The Sultan's Heir

Her hand flew to her throat. “What?” she whispered.

Najib stroked light fingers down her bare arm. He was wounded; she had pierced his heart in the first moment she looked at him, suspicious and mistrustful though her eyes had been.

“You are a woman who enjoys physical pleasure, Rosalind. Do you think a man does not know such a thing?”

She closed her eyes and breathed to silence her noisy heart.

“How my mouth craves to kiss you, Rosalind, my hands burn with wanting to touch you. Do you not feel it? I see it in your eyes. You want my touch. Tell me that it is so. Say it!”

“Najib,” she whispered, her body streaming with feeling.

How could such passionate need as Najib felt for her coexist with the deep suspicion that she was a danger—to him, to the family, to the thing that ruled all their lives?

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the world of Silhouette Desire, where you can indulge yourself every month with romances that can only be described as passionate, powerful and provocative!

The ever-fabulous Ann Major offers a Cowboy Fantasy, July’s MAN OF THE MONTH. Will a fateful reunion between a Texas cowboy and his ex-flame rekindle their fiery passion? In Cherokee, Sheri WhiteFeather writes a compelling story about a Native American hero who, while searching for his Cherokee heritage, falls in love with a heroine who has turned away from hers.

The popular miniseries BACHELOR BATTALION by Maureen Child marches on with His Baby!—a marine hero returns from an assignment to discover he’s a father. The tantalizing Desire miniseries FORTUNES OF TEXAS: THE LOST HEIRS continues with The Pregnant Heiress by Eileen Wilks, whose pregnant heroine falls in love with the investigator protecting her from a stalker.

Alexandra Sellers has written an enchanting trilogy, SONS OF THE DESERT: THE SULTANS, launching this month with The Sultan’s Heir. A prince must watch over the secret child heir to the kingdom along with the child’s beautiful mother. And don’t miss Bronwyn Jameson’s Desire debut—an intriguing tale involving a self-made man who’s In Bed with the Boss’s Daughter.

Treat yourself to all six of these heart-melting tales of Desire—and see inside for details on how to enter our Silhouette Makes You a Star contest.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

The Sultan’s Heir

Alexandra Sellers

for

Jennifer Nauss,

heartbreaker

ALEXANDRA SELLERS

is the author of over twenty-five novels and a feline language text published in 1997 and still selling.

Born and raised in Canada, Alexandra first came to London as a drama student. Now she lives near Hampstead Heath with her husband, Nick. They share housekeeping with Monsieur, who jumped through the window one day and announced, as cats do, that he was moving in.

What she would miss most on a desert island is shared laughter.

Readers can write to Alexandra at P.O. Box 9449, London NW3 2WH, England.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Prologue

A heavy, humming silence hung over the ancient brick and modern steel of the bank’s safety deposit vault. Three men stood together watching as the manager himself inserted the key that allowed the slender chromium door to open. They exchanged brief glances but no word.

They were young, all around thirty, the manager supposed. There was something about them that he could not place, a sense of themselves, an authority, that was unusual in the young. They reminded him of someone, but he could not say who. Perhaps it was the curiously elusive resemblance they had to one another, some expression in the eyes that made him think their relationship might be one of blood. One had called the dead man, whose safety deposit box he was now opening for them, their cousin.

His fingers hooked into the little handle, and the bank manager drew out the long, shining drawer. “It has not been touched for five years, of course,” he said, feeling somehow that this was his moment. Perhaps it was because they were watching him with such fixed attention.

It was by no means an unusual occurrence in the aftermath of the long and devastating Kaljuk War. Other families had lost track of the safety deposit boxes of their dead loved ones, or had never known of them, until notified by the bank of an arrears on the rental. And sometimes when the bank sent out letters there was no reply at all….

No one answered him, and he slid his left arm under the box as it came free of its sheath. “This way, gentlemen,” he said, and turned to lead them out of the vault, leaving a clerk to close and turn the locks of the vault door.

