Page 16 of The Billionaire's Timed Wife

“No,” I answer honestly. “I think something happened to him and we’ll never see him again.” I’ve checked his personal bank accounts. There’s been no activity. I’m starting to believeNaim is dead. “All right. You’ll stay with me for the next three weeks, whether I take the throne or not.”

“You will, Kaled. It’s written. You’re meant to be our leader.”

“Fine. The plane will pick you up early in the morning.”

“There’s one more thing.”

“You really don’t know when to stop, do you? Go on.”

“I need Adeela with me. I won’t leave without her. So you’ll have to call Counselor Arif and tell him my friend is traveling to Paris as my companion. He’ll only let her go if the order comes directly from the future sheikh.”

Chapter 8

Rheadur

The Next Day

As I walk toward Prince Kaled’s private jet beside Jazmina, I try to ignore the bitter look in my father’s eyes.

Does he know we’re running away?

There’s a chance he suspects something, yes.

It was nothing short of a stroke of luck that allowed me to escape in time.

Luck and the prince’s kindness. He agreed, even without knowing the real reason, to grant his sister’s request and take me along on this sudden “vacation.”

My whole body trembles, but I force myself to stand tall, step after step, as if I have nothing to hide.

Inside, I’m terrified, wondering if, at any moment, my father will change his mind and forbid me from going to Paris with Jazmina.

Even though I know that’s unlikely, since not even my father would dare defy the will of the future sheikh, fear isn’t a rational emotion.

Jazmina reaches for my hand and squeezes it tightly, as if sensing that I might faint. “Almost there, Adeela. Hang on.”

When I finally step onto the last stair and into the plane, I can’t even admire the luxury of the aircraft or get excited about the fact that I’ll be flying for the first time in my life, something my father never allowed me to do on any of his trips.

“Where’s the bathroom?” I ask my friend.

“At the back of the plane, but use the one in the suite to the left.”

I make my way there, almost running under the startled gazes of the crew.

Jazmina doesn’t follow, perhaps understanding that I need to be alone.

In the bathroom, the nausea hits hard.

The tension that’s been building since I overheard my father’s conversation with one of his oldest friends finally drains from my body.

It wasn’t just the fact that he arranged my marriage to a man fifty years older than me that shocked me. Even though the idea feels like a nightmare, arranged marriages are still not unheard of, even if, nowadays, women are allowed to give their opinion about their prospective husbands.

My father always made it clear that he saw his daughters as inferior beings, and both my sisters and I knew that when we married, it would be under his approval, though I never intended to let it get that far, since once I went to England with Jazmina, I planned to run away from there to America.

So it didn’t surprise me that he’d be cruel enough to arrange a marriage without even asking me.

But what he said to the man, behind closed doors, in his study, and which I only heard by accident, showed me that there has never been, and never will be, any trace of love in his heart for me.

“I advise you to be strict with her once you’re married,”he said.“Her mother, my ex-wife, was nothing but a filthy prostitute, and my daughter carries her blood. I suggest you keep an eye out for possible acts of betrayal.”