by Miranda Lee
Love-Slave To The Sheikh
Miranda Lee
PROLOGUE
‘YOUdo not need to couch your diagnosis in soft terms. Please tell me the reality of my situation.’
The neurosurgeon looked across his desk at his VIP patient. He did not doubt that Sheikh Bandar bin Saeed al Serkel meant his brave words. But he wondered if the Sheikh was really prepared to hear that his odds of surviving were the same as those the bookmakers were giving on the Sheikh’s three-year-old colt winning the Derby?
Even money.
‘You have a brain tumour,’ the doctor told him. ‘It is malignant,’ he added, impressed when the dark eyes fixed on him did not flinch or even flicker.
People usually paled at such news. But this man was holding strong. Maybe it was the Arab way—their belief that their lives belonged to Allah. Maybe he was thinking that if it was Allah’s will that he die, then so be it.
Yet the man was only thirty-four years old. To all outward intents and purposes he was a splendid physical specimen of manhood. No one would guess by looking at him that he had cancer. Or, for that matter, that he was a sheikh.
Not for him any form of Arab dress. Or facial hair. His tall, lean body was clothed in the best Savile Row suit. His long, leanly handsome face was clean shaven.
But a sheikh he was. The only son of an oil-rich zillionaire and a London socialite—both of whom had been tragically killed in a fire on board a luxury yacht—he was Oxford-educated and currently lived in England, where he owned an apartment in Kensington, a stable full of expensive racehorses at Newmarket, and a stud farm in Wales.
The doctor’s impressed secretary had made it her business to discover all there was to know about her employer’s most exotic and possibly most wealthy patient. She’d been going on about him for a whole week, especially about his playboy reputation. He not only owned fast horses, he drove fast cars and dated fast women. Fast and very beautiful women.
The surgeon hadn’t been impressed. Till now.
‘And?’ the Sheikh prompted.
The surgeon gathered himself to deliver the final blow. ‘If you do not have surgery you will be dead within a year. The surgery, however, is risky. Your chances of survival are about fifty-fifty. The decision is yours,’ he finished, with a shrug of his shoulders.
The Sheikh smiled, his flashing teeth looking extra white against his olive skin.
‘You make it sound like I have a choice in the matter. If I do nothing, I will surely die. So of course you must operate. Are you the best man for this job?’
The doctor drew himself up in his chair, his shoulders broadening. ‘I am the best there is in the United Kingdom.’
The Sheikh nodded, his striking face serious once more. ‘I have great faith in the British. They do not overestimate their abilities as some people do. And they are excellent under pressure. Schedule surgery for me for the last week in June.’
‘But that’s three weeks away. I would prefer to operate as soon as possible.’
‘Will my chances of survival be much worse by waiting three weeks?’
The surgeon frowned. It was never good to wait with cancer. ‘Possibly not a great deal worse,’ he conceded. ‘Still, I do not recommend it.’
This time the Sheikh’s smile was wry. ‘But I am assured of staying alive for at least those three weeks, am I not?’
‘Your headaches will get worse.’
‘Can you give me something for them?’
The surgeon sighed. ‘I’ll write you a prescription,’ he agreed grudgingly. ‘But I am still not happy about this delay. What is your reason for waiting that long?’
‘I must go to Australia.’
‘Australia! What on earth for?’
‘Prince Ali of Dubar has asked me to look after his thoroughbred stud farm there whilst he goes home for his brother’s coronation. You might have read that King Khaled passed away yesterday?’
The doctor hadn’t. He avoided reading the news. When he wasn’t working he preferred to do something relaxing, like play chess. But he knew where Dubar was, and how wealthy its royal family were.
‘Surely Prince Ali could get someone else?’
‘I must grant my good friend’s request. Ali saved my life once when we were boys and has never asked anything of me in return. I cannot deny him this favour.’
‘But if you told him of your medical condition…?’
‘My medical condition is my own private and personal matter. I and I alone will deal with it.’
‘You need the support of friends and family at a time like this.’
For the first time those dark eyes betrayed something. A moment of weakness. No, of bleakness.
‘I have no family,’ he stated brusquely.
‘But you do have friends. This Prince Ali, for instance. You should tell him about the tumour.’
‘Not till he returns to Australia from his commitments in Dubar.’ The Arab stood up abruptly. ‘Your secretary has my e-mail address. Have her send me the hospital arrangements. Till then…’ He held his hand out across the desk.
The surgeon stood up and shook it. Such a strong hand. Such a strong man. He would do his best to save the Sheikh. But he could not perform miracles.
‘Look after yourself,’ he advised.
‘Can I ride?’
The query startled the doctor. This was the first patient awaiting delicate brain surgery who’d asked him such a question. Usually they wrapped themselves in cotton wool. They didn’t fly off to Australia and ride horses and do goodness knew what else.
