At the Sheikh's Command: She Was His Prisoner First, His Lover Next. But Would She Be His Princess?

by Clare Connelly

  Steph reached up and tapped her hand away. “Your make up is glorious. Do not ruin it by biting your lip.”

  Miranda laughed, and shook her head. “I’m a hopeless bride, what can I say?”

  “You are not a hopeless bride, my dear Mirry. You’re marrying a King, and you’re understandably nervous.” She leaned closer. “But we are late. He will be worried.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “It’s just… what if I’m not really what he wants?” She exhaled slowly. “I haven’t seen him in two months, Steph, since he left London. What if he’s changed his mind? What if he doesn’t want this anymore?”

  Steph laughed, and the sound was like bells peeling through the deserted, disused streets. “Have you changed your mind?”

  Miranda shook her head, her blue eyes blinking quickly. “Of course not.”

  “Trust me, nor has he.”

  “Okay.” Miranda sucked in a deep breath of air. “I can do this.”

  “Yes, you can. And I’m right here with you.”

  The ancient city was formed around a large square. At one time, it had been green with verdant grass, fed by a naturally occurring spring, and bordered with decorative flowers. Now, it was paved, with little sprigs of weeds springing up. But Radiz had insisted that even more of the glorious jasmine be planted, and it now surrounded the space. Fairy lights glittered above, and a classical orchestra had been broken up by section and placed in the various buildings. As Miranda approached the square, they began to play in unison, so that music floated down to the town from all directions.

  She met her father at the foot of the makeshift aisle.

  “Darling,” he smiled through the sheen of tears. “You look remarkable.”

  “Thank you. I feel… I don’t know how I feel. Overwhelmed.”

  He nodded. “You should. It’s a big day.”

  “Look at this place. It’s sensational, isn’t it?”

  He put an arm around her waist. “Your groom insisted on every detail being perfect for you.” He leaned closer. “I don’t think you’re the only one experiencing a few wedding day jitters.”

  Several hundred dignitaries were gathered and watching the entrance of the square, but Miranda didn’t move. “He’s nervous?”

  “Oh, only that you might back out,” he grinned. “Seems he won’t see this marriage as a done deal until it’s all official. Come on, Miranda. It’s time.”

  She linked her hand through his. It was time. It was time for the rest of her life to begin. Besides, once they were married, she could finally give him the wedding present she’d been saving.

  As soon as her foot touched the square, the orchestra changed to a traditional Fasiyan wedding song. It was mysterious and hauntingly beautiful, and every step Miranda took towards Radiz increased her sense of profound happiness.

  Of total acceptance.

  This was what she’d been destined for.

  Her eyes lifted to the stone steps at the front of the square, and landed square on Radiz. Dressed in flowing white robes, with gold and burgundy thread, his dark hair brushed back from his face, and a golden crown on his head, he was both awe-inspiring and sexy as hell. She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, and focussed on keeping her footing.

  “I love you, Mirry,” her father kissed her cheek, squeezed her hand, then took up a seat in the front row.

  Miranda fixed her groom with a steady, relaxed gaze. For she was relaxed now. Seeing him had centred her; he was her anchor. She reached a hand out, not caring that it wasn’t protocol.

  He smiled as he took it, and lifted it to his lips. “Are you ready, Miranda?”

  “I’ve been ready all my life.”

  The ceremony was brief; a formality to be got through, before Radiz could slide a simple wedding band onto her finger, and a bejewelled crown onto her head.

  The orchestra began to play a jubilant song of celebration, and the crowd erupted into applause. Radiz pulled his wife close, regretting the lengthy reception they still had to endure before they could be alone. Two ridiculous months apart, while he finalised wedding plans and made sure the palace was ready to welcome Miranda back – as his wife and equal.

  “I had almost forgotten how you make me feel,” he whispered, as they walked down the aisle.

  She threw him a sidelong glance. “I hadn’t.”

