is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

The Sheikh’s Innocent Bride
Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

HIS SERENE HIGHNESS, Prince Shahir bin Harith al-Assad, reached his vast estate in the Scottish Highlands shortly before eight in the morning.

As usual, every possible arrangement had been put in place to smooth his arrival with the seamless luxury that had been his right since birth. A limousine with blacked-out windows had collected him from the private airfield where his Lear jet had landed. At no stage had anyone sought to breach his reserve with unwelcome dialogue, for he valued his privacy beyond all other things and his staff worked hard at keeping the rest of the world at bay. Offered a seat in the limo, his estate manager, Fraser Douglas, had answered several questions and then embraced a self-effacing silence.

The only road to Strathcraig Castle stretched for more than fifteen miles, through tawny moorlands surrounded by spectacular purple-blue mountains. The lonely silence of the majestic landscape and the wide blue sky that filled the horizon reminded Shahir of the desert that he loved with an even greater passion. After the frenetic bustle and buzz of the business world, the wild, natural emptiness refreshed his eyes.

As the limo began its descent into the remote forested glen of Strathcraig the passage of a flock of sheep forced the powerful vehicle to a halt. A white-haired woman with a bicycle was also waiting by the side of the road. Only when she turned her head did Shahir appreciate that the woman had barely left her teenage years behind: her hair was not white, it was a very pale platinum-blonde, drawn back from her delicate features in smooth wings. Slender and graceful, she had wide, intelligent eyes and a sensitive, full pink mouth. Even her drab clothing could not conceal the fact that she was as proud and pure in her beauty as an angel he had once seen in an illuminated manuscript. There was, however, nothing reverent about the instant charge of lust that she ignited in Shahir. He was startled by the unfamiliar intensity of his desire, for it had been a long time since a woman had excited his interest to that extent

‘Who is that?’ he asked the estate manager seated opposite him.

‘Kirsten Ross, Your Highness,’ the square-faced older man advanced, and when the silence lay gathering dust, in a way that implied he had answered too briefly, he hastened to offer more facts. ‘I believe she’s employed as a domestic at the castle.’

Shahir would not have dreamt of bedding an employee, and the news that she worked for him in so menial a capacity struck an even less welcome note, for he was a fastidious man. ‘I haven’t seen her before.’

‘Kirsten Ross isn’t the sort to draw attention to herself.’

Hard cynicism firmed Shahir’s well-sculpted mouth. He was a connoisseur of beautiful women, and had yet to meet one unaware of her power. ‘She must be accustomed to the attention her looks excite.’

‘I shouldn’t think she’s ever been encouraged to pay much heed to a mirror,’ Fraser Douglas responded with a wry grimace. ‘Her father is a religious fanatic with a reputation for being very strict on the home front.’

Realising in some surprise that he was still staring at the exquisite blonde, Shahir averted his attention with punctilious care from her. The car drove on.

The older man’s censorious reference to the girl’s father had surprised him, for where did religious devotion end and fanaticism begin? After all, to an outsider village life in Strathcraig appeared to revolve round the church and its activities. The local community followed a very different code of values from the more liberal ways of high society circles. Indeed, the tenants on the estate had a conservative outlook that struck visitors as distinctly grim and outdated, and was probably the result of the glen’s isolation from the wider world.

Yet Shahir was more at home at Strathcraig than he was within a more laissez-faire culture. Dhemen, the Middle Eastern kingdom of his birth, was equally straitlaced. Right was right and wrong was wrong and community welfare always took precedence over the freedom of the individual. Within that clear framework few dared to stray, and those who did were punished by the opprobrium they attracted.

In much the same way Shahir accepted the limitations that fate had chosen to place on his own prospects of happiness. Any woman he took to his bed could only be a poor substitute for the one he really desired, he acknowledged wryly. He loved a woman who could never be his, and casual sexual affairs were his only outlet. But he was thirty-two years old, and that was not how he had planned to live his life.

Concerned relatives kept on lining up the names of promising bridal prospects, and the more broad-minded set up casual meetings with suitable females on his behalf. Perhaps, he reflected grimly, it was time for him to bite the bullet and choose one of those candidates. His darkly handsome features firmed. An Arabian woman would devote her energies 24/7 to the pursuit of being his wife. In return she would expect children, wealth, and the prestige of great position. Love wouldn’t come into the equation and why should it? Marriage in his world had much more to do with the practicalities of status, family connections and, primarily, the provision of an heir. His father had been extremely sympathetic towards his son’s desire to remain single for as long as possible but, as the next in line to the throne, Shahir was well aware that he could not stave off the inevitable for much longer.

It was fortunate that there was not an atom of romance in his soul, Shahir conceded with bleak satisfaction. His hot-blooded temperament and powerful sex-drive had always been kept in line by his strong principles and his discriminating tastes. He was a man who faced the truth, no matter how unpalatable it was. He was not a man who made foolish mistakes. Born into the very heart of a royal family, he knew what his duty entailed and he was proud of his heritage. His keen intelligence told him that accepting the need to acquire a wife would be a much more sensible option than eying up a gorgeous but totally unsuitable Western woman—particularly one who worked for him in so lowly a capacity…

‘You’re living in Cloud-cuckoo-land,’ Jeanie Murray told Kirsten with blunt conviction as she sat on the worn wooden counter, smoking a cigarette in flagrant disregard of her rules of employment. ‘Your father will never let you live away from home to go to college.’

Kirsten continued to wash a bone-thin Sevres china saucer with gentle and careful hands, her classic profile intent. ‘I think that now that he’s married to Mabel he might be prepared to consider it.’

‘Aye, all that kneeling and praying didn’t stop your dad from courting a new bride before your poor mum was cold in her grave. Folk say he likes his home comforts on tap.’ Impervious to her companion’s discomfiture, the plump, freckled redhead rolled her eyes and vented a laugh. ‘But why should he agree to you moving out? You’re bringing home a tidy pay packet. Don’t tell me that that isn’t welcome to Angus Ross—we all know how tight his hold is on his wallet!’

