by Lynne Graham
‘Do you think we could do it?’ she whispered.
‘I think we must for his benefit,’ Jai countered levelly. ‘And as soon as possible. Are we agreed?’
Almost mesmerised by the blaze of his full attention, Willow nodded very slowly. ‘Yes.’
She was going to marry Jai and the concept was surreal: Jai the playboy with his polo ponies and trophies, his heritage palaces, his long backstory of glamorous and impossibly beautiful former lovers. Yet she was so ordinary, so unexciting in comparison, she thought in dismay. Even worse, he didn’t want to marry her and he had admitted it.
But that honesty of his was good, she told herself fiercely. Should she be ashamed of the reality that the very idea of being freed from all her financial worries was a relief? Did that mean that she was greedy? Or simply that she was tired of feeling like an inadequate mother? Without Jai, she had found it impossible to give Hari the comfort and security he deserved. With Jai, everything would be different. In addition, she would have far more rights over her own son if she married Jai. In terms of custody they would be equal partners then, she reasoned, and no matter what happened between her and Jai she would have very little reason to fear losing access to her little boy.
What would it be like, though, being married to a man who didn’t love or really want her? Jai hadn’t even wanted her enough to ask to see her again, she reminded herself doggedly, reeling from the toxic bite of that fact. Yes, sure, he had tried to check up on her a couple of months afterwards, she conceded grudgingly, but by that stage only an ingrained sense of responsibility towards Brian Allerton’s daughter had been driving him, nothing more personal.
Of course, she didn’t love him either, she reminded herself doggedly. All the same, she couldn’t take her eyes off Jai when he was in the same room and her heart hammered and her mouth ran dry every time he looked at her. If she was honest with herself, she was sort of fascinated by Jai, always hungry to know more about him and work out what made him tick. He had accepted Hari without question and moved them straight into his home.
Yes, he had threatened her with legal action but only on Hari’s behalf, not to take her son away from her, indeed only, it seemed, to pressure her into leaving the hostel and agreeing to marry him. With shocking shrewdness, he had accomplished that objective within hours, she registered in belated dismay. Yet he had done it even though at heart he didn’t want to marry her! But that was the mystery that was Jai. He was volatile and emotional and very hot-blooded, yet he was still apparently willing to settle for a practical marriage…
Jai watched Willow walk away from him to return to their son. Evidently, he was about to acquire a wife. He gritted his teeth, for being forced to marry to bring Hari officially into the family was even less attractive than increasing age prompting him to the challenge. Marriage was difficult, as his parents’ failure to surmount their differences proved. But he knew in his heart that he owed Willow a wedding ring. It was that simple, because what he had done with her broke every principle he had been raised to respect: he had greedily and irresponsibly taken an innocent woman and slept with her when she was vulnerable, and even in the act he had not protected her as he should’ve done.
He found it hard, though, to forgive her for hiding Hari from him and denying him precious moments of his son’s babyhood that would never be repeated. But he had to set that anger aside, he reminded himself fiercely, shelve the pointless regrets that he could have been such an idiot and concentrate instead on the present. He should be relieved that she still attracted him, even if he resented the constant disturbing pull of her understated sensuality. He didn’t know how she still had that effect on him, and he wasn’t planning to explore it again, not until they were safely, decently married.
‘You look a treat,’ Shelley said, patting Willow’s hand as they travelled in a limousine to the civil ceremony at the register office.
Willow shivered, scolding herself for having picked a wedding dress unsuited to autumn, but then she had been living on a dizzy merry-go-round of change and struggling to adapt throughout the past week in Jai’s London home. Agreeing to marry Jai had been like jumping on an express train that hurtled along at breakneck speed. He had pointed out that getting married in Chandrapur would entail a solid week of festivities while getting married discreetly in London would only require an hour and a couple of witnesses.
