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He shouldn’t feel this towards Viv’s son. The son whose father was unknown—who surely couldn’t be him.
Surely she would have told him if she’d even suspected it? He couldn’t identify what “this” was, but it was too powerful, too…
“What are you doing here?”
His heart stopped as if with a close-range bullet.
Breathless, pulseless, he jerked his head up, around.
And there she was. Viv. In another camouflaging get-up, fresh out of a shower or a bath, hair darkened with wetness, flushed, fragrant even at this distance. And mad as hell that he was here.
It only sent his rioting emotions screeching. How he hungered for her. And now he knew how much she’d suffered, how much she’d endured, what she’d triumphed over, how much he’d mistreated her, the hunger was gnawing at him body and soul. And then there was Sam…
Olivia Gates has always pursued many passions. But the time came when she had to set up a ‘passion priority’—to give her top one her all—and writing won. Hands down.
She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters and then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heartache and hope and heart-pounding doubt until she leads them to their indisputably earned and glorious happy ending.
When she’s not writing she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male, and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Please visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com
Recent titles by the same author:
DESERT PRINCE, EXPECTANT MOTHER
THE SHEIKH SURGEON’S PROPOSAL
BY
OLIVIA GATES
To my editor, Sheila Hodgson, for doing it yet again—getting the best book out of me.
To my mother, husband and daughter, for the support, enthusiasm and inspiration. Can’t do it without you all.
CHAPTER ONE
SHEIKH GHALEB BEN ABBAS ben Najeeb Aal Omraan fought down another wave of reluctance.
He really needed to get over it. Admit it. That he couldn’t be everywhere, do everything himself.
He’d long put being a surgeon and the driving force behind the advancement of Omraania’s health system first, but his duties as heir to the throne weren’t going anywhere. In fact, his father was pressuring him to be more proactive in matters of state. He’d chosen to press harder during the last months, at a time when his new position as Head of Surgery at Jobail Advanced Medical Center, his crowning project, was threatening to overwhelm his schedule.
He’d resisted the need for someone to share that vital position, the one closest to his heart, from day one. It had taken almost making a fatal mistake during a kind of surgery he’d done in his sleep for years to make him admit he might have been pushing himself too far. Adnan had jumped on the admission, had suggested a replacement head of surgery, amending his suggestion to co-Head at Ghaleb’s point-blank refusal. One to have until Ghaleb put matters in order and decided whether to make the position permanent, with the “co” in front of “Head” or without it.
Adnan had put out the ad for the position throughout the medical world, and applications had swamped him. Ghaleb’s requirements had easily eliminated most of the applicants and Adnan had flown to the States to interview the few remaining candidates. His choice was arriving today. Right now, actually.
Ghaleb changed direction, heading to Adnan’s office instead of to his own private elevator to the surgical floor. He caught him at the door.
Adnan swung around. “I’m going to receive your new cohead of surgery, Somow’wak, show her around. Would you like me to schedule a meeting after you finish your list?”
Her? He had nothing against having a female co-head, but it was a matter of statistics that there were more successful male surgeons.
“Don’t bother, Adnan,” Ghaleb said as he bypassed him, had him almost running to keep up with him as he cleared his personal territory encompassing most of the top floor and swept through the workstations of his immediate staff. “The place to meet my co-head of surgery is in the OR. She doesn’t have to impress me with her character, just her surgical skills.”
“I’m confident she will, Somow’wak. She’s the only applicant who answered all your requirements. Her résumé is astounding.”
“If she answered all my requirements, Adnan, her résumé might be too astounding to be true.”
“I truly don’t think so, but in the unfortunate situation she doesn’t live up to the promise—”
“I’ll hold you responsible for wasting my time.”
Adnan looked mortified. Ghaleb felt contrite at once. Adnan was his right hand and advisor. His friend. And he had few friends. None really. His position and vocation precluded intimacy, with its demands of time and trust, with its inherent dangers. He’d never been free to choose friends, to risk making errors of judgment. To answer the clamoring of his heart…
Apart from his father, he had only two allies he’d trust with his life. Adnan was one of them. He shouldn’t pummel him with his frustration at being forced to admit his limitations.
