Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59308 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 237(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
“She’s here, then?”
Malik wasn’t fooled at all by his cousin’s indifferent tone. “Give it up, Tarif. We both know it’s been eating at you nonstop that she still hasn’t given in to you.”
Like the rest of the royal family, Malik had found himself somewhat divided by the noticeable change between Anisah and his cousin, which was as entertaining as it was disconcerting. One moment it had been Anisah acting like a schoolgirl trying desperately to hide her unwanted fascination with the school delinquent, and then the next moment, it was Tarif struggling to act cool and hide his interest like he was John Travolta to Anisah’s Olivia Newton-John.
“Truth be told, I never thought you the type to waste time pussyfooting,” Malik couldn’t help commenting bluntly.
Tarif didn’t bother to answer. It wasn’t as if Malik wasn’t speaking the truth – or at least something close to it. The fact of the matter was, it had been two weeks now since they had last talked, and his plan to have Anisah come to him first had disastrously backfired.
Two weeks had already passed, and he had yet to find a chance to talk to her, much less have Anisah back in his arms. She wanted him as much as he wanted her. He would still stake his life on that. But what he had not counted on was his harpy’s sheer pigheadedness, and her continued refusal to surrender had him alternately seething and brooding like some damn moody bastard aspiring be a modern-day Heathcliff.
Why would she just not give in to him, dammit?
Why insist on an utterly pointless struggle that only caused both of them unwanted suffering? He didn’t fucking like the way she seemed to grow thinner and paler every time he chanced upon her in the palace, didn’t fucking like the way the circles under her eyes seemed to grow darker, and most of all, he goddamn hated every time he heard of Anisah’s increasing trouble at work.
He fucking hated knowing that he was the cause behind all of it, fucking hated it because he knew it shouldn’t be so in the first place.
Malik almost smirked when he heard Tarif mutter an expletive.
Damn her.
And no doubt the other sheikh was referring to none other than Anisah.
In their years of growing up, Tarif had always been the one among them who had the most luck with women. His older brother Altair, Rayyan, even the king – all of them had at one point or another had experienced woman trouble. But Tarif had always been the exception to the rule.
Or at least he used to be...until now.
“If you want her, take her,” Malik said mildly. “Hasn’t it always been that simple?”
“It’s different this time.”
Malik was amused. “You do know that’s just your pride talking and you’re acting like an idiot—-”
“Fuck off.”
A telltale click followed, and Malik grinned at the way the other sheikh had cut the communication line between them like some hormonal teenager unable to handle the truth. Tarif had always been the one to conceal his thoughts and emotions behind an air of laissez faire complacence.
And yet – to paraphrase what Tarif had said – things were different now.
Malik’s gaze turned to where Anisah was, waiting by the finish line at the edge of the crowd. She looked her usual poised and composed self, not a single strand peeking out of her hijab, and the soft flow of her abaya uninterrupted by a single crease.
Prim. Neat. Proper.
These were the words that perfectly described the court tutor, but those were also the type of words that hadn’t attracted his cousin. So Anisah was different, but did Tarif understand why that was?
Tarif’s own thoughts were not far from his cousin’s as he scanned the crowd until he found what he was looking for. She stood next to another 4x4, black glasses perched on her nose, and her nearly colorless lips pursed in seeming annoyance.
He noticed the way the men in the crowd appeared to veer away from her like students not wanting to draw the attention of a terrifying professor, and a humorless smile touched the sheikh’s lips.
Even now, it was a galling thing to swallow that he had once been as oblivious as them. Once, all she had been was a nondescript figure in court, a name that occasionally cropped up in conversation because of her work, a face that never registered in his consciousness because she had known exactly how to jerk his strings –
But things were different now.
And you cannot keep pretending it is not so, my sweet.
****
Anisah couldn’t keep her lips from tightening at the way the crowd surged towards Tarif Al-Atassi like pagans starved for their god’s affection. Both men and women actually jostled against each other to have a chance of nabbing a selfie with the kingdom’s playboy sheikh, and his female fans practically swooned when he took his aviators off.