Pursued by the Desert Prince (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Sauveterre Siblings, Book 1)
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Draped in the desert prince’s diamonds...
To ensure his sister’s successful marriage, Kasim, Crown Prince of Zhamair, must stop Angelique Sauveterre’s alleged affair with his future brother-in-law. But when Angelique denies any involvement, Kasim can’t resist the chance to make the feisty beauty his!
Angelique is tempted by Kasim’s offer of a fling—always compared to her twin sister, she’s never allowed to just be herself. They couldn’t be from two more different worlds, yet Angelique blossoms under Kasim’s touch and surrenders to the desert prince. But can he give her more than passion and precious jewels?
Angelique knew she should release him and step back, but she was quite blown away by the masculine interest that flared to life in Kasim’s gaze.
She wasn’t falsely modest. She knew she was beautiful. It was one of the reasons camera lenses so often turned on her. Men looked at her with desire all the time.
There was no reason she should react to this man’s naked hunger. But she did.
A very animalistic sexual reaction pierced deep in her loins, flooding her with heat. And yes...it was reciprocal desire. He was looking at her like he found her appealing, and she certainly found him as attractive as they came. There might even be something chemical here because her gaze dropped involuntarily to his mouth. Longing rose within her.
His lips quirked.
She knew he was reading her reaction and was amused. It stung. She felt raw and gauche. It was the bane of her existence that she couldn’t always stop whatever feelings were overtaking her. This was so intense, it was unprecedented, touching her at all levels. Physical, mental, emotional... He held her entire being enthralled.
“We are finished talking,” he said while his arm bent against her grip. His hand arrived at her waist, hot and sure. His other hand tightened slightly on her arm, drawing her forward a half step, commanding but not forcing. “If you would like to start something new, however...”
Don’t, she ordered herself, but it was too late. His mouth was coming down to hers and she was parting her lips in eager reception.
The Sauveterre Siblings
Meet the world’s most renowned family...
Angelique, Henri, Ramon and Trella—two sets of twins born to a wealthy French tycoon and his Spanish aristocrat wife. Fame, notoriety and an excess of bodyguards is the price of being part of their illustrious dynasty. And wherever the Sauveterre twins go, scandal is sure to follow!
Protected by the best security money can buy, no one can break through their barriers... But what happens when each of these Sauveterre siblings meets the one person who can breach their heart?
Meet the heirs to the Sauveterre fortune in Dani Collins’s fabulous new quartet:
Pursued by the Desert Prince
March 2017
His Mistress with Two Secrets
April 2017
Ramon and Isadora’s story
Coming soon!
Trella and Prince Xavier’s story
Coming soon!
Pursued by the Desert Prince
DANI COLLINS
millsandboon.co.uk
Canadian Dani Collins knew in high school that she wanted to write romance for a living. Twenty-five years later, after marrying her high school sweetheart, having two kids with him, working at several generic office jobs and submitting countless manuscripts, she got The Call. Her first Mills & Boons novel won the Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First in Series from RT Book Reviews. She now works in her own office, writing romance.
Books by Dani Collins
Mills & Boons
The Secret Beneath the Veil
Bought by Her Italian Boss
Vows of Revenge
Seduced into the Greek’s World
The Russian’s Acquisition
An Heir to Bind Them
A Debt Paid in Passion
No Longer Forbidden?
More than a Convenient Marriage?
The Wrong Heirs
The Marriage He Must Keep
The Consequence He Must Claim
Seven Sexy Sins
The Sheikh’s Sinful Seduction
The 21st Century Gentleman’s Club
The Ultimate Seduction
One Night With Consequences
Proof of their Sin
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk
for more titles.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always found the idea of being a twin fascinating. I especially love the stories you sometimes hear of a particular pair having subliminal connections even when distance separates them. Or the smaller, simpler things like a pair inventing their own language or dressing the same without consulting the other.
I brought all of this to my new quartet, The Sauveterre Siblings. They’re a wealthy family who were blessed with identical twin boys, then identical twin girls. The press went mad. They followed the children’s every move and only grew worse after the youngest was kidnapped when she was nine. Trella was returned to them, but they all wear scars.
In this first story, Angelique is still trying to find who she would have been if her sister had never been torn from her. Kasim has his own demons created by a lost sibling. Their worlds are very different, but they’re drawn inexorably into an affair that was only meant to last one night.
I hope you enjoy watching the Sauveterre twins find that special someone who will help each of them heal from their past.
