Billionaire Baby Daddies: A five-book anthology

by Connelly, Clare

  “What did you just say?” She asked, biting down on her full lip.

  He brought his mouth closer to her ear again. “I will kiss you right here if you keep reminding me how delightful your lips are.”

  She gaped, her eyes shifting to his. “Would that be so wrong?”

  His expression shifted a little. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Until we are married, I’m not supposed to touch you … intimately.”

  Anguish tore through her. “That’s silly,” she said with a shake of her head.

  His laugh was gruff. “Now perhaps you appreciate my reasons for rushing the ceremony.”

  “But you … we were together … last night.”

  He nodded, his eyes faintly mocking. “And I have every intention of possessing you tonight, too.” He put a hand in the small of her back and brushed his thumb over the flesh in rhythmic circles. “I just do not think we should flaunt it to this crowd.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Her lashes were dark fans against her cheeks as she closed her eyes on the admission.

  He breathed in her delicate feminine fragrance and felt an immediate tightening in his groin. “We must circulate now. But Evie?”

  She looked up at him in silent response to his question.

  “All I am thinking about right now is making you mine again.”

  “I’m already yours,” she said teasingly, reaching around and linking her fingers in his. “Remember? All these people heard you say so.”

  His expression didn’t lighten. “We’ll leave as soon as possible.”

  She nodded, her eyes enormous.

  He knew he needed to part from her; to speak to his guests and allow her to be feted and welcomed, but he was reluctant. “You’ll be okay.”

  It was a statement rather than a question; Evie found herself nodding anyway.

  He released his grip on her hand and was swallowed by the crowd. She watched him go, bemused by this bizarre turn of events. She didn’t have long to watch him; she was likewise engulfed by curious guests, eager to meet and speak to the woman who was about to become extremely politically powerful.

  There were requests for her to join charity boards, to oversee hospital renovations, to visit schools in struggling districts, to speak to the Sheikh about funding for arts projects, and to speak to him about clemency for a prisoner. Her head was spinning and all the more so for having to listen carefully to the accented English.

  “You are doing well.” The kindly-spoken words had her turning with relief.

  “Fayaz!” Her smile was reserved. “Are we actually allowed to speak now?”

  “Of course! Why should we not?”

  “It’s just …” She was wary after their last encounter. She dropped her eyes. “Malakhi said I exposed you to gossip last time. When we had lunch.”

  Fayaz’s expression shifted a little. “I don’t care about that.”

  “I had no idea. The ways of Ishala are so very different to what I’m used to.”

  “Of course they are.” He waved aside her apology. “It was just a lunch.”

  “That’s not what you said the other day.”

  He grinned. “Your betrothed made me aware, in no uncertain terms, that I was infringing on his interests.” His smile broadened. “We’ve been friends for a long time and I’ve never seen him so territorial. Even with Leilani, whom I know he cared for a great deal.”

  Evie’s heart thudded heavily at both the reference to the other woman and the description of Malakhi’s feelings for her.

  Sensing it, Fayaz moved the conversation along quickly. “I have a present for you.”

  “That’s not necessary,” she demurred.

  “But of course it is! You are to marry, and presents are traditional.”

  She bit back the declaration that she was getting a pretty amazing present in the form of her husband. How could she have become so dramatic and sentimental?

  Fayaz lifted a small gold box from his pocket. It was about the size of the business card wallet her father had used to carry. Slim and compact, it fit neatly into the palm of her hand. From across the room, Malakhi watched with a growing sense of irritation. What the hell was his friend thinking?

  “It’s lovely,” she murmured, turning the tin over to examine the intricate carvings in its back. “What does this say?” She ran her finger over the foreign script, as though the feel of it beneath her fingertip might lead to better comprehension.

  “Forever,” he translated, his smile handsome as he pointed to the letters.

  “Forever.” She breathed the word like a spell and sighed. “Thank you.”

  “You are thanking me for this? You have not even looked inside.”

  “Oh!” With delight, she unclipped the clasp and slipped the tin open, holding it in both hands. A soft piece of leather unfolded from one side; it seemed to be attached to the tin and had strong crease lines so it could be easily put away again. “What is it?” She lifted it closer and then laughed. “It’s a map! Of the palace?”

  “You said you wanted one.” He pointed to the top left corner. “Here is your suite of rooms.” He moved his finger closer to the first crease line. “Here is the swimming pool.” And further along the leather, to a rectangular room. “The kitchens,” he murmured, then moved his finger once more. “And the ballroom, where we are now.”

  “You’re telling me I could use this to find my way back at the end of the night?”

  He nodded. “And for any other time you are lost within the palace walls.”

  “Oh, Fayaz!” Her expression showed true appreciation. “That’s so very thoughtful of you. Thank you.”

  He waved away her gratitude. “It was an easy gift. You had, after all, given me the idea yourself.”

  “Yes, but I meant like a tourist map or something. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “No. They are not made any longer.”

  “No?” She lifted a brow, urging him to continue.

  His smile was kind. “A hundred were commissioned for the marriage of His Highness’s great grand-parents, as gifts for the dignities in attendance of the ceremony. One was given to my great-grandfather.”

