Jennifer Lewis - The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition - The Desert Prince / The Playboy's Proposition

They looked so much like Salim’s.

Celia bit her knuckle. So many things about Kira reminded her of Salim. Celia’s own pale coloring had been shoved aside by genes demanding shiny dark hair and smooth olive skin. Kira had a throaty chuckle when something really amused her that sounded shockingly like Salim’s laugh.

Already she was fascinated with numbers, and with money and business, and she certainly didn’t get that from her mom. She’d even convinced her grandma to help her set up a lemonade—and lemon cupcake!—stand last summer, when she’d barely turned two. She’d fingered the shiny quarters with admiration and joy that made the family fall about, laughing.

Celia was sure Salim, who’d majored in business and run a consulting firm of sorts while still in college, would be amused and proud beyond words.

A soft, breathy sigh escaped from Kira’s parted lips. Finely carved lips that were unmistakably an inheritance from one person.

It was wrong to deprive her daughter of her father. If it was awkward to tell him now, it would be much worse when Kira wanted to find him ten or fifteen years from now. It wasn’t fair to keep them apart.

When Celia returned to Oman two weeks later, Salim was in Bahrain, opening a new hotel. Every day she expected his return with trembling anticipation, but the days stretched out into six weeks with no sign of him.

She could be offended by his neglect, but she decided to view it as a vote of confidence. Apparently, he trusted her completely and didn’t even want detailed updates of her plans.

The archaeological team was hard at work reassembling structures and artifacts at the site. She’d put together a team of landscape professionals and made herself an expert in the unique local flora and fauna.

Suddenly word came from on high that his majesty was due back in three days. The coffee grew stronger and meetings stretched late into the night. Admins and accountants scurried faster from office to office. Celia found herself pacing the luxurious landscape nurseries, examining everything from specimen palm trees to prostrate ground covers with an increasing sense of alarm.

She planned to tell him about Kira at the first possible opportunity. She couldn’t work for him and take his money while concealing something so vital. His loyal employees made it clear that he was a man of honor. He’d be angry, yes, but.

“He’s here!” His admin burst into the conference room where Celia was organizing a set of drawings. “He’s on his way up and he asked me to find you. I’ll tell him you’re in here.”

Sunlight shone brighter through the elegant arched windows, and the sea outside seemed to glitter with a sense of menace. Celia straightened her new pinstriped suit and patted her hair.

You can do this.

It was going to be awkward any time she told him. Disastrous, even, but she couldn’t work for him under false pretenses. The longer she waited the worse it would be when the news finally came out.

He had to know. Now.

“Celia.”

His deep voice resonated off the thick plaster walls and marble floors. Her breath stuck in her lungs as she turned to face him.

An unexpected smile lit his imperious features. He strode toward her and took hold of both her hands, then raised them to his mouth and kissed them. Shock rippled through her as his lips brushed her skin and sparked a shiver of sensation.

“Uh, hi,” she stammered. “I was just organizing the plans.”

“Ahmad tells me your designs are ingenious.”

She smiled. “No more so than his.” The architect was younger than her, but already accomplished and now apparently generous with praise. She made a mental note to thank him.

She made another mental note to rip her gaze from Salim’s broad shoulders. Unlike last time he wore the typical attire of pretty much every man on the Arabian Peninsula: a long white dishdasha that emphasized the elegance of his powerful physique.

She cleared her throat. “I have some sets of plans to go over with you before I order the plantings.”

And there’s another little something I’d like to mention …

How on earth was she going to do this?

No time like the present. She screwed her hands up into fists. Drew a deep breath down into her lungs. Lifted her shoulders.

“Salim, there’s something I …”

But the words dried on her tongue as another man entered the room. Almost a carbon copy of Salim, but with a stockier build. And this man wore Western clothing—jeans in fact.

“Celia, meet my brother, Elan.”

Salim studied her face as she shook hands with Elan. She seemed nervous about something. According to Ahmad’s daily reports her plans were brilliant: creative, stylish and ideally suited to the difficult environment.

So why did she look so … apprehensive?

Her eyes darted from Elan to himself. Her cheeks were pink and her lips appeared to quiver with unspoken words. The pulse hammering at her delicate throat suggested a heart beating fast beneath her high, proud breasts.

He cursed the thought as Elan’s words tugged him out of his reverie. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“You have?” Celia’s voice was almost a squeak.

“What do you mean?” asked Salim. Surely he’d never mentioned his long-ago American girlfriend to his brother. They hadn’t even lived in the same country since Elan was sent away to boarding school at age eleven.

“Oh, yes. You were definitely the highlight of his college education,” he teased. “I suspect you may have rose-tinted the entire college experience for him. He certainly enjoyed it a lot more than I did.”

Salim’s ears burned at hearing himself discussed so casually. “That’s only because Elan is a man of action and not academics. I assure you my pleasure was entirely pedagogical.” He shot a dark glance at his brother.

Elan’s eyes twinkled with mischief. “Yeah, sure.”

“Elan runs an oil services company in Nevada.” Salim looked at Celia. “He’s busy ripping up the landscape so that people like you can put it back together one day.”

Elan shrugged. “The world still runs on oil, whether we like it or not. And as my brother knows, conserving the environment is a passion of mine.”

Celia smiled. “That is refreshing.”

Salim suppressed a snort of disgust. A passion of mine? He didn’t remember his brother being such a flirtatious charmer. “Where are Sara and the children?”

“They’re on the beach.” Elan tucked his thumbs into his belt loops in another American gesture that made Salim realize how little he knew his own brother.

“Perhaps you should join them.”

Salim glanced at Celia. Sun shone through the windows and illuminated her golden hair, picking out highlights of copper and bronze. He wanted to be alone with her.

To discuss the plans, naturally.

“I think we should all join them.” Elan held out his arm, which Salim noticed with irritation was as thickly muscled as a dockworker’s. “Celia, come meet my wife. She’s never left the U.S. before so I think she’d be glad to hear a familiar accent.”

Salim studied Celia’s face as she absorbed the fact that his brother had married an American girl. A perfectly ordinary girl without an ounce of aristocratic blood. Elan bragged cheerfully about her impoverished background. A stark contrast to the type of woman tradition had expected him to marry.

But Elan was not the eldest son.

Celia pushed a hand through her silky hair. “Sure, I’d love to come to the beach.” She glanced nervously at Salim. “Unless you had other plans for me.”

An alternate plan formed in his mind. It involved unbuttoning her officious pinstriped suit and liberating her lithe, elegant body.