THE SHEIKH’S MILLION DOLLAR BRIDE
Clare Connelly
All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names and are pure invention.
All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.
The illustration on the cover of this book features model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.
First published 2017
(c) Clare Connelly
Cover Credit: adobestock
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“Darling, I need you to listen to me.”
Syed had leaned closer; his mother’s voice was soft towards the end, and punctuated by too much air. “It is an important matter.”
“What is it?”
She’d been so tired, too, her eyes dimmed by pain and medications.
“You are so like your father. It’s why you both clash. It has always been this way. Even as a boy you rattled him with your strength.” She paused, releasing a slow, wheezing breath which gave way to a barrage of coughs.
Syed waited for her to finish, even when he wanted to tell her not to speak, to beg her to lie back and close her eyes and be at peace.
“Zahir is a good Sheikh; a good man. Strong-willed and loyal. And Ashad is dear to me. But it is you, Syed, that I am depending on.” She’d reached over, her fingers pressing into his wrist to draw his attention back to her.
Syed had blinked, his expression tense. “Depending on how, mother?”
“When he…” she paused, her eyes watering as she sucked in another gasp of air. “When your father is at his most pigheaded with you, that is when he needs you most. He pushes you away but you are his rock. His strength.” She’d dug her fingers into his wrist more tightly. “I need you to promise me that you always will be. Stand by him. Help him. Be his strength even when he makes it almost impossible.”
“Of course,” Syed had rushed to agree but his mother had shaken her head, her expression wretched with concern.
“I mean it! Promise me you will be here with him? That you will be what he needs?”
Syed hadn’t understood then that what she was asking of him was something he would bitterly come to regret. He hadn’t known a woman was just around the corner of his life, a woman who would tempt him to break the deathbed promise he’d made to his adored mother.
“I promise you this,” he said simply, with every intention of honouring those words for the rest of his life.
PROLOGUE
“I know you think you loved her once.” Zahir’s expression carried a hint of frustration. “But it’s time to move on and forget.”
Syed stared out at the old city without seeing the ancient buildings that were fringed by desert sands. Stars glistened in the night sky and the breeze off the ancient dunes was cold; a coldness that seeped into Syed’s heart. “I have tried.”
Zahir spoke without apology. “Try harder.”
“If I told you to forget about Violet, would you?”
Zahir’s expression flashed with a strong emotion. “It’s completely different. She is my wife.”
“And if Sarah became my wife?
“God, Syed. No. It would kill father! He is close to death, and news of it would surely be the end for him.”
Syed compressed his lips, his eyes hard in his handsome face. “I can’t explain in words how I felt for her; how I feel for her…”
“She is not suitable.” Zahir spoke the words quietly but there was a steely determination in them that Syed knew he ought to heed.
“Oh?” Syed demanded. “And why not?”
“Our country’s emerged from a long and bitter war. We are at peace with Falina, and though you’ve eschewed your marriage to Charlotte, your bride needs to be of a similar standing. Our people won’t accept anyone else. We have talked about this already.”
“Five years ago we talked about it,” Syed was adamant. “And yes, more recently, when I was engaged to another woman. To the princess of a country we want a good relationship with.” He sucked in a deep breath, but his temper would not be contained. “My engagement is over. I’m a free man now.”
“Yes, free… but not to marry Sarah Smith. Never to marry her.”
Syed made a sound of muted anger. “Why not? What’s wrong with her?”
“You ask this question seriously?”
“You haven’t even met her,” Syed snapped.
“I have, however, seen the dossier on her. A waitress in an American bar? Who grew up in a trailer park? She is, quite literally, trailer trash. Can you really expect our Kingdom to accept her as your bride?”
Syed wrapped his fingers around the railing of the balcony until his knuckles glowed white. “She is so much more than that. The dossier makes her sound common. And she’s not. Zahir, she is the most spectacular woman I’ve ever known.” A woman he’d discarded as though she were no better than filth on his shoe. A woman whose virginity he’d taken, whose love he’d accepted; a woman he’d lied to every time they’d made love.
Regret and shame darkened his voice. “She is a brilliant artist; a photographer who can capture emotion and mood with a single picture. She is kindness and compassion; grace and beauty. Zahir, she is more worthy of royal life than I am.”
Zahir’s lips curled in an amused smile. “And it does not hurt, I suppose, that she has just the kind of figure you go crazy for?”
“It was never just about sex,” Syed said simply. Sarah had brought him back to life again when grief had nearly split his soul asunder.
“Perhaps not.” Zahir turned to face him, propping his hands on his hips. When he spoke, his voice was gravelled by urgency. “But it is all it can ever be again. Go. Sleep with her, if that is what you need to get her out of your mind once and for all. But when you come back to Kalastan, I do not want to hear this woman’s name again. Sarah Smith is not welcome in our kingdom. Understood?”
