by Abby Green
Leila looked around, speechless. The area was massive. And in this environment she could grow almost anything. What Alix had just said was almost too much to take in. She turned around and saw the island falling away and the sea stretching out to infinity. She was simply stunned.
Alix said worriedly, ‘You don’t like the site? It’s too small?’
Leila shook her head and blinked back tears, terrified that once the emotion started leaking out it wouldn’t stop. ‘No, no—it’s lovely...amazing.’
When she felt more in control she looked at him.
Her voice was husky. ‘I thought you said I’d have other priorities—the baby, my role as Queen?’
Alix looked serious. ‘Leila, you inhale the world without even realising you’re doing it—it’s part of you. You’re led by your nose. I want you to be happy here. And I hope that this will make you happy. I know you want more...you deserve so much more...’
A slightly rueful expression crossed his face.
‘And I need you to make me more of that scent, because I destroyed the bottle you gave me in Paris. I destroyed it because I was angry and hurt.’
Leila’s heart gave a little lurch. ‘You weren’t hurt. Your ego was wounded because I dared to say no to you.’
Alix nodded. ‘That’s what I believed. That it was my ego. Except it was a lie that I told myself and kept telling myself, even when I saw you again. The truth is that it wasn’t just my ego—it was my heart. And I didn’t have the guts to admit it to myself.’
He took her hands in his.
‘It hit me today, Leila. Like a ton of bricks. I’ve been falling for you from the moment I saw you in your shop. When we were leaving Isle de la Paix I knew I had to let you go, but I didn’t want to. I think I came up with the idea of proposing to you because it was the only way I could see to make you stay...’
Leila looked at Alix. She said a little dumbly, ‘You’re saying you love me?’
He nodded, looking wary now.
For a second Leila felt a dizzying sweep of pure joy—and then a voice resounded in her head: Silly Leila...there’s no fairy tale. The joy dissolved. She had thought the chasm in her chest couldn’t get any bigger, but it just had.
She pulled her hands free. ‘Why are you doing this? I’ve told you I’m not leaving.’
Alix frowned. ‘Doing what? Telling you I love you? Because I do.’
Leila shook her head, those damn tears threatening again. ‘I can’t believe you’d be this cruel, Alix. Please don’t insult my intelligence. I tell you that I want to go, that I don’t think I can marry you, and now suddenly you’re claiming to love me? You’re forgetting I heard your conversation on the phone that day: “If I have to convince her I love her then I will.”’
Alix ran his hands through his hair, his frustration palpable. Leila folded her arms.
‘Why would I do this now? Pretend?’
Leila felt ill. ‘You’ve made a very convincing case for persuading me that you’re incapable of love, and now I’m suddenly supposed to believe you’ve had some kind of epiphany? It’s three days to the wedding, Alix, and I know how important it is for you and for Isle Saint Croix, but I never thought you’d be unnecessarily cruel.’
Alix looked as if she’d just punched him in the gut, but Leila steeled herself.
He opened his mouth, but she said with a rush, ‘Please don’t, Alix. Look, I appreciate what you’re trying to do—and all this...’ She put out a hand to indicate the site for the factory. ‘It’s enough—it really is.’
It’ll have to be. At least he didn’t know that she loved him. It was her last paltry defence.
She turned away and started to walk back to the Jeep, fiercely blinking back tears. She didn’t see the way Alix’s face leached of all colour as he watched her go. She also didn’t see the look of grim determination that settled over his features.
* * *
Their journey back to the castle was made in tense silence. When they arrived Leila jumped out of the Jeep, but Alix moved faster than her and her hand was in his before she could react.
He led her into the castle, and when she tried to pull her hand free Alix only tightened his grip and looked at her, his face more stern and stark than she’d ever seen it.
‘We have not finished this conversation, Leila.’
She had to trot to keep up with his punishing pace, and only recognised where they were when he opened a door.
