by Penny Jordan
‘If you’re here to offer me another disgusting cheque, you’re risking serious injury with a garden spade,’ she told him fiercely, glancing towards the heavy metal tool propped up against the bench.
‘No, kalila,’ he assured her, his voice so grave that her eyes flew to his face. ‘I am here because you are here—’ He broke off, as if he was struggling to find the right words, and Erin suddenly realised that beneath his relaxed air he was tense, and—incredibly for a man whose arrogance was legendary—unsure of himself. ‘You are my wife,’ he said in a low tone, ‘and I have discovered that wherever you are is the only place I want to be.’
The still silence in the garden that followed his astounding statement was broken by the piercingly sweet song of a blackbird. Erin licked her suddenly dry lips, her heart beating so fast she was sure it would explode. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘It’s quite simple.’ He sounded impatient and stared at her haughtily. But to her amazement streaks of dull colour highlighted his cheekbones, and his eyes veered from hers as if he was afraid to meet her gaze. ‘I love you, Erin.’
Her rebuttal was fierce and immediate. ‘No, you don’t.’
‘I should have known you would want to argue about it, kalila.’ A little of his tension left him and his smile stole her breath.
‘You don’t love me,’ she said again. It was probably some cruel trick, and she had more sense than to be fooled. ‘You married me for Kazim. You love Maryam. Jahmela said so.’
‘Jahmela said a lot of things, most of them untrue.’ Zahir’s voice was suddenly harsh.
‘But not the things she said about me,’ Erin said thickly. ‘My mother was a prostitute and I assume that my father was one of her clients. I wasn’t conceived from an act of love, but in some dark alley with a stranger who paid for sex. My mother sold her body and spent the money she earned on her drug habit.’ She stared down at her hands, not wanting to see the disgust in his eyes. ‘We come from vastly different worlds, Zahir, and mine wasn’t a nice one. When I was fourteen I joined a street gang and was drawn into a life of crime. I was successfully prosecuted for shoplifting, and it was only because it was my first known offence that I wasn’t sent to a juvenile detention centre.’
Zahir’s reaction was not what she had expected, and his calm, ‘Yes, I heard about that,’ brought her head up, her eyes widening at the gentle understanding in his. ‘You would have been exonerated if you had explained to the court that you stole those things to protect a younger girl who had been threatened with dire retribution from the gang if she refused to join them.’
‘How do you know that?’ Erin mumbled, stunned that he seemed to know so much about her.
‘I had you investigated immediately after I took you to Qubbah,’ he replied, ignoring her gasp. ‘My private detective reported back a month or so after we married. I’m afraid Jahmela’s party piece did not have the effect she was hoping for, and she has been banished from the palace,’ he revealed grimly. ‘My father was almost as furious with her for upsetting you as I was, and unfortunately the sudden stress affected his heart. His doctors had to be called to give him oxygen. By the time I was able to leave him, you had gone.’ His face tightened. ‘Omran had made sure of that.’
‘He believes you should marry Jahmela,’ Erin said quietly. ‘And he’s right. She is beautiful and educated and has all the attributes necessary for the wife of the next ruler of Qubbah.’
‘Attributes like selflessness and compassion, you mean?’ Zahir suggested softly. ‘Both those qualities are starkly absent in Jahmela. And yet you—who grew up in dire circumstances, alone and unloved—you have them in abundance.’
‘You accused me of marrying Faisal and adopting Kazim simply so that I could inherit Ingledean,’ Erin whispered, unable to tear her eyes from the velvet softness of his.
‘I could not believe that your love for Kazim was genuine when my own mother had not loved me enough to stick around for my childhood,’ Zahir admitted harshly. ‘But deep down I knew within days of meeting you—certainly by the time we married—that you were not the gold-digger I had first thought. You were feisty and hot-tempered, and you fought me constantly, but everything you did was for Kazim. You married Faisal knowing that within months you would be solely responsible for a young child, but you willingly sacrificed your youth and freedom because you were determined to give him the loving childhood you never had.
‘But then I forced you to marry me,’ he continued, looking away from her again, as if he could not bring himself to meet her gaze. ‘And you went along with it because you would have done anything rather than be separated from Kazim. And I, who had spent hours torturing myself with images of you and my brother, burning up with jealousy over your relationship with him, discovered too late that you were a virgin. I had to accept that all my preconceived ideas about you were wrong. I stole your innocence, kalila, and I was so angry with myself for spoiling something that should have been special for you that I was unnecessarily brutal. You don’t know how much I have regretted my treatment of you,’ he confessed, in a low tone that was so unlike his usual assured self-confidence. ‘I’m not surprised you hate me, Erin, and I deserve it—especially after I sent you that last cheque. It was another test, of course,’ he explained, dark colour scorching his cheekbones again. ‘Even then I was still frantically trying to prove to myself that you were not worthy of my love.’
