When they were alone, he felt his grip on his mood shift slightly. “You do not run away from me, Cassandra.”
She whipped around, her own disposition in a state of rapid decline. “You do not get to dictate to me,” she responded with a cold rage. “Besides, I would have thought you’d be eager to have me out of your life now that your engagement is official.”
His brows knit together as he examined her carefully. “I saw the news this morning.”
Her heart was dropping. “You’re engaged to Arja.”
“Apparently,” he confirmed with a tight nod.
“Apparently?” She challenged. “Are you saying you’re not? That the papers are wrong?”
Layth’s expression was scornful. “I am saying that you have no right to disappear like some kind of juvenile instead of speaking to me as an adult.”
“Why not?” She pounded back. “We both said this was just sex. From the outset, neither expected more than this. So why prolong the goodbye?”
“Is this what you want?” He prompted with a quietness to his tone.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “I want you out of my life. I thought I could do this, but I was wrong.”
“Why?” He continued, moving closer to her with every statement.
“You know why! It’s too hard. I hate that you were with her yesterday. I hate that her lipstick was on your cheek. I hate that you have been spending your nights with me and your days contemplating marriage to these other women. I hate that you’ve been happy to fuck me, while never thinking me suitable for anything else.”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “And so you run away in the middle of the night –,”
“It was morning,” she corrected, shivering from the strength of her emotions. “And what I do is none of your business anymore. You’re engaged. That’s what you came here for. So go. Marry Arja. Forget you ever knew me.”
“That is not possible.”
“Why not?” She demanded, hostility making her voice shrill. “Don’t pretend that you love me, Layth, or that you want to see me again. I kept you company while you found the right bride. That’s all this was.”
Eager to kick the boot in, and reckless from her emotionally overwrought state, she added, “Besides, I’m done with you. I told you I didn’t want anything serious. We’re done. It’s over.”
“And what next? You move onto the next man you meet in a bar? You find someone else who’ll get into a no-questions-asked sex session with you?”
His condescension made her stomach ache. “Yes.” She wasn’t going to be ashamed of her lifestyle. He’d changed her and she no longer wanted to live the way she had before meeting him, but Layth didn’t need to know that.
“Excellent. I am so pleased to know this is how you feel.” His black eyes glittered in his face. “It will make me feel far less guilt when I take our child from you.”
Cassie could see stars in her eyes. She pressed her fingers to the wall, but the support wasn’t enough. Her knees buckled, and the ground rose to meet her. The last thing she was aware of was Layth’s angry invective, and then his arms wrapping around her.
She was only unconscious for a few seconds. She blinked immediately and tried to push away from him, but he held her against his body. “Is that really what you want, Cassie? To go back to filling your nights and your bed with men who do not know you, and do not care for you?”
Her throat was raw. “It’s none of your business,” she whispered hauntingly.
“Our baby makes it very much my business.”
“We don’t even know there is a baby,” she groaned, pushing away from him properly.
“I do. You are pregnant, Cassie.”
She stared at him, waiting for his words to make sense. She shook her head. “Wait … what?”
“Anassi confirmed it this morning.”
Her fingers knotted in front of her. Her eyes were sparkling with tears – she couldn’t have said what emotion prompted them to moisten her eyes.
“Pregnant.” She leaned against the wall again. “I’m pregnant.”
“With my baby,” he commented firmly.
“I can’t be.” She shook her head. “I’m on the pill.”
He lifted his brow. “The doctor confirmed the results twice. You are pregnant. You swear it can only be my baby, and I believe you.”
“Shit.” She sank against the wall and stared up at him with a sense of complete fear.
The look of her face drove devastation through Layth. “You are unhappy.”
“Unhappy? Yes. It’s one of the things I’m feeling.”
“You do not want this baby.”
Cassie gripped her stomach. “I do not want you and your suitable wife to raise my child,” she corrected instead. “I do not want you to pressure me to move to Takisabad where I would forever have to see you living with Arja.” Nausea began to roll through her. She dug her fingernails into her palms until she thought she might draw blood.
“Then what do you want, Cassandra?”
I want the dream. She blinked her eyes closed. “I want to sleep some more.”
“Fine. My helicopter is outside. It will take you back to the hotel.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’m going to stay here.”
“You will accompany me to the hotel. Until this child is born, you will be under the supervision of Anassi.”
“Layth,” she lifted a hand to his chest, and the spark of electricity jolted her instantly. She looked away. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?” He was wary.
She bit down on her lip, uncertain what she felt, what she wanted, and what she should say. “Why are you speaking to me like this?”
His expression was grim. “You fled from me. You disappeared. And though my team were swiftly able to track you, I spent seventeen minutes not knowing where you were going and what you were feeling. I do not want to feel this ever again.”
She shook her head. “I was upset. For God’s sake, you’re engaged. Even though I knew it was coming, I wasn’t prepared for it. Yesterday was … the first time I’ve ever spoken to someone about … about … my life before London.” Her cheeks flamed. “I almost forgot about your engagement.”