He gave Adnan’s shoulder an apologetic squeeze. “I trust your judgment, Adnan, more than my own sometimes. That’s why I let you make this decision for me. But it’s no big deal if she doesn’t live up to her promise. You’ll just renew your search. I can hold out a few more months until you find a replacement.”
“That’s what worries me, Somow’wak, not that I wouldn’t have lived up to your faith, but that you can’t hold out under the same strain. You’ve been juggling responsibilities for too many years that would bring half a dozen men to their knees in months.”
“We won’t have this debate again, Adnan. I’m taking the most major step in managing these responsibilities, but I’m not going to settle for anything but the best person for the job. Better no help than inferior help.”
Adnan knew this was where he fell silent. Ghaleb breathed in relief. He’d ended another confrontation with him. With himself.
He was admitting he’d only postponed it, was about to exit the corridor connecting his inner domain to the floor’s reception hall when the momentum of his strides and thoughts faltered, died.
Four of Adnan’s aides appeared at the far end of the glass-faceted, soaring-roofed space and walked toward them. They surrounded a statuesque woman in the formation of flanking an honored guest.
Everything about the woman bombarded him like punches.
Her clothes impeccable for the climate and culture, their looseness instead of obscuring, showcasing each long limb and ripe curve, each undulation of feminine assurance and fluid grace. The severe bun he just knew would cascade to a waterfall of gleaming butterscotch when released. The eyes deep-set in self-possession. The features sculpted by a god of beauty. She had the bearing of someone who knew her worth, her effect, exuded it with each breath.
His lungs burned, imploded.
This woman was nothing like the woman who occupied his memory, the creature who’d seemed to have been powered by the sun itself, the intensity and instability of its solar flares emanating from every move of her extra-slim, deeply tanned body, from every flash of her golden eyes, every ripple of the untamed layers of her sun-blazing hair.
But there was no doubt. Not for a second.
That goddess in the distance was her.
Viv.
The woman who’d shown him what being totally loved felt like, who’d taught him what surrender to emotional and sensual overload meant. The woman he’d thought he’d never be able to live without. The one he’d rushed to that fateful day seven years ago to offer a life by his side here in Omraania, risking so much, only to overhear her saying he’d meant nothing to her.
Viv. The woman he’d been struggling to forget every day of those years. Here. Walking into his center as if she owned it, head held high, looking ahead like a princess in a royal procession, turning every head and turning to no one herself, uncaring of everyone’s scrutiny. And unaware of his.
What was she doing here?
“Ah, there’s Dr. Vivienne LaSalle, right on time.”
Adnan’s pleased words pummeled him.
She was the woman he’d picked to be his co-head of surgery?
Ghaleb staggered back into the shadows, his heart battering his ribs. Adnan turned to him in alarm.
“Maolai? Are you all right?”
No, he was not all right. He’d never been so shocked in his life. After all these years he’d remained secure she’d forever reside within the boundaries of bitter memory, she was here. In his kingdom, invading his territory, emerging from the shadows of addiction to become reality once more.
Ya Ullah, how had this happened? She’d applied for the job? Why? She was Adnan’s choice? How?
There could be one answer. She’d managed to fool him. Just like she’d managed to fool him when she’d made him pick her for the position of his research assistant. It hadn’t been on merit he’d chosen her back then either. He’d taken one look at her, had felt her eating him alive with her eagerness and singeing him with her energy, and he hadn’t considered anyone else. He’d been smitten with a glance.
He’d still resisted. How he remembered how he had. He hadn’t had time let alone a place in his life for her. But she hadn’t taken no for an answer and within days his resolve had disintegrated. He’d touched her and had been consumed body and reason in the conflagration that had followed.
