Billionaire Brides: An Anthology

by Connelly, Clare

  She swallowed, lifting a hand to the horse’s neck, but the horse made a cranky noise and stepped backwards. Apparently the beautiful beast had picked up the emotional discord between Sophia and his master.

  “I need to go.”

  “Like when you were a teenager and you would run to the desert?” She snapped. “You’re a grown man, and a Sheikh. You cannot run from your responsibilities –,”

  He held up a hand to silence her. “My responsibilities go with me, wherever I travel.” He kicked the horse’s sides and the animal backed up further.

  “Stay here,” she said angrily. “Stay here and fight for this, Malik. We can make this work.”

  His eyes glittered like dark gems in the night sky. “No, sharafaha. We can’t.”

  * * *

  She held her arms to the side with an air of patience that hid the state of suspension her heart had been dropped into. She kept a polite smile on her face when her insides were twisting and tormented by grief and absence.

  In the month since they’d argued in the gardens, that moonlit night, she’d seen her husband three times, all at official events.

  At first, when he’d left, she’d been furious with him. She’d told herself he’d regret it, that the shock of the pregnancy and the future before them had made him act without thought.

  She’d done exactly as he’d said, returning to her own rooms, but she’d been angry. So angry.

  And then, after four nights, she’d been lonely, and worried. After six nights, her worry had increased, because she still hadn’t seen Malik. After ten days, she sucked up her pride and asked Awan where her husband was.

  Awan had been surprised. The Sheikh was where he always was – in the palace.

  Further digging revealed he’d only stayed away one night, before returning.

  He wasn’t sleeping in his room.

  The first function she’d seen him at, he’d treated her like a stranger. Cordial, polite, touching her minimally, making only the most surface-level enquiries.

  She’d been so furious, she’d planned to speak to him afterwards, but he’d had to take the helicopter straight over to another city, for a different function.

  It had been the same at their next two engagements.

  He looked at her and looked right through her.

  “Just a small addition here,” the woman said, running her finger down the side of the dress’s panel. “And no one will notice a thing.”

  Sophia nodded, running a hand over her stomach. It was more rounded than she’d expected, so early on. Her sister Arabella had hardly showed in the first few months, but Sophia was already visibly pregnant – to anyone who looked closely – and it was still too early to want to make that announcement.

  No doubt the gossip tabloids would speculate regardless – they always were – but Sophia wanted to wait to make a proper announcement.

  She’d wait until she’d had the first scan, and perhaps by then, things with her and Malik would have resolved.

  The scan came and went. He was there for it, standing beside her, his eyes fixed to the screen with a resolute sense of duty that made her want to shout at him to go away! This was their baby, if the most he could muster was a look of fierce and resentful obligation then she didn’t want him there.

  “And you are well?” He asked, when they were alone in her sitting room, the ultrasound equipment wheeled away, the doctor checking results in the kitchen.

  She was. She’d been fine. At least, she’d told herself she had been. Two months since they’d argued, since she’d thought there was something between them from which she could make a real marriage. But his question, asked with a voice that was so carefully muted of any emotion, stirred something up inside of her.

  “Oh, go to hell,” she snapped, sitting up on the sofa, grabbing the towel to wipe the goo off her stomach. She felt the sting of tears at her eyes but refused to give into them.

  She didn’t see the way his features tightened, the way his expression shifted for a moment to one of pure anguish.

  “The doctor says you have experienced some nausea.”

  She pushed up from the sofa, padding across the room and pouring a glass of ice water. “If you want to know how I’m feeling, ask me, not my doctor.”

  “I’m asking you now.”

  “But you already know the answer.”

  He compressed his lips and she felt like he was going to say something, but he didn’t. He simply stared at her, dropping his gaze to her stomach, his eyes flashing with emotions she couldn’t comprehend, and then he turned away, looking towards the windows.

  Impatience zipped through her. She crossed the room, moving to stand in front of him, her eyes on his even when he looked past her.

  “Look at me,” she demanded, her expression grim.

  For a moment, she thought he was going to refuse, but then, he dropped his gaze to hers, his face bearing a mask of absolute coldness.

  It was galling, because she knew it wasn’t how he felt. “I’m your wife,” she said. “And this is our baby.” She reached for his hand, and almost wished she hadn’t when the spark of electricity that jolted through her at this physical contact almost knocked her sideways. Her breath grew rough. She lifted his hand anyway, hovering it over her stomach before curving his palm over the roundness there.

  He closed his eyes and inhaled, and she stared at him, hoping for some kind of miracle. Hoping that when he looked at her once more it would be with a dawning realisation. An awakening. An acceptance of the truth of this – of the importance of reaching for what was right in front of them.

  He looked at her, piercing her with his eyes, and then smiled. A perfunctory, banal, dismissive smile before he pulled his hand away and walked clear across the room.

  Something inside of her burst.

  “This is your child,” she said softly but the words rang out with the weight of her pain. “And I am your wife. You don’t get to walk out on us.”

