From One Night to Desert Queen Read online

  “We have to talk,” Kal said, shutting the door behind him and walking forward.

  “Mmm.” She wasn’t so sure she wanted to talk, but she was definitely sure she wanted a bit of breathing space between them, so for every step he took toward her, she took one back until the backs of her knees hit the bed and she half sat, half fell on the mattress.

  Star clenched her jaw, trying to block everything out, even sound, but it was impossible as her eyes tracked Kal, pacing back and forth before her, his hands sweeping angrily through his hair. His lips, the perfect, sensual, powerful lips that had worshipped her last night, were bringing words Star could barely process into a room where they’d shared such incredible passion. Words that didn’t make any sense at all.

  In a daze, she tried to assemble what he’d said.

  “I’m sorry, can you repeat that last bit? Just one more time.”

  “I am Sheikh Khalif Al Azhar. First in line to the Duratrian throne.”

  A sheikh. A prince.

  He couldn’t be.

  The Diamond Inheritance

  A map that leads...to forever?

  When Skye, Star and Summer find out their mother is gravely ill, they know they have to act—quick! Yet the announcement at their estranged grandfather’s funeral of a windfall for the Soames sisters could be the answer to all their prayers. Only, to secure the fortune, they must track down the Soames family diamonds. And their unexpected treasure trail will bring each of them into close quarters with a dangerously irresistible billionaire...

  Grab your passport and escape with...

  Benoit and Skye’s story

  Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation

  Available now!

  Star and Khalif’s story in

  From One Night to Desert Queen

  Available now!

  And look out for Summer’s story

  Coming soon!

  Pippa Roscoe

  From One Night to Desert Queen

  Pippa Roscoe lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you all. Follow her on Twitter, @pipparoscoe.

  Books by Pippa Roscoe

  Harlequin Presents

  Demanding His Billion-Dollar Heir

  Rumors Behind the Greek’s Wedding

  Playing the Billionaire’s Game

  Once Upon a Temptation

  Taming the Big Bad Billionaire

  The Winners’ Circle

  A Ring to Take His Revenge

  Claimed for the Greek’s Child

  Reclaimed by the Powerful Sheikh

  The Diamond Inheritance

  Terms of Their Costa Rican Temptation

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  This was written during the break between coronavirus lockdowns in the UK when, more than ever, I was reminded of the power of reading romance. The power to escape, to hope, to love and to look to a brighter future with a happy ending.

  So, this is for all the incredible romance authors, editors, copy editors, cover artists, production staff, admin staff, publishers, retailers, bloggers, reviewers—all the individuals that help make romance available to us readers even in the hardest of times.

  Thank you.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  EXCERPT FROM THE FLAW IN HIS RED-HOT REVENGE BY ABBY GREEN

  PROLOGUE

  ‘I’M NOT SURE that I should go.’

  ‘We don’t really have much choice.’

  ‘I don’t want to leave you with Star and the rest of it...’

  Star Soames’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. She knew that her sisters would be absolutely mortified if they knew she was listening, but hated the way she had been lumped in with ‘the rest of it’. As if she were a duty, a burden, just like the one the grandfather they’d never met—thankfully, as far as Star was concerned—had placed on them.

  Star willed back the tears clouding her vision as she tried to concentrate on what Skye, the eldest, was saying.

  ‘It should only be a couple of days. Fly to Costa Rica, get the map from Benoit Chalendar, come home. Simple as that.’

  ‘Except he’s not likely to have the map on him, Skye,’ came the gently worded reply from Summer, their youngest sister and the peacekeeper of the family.

  ‘Okay, so add in a day to return via France and I’ll be back before you know it.’

  Star ran her thumb down the length of the thick gold chain of the necklace that they had found only yesterday, along with their great-great-great-grandmother’s journals, in a hidden recess tucked behind a section of shelves that swung open at the flick of a notch in Catherine’s library. Star preferred that name to the other names the smaller library had come to be known by, like the women’s library or the little library, and she wasn’t surprised that none of the male Soames heirs had ever thought to look there.

  If anyone had ever suspected Catherine of spiriting away the family diamonds from her evil husband Anthony, it had never been more than a suspicion as generation after generation went half mad trying to solve the mystery of the missing jewels that must be worth a small fortune. It was as if every single subsequent Soames had let the sprawling Norfolk Estate run to ruin in order to chase a myth, including Elias Soames, the man who had rejected and disowned their mother before she’d even left her teens. Star shivered in memory of the image of his portrait hanging in the estate office, where she and her sisters had first heard the terms of his will. As the lawyer had read the fiendish requirements of the inheritance, Elias Soames had stared down at them like a Dickensian villain, for all that the painting could only have been made twenty years before.

