The Sheikh's Million Dollar Bride

by Clare Connelly

Her heart thrust against her rib cage, but it wasn’t from attraction or desire. It was because, out of the corner of her eye, she’d seen something familiar. Someone who looked, for the briefest moment, like Syed. Her features masked, she tilted her head sideways, chasing the oasis, and then she froze.

  It had been no mistake.

  He was unmistakable.

  And he was unmistakably perched at the bar, his body angled towards her, his eyes glued to her face.

  “Shit.” She bit down on her lip and immediately stepped backwards from Dave as though she was doing something wrong. Something illegal.

  “What? Change your mind already?”

  “No,” she shook her head quickly. “I, um, I just … you know what? I’m not feeling great suddenly. You mind if I head home?”

  “Seriously, I don’t actually reckon I can beat you in pool, Sarah. You’re the undisputed queen of the town.”

  Her smile lacked commitment. “Really, I just want to head home.”

  “Sure,” he shrugged. “I’ll walk you.”

  “No, honestly,” she shook her head. “I’m good.”

  “Don’t be silly. Of course I’m not going to let you make your own way.”

  “She already has company.”

  His voice, so distinct, so accented, so masculine, was somehow strangely discordant in the pool area of Larry’s.

  Sarah closed her eyes softly, as the reality of her situation sunk in.

  “Sarah?” Dave moved closer, shielding her from Syed’s gaze. “This guy a friend of yours?”

  “No,” she mumbled. “I mean, I know him. I … it’s fine, Dave.”

  Syed almost hoped the blonde man challenged him. Syed was itching for a chance to pummel his pretty-boy American face. But Sarah, perhaps realising how fraught the situation was about to become, turned to the lumberjack and smiled brightly. “We go way back. I’ll be fine. I’ll even trade you a rematch at pool if it helps.”

  “Is it a rematch if we didn’t technically play?” He asked, but his eyes were still running over Syed with undisguised suspicion.

  “Okay. Best of three,” she winked, and stepped away from him.

  “Sarah? Text me when you get home, okay, babe?”

  She nodded jerkily. “Yeah, of course. Thanks for the drink. Drinks. Too many drinks.” She lifted a hand to wave, and then turned, staring at Syed with a jumble of emotions she couldn’t disentangle. “Let’s go.”

  He put a hand in the small of her back and it fit perfectly, as though it had been designed for her. She kept her head low as they weaved through the patrons. Iron Oaks was a small town, and Sarah spent a lot of her time working at Larry’s. There weren’t many people she didn’t know, and she didn’t feel like getting pulled into conversation.

  Something was combusting inside of her, building up hotter and hotter and threatening to burst pure plasma rage all over the place. She’d have preferred not to have an audience for that. Not more than an audience of one, anyway.

  The night air was fresh on her face; it slapped her with the steel of realisation, chased swiftly by indignity. “What are you doing here?”

  The fun that had sweetened her voice with the American man had disappeared. She was cold and quiet. He missed the happiness he’d seen on her face as she’d played pool and flirted with that hulking guy. Somewhere, deep in his gut, the recognition that he did nothing but make her miserable twisted him up, shredding him angrily.

  “You are drunk?”

  “So?” She thrust her hands on her hips and glared at him. The sound of footsteps scuffled nearby and she looked over his shoulder, lifting a hand in acknowledgement of the Fredericksons before spinning on her heel and walking quickly away.

  “And I’m not, anyway,” she muttered as they went. “A few beers, that’s all.”

  “And a shot of whisky?”

  She sent him a fulminating glare. “Seriously? I mean actually, how dare you?”

  A muscle jerked in his cheek as he acknowledged the fairness of her statement. “That man wanted to have sex with you.”

  Her laugh was without humour. “Oh, how dreadful of him. I suppose he wouldn’t have even offered to pay me afterwards.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing his face pale beneath her scrutiny. Good. He should feel the pain of her words.

