Page 22 of Her Irresistible Sheik (Al-Sintra Family #9)

Clyde walked out of the palace that morning with a stiffness in his gait that wasn’t just from pain—it was rage, barely contained by his skin.

He kept his broken thumb hidden deep in his pocket, shielding it from view, though every jolt of movement sent a fresh stab of fire up his forearm.

His teeth clenched against the pain, his jaw twitching with every step.

Then there was the faint, sickeningly sweet scent of lavender still clung to his clothes, a lingering reminder of his failure, humiliation, and fury. And the ache in his shin from when he’d run into that damn chair.

Around him, the other palace workers were leaving for the day, chatting in low voices, shuffling tired feet. A few glanced his way. One woman sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose. Another squinted, as if trying to place his face.

He ignored them all, shoulders squared and expression tight.

Yeah, I smell like lavender perfume, he silently seethed. Deal with it—or die.

The sun was just starting to set, but the lingering heat still burned too bright against his skull.

His temple throbbed, a slow pulse of agony that joined the chorus of aches radiating from his hand, his thumb, his jaw, his shin—and damn it, his gum.

The pain from his thumb had nearly blocked out the pain from whatever had happened to his jaw.

His tongue slid over the spot and found nothing.

His anger increased slightly at the realization that he’d actually lost a tooth! From a scone!

As soon as he turned the corner and was out of sight of the palace gates, Clyde moved faster. Rage added fuel to every step, boiling beneath the surface of his skin. His limp grew worse, but he pushed through it, powered by hate.

The warehouse was just a few blocks away, tucked between a long-abandoned bakery and a collapsed car maintenance shop.

From the outside, it looked like nothing more than a ruin—windowless, crumbling at the edges, forgotten by time.

But Clyde had spent two weeks turning it into a base of operations: maps, floor plans, surveillance monitors, old laptops, burner phones, weapons, disguises.

All hidden away at the moment, but easily exhumed from the chaotic rubble.

His planning should have been enough.

This job was supposed to take three days. In, kill, out. Professional. Clean.

Now he smelled like a damn bouquet.

As soon as he stepped inside, he slammed the steel door behind him and leaned against it, panting. The stench of lavender still rose off his skin, sharp and cloying, like mockery in the air.

He tore off his jacket and hurled it across the room. It hit a pile of crates with a dull thud. He didn’t stop there. He yanked off his shirt—still slick with the oil-based perfume—and flung it onto the concrete floor, stomping on it as if he could grind the scent into dust.

“ You think you’re clever, Princess? ” he hissed under his breath, voice gravelly with rage. “ You think this is funny? You and your little cameras and your lavender-scented death traps?”

He paced, his steps sharp and uneven.

“She humiliated me,” he growled aloud, shoving a stack of folders off a table.

They scattered everywhere. “Freaking perfumed me! I spent three hours in that palace crawling through air vents like a rat, and what did I get? A shattered perfume bottle to the head. A jammed thumb. A mouthful of blood and a damn tooth gone.”

It wasn’t just humiliation. It was war.

After a blistering shower at a nearby gym and a visit to a back-alley doctor who didn’t ask questions, Clyde’s thumb was reset and splinted. Still sore, but the pain was finally manageable. He clenched it experimentally, hissed, then relaxed.

The dentist—some smug bastard who smelled of stale coffee and latex—had confirmed that yes, he’d lost a tooth, but until he took a mold of his mouth, another tooth implant couldn’t be created.

Clyde didn’t want any evidence of himself floating around, even digital images of his mouth, so he declined the treatment plan.

But the dentist had given him pain meds.

Something strong. After visiting a pharmacy, Clyde washed one down with warm water from a cracked thermos, then sat at the worktable in his makeshift “office.

Pulling out his laptop from the hidden space in the rubble, Clyde flicked it on and waited seconds until the files appeared on his screen.

Photos loaded—floorplans, guard rotations, blueprints of air ducts and schematics of the palace power grid.

He exhaled slowly, then leaned closer, his mind already working now that he wasn’t in so much pain.

“New plan,” he muttered. “No more games.”

This time, he wouldn’t sneak through shadows like a ghost.

This time, he’d carve a path straight to her. Let the whole palace tremble.

No more perfume. No more rumpled sheets. No more stupid vents.

She’d made a fool of him.

Now he was going to show her what kind of man she’d crossed.

And this time, when he got to her, he wouldn’t hesitate.