He led them down the narrow passage, on a sudden impulse bypassing the doorways leading to the closets where more ordinary clients of the bank examined their safety deposit boxes, instead going up the staircase to the main floor of the bustling institution.

He headed for a door labelled Meeting Room, and with a nod instructed the young clerk to open it. “You will not be disturbed here,” he told them with a certain gravity, leading the way inside.

He placed the box on the polished wood table, then straightened and glanced at the men. Still no one had spoken. Although on the surface the three were completely calm, there was a tension in the air that was of a different order from the usual simple, excited hope that some family treasure would be found to have been saved from the devastation. He wondered what might be in the box.

The bank manager nodded as if to himself. “You will not be disturbed,” he said again.

“Thank you,” said one of the men, holding the door with polite implacability. Reluctantly, unconsciously wishing to be part of the drama he felt hovering, the bank manager bowed again and left.

Najib al Makhtoum closed the door, shutting him out, then turned to his companions. The three men stood for a moment looking at each other in silence. Strong sunlight slanted through narrow windows high along one wall, casting sharp shadows, and making visible a family resemblance between the three men that was not always so obvious. They all shared some ancestor’s broad forehead, strong cheekbones, and full mouth, but each had put his own individual stamp on his genes.

“Well, let’s hope this is it,” Ashraf said, and as if this were a signal they all three moved to pull out chairs around the table where the box lay, and settled themselves.

A hand reached out and lifted the lid to expose the long, shallow, oblong compartment. There was a collective sigh.

“Empty,” said Ashraf. “Well, it was too much to expect that—”

“But he must have—” Haroun began, and broke off as Najib interrupted, “Not empty, Ash.”

The other two drew in one simultaneous breath: two envelopes lay flat in the bottom, almost invisible in the sharp shadows.

For a moment they stared in silence.

Najib and Haroun looked from the envelopes to Ashraf, and it was he who reached in at last and reluctantly drew out the two rectangular shapes, one a large brown business envelope, the other a narrow white oblong.

“It’s a will,” said Ashraf, surprise in his voice. He looked at the brown envelope. “And a letter addressed to Grandfather.” He dropped that on the table and turned to the will, starting to unwind the red string that held the flap in place.

“What firm?” asked Najib. “Not old Ibrahim?”

Ashraf turned it over to show the looping logo of a legal firm and shook his head. “Jamal al Wakil,” he read, and glanced up. “Ever heard of him?”

The other two shook their heads, and a frown was settling on his brow as Ashraf lifted the flap and drew out the formal legal document. “Why does a man go to a stranger to draw up his will on the eve of war?” he murmured, then bent to run his eyes over the legal phrases.

“Grandfather, his mother…” he murmured, flipping to a new page, and then stopped, his eyes fixed to the page.

“What is it?” demanded the other two simultaneously.

“‘To my wi…’” Ashraf read, then looked up to meet the startled eyes of his brother and cousin. “‘To my wife.’ He was married. He must have—” He broke off and resumed reading as the other two exclaimed in amazement.

“Married! To whom?”

Ashraf read, “‘My wife, Rosalind Olivia Lewis.’ An Englishwoman. While he was in London. Has to be.” His eyes roamed further and he stiffened and raised his gaze over the edge of the paper to fix them with a warning look. “She was pregnant. They thought, a son.”

“Allah!” one whispered, for them all. The three men stared at each other. “She would have contacted the family if there was a child,” said Haroun weakly. “Especially if it was a boy.”

“Maybe not. Do you think he told her the truth before marrying her?”

“Let’s hope not.”

Ashraf was still reading. He shook his head in contradiction. “He must have told her. Listen. ‘…and to my son, I leave the al Jawadi Rose.’”

There was another silence as they took it in. “Do you think she’s got it?” Haroun whispered. “Could he have been so besotted as to leave it with her?”

“Not so crazy, maybe,” Ash pointed out. “Maybe he thought it would be wiser than bringing it back to Parvan on the eve of war.”