She had spent most of the week with Hari because Jai had been busy working. She had, however, seen Jai at mealtimes and had tripped over him in the nursery more than once. Surrounded by a bevy of admiring nursemaids, Jai was attempting to get to know his son and Hari was thriving on the amount of attention he was receiving. Willow could already see that the biggest problem of her son’s new lifestyle would be ensuring that Hari did not grow up into an over-indulged young man, unacquainted with the word ‘no.’
Her wedding gown left her arms and throat bare. With cap sleeves, a crystal-beaded corset top and a sparkly tulle skirt, it was a fairy-tale dress and very bridal. In retrospect, Willow was embarrassed about the choice she had made and worried that it was too excessive for the occasion. But who knew if she would ever get married again? And when she was faced with choosing her one and possibly only wedding dress, she had gone with her heart.
Luckily, she had had Shelley’s support when a stylist had arrived at the house and informed her that she had been instructed to provide Willow with a whole new wardrobe. A huge wardrobe of clothes tailored to fit Willow had been delivered within forty-eight hours, outfits chosen to shine at any possible occasion and many of the options decidedly grand. Hari now also rejoiced in many changes of exclusive baby clothing. Jai, Willow reckoned ruefully, was rewriting their history and redesigning his bride into a far more fashionable and exclusive version of herself. Did he appreciate that that determination to improve her appearance only revealed that he had previously found her unpolished and gauche?
She walked into the anteroom with Shelley by her side. Jai approached her with his best friend, Sher, and performed an introduction. Sher was the Nizam of Tharistan and he and Jai had been childhood playmates. Sher was tall, black-haired and as sleekly handsome as a Bollywood movie star. Beside her, she felt Shelley breathe in deep and slow as though she was bracing herself and she almost laughed at her friend’s susceptibility to a good-looking man until it occurred to her that she was even more susceptible to Jai.
‘You chose a beautiful dress,’ Jai murmured. ‘It will look most appropriate in the photographs.’
‘What photographs?’ she asked with a frown.
‘I have organised a photographer to record the occasion. Brides and grooms always want to capture such precious memories on film, I believe,’ he advanced calmly. ‘A photo will be released to the local media in Chandrapur and some day Hari may wish to look at them.’
Willow grasped that he had wanted her to look suitably bridal in the photographs and understood that there was nothing personal in the compliment. He was simply keen for her to visibly fit the bridal role so that the haste that had prompted their marriage was less obvious.
They entered the room where the ceremony was to take place. Willow focussed on a rather tired-looking display of flowers in a cheap vase and tensed as Jai threaded the wedding ring onto her finger. She turned in the circle of his arms, thinking numbly, I am married to Jai now, but it didn’t feel remotely real. It felt like a fevered dream, much as that night in his arms had felt.
It felt a little more real when she shivered on the steps outside and posed for the photographer that awaited them. Jai smiled down at her, that killer smile of his that made her stupid heart flutter like a trapped bird inside her chest, and she remembered him smiling down at her that night in the aftermath of satisfaction. And, of course, Jai was pleased, she told herself ruefully—he had accomplished exactly what he wanted for Hari.
They returned to the house for a light lunch. Hari was brought down to meet
Sher and then Sher offered to give Shelley a lift home.
‘Does he have a limousine?’ Willow asked with amusement in her clear eyes after she had hugged her scatty friend and promised to invite her out to Chandrapur for her annual holiday.
‘I should think so. Sher made his fortune in the film world before he went into business,’ Jai told her. ‘And we need to make tracks now for the airport.’
‘I’ll get changed.’ But, still immobile, Willow hovered in the hall as Jai closed the distance between them and reached for her, his eyes as bright as a silvery blue polar flame.
‘It is a shame that you have to take off that dress without me to do the honours,’ Jai husked soft and low, his fiery attention locking so intently to the luscious pout of her pink lips that a convulsive shiver rippled through her slender frame. ‘But if I joined you now, if I even dared to touch you, we would never make the flight this side of tomorrow.’
