Buch lesen: «A Surprise For The Sheikh»

To Dad, who taught me the importance of never saying “very” when “damn” would do.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

This was really happening.

Ben’s hot body pressed Violet against the back of the elevator. Something hard and long bumped against her hip, and she giggled. Oh, yeah—this was so happening.

She was really doing this.

“Kiss me,” Ben said in that sinfully delicious accent of his as he flexed his hips against hers. She didn’t know where he was from, but his accent made her think of the burning heat of summer sun—because boy, did it warm her up.

Violet ran her hands through his thick black hair and lifted his face away from where he’d been sucking on her neck.

He touched his forehead to hers. “Kiss me, my mysterious, my beautiful V.” Then—incredibly—he hesitated just long enough to make it clear he was waiting for her decision.

Power surged through her. This was exactly why she was riding in an elevator in the Holloway Inn up to a man’s room—a man who did not know she was Violet McCallum, who did not know she was Mac McCallum’s baby sister.

Her entire life, she had been Violet. Violet, who had to be protected from the big bad world. Violet, the lost little girl whose parents died and left her all alone. Violet, who still lived at home and still had her big brother watching over her every move to make sure she didn’t get hurt again.

Well, to hell with that. Tonight, she was V. She was mysterious, she was beautiful, and this man—this sinfully handsome man with an accent like liquid sunshine—wanted her to kiss him.

She was not Violet. Not tonight.

So she kissed him, long and hard, their tongues tangling in her mouth, then in his. She did more than kiss him—she raked her fingers through his hair and held him against her. She made it clear—this was what she wanted. He was what she wanted.

She hadn’t come to this hotel bar a town away from Royal, Texas, with the intent of going to bed with a stranger. She hadn’t planned on a one-night stand. She’d wanted to get dressed up, to feel pretty—maybe to flirt. She’d wanted to be someone else, just for the night.

But she hadn’t counted on Ben. “You have beautiful eyes,” he said in his sunshine voice, his hands sliding down her backside and cupping her bottom. “Among other things, my mysterious V.” Then he lifted, and it was only natural that her legs went around his waist and that the long, hard bulge in his pants went from bumping against her thigh to pressing against the spot at her very center.

Violet’s back arched as heat radiated throughout her body. Ben held tight to her, pinning her back against the elevator wall as he pressed his mouth to the cleavage that this little black dress left exposed. One of the hands that was cupping her bottom slid forward, snagging on the hem of her dress as he stroked between her legs. The heat from his hand only added to the raging inferno taking place under her skin.

“If you leave this elevator, you will be mine, you understand? I will lay you out on the bed and make you cry out. This is your last chance to take the elevator down.”

A shiver of delight raced through her. Respectable Violet would never let a man talk to her like this. But V? “Is that a promise?”

“It is,” he said in such a serious tone that she gasped. “Your pleasure is my pleasure.”

That was, hands down, the sweetest thing anyone had ever whispered to her. Her entire life had been one long exercise in telling people what she wanted only to have to listen to the litany of excuses why she couldn’t do what she wanted or couldn’t have what she wanted. It was too risky, too dangerous. She didn’t understand the consequences, she didn’t this, she didn’t that—every excuse her brother could throw at her, he did.

If Mac knew she was in this elevator with a man whose pleasure was her pleasure—well, there might be guns involved. This was risky and dangerous and all that stuff that Mac had spent the past twelve years trying to shield her from.

She was tired of being protected. She wanted something more than safety.

She wanted Ben.

“Why are we still in this elevator?” she asked in as innocent a tone as she could muster, given how Ben’s body was pressing against hers.

“You are quite certain?”

“Quite. But don’t stop talking.” The words hadn’t even gotten out of her mouth before Ben hauled her away from the wall of the elevator and out into the hall.

“Are you this adventurous in everything?”

He was carrying her as if she weighed nothing at all. She was as light as a feather, a leaf on the wind, in Ben’s arms. She was flying and she didn’t ever want to come down.