This time he’d relied on Adnan’s reason, though she’d clearly tampered with his, as well.
Anger, bitterness and shock roiled with the surge of unquenched hunger. And among the seething, reason struggled to be heard. It cried that the sane course of action was to send her out of Omraania on the spot. Without letting her know he’d seen her.
Without letting her see him.
He was in no condition to listen to reason.
She had a plan, coming here. No doubt the same one she’d had when she’d pursued and seduced him in the past. She’d wanted a life of luxury as his mistress. She’d even begged him for it when he’d come to his senses. Why not give her the chance to play it out? After all, he had to reward such effort, didn’t he?
But what he really needed was to see her for what she really was, to erase her generous, guileless image, the persona that existed out of bounds of logic, retaining a viselike hold on him.
What he needed was closure.
He knew how to get it.
He turned on Adnan. “Restart your search for a co-head of surgery. Now.”
After a moment of shock at his viciousness, Adnan rushed to say, “Maolai, I realize her looks are deceiving. I had the same reaction when I first saw her, thought she couldn’t possibly have the experience and stamina to hold such a position, but—”
“But she convinced you otherwise,” Ghaleb spat, his vehemence purging a measure of shock and anger, accessing his misplaced equilibrium. “Now she’ll have to convince me. Send her to scrub and gown.”
Adnan was at a loss now. “So you will still interview her?”
“I will start my list,” Ghaleb tossed over his shoulder as he strode back to his office. “You will restart your search.”
Vivienne walked deeper into the medical center touted as the most advanced on the planet, escorted by the four behemoths who made her feel like a head of state who might be assassinated—or a fugitive who might make a run for it—at any second.
She concentrated on regulating her breathing, her steps, stared ahead to ward off the curiosity bombarding her, fought down the waves of nausea and anxiety. And exhaustion.
She’d been in surgery till she’d gone to collect Sam and Anna for the trip here. Then, throughout the thirteen-hour nonstop flight aboard Ghaleb’s flying palace, she hadn’t had a wink of sleep. She’d set foot in Omraania two hours ago, had barely deposited her family in the lavish accommodation he’d provided before rushing here without pausing.
She’d been stunned by the royal treatment, but Adnan El Khalil, her recruiter, had enlightened her. This wasn’t personal. Being Omraania’s foremost surgeon and the crown prince’s co-head of surgery was a huge deal. Ghaleb would have treated anyone he gave the position to with the same extravagance.
She’d been stunned he’d given it to her, even if she did fit his requirements to a T. She’d applied expecting to be rejected out of hand. When she’d been chosen, she’d been forced to conclude either Ghaleb had forgotten who she was or he didn’t consider their past liaison, insignificant to him as it had been, a reason not to accept her when she was the best person for the job.
Now she was in his territory. And though the job description assured her of minimal exposure to him, she was bound to see him.
And she didn’t want to see him. Not in this life, not in the next. The man she’d once loved beyond sanity and self-preservation, the man who’d taken everything she’d had to give then walked away, not even sparing her a goodbye.
But anguish at losing him, agony and anger at being so cruelly discarded, had soon ceased to matter. Pregnancy changed a woman’s priorities. Having a baby had changed her, period. Forever.
Still hurting from their breakup, she’d forced herself back to her feet. She’d no longer been a woman who’d been trampled on. She was a doctor who’d fought to be the best she could be to provide the best life for her son, and a mother whose life revolved around him.
She’d agonized over whether to tell Ghaleb he’d fathered a son or not. But she couldn’t risk it.
As the heir to the throne of a conservative kingdom, Ghaleb had had no place in his life for her beyond the stolen, secret months they’d had together. She hadn’t been able to predict what he’d do if he’d learned about Sam. The possibility that he might have taken him away to have him raised to his specifications away from the winds of scandal, had kept her silent. And just like she’d forced herself to realize she hadn’t needed him, she’d become convinced Sam wouldn’t either. She’d been determined she’d be all the family Sam needed. And that had been before she’d been blessed to have her aunt become a part of their tiny family, too.
