This was it.
And now he had to walk away. He stared at her pale face on the pillow, knew he could drag her in deeper—or let her walk away.
He chose to give her no option.
‘Tell me now why you do not want to be admitted.’
‘I don’t want any tests.’ Her eyes were blinking rapidly.
‘Because?’ His mouth that had been wet was suddenly dry. He wished that she would answer, wished that she would prove his mind wrong.
‘Because I’m pregnant.’
He heard the prison doors slide closed, heard the turn of the key not imprisoning him but her, his child. And he couldn’t stand it. His mind flashed to Kaliq—to the frail babe he had held in his hand, the tiny babe who should have lived to be King. How proud Karim had been of his nephew as he had slipped from this life to the next.
No, he would not tolerate prison for his child, so he refused to even consider that it was his. She had to leave, had to go away—and he had to ensure that she did.
‘Don’t.’ His voice was like ice. ‘Don’t even try it on me, Felicity. Don’t even think of playing games with me.’
‘It isn’t a game…’ Her voice was bewildered, reaching out to him, and he couldn’t stand to see the pain on her features. ‘Karim—I found out yesterday. I know we were careful…’
‘Careful!’ Karim breathed, angry now, in fact enraged—because she had to be lying, because this couldn’t be true. ‘I am more than careful! Do you know how precious my seed is? I don’t go to the local chemist for protection. Do you think I would take risks with a whore like you?’
She couldn’t believe the brutality of his words. The sexy, tender lover who had won her heart so easily was unrecognisable now. Each word spat a warning, each growled sentence told her not to even attempt to argue. ‘Did you find out who I was, Felicity, at that introduction day? Use your little sob story, your ways, your wiles and pretend to be a virgin?’ It was so much easier to loathe her than to love her, so much easier to send her away than to claim her now.
‘I am…’ she sobbed. ‘I was.’
‘Please!’ Karim sneered. ‘There was no evidence…’ He shooed her away with his hand, dismissed her sobs, her story, as easily as he would swat a fly. ‘There is no place for your sort here in Zaraq. I could have you arrested.’
This was a different man—a completely different man from the one who had held her. ‘Karim, please. If you will just listen—’
‘No. You listen.’ He was standing directly over her, his menacing face silencing her. ‘I will not let you smear my name with these lies. Because I know the consequences a woman in your position faces, you will be admitted tonight under my care. I will arrange for your contract to be broken. Your things will be packed and you will fly home tomorrow. A car will collect you. I will arrange your ticket.’ He stared down at her and forced himself to say it. ‘You will be generously remunerated for your services that day.’
‘Karim!’ she begged.
He was unmoved by her pleas. Whether or not she was telling the truth, in time she would realise he was actually doing her a favour. ‘Enough—you do not argue with me. Tomorrow, Felicity, you leave Zaraq. If you choose to stay, then you deal with this dilemma alone.’
CHAPTER TEN
THIS wasn’t the first woman who had lied to Karim.
And by the time he hit the changing rooms he had convinced himself she was a liar.
Because all women lied, Karim told himself as he showered and dressed.
His mother, who had kissed him goodbye as he left for school and said that she would see him that afternoon, had lied.
His father’s lovers, who’d feigned interest in the young Prince only to discard him when his father summoned them.
And later his own lovers.
They swore he was their first, or that they understood it was just sex—they too lied, because always they wanted more from him.
And now Felicity.
Sweet, virginal Felicity, the most precious of his memories, tainted now. She had no doubt been pregnant already and looking for a father. Who better than a royal prince?
Did she think he was a fool?
It was so much easier to be angry, so much easier to not believe.
All this whirred in his head as he marched through the hospital with his entourage. Khan, Karim’s senior royal aide, had told him that the King had asked to see him.
He visited his father daily, but this time he had been summoned.
His father had asked that the nurses and the aides all leave, and seeing his gaunt, strained face, Karim fleetingly wished for the problems of a moment ago—how much easier they were to deal with than this was surely going to be.
‘I have spoken with my surgeon.’ The King’s once strong voice was now thin and reedy, and Karim stood, his back straight, his face an impassive mask, as the news was delivered. ‘At this stage surgery is not an option.’
‘Surgery is your only option.’ Karim’s voice was strong, his bedside manner steadfast and absolute—as it would be for any patient facing the appalling truth. A strong doctor, a strong man was needed to give bad news. The only indication that it was his father he was talking to was a flicker of muscle in his taut cheek. ‘To live you need surgery. The tumour is getting bigger.’
‘My heart is too weak. If they operate now I will die on the table.’
‘I will arrange another opinion—’ He stopped then. There had been so many opinions, and Karim trusted only his own. ‘I will operate.’
‘Karim!’ There was some strength still in the King, and he used it now. ‘You are to stop this nonsense. You are a surgeon, but you are not a god. You cannot make miracles. I will not let you operate; I will not give you the guilt that will come when surgery fails. I am to rest, to be built up, given medication, and if my heart is strong enough then there will be surgery.’
‘You might die waiting.’
‘Karim, this you cannot control.’
