Pregnant with the Sheik's Heir

Pregnant with the Sheik's Heir Excerpt

Holding her breath, Rayne watched the two small plastic cubes dancing down the felt covered table, wondering if she was imagining things. As the crowd around her faded away, she watched as the plastic die rattled and tumbled, slowly coming to a stop, their dotted faces smiling benignly up at the eagerly waiting spectators. Rayne blinked, waited that additional tense, horrible moment for her stunned brain to process the results, then the crowd around the table exclaimed with shouts of triumph. "Did we win?" she whispered to her younger sister, Pepper, who was standing beside her.

"We won!" Pepper exclaimed, jumping up and down. Pepper's normal exuberance seemed to be on steroids. While Rayne's stomach roiled with a vague sense of nausea, Pepper bounced, holding onto Rayne's arm. Rayne was jerked out of her dumbfounded stupor and looked across the elegant room....

Right into the darkly intense eyes of a tall, dangerously attractive stranger. Her heart lurched and her stomach tightened as she stared into those eyes. Instantly, the world receded. Gone were the crowds of beautifully dressed patrons or the soft background music. She didn't even see the elegant atmosphere of the exclusive casino.

Her mind could only focus on him. On the man. His dark eyes captured her, held her still as Pepper jumped excitedly beside her.

It wasn't fear...at least, not the fear of a stranger. No, this tension was different. This feeling centered in her stomach and...lower. Pulse pounding, stomach tightening, irrational and illogical sensations caught and held her as she stared back at the impossibly tall man.

It definitely wasn't fear, she realized. It was...awareness. Yes, it was awareness of a man. Of a man who's gaze felt like a sensually powerful caress. Dark eyes that seemed to know her deepest, darkest secrets...and then smile with approval at those secrets.

Rayne had noticed the darkly mysterious stranger earlier this evening. He'd been in the hotel bar a half hour ago, which was why she'd escaped into the casino. It was on the opposite side of the building.

"Do it again, Rayne!" Pepper exclaimed, her enthusiasm distracting Rayne and, thankfully, easing the seemingly palpable tension in the air.

Rayne gratefully pulled her eyes away from the magnetic allure of the stranger's gaze and looked around. There had been three people surrounding the table a moment ago, but with their latest win, there were more, perhaps ten people now watching the game. Several of the glittering patrons placed bets along the table, but Rayne had no idea how to play "craps", so she just left her chips where they were.

It wasn't as if this was real money, she told herself. Josh Starke, her sister's boss and the man who had brought her and her two sisters here to the shockingly glamorous casino in Monaco, had assured her that each of the chips was only worth a dollar each. Gambling was a horrible, miserable pastime, but Rayne had spent too much time with her nose in a book over the past several years or staring at test tubes and chemical reactions lately. Spending a bit of time with humans, even if it was doing something she didn't really enjoy, such as gambling, had originally seemed like an intellectual challenge to her.

That was before Pepper had dragged her here to this craps table. A game neither of them understood, but the increasingly large stack of chips indicated that she and her sister were playing the game exceedingly well.

Her sister grabbed her hand and placed the two small die into her palm, pressing her fingers closed. "Come on, roll a four!" Pepper urged, practically dancing with her excitement.

Rayne blinked at her incredibly lovely and exuberant sister. "A four?"

"Yes!" Pepper laughed, clapping her hands as she bounced again, grinning from ear to ear and her blue eyes dancing with excitement.