  “I am right here,” he demurred stiffly.

  “You’re nowhere,” she said, shaking her head. “Did it occur to you that I miss you? That I need you in my life?”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw and he shook his head. “You need my brother.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” she lifted a hand and pressed it to her brow. “Yes. I need Addan. You don’t know how much I’ve wished I could talk to him, these last few months.” She didn’t flinch away from his gaze. “That’s a part of how I feel. He’s a part of me, a part of my heart. I loved him. He was my best friend. You have to accept that reality and still open yourself up to what’s happening between us.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “So you’d rather live your life like this, Malik?”

  A muscle jerked in his jaw. “This life is… none of this is what I would rather.”

  She swallowed, the bitter truth of that impossible to avoid. Malik sought freedom, and always had. He’d run from this palace, from the rigours of royal life, preferring to be an individual rather than a prince. And now he was King, and married to a woman he couldn’t ever admit to wanting.

  “I will never say I didn’t love him,” she said quietly. “But I’ve realised something about you and me, Malik. I don’t know when I first came to understand it, but these last months, not seeing you, not having you near me, how could I fail to realise what this pain is?” She pressed her fingers into her breastbone, her heart rabbiting hard beneath it. “I don’t know when I fell in love with you, but somewhere in this marriage, I did. I love you, and I don’t want to do this without you.” She crossed the distance between them, lifting her hands to his chest, pressing them to his heart, hoping he would feel the urgency of hers even when he was standing there as a man of steel.

  “Don’t.”

  The word was like a whip. It cracked against her spine. She ignored the blinding pain. She had to fight for this, for him. She had to wake him up, to make him understand that what they were e
xisted in a bubble that was completely separate to everything else.

  “When I found out I was pregnant, I was over the moon. I was so happy. Not because it meant we’d achieved what we set out to, not because I thought it would somehow terminate what we’d been doing… I was thrilled because I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to have a baby – to have a baby with you. No one else was in my mind; no one. This is about you and me, and the life we’ve created.”

  His head jerked back a little and his breathing was rough, his chest moving with the force of his exhalations. “Please stop.”

  It was the ‘please’ that got through to her. He was begging her. He was hurting, and she was rubbing his wounds raw. But god, she needed him to understand!

  “I can’t forget what you were to him. I can’t forget that all of this is because he died – my brother. I am sorry, Sophia. It isn’t fair to you, but I will never let this be more than a convenient marriage. You cannot speak of love to me –don’t do it. It only makes me grieve for my brother, that your affections could be so easily transferred.” His eyes were kind, even when his words were like bullets, exploding just under her skin.

  Her pulse ratcheted up a notch and she shook her head, about to launch into another tirade, to explain that her affection hadn’t been transferred, that it was different for each brother. There was no comparing how she felt. Addan had made her feel like she could rest, and Malik had pulled her back to life, he’d woken her up, every cell in her body, and she couldn’t imagine ever not loving him.

  But he was looking at her with cool dispassion once more. “The doctor wants to speak to you.” He lifted his eyes over her shoulder, and she heard the door clicking shut.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, your highnesses.”

  Sophia had only a moment to rally her emotions, to pull them together, and then she turned to face him, her expression bearing a mask of calm that she was so far from feeling.

  “The results look excellent, at this early stage,” he said.

  But something in his voice had Sophia’s panic levels rising. “At this stage?”

  He shook his head. “I wanted to double check the scans to be certain. Your highness,” he addressed Malik and Sophia tried not to let it bother her. “There are two heartbeats.”

  Sophia’s mind struggled to compute this. And then, she shook her head, and despite the heartbreak of a moment before, she smiled. “Do you mean we’re having… twins?”

  “Yes,” the doctor drew his gaze back to Sophia’s face. “And both are strong, showing good nutrient delivery. However, we will monitor you a little more closely than we would a single pregnancy.”

  “Of course,” she smiled and nodded, and risked a glance at Malik. He was staring straight ahead, his face cast from stone.

  She swallowed, and finished the conversation with the doctor, scheduling her next appointment before seeing him to the door of the suite.

  Alone again, she turned to face Malik, and she waited. Eventually, he dropped his eyes to hers and a shiver ran through her, for the coldness in his gaze.

  “What’s the matter?” She asked stiffly, shielding her heart out of habit now, protecting herself from the pain he seemed to inflict without making any such effort.

  “The matter?” His own voice was flattened of any emotion. “Nothing, Sophia. You have done very well. Two children perfectly secures the bloodline – the purpose of our marriage has been met.”

  Chapter 14

  THE NEXT NIGHT, SHE DREAMED that she’d followed him. That she’d thrown herself at him bodily and battered him with her small fists, that she’d screamed at him until he’d listened to her. That she’d pushed him to the floor and made love to him until he understood the truth of this.

  But she didn’t.

  She watched him go with a heart that was turning cold, with a heart that was learning to accept the futility of trying to convince a man like Malik of anything. She watched him go with pure acceptance.

