Stolen by the Sheikh Read online

  ‘But why?’ she asked. ‘What did she have against you?’

  ‘Her parents were my parents’ closest aides. It was they who died along with my parents in the avalanche. Azizah was only five years old at the time. We paid a pension and for her upbringing, it was the only thing we could do, and relatives in Jamalbad brought her up. But it seems they never forgave me for what had happened to their family and their hatred fed into her for twelve years until she became their vehicle for retribution.’

  He hugged her closer. ‘I cannot believe I entrusted you to such a dangerous woman. Can you ever forgive me?’

  She shivered, wondering how much further the bitter tentacles of revenge could reach. There had to be an end to the pain, to the anguish. Somewhere the cycle had to be broken.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered and she trembled again, remembering the last time he had used that expression.

  ‘Do you still want me to leave?’ she asked, her voice soft and uncertain.

  ‘What do you mean? You’re going straight to hospital.’

  ‘I mean afterwards. The last time you told me you were sorry, you put me on the plane and walked away.’ She swallowed deeply, trying to force down the fear of revealing the truth, steeling herself to go on because she knew she had no choice. ‘Because if that’s what you still want, I’ll live with it, but there’s something I must tell you first.’

  His brows pulled together, his eyes unsure. ‘I thought you wanted to leave. I thought you couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’

  ‘At one time that was true, but not for the reason you might think.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘Because I was scared of the way you made me feel. From the start I felt an attraction to you. Even when I knew I shouldn’t. Even though I knew you were marrying someone else. I knew that if I stayed too long then I wouldn’t want to leave. I knew that the longer I stayed, the more I came to know you, then the more I was in danger of falling in love with you.’

  Silence stretched out between them, tension and expectation heightening against the backdrop of the wailing siren, and she feared she’d already said too much.

  ‘And?’ he prompted at last. He sounded impatient, giving her a kernel of hope. Did he really care what she had to say? Would it make a difference?

  ‘And it happened. I didn’t want it to. I even tried to fight it. But it was no good. There was nothing I could do to stop it. Then when the jet was attacked and I feared for your life, I knew I was wrong not to have told you.’

  ‘Hold on,’ he said, holding a finger to her lips. ‘Take a deep breath. What should you have told me?’

  She blinked and sucked in a lungful of air, hoping for a burst of courage to go with it. ‘I love you, Khaled. Somewhere along the way, in the midst of all that has happened, I fell in love with you.’

  ‘You did?’ He looked as if he didn’t quite believe her.

  She nodded. ‘My pride wouldn’t let me tell you. I was still so angry about everything that had happened. But pride and anger are such worthless emotions when so much is at stake. When I thought you’d been attacked and I feared for your life, I knew then that even if you never loved me in return, if you survived, I needed to let you know the truth. I needed to be honest with you.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. What do you mean, if I never loved you? Itold you I loved you. You knew that.’

  She gazed up at him. ‘I thought you only said that to prevent me from leaving.’

  ‘No.’ He touched the tip of her nose with one finger. ‘I told you that because I loved you.’

  ‘But that was before I opened Paolo’s letter. You never once told me after that—when we argued and you said you’d take me to the airport—you never mentioned it. You made me think it was just another ploy, another tactic to keep me here.’

  ‘Not a ploy.’ He gave a sad smile. ‘But I understand why you would think so. I have never treated anyone as badly as I have treated you.’

  She opened her mouth to protest—there were reasons why he acted the way he did, she knew that now. But two fingers on her lips shushed her.

  ‘I cannot ask for forgiveness, it is too much. I planned to cold-heartedly steal you from one man and take you for my own—’

  ‘No, Khaled, don’t.’ She brushed his hand aside, only to have him muffle her objections with his kiss.

  ‘Please, let me explain,’ he said, finally lifting his lips from hers, asserting his will instead with his dark eyes. ‘I need to tell you these things. If you can bear to hear them.’

  Her teeth scraped her bottom lip. She’d told him she loved him and he’d confirmed that he loved her. She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear any more, certainly not if that risked changing the balance, but she nodded anyway. There must be no more secrets. Just as he needed to tell her these things, she needed to hear them.

  ‘At first I set out to have you because of Paolo, that much is true. I had seen photos, I knew you were attractive and successful, but I had no doubt I could bend you to my will and make you go along with my plan. A month would be all I’d need.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘But from the moment I met you, my plan was in trouble. I began to want you, right from the start, and not just because you belonged to someone else. It was almost as if there was something between us—a wire—invisible and tightly strung, that pulled tighter and tighter the longer we were together.’

