by Lynne Graham
Alisha directed her downstairs, where Ranjit guided her across the echoing main hallway into yet another splendid room furnished with a formal dining table and chairs. Coloured glass panels portraying a fanciful forest full of fantasy animals decorated the walls and it was wonderfully cool and air-conditioned.
‘So, some of this place is air-conditioned,’ Willow remarked as Jai strode in, and in stark comparison to her moreover, barefoot and clad with almost laughable informality in an open-necked red shirt and well-fitted designer jeans that outlined his lean hips and long, powerful thighs. As always, he looked amazing and her breath shortened in her throat as involuntarily she relived the feel of his hot skin below her stroking fingers, the springy softness of his black hair and, ultimately, the crashing intoxicating surge of his mouth on hers.
Burning up with chagrin inside her own skin, Willow dropped hastily into a chair.
‘Yes, those rooms where it was possible without seriously damaging the décor. If you find our bedroom too warm, just tell me. I will make it possible there too, but I do not expect us to spend much time here during the hottest months of the year,’ he imparted smoothly, his dark low-pitched voice, richer than velvet, brushing against skin suddenly pebbling with goose bumps. ‘The summer heat can be unbearable.’
Willow nodded as a wide selection of little bites was brought in to serve as a first course and Ranjit carefully indicated the spicy items lest they not be to her taste, while Jai talked about the local sights he intended to show her. She tried a sample of flavours while wondering if Jai intended merely to act as though that argument had not taken place, but, once the staff had melted away with delivery of their main course, Jai fell suddenly silent and she glanced up from her plate anxiously to find those wolfish ice-blue eyes locked hard to her.
‘There is something I must say,’ he began, uncharacteristically hesitant in tone. ‘There are times when we will perceive events in a dissimilar light because of the different cultures in which we grew up…’
‘Obviously,’ Willow breathed tightly.
‘The morning after we spent that first night together is one of those events. For me, it was inexcusably wrong to take a woman’s virginity when I was not in a serious relationship with her. I could not treat that as though it was something of no consequence, but I was equally guilty of having made the assumption that you would not be so innocent, living in your more liberal society,’ he completed levelly.
‘Jai, I—’ Willow began awkwardly, not having foreseen quite how much of an issue that had genuinely been for him.
‘Let me finish,’ he urged, topping up her wine glass with a lithe and elegant hand. ‘I felt very guilty that day. I was deeply ashamed of my behaviour. I took advantage of you when you were grieving and alone and in need of support.’
‘It didn’t feel that way to me,’ Willow protested, breaking in.
‘We are talking about how it felt to be me that morning,’ Jai reminded her drily. ‘I felt like a total bastard, who had seduced an innocent young woman, and clearly how I felt fed into making you feel rejected and insulted…but that result was not intentional. I remained sincerely concerned for your well-being, which is why I attempted to see you again a couple of months later, by which time you must’ve known you were pregnant.’
At the reminder, Willow flushed a discomfited brick red. ‘And Shelley lied for me and said she didn’t know where I was because she knew I didn’t want to see you again,’ she filled in for him uneasily. ‘I’m sorry but that was just how I felt back then. I was a bit naive. I was feeling well and I thought I would manage fine without you. Before I forget, can I ask you something off-topic?’
His winged ebony brows drew together in a frown at that query. ‘You can ask me anything although I cannot always guarantee an answer.’
‘Why did I have to get all dressed up in a long fancy gown when you’re wearing jeans and no shoes?’
And the tension still thick round the table just evaporated then and there as Jai flung his handsome dark head back and laughed with disconcerting appreciation of that simple question. Raking a long-fingered brown hand through his silky black hair, he surveyed her with amusement still glittering like stardust in his bright black-lashed eyes. ‘I can only assume that it was my mother’s practice or my grandmother’s practice to get “all dressed up” for dinner because that is how long it has been since this palace had a mistress. Your maid will have been given advice on what you would want to wear for such an occasion and, since you are English, it may well date back to the years of the British Raj,’ he warned her with a wide smile. ‘And be generations out of date. You don’t need to dress up for dinner for my benefit. You can wear whatever you like, soniyaa.’
That smile of his and the endearment on top of the explanation he had carefully outlined melted that hard little knot that had formed in Willow’s chest earlier that day. Jai was trying and she recognised that, respected him for it, liked him for it. But at the other end of the scale she was wondering what other misunderstandings would crop up when there were such basic differences between their outlooks on life. Even so, stifling that anxious thought, she smiled back at him, shaken to discover how fast she wanted him again, as if that afternoon of passion had only been a dream.
‘This evening I will show you around what remains of your new home and tomorrow we will go out and explore,’ Jai promised her lazily.
And the week that followed was full of enjoyment, occasional challenges and surprises and the beginning of a fascination with her surroundings that rooted deep. There was the ancient old gardener who brought her flowers every day, and the cook who had a burning desire to know what her favourite foods were, and the sharing of playtimes with Hari and his father, so that a lifestyle that at first had seemed strange became her new normal. Hari was always surrounded by loving carers and it was not unusual to hear his chuckles as he was rocked in a solid-silver nursery swing that had rocked his ancestors for generations and which really should have been in a museum.
