THE EMPIRE HE BUILT FOR HER

Yasmina

I hated him before I even saw him.

The entire room smelled like expensive perfume and humiliation.

Men sat around the long table discussing my future as though I was property.

As though I wasn’t standing right there.

“As agreed,” my uncle said nervously, “the marriage contract will be transferred immediately.”

Marriage contract,not love, a transaction.

My nails dug into my palms beneath my black dress while rage burned inside my chest.

Then the doors opened.

And Khalil walked in.

Silence followed him.

Eight years since the boy I loved disappeared without explanation.

Eight years since he abandoned me to this family.

Eight years while I cried myself to sleep believing I was not worth staying for.

And now—

he returned richer. Colder. Married.

And terrifyingly powerful.

His eyes found mine instantly.

Still the same dark dangerous eyes that used to soften only for me.

But tonight there was something else inside them.

Possession.

“You’re late,” one of the men joked nervously.

Khalil never looked away from me.

“I came,” he said calmly, “the moment I heard another man planned to touch what belongs to me.”

My breath caught violently.

The room froze.

I felt anger rise so fast it almost choked me.

Belongs to me?

After he abandoned me?

After he married another woman?

Khalil finally stepped closer.

Like a predator with perfect control.

And when he stopped in front of me, his voice lowered enough that only I could hear it.

“I told you I would come back for you, habibti.”

My eyes burned instantly.

“You don’t get to call me that anymore.”

Pain flickered across his face for only a second.

Then disappeared beneath control again.

“Too late,” he said quietly.

His hand lifted slowly toward my face.

And I hated myself for trembling when he touched me.

“Because you were alwyas mine"

Khalil left Yasmina broken, abandoned, and humiliated.

Eight years later, he returns with an empire powerful enough to buy her freedom—and a marriage contract already waiting.

But there is one problem.

Khalil already has a wife.

Trapped inside a world of jealousy, family politics, obsession, and dangerous love, Yasmina must decide whether the man who destroyed her heart is also the only man capable of protecting it.

And Khalil?

He never stopped believing she belonged to him