  “I didn’t intend to pay you for sex. I wanted to give you money. And I wanted you.” He tilted his face, lancing her with the darkness in his eyes.

  “Yeah, well, that’s pretty much the same thing.” She stared straight ahead, chasing the landmarks of the street, searching for reassurance. “Why are you back here?”

  “Because we failed,” he said throatily. He reached down and curled his fingers around her wrist, pulling her to a stop. She stared up at him with the same expression on her face a kitten might offer a street dog about to maul it. Self-disgust robbed him of the desire that had been rampant in his system. He lifted his hands and cupped her face, stroking her cheeks gently, holding her tilted towards him. “I’m not over you.”

  The words burst around her; they were an admission she couldn’t listen to. “Yeah, well. Tough. I’m over you.”

  His expression was sardonic, but she was in no mood to be patronised by this man.

  “I mean it, Sy.” And the use of the diminutive form of his name did something odd inside of him. It was like a goodbye and an acknowledgement, all rolled into one. “I might always want you physically, but I’ll never love you again. I’ll probably never even like you again.”

  He was very still, his body held together with determination alone.

  “And I want to get married; I want the whole happily-ever-after.” The admission throbbed out of her mouth on a small sob. “I want to find someone I can share my life with, whom I respect and who sure as hell respects me. That would never be you. I want to find someone who can be a daddy to Lexi – she deserves that. Someone who loves her as much as I do. Someone who wants what’s in our best interests. I want to find someone who loves me for all of me, even the bad stuff. That’s never going to be you. So why are you here?”

  He shook his head, as her words clarified something strange in his chest.

  “Why?” She repeated, a strangled sound of desperation.

  He needed to do this right. He had one chance. “We will discuss it tomorrow. When you no longer have alcohol in your blood and that man’s stink on your body.”

  She flinched and he swore inwardly. Great. Just the right thing to say when she was already dangling by a thread, barely tolerating his presence.

  “Screw you.” She pulled away from him violently and stormed down the street. “I don’t need to stand here and listen to this.”

  She walked quickly, desperate now to get home and be back in her bed. Alone. He followed her, his expression apologetic. “No, you don’t. Nor do you need to meet me tomorrow. But I am asking you to make time to talk to me.”

  “And I’m telling you, I can’t.” She crossed her arms over her chest and now he swore aloud. She was cold. He’d been so angry, he hadn’t realised. He shrugged out of his jacket, wrapping it around her shoulders gently.

  She didn’t reach for it, but nor did she push it away.

  “Once upon a time, maybe. But I was a different person then. So different.” She bit down on her lip, not wanting to remember the care-free girl she had once been.

  “So let me get to know you again.”

  “Why? You’re going to go away again.” And now the rage plasma exploded through her, burning her good sense with ash and anger. “You don’t get it, do you? I never got over you. You have been the only man I have ever wanted. The only man I have ever loved. The only man I have ever slept with! You broke me, when you left. I can’t go through it again. I’m not a toy and this isn’t a game. You can’t just turn up here and mess around with me.” She pushed at his coat now, gripping it in a balled fist and passing it to him. “You can’t be here.”

  And she turned, and ran.

 
Not so fast that he couldn’t catch her, but Syed didn’t try. He was unfolding the words she’d just thrown at him, assessing them for truth, and deciding that surely they couldn’t carry any. She’d conveniently forgotten her daughter’s father, obviously.

  Except there’d been such blatant honesty in her indignant expression, and in his gut, he knew that she wouldn’t lie about something so fundamental. What could be gained from it?

  He watched her disappear around the corner and then began to follow, at a walk. He watched, from a distance, to make sure she was home safely, and then he went to his car. And waited. He thought, too, about what to do, what he wanted, and how to achieve it. And he didn’t notice, until the middle of the night, that not a single light had been turned on when she’d got home. It brought the hint of a frown to his features, but it was just another question he’d get answers to eventually.

  If he hadn’t arrived at Larry’s, would something have happened with that guy? Despite her protestations, might she have gone home with him?