  Elias had given them only two months to track down the Soames diamonds. And if they failed? The estate would pass to the National Trust. Star nearly laughed. If it hadn’t been for their mother, the girls might have given the estate to the Trust with their blessing, none of them wanting anything to do with such a twisted manipulation. But because of their mother...

  ‘In the meantime, please keep an eye on Star. You know how she gets.’

  How she gets? Star mouthed to herself, frowning, shifting away from the door, really not wanting to hear any more but unable to get far before hearing Skye carry on.

  ‘I’m worried that she’ll try and go after the next clue herself. Especially as it could be so...’

  ‘Romantic?’ both of her sisters chimed together, descending into fits of giggles. Star clenched her jaw. She’d read and loved romances for more than half her life, defended them more times than she could count and would continue to do so while she still had breath in her lungs.

  ‘I just worry that she’d get herself into trouble. And we really can’t afford to...we don’t have the time to get this wrong.’

  A stab of hurt cut through her. While she hated what her sisters were saying, t
hey were right. She looked around at the library, through the window where the stars in the night sky blinked over the land that came with the estate. Land that, had Mariam Soames lived there, might have had the right postcode. A postcode that would have meant she’d have had access to the most successful treatment for her stage three cancer. But her small flat in Salisbury, near the New Forest, was about as far as possible from this sprawling estate with two wings and more than forty rooms and was very much in the wrong postcode. Star couldn’t help but shake her head at the injustice of it, at the cruelty that meant life or death was based on income, savings or property location.

  ‘We’ve already lost two weeks getting this far. But now we have the journals, now that you’ve decoded the secret message written in them, we have our first real start to finding the Soames diamonds. Benoit Chalendar has the map of the secret passageways in the estate, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Skye, even if you do get the map, then we still need to find out where on the map they are hidden and how to access it when we do find it. They’re not going to be just lying in a corner of the secret passageways. And if we find whatever the next clue is while you’re still away, then Star will have to go. I need to be here to meet with the potential buyer and you know that the clause insists that one of us stay in residence for the two months we have to track down the missing jewels,’ Summer reminded Skye.

  ‘Can you believe this is our life right now? On a treasure hunt for diamonds that have been missing for over one hundred and fifty years?’

  ‘No more than I can believe that all this could be for nothing if we don’t find the jewels and the entire estate is handed over to the National Trust. And then we wouldn’t be able to help Mum.’

  Selling the estate was the only way that the sisters would be able to pay for their mother’s medical treatment.

  ‘You haven’t said how you know this mysterious billionaire...’

  Star listened for an answer, but none came from Summer.

  ‘You know you can talk to us if you need to.’

  ‘I know.’

  Star listened as the footsteps retreated down the corridor away from the library before sinking into the ancient leather chair. Again, her fingers ran up and down the thick bronze twists of the necklace, the action comforting as the heavy rectangular pendant swung like a pendulum back and forth from where it hung. It hurt that her sisters didn’t think she could do her part without getting into trouble. That they doubted her. But, instead of wallowing in self-pity, she saw herself like an Arthurian knight, brandishing her sword, battle cry at the ready, determined to fulfil her quest. Gripping the pendant in her fist, she swore that she would follow the next clue wherever it led and she would return proving her sisters wrong, she would help to save her mother.

  CHAPTER ONE

  KHALIF INHALED DEEPLY through his nose and out through his mouth. Repeating the action did nothing to dislodge the tension pounding angrily in his temples. He rubbed at his eyes, squinting against his thumb and forefinger.

  Five hours.

  Five wasted hours he’d sat in that room, while fifteen people stared back at him as coffee grew cold, sweets grew stale and the room had become so stuffy they’d needed to open a window.

  Stalking down the corridor, he told himself that he just needed air. Fresh air. He wasn’t running. He just needed a minute to himself. Which was why he was taking the staff routes through the palace, not the main ones. He was not hiding from Amin, his brother’s—no, his own—assistant. He was simply ensuring the longevity of the bespectacled man’s life.

  Through the window, across the courtyard, Khalif could see the tourists leaving the exhibition housed in the public areas of Duratra’s palace. The sound of two boys laughing as they were chased affectionately by their mother cut through Khalif like a knife, transporting him back to a time when he and his brother had run rings around the palace guards.

  Grief was like a punch to the gut. Swift, harsh, hot and angry. An emotion he could not allow to be seen now that he was first in line to the throne. Three years on from the terrible accident and he still caught himself noting something to tell his brother, wondering what Faizan would think, would advise. But Khalif wasn’t sure what was worse, to do that, or for that to stop.

