Kitabı oku: «The Sheikh's Pregnancy Proposal»

One

Twenty-four hours away from the deadline to sign a marriage contract...

The stark thought shoved Sheikh Kadin Gabriel ben Kadir out of a restless sleep. Tossing crisp linen sheets aside, Gabe flowed to his feet and pulled on a pair of narrow dark jeans. The cool light of a New Zealand dawn flooded his suite, a floor above the Zahiri consulate in Wellington, as he broodingly considered the concept of once more entering into the intimacy of marriage.

Marrying a wealthy heiress would solve his country’s financial problems. The problem was, after the disaster of his last marriage, he had no desire to ever immerse himself in that particular hell again.

The morning air cool against his torso, he padded barefoot to the French doors and dragged aside heavy linen curtains. Dark gaze somber, he surveyed the gray rain drenching his last day of bachelor freedom. At that moment, like a fiery omen, the sun pierced the thick veil of storm clouds that hung over Wellington Harbour, illuminating a large painting of his twelfth-century ancestors, which dominated one wall of his suite.

Gabe studied the painting of the original Sheikh Kadin on whose birthday he’d had the bad luck to be born. A battle-hardened Templar Knight, Kadin’s main claim to fame was that he had taken someone else’s bride along with her diamond-encrusted dowry. The captured bride, Camille de Vallois, a slim redhead with dark exotic eyes, had then proceeded to entrance his ancestor to the point of obsession. Gabe’s stomach tightened at the remembrance of the obsession that had haunted his own youthful marriage, although in his case the possessive intensity hadn’t emanated from him.

Once they were married, Jasmine, his childhood sweetheart, had become increasingly clingy and demanding, dissolving into tears or throwing tantrums when she didn’t get her way. She had resented his busy work schedule, and had become convinced he was having affairs. When he had refused to start a family until their relationship was on a more even keel she had taken that as a sign that he regretted the marriage. The guilt she had inspired in him had taken on a haunting rawness when, after a tense exchange during a boat trip, Jasmine had stormed off in the yacht’s tender, overturned on rocks and drowned.

The memory of the icy salt water dashing off rocks as he had attempted to save Jasmine started a dull ache in the scar that marred one cheekbone, a permanent reminder of that day.

Legend said Gabe’s ancestor had a positive outcome to his passionate involvement with the woman he had married. Gabe’s experience had been such that he would not allow a woman to have that kind of power over him again. As far as he was concerned, passion had its place, but only in short, controllable liaisons. Love was another thing entirely; he would not be drawn into that maelstrom again.

A rap at the door of his suite was a welcome distraction. Shrugging into a T-shirt, he opened the door to his longtime friend and Zahir’s chief of security.

Xavier, who had just flown in from Zahir, strolled into the spacious lounge that adjoined Gabe’s bedroom and handed him an envelope. “Special delivery.”

Slitting the envelope, Gabe extracted the marriage contract he had discussed with his lawyers before leaving Zahir.

Xavier stared at the contract as if it were a bomb about to explode. “I don’t believe it. You’re actually going to go through with it.”

Gabe headed for the state-of-the-art kitchenette that opened off the lounge. “There aren’t a whole lot of options.”

With the cold winds of bankruptcy at their backs and the remains of Camille’s extraordinary wealth lost during the confusion of the Second World War, it was up to Gabe to restore the country’s fortunes with another arranged marriage to an extremely wealthy woman.

Xavier shook his head to the offer of a glass of orange juice. “I would have thought that after Jasmine—”

“That it was time I moved on?”

Xavier’s expression became impatient. “When you married Jasmine you were both too young. It’s time you had a real marriage.”

“The marriage to Jasmine was real enough.” Gabe drained his glass of juice and set the glass down on the counter with a sharp click. As far as he was concerned, their marriage had been all too real. He could still feel the familiar coldness in his gut, the tightness in his chest every time he thought about the past and how completely he had failed his wife when she had needed him most. “This marriage won’t be.” It was prescribed and controlled, preventing any possibility of destructive, manipulative emotion. “Remember, it’s a business arrangement.”

Xavier, who was happily married, didn’t bother to hide his incredulity. “You can’t seriously think you can keep it that way. What woman will ever allow that?”

Gabe lifted a brow as he flipped to the back pages of the contract. It contained a short list of candidates and photographs of the pretty young women from wealthy families who had expressed an interest in the prestige and business opportunities inherent in a marriage to the future Sheikh of Zahir.

Xavier frowned at the list. “I still think you’re making a big mistake, but I guess it’s your funeral.”

