Page 9 of Her Irresistible Sheik (Al-Sintra Family #9)
Mikail was losing his damn mind.
Five days. That’s all it had been.
Five days since Nahla had stepped foot into his palace—and he was starting to question everything: his sanity, his priorities, his HVAC system—because her scent lingered in every hallway like she’d spritzed perfume directly into the air vents.
He turned the corner outside the council room and inhaled automatically. Gardenias? Vanilla? Whatever it was, it haunted him like a seductive ghost.
Every glimpse of her threw off his schedule. One time, he spotted her curled up with a mystery novel in the library and spent the next three hours “revising” a shipping tax memo by writing the word “Nahla” repeatedly in the margins like some schoolboy with a crush.
Worse, she was changing things .
His perfectly organized, blissfully rigid world had developed…
frayed edges. Sure, she stayed tucked in the library for hours, reading who-knew-what.
And yeah, maybe he’d ordered fifty new books to make the place “more interesting.” And okay, maybe he’d arranged for them to be subtly displayed where she could find them, like a literary Easter egg hunt.
But now—now he’d just been informed she was in the kitchen.
The kitchen!
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Mikail exhaled slowly and dropped his head back in frustration. What was a royal princess doing in a kitchen? Did she think his chef wasn’t feeding her properly? Was she dissatisfied? Malnourished?
The very idea made his blood pressure spike. If this was some silent protest over under-seasoned chicken, he’d fire every damn person in that kitchen personally .
He turned his glare on his personal assistant, Desmond, who blinked back at him in confusion.
“Why,” Mikail ground out, “is the Princess elbow-deep in flour?”
Desmond blinked. “She…said she was craving lemon cookies?”
Mikail narrowed his eyes. “Lemon cookies.”
Desmond nodded.
“Does she not have access to snacks? Fruit? Cake? A five-star chef with a literal Michelin background?”
“She, uh, said she wanted to try baking. Said it calms her.”
Mikail stared at him. “You know what else is calming? Reading. Long walks. Yoga.”
Desmond shifted uncomfortably. “She also said she doesn’t like yoga. Says it’s a cult.”
Mikail grunted. He couldn’t argue with that.
He shoved his chair back with a force that made the wheels skid. The hospital plans for the northwest region lay forgotten on his desk, next to his pen—now ink-stained with the imprint of his teeth, thanks to a momentary lapse in judgment where he’d tried to chew through his own annoyance.
He hadn’t made it past the first paragraph of those plans. How could he, when all he could think about was Nahla laughing over cookie dough, with flour dusting her cheeks and her sleeves rolled up to reveal those maddeningly elegant wrists?
And then— the worst thought of all —what if the chef was flirting with her?
His blood pressure spiked again. Some smug bastard with the too-white teeth and the “I studied in Lyon” attitude better not be winking at Nahla or he’d find himself reassigned to the royal kennel.
Scowling, Mikail grabbed his jacket, yanked it on with unnecessary force, and stomped toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Desmond asked warily.
“To investigate a potential security breach.”
“In the kitchen?”
“It’s become a hostile zone.”
Then, under his breath as he stormed out: “She’s probably in there sprinkling powdered sugar on someone else’s day. Mine’s just bitter coffee and frustration.
And with that, the ruler of Tavista set off to reclaim his kitchen—and quite possibly his rapidly unraveling composure.