One night with a sheikh leads to a secret baby surprise!
Billionaire sheikh Rafiq “Rafe” bin Saleed has come to Royal, Texas, to buy the town—and get even with his former best friend. But Rafe’s plans are pushed aside for one amazing night with a stranger—and then nearly derailed when he discovers the identity of his mystery woman. For not only is Violet McCallum his enemy’s cherished little sister, she’s now pregnant with Rafe’s child! Rafe knows he has the upper hand; all he has to do is walk away. But there’s something about Violet that won’t let him leave without her...
“It would bring dishonor upon my family and myself if my child were born out of wedlock,” Rafe said.
Violet shouldn’t have been surprised by this. She had basically guessed it when she’d looked up information on his country.
That didn’t mean it was what she wanted to hear seconds after one of the best orgasms of her life. She sagged against his chest. “Do we—will we have to get married? Is that what happens in your country?”
He paused. “In my family...we do not have a choice. We are married for power, we bin Saleeds. Love...”
She closed her eyes. Love. They had talked about a lot of things, but love was not one of them.
Rafe cleared his throat. He began to rub his hands up and down her back. “It is something to consider, yes. But I have made you this promise, Violet. I will not force you to do something you do not wish to do.”
“Oh. Okay.” But honestly, did she know him well enough to believe he’d keep that promise?
* * *
A Surprise for the Sheikh is part of the series The Texas Cattleman’s Club: Lies and Lullabies—Baby secrets and a scheming sheikh rock Royal, Texas.
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the Texas Cattleman’s Club, deep in the heart of Texas!
But all is not well—sheikh Rafe bin Saleed has been buying up property under an assumed name and plotting for revenge against his old friend, Mac McCallum. He’s been careful to make sure that no one knows his true identity—or his motivations.
Until one night he meets a mysterious woman named V and shares a wild night of passion with her.
It’s only several months later, when he decides to advance his plan to the next level that he realizes that V was Violet McCallum—Mac’s little sister. That alone is shocking, but nothing prepares him for what comes next.
Violet tells him she’s pregnant with his child. And before Rafe quite knows what’s happening, this headstrong, fierce woman has his head—and all his plans—completely turned around.
A Surprise for the Sheikh is a sensual story about revenge and redemption. I’m always so excited to come back to the TCC! I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it! Be sure to stop by sarahmanderson.com and sign up for my newsletter at eepurl.com/nv39b to join me as I say, long live cowboys!
Sarah
A SURPRISE FOR THE SHEIKH
Sarah M. Anderson
Sarah M. Anderson may live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. Sarah’s book A Man of Privilege won an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award in 2012.
Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians. Find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at sarahmanderson.com and sign up for the new-release newsletter at eepurl.com/nv39b.
Books by Sarah M. Anderson
Harlequin Desire
The Nanny Plan
His Forever Family
Texas Cattleman’s Club: Lies and Lullabies
A Surprise for the Sheikh
The Bolton Brothers
Straddling the Line
Bringing Home the Bachelor
Expecting a Bolton Baby
The Beaumont Heirs
Not the Boss’s Baby
Tempted by a Cowboy
A Beaumont Christmas Wedding
His Son, Her Secret
Falling for Her Fake Fiancé
Visit her Author Profile page at Harlequin.com, or sarahmanderson.com, for more titles!
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To Dad, who taught me the importance of never saying “very” when “damn” would do.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Excerpt from One Night Charmer by Maisey Yates
Prologue
This was really happening.
Ben’s hot body pressed Violet against the back of the elevator. Something hard and long bumped against her hip, and she giggled. Oh, yeah—this was so happening.
She was really doing this.
“Kiss me,” Ben said in that sinfully delicious accent of his as he flexed his hips against hers. She didn’t know where he was from, but his accent made her think of the burning heat of summer sun—because boy, did it warm her up.
Violet ran her hands through his thick black hair and lifted his face away from where he’d been sucking on her neck.
He touched his forehead to hers. “Kiss me, my mysterious, my beautiful V.” Then—incredibly—he hesitated just long enough to make it clear he was waiting for her decision.
Power surged through her. This was exactly why she was riding in an elevator in the Holloway Inn up to a man’s room—a man who did not know she was Violet McCallum, who did not know she was Mac McCallum’s baby sister.
Her entire life, she had been Violet. Violet, who had to be protected from the big bad world. Violet, the lost little girl whose parents died and left her all alone. Violet, who still lived at home and still had her big brother watching over her every move to make sure she didn’t get hurt again.
Well, to hell with that. Tonight, she was V. She was mysterious, she was beautiful, and this man—this sinfully handsome man with an accent like liquid sunshine—wanted her to kiss him.
