by Fiona Brand
Her anger bolstered by that thought, she lifted her chin another notch and decided she had nothing to lose by the direct approach. “Where’s Nadia?”
A deathly silence descended on the shop.
Gabe glanced at the number of women filling the shop. “We need to talk...elsewhere.”
Dimly, Sarah realized there seemed to be a lot of women holding cell phones. Cell phones equaled photographs, social media, maybe even a video of the conversation. She imagined it was the kind of situation that had happened to him in Tuscany.
When she didn’t immediately follow his order, Gabe gave her the kind of irritated look that made her feel like she had betrayed him. A split second later she found herself hustled out into blazing sunlight.
Gabe gave her a searing glance as he threaded his way through a stream of shoppers and into a shaded alleyway between merchants’ shops. “I haven’t been with Nadia. I’ve been in the Emirates negotiating with a building contractor for most of the past week. Finding cell phone coverage is difficult. Does that answer your question?”
She dug in her heels, halting them both and tried not to notice that with the snowy-white kaffiyeh framing the masculine planes of his face, Gabe looked almost fiercely beautiful and completely at home in the sun-drenched souk. “So that wasn’t you at the castello in Tuscany?”
He said something curt beneath his breath. She was fairly certain it was one of his swear words. “Since I’ve never been to Tuscany, no, it wasn’t.”
He hadn’t been with Nadia. Relief surged through Sarah, making her feel faintly dizzy. Silly, emotional tears pricked at the backs of her eyes.
Blinking furiously, she searched in her bag and found a tissue. “Who was it, then?”
“Raoul Fabrizio. Some Italian count.” Gabe ducked down and peered into her eyes. “Damn, you’re crying.”
As she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose, she found herself eased into a loose embrace. The deep rumble of his voice and the steady thud of his heart were oddly soothing. She drew a shallow breath, and the clean scent of his skin laced with the irresistible whiff of sandalwood that she had worked so hard to forget made her tense. After days of stress and fury it was hard to adjust to the fact that he wasn’t the villain she’d been building up in her mind.
Sniffing, she blew her nose again. “I never cry. It must be the pregnancy.”
When she searched for a second tissue, he handed her a beautifully folded handkerchief. “How have you been? Have you put on weight?”
She stared at the monogramed handkerchief, which was too beautiful to use, and tried not to be seduced by the deep, velvety timbre of his voice. She glared at him. “Do you really care?”
A couple of tourists strolling in the direction of the beach, towels slung over their shoulders, glanced at them curiously.
Gabe frowned. “We can’t talk here. If you’ll come with me now, I know a place where we can be private.”
Sarah checked her wristwatch and tried to look like she was on a schedule and wasn’t quite sure if she could fit Gabe in. “Will it take long?”
“You’ve got other appointments?”
A fresh wave of hurt and anger fountained up at the note of incredulity in Gabe’s voice, as if pregnant, abandoned history teachers did not have appointments. “I’m not on Zahir for a holiday. Now that I’ve got a child to support, I’m starting a new career as a travel writer.”
His brows jerked together. “You don’t need a job. I’ll support you and the baby.”
She pulled free of his hold, fire shooting from her eyes. “I will not be dependent on you.”
“I didn’t ask you to be.”
The calm timbre of his voice somehow defused the anger that kept trying to erupt, conversely leaving her feeling vulnerable and unsure. Sarah decided she preferred the anger.
Gabe indicated they should follow the couple with the towels. Aware of him close behind her, a few steps later Sarah found herself in a service lane lined with vans and small trucks.
The sidelights of a sleek black sedan with darkly tinted windows flashed as Gabe unlocked the vehicle. Sarah stopped in her tracks. “You said we would talk somewhere in private, not that you wanted to put me in a car and drive me somewhere.”
He looked momentarily arrested as he held the passenger-side door. “It’s not that sinister. All I want to do is find somewhere private to talk where we won’t be overheard. I’ve got a beach house five minutes away. If you don’t want to go there, we could go to your hotel.”
Her eyes widened. “You know where I’m staying?”
Frustration burned in his gaze. “Zahir’s not exactly a big country—”
“So you sicced some kind of Zahiri secret service on me.”
“It wasn’t that high-tech. Xavier called the airport.”
Sarah climbed into the luxurious Audi and tried not to like the chill of air-conditioned air and the smell of new leather. “Your henchman. I should have known.”
Gabe closed the door then walked around and slid behind the wheel. “Xavier’s not a henchman. We decided not to have those a few years back. He’s head of palace security. Mostly he checks locks and alarm systems. Occasionally he checks out people who are close to the family.”
She fastened her seat belt and tried not to love the sexy quirk to Gabe’s mouth as he took off the kaffiyeh and agal and tossed them on the backseat. Instead she needed to remember how easy he found it to forget about her.
His comment about people close to the family got her attention. “But your family doesn’t actually know about me.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, making her heart pound. “Of course they know about you and the baby.”
