It was enough to make her remember their assignation—her back against the wall as he hoisted her legs around his waist and thrust into her, her hands frantically grasping at him. Both of them made courageous by darkness and anonymity.
No. She would not tell him her address. He might be anyone and her home was her safe space. Her haven. A place where she could relax and just be. It was her bolthole, and there was no way she was going to give him that information.
‘You’re not going to do this, you know.’
‘Do what?’
‘Go all alpha on me. Order me about.’ She could hear her own voice quaking as she stood up for herself.
‘I care about you.’
‘No, you don’t. You got me pregnant and now you think that you’ve got to be seen to be doing the right thing. Well, I’m giving you an out. You’re off the hook—you can walk away.’
It would be easier, wouldn’t it? To do it alone? Without a man? Because men were frightening. They didn’t know what it felt like to be a woman. To know that half the population was bigger and physically stronger than you. That they could overpower you if they cared to try. Not to be able to walk down a street without fearing the footsteps you could hear behind you. Always having to be aware of your surroundings. Of who might be looking at you strangely. Were they just curious, or were they about to pounce?
He leaned forward and stared at her. ‘I don’t know what experiences previous men have given you, but let me tell you something. I am not that kind of man. When I do something I take full responsibility for it. And that means taking care of you and taking care of that baby.’
‘But you don’t have to. I can do it alone.’
‘I do have to. It’s my child. It has to be honourable.’
‘Why does it have to be honourable?’
Even as she said the words she realised how childish she sounded. Why wouldn’t she want her baby to be honourable? Was she cheapening it already? By saying it didn’t matter if it was ‘honourable’?
But this was her baby! She had dreamt of this for years!
He recoiled as if she’d slapped him, as if he was appalled that she could think anything else.
‘Because it has to be. I won’t have it any other way.’
She moved the banana. She could smell it and it was beginning to turn her stomach.
‘If everything you do is “honourable”, then how come you had a quickie with a stranger in a closet? Surely being honourable would make you at least a hotel-room-with-satin-sheets kind of man?’
‘Maybe I am?’ he challenged, pushing the banana back towards her. ‘There is plenty that you don’t know about me, Freya MacFadden.’
The use of her name made her narrow her eyes as she looked at him. God, he was beautiful. Almond-shaped eyes, dark as ink, cheekbones a model would die for, and his lips…
Oh, goodness, I remember those…
Freya cleared her throat and tried to sound as if she was in control of this conversation. ‘Well, perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?’
Jamie checked around them, as if keen to make sure they were alone and no one was listening in.
‘I can’t tell you right now. You wouldn’t believe me. Perhaps if you agreed to meet me here?’
He pulled a card from his uniform pocket and slid it across to her. It was a glossy black card with the name of a hotel in silver.
Why did he want to meet her in a hotel? What kind of movie did Jamie think he was living in? He was deluded. This was normal life. People didn’t do that. There was no way she was going to meet a total stranger in a hotel!
‘Can’t you just tell me?’
‘You wouldn’t believe it. Please meet me there.’
It would be a public place. Safe. But it would be in daylight. When there were other people about. Not in his room. Nowhere they could be alone. But she would have to face other people’s stares.
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow? Before your shift? We do need to talk about this and we can’t do it here.’
She could maybe put on some sunglasses and wrap a thick scarf around her neck, then no one would stare at her. She could get there before everyone else was up and milling around for breakfast. She could listen to what he had to say, give him his five minutes, then slink out quietly.
‘Fine. About six? That gives us an hour before work.’
‘Thank you.’
She nodded, then picked up the banana, gave it back to him and said, ‘Now, take that away, please, before I throw up all over this desk.’
His mouth curled slightly at the corners. ‘Tomorrow I’ll bring you grapes.’
*
The Franklin Hotel sat atop a hill, so that as Freya drove towards it she had a sense of awe and magnificence as she approached the beautiful Georgian manor. Looking at it from a distance, she wondered how Jamie could afford to stay in such an opulent place.
I don’t have to go in. I don’t have to hear what he has to say.
But she knew she would. Because, no matter how terrified she felt, she knew that she owed her baby the chance to know something about its father. So she could look her child in the eye and tell him, or her, that she’d tried everything.
It looked welcoming and warm, with yellow lights gleaming out in the darkness of the early morning, the sky above a blue which was fading from inky navy to palest azure.
Parking her little hatchback next to rows of expensive cars with chauffeurs sitting in them made her feel a little uneasy. Why had Jamie asked her to meet him here? What was it that she was about to learn from him?
He was a midwife. A damned sexy one, if she was honest, with an accent to die for and eyes that looked right into her soul and grasped her by the heart. She’d never met anyone like him. The mystery was what could he tell her here that she would never have believed if he’d just told her at work?
Whether she liked it or not, whilst this baby nestled in her womb they would be tied to one another—and Jamie seemed determined to be in her life.
Adjusting her scarf and lowering her sunglasses, she strolled across the gravel driveway, her nerves jittery, her legs weak. In the hotel, gentle music playing from a piano met her ears. To her right was a reception desk, where exquisite and perfectly presented staff waited to attend to every guest’s needs.
