Sold To The Sheikh

The man staring at her at this moment would be severely disappointed if she agreed to whatever of those three intimate alternatives he had in mind. She was actually doing him a favour in rejecting his overtures.

With a small smile hovering on her lips, she lowered herself with an almost perverse pleasure into the seat he’d obviously kept clear for her, right next to his own and close enough for her to smell his expensive cologne and see that his black eyes were framed with the longest lashes she had ever seen on a man.

The rest of the box was empty, not even graced by the granite-faced bodyguard who’d either stood at the back or shadowed the prince everywhere he’d gone so far that afternoon. Clearly the bodyguard had encountered this particular scenario before, and knew to make himself scarce whilst his boss chatted up whatever lady his royal eye had fallen upon.

‘I have been eagerly awaiting your return,’ the prince said in that overly formal manner which only a British private-school education could have instilled in him. ‘You have finished your judging for today?’

‘Yes, thank goodness. I didn’t realise how difficult a task it would be, picking the winner from so many beautifully dressed ladies.’

‘If I had been the judge, there would have been only the one winner. And that is your lovely self.’

Oh, please, she thought wearily. Save it for a more impressed model.

Charmaine didn’t give voice to her irritation. Not yet. Instead, she waited patiently for him to put his foot further into his mouth.

‘I was wondering if you might be free this evening,’ he went on predictably. ‘I would very much like to have your company at dinner.’

What you’d like, my pompous prince, is to have me for dinner. Or afters.

Her eyes turned cold as his continued to smoulder.

‘I’m sorry,’ she returned with an upward tilt of her chin that lifted the brim of her picture hat and gave him a clearer view of her icy blue eyes, ‘but I’m not free tonight.’

Her first refusal did not deter him, as she knew it wouldn’t.

‘Perhaps another night, then. I hear you live in Sydney. You may not be aware of the fact, but I am in Sydney every weekend.’

Actually, she hadn’t been aware of much about the prince at all till today. Like a lot of sheikhs, he did not seek publicity. But a Melbourne racehorse-owning couple who were also guests of the prince today had been more than happy to fill her in when he was off presenting a trophy for one of the early races which his family had sponsored. Charmaine now knew he was in his mid-thirties and managed a huge thoroughbred stud in the upper Hunter Valley north-west of Sydney, a job he’d been doing very successfully for the last decade. Apparently, his royal family’s interests in horse-racing spread far and wide and they had similar breeding establishments in Britain and America. Prince Ali, however, was solely in charge of the Australian branch.

She’d also been discreetly informed of his reputation as a ladies’ man and a lover, although she wasn’t sure if that had been a warning or an advertisement for her host’s boudoir skills, a teaser meant to whet her appetite to experience the reality rather than the rumour. If so, his minions had been wasting their time. They’d definitely picked the wrong target today. And so had he.

She couldn’t wait to enlighten him of his mistake.

‘I will be back in Sydney by tomorrow afternoon,’ he went on suavely, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘I play cards with friends in my hotel suite every Friday night and attend the Sydney races every Saturday. To be truthful I rarely travel interstate. I only came to Melbourne this week because I had a horse running in the Cup last Tuesday and another in the Oaks today. Unfortunately, neither of them won.’

‘How sad for you,’ she said without a trace of true sympathy in her voice.

He didn’t seem to notice, however. Perhaps he could not conceive of the possibility that a woman would not hang on his every word, or feel anything but flattery over his obvious interest.

Charmaine almost smiled over the thought that Prince Ali of Dubar was about to have a new experience with the opposite sex. It was called…rejection.

‘Would you be free to go to dinner with me this Saturday night?’ he persisted, as she had known he would. ‘Or do you have further commitments which will keep you down here in Melbourne?’

‘No. I fly back to Sydney tomorrow morning. But I won’t be free to have dinner with you that night, either. Sorry,’ she added blithely.

His frown carried some confusion. ‘You have another engagement?’

‘No,’ came her succinct reply.

His frown deepened. ‘There is a lover who would object to your going out to dinner with me?’ he ventured in his bewilderment. ‘Or a secret patron perhaps?’

Charmaine’s irritation reached new heights, prompted by both his stuffy manner of speech and his presumption that there had to be some man stopping her from going out with him. It could not possibly be that she didn’t find him irresistible and didn’t want to go out with him. What annoyed her most, however, was his last inference that she might already be some wealthy man’s secret mistress.

‘I have no lover, or patron, as you put it,’ she replied curtly. ‘The fact is, your royal highness, I will never be free to go out with a man like you, so please save yourself the trouble and don’t ask again.’

