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CHAPTER ONE
KING RASHAD EL-AMIN QUARAISHI studied the photos spread across his office desk Six feet three inches tall, he dorandfather’s unusual height Black-haired and possessed of long-lashed dark eyes, he had also inherited the perfect bone structure that had made his mother a renowned beauty in the Middle East Indeed, his s coreatly embarrassed by the fact
‘A cornucopia of feminine perfection,’ his chief adviser, Hakin, a new queen and, we trust, a new dynasty! Truthfully, fortune will smile now on the fortunes of Dharia’
Although his royal eree But then Rashad had always known that it was his duty to marry and father a child Unfortunately it was not a project that inspired hie and he knew the pitfalls Living with a wo in cos and personality clashes would abound in such a relationship and if the desired conception did not occur in record time the stress would multiply and the unhappiness and dissatisfaction would settle in
No, e held very little appeal for Rashad The best he could hope for in a future bride was that she would have sufficient sense and practicality to enable them to live their separate lives in relative peace He did not expect much in the way of support frolue Nor was he likely to forget his parents’ faardless, he also understood and accepted that the very stability of his country rested on his capacity to act as a respected role model for his people
Over the past twenty-odd years the population of Dharia had suffered a great deal and change and innovation were no longer welcome because in the desire for peace everybody had rushed to re-embrace the traditional relaxed Dharian outlook and custoance and his blind determination to force Western ways on an extreovernly tyrannical and inevitably clashed with the army, who acted to defend the constitution with the support of the people The history of that popular revolution was etched in the ruins of the former dictator’s palace in the city of Kashan and in the prompt restoration of the monarchy
Tragically, a car bomb had killed off almost all of Rashad’s family In the aftermath his uncle had hidden him in the desert to keep hihtened little boy lish nanny than to the distant parents he rarely saw and in the turation of martial law even his nanny had vanished The palace had been looted, their loyal staff dispersed and life as Rashad had conition
‘Your Majesty, estion?’ Hakim asked
Rashad thought for an instant that his adviser was going to suggest that he flung all the photos of potentially suitable brides into a lucky dip and chose blind It would be a random form of selection and very disrespectful of the candidates, he acknowledged wryly, but he was cynically convinced that his chances of a happy union would be just as good with that e, after all, was a very risky game
of chance
His wide sensual ed