CHAPTER ONE
The town was just as he recalled.
Small, old-fashioned and faintly smelling of pine needles. His eyes lifted past the flat rooves of the main street towards the forest beyond.
Strange that the trees had not grown much despite the passage of five years.
A frown pulled at Syed’s face, like a branch being dragged down by too many persimmons.
The trees hadn’t grown but that didn’t mean other things hadn’t changed.
Five years.
Had it really been so long since he’d held Sarah Smith in his arms?
Out of nowhere, his body stirred with the memory of that pleasure. Her soft flesh, her generous curves.
She may not still live in the little house with the green door, of course.
She might have left. Moved to a bigger city. Forgotten all about him.
Was it possible? When she had burned his dreams, night after night?
There was only one way to know for sure.
*
The stench of liquor was now, she feared, deep inside her organs.
At first, it had just been her shirt. Then her skin, and now, her muscle and deep tissue were saturated by it. Fantasies of a long, hot shower to wash away the double shift at Larry’s were tantalising, but remained just out of reach. S
he shot a glance at her slim-gold wrist watch.
It was an hour before Lexi’s bed time.
Hardly time to read her a book, give her a bath and share a meal.
She paused two doors down from her own and pressed her finger on the ringer. The scuffle of many little feet sounded from within, bringing, as always, a smile to Sarah’s face.
Caitlyn opened the door. At eleven, she was the self-appointed leader of the gang – the six or so children her mother took in each evening to care for and earn extra money.
“Hi honey,” Sarah smiled, not mentioning the clown-like makeup on Caitlyn’s face.
“We were doing dress-up,” she giggled, explaining anyway. “I was the model.” And she curtseyed, revealing two little bodies behind her own.
“And a very good model, too.”
“Want to come in?”
Sarah adored her neighbours. Caitlyn’s mother, Jenny, was cheap childcare and she truly loved the kids in her care. But she could talk the hind legs off a donkey and Sarah had already suffered through enough banal small talk that day. “I’m late,” she apologised. “Lexi will be exhausted.”
Caitlyn shrugged. “I’ll go get her.”
“Thanks.” Sarah rubbed her hands together as a cold wind rustled past. It was the beginning of Autumn and the season’s change was all around her. She tilted her head towards the sky, admiring the crisp view of the stars, and the heavenly fragrance of the pine plantation.
He’d spotted her as soon as she’d turned the corner. Just as she’d approached her door, he’d gripped the handle of his, readying himself to step from the confines of his luxurious vehicle. But then she’d stopped, two houses before reaching the green door. She was chatting now.
His impatience grew, but the certainty that Sarah was still here, in Iron Oaks, answered at least one of his questions.
The tiny little figure that hurtled out of the door and ran at her jeans-clad legs a moment later answered another. And this one left something like iron in his mouth. She’d had a child? A stone seemed to be dropping through him, perforating his gut, making his body throb with disbelief. Five years was a long time, but the idea of her meeting someone else, marrying them, having a family… no. It couldn’t be possible. He couldn’t believe it.
“Mommy!” Lexi wrapped her chubby arms around Sarah’s legs, her fingers splayed wide across the backs of Sarah’s knees.
Sarah scooped down, lifting Lexi up against her chest. “Hi, baby girl.” She kissed Lexi’s cheeks, smiling when she saw the little girl had green eye shadow and garish pink lipstick.
“She was a model, too,” Caitlyn explained helpfully.
“I can see that. Tell your mom ‘thanks’.”
“Sure thing.” Caitlyn pushed the door closed and Sarah turned back down the street, covering the short distance to her home with Lexi bouncing on her hip.
“You look like you’ve been to the beauty parlour,” she drawled, raking her gaze over her niece’s face with another smile.
“Uh huh. I have.”
“I see.”
“Did you have a good day, mama?”
Sarah’s heart turned over. Mama. Such a beautiful word. A word that should have been filling her sister’s heart and mind. Instead, it was Sarah who got to enjoy the delicious sense of being loved and needed by this adorable little person.
“I had a great day,” Sarah’s voice was thick with emotion. She reached into her bag with one hand and felt around for her keys. “Did you have a good day?”
Lexi tilted her head to one side. “I think so.”
Sarah laughed. “You think so?”
“I didn’t like the lunch.”
Jenny, a committed vegan, often served meals that could be, at best, described as economical, at worst, slosh. “Oh. What was it?”
“There were little seeds in it.”
“Seeds?”
“Like hard circles. Lumps.”
“Lentils?” Sarah guessed, pushing the door inwards and stepping into their small house with relief. The bathroom was immediately to the left.
It beckoned to her from her mind, a warm shower a tantalising talisman. Soon, she promised herself, putting Lexi down inside the door. The little girl sat on the floor immediately and began to unlace her shoes. Though she was only four, she was impressively self-sufficient.
