Falling for Her Forbidden Bodyguard, page 1
When she retraced her steps back to him, Nasser had to forcibly unclench his jaw to grit out, “You are safe with me.”
Anisa sniffed. “You say that, but I don’t know you—”
He closed the gap between them, and she cut herself off and took one sharp inhale in reaction.
“I repeat—your safety is paramount to me. Do not take my words lightly either.”
With her hijab styled as a turban, he could see her throat ripple in response to his words. Backdropped by the purple blooms of the jacaranda, Anisa made for a mesmerizing portrait. It was one he unconsciously cataloged for memory as his stare roved over the rosy-brown flush painting the tip of her nose and the swell of her cheeks. The longer he studied her, the louder her breathing became in the silence, her lips parting. Fighting not to close his eyes, he subtly pulled in her natural scent. But how could anyone smell so good? Feeling the same kind of breathlessness, he stepped to the side, discreetly giving them the space they both seemed to need.
As soon as he did, Anisa’s lips tightened and her nostrils flared, but she didn’t argue.
Dear Reader,
There’s nothing more gratifying in a romance to me than following an emotionally wounded character’s journey of personal healing to a happily-ever-after.
In Falling for Her Forbidden Bodyguard, Anisa and Nasser are at odds with each other. Nasser just wants to do the job Anisa’s brother hired him for and safeguard Anisa, but she wants her independence and doesn’t want to be babysat by a bodyguard (no matter how hot he is!). On top of this, they are both deeply impacted by childhood losses. So much, in fact, that they can’t recognize the power of trusting and leaning on loved ones when they are at their lowest points.
Because of this distrust, they keep their hearts closely guarded. It takes a journey together across the paradise-like island of Madagascar all the way to the shores of Somalia for them to realize they not only share a lot in common, but that they can help one another heal from and grow through their individual traumas.
So if you’re anything like me and love a tale where good people are hurting and get their happy at the end, then I hope Anisa and Nasser’s love story satisfies you.
Happy reading,
Hana
Falling for Her Forbidden Bodyguard
Hana Sheik
Hana Sheik falls in love every day reading her favorite romances and writing her own happily-ever-afters. She’s worked various jobs—but never for very long because she’s always wanted to be a romance author. Now she gets to happily live that dream. Born in Somalia, she moved to Ottawa, Canada, at a very young age and still resides there with her family.
Books by Hana Sheik
Harlequin Romance
Second Chance to Wear His Ring
Temptation in Istanbul
Forbidden Kisses with Her Millionaire Boss
The Baby Swap That Bound Them
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.
To Soraya,
For taking the messy first draft of this story, seeing what it could become and making it sparkle.
Praise for Hana Sheik
“Second Chance to Wear His Ring is so much more than a typical romance story. It is a story of overcoming personal tragedy and also has huge cultural references!”
—Goodreads
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM CINDERELLA’S ADVENTURE WITH THE CEO BY SUZANNE MERCHANT
CHAPTER ONE
Take care of yourself.
ANISA ABDULLAHI READ the text from her older brother, Ara, as she had several times throughout her long flight from Canada to Madagascar, yet it still elicited the same shock from her.
A shock she had every right to feel.
Ara hadn’t spoken to her in four years, cutting off all communication when Anisa had decided to leave their family home in Berbera, Somaliland, to pursue an education and a career in Toronto. It was petty of him, but he’d wanted her to know that he was displeased with her choice. At first Anisa had met his cold shoulder with her own childish behavior. Blocking him on all social media had been a way to push him out of her life. She knew that nothing would aggravate him more than not being able to immediately access what she was up to. After all, Ara had shunned her in the first place because he had lost his precious control over her.
A control he’d exerted to protect her...or so he would have her believe. Anisa only went along with his obsessive helicoptering for the sake of their long-dead parents. She’d told herself so many times that Ara needed to do what he had to do to save the family he had left: her. Losing their mother and father had changed him, and it took her a long while to realize that his change wasn’t for the better.
And that was why she refused to be the one to break their silence.
At least, that was how she felt. Over time, Anisa’s embittered heart stirred with a longing. For family. For her brother. Not the man who imprisoned her in their home and tracked her every innocent movement with eagle-eyed precision. Rather, the boy who after pranking her would laugh so hard he’d get a bellyache, but who would then just as easily chase off her school bullies.
She wanted that version of her brother.
Almost as much as she’d just wished for some sign, any sign that he wasn’t gravely upset with her anymore.
Though admittedly the long-awaited message from Ara wasn’t exactly as she’d pictured.
“‘Take care of yourself’... What does that even mean, and how am I supposed to reply back?” she muttered under her breath before dropping her phone in her lap and massaging her throbbing temples. Her hands stilled suddenly when she considered that maybe Ara had messaged her accidentally.
