Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride
Josie Metcalfe

Ambitious orthopedic surgeon Lily Langley is delighted to be working with the prestigious Razak Khan. However, Lily is not prepared for the rush of sensual heat that sparks between them every time their fingers brush or their eyes meet.Razak is attracted to Lily, but he has duties and responsibilities that will take him back to his desert kingdom and away from his English beauty. Duties and responsibilities he has never really wanted and would gladly relinquish in favor of his passion for saving lives and for the woman he loves.

Lily pressed back against the ancient wall, hoping that she would be invisible in the deep shadows of the colonnade

She had no idea what had woken her. Perhaps the sound of Razak’s voice through the open door that led out to the atrium—although she hadn’t realized it was open until she saw the filmy curtain billowing gently.

“Why him?” she breathed, closing her eyes tight against the threat of tears. Why did she have to go and fall in love with someone so unattainable?

She must have made a sound, because the next thing she knew he was there in front of her, a dark silhouette against the beaten silver of the moonlit pool behind him.

“Lily?” he murmured, framing her shoulders with the gentle warmth of his hands and angling his head to peer into her face. “You should go inside, away from the breeze,” he said. But when she thought he would usher her into her room and return to his own, he accompanied her through the gauzy curtains and turned her to face him again.

“Don’t look away,” he whispered, cupping his fingers around her face and tilting it up toward his again. And she was lost, gazing into those dark eyes that had captivated her the first time she’d seen them.

Dear Reader,

When Razak Khan appeared in A Family To Come Home To, so good-looking and charming, he was only supposed to be a minor character. Then I started wondering about him—about his background, about his career and his private life, about the things that were important to him and his future.

Then I wondered what it would do to all his plans if he were to meet someone who challenged him and his view of the future.

To Lily, her career had been her main focus since she was a young girl, so meeting a man like Razak—a man who made her aware that she was a woman as well as a surgeon—was bound to turn everything on its head. How was she going to resist him when they were spending so many hours a day in each other’s company, their eyes speaking volumes over the tops of their masks without a word being said?

The obstacles between them and the way they are overcome only go to prove something I have always believed—that anything worth having is something worth fighting for.

I hope you enjoy their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Happy reading,

Josie

Sheikh Surgeon, Surprise Bride

Josie Metcalfe

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE (#ubdb641c8-dbf1-5c05-b8fa-20cdbeaa3604)

CHAPTER TWO (#u944f7c0b-4c20-59ea-b0c0-81c8fd5eaeaf)

CHAPTER THREE (#u0e169841-033d-5c91-aa83-5b3bb1c6ba74)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE

‘SO, HAVE you hooked yourself a doctor, yet, Lil?’ her sister Iris asked, but the question could just as well have been put by anyone of the noisy group gathered in her parents’ cramped living room.

‘I’m not trying to hook one. I don’t need to because I’m a doctor myself,’ Lily pointed out rationally, but that cut no ice with her family.

‘A complete waste of time and money, that’s what I call it,’ her mother pronounced—as usual—as she heaved herself off ‘her’ corner of the settee to put the kettle on again. ‘You’ve got more debts than your father and I have had our whole lives and you still can’t find yourself a husband. By the time I was your age, I’d already had five children and there was another one on the way.’

Lily had heard that particular refrain so many times that it was easy to tune it out. Her mother wouldn’t deliberately hurt any of her children, although her habit of speaking her mind had caused more than a few hidden bruises.

It was her sisters and sisters-in-law that she found it harder to deal with. Their pitying glances in her direction and their conversations were just quiet enough for them to pretend that she wasn’t supposed to hear but loud enough that she was left in no doubt what they thought of the ‘uppity cow’ trying to pretend that she was so much better than they were.

She stifled a sigh when her father gave a pointed jerk of his head to tell her that, as the eldest, she should have followed her mother out of the room to help her get his meal. She couldn’t remember the first time she’d done it. It had been so many years ago that it was hidden in the mists of time, along with the memory of the first time she’d spooned food into her younger siblings’ mouths and changed their nappies.

Sometimes she wondered why she bothered coming home at all when it felt as if she had to spend the whole time apologising for who she was and the choices she’d made. Of course, she knew why she did come—because she loved her family, no matter what. It was just that sometimes she wished…

‘Do you still remember how to peel potatoes, now that you can afford to eat out all the time?’ demanded her mother, as she bustled around a kitchen that had hardly changed from the day Lily had been born. Appliances had been replaced as they had given out and the cupboards had been repainted, but the colour scheme was the same magnolia and white it had always been. It was ironic that tastes in interior decorating had turned full circle so that it was back in fashion again.

‘Doctors don’t have time to eat out all the time, even if they could afford it,’ she said quietly, as she reached for the peeler and the first of a mountain of potatoes. ‘As students, we’re so short of money we can barely afford to eat and once we’ve qualified, we’re left with massive debts to pay off, so we still can’t afford it.’

‘So where was the point in doing all that studying?’ Rose Langley demanded impatiently. ‘Your father started working shifts as soon as he left school but at least the two of us got time to see each other. You seem to do nothing but work, and men don’t like it when a woman doesn’t pay them any attention…’ Lily saw her throw a sideways glance at her eldest’s well-worn jeans and generic sweatshirt. ‘Or when she doesn’t make the effort to do herself up a bit.’

That jab hit a sensitive spot and Lily winced. In spite of her sisters’ taunts that there was ‘no point in gilding the Lily’, it was still a fact that she was the plain one of the family, even if she had been the only one of the girls to inherit her father’s long, lean build.

‘Everything I wear is clean, bought and paid for,’ she pointed out defensively. ‘I have to dress smartly to meet the patients in the orthopaedic clinic but when I’m in the operating theatre I’m in cotton scrubs.’

‘I’ve seen them on the telly. Totally shapeless green pyjamas,’ her mother said, and tut-tutted with distaste. ‘How is any man going to be attracted to you in that? Now, if you had a boob job, or something, to give you a bit of shape…’ She shook her head wearily. ‘I know. I know. You couldn’t afford to even if you wanted to, but if you’re ever going to get married and have a family you’re going to have to buck your ideas up before all the good ones are gone. You’re over thirty already.’

Her tone of voice made it sound like eighty and Lily supposed that to a woman who’d already had most of her family by that age, she’d even gone beyond being classed as a late starter. It was definitely time to redirect the conversation, and subtlety wasn’t an option.

‘Mum, I think you got the last really good one,’ she said with blatant flattery, her tongue firmly in her cheek. ‘How can I get married to someone who doesn’t measure up to Dad?’

‘Well, there is that, I suppose,’ her mother agreed, with more than a touch of smugness. ‘Your dad’s never let me down in all the years we’ve been married. He brought his pay cheque home to me every week…until work started putting it straight into the bank for him. He’s not a smoker or much of a drinker, not like most of his mates, nor does he chase around after other women.’

‘He doesn’t need to,’ Lily pointed out, with a sly look at her mother to see how the sweet talk was going down. ‘He got all the woman he needs when he got you.’

‘Get on with you,’ Rose said dismissively, but a coy grin lifted the corners of her mouth at Lily’s implied compliment.

The deliberate innuendo had the desired effect of side-tracking her mother’s perennial complaint, but the strange thing was, deep down Lily actually meant what she’d said. Her parents were well matched and totally content with their separate roles within their marriage, and her father was the sort of honest, hard-working man that was a million miles from the self-obsessed hustlers and chancers around today. Where had all the solid, reliable hard-working men gone…the ones who would make a commitment and stick to it through thick and thin? She certainly hadn’t come across any…not that she was looking. She still had years of work before her debts were paid and she achieved the coveted position of consultant.