Seduced By The Bad Boy Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Bad Boy Romance (10 page)

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I been in that room two months ago, having the conversation I had with the Sultan, all I would have wanted to do is having a fucking bottle of scotch opened and dripping through an IV into my veins.

"I'm so glad you've understood the responsibilities placed on you, son," Father said. "I've taken the liberty of updating the files on suitable marriage candidates."

He gestured to the file that was sitting in front of me. I opened it.

"Lady Yasmine Noor," he said aloud, "Hails from one of the oldest families in the Sultanate."
I fucked her in the back of the limo. She moans like a whore when she comes,
I thought.

"Lady Veena Mohammed," he went on, "Her father is one of the wealthiest ship developers and their operations are in North Africa and the South of France."
She sucked my ten-inch cock in my nightclub. She was wearing a white thong and after I came all over her face, the black light in the club showed her exactly where on her tits she needed to wipe. She used her thong for that, and left it to me as a souvenir. I threw it away.

It went on and on. Father mentioned Lady Tamsin, who had the eyes of a frog. Lady Sutra, who had a personality of a snail. Lady Jeera who was addicted to cocaine and had been in and out of rehab five times so far. Lady Jillandra who was a lesbian.

There was one name on there that I never heard, and that I would have gladly accepted if Father had mentioned.

Natalie Ewing. The love of my life. No longer clouded by scotch or cheap pussy, I knew that my life ran through Natalie. I knew that I could talk to her. She was mind-blowingly hot, but even if I had never seen her, the banter that we had, the way she made me feel when I was with her, the urge I got to protect her, was like nothing I had ever felt before. I had lived in her house for a month and I had seen her operate. She was good with kids, she knew how to handle me, and she had a smile that made my heart melt.

Fuck all, Aziz, what are you doing sitting here then?

"I'm sorry Father," I interrupted him as he was going over the details of Lady Mumtaz, who I knew had gotten drunk in Greece last year and had jerked off six guys on a yacht. I wasn't judging what someone did on vacation, but ever since she'd gotten back, I had seen her in the nightclub getting more and more extreme each time. The bouncers had orders nowadays not to let her in because she goes completely nympho whenever she starts drinking. "It's been a long flight. Can we catch up on these at a later time?"

"You won't need to," the Sultan said with a gleam in his eye. "There's a ball tonight. They're all invited."

"A ball?" I asked, shocked and disappointed at my spectacularly bad timing. "What for?"

"Well, for you, of course," the Sultan said with a chuckle. "Consider it a welcome home party, son. Also, the Prime Minister of India is here, thought it might not be bad to kill two birds with one stone."

I thought Indians were supposed to be vegetarians anyways,
I thought darkly to myself. Outwardly though, I maintained a composed face. "Then we'll be able to evaluate them all during the ball," I said neutrally.

My father nodded his head in agreement, "Exactly. I'll look forward to hearing any thoughts you have on the matter tomorrow morning," he said getting up. "Until then, I think I deserve an hour or two to get ready. See what Samantha is up to. She said her daughter was visiting the Palace."

That was what I was looking for. "Is she in the Palace now?" I asked getting to my feet and ready to bound for the door.

"I believe she was talking to her mother, but I'm not sure where she is exactly right now. She's coming to the ball tonight too, I hope."

I thanked my father profusely as I headed out. If I couldn't find her during the day, I had to find a way somehow to talk to Natalie during the ball. If she wanted answers, I was ready to tell her everything. I couldn't live without her.

* * *

I
t seemed
that day I was one step behind Natalie.

"Someone has accessed the public filings on your time in the Army, sire," Hamid informed me when I got back to my chambers after my meeting with father.

I scowled. "Another media inquiry?"

"No, sire. It seems to have originated from the Palace itself," he said, looking at me directly. We both knew who that could be.

I walked over to Natalie's suite, my heart beating heavy. I knocked on the door.

"Sorry, sire, she's gone into the city," her new assistant, a young woman whose name I remembered was Jasmine informed me. She looked at me with wide eyes and a knowing smile. I wondered why she was looking at me like that until Hamid showed me afterwards a report that she had been transferred from the PR team to Natalie directly by the Queen yesterday evening.

On a lark, I walked into the Royal Press Office. The man there, Hamza, was more than familiar with my antics, since as the deputy to Natalie’s mother, Samantha, he had been the one who usually explained them away. He didn't seem that surprised to see me.

"Did you get have questions on the press packet, sire?" he asked.

I looked at him like he had spoken Swahili. "What are you talking about?" I asked.

He informed me how Jasmine had requested all the press that I had received over the last several years. How she had requested that it be broken and collated by news organization and date. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Natalie was craftier than I gave her credit for.

I placed a call to News of the Times - the tabloid that had first reported on my shenanigans. I got connected to a reporter, Michael Jones, who I knew well enough.

"Mike, this is completely off the record," I said by way of greeting.

"I don't doubt it," he said into the line. The tabloid he was speaking from was based out of New York City and I had to do this by phone, otherwise I'd have stormed into his office to sit down in front of him. Although, that might not be the best thing to do. Sheikh Player walking into the offices of his chief tormentor. "What's going on over there today anyways? This is the second phone call I've had from Qumar."

Holy fuck.

That sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach returned as I asked him who else had called.

"It was the press office actually," he said. I nearly fell out of my fucking chair. "Someone named, Natalie Ewing. Seemed to know everything about our arrangement - how you feed me stories from time to time and give me exclusives. She was nibbling at the edges."

"What did you tell her?" I asked, my throat suddenly dry.

"Well, I told her what our arrangement was. What I cover and what I don't cover. Since the stuff I don't cover doesn't sell much news anyways, it's no skin off my back, but why is it that she wants to know, Sheikh?" he asked. That bastard was feeling a story in the background. I knew it.

"It's nothing," I lied, hoping to myself that I was believable. "Natalie's just acclimatizing her job at the Royal Court."

"I don't know, Sheikh," Michael said, his tone not convinced. "It was almost as if she was searching for something. She wouldn't tell me what. What's the deal with the two of you, anyways?"

Shit. That's the last thing I needed. For my attack dog to focus on me. I had to squash this now.

"Listen, Mike, just hold your horses, okay?" I said into the phone pacing. "And I guarantee you I'll give you a story that'll sell a million copies on publication in the next few weeks. You'll be at the right place at the right time, based on my intel."

There was a long pause and finally Michael spoke, "Two weeks, Sheikh. Our deal was for you to keep doing antics that I could write about. You've gone dark for about a month."

After Mike, I got Hamid to drive me over to the Mussayef Foundation, where I scanned in and went up to the top floor.

The Mussayef Foundation was located in the CBD on the 46th floor of an office tower overlooking the center of the city and beyond that – the vast desert from which we drew our wealth as a nation. For everything that Qumar was, one of the things I most appreciated about it was the economic planning it had had the foresight to do after the Second World War. It's society and economy were First World, and it allowed me an opportunity to leverage the existing infrastructure to run my foundation. I passed Setarah, my Executive Assistant for the short hours I did visit the office.

"Oh, hello, sire. You just missed the a member of the Palace, Miss Natalie, by fifteen minutes," Setarah informed me as soon as I walked in past reception.

I froze in my tracks. If Natalie had made it this far, then there was very little for me to tell her when I found her. But that meant if she hadn't gotten a hold of me yet, that she was still upset at me for leaving her.

"What did she want?" I asked, knowing the answer that was going to come out anyways.

"Not much. She was just looking for the consolidated project listing for the year and for last year. She already had the figures so it was just putting them in their appropriate boxes. She seemed really interested particularly in the US scholarship program from several years back and that's where she spent most of her time," Setarah said, pulling out the papers.

"Let me see," I asked, and Setarah handed me the file. I flicked through it as I went to my office with its floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking at desert in the horizon.

Well, fuck me.

I looked at the report from several years earlier and saw the list of scholarship recipients in the United States. The scholarship program was a merit and needs-based scholarship designed to pay for college tuition, distributing $10,000 each to eligible women in single parent households. Ten scholarships were awarded each year. I looked at the names.

Natalie Ewing. I had just returned from Afghanistan and it was still early in the life of the Mussayef Foundation. I was on my way to building the playboy lifestyle and I think that was the year that the media - Michael to be exact - started calling me Sheikh of Pleasure.

I looked through Natalie's file. Single mother. Low income. Father killed in a car accident. Bills and debt piling up. Natalie's dreams of college were incumbent on her receiving enough financial aid to be able to attend. It looks like that scholarship had done just that.

I looked at the clock.

Shit, you've got to get back.

The fucking ball was sitting there like an elephant in the room that I had to get back for.

"Thanks, love," I said to Setarah as I walked out. "Let me know if she stops by again."

But she wouldn't. She had all the information she needed. Now it was up to her that to connect the dots together.

* * *

W
hen I came
down to the Grand Entrance to the Main Ballroom, Natalie wasn't there. Father had already entered and was greeting guests. I had no such duty tonight and stood for a minute taking in the ball that had already started.

Big mistake.

I got hit up at least a dozen times by different women trying to get me to dance, sit down with them, buy them a drink, or whatever else they wanted. I don't even know who it was that leaned in and whispered that we should go out onto the beach for her to show me her 'skills'.

God have mercy, it was going to be a long night. I finally got away from them, all the while looking for Natalie. I sidled over to the bar to get myself a glass of scotch

Easy on the sauce tonight, mate,
I told myself. In reality, having to bear through a million noble ladies trying my cock on for size was enough to make me want to jump out the fucking window. I took a sip of the scotch instead.

"Aziz, I'd like you to meet Lady Tessa Arborville from Britain and I think you know Lady Nadia Hussein already," Father said, bringing two maidens to the bar where I was standing.

"Pleased to see you both again," I said formally, kissing the back of their hands.

"Aziz, care for a dance?" Nadia asked me, her eyebrows arching. "For old time's sake?"

I gulped. Nadia and I had fucked a year ago. We had been sent on a Royal Mission to Utah, of all fucking places in the world. There was precious little else to do out there, except for Nadia. I had told her it was only for that trip, that I didn't want to settle down, and the whole nine yards. A lot of people might call her beautiful, she had shoulder length blonde hair, a slender body, some nice jugs, but in my mind, there was only one girl out there for me right now, and she was not Nadia Hussein.