The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride

by Lynne Graham

  She dried her hair and got dressed, wondering if Rashad would be gone as long as he had feared. No matter what was on his agenda he generally managed to share breakfast with her and she had learned to cherish their quiet moments together. Her period was a week overdue, she recalled with sudden reluctance, but she hadn’t paid any heed to that because she’d suspected that the radical change of diet and climate was playing havoc with her system. After all, last month she had been early so possibly this month her cycle would be late to compensate for that.

  Hayat awaited her in the reception room next door with a list of Polly’s phone calls and her emails, each starred in terms of what Hayat deemed important. That her sister, Ellie’s call only rated the bottom of the list was telling. She learned that she had received an invitation to open the new wing of the hospital in Kashan and asked Hayat if she would arrange an appointment for her with Dr Wasem.

  ‘You are unwell?’ Hayat questioned, studying her with a frown.

  ‘No. I simply wish to consult the doctor,’ Polly replied.

  After a busy half-hour of tests and an examination with Dr Wasem Polly discovered that she was pregnant. Her idle musings to that effect were proven when she had least expected it. In truth she was stunned because Rashad’s admission about Ferah’s sterility and his laid-back assumption allied to her own that it would take months for her to conceive had all combined to make her look on motherhood as a distinctly distant possibility. Instead it had suddenly become her new reality.

  ‘I am honoured beyond words to break this news to you,’ Dr Wasem informed her, his huge smile warm with genuine pleasure on her behalf.

  ‘I’ll tell Rashad tonight so I would be grateful if this remains confidential,’ Polly responded tactfully, well aware that in the claustrophobic gossip mill of the royal household the good doctor probably wanted to shout her announcement from the rooftops.

  ‘Of course.’

  Polly positively floated out of his ultra-modern surgery on the ground floor of the palace. A baby, Rashad’s baby. He would be so happy, so relieved, she reflected ruefully. He had lived through the pressure of a childless first marriage and all the fertility testing that had gone with it, and she knew that he considered the entire process stressful and potentially disastrous. Now he would be able to relax and forget about worrying, she thought tenderly.

  A radiant smile lit Polly’s face as she began to formulate plans for the rest of the day. She phoned her sister first and beamed at Ellie’s shout of delighted anticipation. Afterwards she called her grandfather’s home to speak to her grandmother and ask if she could visit them on another evening. She held back her pregnancy news, wanting to share that with Rashad first.

  ‘That would be best,’ Dursa told her granddaughter in her halting English. ‘Hakim is travelling with the King and will be away until late and your grandfather would not like to miss your visit.’

  Her single social engagement cancelled, Polly decided to spend the rest of the day painting. She had her regular language lesson first, of course, and then spent another hour studying Dharian history and culture. The more she learned about every aspect of Dharian life, the easier she found it to understand Rashad’s concerns and share them. It was particularly interesting to learn about the heroine of the legend, the saintly Queen Zariyah. Why had her mother named her Zariyah at birth? Her grandfather, Hakim, thought it might have been because the name was revered in Dharia and her mother had wanted to give her that link to her father’s heritage, but Polly thought it was just as likely that her mother had simply thought the name was pretty. Evidently she had not appreciated or had possibly not cared that the name was almost never used out of respect for the original Zariyah. Now the world had turned full circle, Polly acknowledged, for while it was known that she was called Polly the media routinely referred to her as Queen Zariyah.

  ‘You’re going to paint,’ Hayat said unnecessarily when Polly appeared in the loose sundress she usually wore for her sessions.

  Polly nodded, wondering why Hayat was staring at her, her dark eyes cool, her face stiff. Had she offended the other woman in some way? Polly pushed the concern to the back of her mind because she was not in the mood to tackle what would be a difficult conversation. In fact she kept on wanting to smile in the most stupid inane way because she was so happy about the baby she carried. As she relaxed into that startling concept she was finally allowing herself to think about what it would mean to have a child and become a parent.

