Bought by The Sheikh Read online

  BOUGHT BY THE SHEIKH

  Clare Connelly

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and have no existence outside the author’s imagination. They have no relation to anyone bearing the same or names and are pure invention.

  All rights reserved. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reprinted by any means without permission of the Author.

  The illustration on the cover of this book features model/s and bears no relation to the characters described within.

  First published 2014

  (c) Clare Connelly

  Photo credit: dollarphotoclub.com / Andrey Saprykin

  Contact Clare:

  Website: http://clareconnelly.co.uk

  Email: [email protected]

  Follow Clare Connelly on facebook for all the latest; or on

  twitter, if you’re more of the tweet-tweet persuasion.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Clare Connelly grew up in a small country town in Australia. Surrounded by rainforests, and rickety old timber houses, magic was thick in the air, and stories and storytelling were a huge part of her childhood.

  From early on in life, Clare realised her favourite books were romance stories, and read voraciously. Anything from Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, to Mills & Boon and (more recently) 50 Shades, Clare is a romance devotee. She first turned her hand to penning a novel at fifteen (if memory serves, it was something about a glamorous fashion model who fell foul of a high-end designer. Sparks flew, clothes flew faster, and love was born.)

  Clare has a small family and a bungalow near the sea. When she isn't chasing after energetic little toddlers, or wiping fingerprints off furniture, she's writing, thinking about writing, or wishing she were writing.

  Clare loves connecting with her readers. Head to www.clareconnelly.co.uk to sign up to her newsletter, or join her official facebook page.

  PROLOGUE

  Zayn clicked on Julia’s name impatiently, his raven black hair glistening in the early evening sunlight. The flight from America to his home country of Naman was long, and kept him out of the loop for far longer than he liked. Besides that, the latest company he was in the process of acquiring had turned out to have a surprisingly diverse asset list, and it had taken his full concentration to decipher the complex information.

  But now, in the comfort of his limousine, being luxuriously conveyed to his city palace, he waited for the communication from Julia to open. He had admitted to no one, least of all himself, how he lived and breathed for her emails.

  It was ridiculous. In the six months since meeting her, he’d reached a state of almost perpetual distraction. He thought of little but her, and every nerve ending was taught, waiting for her scheduled trip to his country.

  It was unheard of for Zayn to be in a monogamous relationship; even less so for him to wait to bed a woman he found desirable. But there was an indefinable quality about Julia Cosgrove-Howard that he found thoroughly intoxicating. And like a fine wine, he was happy to leave her to develop and mature before enjoying her fully.

  With the same seductive smile that always crossed his face when he heard from her, he looked down at his phone.

  And froze.

  Unmistakably, it was Julia, languidly sprawled across the bed in the kind of lingerie he had fantasised about her wearing. Sheer and lacy, it was the stuff of dreams. But she wasn’t alone. Curled around her possessively was a man. Zayn’s face was ashen as he forced himself to scroll the whole way down the email. There was no text, just picture after picture. Ten in total, of the woman he had actually thought about marrying, being made love to by another man.

  Zayn wasn’t sure why she’d sent it, and he wasn’t going to demean himself by asking.

  He’d been an idiot to think he actually cared for her. Zayn was a lone-wolf. Always had been, always would be. No. He’d been wrong about his feelings. How could he have ever believed he cared? But one day, he’d make her pay for cheating on him. The plan came to him fully formed, and ready to execute. It would take time, but he knew Julia’s greatest weakness, and eventually, he would be able to use it, or rather him, against her.

  He turned his focus back to the report he’d been studying on the flight over. Yes, every company had assets. It was just a matter of working out how to acquire them. The expression of furious intent that crossed his face would have chilled an onlooker to the bone.

  No one made a fool of Zayn Al-melara and got away with it. No one.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Four years later.

  Julia wound her window down and breathed in the fresh, floral scented air of the countryside. On one side of her silver Porsche, there were fields and fields of rolling green, delineated with low, stone fences. In the far distance, she could make out a small herd of sheep, grazing contentedly in the pale morning sun.