  His smile was pure promise. “Soon it will be over, your highness.”

  “Your highness,” she mused. “I like that.”

  “Excellent. Because it’s a title you’re stuck with.”

  Much later, when the reception was in full swing, Radiz pulled his bride close. “Are you ready to leave, my dear, lovely, little one?”

  She smiled against his robe, her feet aching, her heart bursting with love. “Yes,” she agreed simply, slipping her hand into his. “I have a wedding present I want to give you, too.”

  He kissed her cheek and whispered, “There is only one wedding present I need, and it’s you yourself.”

  She smirked. “I think you’ll feel a little differently soon.”

  “Very well, let us leave and discuss it further.”

  She nodded happily. They did the briefest farewells they could manage and slipped away, into a waiting limousine. As soon as they were ensconced in the privacy of the leather seats, he kissed her properly, his passion a physical force that almost overpowered her. She groaned and gripped the fabric of his robe.

  “I needed that,” she said against his mouth, refusing to let go of him even when he’d broken the kiss.

  “I need more than that, “ he promised quietly.

  “It was a beautiful wedding,” she sighed happily. “Absolutely perfect, in fact.”

  “I’m pleased Steph and Tom are here for you, little one. To help you adapt to life in Fasiya.”

  “Me too,” she agreed. “I would have followed you to the ends of the earth, Radiz. I would have gone anywhere with you, and just you. But knowing that I get my best friend into the bargain is almost too much.”

  “And Hakim,” he said with a laugh. “I have seen the way you dote on my heir.”

  His heir. The word stuck discordantly in her brain. “The thing is, Radiz, I would say he’s only got another seven months or so of being your heir before he has to resign the title.”

  Radiz frowned, dismissing the first thing that came to mind. She couldn’t mean… he shook his head. She was on birth control. “Miranda?”

  She laced her fingers through his hand and pulled it to her stomach. “I know we weren’t trying. And I have no idea how this happened… but apparently our little baby has about as much patience as you, Radiz.”

  He laughed, the surprise evident in his tone.

  “You are happy, aren’t you?” Miranda asked, as it occurred to her that they’d never discussed children.

  “Happy?” His voice was a low whisper. “I’m looking at my wife, the only woman I have ever loved, and I am learning that I am to be a father. Happy is a word that is too bland and banal for how I feel. Euphoric would be more apt.”

  Miranda exhaled slowly and squeezed his fingers. “I think our baby is going to be perfect.”

  “With you as a mother, how could it not be?” He agreed, lifting her hand and kissing it.

  The stars shone brightly overhead, and the road to their future was paved with joy. The trees whispered in the gentle desert breeze. Miranda was home, where she belonged, and all was right in the world.

  THE END.

  Following is an excerpt from Clare Connelly’s The Velasco Lovechild

  THE VELASCO LOVE CHILD

  Clare Connelly

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same name or names and are pure invention.

  All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.

  The illustration on the cover of this book f
eatures model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.

  First published 2015

  (c) Clare Connelly

  Photo Credit: dollarphotoclub.com/captblack76

  Contact Clare:

  http://www.clareconnelly.co.uk

  Blog: http://clarewriteslove.wordpress.com/

  Email: Clareconnelly@outlook.com

  Follow Clare Connelly on facebook for all the latest.

  Join Clare’s Newsletter to stay up to date on all the latest CC news. http://www.clareconnelly.co.uk/subscribe.html

  “To lose thee, sweeter than to gain

  All other hearts I knew.

  ‘Tis true the drought is destitute,

  But then I had the dew!”

  -Emily Dickinson

  PROLOGUE

  It’s not like she actually had to sleep with the guy.

  No amount of money would lower Maggie’s standards to that degree.

  A lingering look would do. A hand on her back. Perhaps a kiss.

  Anything that would show her ‘mark’, in this case the gloriously handsome and rich Spanish wine mogul, for the cheating bastard he was. All she needed was a shared moment of intimacy that was damning enough for the agency’s photographer to catch. Proof for the poor wife, who’d suffered silently through affair after affair.

