Claimed For The Sheikh's Shock Son (Secret Heirs 0f Billionaires)

by Carol Marinelli

  The sheikh’s seduction...

  ...has a lifetime of consequences

  Desert prince Khalid never loses control...with one exception: his illicit night of passion with captivating dancer Aubrey. Khalid was shocked to discover Aubrey was a virgin. Yet after returning to his kingdom, nothing compares to the bombshell that she’s had his secret child! Claiming his son is nonnegotiable for this proud prince... But claiming Aubrey will prove a much more delicious challenge!

  A royal love story with a secret baby twist!

  “You can call for the driver whenever you are ready. Or,” Khalid added, for he could resist her no more, “you can come back to my hotel room.”

  “I’d like that,” Aubrey said, for it was the truth. She wanted to be with Khalid, even if just for a night. She wanted him to be her first, yet he considered her way more experienced than she was. And if she told him her truth? Aubrey was rather certain that Khalid would politely wish her good-night.

  And so she lied by omission and chose not to tell Khalid her innocent truth, and as he moved in to kiss her, his eyes still did not look away. Aubrey could feel the warmth of his mouth even before their lips had met.

  Aubrey had truly never known a kiss, but even with nothing to compare it to she knew that his kiss was pure bliss. She could not have fathomed how, with such a gentle touch, her heart might tumble. It was as if he had found the weak spot within, the fracture line that, correctly tapped, might shatter her.

  “You understand that you won’t be sleeping in the guest room?”

  Oh, she did. Her lips ached for his, and Khalid’s hands on her hips were necessary for they held hers slightly back and prevented them from melding into his, as they felt inclined to do, and so she answered him honestly. “I do.”

  “Then come to bed.”

  Secret Heirs of Billionaires

  There are some things money can’t buy...

  Living life at lightning pace, these magnates are no strangers to stakes at their highest. It seems they’ve got it all... That is, until they find out that there’s an unplanned item to add to their list of accomplishments!

  Achieved:

  1. Successful business empire.

  2. Beautiful women in their bed.

  3. An heir to bear their name?

  Though every billionaire needs to leave his legacy in safe hands, discovering a secret heir shakes up the carefully orchestrated plan in more ways than one!

  Uncover their secrets in:

  The Baby the Billionaire Demands by Jennie Lucas

  Married for His One-Night Heir by Jennifer Hayward

  The Secret Kept from the Italian by Kate Hewitt

  Demanding His Secret Son by Louise Fuller

  The Sheikh’s Secret Baby by Sharon Kendrick

  The Sicilian’s Secret Son by Angela Bissell

  Look out for more stories in the Secret Heirs of Billionaires series coming soon!

  Carol Marinelli

  Claimed for the Sheikh’s Shock Son

  Carol Marinelli recently filled in a form asking for her job title. Thrilled to be able to put down her answer, she put “writer.” Then it asked what Carol did for relaxation and she put down the truth—“writing.” The third question asked for her hobbies. Well, not wanting to look obsessed, she crossed her fingers and answered “swimming”—but given that the chlorine in the pool does terrible things to her highlights, I’m sure you can guess the real answer!

  Books by Carol Marinelli

  Harlequin Presents

  Secret Heirs of Billionaires

  Claiming His Hidden Heir

  Billionaires & One-Night Heirs

  The Innocent’s Secret Baby

  Bound by the Sultan’s Baby

  Sicilian’s Baby of Shame

  Ruthless Royal Sheikhs

  Captive for the Sheikh’s Pleasure

  The Billionaire’s Legacy

  Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest

  The Ruthless Deveraux Brothers

  The Innocent’s Shock Pregnancy

  The Billionaire’s Christmas Cinderella

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  Dear Alex, with love, always xxxx

  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

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM A CINDERELLA TO SECURE HIS HEIR BY MICHELLE SMART

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘WILL YOU BE speaking at the funeral, Your Highness?’

  The questions from the paparazzi started even before Sheikh Prince Khalid of Al-Zahan had stepped out of the luxury vehicle.

  Jobe Devereux’s funeral was tomorrow. The press and television crews were gathered outside the late, great man’s Fifth Avenue home, capturing images of visitors arriving to pay their condolences.

  Some visitors walked slowly, keen to be photographed and seen, others put their heads down and hurried from their cars to the residence.

  Others opted to use the trade entrance.

  Khalid did neither.

  He had flown to New York from Al-Zahan and at the family’s request had come directly from the royal jet to Jobe’s home. Tomorrow Khalid would be clean-shaven with his thick, black hair freshly cut and he would be wearing a suit. Tonight, though, having come from a retreat in the desert, he was bearded and his tall frame was dressed in dark robes. Khalid was a striking man—tall and slim yet muscular too. Despite his impressive physique he moved in an elegant, unhurried fashion towards the home that he knew well, ignoring the paparazzi’s questions. For Khalid, the presence of the press had barely registered and certainly he didn’t deign to respond. His mind was elsewhere, for he had lost not just a business partner but someone he both valued and respected.