She also didn’t want to cop to her relatively limited experiences in the whole “pleasure” department. Every time she got serious about a guy, her brother—her well-meaning, overbearing brother—came down like the hammer of Thor and before Violet could blink, the guy would be giving her the it’s-not-you-it’s-me talk.

Violet may have had only a couple of boyfriends, but V was knowledgeable and experienced. She could not only handle a man like Ben, she could meet him as an equal. And so help her, no one was going to give her the let’s-be-friends talk tonight. “Why don’t we find out?”

He growled against her neck.

A door opened. “What’s—” an older man, voice heavy on the Texas accent, said.

Ben stopped and, without putting Violet down, turned to stare at the old man in the open doorway. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t make a menacing gesture. He just stared down the other man.

“Ah. Well. Yes,” the older man babbled as the door shut.

“Whoa,” Violet said, giggling again. “Dude, you are—wow.” So this was what exuding masculinity looked like.

“‘Dude,’ eh?” Ben said with a sexy chuckle as he began walking down the hall. Every step made Violet gasp as Ben’s hard length pressed against her sex. “For a woman as beautiful as you, you often talk like a man.”

“I don’t always wear little black dresses.”

Ben stopped in front of another door. “Hmm,” he said as his hands stayed on her body as he set her down, which effectively meant he hiked her dress up. “Are you sure you won’t tell me your name?”

“No,” she said quickly. She didn’t want this fantasy night of perfection to be ruined by something as mundane as reality. “No names. Not tonight.”

He got his key out and opened the door. Then his hands were back on her body, walking her backward into the room. “Who are you hiding from? Family?” He pulled her to a stop and turned her around. His fingers found her zipper and pulled it down, one slow click after another. “Or another lover, hmm?”

“I’m not hiding from anyone,” she fibbed. It was a small fib because, no, she did not want Mac to know she’d done something this wild, this crazy. That’s why she was in Holloway instead of Royal.

“We are all hiding from something, are we not?” Ben began to pull the dress down, revealing the black bra with the white embroidery that she wore only when she was feeling particularly rebellious. Which, in the last few months, was almost every day.

“I just—look,” she said in frustration, taking a step back and pulling free of his hands. “I won’t ask about you, you won’t ask about me, and we use condoms. That’s the deal. If that doesn’t work for you...” She grabbed the sleeves of her dress and tugged them back up.

Ben stood there, his sinfully delicious lips curved into a smile. Oh, no—he wouldn’t call her bluff, would he? Because she wanted to strip him out of that suit—and she didn’t want to walk out of this room until she was barely able to walk at all.

“I just need a night with you,” she said, the truth of that statement sinking in for the first time since she’d walked into the bar at the Holloway Inn and laid eyes on this tall, dark and handsome stranger. She’d thought she just needed a night out, but the very moment Ben had turned to her, his coal-black eyes taking in her lacy black cocktail dress, her wavy auburn hair, her stockings with the seam up the back—then she’d needed him. And she wasn’t going to rest until she had him. “That’s all I’m asking. One night. No strings. Just...pleasure.”

Ben stepped into her, cupping her face in his hands. “That is really all you want from me? Nothing else?”

The way he said it, with a touch of sadness in his voice, made her heart ache for him. She didn’t know who he was or why he was here—he wasn’t local, that much was obvious. But she got the feeling that in his real life, there were always strings.

She knew the feeling. And for tonight, at least, she didn’t want to be hemmed in by other people’s expectations of her. Good idea or not, she was going to take Ben to bed. There would be no regrets. Not for her. “No. Your pleasure is my pleasure,” she whispered against his lips, turning his words back to him.

“Kiss me,” he said against her skin.

So she did. She tangled her hands in his hair and pulled him roughly against her mouth, and then they were flinging each other’s clothing off and falling into bed and she couldn’t tell where her pleasure began and his ended because Ben was everything she’d ever dreamed a lover could be, only better—hotter, sweeter.

