by Kate Hewitt
The least he could do for her was bring her back to that dazzling precipice, even as he climbed towards its heights. Rico watched in satisfaction as her face softened with pleasure, her eyes unfocused, pupils dilated, her breath coming out in a shuddery rush as her body convulsed around his. Then, and only then, did he find his own satisfaction, releasing himself inside her with a final groan of surrender.
For several moments afterwards his mind blurred and blanked as the last aftershocks of his climax pulsed through him. He rolled off her onto his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. Regret lanced him, a sword he threw himself on with bitterness—because he knew better. Of course he did.
He’d lost his self-control, he’d thrown it away with both hands, and for what? A single moment of pleasure? A damning need? He hated the thought. He didn’t need anyone. He wouldn’t let himself.
‘Why,’ he gritted out, his arm still over his eyes, ‘did you come up to my hotel suite if you are—were—a virgin?’
She shifted next to him, pulling a sheet across her body. ‘What does one thing have to do with the other?’
‘You knew what I intended. I made it very clear, for a reason.’
‘Yes.’ She sounded calm and a little resigned, but not particularly regretful. Rico removed his arm from his eyes and turned to stare at her. Her face was rosy and flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes bright. She looked... She almost looked happy. He didn’t understand it at all.
‘Did you intend for this to happen?’ he asked incredulously. ‘Was that why you were waiting outside the party? Were you waiting for me?’
‘Not for you in particular.’
His ego took a surprised bruising at that honest statement. ‘So any man would have done?’
She bit her lip, her gaze sliding away from his. ‘That sounds awful.’
‘But that’s what you’re saying?’ He felt outraged, even though he knew it was ridiculous. He’d had that very attitude countless times. He preferred that attitude...in himself. And one thing he was not was a hypocrite. Yet here he was, feeling offended by her honesty.
‘No, that’s not what I am saying.’ Lina’s eyes flashed and she scrambled up to a sitting position, her lush breasts on glorious display. She had the most amazing figure—curvy and womanly and round. Just looking at her made Rico ache all over again. Virgin or not, Lina still enflamed him.
She pulled the sheet up, wrapping it around herself as she glared at him, her chin tilted at a defiant angle. ‘What does it matter to you?’ she demanded. ‘According to those women back in the bathroom, you should be showing me the door right about now.’
‘Is that what you want?’ Rico hurled back at her. He didn’t even know why he was so angry, only that he was.
‘It’s what I expected. And wasn’t that what this was all about? You warned me, Rico, about how little I could expect from you. Now it seems I’m getting more than I bargained for.’ And she didn’t sound very happy about it.
Rico stared at her in fury, wondering why he didn’t just let her go. She was acting exactly the way he should want, but something compelled him to keep her here. He wanted answers. He also wanted her.
‘It’s different,’ he ground out. ‘Since you’re a virgin.’
Lina rolled her eyes. ‘That’s my business, not yours.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I never would have slept with you then!’
‘And that’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.’
She was impossible. Rico rolled up to a sitting position and yanked on his trousers. A sudden thought occurred to him, terrible and profound. ‘You said it was safe.’ From behind him Lina didn’t say a word and slowly Rico turned around. ‘I asked you if you were on birth control...’
Her eyes widened a fraction and she hitched the sheet higher. ‘That wasn’t actually what you asked.’
‘I asked if it was safe!’
‘Which could mean something completely different.’
Cold dread swirled in his stomach, along with an anger fiercer than he’d ever felt before. ‘Most women, when in the intimate situation we were in, would know precisely what that meant.’ He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Are you saying you’re not on birth control?’ Why would she be, if she was a virgin? Unless she’d taken it with the express purpose of losing her virginity tonight. The thought seemed so bizarre he didn’t know what to do with it. ‘Tell me you’re on birth control.’