Still, to be honest, riding horses was unlikely to kill the man. Unless he fell off and broke his neck. He had a tumour, not an aneurism.
‘I suppose you can,’ he said. ‘If you must.’
The Sheikh smiled again. An enigmatic smile this time.
‘I must.’
CHAPTER ONE
‘WHATa total waste of time,’ Samantha muttered as she threw her bag onto the back seat of her four-wheel drive, then slammed the door shut.
‘And a total waste of money,’ she added to herself, after she’d climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine.
Her only consolation was that she didn’t have a too-long drive in front of her. The distance from Williamstown airport to the upper Hunter Valley was considerably less than the journey from Sydney airport. Only a one-and-a-half-hour trip as opposed to at least three.
Still, as Samantha angled the vehicle out of the car park and headed for the highway, her sigh carried frustration and disappointment. She should never have listened to Cleo. A five-day package holiday at a Gold Coast resort—regardless of how hip-hopping the place was—had never been going to find her a boyfriend, either long term or short term.
The wildly romantic notion of meeting the love of her life at such a place was just that: a wildly romantic notion.
The possibility of having a holiday fling hadn’t been high on the chance meter, either. Samantha just wasn’t the sort of girl to pick up some handsome hunk who’d treat her to a few nights of wining and dining, followed by the kind of sex women dreamt about but rarely enjoyed.
Oh, she was presentable enough to attract some male attention these days, especially after Cleo had dragged her off last week to a beauty salon in Newcastle to have her long mid-brown hair streaked blonde and her naturally thick eyebrows plucked into elegantly slender arches. It had also helped that she now owned a few attention-grabbing outfits which made the most of her tall, athletic figure; Cleo had taken her clothes-shopping as well.
Samantha had to admit she’d looked pretty good these past five days.
Several guys had approached her, both around the pool and at the restaurant bar every evening.
&n
bsp; It was her manner, she knew, which had quickly put them off.
She’d never mastered the art of flirting. Or of idle chit-chat. Or of sucking up to male egos.
Over the years she’d been constantly told by her girlfriends that she was too blunt. Too opinionated. Too assertive.
The truth was she didn’t know how to act all girlie. She’d never learned, never had a feminine role model during her formative years.
Samantha had grown up in an all-male household, with four brothers who’d taught her how to be one of the boys. She’d learned to play sport like a boy and stick up for herself like a boy—with her fists. She’d never learned to defer to the male sex. Oh, no. If she’d done that in the Nelson home she’d have spent all her days in tears, trodden into the ground by her highly competitive, testosterone-fuelled brothers.
So she’d competed with them, and often beat them.
Not smart, her girlfriends at school had often told her. Definitely not smart.
Samantha had come to agree by the time she graduated. She hadn’t had a single date during her high school years, let alone a steady boyfriend. She’d had to be escorted to her graduation ball by one of her brothers.
Admittedly, back then she’d been rather gawky-looking. Very tall and skinny, with no bust to speak of. Her extra short hairdo hadn’t helped, either. Neither had her lack of flair with clothes and make-up.
By the time Samantha had entered Sydney University to do a veterinary science degree she’d just about given up on getting herself a boyfriend. Her love of animals—horses in particular—had filled the empty space in her heart. She’d paid for her higher education by working as a stablehand at a nearby racing stables.
University, however, Samantha had soon discovered, had a different code of sexual behaviour from the rest of the world. Not too many girls—even the plain, nerdy ones—finished their degrees as virgins. Most of the male students treated sex as a challenge and a sport. The more notches on their belt, the better. They didn’t much care what their conquests looked like, or how they acted.
Samantha had eventually supplied a couple of notches during her four-year stint at uni. She’d grown her hair long during that time, developed some breasts, and had actually begun to look more like a girl.
But neither of her experiences—both of which had been disappointingly brief—had rivalled the earthmoving events she’d read about in books. Love had certainly eluded her.
After graduating from university she’d gone to work for a vet at Randwick who specialised in the treatment of racehorses. He’d been in his early forties, a nice-looking, charming man who was very married.
In the beginning there had been no attraction between them. But after a couple of years their long hours of working together and their mutual passion for horses had created an intimacy between them. They’d formed a friendship which Samantha had found both fulfilling and flattering. She still hadn’t been having any success with the opposite sex—perhaps she shouldn’t have stayed living at home—so it had been very nice to have a man enjoy her company. Very nice, too, to have her natural intelligence and strong opinions appreciated and not put down.
She hadn’t fallen in love with Paul. But she had come to look forward to the time they spent together. He’d made her feel good. She had become only too ready to work increasingly long hours, and to accept his invitations for more cups of coffee than was perhaps wise.
