Sold to the Sheikh

By Miranda Lee

The sheikh will have her—no matter what the price!

When Australian supermodel Charmaine donates herself as a prize at a charity auction, the winning bidder is Prince Ali of Dubar. Now she has to be his dinner partner—he's paid five million dollars for the privilege!

The Prince Ali makes her another outrageous offer: five hundred million dollars to be paid to her favorite charity if she agrees to spend a week with him. But Ali isn't paying for just her company…he's paying for her to grace his bed!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Sep 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9781426877230

Miranda Lee

After leaving her convent school, Miranda Lee briefly studied the cello before moving to Sydney, where she embraced the emerging world of computers. Her career as a programmer ended after she married, had three daughters and bought a small acreage in a semi-rural community. She yearned to find a creative career from which she could earn money. When her sister suggested writing romances, it seemed like a good idea. She could do it at home, and it might even be fun! She never looked back.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

HIS eyes had been on her all afternoon. Dark, beautiful eyes. Arrogant eyes. Presumptuous eyes.

Charmaine knew, soon after their introduction, that His Royal Highness, Prince Ali of Dubar, was going to make some kind of pass before the day’s races were over.

From the moment she became aware of the sheikh’s interest in her, Charmaine regretted accepting this particular job. The pleasure of being one of the judges for the ‘Fashion-in-the-Field’ competition during Flemington’s spring racing carnival did not override the displeasure of being pursued by yet another international playboy.

But by the time she’d completed the job she’d been hired for—the final judging on Ladies’ Day had been over by four—Charmaine had a firm handle on her irritation and began looking forward to that moment when her admirer put his mouth where his eyes had been, so to speak. Not literally, of course. The thought of such a man actually kissing her made her shudder. Nothing repelled Charmaine more than overly good-looking, overly wealthy men who thought any female they fancied could be had for the price of a dinner. Or even less.

And this one was more than overly good-looking and overly wealthy. The Arab prince and horse breeder was one of the most handsome men—and undoubtedly one of the richest—Charmaine had ever met. Taller and leaner in her opinion than most Arab princes, he was also clean-shaven and dressed that day not in traditional Arab dress, but a pale grey suit and brilliant white shirt which highlighted his richly olive skin and thick, jet-black hair. His face was as hard and lean as his body, his dark, deeply set eyes bisected by a strong nose that was underlined by a cruelly carved but not unattractive mouth.

He looked unlike any sheikh Charmaine had ever met. And she’d met a few. Supermodels met many of the world’s wealthiest men, both in the course of their careers and their social lives. The rich and famous liked having the bold and the beautiful at their dos.

Being invited to be a special guest of Prince Ali in his private box at the races had not surprised Charmaine. Having the sheikh think what he had obviously been thinking about her all afternoon didn’t surprise her, either. In her experience, billionaire Arab playboys had a tendency to overestimate their own irresistibility, as well as underestimate the morals of some western women. No doubt, in this sheikh’s mind, supermodel equated with superslut.

Charmaine would take great delight in cutting Prince Ali down to size a little. His inflated male ego, she decided as she sensed him watching her again, needed pruning.

She was right. He was watching her, his eyes never leaving her as she made her way back up into the stand, burning their way through her figure-hugging silk dress, stripping her of every stitch and leaving her feeling stark naked and almost bitter over her undeniable physical assets. Not for the first time, Charmaine had a moment of burning resentment over the genes which had combined her father’s height and Nordic fairness with her mother’s large blue eyes and womanly curves to produce a tall, head-turning blonde who’d first rocketed to modelling fame at the tender age of sixteen.

Nine years later, Charmaine’s precocious beauty had blossomed into a more mature but still widely recognisable look with her striking figure and extra-long but perfectly straight fair hair. Hourglass shapes were supposedly out of fashion, but Charmaine’s elegantly elongated version was eagerly sought after by designers, primarily because she could showcase their wares more effectively than her thinner colleagues. She was especially popular with swimwear and lingerie fashion houses and had made a small fortune being photographed in a state of dishabille.

Unfortunately, a side-effect of being seen on billboards and magazine covers in skimpy underwear and hardly there bikinis was that some men presumed her whole body was for sale, not just the image she projected. It was amazing how many wealthy men had thought they could buy her as their trophy girlfriend, or mistress, or even wife. Charmaine found this perversely amusing. Little did they know but she was the last woman on earth they would want in their beds.

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