Immediately Leila dug her heels in and pulled furiously on Alix’s hand. ‘I am not going in there.’
Alix looked at her and said tauntingly, ‘Why, Leila? Sex is just sex, after all—isn’t it?’
They were in the impressive hammam room before Leila could object and the door was closed. Alix stood in front of it, arms folded. She hadn’t even registered him letting her hand go.
‘You know, I never thought you were a coward, Leila.’
Leila’s mouth opened, and she finally got out, ‘Coward? I am not a coward.’
Alix stepped away from the door and towards her. She eyed the door, wondering if she could make a run for it, and then his words sank in.
She couldn’t run. So she rounded on him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
He walked around her now, looking at her assessingly, and she had to keep turning, getting dizzy.
‘You’re a coward, Leila Verughese. An emotional coward. And I know because I was one too.’
Something like panic was fluttering in Leila’s belly now. ‘That’s ridiculous. I’m not a coward and you’re a liar.’
He arched a brow and made a low whistling sound. ‘That’s harsh. I told you I love you and you call me a liar?’
Leila changed tack. ‘Why are you doing this? I’ve told you I’m happy to stay. You don’t have to sweeten it up for me.’
Alix almost sneered now. ‘You’re “happy to stay”—like some kind of martyr? The days of pirates kidnapping European slaves and forcing them into marriage are over. When we marry it’ll be because you want it as much as I do. Because you love me too—except you’re too much of a coward to admit it. Why else would you want us to maintain a distance while we’re married?’
Leila felt her blood draining south. Her last defence was crumbling in front of her eyes. ‘I don’t love you,’ she lied.
‘Liar.’
Alix stalked closer, tension crackling between them.
‘If I’d been more honest with myself sooner I would have recognised it the day we left here—when you said sex is just sex. That was the key. Sex has always been just sex for me. Until you. That’s why I haven’t touched you since we were in here—because as soon as I touch you I’m not in control, and I was afraid you’d see it. And I think it’s the same for you. Dieu, Leila,’ he spat in disgust. ‘You’d really want me to take a mistress?’
Leila could feel her insides tearing apart. ‘But you don’t love me—you can’t. You said it.’
She sounded accusing now. The fairy tale was like a shimmering mirage, and she knew that the moment she committed herself to trusting, believing, it would disappear and she’d be left with less than she had even now.
Alix was ruthless. ‘I can—and I do. You brought me to my knees and showed me that anything less than total surrender to love and all its risks is a life not worth living. It terrifies me, because I know how awful it is to lose someone you love, but I’ve realised that it’s impossible to live in constant fear of that. I want more too—and I want it with you. No one else.’
Leila shook her head, tears making her vision blurry. It hit her then. Alix was right—she was a coward. Terrified to trust. Terrified that the dream didn’t exist. Her mother’s ghost whispered to her even now that it couldn’t. She hadn’t had it, so why should Leila?
Alix stepped right up to her. ‘Say it, Leila.’
She shook her head. ‘Please, don’t make me...’
She had a terrifying vision of telling him she loved him only to see him go cold and shut down, satisfi
ed that his convenient wife had surrendered to him completely.
Alix wrapped a hand around her neck. ‘Then we do it this way... You’re mine, body, heart and soul, and I will leave you nowhere to hide.’
Alix’s head dipped and his mouth settled on hers like a scorching brand. Leila resisted. This was what she was afraid of, and suddenly speaking the words didn’t seem so scary—what was far worse was the honesty he would wring from her now, because she literally would have nowhere to hide.
But it was too late for resistance. And Leila was weak. And again he was right. She was a coward.
She sobbed her anguish into his mouth as his tongue stroked hers and the flames licked higher and higher.
This time there was no way they could make it to the harem bedroom. Leila felt herself being lowered onto the raised platform of smooth marble. Their movements were not graceful or measured. There was a feral urgency to their coming together.
