Something dark, visceral and unfamiliar.

“Long enough to have bent her over the dining table out on the balcony once, taken her up against the wall in the bedroom twice, and in the bed...”

“Alik,” he said, striding forward.

“In theory,” Alik finished. “Every woman I desire is at my disposal, why would I touch yours?”

“She’s not my woman,” he said.

“She’s going to be your wife by this time tomorrow.”

“Only in name. Only on paper.”

“Not in your bed? A waste of a beautiful woman.”

Sayid strode past Alik and started up the curved, white stone staircase. “I don’t require your opinion on the matter, Vasin.”

Alik shrugged and walked to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll leave you to your fiancée. I have some security measures to check.” Alik disappeared around the corner, and Sayid continued on up the stairs, anger still coursing through his veins. There was no reason for it, not really.

Had he not told Chloe he would be taking other lovers? And had he not extended the same courtesy to her? Neither of them were likely to be celibate for sixteen years, and if Alik was one of the lovers she chose, could he truly be territorial about it?

Yes, dammit.

There was a line. And Alik would not cross it. He would make sure the other man knew that.

Sayid stalked down the hall and toward the open doorway that led out to the balcony that overlooked the sea. He saw Chloe, sitting in a plush chair, wearing a very small dress. Aden was in