The Sheikh's Love-Child. Кейт Хьюит

Чтение книги онлайн.

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

       Before you start reading, why not sign up?

      Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

       SIGN ME UP!

      Or simply visit

      signup.millsandboon.co.uk

      Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

      Don’t miss Kate Hewitt’s book

      THE SHEIKH’S FORBIDDEN VIRGIN

      out in August 2009

      part of THE ROYAL HOUSE OF KAREDES

      PROLOGUE

      I’M SORRY.

      The two words seemed to reverberate through the room, even though the man who’d spoken them had gone.

      I’m sorry.

      There had been a touch of compassion in the doctor’s voice, a thread of pity that had sent helpless rage coursing through Khaled as he’d lain there, prostrate, and watched the doctor shake his head, smile sadly and leave—leave Khaled with his shattered knee, his shattered career. His broken dreams.

      He didn’t need to look at the damning X-rays or medical charts to know what he felt—quite literally—in his bones. He was a ruined wreck of a man with an impossible, inevitable diagnosis.

      Outside thick, grey clouds pressed heavily down upon London, obscuring the city view with their dank presence. Prince Khaled el Farrar turned his head away from the window. His fists bunched uselessly on the hospital bed-sheets as pain ricocheted through him. He’d refused pain killers; he wanted to know what he was dealing with, what he would be dealing with for the rest of his life.

      Now he knew: nothing. No amount of surgery or physical therapy could restore his rugby career or his ruined knee, or give him a future, a hope. At twenty-eight, he was finished.

      A tentative knock sounded on the door and then Eric Chandler, England’s inside centre, peered round the doorway.

      ‘Khaled?’ He came into the room, closing the door softly behind him.

      ‘You heard?’ Khaled said through gritted teeth.

      Eric nodded. ‘The doctor told me, more or less.’

      ‘There is no more,’ Khaled replied with a twisted smile. He was still gritting his teeth, and there was a pale sheen of sweat on his forehead. The pain was growing, rippling through him in a tidal wave of increasing agony. His nails bit into his palms. ‘I’ll never play rugby again. I’ll never—’ He stopped, because he couldn’t finish that sentence. To finish it would make it real, would open him to the pain and weakness. To admit defeat.

      Eric didn’t speak, and Khaled thought more of him for his silence. What was there to say? What pithy tropism could help now? The doctor had said it all: I’m sorry.

      Sorry didn’t help. It didn’t restore his knee or his future as a healthy, whole man. It didn’t keep him from wondering how long he had, how long his body had, before the illness claimed him and his bones crumbled away.

      Sorry didn’t do anything.

      ‘What about Lucy?’ Eric asked after a long moment when the only sound in the hospital room had been Khaled’s raspy breathing.

      Lucy. The single word brought memories slicing through him, wounding him. What could Lucy want with him now? Bitterness and regret lashed him, and he turned his head away, amazed that when he spoke his voice sounded so indifferent. So cold. ‘What about her?’

      Eric glanced at him in sharp surprise. ‘Khaled—she—she wants to see you.’

      ‘Like this?’ With one hand Khaled gestured to his ruined leg. ‘I don’t think so.’

      ‘She’s concerned.’

      Khaled shook his head. Lucy had feelings, maybe even love, for the man he’d been, not the man he was—and, far worse, the man he would eventually become. The thought of her rejection—her pity, disgust—made his hands bunch on the sheets again. ‘And so are you, it seems,’ he said coolly, and watched Eric flush in anger. Every part of him hurt, from his shattered knee to his aching heart. He couldn’t stand to feel so much pain, physical and emotional; he felt as if he would rip wide open from its force. ‘What is Lucy to you?’ he demanded, knowing he was being unfair, feeling unfair.

      After a long moment Eric replied levelly, ‘Nothing. It’s what she is to you.’

      Khaled СКАЧАТЬ