by Fiona Brand
Fuming, she drove home and walked into her front room. Her plan was to find the first Zahiri ornament that came to hand and smash it in the hopes that small satisfying act of destruction would make her feel better. Instead she found Graham in her house.
Graham’s head jerked up guiltily. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand. “I thought you’d be at work.”
Sarah dropped her bag on a side table. “Normally I would be, and—” she checked her wristwatch “—that would have given you another good two hours to steal whatever it was you came to steal.”
Graham tried for a smile. “You’re looking good, Sarah, positively blooming. We should go out sometime.”
She couldn’t believe his nerve. She noticed Camille de Vallois’s journal on a coffee table, the spine broken. “You’ve copied the journal.” And by the looks of things, he’d been cheeky enough to use her paper and copier.
“I didn’t think you’d mind—”
“You mean you hoped I’d never find out.”
His cheeks reddened. He glanced at his watch as if he was suddenly in a hurry. “Uh—I need to go. I’m flying out to Zahir in a few hours, so I need to pack.”
Sarah pointedly held the front door open. “Good luck finding the missing dowry. And if I ever find you in my house again, I’ll call the police.”
Graham’s expression turned decidedly unpleasant. “I won’t be back. Why would I when I’ve got what I wanted?”
Sarah slammed the door as Graham scuttled up the drive. She hooked the chain for good measure then walked back into her tiny sitting room, picked up the journal and sat down. She took a calming breath, then another, as she heard the whine of Graham’s sports car, which must have been sneakily parked outside someone else’s house, accelerate away.
The interview with Tarik, followed by the altercation with Graham, had worn her out.
She strolled through to her bedroom to put away the journal, but on the way down the hallway, something went curiously wrong with her balance. Head spinning, skin flushing with perspiration, she clung to the wall for long seconds before making a dash for the bathroom.
Minutes later, she rinsed out her mouth and staggered the rest of the way to the bedroom. Up until a few minutes ago she had felt healthy and alert and even more energetic than she normally did. But now that she had finally acknowledged the pregnancy, it seemed her body had decided to catch up on a few symptoms.
Opening her closet door, she put the journal on a shelf. As she did so, she glimpsed a flash of red on the floor of the closet. The dress she had worn the night she had made love with Gabe.
Jaw clenched against another wave of nausea, she retrieved the crumpled dress and sat on the edge of the bed as she waited for her stomach to settle. She should get rid of the dress, get rid of every last association with Gabe, but a part of her couldn’t. In her heart of hearts she had been sure that there was a genuine connection between them. What she’d felt and experienced had been too real to be fake.
Annoyed with herself for mooning over the past, Sarah bundled up the red dress, strode to the kitchen and jammed it into the trash.
Another wave of dizziness hit her. She gripped the kitchen counter. She felt so washed-out. Would she really be able to do this alone?
Yes. She was determined to be positive. She loved kids and she adored babies. This baby was hers and she would love it within an inch of its life. And concentrating on being a mother rather than a wife or lover suited her perfectly, because she was definitely off men!
* * *
Three days later, Sarah went for her ultrasound and stared, hypnotized, at the tiny life growing inside her.
The nurse, a cheerful middle-aged woman, peered at the screen. “Do you want to know the sex of the baby?”
Mesmerized by the clearly discernible arms and legs, the delicate, sleepy face, Sarah instantly said, “Yes.”
“You’re having a girl.”
Sarah’s throat tightened and her chest swelled. She was no longer just having a baby; she was having a daughter. She wasn’t a crier. She hated crying, but these days tears seemed to well at the drop of a hat.
Smiling, the nurse handed her a wad of tissues. “I’ll bet your husband will be pleased. Or did he want a boy?”
Sarah mopped her eyes and blew her nose and tried not to imagine what Gabe might want. “I don’t have a husband.”
She had developed a new and far more satisfying focus in life than searching for her own personal knight in shining armor. She was determined to learn all she could about childbirth and parenting, to enjoy the changes to her body, the weird cravings and the myriad discomforts. Once the baby was born, she would then put theory into practice and do her very best as a mother.
As she stepped out of the clinic into the glaring heat, the copy of the scan tucked into her bag, a tall lean guy in a suit strolled by, caught her eye and smiled. Automatically, Sarah smiled back, although she didn’t know him at all. When she turned her head, he was still watching her, his expression appreciative. With a jolt, she realized he was flirting with her.
Feeling dazed, she unlocked her car. As she slid into the driver’s seat she stared at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her hair, piled as it was into a loose knot, looked tousled and sexy. Her eyes were a deep, pure blue and her skin had a definite glow, as if she was illuminated from within.
With a start she realized that despite the bouts of tiredness and sickness she had never looked better. She wasn’t just attractive; she was beautiful. An odd sense of lightness assailed her. For the first time in years, her failed engagements didn’t seem important. Gabe’s defection was too recent to discount, but that disappointment was, also, no longer crushing.
She felt stronger, more confident. Maybe someday she would meet a man she could fall for and who would actually fall for her in return, but if that didn’t happen, she wasn’t going to fret about it. The moment was freeing.