Najib picked up the other envelope his cousin had drawn from the box. He lifted the flap and drew out the first thing that his fingers found—a small stiff white rectangle. He flipped it over and found himself looking into the softly smiling eyes of a woman.

“It’s her,” he said.

For an unconscious moment he sat gazing at the girl’s face. She was young and very pretty, her face rounded and soft. Looking at the face, he was mostly aware of regret—that five years had passed since the photo had been taken, and that he had not known her like this, with the bloom of sweetness on her soft cheeks…

It was obvious that the man behind the camera had been Jamshid, and that she had loved him. He wondered who she loved now.

“The child will be four years old,” Haroun said, voicing the thought all shared. “My God.”

“We have to find her. And the boy.” Ashraf took a breath. “Before anyone else does. And Haroun’s right, he might have left the Rose with her. Allah, a son of Kamil and the Rose together—what a prize. Who can we trust with this?”

Najib was still looking down at the photograph on the table, his hand resting on its edge, as though protecting the face from a draft. Abruptly he flattened his hand, drew the little piece of card to the edge of the table, scooped it up, and slipped it into his inner breast pocket.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said.

One

“Mrs. Bahrami?”

Rosalind stared at the man at her door. It was a long time since anyone had called her by that name. Yet she was sure she had never met him before. He wasn’t the kind of man you forgot.

“That is not my name,” she said, in level tones. “Why didn’t the doorman ring me?”

“Perhaps I mistake,” the stranger murmured, with the air of a man who never did. His hair was raven-black above dark eyes and strongly marked eyebrows. Although he wore a tweed jacket and expensive Italian loafers, his foreignness was betrayed by the set of his mouth, the expression around his eyes, the slight accent. “I am looking for Mrs. Rosalind Bahrami.”

Rosie’s lips tightened. Behind the added years and the different features, there was an unmistakable resemblance. A wave of hostility rose in her, sharpening her senses, so that she picked up the scent of his aftershave. “You—”

“Please,” he overrode her urgently, as if sensing that she was about to deny it. “I must find her. Rosalind Lewis married my cousin Jamshid Bahrami some years ago. Are not you this Rosalind Lewis?”

Cousin. Her stomach tightened.

Najib al Makhtoum took in the long, impossibly thick, beige hair, a wave falling over hazel eyes, the slender oval of her face. Soft lips that had once been trusting were set firmly, a slightly ironic tilt at one corner expanding into a challenging half smile now as her eyebrows lifted dismissively. Angry mockery was evident in the curving eyelids too, as she gazed at him. She was not wearing a ring.

“I am,” she said flatly, giving no ground. “And it was a long time ago, and as Jamshid’s cousin, what do you care?”

He was conscious of irritation. Women did not usually treat him so dismissively.

“I must talk to you. May I come in?”

“Not on your life,” she said, with slow, implacable emphasis. “Goodbye.”

His hand prevented the door’s closing. “You seem to regard your late husband’s family…”

“With deep and abiding revulsion,” she supplied. “Take your hand away, please.”

“Miss Lewis,” he said urgently, his accent reminding her with wrenching sharpness of Jamshid. “Please let me speak to you. It is very important.”

His eyes were the colour of melted bittersweet chocolate. The full mouth showed signs that the crazily passionate nature was the same, but was tempered with self-control. If Jamshid had lived, probably his mouth would have taken on the same learned discipline by this age, but the memory of the young passionate mouth was all she would ever have.

“What’s your name?”

“I am Najib al Makhtoum,” he said, with a kind of condescending air, as if he was not used to having to introduce himself.

“And who did you say sent you?”

“I have urgent family business to discuss with you.”

“What business?”

“I represent Jamshid’s estate. I am one of his executors.”

She gazed at him, recognizing a man who would get what he wanted.

“I assure you it is to your advantage,” he pressed, frowning as if her reticence made him suspicious.

