by Sophia Lynn
Table of Contents
Sheikh’s Pregnant Princess
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
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
ANOTHER STORY YOU MIGHT LIKE
Sheikh's Kidnapped Bride
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Sheikh’s Pregnant Princess
By Sophia Lynn
All Rights Reserved. Copyright 2017 Sophia Lynn.
CLICK HERE
to subscribe to our newsletter & get EXCLUSIVE updates on all offers, secret previews, and new releases!
Chapter One
"Hey darling, you care to back that ass up a little?" leered a drunk with a truly grating East London accent.
"Hey asshole, do you care to shut your mouth a little?" Elise retorted briskly.
It was a sign that she had gotten a job in the right place when the rest of the bar cheered her response and the bartender got right up in the drunk's face to make sure that he knew that that behavior wasn't the least bit acceptable.
Elise turned from the scene briskly in order to serve a double shot of admittedly terrible whiskey to a pair of French backpackers, who were watching the exchange with wide eyes. They were a pair of dark-haired girls in their early twenties, and though she was their age or perhaps even a little younger, Elise couldn't help feeling a bit like a big sister to them.
"I hate it when men speak like that," one girl said. "You are so brave for answering back..."
Elise chuckled, tucking her tray under her arm.
"You get used to it pretty fast," she said. "Just remember to make sure that you have something you can swing with close at hand."
She wondered slightly cynically what it would be like to be that innocent, to be new enough to things that a drunk's slurred words could be a shock or a surprise. Elise had been on her own since she was seventeen, and now at the age of twenty-three, she was more than confident in her ability to handle herself. It had gotten her all the way to Hadara, one of the richest emirates of the UAE, and that was a pretty good distance from her hometown in the Midwest.
Well, if I've got to pour rotten drinks and deal with drunks, I might as well do it someplace interesting and exotic...
Of course, here in Hadara, Elise was constantly reminded that she was the exotic one. Hadara, like so many of the wealthy city states, was a melting pot with an Arabic majority. In the midst of the dark hair and dark eyes of the Middle East, Elise's shoulder-length blonde hair and flashing green eyes were a curiosity. She had never really cared all that much for how short and curvy she was, but it seemed to go over well, or at least it seemed to help her get tips, which was all that she cared about.
Working at the small bar in Hadara was no one's idea of a dream job, especially as she was working without a visa and getting paid slave-labor wages under the table. It was helping her keep body and soul together at least. She had a little apartment that she shared with a girl from Jordan and a girl from London, she had enough cash to go to the bookstore whenever she had an afternoon free...
"Hey, Elise, you're up next, you better be ready," shouted Hassim, the owner of the bar.
And she got to sing.
"I'll be ready," she called back, because she would bulldoze straight through the crowd, flattening anyone who got in her way to get to the stage.
There was a tiny dressing area to the side of the stage, and she quickly discarded her waitress's apron over the peg on the wall. She kept a tiny case of makeup in the rickety vanity, and hurriedly, she swiped on some glittery eyeliner and a smudge of red lipstick. She didn't look all that different from the girl who had been waiting tables just a moment before, but she felt different.
Funny, this is a little like how I felt when I finally left Ohio and got to California...
Her first days in California had been an amazing time. She was finally on her own, she was living in a place that she had always dreamed of, she sang for pay for the first time. It had been amazing, and then...
Elise shook her head. No. She wasn't going to go wandering back down that road. It was dark anyway, and it seemed like she was a girl who was accident prone.
She heard the half-drunk sound guy signal that she was on, and with a final look in the mirror, she sauntered onto the stage.
When Elise stood front and center, the spotlight hitting her square, everything else disappeared. It didn't matter that the club was full of people who were just there to get liquored up, it didn't matter that management probably would have been just as happy to have her remove at least some of her clothing, and it didn't matter that the sound system was older than she was.
When Elise opened her mouth, the first bars of her song lifted into the air, and she was where she had always wanted to be. She opened with a wistful Patsy Cline number, and when that song was over, she saw that she at least had the audience's attention. Patsy Cline was always a good opener for her; Elise had a husky warm voice that did sadness and heartbreak very well.
It seemed like the audience was receptive, and so she launched into one of her own songs, a winding tune about loss in the olive trees. The response was less enthusiastic, given the fact that no one knew that song, but at least no one had booed her off the stage.
Management gave her twenty minutes to sing and then five minutes to collect tips from the crowd. After that, she had to be back on the floor serving drinks. It was, Elise knew, a terrible deal, but it was what she had to work with.
Ages ago, someone had left behind a cab man’s hat in the dressing room, and that was what she used now to collect her tips. It was a scattering of dirham, a few Euros, and a few American dollars, which was fine. It was not an amazing take, but it was far from the worst wage that she had earned in her short lifetime as a singer.
Elise ducked backstage, pocketing the money and putting on her waitress's apron again.
