Six Sizzling Sheikhs. Оливия Гейтс

I read rugby magazines, watched DVDs of famous matches, and found biographies and interviews of some of the sport’s most celebrated players.

      My hero Khaled was inspired by a story I read of a player who suffered a serious injury and was kept from playing rubgy for several years. The effect his injury had not just on his body but his spirit was something I wanted to explore, and I hope you enjoy Khaled’s emotional journey, and how Lucy helps to heal both his body and his heart!

      Happy reading

       Kate

       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 turned his head to stare blindly out of the window. A fog was rolling in, thick and merciless, obscuring the endless cityscape. He closed his eyes, pictured Lucy with her long sweep of dark hair, her air of calm composure, her sudden smile. She’d taken him by surprise with that smile; he’d felt something turn over inside him, like fresh earth ready for planting. When she smiled for him, he felt like he’d been given a treasure.

      She was the England team’s physiotherapist, and she’d been his lover for two months.

      Two incredible months, and now this. Now he would never play rugby again, never be the man he was, the man everyone loved and admired. It hurt his ego, of course, but it also hurt something far deeper, wounded him inside like a bruise on the heart.

      Everything had been snatched from him, snatched and ruined.

      He thought of his father’s terse phone call, the life that awaited him in his home country of Biryal. Another prison sentence.

      Khaled knew this life, the life he’d won for himself, was over now. There could be no going back. All of it, everything, was over.

      Khaled opened his eyes. ‘She’s not that much to me.’ It hurt to say it, to act like he meant it. He turned his head away. ‘Where is she now?’

      ‘She went home.’

      A single sound erupted from him, ringing with bitterness; it was meant to be a laugh. ‘Couldn’t stay around, could she?’

      ‘Khaled, you were in surgery for hours.’

      ‘I don’t want to see her.’

      Eric sighed. ‘Fine. Maybe tomorrow?’

      ‘Ever.’

      The refusal reverberated through the room with bitter, ominous finality, just as the doctor’s previous words had: I’m sorry.

      Well, so was he. It didn’t change anything.

      Across the room, Khaled saw his friend freeze. Eric turned slowly to face him. ‘Khaled…?’

      Khaled smiled with bleak determination. He didn’t want Lucy to see him like this, couldn’t bear to see shock and dismay, fear and pity, darken her eyes as she struggled to contain the turbulent emotions and offer some weak, false hope. He couldn’t bear to hurt her by knowing she was afraid of hurting him.

      He couldn’t bear to be so powerless, so he wouldn’t. There was a choice to make, and in a state of numb determination he found it surprisingly easy. ‘There is nothing for me here, Eric.’ No one. He took a breath, the movement a struggle. ‘It’s time I returned to Biryal, to my duties.’ What little duties he had that his father allowed him. For a moment he pictured his life: a crippled prince, accepting the pity of his people, the condescension of his father, the King.

      It was impossible, unbearable, yet the alternative was worse—staying and seeing his life, his friends, his lover, move on without him. They would try to heal him with their compassion, and in time—perhaps not very much time, at that—he would see how his presence, his very self, had become a burden. He would hate them for it, and he would hate himself.

      He had seen it happen before. He had watched his mother fade far too slowly over the years, the life and colour drained out of her by others’ pity. That had been far worse