A Marriage of Convenience (Married to a Prince)

A Marriage of Convenience

B
y

Kat Attalla

ISBN: 978-1-77145-158-1

Books We Love Ltd.

(Electronic Book Publishers)

Chestermere, Alberta, T1X 1C2

Canada

http://bookswelove.com

Copyright 2013 by Kat Attalla

Cover
Art Copyright 2013 by Jasmin Attalla

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

A Convenient Marriage

Chapter One

Yousef
A’
del Sharif strode along the marble floor towards his father's suite with the fury of a sand storm. He’d returned from a meeting in the desert with a tribe of disgruntled Bedouins to learn that a dear family friend had suffered a heart attack. He should have been told immediately, not informed two days after the fact. He elbowed his way through the solid oak doors without pausing to knock.

"Why the hel
l wasn’t I called earlier?" he bellowed at his father.

The Nadiarian Defense Minister stepped forward.
"Is that any way to address the
Amir?"

Yousef clenched his fingers into tight fists. He had spent his entire life steeped in protocol. The last thing he needed was a lecture.
In public, the man before him was the king. In private, it was another matter. "Right now, I am addressing my father."

"Give me a few moments alone with my son, Hassan," the
Amir said to the minister. Without argument, the man bowed and left the room. "Have a seat, Yousef."

He shook his head, preferring to pace.
He thought more clearly on his feet. "Why wasn’t I contacted about Sean two days ago?"

His father sat in the seat behind his desk.
The teakwood chair, with inlaid mother of pearl, was the closest thing to a throne his father allowed in the palace. Before the discovery of oil in the small desert nation, Nadiar had been an arid land of Bedouins. Despite the large influx of money, the Amir never allowed himself to forget his ancestor's humble beginnings.

"What would you have me do, Son?
Pull you away from important negotiations when I had no information to give you?"

Yousef threw himself in the chair opposite his father's desk.
"He has been with us for nearly twenty-five years. He deserves to have his family near him now."

"But you are not his family, are you?"

His father's quiet words, although unintentional, had struck with lethal accuracy. Sean would have been family, had his stubborn, headstrong daughter, Honor not ended her relationship with Yousef a year earlier.

From the moment Sean had introduced Yousef to her, he'd fallen hard.
He thought she felt the same. Their affair, which lasted through his year of graduate school in America, had been explosive and intensely passionate. But when it came down to planning a future, she had latched onto the first excuse she could find to back out of their commitment.

"Yousef?"
His father cut into his disturbing memories.

He shook his head to clear his thou
ghts. "What would you have me do? Kidnap her and hold her captive until she agreed to be my wife?"

"It worked with your mother."

"My mother is a Nadiarian national. I think the American government would have taken a confrontational view if I had done something similar in their country." Not that the thought hadn't crossed his mind. If she had loved him enough to overcome her fears, she would have grown to love the desert land as he did.

The
Amir grinned and settled back in his chair. "Well, perhaps you will get another chance, son."

"Who says I want one?"
Honor had made her feelings very clear. It would be
a cold day in Hell
before she would come to him for any reason. At first he had believed she would call when she had time to calm down and think rationally. Instead, she disappeared without a word. Hope had eventually been replaced by a cool anger that served him well during the long, hot desert nights.

"I suppose there is another explanation for why you refuse to marry a nice Nadiarian woman and start a family."

"I have been busy. The Bedouins are restless about the oil wells springing up and severely restricting their freedom to roam. Mediating disputes between the tribes and the oil companies takes most of my time. I will do my duty and supply heirs in time."

"Hopefully in the near future. You are almost thirty."

"I’m twenty-six and we were not discussing my future, Father. We were discussing Sean." Despite the way his affair had ended with Honor, Yousef had maintained a close friendship with her father.

"Well, his daughter will be here soon so he won’t be without family much longer."

He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. "What?"

"Well naturally
she had to be called. Sean is her father, after all, and the only family she has left."

So
Honor was finally arriving in his little corner of the world. “I hope she enjoys her stay,” Yousef said as if her visit was of little consequence.

The
Amir cocked his bushy eyebrow in disbelief. “You don’t plan to see her?”

“If time permits -
for Sean’s sake. I wouldn’t want her to be left on her own in a strange country.”

“How noble
. I am sure that Sean will be eternally grateful you have decided to extend the customary Nadiarian hospitality to his precious only daughter.”

Yousef felt another twisting pain in his gut.
Leave it to his wise and subtle father to remind him that, despite his wounded ego, Honor was still the daughter of a dear family friend. And a man to whom the country owed a great debt. Disrespecting her would be an insult to Sean. He turned and stormed out of the room with the same fury he had entered. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard his father laughing.

****

Honor McPherson stepped from the plane into the intense desert heat. Despite the major changes in her life the past year, this was still one place she never thought she’d come. Especially with Joey. Her infant son remained asleep on her shoulder. After checking to see that his head was protected against the blazing sun, she closed him tighter in her arms and walked down the stairs to the bus waiting at the bottom. The shining, air conditioned transport took her by surprise. Why? Her father had often told her the Nadiarian capital was a modern city, but she had never been able to shake the Lawrence of Arabia vision of the desert from her mind.