She fell asleep in his arms, listening to him whisper stories to her in a language she did not know and did not understand, but it didn’t matter. She was sated and happy. She’d started this night desperate to do something fun, something for herself.

Ben—no last name, no country of origin—was an answer to her prayers.

One

Four months later

This was not happening.

Dear God, please let this not be happening. Violet stared down at the thin strip of plastic. The one that said in digital block letters, PREGNANT.

Maybe she’d done it wrong. Peed on the wrong end or something. Yeah, that was it. She’d never taken a pregnancy test before. She hadn’t even studied. She’d failed due to a lack of preparation, that was all.

Luckily, Violet had bought three separate tests because redundancy wasn’t just redundant. It was confirmation that her night of wild passion four months ago with a stranger named Ben had not left her pregnant.

Crouched in the bathroom off of her bedroom, Violet carefully read the instructions again, trying to spot her mistake. Remove the purple cap: check. Hold the other end: check. Hold absorbent tip downward: check. Wait two minutes: check.

Crap. She’d done it right.

So she did it again.

The next two minutes were hell. The panic was so strong she could practically taste it in the back of her throat, and it was getting stronger with every passing second.

The first test was just a false positive, she decided. False positives happened all the time. She wasn’t pregnant. She was suffering from a low-grade stomach bug. Yeah, that was it. That would explain the odd waves of nausea that hit her at unexpected times. Not in the morning either. Therefore, it wasn’t morning sickness.

And the low-grade bug she was fighting—that’s what caused the positive. It had absolutely nothing to do with that night in the Holloway Inn four months ago. It had nothing to do with Ben or V or...

PREGNANT.

Oh, God.

One was a false positive. The second? Considering that she’d had a wild night of passionate sex with a man in a hotel room?

What the hell was she going to do?

She didn’t have a last name. She didn’t have his number. He’d been this fantasy man who had appeared when she’d needed him and been gone by morning light. She’d woken up in his room alone. Her dress had been cleaned and pressed and was hanging on the bathroom door. Room service had delivered breakfast with a rose and a note—a note she still had, tucked inside her sock drawer, where Mac would never see it.

Your pleasure was my pleasure. Thank you for the night.

He hadn’t even signed it Ben. No name, no signature. No way to contact him when she had a rapidly growing collection of positive pregnancy tests on the edge of her sink.

She was screwed.

Okay, so contacting Ben was out, at least for the short term. She might be able to hire a private investigator who could track him down through the hotel’s guest registry, but that didn’t help her out right now.

“Violet?” Mac called out from downstairs. “Can you come down here?”

She was going to be sick again, and this time she didn’t think it was because of morning sickness.

How was she supposed to tell her big brother that she’d done something this wild and crazy and was now pregnant? The man had dedicated the past twelve years of his life to keeping her safe after their parents’ deaths. He would not react well.

“Violet?” She heard the creak of the second step—oh Lord, he was on his way up.

“Give me a minute!” she called through the door as she grabbed the two used tests and shoved them back in the box. She hid everything under the sink, behind her maxi pads. Mac would never look there.

She needed a plan. She was on her own here.

Violet stood up and quickly splashed some cold water on her face. She didn’t normally wear a lot of makeup. She had no need to look pretty when she was managing the Double M, their family ranch. The ranch hands she’d hired had all gotten the exact same message, no doubt—hitting on Mac McCallum’s little sister was strictly forbidden. Which irritated her. First off, she wasn’t hiring studs for the express purpose of getting it on in the hayloft. Second, she was the boss. Mac ran McCallum Enterprises, the energy company their father had founded, and Violet ran the Double M, and the less those two worlds crossed, the better it was.

Because Mac did not see a ranch manager, much less a damned good ranch manager. He didn’t see a capable businesswoman who was navigating a drought and rebuilding from a record-breaking tornado and still making a profit. He didn’t see a partner in the family business.

