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Defiant in the Desert
Sharon Kendrick
Sara Williams’s hand in marriage was bought and paid for when she was a child to cover a debt the size of a small country. She knew her wedding day would come, but now an independent career woman, Sara is determined never to marry anyone!Sara’s only escape from this marriage is ruination so sets about seducing her achingly handsome but unmovable escort… Middle Eastern diplomat Suleiman Abd al-Aziz has the honour of delivering Sara to her desert destiny – the bed of her Sheikh fiancé.But with his charge so sexy when she’s angry, and definitively forbidden, Suleiman’s iron will is tested to the limit.
Defiant in the Desert
Only scandal will do
Sara Williams’s hand in marriage was bought to cover a debt. But she’s determined never to marry anyone!
Diplomat Suleiman Abd al-Aziz must deliver Sara to her desert destiny. But with Sara set on escaping her marriage by seducing him, his iron will is sorely tested!
Desert Men of Qurhah
Their destiny is the desert!
The heat of the desert is nothing compared to the passion that burns between the pages of this stunning new trilogy by Sharon Kendrick!
Defiant in the Desert
Oil baron Suleiman Abd al-Aziz has been sent to retrieve the Sultan of Qurhah’s reluctant fiancée who is determined to escape the confines of her engagement—by seducing him!
Shamed in the Sands
Princess Leila has always wanted something different from her life. So when sexy advertising magnate Gabe Steele arrives to work for her brother, Leila invites royal outrage by convincing Gabe to give her a job.
The Sultan of Qurhah’s story
The Sultan of Qurhah is facing a scandal of epic proportions. His fiancée has run off, leaving him with a space in his king-size bed. A space once occupied by his mistress—Carly Conner. And now he wants her back—at any price!
Dear Reader (#ua8d75ed4-f592-530f-a694-f5be57ded45b),
One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.
There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.
I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100
story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”
So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?
I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.
Love,
Sharon xxx
Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…
Defiant in the Desert
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Peter O Brien—the intrepid Irishman—who taught me some of the mysteries and miracles of desert life
Contents
Cover (#u8189aae4-e282-5a3d-abe1-def8c731f8e4)
Back Cover Text (#ud6370053-3ec0-5c4d-b191-12017c538f39)
Desert Men of Qurhah (#uc2bdf2a8-db5e-5483-804c-871ceb2b9496)
Dear Reader (#u833e1d09-574d-5284-8fb0-1da2dc1085ab)
About the Author (#ueb18f72c-162e-5376-bdfc-49cddc2d5cc3)
Title Page (#u176b7b77-5168-54b7-87c2-89e06b25001b)
Dedication (#u412dc2b8-a885-5fbb-a01c-96443f6c66f7)
CHAPTER ONE (#u0f6bbb62-c5da-55d7-8529-146432500761)
CHAPTER TWO (#u312404c1-f7f0-5724-a4aa-271bb160afc6)
CHAPTER THREE (#ue37e6277-6a04-556f-94ac-9f7a0b4a243d)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ua8d75ed4-f592-530f-a694-f5be57ded45b)
‘THERE’S A MAN downstairs in Reception who says he wants to see you.’
‘Who is it?’ questioned Sara, not bothering to lift her head from the drawing which was currently engrossing her.
‘He wouldn’t say.’
At this Sara did look up to find Alice, the office runner, staring at her with an odd sort of expression. Alice was young and very enthusiastic, but right now she looked almost transported. Her face was tight with excitement and disbelief—as if Santa Claus himself had arrived early with a full contingent of reindeer.
‘It’s Christmas Eve afternoon,’ said Sara, glancing out of the window at the dark grey sky and wincing. No snow, unfortunately. Only a few heavy raindrops spattering against the glass. Pity. Snow might have helped boost her mood—to help shift off the inevitable feeling of not quite fitting in which always descended on her at this time of year. She never found it easy to enjoy Christmas—which was one of the main reasons why she tended to ignore the festival until it had gone away.
She pushed a smile to the corners of her mouth, trying to pick up on Alice’s happy pre-holiday mood. ‘And very soon I’m going to be packing up and going home. If it’s a salesman, I’m not interested and if it’s anyone else, then tell them to go away and make an appointment to see me in the new year.’
‘He says he’s not going anywhere,’ said Alice and then paused dramatically. ‘Until he’s seen you.’
Sara put her purple felt-tip pen down with fingers which had annoyingly started to tremble, telling herself not to be so stupid. Telling herself that she was perfectly safe here, in this bright, open-plan office of the highly successful advertising agency where she worked. That there was no reason for this dark feeling of foreboding which had started whispering over her skin.
But of course, there was...
‘What do you mean—he’s not going anywhere?’ she demanded, trying to keep her voice from rising with panic. ‘What exactly did he say?’
‘That he wants to see you,’ repeated Alice and now she made another face which Sara had never seen before. ‘And that he craves just a few minutes of your time.’
Craves.
It was a word which jarred like an ice cream eaten on a winter day. No modern Englishman would ever have used a word like that. Sara felt the cold clamp of fear tightening around her heart, like an iron band.
‘What...what does he look like?’ she asked, her voice a croaky-sounding husk.
Alice played with the pendant which was dangling from her neck in an unconscious display of sexual awareness. ‘He’s...well, he’s pretty unbelievable, if you must know. Not just because of the way he’s built—though he must work out practically non-stop to get a body like that—but more...more...’ Her voice tailed off. ‘Well, it’s his eyes really.’
‘What about his eyes?’ barked Sara, feeling her pulse begin to rocket.
