“Her father?” He grunted the question. Could he possibly still feel possessive of her, after all this time, and undoubtedly after countless other women had graced his bed?
“Dead.” A single word. The flat line of hope. She didn’t elaborate. She couldn’t. Not since that hateful day had she been able to contemplate explaining those injuries to another soul.
He nodded again, slowly, his eyes digging through her experiences, reading them as though she were speaking. She looked away. The intrusion was not welcome. He had learned all of her Tells back then. She was pretty sure he still knew them.
“When?”
November nineteenth. She closed her eyes for a second as the date whispered through her. “When Lexi was a month old.”
He scraped his fingers over his stubbled jaw. “She is how old?”
“Four. She’s four.”
His expression shifted as he did the math. “I see.”
He smelled so good. Just like she remembered. In fact, everything about him was as she’d remembered. His thick hair, strong face, hard body. Inwardly she groaned, recalling the pleasure of loving him, of being needed by him.
Until he had no longer needed her. How easy it had been for him to discard her. And how she had suffered in the wake of that rejection.
“Syed?”
He flinched at her use of his name. He had simply been ‘Sy’ to her back then.
“You can’t just come back like this.” She swallowed convulsively. His eyes dropped to the smooth skin of her exposed shoulder. As if of their own volition, his fingers drew to the fabric of her sweater and lifted the collar, where it had fallen low. They brushed her flesh and the contact sent darts of awareness through her.
That was normal.
He had been her first lover, and he remained her only lover. His ability to stir her to a fever pitch of need was nothing new. Even her dreams of him had done that, making her cry out with an ache of lust low in her abdomen.
She stepped backwards instinctively, moving out of his reach, and he took advantage of that moment of unknowing surrender to crowd inside her front door.
“I beg to differ.”
But he was big and her house small. She hadn’t really noticed that before. Then. Perhaps she’d just been used to him, and to his dominating presence.
Time had dwarfed her. All of her. Those aspirations that had puffed her up, the optimism of youth. Financial freedom. All of that had flooded from her over the years, leaving a woman who felt frail in Syed’s overwhelming presence.
Timid.
And she hated him for that, even more than she hated him for leaving in the first place.
“What do you want?”
His lips twisted, but it wasn’t what she’d call a smile. “I want you to be mine again, azeezi. One last time.”
THE SHEIKH’S MILLION DOLLAR BRIDE WILL BE RELEASED IN MAY 2017.
HAPPY READING!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clare Connelly grew up in a small country town in Australia. Surrounded by rainforests, and rickety old timber houses, magic was thick in the air, and stories and storytelling were a huge part of her childhood.
From early on in life, Clare realised her favourite books were romance stories, and read voraciously. Anything from Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, to Mills & Boon and (more recently) 50 Shades, Clare is a romance devotee. She first turned her hand to penning a novel at fifteen (if memory serves, it was something about a glamorous fashion model who fell foul of a high-end designer. Sparks flew, clothes flew faster, and love was born.)
Clare has a small family and a bungalow near the sea. When she isn't chasing after energetic little toddlers, or wiping fingerprints off furniture, she's writing, thinking about writing, or wishing she were writing.
Clare loves connecting with her readers. Head to www.clareconnelly.co.uk to sign up to her newsletter, or join her official facebook page.
BOOKS BY CLARE CONNELLY
SINGLE TITLES
Marrying Her Enemy
The Velasco Lovechild
The Sultan’s Reluctant Princess
The Sultan’s Virgin Bride
The Sheikh’s Arranged Marriage
In the Hands of the Sheikh
One Night with the Sheikh
The Sheikh’s Virgin Hostage
To the Highest Bidder
The Greek Tycoon’s Forbidden Affair
Bought by the Sheikh
The Billionaire’s Christmas Revenge
Tempted by the Billionaire
The Tycoon’s Christmas Captive
His Loving Deception
A Second Chance at Love
The Sheikh’s Christmas Mistress
Love in the Fast Lane
The Medici Mistress
The Tycoon’s Virgin Mistress
All She Wants for Christmas
The Italian Billionaire’s Betrayal
A Bed of Broken Promises
Raising the Soldier’s Son
The Italian’s Innocent Bride
Bartered to the Sheikh
Betrayed by the CEO
Bound to The Sheikh
The Terms of Their Affair
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
The Tycoon’s Summer Seduction
Warming The Sheikh’s Bed
The Princess’s Forbidden Lover
Rakanti’s Indecent Proposition
The Sheikh’s Christmas Mistress
Marrying for His Royal Heir
The Sheikh’s Stolen Bride – Coming March 2017
Bought for The Billionaire’s Revenge – Coming July 2017
COMPENDIUMS
Casacelli Brides
Mediterranean Tycoons
Desert Rulers
Billionaire Bad Boys
Desert Kings
The Hendersons
The Darling Buds of May Café Series
Happily Ever After
The Sheikh's Stolen Bride: The only way to make her happy was to make her his... (The Sheikhs' Brides Book 2) Page 16