Lina shrugged, her ink-dark hair sliding about her shoulders. ‘Fine. I’m on birth control.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘You asked me to tell you—’
Rico swore loudly and viciously. ‘I didn’t mean for you to lie.’ He raked a hand through his hair, his fingers pulling on the short strands, frustration now matching his fury and confusion. ‘Lina, I don’t understand you.’
‘You don’t need to.’
He knew she was right, and that infuriated him all the more. He should just send her away. By this point in an evening, usually he would already be in the shower, expecting his bed partner, whoever she was, to be finding her own way out. What was so different now?
‘If you’re not on birth control, you could be pregnant.’ Lina lifted her chin another notch and said nothing. ‘Damn it, Lina, that’s a rather major issue, don’t you think?’
A muscle flinched in her cheek. ‘It’s not your concern.’
‘It is very much my concern,’ Rico returned in a low, dangerous voice, certainty thrumming inside him. He would never abandon his own child, as he had once been abandoned. He would die first. ‘If you are pregnant with my child, it is my paramount concern.’
Her face paled and she blinked slowly, seeming to absorb that statement. Rico shook his head, impatient as well as furious. ‘Did it not even occur to you that you could become pregnant?’
‘Not exactly.’ She bit her lip. ‘I wasn’t thinking about that just then.’
‘Then why on earth did you say it was safe? Did you lie on purpose?’
‘I... I didn’t understand what you meant.’ Colour crept into her face and she looked away.
Rico stared at her incredulously. ‘What did you think I meant, then?’
‘I don’t know.’ Her voice rose in agitation. ‘I wasn’t thinking at all, to be honest.’
‘Neither was I,’ Rico returned grimly, hating that it was true. What a mess. And he had no one to blame but himself. He should have realised how naive she was. She’d given him plenty of clues.
Sitting in his bed, wrapped in his sheet, her hair everywhere, her eyes wide and her face pale, she looked very young and incredibly vulnerable. How could he have thought for a moment that she was experienced, a woman of the world? She was anything but.
‘How old are you?’ he asked abruptly and she gave him a look of scorn.
‘Twenty-two, so you have no worries on that score.’
‘Still—’
‘I’m not your problem, Rico.’
‘But you could be—’ His words were cut off by a sudden buzzing. Lina looked at him questioningly.
‘It’s the lift,’ he explained tersely. ‘The doors lock automatically, since it opens right into the suite.’ The buzzing sounded again, insistent. Whoever was in the lift wanted to get in. Who the hell was trying to find him now?
CHAPTER FOUR
HALINA WATCHED IN misery as Rico grabbed his shirt and strode from the room. She slid from the bed, still clutching the sheet to her, and reached for her dress. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible, before her mother or Abdul missed her. Before she broke down completely and burst into tears in front of Rico, appalling him even further.
How could she have been so stupid?
Hurriedly Halina snatched her underwear and yanked it on before wriggling into her dress
. She managed to get the zip halfway up and decided that would have to do. She couldn’t find her bra, so she just left it. She had to get out of here—now.
She needed to absorb everything that had happened tonight, everything she’d let happen, because she’d been so befuddled, besotted and bewitched by Rico Falcone. Those women had been right—he was fabulous at sex.
Too bad that didn’t do much for her now, when she was facing a terrifyingly uncertain future. She looked back on the last few hours, blurred as they were, and marvelled that she’d been so reckless, with scarcely a thought for her future, her self. How could she have jeopardised everything for a single night’s pleasure?
‘What the hell are you doing?’
Halina’s head jerked up at the sound of Rico’s furious voice, and then her mouth dropped open in shock as the royal bodyguard, Abdul, strode into the bedroom. She’d thought things were bad enough but they’d just become a million times worse.
‘Come now, Your Highness,’ Abdul said in Arabic. He bowed his head so he didn’t have to look upon her near-nakedness.
‘Abdul...’ Halina licked her lips, her mouth dry, her mind whirling. ‘How did you...?’
‘Please, Your Highness. Come now. Your mother is waiting.’
