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An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh: The Sheikh's Unsuitable Bride / Rescued by the Sheikh / The Desert Prince's Proposal
Nicola Marsh
Barbara McMahon
Liz Fielding
The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride Zahir was surprised by his beautiful new driver. This chauffeur talked. She laughed. She took him on unplanned detours. And he had more fun than he’d had in years. But back in his desert kingdom a dynastic marriage was being planned for Zahir…Rescued by the SheikhWhen photographer Lisa Sullinger injures herself whilst exploring alone in the desert she is lucky to be rescued by handsome, enigmatic Sheikh Tuareg, who shelters Lisa in his desert tent before whisking her off to his stunning palace to convalesce!The Desert Prince’s Proposal In order for Prince Samman to be crowned King, he must marry. He has rejected all his advisors’ suggestions…then he is captivated by a unique pair of independent honey-coloured eyes and picks Bria for his bride!
An Ordinary Girl and a Sheikh
The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride
Liz Fielding
Rescued By The Sheikh
Barbara McMahon
The Desert Prince’s Proposal
Nicola Marsh
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Sheikh’s
Unsuitable Bride
Liz Fielding
Dear Reader,
My first book, An Image of You, was published many years ago, and I still remember the rush of excitement, the thrill of receiving a phone call to say that this publisher, who had been part of my reading life for so long, wanted to publish my book. This year I will be writing my fiftieth Mills & Boon
romance, and the thrill remains.
Love truly is the most powerful human emotion, and there is nothing more rewarding than writing—and reading—a story that reveals the strength, tenderness, the unique capacity for sacrifice of the human heart.
In The Sheikh’s Unsuitable Bride, Diana Metcalfe lives in a small terraced house in London, while jet-setting Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib lives in luxury in an exotic and beautiful palace. Yet it is not the vast social gulf that divides them, but the demands of family and duty that seem destined to keep them apart. Only love can find a way …
With warmest wishes,
Liz
About the Author
LIZ FIELDING started writing at the age of twelve, when she won a writing competition at school. After that early success there was quite a gap—during which she was busy working in Africa and the Middle East, getting married and having children—before her first book was published in 1992. Now readers worldwide fall in love with her irresistible heroes, adore her independent-minded heroines. Visit Liz’s website for news and extracts of upcoming books at www.lizfielding.com.
CHAPTER ONE
‘LEAVE that, Di.’
Diana Metcalfe backed out of the rear door of the minibus she was cleaning and, stuffing a handful of chocolate wrappers into her overall pocket, turned to face her boss. The woman, unusually, looked as if she was just about at the end of her tether.
‘What’s up, Sadie?’
‘Jack Lumley has gone home sick. He’s the third today.’
‘The café’s meat pie strikes again?’
‘So it would appear, although that’s the Environmental Health Officer’s problem. Mine is that I’ve got three drivers with their heads down the toilet and a VIP with a packed schedule arriving at London City Airport in a little over an hour.’ Despite her worries, she managed a wry smile. ‘Please tell me you don’t have a hot date tonight.’
‘Not even a lukewarm one.’ Who had the time? ‘You want me to work this evening?’
‘If you can.’
‘It shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll have to give Dad a call, let him know he’ll have to give Freddy his tea.’ ‘How is your gorgeous little boy?’ ‘Growing like a weed.’
‘Daisy keeps asking me when he can come over for another play-date.’ Then, ‘I’ll fix up something when I call your father. You don’t have time, not if you’re going to meet that flight.’
Diana blinked. Meet the flight …? ‘Excuse me? Are you saying that I get the VIP?’
‘You get the VIP.’
‘But I can’t! You can’t …’
Sadie frowned. ‘You’ve been checked out on the car haven’t you?’
‘Um, yes …’ Company rules. Everyone could, in theory, drive any car, in the Capitol fleet. In theory. But this was the newest, most luxurious, most expensive saloon car in the garage—pride and joy of Jack Lumley, the company’s number one driver. While she’d anticipated a shuffle round to take up the slack, an extra job or two, never, in her wildest dreams, had she imagined she’d ever be entrusted behind its leather-covered steering wheel.
Or entrusted with one of their top drawer clients.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Sadie said with feeling.
