by Heidi Rice
She chewed on her bottom lip, knowing she couldn’t tell Karim Khan the truth of the matter or he might withdraw his bizarre offer—which she was more than desperate enough to be seriously considering.
‘But once everyone is convinced the engagement is real,’ he continued, with about as much emotion as if he were discussing the weather, ‘you will be free to carry on your own affairs, as long as they remain discreet.’
Affairs!
Her blush incinerated as she registered what he was saying. Somehow she managed to pluck a coherent question out of the fog of unwanted desire and utter confusion.
‘How long would that be for?’ she asked. ‘That you’d need us to pretend to be in love?’
He stared at her, his jaw tightening at the mention of the L word, as if the reality of what he was asking her to fake hadn’t occurred to him. But then it occurred to her, any man who would consider buying a fiancée probably didn’t know the first thing about real relationships, let alone love.
‘Until it is no longer useful for me to have a fiancée…’ he said with supreme arrogance.
Right, of course, the parameters of this arrangement would be dictated by him, because he would be paying for the privilege.
‘But, why would you be needing one?’ she asked, curious now. If even the mention of love made him flinch, why would a man like him consider such an arrangement? Sure, maybe he wanted to be accepted in the racing world, but the truth was buying the stud would do that, he didn’t need her. Even if she had the connections he thought she did. Money spoke louder than legacy in racing, just like any other sport. And surely he could have any woman he wanted on his arm? Why would he have to pay one to pretend to be in love with him? It was madness.
‘A fake fiancée, that is?’ she clarified, because the muscle in his jaw had only hardened.
‘I’m paying you a million euros to do a job, Ms Calhoun, precisely because I have no desire to explain myself. Do you want it or not?’
She should tell him no. That she didn’t want to be his fake fiancée. That she couldn’t be bought. And that she would be terrible at it anyway. But somehow the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth. Even though she now knew she definitely wasn’t dreaming, this was actually real.
‘Could Dervla and I keep the house? If we didn’t take the money?’ she asked. The old pile was the only home they’d ever known. And she didn’t need a million euros, she just needed a chance.
He glanced around the room, probably taking in the ancient carpet, the few remaining pieces of furniture too old and worn to have any resale value, the damp patch in the corner by the dresser and the faded spots on the wallpaper where art had once been hung but had long since been sold—to pay for her father’s gambling debts.
Michael Calhoun had needed an escape from the pain of losing the love of his life, her mother. Unfortunately his escape had eventually drained any semblance of the man she had once known, until all that was left was a shadow. The house reflected that.
‘You can keep the property instead if you wish as I have no need of it. But I will require you to be at my beck and call, and to travel with me for the events I mentioned.’
Her chest tightened, the sinking sensation in her stomach not making a lot of sense. This was a business deal effectively. She couldn’t allow her emotions to get in the way. He didn’t want her, he wanted her name, her heritage and, for reasons unknown, he needed a fiancée.
This was a chance, she told herself, to keep her family home, and to give her sister a place to live while she was at Trinity. Because Dervla could easily commute into Dublin from here. Of course, if Khan found out Orla was socially dyslexic and knew nothing about how to impress racing high society or any other high society, and that she was also a virgin, he might withdraw the offer. How was she supposed to behave like a woman in love when she’d never even taken a lover, and certainly not a man as—she drew in a deep breath—as far out of her league as him?
But even as all the things that could go wrong bombarded her, the hot ache between her thighs refused to go away.
‘When would you need me to start?’ she asked.
A rueful smile tilted his lips and his gaze sharpened. ‘You would return with me to London tonight and we will sign the engagement contract first thing in the morning.’
So soon. Her mind began to race again, along with her pulse rate, the hot spot in her abdomen dropping deeper into her sex.
‘I am attending the Jockeys’ Ball at The Chesterton Hotel tomorrow evening,’ he continued. ‘We can announce our engagement and the sale of the stud at the same time.’
She blinked and swallowed around the wodge of panic working its way up her throat and threatening to gag her.
Of course, The Jockeys’ Ball was tomorrow at the luxury six-star hotel in Soho. Everyone who was anyone in racing would be there, as it was the main social event to mark the middle of the racing calendar in Europe. She’d attended only once, with Patrick and her father, five years ago, and hated every minute of it. Feeling exposed and inadequate and out of her depth. How much more out of her depth would she be if she were there posing as Karim Khan’s trophy fiancée? But even as the panic began to consume her, she forced herself to breathe. Once they had signed the contract, he wouldn’t be able to change his mind. Would he?
She’d just have to wing it. And hope to heck he didn’t find out how inadequate she was for the role he wanted her to play before tomorrow night—when it would become all too apparent.
‘So, do we have a deal, Ms Calhoun?’ he demanded. The tone was arrogant and commanding, those golden-brown eyes still doing diabolical things to her heart rate. She needed to get that reaction under control, asap. ‘What is your first name, by the way?’ he asked.
The question was so incongruous, she almost laughed. He’d just asked her to pretend to be madly in love with him, and he didn’t even know her given name?