Gabe saw the moment Xavier realized the import of his final comment about a funeral. He cut off Xavier’s apology with a curt word. They had grown up together. Xavier had been his best man when he’d gotten married, and when Jasmine had died, he had kept the press and hordes of well-meaning friends and relatives at bay, gifting Gabe the privacy he had needed. Through it all, their friendship had endured. “I have to marry at some point. Don’t forget, aside from the money, Zahir needs an heir.”

After Xavier left, Gabe grabbed fresh clothing and headed for the shower. He considered Xavier’s comment that he and Jasmine had been too young to marry. He had been twenty, Jasmine eighteen. The marriage had lasted two years.

Flicking on the shower, he waited until steam rose off the tiles before stripping and stepping beneath the water. Now he was thirty, and as his father’s only son he needed to marry and continue the family line. The prospect of a second marriage made his jaw clench. He could think of other ways to raise the money Zahir needed, Westernized ways that weren’t presently a part of Zahir’s constitution. But with his father recovering from cancer and wary about new investments, Gabe had accepted his father’s old-fashioned solution.

Minutes later, dressed in a white shirt, red tie and dark suit, he stood drinking the dark, aromatic coffee he preferred as he stared out at the heavy rain sweeping the harbor. As cold and alien as the view was, thousands of miles from sunny Zahir, it was nevertheless familiar. Not only had his mother been born in New Zealand, but Wellington had been a home away from home for him because he had gone to school here.

Checking his watch, he placed his empty mug on the coffee table next to the marriage contract. Right now he had a breakfast meeting with both the Zahiri and New Zealand ministers for tourism. That would be followed by a string of business meetings, then a cocktail party and presentation on Zahir’s attractions as a tourist destination at the consulate tonight.

Despite Gabe’s resolve, he could think of better ways to spend his last day of freedom.

One more day—and night—as a bachelor, before he committed to the marriage of convenience that was his destiny.

* * *

She was destined to be loved, truly loved...

The chime of her alarm almost pulled Sarah Duval out of her dream, but the irresistible passion that held her in its grip was too singular and addictive to relinquish just yet. Eyes firmly closed against the notion of another day of unvarying routine in her teaching job, she groped for the alarm and hit the sleep button. Dragging a fluffy feather pillow over her head, she sank back into the dream.

The directness of the warrior’s gaze was laden with the focused intent she had waited years to experience, as if he thought she was beautiful, or more—as if he was actually fascinated by her.

Strong fingers cupped her chin. Sarah dragged her gaze from the fascinating scar that sliced a jagged line across one taut cheekbone and clamped down on the automatic caution that gripped her, the disbelief that after years of being let down by men an outrageously attractive man could truly want her. The searing heat blasting off his bronzed torso, the rapid thud of his heart beneath her palms, didn’t feel like a lie.

In point of fact, the warrior wasn’t saying a lot, but Sarah was okay with that. After years of carefully studying body language, because she had learned she could not always trust what was said, she had learned to place a measure of trust in the vocabulary of the senses.

Throwing her normal no-nonsense practicality to the winds she lifted up on her toes, buried her fingers in the thick night-dark silk of his hair, and pressed herself firmly against the muscular warmth of his body. His mouth closed over hers and emotion, almost painful in its intensity, shuddered through her.

Dimly, she acknowledged that this was it. The long years of waiting were over. She would find out what it felt like to be truly wanted, to finally make love—

The shrill of the alarm once more shoved Sarah out of the dream, although the warrior’s voice seemed to hang in the air, as declarative as his dark gaze.

“You are mine to hold.”

An electrifying quiver ran the length of her spine, lifting all the fine hairs at her nape as she silenced the alarm. Blinking at the grayness of the morning, she registered the comforting ticking of the oil heater she’d dragged beside the bed to keep out the winter chill. She sucked in a breath in an effort to release the tension that banded her chest and the sharp, hot ache at the back of her throat. As if she really had been the focus of a powerful male’s desire...

A soft thud drew her gaze to the leather-bound cover of the family journal she had been reading before she’d gone to sleep. It had slipped off the edge of her bed and fallen to the floor. The journal, which had been partially transcribed from Old French by an erudite cousin, relegated the dream to its true context—fantasy.

None of it had been real. At least no more real to Sarah than the dramatic contents of the personal diary of Camille de Vallois. A spinster and academic who had lived more than eight hundred years ago, Camille had been sold into marriage by her family. However, when her ship had foundered on the rocks of Zahir, she had made herself over as an adventurous femme fatale and gone after the man she discovered she wanted, a sheikh who had also been a battle-hardened Templar Knight. Camille had risked all for love, admittedly with the help of an enormous dowry, and she had succeeded.