He meant to text someone else, not me.
She sighed, supposing that the universe was having some good fun at her expense.
She’d only waited for most of four insufferably long years to hear from her brother—
“And now I need cipher to decode his message. Great.” Anisa groaned, biting back her sarcastic moaning halfway when two businessmen sitting in chairs nearest to her stopped chatting and eyed her funnily.
With a blush, and a softer groan of embarrassment, Anisa sank into the comfortable armchair in the hotel’s foyer. Before she could hope to disappear, she caught the eyes of another person.
A man standing before the revolving glass doors of the hotel’s entrance and exit.
Anisa’s breath whooshed out, not remembering when she held in the gulp of air. She must have, after noticing the handsome stranger who seemed to be watching her. He was dressed in business attire like the men who had looked at her strangely, but unlike them, his suit molded seamlessly to unmistakable muscle, hinting at the exquisite work of a tailor handling expensive material for his creation. The result was a jacket and pants of obsidian, with a pale gray dress shirt and a gleaming white tie. He was a monochromatic emblem. One that had her discreetly wiping at her mouth after picking her jaw up off the floor.
In fairness, it was the only appropriate reaction to a man who looked that good.
A man who really, truly did appear to be boring holes into her skull from the short distance that separated them.
Instinctively Anisa slid up the chair, sitting straighter, with her hands fastening on the supple leather of the armrests and her sneakers pressed flat to the soft rug carpeting the waiting area. She looked around, certain there was a perfectly logical explanation.
Someone’s standing behind me, that’s it. Probably a gorgeous bikini-clad woman heading toward the hotel’s crystal-blue outdoor pool.
Only she had seen the sign pointing to the pool, and it was in the opposite direction from the foyer, nearer the back of the hotel for privacy.
Yet because it was far more plausible to believe than thinking this hot dude was checking her out, she clung to the woman-in-a-bikini theory.
But no one conveniently stood behind her to explain who he’d been looking at. No half-dressed woman sauntered along the foyer. There was no one but her. And that unleashed a torrent of heat through her blood, her skin flushing readily, her limbs weakening just as her heart strengthened its beats. It wasn’t an entirely awful feeling. Strange, unexpected...
Not terrible, icky, or ugly and unwanted.
But she suddenly experienced a vulnerability she wanted to outrun. That explained her physical reaction.
She wanted to get out of there.
When she tried to move, get up from the chair and rush back to the sanctuary of her hotel room, Anisa couldn’t budge. Couldn’t bring herself to do anything but gawk at the devastatingly handsome man staring her down from across the brightly lit foyer.
So Anisa studied his heart-stopping features. And she missed nothing, her eyes tracking almost hungrily over his short, curly black hair and the low fade that started right around his ears. From there her gaze traveled over
But it was his eyes that arrested her mind completely. Fathomlessly dark pupils beheld her as though no one else existed...despite there being several people in the entrance hall with them.
I’m imagining things. Any minute now he’s going to raise his hand, and somebody else will pop up. Any moment he’ll look away. Any second—
If Anisa held another thought in her head, it flew away the instant he suddenly moved in her direction, and along with it any hope to sneak off.
She froze, a doe trapped in a hunter’s snare.
In college she’d worked as a paid student assistant on a nature documentary at a Florida wild cat sanctuary. Right now she was having flashbacks of the big cats she had met. Specifically the rare black panther. Only this man wasn’t prowling toward her on all fours. Rather, his steps were unhurried in polished brown cap-toe oxfords. And it seemed to her that, like an apex predator’s, his stare intensified upon approach.
Another few strides and he’d be right by her side.
What am I going to say?
Anisa’s heart rate quickened as her mind flailed. The worst part was she knew that she wouldn’t be able to utter the first word, not with the way her jaw slackened and her tongue grew stiff in her mouth.
It didn’t stop her from trying. She pried her drying lips apart—
“Anisa! There you are!”
Anisa jerked her head to see her coworker and friend Darya hurrying toward her from the elevator. She blinked in surprise, once, twice, before finally shaking off the stupor clouding her head and discovering she could move her limbs again.
She stood as Darya touched her arm, concern painting her friend’s pale, round face.
“I’ve been calling you,” Darya said. “Weren’t we supposed to meet up in your room first before heading out?”
Because they’d only landed a couple hours ago, and it was well into the evening in Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo, their film crew wouldn’t officially begin work until tomorrow morning. Once production started, there was very little chance they would have time to themselves outside the long hours that awaited them, especially as they had one day allotted in Antananarivo for their filming schedule. That meant she and Darya had the best chance to do a little city exploring tonight and tonight only.
