by Penny Jordan
As he stepped back from the vehicle for a second Mariella thought he was going to tell her to leave—and cravenly she wanted to do so! The man, the location, the situation were so not what she had been anticipating and prepared herself for. Each one of them in their different ways shattered not just her preconceptions but also her precious self-containment.
The man—try as she might she could just not envisage him in the club where Tanya had performed. The location made her ache for her painting equipment and brought her artistic senses to quick hunger. And her situation! Oh, no... Definitely no! This man had been her sister’s lover, and was Fleur’s father—
The shadowy fear that had stalked her adult years suddenly loomed terrifyingly sharply in front of her. She would not be like her mother; she would not ever allow herself to be vulnerable in any way to a man who could only damage her emotionally. The ability to fall in love with the wrong man might be learned, but it was not, to the best of Mariella’s knowledge, inherited!
‘Get out!’
Get out? With pleasure! Gripping the steering wheel, Mariella reached for the door, slamming it closed and then switching on the ignition at the same time, then she threw the vehicle into a furious spurt of reverse speed.
The tyres spun; sand filled the air. She could hear a thunderous banging on her driver’s door as the car refused to budge. Looking out of the window, she saw Xavier looking at her in icy, furious disbelief.
Realising that she was bogged down in the swirling sand, Mariella switched off the engine. If he wanted her to leave he would have to move the vehicle for her, she recognised in angry humiliation.
As the engine died he was yanking the door open, demanding, ‘What the hell do you think you are trying to do?’
‘You told me to get out!’ Mariella reminded him, equally angry.
‘I meant get out of the car, not...’ As he swore beneath his breath, to her shock he suddenly reached into the vehicle and snapped off her seat belt, grasping her so tightly around her waist that it actually hurt.
As he pulled her free of her seat and swung her to the ground she had a sudden shocking image of the two of them in her dream!
‘Let go of me,’ she demanded chokily, pushing him away. ‘Don’t touch me...’
‘Don’t touch you?’
Now that she was on the ground she realised just how far she had to look up to see the expression in his eyes.
‘From what I’ve heard it isn’t often those words leave your lips.’
Instinctively Mariella raised her hand, taking refuge in an act of female rebuttal and retaliation as ancient as the land around her, but immediately he seized her wrist in a punishing grip, his eyes glittering savagely as he curled his fingers tighter. ‘Hell cat!’ he taunted her mercilessly. ‘One attempt to use your claws on me and, I promise you, you will regret it.
‘You can’t go anywhere tonight,’ he told her bluntly. ‘There’s a sandstorm forecast that would bury you alive before you could get even halfway back to the city. In your case it would be no loss, but for the sake of the child...’
The child...Fleur!
An agonised sound of distress choked in Mariella’s throat. She could not stay here in this wilderness with this...this...savagely dangerous man, but her own common sense was telling her that she had no other option. Already the four-wheel drive was buried almost axle-deep in sand. She could taste it in her mouth, feel it on her skin. Inside the vehicle, Fleur had begun to cry again. Instinctively Mariella turned to go to her, but Xavier was there before her, lifting Fleur out.
The baby looked so tiny held in his arms. Mariella held her breath watching him... He was Fleur’s father after all. Surely he must feel something? Some remorse, some guilt...something... True, he did pause to look at her, but the expression on his face was unreadable.
‘She has your hair,’ he told Mariella, before adding grimly, ‘The wind is picking up. We need to get inside the tent. Where are you going?’ he demanded as she turned back to the vehicle.
‘I want to get Fleur’s things,’ she told him, tensing as he gave a sharp exclamation of irritation and overruled her.
‘Leave them for now. I shall come back for them.’
Mariella couldn’t believe how strong the wind had become! The sand felt like a million tiny particles of glass shredding her skin.
By the time they reached the safety and protection of the pavilion, her leg muscles ached from the effort of fighting her way through the shifting sand.
Once inside the pavilion she realised that it was much larger than she had originally thought. A central area was furnished with rich carpets and low divans. Rugs were thrown over dark wood chests, and on the intricately carved tables stood oil lamps and candles. In their light Mariella could see two draped swags of cloth caught back in a dull gold rope as though they covered the entrance to two other inner rooms.
‘Fleur needs something to eat, and a change of clothes,’ she announced curtly, ‘and I want to ring the Beach Club to tell them what has happened.’
‘Use a telephone—in this intensity of sandstorm?’ He laughed openly at her. ‘You would be lucky to be able to use a landline, never mind a mobile. As for the child...’
‘The child!’ Mariella checked him bitterly. ‘Even knowing the truth you still try to distance yourself from her, don’t you? Well, let me tell you something—’
‘No, let me tell you something... Any man could have fathered this child! I feel for her that she should have a mother of such low morals, a mother so willing to give herself to any and every man her eye alights on, but let me make it plain to you that I do not intend to be blackmailed into paying for a pleasure that was of so little value, never mind paying for a child who may or may not be the result of it!’
Mariella went white with shock and disbelief, but before she could defend her sister, Fleur started to cry in earnest.