All he saw was the shattered sixteen-year-old girl she’d been when their parents had died. It didn’t matter what she did, how well she did it—she was still a little sister to him. Nothing more and nothing less.

Violet had wanted so desperately not to be Mac’s helpless baby sister, even for a night. And if that night was spent in a stranger’s arms...

And here she was.

She’d just jerked her ponytail out of its holder and started wrenching the brush through her mane of auburn hair when Mac said, “Violet?”

She jumped. She hadn’t heard Mac come the rest of the way upstairs, but now he was right outside the door. “What?”

“An old friend of mine is downstairs. Rafe.”

“Oh—okay,” she said, feeling confused. Rafe—why did that name sound familiar? And why did Mac sound...odd? “Is everything okay?”

Ha. Nothing was okay, but by God, until she got a grip on the situation, she was going to pretend it was if it was the last thing she did.

“No, it’s fine. It’s just—Rafe is the sheikh, you remember? From college?”

“Wait.” She cracked the door open and stared at her brother. Even though she’d hidden the evidence, she intentionally positioned her body between him and the sink. “Is this the guy who had the wild younger sister who tricked you? That Rafe?”

“Yeah. Rafiq bin Saleed.” Mac’s expression was a mix of excitement and confusion.

“What’s he doing here right now?” Violet asked. “I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he blame you for his sister’s—what did you call it?”

“Compromising her innocence? Yeah.”

“So why do I have to meet this jerk?”

“He’s in town. He’s apologized for his behavior years ago.”

Violet stared at him. Men and their delicate attempts at friendship. “And you’re okay with that?”

“Yeah,” Mac said with a shrug. “Why wouldn’t I be? It was a misunderstanding. His father was the one who was mad. Rafe is making amends.”

After twelve years? That seemed odd. Men. “And you’re warning me in advance because...”

“Because I know you, Violet. I know you’re liable to shoot your mouth off. He’s a sheikh—they have a different set of customs, okay? So try to be polite.”

She gave him a dull look. “Really? You think I’m so impulsive I can’t even make small talk with a man from a different culture?” She shoved the door open. Her hair could wait. “Thanks, Mac. I appreciate the vote of confidence there.”

Mac grinned at her. “Said Violet, impulsively.”

“Stuff it. Let’s get this over with.” She pushed past her brother and stomped to the closet, where she grabbed a clean shirt. If she was going to be meeting—wait, what was a sheikh? Were they royalty? Well, whatever he was, the least she could do was make sure she was wearing a shirt that didn’t have cow poop on it. “I’ll meet your rude sheikh friend and then make myself scarce, okay? I’ve got stuff to do anyway.” Like maybe tracking down her one-night stand and figuring out her due date and, well, her schedule was just packed. She started unbuttoning her work jeans.

The wheels of her mind spun. This was going to change everything. She’d had plans—she’d been slowly working on convincing her brother to buy the ranch to the north, the Wild Aces. Violet had loved the Wild Aces for years. She wanted out of this house, out from under Mac’s overprotective roof, and the Wild Aces was where she wanted to be.

They were already leasing the land. The Double M’s water supply had been compromised by the tornado last year. But Wild Aces had plenty of water. Violet had thought that would be the motivation Mac needed to sign off on the purchase, but because she was the one who’d suggested it instead of his assistant, Andrea Beaumont, Mac had said no. Eventually, the two women had convinced Mac to at least lease the land.

But now? Violet was pregnant. How was she going to manage the Double M, much less the Wild Aces, with a huge belly or a baby on her hip?

Mac didn’t say anything for so long she paused and looked up at him. “What?”

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She tensed. “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s fine. Totally fine.”

Mac wrinkled his brow at her but before he could question her further, she said, “Shouldn’t you be downstairs with your sheikh friend or something? So I can finish getting changed? Maybe?”

Mac paled. He may have stepped into the role of father figure after their parents’ deaths, but he was still a big brother. An irritating one at that.

Okay, so she had a plan. She was going to pretend everything was just hunky-dory for the foreseeable future while she thought of a better plan.