  Getting the sleaze to hit on her should be easy enough.

  Only, Maggie hadn’t taken on an assignment in years, and she knew she was out of practice. A flutter of nerves assailed her as she eyed herself in the washroom mirror. Nervous or not, she had still managed to look the part. Tall and slender, with auburn hair and a creamy complexion, Maggie had always been one of the agency’s best employees. Her years studying ballet gave her a litheness and grace that she took for granted.

  She frowned, as she ran a hand over the black silk neckline of the dress. To describe it as plunging would be the understatement of the century. It was slit almost to her belly button at the front, and at the back, it draped to just above her bottom. The dress was made of silk, and it clung to her curves like a second skin, to mid-thigh length. She put her hands on her hips and pulled a face when she saw the way the dress hitched up a little higher, to reveal even more of her smooth, creamy skin. She might as well have walked into the five star lobby stark naked, for all the dress did to cover her up.

  The slinky black number was a far cry from her usual clothes, she thought with a shake of her head. This life was so far in her past that she needed a magnifying glass to spot it in her rear vision mirror. If it hadn’t been for her cousin Miranda’s desperate pleas, she would never have agreed to this assignment.

  But Miranda had been desperate; her agency’s reputation was at stake, she’d declared dramatically. Maggie had still resisted. She was no longer interested in helping wives make their cheating husbands pay. But Miranda had pushed and pushed, reminding Maggie of the effort and work that had been involved in making the sleuthing business such a success.

  Finally, Maggie had relented, if only to get Miranda off the phone. And it was just one more night of her life, nothing more. And her curiosity had been piqued by the target’s description. Dante Velasco was, undoubtedly, a Big Fish. The money would be nice, too. The commission being offered to catch the Spanish wine mogul in the act would be enough to pay off Maggie’s overdraft altogether. Maybe even to service the coffee machine, she thought with a twist of her lips. With the exception of Miranda, no one knew she was undertaking the assignment. Though she’d hated lying to her best friend Rosie, it had been easier to say she had stomach flu and leave work early than to face Rosie’s big green eyes when they clouded with disappointment. Rosie had never understood Maggie’s agency work, and she would certainly not do so now. No. Lying was easier. So she’d left work and hopped onto a flight to Paris.

  Which left only the seduction bit.

  She’d done her research. Before his marriage to the glamorous Veronika (first name only, in true supermodel style) he had been a confirmed bachelor. The more obviously attractive his lover the better, and Maggie’s dress that night was nothing if not flagrantly obvious. Maggie had deduced that he was not one for subtlety, and not one for long-term relationships. He swapped lovers almost as often as he moved countries.

  There was one crucial way in which this assignment differed to the targets she’d dealt with in the past. Infidelity was not the issue. That had already been established, and the clever wife didn’t require evidence to justify a divorce. She wanted to make him pay through the teeth for having broken her heart though, and photographs of him with another woman would help attain that. Maggie had felt a short jab of compunction, initially, but then she’d thought of the poor wife, and any sympathy had evaporated. It was his own fault for playing around, after all.

  She lifted her hands and gave her hair a little tease, pushing the auburn curls at the roots so that they looked like she had just rolled out of bed. “Okay, Maggie. It’s now or never.” Her heels moved with a clickety clack across the highly sheened tiles of the foyer. As she approached the glass door entrance to the bar, a doorman swung them inwards, so that she could go in. That was the moment. The small moment she had to rethink her actions and walk away.

  She did not.

  The hotel bar was not busy, but even if it had been, she would have been able to pick Dante Velasco in the midst of a crowd. Had she not scoured the internet for photographs of him, she still would have just known. Men born to impossible wealth had a certain bearing about them. It was expressed in the way they held their shoulders square, their heads high, and the slight curl of disdain on their lips as though they knew they belonged to an elite echelon of society. She took a moment to steel herself for what lay ahead, and to inure herself to his obvious physical charms.

