The Sheik's Furious Bride (Love By Accident)

The Sheik’s Furious Bride
             
             
Elizabeth Lennox

Chapter 1

Isla stormed out of the dining room, furious with her brother for threatening her in that way!  How dare
he
! 

Her younger sister Zarah tried to keep up
but Isla had righteous anger propelling her forward
.  “Are you okay?”
Zarah
asked
,
her pretty face suffused with concern
for her older sister
.  “He didn’t mean it, Isla.  You know he’s all torn up about Sidra and finding out he’s going to be a father so soon.”  Rashid, their older brother, had been frantically searching for the woman he’d met in England three weeks ago.  She’d disappeared and they’d only this morning found out that she was also pregnant from their brief weekend.  Needless to say, Rashid
wasn’t thinking too carefully right at the moment. 

Isla stopped, covering her face with both of her hands right there in the middle of the hallway.  “I know.  I just….” She sniffed and tried to pull herself together.  “Of all the things he could threaten, that was pretty mean.”

Zarah put her arms around her
older
sister.  At seventeen, Zarah didn’t need to worry too much about her future husband but she knew that
Isla
was anxious about the issue. 
Isla
was eight years older and should have been wed several years ago.  Both of them knew the time was coming when she would need to marry, and it might not be to someone she cared for.  They both knew that their marriages would be political.  

“Give him time, Isla.  He’s just now found Sidra.  He’s not thinking clearly.”

Isla took a deep breath and
tried to regain her perspective on the whole marriage issue
.
  Zarah was right.  Their brother would never marry her off to a monster.  He cared for both of his sisters and would put their welfare above a political alliance.  The idea of Rashid marrying her off to someone like
Sheik
Hussan
El-
Hamin
was ridiculous.
  Pulling herself together, she looked around and was embarrassed
to have lost control right here
in the middle of the
main palace
hallway where servants and guards were witnessing her outburst. 

She shook her hair out,
then
smoothed it down to make sure that she looked presentable.  Her long, black hair fell naturally
back into place
around her heart shaped face and shoulders
.  “You’re right.  He’d never do anything so vile or cruel,” she said to Zarah.  “Come
on,
let’s go start getting things ready
for the wedding
.  Sidra won’t know what hit her when all of this wedding
and political
stuff starts to
fly around
her
so we need to help her as best we can.” 

Isla only
appeared
calm on the outside.  Inside, she was still reeling from the threat her brother had issued.  M
arry her off to that bastard
El-Hamin
!  That’s the most disgusting, most horrifying, awful thing
Rashid
could have said. 
El-Hamin
was a monster!  He might have subdued the civil war in his country, but that didn’t mean he was worthy of any civilized female company. 
He was a gross, disgusting man with a
dark
beard
that covered more than half his face
and angry, evil eyes.  At least that’s the way the recent pictures
depicted him
. 

Hussan
El-Hamin
was an enormous man who ruled the neighboring country of Silaria.  It had once been a beautiful
, lush
country, very prosperous with oil revenues that equaled and sometimes surpassed those of Tasain.  But the previous ruler
,
El-Hamin
’s uncle,
had oppressed the people, destroyed a great deal of the infrastructure and sucked most of the money out o
f the country with his profligate
ways. 
El-Hamin
had left for school and hadn’t been allowed back in after his graduation from Stanford University.  It had taken more than a decade, but
El-Hamin
had wrested control from his uncle, then several more years to get rid of the remaining men loyal to him. 
El-Hamin
ruled Silaria with an iron fist and Isla suspected that the nephew wasn’t much better than the uncle.  No one knew what was happening though, because visitors were no longer allowed inside the borders of the country.  Not even reporters so the information was sketchy on the plight of the people.

Isla knew though.  She knew
firsthand
what was happening and she hated the man who ruled so cruelly. 
At least in the border areas.
  The people in those villages were struggling, living in abject poverty, their roads still not fixed and many didn’t even have running water so they were using whatever streams they could find, some of which were contaminated by now which meant disease could rage t
hrough a village, killing off
many before medicine could reach them. 

Zarah
patted Isla’s shoulder
gently, trying to offer support
.  “Don’t worry about it,” she said comfortingly.  “He didn’t mean it.  He’ll be better once he’s married
and all this political and wedding craziness is over with
.”

Isla wasn’t to be reassured.  She was still angry, even though she knew that Rashid wouldn’t marry her off to a man
who was basically
no better than a
thug
. 
“Just because he found out he’s going to be a father and has finally found a woman he’s in love with, that doesn’t mean he needs to say something so vile, Zarah.”
  Her younger sister was
smart and
beautiful, but
still
too young to know the terrifying prospect of being married off to someone. 
In Isla’s world, t
he threat
of marriage
was always close, al
ways present.  At seventeen, Zarah
had several more years before she had to worry about who her brother would choose for her husband.  Isla had been terrified of that
imminent threat
for the past three years. 
She’d been comforted by the fact that Rashid hadn’t chosen a wife
yet
but even that cushion was now gone. 
Or would be in a couple of days.
 

