The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable-Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

softly. ‘I do not, for the desire to live overpowers everything—indeed, it is the strongest force in all the world.’ She wondered why his hard face had suddenly tightened into a harsh mask and she rushed on, afraid that she had somehow angered him but still determined to state her case. ‘The horse will not die but he will be miserable without me, and a miserable horse does not win races.’
    He nodded. ‘So what do you suggest as a solution for this particular problem?’
    It was strange how fear could give you courage. Or maybe not so strange at all when you considered that Nabat was her only friend in the world. ‘The only solution you have, Highness,’ she said boldly. ‘You take me with you.’
    It would have been almost funny if it had not been so preposterous. ‘You? A tiny upstart of a girl? Why, your mother would never forgive me.’
    There was a pause. Her gaze flew to a zigzag of hay which lay on the stable floor and she stared at it with fierce concentration. ‘But I have no mother, Highness.’
    At this, Kaliq stilled—for was there not a more brutal and defining bond than the loss of a mother? He had been just nine when his own mother had died giving birth to his brother Zafir, and that first and terrible loss had seemed to bring tragedy in its wake for Kaliq and his twin brother. His mouth hardened.
    ‘What happened?’ he questioned softly.
    Eleni shrugged her shoulders as if she was trying to shrug away the intrusive question. It was funny—you could tell yourself that you had come to terms with something which had happened years ago, but still that rogue little edge of abandonment could make your heart catch with pain. ‘My mother died,’ she said woodenly.
    Kaliq’s eyes narrowed. ‘Died of what—a desert fever?’
    ‘I don’t believe so, Highness.’
    ‘Then what?’
    Eleni hesitated. He was very persistent—but when had anyone last shown this kind of interest in her? Come to think of it—when had anyone last bothered to mention her green-eyed mother who had found it so difficult to adapt to married life? Her father certainly never did—he had obliterated her from his memory, and, even if he hadn’t exactly banned the use of her name in the Gamal house, Eleni didn’t dare to speak it for fear of his reaction.
    ‘My father was displeased with his dinner,’ Eleni began, vaguely recalling the noise and the drunken shouts and the mess of lentils splattered all over the floor. ‘He sent my mother to market to buy a chicken and on the way back she stumbled, and fell.’ Eleni swallowed. ‘They think that she was bitten by a snake—but by the time they found her, she was dead and the vultures had long taken away the chicken.’
    By the muscular shafts of his thighs, Kaliq’s hands clenched into two tight fists. He had been accused by women of having not a shred of compassion in his hard body but for once he found himself touched by this urchin’s plight. ‘And how old were you?’ he demanded.
    ‘I was…ten.’
    Ten? Almost the same age as he had been when his mother died in childbirth. Kaliq turned away from her troubled and trembling face, unwilling to acknowledge another fierce spear of recognition which burned through him—because some things were better buried away, deep in the dark recesses of memory. Royal and commoner—united by a strange bond. Each and every one of them had their burdens, he recognised bitterly—it was just that some were darker than others. With an efficiency born out of years of practice, he pushed his thoughts away.
    Logic told him to dismiss this motherless little stable girl with a curse in her ear for her presumptuousness. As if she would have any place in his stables!
    And yet undoubtedly she spoke the truth about the horse. Would he not perform better if she were taken along, too? Would not it be infinitely more preferable to spare his stable staff the trouble of having to break in a highly strung horse who might still sulk and refuse to