The Sheikh's Captive Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

Princess Jasmine-inspired nightmare.
    She hovered there at the corner of the room until an older woman approached her. No, older was an unkind term. This woman had some graying at her temples and her skin was sun aged, but she was still gorgeous with huge almond shaped eyes and a thick braid of mostly black hair down her back. She wore a kaftan cut closely to her body in the brightest scarlet accentuated by a silver belt of coins around her waist.
    And she stood a good six inches taller than Emma, towering over her with a regal grace that she could never hope to mimic.
    The woman bowed to her, which shocked Emma completely. Frankly, after the manhandling from Kashif and One-Eye, she expected to be kept in a dungeon and beaten regularly until her father arranged her release. Instead, she was in the most beautiful dressing and living quarters she’d ever seen being treated like she was already the full sheikha.
    Trying to repay the respect – she needed as many allies here as she could muster if she were to figure out any plan of escape – Emma bowed back. “Hello, it’s nice to meet you.”
    The woman laughed and her voice was rich, yet soft like velvet. “Sheikha Emma, you don’t have to do anything for me. It is I who was offering you proper salutation. I am Basheera, your main handmaiden. Anything you need, I will be able to procure for you.”
    She blinked back at the other woman. Surely she’d misheard. “Handmaiden?”
    “Yes,” she explained coming closer and putting a hand on her shoulder. “Sheikh Yassin told me everything, about his plans to make you his queen. My goal is to help make anything and everything the harem has to offer yours. We will prepare you for tonight’s dinner.”
    She grimaced at the thought. “Excuse me? I don’t want to go to dinner with that arrogant prick. I want to go home.”
    “You are home, miss. That’s the point,” Basheera replied, steering her toward the dressing tables. The other girls glared at her and whispered and laughed to one another in what she assumed was Arabic. Basheera shouted something terse at them in that same guttural language and they scattered, still glaring at her as if they were cats with claws about to be unsheathed. Turning back to her, Basheera smiled broadly. “You get used to it.”
    “Get used to what?”
    “Get used to the jealousy of others. These girls served the king before, Munir’s brother, as well. They all have vied and tried to woo Munir, too, but he has always resisted.”
    “You’re not seriously going to tell me that he was waiting for me. That he’s never…”
    “Oh a lady never kisses and tells, but he’s not like his family, not one to have a collection of wives and harem women in addition to his beloved. He’s loyal like that. Alas, in his prime, his father, Shadid, was not.” Basheera said this even as she prepared the kohl for Emma’s eyes, but the sweet velvety tone in her voice took on a hardness. Her eyes would not meet Emma’s own.
    There was a story there.
    “Were you once the one for Shadid?”
    “We had a good relationship and now, in his old age I am still his favorite. I only know that the others can be catty and you must learn to bear the brunt of their harsh tongues.”
    “Believe me,” she replied, thinking of Allison. “I know exactly what it’s like to be made fun of.” She sighed and pinched her hip. “I’m used to it.”
    “You know,” Basheera replied, starting to line her eyes. Emma blinked at the pencil on her lower eyelid and tried to blink back the watering of her eyes. “Curves help win men over. There’s no belly dancing, as you Americans call our rituals, without actual bellies.”
    She grimaced and tried not to cry as the liner was applied to her other eyes. Emma had never been the best at makeup, after all. “I don’t want to impress anyone. I want to go home.”
    “You’re home now, dear, and I think that you do. I was there when he took you from the transport, and I