Ignoring Xavier, Mariella soothed her, whispering tenderly. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart, I know you’re hungry...’ Automatically as she talked to her Mariella stroked her and kissed the top of her head. She was so unbearably precious to her even though she was not her child. Being there at her birth had made Mariella feel as though they shared a very special bond, and awakened a maternal urge inside her she had not previously known she had.
‘I don’t know what she has to eat, but there is some fruit and milk in the fridge, and a blender,’ he informed her.
Fridge? Blender? Mariella’s eyes widened. ‘You have electricity out here?’
Immediately he gave her a very male sardonic look.
‘Not as such. There’s a small generator, which provides enough for my needs.’ He gave a brief shrug. ‘After all, I come out here to work in peace...not to wear a hair shirt! The generator can provide enough warm water for you to bathe the child, although you, I am afraid, will have to share my bathing water.’
He was waiting for her to object, Mariella could see that. He was enjoying tormenting her.
‘Since I shall only be here overnight, I dare say I can manage to forgo that particular pleasure,’ she told him grittily.
‘I shall go to your vehicle and bring the baby’s things. You will find the kitchen area through that exit and to your right.’
Mariella had brought some dried baby food with her as well as some tinned food, which she knew would probably suit Fleur’s baby digestion rather better than raw fruit, no matter how well blended! Even so, it would do no harm to explore their surroundings.
As she stepped through the opening she found that she was in a narrow corridor, on the right of which was an unexpectedly well equipped although very small kitchen, and, to the left, an immaculately clean chemical lavatory, along with a small shower unit.
The other opening off the main room must lead to a sleeping area, she decided as she walked back.
&nb
sp; ‘What is all this stuff?’ she heard Xavier demanding as he walked in with his arms full.
In other circumstances his obvious male lack of awareness of a small baby’s needs might have been endearing, but right now...
Ignoring him and still holding Fleur, she opened the cool-bag in which she had placed her foods.
‘Yummy, look at this, Fleur,’ she murmured to her. ‘Banana pudding...our favourite... Yum-yum.’
The look of serious consideration in Fleur’s hazel eyes as she looked at her made her smile, and she forgot Xavier for a second as she concentrated on the baby.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that she isn’t receiving the nutrition of her mother’s own milk,’ she heard Xavier announcing critically.
Immediately Mariella swung round, her eyes dark with anger.
‘Since her mother had to go back to work that wasn’t possible!’
‘How virtuous you make it sound, but isn’t it the truth that the nature of that work—is anything but? But of course you will deny that, just as you will claim to know who the child’s father is.’
‘You are totally despicable,’ Mariella stopped him. ‘Fleur does not deserve to be treated like this. She is an innocent baby...’
‘Indeed! At last we are in agreement about something. It is a pity, though, that you did not think of that before you came out here making accusations and claims.’
How could he be so cold? So unfeeling! According to the little Tanya had said about him, she had considered him to be a very emotional and passionate man.
No doubt in bed he was, Mariella found herself acknowledging. Her face suddenly burnt hotly as she recognised the unwanted significance of her private thoughts, and even worse the images they were mentally conjuring up for her; not with her sister as Xavier’s partner—but herself!
What was happening to her? She was a cool-blooded woman who analysed, rationalised and resisted any kind of damaging behaviour to herself. And yet here she was...
‘Just how long is this sandstorm going to last?’ she asked abruptly.
The dark eyebrows rose. ‘One day...two...three...’
‘Three!’ Mariella was aghast. Apart from the fact that Tanya would be beside herself if she could not get in touch with her, what was the prince going to think if he returned and she wasn’t there?
‘I have to feed and change Fleur.’
Luckily she had brought the baby bath with her as well as the changing mat, and Fleur’s pram cum carry-cot, mainly because she had not been quite sure what facilities would be available at the oasis.
‘Since it is obvious that you will have to stay the night, it is probably best that you and the child sleep in my... In the sleeping quarters,’ Xavier corrected himself. Mariella’s mouth went dry.
‘And...where will you sleep?’ she asked him apprehensively.
‘In here, of course. When you have fed and bathed the child I suggest that we both have something to eat. And then—’
‘Thank you, but I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself when I eat,’ Mariella told him sharply.
* * *
SHE WAS FAR more independent, and a good deal more fiery, than he had anticipated, Xavier acknowledged broodingly when Mariella had disappeared with Fleur. And quite definitely not his younger cousin’s normal type.
Thinking of Khalid made his mouth tighten a little. He had been both furious and disbelieving when Khalid had telephoned him to announce that he had fallen in love and was thinking of marrying a girl he had met in a dubious nightclub. Khalid had been in love before, but this was the first time he had considered marriage. At twenty-four Khalid was still very immature. When he married, in Xavier’s opinion it needed to be someone strong enough to keep him grounded—and wealthy enough not to be marrying him for his money.
His frown deepened. It had been his cynical French grandmother who had warned him when he was very young that the great wealth he had inherited from his father would make him a target for greedy women. When he had been in his teens his grandmother had insisted that he spent time in France meeting the chic daughters of her own distant relatives, girls who in her opinion were deserving of inheriting the ‘throne’ his grandmother would have had to abdicate when Xavier eventually married.
