Page 35 of Her Irresistible Sheik
What the hell had he just tripped on?
Bed sheets.Why the hell were the bed sheets on the damn floor?
His thumb throbbed violently now, but he shoved the pain into the mental box where he stored things like feelings and childhood memories.He limped toward the vanity and yanked the silk dressing panel forward to hide behind it, folding his lanky frame into the narrow space just as the door creaked open behind him.
Footsteps.Voices in Arabic.
Clyde didn’t speak a word of it—but he could interpret the tone.One guard was annoyed at being dragged into a false alarm.The other sounded like he was blaming a cat.A cat?!Did this woman keep animals?
There were no further steps, no barked orders.The door closed again.
Clyde didn’t move.His lungs burned from holding his breath so long.He’d never been this close to getting caught.Never!His reputation was built on stealth, silence, and zero trace left behind.
Now here he was—hiding behind silk, bleeding internally (possibly), and smelling like lemon floor cleaner!
She would pay for this.
After several more moments, silence reigned.Clyde eased the panel aside, stepping carefully into the room again.But in his anger, he misjudged his trajectory and elbowed the edge of the makeup table.A single perfume bottle teetered… tilted… and thunked off his skull with unerring accuracy.
He nearly screamed.
Instead, Clyde slammed both hands over his mouth—only to immediately regret it as pain from his injured thumb shot up to his jaw like an electrified freight train.His knees buckled slightly from the excruciating pain, but still he didn’t make a sound.
Victory?Perhaps.But it smelled of lavender.
Literally.
He glanced down.
The shattered crystal bottle lay on the floor, the crystal stopper a few centimeters from the bottle.The contents had soaked the floor—and him—with oil-based perfume.The hem of his pants gleamed with it.His sleeves were damp.Even his skin glistened.
Lavender.Heavy.Sweet.Cloying.
He smelled like a damned tea party in a Victorian garden.
And worse—itlingered.The bitch’s perfume was expensive, the kind that seeped into the skin instead of laying on the surface like the cheap stuff.
His mouth twisted in horror.He would be wafting of lavender for days!
Murder.Definitely murder.
He moved again, stealthy now that he knew not to trust the layouts Leona had sent him, stepping over the broken glass and oily patch.Time to finish this.His patience was gone!
But when he pulled back the duvet on the large bed, ready to simply shoot the damn bitch…!
Empty.
She wasn’t there.
After all this, after hours of infiltration, creeping, easing through vents, dodging guards and toppling over rogue furniture… she wasn’t even in the room.
Clyde clenched his fists, one of them awkwardly because of his most-likely broken thumb.She had to die.Just as soon as he figured out where she was.
Slipping from the suite, he retraced his steps with meticulous care, once again avoiding sensors and guard patrols.But there was no chance in hell he was hiding in that mop closet again.He had standards.Instead, he made his way toward the older wing of the palace—the abandoned harem quarters, long since converted into storage.
A shame, really.
As he slipped into the stone chamber of the common area of the harem space, he glanced around at the carved pillars and sunken marble baths.He might enjoy having a harem.Quiet women.Obedient.Decorative.They wouldn’t leave sheets on the floor or rearrange furniture just to sabotage his plans.
