The Sheikh's Defiant Bride

The Sheikh's Defiant Bride
Sandra Marton

Step into a world of sophistication and glamour, where sinfully seductive heroes await you in luxurious international locations.She’s pregnant with the Sheikh’s baby – but will she become his bride?The time had come for Tariq, Crown Prince of Dubaac, to find a wife and produce an heir. Though the darkly handsome, worldly-wise Sheikh had wined, dined and made love to some of the most beautiful and sophisticated women in the world, duty demanded that now he choose a biddable wife who would submit to him – day and night. Then, by an extraordinary quirk of fate, Madison Whitney became pregnant with Tariq’s child. But high-flying, outspoken Manhattan career-girl Madison certainly wasn’t biddable or submissive! Tariq knew he must use every means at his disposal to claim his defiant bride and their baby – seduction, passion, and even kidnap…The Sheikh Tycoons They’re powerful, passionate – and as sexy as sin!

“You find this amusing?”

“Amusing? How about appalling?” She slid from the stool, stalked to where he stood, lifted that I-dare-you chin and looked him in the eye. “Listen, and listen hard, because I’ll say this only once. This baby is mine. It is not yours. You have nothing to say about how I conduct my pregnancy, where I live, what I do, or what happens after my child is born. Got that, Your Highness?”

“Ms Whitney—”

“Get out! Get out of my home and my life… I never want to see you again.”

“I am the Crown Prince of Dubaac,” Tariq said coldly. “And you carry my heir.”

THE SHEIKH TYCOONS

by

Sandra Marton

They’re powerful, passionate— and as sexy as sin!

Three desert princes—how will they tame their feisty brides?

THE SHEIKH’S DEFIANT BRIDE

August 2008

THE SHEIKH’S WAYWARD WIFE

December 2008

THE SHEIKH’S REBELLIOUS MISTRESS

February 2009

THE SHEIKH’S DEFIANT BRIDE

BY

SANDRA MARTON

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

PROLOGUE

The Kingdom of Dubaac, early summer:

THE sun poured like a ribbon of molten gold from a pale blue sky.

Beneath its brutal rays, a small band of men sat motionless on their horses, embraced by the endless silence of the desert.

All eyes were on the rider whose stallion stood apart from the rest, and on the hooded goshawk that clung to his leather-gloved wrist with lethal talons.

At last, one of the men softly urged his own mount forward until it stood alongside the rider and his stallion.

“It is time, Tariq,” the man said softly.

The man called Tariq nodded. “I know.”

He did know. It was time; his father was right but, somehow, this final tribute to his dead brother was turning out to be as emotionally torturous as Sharif’s funeral.

Who would have thought such an ancient custom would tear so at the heart? Tariq had been raised in Dubaac but he had lived away from the Nations for years. He was a modern, well-educated, urbanized man and this was just a symbolic gesture…

“Tariq?”

He nodded and lifted his arm. The hawk gave a little shudder of anticipation as it awaited the unlacing of its hood.

Instead Tariq undid the bird’s jesses. The tiny bells that adorned the slender leather streamers fastened around the bird’s legs tinkled as they fell to the sand. A second’s hesitation, and then he unlaced the hood and tossed it aside.

For the first time since its captivity and subsequent training, the hawk was completely free.

Tariq lifted his face to the scorched sky, his profile as fiercely elegant as the hawk’s.

“Sharif, my brother,” he said huskily, “I send Bashashar to you. May you and she fly together forever in the vastness of the skies above our homeland.”

Another hesitation. Then he swung his arm forward and the hawk spread its powerful wings, leaped from his gloved hand and flew unhesitatingly toward the blazing sun.

For a moment, no one moved or spoke. Then the sultan cleared his throat.

“It is done,” he said gruffly.

Tariq nodded. He stood with his face still lifted to the sky, though the hawk had disappeared from sight.

“Yes, Father.”

“Your brother is at peace.”

Was he? Tariq wanted to think so but Sharif’s sudden death was still too new. His plane had gone down on a routine flight; it had taken days to find what remained of Sharif after the crash and the subsequent fire…

“He was a good son,” the sultan said quietly.

Tariq nodded.

“Someday, he would have led our people well. Now he is gone and we must rethink our plans for the future.”

A muscle in Tariq’s jaw tightened. He had known this was coming, but not so quickly. Still, why put off what he knew had to be done?

“I understand, Father.”