  The twisting in his gut filled him with one undeniable certainty. She was his, and he would not share her.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “I presume you still like coffee?”

  Sarah stared at Syed with a look of complete confusion. “I didn’t dream it? You really came to the bar last night?”

  “You didn’t dream it.” He held a takeaway cup out to her, and she eyed it dubiously, then shifted her attention to his face. Syed Al’Eba, who looked impossibly gorgeous, even with his clothes rumpled and a dark five o’clock shadow across his chiselled jaw.

  “What are you doing here?”

  His expression was pure business. “We need to talk.”

  Sarah shook her head slowly from side to side. “Five years ago we needed to talk. Now, you need to accept this this is over and leave me alone.”

  “I can’t do that.” He pushed the coffee closer and its tantalising aroma drifted towards her.

  “I thought you wanted to get me out of your system or whatever.”

  “I shouldn’t have said that. What I want is you. All of you.”

  She froze, staring at him long and hard. “What?”

  “Marry me.”

  The words were like daggers slowly spearing towards her at velocity; she couldn’t dodge them. They dug into her, sharp and biting. She looked at him as though he’d lost all of his senses. “Huh?”

  Taking advantage of her obvious shock, he stepped around her and strode into her house. “Marry me,” he repeated, handing the coffee to her once more.

  She took it on autopilot.

  “I’m sorry.” She shook her head. “I don’t think I understood. Did you say…”

  “I want you to marry me.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Marry you?”

  “Yes. Today. Marry me.”

  “Oh. My. God. You are actually crazy,” she ground out, her eyes flicking to his with disbelief. “I haven’t seen you in five years! I have a daughter. You hurt me! Don’t you get it? Not just five years ago, but the other night. You … I wouldn’t marry you for … for anything.”

  “Even for a million dollars?”

  She froze, spinning around to face him, her expression like thunder. The sheer idea of that kind of money was impossible to comprehend, but marriage to Syed? No. She couldn’t do it. “How dare you?”

  He held a hand up to silence her. “For your daughter,” he said so softly that she had to move closer to hear. “A million dollars in a trust fund for her future.”

  She stared at him, pain lashing her. “And in exchange I marry you?”

  “It is not payment,” he ground out. “I want to help her. I want to help you. And I want to marry you.”

  Sarah’s legs felt like jelly. Lexi’s face puffed into her mind and she groaned inwardly. But her rejection was vehement. “No.”

  “Sit down. Think it over for a moment.”

  And not because he was a King and she felt that she ought to obey him, but because she was genuinely worried she might fall at any moment, she eased herself onto the worn sofa and stared up at him, utterly lost. “You’re serious?”

  “I have never been more serious in my life.”

  She sipped the coffee, and then sipped it again, until half of it was gone. “But, why?”

  “I have many reasons, najin.”

  “A million dollars.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pain and indignity at war in her chest.

  “It’s an idea,” he said gruffly.

  She nodded, but her expression was bleak. “An idea you know I’d never refuse.” Her expression was pinched. “That money would be life-changing to Lexi. I’d do anything for her.”

  “Do I take that as a yes?”

  Her lips moved, silently beseeching him to be patient. “Why? Why would you want to pay so much to marry me?”

  His smile was more of a grimace. “A million dollars is not so much, and please, let us not think of it as a payment.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Of course it is.” Her cheeks flushed pink and she pulled her lower lip between her teeth; her eyes clearly showed her anguish and he felt a deep swell of sympathy for her. But he would not be shifted from his course. “I can’t even begin to know what to say.”

  His eyes narrowed speculatively. “It is a simple question.”

  “No, it isn’t!” She stood, her heart racing, and prowled to the other side of the room. “How long would we be married for?”

  “For as long as we both shall live,” he assured her darkly.

  “What if we were miserable? What if you hated me? What if I hated you?”

  His laugh was without humour. “I don’t think that’s likely.

