The Sheikh's Baby Bargain_He needs an heir and the only person who can help is his estranged wife.
Page 20
“Yes, we do. I’ve read up on the traditions, and this is one of them.”
“A stupid tradition,” he glowered, wanting nothing more than to protect his wife, to ensure her comfort.
“Just think, the sooner we do this, the sooner we shall be home – just you, me and little Reginald here.”
“Reginald?” He burst out laughing, and it was as if the sun was shining from behind the evening sky. Chloe blinked, her heart bursting.
“Okay, maybe not Reginald.”
“Definitely not.” He nodded towards the guards at the doors. “Are you ready?”
“Yes, your highness. So long as you’re beside me, I’m ready for anything.”
Fierce, all-consuming pride filled him like a balloon, puffing out his chest. His beautiful, brave wife, the mother of his child, the savior of the kingdom. What could he ever do to deserve her?
The doors to the balcony were pushed open and the noise from the crowd below rose up towards them like thunder from the ground. Chloe held their baby as though she’d been doing so all her life, and in unison, the King and Queen of Ras el Kida stepped onto the terrace.
The crowd cheered as one, an enormous noise that bounced around them. Chloe held their baby closer, dropping her gaze to the little one, her whole soul absorbing that magical moment.
“They already love him,” she said in awe, as the crowd began to chant:
“Amyr! Amyr! Amyr!” Prince, prince, prince!
“He will be their king,” Raffa said softly. “And they know that.”
“One day,” Chloe nodded gently. “But for now, he’s just a boy. Just a baby.” Her eyes met her husband’s. “He’s our baby.”
“And Amit’s,” he said drily. “His brother is already organizing all the activities they will do together.”
She smiled, her heart as full of love for Amit as it ever would be for her own child.
“Then they will both be very happy,” she murmured, her smile almost breaking her cheeks.
“Well, my Sheikha, shall we take him home?”
They left the hospital once darkness fell, a limousine carrying them through streets that were lined with well-wishers, all the way to the palace.
“You must be exhausted,” Raffa said gently, when they were alone, their son sleeping in a basket at the foot of the bed.
“You’d think so, but I’m strangely wide awake.”
“I thought you were supposed to sleep when he sleeps,” Raffa teased.
“So did I.”
“Lie down,” Raffa commanded.
And though she was tempted to tease him, to tease him for his bossiness, she would always love him for that ability to take charge.
“If you say so, your highness,” she said, batting her lashes.
There was the rustle of a sheet, the movement of the bed, and then he was back beside her. And he began to read from the pages of the fairy tale book Chloe had read, many long nights ago, when her future in Ras el Kida had been so much less certain.
He began to read her the story of the Beast, but now, the tale of ‘forever love’ took on a whole new meaning.
As she fell asleep, her exhaustion too strong in the end to fight, he stopped reading. “I will take you to the ruins of the Beast,” he said quietly, a hand resting on her forehead. “And I will show you that love is everlasting.”
“I already know that to be the case.”
And as sleep claimed the new mother, carrying her away to another realm, she knew that she was right. Their love was as inherent to the land of Ras el Kida as the desert or the palace. She was a part of this great land, of its myths and its people, of its lineage and its destiny, and there was nowhere else on earth she’d rather be.
THE END
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
Thank you so much for reading THE SHEIKH’S BABY BARGAIN, Book 1 in The Evermore Series! I hope you loved Raffa and Chloe’s story as much as I loved writing it. Please don’t forget to leave a review if you have the opportunity – reviews really do make the book-publishing world go ‘round. (That, and love, and I DO love my readers!).
Now, if you’re curious about Chloe’s half-brother Apollo and the reporter who sold his family’s secrets to the gutter press (or did she?!), I’m very glad to hear it, because the sexy, brooding, billionaire Apollo Heranedes will have his very own story COMING SOON! Book two in THE EVERMORE SERIES is THE GREEK’S VIRGIN CAPTIVE and it’s bursting with glamour, heat, seduction and angst… I know you’re going to love it! (Book Three, Elizabeth’s story, CLAIMING HIS SECRET BABY will be out in August.)