Kirsten tried not to wince at the news that her father’s stinginess was a living legend locally. Jeanie’s frankly uttered opinions and tactless remarks often caused friction with other members of staff. Kirsten, however, could forgive her much, for she valued the other woman’s warm-hearted friendliness. ‘Jeanie…’

‘Don’t go all goody-goody on me just because you think you should. You know it’s true. I’ve heard a story or two about what your home life’s like, and that’s no picnic by all accounts—’

‘But I don’t discuss my family with anyone,’ Kirsten slotted in swiftly.

Jeanie rolled her eyes with unblemished good humour. ‘I bet you’re still doing all the cooking and cleaning at home. Old sourpuss Mabel won’t want you to move out either. Face up to it, Kirsten. You’re twenty-two years old and the only way you’re ever going to get a life of your own is by running away as fast as your legs can carry you from the pair of them!’

‘We’ll see.’ Kirsten bent her head and said nothing more.

It would take a hefty sum of money to enable her to set up home elsewhere. Running away would be the coward’s way out, and doing so without sufficient funds would be foolish, for it would land her straight into the poverty trap. She wanted to be able to rent somewhere decent and plan her future. She just had to be patient, she reminded herself sternly. She was only six weeks into her very first job, and with her father taking a large slice of her wages to cover her keep it would be a few months before her savings could cover any sort of a move.

She could wait until then; her job, humble as it was, still felt like a lifeline to her. She loved working in the medieval splendour of the historic castle. The magnificent surroundings were an endless source of fascination to her. Even riding her bike into work every morning gave her a freedom that had long been denied her. The chance to mix freely with other people was even more welcome. But she was equally conscious that she wanted more out of life than a post as a cleaner, and that she needed qualifications and training to aspire to anything more.

Yet the prospect of having to blatantly defy her father’s rigid rules of conduct was challenging and frightening, for she had been taught from childhood to offer him unquestioning obedience. He was a cold, intimidating man, with a violent temper that she had once struggled to protect her late mother from. Her lovely face shadowed, for she was still grieving for that loss.

Isobel Ross had become ill when her daughter was thirteen years old, and her long, slow decline had been matched by her ever greater need for care. That responsibility had fallen on Kirsten’s shoulders. Her father had not been prepared to assist with what he saw as ‘women’s work’, and her older brother, Daniel, had been kept too busy doing farm work to be in any position to help. Once the brightest child in her class, Kirsten had begun to miss a great deal of school and her grades had slowly worsened.

Fed up with the restrictions imposed by their father’s increasingly obsessive absorption in religion, her brother had finally quarrelled with him and moved out. As soon as it was legally possible, Angus Ross had removed his daughter from school so that she could nurse her mother and take charge of his household.

For the following five years Kirsten had only left the farm to attend church and do the weekly shop. Her father disapproved of social occasions and had discouraged all visitors. Exactly a year after her mother’s death her father had married Mabel. The other woman was sour and sharp-tongued. But Kirsten was grateful that Mabel’s eagerness to see more money coming into the household had prompted her stepmother to persuade her husband to allow Kirsten to seek employment outside the home.

‘We’ll have to see if we can get you a proper thrill this week, while our gorgeous desert sheikh is in residence,’ Jeanie remarked brightly.

A surprisingly mischievous smile curved Kirsten’s lips. ‘I’ve had my treat for the week: I saw the Prince’s limousine, and very impressive it was too.’

‘Never mind the limo. We’ll hide you somewhere to get a glimpse of the man himself! I’ve only seen him a couple of times, and at a distance, but I’m telling you he’d make a sinner out of any saint.’ Jeanie groaned, with a lascivious look in her eyes, as she disposed of her cigarette and put the ashtray back in its hiding place. ‘He’s a right sex god.’

‘I’ll be keeping well out of his way. I wouldn’t want to lose my job.’ Kirsten had been warned when she was hired that all domestic tasks at the castle were to be carried out with as much silence and invisibility as was humanly possible. It had been made equally clear to her that if her phenomenally rich and royal employer was to appear in the same corridor she was to hastily vacate it, so she didn’t think there would be much chance of her bumping into him!

‘If I had your face and body I’d be tripping over myself to accidentally fall in His Serene Highness’s way!’ Jeanie gave her a broad wink.’ If he fancied you he could take you away from all this and set you up in a house somewhere. You’d be made, because he’s minted! Think of the clothes you could have, and the jewels, and a real macho man in your bed into the bargain. You’re really beautiful, Kirsten. If anyone could pull Prince Shahir, you could!’

Kirsten studied her in bewilderment, her colour rising. ‘I’m not like that—’

‘Well, you’d be much better off if you were,’ the redhead told her roundly. ‘At least I know how to have a bit of fun and I can enjoy a good laugh. If you don’t watch out your father will turn you into a dried-up old spinster!’

Having finished washing the Sevres dinner service, Kirsten dried it piece by piece with great care. Even so, her thoughts were miles away. She felt so out of step with Jeanie. Kirsten had been brought up in a house where the only spoken reference to sex had related to what her father referred to as ‘the sin of fornication’. The content of the newspapers and magazines she had glimpsed since starting work at the castle had initially shocked her, for the only written matter in her home consisted of the Bible and religious tracts, and it was many years since her father had got rid of the television. Yet she was guiltily aware that she was sorely tempted by the fashionable clothes and the exotic places that she had seen in those publications.

If only her father were a more reasonable man. If only he would allow her to go out and about and enjoy mixed company, like other women her age. After all, he must have dated her late mother to have married her—and surely that could not have been morally wrong?

Her father was growing terrifyingly unreasonable in his attitudes and his demands. After a dispute with the church elders, the older man would no longer attend church, and Kirsten and Mabel had been forced to stay home as well. Kirsten loved music. One of her few pleasures had been her radio, and he had broken that in a fit of rage when Mabel complained that her stepdaughter spent so much time listening to it that she was late making breakfast. Mabel had been shaken by her husband’s reaction, though, Kirsten recalled heavily. It was small comfort for her to suspect that her stepmother was not wholly content with her hasty second marriage.

