Delaney's Desert Sheikh Read Online Free Page A

didn’t travel outside his sheikhdom as often.
    King Yasir no longer sent for other women to pleasure him, bestowing that task solely upon his wife. Then, within a year of their marriage, they had a child, a daughter they named Arielle. Three years later another daughter was born. They named her Johari.
    Arielle, at nineteen, was now married to Prince Shudoya, a man she had been promised to since birth. Johari, at sixteen, was a handful after having been spoiled and pampered by their father. Jamal smiled, inwardly admitting that he’d had a hand in spoiling and pampering her as well.
    He simply adored his stepmother. More than once during his teen years, she had gone to his father on his behalf about issues that had been important to him.
    â€œDo the two of you get along? You and your stepmother?”
    Delaney’s question invaded his thoughts. “Yes, Fatimah and I are very close.”
    Delaney stared at him. For some reason she found it hard to imagine him having a “very close” relationship with anyone. “Any siblings?” she decided to ask.
    He nodded. “Yes, I have two sisters, Arielle and Johari. Arielle is nineteen and is married to a sheikh in a neighboring sheikhdom, and Johari is sixteen and has just completed her schooling in my country. She wants to come to America to further her studies.”
    â€œWill she?”
    He looked at her like she had gone stone mad. “Of course not!”
    Delaney stared at him dumbfounded, wondering what he had against his sister being educated in the United States. “Why? You did.”
    Jamal clenched his jaw. “Yes, but my situation was different.”
    Delaney lifted her brow. “Different in what way?”
    â€œI’m a man.”
    â€œSo? What’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œEvidently it means nothing in this country. I have observed more times than I care to count how the men let the women have control.”
    Delaney narrowed her eyes. “You consider having equal rights as having control?”
    â€œYes, in a way. Men are supposed to take care of the women. In your country more and more women are being educated to take care of themselves.”
    â€œAnd you see that as a bad thing?”
    He gazed at her and remembered her sassiness from the first day and decided the last thing he wanted was to get embroiled in a bitter confrontation with her. He had his beliefs and she had hers. But since she had asked his opinion he would give it to her. “I see it as something that would not be tolerated in my country.”
    What he didn’t add was that the alternative—the one his stepmother used so often and had perfected to an art—was for a woman to wrap herself around her husband’s heart so tightly that he would give her the moon if she asked for it.
    Taking another sip of coffee, Jamal decided to change the subject and shift the conversation to her. “Tell me about your family,” he said, thinking that was a safer topic.
    Evidently it’s not, he thought when she glared at him.
    â€œMy family lives in Atlanta, and I’m the only girl as well as the youngest in the third generation of Westmorelands. And for the longest time my five brothers thought I needed protecting. They gave any guy who came within two feet of me pure hell. By my eighteenth birthday I had yet to have a date, so I finally put a stop to their foolishness.”
    He smiled. “And how did you do that?”
    A wicked grin crossed her face. “Since I never had a social life I ended up with a lot of free time on my hands. So I started doing to them what they were doing to me—interfering in their lives. I suddenly became the nosy, busy-body sister. I would deliberately monitor their calls, intentionally call their girlfriends by the wrong name and, more times than I care to count, I would conveniently drop by their places when I knew they had company and were probably right smack in the