Fastening her seat belt, she started the car and pulled out into traffic. All that was left to resolve was the mystery that surrounded Gabe. She needed to decide whether or not she should allow him to be a part of her baby’s life.
And find out what kind of man she had slept with.
Six
Gabe boarded his chartered flight out of Dubai, following his meeting with the construction CEO who had agreed to build the stalled resort complex on Zahir. With Gabe’s engagement now formalized, a partial financial settlement had been made into Zahir’s accounts and he had been able to transfer the funds, enabling the contractor to resume work.
Xavier was waiting for him in the small jet’s luxury cabin. “I’ve been trying to call you.”
Gabe frowned at Xavier’s presence as he dropped into a seat beside him. “Cell phone coverage is sketchy in Buraimi, but then you knew that.” His gaze sharpened. “What’s wrong? Is my father okay?”
“He’s fine. Your mother oversees every medical detail. He wouldn’t dare not recover.”
Gabe found himself grinning. “It’s hard to say no to Mom.” The eldest of a family of eight and with a law degree, she had the kind of immovable, steely calm that was hard to mess with.
Xavier was silent for a moment. “Have you been in contact with the Duval woman?”
Gabe froze as he fastened his seat belt for takeoff. The Duval woman. As if Sarah was hardened and manipulative, when Gabe knew the opposite to be true.
A picture of the way Sarah had looked, asleep, as he’d quietly dressed and left her cottage in the early morning hours shimmered in his mind. Dark silky hair sliding over one flushed cheek, the outline of her body graceful beneath tangled bedclothes. Every muscle in his body tightened at the vivid memory of what it had felt like to make love with her, a memory he had worked hard to obliterate. “You know I haven’t. What’s wrong? Is she all right?”
“Uh—nothing’s wrong. She’s fine.” There was a vibrating pause. “Tarik thinks she might be pregnant.”
Gabe’s heart slammed against the wall of his chest. “I thought we were past the point where there was a possibility of a pregnancy.”
It was a thought that had consumed him for some weeks after they had made love. Despite the major complication a pregnancy would have been, a part of him had been crazily, irresistibly attracted to the idea that Sarah could be pregnant with his child. His fingers tightened on the arms of his seat. It had been another indication that, despite his efforts to distance himself from that night with Sarah, he had become entangled in the kind of obsessive emotion he had vowed to avoid.
Xavier shrugged. “I talked to Tarik a couple of hours ago. He practically had a heart attack over the phone.”
Gabe dragged at his tie, loosening the knot. “What makes him think she could be pregnant now? It’s been over four months.”
“A few days ago she walked into the consulate looking for you. Why would she wait so long to do that?”
Gabe’s pulse rate lifted a notch at the visual of Sarah confronting Tarik and trying to prise Gabe’s contact details out of the man. Gabe would have liked to have seen that battle of wills. Out of nowhere a lightness he hadn’t felt for a very long time—four months and eleven days to be exact—flooded him, dissolving the tension that had gripped him since spending a large chunk of the marriage settlement funds. Spending the money had sealed him even more completely into the agreement. Worse, it had made him feel bought and paid for. “Maybe she just wanted to contact me.”
Xavier looked frustrated. “This is why you need a bodyguard. Sometimes, I think you and I live in different universes. The consulate receptionist agreed with Tarik. She thought Sarah looked pregnant. Something about a loose blouse and a glow.”
“A glow isn’t exactly evidence.” Although he found himself suddenly ensnared by the idea of Sarah glowing.
“Tarik uncovered something else interesting. Sarah is a descendent of Camille de Vallois’s family.”
Gabe frowned. “There have got to be thousands of descendants of the de Vallois family. As I recall they were wealthy and prolific.”
“Granted, but you don’t normally sleep with one of them.”
On edge and unsettled, Gabe glanced out of the jet’s window as the glittering city and blue-green sea of Dubai receded. He knew what Xavier was getting at. Maybe Sarah was somehow fascinated by the old legend. Maybe that had been her motivation for sleeping with him. The only difficulty with that scenario was that four months ago Sarah hadn’t known he was a sheikh. She had thought he was an employee.
Added to that, she had made no attempt to contact him—until she had walked into the consulate and spoken to Tarik. For long moments, Gabe became lost in the riveting concept of Sarah, pregnant with his child and searching for him.
When the jet leveled out, he released his safety belt and retrieved his laptop. He opened the surveillance report that he had commissioned precisely so that Xavier would have no excuse to do so. Although he already knew Sarah’s daily routine by heart, including the fact that she had recently joined a gym, changed her hairdresser and added a weekly visit to a beauty therapist. Although, the factual report, fascinating as it was, didn’t interest him. It was the photographs attached that he wanted to examine. Snapshots of Sarah going about her normal life, which he had perused more times than he cared to count.
He studied Sarah wearing a sleek red suit and a pair of black-rimmed glasses that made her look corporate and outrageously sexy. Sarah in jeans and a tight sweater going shopping. Another shot where she was wearing a pink dress with a slit on one side that showed off long, tanned legs. He frowned at how increasingly alluring and feminine she looked as the months had gone by. Another more disturbing word popped into his mind—available.
