by Kate Walker
‘Yes!’
He tightened his grip on her hand when she would have jerked away.
‘That is the only way it will work—for Adnan’s sake. Damn it, woman, you were prepared to marry him; you would have taken everything he was offering—surely you can do this for him now.’
Imogen wanted to deny what Raoul was saying. But she knew she couldn’t do any such thing. She couldn’t even refute what he was accusing her of doing, though not in the way he meant it. He made her pact with Adnan sound dark and materialistic. A greedy contract based on money and profit only. He knew nothing about the way her ex-fiancé had felt about his grandfather, the way she had wanted to help him fulfil the old man’s dreams.
Nor did he know anything about the broken heart that had driven her into that agreement with the man who had once been her best friend. And he never would.
‘This way, he’ll be a man of honour, doing what was right. He’ll be seen as standing aside to let two soul mates—’
‘Soul mates!’ The words choked her, burning in her throat. ‘Never! We’re whatever the opposite is...’
She couldn’t finish the sentence in the face of his slow nod, the sardonic twist to his mouth.
‘You might know that—we might know that—but for this to work the world has to believe in those soul mates. And so does Adnan. For the devil’s sake, Imogen—give the man back his honour.’
So he acknowledged that Adnan had gone into this for honourable reasons—but not her? Of course not; he believed that all she was after was the money—just as he’d decided that had been her motive with him. But at least this way she could give something back to her friend, for what he had been prepared to do to help her. She owed him that at least.
And maybe that way Ciara too would no longer be so angry at what she obviously now saw as a dark lie she found so hard to forgive. Something tugged at her brain, a thought of Ciara meeting Adnan. Worried about the story she had had to spin to her sister, was it possible that she had failed to interpret their feelings for each other properly? But now, if Adnan was free...
‘All right. If that’s the way you want to spin it.’
It wasn’t so terribly far from the truth, was it? She had fallen madly in love with Raoul when she had first met him. She’d been carrying a torch for that love for years. She might have thought her love for him had been lost when their baby had died, but the truth was that she had never truly let go of it. She had always had the tiny, secret hope that if she had gone back to Corsica and found him, if she had told him about the baby they had created between them, then he would at least have given her a hearing. She’d even allowed herself to dream that one day he might realise she had not been after his money but had loved him with all her heart. She still did, she acknowledged miserably, while all the time the dark, sombre sound of the death knell for her hopes and dreams rang inside her heart.
‘You call it a spin?’ Raoul had the nerve to look surprised, even a trifle shocked. The man could lie through his teeth and not turn a hair, it seemed. ‘It’s a win-win situation—surely you can see that?’
Win-win for everyone but her. She could marry Raoul and give him what he wanted, give everyone what they needed—rescue her father, the stud, Adnan, even Ciara. At the very least, her sister would have the family home to stay in—and perhaps a chance with the man her sister had once admitted she’d fallen for since she’d come to Ireland, even if she was determined to keep his name a secret. But she couldn’t do a thing for herself.
Except to admit to the weakness of dreading watching Raoul walk away from her again as he had done years ago. She didn’t know how she’d survived that separation then, and he had only to reappear in her life for her to realise she couldn’t go through it again. If she agreed to his proposal—such as it was—then she could at least give herself the double-edged pleasure of knowing she could live as Raoul’s wife, loving him with all her heart. But at the same time, she would have to know that he did not love her and had only married her for the business deal he had cold-bloodedly offered her.
But what other choice did she have? He could ruin everyone, destroy them completely, and still walk away from her. Or she could take the little he was offering and pray that one day she might find a way to make him see how she felt—perhaps even bring him to care for her just a little.
Perhaps one day she could end up loving his child, as she had so longed to do years before.
He admitted that he wanted her more than any other woman in the world. Was that enough for her to face the future that lay before her?
It would have to be.
‘OK, then.’ She forced herself to say it. ‘That’s the way it will be.’
Raoul’s smile was fast and hard, a mere curl of his lips, bringing no light to his eyes at all.
‘I knew you’d see sense.’
He was drawing her towards him as he spoke. No force, but he didn’t need force—just a gentle, persistent pull that seemed to make her feet move without her volition, her eyes fill with him, her face lift to his for the kiss she knew was coming. The kiss she wanted. So much. If this was all he had to offer her of himself, then she would take it.
The alternative was nothing at all.
‘And what would you get out of it?’
Why couldn’t she keep her mouth shut? Why did she have to ask the sort of question that could only land her in even more trouble? She knew what he wanted—all he wanted—from her. Why did she have to push him to state it bluntly?
‘I told you—I get you. In my bed.’
His head had bent and his mouth was trailing hot kisses all over her face, down the side of her cheek, heading for her mouth. Immediately, all the blood rushed to the surface of her skin, waking every nerve, making her shiver and ache deep inside for the heat of his touch, the demand of his possession. She was swimming on a hot sea of need, finding thought impossible, knowing only the hunger he aroused in her simply by existing.
‘Is—is that enough?’
