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Engaged To The Doctor Sheikh
Meredith Webber
Exile or marriage, the choice is hers…Sheikh Tariq al Askeba knows Lila Halliday is trouble… From the moment the Australian paediatric doctor arrives wearing an ancient amulet stolen from his family years before, scandal precedes her.Lila is stunned to discover the sordid history of her birth mother’s pendant. She came to Karuba to discover her true heritage, not set the whole palace in uproar!Knowing there’s no other way to quell the upheaval Tariq gives her a shocking ultimatum: leave…or become his desert bride!
Exile or marriage, the choice is hers...
Sheikh Tariq al Askeba knows Lila Halliday is trouble... From the moment the Australian pediatric doctor arrives wearing an ancient amulet stolen from his family years before, scandal precedes her.
Lila is stunned to discover the sordid history of her birth mother’s pendant. She came to Karuba to discover her true heritage, not set the whole palace in uproar! Knowing there’s no other way to quell the upheaval, Tariq gives her a shocking ultimatum: leave...or become his desert bride!
‘Marry you? Am I supposed to leap about in excitement at that thought? Or am I supposed to feel honoured? To be married to such an important man as Sheikh al Askeba!’
Lila thought she was doing quite well—given the total shock Tariq’s words had generated. But yelling at him wasn’t enough…not when she felt like grinding her teeth or punching something.
But marry Tariq—who’d been forced to offer marriage? Not love, just marriage...
Her heart scrunched in her chest. But that was stupid—this was a land where the head ruled the heart and his head had offered marriage.
But what alternative did she have?
Leave this place which she’d just discovered for certain was her heritage? Leave the family she’d only just found? The family she’d sought for so many years?
But the alternative was exile!
Could she really just walk away?
Dear Reader (#u9a1fc234-ad9c-5a35-a103-e936184e1400),
These days so many people seem to be tracing their ancestry, but for Lila the search to find out about her parents is more a search for her own identity. Orphaned at four, in a foreign country, she’s had little to guide her in her search: some scraps of music, memories of a box her mother treasured…and the pendant her mother had tied around her neck the day of her accident.
The last thing she expects to find as she follows her tenuous leads is love, but that is the ultimate reward for her tenacity in following the clues to her parents’ lives. As you will realise my love affair with sandy desert countries is still strong, and I hope you enjoy the romance of them as much as I do.
This is my second book involving Hallie and Pop’s foster family in the little coastal town of Wetherby—the first being Izzy and Mac’s story in A Forever Family for the Army Doc. And now I’ve become acquainted with them all there will be two more books to come!
Meredith Webber
Engaged to the Doctor Sheikh
Meredith Webber
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MEREDITH WEBBER lives on the sunny Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, but takes regular trips west into the Outback, fossicking for gold or opal. These breaks in the beautiful and sometimes cruel red earth country provide her with an escape from the writing desk and a chance for her mind to roam free—not to mention getting some much needed exercise. They also supply the kernels of so many stories it’s hard for her to stop writing!
Books by Meredith Webber
Mills & Boon Medical Romance
The Halliday Family
A Forever Family for the Army Doc
Wildfire Island Docs
The Man She Could Never Forget
A Sheikh to Capture Her Heart
The Accidental Daddy
The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride
The One Man to Heal Her
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
Praise for Meredith Webber
‘The romance is emotional, passionate, and does not appear to be forced as everything happens gradually and naturally. The author’s fans and everyone who loves sheikh romance are gonna love this one.’
—Harlequin Junkie on
The Sheikh Doctor’s Bride
Contents
Cover (#u3d2e453b-d530-5148-9c5f-79ac4ab43a09)
Back Cover Text (#u94253726-e8cd-53fb-a2a4-bf4c23eb68ba)
Introduction (#u1b9f03ff-8812-5dcc-91fc-2e644ef9a95f)
Dear Reader (#uc87b1703-79f5-5e58-85f5-c3f8caab5025)
Title Page (#ucb0d8bfa-b1e7-5358-a065-913e5cbc722c)
About the Author (#uda257fbf-3baa-55ba-b2b4-35c6bab94a68)
Praise (#uaa9bc903-8847-5512-bd4d-798f02b05d67)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub2d7c975-a764-5771-8b42-75929b896c7d)
CHAPTER TWO (#u041d5475-d358-5cb0-ac00-a949aed58ad4)
CHAPTER THREE (#uea7a5989-1281-5420-a4a7-ed20fe15f619)
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 (#u9a1fc234-ad9c-5a35-a103-e936184e1400)
LILA SAT IN the huge jet, surrounded by strangers, all intent on their own lives. Did they all know where they’re going or, like her, were they travelling into the unknown?
