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Sweet, lustful heaven.

By the time the sheikh finally managed to lift his head, she was staring up at him with eyes made hazy by desire, and she was panting ever so softly.

She looked so damn sexy –

Too much so.

“Do not ever show that face to any other man than me, Harper Griffiths.”

“This...face?” Harper blinked. “Do I have any other face?”

The sheikh remained unsmiling. “I mean it,qalifa.” He pulled her up. “You. Are. Mine.”

“Umm. Okay.” Harper was doing her best not to grin. She was also doing her best to remind herself that these me-Tarzan, you-Jane-mine approaches used to be a major turn-off for her, but why, oh, why was it different when it was the sheikh saying these things?

“I mean it,” the sheikh warned her.

“Yes, yes, I heard you.” It was really, really hard not to grin now. “But you do know I live in the smallest town in the middle of nowhere, Nebraska, right? The only eligible men in it are not my type.”

“But they are still men.”

“Yup, but they say ‘moo’ rather than ‘hi’.” Color stained the sheikh’s high-boned cheeks when he realized she was joking, and Harper could no longer keep herself from laughing.

He cupped her cheeks, growling, “You may tease me all you want, but I am serious. Everything has changed.” And right now, Khalil was furious with himself. He shouldn’t have given her his word about this one-week thing. Or at least, he should have laid the law down and told her that she could think all she want in his palace, where he could keep her to himself.

“I’m sure you’re exaggerating,” Harper dismissed. “They’ve seen me in your company for eight years, and everyone thinks—-” She grimaced. “I’m just your friend.”

That was then,the sheikh thought,when his prank-loving cousin Tarif had not yet released an announcement to the papers, saying that he had been secretly in love with Harper for eight years.



















Chapter Eight

THE SHEIKH HAD WARNEDher of Tarif’s prank and the “significant” consequences that would come with it, especially when the press realized no statement of denial from his house would be forthcoming. She had dismissed his warnings, thinking that no one would be stupid enough to fall for his cousin’s prank.

But she was wrong.

As soon as she had stepped out of Lincoln Airport, she realized right away that the whole world was apparentlythatstupid, hence the shitstorm that had become Harper’s life for the past six days.