‘Would you like it?’ At lunchtime another member of staff extended the magazine she had been reading to Kirsten. ‘It’s OK…I’m finished with it.’

Her face suffused with self-conscious pink, Kirsten accepted the item with a muttered word of thanks. As she left the basement staffroom, she heard the woman say, ‘It’s a pity about her, isn’t it? Angus Ross should be hung for treating her the way he does! She’s scared of her own shadow!’

No, I’m not, Kirsten thought, frantically pedalling away her hurt pride and resentment as she headed home on her bike. She was not scared of her own shadow—but neither was she mad enough to go head to head with her father before she had the means to leave his home.

The beauty of the early summer day soon calmed her temper and raised her spirits. After all it was a Friday, and her favourite day of the week. On Fridays she finished work early, and the house would be empty whilst Mabel and her father did the weekly grocery shopping. Afterwards they would visit Mabel’s elderly mother, and remain with her for their evening meal. Kirsten decided to take her dog for a walk and read the magazine.

Half an hour later she walked through her father’s fields, which led right up to the edge of the forest. She was dismayed to see that fresh tyre tracks had torn up the soft ground, leaving messy furrows of mud that would fill with water when the rain came. Her father had been outraged a few weeks earlier, when a pair of yobs on motorbikes had torn up a newly sown field. News of a second visit and further damage to the land would put Angus Ross into the kind of temper that made Kirsten suck in her breath in dismay.

Deciding that it would be wiser to let her father discover the damage for himself, she crossed the stile that marked the boundary of the farm and followed a little-used path up through the forest to the top of the hill. She kicked off her shoes, undid a couple of buttons at the neck of her blouse, and loosened her hair to relax in the sunshine. Her dog, Squeak, a small, short-legged animal of mixed ancestry, sank down in the middle of the grassy path, for the steep climb had exhausted him. His perky little ears did not prick up at the distant growl of an engine across the valley for as his age had advanced his hearing had steadily become more impaired.

Kirsten began to devour her magazine, and before very long was absorbed to the exclusion of all else in the delightful world of celebrities, fabulous fashion and wicked gossip.

One minute she was dreaming in the sunlight, the next she was jerking up from her reclining position with a stricken exclamation as a giant black motorbike burst with a roar over the hill and headed straight for Squeak. Kirsten made a violent lunge at the old dog to grab him out of the way. Mere feet from her, the bike skidded at fantastic and terrifying speed off the track, and the rider went flying up into the air. Horror stopped her breathing. But, in what seemed like virtually the same moment, he hit the ground and rolled with the spectacular, almost acrobatic ease of a jockey taking a fall.

Kirsten looked on wide-eyed as the rider, who was clearly uninjured, vaulted back upright again. Her shock was engulfed by a flood of unfamiliar anger.

‘You’re trespassing!’ she heard herself yell at the impossibly tall black-leather-clad figure approaching her as she scrambled up.

Shahir was furious with her for sitting in the middle of a track, like a target waiting for a direct hit from on high. She was very fortunate not to have been killed. He could not credit that she was shouting at him—nobody ever shouted at him—but, perhaps fortunately for her, the alluring picture that she made clouded that issue. Her shimmering silvery blonde hair was loose round her narrow shoulders and fell almost to her waist in a stunning display of luxuriance. He encountered eyes that were not the Celtic blue he had expected, but the verdant green of emerald and moss. His attention was by then irretrievably locked to her, and he noticed that she was surprisingly tall for a woman. As tall as his Berber ancestors himself, he stood six feet five in his socks, but barefoot she was still tall enough to reach his chin.

‘In fact, not only are you trespassing—’

‘I am not a trespasser,’ he countered, his dark, deep voice muffled by the black helmet which concealed his face from her.

‘This is private ground, so you are trespassing.’ As far as Kirsten was concerned his failure to offer an immediate apology merely added insult to injury, and her soft mouth compressed. ‘Don’t you realise how fast you were going?’

‘I know exactly what my speed was,’ Shahir confirmed.

He might behave like a yob, but he didn’t speak quite as she had assumed he would. His accent was unmistakably English and upper class, his crystal-clear vowel sounds crisply pronounced in spite of the helmet. She told herself off for being so biased in her expectations. A tourist toff could be just as much of a hooligan as a yob out for a day biking through the hills. Her chin took on a stubborn tilt.

‘Well, you frightened the life out of me and my dog!’ she asserted, lowering her arms to let Squeak down, his solid little body having become too heavy for comfort.

Far from behaving like a traumatised animal, Squeak padded over to Shahir’s booted feet, nuzzled them, wagged his tail in a lazily friendly fashion and then ambled off to curl up and sleep in the sunshine.

‘At least he’s not shouting at me as well.’ Shahir said dryly.

‘I wasn’t shouting.’ Her lilting accent took on a clipped edge of emphasis. His refusal to admit fault was testing even Kirsten’s tolerant nature. ‘You could have killed me…you could have killed yourself!’

Shahir flipped up his visor. Kirsten stilled. Her first thought was that he had the eyes of a hawk from the castle falconry: steady, unblinking, unnervingly keen. But his gaze was also a spectacular bronze-gold in colour, enhanced by lashes lush as sable and dark as ebony. Her heart jumped behind her breastbone and suddenly she was conscious of its measured beat. Indeed, it was as if her every sense had gone on to super-alert and time had slowed its passage.

‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Shahir drawled.

‘You were travelling at a crazy speed…’ she framed breathlessly.

Shahir watched the sun transform her hair to a veil of shining silver that he longed to touch. He was so taken aback by the inappropriate desire that for the first time in his life he forgot what he was about to say. ‘Was I?’

He pulled off his helmet and smoothed back his ruffled black hair with long brown fingers. Kirsten’s mouth ran dry. He was so exceptionally handsome that she simply stared. He also had the most unforgettable face. His fantastic bone structure was composed of high, slashing cheekbones and sleek planes and hollows, divided by a strong, masculine nose and defined by level dark brows. His bronzed complexion and very black hair suggested an ancestry at variance with his beautifully enunciated English. Every aspect of him offered a source of immediate fascination to her. She felt dizzy, as if she had been spinning round and round like a child and had suddenly stopped to find her balance gone. A tiny twist of something she had never felt before pulled low in her pelvis.