  To her left, a bramble hedge ran for miles and miles. She knew they were blackberries, and that at this time of year, they would taste particularly sweet and warm, because her childhood summers had been spent clambering through the thicket and eating so many of the juicy little fruits that she frequently made herself ill. With a small, nostalgic smile, she gave into temptation and swerved her car onto the stone verge.

  "Good morning," she grinned over at a little wren balancing precariously on the edge of the thicket. "I won't be long."

  With fingers that had performed this task countless times in the past, she plucked berry after berry from the hedge, and stored them in a takeaway coffee cup she'd had since leaving London earlier that morning.

  "See, I told you I'd be quick," she called to the bird before sliding back into her seat and pulling the car back out onto the deserted country lane.

  She couldn't resist the berries, not even for a minute. As she pointed the car left, towards the imposingly grand entrance of Howard Manor, she reached across and dug a clutch of the night-sky colored orbs from the cup and popped them in her mouth.

  They were so good, just as she'd remembered, that she made a moaning sound into the silent car. It was one of those rare, perfect summer days. The kind Keats wrote about, and Thomas Moore dreamed of. All blue sky and shining sun; and here in the country, everywhere she looked, things were green and glistening. And to punctuate it all, the sound of chirping birds seemed to serenade her car as she moved along the sweeping drive and approached the enormous building she'd once called 'home'.

  Despite having spent the better part of nineteen years living in this grand old dame of a building, she still paused for a moment to stare up at it from beneath her dust-covered windshield. The façade had been built sometime in the early eighteenth century; erected as the country seat for her ancestors, who had been important at the royal courts since Elizabethan times. Though somewhere in the last century, the Cosgrove-Howards had moved out of politics and high-profile living, something Julia was excessively grateful for. Her father had sought a life of business, and he'd excelled at it. Julia had every intention of following in his footsteps. The thought of living in any kind of spotlight scared the jeepers out of her. She much preferred the privacy and anonymity of a quiet life.

  She scooped her cup of berries from the front passenger seat and, pausing only to pop an extra few into her mouth, crossed the gravel forecourt. The day was young, and after a visit with her father, she was heading to Glastonbury. It would be her last festival for a while, she thought wistfully. University was finished now, and she had a career to consider. A career she was excited to begin. She'd worked her butt off at university for the simple reason that she wanted to make her own mark on the world. Having been born to a family of wealth and privilege was not going to preclude her from following her own dreams.

  Her denim cut-offs were her fe
stival favorites. They were soft with wear, and came to just below her buttocks, while her Hunter wellies came almost to her knees. On someone with a little more height, they might have fit better, but Julia was not particularly leggy. She slid a manicured, berry stained finger beneath the strap of her singlet top and moved it back into position, from where it had slid down her shoulder..

  "Dad?" She called from the front door. "Hey, Daddy? Where are you?"

  She kicked the boots off and stood them up behind the door, before padding bare foot down the hallway in search of her father. This early on a sunny day, he should have been in the conservatory, reading every word of The Guardian, and guffawing with gusto at the liberal pieces he didn’t approve of. Only he wasn't. His coffee cup wasn't even in its usual spot, on the glass topped table.

  "Dad?" Fear gripped at her heart sooner than it ought; but then, it had only been two years since his heart attack. She'd never forgotten that feeling of despair and worry, when the doctor had told her that he was in an induced coma. After all, he was her only family, and she was his. Since her mother had died bringing her into the world, it had been Julia and Colin, an unstoppable, co-dependent team.

  "He has gone to town."

  Julia froze at the bottom of the stairs, her whole body stiff as the words penetrated her mind. It was not the words, though, but the person who had spoken them. It had been years - four, she realized with a start - since they'd spoken, but she would know Zayn's voice anywhere. She dug her long nails into her palms until she thought she might draw blood, and slowly spun around.