“Good job,” Sarah murmured, stepping around her and sliding her well-worn ballet slippers from her feet before bending down and collecting up the envelopes that had been thrust through the mail slot.
A roll of adrenalin charged her blood as she saw the first two postmarks – electricity company and gas company. She’d have put all the money she didn’t have on the fact the envelopes contained more than just a merry little ‘hi’. Mentally counting her bank balance, including what she’d earned from her double shift, and the tips she had folded into the back pocket of her slim-fit jeans, she figured she might be able to cover at least one of the bigger bills this month.
“Okay, little love,” she forced an over-bright smile to her face. “Let’s get you dinner.”
She padded down the hall and into the kitchen, stuffing the bills between the microwave and the basket of spices, then pulling a packet of pasta from the pantry.
There was a thumping noise before she could split the plastic. The door? She poked her head into the hallway just as Lexi pulled the door inwards, her tiny hand adept and turning the knob.
Sarah cursed inwardly. She’d forgotten to latch the chain across – a precaution she always employed to stop this exact thing from happening. Not that there was much risk of home invasion in Iron Oaks. Most of the townspeople left their doors unlocked by choice. But Sarah had chilling memories that warned her off such a relaxed attitude.
Only the arrival of the dreaded bills had distracted her and she’d forgotten to be careful. A presentiment of alarm ran through her body as she waited to see who was on the other side of the door.
“You’re a big man.” Lexi’s observation was as true as it was shocking.
Sarah couldn’t help the noise of garbled surprise that escaped her mouth as she stared down the hallway and into the past.
Syed.
His Royal Highness Syed Al’Eba, she corrected mentally, the flare of betrayal at how he’d lied to her not even remotely diminished by the years that had passed.
His eyes were boring into her, as though he too was assessing her through the veil of passed-time. Seeing her as she’d been, reconciling and accounting for what she was now.
And she knew how that comparison would end.
Five years ago, she’d been twenty-two and full of hope and aspiration. She’d been on the brink of leaving Iron Oaks.
She’d been tanned, fit, and happy. Vibrant.
She withdrew into the kitchen for a second, closing her eyes and waiting for the mounting tide of panic to subside. Only a second. Long enough to pull herself together and step into the corridor with renewed confidence, or the appearance of it, at least.
“What are you doing here?” She asked, the words pleasingly cold, her manner off-hand. She walked quickly, though, and scooped Lexi into her arms, nestling her back onto her hip.
“He’s a big man, mommy,” Lexi said thoughtfully, her head tilted to the side once more, as she examined him.
And he was big. All over. Tall, like all the men of the powerful royal family, with broad shoulders, and a muscled physique. His eyes were darker than the night, his nose straight and his jaw squared.
But it was his mouth she had loved first.
A mouth that had defied her expectations and recited poetry and philosophy while his body looked built for wars. The contradictions of this man had been never-ending.
Until they had ended.
He’d walked out of the door and that had been the end of it.
Even that had been a contradiction, for he had made her love him, and then he had left. He had been broken by grief until she’d fixed him all up, loved the sadness from his sou
l… and then he’d left.
Without a word of warning or goodbye.
“I asked what the hell you are doing here?” She repeated, making an effort to keep her voice calm even when her temper was spiralling almost out of control.
It was a damned good question, but he was powerless to answer it when his own questions were tripping over themselves.
In his mind, Sarah hadn’t changed. Not much, anyway.
But the woman in front of him was nothing like he remembered. His eyes narrowed as he catalogued the alterations. The Sarah he had known before had been curvaceous, bordering on plump. All soft and round and perfect to wrap his arms around and hold tight to his body. This woman was reed-thin, beyond even what was considered fashionable. Her hair, once a long, blonde mane that had curled down her back, that he’d curled his fist around to tilt her head back to receive his kisses, had been cropped into an elfin style around her face that only served to emphasise the slash of her cheek bones. Apart from the smattering of freckles over the bridge of her dainty nose, she was almost unrecognisable.
“I came to see…” The words trailed off, as his eyes sought hers, searching them, studying them.
“You came to see what?” She stroked her hand over the child’s back automatically. He could tell it was a gesture she had performed many times, with a mother’s instinct. It rolled something deep inside of him.
Instant revulsion twisted his gut. “I came to talk,” he said, remembering that he was Sheikh Syed Al’Eba, a man born to command and rule. The words rang with confidence-bordering-on-arrogance.
“You can’t be serious?” She murmured, stroking Lexi’s hair now, it’s soft, downy curls springy beneath her touch.
Syed drew himself to his full height. “Do I look like I am joking?”
“I haven’t seen you in years, and you turn up on my doorstep wanting to … talk?”
His lips curled in a derisive smile. “It does not look like you have been pining for me in my absence.” He nodded towards Lexi, his implication clear.
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