Well, back to the grind...
The moment she got back to the bar, the bartender gave her a tray with a glazed bottle and a shot glass on it. Elise's eyes opened wide at the bottle, and she glanced at the bartender in surprise.
"I think this bottle's been behind the bar since I was a baby," she said, and the bartender snorted.
"Seeing as you're not in your forties, it's been there a lot longer," he retorted. "Guy stumbled in and asked someone to bring him the best thing we got in the bar."
Elise bit her lip. She was far more used to serving people who ran out on their drinks than she was people who asked for the most expensive bottles of anything. The bartender caught her glance and laughed.
"Don't worry, we got his credit card in advance.”
After that, it wasn't her problem anymore, and she only hoped that he was the kind of rich man who tipped well, not the kind who assumed that his wealth got him out of tipping at all.
The bartender indicated that the rich patron was sitting all the way in the shadows at the back of the bar, and after a moment, she figured out who it had to be.
He was half-sprawled in a booth, tall and muscular in a way that spoke of a lot of time at the gym. Even to Elise's untrained eye, the gold-colored shirt that was half-unbuttoned down h
is chest and his tailored trousers looked expensive, and she had an idea that the gold watch that adorned his wrist could buy her a car at least.
When she approached the booth with his bottle, he looked up and she could see that he was already on his way to getting drunk. Elise did her best to stop herself from making a face. Drunks could be excellent tippers, but more often, they forgot about anything besides being as funny and as charming as they could, which was not very.
"Ah, my savior has arrived," he said in clear, vaguely British English. "Your beauty shines like a beacon on a storm-tossed sea."
"I think that might be a little more convincing if I thought you could see straight," she said with a smile, "but thank you."
He pretended to look hurt, which made her laugh, and at least he didn't grab on to her to make his point.
"I am speaking with total truth," he protested, and she shook her head.
"That's good, it's always important to be truthful."
She had just set down the bottle and the shot glass when the patron looked up at her, his head tilted slightly to one side. To Elise's surprise, he was surprisingly handsome, even when he was as obviously inebriated as he was.
"You were the singer up on stage just a few moments ago," he said in surprise. "What are you doing waiting tables?"
"Well, paying rent," she said with a small smile. "Singing for twenty minutes up on a stage in a bar where no one comes to listen to singing isn't really the most lucrative job in the world, no matter what you might think."
"You have a fine voice, and you should be heard everywhere," he said, "but please, let me show my appreciation..."
He rummaged in his pockets, and she bit her lip as he pulled out his handsome wallet. Even at a glance, she could tell that it was as expensive as the rest of his things. The leather looked soft and pliable. When he pulled out a few bills for her, a few more fluttered out.
When Elise saw the high denominations, she stepped in front of him to cover them up. From the movement she could see out of the corner of her eye, however, his error had been noticed, and at a bar like this, no one could guarantee that the notice was going to be benign.
The handsome patron, on the other hand, seemed to be far from aware of this. Instead, he pressed a few bills into her hand, looking up at her with the darkest eyes she thought she had ever seen. The moment his skin brushed against hers, a subtle shock sparked between them. She pulled a startled breath into her lungs, but surely she had just imagined it. The man looked unaffected, so that meant that she was likely just being strange.
"Please, take this. Perhaps enjoy yourself..."
It was an odd request, but when she saw how much he had given her, her eyes widened. That was enough to finish off her rent payment for the month and then some.
"I'm not giving this back when you sober up," she warned, and he grinned. This time, she wondered if there was something bitter about it.
"I never expect to get things back that I have given away," he declared, and that was when she noticed the golden wedding band on his finger.
"Oh, I see," she said lamely. "Thanks for the tip, I've got to...to get back to work..."
He might have said something else, but she was already ducking through the crowd, shoving the generous tip deeper into her apron. Even with the cut taken out for the rest of the staff, it was more money than she had made waitressing ever.
The man had been generous, but the fact that he wore a golden wedding band left her cold. A married man giving that money to a strange woman? A married man getting drunk on his own in a hole-in-the-wall bar?
She shook her head.
When I choose a man, there will be none of that...
The mocking voice in the back of her head told her that she had accepted much worse in the past, but she ignored it. She told herself that she was doing much better now, being a lot more careful about who she allowed into her life. Despite that, however, she couldn't keep her attention from wandering to the back of the bar, where the rich patron seemed to be drinking steadily.
Some part of her still wondered at the electricity that had leaped between them. It had felt hot and elemental in a way that she couldn't understand, but she reminded herself sternly that it was an electricity shared with a married man.
I should just ignore him, she thought finally, but then a few hours later, she realized exactly why she couldn't.
Chapter Two
Like all of the wealthy men of Hadara, Nadim knew his way around a bottle well enough, but he never drank heavily. He had seen what heavy drink could do to people, and he had always looked with scorn on his cousins and friends who got falling down drunk with the least provocation.