Willow visited the Hindu temple and the white marble park of elaborate ancestral tombs that overlooked the holy lake. She accepted garlands and blessings and small gifts for Hari as well as her share of the awe that Jai’s mere presence inspired amongst the locals. She posed for photos for the local journalists, who were much more respectful than those they had encountered at the airport.
She learned that English was widely spoken and became less intimidated by strangers, her confidence growing at the warm welcome she received everywhere. She explored the massive old fortress on the cliffs above the city, bowled over by its magnificent décor and huge rooms, with Jai by her side sharing funny stories about his heritage, which no guide could ever have equalled. And she saw a tiger in the wild for the first time, ironically not on the mini safari in an open-topped SUV that Jai had taken her on, but from the shaded dining terrace she watched the animal slink in his glorious orange and black striped coat out of the jungle to pad down at his leisure to drink at the edge of the lake.
By day they explored the sights but by night, mostly, they explored each other, she reflected with a wanton and slightly self-conscious little wriggle of recollection. She couldn’t keep her hands off Jai, and it seemed to be a case of a mutual chemical reaction. Jai electrified her every time he touched her, but when he had pressed her down in one of those reading nooks in the library that day, and possessed her with uninhibited passion in one of their most exciting encounters to date, she had realised afterwards, by his faint but perceptible discomfiture, that Jai wasn’t in control either.
Jai was pondering that problem for himself in his office. He had been spending too much time with his wife and not enough time working, he censured himself, well aware that he was sidestepping the real issue nagging at him. He had married her for his son’s sake, he reminded himself impatiently. He had planned on a perfectly civilised but essentially detached and sophisticated partnership in ma
rriage, in which both of them nourished their own interests and friendships. He had never planned on hot, sweaty, wildly exciting naked encounters in every secluded corner of his home. He had never planned to keep her awake half the night in the marital bed to the extent that she regularly fell asleep in the afternoon heat, exhausted by his demands. Nobody needed to warn Jai that he was already in the grip of the overpowering lust that he had been warned against many times.
And that acknowledgement disturbed Jai on every level. He didn’t do love; he flatly refused to do love. He was a great believer in moderation in all things. He had, after all, grown up with the tragic evidence of what love could do to a man, not to mention his own disillusionment at the hands of his former fiancée, Cecilia. Love, however, had totally broken his father, a strong man, a good man, an intelligent man, yet none of those strengths had saved him from the consequences of losing the wife he had adored. His father’s depressions, loneliness, bitterness, his inability to replace that lost wife with even a female friend, had taught Jai how dangerously harmful those softer emotions could be for a man when it came to a woman.
He didn’t want the stress of that complication with Willow: he was determined not to need her, to look for her when she wasn’t there or to allow her to sink so deeply into the fabric of his everyday life that she became more important than she should be. Liking, kindness and respect were absolutely all that were required from him as a husband and anything beyond that would be madness…a madness that he wouldn’t touch.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A WEEK AFTER Jai reached that decision, and unhappily warding off her low spirits as a result of that decision, Willow was dealing with the post her social secretary had gathered for her to peruse.
Yes, she was tickled pink by the idea that she could possibly require a social secretary. Only after she had seen the pile of invitations, congratulatory letters and wedding gifts in Samaira’s small office had she realised that she had been ridiculously naive not to appreciate that Jai’s position with an international charity foundation, his local role as a former ruler and his recent marriage would not also make demands on her.
‘And there was this,’ the tiny, beautiful Samaira finally declared, sliding a sheet of paper across the desk and rising at the same time to leave the library. ‘It’s an email that arrived on the Maharaja’s historical website and I was given it by his PA, Mitul. He took the liberty of printing it out, which I hope was correct,’ she added hopefully. ‘We felt that the enquiry was for you and best given to you.’
Surprised by that seemingly unnecessarily detailed explanation, Willow frowned and glanced down at the paper, looking first at the signature. Milly St John, a name that meant nothing whatsoever to her. She studied the couple of lines in the message before comprehension gripped her with sudden dismay.
As you have recently married my son and are the mother of my grandson, I would be very grateful if you would agree to meet with me alone and in private at my hotel in Chandrapur on the seventeenth.’
Willow paled, because it was an extraordinary request from a woman that Jai would not even discuss. It was also a hot potato that had passed quickly from hand to hand, the staff probably striving to work out the best way to deal with it since Jai’s aversion to anything relating to his mother was clearly well known. And Samaira was right, it was an invitation for Willow but undoubtedly not one of which Jai would approve.
‘Thank you,’ Willow said quietly, keen not to embellish the staff grapevine by commenting on an email that had very probably already caused a wave of gossip and speculation.
