only didn’t connect the dots between you becoming king and me becoming queen, I never contemplated being one, when it was all my mother thought of making me, too.”
His heart contracted at what he hadn’t contemplated. “It would be an unwelcome burden? A life you wouldn’t want for yourself or our children?”
The eyes that always shone with appreciation and humor grew somber. “It would be a huge responsibility and a radical change. It would take as drastic an adjustment.” Before he could blurt out that he would never disrupt her peace, that he would forget his kingship ambitions, her eyes glowed with conviction. “But I’ll share your choices and your life’s developments no matter what they are. If it’s your destiny to become king, then it’s my destiny to become your queen.”
And he forgot his abstinence resolution. His arms convulsed around her, his lips mashing to her forehead, to her cheeks, her lips, his heart overflowing. “Habibati…”
A rap on the limo’s window jerked him out of his surrender to poignancy. It had Laylah starting out of his embrace, too.
They both turned to find Amjad Aal Shalaan, Laylah’s oldest cousin and the infernal king of Zohayd, smirking down at them through the window.
Rashid hadn’t realized they’d been nearing the palace let alone that they were already there.
Shielding her from Amjad’s eyes, giving her time to rearrange anything he’d mussed, he opened the door and glared up at the man whose alliance he was supposed to court.
Even before Amjad’s transformation into a manipulative, borderline insane son of a bitch after his first wife had nearly poisoned him to death, he’d always rubbed Rashid the wrong way. There’d always been something about Amjad that reminded him too much of himself.
Against all expectations, Amjad had married again. Maram Aal Waaked, the daughter of the ruling prince of a neighboring emirate, Ossaylan. Amjad had tried to use Maram to force her father to return the Pride of Zohayd jewels, which, according to Zohaydan law and legend, conferred the right to rule the kingdom. It had turned out Maram’s hapless father had been blackmailed by the ex-queen of Zohayd, Sondoss, Laylah’s aunt, into helping her steal the jewels. Reportedly, Amjad had fallen flat on his face in love with Maram. Now after he’d been dubbed the Mad Prince, he’d become the Crazy King—crazy in love with his new wife.
That Rashid had to see to believe.
All he saw now was Amjad’s provocation as he met those startlingly emerald eyes on the same level. Not that he needed more than Amjad’s rude interruption of his tender moment with Laylah to guarantee his hackles wouldn’t subside for the foreseeable future.
“King Amjad,” he gritted between clenched teeth in lieu of a punch in the nose.
“Sheikh Rashid.” Devilry danced in Amjad’s eyes as he inclined his head. “Rumor has it you’re here on a bid to cure my cousin’s chronic spinsterhood.”
Before he could respond to that insolence, Laylah squeezed his arm, no doubt to stop him from putting his fist through her cousin’s and king’s smirking face. He’d been insane if he thought he could ally himself with this incorrigible creature.
“It’s so good to see being a harassed king and a henpecked husband hasn’t defanged you, Amjad,” Laylah said merrily.
Amjad continued talking about her as if she wasn’t there. “But then she’s been trying to catch your eye since she could toddle. Oh, yes, we all noticed. And cringed. It was excruciating watching her pant after you. Made me hyperventilate. So how did she suddenly succeed in curing your blindness to her splendor?”
The wily wolf was skeptical. Rashid had known he would be. Amjad had suspicion for blood. It was why he’d originally hatched this whole plan. To pass Amjad’s maximum-distrust inspection.
Amjad continued, “It was weird, how determined you were in not noticing her. It got so fishy, I asked Haidar and Jalal if they knew which team you played for.”
Against his better judgment, Rashid said, “There were years when speculation about your team loyalties ran rampant, too.”
Amjad’s grin grew more goading, delighted that he’d gotten a rise from him. “I didn’t have a smitten angel hero-worshipping me for years.”
“I hear Queen Maram did just that before you rethought your… predilections.”
Amjad’s eyes blazed greener. The bastard loved this. “Those were only put on hold after my monster bride slathered me in arsenic. That’s a good enough reason to swear off women for a few years, don’t you think? What was your excuse?”
It was no use. This would develop into a full-scale war.
So be it. And to hell with his alliance. “While you were getting over your self-pitying and preserving neurosis, I was serving my country and putting my life on the line for the region’s safety. I didn’t think it fair to involve a woman in a life that could end prematurely.”
Laylah’s convulsive dig into his arm transmitted how horrifying she found the what-if scenario.
He squeezed her hand, warding off the imaginary dread, reassuring her that he was here, would always be here, with her.
Amjad, not missing a thing, continued his inflammatory interrogation. “But that heroic existence came to an end a few years ago. What reminded you of my worshipping cousin all of a sudden? And made you not only look her way this time, but decide to take her off the shelf, and in record time, too?”
He decided to tell both of them the truth about this at least. “The reason I never looked at you—” he turned his eyes to Laylah, whose eyes filled with tears and wonder as she heard his confession for the first time “—wasn’t because I didn’t notice you, or wasn’t interested. I was, painfully so. But I wasn’t worthy of looking in your direction then.”
Amjad let out a deriding guffaw. “And you think you are now?”
Laylah stepped between them. “Are you two gigantic boys done chest-thumping, or do you need to release some more testosterone? Why don’t you just beat each other black and blue and get this ‘who’s the bigger, badder alpha’ thing out of your systems?”
Rashid watched as Amjad looked down with extreme amusement at Laylah, who cared not a bit that he was one of the most powerful men in the world, smacking him in chastisement, as if he was only her exasperating—and younger—relative and not her king.
Jealousy radiated up Rashid’s spine. Cousin or not, he wanted her to smack no other male, wanted no other male to revel in being smacked by her.
Amjad gave her a mock bow. “For knock-down, drag-out fights, and any other physically expressed stupidity, I’ll refer you to Harres. Or Jalal. Me, my wit is my lash, my tongue my sword.”
Fighting the need to shove him away from Laylah, Rashid said, “You imagine you wield such weapons, when it’s your status that stops people from showing you their real worth in a fair fight.”
Amjad pretended shock. “You mean you’re holding back in respect for my status?” He wiggled his eyebrows at him. “I hereby decree you’re free to do your best. Or is it only your worst?”
Again Laylah came between them, this time one palm flat on each of their chests, keeping them apart. “Down boys. In your corners.”
Amjad sighed. “Okay. Just because Rashid is an endangered species and we need him alive and able to breed. I don’t think we’d find you another mate if he expires.”
Laylah dug her elbow in Amjad’s gut, her smile so radiant as she looked up, asking Rashid to share the joke. He only wanted to poke Amjad’s green eyes out.
Turning to Amjad, she asked, “Is my father here?”
“You expected him to be?” Amjad scoffed. “That deadbeat? And I thought you were above such