Surgeon Prince, Cinderella Bride

A year-long contract...

...to marry a stranger!

In this Cinderellas to Royal Brides story, Dr. Sara Greer’s shocked to find Crown Prince Farhan on her doorstep with life-changing news—she’s the long-lost heir to the throne of Kalyana! Farhan needs to preserve his title and Sara wants to connect with her newfound heritage, so agreeing to his convenient proposal seems like the perfect solution! Until their inconvenient chemistry has her reconsidering their hands-off agreement...

ANN MCINTOSH was born in the tropics, lived in the frozen north for a number of years, and now resides in sunny central Florida with her husband. She’s a proud mama to three grown children, loves tea, crafting, animals (except reptiles!), bacon and the ocean. She believes in the power of romance to heal, inspire, and provide hope in our complex world.

Also by Ann McIntosh

The Nurse’s Pregnancy Miracle

The Surgeon’s One Night to Forever

Cinderellas to Royal Brides collection

Surgeon Prince, Cinderella Bride

And look for the next book

Royal Doc’s Secret Heir by Amy Ruttan Available now

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Surgeon Prince, Cinderella Bride

Ann McIntosh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09013-1

SURGEON PRINCE, CINDERELLA BRIDE

© 2019 Ann McIntosh

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Note to Readers

This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:

 Change of font size and line height

 Change of background and font colours

 Change of font

 Change justification

 Text to speech

To my friend, critique partner, and inspiration, Amy Ruttan.

Through thick and thin!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

1988

IT WAS AS though Yasmine floated just ever so slightly outside her skin, so the sounds and smells of the maternity ward were muffled by the disconnect between flesh and spirit. Even the sensations of her body, the gritty pain each time she blinked her closed lids, the movement of the baby, the interminable heat, were distant things.

The observation ward wasn’t full. Just her and one other lady, who was also alone. Neither of them spoke, although the curtain between their beds had been left open.

She let herself drift, leaving the agonizing present to go back in time to the night she’d lain in her husband’s arms, and joy had been their only companion.

The night she’d told him she was finally, miraculously, pregnant.

Brian had been ecstatic, had shifted down in the bed so his face rested next to her belly.

“My child,” he’d said. “My son or daughter. Prince or princess.”

Her heart had leapt at his words.

For thirty years he’d held fast to the rule: no one must ever know who they were. What he was. Not one lax moment was to be tolerated. Yet here he was, saying it out loud. It had given her a chill, and involuntarily her gaze shifted to the closed door of their room, as though expecting people to burst through to tear them apart.

She’d had to stop herself from asking him not to say such things again, reassured herself he was using it in the North American way, as an endearment toward a child so longed for, it would be treated like royalty.

And Brian had longed for this child. His disappointment as the years passed and Yasmine didn’t conceive was as acute as her own. Yet he never placed blame. Never suggested he should seek another woman who could give him an heir. Indeed, this baby would be heir to very little. Their need to keep a low profile had taken them to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, where they’d remained.

When asked where they were from, Brian always said, “Just outside Bombay,” because it was a city he’d once known well, and could make intelligent conversation about. They both had diverse ethnic backgrounds, including Indian ancestors, but in her opinion neither really looked as though they came from India. However, the Canadians they came in contact with didn’t seem to notice.

Sometimes, as ethnic diversity stretched north, they got skeptical looks, but although Brian had thrown off all the trappings of royalty, he’d lost none of the confidence seemingly bred into his bones.

No one really pressed him about it.

Yasmine had simply kept her mouth shut most of the time, not completely trusting herself to maintain the fiction, should she get too close to anyone. She’d been homesick and heartsick for a lot of those years, secretly regretting not being able to go to university, having to work low-paying jobs, but having Brian made up for it all.

Now he was gone, and Yasmine couldn’t find a way back into her body to mourn, or even to be angry.

Four months before, his strange symptoms had started—arm pain, moments of disorientation and lack of balance, among others. He’d made light of it all, so Yasmine had never realized the seriousness of it until he’d collapsed with a seizure at the rail yard and had been taken to the hospital. After tests and scans he’d been transferred to Edmonton, where he’d had more of both. Then the oncologist had been glaringly blunt, although Yasmine thought the sympathetic glint in his eyes somewhat negated his directness.