  “He was a guest?”

  “A servant. But held in high esteem by the groom,” he corrected.

  “Wow.” She shook her head slowly, sending prisms of light cascading through the room. “I don’t know what to say.” She folded the map carefully into the tin and clutched it tightly in her palm. “I love it.”

  His smile was bright. He opened his mouth to change the subject but Malakhi appeared as if by magic. His expression was perfectly convivial but Evie knew him better. She stifled a sound of frustration and rolled her eyes instead.

  “Let me guess.” The polite mask she wore was held in place with effort. “You’re annoyed we’re talking.”

  His eyes shifted a little, showing his surprise at the challenge.

  Fayaz, despite himself, couldn’t stop the laugh from escaping his lips.

  “Do you have some single women you want me to seek out instead?” She continued, lifting a hand to her hip and tapping her fingers slowly against the fabric of the dress.

  “Evelyn,” he warned, but even his lips were twitching at the unprecedented cheek.

  “What?” Still she looked, for all the world, as though she was discussing the weather or the event.

  He shook his head in disbelief and then laughed. “Why do I feel like our marriage is going to be … eventful.”

  “Because you’re marrying me.” Her eyes narrowed. “And we both know I’m no wallflower.”

  “Ah. But what a pretty wallflower you would be, Jamila.”

  She rolled her eyes again and he reached down to hold her hand. When his fingers connected with hers he pulled her swiftly to his side. “Fayaz,” he said without taking his eyes off Evie’s face. “We’re going to leave now.”

  “We are?” She swallowed, adrenalin pumping through her.

&nb
sp; “Yes.” A warning was in his eyes. “I think you need to remember who’s in charge.”

  Now Evie laughed. “Am I meant to pretend that’s you?”

  Fayaz was moving away slowly, his cheeks flaming. The sensual tension between the two was so hot he risked getting burned if he lingered a moment longer.

  “I have a condition,” she murmured quietly, squeezing his hand back.

  “Oh?”

  “Yep.”

  He stared at her, trying to fathom the secrets she held in the depths of her eyes. “And it is?” He prompted laconically, when she said nothing.

  She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I don’t want to go to your apartment.”

  “You don’t?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  She squeezed his hand again and lifted a little closer to his ear. “I want to go swimming. With you.”

  “I see.” He felt his whole body jerk with desire. “Then we shall swim.”

  “Ah. And I’m going to find the way to the pool.”

  He smiled slowly. “No, you’re not.”

  A frown tugged between her brows. “But look. I have a map.” She held the tin up for him to inspect and he turned to it for a brief moment only.

  “My pool is not on that map.”

  “Your pool?”

  “Mmm,” he breathed the word against her ear, sending a tidal wave of need lurching across her system. Her nipples strained against the fabric of her dress and a longing unlike any she’d experienced surged through her.

  “Can we go now?”

  Ten

  His laugh turned her bones to jelly quicker than anything else. She sent him a look of furious concentration, a scowl not far behind.

  “I’d be able to follow it if you’d slow down.”

  “I told you! My pool is not there.”

  “I know that,” she grumbled, having to take two steps for each of his one. “But it must be here somewhere.” She dragged her finger over the leather. “Marked as something else, or just in between the rooms.”

  “It’s not.” He reached over and took the tin from her.

  “Hey!” She stopped walking, her hands on her hips and her face showing belligerence. “Give that back.”

  “I will,” he promised, his voice deep and dark, sending her pulse haywire. She watched as he reached into his pocket and pulled a dark grey cloth from the depths of somewhere. It was not large, but when he held it over her eyes it effectively covered everything from sight.

  “What are you doing?” The words were just a husk in the empty corridor.

  “Do you trust me?” He murmured, tying the cloth around her chignon, sending a few dark strands of hair into disarray.

  She bit down on her lip and drew in an uneven breath. “Yes.” And she did. Completely.

  His hands brushed her shoulders gently and then his arm was around her waist, drawing her close to him. She breathed in his masculine fragrance and shivers danced across her spine.

  He slowed his pace and they walked together, almost as one. Evie couldn’t have said which turns they took if her life depended on it, but eventually he stopped moving.

  A warm breeze rustled past, and Evie inhaled. Sweet blossoms were heavy in the air.

  “Are we there?”

  His hands were firm on her shoulders now, massaging her through the fabric of her dress.

  “Yes.”

  She lifted her fingers to the blindfold but he grabbed her wrists and firmly pulled them back to her sides.

  “You said you trust me.”

  Her mouth was dry; she swallowed but it didn’t help. “I do.”

  His fingers were deft on the buttons at her back. But by halfway down he swore quietly. “I do not like this dress.”

  She grinned, her heart flipping over in her chest. “Why not?”

  He said something in his own language and continued working, until almost her whole back was bare. “Fortunately for you and this dress I know that you are worth the effort.”

  She bit down on her lip to stop the smile from spreading.

  Finally, he pushed at the fabric and it fell to her waist.

  Evie’s cheeks flushed pink. “We’re alone, right?”

  He curved his hands around to her breasts and cupped her gently. “Of course. Do you think I would allow anyone else to see the beauty of your body? Knowing I am the only man to have possessed you?”

