Billionaire Baby Daddies: A five-book anthology

by Connelly, Clare

  “He considers you his guest. He would be displeased to think you are idle and bored.”

  “I’m not,” she attempted to backtrack, dropping her hand and squirming her fingers together in front of her. “I’m fine. Really, please, just leave it.”

  Fayaz studied her determined profile, then dropped his attention to the little boy. “On one condition,” he said thoughtfully.

  “Yes?”

  “When next Kalem’s nannies are on duty, I will show you where the swimming pools are.”

  Evie nodded gratefully. “That’s a deal.”

  * * *

  “Madam?”

  Evie spun around, a guilty expression on her face despite the fact she had been doing nothing wrong. She had only just got back to her room, having thanked Fayaz for his kindness in offering to help her settle in. She had expected to be left alone for the rest of the night, now.

  “Amina.” She smiled, softening instantly. “I’ve been hoping to see you. I wanted to thank you for your help the other night.”

  Amina’s eyes dropped. “Of course.”

  There was something in her bearing that unsettled Evie. “Is everything okay?”

  “Of course, madam.”

  “Please, call me Evie.”

  Amina shook her head. “That’s not possible. Madam, His Highness has sent for you.”

  “Oh?” It was instant. The quickening of her heart, the racing of her pulse, the heat between her legs. She felt desire, unmistakable, lodge inside of her.

  “Yes.” Amina nodded. “He is in his office.”

  This could mean only one thing: he had made a decision. Having been waiting for the executioner’s axe to drop all day, she was now desperate to know her fate.

  “Thank you.” She moved with quick determination but as she passed Amina she paused suddenly, extending a hand to Amina’s. “Did I get you in trouble?”

  Amina’s eyes shifted uncomfortably. “Of course not, madam.”

  Evie shook her head. “Are you being truthful?”

  Amina’s smile was tremulous. “I will be moved to the kitchen team,” she said softly. “But it is nice to have a new experience.”

  Indignation fired through Evie. “We’ll see about that.”

  “Please don’t interfere,” she whispered. “It will make it worse.”

  Evie’s cheeks were scored pink. She moved quickly through the palace. Only when she reached the doors to his office did she wished she’d reserved her strength. She was hot, and beads of perspiration dotted her forehead and upper lip. She dabbed them away and then knocked sharply on the imposing doors.

  He opened them instantly, as though he’d been waiting.

  They were chest to chest, so close she caught a hint of his tantalisingly masculine fragrance. “You summoned me?” She muttered darkly, her mind still reeling from Amina’s demotion.

  “Yes.” He was angry too! Good. Far better to feel the force of his anger than the heat of his seduction.

  “I want to speak to you about a servant who’s been helping me.”

  He shook his head. Visions of the way she’d laughed with Fayaz burned into his brain. “Not now.”

  “Oh? Because you are the King and you can say and do whatever the hell you want?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes sparked. “Ridiculous. How can any man think he should have such control of people?”

  “You, of all people, will come to understand this intimately.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He shut the door tightly and spun around, his hands on his hips. Evie’s breath was burning in her lungs, and though it had little to do with the heat, she fanned her face. “God, this place is hotter than a barbecue plate.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Yet you want to stay.”

  “You know I do. For Kalem.”

  His smile showed how little he believed her motivations. “And what will your husband think about this, Evelyn?”

  “Leave worrying about Nick to me,” she said haltingly, taking a step backwards and turning into the room. His desk was littered with condolence notes now.

  “Yet you do not seem to be worrying about him at all. You have not once mentioned how he would adapt to life here. He is a surgeon; presumably it would be difficult for him to simply leave his business in Australia?”

  Evie nodded. “He knows what Kalem means to me.”

  Malakhi was very quiet but his silence was loaded with emotions he couldn’t convey. Finally, wordlessly, he pulled a piece of cream paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

  Evie recognised it almost instantly. She’d helped select the stationery design, after all. “Nick.” She ran her finger over the silver details and then read the words. Tears sparkled on her eyelashes. She pushed it back to Malakhi.

  What had he made of the words?

  Had he realised she was not the wife he referred to?

  “It was a strange note to receive,” he murmured, taking a step closer towards her. “After all, why send condolences on behalf of himself and his wife, when you are already here doing so in person?”

  Evie walked quickly to the window, hoping for some relief from the fever that was in her blood. None came. The dusk breeze was still hot, no hint of the cool change that night would bring.

  “Tell me.” The demand in his voice surprised her.

  A sob was burning through her. Evie bit down on her lower lip, waiting for the words to form inside of her. They didn’t come. Betraying Sabra was a hard task; one she did not relish.

  “You are not married.”

  Evie shook her head, glad that she wasn’t looking at him.

  He was right behind her though; she could feel him at her back.

  “Yet you wear a ring.”

  She nodded.

  His sigh was a sound of impatience. “What happened?”

  Evie shook her head and lifted shaking fingers to her lips.

  He pulled on her hand, tugging her around to face him. The fury in his face surprised her; she hadn’t expected such a visceral reaction.