He stared at an image of Sara sunbathing on the beach below her cottage, wearing an ultra-skimpy floral bikini. Annoyance gripped him that the PI who took the photo had spied on her when she was practically naked, even though Gabe had ordered it.
He sat back in his seat, jaw tight, annoyed at the whole concept of Sarah being available. Not for the first time it occurred to him that now that Sarah was sexually awakened she would feel free to sleep with other men.
Over his dead body.
Not that he had any rights over Sarah. But if she was pregnant with his child, that would change.
The primitive surge of possessiveness took him by surprise and formed a decision that settled smoothly into place. If Sarah was pregnant, they would work something out. She wouldn’t be happy with him. He had left her, and the reason he’d had to do so was still in place. Even so, if there was a child involved, his child, he wasn’t prepared to walk away.
The ramifications of becoming a father made his heart pound. “I’m going to New Zealand.”
Xavier’s head jerked up. “You can’t. Your wedding date is set and besides, your father will have a stroke if he finds out you had a one-night stand with a twenty-eight-year-old history teacher.”
“Twenty-nine,” Gabe muttered absently, as he wrote a brief email to his personal assistant to arrange the flight. “She had a birthday a few weeks ago.”
“You remembered her birthday?” There was another tense silence. “I knew it. You’re falling for her.”
Gabe’s stomach tightened at the idea of falling in love again. “Love doesn’t come into the equation. Sarah’s birthday was on the security report.”
“You’re supposed to be trying to form a relationship with your fiancée. Nadia’s smart, beautiful—most men would kill to spend just one night with her.”
Gabe pressed the send button.
When the jet landed, Gabe gave in to an uncharacteristic surge of impatience and rang Sarah’s number which had been conveniently supplied in the report. With the time and date difference, he didn’t know if she would be at home or at work. Long seconds passed. Convinced that she wasn’t home, he was about to terminate the call when she picked up, her voice husky and soft as if he’d woken her from sleep.
Gabe’s stomach tightened at the thought of Sarah lying in bed. For a moment he felt tongue-tied and almost entirely bereft of English. “Sarah, it’s Gabe.”
There was an echoing moment of silence. “Gabe who?”
The phone slammed down, the noise loud enough to make him jerk his cell from his ear.
Xavier shot him a horrified look. “You just called her. You should let me deal with this. If she really is pregnant—”
“No. Go near Sarah Duval and you’re fired.”
“You can’t afford a scandal.”
Neither could he afford to lose a child.
Gabe called Sarah again. This time the line was engaged, which meant she had left the phone off the hook.
As he stepped outside into the hot Zahiri sun he replayed the all-too-brief conversation, the small silence then the husky curtness of Sarah’s voice, as if she was hurt. Even though the evidence was sketchy, he was abruptly certain that Sarah was pregnant.
When he reached the palace, he confirmed his flight and travel arrangements and cleared his schedule for the next four days, including canceling a formal dinner with his fiancée and her parents. Feeling restless and on edge, he stepped onto the balcony of his private suite and paced.
Gripping the still sun-warmed balustrade, he stared at the smooth sweep of sea glimmering beneath the rising moon, buttery gold and huge on the horizon.
Sarah trying to contact him and hitting a wall would explain why she might not feel like talking to him now. In her mind, he had abandoned her. Worse, he had made sure she couldn’t find him.
Once Sarah knew his situation, she would understand the need for discretion. She would understand why he’d had to leave her.
She was a mature, educated w
oman. He was certain they could work it out.
* * *
Sarah stared at the shadowy shape of the phone in the dark, shock and a sharp jolt of anger running through her. Dragging tumbled hair from her face, she flicked the switch on her bedside lamp and sat up in bed. Her digital clock said it was close to midnight. She had been asleep for two hours, more or less.
She should feel exhausted, but within the space of a couple of seconds any hint of exhaustion and nausea had been vaporized. She felt alert, her mind crystal clear, the heady charge of adrenaline still zinging through her veins.
On impulse, she took the phone off the hook in case Gabe tried to call again. Maybe that didn’t make sense when just days ago she had tried to contact him. But lately she had been on a roller-coaster ride of emotions. One minute she wanted Gabe in her life, the next she recoiled from that particular weakness and didn’t want to know. When she had slammed the phone down, it had been a knee-jerk reaction. Now that she’d hung up, she was beginning to wonder what, exactly, Gabe had wanted.
Could he possibly want her?
Her heart thumped hard in her chest. Somewhere deep in her abdomen the baby kicked. It was still the merest flutter, but it served to remind her that she had turned a corner with her thinking. She was no longer hurt and vulnerable, and she was over Gabe. There was a whole lot more at stake now than romance and passion.
Tossing the bedclothes aside, she headed for the kitchen. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, her stomach was starting to turn somersaults again. Her mother had told her to munch on a supply of salty crackers. Since they went perfectly with the other things Sarah craved—pickles and cheese—she had complied.
After piling a plate and making herself a cup of weak tea, because now anything with milk made her stomach queasy, she strolled back to bed. While she worked her way through the crackers and tea she picked up the book of baby names she’d been reading before she’d fallen asleep. So far she had isolated fifty or so names and noted them on a pad on her bedside table.