by Неизвестный
talked to on the phone when she’d called requesting additional security guards. “Am I?” she couldn’t
help but ask, not liking the way the man seemed to be staring down his nose at her.
“Yes. I’m Sebastian Huntington, a member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Huntington.”
He didn’t say anything to indicate that the feelings were mutual. Instead, he glanced around. “Things
seem calm enough around here. I really don’t see why two guards are needed. But then, you’ve managed
to convince Kevin Novak differently.”
She was about to say the reason things appeared calm was because everyone felt safer with two guards
when he once again looked down his nose at her and arrogantly said, “And then there’s Darius Franklin,
who’s evidently quite taken with you. He’s also been singing your praises at the TCC meetings.” A
sneer touched his lips as he studied her features. “Now I see why.”
Surprise flickered in her eyes. “Darius?”
“Yes. He’s one of our newest members.”
Now she was confused. Darius was a member of TCC?
“How long has he been a member?”
The man frowned down at her like she’d asked a stupid question. “Not long enough for him and his
friends to be throwing their weight around. He’s only been a member for over a year.”
Summer nodded. “Oh, I see.” And the sad part of it was that she really did see. Darius had lied to her.
“Ready to go?”
Summer slowly lifted her gaze from the document at the sound of the deep, husky voice. Had it been
nearly three weeks ago when here in this office she had heard that voice again for the first time in seven
years?
After Mr. Huntington left, instead of walking to the café, she had gone to the library. There she had
researched information on the Texas Cattleman’s Club branch that was located in Somerset. Darius was
listed as a member, having joined the same day as Kevin Novak and several other men, and from the
photographs she had seen, it was apparent that he and Mr. Novak knew each other very well. Why had
he pretended otherwise when she’d told him of her meeting with Mr. Novak? Why had he deliberately
kept his membership in the TCC from her?
Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a member of the Texas Cattleman’s Club?”
She saw surprise light his eyes and knew he was probably wondering how she’d found out. “Mr.
Huntington dropped by to check out the place and mentioned you’re a member,” she said, leaning back
in her chair.
“So, my question is, why didn’t you tell me, Darius? You had several chances to do so when I was
preparing for my meeting with Mr. Novak, and many after that. Why didn’t you tell me?”
A part of Darius wished he’d have told Summer everything last night. How would she react to finding
out he had withheld the information because of his plan to hurt her?
Any chance of rebuilding a relationship with her would probably be destroyed now. But still, he had to
be upfront and honest with her. Lies were the reason they were in the situation they were in now.
Sighing deeply, he entered her office and closed the door behind him, leaning against it. “The reason I
didn’t want to tell you is because I was still operating under the belief that you had left Houston with a
rich man. A man you had chosen over me because of his wealth. With that belief festering in my mind as
well as my heart over the years, I had grown to resent you for choosing wealth over love.”
When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “I figured that if that was true, once you found out about
my wealth, the fact that I had become successful, I could get my revenge by seducing you, taking you to
bed and then walking away from you the same way I thought you had walked away from me. I wanted
to hurt you the way you had hurt me.”
Summer still didn’t say anything for a moment, and then in a low voice, she asked, “You hated me that
much?”
Darius breathed in again, hearing the deep hurt in her voice. “I thought I did, but once I got to know
what I thought was the new Summer Martindale, the one who’s dedicated to the women at the shelter,
the one who works tirelessly after hours when her shift is over, I realized that no matter how much I
wanted revenge, I couldn’t have gone through with it. And do you know why, Summer?”
“I have no idea,” she said in a sharp tone.
He held her gaze. “Because I realized that although I’d tried over the years, I couldn’t replace love with
hate. Although I wanted to hurt you, I couldn’t because I still love you.”
Their gazes held and for a moment, he wondered if she believed him. He hoped and prayed for some sort
of sign that she did. He had been wrong for wanting to get even with her, but at the time he’d felt it was
something he had needed to do because of his pain.
“So many years have passed, Summer. We owe it to ourselves to try and rebuild the relationship that
was destroyed because of our lack of faith and trust in each other. In Houston today, I made a point to
see Walt. I had to know why he’d done what he did. His reason was he saw me falling for you and
figured I’d get hurt. But the truth of the matter is that I was hurt in the end anyway. Not by you, but
because I’d believed the worst about you.”
He moved away from the door to stand in front of her desk. “I’m asking that you give me a chance to do
what I wanted to do seven years ago and that is, love you the way a man is supposed to love a woman.