“I am not engaged to Arja.”
Her eyes were saucer-wide as they sought his. “What?”
“Arja’s people fed the story to the papers to prompt me into action.”
“But … your mother was quoted in the piece I read.”
His lips were a slash in his face. “My mother is eager for me to marry and further our lineage. She had felt, until I corrected her this morning, that Arja was the best choice.”
“You corrected her?”
“I told her I will not marry unless it is to you. I told her I will not return to Takisabad unless she accepts my choice of bride; you. I told her that I have fallen in love with a woman who is beyond perfection and pleasure – a woman who is truly an angel on earth; you, Cassie.”
Cassandra stared up at Layth and tried to make sense of what he was saying. But his words were simply swimming in the cavities of her mind. “You said this to your mother?” She blinked furiously. “It’s for the baby,” she murmured, making sense of the strange outburst. “So that she would accept your heir more easily.”
His smile was without humour. “Believe me, my mother will accept my heir no matter what.” He lifted a hand to Cassie’s cheek. “I did not know about the baby when I spoke to her, Cassie. I knew only that you’d disappeared in a mood and manner most distressed and that my life would never resume properly until I found you again.”
Cassie’s groan was stifled in her throat. “But the article …”
“Was actually, in some ways, your fault.”
“What?” She crossed her arms over her chest, her mood still fragile. “How do you figure?”
“Arja saw you yesterday, did she not?”
Cassie nodded, remembering with pain the visage of the very beautiful woman. �
�She came out of the elevator at the same time I returned.”
“Yes. And she saw for herself the woman who was rumoured to have captured my heart.”
Cassie blushed to the roots of her hair. “A silly rumour,” she murmured distractedly.
“Not, as it happens. You have caught my heart. How could I think of marrying another woman when there is you in my life?”
Cassie shook her head, refusing to believe what he was saying. “This is just because I’m pregnant. You want me to fall in line with your wishes because I have your heir growing inside of me.”
“No.” His eyes glittered. “I am not the kind of man who would rely on lies and deceptions to secure his own flesh and blood. This is not about our child. That issue must be discussed, but has no bearing on my wish to marry you.”
Cassie was numb. “You want to marry me.”
“Yes.”
“And if I don’t want to marry you?”
Layth felt as though he’d been winded. He quickly caught his footing again, but it was difficult to compose himself in the face of the possibility she might decline him. The idea had not, until that moment, occurred to Layth.
“But you do want to marry me,” he responded with a shrug.
Cassie squeezed her eyes shut, her soul falling apart at the seams. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because you love me, as I love you.”
“I don’t believe in love,” she muttered.
Layth pulled her to his chest, his face pale beneath his dark complexion. “Then believe in this. Believe in me. Trust that what you feel is genuine; that what we have shared is real.”
Cassie pushed away from him. She needed to concentrate, and his proximity always made that difficult. “How can I, Layth?” Before he could answer, she continued, “You’ve spent this whole time making love to me, yet still interviewing brides. How can I honestly believe that you wanted me for anything other than sex?”
Layth watched her face dance with terrible, dark emotions. She was right to doubt him. He was the last in a line of men who had let her down. Starting with her father who had died, to the man who had abused her, to all the men who’d done as he had and enjoyed her physical attributes without caring about who she was beneath the perfect figure and model face.
“When I saw you talking to that man in the bar, I knew I loved you.”
“What man? Renee?”
“Colin.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of him since she’d waved off his cab. “That was ages ago.”
“It killed me to see you with someone else.”
“Isn’t that a little like the pot calling the kettle black?” Her voice snagged in her throat. “I’ve been going to work, knowing that you would be spending your days with beautiful, interesting suitable women, each of them vying for a chance to be your bride. How do you think that made me feel, Layth?”
He grimaced. “I admit, it never occurred to me.” At her look of complete indignation he lifted a hand to pause her inevitable interruption. “You told me from the first night we met that you did not want any complications. While I knew I loved you, I never dared dream that you felt the same.” He knelt before her, clasping her hands in his. “I told myself that the thought of life without you was causing pain only to me. That you were happy. That you were enjoying our relationship, and that you had no doubt about moving on from me, when the time came.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You seemed so content to talk to me about Arja, Sina and Alisan. I never dared hope that you loved me.” He stared at her with his beautiful, intense eyes. “Even now I do not dare to hope.”
She stamped her foot in annoyance. “This is impossible. You’re going to be the King of a country. I live here. Are you actually suggesting that we can just fall in love and get married? That it can be so simple?”
“I’m begging you,” he murmured throatily. “I can no longer imagine a life without you in it.”
Cassie sobbed, but happiness was beginning to flood her veins.
“You must answer me, Cassie.”
She bit down on her lip. “But …” It was all too much. “I’m pregnant? Are you sure?”
His smile was the most full of joy she’d ever seen. “Absolutely.”
She laughed, a strangled sound of joy and confusion. “But … how? I’m on the pill. It shouldn’t be possible.”
