Trapped by the Sheikh

By Katheryn Lane

#1 Bestselling author of sheikh romance!

Katrina Crewe travels to the Middle East to sell a fabulously expensive necklace to a billionaire sheikh, but he wants more from her than the glittering jewels around her neck. With infinite power and riches at his disposal, it's not long before the sheikh lures her into bed with promises of fulfilling her every wish: every wish except freedom.

Has Katrina found out too late she's a prisoner?
Who else is trapped in the sheikh's harem?
How can she escape when the sheikh is monitoring her every move?

Not all prisons have bars...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Katheryn Lane
• Release date: Sep 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311731159

Katheryn Lane

I’m a wife, teacher, author and mother of two boisterous boys, so most of my days are taken up with finding lost school shoes, getting stuck in traffic and wondering why I always join the queue that doesn’t move in the supermarket. However, I try to forget these daily problems (and the fact that I burnt the toast again this morning) by losing myself in a good book and writing novels that give readers a break from everyday life.Open one of my books and escape on an adventure to an exotic location, because it’s easier to buy a book than it is to book an air ticket.Have a break, read a book!

Book preview

TRAPPED by the SHEIKH

by

Katheryn Lane

Published by:

Katheryn Lane on Smashwords

Trapped by the Sheikh

Copyright © 2015 by Katheryn Lane

All rights reserved

Cover art by JD Smith Design at www.jdsmith-design.co.uk

Thank you to The Atwater Group for copyediting this book.

www.TheAtwaterGroup.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places, and events depicted herein are either a product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Also by Katheryn Lane:

A Bride for the Sheikh

The Sheikh’s Beloved

The Desert Sheikh

The Royal Sheikh

The Texas Cowboy

Her Latin Lover

Katrina Crewe travels to the Middle East to sell a fabulously expensive necklace to a billionaire sheikh, but he wants more from her than the glittering jewels around her neck. With infinite power and riches at his disposal, it’s not long before the sheikh lures her into bed with promises of fulfilling her every wish: every wish except freedom.

Has Katrina found out too late she’s a prisoner?

Who else is trapped in the sheikh’s harem?

How can she escape when the sheikh is monitoring her every move?

Not all prisons have bars...

Chapter 1

Your Highness, this is the Calendar! Katrina announced.

Sheikh Abdul Al Faiz nodded.

Katrina interpreted it as a sign for her to continue. I am sure you’ll be astounded by the beauty of this piece. She lost eye contact with the sheikh just long enough to signal to the large, blond man next to her to step forward. He approached the sheikh with a black leather briefcase and placed it on the marble-topped table in front of him. With a couple of flicks of his fingers, the man unlocked the case and opened it up. He turned the briefcase around so that its contents faced the sheikh.

Katrina looked at the sheikh’s eyes for clues about what the Arab prince was thinking, but his face remained an unreadable mask. His large brown eyes remained as cold as ever and not even a hint of a smile crossed his face.

The Calendar, as you can see, is an object of remarkable beauty, she offered.

The sheikh merely glanced at the contents of the briefcase, as if it contained a cheap trinket or a children’s toy, and not an object worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Maybe the sheikh was used to seeing priceless objects all the time. His palace certainly indicated that he was. He sat on an antique chair, covered in gold gilding, and on the wall behind him, Katrina could see a French Impressionist painting that she knew had broken international art records when it was sold a couple of years previously.

Of course, Katrina was used to dealing with immensely wealthy buyers who thought nothing of spending thousands of dollars at a time. However, they normally looked just a little bit impressed or at least surprised when she showed them some of the best pieces, and the Calendar was an exceptional item.

Katrina stepped between the blond man and the briefcase. As you can see, Your Highness, the Calendar consists of three hundred and sixty-five diamonds, fifty-two sapphires, and twelve emeralds, symbolising the days, weeks, and months of the year. Each stone has been perfectly cut and is of the highest quality, while each group of stones has been perfectly matched, and this alone makes the necklace an item of incomparable value. However… Katrina paused for dramatic effect, but it seemed to have no effect. If anything, the sheikh looked slightly bored.

However, she continued, undeterred, it’s the ruby that makes this piece of jewellery an item like no other. She pointed to the massive ruby that hung down from the middle of the necklace. This is the famous Kohlane ruby. It was once owned by the great Sultan Sahib Qiran and later worn by Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Queen Victoria then gave it to her granddaughter as a wedding present when she married the tsar of Russia. She stopped there in her recounting of the jewel’s history, as its more recent past was rather less splendid and romantic.

In the last few years, the ruby had fallen into the hands of a Russian tycoon with dubious business contacts. The tycoon had fallen in love with a beautiful young girl who he had met in a brothel in Moscow, or so people said. After a passionate affair, he married her in a lavish ceremony, showering her with gifts. However, none of the gifts compared to the Calendar, a necklace which he commissioned to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. He wanted it to symbolise every day, week, and month that they had spent together and asked the finest jewellers in Europe to make it: Godwins, the highly exclusive, highly specialised firm that Katrina Crewe worked for.