‘It’s Orla,’ she said, feeling as if she were mounting a large, unbroken stallion for the first time—both terrified and yet also weirdly exhilarated.
She and Dervla would have their home, and she could continue to work with the horses. Eventually. All she had to do was cling on for the ride in the next few weeks and months—because surely he wouldn’t want her for much longer than that—and hope to heck she didn’t end up breaking her neck, metaphorically speaking.
‘So, Orla, what’s it to be?’ he pushed, making no effort to hide his impatience.
‘Yes,’ she said, with a firmness and determination she didn’t feel. ‘Yes, we do have a deal, Mr Khan.’
‘Call me Karim,’ he said, although it sounded like an order rather than a request. He tugged his smartphone out of his pocket and she realised she had already been dismissed. ‘You have half an hour to pack—don’t forget your passport,’ he said as he checked something on his phone. ‘We can do all the necessary paperwork on the sale and the engagement contract after we get to London.’ His gaze locked back on her face. ‘I wish to take another look round the stud, so I’ll meet you at the Puma at a quarter to two,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave me waiting this time.’
Moments later, his footsteps had faded down the hallway.
Orla stood in the empty room and wrapped her arms round her midriff to hold in the shudder of panic and something a great deal more volatile. She walked to the window and gazed out on the land that had always been her home. The only place where she felt grounded and whole and significant.
What she’d just agreed to do was madness. The arrogant, entitled, overwhelming man had even refused to tell her why he needed a fake fiancée. And why on earth he might have picked her for such a role.
Karim Khan, Crown Prince of Zafar, held all the power in this situation and she none.
But beggars could not be choosers, and she refused to regret taking his devil’s bargain—Dervla and the horses and their home were worth it.
To have a future free of debt, and the opportunity to continue living in the place she’d thought they’d lost, was something she couldn’t even have dreamed of when she’d woken up this morning before dawn. Life had been so hard ever since her father passed in a car accident a year ago—much longer than that, truth be told, ever since her mother’s tragic death while riding on the gallops five years ago had effectively robbed her and Dervla of their father too.
She and her sister deserved this chance.
All she had to do now was find a way to show everyone she had what it took to make a crown prince fall hopelessly in love with her—when she knew full well she didn’t. Not even close.
This will be an adventure, she told herself staunchly.
But then the bottom dropped out of her stomach and heat careered through her veins as she spied the tall, indomitable, commanding man she had just agreed to attach herself to for the foreseeable future walk out of the house and take long strides across the lawn towards the stables.
She hadn’t even managed to convince Patrick she would make him a good wife, and now she was going to have to pretend to be engaged to a man who could give her breathing difficulties and inappropriate goosebumps just by looking at her. A man she knew virtually nothing about. And what she did know only made him a hundred times more intimidating.
Orla Calhoun, what in the name of all that is holy have you gone and done now?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘MISS CALHOUN, YOU must wake up now. Mr Khan wishes to see you downstairs.’
Orla blinked furiously, waking from a particularly vivid dream, to find an older woman smiling at her. She jerked upright, taking in the feel of expensive cotton sheets and the bright sunlight streaming through the large multi-paned window opposite and shining onto a suite of luxury furniture.
‘Hi,’ she said, as the reality of where she was and what she had agreed to yesterday spun back through her groggy brain.
Standing in the stables, dripping wet, her nipples so hard they ached as Karim Khan’s golden gaze awakened every one of her nerve-endings. His overpowering presence in her faded parlour, asking, no, demanding she become his fiancée. The mad scramble to ensure Dervla would look after the horses to her satisfaction before Khan’s team arrived. The helicopter ride across the Irish Sea and the British countryside, before they’d flown over the nightlights of London to land on the rooftop heliport of Khan’s mansion in Belgravia.
He’d hardly spoken to her since she had agreed to become his fake fiancée, spending the time while piloting the chopper talking to a series of subordinates through his headphones. Once they’d arrived, she’d been ushered into the house and served dinner alone in the suite of rooms she now occupied, and then she’d dropped into bed…
‘Is it Mrs Williams?’ she asked, trying to remember the woman’s name from the night before. She was one of Mr Khan’s staff. His housekeeper, Orla was fairly sure, but everything about the evening before had been a blur, the extravagant luxury of Khan’s home and the thought of what she’d agreed to do making it hard for Orla to concentrate when she’d been introduced to about twenty people before being brought to her own luxury suite.
She’d dreamt of him, she realised, during the night. That intense gaze had woken her frequently causing the hot weight in her sex, and the tight ache in her breasts.
‘Call me Edith, dear,’ the woman said as she laid a breakfast tray on a table by the window with practised efficiency. ‘Mr Khan has employed a stylist to acquire a new wardrobe for you. But I had your clothes from last night washed and pressed for the meeting this morning.’ The housekeeper smiled. ‘I hope that’s okay, but I couldn’t find anything else in your luggage that looked suitable when I unpacked it.’
‘That’s perfect,’ Orla said, remembering the one humiliating conversation she’d had with Khan before boarding the helicopter in Kildare.
‘Do you have any suitable clothing with you?’ he’d asked, casting a cursory glance at the rucksack she’d packed hastily in the half-hour he’d given her.