  The outfit she'd chosen that morning was absolutely perfect for stomping the fields of Glastonbury. But under the intensive scrutiny of Sheikh Zayn Al-melara, she felt like she might as well have been naked. Slowly, his dark gaze drifted over her. He started with her hair, longer than she'd worn it when they dated; it now fell half-way down her back, in dark, silky waves. She'd filled out since then too- after all, she'd only been nineteen. Now, at twenty three, she was curvy and womanly; a fact he obviously appreciated, as his insolent gaze paused on the swell of her cleavage revealed by the lemon-yellow singlet top. The shorts were perfectly fine, but the way his eyes lingered on the apex of her thighs and the tanned skin of her legs made Julia's cheeks glows.

  "Are you quite done?" She queried haughtily, injecting enough ice into her voice to freeze a normal man. But beneath the cool attitude was a torrent of anxiety that threatened to burst any moment.

  "When I am done, you will know it," he responded through gritted teeth, without switching his focus in the slightest. Slowly, so slowly she suspected he was trying to infuriate her, he dragged his gaze back up the length of her body, pausing again for an exaggerated inspection of her breasts, which were now heaving with her rapidly drawn breaths.

  She forced herself to sound calm and crossed her arms across her chest. It was the wrong thing to do as it emphasised her narrow waist. "I see you're still as arrogant as ever."

  His lips curled in a faint smile. "More so, if anything."

  She lifted a perfectly sculptured brow in derision. "I find that hard to believe."

  "You'll see."

  A shiver of apprehension ran the length of her spine at his words, which seemed to foreshadow… something. Something ominous. She chose to ignore it. "Why has dad gone to town?"

  "He had to take some contracts to his lawyer. He was impatient to file them immediately."

  She frowned in consternation. "I told him a week ago that I would be visiting." Without thinking, she fished another blackberry from the cup and lifted it to her lips. Slowly, she pushed it into her mouth, wondering what on earth could have been so urgent that her dad would miss out on a chance to have lunch with her.

  "It was an unexpected matter, Julia."

  Her frown deepened. "Why do you always make me feel like I'm acting like a spoiled brat?"

  Zayn leaned nonchalantly against the banister of the stairs, and it brought his whole body closer to hers. "Perhaps because you're running around looking like a fun-loving, irresponsible teenager in the middle of a work day?"

  Color crept into her cheeks. "It's Glastonbury," she defended feebly. "And I've just graduated."

  He shrugged, as if to say she'd just proved his point. And she supposed she sort of had. After all, her first instinct had been to skip the festival this year, but Andrew and Georgie had been insistent. She didn't want to be the one to break up their trio. They'd been friends forever, and all that would change now that they were taking up serious jobs.

  "What are you doing here, anyway?"

  Zayn's expression was inscrutable. She looked up at his face, but had to look away again almost immediately. Though he'd broken her heart, he still had the ability to wind it up to double speed. Just one quick glance at him had set her pulses skittering. She swallowed nervously, and tried not to think about how good he smelled.

  "I came with a proposition."

  Another tingle of warning danced along her spine. "A proposition?" She dipped her hand into her the cup and fished out another berry. "I can't imagine what you could have to say that my father would want to hear."

  His smile was smug, but still so glorious on his face that it made her stomach flip over. "I offered to buy his company."

  Now the warning signals were so loud they were almost screaming in her brain. She froze, berry half way to her lips. "Dad would never sell his business. He spent a lifetime building it up. It's his legacy."

  "Your inheritance, too," he said with just a trace of judgment in his voice.

  She made a scoff of distaste. "Of course not. I don't think like that."

  "No. I'm sure you worked very hard for that Porsche you almost crashed into the house."

  She glared at him. So what if she had been a little indulged by her father? He had money, and he liked her to have nice things. But she'd never asked for a penny. She wasn't like that. Why did it bother Julia so much that he had cast her as a silly little diva? "You're one to talk." She snapped sarcastically, biting down on the berry in annoyance. "How's the palace treating you?"