“It is one of these instances of things that are simply meant to be, and so they are.”
She nodded, sense finally being made from his words. “I’m going to have a baby.”
“Together, we will raise a child.”
“Yes.” She smiled down at him, all the happiness in the world exploding through her. “We will.”
Relief flooded his system. The unfamiliar state of worry was ebbing away, returning the powerful Layth Sati to his normal self. He pulled the ring from his pocket, and slid it on her engagement finger. “For the rest of my life, Cassandra Walton, will you be mine?”
“Only if you’ll be mine.” She knelt on the floor, and kissed him with love and desire. “Forever and ever.”
“Agreed.”
And so it was, because it was one of those things that was simply meant to be.
Epilogue
Layth took after his father. Where Elena was small and fragile, with dark hair streaked with grey, Adin was tall and formidable looking. His broad frame was shrouded in the same ceremonial robes she’d become accustomed to Layth wearing.
“I do not understand why you must depart so quickly. You have only been here a week.” Elena was stroppy, and she made no effort to hide it from her son.
“Because when I become Emir, it will not be so easy to slip away with my bride.” He lifted his gaze to Cassie. She was sitting elegantly in an armchair, her face enraptured as Adin regaled her with some story. Undoubtedly one that served to embarrass Layth.
Elena followed her son’s gaze. “Has she forgiven me for my heavy handed match-making?”
“Forgiven you?”
Elena sighed. “I should never have encouraged Arja as I did. I truly believed she would make you happy.”
“And now?” He asked quietly, unable to contain his smile as Cassie laughed. The sound was like petals scattering in the breeze. Gentle and mysterious.
Elena’s voice cracked a little when she spoke. “Now, I realise I have never seen you happy before. Not until this. Not Arja, no one, could have given you what Cassandra has.”
And his mother did not yet know the half of it.
“It is as though she has breathed life into you. More life than I knew possible.”
“Was I so lacking in life before?” He asked, a slightly teasing tone to his voice.
His mother shrugged. “I would not have said so. Until seeing you with Cassandra, I did know any better. Now? I see you were missing half of yourself.”
“Mother,” he shook his head, though secretly he was thrilled by her words. “You are a romantic.”
“Of course I am.” She flicked her gaze up at him, thinking of the Emir. “Of course, the fact that you have married for love might change things. Perhaps you and Cassandra would like to spend more time together, as a couple, before thinking of creating a child.”
Elena’s cheeks flushed at the personal and invasive statement. Her look was apologetic. She already felt her son’s lineage had become far too public a subject.
“And this would be acceptable to you? And my uncle?”
“Your uncle will be comforted by your marriage.”
He nodded, pretending to give her assertion consideration. “You know, we have spent three months together in London, before getting married.”
“Yes, I know.” She sent him a slightly peevish look. “I was waiting a long time to meet the woman who has stolen your heart.”
“She didn’t steal my heart,” he corrected. “She gave it to me.”
Elena could have been knocked down by a feather. To hear her son speaking in such floral t
erms on the matter of love was the last thing she’d ever expected.
At that moment, Cassie looked over at him, her eyes warm with happiness.
Layth strode toward her, as if drawn by magnetic force. “Cass, mother was just assuring me there’s no rush on the matter of a royal heir.”
Cassie nodded, her pale blue eyes sparkling with their secret. She stood, so that she could put her hand in Layth’s.
“Of course, if we’d known that before …”
Elena looked from her son, to Cassie, to her husband Adin. “What do you mean, Layth?” She’d slipped into her language out of confusion and excitement.
Layth responded in English. “Cassie already carries the continuation of our family.”
Adin stood, embracing his son, and then Cassie. “You are certain?”
Cassie nodded, catching her lower lip between her teeth.
“Oh, your uncle will be thrilled. Every day weakens him. To know a child is due will relieve him hugely.”
Layth shot Cassie a look of encouragement, and she understood the words he hadn’t spoken. Your turn.
“Only imagine how delighted he’ll be to learn there are two little Satis on their way.”
The silence was deafening.
A pin could have been heard dropping.
“Two … little … two? Did you say two?” Elena looked at Adin and switched to her native tongue. “Did she say two?”
Adin rubbed his eyes, and as though he couldn’t help himself, put his hands on Cassie’s stomach. It was not flat. When he touched it, he could feel for himself the burgeoning lives. Only the flowy outfit she wore had concealed it so well.
“Two!” His face beamed.
“How is it possible?” Elena was lost for words. “Two babies! Layth, it is lucky we named you as we did. You will need all that courage with two children at once.” She shook her head and then embraced Cassie. “Oh, my dear daughter, you must take care of yourself. Carrying one baby I found difficult enough. But two!”
Layth wrapped an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “It is why we waited in England so long. The first trimester was hard for Cassie. She was very sick and tired from very early on in the pregnancy.”
Clare Connelly Pairs: Warming the Sheikh’s Bed & Love in the Fast Lane Page 15