She was not Violet. Not tonight.
So she kissed him, long and hard, their tongues tangling in her mouth, then in his. She did more than kiss him—she raked her fingers through his hair and held him against her. She made it clear—this was what she wanted. He was what she wanted.
She hadn’t come to this hotel bar a town away from Royal, Texas, with the intent of going to bed with a stranger. She hadn’t planned on a one-night stand. She’d wanted to get dressed up, to feel pretty—maybe to flirt. She’d wanted to be someone else, just for the night.
But she hadn’t counted on Ben. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said in his sunshine voice, his hands sliding down her backside and cupping her bottom. “Among other things, my mysterious V.” Then he lifted, and it was only natural that her legs went around his waist and that the long, hard bulge in his pants went from bumping against her thigh to pressing against the spot at her very center.
Violet’s back arched as heat radiated throughout her body. Ben held tight to her, pinning her back against the elevator wall as he pressed his mouth to the cleavage that this little black dress left exposed. One of the han
ds that was cupping her bottom slid forward, snagging on the hem of her dress as he stroked between her legs. The heat from his hand only added to the raging inferno taking place under her skin.
“If you leave this elevator, you will be mine, you understand? I will lay you out on the bed and make you cry out. This is your last chance to take the elevator down.”
A shiver of delight raced through her. Respectable Violet would never let a man talk to her like this. But V? “Is that a promise?”
“It is,” he said in such a serious tone that she gasped. “Your pleasure is my pleasure.”
That was, hands down, the sweetest thing anyone had ever whispered to her. Her entire life had been one long exercise in telling people what she wanted only to have to listen to the litany of excuses why she couldn’t do what she wanted or couldn’t have what she wanted. It was too risky, too dangerous. She didn’t understand the consequences, she didn’t this, she didn’t that—every excuse her brother could throw at her, he did.
If Mac knew she was in this elevator with a man whose pleasure was her pleasure—well, there might be guns involved. This was risky and dangerous and all that stuff that Mac had spent the past twelve years trying to shield her from.
She was tired of being protected. She wanted something more than safety.
She wanted Ben.
“Why are we still in this elevator?” she asked in as innocent a tone as she could muster, given how Ben’s body was pressing against hers.
“You are quite certain?”
“Quite. But don’t stop talking.” The words hadn’t even gotten out of her mouth before Ben hauled her away from the wall of the elevator and out into the hall.
“Are you this adventurous in everything?”
He was carrying her as if she weighed nothing at all. She was as light as a feather, a leaf on the wind, in Ben’s arms. She was flying and she didn’t ever want to come down.
She also didn’t want to cop to her relatively limited experiences in the whole “pleasure” department. Every time she got serious about a guy, her brother—her well-meaning, overbearing brother—came down like the hammer of Thor and before Violet could blink, the guy would be giving her the it’s-not-you-it’s-me talk.
Violet may have had only a couple of boyfriends, but V was knowledgeable and experienced. She could not only handle a man like Ben, she could meet him as an equal. And so help her, no one was going to give her the let’s-be-friends talk tonight. “Why don’t we find out?”
He growled against her neck.
A door opened. “What’s—” an older man, voice heavy on the Texas accent, said.
Ben stopped and, without putting Violet down, turned to stare at the old man in the open doorway. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t make a menacing gesture. He just stared down the other man.
“Ah. Well. Yes,” the older man babbled as the door shut.
“Whoa,” Violet said, giggling again. “Dude, you are—wow.” So this was what exuding masculinity looked like.
“‘Dude,’ eh?” Ben said with a sexy chuckle as he began walking down the hall. Every step made Violet gasp as Ben’s hard length pressed against her sex. “For a woman as beautiful as you, you often talk like a man.”
“I don’t always wear little black dresses.”
Ben stopped in front of another door. “Hmm,” he said as his hands stayed on her body as he set her down, which effectively meant he hiked her dress up. “Are you sure you won’t tell me your name?”
“No,” she said quickly. She didn’t want this fantasy night of perfection to be ruined by something as mundane as reality. “No names. Not tonight.”
He got his key out and opened the door. Then his hands were back on her body, walking her backward into the room. “Who are you hiding from? Family?” He pulled her to a stop and turned her around. His fingers found her zipper and pulled it down, one slow click after another. “Or another lover, hmm?”
“I’m not hiding from anyone,” she fibbed. It was a small fib because, no, she did not want Mac to know she’d done something this wild, this crazy. That’s why she was in Holloway instead of Royal.
“We are all hiding from something, are we not?” Ben began to pull the dress down, revealing the black bra with the white embroidery that she wore only when she was feeling particularly rebellious. Which, in the last few months, was almost every day.
