‘And what if I refuse?’ she challenged quietly. ‘What then?’
Hassan stared at her. Was she seriously pitting her will against his? It seemed that she was, judging by the sudden determined tilt of her chin, and he forced himself to remember that she was pregnant, and volatile. ‘Don’t make it hard on yourself, Ella,’ he said silkily. ‘Why not sit back and let me take care of you?’
His words were like soft but very effective weapons aimed straight at the most vulnerable part of her and Ella felt temptation wash over her. Someone to take care of her. Because when had that ever happened before? She thought about the struggle of doing this pregnancy on her own. Of lumbering into work every day on the train and worrying like crazy about money.
And then she thought about this man who had put her in this predicament. She saw the glitter of his black eyes as they observed her. Would it be so terrible to let him take over, to use the abundant power at his fingertips to make her life a little easier? A wave of nausea washed over her and briefly she closed her eyes to let it pass. But it had the effect of emphasising her general weakness and, with a heavy sigh, she nodded. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll marry you.’
Hassan looked down into her ashen face as he registered her grudging tone and the briefest of smiles glimmered on his lips. Whoever would have predicted it?
That after years of women plotting and scheming to get him to commit, his eventual bride should consent to marry him with such obvious reluctance.
CHAPTER NINE
‘SO YOU really are called Cinderella?’
Ella had been staring out of the car window at the stark beauty of the desert speeding by, but she turned now to look at the robed figure by her side. Her new husband. She might have thought she was in the middle of a particularly bizarre dream were it not for the faint weakness and queasiness she was still experiencing from her pregnancy. But she dredged up a rueful smile from somewhere as she turned to answer Hassan’s question. ‘I’m afraid I am. Apparently, my father told my mother that giving me such a name meant I’d be bound to marry a prince.’
‘Then for once, your father was right,’ commented Hassan drily. ‘I am rarely surprised, but I certainly was when the registrar read out your full name during the marriage ceremony.’
‘I wasn’t planning on announcing it,’ she admitted, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s something I tend to keep quiet about, but the registrar insisted that I declare it.’
‘You must have been teased about it a lot at school,’ he observed.
‘Oh, being a Jackson was enough to ensure that. Having a ridiculous Christian name didn’t really make any difference.’
But her airy assertion didn’t quite ring true and Hassan surveyed her with thoughtful eyes. He’d dismissed her as nothing but a playful flirt when she’d first introduced herself with the storybook name. He’d never have dreamt in a million years that she was telling the truth. And yet it had fitted his stereotypical views of women to think of her as a sexy and teasing minx, rather than this rather solemn mother-to-be who now wore his wedding band. He let his gaze drift over the paleness of her skin and felt a sudden beat of anxiety. ‘The car is not too bumpy for you? You don’t feel sick?’
‘No sicker than I was feeling back in London, and it’s nothing to do with the car, or the road. Why, it’s so smooth that you’d hardly believe we were speeding along in the middle of a desert!’
‘Probably because you imagined the roads of Kashamak would be primitive dirt tracks, potted with holes and barely passable because of camels? Didn’t you once say something predictable about camels?’
‘Maybe I was a little guilty of that,’ she said as she stared down at the shiny new wedding ring on her finger, still dazed by the speed of everything that had happened. Still unable to believe that the dark-faced man sitting at her side really was her husband, as well as the father of her child.
Had she been out of her mind to agree to their hasty marriage, or simply too dazed by sickness and general worries to protest about the future? And hadn’t her decision to wed him been made easier by his offer of an ‘easy’ divorce, should she want one?
She sat back against the soft leather of the car seat. ‘I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here, but so far everything has defied all my expectations.’
The insights as to how her new life would be had begun the moment she’d boarded the luxury jet on a private airfield just north of London. The flight had been seamless and further than she’d ever flown before. With mainland Europe far behind them, they’d skirted the edges of the beautiful Caspian Sea before coming in to land at the airport in Samaltyn, the capital city of Kashamak.
Protocol had been discreet on the plane, which had been empty save for them and the crew members who outnumbered them. But the moment they’d landed and Ella had heard the national anthem being played, she had realised that she was actually in the company of a real-live king.
While she—unbelievable as it seemed—was his new queen. A queen kitted out in lavish silks which covered every bit of available flesh, except for her face and hands.
Their marriage had taken place in the Kashamak Embassy in central London, with only two diplomats as their witnesses and no advance publicity given out, not even to their respective families. Hassan had been adamant he didn’t want an international frenzy with swarms of paparazzi clustering around to take photos of the sheikh’s new Western queen.
But Ella knew this wasn’t the only reason he had insisted on no fuss and why a quiet statement about their union had been issued only this morning, just as they were about to board their jet. She suspected he was terrified of all the negative publicity which always surrounded the Jackson family. And if that was the case, then she was forced to concede that he might be right.
She could just imagine how her family might have sabotaged their wedding day. Her father boasting that his daughter was marrying one of the most powerful men in the Middle East. Her mother playing her habitual doormat role beside him. And Izzy—heaven forbid—trying to sing her congratulations.
