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When she’d realized it , biddable bride, it felt as if her heart would be ripped out of her chest Until she realized what the staff was speculating about

Lauren was carrying the sheikh’s child but there was to be no wedding Because, of course, a Westerner like her could never be a proper sheikha She was only suitable for one thing

“This time, I will take what I want”

Those words haunted her in the pitch-dark of the night when she lay in her luxurious bed, restless in her overheated skin When she couldn’t lie to herself anymore When she admitted that, if he came to her, if his powerfully naked body joined her on the cool sheets, that co hih hands, his utter possession

But the gliain—it haunted her, made her curious about him

Her only source, however, was Farrah, who had begrudgingly begun uttering monosyllabic responses to Lauren’s questions, a vast ilares and silent nods of the past teeks

Lauren took the bull by the horns as Farrah checked her pulse “How long will you be angry with me?”

Farrah sighed, her forehead creased in a delicate frown “It was your decision to make But I failed Zafir I’ve known hi her words “But I’ve never seen him like this The palace staff are afraid to look him in the eye, some won’t even enter the same room Even Arif finds Zafir hard to handle nowadays, I hear”

Lauren felt a perverse satisfaction at the thought of upsetting Zafir’s old nancy With hindsight, she resented hi her private affairs “Good Everyone is learning what a jerk your sheikh is”

She thought Farrah would explode at her, instead, a grin split her h Lauren Farrah had come to mean so much to her already and not because she was the only one who spoke her ht relieve the tension between you two, and the staff, too”

“How?” The word rang around them with all her frustration packed into it “Hoill I ask hi if he doesn’t even seethe best for the baby, he hasn’t inquired once”

“I report to hiht, with orders to contact hie of discomfort”

Okay, so he was keeping tabs on her “Can you help uards to escort me to his suite?”

Even before she completed the sentence, Farrah shook her head “That’s forbidden andscandalous”