Dani
To my sisters, who often live far away, but remain close, close, close in my heart. Love yous. xoxo
Contents
Cover
Back Cover Text
Introduction
The Sauveterre Siblings
Title Page
About the Author
Dear Reader
Dedication
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
Extract
Copyright
CHAPTER ONE
ANGELIQUE SAUVETERRE PICKED up a call from her exterior guards informing her that Kasim ibn Nour, Crown Prince of Zhamair, had arrived to see her.
She slumped back in her chair with a sigh, really not up to meeting someone new. Not after today.
“Of course. Please show him up to my office,” she said. Because she had to.
Hasna had said her brother would drop by while he was in Paris.
Angelique didn’t know why the brother of the bride wanted to meet the designer of the bride’s wedding gown, but she assumed he wanted to arrange a surprise gift. So she didn’t expect this meeting to be long or awful. Her day with Princess Hasna and the bridal party hadn’t been awful. It had actually been quite pleasant.
It was just a lot of people and noise and Angelique was an introvert. When she told people that, they always said, But you’re not shy! She had been horribly shy as a child, though, and brutally forced t
o get over it. Now she could work a room with the best of them, but it fried her down to a crisp.
She yearned for the day when her sister, Trella, would be ready to be the face of Maison des Jumeaux. An ironic thought, since her twin wore the same face. As she freshened “their” lipstick, Angelique acknowledged that she really longed for Trella to be the one to talk to new clients and meet with brothers of the bride and put on fetes like the one she’d hosted today.
She wanted Trella to be all better.
But she wouldn’t press. Trella had made such progress getting over her phobias, especially in the past year. She was determined to attend Hasna and Sadiq’s wedding and was showing promise in getting there.
It will happen, Angelique reassured herself.
In the meantime... She rolled her neck, trying to massage away the tension that had gathered over hours of soothing every last wedding nerve.
At least she didn’t look too much worse for wear. This silk blend she and Trella had been working on hadn’t creased much at all.
Angelique stood to give a quick turn this way and that in the freestanding mirror in the corner of her office. Her black pants fell flawlessly and the light jacket with its embroidered edges fluttered with her movement while her silver cami reflected light into her face. Her makeup was holding up and only her chignon was coming apart.
She quickly pulled the pins out of her hair and gave it a quick finger-comb so her brunette tresses fell in loose waves around her shoulders. Too casual?
Her door guard knocked and she didn’t have time to redo her hair. She moved to open the door herself.
And felt the impact like she’d stepped under a midnight sky, but one lit by stars and northern lights and the glow of a moon bigger and hotter than the sun could ever hope to be.
Angelique was dazzled and had to work not to show it, but honestly, the prince was utterly spectacular. Dark, liquid eyes that seemed almost black they were such a deep brown. Flawless bone structure with his straight nose and perfectly balanced jawline. His mouth—That bottom lip was positively erotic.
The rest of him was cool and diamond sharp. His country was renowned for being ultraconservative, but his head was uncovered, his black hair shorn into a neat business cut. He wore a perfectly tailored Western suit over what her practiced eye gauged to be an athletically balanced physique.
She swallowed. Find a brain, Angelique.
“Your Highness. Angelique Sauveterre. Welcome. Please come in.”
She didn’t offer to shake, which would have been a faux pas for a woman in Zhamair.
He did hold out his hand, which was a slight overstep for a man to demand of a woman here in Paris.
She acquiesced and felt a tiny jolt run through her as he closed his strong hand over her narrow one. Heat bloomed under her cheekbones, something his quick gaze seemed to note—which only increased her warmth. She hated being obvious.
“Hello.” Not Thank you for seeing me, or Call me Kasim.
“Thank you, Maurice,” she murmured to dismiss her guard, and had to clear her throat. “We’ll be fine.”
She was exceedingly cautious about being alone with men, or women for that matter, whom she didn’t know, but the connection through Hasna and Sadiq made the prince a fairly safe bet. If a man in the prince’s position was planning something nefarious, then the whole world was on its ear and she didn’t stand a chance anyway.
Plus, she always had the panic button on her pendant.
She almost felt like she was panicking now. Her heart rate had elevated and her stomach was in knots. Her entire body was on all-stations alert. She’d been feeling drained a few seconds ago, but one profound handshake later she was feeling energized yet oddly defenseless.
She was nervous as a schoolgirl, really, which wasn’t like her at all. With two very headstrong brothers, she had learned how to hold her own against strong masculine energy.
She’d never encountered anything like this, though. Closing herself into her office with him felt dangerous. Not the type of danger she’d been trained to avoid, but inner peril. Like when she poured her soul into a piece then held her breath as it was paraded down the catwalk for judgment.
