Page 6 of The Billionaire's Timed Wife

I look at her, unsure.

“What are you thinking?” she asks.

“I accept your offer to study in England. I don’t want to leave Rheadur forever, I love our country, but if staying means never seeing my mother again, then the choice isn’t really mine. If you can convince your father to let me go, I’ll gladly agree.”

She hugs me and kisses my cheek. “We’ll make it happen. But now we need to hurry. We only have thirty minutes to get ready.”

“Do you know who’ll be in the hall?”

“Father, a few advisors, and my two brothers. Maybe another guest of honor.” She pauses, stepping closer. “It’ll be a ten-minute dance. What’s that compared to our future freedom?”

I shake my head, smiling. I wish I had half her optimism. “I ran away from him today,” I confess.

“I don’t understand.”

“Your younger brother, Prince Kaled. I ran from him a few hours ago. I was crying, hiding in one of the palace rooms, and...”

“Why were you crying?”

“I don’t want to talk about it now,” I say, dodging the question. Why upset her by admitting that one of my half-sisters ruined my favorite dress, the one she gave me, out of spite? “The point is, I overheard him talking in English with a friend.”

“Did you understand what they said?”

My face burns, and I nod.

Once again, being the sheikh’s daughter’s best friend has worked in my favor. When an English teacher was hired to tutor Jazmina, she let me attend the classes secretly, withoutmy father knowing. Three years of lessons later, I can read and understand everything. Sometimes Jazmina and I even practice in secret, speaking only in that language.

“What were they talking about?”

“It’s not polite to repeat other people’s conversations.”

“You’re no fun!” She laughs. “But you said you ran from him. Why?”

“Embarrassment, obviously. Your brother is . . .”

“Drop-dead gorgeous?”

The heat in my body intensifies. “I was going to say intimidating.”

“That too, but are you really going to pretend you didn’t fall in love the moment you saw him?”

“In love? You’re insane.” I laugh. “Yes, he’s handsome, but I ran because I was shy. Now, let’s stop talking and get dressed before I change my mind again.”

Chapter 3

Every time I come to Rheadur, even back in my boarding school days, when I was still a teenager, I’ve always been chased by girls eager to land a commitment with the sheikh’s youngest son. Most of them are beautiful, young, untouched—and not a single one of them has ever caught my attention. Until today.

So I can’t quite understand what it is about Adeela that hit me so hard.

Maybe it’s the fact that, instinctively, I know she doesn’t justseempure, sheispure.

And that has nothing to do with her being a virgin. Every unmarried girl in this country is.

It was her eyes that told me the story of her life.

Innocence can be faked. Purity cannot. She barely spoke to me, and yet I felt as if every one of my sins had been stripped bare, like I was unworthy of her.

And then, without giving me a chance to fully grasp what had struck me, she ran.