“It’s stage four colon cancer, which has already metastasized to your liver, lungs and brain. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do, other than arrange pain management and hospice care for you going forward.”

For the first time in their marriage, Yasmine had been the one to fight, to raise her voice, to insist there must be—must be—something they could do.

Brian had sat there, as still as the statue of his ancestor in the center of Huban, which commemorated not just the first King but also repelling the French from their shores.

The doctor had given him six months. He’d only lived three and a half. And every moment of the time he’d had left had been devoted to thinking about their child.

“Take our child home, Yasmine,” he’d said.

“To Fort McMurray? Of course.” Where else had he thought she would go? At least there she knew her way around, had a job, a few friends.

“No, no,” he’d whispered, squeezing her fingers. “Home, to take his or her rightful place.”

She wouldn’t say either yes or no. Her habitual fear may have been rendered distant and weak by the pain of watching him slip away, but it still held sway.

Finally, wanting to understand, she’d asked, “Why would you put such a burden on our child, when you didn’t want it yourself?”

He’d shaken his head. “I would have carried the burden, but my need for you was far stronger than the need to fulfill my responsibilities to the country.”

He had been dying by then, so she hadn’t let loose the words gathering beneath her tongue, threatening to choke her if she didn’t spit them out.

He’d hated it all. His unpredictable, forbidding, controlling and manipulative mother. The constant rounds of royal protocol and living in a fishbowl. When he’d told her he was taking off, it hadn’t been couched as, I can’t live without you: run away with me. No, he told her he was leaving and asked if she wished to go.

Of course, she’d said yes.

At sixteen, she would have done anything for him.

Now he was trying to push her to take their child, her baby, back to a place where, if they believed Yasmine’s story, they’d take him or her away; probably imprison Yasmine too. Her father had some influence, but not enough to save her from the repercussions of that long-ago decision.

Perhaps it had been the cancer that had made Brian misremember, but Yasmine didn’t have the same problem. The palace had been a frightening place; Queen Nargis a despot. She was long dead now, but Yasmine knew nothing of the family who had ascended to the throne. Father had intimated things were better, both in governance and for the people, but she wouldn’t take the chance.

After all, her child would threaten their right to rule. Who knew what they might be willing to do to hold onto power?

And when it came out that her father had known where they were, his life might be endangered too.

No. Her child would have a normal existence. As good as she and Brian...

Mind stumbling over the thought, she cupped her belly, the stab of grief like a sword inserted, twisted.

It was just her. Brian was gone.

Now her pain underwent a metamorphosis, took her to a place of clarity.

Nothing was sure. Nothing was a given.

She abruptly sat up, opening eyes closed so long the sudden light was blinding.

“Nurse.” Her voice was wispy, a ribbon in a windstorm, but somehow it carried, as one of the nurses came bustling in.

“Are you in pain, Mrs. Haskell?” She immediately began checking the monitors.

“No. No. I need to see a social worker, right away.”

The nurse paused, and the sympathy in her eyes was obvious. Yasmine had vaguely heard them talking through the fog of her disconnect.

“Husband died yesterday...”

“She collapsed...”

“High-risk pregnancy to begin with...”

“First child, although she’s in her late forties...”

“Says there’s no next of kin...”

The nurses knew she was in a bad place, and this one made no effort to offer comforting platitudes or dissuade her.

“I’ll put the call in right away for you.” She eased Yasmine back against the pillows, and pulled the unnecessary blanket back up over her distended stomach. “You just relax. We’ll take good care of you.”

Was it a premonition, or just the aftereffects of watching Brian slide away from this world to the next? Yasmine didn’t know. All she could see was her baby, alone, with no one to care for him or her.

She wouldn’t let that happen.

And she wouldn’t let them take the baby back to Kalyana either.

CHAPTER ONE

BEYOND THE WINDOW of the hotel suite a flurry of mixed rain and ice pellets swirled, but although Dr. Farhan Alaoui gazed out through the glass, he wasn’t really paying attention to the weather.