Godwins was a famously discreet London jeweller and prided itself on its customer relationships. Therefore, when the Russian tycoon called them one afternoon from Russia to tell them to stop work on the Calendar as it was no longer needed, the owner of Godwins, Mr. Ward, politely informed him that they had just finished work on the piece that very afternoon and asked what he should do with the item. The tycoon responded with a long stream of expletives and generally made it quite clear that he never wanted to see the jewels again, especially the Kohlane ruby, which he said had brought him nothing but bad luck. Mr. Ward immediately put in an offer for Godwins to purchase the whole piece. The offer was ridiculously low, but the tycoon, in his rage, accepted it and Mr. Ward had the money wired to Russia within hours.

No one asked about the beautiful wife, but she vanished from the society pages and the celebrity gossip websites. However, Jason Sandler, the large, blond man who accompanied Katrina to keep an eye on her valuable cargo, had a number of contacts in the world of international security services. During their flight to the Middle East to sell the Calendar necklace to the sheikh, Jason told Katrina that the tycoon’s wife had been caught in bed with the chauffeur and that the tycoon had made sure that his wife didn’t leave their marital bed alive. As a result, Godwins, or rather, the owner of Godwins, Mr. Ward, was now the owner of an extremely expensive necklace.

Mr. Ward, of course, didn’t care about such things; he wasn’t interested in why the Russian tycoon no longer wanted the huge necklace. All Mr. Ward cared about was selling the item. All he needed was a very rich buyer with a taste for extremely showy jewellery. Sheikh Abdul Al Faiz seemed like the perfect customer.

It will be an easy sell, Mr. Ward had informed Katrina. The sheikh has almost unlimited money, and loves anything that shows the world just how rich he is. Don’t forget to tell him about the ruby’s royal heritage. There’s no need to go into its more recent owner, but if he asks, just tell him that it was in the possession of a private collector.

So you won’t be coming with me? Katrina asked. Mr. Ward usually sold all the major pieces in person.

I’ve busy this week; an appointment at Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty is in need of a suitable birthday present for her daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge.

What about Veronica? Katrina asked. Veronica was Mr. Ward’s senior assistant and Katrina’s direct manager.

Veronica’s on standby in case the Queen of Spain calls. I can’t possibly fly her out to the Middle East. I know you haven’t dealt with a sale quite this big before, but this should be fairly simple: the sheikh’s a regular customer and he buys everything we show him. The necklace should just sell itself.

But I’ve never been to the Middle East before. The farthest Katrina had been to visit a client was Scotland to buy a diamond tiara off an aged duchess who lived alone in a crumbling castle with countless empty, dusty rooms filled with threadbare carpets and dark, dreary paintings.

You’ll have Jason. He knows the Middle East like the back of his hand. He’ll go with you and he’ll carry the Calendar until you sell it and pass it over to the sheikh. They like to haggle over the price in the Middle East, so I’ve inflated it quite a bit. That will give you some leeway to bring it down, but don’t lower it too much. Remember, the more he pays, the bigger your commission.

Katrina certainly wouldn’t forget the commission. This sale was going to be the biggest of her career and would provide her with enough money to put down a sizeable deposit on a flat in London. Before she flew out to the Middle East, she had looked at a couple of places and the third place she’d seen was perfect. It was a little over her budget, but it was in a very trendy, up-and-coming neighbourhood, with great shops and restaurants, and the flat was spacious by London standards, with huge windows that flooded the rooms with light. She told the estate agent that she would take it and asked them to start the legal paperwork. She told them she would be out of the country for a few days, but would be back soon with the deposit money.

However, as she looked at the sheikh’s reaction to the Calendar necklace, Katrina felt a lot less confident about her ability to sell it. She wondered how much she would have to drop the price by, knowing that every hundred thousand less was a thousand less for her deposit.

Perhaps if I took the necklace out of its case, you could see how brilliant the jewels are, she suggested.

The sheikh leant forward, peered into the case, shrugged, and sat back in his chair. Not sure whether this was a sign that he wanted her to continue, Katrina went ahead and lifted out the necklace. It weighed a significant amount and was heavy in her hands. She lifted it up to the light provided by a huge crystal chandelier directly above them. Hundreds of diamonds glittered and sparkled, the sapphires and emeralds threw out rainbow-coloured rays of light, and the great central ruby glowed a deep, dark red. Katrina shifted the weight of the necklace in her hands and the light caught a thousand different jewelled facets. The dazzling effect was almost blinding.

The sheikh looked unimpressed. What does it look like when it’s worn, Miss Crewe?

We would be more than happy for someone to try it on, Katrina suggested. She had already speculated about whom the sheikh was buying the necklace for, but all she knew was that it wasn’t for a wife. The sheikh was single, according to her online research, unless he had married someone after Katrina had looked him up on the Internet two days ago, before she left London. She knew that it was always helpful to find out as much about a client before visiting them, but the whole of the Internet had given her very few clues. It just said that he was one of the richest men in the Middle East—which meant the world—with his

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