Modern Romance August 2026 Books #5-8

Chapter One

IF YOU HAD asked the Regent of Al Surrahin what he would have done first upon entering Omrhain, the small emirate neighbouring his own, he probably wouldn’t have said ‘Indulge in one of the world’s most luxurious spas’. Yet, that was precisely what Malik was doing.

He raised his head to face the onslaught of scalding-hot water, letting it wash the sand and dirt imbedded into his skin from the three solid days of horseback riding that brought him here.

Here.

Omrhain. The home of the woman he was about to marry.

The woman he’d never met.

Steam rose from the jets of water that thundered to the black tile flooring, solid beneath his feet. It was a panacea to his aching muscles. He rolled his shoulders, paying more attention to the twinge in his left, feeling the tight skin there the most.

The spa, boasting twelve pools, three saunas, three steam rooms, four treatment rooms and one relaxation room, could comfortably welcome over one hundred guests.

Yet this evening there was no one here but him and the handful of staff dressed in black so that they disappeared unobtrusively into the shadows.

Whether his future father-in-law knew about Malik’s intense need for privacy, or had simply divined it from the rumours that had hounded Malik since childhood, his sole occupancy of the spa was a gesture Malik appreciated.

Years ago, his nakedness would have been intolerable to him; made him too vulnerable.

Too exposed. But Malik had come to terms with the burn scar that covered his left shoulder and half his arm—the result of an accident during a seizure as a young teen.

A seizure from the disorder that had horrified his father and cursed his mother.

Fearing for his reputation, his father had kept Malik’s condition a secret, letting people assume, instead, that there was something else wrong with the son he called a monster.

From there Malik’s reputation morphed under the rumours that grew so varied that people were genuinely shocked when they saw him not disfigured in the way they expected him to be.

But that didn’t mean he was comfortable with people staring at him.

The scar had become as distorted to Malik as his reputation, the physical reminder of his father’s cruel treatment and what it had cost both his mother and himself.

But he had learned to bear the curiosity of others with a sense of inevitability.

Besides, he was sure that the staff were paid enough to look passed the hardened, twisted, puckered flesh that wrapped around his shoulder and down his arm to his elbow.

It is just a scar. Nothing more.

Malik tried to ignore the echo of his brother’s voice but failed and instead braced his palms against the tile, forcing back the ache that had filled his chest for the past week.

Ever since his brother’s doctors had requested a meeting with him.

Malik knew what they wanted to talk to him about, but just couldn’t bear it.

His brother, the Sheikh of Al Surrahin, had been in a coma for the last three years after a horrifying horse-riding accident.

Of all the things that could have laid his brother low, Malik had never thought it would be a horse. Ishmail had been a natural equestrian, the animal simply an extension of his own will. It was impossibly cruel that Ishmail had fallen and broken his neck from his favourite hobby.

Malik had been brought back to the palace and made regent that same night, knowing full well that his father would have clawed himself out of his grave to stop it if he could have.

It wouldn’t be for long, Malik had insisted to Yara. Ishmail would recover. And his brother’s wife had stared at him, dry-eyed and devastated, and allowed him to lie. Six months later she and Aayan, their young son, moved out of the palace.

Malik wanted to howl and bare his teeth.

Years ago, he would have done just that, uncaring of what that would have done to his already outlandish reputation.

But now that he was interim ruler of Al Surrahin?

He wouldn’t. He couldn’t damage the country he was taking care of for his brother and his nephew.

Frustrated, he turned off the shower and the sudden quietness rippled outward across the spa.

Flickering candles led the way to the first pool, the underwater lighting making it look almost celestial.

He sank into the warmth, displacing the water so that it lapped against the tile.

But still the delicious warmth did nothing to ease his restlessness as his thoughts turned from the past to the future.

To tomorrow, when he would finally meet the Emir of Omrhain’s youngest daughter, his soon-to-be-bride.

Malik swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth.

He had never intended to marry. Certainly not after his first, broken, engagement.

But now that Malik was regent, the reputation that his father had burdened him with was a deadweight around Malik’s neck.