Frowning, Sarah reviewed the vivid dream and reluctantly let the last remnants of the powerful emotions that had held her in thrall flicker and die. Camille’s story had clearly formed the basis of the dream. Plus, the previous day, caught up in the romance she’d been reading in the journal, she had called at the Zahiri consulate and picked up a pamphlet about a scheduled exhibition of Zahiri artifacts and a lecture on their history and culture. While exiting the building in the middle of a rain shower, head down because she had forgotten her umbrella, she had run into a man so gorgeous that for long seconds her brain had refused to function.

By the time she had recovered the power of speech, he had picked up the pamphlets she’d dropped, handed them to her with a flashing grin and strode into the consulate. The hero of her dream, scar and all, had looked suspiciously like that man.

Her cheeks warmed at the memory of some of the graphic elements of the dream, the searing embrace and a toe-curling kiss that had practically melted her on the spot. It had definitely been the stuff of fantasies and nothing to do with her normal life as a staid history teacher.

In her ancestor’s case, the dream had come true, but Sarah could never allow herself to forget that Camille’s romance had been smoothed along by a great deal of cold hard cash. Love story or not, Sarah was willing to bet that Sheikh Kadin had known on which side his bread had been buttered.

Pushing upright in the cozy nest of her bed, she reached down and retrieved the journal, which included photocopied sheets of the original, written in Old French, plus the sections of the journal her cousin had so far transcribed.

A heavy gust hit the side of her cottage, rattling the windows and making the old kauri timbers groan. Pushing free of the heavy press of quilt and coverlet, Sarah inched her feet into fluffy slippers, belted a heavy robe around her waist and padded to the window to stare out at the stormy day.

The steep street she lived on was shrouded in gray. The sodium lamps still cast a murky glow on neatly trimmed hedges, white picket fences and the occasional wild tangle of an old rose. The houses, huddled together, cheek-by-jowl—some so close a person could barely walk between them—were neither graceful and old nor conveniently modern. Inhabited by solo homeowners like herself or young families, they were something much more useful: affordable.

Letting the drapes fall back into place, she walked to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea before she showered and got ready for work. Her tiny kitchen, with its appliances fitted neatly to take up minimal space, was about as far away from the exotic isle of Zahir as she could get.

As she sipped hot tea, her reflection in the multipaned window over the counter bounced back at her and she found herself critically examining her appearance. With her hair bundled into a knot, her face bare of makeup, the thick robe making her look ten pounds heavier than she was, she looked washed-out, tired and...boring.

Frowning, chest tight at the thought that at twenty-eight she was no longer in the first flush of youth, she peered more closely at her reflection. Her eyes were blue; her skin was pale; her hair, when it was loose, was heavy, straight and dark. It was the faded robe that drained the color from her skin, and the tight way her hair was scraped back from her face that was so unflattering. She wasn’t old.

Although she would be twenty-nine next month. In just over a year she would be thirty.

The pressurized feeling in her chest increased. She sucked in a breath, trying to ease the tension, but the thought of turning thirty made her heart hammer. She was abruptly aware of time passing, leaving her behind, of her failure to find someone special to love and who would love her back in return.

On the heels of those thoughts an old fear loomed out of the shadows. That her disastrous track record with men wasn’t about bad luck or bad judgment, it was about her; she was the problem. Perhaps some aspect of her personality, maybe her academic bent and blunt manner, or more probably her old-fashioned insistence on being truly loved for herself before sex entered the equation, was the reason she would never be cherished by any man.

Grimly, she considered her two engagements, which had both fallen through. Her first fiancé, Roger, had gotten annoyed when she hadn’t felt ready to sleep with him the week of their engagement, and so had called it off. Not a problem.

The second time she had chosen better, or so she had thought. Unfortunately, after months of dating a fellow teacher, Mark, who had seemed quite happy with her views on celibacy before marriage, she had discovered, on the morning of their wedding, that he had fallen in love with somebody else. A blonde and pretty somebody else with whom he had been sleeping for the past four months.

Normally, she didn’t wallow in the painful details of those relationship mistakes. Burying her head in the sand and anaesthetizing herself with work had been a much more attractive option.

But reading the journal that had recently arrived from her cousin and dreaming that deeply sensual dream had changed her in some imperceptible way. Maybe what she was feeling was all tied up with the realization that her biological clock was ticking. Whatever the cause, she felt different this morning, tinglingly alive and acutely vulnerable, as if she were standing on the edge of a precipice.