  And doubts began to creep in. Not doubts as to her own feelings – she knew her heart and she understood it. But doubts as to his heart?

  For love was not something that could be rejected so easily. She had offered him everything she was and he’d turned his back on her like it was nothing.

  That was not love.

  She discovered, six weeks later, that he was having daily briefings about her. Usually, her chief of staff delivered them, but owing to illness, Awan had been dispatched to provide the update, and she’d mentioned it to Sophia almost in passing.

  So he hadn’t walked away from her completely.

  Then again, she was carrying his royal heirs – he probably just wanted to know they were in good health.

  And they were. The same could not necessarily be said for Sophia.

  “You must eat more,” the doctor said, after her twenty-week ultrasound.

  Worry immediately spread through her. “The babies?”

  “They’re fine,” he murmured, lifting his gaze to Malik’s face. “But you are not gaining enough weight. Growing twins is demanding on your body. If you don’t look after yourself, you will suffer, your highness.”

  She felt Malik stiffen beside her. She didn’t care. “I’m fine.”

  The doctor looked as though he wanted to argue, but Malik nodded, signalling that the matter was dealt with, and the doctor let himself out.

  “Are you eating?”

  She pushed up out of the sofa with more difficulty this time, her stomach was so much rounder. “Yes.” She didn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t. Pregnancy hormones were pulling her in a thousand different directions and she was afraid that if she looked into his eyes, she would burst into tears.

  He was very still, she sensed his lack of movement and stayed where she was, head bent forward, eyes fixed on the carpet at her feet.

  “Fine.”

  And he’d left.

  But not forgotten, apparently. He returned at dinner, his expression grim. He watched her eat, and of course she barely ate anything, because her stomach was in knots having him sitting opposite her. “I’m not an animal in a zoo,” she snapped, eventually, standing up and stalking towards her bathroom. “You don’t get to come for feeding time and disappear again. You don’t get to do that to me.”

  The next day, Awan sat with her while she ate. Awan chatted, telling Sophia all about her life, her childhood, her home, her sister’s upcoming wedding, and Sophia nodded and smiled and answered back as she pushed food around her plate and ate what little she could, but inside, she fumed, because he was simply using Awan as a proxy.

  She didn’t want a proxy for her husband, and she didn’t want a husband who saw her as a breeding machine.

  But she did want two healthy babies. Only the doctor had been sure on that point – the twins were fine. It was only her own health that was suffering, and Sophia couldn’t quite muster the energy to care.

  It was too hot, and she was so fatigued, and growing all the more so every day.

  When she was six months pregnant, she did something she hadn’t done in a very long time. She went into Addan’s suite of rooms. She pushed the door open, and it was like stepping back in time. She latched it shut behind her, and simply stared. It was exactly as it had been, right before she’d gone to America to see Arabella. Right before he’d died.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to his wardrobe and stepped inside, pulling one of his shirts from the drawer and lifting it to her face, bringing it with her to his bed. She lay down, just as she had so many nights, on her side, when they’d looked at each other and laughed and shared stories and she’d felt so happy, because it was all so simple.

  He was her best friend.

  She closed her eyes, hugging his shirt, feeling closer to him just by being here, and she fell asleep, completely oblivious to the explosive drama happening just a few feet away, within these very palace walls.

  “You cannot simply lose the Sharafaha,” he swore, Awan’s face pale.
<
br />   “She must have gone for a walk,” Awan said, moving towards the windows. It was dark.

  “Have I not asked you to watch her constantly?”

  Panic grew in Awan’s expression. “I didn’t see her, she’d said she was tired, I thought she was going to lie down. I’m sure she said she was going to have a rest…”

  Malik stalked to the bedroom and threw open the door. “Well, she is not here.” He moved to the room next door – another bedroom, and inspected it. “Unless she’s taken to sleeping under desks or pianos…”

  “I will look for her,” Awan said.

  “You and the whole damned army,” he swore, stalking to the door and alerting one of the guards. From between gritted teeth, panic shredding his insides: “Find my wife.”

  Twenty minutes later, he received the news. She’d been seen going into His Highness’s quarters sometime that morning.

  His stomach tightened at the very idea of her waiting for him in his rooms, of her sitting in that big chair, reading, or lying in his bed, fast asleep.

  But the servant hadn’t meant his room.

  They’d meant Addan’s.

  His lips grim, he stalked the short distance from Sophia’s apartment to Addan’s. He didn’t pause to brace himself at the door, and perhaps he should have, because the sight of Sophia fast asleep was enough to make his body lurch. But seeing her asleep in his brother’s bed, holding an item of his brother’s clothing to her breast, made him feel like his insides were being scraped out and replaced with acid. He stood there for several seconds and then, conscious that servants were right behind him, he turned, dismissing them.

  He stared at her for several minutes, partly out of greed – he had not had this luxury in many long months. And partly from a disturbed place of self-punishment.