Almost as if he could not help himself, he reached out and stroked her hair, winding a silky red curl around his fingers. ‘I did not want to love you, kalila and I fought hard against it. It’s true that I cared for Maryam; she was sweet-natured and gentle and I believed she would make me a good wife. When she eloped with Faisal I was bitterly angry. But it was dented pride rather than a broken heart. Because of that stupid pride I refused to be reunited with my brother, and now it is too late. I won’t make the same mistake again.’
He moved suddenly, turned to her and gripped her arms, and she glimpsed the desperation in his eyes as he dragged her against his chest. ‘I will do whatever it takes to win you back, kalila. You are my wife, the love of my life, and I won’t let you go.’ He pressed his lips to her temple, his warm breath fanning the curls that framed her face, his eyes closing briefly as if he was in pain. ‘I have told my father to name his brother Sulim as the interim ruler of Qubbah in the event of his dying before Kazim comes of age.’
Erin stared at him, shocked beyond words. ‘But…but why?’ she faltered at last. ‘I thought that you were to rule until Kazim is older? You are the King’s only son, and it is your duty.’
Zahir shook his head. ‘My first duty is to my wife, and my father agrees. Although even if he did not I would still be here with you. Don’t you understand, kalila?’ he said urgently. ‘You are more important to me than Qubbah, my father—everything. You, me and Kazim, we are a family, and the only thing I want is for us to be together. You love it here at Ingledean, and so we will live here, have our children here—’ He broke off when her face flushed with betraying colour and waited for her to speak, but Erin suddenly seemed determined not to look at him.
‘Kazim…’ she whispered. ‘You shouldn’t have left him. He’ll be distraught without either of us at the palace.’
‘I didn’t leave him,’ Zahir said quietly. ‘He’s here at Ingledean. Alice has taken him to play in the orchard.’
‘Kazim’s here!’ With a cry Erin tore out of Zahir’s grasp and flew across the garden, desperate to find her son.
But as she reached the gate his words finally pierced the air of unreality that had settled on her when he had appeared in the garden and she spun round, her heart contracting when she saw him slumped dejectedly on the bench with his head bowed.
‘You love me?’ she said slowly, still unable to believe she had heard him right. ‘You would really give up everything for me?’
‘You are everything, kalila, and without you I have nothing.’
His head was still lowered, and she w
alked back to him and dropped to her knees so that she could look into his face. To her astonishment she saw that his eyes were wet, the flare of pain in their dark depths so raw that a lump formed in her throat. She brushed her fingers shakily over his lashes. ‘You love me,’ she whispered, wonderment flooding through her.
‘More than life,’ he confessed, his voice thick with emotion. ‘Your devotion to Kazim is one of the reasons I adore you, kalila, but I am ashamed to say that sometimes I am jealous that he has a place in your heart and I do not. I suppose you think that’s pathetic, huh? To be jealous of a three-year-old?’ he said heavily.
Erin ran her fingers over his cheekbones, traced his square jaw and brushed a feather-light caress across his lips. ‘You don’t need to be jealous of Kazim,’ she told him gently, feeling a little bubble of happiness form inside her. ‘My heart is big enough for both of you. But you, Zahir, you are the love of my life, the other half to my soul. The first time I saw you here at Ingledean I knew you were the person I had been waiting for all my life—the only man I will ever love.’
For a few seconds he simply stared at her, a nerve jumping in his cheek. But then, with a groan that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, he lifted her onto his knees, his hands tangling in her hair as he claimed her mouth in a kiss that told her more clearly than words that he would love her for eternity.
‘Kalila, I missed you so much this past month that I hurt,’ he growled when he finally released her mouth. He trailed his lips down her throat, his fingers fumbling to unfasten her blouse and then push the material aside so that he could press hot, urgent kisses over the creamy swell of her breasts.
He dispensed with her bra and somehow, without Erin realising how they had got there, they were lying on the grass, and Zahir was kissing her hungrily while he tugged her skirt over her hips. ‘Perhaps our first child will be conceived here at Ingledean,’ he said huskily, making no apology for his desperate need to make love to her as he tugged at the zip of his jeans and stroked a gentle probing hand between her thighs.
‘He or she will be born in Qubbah, which will be our home, where our child’s father and brother will one day rule,’ Erin stated firmly, her smile taking his breath away as she welcomed him into her. ‘We’ll bring our child here to Ingledean for holidays. But as for him or her being conceived here—’ She broke off as he thrust into her, building her pleasure to a crescendo. ‘I’m afraid it’s too late for that. I am already expecting your baby. A true child of the desert.’
‘Habibti…’ Zahir’s voice shook with emotion as he claimed her mouth in a kiss of tender passion and vowed to love her, Kazim, and all the children he prayed they would one day have, for the rest of their lives and beyond.
The Tycoon’s Very Personal Assistant
By Heidi Rice
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
‘I TOLD YOU I’m not a working girl.’ Kate Denton shifted on the stiff leather chair and shot the man sitting on the other side of the mahogany desk her don’t-mess-with-me look. Jetlagged, shaken and as good as naked under the hotel robe she had on, Kate knew the look wasn’t one of her best.
He didn’t reply. The insistent tap of his pen against the desk blotter seemed deafening in the silence. Bright Vegas sunlight shone through the wall of glass to his right and cast his face into shadow, making it impossible to tell his reaction.