‘Were you what?’ she mumbled, belatedly striving to recall the conversation.

The hint of a smile tilted the beautiful curve of his mouth. She was as enchanted by the movement of his sculpted lips as though a magic wand had been waved over her.

‘I always travel at a crazy speed on the motorbike. But I’m a very safe rider.’

Kirsten made a frantic attempt to rescue her wits. ‘But you couldn’t even see where you were going,’ she reminded him.

Shahir was not accustomed to a consistent reminder of his apparent oversight, and he fought back. ‘Should I expect to find a woman and a dog parked in the centre of the track?’

‘Perhaps not…but you are on private land—’

‘I know—and I knew there were no livestock up here. This is my land.’

Kirsten giggled. ‘No, it’s not. I live just down the hill, and you can’t fool me.’

‘Can’t I?’ Shahir watched amusement light up her exquisite face and realised that she assumed he was teasing her. She genuinely had no idea of his identity.

But the sound of that unfamiliar light-hearted giggle emerging from her own lips had startled Kirsten. Her eyes veiled, and dropped from his in dismay. She was finally recalling the furrows ploughed on her father’s ground at the foot of the hill, and she was dismayed that she had contrived to forget what she had seen.

‘This isn’t your first visit here, though, is it?’ she said tautly. ‘You and your motorcycle have already made a mess of the field below the forest!’

Incredulous at the sudden accusation, Shahir surveyed her with narrowed eyes that had the subtle gleam of rapier blades. ‘Now you are talking nonsense. I respect the field boundaries. I am not a teenage vandal.’

Kirsten coloured, but persisted. ‘Well, it seems to me that it’s too much of a coincidence to be anyone else but you who was responsible. Someone has been in that field within the last few days, and there’s been a lot of damage done.’

‘It was not I. You should not make such an allegation without evidence to support it,’ Shahir condemned, with a gravity that was very much at odds with the apparent casualness of his motorbike leathers. ‘I find it offensive.’

His measured intonation made her pale. His dark gaze was uncompromisingly direct, and he spoke with a clear authority that unnerved her. Involuntarily, for she had lowered her scrutiny, she stole a glance at him. Her eyes glittered like jade in the pale oval of her face. ‘I find it offensive that you haven’t even said sorry for giving me the fright of my life.’

The silence lay like a charge of dynamite already lit.

An almost imperceptible touch of colour highlighted his superb cheekbones; Shahir had always cherished the belief that he was innately courteous. ‘Naturally I offer you my apologies for scaring you.’

‘Well, if it wasn’t you who cut up my father’s field,’ Kirsten said doubtfully, ‘I’m sorry I suggested it was.’

Shahir bent down with fluid grace and swept up the magazine lying abandoned on the ground and extended it to her. ‘You were reading?’

‘Yes…thanks.’ Suddenly aware of his keen regard, Kirsten blushed to the roots of her hair and dragged her attention from him, wondering in a panic of embarrassment if he was staring at her only because she had been staring at him.

A sweet, savage hunger gripped Shahir as he studied her downbent head and luscious pink mouth. He let his attention roam to the pouting fullness of her small full breasts. His body hardened with an ardent masculine urgency that shook him.

Kirsten was conscious of the tense atmosphere, and of the inexplicable sense of excitement trying to pull at her senses. She did not understand its source, for it filled her with too much confusion. While one part of her wanted to run away, the rest of her wanted to prolong the meeting. She fumbled frantically for something to say. ‘Is your motorbike going to be all right?’

‘I believe so.’ He had mastered his hunger with fierce self-discipline, and Shahir’s drawl was as cool and discouraging as a shower of rain. He was annoyed by his own brief loss of control. Admittedly, she was very beautiful, but he was used to gorgeous women. Perhaps, he reasoned, there was something especially appealing about such natural loveliness and unmistakable modesty when he was usually accustomed to meeting with boldness.

‘Have you far to go?’ Kirsten muttered, scarcely crediting her own daring. But at that moment all she was aware of was that he was about to walk away and she didn’t want him to.

‘Only to the castle.’ Shahir strode over to the fallen machine and hauled it up out of the flattened grass with strong hands. He could have told her who he was, but he saw no point in embarrassing her when it was unlikely that they would ever meet again. Someone else would soon tell her of the mistake she had made.

He was staying at Strathcraig Castle as a guest? Why hadn’t that occurred to her before? It was, after all, the most obvious explanation for the presence of a well-spoken stranger in the glen. Dismay replaced the daze that she had been wrapped in and her skin chilled. She had offended him, hadn’t she? Would he complain about her? Say she had been rude to him? Accusing him of vandalism had certainly not been the way to demonstrate a hospitable welcome to a visitor. What on earth had come over her? She shouldn’t have said a single critical word to him. After all, if she was sacked she would never find another job locally, and her father would be outraged.

Shahir replaced his helmet and fired the engine of the powerful motorbike, looking back at her only for an instant before he took off back down the track again. With him travelled the image of glorious green eyes pinned to him with anxious intensity. He wondered what sort of a life she had, with the fanatical father his estate manager had mentioned. She looked scared and unhappy.

A split second later, without any warning whatsoever of the trick his cool and rational brain was about to play on him, Shahir was startled to find himself wondering how Kirsten Ross might adapt to being a mistress. His mistress. The instant the idea occurred to him he was exasperated by the vagaries of his own mind; that type of arrangement was certainly not his style. He was a generous lover, who offered commitment for the duration of an affair. But the affairs began and ended without touching his heart or even his temper. Sex was a pleasure to be savoured, but his libido did not control him and he sought nothing more lasting from the women who entertained him in bed.

