Christmas Bride for the Sheikh
Autore
Carol Marinelli
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18
Chapter One
I PROMISE I’LL be good.
Florence Andrews lay on her side beneath the sheets, with a heavy male arm pinning her, and promised that if the powers that be could possibly reverse the mistakes made last night then she would be good for the rest of her life.
‘Morning,’ he said sleepily, and she felt the morning swell of him on the back of her thigh. It was so insistent he might just as well have been prodding her to get up.
She said nothing, deciding it was far safer to feign sleep.
Flo was all too used to getting it wrong with men.
Petite, with blonde hair and china-blue eyes, Flo had found that she attracted a rather specific type of male—ones whose names began with a B and ended with a D.
Bad.
Bastard.
Either would fool her.
The last man she had dated had practically had to come with written references before she’d even agreed to go out with him, yet he had turned out to be just like the rest.
A louse.
In fact, even thinking of him had Flo screwing her eyes more tightly closed in shame.
She’d sworn off men, so it had been an awfully long time since she’d gone out with anyone.
Not that she and Hazin had ever been out. It hadn’t even been a date.
She opened her eyes and the view of a cold, grey London in autumn was as stunning as it had been last night. Big Ben let her know it was just after eight and from the dizzy height of the presidential suite it looked like a black and white photo, except for the rain hitting the vast windows.
Flo knew she had outdone herself in the rake stakes this time.
Sheikh Prince Hazin al-Razim of Zayrinia came with warnings attached rather than references.
She knew his title, not because he had told her but because of her friend.
Well, she had actually known of him before Maggie had got mixed up with his brother. Scandalous photos of Hazin were plastered over the Internet. His handsome face and naked body—with a generous black rectangle covering the necessary—appeared from time to time in the trashy magazines that the mothers read on the maternity ward where she was a midwife.
They would sometimes even giggle with Flo about him.
His reputation was appalling. Hazin was completely irredeemable; in fact, he was bad to the bone.
Yet he was adored by all.
And last night he had been, without a shadow of doubt, the best lover of her life.
Hazin had either fainted from a lack of blood to the head or he was asleep again, because the arm that had been pulling her back was loose now on her stomach and his breathing was even.
It gave her a pause.
How long the peace would last, she could not be sure.
Did she tell him she knew who he was and explain how their seemingly chance meeting had come about?
Would there even be conversation, given all they had between them was sex?
How the hell had she got into this mess? Flo wondered as she lay there. She was supposed to have been helping out her friend!
* * *
Flo had no intention of going out this evening. Maggie had texted and asked if Flo could stop by at the café where Maggie worked. Her friend had brought a souvenir home from her backpacking trip around the world—she was six months pregnant.
By Crown Prince Sheikh Ilyas of Zayrinia!
‘I have to tell him.’ Maggie said as they lunched. ‘But I don’t know how to.’
Privately, Flo wasn’t too sure that Maggie did have to tell the father.
Oh, she was all for parental responsibility, but her friend was her main concern and she was pregnant by a future King, no less!
The baby was due just after Christmas. But as well as that, Maggie had recently found out she was having a little boy, and Flo was concerned how that might impact the situation.
Still, it wasn’t for Flo to decide and so she told Maggie what she knew.
‘His brother will be at Dion’s tonight.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he gets kicked out of there every Friday. Hazin is the reason they’re so popular now!’
Flo knew all about where the rich and beautiful gathered.
Dion’s was a bar set within a very plush hotel. It had once been a sedate place to gather for pre-theatre drinks and dinner.
It was old-fashioned and had become oddly trendy, a sort of retro fifties-style bar that people now lined up to get into.
‘You could go there tonight and tell Hazin that you need to speak with his brother.’
‘Just walk in and tap him on the shoulder?’ Maggie rolled her eyes.
‘Get talking.’ Flo shrugged. ‘Flirt a little...’
‘I’m nearly six months pregnant by his brother!’
‘Oh, yes, I see your point.’
‘And I doubt Hazin would be particularly pleased to see me. I caused an awful lot of trouble for him. No doubt he thinks I was involved in the plan to set him up.’
Maggie had been unwittingly used in a plan to stitch up Hazin and bribe the Palace. She had ended up in Hazin’s cabin aboard his Royal yacht where a camera had been hidden overhead.