Please allow me into your heart, Summer. Give me a chance to prove that I am the right man for you.”
He took another step closer. “Will you put behind you all the hurt and lies of before and move forward
in the way we should have years ago? Can you find it in your heart to love me as much as I love you? To
work on rebuilding a relationship of love, trust and faith?”
He saw the single tear that fell from her eye and literally held his breath before she began speaking.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I can work on rebuilding our relationship because I love you, too, and I want
you in my life. I want a future with you, not because of your wealth but because you are a man who’s
proven more than once that he can be there when I need someone, that he has my best interests at heart,
and protects me when I need protecting.”
She pushed her chair back and walked around her desk to him. “We have a lot of years to make up for,
but I knew that night we made love again it was something I wanted. I was just afraid to hope for it.”
Darius pulled her into his arms and held her tight, close to his heart. And then he lowered his mouth to
hers. He wanted her with him always and from the intensity of their kiss, it seemed she wanted the very
same thing.
Moments later, he pulled his mouth away from hers. “Ready to go home, sweetheart?” And to make sure
she understood, he added, “Not to your place, but to mine. A place that you will one day consider ours, I
hope.”
She smiled up at him. “Yes, I’m ready.”
He took her hand in his and they walked out of her office together. He knew there was a lot of work
ahead, rebuilding their relationship into the kind they both wanted, the kind they deserved. Lies had
destroyed their relationship, but love had restored
it. Their love would make it all happen for them.
They would make sure of it. Together.
Epilogue
Three weeks later
S ummer stepped outside on the porch and glanced around. It was a beautiful day and the smell of
flowers was everywhere.
She felt butterflies move around in her stomach at the same time she saw the car pull into the yard. She
smiled. Darius was home.
She glanced around again, thinking how easy it was to think of his ranch as home. She never returned to
her place, and every week more and more of her things would show up here.
And then one night while they were busy unpacking some more of her boxes, he had got down on his
knee and proposed to her. He asked her to be his wife, the mother of his babies and his best friend for
life. Somehow through her tears she had accepted. The moment he had slipped the ring on her finger,
more love and happiness than she’d ever thought possible filled her heart. They hadn’t set a date yet, and
had decided to take things one day at a time.
She had met his friends and could see the special friendship they shared. She liked them a lot. Tonight
they would be joining Lance and Kate at the TCC for dinner.
As soon as the car came to a stop, she moved down the steps, and when Darius opened the door and got
out, she was there waiting.
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her, making her feel wanted and loved. Things were so good
between them that she would occasionally pinch herself to make sure it was real. And over and over he
would prove to her that it was.
He pulled back and studied her face with concern. “Are you okay? I stopped by the shelter and Marcy
said you had left early.”
She smiled up at him. “Yes, I’m fine. I just wanted to be here when you got home. I thought that I would
pamper you a little before we left for dinner.”
A grin curved his lips and she could tell he liked the idea. “Pamper me?”
“Yes. Are you interested?”
Instead of answering, he swept her off her feet into his arms and carried her up the steps. Yes, she
thought, he was interested.
She laughed, knowing once he got her inside the house he intended to show her just how interested he
was.
ALEXANDRA SELLERS
SHEIKH’S BETRAYAL
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Epilogue
Prologue
T here were two immigration officers at passport control, and a short line of travellers in front of each.
A man stood behind one of the desks, scanning the faces of the disembarking passengers. His watchful
stillness was a hub for the busy flow, as if the scene somehow revolved around him.
He looked straight at Desi, and a buzz of warning sounded in her bones. She was wearing sunglasses,
but even so, she turned her head to avoid meeting his eyes. Passport and landing card in her hand,
clutching her elegantly travel-worn leather bag, she joined the other line, and resolutely did not look his
way again.
But it had taken only one glance for his image to get stuck in her memory, as irritating as a fishbone:
desert dark and harsh-faced, wearing an immaculate white cotton kaftan under a flowing burnous and
the traditional headscarf she knew was called a keffiyeh. A chiselled mouth. Cheeks carved out of the
rock she’d flown over in the desert, a scar across one cheekbone.
“Passport, please,” a voice said, and Desi came to. It was her turn. She stepped forward and handed up
her passport. She was tight with nerves.
Desirée Drummond. He read the name without a flicker of recognition, and she breathed a little easier.
“Take off sunglasses, please.”