And she knew what that precipice was: she was finally ready to try again. Her pulse sped up at the knowledge that after years of relationship limbo she wanted to love and be loved and this time, marriage or not, she wanted the passionate, heart-stopping sex. Adrenaline zinged through her veins at the thought of tossing her old relationship rulebook away. She was tired of waiting, of missing out. She wanted to take the risk, to find a man she could not just desire, but with whom she could fall recklessly, wildly in love.

A man like the dangerously handsome guy she had run into the day before.

Absently, she sipped her cooling tea. In the past, she had been black-and-white in her thinking. She had wanted all or nothing. She didn’t understand how she had become that way. Maybe her deep need for emotional certainty had been fueled by the fact that her father had only ever been a sometime presence in her life. Or maybe it was because she was naturally passionate in her thinking. For most of her adult life “all or nothing” had been the catchphrase that had summed up her approach.

Whatever the cause, it had devastated her last two serious relationships and was already sounding the death knell for the lukewarm friendship she shared with an importer of antiquities and fellow history buff that was the closest thing to a romance on her dating horizon.

Her jaw firmed. If she was going to find someone to love, someone she could marry and have babies with, it was clear she would have to be more flexible than she had been in the past. She would have to change. She would have to bite the bullet and experiment with a casual affair.

And the clock was ticking.

Replacing the mug on the counter, she dragged her hair free of the elastic tie that held it in place. Feeling tense and a little shaky, she raked her fingers through the warm, heavy strands, trying to work some volume into her satin-smooth hair. With her hair tumbling loose to her waist, she looked younger and sexier. Relief made her feel ridiculously light-headed.

She dragged off the robe and let it drop to the floor. The nightie she was wearing didn’t help matters. Made of cotton flannel in an unflattering shade of pale pink, it reminded her of the nightwear her grandmother used to wear. Great for cold nights, drinking hot chocolate and reading a book, but ultimately as sexy as a tent.

The only positive was that beneath the material she had a good figure. Her breasts were shapely, her waist narrow, her legs long and toned from all the walking she did.

Shivering at the chill, she dragged on the robe and returned to her bedroom. Flicking on a light, she flung her closet wide and began examining hangers of clothes she had bought for the honeymoon that hadn’t happened.

Annoyed at how affected she still was by the canceled wedding and Mark’s easy dismissal of her in favor of a woman who had been dishonest enough to sleep with an engaged man, she hauled out slinky clothes and dropped them on the bed. She needed to exorcise the past by either wearing the clothes as if they had not been bought for a special, life-changing occasion, or else give them away to a charity shop.

Sarah arrayed the collection of jewel-bright garments across her bed. With a start, she realized that almost four years had passed since Mark had jilted her.

Four years.

Jaw set at the time that had passed, she selected a red dress. The color was sensual and rich, the silk jersey warm to the touch. With three-quarter-length sleeves and a V-neck, the design was classic. Bought for the romantic honeymoon she had paid for in Paris then cancelled, it was also sexy and sophisticated.

Before she could change her mind, she stripped out of the robe and nightgown and pulled on the dress. The jersey settled against her skin, making her shiver. Strolling to her dressing table she examined the effect of the dress, which, worn without a bra and with her hair rumpled and loose, was startlingly sensual. The deep, rich color made her skin look creamy instead of pale, and turned her dark hair a rich shade of sable. She stared at the bold, definitely female image, feeling oddly electrified, like a sleeper waking up.

The woman in the mirror in no way looked boring or tired. She looked young and vibrant. Available.

Years had passed since Mark had ditched her practically at the altar. Years that she had wasted, and which had been her prime window in terms of finding a suitable mate. If she had been focused by now she would have met and married her Mr. Right, gotten pregnant and had at least one baby.

She had put her lack of success with relationships down to her heavy work schedule. According to her mother, Hannah, the real reason Sarah hadn’t found a relationship was fear. Two engagements had fallen through and in her usual stubborn way Sarah had refused to go out on a limb a third time.

Hannah’s solution had been to produce a constant supply of eligible men from among her interior-decorating business contacts, which was how Sarah had met Graham Southwell. Although, after several platonic dates, she had received the overwhelming impression that Graham was more interested in her connection to the missing de Vallois dowry than in an actual relationship.

As it happened she was meeting Graham that evening. After the revelation of the dream, she could not view tonight as just another dead-end date with a man who did not really see her. Tonight was an opportunity to effect the change that was already zinging through her.

She could not afford to wait any longer for her true love to find her; experience had taught her that might never happen. Like her ancestor Camille, she had to be bold. She had to formulate a plan.

By the time she was ready to leave for work she had settled on a strategy that was time-honored and uncannily close to Camille’s plan to win her sheikh.

Sarah would dress to kill, and when she found the man of her dreams, she would seduce him.