  Without heels, Maggie stood almost six feet tall. She’d donned a pair of stilettos that night, knowing they made her legs look as though they stretched forever. The moment she began to weave through the bar, she felt his eyes arrest on her. Dark eyes, she knew from photos, followed her as she walked with an exaggerated swagger to the front of the room. She stood far from him. Far enough that he wouldn’t think she was interested; far enough that he would have to pursue her.

  Though it was all a game of pretend, Maggie knew the way men worked. Getting a man like Dante to hit on her required him to truly be attracted to her. While she was playing a part, he was not. She leaned slightly forward, pretending fascination with the wine list. It draped her dress lower, and she knew he would be catching a good glimpse of cleavage if he were still looking.

  She just hoped he wouldn’t see the way her heart was banging against her ribcage.

  The one thing she’d overlooked was her manicure. When she’d worked for the agency full time, several years earlier, she’d always had a perfect set of false nails in place. Red and long, the kind of nails that men seemed to fantasise about. The kind of nails that were completely unsuitable for her new life, as the owner of her own café in Chelsea. The best she’d been able to do was to paint them herself with a black polish she’d grabbed at the airport. She ran a finger down the menu now, looking for a wine that would send the right message.

  Concealing her smile, she fixed the barman with a steady gaze, and said in her huskiest voice, “One of the Vin Ros 2012’s, thanks.” She cursed the civility afterwards. Women like she was pretending to be did not say ‘thanks’ to wait staff. She assembled a shroud of unapproachable formality around herself and stared straight ahead.

  “Would you like to start a tab, madam?” The barman spoke English with an obvious French accent.

  “Put it on mine,” Dante’s voice was low and gravelly, his accent like a Spanish summer on her skin. Maggie felt her heart stutter. As always, she experienced a sinking feeling of depression to realise that she’d hooked her target. Oh, it was the purpose of her evening, so she should have been relieved. Only Maggie always hoped against hope that these poor wives were wrong. That their husbands weren’t out tryin
g to shag anything that moved.

  Her faith remained shaken; her hope unwarranted. In the two years she’d played her part in these undercover operations, not once had a single target turned her down.

  She concealed her disappointment and instead, angled her head to fix Dante with a slow, steady appraisal. She had to convince him that she was interested. That she was available. She needed him to do something that showed his despicable morals for the sake of the camera.

  It was always the same tactic. Get the man to make a move, be sure the photographer had snapped the image, then whisper something sexy about freshening up, and affect a silent escape before any real seduction could take place. She was happy to get the proof these women required, but not to be complicit in the marriage breakdown by actually doing anything with the sleazy husbands.

  “That’s not necessary,” she demurred, all the while making a show of eating him up with her eyes. It was not hard. He was sinfully good looking. Not in that movie star way that some girls seemed to go wild for. He was darkly tanned, with jet-black hair and dark eyes that were flecked with caramel. He had a scar that ran from his ear to his nose; it wasn’t dark nor deep, but it was still visible – a silver highway on the roadmap of his face. She would have guessed it had happened many years ago. She banked down on her curiosity. This was an act. Nothing more.

  “A beautiful woman on her own in a bar, buying one of my wines. Of course I will add it to my bill.”

  “One of your wines?” She blinked her huge blue eyes, feigning ignorance.

  His lips curled into a sardonic smile. “Si. Something I suspect you are well aware of.”

  Maggie’s heart was pounding against her chest now. She propped an elbow on the bar, and lifted the glass to her mouth. It was a beautiful red wine, light in body but robust and spiced. “It’s lovely,” she complimented, replacing the glass on the bar top. She lifted an index finger to her lips and wiped an imaginary droplet of wine from the corner of her mouth along her lower lip. His eyes followed the gesture, and when he looked at her again, the desire was unmistakable.