But whoever had assumed that Maggie would drop her bikini bottom for Hazin had not known her.
Maggie and Hazin had done nothing but have a conversation.
Not that the Palace had known that at the time. Ilyas had kidnapped Maggie to find out what had happened aboard the yacht.
Yes, kidnapped, Flo reminded her friend. ‘Which, in my opinion, means you’re under no obligation to tell him.’
‘I want to, though.’ Maggie said. ‘Flo, I know I’ve given you an awful impression of Ilyas but he really was wonderful to me.’
He must have been, Flo conceded, because Maggie trusted so few people.
Flo thought for a moment. She didn’t want to go to Dion’s, it was where she had met her ex and he still drank there on occasion.
Maggie didn’t know about that; she’d had enough troubles of her own since she’d returned from Zayrinia, without Flo piling on hers.
That wasn’t the full reason, though. Maggie and Flo were close and usually she would have told her, but the break-up that had happened last Christmas, when Maggie had been away, had hurt Flo deeply.
And Flo was still terribly ashamed.
No, she did not want to go to Dion’s tonight.
In fact, Flo hadn’t really had a night out since last Christmas.
Maggie’s baby was due a week after this one.
She looked at her friend, who had no family and was pregnant and scared, and Flo put on her smile.
She was very good at doing that and keeping her thoughts to herself. ‘I could always come with you to Dion’s after my shift,’ Flo offered.
And so it had been arranged.
* * *
‘I have to go.’ Flo glanced at the time. ‘I’m going to be late.’
She was often late, though not usually for work. It tended to be the other way round—she would stay on at work and arrive late for her life.
Men didn’t seem to like that, Flo had worked out.
At least, not the ones she was used to.
Flo’s shift had been a good one.
She was a midwife on the maternity unit at the Primary Hospital in London. It was a busy, modern hospital but, as much as Flo loved it, sometimes she yearned for more one-on-one time.
She had been rostered to work in Delivery but had instead been moved to the ward. There she had caught up with a mother she had cared for in the delivery unit the previous day. It had been a difficult birth and had ended in an emergency Caesarean.
Tonight, at the end of her shift, Flo had held the outcome in her arms.
Rose.
‘She looks like one.’ Flo had smiled, for Rose was delicate and pink and utterly oblivious to the terrible scare she had given everyone.
‘Thanks for all you did, Flo,’ Claire, the mother, had said.
Flo had smiled as she’d looked down at the tiny baby. Very rapid decisions had needed to be made and the petite, fun-loving Flo had snapped into action and become extremely vocal.
In her private life she did not stand up enough for herself, but at work, when looking out for the mothers and babies, she was very different indeed.
Her job was exhausting.
Quite simply, it was always so busy and it was a constant juggling act to give enough attention to the mothers.
Tonight, though, she had a moment.
Several of them.
At twenty-nine, and with her ovaries loudly ticking, Flo would have loved a baby of her own. Still, she got more than a regular fix of that delicious newborn scent each working day. ‘Your beautiful daughter has reminded me exactly why I love my job,’ Flo said.
She popped the sleeping baby back into her Perspex crib and then reset Claire’s IV.
‘Are you on tomorrow?’ Claire asked.
‘No, but I’m back on Monday. You should be about ready for discharge then but I shall do my best to come in and see you both.’
She looked again at little Rose, so peaceful and safe, and then Flo turned at a knock on the door and saw it was her senior.
‘Flo, it’s time to give your handover.’
It was just after nine, and for the first time in a very long time it seemed that Flo might just get away on time.
She did.
Flo raced back to her flat and had a very quick shower. She was used to getting ready quickly to go out.
Or she had been.
Not all men were bad, Flo knew that.
She saw evidence every day that good guys existed. Her parents had just celebrated their thirtieth wedding anniversary and her brothers and sisters were all happily married. At work, she regularly saw fathers support their partners and she worked with an amazing team.
Yes, she knew there were good guys, but she had met the other kind too.
Flo grabbed a sheer, grey dress and high-heeled shoes and then quickly set to work on her hair and make-up.
She put her hair up and quickly did her eyes, followed by a slick of neutral colour on her lips. She was about to add earrings when her hands paused over her jewellery tray.