Don’t forget, I also have a newsletter you can sign up to for updates on new books (and general, infrequent ramblings, including chocolate mug-cake recipes – you have been warned!), and I love to hang out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, where you can find me as @ClarewritesLove (because I do!).
Now, please enjoy a short excerpt from THE GREEK’S VIRGIN CAPTIVE…
Love, Clare. X
THE GREEK’S VIRGIN CAPTIVE
CLARE CONNELLY
© All rights reserved
PROLOGUE
THE GUSHING OF HER pulse was so loud that Eleanor could barely concentrate on proceedings. Of course, she’d known he would be here. Apollo Heranedes was the brother of the Sheikha, and this was the halitham for the much-wanted heir to Ras el Kida.
She’d known he’d be here and she’d accepted this assignment regardless.
Regardless?
In spite of more like.
She kept her head dipped forward, but her eyes lifted up from beneath thick, black lashes. She could pick him out of the crowd easily – and not just because they’d spent six blissful weeks together. Not just because they’d sat up late talking about anything and everything, laughing, sharing food and secrets as though their lives depended on it.
Her stomach rolled and she tamped down on the visceral emotional response.
Guilt. Grief.
She’d betrayed him – there was no arguing with that. She’d lied to him from the moment they’d met, and the more time they’d spent together, the more she’d come to love him. She’d known he was falling for her, too, and the lie became worse and worse, until it was threatening to swallow her whole.
He’d been right to cut her from his life.
And yet… it still hurt. The ease with which he’d walked away from her, refusing to let her explain, refusing to see her. He’d cut her from his life and replaced her almost instantly.
And now, three years later, they were in the same room, breathing the same air, and she was powerless to speak to him.
All she could do was stare.
The ceremony droned on, but Eleanor paid scant attention despite the fact she was supposed to be working.
The royal couple were the new guard of leadership in this ancient Kingdom. They were smart and relatable, and everything she’d been prepared to expect: beautiful, young, vital, elegant. They were, also, obviously very much in love. Not that they were overt about it, such gestures of affection would be inappropriate, but Eleanor was a top investigative journalist and that included a talent for reading body language. She saw what passed between them in each look, each hint of a smile about their lips – and in the way they both stared at their baby – a tiny little packet of cherubic pink cheeks and a shock of dark hair.
Apollo was focused on the ceremony, which left Eleanor free to observe him unnoticed. He had an autocratic profile, too symmetrical, perhaps, to be considered traditionally handsome, and yet he was the most dynamic and charismatic man Eleanor had ever known.
A kaleidoscope of butterflies rampaged her insides as she scraped her gaze from his brow to his nose, to those lips – and a thousand memories of his kisses battered against her, so that she was weak at her knees suddenly.
Their first kiss had been perfection – a stolen moment, when she’d got her keys tangled in the strap of her handbag. She’d made a sound of intense impatience and stomped her foot but when she�
��d looked up at Apollo, their eyes had met and he’d smiled and before she’d known what was happening, his lips had taken hers. Gently, so gently, but she’d known herself to be lost in that moment. It had been like catching a butterfly. A flick, a twist, a snare.
Eleanor closed her eyes against the intensity of the memory; it didn’t help. Her heart was hurting in a way she hadn’t thought it still could.
It had been three years. Three years and so much had happened since then. She wasn’t the same woman who had fallen hard for this man. And even if she were – even if she still loved him as fiercely as she had back then – what would be the point?
He’d hated her when he learned the truth. Then the article had been published, and twenty four hours later, the subject of her investigate piece had died of a heart attack.
She’d killed Apollo’s father, and he’d never forgive her for that.
He wasn’t why she’d taken this assignment on. Or maybe he was. Maybe there was a small part of Eleanor that needed to prove to herself that she was completely over Apollo – that he no longer wielded the same intense power he once had.