Clothes were ripped off. Alix’s hands were rough, his mouth hard, teeth nipping and tongue thrusting deep into the slick folds of her sex. Leila’s back arched. Her hands clenched in Alix’s hair. His hands clasped her so tightly she knew she’d be bruised, but she revelled in it.
He was her man and she loved him.
And now he loomed over her, huge and awe-inspiring, face flushed and eyes glittering intensely. She saw the need on his face, making his features stark. She saw the uncertainty even now, in spite of his bravado, and her heart ached.
He sank into her body with slow and devastating deliberation, watching her. Demanding that she expose herself utterly.
Leila had nowhere to hide. He was true to his word. She wrapped her legs around him and finally broke free of the bonds of fear. He touched her so deeply she gasped and caught his face in her hands, the words spilling from her lips in a rush of emotion.
‘Of course I love you, Alix. I love you with all my heart and soul. You’re mine, and I’m yours, for ever.’
An expression of pure awe broke over his face. A look of fierce male satisfaction. And love.
Leila’s heart soared free, and then the delicious dance of love started. And when Leila arched her back in the throes of orgasm and looked up, all she could see were thousands of glittering mosaic stars above their heads. And finally she believed in his love—deep down in the core of her body, where Alix had broken her apart and now put her back together.
EPILOGUE
LEILA HURRIED FROM the Jeep into the castle, greeting staff as she went in. Happiness and fulfilment were things that she felt every day now, but she didn’t take them for granted for a second.
In the seventeen months since she’d married Alix, in a deeply emotional ceremony, they and the island had undergone seismic changes.
The island was thriving and growing stronger every day. Her factory had opened a few months ago and it, too, was beginning to flourish as she started to manufacture perfumes again. Her apartment in Paris was now an office over the shop, and she went back about once a month to keep an eye on proceedings.
She’d been stunned to get a call one day from her father’s daughter—a half-sister. He’d been put under immense public pressure to do the DNA test which had proved his paternity of Leila and consequently ruined his political career. Leila’s half-sister, Noelle, had confided that her and her brother’s life had been blighted by his numerous affairs and their mother’s unhappiness.
She’d already come to Isle Saint Croix to meet Leila, with a protective Alix by her side, and their relationship was tentatively flowering into something very meaningful.
But the real heart and centre of her life was right here in the castle. Everything else was a bonus.
When Leila walked into Alix’s office she couldn’t help a grin spreading across her face at the scene before her, featuring her two favourite people in the world. Alix and their dark-haired eleven-month-old son, Max.
Max was bouncing energetically on Alix’s knee, simultaneously slapping his pudgy fists on the table while trying to cram what looked like a very mushed up banana into his mouth.
Alix had a big hand firmly around his son and was typing with one hand on his open laptop, safely out of destruction’s way.
Then they both caught sight of her at the same time—two pairs of grey eyes, one wide and guileless, the other far more adult and full of a very male appreciation and love.
‘Mama!’
Small arms lifted towards her and Leila plucked Max off Alix’s knee. But before she could move away Alix’s arm snaked around her waist and pulled her onto his lap. Max was delighted—clapping his hands, bits of banana flying everywhere.
Leila chuckled. ‘I was trying to help you.’
Alix slid Leila’s hair over her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her exposed neck.
She shivered deliciously and asked a little breathlessly, ‘Where’s Mimi?’
‘I gave her the afternoon off. We were lonely without you—weren’t we, little man?’
Max gurgled his agreement. Leila stood up and found a wet wipe to clean her son as much as possible, before putting him into his playpen and watching him pounce on his favourite cuddly toy.
She turned to face Alix, eyes sparkling, voice dry, ‘I was in the factory for three hours and you got lonely?’
Alix stood up and took Leila’s hand and drew her over to a nearby couch, pulling her down with him so she ended up sprawled on his lap again—this time in much closer proximity to a strategic part of his anatomy.
‘I get lonely the minute you leave my sight,’ he growled softly.
