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

than it was some common law thing, not that it’s not uncommon in Kentucky.”
    “Fair point, but families that can’t stay together are common everywhere, even in Yemen.”
    “Your parents didn’t have that problem.”
    He shrugged. “They’re a good match, somehow. I don’t understand yet how. My mother is so strict and intense, and my father, despite his role, is very much invested in the more noble things in life. But they do complement each other. Of course,” he said, grinning down at her, even as he took her hand in his own, “it helps if there’s the pressure of a whole nation on you to stay together. I’m sorry that your father couldn’t take his responsibilities seriously.”
    “I just feel like you have to be independent. Mom…she believed in love and all it led to was being stuck with two daughters, one very sick, and then scrabbling with two or three jobs. Now I can send home money, I can help, but…”
    “I understand,” he said, and he squeezed her hand.
    Jennifer marveled at how big his hand was, how it swamped her own. Blushing, she remembered the lovemaking they’d shared on the plane. Considering the size of his manhood, maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised about his hands. After all, wasn’t there an old expression about size along those lines? Still, he was so large and comforting and safe, but she knew better than anyone how much of an illusion that could be. As much as it pained her to keep opening up about her parents’ disastrous marriage, to lay out how crushing it was for all three of them, she couldn’t talk about Dustin and how she’d personally been stomped on by a lover before.
    Some days she tried to just think of him as a mistake of a boyfriend, but the louse had been far more than that and he’d crushed her anyway.
    “Do you?”
    “Yes. For the longest time, I just loved to have fun. I don’t want to sound shallow.”
    “Oh please, go on. Would this be about all the women you’ve known?” she said, winking back at him and hoping he understood her wry tone.
    Both of them had a past. It was just that Bahan’s was far more colorful. After all, he was royalty and fabulously wealthy. He could have any woman he wanted and often had. Yet, it had to mean something, damn it, that he’d chosen her now. She clung to that as hope kept blooming in her heart.
    “I’ve been young.”
    “If I Googled the big tabloids for November, that would still be part of your misspent youth,” she pointed out.
    “Does that worry you?”
    “No.”
    Not much.
    That thought bubbled through her brain, but she knew again that she wouldn’t voice it out loud. It would be too harsh to say. Still, a large part of her was scared she was just a blip for him. Some novelty tied up with an easy way to bypass an inheritance clause.
    He turned to her and then stroked her cheek. “I’m so sorry about the pain your family has been through. I’m trying to help you all as best as I can. I never had a sister, and I have to admit that I enjoy her company. I’ve rarely seen someone so vivacious, even with her illness. But I am trying. I can’t make up for the pain your father brought to you, but I promise that I’m not the same man. I’m not going to run.”
    “But this is temporary,” she said, and it was so hard to utter that part. It came out as a hoarse whisper, and if Bahan hadn’t been just a few inches from her lips, Jennifer was sure he wouldn’t have heard it.
    He kissed her then, his tongue demanding and dominant as it probed her mouth. Her own tongue responded, stroking his back with a fierce rhythm, and they met one another in a dance for dominance that continued for innumerable moments, leaving her belly flaring with warmth and the wetness pooling again between her legs.
    “It doesn’t have to be, wild one. You just have to think on that.”

Chapter Nine
    “I don’t know how you do what you do,” she said, her voice still heavy with emotion.
    Jennifer didn’t feel like