  Certainly, she hoped that she would manage to be a better parent than her own mother had contrived to be. Although she felt guilty feeling judgemental like that, she had had a great deal more compassion for her late mother since she had learned the tragic circumstances of her own birth. Yet Annabel Dixon had moved on from the loss of her husband by very quickly conceiving another child and once again landing the responsibility for that child onto her own mother’s shoulders. Polly sighed with regret. It seemed that her mother had led a tumultuous, lonely and unhappy life, for she had never managed to sustain a lasting relationship with any one of her daughters’ fathers. She wanted something very different for her own life and her own child, she conceded ruefully. She wanted love and stability and two parents for her baby, so that her child could feel safe and supported as he or she grew up.

  The air-conditioned cool of the room set aside for her to use as a studio was welcome. There were two unfinished canvases on easels, one a painstaking watercolour in Polly’s signature dreamy pastels of the star-shaped pool on the ground floor, the second a sunset in oils of the desert landscape. The second painting was a new departure for Polly. The colours were more adventurous, the brush strokes bolder, possibly expressing the many changes that had engulfed her since she first came to Dharia, she acknowledged thoughtfully.

  And yet had she had a choice there was nothing she would change, she reflected while she painted. Rashad had transformed her life. Her gaze flickered to the ring on her wedding finger, the miniaturised fire-opal ring, and she smiled giddily, marvelling that her mother’s legacy, inapt as it might have been, had nonetheless reunited her with her grandparents and allowed her to meet Rashad. Gorgeous but often unfathomable Rashad. He was passionate, clever and driven, sexy beyond words, everything she had not even known she wanted in a man until she met him. But he was also a multifaceted challenge with hidden and dangerous depths and that worried her, for she herself was not introspective and pretty much wore her feelings on the surface.

  As the heat of day began to fade Polly went off to shower and change into the blue dress Rashad particularly admired. If he made it back in time she would tell him about the baby over dinner, otherwise over a late supper. In fact it didn’t matter how late he got back, she would wait up.

  When she reappeared, Hayat was waiting for her again. ‘I’m afraid there has been an oversight. The King’s friend, Mr Benedetti, is about to arrive to join him for dinner and the King is not here—’

  Polly frowned, knowing how important the art of hospitality was to Rashad and how very rude a last-minute cancellation would be. ‘I’ll dine with him and explain.’

  Hayat gave her a bright admiring smile. ‘You are daring—’

  Polly raised a brow. ‘How?’

  ‘To dine alone with a man who is not your husband.’

  Polly laughed. ‘Neither my husband nor I are that old-fashioned,’ she asserted with confidence.

  Rio Benedetti was charm personified, soothing her concern that he might be offended by Rashad’s absence with an easy flow of entertaining conversation stamped with an occasional subtle query about Ellie, which made Polly’s sisterly antenna prickle with curiosity. After all, Ellie had evinced no similar desire to discuss Rio with Polly, claiming that she had only appeared to enjoy Rio’s company at the wedding out of politeness and hadn’t actually liked him at all. In fact she had dismissed him as a player with sleazy chat-up lines. Somehow, Rio had got entirely on the wrong side of her spirited sister.

  The Italian billi
onaire did not keep her late and Polly was curled up in a corner couch on her own with a book by the time Rashad strode through the door after eleven that evening. The instant that she saw his stormy dark face, she knew that he was in a temper and concern indented her brow.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she exclaimed, coming upright in her bare feet, noting that lines of strain bracketed his mouth.

  Rashad regarded her in astonishment. She had spent an entire evening alone with an infamous womaniser, utterly disregarding Hayat’s advice. The minute Rashad had received that news he had assumed that his wife found Rio so compellingly attractive that she had decided to throw away the rule book and that thought, that fear had simply spawned an ungovernable rage that far outran any emotion Rashad had ever felt. Exhausted as he already was by an endless day of repetitive diplomacy and incessant meetings, Hayat’s phone call had incensed him.

  ‘Why didn’t you listen to Hayat when she advised you not to dine alone with Rio?’