But as Sam had grown, so had his questions about his father. Lately they’d grown more insistent, often bitter, even frantic.
She’d been sorely tempted to tell him his father was dead, to close that chasm once and for all. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words, had spent the last months in an agony of doubt.
Was she being selfish? Was she heeding her scars and disregarding Sam’s needs? If she took what Ghaleb had done to her out of the equation, could she believe he’d want to know his child? And if he did, surely now that Sam was this old and attached to her, he wouldn’t consider taking him away from her? Maybe they could arrange something so he’d be in Sam’s life? Would Sam’s life be better if Ghaleb was in it? Was it time to find out the answer to these questions? If it was, how could she find them out?
Then Ghaleb had started combing the medical world for a co-head of surgery. Everybody thought the job an incredible professional and financial opportunity, which it was.
But to her it was a sign, an unrepeatable chance to enter Omraania for a while, be in Ghaleb’s milieu, to make an informed and final decision, one she wouldn’t regret. To bring father and son together, or not.
And she was here, and she’d see him again, even if in passing and mainly from afar, and maybe one day soon she’d tell him…
What if his reaction was to treat her with the same contempt he had when she’d offered him carte blanche with her life? What if he didn’t believe her and all she managed was to sustain another humiliating blow? She couldn’t afford injuries now that both Sam and Anna counted on her. What if he did believe her and her worst fears came to pass? What if he snatched Sam and kicked her out?
Had she made a mistake coming here? Was it too late to turn around, take Sam and Anna and run back home?
Stop it. Breathe. You’ve been over this a thousand times.
There was no other way to settle Sam’s mind, his future.
She unclenched her fists, inhaled a tremulous breath.
She’d do this. It would be okay. After a no-doubt brief meeting with the insanely busy Ghaleb, who wouldn’t give her the time of day anyway, she’d take on the responsibilities of her temporary position where she’d begin gauging his personality unblinded by the passion that had once swallowed her whole or by the hatred that had in the intervening years. She’d observe him from afar, in his working environment, analyze his character and predict his actions through his behavior, through others’ view of him. She’d take her time about coming to a decision how to proceed…
“Dr. LaSalle. If you’ll come this way, please?”
She rose from the depths of chaos to find Adnan two feet away from her. She’d been looking through him for what seemed like a while now.
She blinked, croaked, “What?”
“I’m sorry if I’ve spoken too fast, Dr. LaSalle,” the lanky, dark man said in an impeccable British accent much like Ghaleb’s, though his was devoid of the exotic inflections and intense undertones that had turned Ghaleb’s into a hypnotic weapon. “I was anxious to inform you of the surgery list awaiting you.”
“Surgery list?” she rasped, her voice roughened by disuse and confusion. “But we were supposed to have a reconnaissance tour—”
“We will have one later,” Adnan cut in smoothly. “Right now there’s been a change of plan.”
But there couldn’t be, she almost cried out.
She had counted on everything going according to plan. If that was changing already, she didn’t know what she’d do, and it had to be Ghaleb who’d changed them… God, why?
Calm down. “Is there an emergency?” she asked.
“No, Dr. LaSalle.” Adnan gestured for her to precede him.
So it wasn’t a situation where he needed every surgeon around to pitch in. So maybe he wanted her to get to work at once?
No matter what his reasons were, she had no choice but to comply.
Her love for Sam made sure of that. It would make her do anything. Even letting Ghaleb pull her strings again.
She gritted her teeth and let herself be pulled.
Ghaleb looked down at his hands, gripping the edges of the stainless-steel sink, fascinated by how white his knuckles were.
Any minute now his plan would unfold.
If he could call the impulse he’d acted on a plan.
Not that ten more days of contemplation would have afforded him a better course of action.
After all, Viv was here to be co-Head Surgeon no less, wasn’t she? Then she had to abide by the test he’d had in store for said co-Head. Let them meet across the operating table so she’d show him her qualifications, or lack of them, at once.
