‘On the contrary; I’ve arranged for us to spend tomorrow at the coast. I thought you might like to learn to sail my yacht, and we could anchor in a secluded little bay I know of and swim or even snorkel. There are some beautiful fish and the water is crystal-clear.’
‘Oh...well, I guess that does sound fun.’ She bit her lip, unable to drag her eyes from the sensual gleam in his, and her heart suddenly began to hammer. ‘But that doesn’t explain why you are here.’
‘Why do you think?’ he said softly.
The dangerous glitter in his eyes as he walked towards her had her hurriedly backing up against the door.
‘I don’t want to sleep with you.’ She was aware that now he was free from his marriage contract there was nothing to stop them being lovers, but she did not dare have sex with him again. Not now she had revealed intensely personal things about herself and her background that she had never told anyone else. She had made herself emotionally vulnerable to Kadir. Damn it, she had fallen in love with him. But he did not love her, and she did not trust herself to make love with him without giving away how she felt about him.
‘That’s okay because sleep is the last thing I had in mind, too.’ Lexi’s spine was jammed against the door and Kadir trapped her there by placing his hands on either side of her head so that his body was almost touching hers. ‘Shall I tell you what is in my mind, habibi?’
‘Don’t...call me that.’ She turned her head so that he wouldn’t see the tears that stung her eyes. Her emotions were see-sawing all over the place. Perhaps it was a sign she was pregnant? Distracted by the mental picture of holding her baby in her arms, she had no time to defend her heart against the sweet seduction of Kadir’s mouth as he claimed her lips in a kiss that stirred her soul.
‘I want you to trust me. I don’t want to hurt you, Lexi,’ he said softly.
But he would, she thought with a flash of despair. If she was carrying his baby he would insist on marrying her, but she would be his unwanted wife, and if she wasn’t pregnant, his desire for her would fade as quickly as it had with his other mistresses.
Her brain urged her to resist his sensual foreplay, but he had lowered her zip and tugged the top of her dress down, baring her to his hungry gaze. His hands were exquisitely gentle as he cupped her breasts in his palms and rubbed his thumb pads over her nipples until they hardened and tingled and the pleasure was too intense for her to bear.
‘Let me love you,’ he said in his deep, dark voice that wrapped around her like a velvet cloak. She knew he meant make love to you, and she knew she would be a fool to succumb to his sorcery. But for the next few days and nights he would be hers, whispered a voice inside her head. Her future was on hold until she found out if she was pregnant so why not enjoy what he was offering now?
Anticipation licked like scorching flames through her as he swept her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed. Entranced by the magic he was summoning with his mouth and hands, she had no recollection of him removing her dress and knickers, and she was unaware of the savage kick of desire Kadir felt in his gut as he stared at the erotic contrast of her ash-blonde hair and creamy pale limbs spread against the black silk sheets.
Spread for his pleasure, Kadir thought as he pushed her legs apart and knelt above her. He had never known any other woman to be as responsive and generous a lover as Lexi, and he had never felt such powerful thunder in his heart as he felt with her. He wanted everything, he acknowledged. And the desert king always took what he desired.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘WELL—ANY NEWS?’ Kadir demanded the moment Lexi emerged from the en suite bathroom.
‘Nothing yet,’ she murmured. She slid back into bed and Kadir curled his arm around her and drew her into the warmth of his body. His spicy cologne teased her senses and the whorls of black hairs on his chest tickled her cheek. These moments in the early morning when they lay together, half dozing, muscles aching pleasurably after long hours of lovemaking the previous night, were dangerously intoxicating, she thought ruefully as she snuggled up to him.
‘You’re late.’
‘It’s not an exact science,’ she said drily. But actually her monthly cycle was as regular as clockwork. Lexi felt a heart-thumping mixture of dread and excitement. She had never been even one day late before. She might be imagining it, but she was sure her breasts looked a bit fuller when she’d glanced in the bathroom mirror.
