Kim Lawrence - Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

‘The sleeping arrangements are entirely your choice.’ His eyes slid from her face to the low divan piled with silken cushions and then back to her face. ‘But it can get lonely at night.’

Molly swallowed and folded her arms across her chest in an instinctively protective gesture. ‘I’m quite comfortable with my own company, thank you.’

‘My taste doesn’t run to beige creatures, anyway.’ His critical gaze ran over her crumpled skirt and blouse before he gave a faint grimace. ‘Why are you wearing those things? I asked Sabra to give you some fresh clothes.’ Although anything less beige than the woman glaring at him with luminous eyes would have been difficult to imagine, he admitted.

Molly knew there were some women who got told by beautiful men they were gorgeous, and she knew that she was not one of them. All the same, his dismissive contempt stung.

‘She did, but I prefer to wear my own clothes. And while we’re on the subject of taste, mine doesn’t run to…’ Molly struggled to speak past the sudden constriction in her aching throat as she stared straight at his chest. ‘To men who kidnap me.’

Kim Lawrencelives on a farm in rural Anglesey. She runs two miles daily and finds this an excellent opportunity to unwind and seek inspiration for her writing! It also helps her keep up with her husband, two active sons, and the various stray animals which have adopted them. Always a fanatical consumer of fiction, she is now equally enthusiastic about writing. She loves a happy ending!

Recent titles by the same author:

SECRET BABY, CONVENIENT WIFE

THE DEMETRIOS BRIDAL BARGAIN

CLAIMING HIS PREGNANT WIFE

BY

KIM LAWRENCE

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DESERT PRINCE, DEFIANT VIRGIN

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CHAPTER ONE

PEOPLE assumed that Tair Al Sharif was a natural diplomat, but they were wrong.

He was so not a diplomat—though there had been many occasions when that role had been forced upon him by necessity—that as his cousin’s glance once more drifted from him to the young Englishwoman seated on the opposite side of the table he wanted quite badly to drag the other man from his chair, give him a good shake and demand to know what the hell he thought he was playing at.

‘How is your father, Tair?’

The soft buzz of conversation around the table stilled as Tair removed his steely stare from the Crown prince of Zarhat’s profile and turned his attention to the man who was the hereditary ruler of that country.

‘Hassan’s death was a shock to him.’

The king sighed and shook his head. ‘A man should not outlive his children. It is not the natural order of things. Still he has you, Tair, and that must be a comfort to him.’

If this was the case his father was hiding it well.

There was an ironic glitter in Tair’s blue eyes as his thoughts were drawn back to his last verbal exchange with his father.

‘I trusted you and what did you do, Tair?’ King Malik’s face had been suffused with a dark colour as he’d slammed his fist down on the table, causing all the heavy silver to jump.

Years ago when he had been a boy, Tair had struggled to hide his reaction to his father’s sometimes violent and unpredictable outbursts, though such displays of unbridled fury had left him sick to the stomach. Now he did not need to struggle, as his father’s rages no longer seemed frightening to him, just vaguely distasteful.

‘It is a pity it wasn’t you who walked in front of that car instead of your brother. He knew what loyalty and respect is due me. He would have supported me in this, not taken advantage of my grief to go behind my back.’

‘I tried to contact you in Paris.’

His father’s grief had not interfered in any noticeable manner with his social life.

King Malik dismissed this comment with a wave of his short, heavily ringed fingers and a contemptuous snort.

‘But I was told you were not to be disturbed.’ Tair knew this had been shorthand for his father being in the middle of a very high-stakes poker game.

The king’s eyes narrowed further as he glared at his remaining son without a hint of affection.

‘Your problem, Tair, is you have no vision. You do not think on the grand scale, but of such things as a water-treatment plant…’ His sneer registered utter contempt for such a project. ‘You exchanged those mineral rights for a water-treatment plant instead of a new yacht!’

‘Not just a water-treatment plant, but an undertaking to recruit locally whenever possible, a training programme for our people and fifty per cent of the profits for them once they have recouped a percentage of their initial outlay.’

The deal he had renegotiated had not made the international firm he was dealing with exactly happy. They had been under the impression he was there to rubber stamp the contract as it stood, but they had at least viewed him with grudging respect as they had walked away looking like men who were not quite sure what had just happened to them.

Of course, Tair conceded, he’d had the element of surprise on his side. Next time—though considering his father’s reaction that might not be any time soon—he would not have that advantage.

But Tair was not a man to avoid challenges.

‘Profits!’ His father had dismissed those intangible projected figures with a snap of his swollen fingers. Overindulgence had left its mark on his coarsened features and his once athletic body. ‘And when will that be? I could have had the yacht next month.’

His suggestion that it would perhaps be no great hardship to make do with last year’s yacht had not been received well! And though Tair had not expected, or fortunately needed, praise, the lecture had been hard to take.

It was much easier to accept the censorious finger his uncle waved in his direction because Tair knew that, unlike his own father, King Hakim’s remonstrance was well intentioned. His uncle was a man who had always put the welfare of his people above his own comfort and would be able to appreciate what Tair was trying to achieve.

‘Remember the next time you feel the urge to fly into a desert storm… alone …that you are all your father has left.’

It was hard to tell from his manner which action appalled his uncle the most: the danger of the desert storm or the fact his nephew had not travelled with an entourage of hundreds as befitted his station in life.

‘There are responsibilities in being heir.’

Tair inclined his head in courteous acknowledgement of the royal rebuke. ‘I am new to the role, Uncle, so I’m bound to make some errors.’

From the moment Tair had become heir to the throne many had considered his life public property and he accepted this, but there were some freedoms that he was not willing to relinquish. He needed places, moments and people with whom he could be himself in order to preserve his sanity.