  “For two months you have been lying to me. Why?”

  The tears were falling freely now. “Sabra … Sabra said you could never know that I was … that I had … divorced.” She sobbed, dipping her head forward on the admission.

  Silence sparked from Malakhi. Only Evie’s gentle cries broke it.

  “When did you divorce?”

  Evie kept her eyes shut. It was easier to blot him out that way. “Almost two years ago.”

  “Two years ago?” He did the math quickly. “You only got married two years ago. Your wedding was right after theirs.” He thought of the photographs Sabra had innocently emailed, having no idea of the wound she had aggravated. For he had wanted Evie, and she had not been available. It was the first time he’d known the power of denial, and he had not relished its cruel flavour.

  Her heart twisted in her chest. “I know that.”

  “So? This fiancé you were so in love with suddenly lost his appeal? Or was it the other way around? Did he discover you had a penchant for making love to other men and decide he did not wish to be married to such a woman?”

  “I did not,” she interjected angrily. “It was only you, only once and we certainly didn’t … make love.”

  “We have already agreed that kiss was a prelude to sex. Had I not done the honourable thing, you would have spread your legs for me that night, engaged or not.”

  Her fingers trembled and she lifted her hand sharply in the air. She hadn’t realised her intention until he caught her wrist just before it connected with his cheek. He pulled on it hard, bringing her body hard against his. He twisted her hand behind her back, holding her tightly to him. His chest was moving quickly; a sign of how difficult he was finding it to control his own emotions.

  “So? What was it? He did not like the idea of being married to a woman with no morals? I cannot say that I blame him.”

  “How dare you?” She cried, pulling at
her wrist.

  He didn’t release her. “Oh, I dare. You played with fire when you taunted me.”

  “I didn’t taunt you!”

  “Of course you did. You offered me what you knew I could not take. But now? You are divorced. What reason do we have for fighting this?”

  “Plenty,” she responded sharply, her whole body slick with anticipation at the possibility of finally getting what she had longed for from this man. But like this? With his anger a palpable force?

  “Yes, you’re right.” He crushed his lips to hers. It was a punishing kiss of possession; a kiss born of frustration and resentment, of need and want. She moaned into his mouth and kissed him back just as hard. The saltiness of her tears fell into their mouths but neither broke free. His body pushed hers backwards, and she went willingly, until she connected with the glass window. He held her wrist behind her back still, and with one powerful leg he splayed her legs. She couldn’t help it, she writhed against his muscle, trying desperately to cool the throbbing heat of her womanhood.

  He lifted his head abruptly, his eyes glinting like onyx in his handsome face. “It would feel good to take you now,” he muttered. “But I am not a man who enjoys that which other men reject.”

  She drew in a breath sharply, her whole body shaking at the horrible insult. Shock had stalled her tears but her face drained of all colour and she wondered, briefly, if she might faint.

  “Why did he leave you?” He asked, not moving his body away from hers.

  Her breaths were loud, wretched husks. “None of your damned business.”

  When he stepped away from her, she felt ice-cold. She brought her wrist around and rubbed it without thinking. His eyes dropped to the small gesture. A natural instinct to apologise for having hurt her was quelled by his disgust. With her, and certainly with himself.

  “Fine.” He spun around, putting vital distance between them. “I will have my jet fuelled. You can leave tomorrow.”

  “No,” she shook her head, and chased after him. Her throat moved as she swallowed furiously. “Please. Let me stay with him.”

  Malakhi stared at her with such coldness that Evie wondered if she’d imagined their impassioned embrace only a minute earlier.

  “Why did your marriage end?”

  “You can’t be serious?” She bit down on her lip, her heart shredding painfully in her chest. “Are you actually saying you’ll let me stay if I tell you?”

  “No.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “But I will let you stay a little longer.”

  “I won’t be your Scheherazade,” she murmured with obvious anguish.

  “Won’t you?” He lifted his hands to her shoulders.

  The gauntlet had been laid. Evie trembled under his touch. “There must be another way.”

  “Why are you so eager to hide this truth from me? Is what you did so shameful that even I, who thinks you are the worst kind of woman, might still be shocked?”

  She sobbed. “No. It’s just private.” She lowered her eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see the lie for what it was. After all, Malakhi was the beginning and end of why her marriage had failed.

  “So is your body and yet you seem willing enough to share it around.”

  “Don’t.” She snapped, lifting her hands and rubbing her temples. “Just don’t.” She crossed her arms across her slender chest and moved back towards the window. Her handprint was still marked on its glass surface; she traced it distractedly.

  “Well?”

  She nodded. “We were never well-suited,” she said finally, the words pulled from her like weeds in the soil. “But we had been friends a long time. We liked and respected each other.”

  Behind her, Malakhi was very still, every fibre of his being concentrating on this story that had interested him since meeting her.

  “You spoke more passionately about him that night.”