‘You didn’t give me much time to pack,’ she’d replied, not wanting to admit she had nothing suitable for the sort of rarefied social gatherings he was probably expecting her to attend. She hadn’t had money for new clothes in years. Plus she lived in boots and jeans and T-shirts to work with the horses, and was already wearing her best clothing.
He’d nodded and lifted the rucksack into the helicopter. End of conversation. Obviously he had made a note of her lack of a decent wardrobe and arranged for new clothing.
She tried not to feel even more humiliated—at the thought of having to be dressed by him—as she climbed out of the bed and tugged on the silk robe that Edith had laid out at the end of the bed.
‘The solicitor has already arrived to finalise the sale,’ the housekeeper said. ‘Mr Khan is keen to see you as soon as possible downstairs.’ The woman sent Orla a warm, uncomplicated smile. ‘He’s even more impatient than usual. You two must be very much in love.’
Say what, now?
‘Um, yes,’ Orla murmured, struggling to control the full body blush that was currently incinerating her.
So the Crown Prince hadn’t told his staff the truth about their engagement.
‘Please call me Orla, by the way,’ she added, unused to the formality with her own family’s staff. The few she had been able to retain had become friends and allies over the last few years.
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, Miss Calhoun. Mr Khan wouldn’t approve,’ the housekeeper replied. ‘After all, you are going to become the Crown Princess of Zafar.’
The surreal unreality of the situation struck Orla again as she watched the housekeeper finish laying out the breakfast.
‘Now, I must get back downstairs. Would you like me to send up one of the maids, to help you dress?’ she asked.
‘No, really, I’m good,’ Orla replied.
‘Can I tell the Crown Prince you’ll be down in half an hour?’ Edith asked, the hopeful look making Orla wonder if the housekeeper was going to get chastised by her employer if she didn’t get a move on.
‘Yes, absolutely,’ Orla said, even though the last thing she wanted to do was see him again. There wasn’t much point in postponing the meeting, though, especially if it was going to get Edith into trouble.
The woman smiled then left Orla standing alone in the room.
Abandoning the breakfast, she headed for the suite’s palatial bathroom. With her stomach churning she wouldn’t be able to swallow a bite of the lavish display of fresh fruit, pastries, pancakes and eggs and bacon, laid out on the table.
Her stomach turned over again. And even if she could, she doubted she would be able to keep it down once she got downstairs.
Twenty-nine minutes later, Orla arrived downstairs, to be greeted by a butler who led her to Khan’s study, a large, beautifully appointed room that looked onto the mansion’s extensive gardens.
Her heart pummelled her tonsils as she spotted Khan’s muscular frame silhouetted against the large mullioned window. In dark grey expertly tailored suit trousers and a white shirt rolled up at the sleeve, showing off the dark skin of his forearms, he looked like exactly what he was—a rich, powerful and supremely confident playboy prince. He turned as she entered the room. And her lungs squeezed.
Correction: a rich, powerful, supremely confident and impossibly hot playboy prince.
‘Orla, at last,’ he said. The familiarity of her name on his lips made her pulse rate accelerate as he strode across the thick carpeting to greet her. But when he took her hand and lifted her fingers, she jolted, the hot weight in her abdomen ready to detonate, as he skimmed her knuckles with his lips.
It was the first time he had touched her, let alone with such familiarity—the feel of his lips, firm and entitled, had sensation racing through her body. She struggled to relax as his eyes narrowed with displeasure
.
Then she spotted the other man in the room for the first time.
The charade had begun, she realised, and she had already made a mess of things.
Was he angry with her? He had to be—he was paying her a great deal of money to play his besotted bride-to-be. But the slight frown had gone and all she could see in his gaze was something that looked like scepticism.
Taking her hand in a firm grip, he folded her arm over his, trapping her against his side to escort her across the room. Unwanted desire raced over her skin, but she forced herself to breathe.
Act natural, you’re supposed to be lovers, you dope.
‘This is the head of my legal team, Orla, Phillip Carstairs, who has some papers for you to sign,’ he said, introducing her to the other man.
‘Ms Calhoun.’ The dignified man in his fifties greeted her with a warm smile. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you at last. Karim has been telling me all about your whirlwind courtship. My wife will be starry-eyed when I give her the details,’ the solicitor added, without a hint of sarcasm, as he held out his hand.
‘Thank you, Mr Carstairs.’ She shook his hand, trying to stop her own from shaking and look suitably excited—while wondering what the story was Khan had told his solicitor. It might have been nice if he’d bothered to clue her in.
‘Yes, it all happened so very fast,’ she added, directing an awestruck look at the man beside her.
Not surprisingly, that wasn’t at all hard to fake, as she felt Khan’s biceps flex and the warm skin of his bare forearm—lightly furred with hair—burned her fingertips.
Khan turned his searing gaze on her.
‘Would you like Phillip to take you through the sales contract for the stud before you sign, Orla?’ he asked. It seemed to be a genuine offer, even though she could sense his impatience.
‘Does it contain everything we agreed?’ she asked.