“I know,” her sister said soothingly.  “He’s just mixed up right now.  It isn’t like him to make threats like that.  He was ju
st trying to get us out of the room
quickly.  You know he wanted to talk with his new fiancée
alone
.”

Isla perked up at that reminder.  “Do you think he’s really in love with her?” she asked,
almost
forgetting the thought of her older brother’s threat
with the reminder that her brother had finally found the woman he’d been searching for
. 
It was an amazingly romantic story, she thought
with a tinge of jealousy
. 

Zarah
laughed as she nodded her head.  “I think he’s crazy in love with her.”

The two sisters walked
silently
down the hallway towards their rooms, oblivious to the guards who were following after them
at a respectful distance
. 
They were both used to guards within the palace, but t
he
increased security was necessary as massive preparations for Rashid’s wedding were progressing
at a fast pace because of the urgency
.  Sidra, his fiancée, was pregnant but even if she weren’t, the sisters knew that their brother would have pushed for a fast wedding, wanting Sidra all to himself as quickly as possible. 

She could understand that.  Isla wanted
a sweet love story for
herself but knew she probably wouldn’t find it.  As the sister to a very powerful sheik, her husband would be chosen for her, she just hoped Rashid would take her feelings into consideration
since
s
he
was beyond
the age when she must
be married off.  Surely she could find someone
that wouldn’t be so overbearing and would give her the space she desired.  She refused to give up her
secret
work simply because she married. 

Maybe if Rashid chose someone who wasn’t a ruler of a country to marry her to, she could be more open about her work.  She loved helping people and she was good at it.  Being the sister to a sheik meant she had to be more….surreptitious about her activities. 

“I’m off to discuss the menu with the chef for tomorrow’s festivities,” Zarah mentioned.

Isla sighed and turned in the opposite direction.  “Rashid has asked me to personally phone several people to request their presence for tomorrow’s ceremony.”

Zarah laughed.  “I think I have the better task.”

“You do,” Isla grumbled and headed off to Rashid’s office to pick up the list of names he wanted her to call.
  She was jealous of her sister’s task but knew that Zarah was too young to be making these phone calls.  And some of them really did need to be made by a family member t
o
soothe the ruffled diplomatic feathers
caused by the last minute invitation
.  It was all about perception, she knew.  Many of the world rulers wanted to be perceived as important and being called by a member of Rashid’s family would give them that impression. 

I
sla spent the rest of the day making the phone calls, pretending to care if one or another of the rulers of various countries showed up at her brother’s wedding.  As far as she was concerned, the only two people who needed to attend were the bride and groom.  A large wedding wasn’t really her style
.  She actually would choose to have only her family and her groom’s family in attendance for her wedding.  She liked it simp
le with little fanfare, something romantic and intimate.  B
ut she knew she’d have
to have
a large, extravagant affair.  Rashid would demand it. 

Zarah was still too young to be worrying about her wedding, but she was thinking about it and dreaming about the day she’d become engaged to some man who would carry her off into the sunset where they would live happily ever after.  Isla knew that wasn’t going to happen in her life.  She would
find contentment somehow in her marriage, but happiness was not in the cards.  Not with an arranged marriage for political reasons. 

She worked hard all day, helping the staff prepare the palace for the numerous visitors.  Security was painfully tight since so many people would be staying within the palace walls.  She couldn’t go anywhere
without her assigned body guard following her.  The wedding wasn’t even going to be very large, but the risk was there regardless of the number of people.

That night, she was restless for some reason.  She wanted desperately to sleep, but she stared up at the ceiling, wondering what it would be like to be in love, to be excited about one’s wedding.  She was actually jealous of Sidra, she realized in the early hours of the morning.  The woman had fallen in love with her future husband and she was ecstatically happy about tomorrow’s events. 

Isla rolled over and pulled her pillow closer.  Tomorrow was going to be a tough day, watching her older brother get married, seeing the love both of them couldn’t hide for each other.  They’d known each other for such a short time, but they knew how they felt. 

She finally fell asleep just as the sun was rising over the horizon. 
Unfortunately, that
meant that she overslept and by the time her maid was finally able to rouse her, she had to rush through the final preparations for the wedding.  Her maid did her hair,
then
she quickly pulled on her dress and slid her feet into shoes.  She was out the door less than an hour after she’d woken up.  Forgetting breakfast and
only taking a moment to grab
a cup of coffee in the now deserted dining room, she got her jolt of caffeine and hurried down the hallway to the
elaborately decorated
receiving room
filled with flowers for the wedding
. 

She glanced at her watch, trying to orient herself for the day’s events. 
Less than two hours until the ceremony
, she thought with resignation
.  She would have loved to see Sidra before the ceremony,
wishing
her luck, but that was not going to happen
because she’d woken up so late.  Dratted hopes and dreams!  Why couldn’t she just accept her fate?  She’d had a wonderful childhood and shouldn’t complain.  So many people had it much worse.