Anxiety sent a shiver
down her spine. This was not a sight-seeing trip and she'd do well to remain alert. Worry for her father had made the twelve hour plane ride a misery. Since receiving the call about her father, she had been in a state of shock. Sean MacPherson was more fit than men half his age. A heart attack just sounded so...fatal. Particularly when she had lost her mother only a few years earlier.

The bus arrived at the main terminal and the passengers around her pushed their way off to claim their luggage. Thankfully, Joey remained asleep in his sheltered surroundings.
By the time she managed to strap the child into his stroller, collect her own bags and make her way to the immigration check point, the lines were long and her nervousness had returned. The concerned warnings from her friend, Shelly about bringing her son to Nadiar had weighed heavy on her mind. But what choice did she have? She could neither leave her infant son, nor desert her ailing father.

Calm down, she mentally chided herself.
So what, if she was now in Youssef’s homeland. With luck, she’d be off again without ever seeing the man who had broken her heart.

The man who still haunted her dreams.

The
father of her child.

She stretched the fatigue from her weary body.
In the past few days she hadn’t slept much as she wrestled over her decision to come. What if her father had mentioned her son to Yousef? Would he even care? Since he hadn’t called once in the past year to see if she was all right, she doubted it.

She’d had a lot of time for regrets and recriminations in the past year. It still hurt to remember their last day together.
When she had asked him for more time before committing to a wedding date, Yousef had accused her of making excuses because she was afraid. In part, he’d been right. But her reasons for being nervous were valid. Their affair had been so intense, so overwhelming, that she feared she would be little more than his shadow. She had needed the security of an education behind her to feel equal to him.

Perhaps her fears had caused her to overreact when she learned he was expected to marry a Nadiarian woman. All parents had dreams for their children. But the fact that he’d never told his family about her had cut deep and left her feeling like she was some clandestine little secret he had to keep from parents. If he had loved her the way she loved him he should have wanted the world to know it.

She shuddered and tried to suppress the painful memories.
It didn’t matter anymore. He had probably forgotten about her by now. In the end, Yousef would likely marry the Nadiarian woman his family had chosen. Why did that thought cause an aching around her heart?

"It must be a cold day in Hell, Honor."

Yousef?

The cynically spoken words, in a voice as familiar as her own, told her, he had not forgotten her.
Nor had he forgiven her, it seemed. She tightened her trembling fingers on the handles of the stroller. The knot of nervous tension rumbling in her stomach now clenched to a painful cramp. She should not have come. Especially not with Joey in tow.

She turned slowly, but she was not prepared for the assault of memories.
A jolt of electricity slammed through her. Nearly the same reaction she had the first time she laid eyes on him.
The Bronze Adonis
the girls in her dorm had called him. The overgrown sable colored hair and cropped beard that gave him his rakish good looks hadn't changed. But his dark eyes that had once sparked with such devilish humor now stared coldly.

"How nice of you to finally visit Nadiar.
Allow me to give you a hand."

She took a step back to give herself room to breathe, to think.
"I've arranged for a car already."

"Yes, and I sent the driver on his way."

"That figures."

His dominant personality hadn't changed either.
He still wore his arrogance with the same grand style as his Italian tailored suits. Oh, he had been funny, tender, even charming when he’d wanted to be. In her present state of mind, she wasn't ready to deal with a man who, in the best of times, had managed to make her common sense dessert her.

“Is this everything?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Yousef gestured towards her luggage and a porter came to take the bags.
He hadn’t yet noticed her son. She held her breath as the porter lifted the large suitcase that obstructed his view.

His slack-jaw expression caused her pulse to race.
Any thought that her father had mentioned her son to Yousef, vanished. His shock was evident. She wanted to turn around and get on the next plane home.

Instead, she gripped the rubber handles on the stroller and pushed towards the customs line before he could launch into the inevitab
le barrage of question sure to come. He caught up to her in seconds and led her to an exit without having to wait in line for a passport check. It paid to know people in high places. Although she would have preferred the company of strangers.

"I have a hotel reservation," she said, hoping he would put her in a taxi and send her on her way.

"Yes, I know.” He waved and a sleek white limousine pulled up to the curb. “However, it would be rude to allow a family friend to stay in a hotel."

"I see."

Yousef didn’t look at her as if he considered her a friend.
In fact, he didn’t look at her at all. Instead he stared at little Joey while myriad expressions crossed his face. She pulled her sun glasses from the top of her head and rested them on the bridge of her nose.

The chauffeur opened the car door.
She removed Joey, who was now awake, from his stroller and stepped into the spacious car. The cool air conditioning sent a chill over her. She slid across the plush leather seat and smoothed her linen skirt over her knees. Since Yousef had sent away her hired car, and the car seat she had arranged for as well, she had no choice but to keep the child on her lap. He joined her, choosing the seat directly across from her, so that she was forced to look at him.

"We have a twenty minute drive to the palace. That should give us time to talk."

She was in no condition to talk to him. With the baby cradled against her chest, she turned her attention out the window. Hot, desert sand stretched out as far as the eye could see. She half expected to see a herd of camels caravanning along the dunes, but instead, she saw Land Rovers cruising between oil wells.

It wasn’t long, however, before they reached the outskirts of the bustling city.
Many people donning the traditional flowing caftans, rushed by on their way to work. More surprising to her, were the fifty percent or so of the population who chose to dress in western style. She had been told that blue jeans on women were frowned upon in many Middle Eastern countries. Obviously not here, for it seemed to be the clothing of choice for the younger generations.