In short, a mistress would be a radical new departure for him. She would have a semi-permanent role in his life, and would be dependent on him in a way that he had never allowed a woman to be. It was an insane idea for a male who enjoyed his freedom to the extent that he did, Shahir acknowledged with a brooding frown. What was more Kirsten Ross was an employee, and as such strictly out of bounds; Shahir was a man of honour. What the hell was the matter with him? One minute he was thinking of taking a wife, the next a mistress—and all in the space of twenty-four hours!

Having dug a hole in the soft ground below the trees and buried the magazine, Kirsten ran most of the way home, with Squeak gasping at her heels. Unlocking the back door, she sped through it, only to be brought up short by the dismaying sight of the thickset man lodged in stillness at the back of the sparsely furnished kitchen.

‘I wasn’t expecting you to be home this early…is something wrong?’ Kirsten asked, dry-mouthed with fright at the tension in the air.

‘Mabel’s mother took ill and she’s staying the night with her. Where have you been?’ Her father’s harsh-featured face was ruddy with angry colour and his sharp eyes bright with suspicion.

‘I went for a walk…I’m sorry—’

‘If I’d been here you’d not have been idling away your time,’ he growled. ‘What have you been up to?’

Kirsten was rigid. ‘Nothing.’

‘You had better not be, girl,’ he warned her, closing a powerful hand round her thin forearm with bruising force. ‘Now, go and make my dinner. Then we’ll study the Lord’s Book and we will pray for you to be cleansed of the sin of idleness.’

When Angus Ross had stomped out of the kitchen Kirsten rubbed her aching arm with a shaking hand. She was trembling. Her father had never raised a hand to her in anger. She told herself that she had no reason to be so afraid of the older man. It was true that his temper was violent. And in a rage he ranted and raved and stormed up and down in a very frightening manner, but he had never yet become physically abusive with her—or indeed anyone else. So why did she get the feeling that that was in the process of changing?

CHAPTER TWO

FOUR days later, Shahir sprang out of bed at three in the morning and stalked into the luxurious en suite bathroom to take another cold shower. A more primitive male might have believed he had been bewitched by an enchantress no human male could resist, but Shahir told himself no such comforting tales.

As the cooling water streamed down over the heated length of his bronzed, muscular body, he groaned out loud in furious frustration. Never before had a woman disturbed Shahir’s sleep. But something about Kirsten Ross had fired his imagination to new erotic heights of creativity. The very idea of her as his mistress had become a sexual fantasy he could not shake. Even while he slept his disobedient brain rehashed their brief meeting into an intimate encounter of a wildly uninhibited if unlikely variety that appealed most to the male sex. His inability to control his own subconscious mind infuriated him.

Resting his arrogant dark head back against the cool stone surround, he thought about Faria instead. It was rare for him to indulge himself with reflections about what could not be, for he knew how pointless it was to lament the inevitable. Faria, with her laughing dark eyes and compassionate heart, could never become his wife. Although Faria and he were not related by blood, Faria’s mother had briefly acted as Shahir’s foster mother when he was very young. And Shahir’s religion forbade the marriage of a man to his foster-sister.

He had not known what love was before the day he had glanced across a courtyard at an interminable wedding and seen a very pretty brunette entertaining the children with magic tricks. Faria had grown up while he’d worked abroad, and she had trained as a teacher. He hadn’t even recognised her. On the last occasion he had seen her she had still been a little girl.

While Faria had been brought up in the knowledge that Shahir was her foster-brother, he had barely heard the matter mentioned. Shahir was royalty, and all too many people claimed to have a connection with him. And, having enjoyed a brief period of intimacy with the royal family in the aftermath of tragedy, Faria’s parents, who had never been socially ambitious, had soon returned to their quiet lives. Meeting her as an adult, Shahir had immediately recognised that Faria was exactly the kind of young woman he wanted to marry. In that very acknowledgement the damage had been done—even before he could appreciate that he had mistakenly set his heart on a woman who rightly regarded him as an honorary brother.

Was his nature innately perverse? Shahir asked himself now, his lean strong face shadowed by a dark frown. Although he would not mention his lust for Kirsten Ross in the same sentence as his unspoken admiration for Faria, he could not avoid registering that once again he was guilty of desiring a woman who was forbidden to him. Even that vague similarity disturbed him. In another sense it also challenged him, for Kirsten Ross was by no means out of reach.

Perhaps, Shahir reflected in exasperation, he had become too careful—too fastidious in his refusal to let his libido rule him. Almost certainly he was suffering from the effects of too much sexual denial, and the most effective cure for the foolish fantasies assailing him in the middle of the night would be a welcoming and hopefully very wanton woman.

And he knew exactly who was most likely to qualify in that department. Lady Pamela Anstruther, his nearest neighbour at Strathcraig, invariably acted as his hostess when he entertained at the castle. The arrangement suited them both. Pamela was clever and amusing, a strikingly attractive widow with champagne tastes, struggling to get by on a small income. Shahir respected her honesty and her survival skills. Pamela had never hidden the fact that she wanted him, and that sentiment would not complicate the issue.

At morning break, later that same day, Jeanie frowned at Kirsten. ‘You look like you’re sickening for something,’ she scolded. ‘You have dark shadows under your eyes. Aren’t you sleeping properly?’

‘I’m fine…’ Uneasy with telling even that minor lie, Kirsten dropped her head. Several disturbed nights of sleep had left their mark on her face, and she was ashamed of her inability to get the motorcyclist out of her head. Time and time again their encounter would replay in her memory, and when she went to sleep her dreams took over. The disturbing and horribly embarrassing content of them she would not have shared with a living soul.

‘Is something wrong at home?’

‘No.’ Kirsten chewed tautly at the soft underside of her lower lip before finally surrendering to the pressure of her curiosity and saying, as artlessly as she could contrive, ‘There was a guy riding a motorcycle up our way last Friday afternoon. I think he was staying at the castle…’

‘There’s always a bunch of new faces staying in the service wing.’ The other woman’s attention was concentrated on the large scone she was liberally spreading with butter. ‘I bet it was that old tubby guy with the pigtail. You know…the one here to write a history book about the castle. Someone told me that either him or the photographer arrived on a motorbike, dressed like a Hell’s Angel.’