The balled tights she’d been clutching in one fist fell to the floor. ‘Does my mother know...?’ she began. Abdul’s terse nod was all the confirmation she needed, and far more than she wanted. Any hope of creeping back into her hotel suite with no one the wiser crumbled to ash. Not only did she have to deal with the loss of her virginity and a possible pregnancy, but her parents’ fury and disappointment. She swayed on her feet, sick with both fear and shame.
Rico stood in the doorway, looking furious. ‘Who is this, Lina?’ he demanded. His face was flushed, his shirt unbuttoned, his eyes blazing.
‘I have to go,’ Halina said numbly. She had to go now, before she passed out, or was sick, or burst into tears. She felt close to doing all three. With trembling fingers, she struggled with the rest of the zip. Rico muttered a curse and then crossed the room to her and did it up himself.
‘Do not touch her again,’ Abdul ordered in English, his voice flat and lethal, and Rico whirled on the man as if he’d been waiting for the chance to attack.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Please, Rico, just let me go.’ Spots danced before her eyes and a pressure was building in her chest. She needed to get out of here now.
Rico glanced furiously at Abdul, who was waiting by the door, his arms crossed, his face studiously blank. ‘Who is he? What is he to you?’ he demanded.
‘No one,’ Halina answered quietly. ‘No one like that. He’s one of my guards.’
‘Guards?’
‘We must go now.’ Abdul stepped forward, six-foot-four of solid muscle, but he paled in comparison with Rico in all his glittering fury, who looked as if he was seriously contemplating throwing a punch at the bodyguard.
‘We aren’t finished here, Lina,’ Rico insisted in a voice that throbbed with angry intensity.
‘We have to be,’ Halina whispered, and she slipped by him towards the lift. As she stabbed the button she saw out of the corner of her eye Abdul block Rico’s way. Rico looked mutinous, his fists clenched, his whole body taut with rage.
Thankfully the doors of the lift opened before he did something precipitous, and Halina stepped inside with a shuddery sigh of both relief and regret, Abdul following quickly... The doors closed as Rico strode to face them, fury and disbelief etched on every rugged line of his face. Then she saw him no more.
All the courage and defiance Halina had felt earlier in the evening, all the excitement from being with Rico, had all gone, leaving her flattened and empty. She was terrified too, yet she knew she deserved everything she was going to get, which she couldn’t bear to think about yet.
She glanced at Abdul, who was stony-faced and silent. ‘How did you find me?’ she whispered.
‘It was not so difficult, Your Highness.’
‘But how did you know I was gone?’
‘I check all the rooms of the suite throughout the night.’
And she’d thought she was being so clever. She hadn’t realised Abdul was so thorough, never mind that he’d dozed off for a few minutes.
He must have seen she was gone and then looked for her downstairs. The bouncer at the party could have identified her, as well as Rico, and how he’d seen them leave together. No, it had not been so difficult. And she was even more foolish than she’d realised.
‘My mother...?’ she began, but Abdul just shook his head. It was not his place to say what her mother thought.
Soon enough they were walking down the hallway to their hotel suite, and Halina’s heart began to thud in an entirely new and unpleasant way at the prospect of facing her mother. What would Aliya Amar think of her daughter’s flagrant disobedience? What would happen?
She didn’t have to wait long to find out. As soon as Abdul swiped the key card, her mother threw open the door. She stood with her shoulders thrown back, her face flushed with both fury and fear, her eyes narrowed to dark slits.
‘Leave us,’ she commanded Abdul, and he did so.
Halina closed the door behind her, her fingers trembling on the knob. She’d never seen her mother look so angry. Her mother was always carefree and charming, her light laughter tinkling through the rooms of the royal palace of Abkar. Yet now she looked like a woman possessed by rage. Halina shrank back. She couldn’t help it.
