Carrying the Sheikh's Heir(20)

                Must. Of course he did. And as much as she would love to defy him, she wasn’t so stupid as to starve herself just to prove a point.

                “Can you please tell me where His Majesty is? I would like to speak with him.”

                Because she was going to go quietly insane if she had to remain in this room alone with no stimulation. The books—and there were plenty of them—were written in Arabic.

                The woman shook her head and kept smiling. “Eat, miss.”

                She gave Sheridan a half bow and glided gracefully toward the door. Sheridan thought about it for two seconds and then followed her. But the woman was through the door and the door shut before Sheridan could reach it.

                She jerked it open only to be confronted with the same thing she’d been confronted with earlier: a man in desert robes standing in the corridor, arms crossed, sword strapped to his side. He looked at her no less coolly than his boss had.

                “I want to speak to King Rashid,” she said.

                The man didn’t move or speak.

                Anger welled up inside her, pressing hard against the confines of her skin until she thought she might burst with it. She started toward the guard. He was big and broad, but she was determined that she would walk past him and keep going until she found people.

                The man stepped into her path and she had to stop abruptly or collide nose first with his chest.

                “Get out of my way.” She glared up at him, but he didn’t seem in the least bit concerned. She gathered her courage and ducked the other way. But he was there, in front of her, his big body blocking her progress.

                Fury howled deep in her gut. She was in a strange place, being guarded by a huge man who wouldn’t speak to her, and she was lonely and furious and scared all at once.

                So she did something she had never done in her life. She stomped on his foot.

                And gasped. Whatever he was wearing, it was a lot harder than her delicate little sandal. She resisted the urge to clutch her foot and hop around in circles. Barely. The mountain of a man didn’t even make a noise. He just took her firmly by the arm and steered her back into the suite. And then he shut the door on her so that she stood there staring at the carved wood with her jaw hanging open. Her foot and her pride stung. She thought about yanking open the door and trying again, like an annoying fly, but she knew she’d only get more of the same from him.

                She stood with her hands on her hips, her gaze moving around the room, her brain churning. And then she halted on the tray of food. The tray was big, solid, possibly made of silver. It would be heavy.

                Sheridan closed her eyes and pulled in a deep breath. She wasn’t really thinking of sneaking into the hall and braining the poor guard, was she? That wasn’t nice. He was only doing what he’d been ordered to do. It wasn’t polite to smack him with the tray when she really wanted to smack Rashid al-Hassan instead.

                She opened her eyes again, continued her circuit of the room. There were windows. All that glass would make a hell of a noise if she busted it. Part of her protested that it was an extreme idea, that a lady didn’t go around breaking other people’s property. Worse, an architect who specialized in historical preservation didn’t go around breaking windows in old palaces, even if the glass was a modern addition to the structure. Which she could tell by the tint and finish.

                But this could hardly be termed a normal circumstance. King Rashid al-Hassan had already made the first move, and it hadn’t been polite or considerate. So why should she be polite in return?