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The Desert King's Pregnant Bride
Annie West
Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.A waif-and-stray virgin…Sheikh Khalid Bin Shareef has always vowed not to get entangled with virgins. But innocent Maggie Lewis is too hard to resist – and he takes her… …pregnant by the Sheikh… The next morning she disappears. But, as Maggie is definitely unfinished business, he has her found and sent to his kingdom – and there they discover the consequence of their night of passion… …and she will be his queen!Marriage is the only answer – but one with no emotions, no expectations of love. Maggie will take her rightful place by the Sheikh’s side…and in his bed!
‘You wanted to talk about ground rules.’ Khalid’s voice was a rich drawl. ‘I agree. It’s well past time for that.’
The intensity of his stare held her taut and breathless as her heartbeat thudded, loud in her ears. Something had changed. Treacherous undercurrents swirled between them.
‘Perhaps we could work the details out tomorrow. It’s getting late.’ Her words tumbled out in a rush. Maggie felt strangely vulnerable in this highly charged atmosphere.
‘There’s no need to wait until tomorrow,’ he murmured.
‘There isn’t?’ Maggie watched him stride around the desk, each movement slow and purposeful. She found herself turning so her back was to the desk and Khalid stood between her and the door. Tremors of shock vibrated through her. And something else. A tiny thrill of excitement. She must be mad!
‘No,’ he said, his voice a deep rumble. ‘We’ll sort this out tonight.’
Her eyes were lustrous gold in the lamplight, shot with emerald fire. Khalid had never known any like them. Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her breasts thrusting in wanton invitation against the fabric. Her lips parted as her breaths shortened.
His body tensed to the point of pain as he prolonged the suspense of anticipation a moment more. He’d never been one to rush his pleasure.
And Maggie would be pure pleasure.
Annie West spent her childhood with her nose between the covers of a book—a habit she retains. After years of preparing government reports and official correspondence she decided to write something she really enjoys. And there’s nothing she loves more than a great romance. Despite her office-bound past she has managed a few interesting moments—including a marriage offer with the promise of a herd of camels to sweeten the contract. She is happily married to her ever-patient husband (who has never owned a dromedary). They live with their two children amongst the tall eucalypts at beautiful Lake Macquarie, on Australia’s east coast. You can e-mail Annie at www.annie-west.com, or write to her at PO Box 1041, Warners Bay, NSW 2282, Australia.
Recent books by the same author:
THE GREEK TYCOON’S UNEXPECTED WIFE
THE DESERT KING’S PREGNANT BRIDE
BY
ANNIE WEST
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
THE DESERT KING’S PREGNANT BRIDE
With warmest gratitude to:
Leanne McMahon, equine expert extraordinaire;
Anna Campbell, the best friend a girl could have;
and my very own hero, Geoff.
Thank you.
This book wouldn’t have been possible without you!
CHAPTER ONE
MAGGIE bowed her head against the sheets of icy rain as she plodded along the muddy road.
Slick fabric stuck to her where she’d forgotten to do up her raincoat. Water sluiced down her legs, into her wellington boots. Her hair, so carefully washed and dried, now hung in saturated rat-tails against her neck. Vaguely she was aware of the chill numbing her body. After running, stumbling, then trudging so far in the lashing darkness, her steps slowed, became unsteady.
If she’d been thinking clearly, she’d have taken her battered Jeep. That hadn’t occurred to her. One look between the carelessly drawn curtains of Marcus’s sitting room and coherent thought had fled.
She’d stood, rooted to the spot, heedless of the drenching rain. When her brain had finally caught up with the message her eyes had conveyed, she’d simply run. She must have raced past her car into the welcoming blackness.
Pain tore at her throat as she sobbed in a deep racking breath. She had to get home, before the emotions churning inside overcame her.
Yet she couldn’t escape the memory of what she’d seen: Marcus, naked in the arms of his lover.
Now she understood why he’d blown hot and cold, sometimes too busy to see her and at others attentive and loving. His affection had been a sham. He’d only wanted her to conceal his affair with the trophy wife of a jealous horse breeder.
Maggie’s stomach churned. She’d been so gullible.
She’d believed him when he’d spoken of respecting her, not rushing her after her recent loss. He’d said she needed to be sure before they took their relationship further.