  “No,” she whispered.

  “You say you trust me. Believe that I will do what is best for you always.”

  Her tongue was thick in her mouth and so she nodded, glad that the blindfold covered her eyes. Her emotions were rioting all over the place.

  He crouched before her, sliding the gown to the floor. Beneath it she wore a delicate lace g-string. His hands skimmed her thighs as he ran it downwards, revealing her naked body to him. In only the necklace, crown, blindfold and heels, he stepped back to study her.

  And an odd sense ran through him. He pushed it aside. He would not regret what he was doing: it was for the best.

  Evie stepped out of her shoes awkwardly and reached out a hand. He took it instinctively and then released it. “Stay there.”

  “I don’t think I dare move,” she said seriously. “I have no idea how close I am to the water’s edge.”

  He removed his own clothes efficiently then brought his body close to hers. She sucked in a deep, sharp breath of shock before exhaling shakily.

  “Hello.”

  He didn’t respond verbally. His hands grabbed her waist and he lifted her almost as though she weighed nothing. Holding her against him, he stepped into the water, moving quickly through its depths.

  Evie made a sound of surprise and again went to remove the blindfold but he stalled her. “Leave it.”

  Anticipation clawed through her slender frame. He was fascinated by the play of emotion on her features. Beneath the full moon, she seemed to glisten like some kind of other-worldly angel.

  “I want to see where we are.”

  “You will.” He lifted a hand to her hair, touching the elaborate style with interest. “You look like you were born to be my wife.”

  Beneath the blindfold, she blinked her eyes open. It was pitch black. She wanted to see him. So much of what he felt was evident in his handsome face. She concentrated on his voice instead. “I guess a heap of diamonds and a crown will do that to a girl.”

  His smile showed his teeth. “It isn’t only the jewels. Though they do suit you.”

  In the water, he circled her, sending little waves ricocheting against her naked breasts. She reached for him as he passed. Electricity hummed just beneath her skin as her fingertips connected with his hair-roughened chest.

  Her voice a soft caress. “Do you find it weird to think that we’re marrying?”

  He studied what he could see of her features. “Weird? In what way?”

  She bit down on her full lower lip and he knew she was searching for a better way to describe what she felt. “Just weird. That life had this in store for us.”

  His nod was slow before he realised she couldn’t see him. “I am no longer surprised by life,” he said simply.

  “If all this hadn’t happened, who would you have married?”

  The silence was broken only by the sound of one of the desert birds, calling across the plains. “There was no one in my mind.”

  “No one?” She pushed at the blindfold, batting his hand away when he went to stop her. The question was shoved from her mind on the exhalation of her gasp. They were in the open, beneath a starry sky. Exotic trees lurched overhead, their branches still but the leaves whispering in the soft, sultry breeze. The pool was shaped like a rectangle, more or less. As with the pool she’d seen earlier in the week, it had irregularities in its design – little curves in the corners. It was marble too, shimmering white, catching the moonlight and holding it in its watery basin. And around the edges, flowers grew in big pots, their bright red blossoms not du
lled by night.

  “Where are we?”

  He brought his hands around her waist, drawing her close to him. Beneath the water, she felt the proof of his desire and her gut churned. “For many generations this has been a sacred and private retreat of the Sheikh’s. No one but I can come here. And now you. Even Sabra was forbidden.”

  “Servants?” She murmured, looking around curiously.

  “Not without my permission, and only when it suits me. Other than that, no. No one. It is here that we can be truly alone, Jamila.”

  She expelled a sigh and wrapped her arms around his back. “Then we should come here every day.”

  “Yes.” He pressed a kiss against the tip of her nose and then put some distance between them, swimming with a confident stroke to the other edge of the pool.

  “Do you feel, on the eve of our wedding, as you did when you married him?”

  Nick. She made a strangled noise of surprise. Guilt at how little she’d thought of her ex burned through her. “Oh, Crap. Nick. I should probably have told him about this.”

  Malakhi arched one dark brow, silently prompting her to continue.

  “As a courtesy,” she elaborated, her cheeks flushed with emotion. “It seems like something an ex-husband would want to know.”

  “There’s still time,” he said with a shrug. What did it matter if she communicated with the man? Soon she would legally become his wife, bound to him for always. And the legality of their union would confer upon him the same rights over Kalem as she currently held. More, given his position as Sheikh of the land.

  His smile was marked by the truth he hid from her. “Did you marry him believing it was right?”

  “That’s so like you,” she said with a wistful grimace. “You have this insane ability to just go straight to the heart of what I’m thinking.”

  “Do I?”

  “Yeah.” The column of her neck moved as she swallowed. How could she express to him how very wrong her marriage to Nick had seemed? How the date had loomed like a curse rather than a blessing? How she’d woken up in a sweat every night beforehand. How she’d come to dread his touch. She kicked onto her back, her eyes finding the night sky.

  Malakhi stared at her beautiful, sylph-like body as it floated on the water’s surface. Her breasts, shining from the water and firm, called to him. But he remained where he was. There was an element of barbaric self-torture in maintaining his distance.