He had no doubt it would be a lack he’d uncover.
During their time together they hadn’t worked together much, and never in the OR. He’d heard of her proficiency as a surgeon but hadn’t seen evidence of it himself. He’d concluded it had been her father’s influence as financial director of the hospital where she’d worked that had gotten her good reports and opportunities. She’d boosted the latter with her beauty and charisma. Hadn’t she made him give her a position he could have given to a dozen others who would have done it more justice? A position it had become clear she’d fought for to be near him, to seduce him? And once she had, work had been the last thing on his mind, too.
Now she’d conned her way into another position. One he didn’t believe for a second she fit, as she’d proclaimed she did. Still, with him there to make sure she did no damage, he was interested to see her try to live up to her claims.
And fail miserably.
That way, it wouldn’t be personal history or preconceptions that decided him against hiring her. He wanted it to be her inadequacy. He’d see for himself how much of that résumé of hers was fabricated. Then he’d close her chapter forever….
All his hair stood on end, as if he’d been doused in a field of static electricity. A presence. Unmistakable even after all these years. Viv.
Every caution told him not to move, to let her initiate the confrontation. Every instinct screamed for him to turn, catch that moment when she was as off guard as he was. It was the hot, sharp sound that spilled from lips he knew to be rose-soft and cherry-tinted, which had once wrung incoherence from him in soul-wrenching kisses and moans, that shattered the stalemate.
He swung around. And déjà vu engulfed him whole.
Time rewound to that moment he’d first laid eyes on her. When she’d gotten him alone in another scrubbing/gowning anteroom, in another life, to convince him to choose her.
Had he brought her here to reenact their first meeting? Had she somehow made him do it?
Anything seemed possible as some override function inside him ignored mental commands, urging his senses to roam her, feast on her, relive again the unrepeatable attraction. It was as if everything that had happened since the last time he’d left her arms had been erased. It was as if it would be the most natural thing in the world to surge toward her, that she’d rush to a halfway melding, all the sooner to get lost in each other’s arms.
She stood as transfixed as him, her eyes wide in shock as great as his. And, he could swear, as genuine.
The conviction jogged him out of the surreal timelessness where nothing had gone wrong between them to the distasteful present with its preposterousness.
Shocked? When she was here in full premeditation?
But no. She was shocked. This was no act. Not any more than his own loss of control, his own plunge into that time warp.
So what did it all mean?
He exhaled the breath trapped in his lungs, admitted he had no grasp of this situation, much less control over it. He turned fully to her, stood straighter, preparing for the inevitable. The passing of shock and what must follow of her old methods of enticement and seduction.
But what was this, surging inside him, shocking him again with its power? Eagerness? Did he actually want to see blatant invitation in her eyes, in her stance, in the way she’d call his name as if to say, Take me, ravish me, finish me, now?
He licked parched lips, counting down the seconds before her gaze heated, her posture relaxed, beckoned…
“So, we meet again, Dr. Aal Omraan. Or do you only answer to His Royal Highness Crown Prince Ghaleb now?”
CHAPTER TWO
GHALEB COULD ONLY STARE at the woman who no longer resembled Viv beyond the basics.
She pursed her lips as the last of the shock he’d detected drained, steel replacing it. “I assume it was you who ordered me to report to the OR?”
B’hag’gejaheem—by hell, what was going on here?
Her voice was the same, velvety and rich like chocolate and red wine, but he’d never imagined it could sound so… cold. And that was nothing to how those whiskey eyes swept him as if examining an uncertain specimen and finding it deplorably wanting.
“Of course it was you.” She answered her own question with a flick of an elegant hand. “I’ve been here only two hours and I already realize nobody breathes here without your say-so, let alone thinks, speaks or acts.” She let go of his gaze, as if she found nothing about him of interest, hers sweeping around for something worthy of her attention. “I assume you want me to scrub?”