  Evie’s cheeks flamed when she remembered that night. How much champagne she’d drunk and how she’d thrown herself at the handsome ruler, only to panic and confess her engagement before things could go too far. But oh, they’d done that the minute she’d first met him, in that horrid Eagle’s enclosure.

  “I know. I remember.” She shook her head wearily.

  “Did you love him?”

  “Yes,” she said quickly, without hesitation.

  “You still wear his ring.”

  She dropped her gaze to her hand and nodded. “Not all the time.”

  Malakhi was an expert in reading people. He heard what she wasn’t confessing. “You wore it especially for my benefit. You thought it would keep me at a distance.”

  She laughed, a hollow sound of miserable confusion. “Yep.”

  “Your actions should have been enough to do that,” he growled. “What you did disgusts me. I meant what I said before: I am not interested in women that other men have rejected.”

  “You’re a pig,” she interrupted angrily. “What a disgusting thing to say.”

  He spoke as though she had not. “And yet I want you. I hate myself for feeling this for you, of all people. But I do.”

  Her heart turned over in her chest. She had nothing to offer in response. For she wanted him too, and she suspected it made a mockery of all of the things that mattered most to her.

  “Stay in Ishala as my lover.”

  The words rang through the room like a tiny, horrible challenge. Evie turned to face him, her eyes shimmering with tears, her lips parted.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m deadly serious. I wanted to sleep with you that night, and I am surprised to discover that desire has not abated.”

  “What about your other women?” She snapped. “Are they not doing it for you?”

  “This isn’t about them,” he said with an insouciant shrug. “Wanting you does not preclude a desire for them too.”

  She drew in a deep breath as pain quickly chased desire. “So you’re saying you want me to sleep with you … but you’ll still be … seeing them?”

  His lips twisted in a wry grimace. “You need only think about your place in my bed. No one else’s.”

  “I thought you were worried about gossip and rumours?”

  “You are a divorced woman. There is no shame in making you my mistress now.”

  “No shame for you,” she drawled, shivering at the clinical way in which they were discussing her body. Not just her body, but her pride. And though he didn’t know it, her virginity.

  “The decision is yours,” he said with a careless shrug.

  What could she do? She was torn. A love for her nephew and a desire for this man stood on side of her equilibrium. On the other? The rational voices of all those she loved and who had loved her. Her parents, her sister in law, her brother: all gone from this earthly sphere, but still very much alive in her mind. They shouted their objections at her now and she was disgraced to realise that, despite their number, her own desires held greater sway.

  “So, Evelyn? What do you decide?”

  “You give me little choice,” she said stiffly. Though she’d had a choice. To walk away from him and this life. It just wasn’t particularly palatable.

  “Good. So it is done.” He was business-like, as if they’d done little more than arrange a property transaction.

  It is done.

  She nodded thickly, her mouth dry. “What happens now?”

  His eyes glittered, his cheekbones were slashed with dark colour. There was a tangle of dark emotions firing through him that she couldn’t comprehend. “Take off your dress.”

  Her breath was impossible to catch. “N-now? You’re going to do this now?”

  He moved closer and looped his fingers through the straps of her dress. “You do not question me.” His eyes were fierce as they clashed with hers. He slid her dress down her body slowly, tightening instantly when he saw she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  “I’ll say whatever I damn well want,” she contradicted, but the words had no sting. Her nerves were making her voice sh
iver.

  “And now your underwear.”

  Evie was torn. Her desire to be visible to him and to finally feel him moving inside of her was being drowned out by feminine pride. How dared he speak to her like a piece of meat?

  “I am not going to take you here.” His fingers in her underwear were relieving her of their covering. “I simply want to see you naked.”

  “It’s not right,” she whispered, haunted.

  He felt pity for her. Pity, and something else. Something that made his whole body flex and contract painfully. With a sombre quietness to his voice he responded gently, “Allow me to see you. I need to see you. For years I have imagined. I have dreamed. Let me finally see.”

  It was a horrible hell they’d found themselves in. She understood the desperate passion in his words for the same need was thick in her blood. It defied logic and sense.

  Her nod was a concession not simply to the act but also to the pain. But any shred of self-consciousness was wiped away by the incredible moistness and heat between her legs.

  She stood before him, undressed and naked to the core – she had faced her own demons and allowed them to thrive in her. She was not strong enough to set herself to their opposition.

  “There.” Her breath was soft. She flashed him a sarcastic smile, but it was without strength. “Happy now?”

  His lips lifted in a half-smile but he said nothing to reassure her. Had she been hoping for a compliment? For praise? Admiration, even? His eyes gave little away.

  “It is a shame that you have not treated your body with more respect,” he said after a minute. “To marry a man you do not love, and cheat on him with others in the meantime. Your view of sex is distasteful.”

  It smarted. She responded with an attack because she needed time to process the wound he had inflicted. “Says the man with a harem.”

  “Yes.” He shrugs. “You’re right. It’s a double standard.”

  “You can say that again.” She felt so incredibly exposed. “Can I get dressed now?”

  “No. I want you like this.”

  “Like this?” She looked down at her naked body. “What do you mean?”