Where was Ben? And even if she could find him, would he be happy to see her? Or would he claim that their night had had no strings attached and a baby was a huge string and therefore, she was on her own?

What a freaking mess.

* * *

“Sorry about that,” Mac said, strolling back into the room. “Violet’s...well, she’s Violet.”

Rafe sat in the center of the couch, surveying the room and the man before him. Mac had most certainly aged in the past twelve years, but he didn’t have the haunted look of someone who had betrayed his best friend.

Rafe was not surprised, not really. At the time Mac compromised Nasira, he had exhibited little regard for Rafe’s family’s name. He did not look guilty because, more than likely, Mac McCallum was incapable of feeling guilt.

Revenge was a dish best served cold. But Rafe couldn’t overplay his hand here. He put on a warm smile and said, “Yes, your younger sister—I remember. She was still in high school when we were at college, correct?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” Mac shrugged apologetically. If Rafe were capable of being sympathetic with a person such as Mac, he could sympathize over wayward younger sisters. “So,” Mac went on, changing the subject. “Tell me about you, man. It’s been years! What are you doing in town?”

Rafe shrugged, as if his being in Royal, Texas, were some sort of happy accident instead of entirely premeditated. “My father is dead,” he said.

Mac’s cheeks reddened. “Oh, dude—sorry about that.”

Rafe smiled—inwardly, of course. The last person to say “dude” to him in such a way had been V, the beautiful woman at the inn a few months ago. It had seemed so odd coming out of her perfect rosebud mouth. It was much better suited to a man like Mac.

Where was V now? That was a question that had danced at the edge of his consciousness for months. He had gotten better at putting the question aside, though. It was almost easy to not think of her. Almost.

“I appreciate your concern, but there is no need for sorrow. He was a...difficult man, as I’m sure you know.”

Mac nodded sympathetically. In fact, before Mac’s betrayal of Rafe’s family, Mac had been one of the few people Rafe had confided in about his “difficult” father. There had been a time, long ago, when Rafe would have trusted this man with his very life.

Rafe did not trust people. He had learned that lesson well. Years spent locked up by his father had taught him that.

“With his passing,” Rafe went on, “my older brother Fareed became the sheikh and I became more free to seek my way in the world.” He tried to make it sound carefree and, in truth, some of it had been. Fareed had turned his attention to the modernization of their sheikhdom and released Rafe. Fareed had even entrusted Rafe with control of the family shipping business. All things considered, the reversal of fortune had been breathtaking.

But just because Rafe had no longer had to deal with Hassad bin Saleed did not mean he was free. He was still a sheikh. He had his people’s honor and pride to preserve.

And if that meant waiting twelve years to exact his revenge, then so be it.

“I had meant to seek you out much earlier,” Rafe went on, bending the truth until it was on the verge of breaking. “But my brother gave me the shipping company and I was quite busy turning the business around. You understand how it is. I am expanding my company’s holdings and was looking to get into energy. The worldwide demand is rising. Naturally, I thought of you. I remember how fondly you spoke of this area and its many resources.”

That was his story. Secretly, Rafe had been buying up land all over Royal, Texas, under the front of Samson Oil, a company he had created ostensibly to purchase the mineral rights and whatever remaining oil existed underground.

But Samson Oil was buying lands that had no more oil and no valuable mineral rights to speak of. The land was good for little else besides grazing cattle, and the entire town knew it. He had hired a Royal native, Nolan Dane, to act as the public face of Samson Oil. The townsfolk had been easily swayed by the outrageous offers and Nolan’s down-home charm. They were happy to take his money—except, of course, that no one knew it was his money. By the time they figured out his scheme, it would be too late.

Rafe would own this town, and he would do with it as he saw fit.

Mac snorted. “Tell me about it. McCallum Enterprises has completely taken over my life. I can’t even run the ranch anymore—Violet handles that for me.”