And she was off to a flying start. In the twenty four hours since arriving in Ras el Kida and posing as a lowly household assistant, she’d seen Apollo three times, all from a distance, and all encounters had almost knocked her to her feet.
He couldn’t recognize her – she had made a point of keeping her head bent, the fine, gauze scarf she wore around her glossy brown hair providing an added shield. She knew it would be a disaster if he were to pick her out of the crowd, but in that moment, watching the ceremony, how she wished he would look her way! How she ached for his head to turn, for his eyes to scan the crowd and land on her face. For him to see her and her to see him, and for Eleanor to once more feel that heady throb of acknowledgement that had always raged between them.
It was absurd.
She was in Ras el Kida to get what information she could and get out. The political article would focus on the Sheikh and his heirs – one acknowledged, one not.
The crowd stood, and Eleanor blinked. The ceremony had come to a close – it was over. She flashed her gaze at the royal couple for a brief second before returning her eyes to their original resting place, homing in on Apollo as though her every breath was dependent on seeing him.
And by the hand of fate, for no reason that Eleanor could offer, Apollo’s head turned at precisely that moment and his eyes, as green as a stormy ocean, landed directly on Eleanor’s face.
The butterfly inside her burst to life – she’d been discovered…
* * * *
THE GREEK’S VIRGIN CAPTIVE is available to pre-order and releases 2nd July 2018.
Happy reading! x
BOOKS BY CLARE CONNELLY
HARLEQUIN TITLES
Bought for the Billionaire’s Revenge
Innocent in the Billionaire’s Bed
Off Limits
Her Wedding Night Surrender
Burn Me Once
Bound by the Billionaire’s Vows
The Season to Sin
Bound by their Christmas Baby
SINGLE TITLES
Her Guardian’s Christmas Seduction
Stolen by the Desert King
In the Hands of the Sheikh
His Nine Month Seduction
The Sheikh’s Contract Bride
Seduced by the Vengeful Tycoon
The Sheikh’s Stolen Bride
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
The Sheikh’s Million Dollar Bride
The Tycoon’s Virgin Mistress
The Sheikh’s Virgin Hostage
Bartered to the Sheikh
The Sheikh’s Arranged Marriage
Marrying for his Royal Heir
The Greek’s Marriage Revenge
The Velasco Love Child
The Sultan’s Virgin Bride
Bound to the Sheikh
The Medici Mistress
His Loving Deception
The Sheikh’s Convenient Mistress
The Princess’s Forbidden Lover
Marrying her Enemy
Rakanti’s Indecent Proposition
Seducing the Spaniard
The Italian’s Innocent Bride
The Greek Tycoon’s Forbidden Affair
The Terms of their Affair
A Second Chance at Love
The Sheikh’s Christmas Mistress
At the Sheikh’s Command
The Billionaire’s Christmas Revenge
Seduced by the Italian Tycoon
Raising the Soldier’s Son
Warming the Sheikh’s Bed
The Tycoon’s Christmas Captive
The Brazilian’s Forgotten Lover
Betrayed by the CEO
The Billionaire’s Ruthless Revenge
The Italian Billionaire’s Betrayal
The Sultan’s Reluctant Princess
Love in the Fast Lane
Bought by the Sheikh
The Tycoon’s Summer Seduction
All She Wants for Christmas
One Night with the Sheikh
A Bed of Broken Promises
Tempted by the Billionaire
The Sheikh’s Christmas Wish
To the Highest Bidder
The Tycoon’s Secret Baby
Bedding His Innocent Mistress
The Sheikh’s Baby Bargain
The Greek’s Virgin Captive
COMPENDIUMS
Casacelli Brides
Mediterranean Tycoons
Desert Rulers
Billionaire Bad Boys
Too Hot to Handle
Desert Kings
Happily Ever After
The Darling Buds of May Café
The Hendersons
Royal Weddings
Seasons of Sin