Captive of Kadar

‘Hey,’ he said, ‘just because you guys felt the need to get all domesticated and settle down, don’t take it out on me.’

‘You just wait,’ said Zoltan.

‘Yeah,’ said Bahir, with a knowing smile. ‘You won’t know what’s hit you.’

‘I never saw it coming,’ admitted Kadar as he pulled his new wife closer. ‘So you better watch out.’

Rashid shook his head. ‘I don’t know, maybe I’m just wired differently from you guys.’

‘Yeah,’ said Kadar. ‘Just keep telling yourself that.’

Around them children ducked and weaved through the crowd. Bahir and Marina’s son and daughter, Chakir and Hana, now six and five, along with their two-year-old brother, Karim, trying to keep up, and behind him toddled Zoltan and Aisha’s pigeon pair, only six months younger.

‘This is the best day of my life,’ Kadar told Amber later at the reception as he waltzed her around the dance floor.

‘Mine too.’ She smiled up at him. ‘I’m only sorry Mehmet couldn’t be here to witness it.’

‘We’ll see him next week,’ he said. ‘But he knows how happy we are. He knew you were right for me from the very beginning.’

‘He was right. I love you, Kadar.’

His heart swelled so big, he wanted to howl at the moon. How could a man be so lucky?

‘I love you, Amber.’ And he kissed her sweetly on the lips and then he took her hand and pressed his lips to the bracelet that her great-great-great-grandmother had been given a century and a half before. The bracelet that had been given to the Sultan’s favourite.

Because Amber was his favourite now, as she would be for ever.

* * * * *

Look out for SHACKLED TO THE SHEIKH, the final instalment of Trish Morey’s DESERT BROTHERS series. Coming soon!

Keep reading for an excerpt from CRAVING HER ENEMY’S TOUCH by Rachael Thomas.

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CHAPTER ONE

THE PURR OF a sports car broke the quietness of the afternoon, taking Charlie’s mind hurtling back to the past. To events she’d been hiding from for the last year.

She had grown up in the glamour of the racing world, but her brother’s death had sent her retreating to the country and the sanctuary of her cottage garden. It was a place that was safe, but instinct warned her that this safety was now under threat.

Unable to help herself, she listened to the unmistakable sound of the V8 engine as it slowed in the lane beyond her garden, appreciative of its throaty restraint. All thoughts of planting bulbs for next spring disappeared as memories were unleashed. Images of happier times filled her mind, colliding with those of the moment her world had fallen apart.

Kneeling on the grass in the corner of her garden, she couldn’t see the car on the other side of the hedge, but she knew it was powerful and expensive—and that it had stopped in the lane outside her cottage.

The engine fell silent and only birdsong disturbed the peace of the English countryside. She closed her eyes against the dread which rushed over her. She didn’t need visits from the past, however well meaning. This unexpected visitor had to be her father’s doing; he’d been pushing her to move on for weeks now.

The heavy clunk of the car door shutting was followed by purposeful footsteps on the road. A few seconds later they crunched on the gravel of her pathway and she knew that whoever it was would see her at any second.

‘Scusi.’ The deep male voice startled her more than the Italian he spoke and she jumped up as though she were a child with her hand caught in the sweet jar.

The six foot plus of dark Italian male which stood in her garden robbed her of the ability to think, let alone speak, and all she could do was look at him. Dressed in casual but very much designer jeans which hugged his thighs to perfection, he appeared totally out of place and yet vaguely familiar. Over a dark shirt he wore a leather jacket and was everything she’d expect an Italian man to be. Self-assured and confident, oozing undeniable sex appeal.