She had to comply. She held her breath while the agent’s eyes roved over her face with sudden
eagerness. She let it out slowly when it was clear he didn’t recognize her face, either. He didn’t ask her
to take off her hat. He picked up his official stamp and flipped through the heavily stamped passport for
an empty page.
“What is porpoise of visit?”
“Pleasure.” And that’s the first lie done and dusted, she told herself. Pleasure is the last thing I expect
from this little outing. Then, an inexpert liar, she rushed to add detail. “I’m a student of archaeology. I’m
going to visit a dig.”
“Deeg?” he was clearly pleased to have an excuse to prolong the encounter. He might not have
recognized her, but he clearly liked what he saw. “What is deeg?”
“Oh…it’s a—a place where they find an ancient city or something and…archaeologists, you know, they
dig to find out about history.”
His eyes widened with sudden alertness, and Desi cursed herself. Why hadn’t she just left well enough
alone?
“Where is the dig?” he asked, in the voice of a man determined not to let beauty distract him from duty.
“Oh!” Desi laughed awkwardly. “I don’t actually know. Someone is meeting me….”
“Stamp the passport,” a deep voice commanded in Arabic, and both heads snapped up in surprise.
Him. The man who had been watching her. Standing by the immigration officer now and looking at Desi
with a black gaze that sent nervous ripples down her spine.
Then she gasped, her head snapping back in sudden shock. The face of the stranger in front of her
dissolved and reassembled. Her heart kicked like a million volts.
“I don’t believe it!” she croaked.
“Hello, Desi,” he said, in the same second.
“Salah?”
He was nothing like the boy she remembered, nor the man she might have imagined that boy becoming.
He looked closer to forty than thirty. There were deep lines on his forehead, a scar high on one cheek,
and the once-generous mouth was tight and disciplined. The thin boy’s chest and shoulders had filled out
with mature muscle.
And those were only the superficial changes. He had an aura of unquestioned authority, a man used to
commanding and being obeyed. Power came off him like heat, distorting the air around him.
But it was the harshness, the cold disillusion behind the eyes that shocked her most.
Salah, but not Salah. She could not imagine how he’d got here from who he had been. She was looking
at a stranger.
A stranger whose name, she knew, was His Excellency Salahuddin Nadim ibn Khaled ibn Shukri al
Khouri, Cup Companion to Prince Omar of the Barakat Emirates, one of the dozen most influential men
in his government.
The childhood sweetheart she had come here to seduce, and betray.
One
“B aba’s a gineer.”
That mystical communication, imparted to Desirée by Samiha on their first day at school, had entranced
Desi with its exotic otherness and bound her instantly to her pretty, dark-eyed new friend. Soon she
learned that Baba meant Daddy, and that gineer meant he had come to the west coast to build something
big. But the magic never quite faded.
It was the first day of what grew into a lifelong friendship. Desi and Sami were inseparable all through
school. They spent their summers together, too, on a small island off the B.C. coast, where the
Drummond family’s lakefront “cottage” was a century-old black clapboard farmhouse with outbuildings.
Her ex-hippie parents were hoping to turn the place into a year-round home, growing their own food,
and hosting retreats, healing courses, and dream workshops in the summer to see them through the
winter. But the project never generated enough income for her father to give up his university post and
permanently move the family from Vancouver.
Every summer Desi and her brother and sister were each allowed to invite a friend to stay. Every year
from first grade on, Desi took Sami.
The summer Desi turned nine, Samiha’s cousin Salah came from Central Barakat to stay with Sami’s
family and improve his English. Salah was twelve, the same age as her brother Harry, and for some
reason no one could afterwards remember, he was invited to the cottage.
Salah and Harry became friends, and after that every year it was somehow taken for granted that Salah
would be a part of their summer adventure.
Salah was deeply attractive, a fascinating boy. Those first few summers, Desi hovered between hero
worship and competitiveness in her feelings for him, half determined to prove she was braver and
brighter than any boy, half wishing Salah were her friend instead of her brother’s.
Such feelings were a perfect primer for something deeper, and it wasn’t long in coming. At the end of
the summer she turned fourteen, Desi was just entering on puberty, and a new awareness between
herself and Salah beckoned. The next summer, Salah didn’t make his annual visit to Canada.
During those two years, Desi grew up. Her breasts formed, her waist appeared, and her height shot up
six inches that was almost all leg. Her face shifted from sweet roundness to a haunting elegance.
The just-sixteen-year-old who greeted her old sparring partner the following summer was tall, very
slender, and quirkily beautiful—so “unusual” that she had been spotted in the street by a scout and