Sheikh’s Fiancée Read Online Free

structure and her large, thickly-lashed eyes. She was a vision of elegance, the personification of beauty. As usual, she commanded his attention, as she did of every male whenever she walked into a room.
    “My love.” Karim rose from his chair, shock echoing through him. He wasn’t expecting Azisa until next week. “What a pleasant surprise!”
    “Please, do not get up on my account.” Azisa’s sculpted lips curved into a small, polite smile that was just as perfect as everything else about her. “I am not staying long; I simply came by because I needed to speak to you.”
    “All right.” Karim slowly lowered himself back down into his chair, confusion etched on his face. Azisa seated herself gracefully in one of the visitor’s chairs across the desk, then folded her manicured hands in her lap and lifted her chin. Her dark eyes were steady as she gazed at him, and a strange feeling slid down Karim’s spine. Her stare was that of one about to negotiate a business deal… or perhaps a personal one.
    “Is this about our marriage?” he blurted out.
    “It is.” Azisa unfolded her hands, and to Karim’s horror tugged off the diamond sparkling on her left ring finger. “I would like to break our engagement.”
    She set the diamond band on the cedar wood of his desk with a firm clink. The sound shocked Karim out of his stupefied horror, and he snapped his gaze up to Azisa’s face, which was as still and calm as the surface of a pond.
    “Why?” he demanded. “Why are you doing this, with the wedding just over a month away, and invitations already sent and accepted?”
    Something like guilt disturbed the calm waters of Azisa’s face, and her dark eyes briefly flicked away. “I have come to realize recently that the time in my life is not yet right for marriage.”
    Karim stared at Azisa in disbelief. Months of courting and engagement, and this was what he was hearing now? “What do you mean the time is not right? You are nearly twenty-six years old, Azisa, well within the time frame in which women in our society marry off, and I am – ”
    “In need of a wife,” Azisa finished for him. Her dark eyes were apologetic, but firm as they met his. “I understand your predicament, Karim, but I cannot bind myself to you for the simple reason of solving your problem while neglecting my own needs. I am not yet ready to give up my modeling career and settle down yet.”
    “I don’t understand.” Karim ran a hand through his thick, wavy hair and fought against the impulse to yank out a handful of it. “I have never told you that you have to give up your modeling career to be married to me. You would be free to continue traveling and taking jobs as you always have – ”
    “Until when?” Azisa asked quietly. “Until your family and mine begin to wonder why we have not yet produced a child, why we have not yet settled down and started to raise a family of our own? Until they wonder whether or not we are barren, or estranged?”
    Karim shook his head. “I don’t see why their opinion matters when I am not heir to this kingdom,” he insisted. “We are not obligated to have children before we are ready, and I would never force you to have them before you are ready to settle down. You told me that you wanted children, did you not?”
    “I do.” Azisa sighed. “And I will have them when I am ready.”
    “Then what is the problem?” Karim asked, his mind spinning as he tried to wrap his mind around the issue. He couldn’t understand why Azisa was doing this to him now, when they were so close to sealing the knot.
    “Karim.” Azisa folded her hands in her lap and took on a very patient tone, like that of a mother speaking to a recalcitrant child. “In the ten months that we have known each other, and the eight that we have been engaged, how often have we spent time together?”
    Karim shut his mouth as he tried to calculate. “I’d say we see each other about once a month,” he finally said. “But we