It was a testimony to her disastrous love life. Flo knew she had been too easily appeased by bling.
She had thought the more expensive the gift, the deeper the commitment.
Flo knew now she could not have been more wrong.
And so she left the earrings off and raced for the underground, firing Maggie a quick text on the way.
Ten minutes
It would be more like twenty, Flo knew, but she also knew Maggie would be terribly nervous and looking for an excuse to walk away.
Flo was more than a little concerned at the predicament her friend was in. Maggie had been raised in foster and care homes and had no family to advise her. As a midwife, Flo was well versed on single mothers who were facing difficulties alone. She wasn’t exactly trained, though, in advising women who were pregnant by a future King.
Goodness!
She hurried up the escalator, came out of the underground and arrived out on the street a little breathless.
Even from that distance she could see the queue and wondered if there was even a hope of them getting in. She knew just how exclusive it was.
‘Flo!’
Marcus, the doorman, called her name and Flo flashed her winning smile as she walked over, thrilled to be remembered. ‘I’m just waiting for my friend to arrive.’
‘Well, you could both be waiting for a very long time if you don’t come in now,’ Marcus told her. ‘I’m being moved to security inside in a moment so there will be someone else on the door.’
Flo wavered and looked down the street, but there was no sign of Maggie.
‘You can leave your friend’s name at the front desk,’ he suggested.
To the moans of the queue, the velvet rope was lifted and Flo was allowed in.
‘You have to hand in your phone,’ Marcus warned. ‘So maybe text her now.’
‘Why do I have to hand in my phone?’
‘Orders from the top.’
Ah, so Hazin must be here.
His bad-boy ways had been captured on camera one too many times, Flo guessed, and the management would not want to upset him. She fired Maggie a quick text to meet inside, left her name at the desk and then made her way in.
Dion’s was very beautiful. There were intimate velvet booths for diners, a gleaming walnut bar, and occasional tables where patrons could sip their cocktails and beverages of choice.
The place was packed with endless, rich beauty, and though it had once excited her, now it left Flo rather cold.
She had been caught up a little in this world once and, having been a lot more innocent back then, she’d believed that men had actually wanted to get to know her!
Instead, they had wanted her to hang quietly on their arm and not ask too many questions.
Yes, she’d been hurt.
Badly so.
But she pushed it to the back of her mind and squeezed her way over to the bar.
A couple looked as if they were about to vacate a table and Flo debated whether to grab it or to go and order first.
But then she saw him.
Sheikh Prince Hazin al-Razim.
He wore a suit that was as black and superbly cut as his hair. His tie was loosened and he was so stunning that he actually stopped Flo in her tracks.
How the hell did a person even begin to approach that? she pondered, thinking of her suggestion to Maggie to approach casually. And then she thought of Maggie alone in a cabin with him for two hours!
Had she been the one alone with him on a yacht, they would not have been talking!
Hazin was as utterly gorgeous as that.
He wasn’t banned from bringing in his phone, of course.
In fact, he was checking it and Flo could tell he was getting ready to leave.
* * *
Indeed, Hazin was about to go.
He was supposed to have met his older brother an hour ago and hadn’t been looking forward to it in the least. He did not need another lecture on taming his ways, but Ilyas had been insistent that they meet.
And then hadn’t bothered to show.
They were not close. In fact, thanks to their upbringings, Hazin and Ilyas were practically strangers. They had been segregated as children and when Hazin had proven rather a handful he had been sent to be schooled in London.
Ilyas wore the robe in the relationship and Hazin the suit.
Ilyas would be King.
Hazin simply did not care for any of that and did all he could not to return home, for there was no welcome waiting, just lectures on his behaviour that had been on repeat from as far back as Hazin could remember. As well as that, he loathed how his father ran the country, for it was in the same way in which King Ahmed parented—no empathy and with disdain for those he was charged to care for.
To Hazin’s eyes, Ilyas was as staid and cold as his father.
There was no message on his phone to explain his brother’s lateness, and looking up Hazin glanced around the place.
He was sick of Dion’s and the empty, painted people.
But then he saw her.
Or rather he heard the barman laugh at something and looked to its source.
