Sheikh's Fake Fiancee by Jessica Brooke, Ella Brooke Page A

is lovely.”
    “Its beauty is only second to your own,” he said, bowing low. “You don’t have to face everything alone. You never have to feel that way. I’m right here, and I can help you.”
    “I just need to get home, and frankly, Bahan, I can’t be distracted.”
    “So I’m a distraction now?” he asked, an edge coming into his own voice. Bahan had tried to be patient, tried to reach her. Damn it all, he was trying to reach her now, but this bloody woman was the most stubborn being he’d ever met. It was growing impossible to be rejected all the time, and he didn’t understand how she could keep pushing him away. He was a sheikh, damn it, and he didn’t have to take these torturous vacillations in her mood. “How is that even fair?” he asked.
    “Because I loved last night. It was the best night of my life, hands down, but it wasn’t my real life. This isn’t a real marriage. You’re the one who knelt down in the hospital for me. You’re the one who told me all the specs that you and Fareed had come up with. I’m just the woman you inserted into slot B. You needed someone to help fill the spirit of the law. Yes, we have fun, but I just don’t have time for fun , and you can see why now, Bahan.”
    “Your sister didn’t suddenly nosedive in her health because you were away for a weekend,” he said, starting to pace.
    “But it feels like it. I was here when I should have been the person watching her by her bedside. I was here when I’m sure Mom’s a complete and utter wreck. I just…you’re too dangerous for my missions, Bahan, and I’m completely sorry about that.”
    He stopped and raked a hand through his hair. “But you’re not sorry.”
    “I’m not?”
    “No, this is what you expected all along. I can see it in your eyes when I talk to you.”
    “Because I can’t say more than ‘I care about you?’ Don’t you think anything more is far too fast after only a month?”
    “I don’t, actually,” he said, leaning low, getting so close to her lips that his breath was on her cheek. It burned him that that was as close as Jennifer would let him get to her. It somehow didn’t feel like just hours ago that those delicate, tender lips were covering every conceivable inch of his body. “I think that you can know very soon who you care about, whom you can be with.”
    “I don’t, and the truth is, the people who matter are my mother and sister. I can’t disappoint them again. If Sydney makes it, I have to always be by her side, stay focused.”
    “Of course, if you run away to New York now, if you just let the clock run out on our marriage until I secure the line of secession, then you don’t risk anything.”
    “I’ve risked more in my life than you know,” she said, her voice distorted through her gritted teeth.
    “Maybe, but I can see it all now. You’re going to pull the ripcord with me here and now, push me away because you’ve already convinced yourself no matter how hard I tell you otherwise that I can’t possibly love you back. You’re shoving me aside not for your family or Sydney’s health but because you’re a coward!” he said, panting hard.
    “That’s not true,” Jennifer said, zipping up her suitcase and trying to shove past him.
    He grabbed her arm tightly and spun her around to face him. “Look me in my eyes and tell me part of running isn’t because you’re scared, that this is about us too.”
    “It’s about my family,” she said again, as if reciting some nursery rhyme or school fact by rote, but he noticed the way her eyes wouldn’t meet his.
    “Then you can’t face the fact that I really could be the one for you. Admit that to yourself, at least. You’re trying to hide. I guess you’re not my wild one after all.”

Chapter Ten
    “How is she?” Jennifer croaked out as she raced out of the elevator and into her mother’s waiting embrace with Rose standing close by.
    Her throat was scratchy and hoarse, and that was her fault. She’d