‘He doesn’t sound much like the man I saw.’ Kirsten focused on Jeanie’s scone, which was being cut into tiny slices so that the pleasure of eating it could be extended. ‘He was young, and he looked like he might have originally come from another country—’

‘Oh…him!’ Jeanie’s eyes lit up like a row of winning symbols in a fruit machine. ‘That’ll be the Polish builder working on the stable block. Tall, dark, tanned, superfanciable?’

Kirsten nodded four times in eager succession, like a marionette.

‘I saw him on a motorbike in the village on Saturday night.’ Jeanie gave her an earthy grin. ‘You’ve got a pair of eyes in your head at last, have you?’

Kirsten had flushed to the roots of her hair, but could not restrain the all-important question brimming on her lips. ‘Do you know if he’s married?’

‘Kirsten Ross—you shameless hussy, you!’ Jeanie guffawed with noisy appreciation. ‘No, he’s not married. That was checked out by an interested party on his first day. No wonder you’re away with the fairies this morning. I spoke to you twice and you didn’t notice. Did you get talking to him? I hear he speaks great English. Did you fall madly in love at first sight?’

Kirsten was squirming with embarrassment. ‘Jeanie! I was out for a walk and we only spoke for a minute. I was just being curious.’

‘Course you were…’ Jeanie was merrily grinning at the prospect of what she saw as entertainment. ‘Right, with your face getting off with that builder will be no problem—but somehow I think that getting past your dad is likely to be the biggest challenge.’

‘So it’s just as well that I’m not thinking of trying to get off with anyone!’ Kirsten whispered in feverish interruption. ‘Look, please don’t go talking about this, Jeanie. If my dad hears any gossip about me he’ll go mad! He does not have a sense of humour about things like that.’

‘Kirsten…’ Jeanie leant across the table, her plump face arranged in lines of sympathy. ‘I don’t think anyone would repeat gossip about you to your father. Since he had that row with the minister and the church elders and left the congregation folk have been very wary of rousing his temper.’

Kirsten jerked her head in mortified acknowledgement of the point.

When the housekeeper signalled her from the doorway, she was glad of the excuse to leave the table and go and speak to the older woman. Offered the chance to work extra hours to cover for a sick colleague, Kirsten accepted gratefully and phoned her stepmother to say that she would be late home.

It was a welcome distraction to be sent to a section of the castle that was new to her. The extensive service wing had been converted to provide state-of-the-art office facilities and a conference center, as well as accommodation for the constant procession of tradesmen and businessmen who visited the remote estate in a working capacity.

Unfurling a floor polisher in a corridor, Kirsten hummed a nameless snatch of music below her breath. He was from Poland; a builder from Poland. Had she imagined that upper class accent? But then from whom had he learned the language? Perhaps that had influenced the way he spoke? Suddenly she wanted to know everything there was to know about Poland. Her own ignorance embarrassed her.

At the same time she didn’t really know whether she was on her head or her heels. Why on earth was she thinking about a man she would never see again? He worked outside; she worked inside. The castle was huge, the staff extensive. In all likelihood they wouldn’t bump into each other again unless he sought her out—and why would he do that? She had shouted at him. Of course if she was the shameless hussy Jeanie had teased her for being she would seek him out for herself. Only thankfully she wasn’t. But the thought of never laying eyes on him again made her tummy feel hollow, and filled her with the weirdest sense of panic.

Without warning the floor polisher was switched off, and she straightened from her task in surprise.

‘Look, miss. We’re having a very important meeting in here, and that machine’s damn noisy…couldn’t you go and clean elsewhere?’ a young man in a suit demanded angrily.

‘Yes, of course,’ Kirsten muttered, cut to the bone.

Another man appeared behind him, and murmured with glacial cool, ‘Don’t let me hear you address another member of staff in that tone or in that language again.’

‘No, of course not, Your Highness,’ the first man framed in dismay, his complexion turning a dull dark red at that cold rebuke.

Kirsten had stopped breathing when the second male emerged into view, for he was taller, broader and altogether more impressive in stature. Her entire being was wrapped in the sheer challenge of recognition: it was the man on the motorbike. But she could not believe that it could be the same person for he looked so very different, in a formal dark business suit the colour of charcoal: sophisticated, dignified, the ultimate in authority.

Belatedly she registered the significance of the title the younger man had awarded him and incredulity sentenced her to shaken stillness. The guy she had met on the hill above the farm was the Prince? Prince Shahir—the enormously rich owner of Strathcraig and its ninety-odd-thousand acres? Surely that was impossible? This is my land, he had said, but she had assumed he was joking. How could she have possibly guessed that a young man, casually clad in biker leathers, might be so much more than he seemed?

Refusing to allow herself to look back at him, she began to reel in the cable of the floor polisher. Her hands were all fingers and thumbs, and clumsy with nerves. She seized a hold on the weighty machine, in preparation for carting it off to a less contentious area, but her perspiring palms failed in their grip and it toppled back on to the ground again, with a noisy clatter that made her wince in despair. She was supposed to be silent and invisible around him, she recalled in steadily mounting frustration. Was she supposed to abandon the polisher and just run?

‘Let me help you with that…’

‘No!’ Kirsten yelped in horror, when she raised her head to find him standing over her, and she backed away in panic, hauling up the polisher before the lean brown hand he had extended could get anywhere near it. ‘Sorry…’

Moving as fast as she could with the unwieldy machine, Kirsten hurried away and sped through the first set of fire doors. For a split second Shahir hesitated, a frown of annoyance and surprise at her behaviour pleating his brows, and then he strode after her.

‘Kirsten…’ he breathed, before she could reach the next set of fire doors.

Unnerved by the unfamiliar sound of her name on his lips, Kirsten whirled round. She was breathing heavily, her lovely face pink with the effort of carting the cleaner with her. ‘You’re not supposed to speak to me!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Shahir retorted crisply.