She was ordering a glass of wine and a sparkling water and as she waited for her drinks she turned to look around. Her china-blue eyes met his.
‘Hi,’ she said.
He gave a very slight nod, but he didn’t find her forwardness particularly fetching. She was gorgeous, that was a given, but Hazin was more than used to women making a move on him and the gloss had long since worn off.
Flo could sense his disinterest and that he was about to leave; she wondered what she should say and how best to introduce herself. She glanced towards the main door and wished Maggie would arrive, but there was no sign of her. ‘I’m waiting for a friend.’
Hazin said nothing, for it had nothing to do with him.
‘She’s late,’ Flo pushed.
Hazin accompanied his tight smile with a put-down. ‘And I’m leaving.’
He had no interest in offering to keep her company. He was tired of being chatted up just for his Royal title and the empty sex that followed.
These days, he practically had to pat them down first to check for cameras anyway.
Then he watched as she stifled a yawn.
It was not the response Hazin was used to. Usually they hung on his every word.
Yes, he was jaded.
‘Excuse me,’ Flo said. ‘I just came from work...’
She was tired and yet also energised in the magnetic presence of Hazin, and unsure whether to tell him who her friend was and that Maggie would soon be arriving, but then he asked a question.
‘What do you do for work?’
‘I’m a midwife.’
He pulled such a horrified face that it made her laugh.
And then Hazin became curious.
‘I haven’t seen you here before...’ Hazin said, because he would have remembered if he had.
She wasn’t just pretty, she was animated and a shade different from the rest, he thought.
‘No, I used to come here quite a lot but I’ve banned myself,’ Flo said, and took a sip of her wine.
‘Why?’
‘I’m not telling you.’ She smiled.
Oh, hurry up, Maggie, she thought, because he was utterly, recklessly stunning and now that he was talking to her she could peek shamelessly without looking odd.
He had smoky grey eyes and his skin was a burnt caramel. As for his mouth, she couldn’t not watch it when he spoke, and those plump lips needed to be kissed.
She should have gone out more, Flo thought, for she felt like a convent schoolgirl set free.
‘Do you want to get a table?’ Hazin offered, because all of a sudden he wasn’t that jaded and was very much up for being used.
Well, a table would be perfect actually, Flo thought. It meant he wouldn’t be leaving and Maggie would get here to find them both sitting and talking, like sensible adults.
Only right now Flo didn’t want to be sensible, and she was suddenly nervous about going and sitting down.
There was a crackle of awareness between them, stronger than she had ever known.
‘I doubt we’d get a table...’ she said, terrified of her own lack of resistance to him, and then pulled a little face behind his back as he had a word with the bar.
‘Done.’
But they didn’t get a table.
Hazin and his glass of water were worthy of a booth.
He was so broad shouldered that the people parted like the Red Sea for him and she should have walked a smooth path behind, except her thighs felt like they were made of rubber.
‘After you,’ he said, and she slid into a velvet-lined seat and let out a tense breath of relief when he took the seat opposite, instead of sliding in beside her.
‘I’m Hazin.’
She noticed he did not offer his title.
This man did not need a title to have her feeling weak from the waist down.
He thought that perhaps, if she hadn’t been coming to Dion’s for a while, she might not know who he was. It was a refreshing thought—to lose the burden of it for a night.
‘You?’ he asked.
‘Flo,’ she said. ‘Florence.’
‘Like that old nurse?’
‘Florence Nightingale?’ she checked, and he nodded. ‘Well, she wasn’t old in her day,’ Flo corrected him. ‘Do you perhaps mean that nurse from olden times?’
‘I do.’
She smiled.
Hazin was well schooled but English was his second language and occasionally he slipped. Anyway, language and its intricacies could hardly be expected to be at the forefront of his mind when in the presence of such loveliness.
He liked her matter-of-fact correction that had come with a smile. Hazin had been raised to know any deviation from perfection would not be tolerated.
Yes he was wild, but whether it was a misspelt birthday card to his father, a torrid fling, or being born second in line, the verdict was always the same.
Not good enough.
So he no longer tried and instead happily disappointed everyone.
His sins would never be forgiven so Hazin had long since stopped apologising for them.
It made no difference when he did.
‘So,’ he asked, wanting to know more of her, ‘why have you banned yourself?’
