Chosen For His Desert Throne - Caitlin Crews Page 0,1

been lost, he ordered himself.

He sighed a bit as he turned from the embrace of the sun. He did not need to look at all the portraits on his walls, particularly in the various salons that made up his royal apartments. Kings stretching back to medieval times, warlords and tyrants, beloved rulers and local saints alike. What all those men had in common with Tarek, aside from their blood, was that their domestic matters had dynastic implications.

If Tarek had no issue and his brother’s co-conspirators rose again, and this time managed to succeed in an assassination attempt, Rafiq could call himself the rightful King of Alzalam. Many would agree.

It was time to marry.

Like it or not.

After his usual morning routine, Tarek made his way through the halls of the palace. The royal seat of Alzalam’s royal family was a sixteenth-century showpiece that generations of his ancestors had tended to, lavishing more love upon the timeless elegance of the place than they ever had upon their wives or children.

“The palace is a symbol of what can be,” his wise father had told him long ago. “It is aspirational. You must never forget that at best, the King should be, too.”

Tarek was not as transported by architecture as some of his blood had been in the past but he, too, took pride in the great palace that spoke not only of Alzalam’s military might, but the artistic passion of its people. Like many countries in the region, packed tight on the Arabian Peninsula, his people were a mix of desert tribesmen and canny oil profiteers. His people craved their old ways even as they embraced the new, and Tarek understood that his role was to be the bridge between the two.

His father had prepared him. And before his death, the old King had arranged a sensible marriage for his son and heir that would allow Tarek to best lead the people into a future that would have to connect desert and oil, past and present.

Tarek tried and failed to pull to his mind details of his bride-to-be as he crossed the legendary central courtyard, a soothing oasis in the middle of the palace, and headed toward his offices. Where he daily left behind the fairy-tale King and was instead the London School of Economics educated CEO of this country. He could not have said which role he valued more, but he could admit, as the courtyard performed its usual magic in him, that he was pleased he could finally set aside the other role that had claimed the bulk of his attention this last year. That of warlord and general.

Everything was finally as he wished it. There had been no unrest in the kingdom since his brother had surrendered. And with him locked away at last, the kingdom could once again enjoy its prosperity. No war, no civil unrest, no reason at all not to start concentrating on making his own heirs. The more the better.

He inclined his head as he passed members of his staff, all of whom either stood at attention or bowed low at the sight of him. But he smiled at his senior aide as he entered his office suite, because Ahmed had not only proved his loyalty to the crown repeatedly in the last year—he had made it more than clear that he supported Tarek personally, too.

“Good morning, Sire,” Ahmed said, executing a low bow. “The kingdom wakes peaceful today. All is well.”

“I’m happy to hear it.” Tarek paused as he accepted the stack of messages his aide handed him. “Ahmed, I think the time has come.”

“The time, Sire?”

Tarek nodded, the decision made. “Invite my betrothed’s father to wait attendance upon me this afternoon. I’m ready to make the settlements.”

“As you wish, Sire,” Ahmed murmured, bowing his way out of the room.

Tarek could have sworn his typically unflappable aide looked...apprehensive. He couldn’t think why.

Again, Tarek tried to recall the girl in question. He knew he had known them once—if only briefly. His father had presented him with a number of choices and he had a vague memory of a certain turn of cheek—then again, perhaps that had been one of his mistresses. His father had died not long after, Rafiq had attempted his coup, and Tarek had not allowed himself the distraction of women in a long while.

It was a measure of how calm things were that he allowed it now.

Tarek tossed the stack of messages onto the imposing desk that had taken up the better part