  Polly tilted her chin. ‘She didn’t advise me not to do it, she just said it was daring. I thought that was nonsense when I was only trying to be polite and considerate. Telling him you were unavailable when he was literally on the way here would have been very rude and as he is a close friend of yours I thought you wouldn’t want that—’

  ‘Or perhaps the temptation of having Rio all to yourself was too great!’ Rashad flung at her rawly. ‘He is notoriously sought after by women.’

  ‘Not by my sister,’ Polly remarked abstractedly, suddenly recognising that Rashad, whether he knew it or not, was consumed by jealousy. ‘You really don’t have to be jealous—’

  ‘Jealous?’ The word hit Rashad like a brick thrown on glass, shattering what little control he retained. ‘I have never been jealous over a woman in my life!’

  ‘Sleep on it and then think about it,’ Polly advised, losing patience and angry with him because she had been eager to tell him about their baby and now he had wrecked the mood with his temper. He was so volatile, so possessive. On what planet did he live that he believed she could be so eager to make love with him while planning to betray him with his closest friend? Had she been too eager? Was that the problem? Did he think she was some sort of natural-born wanton who could not be trusted in the radius of any attractive man? A dark flush of fuming humiliation reddened Polly’s face and chest and she turned her head away from him to walk past him.

  Long, lean fingers closed round her wrist to intercept her. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing more to say to you.’ Polly yanked her arm free and, feeling the prickle of angry, hurt tears stinging her eyes, she fled past him into the corridor. How could Rashad talk to her like that? How could he even see her in such a light? Was this her reward for matching that dark, passionate intensity of his?

  ‘Polly…’

  ‘I hate you!’ Polly flung over her shoulder as she started down the stairs that led to their bedroom.

  And it was that twisting round to make that final response that unbalanced her. She missed a step and lurched. Her feverish grab at the stone bannister failed and she fell, instinctively turning her body into herself as she had been taught to fall from a horse. Her hip hit stone and she cried out in pain and then the back of her head struck a step and she knew no more…

  CHAPTER TEN

  A FAINT MOAN parted Polly’s lips because her head was aching and she came awake with a sense of frightened confusion. Her eyes opened on an unfamiliar room. She saw a bewildering number of faces, blinked and registered that she was in a hospital bed with the side bars raised.

  ‘Polly?’ Rashad breathed tautly, springing out of the chair beside her.

  ‘What?’ she mumbled because moving her lips felt like too much effort. ‘My head’s sore…my hip.’

  As she focused blearily on him he stepped back to allow the medical staff to attend to her and she wondered why he looked so tired and why the sun was shining into the room when only minutes ago it had been dark. A nurse checked her blood pressure and gave her a drink while a doctor asked her a series of questions. Her attention, however, stayed squarely on Rashad while she struggled to recall what had happened to her. Black stubble accentuated his stubborn passionate mouth, his luxuriant hair was dishevelled, his eyes shadowed, his powerful anxiety unconcealed. Recalling her fall on the stairs and the argument that had preceded it taxed her concentration and then, with a sudden whoosh of awareness, all that fell away on the shocking surge of apprehension that shot through her. She pressed a stricken hand against her stomach.

  ‘My baby?’ she gasped fearfully.

  Rashad strode forward and rested a hand over hers in a soothing gesture. ‘Our baby is fine—’

  ‘For the moment. There has been no bleeding but you must rest. The next twenty-four hours are crucial to your recovery,’ the grey-haired doctor told her firmly as he urged her to lie still.

  Rashad’s hand was trembling over hers and just as she noticed that he withdrew it in a sudden gesture and dug it into the pocket of his trousers. He knew that she was pregnant; he knew about the baby. She assumed that Dr Wasem had told him after she fell and knocked herself out. Polly closed her eyes, guessing just how guilty Rashad would be feeling. She was still furious with him but she knew his habit of blaming himself for everything bad that happened around him. If she lost their baby he would never forgive himself for upsetting her. How could she be furious with him and yet aching inside herself for what he was feeling at the same time? It was that crazy conundrum called love, she decided ruefully. dpg

  While the doctor talked to her about the concussion she had sustained, Polly tried to think clearly and focus but it was no use, she simply couldn’t. Both her head and her body ached. The mental confusion and the extreme fatigue the doctor had warned her about were steadily closing in on her because there was far too much to think about and it was infinitely easier to close it all out just then and drift. She still had her baby, she reflected with passionate relief, and that was the last clear thought she had.