But Ella was also afraid that one of her sisters might have discovered the truth behind her bright smile and realised the heavy burden she was carrying. That Hassan was only marrying her to stamp his mark of possession on their unborn baby.
And now they were travelling in a sleek air-conditioned car towards Hassan’s palace, on roads which were as flat as millponds. She felt … well, she felt as displaced as most women would feel if they were newly pregnant and leaving behind everything they knew. But most women in her position would have the comfort of knowing that they were loved and desired, instead of regarded as some sort of royal incubator.
Her actions instinctively mirroring her turbulent emotions, she moved her hand to let it rest on her stomach.
‘You are experiencing discomfort?’ questioned Hassan instantly. ‘Some kind of pain?’
She shook her head, because she had decided that she was going to be strong. She wasn’t going to start whingeing every time she had a little ache or wave of sickness. ‘Hassan, I’m fine.’
He stared at the fingers which were curled protectively over her stomach, wondering when this would all start to feel real. As if it was happening to him and not to someone else.
He stared at the unfamiliar bump and tried to make sense of it. ‘The baby is kicking?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘When?’
Her fingers tightened around the still unfamiliar swell. ‘Any day now, I hope.’
‘How can you know all these things?’
His dark, gleaming eyes were curious and Ella thought at that moment how gorgeous he looked, and yet how unreachable too. His traditional Kashmakian robes made him look so darkly foreign and yet the flowing silk emphasised the honed body beneath, mocking her with memories of that snatched and forbidden night they’d spent together. The first and only time they’d made love.
Blocking out the sudden flare of desire which shimmered over
her skin and the inevitable questions that raised, she attempted to answer his question.
‘There’s a chart which you can download from the internet and it tells you all the things you can expect,’ she explained carefully. ‘Movement starts around sixteen weeks.’
‘And will you let me feel my child when it kicks, Ella?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘Will you let me lay my hand on your belly so that I can feel it move?’
Despite the cool of the air conditioning, Ella’s cheeks grew heated at the intimacy of his question. Their night of passion had happened so long ago that sometimes it seemed as if it was nothing but a distant dream. And the more time passed, the more unreal it seemed. Because there had been no revisiting of that passion since that night. No sense that he wanted to touch her in any way at all.
So if he laid his hand on her stomach, would that start her yearning for a greater intimacy altogether? Did he still want her in that way? she wondered.
‘Yes, of course you can,’ she answered quietly, knowing that she couldn’t possibly refuse him. Not just because he was the baby’s father, but because he’d done so much to help her. And for once in her life she had just sat back and let him help with a passivity which she put down to her pregnancy and to the accompanying nausea which still hit her in waves.
Somehow, Hassan had produced a clutch of women who were eager to step into her shoes at work and Ella had interviewed every one of them. And right now, back in England, Daisy was working quite happily alongside her replacement, while the business was ticking along just fine.
But there were more things to occupy her mind other than the business she’d left behind. Ahead she could see an enormous and elaborate pair of golden gates dazzling in the sunshine and, beyond those, neat lines of palm trees bordering a bright rectangle of water. A vast creamy-gold building rose up in the distance—a structure so wide and so grand that, once again, she wanted to pinch herself to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming.
They had reached the royal palace at last, and suddenly all her doubts came skimming to the surface, making her stomach churn with fear. Had she forgotten who she was? Just one of the notorious Jacksons whose father had kept the British press entertained for years. How could she go from being mocked and ridiculed to wearing a crown on her head and carrying it off with any degree of confidence?
‘Hassan, I can’t do this,’ she croaked. ‘What if your people won’t accept me?’
Hearing the crack in her voice, Hassan turned, trying to see her as others would see her for the first time. She was wearing an exquisite Kashamak robe in bridal colours of deep scarlet and ornamental gold. Her hair was covered by a golden veil and her eyes were ringed heavily with kohl pencil. Even her scarlet lipstick had been replaced by a glimmering rose-pink, which made her mouth look so much softer.
She had told him that she wanted her first appearance in his land to be as traditional as possible and he respected her for her thoughtfulness. And she looked, he thought with a sudden wrench of longing, absolutely beautiful. A delectable mixture of East and West, she seemed to represent the very best of both their cultures.
‘Your appearance is faultless,’ he said slowly. ‘You need not concern yourself on that score. And as king, my people will accept what I tell them to accept.’
His reassuring words gave her a moment of comfort and she clung to it, as a child would to a security blanket. ‘And what about your brother, Kamal?’
He flicked her a glance. ‘What about him?’
‘I’m … looking forward to meeting him.’
His smile was bland. ‘That won’t be happening immediately, I’m afraid, since he has decided to ride off into the desert in order to escape the rigours of court life.’
Ella swallowed. Or to escape from having to meet her? she wondered. ‘Didn’t you say that he’s been running the country while you were away fighting the war? Won’t he mind handing back the reins to you?’ She hesitated. ‘Power can be addictive stuff.’