Feeling mollified and altogether calmer now that she knew he had actually told his parents about her, she relaxed back into the cloud-like seat. Deliciously cool air washed over her as Gabe accelerated into traffic. He stopped for a stream of pedestrians heading for the souks and Sarah stiffened as her cell phone chimed. Aware of Gabe’s proximity and that he would hear every word she spoke, she picked up the call from her mother.
The conversation was brief. Hannah wanted to know how Sarah was and if she’d checked into her hotel. She also wanted to let her know that she had heard from a mutual acquaintance that Graham was on Zahir.
Sarah frowned at the mention of Graham, who must still be on his wild-goose hunt for the missing dowry. After their last meeting when he had broken into her home, she had no interest in seeing him ever again. Luckily, with all the holidaymakers on Zahir, the chances that she and Graham would actually cross paths were slim.
Gabe turned down a narrow driveway that flowed beneath a shady grove of ancient olives. He brought the car to a halt outside a villa built on a small rise overlooking a tiny, jewel-like bay. “Was that Southwell?”
Sarah grasped the door handle. It would be a simple matter to say it was her mother, but after the past week of turmoil and uncertainty, she still felt ruffled and hurt. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”
Leaning across, he pulled the door shut, trapping her in place. “I don’t want you seeing Southwell.”
For a moment she was close enough that she could see the faint shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, and the intriguing roughness of his five-o’clock shadow. “I wouldn’t see Graham Southwell if he was the last man on earth.”
He let go of his hold on the door. “Who were you talking to, then?”
She wanted to stick to her resolve to leave Gabe in the dark about her personal life, and let him experience a little uncertainty. But with Gabe close enough that she could feel the heat blasting off his body and breathe in his clean masculine scent it was difficult to think straight. Unfortunately, she was also seduced by the dizzying notion that Gabe was jealous. If he was jealous, that meant he did care
for her. “It was my mother.”
His gaze dropped to her mouth, sending a sharp tingle of heat through her. “My apologies,” he said curtly. “But I was worried about you. Southwell is on Zahir, too.”
She tried not to stare into his irises, which really were a mesmerizing hue of amber, striped with chocolate brown. “Graham comes here a lot. Besides being an importer, he’s obsessed with finding Camille’s dowry.”
He was jealous. A dizzying surge of pleasure flowed through her, warming her from the inside out so that she was practically purring. “Did Xavier make a call to find out where Graham is?”
Gabe’s gaze narrowed, signaling that she was playing with fire, but she didn’t care. As wary as she was about what he might feel for her, she loved him. He was the father of her child and he’d been gone for over two weeks, and in that time she had missed him. Added to that, she had thought she was on the brink of losing him to a woman she was certain he did not love. As far as she was concerned she had a right to the truth.
“To be strictly accurate, Xavier asked an investigative firm to confirm Southwell’s movements.”
But Gabe had paid for the report. She had to suppress the sappy desire to grin. “Isn’t that a bit paranoid?”
“Not from where I’m standing. I needed to know that he wouldn’t come near you.”
He was jealous.
Feeling suddenly giddy that not only had Gabe not slept with Nadia, but that in the time he’d been absent, he had actually worried about her, she pushed the door wide and stepped out onto a pristine white shell drive.
Gabe gestured at a path that led to a shady patio overlooking the sea. He unlocked and opened a set of French doors. She stepped into a sitting room shaded by shutters. Tiled floors were strewn with bright Zahiri rugs and low, comfortable couches were strategically placed to make the most of the stunning view.
Gabe walked through to a sleek kitchen that opened off the sitting room. “Would you like a drink?”
The polite request distracted her from checking out the beautiful house that was obviously not Gabe’s primary residence since it had been shut up for some time. “Water will be fine.”
She heard the opening of the refrigerator, the chink of ice. Gabe indicated she should take a seat. When she did so, she found herself staring at a vivid oil painting of a woman seated in an enclosed garden, wearing a vivid flame red dress.
“Camille.” Gabe handed Sarah a frosted glass then strolled to the open doors to stare out at the view.
Gaze drawn to the broad width of his shoulders emphasized by the snug fit of his suit jacket, Sarah sipped a mouthful of water. Unable to bear the silence, she asked, “What did you want to talk about?”
He turned, his expression oddly neutral. “Us. As of last night I’m no longer obligated to marry Nadia. I’m proposing that we should get married next month.”
Eleven
For long moments, Sarah thought she had heard wrong. She set her glass down on the beautiful ebony table, careful not to spill any water on what looked like a precious antique. “You really mean it, you want to marry me?”
Gabe’s expression was still curiously neutral. She realized the descriptive she should be using was “guarded.”
Given his worry over Graham, she knew Gabe had feelings for her. But she was also aware that his approach to marriage was just a little too businesslike. He hadn’t said he loved her, and he very probably didn’t at this stage. Her stomach dipped when she realized he almost never mentioned his first wife.
The reality was that for now the pregnancy was dictating what happened next, but Sarah had hoped for something more, a glimpse of the warmth and love they could share once they were living together.
Despite her efforts to stay just as guarded as he, her heart swelled with emotion. The problem was, she thought a little desperately, that she loved him and she wanted to marry him—even if he didn’t feel the same right now. “Next month?”