‘I cannot believe you have been so stupid,’ Aliya stated in a cold, restrained voice. ‘So utterly reckless. We leave Abkar for one night—one night!—and you manage to completely disgrace yourself. How completely, I can see from the state of your dress.’ She raked Halina with one up-and-down glance, taking in her rumpled dress, her lack of stockings, her tumbled hair and still-swollen lips. Halina felt as if the truth of her evening was written all over her, and she bowed her head.
‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ she whispered as tears gathered in her eyes. She couldn’t even blame her mother for being so angry. She knew she deserved it, and more. From the moment she’d escaped her bedroom she’d acted foolishly, without a thought to her future. Now that it was all over, she couldn’t believe she’d been so completely stupid.
‘I always knew you were impulsive,’ Aliya continued. ‘Ever since you were a little girl, going after whatever you fancied. Doing whatever you liked.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Halina protested, even though she knew it was unwise to argue. She’d been spoiled a little, yes. She could acknowledge that. But her life had been so restricted, with so little opportunity for fun or excitement. Halina knew it didn’t justify her actions, but at least it explained them a little.
‘Fair?’ Aliya repeated, her voice ringing out. ‘You want to talk to me about fair?’ She whirled away from Halina, pacing the sumptuous carpet of the suite’s living area. Then she stopped, her back to Halina, her shoulders slumping. ‘Heaven help us both, Halina,’ she whispered. ‘What am I going to tell your father? He is going to be devastated. Heartbroken. This affects everything. All our plans...the political alliances that are so important...’
Halina swallowed, blinking back more tears. She hated the thought of disappointing her father so badly. She didn’t even understand why she’d done it. Had Rico Falcone really possessed that kind of hold on her? In the heat of the moment, he had. Even now she could recall a flicker of that intoxicating pleasure, the way it had blurred her mind and emboldened her actions.
Aliya turned slowly to face her. ‘Who was this man? Why did you meet him? Was it planned?’
‘I...’ Halina stared at her helplessly. What answer could she give? ‘It wasn’t planned. I... I was scared,’ she finally whispered.
‘Scared? Did this man scare you?’
‘No, not like that. I...’ Her mind whirled. ‘Olivia�
�s kidnapping frightened me. It made me realise how little I’ve experienced, how little chance I’ve had to have fun...’
‘Fun?’ Her mother looked incredulous. ‘This was about having fun?’
It made her sound so silly, so shallow, and in truth Halina knew she’d been both. ‘I just wanted to go to a party,’ she said. Aliya shook her head slowly. ‘To see something of life, to feel...alive.’
‘You are such a child, Halina. Do you have any idea what is at stake?’
‘I never meant things to go so far.’ Yet she’d chosen her fate. Halina knew she couldn’t pretend otherwise. Rico had given her the opportunity to walk away and she hadn’t taken it.
‘How far did you go, Halina?’ Aliya demanded in a low voice. ‘As far as I fear, judging by the look of you?’
Halina said nothing. Her throat was too tight to speak. Her mother whirled around again, her fingers pressed to her temples.
‘I cannot even believe...’ she began in a throaty whisper. ‘Could you be pregnant? Is that a possibility?’
‘No.’ The denial, the lie, was instinctive, and Halina desperately wanted to believe it. She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t. Aliya turned around slowly.
‘Because if you were,’ she said, ‘we would have to get rid of it. I know how heartless that sounds, but as a royal family we cannot endure the scandal. It would shame us all, and ruin your sisters’ potential matches.’
Halina kept her mother’s gaze even as she quailed inwardly at Aliya’s total ruthlessness. Get rid of her child? No matter how much she’d wrecked her future, Halina knew she would never want that. But she hated the thought that what she’d done might affect her three younger sisters, who were still in the schoolroom and even more innocent than she was—or, rather, had been.
‘There’s no chance,’ she said firmly, willing herself to believe it along with her mother. Inside her everything shook. Her future felt more uncertain than ever. She had no idea what was going to happen to her now.
* * *