The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) Read Online Free PDF

turn her into a woman who no longer saw happiness in her life or future.
    There was a vivid life inside her, yet she lived in dangerous isolation in an arid war zone, in a hut with no amenities, far from family and friends. She was like a sparkling fountain stoppered without reason, a dawn star sucked down into a black hole.
    He wanted to know why.
    What would she look like if she truly smiled or laughed? To see her hair loose, wearing whatever she had on beneath the soft-swishing burq’a…
    The last rays of the setting sun painted the ochre sand a violent scarlet. He blinked—and then it was blocked as her silhouetted form filled the doorway. She took on its hues, softened and irradiated them until she looked ethereal, celestial, a timeless beauty from a thousand Arabian nights, trapped in a labyrinth, needing a prince to save her.
    â€˜Do you need more pain relief yet?’ A prosaic enough question, but in her voice, gentle and musical, it turned their native language into harps and waterfalls.
    Alim blinked again. Stupid, stupid! He’d obviously knocked the part of his brain that created poetry or something. He’d never thought of any woman this way before, and he knew next to nothing about this one. Perhaps that was the fascination: she didn’t rush into telling him about herself, didn’t try to impress or please him. He was no Aladdin. If she needed a prince, he wasn’t one any more, and never would be again. Then he would become a thief: of his brother’s rightful position, stolen by a death he’d caused.
    And if he kept thinking about it, he’d explode. Time to do what she was doing: make his thoughts as well as their conversation ordinary. ‘Yes, please, Hana.’
    The shock of sudden pain hit his eyes when she left thedoorway and the west-facing door took back the mystical shades of sunset, vicious to his head. It felt like a punishment for turning his saviour into an angel.
    He’d obviously been alone too long—but after three years he still wasn’t ready to show any woman his body. If he couldn’t even look at himself without revulsion, he couldn’t expect anyone else to manage it, let alone find him remotely attractive. Yet there was something about Hana that pulled at him, tugging at his soul—her beautiful eyes, the haunted, hunted look in them…
    Hana’s unveiled face suddenly filled his vision, and he blinked a third time, feeling blinded, not by the sun, but by her. Catching his breath seemed too hard; speech, impossible.
    She didn’t seem affected in any way by his closeness. ‘Let this swill under your tongue a few moments; it’ll work faster that way. You’ll feel better soon, and tonight we can sneak in some paracetamol. I’m sorry we have no codeine, it’s better for concussion, but stores are limited, as you know.’
    Though her words were plain, it felt as if she was doing that thing again, saying too much and not enough. Talking about codeine to hide what she was really feeling.
    Had he given himself away, shown that, despite his best attempt at will power, he couldn’t stop thinking of her? The internal war raging in him, desire, fascination and self-hate, was so strong it was no wonder she saw it.
    Then he realised something. He wasn’t itching. He hadn’t had the stress-trigger since he’d woken. And the scent of lavender and something else rose gently from his body. She’d rubbed something into his skin while he slept. She’d not only seen the patchwork mess that was his scars, but treated them.
    The permanent reminder that he’d killed his brother, his best friend…
    Grimly he swallowed the foul brew she handed him,wishing he could ask for something to knock him out again. He handed it back with no attempt to touch her. She didn’t want him, and touching her threatened to turn swirling winds of attraction into gale-force winds of unleashed desire that