‘Because the people here are terribly shallow.’
‘Yes.’
‘And my ex comes here...’ Flo explained just a little.
‘Were you hoping to see him?’
‘God, no.’ Flo grimaced at the very thought. ‘I’m not just avoiding Dion’s, I’ve been staying home a lot of late.’
‘For how long?’
‘All this year.’
‘Why?’
‘I’m off men.’
He looked at Flo and he wondered, in a way that was unusual for him, what on earth had happened that she would hide her light away.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
Flo hadn’t told anyone.
Not a single soul.
Yet his eyes looked right into hers and his smile was non-judgmental and kind.
But, no, she would not be telling him.
‘So are you off all men?’
She swallowed because just a short while ago her response would have been an unequivocal yes.
Except he was ravishing.
And funny.
But mainly he was ravishing.
His eyes weren’t a uniform grey—this close she could see there were little flecks of green and amber.
‘I think so.’
‘Isn’t it a bit extreme?’ he asked. ‘To hide yourself away...?’
‘Perhaps,’ Flo said. ‘Yes.’
‘Would you like another drink?’ he offered.
‘No, thank you.’ She glanced at his empty glass. ‘Can I get you one?’
She was frantic to get some control here—to go and stand at the bar again so she could remind herself how to breathe, but Hazin would not let her get away that easily.
‘I don’t drink,’ he said. ‘I can have your friend’s soda water. It doesn’t look as if she’s going to show.’
‘No.’
She looked around the bar and wondered what to do. Perhaps Maggie had changed her mind about letting Ilyas know about the baby.
Flo felt a little lost without her phone.
And then she saw him.
Her ex.
The reason why she had been hiding for so long.
Bastard.
She flicked her eyes away from her past and back at Hazin.
At least this man didn’t pretend he wasn’t one.
‘Are you okay?’ Hazin asked, because he didn’t usually lose his audience.
‘My ex is here,’ Flo said, and she held her breath as out of the corner of her eye she saw him make his way over.
Hazin watched her very pretty face pale rather than flush and he knew she’d been badly hurt.
And then he knew why.
Hazin was a regular here and had watched this creep pick up someone on one night and bring his wife for a meal the next.
Hazin might be wild now, but he had been married once and he’d taken his vows seriously, so, when it was clear from her panicked silence that she could not deal with her ex, Hazin was more than happy to.
‘Flo’s busy,’ Hazin said in a surly tone. ‘Please leave.’
‘Now look here—’ the man started, but then Hazin stood up.
‘I did ask politely,’ Hazin said and Flo could not believe there was about to be a fight.
What the hell?
He was more than up for a fight, but instead he gestured with his head for Marcus.
‘I just want to speak to Flo,’ the man insisted.
‘Well, you can’t,’ Hazin said, ‘because, as of now, you are barred from this establishment.’
It was Marcus’s problem now because, as Flo’s ex loudly protested as he was steered away, Hazin took his seat again. ‘He shan’t trouble you again,’ Hazin said. ‘At least, not when you’re here.’
The shadow in the room was gone and she experienced the giddy feeling of some measure of retribution at last.
Now Flo examined him and no longer did she hide that fact.
And Hazin did the same.
She was used to the roaming of male eyes over her body but his eyes did not leave her face.
And yet his gaze was indecent.
He traced the curves of her lips with his eyes so thoroughly that Flo fought not to run her tongue over them.
It felt as if he studied each eyelash in turn until she silently pleaded for him to fully meet her gaze.
Then when he did it was fire versus fire.
Beneath the table, she could envision his spread knees for they seemed to encircle hers, which were pressed tightly together. She could feel their surrounding warmth and almost craved the tight pressure of his grip.
‘I think I should go,’ Flo said, because it was clear Maggie wasn’t going to show.
‘I can’t hear you.’
Liar, liar, Flo thought as she gazed deep into his eyes, for here in the booth they were sequestered from the thrumming noise of the bar.
She could say it a little louder, reach for her purse and leave, or she could lean in a little closer to that delicious mouth and repeat what she had just said.
Or she could simply make the complicated so terribly easy.
Flo chose the latter—‘Come and sit by me, then.’
No, she didn’t want another drink, or conversation; she wanted this...
His kiss.