  ‘I felt it too,’ she offered. ‘I couldn’t get you out of my head, even when I thought I was designing a wedding dress for another woman—another bride.’

  ‘You did? Of course, I suspected as much.’ His smile turned suddenly serious. ‘But still, the way I treated you was inexcusable. Even though I couldn’t get enough of you. It was the ultimate irony that the woman I had stolen to get back at another man had gone and stolen my heart.’

  He sighed. ‘You made me risk the entire plan by telling you two weeks early.’

  ‘I did that?’

  He nodded. ‘Believe it. You needled and bullied and refused to give in to my excuses for not having a fitting. You drove me so crazy with your demands that I wanted to throw you off balance.’ He smiled. ‘And I did,’ he said, earning him a quick punch in the arm.

  ‘I thought you were mad,’ she said.

  ‘It was a form of madness,’ he agreed. ‘I was so mad for you. And when you said you were going home to Paolo, I just got madder still. How could you prefer him over me?

  ‘And if the airport hadn’t been closed yesterday, I would have let you go home then, so deep did you seem affected by the pain of betrayal. Except…’

  He paused and she waited expectantly.

  ‘Except what?’

  ‘Except, even then…’ his voice sounded tenser, more strung out ‘…even then the drive for revenge was so strong. I knew that if you came to me of your own free will then my revenge on Paolo would be that much sweeter.’

  ‘If I came to you of my own free will…’ Her thoughts shifted her back to the desert tent, where she’d been the one to initiate lovemaking. She’d been the one to make the decision. The one to decide. She could have let him pull away from his kiss and leave the tent but no, she’d been the one to take that fateful step.

  ‘I told you—I’ve treated you so badly.’

  ‘And I have something to tell you.’ She looped her arms around his neck. ‘Paolo and I weren’t getting married. Certainly not lately and neither, I believe, in the future.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘we were touted as the next great love interest and for a time there I thought that’s where we were headed, and while it hurt—a lot—that he’d never told me he already had a wife, us getting married wouldn’t have happened, whether or not you intervened. He’ll always be a good friend but he just wasn’t the one.’

  He looked at her strangely. ‘You mean, after all my planning, I still didn’t get to steal Paolo’s bride?’

  She shook her head. ‘No. Does that mean you need t
o go steal someone else to satisfy your need for revenge?’

  ‘No.’ He broke into a broad grin. ‘I ended up with something much better than revenge. I ended up with you.’

  ‘Oh, I love you, Khaled,’ she said, pulling him close. ‘I love you more than you could ever know.’

  He pushed her away and for a moment she resisted. Until she saw his eyes and the love that shone there, deep and true.

  ‘You do? After everything that has happened?’

  She nodded, exhilarated at having the truth revealed at last—all of it. ‘And things will be different from now on. No more talk of revenge and retribution. The past is gone and buried. From now on it will be love that drives the future.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘love for you, my dazzling Sapphire; love between us.’

  He broke off the kiss that followed suddenly—much too suddenly, confusing her with his sudden withdrawal. She blinked her eyes open to find his studying hers, their darkness bright with excitement.

  ‘You would not have to give up your work if you stay,’ he said, his words coming almost too fast for her to keep up with. ‘You mentioned you wanted your own salon. Would you consider having one here, in Hebra?’

  She drew in a breath. She hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t thought through the ramifications of revealing her love, the thrill of finding it reciprocated, the surprise that he wouldn’t expect her to give up the career she loved.

  But why not Hebra? It was time she branched out on her own and there was nothing now to tie her to Milan. From what she’d learnt, Hebra was a thriving city, its women as proud and as fashion conscious as any in Paris or Milan.

  She started nodding, her excitement building, thinking of the stock still in the workroom at the palace and the excellent seamstresses she knew were available. It would be almost too easy.

  And it was almost too much to take in—the prospect of having both her own salon and the love of the man beside her. Who said you couldn’t have it all?

  She smiled and kept on nodding. ‘It could work, yes.’

  ‘I knew it!’ His words exploded from him in a rush. ‘Then so be it. You shall have your own salon and your designs will be world famous.’

  ‘I don’t need to be world famous,’ she said as his lips moved closer to hers, ‘so long as I have your love.’

  His mouth turned into a smile, the darkness of his eyes melting to warm velvet. ‘Oh, you have my love. You hold my heart and soul forever.’