She couldn’t be pregnant, she assured herself. And of course she did not want to be. She could never forget that she had been an accidental pregnancy, unwanted by her mother. It shamed her that she had made one stupid mistake and it would be better for everyone if there were no consequences.
She bit her lip as Kadir placed his hand on her flat stomach. What if his baby was inside her? For years she had been absorbed in her career and had never really had any maternal feelings. But when she had left the RAF, and with her thirtieth birthday on the horizon, she’d begun to feel wistful whenever she held one of her friends’ newborn infants. For the past eleven days she had found herself scrutinising every tiny symptom that might mean she was going to be a mother.
‘You had better do a test. And if it confirms what we both suspect I’ll start making arrangements for our wedding.’ Kadir rolled onto his back, taking Lexi with him, and slid his hand into her hair, urging her mouth down onto his. The kiss was slow and sweet, drugging her senses and stealing her heart as she sensed tenderness in his passion.
The past week and a half had been wonderful, she thought dreamily. Kadir had spent every day with her, only popping into his office briefly to deal with any urgent matters that his chief adviser deemed to require his attention. He had given her sailing lessons on his yacht, and they had swum in a turquoise sea that was as warm as a bath. Lexi enjoyed their trips to different parts of Zenhab, including driving out to the desert in a four-by-four, but, for all Kadir’s determination to spend a few carefree days, he was still the Sultan and they were always accompanied by bodyguards. Only within the palace walls were they able to be completely private, and several times he had instructed the staff not to disturb them before making love to her on a sun lounger by the pool.
‘What would you like to do today?’ His voice was indulgent as he stroked her hair back from her face. ‘Perhaps you had better not do anything too energetic in case the pregnancy test is positive.’
Kadir was growing increasingly convinced that Lexi had conceived his baby. The very real possibility that he was going to be a father made him miss his own father, and he wished Sultan Khalif could have seen his grandchild. Thoughts of fatherhood had also brought back memories of his childhood, when he had felt torn between his parents, and he was more determined than ever to persuade Lexi that they should marry and stay together for the sake of their child.
He traced his hands over her slender figure and imagined her belly swollen with his baby. Skimming lower, he began to stroke her buttocks in rhythmic circles. ‘We could spend the day in bed?’
‘I thought you said I shouldn’t do anything too energetic,’ she said breathlessly, instantly turned on by the sensuous motion of Kadir’s hand caressing her bottom.
He gave a wickedly sexy smile as he flipped her onto her back. ‘You won’t have to do anything. I’ll do all the work and you can just lie back and enjoy me pleasuring you.’
Oh, God! She curled her fingers into the silk sheet as he kissed his way down her body from her breasts to the sweet spot between her thighs and flicked his tongue over her clitoris until she moaned and pressed her feminine heat against his mouth. He took her with his tongue and then drove his rock-hard arousal deep inside her and took her to the peak again so that her first orgasm had barely ended when the next one began.
His passion seemed wilder, more uncontrolled, and when he came the cords on his neck stood out and he groaned her name as if it had been torn from his soul. Overwhelmed by the feelings that overspilled her heart, Lexi wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly, uncaring
at that moment that her tender smile betrayed her.
‘You know I have to leave tomorrow, and I’ll be away for a week?’ he said later when they had showered together and were eating a very late breakfast on the balcony. ‘Sheikh Omar has organised meetings with the mountain tribes; I am hoping I can persuade them to swear their allegiance to the Crown.’
Kadir looked across the table at Lexi and thought that she had never looked more beautiful, with her long blonde hair falling around her shoulders and her bright blue eyes sparkling like precious gems. She seemed softer somehow, and he had noticed a dreamy expression in her eyes that made him wonder if his patience was paying off and she was beginning to trust him.
The rest of the day and night passed too quickly, and Lexi sensed an urgency in Kadir’s caresses when he made love to her in the cool grey light of dawn, before he slid out of bed and headed into his dressing room to prepare for his trip to the northern territories. He emerged dressed in his robes of state, his keffiyeh held in place on his head by a circle of gold.