“Uh-huh.” The look she gave him left him in no doubt of what she thought of her chances of hearing something to her advantage from him. “Half an hour,” Rosalind capitulated flatly, falling back. She pushed aside a child’s bright green wheeled dinosaur with her foot and held the door open.

“Half an hour to the representative of your dead husband’s family,” he remarked without expression, stepping inside.

“Which is exactly thirty minutes more than they ever gave me.”

He took that with a frowning look. “You made an attempt at contact, then?”

She looked at him, not answering. The skin on her back shivered, and she had a sudden understanding of how animals felt when confronting danger. If she were a cat, probably she would look twice her normal size now, her fur standing out in all directions.

But she didn’t suppose that that would scare him off. He looked like a man who thrived on challenge.

“Over there,” she said, closing the door and lifting a hand to direct him. She watched as he moved ahead of her into the sitting room and towards the sofas at the far end of the long, elegant room. Jamshid had been shorter, a little slimmer. His cousin’s frame was powerful, his shoulders broad, strong bones under a firm musculature.

In the bright sitting room Najib glanced around at the resolutely European decor. A beautiful sheaf of white flowers graced the centre of a square black coffee table, with half a dozen little onyx and crystal ornaments. Around it were sofas and chairs, with decorative touches that combined to give the room a soft, expensive sophistication.

Only a couple of pieces gave evidence that she had ever been married to a Parvani—an extremely beautiful silk Bagestani prayer rug in front of a cabinet and an antique miniature of the Parvan royal palace in Shahr-i Bozorg, painted on a narrow strip of ivory in a delicate inlaid frame, hanging on one wall in elegant isolation.

“Sit down, Mr. al Makhtoum,” she invited, without pretending to any social warmth. She crossed to a corner of the sofa kitty-corner to the chair she indicated to him. It was only when he set it on the black table that she noticed he was carrying a briefcase.

Rosie was barefoot, wearing soft blue cotton leggings and a long blue shirt. The briefcase suddenly made her feel vulnerable. Unconsciously she drew one bent leg under her, lightly clasped her bare ankle, her gold bracelet watch tumbling down over her wrist, and sat sideways on the sofa, facing him. Her other arm rested on the sofa back and supported her cheek as she gazed at him.

“What can your family possibly want with me after all this time?” Rosalind demanded, curious if not really caring, but a little nervous, too, as he snapped the case open.

“First,” Najib al Makhtoum began, “may I confirm a few facts? You are Rosalind Olivia Lewis, and five years ago you married Jamshid Bahrami, a citizen of Parvan who was at that time a postgraduate student at the School of Eastern and Asian Studies here in London?”

“We’ve been over that,” she said. “What else?”

“You subsequently gave birth to his child?”

She went very still, watching him.

“I am sorry to say we learned only recently about your marriage and that you were pregnant when my cousin died,” he said helpfully.

“Did you?” Rosalind said, with cool, unconcerned disbelief.

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Was there any reason, Miss Lewis, why you did not let the family know of the marriage and your pregnancy after Jamshid’s death?”

She lowered her head and looked at him under her brows. “I might as easily ask you why Jamshid apparently told no one about me before going off to war,” she returned bitterly. “He left here promising to get his grandfather’s approval, saying that his family would send for me if war was declared, that I would go to family in the Barakat Emirates and have the baby there…. Well, I guess he never did it. If it wasn’t significant to him, why should it have been to me?”

“There is no doubt that he should—”

“In fact, though, as I am sure you know,” she went on over him, “I did write a letter to Jamshid’s grandfather, shortly after hearing that my husband had been killed.”

She was surprised by the wary look that entered his eyes, but couldn’t guess what it meant. “My grandfather died within a year after—” he began, and she interrupted,

“I’m sorry to hear it. I always imagined that one day I would tell him to his face what I thought of him.”

“Are you sure my grandfather received this letter?”

She dropped her chin, staring down at the peach-coloured fabric that covered the sofa under her thigh, and felt the old anguish stab her, heart and womb.