And while she was pondering that problem and what to do about it, she too left the library and wandered down to the far end of the palace in the direction of the suite of offices that had been neatly tailored from what had once been staff quarters. There she hesitated, uncertain that she even wanted to raise such a prickly topic, for in recent days Jai had become progressively more elusive. Yes, she had accepted that he would have to return to work, but she had not appreciated quite how much business would occupy his time. He usually joined her for dinner but rarely for breakfast or lunch, invariably rising before her and retiring after she had. She was relieved, however, that in spite of that relentless schedule he had still made time for their son, even if any notion of making time for her seemed to have died a total death after that first glorious week together.
Willow understood, however, that he was very busy, and she wasn’t the clingy type. She didn’t need him to fill the daylight hours when she had Hari to occupy her, a beautiful garden and an entire library of books, but she couldn’t help thinking that Jai was treating her rather like a new and shiny novelty whose initial lustre had quickly worn off and ended up boring him instead. On that note, she turned her steps in another direction and decided to ask him what she felt she needed to ask him over dinner instead.
Later, Jai strolled out to the big domed terrace that was shaded throughout the day and cool. Willow sipped her wine and savoured his long-legged grace and sheer bronzed beauty with his black-lashed arctic-blue eyes glittering. A little quiver ran through her slender length, her breasts peaking almost painfully below the bodice of the sundress she wore, a clenching sensation tightening deep in her pelvis so that colour flared up in her cheeks. ‘Hello, stranger,’ she heard herself say even though she had not intended to make any comment on his recent inaccessibility.
Jai lifted a black brow in query, as if that greeting had totally taken him aback.
‘I haven’t seen you since I woke to see you walking out of our bedroom yesterday morning,’ Willow pointed out, watching the faint rise of colour that scored his exotic cheekbones with curiosity. ‘Hey, I’m not complaining. I’m just pointing it out.’
Disconcerted by that statement, Jai breathed. ‘Has it really been that long? I’m sorry but I had to attend a board meeting for the foundation last night. It ran late and I didn’t want to disturb you, so I used another room.’
‘I think you need to learn to delegate more,’ Willow responded with determined lightness. ‘It’s not healthy for anyone to be working twenty-four-seven.’
Jai gritted his teeth, belatedly recognising in that moment that he had gone to quite absurd lengths to avoid his wife for the sin of attracting him too strongly. He dimly wondered if there was a streak of insanity somewhere in his family genes. What had seemed like such a good idea a week earlier had now blurred and become questionable. In the midst of scanning her tiny slender figure in a sunflower-yellow dress, which accentuated the strawberry-blond waves curling round her piquant face and framed her catlike green eyes, he reckoned that no normal man would have behaved as he had done: resisting his beautiful wife’s allure as though she were both toxic and dangerous.
He could only assume that the literal act of getting married had afflicted him with some very weird and deferred form of cold feet. All to prove some kind of point to himself? That he was in control? And able to wreck his marriage before it even got off the ground? He breathed in deeply, recognising in bewilderment that his usual rational outlook inexplicably seemed to always send him in the wrong direction with Willow.
‘Even with the party scheduled, next week won’t be half as frantic for me,’ Jai assured her hurriedly as Ranjit poured the wine and retreated.
‘Good,’ Willow replied with a smile that lit up her face like sunshine. ‘But the party event has also given me some questions I feel I have to ask you about your background.’
Jai tensed. ‘My…background?’
‘I feel awkward about asking but I feel I should know the basic facts, because I will be mixing with your relatives, who presumably already know those facts, and I don’t want to trip up in my ignorance and say anything that sounds stupid,’ Willow outlined, trotting out the excuse she had prepared and reddening hotly because simply telling him the truth would have come much more naturally to her.
Yet in her heart of hearts she had already g
uessed that Jai would absolutely forbid her to have anything to do with his mother, but Lady Milly was her mother-in-law and Hari’s grandmother and, although she was a stranger, Willow still felt that she surely ought to have the right to form her own opinion.
‘Facts about what?’ Jai prompted.
‘About why your parents broke up, about why your mother left you behind,’ she murmured tightly, guilt still jolting through her in waves.
‘My mother is the daughter of an English duke, which is still virtually all I know about her. The marriage didn’t last long and ended in divorce…’ Jai compressed his sensual mouth into a flat bitter line ‘…because apparently she believed that her alliance with an Indian and the birth of a mixed-race child were adversely affecting her social status.’
‘That’s weird… I mean, if she believed that why would she have married your father in the first place?’ Willow pressed with a furrowed brow.
‘I have never had a conversation with her, consequently I don’t know,’ Jai admitted flatly.
‘You’ve never even met her?’ Willow exclaimed in disbelief.
‘I don’t think you could call it a meeting… I did run into her once quite unexpectedly at a public event and she pretty much cut me dead. Her second husband and children were with her,’ Jai explained, and his strong bone structure might have been formed with steel beneath his olive skin, his forbidding cast of features as revealing of his feelings on that occasion as the ice in his gaze.
‘That was unforgivable,’ Willow conceded, shocked and unhappy on his behalf.