His response was a raw, shaken laughter against the side of her throat, hot breath feathering across the hollow where her pulse beat hard and rapid in response.
‘Oh, ma belle, what do you think?’
His hands skimmed her body, lingering at the curves of her breasts and hips. His teeth took hold of one of the narrow straps of her sundress, tugging it to the side, away and down her arm.
‘But it...’
Was she questioning him or herself? This was what he was offering her. All he was offering. But was it enough for a lifetime?
‘Damn it, Imogen, stop arguing.’ It was a rough mutter against her skin. ‘If I say it’s enough, then it’s enough. After all, Adnan was prepared to go ahead for no more.’
‘Adnan...’
Could he feel her tension, the shock that ricocheted through her? Could he read her panic, the way her mind reeled away from letting him know the truth?
‘He...’
‘He what? What the hell else were you offering Adnan as your husband?’
Raoul’s tongue slid over the skin he had exposed, tracing an erotic path over the exposed tops of her breasts, making her sigh in swooning response. She didn’t want to talk, she just wanted to give in to the molten sensations that were flooding her body, swamping her brain.
‘Adnan wanted an heir...’ It escaped without thought, without rational control. ‘I promised him an heir.’
The shockwave of his reaction was like an atomic explosion close at hand, rocking her sense of reality. He froze, not even breathing against her neck. His very stillness was so terrifying that she was sent scrabbling through her thoughts, trying to work out what she had said.
It burst on her like an ice shower, cascading over her heated skin and taking all the warmth from it in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
‘You promised...?’
Raoul’s voice wouldn’t work. His throat seemed to have been scratched raw so that words would have to force their way past the scars that
filled it. He couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. All that was inside his head was a white-hot roar of fury, one that was slowly turning to ice as it slid through his veins, freezing his heart.
‘An heir.’
At least, that was the way it was supposed to sound. But the way he had to force it out tangled the words up, his accent turning them into something that even he couldn’t quite make out. The way Imogen turned, as if to question him, was like a bullet right between the eyes. He couldn’t repeat the words; couldn’t believe what he was hearing. And yet, deep down, he realised he had known all along. Wasn’t this what had brought him here in the first place? An instinctive, unconscious awareness of the only reason why Adnan Al Makthabi would marry at all?
He had wanted to stop the wedding, but he had told himself it was because he couldn’t stand by and watch as Imogen got her gold-digging claws into another man. But Adnan was no fool. So why would he have wanted to do it? What could Imogen have promised him in order to win his support?
An heir.
A child.
What else could be worth all that Al Makthabi would have to pay out?
‘Raoul...?’
The distance in his withdrawal had communicated itself to Imogen. She knew the reason for it too, if the dawning horror in her eyes was anything to go by.
‘Raoul...’ she began, her voice in the same condition as his had been.
This was where it began. This was how she was preparing to tell him the truth. She was going to admit what had happened to the child she hadn’t even given him a chance to know.
He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want her actually to speak the words.
‘No!’
It was sharp, brutal, meant to cut off this topic before it had time to form. He didn’t want her to confirm the one thing that could come between them. He wanted to stop this right now, freeze the moment so it couldn’t go any further. Before he said something he totally regretted.
‘Raoul—we have to talk.’
Imogen felt like she was fighting her way through frozen fog, so thick she couldn’t even see Raoul’s face, in spite of the fact he was so close. But the ice she took in with each breath told her that he was there and that he had changed from the second she had said that one word.
An heir.
‘Nothing to talk about.’
Something of the mist had thinned so she could see his expression, and deep down she wished that she’d stayed frozen and blind. There was nothing to help her in the opaque blankness of his eyes, the way his mouth was clamped tight into a thin, hard line.
‘Of course there is.’
The shake of his head was adamant, but far worse was the way that he had turned from her, snatching up the shoes that had been discarded on the floor—a lifetime ago, it seemed—and pulling them on with brutal efficiency, his silence shocking after all that had been between them.
What had happened to the ardent, passionate lover? The man who had taken her to the stars and held her as she splintered into a thousand tiny pieces under him? Where was the man who, however unemotionally, had said they should marry?
Did that ‘proposal’ still hold now? Was she a fool to fear that what she’d said changed everything? That Raoul had no intention of marrying her, even in the businesslike way he had suggested?
He was fully dressed now, shirt buttoned up with frightening precision, belt tightened around his narrow waist. But it was not the clothing or the move away from her that emphasised the distance between them. That was stamped onto his face, etched around his nose and eyes.
‘I understand,’ she managed. ‘If...if you don’t want a child.’
Now what had she done to bring his head up like that, the blaze of his eyes threatening to shrivel her where she stood?
‘Not want a child?’ It hissed in between clenched teeth. ‘Of course I want a child.’
Was it relief or lack of understanding that made her head swim? Or was it the unravelling of bitter memories twisting out from under the mental rocks she had tried to pile on top of them, demanding to be heard?
‘I want my child.’
It was the tiniest emphasis on that word that told her all she needed to know.