‘I’m not being ridiculous! What do you want from me? An apology? Right, you’ve got it. I’m sorry I told you off for riding that bike like a maniac. I’m sorry if I interrupted your important meeting…OK, Your—er—Highness?’ And, with that almost pleading completion, Kirsten continued to back away, until she hit the doors with her behind, then twisted round and quickly made her way through them.

Shahir followed her at speed, and long before she could draw near the next set of doors he spoke and arrested her in her tracks. ‘No—don’t move one further step,’ he murmured, with a quietness that was misleading; every syllable of that warning somehow contrived to bite into her like a whiplash. ‘When I’m speaking to you, you will stand still.’

Kirsten groaned. ‘But that’s against the rules!’

Shahir vented an unappreciative laugh. ‘What rules?’

‘The household rules. People like me are supposed to vanish when you appear—’

‘Not when I’m trying to speak to you,’ Shahir asserted in dry interruption.

‘But you’re going to get me into trouble… Nobody knows we’ve even met, and I don’t want to be seen talking to you.’

‘That’s not a problem.’ Shahir opened the nearest door and thrust it wide. ‘We’ll talk in here.’

Kirsten sucked in a steadying breath and walked into an empty meeting room furnished with a polished table and chairs. ‘Why do you want to speak to me?’

Shahir thought he had never heard a more insane question. Any man between fifteen and fifty would have wanted to speak to her. Her head was bent, her face half turned away from him, her spectacular hair tied back. But nothing could hide the silken shine of that pale hair, the stunning perfection of her profile or the flawless clarity of her complexion. Nor could a dreary overall conceal the fluid, willowy grace of her highly feminine figure.

But on another level her sheer lack of vanity and her naivety shook him. He had never had to pursue a woman before. Even without his encouragement women gave Shahir a great deal of attention. Many were so enthusiastic that he had to freeze them out with a façade of cold formality. Others were more subtle, but equally obvious in their eagerness to demonstrate their availability to him. If he showed even the smallest interest to the average young woman she would fall over herself to respond to him and roll out the welcome mat.

‘Why did you tell no one that we had met?’

Kirsten focused on his superb leather shoes. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be on the hill.’

‘Why not?’

Kirsten continued to study his feet with fixed attention. She did not know what to say. She did not want to admit that her father policed her every move, and the alternative of lying was anathema to her.

Her seeming defiance challenged Shahir. ‘I asked a question.’

A sudden rush of frustrated tears burned the back of Kirsten’s eyes, and she threw her head up, green eyes blazing at his persistence. ‘I wasn’t supposed to be there because my father doesn’t like me going out without his permission. I was also reading a magazine, and he won’t allow anything like that in the house!’

‘I apologise. I should not have pried,’ Shahir acknowledged in a tone of regret that he should have embarrassed her. ‘But I was curious.’

The thickness in her tight throat would not allow her to swallow. The slight rough edge to his rich, dark drawl feathered down her spine as if he had touched her. Obeying a prompting she wasn’t even aware of, she glanced up and was entrapped by brilliant dark golden eyes. ‘I was curious about you too…’

Shahir tensed, the honest admission challenging his self-discipline. But he knew that it was his fault—for he had crossed the line and brought down a barrier by getting too personal. He was her employer, he reminded himself fiercely. She had accompanied him into a room where they were alone because he was her employer and she trusted him. What sort of a man would take advantage of such a situation? It did not matter that the attraction between them was mutual. It did not matter that the awareness made the blood pound through his veins like a war drum beaten with intent. That was a cruel trick of fate and not to be acted on.

‘When we met, you mentioned damage to your father’s field,’ Shahir said with flat determination. ‘I have had the matter investigated.’

Kirsten simply nodded. That he should have approached her for such a reason made complete sense to her, although she was surprised that he had bothered. She could not take her eyes from his. Never had she been so tense. Her back hurt with the strain of her rigid stance. Her breath was coming in little fast, shallow bursts, her lips were slightly parted, and there was a knot low in her tummy that was tight enough to make her feel uncomfortable. And yet it was a kind of discomfort that was in the strangest way enjoyable.

‘It has been established that someone working here at Strathcraig has been biking over that land. He has now been made aware of his mistake and it won’t happen again. My estate manager will call on your father to tell him that the damage will be made good at our expense.’ His deep rich voice had been husky in intonation as Shahir surveyed her with shimmering intensity, for the more she looked at him the more aroused he became, and it took every atom of his will-power to remain businesslike and distant.

‘Oh…’ Kirsten framed abstractedly.

His bright gaze narrowed, for it was a challenge to believe that she had not been paying attention to what he had said. ‘What did I just say?’ he heard himself ask in the sizzling silence.

‘Something about the field…’ Her answer was uneven in tone and she was leaning almost infinitesimally closer. The soft peaks of her breasts had stirred into straining tightness beneath her clothing and she was hugely conscious of that tingling sensation.

‘You really aren’t listening.’ An instinctive charge of masculine satisfaction lanced through Shahir. He liked the fact that she couldn’t concentrate around him. He loved it that she was barely breathing. In fact all of a sudden he felt like a marauding pirate on the loose, for his desire for her was primal in its force. He wanted to lift her into his arms, spread her over the table and ravish her glorious body with the kind of exquisite pleasure that would enslave her for ever.

His slow-burning smile hooked Kirsten like a fish. A split second later she found herself wondering what it would feel like if he pressed that beautifully moulded mouth of his down on hers.

It was only then that she realised what was the matter with her, and she was shocked by her own ignorance. With difficulty she dredged her gaze from the burning hold of his and lowered her head. She was appalled that she had been standing there yearning for his touch like the brazen hussy Jeanie had teased her for being. How could she not have guessed immediately that she was attracted to him?

‘I’d better get back to work,’ she mumbled, half under her breath, but her legs refused to move her in the direction of the door.

‘That’s not what you were thinking,’ Shahir murmured thickly.

His insight shattered her. ‘No, it wasn’t…’

‘So what were you thinking about?’ Shahir persisted, his voice husky and low, so intent on her that he could see his own reflection in her dilated pupils.

Kirsten trembled, both frightened and wildly exhilarated by the charge in the atmosphere. Her body felt unbearably taut and sensitive. She could not take her eyes from him for a second.