Apparently, she could!
Diana slapped a hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough to catch the word that slipped out.
Sadie sighed. ‘Please tell me you don’t use that kind of language when you’re on the school run, Diana.’
‘Me? Oh, please! Where on earth do you think I learned a word like that?’
‘Are the kids really that bad? My father took it on as a public service, something for the local community, but I won’t have—’
‘The kids are okay,’ she said quickly. ‘Really. They’re just at that age where shocking the grown-ups is a sport. The trick is not to react.’
‘The trick, Di, is not to join in.’
‘I don’t …’ Realising that she just had, she let it go. ‘Right.’ Sadie looked thoughtful. ‘I’ve half a mind to put Jack on the job for a week or two when he’s fit. Teach them to think twice about their language. Teach him to think twice about eating dodgy meat pies on my time.’
The senior driver of Capitol Cars reduced to driving a minibus full of lippy primary school kids?
Having swiftly recovered from her shock, Diana grinned. ‘Now that’s something I’d pay good money to see.’
They exchanged a glance. Two single mothers—one at the bottom, the other at the top of a male-dominated business—who between them had heard every chauvinist put-down, every woman driver joke in the book. Sadie, with obvious regret, shook her head. ‘Unfortunately he’d resign rather than do that.’
‘Totally beneath his dignity,’ Diana agreed. ‘I’m sure learning that I’ve been driving his precious car will be punishment enough.’
Sadie just about managed to stop herself from grinning back and snapping back into ‘boss’ mode she said, ‘Yes, well, just remember that at this end of the business the clients prefer their chauffeurs politely invisible.’
‘No singing, then?’
‘Singing?’
‘I find it keeps the passengers from using bad language …’ ‘I’m serious!’ ‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Right. Well, come on. I’ll brief you on Sheikh Zahir’s itinerary while you change. This is a full dress uniform job. And yes, before you ask, that includes the hat.’
‘Sh … Sh-Sheikh?’
Diana thought she’d managed to cover her near slip pretty well, but Sadie’s quick glance suggested that she was not fooled.
‘Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib is the nephew of the Emir of Ramal Hamrah, cousin of his country’s ambassador to London and a billionaire businessman who is single-handedly turning his country into the next über-fashionable get-away-from-it-all tourist destination.’
Diana instantly lost any inclination to sing. ‘He’s a genuine A-list VIP, then.’
‘You’ve got it. The Mercedes is at his disposal full-time while he’s in London. The hours will, inevitably, be unpredictable but if you can hold the fort for me today, I’ll have someone else lined up to take over tomorrow.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ Diana said a touch fiercely, hoping to counteract the initial impression of irresponsibility. She might not be Jack Lumley, but her passengers were never short-changed. ‘I can handle it. At least until Jack has recovered.’
This was the chance she’d been waiting for, an opportunity to prove herself capable of taking on the big jobs, to move up from the no-frills end of the market—the school bus, the airport runs—to driving one of Capitol’s limousines and big money; she wasn’t about to meekly surrender the Mercedes to the first man to recover control of his stomach.
‘Give me a chance, Sadie. I won’t let you down.’
Sadie touched her shoulder, a gesture that said she understood. ‘Let’s see how it goes today, shall we?’
Okay. She got the message. This was her opportunity to show what she could do; it was up to her to make the most of it.
Diana responded to the challenge by peeling off the latex gloves she used for cleaning out the minibus with a decisive snap. Then she stepped out of her garage overalls and replaced them with well-pressed trousers, a fresh white shirt and, instead of her usual Capitol Cars sweatshirt, her rarely worn burgundy uniform jacket.
Sadie, consulting a sheet on the clipboard she was holding, said, ‘Sheikh Zahir is flying into the City Airport in his private jet, ETA seventeen-fifteen hours. Wait in the short-term parking area. The VIP hostess has the number of the car phone and she’ll give you a call when his plane touches down so that you can be at the kerb, waiting for him.’ ‘Got it.’
‘His first stop will be his country’s embassy in Belgravia. He’ll be there for an hour, then you’re to take him to his hotel in Park Lane before leaving at nineteen-forty-five hours for a reception at the Riverside Gallery on the South Bank, followed by dinner in Mayfair. All the addresses are on the worksheet.’