This was a fool’s errand, and he the fool his father had chosen to go on it.

In years past, knowing how little regard his father had for him, Farhan would have simply refused to come to Canada, telling King Uttam to find another way to deal with the matter. It wouldn’t have been the first time, or even the hundredth time, they would have butted heads. The pattern had started from when Farhan was a child, and had only stopped ten years ago, when he’d left Kalyana for Australia, cutting off contact with his father, determined not to return until absolutely necessary.

Had his conscience bitten at him over the decision? Of course it had. He’d still been mourning Ali, trying to reconcile himself to being Crown Prince in his beloved brother’s place. The loss, along with his mother’s unassailable grief, which had made her pull even further away from her other two sons, had been excruciating. He hadn’t needed his father to intimate he was ill equipped to take on the role Ali had excelled at. Certainly hadn’t needed to be left with the feeling he would never do as well, so he may as well go back to school, finish his medical studies.

There was to be a referendum, the King said, looking down his nose at his son. If they were lucky, the people would decide to make Kalyana a republic, abolishing the monarchy.

Farhan had understood what his father hadn’t said outright.

If that were to happen, the island kingdom would be spared the inept and unprepared King that Farhan clearly would be.

Unfortunately for them all, the people had decided to keep the monarchy, and Farhan remained next in line to the throne. That was something he’d done his best to ignore, living in Australia as a normal person, working as a surgeon in a large hospital, until the night his younger brother Maazin had called to say their father had had a stroke.

Of course, he’d had to return then.

And he was a different person. More assured, ready to take on the responsibility he’d avoided for so long. A little less inclined to argue, or dig in his heels in the way he used to.

What he hadn’t been prepared for was his father’s tacit refusal to assist him in learning his new role.

Or being sent to Canada to track down the woman who should, by birthright, be the true monarch of Kalyana.

When Farhan had reported finding her, he hadn’t been sure what his father’s reaction would be.

Uttam’s fingers had curled into a fist on his desk, and Farhan had interpreted the motion as signifying anger. Or perhaps, considering the King’s unusual pallor, some other, stronger emotion. It made the physician in Farhan watch the older man closely, looking for any signs of cardio-pulmonary distress. After his father’s diagnosis of atrial fibrillation the entire family worried about his health.

No one more so than Farhan.

King Uttam tapped the folder in front of him, his dark gaze boring into Farhan’s. Despite the King’s macular degeneration, he still had the ability to fix a person in place with just one look.

“Are you positive this woman is Bhaskar’s descendant?”

Suppressing a sigh, Farhan shook his head. “I don’t have Bhaskar’s DNA to make the comparison. However, I can say she is a direct descendant of Queen Nargis, and since the records show Bhaskar as Nargis’s only child...”

The slam of Uttam’s fist on the desk was so unexpected everyone else in the office—Farhan, Maazin, and the King’s aide-de-camp, Joseph Malliot—started.

“All these years our family has been blamed, accused of doing away with Bhaskar to gain the throne, while he has been out there, somewhere, living his life as he wished—”

Breaking off his unusually impassioned speech and rising abruptly, Uttam paced across the room. Stopping at the large birdcage housing his pet macaw, Uttam kept his back to his aide and two sons, reaching in to stroke a finger down Sophie’s cherry-red poll.

No one spoke. Like acrid smoke, the King’s words hung in the office, thickening the already tense atmosphere. Farhan sent a quick glance at Maazin. He seemed relaxed, although his eyelids were lowered, hiding his true expression.

After a moment, Uttam asked, “What do you know of her—this child of Bhaskar?”

All the information was in the file on his father’s desk, but Farhan had made sure to bring his own copy.

He’d gone through it fully, of course, and memorized most of it. The private investigator had been thorough, and Farhan was of the opinion the shy and quiet doctor was not, and never would be, a threat to the kingdom.

Even her pictures gave the impression of harmlessness. She was no beauty, being a little plain, with a serious yet pleasant expression in all the photographs.