Her breath feathered dangerously in her throat, her entire body quickening and pulsing in response to that heated appraisal and the smooth eroticism of those words while he kept his lean, powerful frame carefully separate from hers. Her five senses were screaming with a hunger that hurt, the achingly familiar scent of him, which only made her want to be closer to taste him, the tingling in her fingertips at the prospect of touching him, the rasp of his dark deep voice in her ears throwing up the recollection of his ecstatic groan in the darkness of the night. It was an overwhelmingly potent combination.
‘Go upstairs, soniyaa,’ Jai urged thickly.
On trembling legs, Willow spun away, only to get a few steps and halt again to turn back to him. ‘What does that mean?’
‘In Hindi? Beautiful one,’ he translated.
Shaken, Willow climbed the stairs, breathless from the spell he had cast over her, the sheer shocking effect of that high-voltage sexuality focussed on her again. And yet he had not touched her once since she had moved into his house, had left her alone in her bed, maintaining a polite and pleasant attitude without a hint of intimacy when they met at occasional mealtimes. Why was that? Why had he kept his distance even after she had agreed to marry him?
It had made Willow feel that his former attraction to her had been a short-lived thing, a flash in the pan, one of those weird, almost inexplicable incidents that struck only in a moment of temptation. Now it seemed that Jai was much more drawn to her than he had been willing to reveal but, while he had maintained his reserve, he had damaged her self-esteem because the awareness that she still craved him when he did not seem to return that compliment or share that weakness had felt humiliating.
After checking on Hari, who was enjoying a comfortable nap after his midday feed, Willow changed into one of her new outfits, an elegant fitted sheath dress and slender high heels teamed with a jacket for the cooler temperatures of London.
She had never travelled in a private jet before and Jai’s was spectacularly well-appointed in terms of comfort and space. She sat down beside Hari’s crib in the sleeping compartment and fell deeply, dreamlessly asleep. Jai glanced in at the two of them and when he saw her curled up on the bed next to his son’s crib, his chest tightened, and he breathed in deep and slow. They were his wife and child, his family now, and, in spite of what he had expected, he didn’t feel trapped. No, so intense was his hunger for her that he couldn’t think further than the night ahead when that raw hunger would finally be sated.
Willow’s strawberry-blond waves tumbled across the pristine pillow, her soft mouth tranquil, her heart-shaped face relaxed in slumber. She was a beauty and his tribe of relatives would greet her like manna from heaven for they had long awaited his marriage. Hari would simply be the cherry on the top of an award-winning cake.
Willow wakened to the news that they were landing at Chandrapur in half an hour and with the time difference it was almost lunchtime. Hari occupied the first fifteen minutes until Shanaya took over and the remainder of the time Willow hurtled around showering and changing.
Jai’s bodyguards moved round them as their party emerged from the VIP channel and a roar of sound met her ears. Dozens of photographers were leaning over the barriers with cameras and shouting questions. The flashes blinded her. Until that unsettling moment she had forgotten how famous Jai was in his birth country. Single as well as very good-looking and immensely successful, he was highly photogenic and a media dream. His sports exploits on the polo field, his business achievements and the gloss of his playboy lifestyle provided plenty of useful gossip-column fodder.
‘Sorry about that. I should’ve timed the announcement of our marriage better,’ Jai breathed above her head as he steered her down a quiet corridor and back out to the sunlit tarmac. The heat of midday was more than she had expected as she scanned the clear blue sky above them and she was relieved to climb into the waiting vehicle that, Jai assured her, would quickly whisk them to journey’s end.
‘Where’s Hari?’ she gasped worriedly.
‘In the car behind us. I often make this transfer by helicopter but Shanaya doesn’t trust a helicopter with a child as precious as Hari.’ Jai chuckled.
Precious, Willow savoured, enjoying that word being linked to her son. A crush of noisy traffic surrounded them, and she peered out of the windows. There were a lot of trucks and cars, colourful tuk-tuks painted with bright advertisements and many motorbikes with women in bright saris riding side-saddle behind the driver in what looked like a very precarious position. Horns blared, vehicles moved off and then ground to a sudden halt again to allow a herd of sacred bulls to wander placidly through the traffic. Bursts of loud music filtered into the car as they drove along beside a lake. By the side of the dusty road she saw dancers gyrating.
