The Sheikh's Shock Child by Susan Stephens

Author:Susan Stephens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2018-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

‘THERE,’ KHALID SAID, standing back to examine his handiwork. ‘Apart from your striking blue eyes, you look like a real Khalifan.’

She felt unrecognisable: exotic, unusual, and so unlike her usual self.

‘Well?’ he prompted. ‘What do you think?’

‘It feels wonderful,’ she admitted. ‘Cool and comfortable.’

‘I sense a but?’ he queried.

Only that same niggle of doubt that had struck her inside the tent. What was she doing here, living a dream that didn’t belong to her? And never could?

Miss Francine’s voice came into her head. If things appear too good to be true, they generally are.

She had to shake that thought away, and enjoy each new experience to the full otherwise her time here was wasted. There were never any guarantees in life, so why not make the most of this? She was under the protection of the hawk of the desert. What could possibly go wrong? Millie thought as Khalid’s attendants brought up the horses. The air was warm and scented with the tang of the ocean, and adventure in the desert beckoned.

‘I’m ready,’ she confirmed.

Khalid’s snorting, frothing, fearsome-looking animal was definitely not her mount of choice. ‘You don’t seriously expect me to ride on that?’ she said as he beckoned to her to come closer, so he could lift her onto the saddle in front of him. ‘That isn’t a horse, it’s a muscle machine with evil intentions.’

‘Play nice, Burkan,’ he said as the horse flattened its ears.

‘What about me?’ Millie pointed out. ‘I’m prepared for nice, but preferably when it arrives on four wheels.’

‘You’ll be fine,’ Khalid assured her as he held out his hand.

Black as night, and as hard-muscled as his master, his stallion was grandly caparisoned in red and gold as befitted the favourite mount of a mighty ruler. And had the temperament of a snake someone had poked with a stick, Millie concluded. ‘He’s a monster. No way. Don’t you have a mule, or a donkey?’

‘Burkan means volcano in your language,’ the monster’s master explained fondly as he caressed his mount’s suddenly pricked-up ears.

‘I see he responds to flattery like most males,’ Millie commented dryly.

Khalid laughed, the sound muffled behind the howli, making it sound like a deep rumble of thunder, while his big black stallion raked the ground and gave her the dead eye. ‘He’s a pussycat,’ he soothed.

‘Of the big cat variety, with a thorn in its paw,’ Millie agreed.

‘I’m right out of donkeys,’ Khalid told her, ‘so are you coming, or not?’

She gazed around at the desert. This might be his home, but it looked like hostile territory to Millie. Resistant though she was to the idea of riding half a ton of power-packed, mean-eyed horse, she took hold of Khalid’s hand. No stallion with a personality disorder was going to frighten Millie Dillinger.

The next moment they were off. There was no slow build up to a flat-out gallop, so she could get used to the stallion’s gait. Burkan only knew one speed, and that was rocket-propelled. She yelped with fear

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