“Oh, yes,” she said, lifting her head again. “Oh, yes, Mr. al Makhtoum, your grandfather received it, as I think you know. I think you know that he wrote back a charming little note telling me that I was not married to Jamshid, that I was no more than an opportunistic foreign gold digger who could have no way of knowing which of my many lovers was the father of her child, that I should reflect that to receive money for sex would make me a prostitute, and that I would rot for what I was trying to put over on the grieving family of a war hero.

“It was pretty comprehensive,” she said, opening her eyes at him. “So what has Jamshid’s family now got to add to that?”

Two

It stopped him cold. Najib al Makhtoum looked away, heaved a long, slow breath, shook his head, met her eyes again.

“No,” he assured her. His voice was quiet, masking his deep exasperation. Why on earth had the old man—? But it was no use asking that question now. “No, I knew of no such letter. No one did, save my grandfather. Is that indeed what was said to you?”

“Well, it may not be word for word,” Rosalind allowed. “You would hardly expect it after five years, though at the time I felt the message had been gouged into me permanently with a dull knife. I suppose Jamshid was lying to me from beginning to end, I suppose to him a Western marriage wasn’t worth a thought, but I believed him. I loved him and I believed he loved me and I was pregnant with his child, and to learn so brutally that he hadn’t even bothered to mention me to his grandfather was—”

She broke off and told herself to calm down. Railing at Jamshid’s cousin would do nothing. And she still didn’t know why he was here.

“I am very sorry,” al Makhtoum murmured at last. “I apologize on behalf of my grandfather—of all Jamshid’s family. The rest of us knew nothing. As I said, we learned of your existence only recently. My grandfather most unfortunately kept your letter secret. It can have been known to none but himself.”

She didn’t know whether to believe him, but what did it matter? It only underlined the fact that Jamshid had been faithless.

“Well, now perhaps you understand why I am not interested in anything your family might have to say to me. In fact, I’d rather not have you sitting on my sofa. So—”

He lifted a hand. “Miss Lewis, I understand your anger. But please let me—”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t understand, because you don’t know anything about me or my life, or what effect that letter had. No explanation is necessary, Mr. al Makhtoum. Nothing you could say now would change history. What was it Jamshid used to say? Makhtoub. It’s written. It’s over.”

“It is not over,” said Najib al Makhtoum softly, but with such complete conviction that Rosalind’s heart kicked.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

He coughed. “As you know, Jamshid died in the early days of the Kaljuk War. We believed that he died intestate, but his will has recently come to light. He left most of his substantial personal property to you and the child.”

Rosalind’s mouth opened in silent astonishment. She squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again.

“What?” she whispered.

“I have a copy of his will, if you would like to read it.”

“Jamshid named me in his will?”

“You are the major beneficiary.”

She was swamped by a mixture of feelings she thought might drown her. “I don’t—you—why wasn’t I told of this five years ago?”

“We knew nothing of the will until ten days ago.”

“How could you possibly not know Jamshid had left a will for five years?”

She sat staring at him, her head forward, her eyes gone dark and fixed on him. He felt the pulse of his masculine ego and was suddenly, powerfully aware of the intensity of her femininity, and understood why Jamshid had married her in spite of everything, even knowing how ferociously their grandfather would object.

“He did not go to the family lawyer, doubtless because he had not yet found a way to tell our grandfather of your marriage,” Najib al Makhtoum explained. “He went to a lawyer with no connections to…our family. We have learned that the man was killed and his offices destroyed by a bomb, shortly after Jamshid’s own death.”

She had a sudden sharp memory of reading of the bombing raids. How she had wept for the destruction of his country.

She shook her head, fighting back the burning in her eyes.

“Jamshid had put a copy of the will and documents pertaining to your marriage in a safety deposit box we also knew nothing of. The bank sent a routine notice recently when the account that paid for the box went into arrears. Undoubtedly Jamshid had left a key with this same lawyer, expecting the box to be opened immediately in the event of his death.”