‘They were like...black. But like, really black. Like the sky when there’s no moon or stars. Like—’
‘Alice,’ cut in Sara, desperately trying to inject a note of normality into the girl’s uncharacteristically gushing description. Because at that stage she was still trying to fool herself into thinking that it wasn’t happening. That it might all be some terrible mistake. A simple mix-up. Anything, but the one thing she most feared. ‘Tell him—’
‘Why don’t you tell me yourself, Sara?’
A cold, accented voice cut through her words and Sara whirled round to see a man standing in the doorway of the office. Shock, pain and desire washed over her in rapid succession. She hadn’t seen him for five long years and for a moment she almost didn’t recognise him. He had always been dark and utterly gorgeous, gifted with a face and a mind which had captured her heart so completely. But now...
Now...
Her heart pounded.
Something about him had changed.
His dark head was bare and he wore a custom-made suit instead of his usual robes. The charcoal jacket defined his honed torso just as well as any folds of flowing silk and the immaculately cut trousers emphasised the endless length of his powerful thighs. He had always carried the cachet which came from being the Sultan of Qurhah’s closest advisor, but now his natural air of authority seemed to be underpinned with a steely layer Sara had never seen before. And suddenly she recognised it for what it was.
Power.
It seemed to crackle from every pore of his body. To pervade the serene office environment like high-voltage electricity. It made her wary—warier than she felt already, with her heart beating so fast it felt as if it might burst right out of her chest.
‘Suleiman,’ she said, her voice unsteady and a little unsure. ‘What are you doing here?’
He smiled, but it was the coldest smile she had ever seen. Even colder than the one which he had iced into her the last time they’d been together. When he had torn himself away from her passionate embrace and looked down at her as if she was the lowest of the low.
‘I think you can probably work that one out for yourself, can’t you, Sara?’
He stepped into the office, his clever black eyes narrowing.
‘You are an intelligent woman, if a somewhat misguided one,’ he continued. ‘You have been ignoring repeated requests from the Sultan to return to Qurhah to become his wife. Haven’t you?’
‘And if I have?’
He looked at her, but there was nothing but indifference in his eyes and, stupidly, that hurt.
‘If you have, then you have been behaving like a fool.’
His phrase was coated with an implicit threat which made her skin turn to ice and Sara heard Alice gasp. She turned her head slightly, expecting to see horror on the face of the trendy office runner, with her pink-streaked hair and bottom-hugging skirt. Because it wasn’t cool for men to talk that way, was it? But she saw nothing like horror there. Instead, the bohemian youngster was staring at Suleiman with a look of rapt adoration.
Sara swallowed. Cool obviously flew straight out of the window when you had a towering black-haired male standing in your office just oozing testosterone. Why wouldn’t Alice acknowledge the presence of a man unlike any other she had probably met? Despite all the attractive hunks who worked in Gabe Steel’s advertising empire—didn’t Suleiman Abd al-Aziz stand out like a spot of black oil on a white linen dress? Didn’t he redefine the very concept of masculinity and make it a hundred times more meaningful?
For her, he had always had the ability to make every other man fade into insignificance—even royal princes and sultans—but now something about him had changed. There was an indefinable quality about him. Something dangerous.
Gone was the affection with which he always used to regard her. The man who had drifted in and out of her childhood and taught her to ride seemed to have been replaced by someone else. The black eyes were flat and cold; his lips unsmiling. It wasn’t exactly hatred she could see on his face—for his expression implied that she wasn’t worthy of an emotion as strong as hate. It was more as if she was a hindrance. As if he was here under sufferance, in the very last place he wanted to be.
And she had only herself to blame. She knew that. If she hadn’t flung herself at him. If she hadn’t allowed him to kiss her and then silently invited him to do so much more than that. To...
She tried a smile, though she wasn’t sure how convincing a smile it was. She had done everything in her power to forget about Suleiman and the way he’d made her feel, but wasn’t it funny how just one glimpse of him could stir up all those familiar emotions? Suddenly her heart was turning over with that painful clench of feeling she’d once thought was love. She could feel the sink of her stomach as she was reminded that he could never be hers.
Well, he would never know that. He wouldn’t ever guess that he could still make her feel this way. She wasn’t going to give him the chance to humiliate her and reject her. Not again.
‘Nice of you to drop in so unexpectedly, Suleiman,’ she said, her voice as airy as she could manage. ‘But I’m afraid I’m pretty busy at the moment. It is Christmas Eve, you know.’
‘But you don’t celebrate Christmas, Sara. Or at least, I wasn’t aware that you did. Have you really changed so much that you have adopted, wholesale, the values of the West?’
He was looking around the large, open-plan office with an expression of distaste curving his carved lips which he didn’t bother to hide. His flat black eyes were registering the garish tinsel which was looped over posters depicting some of the company’s many successful advertising campaigns. His gaze rested briefly on the old-fashioned fir tree, complete with flashing lights and a glittering star at the top, which had been erected as a kind of passé tribute to Christmases past. His expression darkened.
Sara put her fingers in her lap, horribly aware that they were trembling, and it suddenly became terribly important that he shouldn’t see that, either. She didn’t want him to think she was scared, even if that moment she was feeling something very close to scared. And she couldn’t quite work out what she was afraid of—her, or him.
‘Look, I really am very busy,’ she said. ‘And Alice doesn’t want to hear—’
‘Alice doesn’t have to hear anything because she is about to leave us alone to continue this conversation in private,’ he said instantly. Turning towards the office junior, he produced a slow smile, like a magician producing a rabbit from a hat. ‘Aren’t you, Alice?’