“Please have a seat,” she invited, indicating the conversation area below the mural. There were no pretty views of actual Paris in this windowless room, but the office was still one of her favorite places for its ability to lock out the world. She spent a lot of time on her side of its twin desks and drafting tables.
Trella’s side was empty. She was home in Spain, but they often worked here in companionable silence.
“I just made fresh coffee. Would you like a cup?”
“I won’t stay long.”
That ought to be good news. She was reacting way too strongly to him, but she found herself disappointed. So strange! She took such care to put mental distance between herself and others. The entire world would have this effect on her if she didn’t, but he only had to glance around her private space and she felt naked and exposed. Seen. And she found herself longing for his approval.
He didn’t seem to want to sit, so she pressed flat hands that tremored on the back of the chair she usually used when visiting with clients. “Was there something particular about the wedding arrangements you wanted to discuss?”
“Just that you should send your bill to me.” He moved to set a card on the edge of Trella’s desk.
She turned to follow his movement behind her. So economical and fascinating. And who was his tailor? That suit was pure artistry, the man so obviously yang to her yin.
He caught her staring.
She tucked her hair behind her ear to disguise her blush.
“Her Majesty made the same offer and you needn’t have troubled yourself. It’s a wedding gift for Sadiq and the princess.”
He noted the familiarity of her using Sadiq’s first name with a small shift of his head. “So Hasna said. I would prefer to pay.”
His gaze was direct enough to feel confrontational, instantly amplifying this conversation into one of conflict. Her pulse gave a reflexive zing.
Why would he be so adamant—?
Oh, dear God! He didn’t think she and Sadiq were involved, did he?
Why wouldn’t he? According to the headlines, she’d slept with half of Europe. When she wasn’t doing drugs or having catfights with her models, of course.
“Sadiq is a longtime friend of the family.” She retreated behind the cool mask she showed the world, ridiculously crushed that he would believe those awful summations of her character. “This is something we want to do for him.”
“We.” His gaze narrowed.
“Yes.” She didn’t bring up her sister or what her family owed Sadiq for Trella’s return to them. The fact that Sadiq had never once sought any glory for his heroism was exactly why he was such a cherished friend. “If that was all...” She deliberately presumed she’d had the last word on the topic. “I should get back to the final arrangements for your sister’s things.”
* * *
Kasim had to applaud his future brother-in-law’s taste. Angelique Sauveterre had grown from a very sweet-looking girl into a stunning young woman. In person, she had an even more compelling glow of beauty.
Her long brunette hair glimmered and shifted in a rippling curtain and what had seemed like unremarkable gray eyes online were actually a mesmerizing greenish hazel. She was tall and slender, built like a model despite being the one to dress them, and her skin held a golden tone that must be her mother’s Spanish ancestry.
Cameras rarely caught her with a smile on her face and when they did, it was a faint Mona Lisa slant that allowed her to live up to the reputation of her father’s French blood: aloof and indifferent.
She wore that look now, but when she had first greeted him, she had smiled openly. Her beauty w
as so appealing, Kasim had forgotten for a moment why he was here and had been overcome with a desire to pursue her.
Perhaps this captivating quality was the reason Sadiq was so smitten?
“About those arrangements... Today went well?” He had understood it to be the final fitting of his sister’s wedding gown and the bridesmaids’ dresses as well as a private showing of other clothes made for Hasna, all taking place on the runway level of this building. Once the last nips and tucks were completed, the entire works would be packaged up and shipped to Zhamair for the wedding next month.
“You would have to check with the women who were here, but they all seemed pleased by the time they left.” So haughty and quick to keep the focus on his sister.
From what he’d heard around his penthouse, the consensus had been a high level of ecstasy with everything from the clothes to the imported cordial to the finger sandwiches and pastries.
“Hasna doesn’t seem to have any complaints,” he downplayed. “Which is why I’m willing to spare her the nuisance of replacing all that you’ve promised her.”
Angelique was tall in her heels. Not as tall as him, but taller than most women he knew, and she grew taller at his words, spine stiffening while her eyelashes batted once, twice, three times. Like she was filtering through various responses.
“All that we’ve made for her,” she corrected, using a light tone, but it was the lightness of a rapier. Pointed and dangerous. “Why on earth would you refuse to let her have it?”
“You can drop the indignation,” he advised. “I’m not judging. I’ve had mistresses. There is a time to let them go and yours has arrived.”
“You think I’m Sadiq’s mistress. And that as his mistress, I offered to make his bride’s gown and trousseau. That’s a rather generous act for a mistress, isn’t it?”
She repeatedly spat the word as if she was deeply offended.
He pushed his hands into his pants pockets, rocking back on his heels.
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