Alexandra Sellers - Sheikh's Castaway

A woman like Noor, vital, beautiful, with a heart now revealed as good and true—how had he left his own heart out of his calculations? What arrogance had blinded him to his vulnerability?

Bari loved her. Fire seemed to burn where his heart had once been.

How could he have imagined himself immune to her?

He shook his head. He had had to learn that he, too, had a heart. And that his heart was a better judge of truth than his intellect.

Could she love him now, when he had imposed such unnecessary suffering on her? When he had ranted at her, blamed her and told her the great lie—that he did not love her?

Such blind foolishness was over now. If only it were not too late….

Dear Reader,

As expected, Silhouette Desire has loads of passionate, powerful and provocative love stories for you this month. Our DYNASTIES: THE DANFORTHS continuity is winding to a close with the penultimate title, Terms of Surrender, by Shirley Rogers. A long-lost Danforth heir may just have been found—and heavens, is this prominent family in for a big surprise! And talk about steamy secrets, Peggy Moreland is back with Sins of a Tanner, a stellar finale to her series THE TANNERS OF TEXAS.

If it’s scandalous behavior you’re looking for, look no farther than For Services Rendered by Anne Marie Winston. This MANTALK book—the series that offers stories strictly from the hero’s point of view—has a fabulous hero who does the heroine a very special favor. Hmmmm. And Alexandra Sellers is back in Desire with a fresh installment of her SONS OF THE DESERT series. Sheikh’s Castaway will give you plenty of sweet (and naughty) dreams.

Even more shocking situations pop up in Linda Conrad’s sensual Between Strangers. Imagine if you were stuck on the side of the road during a blizzard and a sexy cowboy offered you shelter from the storm…. (Hello, are you still with me?) Rounding out the month is Margaret Allison’s Principles and Pleasures, a daring romp between a workaholic heroine and a man she doesn’t know is actually her archenemy.

So settle in for some sensual, scandalous love stories…and enjoy every moment!

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

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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, England, 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.

I would like to thank the following

for their generously given expert advice and help

Pete Godwin, aviator

Mark Hofton, designer

Jennifer Nauss, friend and editor

Geoff Tetley, life raft specialist

Jo and Dennis Wallace, world sailors

and AVON LIFE RAFTS

I couldn’t have done it without you

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

Epilogue

Princess Noor pushed the fold of her bridal veil away from her face with an impatient hand and blinked out the cockpit window, her mouth opening on a soundless breath.

Cloud. A thick, grey-white mass blanketing the distant mainland as far as she could see.

But she had no instrument rating. She couldn’t fly in cloud.

“It can’t be!” she whispered, aghast. Sunlight still glinted merrily from the rich turquoise of the Gulf of Barakat beneath her, but that offered no solution when she had had zero practice putting the little amphibian plane down on water.

Why hadn’t she noticed the cloud building up? She should have taken evasive action long ago. Had the yards of billowing tulle on her head confused her vision? Or had the humiliation gnawing at her stomach distracted her?

As if waking out of a dream now, Noor shook her head and looked around.

What was she doing here?

She hadn’t even stopped to remove her veil before taking off into the unknown. Hadn’t checked the weather. Didn’t have a destination. Her only thought had been to put as much distance as she could between herself and marriage to Sheikh Bari al Khalid.

She gazed out at the cloud again, her heart beating fast. She might have put a very permanent distance between them. If that cloud caught up with her, she wouldn’t be marrying anyone. Ever.

It had begun—when had it begun? When her parents’ families fled their beautiful country in the aftermath of Ghasib’s coup thirty-odd years before and both chose Australia? When the two young expatriate Bagestanis who became her parents had fallen in love and married?

Or had it begun only months ago, when the royal family’s long struggle to regain the throne had at last been successful, culminating in Sultan Ashraf’s now-legendary ride to the gates of the Old Palace through streets crammed with cheering, delirious multitudes?

“We loff heem!” the populace had cried, dancing, singing, laughing and crying, and even a jaded television reporter had unashamedly wiped a tear from her cheek.

Yes, perhaps that was the real beginning. For that was when Noor Ashkani’s comfortable, predictable life had been tumbled into a disorder so shocking and startling she seemed to herself to have become a different person.

That was when her father had made his world-shattering announcement. When the family, like so many other exiled Bagestanis around the world, were watching events unfold on television, weeping and hugging each other in a powerful combination of hope, fear and joy, her father had pointed at the image of the stern, noble face of Sultan Ashraf al Jawadi on the screen, and said, “Now it can be told. You are not what you think. He is your cousin.”

Cousin! That man on the white horse soon to be crowned Sultan of Bagestan! And not a distant cousin, either. Noor’s mother was the daughter of the deposed Sultan Hafzuddin and his second wife, the French-woman named Sonia. Her father was descended from the old Sultan’s sister. They owned palaces and property, seized by Ghasib, which would now be returned to them. They were titled.

So no longer was she Noor Ashkani, daughter of a wealthy Bagestani exile who had made good in his adopted country. She was Sheikha Noor Yasmin al Jawadi Durrani, granddaughter of the deposed Sultan of Bagestan, cousin to the present Sultan-to-be, and related to the royal family of the neighbouring kingdom of Parvan, too.