Marriage, it was believed, was the only way to soften his reputation and begin easing the way forward with those who had appreciated his brother’s lighter, easier touch when they were negotiating with Al Surrahin.

Unnerved, Malik moved from the pool to the steam room. The door was opened for him wordlessly by a black-robed figure whose eyes were cast down.

He settled onto the smooth marble seat, and leaned his head back against the wall, letting rolling clouds of steam fill the small room. Scented with eucalyptus, he inhaled the damp thick air deep into his lungs, pushing out the arid desert air that he’d lived and breathed for the last three days.

At least this time, his fiancée would know what to expect.

An arrangement that was purely political, with no expectations beyond that.

He would make it painstakingly clear to the youngest of Emir Hafiz’s daughters that theirs was to be a marriage in name only.

It shouldn’t surprise her. After all, it was unlikely that she had any inclination to want more from the Terror of Al Surrahin.

‘Please, Your Highness. You cannot, must not, be caught.’

‘I promise, Jehan, I won’t. I don’t need much time, I just need to see him. Just to know that he’s not…’ Hana swallowed, her siblings’ taunts ringing in her ears.

He’s hideous. Cruel. A monster. That’s why no one is willing to marry him, Hana. He’s disfigured. His scars are as legendary as his temper. He’s worse, even, than his father. It’s why his first fiancée ran away.

Hana doubted that what her sister had said, what the rumours proclaimed, was even half true, but she had to know. Not because it would stop her from marrying the interim ruler of Al Surrahin. No, she would do the duty her father had finally bestowed upon her.

If she’d been able to find a decent picture of the notoriously camera-shy sheikh, it might have not been necessary to resort to such drastic measures.

She just wanted to be prepared, that’s all.

Their families were meeting tomorrow. All her siblings had returned to the palace for it.

And if she was going to have a reaction to seeing her future husband for the first time, she’d rather not do it in public and bring more embarrassment to either the Regent of Al Surrahin or her family.

Because hadn’t she already embarrassed her family enough over the years?

‘Your Highness,’ Jehan started nervously, ‘I understand… I really do. But if you are caught—’

‘I won’t be,’ Hana assured him. ‘I won’t be more than five minutes. The moment I’ve seen him, I’ll leave again. I promise.’

He eyed her sceptically. A look that she’d seen on a hundred faces over the years.

And she couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t as if she wasn’t aware of how much chaos she caused.

But no matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t seem to stop it from happening.

And really, in this instance, she was just going to stick her head around the door, and then leave again.

What trouble could she really get into?

A lot apparently.

Hana had come to the spa many times as a guest, so she’d been confident that she would be able to find her way around.

Only this time, all the corridors merged together as if she were in an Escher painting.

Her heart began to pound and stress, combined with the heat of the spa, caused a light sheen of sweat to cover her skin beneath the black abaya the female staff members wore.

Get it together, Hana, she told herself firmly. She had a plan and she was going to stick to it. She’d been so thankful when the regent had accepted her father’s gift. She knew she was taking a risk, but the reward would be when she faced him tomorrow with a smile.

She just needed one glimpse, she thought as she peered around the end of the hallway that finally opened out into the central area of the spa.

The ethereal aquamarine glow from the twelve pools that she loved so much revealed that they were empty.

She turned down another hallway, pausing for a moment to inhale the delicious scents from the oil burners placed discreetly along the walls.

The familiar notes of neroli and jasmine soothed the frayed edges of her nerves and she steeled herself as she pressed on.

She came to a halt opposite the steam room just as its door opened.

Steam billowed outwards as a man—huge—covered only by a low-slung towel wrapped around his waist stepped into the corridor.

Stifling a gasp, Hana stepped back as she took in dark slicked-back hair that was long enough to brush shoulders so wide that he took up almost the entire hallway.

Staff had to press themselves into the curved walls or get out of the way as the man stalked forward, his back still to her.

Skin warming with a blush that had nothing to do with embarrassment, Hana realised that this was the Regent of Al Surrahin. This was the man she would marry.