The Sheikh's Marriage Bargain - Leslie North Page 0,4

and binding.” She planted her feet and held herself upright, but the earth tilted underneath her. “If you were to leave Raihan, your grandfather would be guilty of breach of contract. In Raihani law, that comes with its own set of penalties.”

Laila closed her eyes. Open your eyes and face it. But she couldn’t. The walls pressed in on her, rough stone brushing against her shoulders, and squeezed tighter. No room to breathe.

Whatever the legal consequences were, her grandfather wasn’t in any position to face them. Not with his dementia. Not at his age. And certainly not because of Harb. How was she going to fix this?

Her heart beat with the question, again and again, painfully loud. How? How? How?

3

Zayid kept his face utterly impassive. At least, he hoped it was utterly impassive, because he felt like laughing. How could she not recognize the crown prince of Raihan? The royal family made a point of visiting with the public regularly. Though this woman was an American visiting from the States, according to her story. Still.

While she had her eyes closed, he took in her face. She had a delicate nose and dark hair that moved with the breeze. Even if she’d been walking for hours, like she said, it still looked silky and gorgeous. He wanted to run his fingers through it.

She opened her eyes again. “Well, I—” She let out a sigh that caught at something deep inside him. “I’m not sure what I’ll do, then.”

He waited a beat, expecting it to be a cover. A front for something else. The last month had been the most headache-inducing of his life. The entire country knew that the crown prince was in search of a wife. That meant that everywhere he went, another woman threw herself in his path. Every woman’s mother had the perfect reason why her daughter was the only one who could rise to the challenge of being his wife.

And nothing could be worse than tonight.

The setup couldn’t have been more gorgeous—a fully decorated ballroom, a mild night with a warm breeze, and three hundred glittering guests. Zayid could imagine a person might enjoy it. He might even have enjoyed it, if it weren’t for the fact that he was supposed to be the prize at the end of the night.

His parents had drawn serious inspiration from the Cinderella fairy tale and decided to throw a ball. With pressure mounting and time running out, they’d thought it was the fastest way to find a bride. But what Zayid had found was a seething crowd of women with nerves strung tighter than a guitar string. Nobody had enjoyed themselves from the minute they opened the front gate, least of all Zayid. Two separate women had burst into tears when they stumbled over a word or two after being thrust in front of him by a fawning female relative.

Hence his escape to the gardens. The ballroom had been rendered entirely airless by the pressure in the room. Zayid prided himself on being the kind of person who could stand up to stressful situations, but even he had his limits.

He hadn’t expected to find a woman here, too. The gardens had been sealed off from the guests, but one of his guards had clearly left an opening—an outer gate left open, not any of the palace exits.

“Is there—” She grinned, wrinkling her nose. “Is there any more food?”

“Of course.” He took the plate from her and returned to the server he’d stationed around the corner. The man took off at a run and brought back a heaping plate, and Zayid found himself walking faster than his usual measured pace on his way back to the mystery woman. “Is this enough?”

“Oh, yes. I don’t need any more than this.” She really could eat. “I never thought I’d be in the position of climbing out my grandfather’s window and going on a chase through the foothills. Not that they were chasing me at the time. They might be now, for all I know. And when my car broke down, I thought, Laila, you’re going to have to tough it out. I didn’t realize...” She groaned, the sound featherlight on the breeze. “I didn’t know that contract could possibly be valid. That changes things.”

“And here I thought the party was the most complicated part of my day.”

Laila—her name was Laila. Zayid had access to the country’s most secret information, but knowing her name felt like a special privilege.

She flicked a glance up at