He gave a hard smile. ‘Kamal is going to have to get used to a lot of changes,’ he said. ‘And to build a new role for himself. Because, of course, of much greater significance to him than my returning to rule is the fact that you are carrying my child.’ And hadn’t he always led his brother to believe that he had no desire to procreate? Would Kamal think that he had broken his word and thus changed both their destinies?
Ella’s voice broke into his troubled thoughts.
‘And that child will one day inherit?’ she asked.
‘Only if it is a son.’ His black eyes bored into her. ‘Is it a son, Ella? Do you know that already?’
She felt colour rising in her cheeks as his gaze washed over her. ‘No, no, I don’t. They couldn’t tell on the first scan and I …’
‘What?’
She shook her head, hating the way that he made her feel like a butterfly pinned onto a piece of cardboard. ‘I don’t want to know!’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t want that kind of pressure spoiling the pregnancy in any way. I don’t want you being pleased if it’s a boy and your brother being pleased if it’s a girl, so that I’ll end up feeling tugged both ways. I want the surprise of not knowing. Otherwise it will be like knowing what all your Christmas presents are before you actually get around to unwrapping them.’
For a moment, he smiled. ‘I’m afraid we don’t celebrate Christmas in Kashamak,’ he offered drily.
‘Well, your birthday presents, then.’
‘I wouldn’t really know about that either.’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re not trying to tell me you never had any birthday presents?’
‘So what if I didn’t?’ He shrugged. ‘My father was too busy for that kind of thing. Sometimes he remembered, sometimes not. It wasn’t important.’
Ella’s heart gave a funny little flip. Of course it was important, especially to a child. It was the one day a year when you could guarantee that all the attention would be focused on you. You got the feeling that you were loved and cared for. Even when money was at its tightest her mother had always managed to pull together some sort of celebration. And it couldn’t have been easy for her, she realised suddenly. Not easy at all.
‘And what about your mother, didn’t she want a birthday cake for her little boy?’
Silently, he cursed her overemotional use of language. Was that deliberate? Was she trying to get under his skin, in the way that women always did? ‘My mother wasn’t around,’ he clipped out.
‘What happened to her?’ Ella’s voice softened. ‘You never mention her, Hassan. Did she … did she die?’
The knuckles of his fists gleamed white as Hassan clenched his hands over his silk-clad thighs. ‘No, she didn’t die—at least, not then. She left us to find a different kind of life, and I don’t particularly want to talk about it. Especially not now at such a significant moment. Look, here are my advisers and staff come out to greet us. Prepare yourself, Ella, for I am sure you know how important first impressions are.’
Hearing the finality in his voice as he halted the discussion about his childhood, Ella straightened her golden veil with trembling fingers. She certainly remembered her first impression of him. How his dark and proudly arrogant beauty had seemed to call out to something deep inside her. How for one blissful night she thought she’d found it, only to have it swept away by his callous desertion of her. Had that been just an illusion? she wondered. And had she been guilty of imagining a special bond where none existed, as a way of justifying her own wanton behaviour?
The powerful car drew to a halt and her memories melted away in the presence of a practical dilemma. Because how on earth did you prepare yourself to face people as their brand-new queen?
‘Do they know I’m pregnant?’ she asked.
At this he gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Of course not, though it is fairly obvious to all but the most careless observer. But you need not concern yourself with that, Ella. Don’t you know what they say about royalty? Never complain and never explain. T
here will be no need for any kind of announcement. Many of my people will not realise the good news until a child is presented to them, for you will largely be hidden from view.’
Hidden from view?
What the hell did that mean?
His words sent feelings of alarm skittering over her skin but there wasn’t time to demand further explanation because the door to the car was being opened and a warm blast of fragrant air hit her. Ella exited the car as gracefully as she could—not an easy move, given that her beautiful gown was so jewel-encrusted that it weighed a ton.
Slowly, she walked along two lines of assembled people, where the advisers were exclusively male and wore subdued versions of Hassan’s robes. The only women present were servants and they lowered their eyes deferentially as she walked along the line, shyly uttering the Kashamak greeting she’d been practising for days.
There was so much to take in. High ceilings and marble floors, the glimmer of gold and the glitter of crystal. Was this how her sister Allegra had felt when she’d first arrived in Alex’s royal palace? Blown away by the sense of history and tradition? And the wealth, of course. Only this was the real thing. Not the kind she’d known when she was growing up, when one minute they’d all be driving around in a gold limousine and the next hiding from the bailiffs.
This was rock-solid wealth. Enduring and sustaining. Money like this could totally influence your thinking and behaviour. And yet, this was their child’s heritage, she realised. All this splendour and beauty was his or hers by birth—and she did not have the right to deny their baby that.
‘Clearly you approve?’ Hassan had watched with interest the movement of her ice-blue eyes as they quickly assessed her surroundings. Was she silently adding up his worth and realising that never again would she want for money?
The Sheikh’s Heir Page 9