He mentioned a date and her stomach plunged. She knew that date. It was engraved in fiery letters on her heart. Despite her effort to stay calm, she found herself on her feet, too upset to sit. “I presume you mean the same date you were going to marry Nadia?”
“Yes.”
The cautious joy that he did still want to marry her was swamped by annoyance. “Let me guess, the wedding venue is booked, the guests are invited and there’s no wedding without a bride?” She knew how that went, since she’d had to cancel wedding plans, twice.
“I know it’s not ideal, but it’s a fact that we need to get married soon, and the wedding, which is important for Zahir, has been arranged.”
“I understand the practicalities.” But it was hard to feel cherished and special when the proposal sounded as forced as Gabe’s last engagement, and when she was being offered a second-hand wedding.
Still caught in the curious ambivalence of receiving the proposal she wanted from Gabe but in a way that sounded more like a transaction than a relationship, Sarah paced to the portrait of Camille.
A small heated tingle shot down her spine as she registered Gabe close behind her. Determined to control her response to him, she concentrated on the painting. “She had style.”
“She was a woman who knew what she wanted.”
Sarah couldn’t help wondering if that was how Gabe viewed her. “Is there anything wrong with knowing what you want?”
“Not as long as it means you’ll say yes and marry me.”
She swung around, his words sending a bittersweet pang through her. She had thought he hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t actually agreed to marry him yet. They had made plans back in New Zealand, but all of that had been tentative, knowing he had to end things with Nadia first.
Sarah wanted marriage, but only because she truly believed he might fall for her over time. She guessed she had hoped he might view their relationship as more than just a solution. “Do you want to marry me?”
His expression closed up and she wondered if she’d said something wrong, then his hands curved around her upper arms, seductively warm against her skin.
“We’re good together. We like one another. We’re going to have a child.”
And the lovemaking had been off the register. Two weeks ago it had seemed almost enough. “What about the money?”
“Money is no longer an issue for Zahir.” Gabe’s fingers meshed with her’s, pulling her close. “I want you, Sarah, and I think you know that. I have spent weeks making and breaking deals to have you. Will you marry me?”
Time seemed to slow, stop. She had wanted to change her life, to take risks, and she had. Now there was no way she could go back to the flat and endless routine of her old life. This version of life might be hurtful, but at least she knew she was alive.
Above all, she had to think about the baby. If there was a chance for them to be a real family, she had to take it. “Yes.”
Relief flared in his gaze. He bent and touched his mouth to hers.
The slow, lingering kiss sent a hot pang all the way to her toes. Before she could stop herself, she clutched his shoulders, lifted up and deepened the kiss. This was what she had wanted, what she had longed for even when trying to be cautious.
Gabe’s arms closed around her, fitting her even more closely against him. Relief flooded her as she felt the firm shape of his arousal pressing against her hip. His blunt, masculine response was a reassurance that, in the wake of the article claiming that he was with Nadia, she badly needed.
When he lifted his head, she boldly wound her arms around his neck and instigated another lingering kiss. When Gabe dragged pins from her hair so that it cascaded around her shoulders then lifted her against him so that her feet left the ground, the eroticism of it sent a flush of heat through her.
When he lowered her to the floor, she felt the cool leather of a co
uch at the backs of her knees. With a tingle of excitement, she realized he had carried her there while they’d kissed.
He tangled his fingers in her hair, his gaze burned into hers. “Are you well enough to make love?”
Heat burned through her at the question. “I’m fine, never better.”
He kissed her again. They were going to make love. The reality of it, when an hour ago she was in the depths of despair, was faintly shocking.
With fingers that fumbled slightly, she unknotted his silk tie then started on the buttons of his shirt. Irresistible flashes of the last time they’d made love kept making her heart pound out of control. There were a lot of things about their relationship that needed working on, but she couldn’t help thinking that this part was absolutely perfect.
Minutes later, with her dress lying puddled on the floor, Gabe lowered her to the leather couch. He had already dispensed with his jacket and shirt, and now eased out of his pants. As he tossed stretchy gray boxers on the floor, she drank in the sight of him, naked. In her bedroom, at night, he had been beautiful. In full daylight, the hot Zahiri sunlight making him look bronzed and sleek and muscular, he was breathtaking.
He joined her on the couch, his weight pressing her down. Automatically, she moved to accommodate him. His gaze locked with hers and a faint tension assailed her as she felt him lodged against her. Now that marriage and a baby were part of their equation, she was worried that she might disappoint him in some way. After all, she was not a glamorous jet-setter like Nadia, or a fragile beauty like his first wife.
A split second later the worry ceased to be important as she held her breath against the exquisite moment of their joining. He kissed her then pulled her closer still, holding her tight against him as if he needed her, as if she truly mattered to him, as they moved together and the afternoon dissolved in a blinding shimmer of heat.
* * *
Much later, after they’d both showered and dressed, Gabe found his cell and pressed a speed dial. “Hasim will take care of the change to the invitations. Meantime, I’ll need you to stay on in your hotel and keep our engagement under wraps until the palace issues a press release.”