Leila’s heart swelled. ‘Me too.’
The playpen was suspiciously quiet, and Leila checked quickly to see their son sprawled on his back, thumb in his mouth, cuddly toy clamped to his side, fast asleep. Worn out.
She leaned back against her husband. ‘I have something for you.’
He arched a brow and moved subtly, showing her that he had something for her too. ‘Do you, now?’
She nodded and took a bottle from the pocket at the front of her shirt dress. The label read Alix’s Dream. It was the perfume she’d first made for him. And one that was so personal she never sold it to anyone else.
He kissed her, long and slow and deep. ‘Thank you.’
‘Mmm,’ she said appreciatively. ‘I’ll have to make it more often if that’s the sort of response I’ll get.’
Alix shifted so that she slid into the cradle of his lap. Leila groaned—half in frustration, half in helpless response. ‘Alix...’
‘I’m going to make a secret passage from here to the harem,’ he grumbled.
Leila blushed to think of their very private space, which had been completely refurbished. The hammam was in use again too, and was open to local women and the women of the castle.
Leila loved going there amongst them and hearing their stories. It was one of the things that had earned them both the love and respect of their people—their unaffected ways and their wish to be considered as equal as possible.
Alix teased a strand of Leila’s hair around his finger. ‘Andres said you went to the hospital today? Another visit to the new children’s wing?’
Leila nodded—and then the excitement bubbling inside her couldn’t be contained any more. ‘Yes, but I also had an appointment to see Dr Fontainebleau.’
Alix immediately tensed at the mention of the royal doctor. ‘Is there something wrong?’
Leila shook her head and took his hand, placing it over her belly. ‘No, everything is very okay...but we’ll be a little bit busier in about eight months.’
The colour receded from Alix’s face and then rushed back. His arms tightened around her and then he lowered her down onto the sofa. His formidable body came over her, his happiness and joy palpable.
When he spoke his voice sounded a little choked. ‘You do know that you’ve made me the happiest man in the world, and that I love you to infinity and beyond?’
Leila blinked back emotional tears and wound her arms around her husb
and’s neck, drawing him down to her.
‘I know, because I feel exactly the same way. Now, about that secret passage to the harem...do you think we could get it done before the baby arrives?’
* * * * *
The Pregnant Princess
Anne Marie Winston
For Sandy, sister of my heart
RITA® Award finalist and bestselling author ANNE MARIE WINSTON loves babies she can give back when they cry, animals in all shapes and sizes and just about anything that blooms. When she’s not writing, she’s managing a house full of animals and teenagers, reading anything she can find and trying not to eat chocolate. She will dance at the slightest provocation and weeds her gardens when she can’t see the sun for the weeds anymore. You can learn more about Anne Marie’s novels by visiting her Web site at www.annemariewinston.com.
One
God, it was hot. Rafe Thorton ran a hand through his thick black hair and pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes. Arizona might be a great place for a guy employed year-round in construction, but he could do without the heat. It was only late January and the temperature today had reached the mid-eighties.
Rafe took a long pull of the water he’d just bought, then swung away from the cool interior of the convenience store into the heat of the afternoon. Juggling the bottle, he stripped off his T-shirt and swiped it across his chest, absently smiling at two women whose eyes widened in appreciation as they passed him. He glanced at the newspaper box on the sidewalk outside the store—and stopped midstride.
Wynborough Princess Dedicates Hospice.
Rafe stared at the headlines of the daily paper. Slinging the T-shirt over one shoulder, he set his drink atop the machine for a moment while he fished coins from the pocket of his faded jeans. He dropped a quarter and a dime through the slot, then opened the door and pulled out a paper.
Wynborough was a tiny kingdom; its royalty rarely received the kind of press that Britain’s royals were subjected to regularly. There was a brief press release accompanied by one small candid photo, a blurry shot of a small, slender woman stepping out of a car.