  His smile was slow and lazy, like a cat lying on sunny bricks. "Touche. While I was born to the royal family, I have worked since I was a boy. Have you, Julia? Have you ever done a whole day's work in your life?"

  She felt heat in her cheeks. Angry, frustrated heat. He knew nothing about her anymore; why was he acting like he wrote the book of Julia? "What the hell is it to you?" She snapped, pushing past him and sashaying down the hallway with an unknowingly provocative swagger to her curved hips.

  Zayn followed, and their height difference was such that it took him no time at all to catch her, with his long strides matched to her small, barefooted steps. Trying to seem unfazed, she moved into her father's study, simply because it was the closest room and she needed to sit and get her composure back.

  He was right behind her, making it impossible for her to feel anything but uneasy. She fixed him with her most withering of glances. "You can wait for my father elsewhere. I would rather be alone."

  He moved his head slowly from side to side and came to stand in front of her. "But I have also come to speak with you."

  Julia's brown flecked eyes narrowed, and she stared up at him from beneath her thick, curling lashes. "Just go away, Zayn. We have nothing to talk about." He was so damned handsome, so sexy, that she felt herself being pulled dangerously backwards in time, to the first time she had seen him.

  It had been just a few rooms over, in the downstairs parlor that was often used for hosting formal events. She had known her father had invited him, of course. He was royal, and so a very big deal, even for someone with as rich and distinguished a family tree as Colin Cosgrove-Howard. But she'd imagined that Sheikh Zayn Al-melara would be old, and paunchy, perhaps with a glass eye or something.

  The moment he'd walked into the room, everything had stopped for Julia. The music, the chatter, the orbital spinning of the earth. She had simply stared at the most devastatingly attractive and
powerful man she had ever seen. He'd come alone. That had surprised her too, for surely men of his wealth and position travelled with security and advisors constantly.

  "He's the second son," her father had informed her later. "Not the heir to the throne. Though he controls the family's business empire and is himself worth billions."

  Julia had hardly heard him. He was so beautiful that he should have been shadowed by security simply in the interests of preserving such a superior specimen of humanity. Pretending an interest in a conversation with Georgie and Andrew, she'd studied him covertly all evening, from beneath her lashes, until finally, while she was replenishing her champagne from the bar, he'd completely surprised her by singling her out.

  "I have been watching you all night," he had whispered against her cheek, as he'd kissed her by way of introduction.

  Her eyes had flown to his face in surprise. "Not possible, or you would have seen me staring at you."

  Her honesty had drawn a broad smile from him. "I did see you staring, and it was all I could do not to beat a path through the room and take you outside where we could speak privately."

  She had shrugged, impressing herself with how cool she seemed. "Let's go now."

  Zayn had frowned a little. "I didn't intend to take you from your friends. And it is your father's party; I do not wish to show him disrespect."

  Julia had waved a hand in the air. "Don't be silly. My friends are on their way to being so sloshed they won't notice I'm gone. As for dad, if I'm happy, he's happy."

  Zayn had stared at her thoughtfully for a long time. So long that she thought he might change his mind. But then, he had pressed a hand to the small of her back and gently guided her from the room. The rest, had been history. The most breathtakingly beautiful romance of Julia's life, that had burned out as disastrously as it had begun magnificently.

  Out of nowhere, an image of the first woman he'd been with after her came to mind. Buxom, easy, slutty; and in the photo Georgie had reluctantly shown Julia, the woman looked like she'd just rolled out of Zayn's king-size bed. Slutty Big Boobs had been just the first in a long line of women Zayn had moved onto. And though there had now been dozens and dozens, the pain had never become easier to bear. If anything, Julia felt her sense of betrayal growing in proportion to her confusion. Why? She had thought he loved her, and then all of a sudden, it was over, and he'd moved on quicker than she could say, "But you broke my heart!".