  Yet they persisted.

  ‘Will Chantelle be seated with the family?’

  ‘Might there be some unexpected guests?’

  ‘Your Highness, is it true that the King of Al-Zahan is soon to announce your marriage?’

  The last question jarred, not that Khalid showed it. But at home the pressure on him to marry was immense. That it was now being aired here in New York, the place he considered his bolthole, now rendered the pressure inescapable.

  The door was opened by the housekeeper and as he stepped inside it was clear that even prior to the funeral, Jobe had pulled in quite a crowd. People were mingling and spilling out from the reception room where groups stood talking. Drinks were being served as if the funeral had already taken place.

  Khalid was not here to socialise, though, and was taken straight through to Jobe’s study.

  ‘I’ll let Ethan know that you’re here,’ the housekeeper said. ‘He’s just speaking with the senator.’

  ‘Tell him there is
no rush,’ Khalid said.

  ‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ she checked, ‘He shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Khalid said, but as the housekeeper headed out the door he called to her. ‘Barb,’ Khalid said. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

  She gave him a watery smile. ‘Thank you, Khalid.’

  It was a relief to be here in the study and away from the hordes. Khalid could, of course, be polite and make small-talk—his royal status demanded it. He was in no mood to, though.

  How odd that one room in a house so far from home could hold so many memories. Jobe’s globe had always been a draw for Khalid. It had been an antique when Jobe had purchased it and Khalid would look at all the old countries now gone, while his island country, independent from the mainland, remained.

  And it was from this very decanter that Khalid had first tasted alcohol. On that desk that the first tentative sketch of the Royal Al-Zahan Hotel had been drafted.

  It was just a year off completion now.

  An impossible dream, first born in this study.

  Khalid picked up a heavy paperweight and recalled Jobe, for once awkward, tossing it between his hands as a far younger Khalid had opened the study door.

  ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jobe? Even my own kids do.’

  But Khalid called his own father by his royal title and bowed to him on arriving and leaving, so he struggled to accept the informal greetings in the Devereux household.

  ‘Sit down, son.’

  Khalid took a seat when he would have preferred to stay standing, for he was certain he was about to be disciplined. At sixteen he had been in New York City for close to a year and he and Ethan had discovered fake IDs and girls.

  Yes, there were plenty of reasons Ethan’s father might want to have words with him.

  ‘There’s no easy way to say this.’ Jobe cleared his throat. ‘Khalid, you need to call home.’

  ‘Is something wrong with the twins?’ Khalid asked, for he knew his mother was due to give birth any day now.

  ‘No. Your mother gave birth to twins this morning, but there were complications. Your mom took a turn for the worse and could not be revived. I’m very sorry to tell you this, Khalid, but your mom is dead.’

  It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the study and though Khalid determinedly didn’t show it, he felt as if he could not breathe. It simply could not be, for his mother was so alive and, unlike his stern father, she smiled and laughed and loved life. Queen Dalila was the very reason that Khalid was here in NYC.

  ‘Call home,’ Jobe said. ‘Tell your father we can head straight to the airport and that I will accompany you back to Al-Zahan.’

  ‘No.’ Khalid shook his head, for Jobe did not understand that Khalid had to arrive aboard the royal plane. ‘But thank you for the kind offer.’

  ‘Khalid.’ Jobe spoke with exasperation. ‘You are allowed to be upset.’

  ‘With respect, sir, I know what is allowed. I shall call the King now.’

  Khalid awaited privacy, but Jobe remained in his seat and then, to Khalid’s mind, did the oddest thing. Jobe Devereux put his elbows on the mahogany desk and buried his face in his hands.

  Jobe, Khalid realised with both bemusement and strange gratitude, had found telling him hard. It had hurt Jobe to break the news, and he hurt for their mother, and his two-year-old brother, Hussain, and for the twins just born.

  Then he heard the voice of the King.

  ‘Alab,’ Khalid said, calling him Father.

  A mistake.

  ‘I am your King first,’ he reminded Khalid. ‘You must never forget it, not even for a moment, and especially in dark times.’

  ‘Is it true?’ Khalid said. ‘Is she dead?’

  The King confirmed the grim news, but said there was much consolation that an heir had been spared. ‘We celebrate that this morning another heir to the Al-Zahan kingdom was born.’

  ‘So she had a boy and a girl?’ Khalid checked.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Did she get to see them?’ Khalid asked. ‘To hold them? Did she know what she had?’

  ‘Khalid, what sort of question is that? I was not with her.’

  That he hadn’t even found out had Khalid fold then, and an agonised breath shuddered out of him that the King heard.

  ‘There will be no tears,’ the King said sharply. ‘You are a prince, not a princess. The people need to see strength, not their future King acting like some peasant who weeps and keens.’