‘May I help you, madam?’ asked a young man in a navy suit with enough gel in his hair to sink a ship.
No, it’s fine. I’m just leaving.
‘I’m supposed to be meeting a Mr Jamie Baker?’
‘Miss MacFadden? We’ve been expecting you.’ He smiled, revealing perfectly white teeth. ‘Please take the lift to my right and go up to the third floor.’
Take the lift? Go to the third floor? That wasn’t meeting in a public space. That meant going to his room. Where there was a bed.
‘Oh…um… What room number?’
‘Mr Baker has the entire third floor.’
Freya blinked. What? Who went to a hotel and took up an entire floor? That was the sort of thing celebrities did with their entourages, or royalty, or…
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
What was going on? It was all so confusing. He was just a guy, right? A normal guy.
Was he rich?
The night they’d met at the gala she’d known there was a member of royalty there. She’d heard the rumour but she’d never been introduced to anyone. There’d been no announcement. Everyone had hidden behind their masks and it had been exciting. You could talk to anyone and not know it!
Including royalty.
Have sex in a closet with them, if you so chose…
Freya swallowed hard, trying to control her rapidly weakening legs as she hesitantly went over to the lifts and pressed the button.
I could still go. I could run. Just get the hell out of here!
She stood there, fidgeting with the tassels on her scarf, as she waited for the lift to come down to the ground floor.
I owe it to our baby.<
br />
Was Jamie a member of some royal family? How could that be?
She thought about turning tail and running—changing her mind and hiding somewhere. Her parents’ beach house on Hayling Island, perhaps. It was the place she went when she needed to hide and think. She’d gone there when she’d first been released from hospital, months after the acid attack, and she’d had to wear that damned orthotic burns mask every day, marking her out as different.
She’d felt like a leper. As if there was a bright neon arrow over her head screaming that here was someone not normal.
The house on Hayling Island would soon be filling up with summer rentals, but hopefully no one was there right now. Jamie wouldn’t know where to find her. It would be good for her to take a break while the morning sickness was in full swing.
The lift pinged, signalling its arrival, and the doors slid open. On the back wall of the lift was an ornate mirror and she gazed at her reflection, wondering what the woman in the mirror should do. Run like hell? It was like staring into a prison.
All ye who enter here…
But Freya had seen more than enough women arrive on her ward to give birth alone, without a father involved, and she had felt sorry for all those children who would grow up without an interested father.
Jamie wanted to be involved. He’d said he would not shirk his responsibility. All she’d ever wanted was to be loved and to have a baby—something she’d thought would never happen after her acid attack—and here she was, pregnant and with a guy who said he wanted to be involved. She owed him a chance, the opportunity to show her what he could provide for their child.
With hesitation Freya stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the third floor, eyeing the reception area with longing as the lift doors closed her in.
As the lift ascended she gripped the strap of her bag as if it was a lifeline. An anchor to real life. The sensation that her world was about to change for ever was drowning her in anticipation, and she wished she’d eaten more of those ginger biscuits before coming, because her stomach felt as if it was about to explode.
The lift stopped rising. Ping! The doors slid open to reveal two men in dark suits.
Her stomach flipped and she looked from one to the other.
Guards? Why does Jamie need guards?
They were wearing those earpieces that secret service men had on television. They asked her to put her bag through a scanner, and then she had to walk through a metal detector shaped like a doorway before they escorted her down the corridor towards a pair of ornate doors.
What on earth have I got myself into?
Silently she followed, feeling like a little girl between giants. Were they wearing guns beneath their jackets? Her mouth went dry at the thought of it and she gripped her bag tighter, as if that small item would somehow protect her from what was to come.
At ornate double doors the men stopped and grabbed a handle each, stepping back to open the doors wide.
Freya sucked in a steadying breath as her eyes hungrily took in the details of the room. A four-poster bed set with golden drapes in an opulent room adorned with fine art and floor-to-ceiling windows. Gilt-edged tables, fresh flowers in vases that were almost as tall as she was. And standing in the middle, in a long white tunic and trousers, was Jamie. As if he’d been waiting for her.
She stared at him, not sure what to do. Or say.
Now she could understand why he hadn’t just told her all this.
‘You’re right,’ she said, clearing her throat and looking straight at him. ‘I would never have believed you.’
*
Jamie poured her some tea, adding two cubes of sugar to the drink. He frowned slightly when he saw how her hands were shaking when she went to take it from him, then set it down on the table instead and took her hands in his to calm them.
‘It’s all right, Freya.’
‘Is it?’ She looked at him askance. ‘Who are you, Jamie?’
‘My name is Jameel Al Bakhari and I am heir to the throne of Majidar. My older brother Ilias is King, ruling with his wife Queen Jasmeen, but they have been unable to sire any children so I am next in line. I also have a younger sister, Zahra, who has just married.’
It all sounded as if it was from a film. ‘Heir to the throne…?’
‘Yes.’
‘Royalty?’
‘Yes.’