A shiver started in her stomach at the thought of just how unfamiliar her destination might be, and to divert her mind before she became terrified of what lay ahead, she thought of the family, her family, all gathered at the airport to wish her well.
Hallie and Pop, her foster parents, and the gaggle of loved ones she’d grown up with, bonded into sisters and brothers by the love of two wonderful people. There were in-laws now, and nieces and nephews...
True family.
The next plane was smaller, though more luxurious, but it wasn’t until she boarded the third flight of what was beginning to seem like a never-ending journey that she met real luxury. Not a big plane by any means, but beautifully appointed, with armchair-like seats, and attentive stewards offering tasty delicacies and tantalising sweets.
The novelty of it kept her going until one of the attendants leant over her to point out the window.
‘We are coming in to land at Karuba Airport now and as we circle you will see the rugged mountains, the dunes on the desert plains, and the pink flamingos on the lake. You will see how beautiful our country is, and it will welcome you like a lover.’
The seriousness in the man’s eyes—the obvious love of his country shining through the words—told Lila he meant nothing personal in the words.
But a country that would welcome her like a lover?
Poetic, that’s what it was!
And poetic was how it looked. Great slabs of rock, thrown by giants, built up into mesas and pyramids, smooth and brown, with glowing green foliage showing in the deep valleys—were they oases? But the flamingo lake eluded her, and the sand she saw was golden brown, not pink.
No, the pink had to be a confused memory—a pink toy on beach sand—it had to be.
The plane kissed the runway, settled, and taxied to a pristine white building, with many domes and minarets, their spires tipped with gold.
A fairy-tale palace for an air terminal?
The passengers disembarked smoothly, moving through a tunnel into the cool air-conditioned building, the usual immigration and customs checks lying ahead.
From her place in the queue, Lila studied her fellow travellers. Some were locals returning home, the women in burkas with bright flashes of pretty clothing visible beneath them. A number of the men wore robes, black decorated with intricate gold embroidery, while others wore beautifully cut and fitted business suits.
A cosmopolitan place, Karuba?
It was her turn at the immigration counter. She handed over her Australian passport with the completed immigration form and waited while it was examined—and examined again—just as she was examined, the man behind the counter looking from her picture to her face as if somehow she’d changed her appearance on the journey.
He studied the immigration document she’d filled in before disembarking, while the people behind her shuffled uneasily in the line, and concern began to bloom in her chest.
Had the official pressed a bell of some kind on his desk, alerting the second man that appeared? Clad in an immaculate dark suit, pristine white shirt and bright red tie, he smiled at her through the window.
Not an especially welcoming smile, but a smile nonetheless.
Not that it eased the concern...
‘Dr Halliday, we must speak to you,’ he said smoothly—too smoothly? ‘If you would like to come this way?’
Should she ask why?
Refuse?
She’d just landed in a foreign country and who knew what might be happening?
‘Do you need help?’ the passenger behind her asked.
‘I don’t think so. I’m here to work at the hospital. It might be that someone on the staff is waiting to meet me,’ she told him. ‘But thank you.’
Lila gathered up her carry-on luggage and prepared to follow the man who’d summoned her, he behind the wall of immigration windows, she in front of it.
It’s just the hospital doing a special welcome thing, she told herself, but the fingers of her right hand went to the locket she wore around her neck and she twiddled with it as she always did when nervous or uncertain.
‘Just through this way,’ he said when they came together at the door into a long passage. ‘We will not detain you long.’
Detain?
Detain was not a nice word—it had bad connotations—detainees were prisoners, weren’t they?
She was shown into a comfortable enough room, and the well-dressed official offered her a chair and sat opposite her.
‘You have been to our country before?’ he asked, so carefully polite Lila felt a chill of fear feather down her spine.
‘Never,’ she said. ‘I have come to work in the hospital, in the paediatric section. That’s my specialty, you see.’
Perhaps she should have added that she thought her parents might have come from Karuba, but as everyone at home had told her it was a long shot—all she’d seen was a vaguely familiar box—she decided not to mention it.
The man seemed to be studying her—discreetly enough—but the attention was making her more and more uneasy.
‘I have the details of the doctor at the hospital who employed me,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you would be good enough to contact him for me.’
She dug in her handbag for the email she’d received from the man, confirming her appointment, and as her fingers touched the piece of paper, she remembered just what a presence he had had, even on a fuzzy computer screen.