“I just—look,” she said in frustration, taking a step back and pulling free of his hands. “I won’t ask about you, you won’t ask about me, and we use condoms. That’s the deal. If that doesn’t work for you...” She grabbed the sleeves of her dress and tugged them back up.
Ben stood there, his sinfully delicious lips curved into a smile. Oh, no—he wouldn’t call her bluff, would he? Because she wanted to strip him out of that suit—and she didn’t want to walk out of this room until she was barely able to walk at all.
“I just need a night with you,” she said, the truth of that statement sinking in for the first time since she’d walked into the bar at the Holloway Inn and laid eyes on this tall, dark and handsome stranger. She’d thought she just needed a night out, but the very moment Ben had turned to her, his coal-black eyes taking in her lacy black cocktail dress, her wavy auburn hair, her stockings with the seam up the back—then she’d needed him. And she wasn’t going to rest until she had him. “That’s all I’m asking. One night. No strings. Just...pleasure.”
Ben stepped into her, cupping her face in his hands. “That is really all you want from me? Nothing else?”
The way he said it, with a touch of sadness in his voice, made her heart ache for him. She didn’t know who he was or why he was here—he wasn’t local, that much was obvious. But she got the feeling that in his real life, there were always strings.
She knew the feeling. And for tonight, at least, she didn’t want to be hemmed in by other people’s expectations of her. Good idea or not, she was going to take Ben to bed. There would be no regrets. Not for her. “No. Your pleasure is my pleasure,” she whispered against his lips, turning his words back to him.
“Kiss me,” he said against her skin.
So she did. She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him roughly against her mouth, and then they were flinging each other’s clothing off and falling into bed and she couldn’t tell where her pleasure began and his ended because Ben was everything she’d ever dreamed a lover could be, only better—hotter, sweeter.
She fell asleep in his arms, listening to him whisper stories to her in a language she did not know and did not understand, but it didn’t matter. She was sated and happy. She’d started this night desperate to do something fun, something for herself.
Ben—no last name, no country of origin—was an answer to her prayers.
One
Four months later
This was not happening.
Dear God, please let this not be happening. Violet stared down at the thin strip of plastic. The one that said in digital block letters, PREGNANT.
Maybe she’d done it wrong. Peed on the wrong end or something. Yeah, that was it. She’d never taken a pregnancy test before. She hadn’t even studied. She’d failed due to a lack of preparation, that was all.
Luckily, Violet had bought three separate tests because redundancy wasn’t just redundant. It was confirmation that her night of wild passion four months ago with a stranger named Ben had not left her pregnant.
Crouched in the bathroom off of her bedroom, Violet carefully read the instructions again, trying to spot her mistake. Remove the purple cap: check. Hold the other end: check. Hold absorbent tip downward: check. Wait two minutes: check.
Crap. She’d done it right.
So she did it again.
The next two minutes were hell. The panic was so strong she could practically taste it in the back of
her throat, and it was getting stronger with every passing second.
The first test was just a false positive, she decided. False positives happened all the time. She wasn’t pregnant. She was suffering from a low-grade stomach bug. Yeah, that was it. That would explain the odd waves of nausea that hit her at unexpected times. Not in the morning either. Therefore, it wasn’t morning sickness.
And the low-grade bug she was fighting—that’s what caused the positive. It had absolutely nothing to do with that night in the Holloway Inn four months ago. It had nothing to do with Ben or V or...
PREGNANT.
Oh, God.
One was a false positive. The second? Considering that she’d had a wild night of passionate sex with a man in a hotel room?
What the hell was she going to do?
She didn’t have a last name. She didn’t have his number. He’d been this fantasy man who had appeared when she’d needed him and been gone by morning light. She’d woken up in his room alone. Her dress had been cleaned and pressed and was hanging on the bathroom door. Room service had delivered breakfast with a rose and a note—a note she still had, tucked inside her sock drawer, where Mac would never see it.
Your pleasure was my pleasure. Thank you for the night.
He hadn’t even signed it Ben. No name, no signature. No way to contact him when she had a rapidly growing collection of positive pregnancy tests on the edge of her sink.
She was screwed.
Okay, so contacting Ben was out, at least for the short term. She might be able to hire a private investigator who could track him down through the hotel’s guest registry, but that didn’t help her out right now.
“Violet?” Mac called out from downstairs. “Can you come down here?”
She was going to be sick again, and this time she didn’t think it was because of morning sickness.
How was she supposed to tell her big brother that she’d done something this wild and crazy and was now pregnant? The man had dedicated the past twelve years of his life to keeping her safe after their parents’ deaths. He would not react well.
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