In her innocence Maggie had been sure. She’d decided to show him she was a desirable woman, mature and ready for a deeper relationship. She’d read every magazine she could lay her hands on, aiming to transform herself into the sort of woman she thought he wanted. She’d overcome her fears and thrust aside self-doubt. She’d even taken the long trip to town and bought herself a dress!
Her bitter laughter was swallowed by the rushing wind.
He’d never wanted her. She’d been too inexperienced and starved of affection to see he was using her. Nausea welled in her throat and she bent over to dry-retch again.
Strangely, this time as she looked down she could see her boots and her legs, wet and muddy below the raincoat. She frowned muzzily, trying to focus on the present, not the scene of contorting naked bodies replaying in her head.
Where was the light coming from?
‘Do you need help?’ A deep voice curled out of the roaring darkness to reach her.
Blindly, she raised her head and found herself blinking in the headlights of a massive off-road vehicle. A man stood silhouetted before it. He was tall, lean and unfamiliar. Something about the set of his broad shoulders and his wide-planted feet intimated he was a man prepared for anything, a man able to deal with trouble of any kind.
Maggie knew an instant’s insane craving to lean forward into his strong body, rest against those more-than-capable shoulders and slump into oblivion.
Then sense overcame instinct. She had no idea who he was. Besides, she’d just learned her judgement was fatally flawed. She’d believed Marcus to be everything she wanted in a man, a lover, a mate. She’d thought…
The shadow moved closer, near enough to make her stunningly aware of his superior height and power.
‘You’re not well. How can I assist?’ This time Maggie caught the faintest trace of an accent.
‘Who are you?’ she said, barely recognising the reedy whisper as her own voice.
Silence for a moment as the wind stirred the collar of her coat and drove the rain almost horizontal.
‘I’m a guest at the Tallawanta Stud. Staying up at the homestead.’
Now she recognised the latest top-of-the-range vehicle. Only the best for those at the big house. And there was a special guest this week. The Sheikh of Shajehar, who owned the whole enormous horse stud, had sent an envoy on an inspection tour.
That explained his accent. The precise, clipped English, as if he’d attended a top British public school. It was overlaid with a slight softening of consonants that hinted at something far more exotic.
‘Or do you intend that we both stand out here till we’re saturated to the skin?’
There was no impatience in that voice, but nor was there any mistaking its steely undertone. Maggie jumped, reining in her wandering thoughts. What was wrong with her? She couldn’t seem to concentrate properly.
Only now did she realise the stranger wore no overcoat. He must be even wetter than she.
‘I’m sorry.’ She shook her head dazedly. ‘I’m not…’
‘Have you been in an accident?’ Again that easy, calm voice with just a hint of iron in its depths.
‘No. No accident. I… Could you give me a lift, please?’ Maggie had no qualms now about cadging a ride from him. He was the visiting dignitary she’d heard about. They were on the estate’s private road and no one would be out in this weather unless they belonged here.
‘Of course.’ He bowed his head, then preceded her to the four-wheel drive. His stride was long, purposeful and easy, as if pacing down a carpeted corridor instead of a muddy, uneven gravel road. Maggie stumbled after him as best she could, her limbs horribly uncoordinated.
He opened the door and stood back for her to get in.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured as a firm hand cupped her elbow and helped her into the high cabin. Without his support she wouldn’t have made it.
Maggie subsided onto the cushioned seat. Slowly she loosened her cramped fingers and let go of the straps of her high-heeled sandals from one hand, her frivolous new purse from the other. They tumbled to the floor. She’d barely been aware she still held them.
The door closed and she sank back, stunned by the warm comfort of the cabin after the howling wind and teeming rain that had drummed incessantly in her ears.
This was…luxury. Heaven.
Maggie shut her eyes, overcome by the quiet peace.
‘Here,’ a deep voice filtered into her consciousness, ‘take this.’
Slowly she turned towards the velvet-soft voice, fighting the intense dragging weariness that consumed her. She didn’t want to rouse herself, but he was insistent.
Reluctantly, she opened her eyes. He sat in the driver’s seat and she looked up into the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. Deep-set, hooded eyes that surveyed her closely, taking in every nuance of her appearance.
Maggie’s eyes widened at the sight of her rescuer in the cabin’s pale overhead light.