  “Shows what you know,” she muttered, sweeping her eyes shut.

  “You would need to move to Kalastan eventually, but for now, we would stay in America to allow you and Lexi time to adapt to your new … circumstance.”

  “You’d move in here?”

  His laugh was a short, sharp punctuation in the silence of her house. “No.” He sobered, softening his tone with effort. “You and Lexi would move in with me.”

  She paled. “To New York?”

  He shrugged. “It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  She refused to be pleased by his consideration on that score. “I can’t imagine Lexi in that big apartment,” she said honestly.

  “I will find somewhere better then,” he agreed, as though it were not particularly relevant.

  “Syed,” It was a groan of confusion. She spun to face him, and the intensity in his expression seared her soul. “This is crazy.”

  “Crazy is imagining you with another man. Crazy is knowing I had you and let you go. Crazy is spending another day without you as my wife.”

  The passion in his words set fire to her blood. But it was so ludicrous, she had to make a stand for common sense. “You don’t have me. I’m not yours, or anyone’s, to have.”

  He closed the distance between them easily, his arms wrapping around her waist and bringing her close to his chest. She sucked in a sharp breath at the intimate contact. His hands removed the coffee from hers, placing it carelessly on a nearby coffee table, so close to the edge that it could easily have tipped over.

  “Liar,” he whispered darkly. He brought his mouth close to hers. So close she could almost feel his lips on her. “You are as much mine as I am yours.”

  She made a quiet sound against her will. It bubbled up from her chest cavity like a volcano erupting. “I…”

  “Marry me.” And he kissed her, his tongue slashing into her mouth forcefully, her body weakening against his as the kiss robbed her of thought at the same time it gave her courage. She needed him. She always had done. But was it just physical? Was it just their insane degree of chemistry? And what happened when that faded? When he decided he wasn’t so obsessively in lust with her?

  She’d have a million dollars for Lexi’s future. And more than that, she’d have him as her husband.

  Tear
s ran down her cheeks. She wasn’t aware of them until one fell into her mouth, tanging it with salt. “Five years ago, I would have married you in a heartbeat and it wouldn’t have cost you a damn.”

  And she would never have slept with another man; never borne his child. “You’ll marry me now,” he said into her mouth, his fingers tangling in the lengths of her messy hair.

  “But not because I love you.” She pulled away, just enough to look into his eyes. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

  His expression was grim. “No. Not as much as not having you as my wife. Not as much as the idea of you marrying someone else.”

  She sniffed and turned away, her eyes running over the shabby lounge room. “How can I marry you? You’re a Prince. I can’t even imagine what your life is like.”

  He shrugged. “You’ll adapt.”

  “This is absolutely insane. You need to … you need to give me something more to go on.”

  “Other than a million dollars?”

  “Other than blackmail,” she corrected.

  He resisted the urge to push harder. She was talking. It was more than he’d expected. “Such as?”

  “Well,” her tongue darted out and traced her lower lip thoughtfully. “I need more time.”

  “No.”

  “No? Is that what marriage would be like? I ask and you answer?”

  He expelled a breath. Dictating terms wasn’t going to make this work. He ran a hand through his hair, his eyes locked to hers. “How much time?”

  “As long as it takes,” she murmured. “Lexi needs to get to know you. I won’t marry you if she doesn’t … if she doesn’t like you.”

  “Fair enough,” he nodded, ashamed that he had barely given the child a moment’s thought beyond using her as the proverbial stick with which to beat Sarah into his plan.

  “Good,” she nodded.

  “Anything else?”

  She nodded urgently now. “I need to get to know you again, too. I meant what I said last night.” Her cheeks flushed. “I loved you so much, and when you left, it was like I’d been pulled in two.” She swallowed, not meeting his eyes, not wanting him to see the ready pain she carried there. “I need to understand why.”

  He nodded slowly, and the ease with which he conceded to her suggestions should have been a warning sign. An indication as to what he really wanted for Sarah Smith.