Well-born though they were, those girls had held very little appeal for him, and, practical though he knew it would be, he found himself even less enamoured of the idea of contracting an arranged marriage.
Because of this he had already decided that it would be Khalid who would ultimately provide the heir to his enormous fortune and, more importantly, take his place as leader of their historically unique tribe. But he hadn’t been in any hurry to nudge Khalid in the direction of a suitable bride—until he had learned of his plans vis-à-vis the impossible young woman who had forced her way into his private retreat!
He didn’t know which of them had angered him the most! Khalid for his weakness in disappearing without leaving any indication of where he had gone, or the woman herself who had boldly followed up her pathetic attempt at blackmailing him via the letter she had sent Xavier, with a visit to his territory, along with the baby she was so determined to claim his cousin had fathered!
Physically he had not been able to see any hint in the child’s features that she might be Khalid’s; she was as prettily blonde as her mother, and as delicately feminine. The only difference was that, whilst her mother chose to affect those ridiculous, obviously false turquoise-coloured contact lenses, the baby’s eyes were a warm hazel.
Like Khalid’s?
There was no proof that the child was Khalid’s, he reminded himself. And there was no way he was going to allow his cousin to marry her mother, without knowing for sure that Khalid was the father, especially now that he had actually met her. It was a wonder that Khalid had ever fallen so desperately in love with her in the first place!
‘She has the grace of a gazelle,’ he had written to him. ‘The voice of an angel! She is the sweetest and most gentle of women...’
Well, Xavier begged to differ! At least on the two eulogising counts! Had he known when he had seen her at the airport just who she was he would have tried to find some way of having her deported there and then!
Remembering that occasion made him stride over to the opening to the pavilion, pulling back the cover to look outside. As had been forecast the wind was now a howling dervish of destruction, whipping up the sand so that already it was impossible to see even as far as the oasis itself. Which was a pity, because right now he could do with the refreshing swim he took each evening in the cool water of the oasis, rather than using the small shower next to the lavatory.
It both astounded and infuriated him that he could possibly want such a woman—she represented everything he most detested in the female sex: avarice, sexual laxity, selfishness—so far as he was concerned these were faults that could never be outweighed by a beautiful face or a sensual body. And he had to admit that, in that regard, his cousin had shown better taste than he had ever done previously!
Xavier allowed the flap of the tent to drop back in place and secured it. It irked him that Mariella should have the gall to approach him here of all places, where he came to retreat from the sometimes heavy burden of his responsibilities. A thin smile turned down the corners of his mouth. From what Khalid had described of the luxury-loving lifestyle they had shared, he doubted that she would enjoy being here. However little he cared about her discomfort, though there was the child to be considered.
The child! His mouth thinned a little more. Little Fleur was most definitely a complication he had not anticipated!
* * *
WITH FLEUR FED, clean and dry, Mariella suddenly discovered just how tired she felt herself.
She had not expected Xavier to be pleased to be confronted with her accusations regarding his treatment o
f Tanya and Fleur, but the sheer savagery and cruelty with which he had verbally savaged her sister’s morals had truly shocked her. This was after all a man who had very eagerly shared Tanya’s bed, and who, even worse, had sworn that he loved her and that he wanted her to share a future with him!
In her opinion Tanya and Fleur were better off without him, just as she had been better off without the father who had deserted her!
Now that she had confronted him, though—and witnessed that he was incapable of feeling even the smallest shred of remorse—she longed to be able to get away from him, instead of being forced to remain here with him in the dangerous intimacy of this desert camp where the two of them...
* * *
THOSE RIDICULOUS TURQUOISE eyes looked even more theatrical and unreal in the pale triangle of her small exhausted face, Xavier decided angrily as he watched Mariella walking patiently up and down the living area of the pavilion whilst she rocked Fleur to sleep in her arms.
No doubt Khalid must have seen her a hundred or more times with her delicate skin free of make-up and those haunting, smudged shadows beneath her eyes as he lay over her in the soft shadows of the early morning, waking her with his caresses.
The fierce burst of anger that exploded inside him infuriated him. What was the matter with him? When he broke it down what was she after all? A petite, small-boned woman with a tousled head of strawberry-blonde hair that was probably dyed, coloured contact lenses to obscure the real colour of her eyes, skin the colour of milk and a body that had no doubt known more lovers than it was sensible for any sane-thinking adult to want to own to, especially one as fastidious in such matters as he was.
It would serve her right if he proved to Khalid just exactly what she was by bedding her himself! That would certainly ensure that his feckless cousin, who had abandoned his desk in their company headquarters without telling anyone where he was going or for how long, would, when he decided to return, realise just what a fate he had protected him from!
The child, though, was a different matter. If she should indeed prove to be his cousin’s, then her place was here in Zuran where she could be brought up to respect herself as a woman should, and to despise the greedy, immoral woman who had given birth to her!