  *

  Rashad paced the silent room. He had tidied himself up in response to Hakim’s pleas but he had not eaten, he had not slept. How could he? His temper, that wild surging rage he couldn’t always control, could have killed Polly. He looked at her, lying so still in the bed, white-blonde hair tumbling across the pillow, her face showing a little colour now, no longer that wan grey that had terrified him. She was so fragile, so precious…

  And the baby? Rashad was still stunned by that development, that incredulous realisation that, if there was nothing medically amiss to prevent it, a pregnancy could happen so quickly, so easily, so…so normally, he recognised. He hadn’t expected that, hadn’t prepared for it either. In fact he had pessimistically assumed that although they might conceive a child eventually it would undoubtedly take a long time. Once again he had made the mistake of allowing past disappointment and disillusionment to influence his expectations in the present. And how could she ever forgive him for that?

  He was fatally flawed, almost programmed to disappoint Polly. He had even failed to protect her from Hayat’s malice. ‘Either you’re mine or you’re still hers,’ Polly had flung at him, referring to Ferah, and he could see that now—could see that he had failed to make peace with the past and move on to embrace a wife far superior in every way to his first. And if it was wrong and disrespectful to think that then it was better to be wrong but at least rational enough to recognise that truth. Fate had rained gold on him when he least deserved it and he had virtually thrown away the opportunity he had been given, he conceded grimly.

  ‘You must eat and rest, Your Majesty,’ Hakim whispered fiercely from the doorway. ‘How can you support your wife if you are exhausted?’

  ‘As always, the voice of reason,’ Rashad conceded wearily, but his every instinct still warred against leaving Polly alone. At least while he watched over her he could actually feel as though he was doing something to help, but in reality, while she was under medical super
vision, he could only be an onlooker.

  *

  Polly wakened and slowly savoured the strength returning to her body. She pushed down the bedding and tugged up her gown to squint at the horrid blue-black bruising covering her hip and stretching down her thigh. Better her hip than her stomach, she decided as a nurse came in and gently scolded her for sitting up in bed without help. Suddenly she was surrounded by staff again and she was changed and the bed was changed and then breakfast was ushered in.

  An hour later, Rashad arrived, sleek and shaven in a beautifully cut dark suit. He looked fantastically handsome and considerably more groomed and calm than he had the day before. His stunning dark golden eyes immediately sought hers and instinctively she evaded his gaze, too full of conflict to meet it. He had revealed his lack of trust in her. He had believed that even though they were married she could still be tempted by another man and that she could be unfaithful. How could she overlook or forgive that?

  ‘I have a lot to say to you,’ Rashad murmured tautly. ‘But first your grandparents are waiting to see you and you should see them now to reassure them.’

  ‘Of course,’ she muttered uncertainly, wondering what he had to say to her, wondering what she would say to him.

  ‘If your medical team agree, I can take you home later.’

  Polly compressed her lips in silence.

  ‘Hayat has now gone home to her mother. She won’t be returning to the palace staff,’ he told her in a harsh clipped undertone. ‘I was foolish to trust her near you—’

  Polly studied him directly for the first time. ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  His lean, strong face went rigid. ‘Apparently Hayat was angry and jealous that I had married you and she decided to cause trouble between us…and in that she succeeded,’ he divulged grudgingly. ‘I told her to cancel that dinner with Rio before I left the palace the day before yesterday. But she didn’t cancel it. She set you up instead, set us both up…challenging you to dine alone with him, knowing that I am not—at heart—the liberated male I must strive to be for your sake…’