‘That is not your teaching—’
‘It is the truth.’ The King’s response was direct. Two proud, strong men were facing the future and did not like what they saw. ‘Karim, I am not scared of death. I am scared for my people, for my sons, for the turmoil I am leaving behind.’
‘There is no turmoil,’ Karim lied.
‘Please—there is no time for lies or sugar-coating the truth. Hassan and Jamal—well, since Kaliq…’ His voice faltered then, and both men remembered the tiny scrap of a baby who had lived only two days, the weak offspring Hassan had produced, too fragile to carry the hope of the nation. ‘There is still no sign of a baby—which means after Hassan there is no heir, no hope for the people. I know you do not want to be King, but that is why I have pulled you back from your work. You, my son, will have to step in. I have spoken with Hassan, and reluctantly he agrees that for the people of Zaraq there must a strong ruler, one who can produce heirs. Not him.’
‘Then don’t die yet.’ Karim said, because to him it was simple. ‘Just refuse to.’
‘I will try not to,’ the King said, ‘but I will rest easier if I know that my affairs are in order, that the people have a future. You must marry, Karim. Your playboy ways end now—this very day. You will take a bride, you will produce children. Hassan will step aside. Even though he begs not to, he knows he must step aside…’
‘What if Hassan did produce an heir?’
‘We know that is not going to happen—again Jamal weeps this month. The people need to know that if their King dies the Zaraq line will go on.’
Karim was never swayed by emotion. He stared out of the tinted windows at the vigil that was being held, at the people who had no idea what the future might be without their strong King. An idea was forming in his mind, a germ of an idea that was growing even as he stood. It wasn’t a new one either. A conversation like this had taken place years ago, but the strategy had been discounted. Karim resurrected it now.
‘What if I told you there will be an heir?’
‘I have said already—Jamal cannot—’
‘There is a woman,’ Karim broke in. He could not stand to picture her face as he said it, so he stared at his father—his King, his ruler. ‘She says she is having my child.’
There was just a beat before his father answered. ‘Then marry her, Karim, and Hassan will step aside.’ To the King it was simple.
‘What if it is not mine?’ Karim challenged, hoping it would terminate the conversation, that somehow he could set her free. But the King on his deathbed would settle for a lie if it meant that his people had hope.
Oh, it had been done before. The pure bloodline the people of Zaraq were so proud of was littered with hidden secrets. There had been affairs everywhere. Even his own brother Ahmed, so much fairer, so much paler than the rest…though doubts had never been uttered.
Karim could never raise a child that wasn’t his own. But Hassan could—if it meant he would be King.
‘You will do right by the people. I know that, Karim.’
Karim didn’t answer straight away.
What if it was his?
Hassan would step aside, and Karim would be a better King, perhaps, with Felicity by his side. No woman had taken him to the heights she had, and he could have that again and again. There would be no need to stray. He could groom her to be a suitable wife, could teach her, make love to her…And as for their child…He leant against the window, because letting his mind go there brought him no peace at all. He couldn’t even allow himself to think of that—couldn’t allow feelings to enter into this at all.
He paced for a moment and then stilled, rested his gaze on the south-facing window, away from the people and the ocean to what mattered most…
The desert. It would not change in his lifetime.
Oh, the sands lifted and swept and moved in a blink—yet the constants remained.
He stared at the canyons that would remain for his lifetime.
He was a constant.
It was better that it wasn’t his.
There would be a test soon, to confirm that fact. Felicity would see reason. What poor single mother wouldn’t want a kingdom for her child?
Maybe his father would live, Karim thought for a wild moment. But without the peace Karim must administer to him now it was surely impossible.
‘You have to do the right thing for our people.’ The King broke into his thoughts. ‘I cannot rest till I know that the future of Zaraq is safe.’
Karim watched a small sandstorm settle—a regular event in the desert, blinding, paralysing, but temporary.
He stared at the canyons unchanged, at his grief that didn’t matter in the scheme of things, and then he headed for a different window. Karim watched a wave pull back into the ocean, saw the swirl of a turning tide, and in that second his fate was sealed.
‘Then rest,’ Karim said simply. ‘I will take care of everything. Rest and get strong, Father, knowing that whatever happens our people, our ways, are safe.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE’D told him.
Whatever his response, Felicity felt a certain relief that she had done the right thing—had given him the opportunity to be a part of his child’s life and he’d declined it.
Maybe it was better this way, she thought, choking back tears as Helen came to see her early the next morning.
‘Your things were packed last night…’ There were tears in Helen’s eyes as she spoke, but she was trying to smile. ‘I grabbed a change of clothes for you. I figured you wouldn’t want to sit on the flight in your nurse’s uniform.’ And then she was serious. ‘You should have told me,’ she said. ‘I could have helped.’
‘You know?’ Felicity blinked.
‘Well, most people don’t faint and then leave rapidly in the first few weeks unless they have good reason. It is lucky that Karim dealt with you—he’s spent enough time in London not to judge.’
Helen gave her a final cuddle, and it dawned on Felicity that it would never enter Helen’s head there had been anything between herself and Karim.
