Though it was a little late, she would not blindly accept his decrees ever again.

“Fine,” he said, his voice clipped. “One week.”

Sydney nodded her agreement, her heart pounding as if she’d just run a marathon. “Very well. One week then.”

He turned to gaze out at the ocean again. Then he nodded. “I’ll take it.”

She blinked. “Take what?”

“The house.”

“You haven’t really seen it,” she exclaimed. It was a gorgeous house, one that she only wished she could afford in her wildest dreams, with spacious rooms and breathtaking ocean views. It was the kind of house where she could be inspired to paint, she thought wistfully.

But Malik had only seen the exterior, the main living space, and this terrace. For all he knew, the bedrooms were tiny closets, the bathrooms a 1970s throwback with mustard and orange tiles and psychedelic black fixtures.

Malik shrugged. “It is a house. With a view. It will do.”

Inexplicably, a current of anger uncoiled inside her. He was careless when he wanted something. Accustomed to getting whatever he wanted when he wanted it.

Like her.

In Malik’s world, there were no consequences. No price to be paid when things didn’t work out the way you expected. There was only the next house, the next deal.

The next woman.

Dark anger pumped into her. “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” she said. “There’s already an offer.”

Malik was unfazed. “Add twenty-five percent. The owner will not turn that kind of money down.”

“I think they’ve already accepted the offer,” she said primly. But guilt swelled inside her as soon as she voiced the lie. The owners were entitled to the sale. Her anger at Malik was no excuse to deprive them of it. “But if you’ll give me a moment, I can call and see if there’s a chance.”

Malik’s dark eyes burned into her. “Do it.”

Sydney turned away and walked across the terrace. She called the listing broker just to make sure there were no offers, and then strolled back to Malik when she finished. “Good news,” she said, though it galled her to do so. “If you can come up half a million, the property is yours.”

Because he was too smug, too careless, and she couldn’t let him ride roughshod over her. It was a rebellion of a sort to jack up the price. She refused to feel guilty. In fact, she would donate her portion of the commission to charity. At least Malik’s money could do someone some good.

“Fine,” he murmured. “Whatever it requires.”

Bitterness swelled in her veins. “And will you be happy here, Malik? Or will you regret this purchase, too?”

She didn’t say what she was really thinking—that he regretted her—but it was implied.

“I never regret my actions, habibti. If I change my mind later, I will simply get rid of the property.”

“Of course,” she said stiffly, shame pounding through her. “Because that is easiest.”

Malik could discard whatever he wanted, whatever he no longer needed or desired. He’d spent a lifetime doing so.

His expression didn’t change. He looked so haughty, so superior. “Precisely. You will write up the papers, yes?”

“Of course.”

“Get them now and I will sign them.”

“You don’t want to read them first?”

He shrugged. “Why?”

“What if I increase the price another million?”

“Then I would pay it,” he said.

Sydney opened her briefcase and jerked a blank offer form from inside. As much as she despised him in that moment, as much as she despised his arrogance and nonchalance, she couldn’t succumb to the temptation to take him for a spectacular ride. She quickly wrote in the price, and then shoved the papers at him.

“Sign here,” she said, pointing.

He did so without hesitation. She couldn’t decide if he was simply arrogant and uncaring or stupidly trusting. A split second later he looked up at her, his eyes sharp and hard, and she knew that stupidly trusting was not the correct choice.

This man not only knew what the fair market price of the property was, he also knew that she’d inflated the price—and he was willing to pay it.

“One week, Sydney,” he said, his voice sending a shiver through her body. “And then you are mine.”

“Hardly, Your Highness,” she said, though her voice shook in spite of her determination not to let it. “It’s simply another business arrangement. Forty days in Jahfar in exchange for a lifetime of freedom.”

He bowed his head in acknowledgment. “Of course,” he said. “You are quite correct.”

And yet, as he walked out and left her standing alone with the ocean crashing in the background, she had the sinking feeling that everything about this arrangement was going to be far more complicated than she wanted it to be.

At least for her.

IT took a week and half to get her life organized, and then to board a flight for Jahfar. Malik was not happy, as his messages indicated more than once, but Sydney refused to feel a moment’s worry about it. After he’d left her in the Malibu home—his Malibu home now—she’d quickly phoned her lawyer.

Jillian had tried to help, but in the end there was nothing she could do. An American divorce wouldn’t do the trick. When she’d originally drawn up the papers, she’d warned Sydney it might not be enough. Sydney had just hoped against hope that it would be. Even if it hadn’t been, she hadn’t expected an archaic law like the one mandating she live with Malik in Jahfar for forty days.

Forty days. My God.

Sydney sipped the champagne a flight attendant had brought for her. Her first class seat was comfortable, though the flight was full and she certainly wasn’t alone. She could have flown on Malik’s private plane, but she’d chosen to fly commercial instead. He’d been furious, but she’d held fast to her determination to do so. In the end, he’d gone to Jahfar a few days ahead of her.

Her stomach tightened nervously, and she took another sip of the champagne.

Jahfar. What would she find when she arrived? What would she feel?

It was Malik’s home, and she would in some ways be at his mercy. But she was determined to maintain as much control over her life as possible, which was why she’d insisted on making her own arrangements. Yes, it would have been easier to fly with Malik and let him take care of everything.

But she refused to give him that much control.

The plane touched down in Jahfar a couple of hours after dawn. The moment they taxied to the gate, Sydney realized how foolish her thoughts had been. Because nothing was under her control any longer. A flight attendant hurried to her side, hands clutched together in front of her body. The woman seemed nervous, afraid. And then she bowed deeply.

A heavy feeling settled in the pit of Sydney’s stomach.

“Princess Al Dhakir, please forgive us for not realizing you were aboard.”

“I …” Sydney blinked, her skin heating with embarrassment. “No, that’s fine,” she said, recovering herself though her heart throbbed painfully. “I didn’t wish it to be known.”

She felt so pretentious, but what else could she say? There was no explaining, no telling these people not to refer to her as a princess. They wouldn’t understand.

The woman bowed again before a man came forward and collected Sydney’s carry-on bag from the overhead compartment. Everyone else remained seated as she exited the plane first, her cheeks burning hot. She had an overwhelming urge to strangle Malik when next she saw him.

Which proved to be far sooner than she expected.

The international airport in Port Jahfar teemed with people clothed in both Jahfaran and Western dress, but they fell away like water from a ship’s bow as a man and his entourage cleaved through them. The man was tall, dressed in the flowing white dishdasha and traditional headdress of Jahfar. At his waist was a curved dagger with a jeweled hilt—surprising in an airport, and yet not so much considering where they were.