  Sheer bliss welled up inside as his mouth slanted across hers and he kissed her, slowly, languorously, thoroughly, in both a confirmation and a celebration of their love. Finally he drew back his head. ‘After all that’s happened, I wonder—is this too soon to ask you if you’d do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

  ‘It’s not too soon at all,’ she answered, unable to restrain the bubbling joy from her voice. ‘So why don’t you go ahead and ask me?’

  He smiled and then his eyes glittered and the smile dropped away to something entirely more purposeful. ‘Marry me, Sapphire. Make me the happiest and luckiest man in the world by agreeing to become my wife.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I will marry you!’ her laughter welling up with love and certainty, her face pressed brow to brow against his as his lips closed in for another kiss.

  ‘After all, I already have the perfect dress.’

  ISBN 978-1-4268-0164-8

  Copyright © 2007 Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  Exposed: The Sheikh’s Mistress

  Copyright © 2005 by Sharon Kendrick

  The Sheikh’s Innocent Bride

  Copyright © 2005 by Lynne Graham

  Stolen by the Sheikh

  Copyright © 2005 by Trish Morey

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.eHarlequin.com

  About the Authors

  Sharon Kendrick

  Sharon has been writing stories for as long as she can remember and completed her first book at the age of 11! It featured identical twins fighting evil at their boarding school, but—sadly—this early manuscript has been lost.

  Sharon wanted to be a journalist and so enrolled in a secretarial course to learn shorthand and typing, but life kind of got in the way and she drifted in and out of a succession of jobs. She has been a waitress, a cook, a dancer, and a photographer. She has worked in shops and sung in bars. Sharon even qualified as a nurse and drove an ambulance across the Australian desert!

  When she settled down and married her dashing doctor, she decided life was not a rehearsal and that if she wanted to write a book, she’d just have to sit down and do it. Not easy with a lively toddler and a six-month-old baby while living in a tiny apartment. But she did it, andNurse in the Outback was born, and accepted by Mills & Boon without any changes.

  Since then Sharon has gone on to write many books for Mills & Boon and they have been published worldwide. She adores writing romance and considers herself lucky to have the best job in the world! It is a fantastic way to spend a day—inventing gorgeous heroes and complex, interesting women and charting all the ups and downs, the highs and lows of their relationships until they are really ready to let love into their hearts.

  Sharon intends to carry on writing forever—and why not? For what greater pleasure could be gained than when a reader writes to tell you that you moved her to laughter and tears?

  What Sharon values most is feedback from readers—a letter about a book makes it all worthwhile—and she loves to hear from the people she is writing for. Alternatively, if a reader tells her what theydon’t like reading, then that is enormously useful, as well. So please, please contact her as often as you like—she replies to all her readers’ letters! You can email Sharon at [email protected]. Happy Reading!

  Lynne Graham

  Born of Irish/Scottish parentage, Lynne Graham has lived in Northern Ireland all her life. She has one brother. She grew up in a seaside village and now lives in a country house surrounded by a woodland garden, which is wonderfully private.

  Lynne first met her husband when she was 14. They married after she completed a degree at Edinburgh University. Lynne wrote her first book at 15 and it was rejected everywhere. She started writing again when she was at home with her first child. It took several attempts before she sold her first book and the delight of seeing that first book for sale in the local newsagents has never been forgotten.

  Lynne always wanted a large family and has five children. Her eldest and her only natural child is 19 and currently at university. Her other children, who are every bit as dear to her heart, are adopted. She has two 9-year-olds adopted from Sri Lanka and a 3- and a 5-year-old adopted from Guatemala. In Lynne’s home, there is a rich and diverse cultural mix, which adds a whole extra dimension of interest and discovery to family life.

  The family has two pets. Thomas, a very large and affectionate black cat, bosses the dog and hunts rabbits. The dog is Daisy, an adorable but not very bright white West Highland terrier, who loves being chased by t
he cat. At night, dog and cat sleep together in front of the kitchen stove.

  Lynne loves gardening, cooking, collects everything from old toys to rock specimens and is crazy about every aspect of Christmas.

  Trish Morey

  Trish Morey wrote her first book at age 11 for a children's book-week competition. EntitledIsland Dreamer, it tells the story of an orphaned girl and her life on Hindmarsh Island—a small island at the mouth of the Murray River—and was totally self-published. She wrote, illustrated and stitched the pages together herself (her earliest and least successful experience with body piercing!).Island Dreamer was also to be her first rejection—her entry was disqualified unread because she'd transposed the copyright and title pages. This rejection had a devastating effect on the young writer's psyche. Shattered and broken, she turned to a life where she could combine her love of fiction with her need for creativity. You guessed it—Trish became a chartered accountant.