“Your younger sister does a man’s job?” But he was not truly surprised. Mac had always spoken of how outlandish his baby sister was—a tomboy, he’d said.

“She does a damn good job, too,” Mac said in a thoughtful voice.

“I had thought she was going to follow you to Harvard.” That had been the story Mac had told him all those years ago. But had that just been a lie to earn Rafe’s trust as they bonded over difficult younger siblings?

“That was before our parents died. They went out for a flight on Dad’s plane and...” Mac sighed heavily. “She was so lost after the accident, you know? I hated that I wasn’t here for her when it happened.”

“I had not realized,” Rafe said sympathetically, even though of course he had realized. The McCallum family had suffered a terrible blow when Mac’s parents’ plane had crashed into an open field. There had been no survivors.

It all happened right after Rafe had been pulled out of Harvard by his father for daring to let his younger sister consort with the likes of Mac. Rafe had not found out the details of the accident for years afterward—after his own father had died and Rafe had suddenly had the means to investigate his enemies.

It had been a missed opportunity. If Rafe had been aware of the McCallums’ deaths at the time, he could have moved swiftly to buy Mac’s land out from under him or take over McCallum Enterprises. Instead, Rafe had to settle for watching and waiting for his next best opportunity to exact his revenge. He had not rushed. He was, as the Americans often said, playing the long game.

His patience had finally paid off when, last year, a tornado had torn through Mac’s hometown of Royal, Texas. The town’s economic base was weakened, which was good. But what was better was that Mac’s water supply had become compromised.

It was a particularly good scheme. Rafe would not only cut off Mac’s water supply and essentially strangle his ranch, but under the guise of Samson Oil, he would also buy up large parts of Royal. Mac had always spoken of his love for his hometown.

When Rafe was done with him, Mac would have nothing. No town, no land. That was what Mac had left Nasira with when he had betrayed Rafe’s trust and ruined Nasira.

Thus far, Rafe had been operating in secrecy. But when his scheme came to fruition, he wanted Mac to know it was he who had brought about his destruction.

Which was why he was here, pretending to be concerned for the well-being of his former friend’s sister. “Was it very hard on her?”

“Oh, man,” Mac said with a rueful smile. “I moved back home and tried to give her a stable upbringing, but never underestimate the power of a teenage girl. Hey, listen,” he went on, leaning forward and dropping his voice a notch. “I know that things didn’t end well between us...”

Rafe tensed inside but outside, he waved this poor excuse for an olive branch of peace away, as if he’d truly left the matter in the past. “It was all a long time ago. Think nothing of it.”

“Thanks, man. I never meant to hurt Nasira, but I swear to you, I had no idea she was in my room that night. It wasn’t what it looked like.”

Rafe’s mask of genial friendship must have slipped because Mac’s words trailed off. Rafe rearranged his face into one of concern. “It’s fine. She was able to marry a man who was more to her liking.” It was time for a subject change. “Your sister, Violet? It has been a long time.”

“Yeah—that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I try to keep her out of trouble, but if you, you know, could just keep an eye on her while you’re in town, I’d really appreciate it.”

Now this was ironic. Here Rafe was, doing everything within his power to avenge the honor of his sister and his family, and Mac, the source of all his troubles, was asking Rafe to look after Violet?

That would be a new layer to Rafe’s revenge—corrupting Mac’s sister just as Mac had corrupted Rafe’s.

“But of course,” Rafe said as he bowed his head, trying to look touched that Mac would extend him this much trust. The fool. He was making this too easy.

“My ears are burning.” Rafe heard the soft feminine—and familiar—voice seconds before its owner entered the room. “What are you two...talking...”

She stood in the doorway, her mouth open, all the color draining from her cheeks.

Rafe’s body responded before his brain could make sense of what he was seeing. His gut tightened and his erection stiffened and one word presented itself in his mind—mine. The reaction was so sudden and so complete that Rafe was momentarily disoriented. This woman was lovely, yes, but her body was not the kind that usually invoked such an immediate, possessive response from him.