Page 34 of Her Irresistible Sheik
She wasn’t supposed to fall for him.She was here for protection.That’s all.This wasn’t her home, or her future.
She’d promised herself not to get too close.
So why did it hurt?
Nahla laid her head down on a pillow and blinked rapidly, trying to clear the moisture stinging her eyes.
Chapter 18
Clyde emerged from the closet like a shadow melting into deeper darkness.He paused.Listened.Waited.
Three o’clock.The hour of stillness.Outside of the palace, there were probably some people coming back from parties, but very few.And inside the palace, the overachievers hadn’t yet arrived.
It washishour.
He moved without sound, his footfalls practiced, weight distributed evenly to minimize floorboard creaks.He was a professional.Methodical.Efficient.A predator born not of emotion or need, but of purpose.
But even predators had to adapt.Hiding in that ridiculous supply closet again for hours hadn’t been part of the plan.Nor had the putrid mop that had fallen directly onto his face, coating his mouth with the scent of lemon disinfectant and mildew.Unfortunately, someone had passed by at that exact moment, so he’d had to wait to push it away.
He swallowed the memory—and the taste—with a curl of his lip.She’d pay for that.For all of it.For the insult of being captured on camera, his carefully constructed anonymity shattered and posted—revealed!—on apuppy adoption website.
His legacy mocked with glitter fonts and paw-print borders.
Unforgivable.
He moved through the corridors with surgical precision, ducking cameras, shadowing corners, until he reached the guest wing.Her suite was just beyond the two guards posted in front of those gilded double doors.
He didn’t falter.
Instead, he slipped into the suite next door, exactly as planned.He knew every angle of the palace blueprints.He had studied the air ducts for weeks, analyzing which shafts would bear his weight, which sensors were real, and which were ornamental lies.
He was a ghost.A scalpel in human form.
The vent groaned faintly as he slid inside, but Clyde froze, counted to three, and then kept moving, inch by calculated inch.
By the time he reached the duct above her sitting room, sweat dampened his back.Not from exertion—but from focus.He was minutes away from reclaiming his reputation with blood.
Unscrewing the grate one-handed, he caught it before it could drop.
Flawless.
He eased himself through the narrow opening and dropped silently into the darkened room.Then he started moving toward his goal.
Only to immediately slam his shin into something.
Pain shot through his leg, white and hot.He bit his tongue to suppress the cry, but a strangled grunt still slipped out.
Looking down, he glared at the offending object.A chair?Why was there a chair here?!The furniture layout had been clearly documented!
He reached down to steady himself—and tumbled again.Reaching out to stop an undignified tumble to the floor, Clyde grabbed the nearest object, then gasped in pain as he smacked his thumb against what he assumed was a low table.Hard.
The table didn’t budge.His thumb, however, was now bent in a direction it definitely wasn’t supposed to.
And worse… he’d made a sound.
Which meant the guards were already unlocking the suite doors.He had maybe three seconds to vanish.
Darting forward, Clyde sprinted to the bedroom, mentally recalling the layout—only to trip over something soft and uncooperative.His legs tangled.His shoulder slammed into the doorframe.A hiss of pain tore through his clenched teeth.
