He’d seemed too far away to be able to catch her. With panic bursting in her heart, she’d looked down. As she’d tried to put it on, someone below her had urged her to let go. Unable to reach her, her father had thrown her a rope noose to slip around her wrist. At her screams, everyone had come running. It had been “Uncle” Nazeeh, her father’s mentor, who’d suggested her name, jewel in Arabic.ĭuring her father’s interview with the king, she’d slipped onto the terrace and ended up falling off its balustrade and dangling from the ledge. Her Armenian-American father had been appointed first assistant to the royal jeweler, Nazeeh Salah. She was six then, on her first day in Zohayd, where she’d come to live in the royal palace with her family. To Johara he’d always be the fourteen-year-old boy who’d saved her life twenty years ago. He was also a businessman who’d risen in the past six years to become one of the most respected powers in the worlds of construction and transportation. To the world he was a prince of the wealthy desert kingdom of Zohayd, the youngest of King Atef Aal Shalaan’s three sons from the deceased queen Salwa. But this time, she was determined to walk up to Shaheen and say, Long time no see. Oh, she’d drunk in every drop of news of him for all those years, had stolen glimpses of him whenever she was near where she’d heard he’d be from the time she’d started traveling on her own.

She still couldn’t believe she’d decided to see him after twelve years.

She was thankful for the extra time to compose herself even as she cursed it for giving her more of a chance to work herself up. She drew in a choppy breath and pressed deeper into her corner, hoping to continue avoiding attention. There was still no sign of Shaheen Aal Shalaan. Her heart sputtered on a mixture of anticipation, dread and despondence as her eyes scanned the throngs of top-fashion, highest-class denizens of the party being thrown in his honor. Johara Nazaryan had come to see the only man she’d ever love.

To Tame a Sheikh by Olivia Gates