‘Here—I got these from the safe on the ward.’ She handed over Felicity’s paperwork. ‘You wouldn’t have got far without them.’
Another nurse wheeled her to the lavish hospital entrance, and to the limousine waiting to take her to the airport.
Her things had, as Helen said, all been packed for her. The driver told her they were in the rear of the limousine as she stepped out of the wheelchair the hospital had insisted on and climbed into the cool air-conditioned vehicle. She craned her neck for a last glimpse of the hospital, realising that in a few hours she would be gone from Zaraq.
But at least she would be on her way home.
Just another single mother-to-be, another father who didn’t want to know. She hadn’t been here for very long—no one would miss her.
Especially not Karim.
Zaraqua really was stunning, and Felicity watched it speed by for the last time through tear-filled eyes. Vast freeways sliced through the edge of the desert. How she would have loved her year here, Felicity thought, wondering about the sights she would now never see. She stared at the deep blue sky, the harsh landscape. This was her child’s home. She tried to imprint it on her mind, so that one day she could tell her child about its origins—because its father clearly wouldn’t.
She hadn’t remembered the journey from the airport taking this long, and it was twenty minutes later that concern started to register.
The road signs were in Arabic, but there were pictures of planes to indicate the way. The driver seemed to have ignored them, turning off the main road and heading towards the glittering ocean.
Perhaps this was a quicker way? Felicity told herself. But, no, there was another sign for the airport indicating left. The driver was going straight ahead.
‘The airport,’ Felicity said, unsure if he could hear her through the glass partition. ‘How far is it to the airport?’
On he drove. Felicity caught him looking at her in the rearview mirror, and suddenly she was nervous. She banged on the glass, demanding his attention, but still he drove on, and somehow, even before the white building loomed into view, even before they swept into a vast drive with the blue ocean glittering in the distance, Felicity knew where he was taking her.
Zaraq Palace.
She had seen it in the brochures, on the tourist film, from her bedroom window, but nothing could have prepared her for the imposing grandeur of it as they neared.
What did Karim want?
Her hand moved to her stomach. The tiny life inside her was the answer.
How foolish to think she could tell him and just leave.
How foolish to think it might be that easy.
As a midwife, Felicity chose to expect things to go smoothly, but she prided herself on being prepared for when things might not go well. It was important to smile and stay unruffled even when you were concerned.
She could see the driver’s eyes on her in his rearview mirror, and knew he was waiting for her to react—she refused to.
She had nowhere to go—all her things had been packed and loaded and were in the car, and her documents were in her bag. Her passport was in there too, and apart from the life inside her it was the most precious thing she possessed right now. No one knew she had it. Everyone assumed that she only had the copies, not the originals, and instinct told her it must stay that way.
It was the one thing she clung to quietly as the gates slid open. The limousine glided past armed guards at checkpoints, and Felicity sat, her forehead beading with sweat, trying to wonder what Karim would have to say. Maybe he wanted to say goodbye, she told herself as the door opened and the driver came round to let her out.
A woman who introduced herself as Jamal greeted her, smiling warmly, but Felicity was unable to return it.
‘Come.’ Jamal led a shaking Felicity into the palace. The cool marble, the height of the ceilings—everything was daunting. ‘We will have some refreshments…’
Tea was poured, mint tea that was refreshing, and Felicity didn’t waste her breath asking about the purpose of the detour, knowing it would be in vain.
A man in a suit came then, and spoke for a minute in Arabic to Jamal who briefly translated.
‘Karim will see you now—Khan will take you.’
She was guided through corridors with pictures of ancient ancestors hanging on the walls.
He rose from a low sofa as she entered a room, and he was wearing traditional black robes and a black and white chequered kiffaya. Tall, imposing and grim, he looked nothing like the man who had once held her—nothing like the man she had seen laughing and chatting—and Felicity knew she was meeting Sheikh Prince Karim Zaraq of Zaraq and it unnerved her.
His black eyes loathed her, as they had yesterday, and his brief smile was a fake one, of that Felicity was sure.
‘Have a seat.’
He dismissed the man in a suit, then halted him. ‘Would you like tea? I can ask Khan…’
‘I’ve had tea,’ Felicity said quickly. She just wanted to know was going on.
As Khan left, Karim turned and faced her.
‘You say this is my baby?’
‘It is,’ Felicity said, glad of the chance to talk, to end things on more even terms. ‘Look, I understand it’s difficult and I don’t expect—’
‘Then we will marry,’ Karim interrupted, and her eyes widened. ‘Today, in an hour, we will be married.’
‘We don’t have to marry!’ Felicity was flustered. It was the twenty-first century, for heaven’s sake, they had been together for one night. He didn’t have to do this. ‘I just need help to get home. Maybe we can work out—’
‘If this is my son, then you are pregnant with a royal prince. Of course we must marry.’
‘No…’ Felicity shook her head, ruing her own stupidity. She had frowned at Liam for not doing his research, for not knowing Zaraq’s rules, and now she had in turn gone and done the same. She should have told Karim from England, Felicity realised, her panic growing. The palace was huge, but it seemed to shrink then, as she recognised the prison she had just walked into.
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