  As Khalid was being reminded he was royal, and so above emotion and pain, Jobe came around the desk and placed his hand on Khalid’s shoulder. Jobe did not know what was being said, for Khalid spoke in Arabic, yet his hand remained, even when the phone call had ended.

  ‘I’m so sorry, son. You’ll get through this. Abe and Ethan lost their mom too.’

  ‘They had you, though.’ It was the most honest admission.

  ‘So do you, Khalid,’ Jobe said, for having himself spoken to Khalid’s icy father he knew the young man would get no true support at home.

  Here in this study Khalid had wept for his mother.

  For a short while he had been sixteen and flailing, scared and desperately sad, and Jobe had allowed him to be.

  Jobe Devereux had been the only person ever to see him cry for, even as a child, tears had been forbidden.

  Khalid had been an only child until he’d been a teenager and his brother, Hussain, had been born, lifting from him the full weight of being the only heir. Now there were twins but no mother to love them.

  Yes, Khalid had cried.

  But by the time the royal plane had arrived the mask had been back on and it had never, to this day, slipped.

  ‘Khalid?’

  He realised that he had not heard Ethan come into the study and turned and offered his condolences to his business partner and friend, although they could never have been considered close.

  Khalid was not close to anyone.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Khalid.’

  ‘Of course, I was always going to be here for Jobe’s funeral.’

  ‘I meant tonight. It’s appreciated. How long are you here for?’

  ‘Till the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘You have to leave so soon?’

  ‘I am increasingly needed at home,’ Khalid said.

  ‘Well, it was good of you to come.’

  ‘Enough small-talk, Ethan.’ Khalid cut straight to the point. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘A lot,’ Ethan admitted. ‘And it cannot get out.’

  ‘You know it will go no further.’ Khalid was one of the few who could be trusted with bombshell news. He would never gossip—Khalid was far too remote and royal for that—and so Ethan told him what had been revealed since his father’s death.

  Jobe Devereux’s life had been interesting, to say the least, and had played out in the press for all to see. His sons, Abe and Ethan, had seen it all.

  Or had thought that they had.

  ‘There was an account we didn’t know about,’ Ethan told him.

  Khalid listened as Ethan revealed they had found out that Jobe had had a penchant for gambling and showgirls. As it turned out, those long weekends away that Jobe had frequently taken hadn’t always been spent at the Hamptons; instead they had been taken in Vegas.

  Sin City.

  ‘Are there debts?’ Khalid asked, for he always dealt first with business.

  Ethan shook his head. ‘No, he was actually ahead, but this wasn’t an occasional thing, Khalid. There were a lot of women, oh, and a marriage we didn’t know about.’

  ‘A marriage?’

  ‘Between his first wife and my mother, it turns out he was married to a woman named Brandy for all of sevent
y-two hours.’

  ‘Ancient history,’ Khalid dismissed.

  ‘Perhaps, but it’s ancient history that might resurface tomorrow.’

  ‘Jobe’s reputation can handle it.’ Khalid’s words were calm and measured as he poured oil on troubled waters. ‘And so can you. Of course, anything that is recent may prove hard on his current partner.’ Khalid checked his facts. ‘He got back with Chantelle before he died?’

  ‘Not really.’ Ethan held out his hand in a wavering motion. ‘But they were together on and off for quite a few years.’

  ‘Ethan,’ Khalid calmly responded. ‘Everyone has a shadow side. And that Jobe kept mistresses, and was married briefly, is hardly going to come as too much of a surprise, surely? Jobe led a colourful life and we all know how much he loved women.’

  ‘Women, yes,’ Ethan sighed, and Khalid could see his friend’s discomfort and knew he was about to hear the real reason he’d been asked to come by in advance of the funeral. ‘For the last four years my father has been sending a considerable monthly sum to an Aubrey Johnson...’

  Now Khalid frowned, for this indeed came as a surprise. ‘Jobe was having an affair with a man?’

  And on this dark sombre night Ethan actually laughed. ‘No, Khalid. Jobe wasn’t gay.’

  ‘But Aubrey is a man’s name.’

  ‘Not here it isn’t, it’s a unisex name. Believe me, Aubrey Johnson is definitely not a man.’

  Ethan handed him some photographs.

  No, Aubrey was certainly not a man.

  She was barely a woman.

  Aubrey Johnson had a curtain of blonde hair and china-blue eyes, but her pretty, delicate features were overwhelmed by elaborate stage make-up, with false eyelashes and painted red lips. Her petite, toned figure was shown to effect in a crimson, sequined leotard.

  And nothing else.

  ‘How old is she?’ Khalid asked, his deep voice hoarse with disappointment.

  ‘Twenty-two,’ Ethan said. ‘She’ll be twenty-three next month.’

  Jobe had been seventy-four.

  ‘She’s a dancer,’ Ethan said.

  ‘I’m assuming we’re not talking ballroom...’ Khalid started, and then answered his own question as he looked at the next image. From barely a woman to all woman, she wore a tiny, revealing dress and elaborate make-up and his jaw gritted at her provocative pose.