‘Belgravia, Mayfair …’ Diana, unable to help herself, grinned as she buttoned up her jacket. ‘Be still my beating heart. Is this a dream? Should I pinch myself?’
‘Don’t go all starry-eyed on me, Di. And keep in touch, okay? Any problems, I want to hear about them from you, not the client.’
Sheikh Zahir bin Ali al-Khatib was still working as the jet touched down and taxied to the terminal.
‘We’ve arrived, Zahir.’ James Pierce removed the laptop, passed it on to a secretary to deal with, and replaced it with a gift-wrapped package.
Zahir frowned, trying to recall what it was. Then, remembering, he looked up. ‘You managed to find exactly what she wanted?’ he demanded.
‘One of my staff located it via the Internet. Antique. Venetian. Very pretty. I’m sure the princess will be delighted.’ Then, ‘Your usual driver will be waiting at Arrivals but we’ve a very tight schedule this evening. You’ll need to leave the embassy no later than eighteen-forty-five hours if you’re going to make the reception on time.’
Diana pulled up at Arrivals, squashed the stupid little forage hat firmly into place, tugged down her uniform jacket, smoothed the fine leather gloves over the backs of her hands. Then, her head full of snowy robes, the whole Lawrence of Arabia thing, she stood by the rear door of the limousine, ready to leap into action the minute her passenger appeared.
There were no robes. No romantic headdress caught by the wind.
Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib had, it seemed, taken on board the dressing-for-comfort-when-travelling message. Not that she’d have had any trouble recognising him, even without his VIP escort.
The grey sweatshirt, soft jeans and deck shoes worn on bare feet might be casual but they were expensive. The man, tall and rangy, with dark hair that curled around his neck, might look more like a sports star than a tycoon, but his clothes, his head turning looks, did absolutely nothing to diminish an aura of careless arrogance, the aristocratic assurance of a man whose every wish had been someone else’s instant command from the day he had first drawn breath.
The very pink, thoroughly beribboned gift-wrapped package he was carrying provided no more than a counterpoint that underlined his authority—the kind of presence that raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Sheikh Zahir al-Khatib, it had to be admitted, was dangerously, slay-’em-in-the aisles, gorgeous.
He paused briefly in the doorway to thank his escort, giving Diana a moment to haul her chin off the ground—drooling was such a bad look—before affixing a polite smile to lips that she firmly compressed to contain the usual, ‘Did you have a good flight?’ chat as she opened the rear door of the car.
No chat.
This wasn’t a family party returning from a trip to Disney, eager to share their good time as they piled into the minibus, she reminded herself.
All that was required was a quiet, Good afternoon, sir …
It wasn’t easy. There were two things she was good at: driving and talking. They both came as naturally to her as breathing: one—just about—paid the bills, the other she did for free. Sort of like a hobby. A fact that had featured prominently in her end of year school reports.
Talking in class. Talking in Assembly. Talking herself into trouble.
Since she mostly got the kids and the hen parties—jobs where a bit of lip came in handy if things got rowdy—it wasn’t usually a problem, but she understood why Sadie would only give her a job like this if she were really desperate.
Why she’d reserved judgement on anything more than a fill-in role.
Well she would show Sadie. She would show them all, she promised herself—her parents, that older generation of neighbours who gave her that no-better-than-she-should-be look—and she began tidily enough.
Her smile was regulation polite as she opened the door smartly so that nothing would impede his progress.
‘Good afternoon—’
She didn’t get as far as the ‘sir’.
A small boy, skidding through the terminal doors in her passenger’s wake, dived through the closing gap between the car door and Sheikh Zahir, to hurl himself at the woman who’d just pulled up behind them. Before Diana could utter a warning or move, he went flying over her highly polished shoes and cannoned headlong into Sheikh Zahir, sending the fancy package flying.
The Sheikh’s reactions were lightning-fast and he caught the child by the back of his jacket before he hit the ground.
Diana, no slouch herself, leapt for the ribbons.
The package was arcing away from her, but those ribbons had their uses and she managed to grab one, bringing it to a halt.