‘Tell me…’ Shahir pressed thickly. ‘I trust you not to lie to me.’

The revelation of the desire that held her on the edge of painful anticipation had brought down her barriers. She was still in shock. ‘I was wondering what it would feel like if you kissed me…’

Shahir muttered something in fierce Arabic and then closed his lean strong hands over hers to ease her slowly closer. He was on automatic pilot, his blood rushing through his veins like a runaway juggernaut, and although at the back of his mind caution was shouting to be heard his sheer hunger slammed the door on that warning voice. ‘Let me show you…’

His beautifully shaped mouth came down on hers. His kiss was hard and hungry and demanding, but somehow not quite hard enough to satisfy the terrible yearning that was flaming up from the very depths of Kirsten’s being. A low moan sounded in her throat and she closed her arms round him, stretching up on tiptoe to intensify their contact. Her hand slid up from his shoulder to sink its fingers into the ebony luxuriance of his hair, and spread there to hold him to her.

She was in the centre of a storm, and it was whipping faster and faster around her. Excitement had dug feverish claws of need into her quivering length for the first time, and unleashed a wildness she had not known she possessed. Nothing mattered but the potent feel of his lean, powerful body against her softer curves, the crushing strength of his arms and the glorious taste of him.

When he parted her velvety soft lips with his tongue and delved deep into the moist tenderness within the sensual shock of that tender assault roared through her. She shivered violently, a muffled little cry escaping her. She was so caught up in what she was experiencing that the sound of a voice on the inter-office call system made her flinch and gasp in surprise.

That intervention in Arabic had the same effect on Shahir as a bucket of cold water, and he had faster reactions. He lifted his tousled dark head, spared one glance for the dazed expression on her exquisite face, and immediately released her from his hold. Caught unprepared, she stumbled and almost fell. Instantly he reached out to steady her again with careful hands.

Breathing shallowly, she backed away into the cold support of the wall behind her while she made a great effort to get her brain back into gear. The confusion created by the sound of the foreign language being spoken on the call system did not help.

‘What is he saying? What is it?’ she muttered feverishly.

‘My PA is informing me that someone has arrived to see me,’ Shahir breathed, not quite evenly.

The silence hung around them, suspended, heavy with uneasy undertones. Kirsten could not meet his eyes. Indeed, she could not bring herself to look at him at all. With a sudden moan of unconcealed distress, she sped past him to yank the door open, and she fled as though an avenging angel was in pursuit of her.

Shahir drank in a deep, shuddering breath. Every natural instinct urged him to go after her and apologise for what had transpired, but his staff were already looking for him and Kirsten was obviously upset. It would be foolish to risk a scene that would attract adverse attention to her and increase her embarrassment. What the hell had got into him? He was furious at his loss of control, and could not work out how it had happened. It was as though his libido had hit an override button that had switched off all moral restraint.

Waiting in the elegant reception hall, Lady Pamela Anstruther tapped an impatient foot. Through the glass insert in the fire doors she watched a breathtakingly beautiful blonde girl emerge pell-mell from an office along the corridor. The doors flipped back noisily one by one until the youthful blonde finally rushed past her in tears.

A minute later Shahir came out of the exact same doorway, a forbidding reserve stamped on his devastatingly handsome features.

The attractive brunette’s calculating gaze hardened and veiled as she angrily considered what she had just seen and came up with the most likely explanation.

Kirsten stared at herself in the cloakroom mirror. Her green eyes were raw with guilt and shock. Her lips were red and slightly swollen, and tingling. Her body felt hot and tight and wickedly different. Shame engulfed her in a terrible drowning flood. Prince Shahir had been talking gravely about the damage to her father’s field. She remembered the way she had been looking at him while he spoke and she wanted to die on the spot. He had asked her what she was thinking about because he had noticed that she wasn’t listening properly. Only a very bold woman would then have told him that she was wondering what it would be like if he kissed her! How much more obvious an invitation could a woman give a man? It had been the provocative equivalent of telling him outright that she fancied him. Inwardly she cringed. She was to blame for what had transpired because she had tempted him into touching her.

Finding an empty office, she got on with the job of emptying the bins and dusting and vacuuming. But, as hard as she tried, her response to that kiss kept on coming back to seize hold of her thoughts. In her whole life it had never occurred to her that a man could make her feel like that, and she was shattered by the passion that had lurked undiscovered inside her until that moment of revelation. She was even more devastated by the excitement and pleasure she had felt in his arms. He was a stranger, she didn’t even know him, and yet she had found him irresistible—had been so lost in the delight of it that he could have done anything he wanted to her! She felt even worse that it had been him and not her to call a halt to their intimacy.

It was a relief to finish for the day. The staff locker room was very quiet because her usual shift had finished hours earlier. Buttoning her jacket, Kirsten crossed the coach yard to her bicycle. A man who had climbed out of an opulent sports car a few yards away was staring at her in a way that made her feel uncomfortable, and she dropped her head and quickened her step.

‘Hold on a minute…’ the man urged as she reached for her bike. ‘Let me have a proper look at you.’

A bewildered frown denting her smooth brow, Kirsten focused on the tall, thin man in jeans approaching her. ‘Sorry…were you speaking to me?’

‘You are stunning…’ He walked slowly round her, staring at her from every angle with frowningly intent eyes. ‘If you’re photogenic as well, I can make you the discovery of the decade!’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Detaching her bike from the stand, Kirsten began to wheel it swiftly away.

‘Look, I’m Bruno Judd.’ The man hurried after her. ‘You may well have heard of me—I am an internationally acclaimed fashion photographer. I don’t act as a modelling scout in the normal way, but you’re very eye-catching and I’d like to take some photographs of you.’

‘No, thank you.’ Eager to get rid of him, for she thought he was a weirdo, Kirsten climbed on to her bike in haste.

‘Did you hear what I said?’

‘Please leave me alone!’ she muttered fiercely, and pedalled away, leaving him standing staring after her with an air of disbelieving annoyance.

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