It was a struggle to process. ‘But…but you work as a midwife.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? Why do that, when you’re a…a prince?’
He smiled. ‘I did not ask to be born a prince. Ruling a kingdom and waving at crowds from a distance is not what I felt I was meant to do. I want to know people. Help them personally. When my father sat upon the throne he took us with him to a hospital, where he was opening a new neonatal unit. I was very young—maybe eight or nine. We toured the labour ward, saw the new state-of-the-art theatre and the incubators that held tiny newborns. I was fascinated by the babies, and when we returned to the palace an idea took hold. The more I thought about it, the more I realised I wanted to deliver babies. To hold the miracle of life in my own two hands and experience the joy of bringing a new life into the world.’
Freya nodded. ‘But why be a midwife? You could have been a doctor. An obstetrician. A surgeon!’
‘I could. But those paths didn’t interest me. I wanted to deliver the babies. An obstetrician gets called in only if there’s a problem. A surgeon just takes care of Caesareans. I wanted to be there through the whole labour—to monitor progress, develop that close relationship a midwife creates with each patient. My mother spoke fondly of all her midwives. I would beg her to tell me, over and over again, the stories of our births—mine, my brother’s and my sister’s. Even after all those years she could remember every detail, and it was the midwives of whom she spoke the most highly. I wanted to be that person. To have that impact on people’s lives. To be remembered in such a way. Selfish, perhaps, but true.’
‘I don’t think it’s selfish.’
He inclined his head in thanks. ‘I asked my father if I could study towards midwifery. Focus on the sciences so that midwifery could be my calling. But he would not allow it. He said it was not appropriate for a prince of my standing to attend to such work usually reserved for women.’
Freya couldn’t imagine what she might have felt if her mother had forbidden her from becoming a midwife. ‘What happened?’
‘I had to put my wishes to one side until my father died and my brother Ilias took the throne. I assumed then, like they did, that they would soon overwhelm the palace with little babies and that I would no longer be next in line to sit upon the throne and rule. So I begged Ilias to let me come to England to follow my education and have the life that I wanted. Ilias is much more modern in his thinking and he agreed that I should have the life of my own choosing.’
‘You said your brother doesn’t have any children?’
‘No. Ilias and Jasmeen have never been blessed. Therefore I am still next in line to sit on the throne—something I have no desire to do, but must endure when the time comes. And it will come. Eventually. My brother, as considerate as he is, has begun asking me when I will return. He tells me that I must be seen to be upholding some of my royal duties, so that when my time comes the people will know me better and accept my succession.’
‘So you have to go back?’
‘Not immediately. Ilias is still young—just a few years older than me—but his health is not the best.’
Freya looked down at her tea. The nausea and shock had subsided somewhat now, and she felt more comfortable about taking a sip. ‘So what you’re trying to say, in a roundabout way, is that I’m carrying the heir to your throne?’
Jamie inhaled a deep breath as he looked at her. She seemed tiny suddenly. He hadn’t wanted to scare her, or overwhelm her, but he’d known if he’d tried to explain this on the hospital ward she would never have believed it. She needed to see it. Experience this.
; ‘Yes.’
His acknowledgement was too much. Too overwhelming. She suddenly felt as if she was being suffocated as her mind whirled with all the possibilities that would entail. She got up and began to pace. Walking back and forth, back and forth as she thought hard about how she could get out of this situation.
A royal baby? Heir to a throne? It would mean her life changing. Never to be hers again. All her choices taken from her. All her control gone and given over to someone else.
‘Tradition dictates that if everything remains well we should marry before the child is born.’
What? Marriage? No, no, no, no…
She shook her head frantically. ‘I’m sorry, but no. I can’t. I can’t do that, Jamie. I won’t!’
He stood up too, and reached for her arm, but she swiped his hand away.
‘Marrying you would make me…what? A princess? A queen? I can’t be that! Stared at… With people judging me on a global scale… Why do you think I do night shifts? I love my little world. I’m happy there. I’m accepted. Do you think I want any of what you’re offering?’
‘But, Freya, we need to—’
It was all spiralling away. Her control—everything. Disappearing into a black hole that was vast and powerful. It couldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it! She had the right to say no!
She didn’t know this man. Even though she’d been intimate with him, conceived a child with him, worked with him. She didn’t know him.
Didn’t know how he would react if she backed away…
Would he be like Mike? Refuse to let her go?
I need to get away.
Her hand reached into her bag and grasped her mobile phone. She pulled it out and activated the phone keypad, pressed the numbers nine-nine-nine and hesitated. Ready to press ‘Call’ if anything went wrong.
‘No, Jamie. We don’t need to do anything. You don’t need to do anything. You can forget about me—you can walk away and pretend that I never existed. You can go back to your kingdom, when the time arrives, and marry a proper princess—someone beautiful, someone the people will expect.’
‘You are beautiful.’
She laughed at his response. ‘You’re just saying that. Do you really think you would have asked a girl like me to marry you if I wasn’t pregnant? With this face? I don’t think so.’
Pregnant with His Royal Twins Page 4