His jet-black hair was slicked back from a face tanned almost to bronze. Her breath snagged at the strong, spare beauty of his features, each plane emphasised by the sheen of rain on burnished flesh. Lean cheeks with slanted cheekbones that mirrored the stark angle of his brows. A strong, aristocratic nose with just a hint of the aquiline. Narrow, well-shaped lips that she could imagine tipping into a smile or turning down in displeasure. A jaw that spoke of solid power and bone-deep assurance.
The combination took her breath away. It was as if someone had opened a precious old book and conjured a warrior prince straight from the Arabian Nights.
But nothing in her juvenile reading matched this man for pure magnetism. He looked exotic and masterful.
Maggie had never known any man could look so…
‘Here,’ he repeated, thrusting a soft woollen blanket into her hands. His brows angled down in a frown as he surveyed her. ‘Are you sure you’re not injured?’
She nodded, then hid her face in the folds of wool, holding the blanket with hands that trembled. Embarrassment washed through her, whether because he’d caught her staring, or because of her strange wayward thoughts, she didn’t know.
She must be in shock. That would explain her heedless flight and the muzzy feeling that everything was distant, unreal. Yes, that was it. Shock.
Any woman would be shocked to discover what she had tonight. And no doubt she looked a sight: workaday raingear over her beaded dress—
‘Stop it.’ A firm hand curved around her jaw and swung her face towards him. His fingers were hard and warm and comfortingly real against her numb flesh.
Maggie blinked, amazed to discover the water spiking her lashes wasn’t rain, but tears. They burned her eyes.
‘Stop what?’ she whispered on a hiccough, staring into liquid dark eyes that held hers mesmerised.
Gradually her galloping heartbeat slowed. The breath shuddered out of her constricted lungs. She dragged in air, conscious of a tight ache around her chest.
‘You were becoming hysterical.’
His clasp of her chin shifted, fingers splaying wide to tilt her head higher as if he needed to see her better in the dim light. The heat of his touch burned life back into her frozen skin and she was content to let him hold her so. She felt strangely lethargic.
‘S-s-sorry.’ She frowned. She’d never stuttered in her life. And as for being hysterical… ‘I’ve had a bit of a sh-shock.’ There, she finally got it out. She had trouble coordinating her lips and tongue. ‘I’ll be all r-right.’
‘You’ve been out in this storm too long.’ He took the wool from her white-knuckled grasp and lifted the blanket around her shoulders, pulling the edges together. The enveloping comfort relaxed her into a boneless huddle and the movement drew him close. She caught his scent, faint yet intriguing. Heat and sandalwood, spice and damp male skin. Her nostrils flared as she slumped forward.
Large hands on her shoulders propped her away from him.
‘Where did you come from? How long have you been out?’
Maggie’s lips curved up in a dreamy smile as her eyelids drifted lower. She really did love that accent. The softening consonants and lilting rhythm almost hidden behind the crisp intonation sounded quite…seductive. She could imagine going to sleep to the sound of that voice.
Her eyes popped open as fingers curled hard into her shoulders.
‘Did someone hurt you?’ His voice sounded different. She shivered anew at the hint of anger in his tone.
‘No! No, I’m fine. Just…’ The words petered out and she blinked, confused. She really did feel odd. ‘I need to g-g-get back. Please.’
Abruptly, he nodded, pushing her back into the moulded seat and reaching for her seat belt. The heat of his torso as he leant near was warmer by far than any blanket.
‘Where to?’
He straightened and immediately the chill invaded her body again. When he switched on the ignition the cabin was plunged into darkness but for the light from the control panel. Her gaze strayed to his shadowy profile: powerful yet elegant in a toughly masculine way.
Instinct told her she could trust him absolutely.
‘Another s-s-six k-kilometres. Then r-right. I’ll direct you f-from there.’
He eased the vehicle forward. Rain pounded on the roof and the four-wheel drive slid in the thick mud.
Mud. Her boots. Her gaze spanned the interior of the luxury vehicle.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘My b-boots are f-filthy.’
‘This is a farm vehicle,’ he responded. ‘I’m sure it collects its fair share of mud.’
Spoken like a man who never had to clean said vehicle, Maggie realised. This was no work vehicle. It was reserved for important guests, used when only the best would do.