  It was a visceral sense of wrongness. As if that day the world had shifted a few degrees. Grief felt like trying to push the entire world back into place, millimetre by millimetre. And nothing worked. Not even pretending that he didn’t feel like an imposter. A substitute for his brother’s throne, as if Faizan would just appear from around the corner, laughing at him, telling him it was all a joke and taking back the responsibility that he, unlike Khalif, had been taught to manage. But Khalif knew better than to believe in fairy tales and daydreams.

  The urge to find the nearest bar and wash away the acrid taste of resentment and grief with a drink was strong. But he’d not touched alcohol or a woman since he’d received the news about his brother. He might have once been the spare, the Playboy Prince loved internationally and equally by women and newspapers alike, but he was now next in line to the throne. And each and every day had been a battle to prove his worth as he forged himself into a ruler that honoured his brother, his father and his country.

  He skirted the corridor that ran parallel to the rooms that housed the large public exhibition on Duratrian history and rounded the corner to where the security suite for the public areas was located and came to a halt. All five security staff, two in uniform and three in plain clothes, were huddled round the monitor as if their lives depended on it. Adrenaline crashed through him, his body preparing for fight.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he demanded as he entered the room, searching the bank of monitors lining the back wall for any sign of threat or danger to the royal family.

  The way the men all started and looked as guilty as schoolboys would have been funny if his heart hadn’t still been pounding in his chest, his pulse throbbing painfully in his neck as the adrenaline receded.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Sorry, Your Royal Highness, Sheikh—’

  ‘I know my name, Jamal,’ Khalif ground out. ‘What is it?’

  A few more denials hit the air, too many shaking heads and hands, and even if that hadn’t piqued his curiosity a flash of red caught his eye on the central monitor. The one that the men had all been staring at.

  ‘What is...’

  A tourist stood in front of one of the large paintings in the Alsayf Hall. Khalif cocked his head to one side as if that would make the image easier to see. The female figure was respectfully dressed, despite the relaxed attitude towards attire in Duratra, with a sage green headscarf that...

  Again, there was the flash of red. The scarf had fallen back a little and a long, thick curl of fiery red slipped forward before the woman quickly tucked it back behind the folds of her hair covering. All this was done with an economy of movement and without taking her eyes from the painting. Without the distraction of the bright red hair, Khalif took in the rest of the woman.

  The denim jacket she was wearing covered her arms and was folded back at the cuff to reveal a series of gold and bronze bangles that hung around a delicate wrist. The jacket was cropped at the waist so that the white and green striped dress that dropped all the way to the floor should have been perfectly modest had it not hinted at the mouth-watering curves of her—

  He forced his eyes from the screen and looked to the men in charge of his family’s security.

  ‘Jamal, you’re a married man,’ he scolded as if he hadn’t just been staring at the very same thing. ‘I expected more from you.’

  ‘It’s not that—’ the guard tried to justify.

  ‘No, of course not,’ Khalif interrupted with a half laugh, ‘because your wife would have your balls if—’

  ‘No, Your Highness, it’s really not that... She’s been there for an hour.’

&nbs
p; ‘And?’ Khalif demanded.

  ‘No, she’s been there, in front of that painting, for an hour,’ Jamal clarified.

  ‘Oh.’

  Khalif returned his attention to the monitor, where the tourist still stood in front of the painting of Hātem Al Azhar, his great-great-great-grandfather. He frowned, wondering what it was about the painting that had enthralled her for an hour. Given that, on average, it took one harassed school teacher to ferry a group of unfocused seven-year-olds a total of fifty-four minutes through the first section of the exhibition on the history of Duratra—a fact he knew only too well since his father had deemed it necessary for him to spend his teenage summers working at the exhibition in an attempt to instil in him a respect for their country’s history and an awareness of the importance of tourism. Instead, all it had done was broaden his pick-up lines to include several more international languages. That aside, it did seem strange that this tourist had spent so much time in front of one painting.

  He felt a prickle of awareness across his skin as he realised that the men had regrouped around the same monitor as if drawn by a siren call. He turned to stare at them until they moved out of his personal space, some clearing throats and others grabbing pens to make useless notes on unnecessary bits of paper.

  Khalif gave her one last look, trying to ignore the twinge of disappointment as he took his leave. At one time she would have been just his type.

  * * *

  Star looked up at the large painting of the man who had ruled Duratra over one hundred and fifty years ago and smiled. The patrician nose was broad and noble, the jaw line masterful. Even allowing for artistic integrity, Star was thrilled to see the handsome image of the man Catherine Soames had met after her doomed love affair with Benoit Chalendar.

  She felt as if she could get lost staring into the deep penetrating eyes of her great-great-great-grandmother’s second love, until the security guard she’d met when she first entered the exhibition that morning cleared his throat. She turned and saw him gesture slightly to the clock on the wall.