But his father wasn’t interested in Farhan’s opinion on things, so, opening the folder on his lap, he read out the salient facts.

“Dr. Sara Greer, general practitioner, thirty-one years old, resident of London, Ontario, Canada. She was adopted at approximately three weeks old by Karen and Everton Greer, who subsequently had two more daughters. Dr. Greer graduated summa cum laude from Eastern University, and now works at an urgent care clinic.”

Uttam’s free hand sliced through the air, cutting off Farhan’s recitation. “Does she know she could be the rightful heir to the throne of Kalyana?”

“It would be impossible for her to know.” Being on the receiving end of a quick, skeptical glare, Farhan explained, “When, as you requested, DNA was collected from Nargis’s remains the results were posted privately on a number of genealogical websites. That means any matches would be reported to me, as the administrator of that DNA sample, but not to the other parties. No matter what other familial matches Dr. Greer may make, the match with Nargis is the only one that could alert her to the royal bloodline, and she can’t see it.”

His father’s back seemed to relax fractionally, but Uttam still didn’t turn around; just stood stroking the macaw’s head through the bars, making Sophie chuckle and coo with pleasure.

Farhan exchanged a look with his brother, now seeing the same impatience he felt in Maazin’s expression. None of this was germane to the running of the country.

Farhan was compelled to say, “Father, this is all ancient history, and since Dr. Greer will never know who she is, she’s no threat. On top of that, our constitution is clear: without documentation showing the direct lineage between her and Crown Prince Bhaskar, her claim, should she make one, would be denied.

“Adoption records retrieved by the PI show Dr. Greer’s birth parents as Brian and Yasmine Haskell, residents of Fort McMurray, Canada, both deceased. Immigration records show the Haskells entering Canada in 1958 as citizens of Great Britain, although there are no records of either of their names in the British archives. Clearly Bhaskar must have had help creating a new identity, but unraveling that, at this stage, would be nigh on impossible.”

He should have known better. His father was unmovable on the subject. The near rebellion caused when Uttam’s father had taken the throne had, it seemed, made him paranoid. He was absolutely sure one day some supporters of the missing Bhaskar would rise up to try to end his reign, and endanger them all.

With a final scratch of Sophie’s head, Uttam turned to walk back to his desk.

“We will not take the chance,” he said, as he settled into his chair. “This is a matter that must be dealt with, immediately.”

Despite the return of his father’s usual stoic demeanor, Farhan was aware of an undercurrent beneath the cool declaration. Maazin shifted, as though suddenly uncomfortable, but before Farhan had a chance to react, Uttam continued.

“Farhan, you will travel to Canada and marry this Dr. Greer; produce an heir to unite the two lines.”

Once again he felt the icy fingers of disbelief run down his spine, just as they had then.

The one thing he’d decided when Ali died was never to become a parent. His father had made it clear: the throne—the country—took precedence over everything. Farhan had no interest in producing a child only to have to sacrifice it on the altar of duty. He would do what he could to carry out the first part of his father’s order, if he could, but the second part wouldn’t happen.

Ever.

The door to the suite opened, rousing Farhan from his memories, and Kavan—his bodyguard, chauffeur, and friend—came in, rubbing his hands together.

“How do people live in this weather all the time?” he grumbled. “It’s just gone four o’clock, and it’s already dark outside. Not to mention colder than normal people can bear, and the ice and slush is everywhere.”

Only then did Farhan realize the murky sunlight had faded, and the street lights had come on. It was time to find and speak to Dr. Sara Greer.

His heart stuttered, but he refused to let his trepidation show. Instead he stood and walked to the hall closet to pull out his wool coat, a warm silk scarf looped under the lapels.

“There are benefits to living everywhere,” he replied, as he pulled on his winter wear. “This wouldn’t be my first choice, but it certainly is a beautiful country.”

“In summer, perhaps,” Kavan said, pulling open the room door and holding it for Farhan to precede him out. “But ice should be in a glass, with Scotch on it, not under my feet.”

And Farhan found himself chuckling, despite the apprehension gnawing at his insides.

* * *

I have to get my life together.