His eyes flared momentarily with shock before going as hard as ebony, his dark brows gathering like clouds before the storm.

‘A man like me,’ he reiterated in clipped tones. ‘Might I ask exactly what you mean by that?’

‘You may ask,’ she answered coolly, ‘but you will not get an answer.’

‘Surely I have a right to know why you have turned me down so rudely.’

Some of the fury that Charmaine had kept bottled up for years bubbled up in her throat and found voice.

’Right?’ she snapped, and was on her feet in a flash. ‘You have no rights where I am concerned. You asked me out. I declined. You asked me again, so I made it quite clear that any further attentions of yours are unwanted. I don’t think that is rude. That is my right, to not be pestered by spoiled and arrogant men who have not had no said to them nearly often enough. My answer is and always will be no, Prince Ali. Hear it and take heed of it, because if you ever make contact with me again, I will have you arrested for stalking!’

She whirled and swept out of the box, swishing her way down the steps and out of the stand. She half expected him to charge after her but he didn’t, for which she was grateful, because she knew if he dared lay a hand on her, she would strike him across his arrogant face. Her hands were gripping her handbag with white-knuckled intensity, but they would have loved any excuse to lash out physically at him. A verbal assault was not nearly enough to soothe her temper.

Charmaine didn’t stop her angry retreat till she had reached the car park, and her car. But even as she climbed in behind the wheel of her rented blue car and started up the engine, she was still shaking inside.

The sight of the sheikh’s stunned face suddenly filled her mind and she groaned. She had gone too far this time. Way too far.

Normally, she said her nos to such men much more politely and tactfully. Something about Prince Ali, however, had brought out the worst in her. She wasn’t sure what. Possibly because he was armed with far too many attractions for most females to resist. Goodness, those eyes!

Charmaine imagined he’d been very successful in seducing then carelessly discarding many silly Australian girls in the past. Such thoughts had her blood heating in her veins again. When she went to reverse out of her spot, she did so recklessly and almost backed into another car. She must have missed it by an inch.

Giving herself a rigorous mental shake, Charmaine forcibly calmed herself before resuming her exit from the car park. The last thing she wanted was to have an accident. She had to be in Fiji on Monday, on a photo shoot for the cover of a sporting magazine.

Stop thinking about the man, she lectured herself as she drove off at a relatively sedate speed. And stop feeling guilty. Men like him don’t have feelings like ordinary people. They have egos, and desires, both of which are well catered for. So he wanted you for a moment today. And he didn’t get what he wanted for once. Big deal! He won’t go to dinner—or to bed—alone tonight. There will be some other foolish female to soothe his ego and satisfy his desires. You don’t have to worry about him. Or even think about him.

But she did think about him, on and off for the next week. Guilt, she supposed. Being so openly rude was not part of her usual public persona. When out and about, she kept her feelings well hidden, covering the darkness within under a cloak of sweetness and light. The way she’d treated the sheikh had been quite uncharacteristic and strangely troubling.

Finally, however, all thought of him was gone, banished from her mind as she got on with her life and her life’s work. Charmaine was on a mission these days, and that mission had no time for men. Certainly not men like Prince Ali of Dubar. She’d finished with that type many years before. More recently, she’d finished with the nicer types as well.

The media would be surprised to know that Charmaine, the Aussie model who’d been voted by more than one glossy rag as one of the sexiest women in the world, now lived a celibate lifestyle. There were no boyfriends or lovers any more. And definitely no secret patrons, she thought sneeringly. The very idea!

Of course, Charmaine had enough business nous to realise that news of her nun-like life would not do her career any good. Being seen as sexy and sexually active was part of her image. So she continued to be snapped by the media at premières and parties on the arms of handsome young men, usually hunky male models who had a sexual secret of their own, namely that they were gay. And she continued to model the most daring of clothes, often without any visible underwear.

Charmaine kept her public profile high, and her image extremely sexy. She earned more money that way. And money was the name of the game these days. It took millions, she’d found out since she started up the Friends of Kids with Cancer foundation, to fund cancer research, as well as make the lives of children already suffering from cancer more bearable, not to mention their poor families’ lives. Millions and millions!

Sometimes, Charmaine surrendered to depression over the enormity of the mission she’d set herself. Could she really make a difference? But most of the time she was filled with the most dogged determination. She would do anything she could to raise money for her own very personal cause and crusade.

Anything at all!

CHAPTER ONE

OCTOBER, the second month of spring in Sydney, eleven months later…