‘It’s a festival day and the streets are crammed. Luckily our palace isn’t far,’ Jai remarked.
Our palace.
Willow almost smiled at the designation, for she had never dreamt that those two words used together would ever feature in her future. ‘So, you’re taking me to where your family’s story began—’
‘No. My family’s story began at the fortress in the fourteenth century. Look out of the window,’ Jai urged. ‘See the fort on the crags above the city…’
Willow looked up in wonder at the vast red sandstone fortress sprawling across the cliffs above the city. ‘My ancestor first invaded Chandrapur in the thirteenth century. It took his family a hundred and forty years of assaults and sieges but eventually they conquered the fort. We will visit it next week,’ he promised. ‘At present it’s full of tourists…we would have no privacy.’
‘Then, where are we going now?’
‘The Lake Palace,’ Jai told her lazily. ‘It’s surrounded by water and a private wildlife reserve and immensely private. It is where I make my home.’
‘So you like…have a choice of palaces to use?’ Willow was gobsmacked by the concept of having a selection.
‘The third one is half palace, half hotel, built by my great-grandfather in high deco style in the twenties. We will visit there too,’ Jai assured her calmly.
‘Three? And that’s it…here?’ Willow checked.
‘There is also the Monsoon Palace. A very much loved and spoilt wife in the sixteenth century accounts for that one,’ Jai proffered almost apologetically. ‘I leave it to the tourists.’
‘You own an awful lot of property,’ Willow remarked numbly.
‘And now you own it too…as Sher reminded me, I didn’t ask you to sign a pre-nuptial agreement,’ Jai parried, shocking and startling her with that comment.
‘We did get married in a hurry,’ Willow conceded ruefully.
‘Let us hope that neither of us live to regret that omission,’ Jai murmured without expression.
‘I’m not greedy. If we ever split up,’ Willow told him in a rush, rising above the sinking sensation in her stomach at that concept, ‘I won’t ever try to take what’s not mine. I’m very co
nscious that I entered this marriage with nothing and all I would ask for is enough to keep Hari and I somewhere secure and comfortable.’
‘My biggest fear would be losing daily access to my son,’ Jai confided with a harsh edge to his dark, deep voice.
Willow suppressed a shiver. ‘Let’s not even talk about it,’ she muttered, turning to look at a quartet of women, their beautiful veils floating in the breeze as they carried giant metal water containers on their heads.
On both sides of the road stretched the desert, where only groves of acacia bushes, milk thistle and spiky grass grew in the sand. It was a hard, unforgiving land where water was of vital importance and only a couple of miles further on, where irrigation had been made possible, lay an oasis of small fields of crops and greenery, which utterly transformed the landscape.
His hand covered her tense fingers. ‘We won’t let anything split us up,’ Jai told her. ‘Hari’s happiness depends on us staying together.’
‘Did you miss your mother so much?’ Willow heard herself ask without even thinking.
‘I was a baby when she deserted my father and I have no memory of her,’ Jai admitted flatly as he removed his hand from hers. ‘I met her only once as an adult. I don’t talk about my mother…ever.’
Willow swallowed painfully hard as her cheeks burned in receipt of that snub and she knew that she wouldn’t be raising that thorny topic again.
CHAPTER FIVE
THEY DROVE ALONG a heavily wooded and fenced road and over a very decorative bridge on which a cluster of pale grey monkeys was perched. A tall archway ushered the car into a large central courtyard, ringed by a vast two-storey white building, picturesquely ornamented with domed roofs and a pillared frontage. Only then did Willow appreciate that they had arrived at the Lake Palace.
As she climbed out of the car, she was surprised to see a group of colourfully clad musicians drumming and playing with enthusiasm to greet their arrival. A trio of maids hurried down the steps fronting the long pillared façade of the building, bearing cool drinks, hot cloths for freshening up and garlands of marigolds. Behind them, from every corner of the complex poured more staff.