The Desert Prince's Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page A

Wildman—so wasn’t this a heaven-sent opportunity to do just that? To work for his company and to become the face which sym-bolised that company.
    Except it didn’t feel like that. It felt uncomfortable. Wrong. As if she was doing something that she shouldn’t be doing. And coupled with that was the burden of the knowledge she possessed.
    Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that Darian had excited her in a way that no man had excited her for longer than she could remember. And that in itself was a bad sign. One which made her feel gloomy about him in general. If she was attracted to him then he was bound to be trouble, because Lara’s track record with men was nothing short of abysmal.
    She didn’t fall for men very often, but when she did it was always for the kind of man your mother warned you to stay away from. Philanderers and cheats. Good-looking, weak, shallow men. The sort who promised you the earth and a little bit more besides, and then were busy glancing over your shoulder to see if someone more attractive had just walked in. In fact, she had sworn off men altogether—at least until she had worked out what was the basic flaw in her character which attracted her to the wrong type of man.
    Her friend Rose had a few theories of her own. She said that it was because Lara yearned for excitement and was looking for it in the wrong places—but how on earth couldyou go looking for it in the right places if solid and decent men—the kind your mother would approve of—left you cold?
    ‘Oh, you need a sheikh, like Khalim,’ Rose had laughed on the eve of her wedding.
    At the time Lara had been struggling into a dress which weighed almost as much as she did. ‘Don’t be so smug!’
    ‘But I’m not,’ Rose had protested, and had laid her hand on Lara’s shoulder, her voice gentling. ‘I’m serious. It’s just a pity that Khalim hasn’t got any brothers.’
    Lara chewed on her lip. Oh, Lord—she had completely forgotten that conversation until now! But that was the cleverness of the mind, wasn’t it?—It dragged things up from the hidden corners of your subconscious when it thought they might come in useful. If only Rose had known how eerily prescient her words had been.
    If it had been anyone other than Khalim then it might have been easy to pick up the phone and say, Hi, guess what? I’ve discovered you have a secret half-brother! But Khalim was no normal man. He was Sheikh of a vast kingdom, and if another man was related to him by blood, then couldn’t he lay claim to that kingdom and jeopardise the livelihood of all of them? His and Rose’s and their son’s, and the child soon to be born? How could she knowingly endanger all that until she knew something of the man himself?
    ‘Lara?’
    She looked up to see Jake staring at her with concern. ‘What?’
    ‘You’ve gone as white as a sheet.’
    ‘Have I?’ She touched her cheek and found that it was cold, and suddenly she began to shiver. ‘We shoot on Monday,’ she whispered.
    On Monday she would see him again. Those strangely cold golden eyes would pierce right through her and see…Would they sense that she was not all she seemed? And how would he react if she told him that he was not all he seemed, either?
    Jake frowned. ‘Lara, what is the matter? You’ve just won a fantastic contract—why aren’t you cracking open the champagne?’
    She forced a smile. Why not, indeed? Perhaps she was simply guilty of inventing problems where there were none. ‘Coming right up,’ she said brightly, and headed for the fridge.
     
    The winter sun streamed in through the glass, warming his skin as Darian slowly buttoned up his white linen shirt and watched an aeroplane creeping across the sky in the far distance. Outside, the clouds were tinged with pink and gold, contrasting with an ice-blue sky which made the world look as perfect as it was supposed to look. But then the views from his penthouse apartment were always matchless and