‘I’ve left a pregnancy test kit in the bathroom. Try to call me if you have any news, but communication in the mountains is limited—something I will be working with Omar to improve in the future.’ He dropped a brief fierce kiss on her mouth. ‘I wish I didn’t have to go,’ he groaned. ‘Why don’t you do the test now?’
Butterflies leapt in Lexi’s stomach. What if the pregnancy test gave a positive result? What if it didn’t? Either way, her relationship with Kadir would be affected. She suddenly wished the past eleven days could last for ever.
‘It will be better to wait a few more days to make sure the test gives a correct result.’
‘All right.’ He kissed her again, softer this time, his lips clinging to hers as if he really did not want to leave her, almost making her believe that he cared for her a little.
She missed him the second he strode out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him. An inexplicable sadness filled her, a feeling that the days they had spent together had been a golden time that had slipped through her fingers like the desert sand and now had disappeared for ever.
The hours without Kadir dragged, and the huge bed was a lonely place without him lying next to her.
Next morning, a trip to the bathroom revealed that the niggling stomach ache she’d had during the night was not indigestion as she had thought—as she had hoped, she acknowledged dully.
There seemed no point doing the pregnancy test now she had evidence that she had not conceived Kadir’s baby. She ordered herself to feel relieved but her heart disobeyed and an unexpected torrent of grief ripped through her. Faced with reality, she admitted the truth. She would have loved to be a mother, loved to have Kadir’s child—loved him, she thought painfully.
She’d felt so close to him recently that she had even started to believe that, if they were going to be parents, perhaps they could have a successful marriage. A few times she had caught Kadir looking at her in a way that had made her heart leap. But now reality brought her crashing back down to earth. He did not love her, and when he learned that she was not expecting his baby he would send her away from Zenhab and search for a suitable bride to be the mother of his heir.
The strident ring of her phone made her jump. She stared at the handset, wondering if Kadir was calling her. If it was him, shouldn’t she break the news that he wasn’t going to be a father?
Athena greeted her cheerfully. ‘How is everything in Zenhab? I was thinking about you, and I had a funny feeling that something’s wrong.’
Lexi forced an airy tone. ‘You and your funny feelings!’ Actually, she recalled her sister had had a ‘feeling’ when she had phoned Lexi in Afghanistan the day that her co-pilot had been killed. ‘Everything is fine; couldn’t be better, in fact.’
Afterwards, she did not know what made her confide in Athena, but she felt more alone than she had felt in her life and her sister’s gentle voice reached out to her. The whole story of being kidnapped with Kadir and stranded on his island came tumbling out, along with the fact that she’d had unprotected sex with him, and his insistence that if she was pregnant he would marry her.
‘But you’re not pregnant,’ Athena repeated what Lexi had just told her. ‘What a shame. You would be a wonderful mother, and a great wife for the Sultan.’
‘Of course it’s not a shame,’ Lexi said sharply. ‘You’re such a daydreamer, Athena. The fact that I’m not pregnant is good news. It means I can carry on with my career. I couldn’t be happier...’ she choked, and suddenly she couldn’t hold back her tears. It was as if a dam had burst and her grief for the baby she had imagined holding in her arms poured out, along with a lifetime of pain and hurt at feeling rejected and unloved. Her secret hope that she would spend the future with Kadir and their child was over, and now she had nothing.
‘Why don’t you tell Kadir you love him?’ Athena asked softly. ‘What have you got to lose?’
‘Apart from my pride, dignity and self-respect, you mean?’ Lexi’s chest hurt from crying so hard. She had never lost control of her emotions so violently before and she felt scared that loving Kadir had changed her, weakened her, and she would never be tough-talking, no-nonsense Lexi Howard again.
‘I wish I was with you in Zenhab to give you a hug,’ her sister said. ‘I wish I could help. You know I love you, Lexi.’