Oh, goody, Kate thought grimly. After the most humiliating experience of my entire life, I get interrogated by a hotel manager with a God complex.
Apprehension slithered around in Kate’s stomach like a hyperactive snake. Why on earth had she demanded to see the hotel manager in the first place? It had seemed like a good idea when the concierge had started making noises about calling the police, but once she’d been whisked up to the penthouse suite of offices and ushered in here, she’d started having serious doubts. The guy wasn’t behaving like any hotel manager she’d ever met.
She felt more intimidated now than before.
Obviously hotel managers had a much higher profile in the States. This guy’s workspace would have made the Oval Office look tacky. A lake of luxurious blue carpeting flowed to floor-to-ceiling windows, showcasing the hotel’s enviable position towering over the Las Vegas Strip. The view wasn’t the only thing giving Kate vertigo. The room was so big it accommodated a separate seating area with three deluxe leather sofas, and Kate had recognised the striking canvas on the far wall as that of a modern artist whose work now went for millions. She’d also noticed the guy had not one but three secretaries standing guard outside.
No wonder he had a God complex.
‘A working girl? You mean a hooker?’ His deep voice rumbled out at last, sending an annoying shiver of awareness up Kate’s spine. ‘I don’t recall saying I thought you were a hooker, honey.’
Kate heard the hint of amusement and her jaw tensed. ‘Who gave you permission to call me honey?’ she said, grateful for the crisp note of condescension in her voice.
‘I don’t need permission,’ he replied dryly, ‘when the lady in question was trying to break down a door in my hotel wearing nothing but a bra and thong.’
Kate swallowed. Okay, there was that.
‘It’s not a thong. I have proper knickers on,’ she blurted out, and then winced.
The memory of getting caught by the bell captain and bundled into a robe flooded back to her. Embarrassment scorched her cheeks. The fact she had something slightly more substantial than a thong covering her bottom suddenly didn’t seem all that relevant. That she’d mentioned it to him was mortifying. She’d yet to get a proper look at the guy and already he knew far too much about her underwear.
The metronome taps of his pen interrupted her thoughts. ‘Proper panties or not, you were causing a disturbance.’
The heat in Kate’s cheeks soared. What was this guy’s problem? She was the one who’d been manhandled. So she’d raised her voice and kicked the door a little, but wouldn’t anyone who got stranded in a hotel corridor practically naked?
‘I was trying to get back into the room.’
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t your room, was it?’ He leaned forward, propping his elbows on the desk, and the sunlight illuminated his features at last.
Kate’s heart pulsed hard. Hooded green eyes studied her out of a tanned face that was quite simply dazzling in its masculine beauty. Sharp black brows, chiselled cheeks and short dark hair that curled around his ears only added to the firepower. Even with his face carefully devoid of expression, the guy might as well have had a huge neon sign over his head flashing the word ‘irresistible’ at her.
From the way he was watching her, she wondered if he was waiting for her to swoon. She tightened the tie on the robe, absolutely determined not to start drooling.
Luckily for her, she was currently immune to the alpha male of the species.
‘It was my room, or at least it was supposed to be,’ she said, annoyed by the quake in her voice. She wrapped her arms round her waist, far too aware of the air-conditioned breeze chilling her bare legs.
His gaze swept over her and Kate felt the throb of response. All right, maybe not completely immune.
‘You’re not registered here.’ His emerald eyes shifted back to hers. ‘Mr Rocastle, who is the registered guest, has made a complaint against you. So, why don’t you tell me why I shouldn’t just kick you out in your proper panties?’
Andrew Rocastle had duped her, practically assaulted her and then humiliated her into the bargain. And now this guy thought it was funny. When had this become stomp-all-over-Kate day?
‘It’s not my fault Mr Rocastle didn’t put my name on the registration card when he checked us in this morning. I thought he’d booked us separate rooms,’ she ground out, angry all over again at Andrew’s underhanded attempt at a seduction. ‘And anyway, I don’t have to explain myself to you. None of this is any of your business. You’re a hotel manager, not my mother.’
Zack Boudreaux’s eyebrow winged up. For such a little thing, she sure had a big mouth. He didn’t consider himself arrogant, but women were usually a lot nicer to him. He’d certainly never encountered this level of hostility before.
In the normal course of events, he wouldn’t even know about this type of minor disturbance, let alone be asked to deal with it. But with The Phoenix’s manager on vacation for the day and his deputy on a training programme, the concierge had referred the matter up to Zack’s PA. He’d heard the commotion in the outer office and buzzed the woman in out of curiosity. Truth be told, after clearing his calendar for the rest of the week in preparation for his trip to California, he’d found himself with nothing to do for the first time in close to ten years and he was bored.
One thing was for sure, the minute this feisty little firecracker had waltzed into his office wrapped in her bathrobe and a very bad attitude, he hadn’t been bored any more.
He knew it was perverse, but for some weird reason he found her sassy comebacks entertaining. Imagining her in the corridor without the bathrobe was doing the rest.