Raoul knew. Somehow he had found out what had happened and he knew all about the secret she had tried to keep hidden. He knew about the baby. Dark tendrils of grief were tangling round her heart, making it impossible to think straight, to find any way to answer him.
‘Our child,’ she hedged.
It did nothing to lighten the glazed darkness in those stunning eyes. There was no easing of the tension in any muscle.
‘You can’t just demand—’
‘Why not?’ Dark, brutal, savage. ‘You were prepared to have one with Adnan.’
But that had been so much easier. She had cared about Adnan and she would have loved the child. Adnan’s child wouldn’t have come trailing such memories, complications, such unhappiness and loss. She had known that baby would have been wanted and Adnan would have loved his son or daughter.
‘Adnan—Adnan is a friend.’
‘We were more than friends.’
‘We were not! I fancied you like hell—couldn’t keep away from you—but how could we even be friends? I didn’t even like you—I still don’t!’
Not now. Not when he was this aggressive, this dangerous. How could she like him like this? This was the man who had turned away from her. Who had told her to get out of his life. Who had left her alone with the baby that had never had a chance.
‘You would have given Adnan a child. So you would have kept his baby if you’d conceived it?’
He was throwing words at her, tossing them at her with such ferocity and speed that they didn’t make sense. But there was something else in his voice, a ragged edge to the words that shocked her rigid.
‘Would you have kept it for him, or would you have got rid of it like you did mine?’
Got rid? He couldn’t think...
‘Adnan had promised his grandfather.’
‘Don’t talk to me about Adnan! This isn’t about him—it’s about us. About you and me and our child. I wanted that child. I still want it. Our baby. You owe me a child!’
CHAPTER TWELVE
HOW LONG HAD the silence dragged on? Was it just minutes since Raoul had thrown those words at her or was it hours?
There was something wrong with her heart. Something wrong with her brain. She couldn’t quite absorb the meaning of those hateful words. And yet there was only one possible meaning. Wasn’t there?
‘You want—’ The word swelled up inside her, blocking her throat and choking her.
‘The child we should have had.’ He sounded no better than she did. ‘And when we’re married—’
‘When we’re married? You think I will marry you now—after this?’
Somehow, from deep inside, she’d found a new strength. She didn’t know if it came from pain or anger or loss—but she welcomed it as it gave her the courage to speak the truth at last.
‘You want me to agree to your terms? You want the stud—and the horses—and a child... Why? You want an heir? Is that it? Why with me?’
‘The only person I would ever have wanted a child with was you.’
‘Well, that’s a pity for you.’
Strength was growing inside her, giving a force to her words that he clearly wasn’t expecting. But no, of course he wasn’t expecting her to defend herself, to fight back against his accusations. He’d thought she was this callous, careless, selfish creature—for how long? For the two years they’d been apart?
But what did it matter how long? What mattered was what he believed and how wrong he was. And she was going to throw it right in his face and see the truth hit home.
‘Because I can’t actually guarantee you that child you claim you want. The one you’ve planned all this payback to bring about. Because, you see, it could be tricky. Adnan knew that but he understood.’
‘Understood wh
at?’ Raoul demanded when she had paused to gather her strength.
‘He understood that it could be a problem because...because it can be difficult to conceive again if you’ve had...had...’
She lost the words. She could feel the burn of hot tears cascading down her face, taste the salt on them as she had to force her mouth wide open, gasping for the breath that eluded her. Her arms were clasped tight around her middle, holding herself together because she could not afford to fall apart now.
‘What? Say the word!’
‘Had an ectopic pregnancy.’ He looked as if he’d been slapped hard, right across his face. She could almost see the bruise forming as he blinked, tried to speak, stopped, tried again.
‘Ectopic...’ was all he managed.
At last she succumbed to the sorrow she had tried to hold back for two long years. The fragile, desperate wall she had built around her memories had crumbled at last and she was lost, head bent, face hidden. She’d held out so long, but she couldn’t manage any more. Her legs sagged at the knees, refusing to support her. She was going to fall.
But then arms came around her, warm and powerful. She was supported, held against the hard strength of a masculine chest. She could feel his raw, ragged breathing under her cheek, hear the uneven thunder of a pulse that was as out of control as her own.
‘It’s all right.’
Raoul’s whisper was right next to her ear, the hard pressure of his cheek, the weight of his head on her hair. One hand cupped her face, the other stroked over her skull, soothing her tears.
‘It’s all right.’
But it would never be all right ever again. Her baby was gone and the fact that Raoul had believed she had got rid of it just made the tears flow faster. She had lost her child—and obviously she had lost its father at the same time. She’d lost him, lost everything.
‘It’s all right, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, Imogen. I’ll not let you fall.’
If he said anything else then she couldn’t hear it as she abandoned herself to a fury of weeping, unable to hold back any longer. Two years’ worth of stored up tears soaked into his shirt, plastering the linen against his skin as she clung onto his arms, feeling the powerful muscles bunch and clench under her fingertips. She swayed against him, felt his long body adjust to take her weight, strong in support.