Lexi swallowed. She did know that Athena cared for her, but she had always struggled to show her own emotions. ‘You’re a great sister. I...I love you too,’ she said huskily.
She sensed Athena’s surprise. ‘You’ve never said it before. I think you should tell Kadir how you feel about him and give him a chance to explain why he seems so determined to marry you.’
‘It was only because he wanted his child. But there isn’t going to be one. He’s the Sultan of Zenhab and needs to marry a woman of royal blood, not someone whose genes come from a very murky pool.’
‘What will you do?’
‘Come home, look for a job.’ She still needed to pay off Cathy’s debts, Lexi thought wearily. She remembered that Kadir had taken her passport and she would have to stay on at the palace until he returned from his trip to the mountains. It was only fair to tell him her news in person rather than leave a message on his phone.
Memories of the past days they had spent exclusively in each other’s company pushed into her mind. Had she imagined that they had had fun together, shared laughter, friendship? Could she do what her sister had suggested and tell Kadir she had fallen in love with him?
Her stomach swooped at the idea of risking his rejection. Kadir had only wanted her when he had thought she could be carrying his baby, and the traditions of his kingdom meant he could not allow his child to be born illegitimate, she reminded herself. She was certain he would be relieved not to be forced into a marriage he did not want.
* * *
The helicopter buzzed above the palace before dropping down to land in the courtyard. Kadir had hired a new pilot, an Australian guy called Mitch, who Lexi assumed would continue to work for the Sultan after she had gone.
She had carried her suitcase down to the entrance hall and as she watched Kadir walk up the palace steps she pulled the peak of her cap lower over her eyes. The clothes he had bought her were hanging in the wardrobe in the apartment she had first occupied when she had arrived in Zenhab. She had applied for a job in the UK, flying workers out to oil rigs in the North Sea, and she doubted there would be many opportunities to wear designer evening gowns in the cold winter in Aberdeen.
Wearing her pilot’s uniform made her feel more like herself. A grey skirt and jacket teamed with a crisp white blouse, and her hair swept up beneath her cap, gave the impression of cool professionalism and hid the truth that her heart was breaking. Through a window, she studied the Sultan in his traditional robes and tried to feel distanced from him, but memories of Kadir, naked, beautiful, lowering his body onto hers, threatened to shatter her composure.
She took a few steps forward as
he swept through the great palace doors, halting when his dark eyes immediately shot to her suitcase.
His smile faded. ‘Do you have news for me?’
‘I’m sure you will be as relieved as I am to hear that I’m not pregnant.’ Her jaw ached as she flashed him a brittle smile. ‘Our worries were needless, but now we can both get on with our lives.’
Kadir’s eyes narrowed and he fought the urge to whip Lexi’s damn cap off her head so that he could see her face. She sounded so cool and in control, reminding him of the ice queen who had rescued him from his capsized yacht and ripped into him for risking the lives of his crew.
He absorbed her words. There was to be no child. No son to love, as his father had loved him. No daughter to adore, with silvery-blonde hair and eyes the colour of mountain skies. No requirement under Zenhabian tradition to marry Lexi. She had said she was relieved not to be pregnant. Maybe she was right, he brooded.
‘It’s probably for the best.’ He glanced around the entrance hall, suddenly aware of the presence of several palace staff. Ignoring his chief adviser who was hurrying towards him, he caught hold of Lexi’s elbow and steered her into his study, shutting the door and locking it to ensure their privacy.
‘Was it necessary to manhandle me?’ she complained, rubbing her arm. ‘Why have you brought me in here?’
He countered her question with one of his own. ‘Why are you leaving?’
‘I’ve told you why. I’m not carrying your baby. You have hired a new pilot so there’s no reason for me to stay in Zenhab.’ It took all Lexi’s will power to keep her voice steady. Kadir had said it was for the best that she wasn’t pregnant. Of course he was pleased, she told herself. Of course he did not want a whore’s daughter to be the mother of his heir. Of course he did not love her because no one, apart from her sister, ever had.
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