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

race properly?
    He turned back—seeing that this time she had not dropped her gaze, but was meeting his with a steady question in her eyes. The little lizard grew brave for the love of her horse! ‘Your father will miss you,’ he commented.
    ‘Yes, Highness.’
    He observed her involuntary wince at an observation he suspected was untrue, but noted that she did not blacken the man’s name. So she was loyal, too. That was good. In fact, it was a quality he required above all others. He guessed that her drunken oaf of a father was unkind and worthless, but he also suspected that there would be no real role for the girl now that his most precious asset had been gambled away. And what would she do in the horse’s absence? Continue to care and to wait on him and his useless friends until her youth had fled and she was a wizened old crone?
    ‘You wish to come with me? As my stable girl?’
    Eleni stared at him, scarcely able to believe what he was saying. Her heart was beating so loud that it seemed to fill the stable. ‘Oh, yes, please, Highness,’ she whispered urgently, and dropped her gaze to the ground once more, ‘Please, yes!’
    ‘Then I want you to look at me at all times when I’m talking to you,’ he told her harshly.
    ‘But…’
    ‘If you’re going to be working for me, then you will be treated just the same as the stable boys. Sometimes if a horse is troubled then it is necessary to communicate silently—through eye-contact. And in any case, I don’t like having a conversation with the top of someone’s head—is that understood?’
    ‘Yes, Highness.’
    Kaliq’s mind began to skate over the practicalities of such a step. Would such a decision to bring a woman back with him excite comment in the fevered courtrooms of the royal palaces? Very probably—but didn’t he thrive on his maverick reputation? He gave a brief, hard smile as he called out for his bodyguard, who slipped into the stable with the stealth and speed of dark light. ‘We are taking this girl with us,’ Kaliq said.
    The man’s face remained impassive. ‘We are, Highness?’
    ‘She is to be my stable girl—with sole responsibility for the new stallion. Arrange a price with her father,’ ordered Kaliq. ‘Whatever you think she is worth. And then bring her to my royal palace.’
    He swept from the stable in a shimmer of silken robes, without another glance or word in her direction, and once again Eleni bit her lip—this time to keep the useless shimmer of tears away from the hostile glance of his bodyguard.
    Because, yes, in a way—the royal sheikh had come to her rescue. She would not need to be parted from her beloved Nabat after all, and she would be free of this dark and dingy world in which she had existed ever since her mother had died.
    But let it never be forgotten that Prince Kaliq Al’Farisi had just ordered his bodyguard to buy her—as if she were a sack of chickpeas on sale at Serapolis market!
    CHAPTER THREE
    ‘BY THE desert’s storm!’ murmured Eleni with a sense of wonder as she gently drew the horse to a halt. Her arduous journey over the inhospitable desert terrain was forgotten as she gazed up at Prince Kaliq’s magnificent palace—easily visible from the magnificent stable block where she had been taken and which was to be her new home.
    She still couldn’t quite believe she was here—that her father had let her go so easily. He had simply shrugged his shoulders when she’d gone to say goodbye.
    ‘You are just like your mother.’ He had scowled. ‘I shan’t miss you.’ Then he had spat a piece of tobacco onto the ground and Eleni had shuddered. She suspected that he would miss her more than he anticipated—and wondered how he would feel about having to pay someone to cater to his every whim. The sheikh must have given him a princely sum, Eleni realised—for her father to accept her leaving the family home without trying to give her a beating.
    And now she had a new home. A sheikh’s