A more sophisticated girl would have seen it coming, the evening when Paul had grabbed her and pulled her into his arms and kissed her. His declaration of love had been quite thrilling. Samantha hadn’t heard such passionate words before. Not directed at her, anyway.
For one awful moment she’d been tempted to give in to that voice which said that maybe this man’s love was all she would ever have. She’d been nearly twenty-five, still dateless and almost desperate. But at the last second she’d looked over Paul’s shoulder and glimpsed the photo of his wife and children which he kept on his desk, and she’d instinctively known he wasn’t about to leave them. She’d suspected that what he wanted from her was not love, but the excitement of an extra-marital affair. A very convenient one at that.
Only the previous weekend Samantha had seen a programme on television which had interviewed a series of ‘other women’. Sam had been amazed to find that they weren’tfemme fatale types, but mostly women with poor self-esteem, ones who were willing to accept the crumbs from their married lovers’ tables. Most seemed not to believe they would ever find that one special person who was free to love them as they deserved to be loved.
Samantha didn’t want second best. She’d never settled for second best in any other area of her life. Why should she with love? She wanted a man who didn’t belong to some other woman. She wanted her own man, one who could give her everything she secretly desired. His undying love. His ring on her finger. And his children.
So she’d left her job with Paul. Left Sydney and home as well, after applying for—and to her surprise securing—an advertised position to be a live-in vet at the Dubar Royal Stud Farm.
An avid racing fan, Samantha had already known this highly regarded stud was one of the biggest and best breeding establishments in Australia. Run by an extremely wealthy Arab prince, money was never any object: they had the best stallions standing there—some flown in for the Australian season from other parts of the world—they had the best broodmares money could buy, and presumably the best equine practitioners tending them.
Given her rather limited experience with the breeding side of racehorses, Samantha had been surprised when she’d got the job. Still, she was a quick learner, and she’d soon learned all she needed to know from the other live-in vet—a very overweight man in his late fifties named Gerald.
To be honest, however, Samantha wasn’t sure that it was what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. At the time of accepting the position she’d just wanted to get away from the temptation of Paul.
Of course there’d also been the added lure of a country lifestyle. She’d hoped that maybe country men wouldn’t be as picky as city guys. Maybe they wouldn’t find her blunt manner quite so off-putting. Or her choice of career in any way odd. Surely they wouldn’t mind her preference for a low-maintenance look most of the time? Country women weren’t renowned for wearing scads of make-up or always appearing as if they’d just stepped out of the hairdressers.
Samantha sighed as she steered her four-by-four down the wide main street of yet another small country town.
Unfortunately, her personal life at the Dubar Royal Stud hadn’t worked out much differently than it had back in Sydney. The truth was she intimidated country guys even more than city guys. Most of the younger men working at the stud hardly dared look at her, let alone speak to her. Only Jack, who was a sweetie but somewhat on the slow side, seemed to be able to deal with her.
Ali, of course, spoke to her, but frankly Samantha foundhim intimidating. His wife, too. The stunningly beautiful Charmaine was an ex-supermodel who spent quite a bit of time doing charity work in Sydney. They had two children, a darling little girl named Amanda and a boy, Bandar, who was one year old, and named after some life-long friend of the Prince’s—an oil-rich, racehorse-owning sheikh who lived in London and had an even worse reputation with women than Ali had before he’d got married a few years back.
Samantha only knew all this because Cleo had told her. As the Prince’s housekeeper, and part-time nanny to his children, Cleo was in a position to know quite a lot about the Prince and his family. She wasn’t a malicious gossip—in fact she was a lovely lady—but she did like to talk. During the occasions when Ali and his family went to Sydney for the weekend Cleo would invite Samantha up to the main house for dinner and a board game afterwards, during which the two women would chat away about anything and everything. They’d got along really well right from the first day, despite Cleo being around fifty.
If it hadn’t been for Cleo’s bright company Samantha would have cut and run before. As it w
as, she knew she wouldn’t be renewing her contract when it ran out at the end of June. The truth was she missed Sydney and city life. The peace and quiet of the countryside was very nice in theory, but Samantha found it far too lonely up here.
That was why she’d been so susceptible to Cleo’s suggestion about the Gold Coast getaway. She’d been due some time off. But truly she should have known it would be a foolish and futile waste of time.
Still, at least going there had achieved one thing. It had made Samantha realise shecould attract a man—physically. Cleo’s makeover had worked wonders in that regard. What she needed to learn now was how to play the dating—and mating—game,after the initial contact had been made. Samantha wasn’t sure exactly how she was going to learn this, or who would be best to teach her, but she knew if she was serious about getting married she simply would have to change.