Carrying the Sheikh's Heir(10)

                He blinked at her. She truly did not understand. Or she was being stubbornly obtuse on purpose. His temper rose anew.

                “You will not call me.”

                She frowned at his tone. “Fine. You can call me. Either way, we’ll work it out.”

                He clenched his fingers into fists in his lap. Stubborn woman!

                “There is nothing to work out. You have been artificially inseminated with my sperm. You might be carrying the next king of Kyr. There is no possible choice other than the one I offer you now.”

                “I honestly don’t think—”

                “Silence, Miss Sloane,” he snapped, coming to the end of his tether. “You are not here to think. You will accompany me to the airport, where you will board the royal jet. We will be in Kyr by morning, and you will be shown every courtesy while we await the results. Should you fail to conceive my child, you will be escorted home again.”

                Her jaw had dropped as he talked. He tried not to focus on the pink curve of her lower lip. It glistened with moisture and he found himself wanting to lean forward and touch his tongue just there to see if she tasted as sweet and delicate as she looked.

                The thought shocked him. And angered him. He did not want this woman.

                She was shaking her head almost violently now. A lock of hair dropped from her twist and curved in front of her cheekbone. She impatiently tucked it behind an ear.

                “I can’t drop everything and go away with you! I have a business to run. And my bank account, unlike yours, I’m sure, isn’t bursting with money. No way. No way in hell.”

                Her response stunned him. He shot to his feet then, his temper beginning to boil. He had a country to run and one crisis after another to solve these days. He had a council waiting for him, a stack of dossiers on potential brides to scour through and an upcoming meeting with kings from surrounding nations to discuss oil production, mineral rights and reciprocity agreements.

                And yet he was being thwarted by one small, irritating woman who refused to give an inch of ground in this battle. A people pleaser? She didn’t look as if she cared one bit about pleasing him at the moment.

                Rashid gave her the look that made the palace staff tremble. “I wasn’t giving you a choice, Miss Sloane.”

                She sucked in a breath, and he knew he had her.

                But then her face reddened and her eyes flashed purple fire and Rashid stood there in shock.

                “You think you have the right to make decisions for me? This is America and I don’t have to go anywhere with you. Not only that, but I won’t go. If I’m pregnant, we’ll figure it out. But as of this moment, we do not know that. I can’t just leave because you wish it. Nor do I intend to.”

                His entire body vibrated with fury. He was not accustomed to being told no. Not by his employees at Hassan Oil—a company he’d built on his own and still owned to this day, even if he’d had to turn over the day-to-day operations to a CEO—not by his staff in the palace, not by anyone anywhere in the past several years. He was an al-Hassan, with money and influence, and people did not tell him no.

                And now he was a king, and they really did not tell him no.

                But Sheridan Sloane had. She sat there on her couch, looking pale and delicate and too small to safely carry a baby for nine months, and spoke to him like he was her gardener. It infuriated him. And stunned him, too, if he was willing to admit it.