On a regular evening, he might have a drink or two, and in general, he didn't have any at all.
Of course, that meant that after he had been asked to leave the hotel bar where he had been drinking, he had taken it badly. He had nearly asked the hotel manager if he had known who Nadim was, and then he checked himself. He might have been drunk, but even in his inebriated state, he knew that letting a random hotel manager know that the drunk that he had to escort out was none other than Sheikh Nadim ibn Fasad Al Attia was a terrible idea.
Instead, Nadim had contented himself with a few snarled swear words before walking out and finding a cab. The cab driver probably thought that he was some rich drunk from Dubai looking for a good time, and when he had asked for a bar where he could drink in peace, without anyone trying to stop him, he had taken him to the bar he was at now.
The raw burn of the raki he was finally given was good, but he couldn't keep his mind off the blonde who had been singing earlier.
There was a low and husky tone to her voice that seemed to press right against his heart, and somehow, his brain insisted that underneath the words was something beautifully soft and sweet, singing love me, love me, please love me...
Then she had appeared at his table like some kind of dream, and up close, she had been more beautiful than ever. Angels looked like that, he was sure, and then he corrected himself. She was no angel, at least, not working in a place like this. Instead, she was a songbird with a song that seemed to speak right to his heart.
Then she had gone, and all he had to occupy himself was the bottle. From time to time, the phone sitting next to him chirped, but he ignored it. Nadim knew damn well who it was, and if it was truly an emergency, someone would come to find him. There was nothing to be gained by picking up the phone and throwing good words after bad. It was something that his father had said, and for a moment, Nadim wished that the old man was still alive. However, he knew that was a wish that would never come true, and he dismissed it.
He had been sheikh of Hadara for almost four years, and as far as the world was concerned, he was doing an excellent job. He was a fine leader, an intelligent statesman, a devoted husband...the only thing he was not was a father.
That thought felt like a hot ember burning in his chest, and he shook it off, finally pushing the drink to one side.
Hell, what was he doing? Was he really going to crawl in a bottle to get away from his problems? A tide of self-disgust threatened to rise up and swallow him.
It was past time to go, he thought, and though the thought of where to go troubled him, he assumed that that could be dealt with at a later point.
He nodded hazily at the barman, leaving a tip for him as well, and he wandered into the warm night. The moment the fresh air hit his face, he felt a little better.
The bar was off the main drag, Nadim could see. He started to make his way towards the bright lights of the main street, but then two large men stepped out of the shadows of the stoop. He tensed to defend himself, but they were too large and too fast, especially when he was fighting against the effects of too much alcohol.
One grabbed him by the arm and hauled him into the alley, and the other pulled out a short and wicked-looking knife with a curved blade.
"Come on, hand over the cash," one hissed, and Nadim could feel his temper
rise.
These men had no right to take a damn thing away from him. They had no right to touch him.
His response was short and obscene, and almost immediately, he hunched over as one man drove a fist into his belly. He somehow avoided throwing up; he knew that the punch was light compared to what they could do. That meant that they thought he would give up his money out of his own free will, and that gave him an advantage.
Nadim tensed, ready to launch himself at his attackers, but then a shrill scream distracted all three of them.
There was a flash of blonde hair, and then one of his attackers, the one with a knife, was reeling away, hand held to his face. In the strange clarity of the moment, Nadim could see blood dripping between his fingers, and he did not waste his opportunity. He drove his fist hard into the face of the man trying to hold him and then gave him a kick to put him on the ground.
"All right, time to get out of here," the songbird said, because it was her. She stood in the alleyway as if she owned it, as if this was a thing that happened to her all the time. Perhaps it was. She dropped the length of wood she had used to strike down his foe with a casual motion, turning to him.
His mind registered a dull surprise, and he might have protested or asked her if she was all right, but then she took his hand in hers, tugging hard.
Nadim was not a man who believed in fate or in magic, but when he felt a pulse of pure energy travel between them at her soft touch, he might have been convinced. There was something shocking that connected them, and it was that reason, more than any kind of fear or anxiety, that allowed her to drag him out of that alley.
"Give me your arm," she said briskly, and bemused, he did as she said. "Come on, walk faster."
"You're very bossy," he complained, and she actually laughed at him. She had a laugh that he liked very much, low and husky with an edge to it that made him want to touch the curve of her lower lip.
"I am," she said, "and I am also an expert on staying alive. Right now, I am your best friend. Come on, faster."
He knew that he should stop, thank her for her help, and find that cab, but he followed her. He could have blamed it on the drink, but he knew better. The haze of the alcohol, powerful though it had been, had dissipated under the adrenaline of the attack. It had more to do with the way her hand slid into his arm, how beautifully pale her hair was, how her hips swayed under her thin, cheap skirt.
