Sold To The Sheikh Bidder
All their scenes together were wonderful. Their chemistry was unmistakable and they carried the audience along with them from the balcony scene all the way to the end as they died in each other’s arms. When the curtain closed, there was thunderous applause, and when the curtain rose again, everyone in the audience was on their feet.
Lauren and Hakim were the last to enter for bows, and the rest of the cast stepped back to give them the spotlight. The crowd clapped and cheered, and they joined hands for their bow. The actors stood in a long line for one final bow, but after the line broke, Hakim tugged on her hand as the rest of the cast stepped back again.
She gave him a questioning look, and he grinned at her. Reaching into his costume doublet, he pulled a small black velvet box and went down on one knee. The crowd, just as surprised as Lauren, cheered wildly when they saw what was happening.
Hakim opened the box and said, “I didn’t know how wonderful life could be until I met you. You make me a better man, and I will spend every day of my life in service to you, if you’ll have me. Lauren, will you marry me?”
She held her hands out to the man she loved, nodding fiercely, barely able to speak through her tears. “Yes. Yes! Of course I will!”
Hakim slid the sparkling diamond ring on her left hand and stood, sweeping her up in a hug. The cast behind them started cheering, and the audience kept applauding, and Lauren heard a loud, happy whistle from the front row. She looked down to see her mother and her boyfriend, Richard, in the front row, cheering with the crowd.
Lauren felt bad that she got a happy ending when Juliet hadn’t, but then Shakespeare hadn’t known her and Hakim.
Their two families had made peace and were stronger together because of their shared love, and the couple knew that they would have their happy ending.
The End
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The Sheikh’s Priceless Bride
Time for a tease!
Up next I’ve included the first few chapters of my recent book, The Sheikh’s Priceless Bride. It’s a sweet and gripping romance that I think you’ll just love!
Copyright 2018 by Holly Rayner
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Prologue
Bill Bauer studied the enormous diamond sitting in the middle of the table. It was perfect. It had been stunning when he found it, but now, it was even more so, having been polished and cut to perfection.
Bill had found the diamond almost by accident. He’d been planning to shut down that part of the mine, since he was sure they’d taken everything from it that they could.
His tradition was to walk through the mine each day, and when the day came that he decided that part of the mine was finished, he walked through again one more time. He took the time to thank whatever power in the universe that had created the process that crushed carbon under massive amounts of pressure to create the beautiful gems known as diamonds.
Without that process, he would have probably been a lawyer or an accountant—someone stuck in an office working on computers and spreadsheets with boring people dressed in boring black suits. Instead, he traveled the world and got his hands dirty. He took raw potential and made it possible for artists to create sheer beauty.
Bill had been wildly successful. Every year, he was listed among the richest men in the world, a designation that he could not have cared less about.
His joy was in his work, in pulling beauty from the cold, hard earth.
So, keeping to his tradition, he took the time to walk through the mine the day before he shut that area down. For some reason, he was thinking about his brother as he walked through the mine, occasionally reaching out to touch the dirt.
If only Jack could see him now. He’d have to change his mind about his good-for-nothing brother. Bill worked hard and did right by his employees, and by any measure of the definition, he was successful. Even as he prepared to close this section of the mine down, he was opening another section up. All he had in his future was more wealth and more success.