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  “What…about my orphans?”

  “We will make them ours, Nikki.”

  “All seven?”

  He laughed. “Eight if we count the new baby that will be born in the Summer Palace. They, too, can bear the Al Arif name. It will mean a lot to me.” He smiled, feeling warm, feeling a sense of family, feeling like a true patriarch. All things he’d missed and begun to crave upon his return to the desert. Things he’d begun to crave when he’d met Nikki.

  He sensed her shift in energy, her joy, and Zakir reached up to touch her mouth. He felt her smile. His heart soared. It gave him such pleasure to make her happy, to give hope back. To protect her.

  “What about Mercy Missions, Zakir? You mentioned that you told the Tenerife base that I was here—”

  “We’ll work it out. We can say any number of things, for example, that we lost contact with you again when you returned to the Rahm Hills.”

  “And your enemies on the King’s Council—what if they’ve already dug up something on my past?”

  “Those enemies are all now in custody, Nikki. They will stand trial at once, and anything they know will go with them to their graves. We still do not yet know who was pulling their strings, but if we do this quickly—if we change your identity and we marry very soon—you will be safe.” He cupped her face. “Will you accept my proposal and become my queen of Al Na’Jar? Will you rule by my side and help guide me when I stray?”

  “Zakir, what if some journalist tries to trace my background and finds I am this person with no history?”

  “Omair’s contacts are the real deal, Nikki. They’ll plant a false past for you. And they—and I—will make sure that Sam Etherington can’t touch you.”

  By leaking to the press that he had tried to kill his wife.

  He lifted her face to his. “Please, Nikki, be my queen. Rule by my side. And in return I promise to protect you and keep you and our children safe.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, not believing this was possible. Not fully able to comprehend that her ridiculous childhood fairy-tale dreams had come true—she’d found her prince. She’d found family. After all she’d been through.

  “I love, you, Zakir,” she whispered as she leaned up to kiss him. “More than you will ever know.”

  Zakir took her into the private garden off his chambers, where she bathed in rosewater, the sun warm on her naked skin. And they made love again, so tenderly and so poignantly, and Nikki felt as if she had come home. Into the arms of her sheik. Where he would keep her safe. And loved. Always.

  And she would guide him through his darkness in return.

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  IMPRINT: Romantic Suspense

  ISBN: 9781760379292

  TITLE: UNDER COMMAND

  First Australian Publication 2015

  Copyright © 2010 Loreth Anne White

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Mills & Boon®, Level 4, 132 Arthur Street, North Sydney, N.S.W., Australia 2060.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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