“Sorry, I got bored and decided to come down for a little people-watching.” Anisa cast her friend a sheepish smile.
“Well, if you’re done scoping out the other hotel guests, may we please go catch our rideshare before it decides to leave us?” Darya batted her long fake lashes for comical effect.
Anisa snorted a laugh.
Darya grinned before hooking her arm through Anisa’s and pulling her toward the exit.
Anisa’s humor dried up on recalling that there was one hotel guest in particular who had consumed most of her attention. She spotted him at Reception, speaking to the staff behind the large circular bronze and white marble desk. Looking back to the armchair she’d vacated, she figured it was possible that he’d been aiming for the hotel’s front desk all along, and that she’d let her imagination get the better of her.
There was no way he was coming for me.
The thought carried some relief and a smidgen of dismay.
Even when she’d wanted to run, she wouldn’t have minded a guy that incredibly hot focusing all his attention on her.
Allowing Darya to tug her through the revolving doors out into the city, Anisa flung a final look back at him before losing sight of him altogether, then forced herself to release her strange bout of disappointment.
Surely there were other attractive men in the world. Maybe even some who were actually interested in her.
So why couldn’t she get this one out of her head?
* * *
Anisa couldn’t figure out if she was losing her mind or not. But she didn’t know how else she could explain seeing her stranger from the hotel all over the Analakely Market, a popular outdoor marketplace in Antananarivo, or Tana, as the locals called the city. At first, it was just glimpses from the corner of her eye.
In the narrow paths snaking between vendor stalls. Behind her in the sea of bodies flooding the market space.
He seemed to be everywhere—and nowhere at the same time.
Even when she paused to right her hijab, using her phone’s camera as an impromptu mirror, her hands froze at the sight of those dark eyes searing her. Yet when Anisa whirled around...no one was there.
But when she saw him striding past the large front window of the small restaurant she and Darya had chosen to dine at, Anisa began to question her sanity.
He can’t be stalking me...
Anisa wished her confidence backed her thinking. She continued to feel out of sorts after she and Darya split their dinner bill and left the restaurant, strolling back through the expansive market.
Spread over several blocks, Analakely Market had almost everything, from produce, seafood and meat to clothing, shoes, household items and bootleg films. In that way, it was not unlike most outdoor marketplaces. But it also had unique perks like pop-up nail salons served solely by young men, and grilled lizard meat among other traditional street foods.
Anisa sniffed the air laced with the tantalizing smells, though luckily her stomach was immune to the scents. The big Malagasy-style dinner she’d shared with Darya had saved her from shelling out more money sampling the foods from the market vendors.
Walking past the delectable, deep-fried temptations on display, Anisa trailed her friend to a stall selling hats of all kinds.
The stall owner, an elderly woman with brown skin lined with age, smiled widely in recognition of them. Like most of the market vendors, she was eager to make a sale. Happy to oblige, Darya zeroed in on a fedora.
She popped the hat on and modeled it for Anisa. “Does it make my head look big?”
Anisa disagreed with a laugh.
Smiling her approval, Darya started haggling over the price with the stall owner.
Free to look around the nearby stalls, Anisa paused at a table full of sparkly trinkets, never thinking she would see so many hair clips and ties, ribbons, and bedazzled broaches all in one place. She was looming over the rhinestone-embellished silver pins when the vendor encouraged her to try some on. Eagerly Anisa clipped a bow-shaped pin to her hijab and studied her reflection in the hand mirror the vendor offered her.
Even with the small cracks in the smudged mirror, she couldn’t deny the attractiveness of the accessory.
Parting with a few Malagasy ariary, the local currency, wasn’t an issue.
As she strolled away with her new purchase pinned to her hijab, Anisa hoped Darya was done with her price negotiation so that they could finally leave the market and head for their hotel.
Between Ara’s enigmatic text and believing that she had a handsome stalker, her day could be summed up as a wild roller-coaster ride, and she couldn’t wait for it to end. Pulling her phone up by its long, pearly cross-body chain, Anisa scrolled past Ara’s message and thumbed a quick text for Darya to meet up with her at one of the three long stone stairways that led in and out of the market. Her thighs and calves already burned in anticipation of the workout she’d be getting from climbing all those steps up to La Ville Moyenne, the city’s Middle Town, where they could hail a cab easier. She wasn’t looking forward to it, yet if it meant that she could lock herself in her hotel suite and pretend she had no worries, then Anisa was up for the exercise.
After she sent Darya the message, she bobbed and weaved through the crowds back to where she’d left her friend and wondered how she’d managed to wander away so far, then came to an abrupt halt.
Anisa did a double take, gawking ahead of her, the crowds milling around blocking her view. Springing up on her toes, she searched avidly for some sort of confirmation this time.
