“In the Eflianan room.” Only a few doors from his office.
Kiral tightened a fist beneath the marble top of his desk. She was so close. If he wished to, he could be with her in moments. He stood abruptly. “I have a full schedule of meetings. You must tell her I cannot see her today.”
The words surprised him. He wanted nothing more than to see her, and yet he was stalling. He was sending her a message. She was no longer important to him.
Why?
Because you have to, he reminded himself. His marriage was important. He could not jeopardize it for some American woman he’d once slept with.
“At all today, sir?” The guard felt emboldened to ask. He couldn’t get the woman’s desperate expression from his mind.
Kiral heard the question and he understood it. Abi’s power, then, was not diminished by time either. She had a manner about her that made her impossible to resist. As he’d learned first-hand. “I’ll see. Leave her to wait. She is not your concern. Understood?” He had spoken more harshly than he’d intended but that was a measure of how Abigail made him feel.
“Of course, your highness.” The guard left swiftly and Kiral was alone.
Only he wasn’t alone. Abigail was there with him. She stood before him as clearly as she had done three years earlier, when he’d told her he must leave. When he’d told her that he was a powerful ruler with a fiancé and a life earmarked for him in which Abigail McClean could have no part.
They’d fallen in love. It had been a disaster. He’d had no business loving a woman like her. He could offer her nothing. Even without his official betrothal to a princess of an important neighbouring country Abi would not have been a woman he could ever have countenanced marriage to.
He had made that abundantly clear to her, but only when it was too late. He had, if anything, laboured his point more harshly than was necessary. But he’d wanted her to hate him. He had erred in allowing her to care for him. He had exposed her to pain. He had also sought to avoid any ambiguity. For a short time, weeks perhaps, they had experienced impossible joy and pleasure. They had made love physically and emotionally; they’d experienced the most perfect balance that two people could share. If he’d been any less brutal when he’d ended it she might have wanted more from him. She might have let him cloud her future. So he’d ended it with cold determination.
Why had she appeared now? Three years later, she was in his palace. Had she come to beg him not to marry? Did she want another chance? Surely she knew how impossible that was?
Questions gnawed at his gut, but Kiral was nothing if not stubborn. He held to his schedule as though nothing untoward was happening. But his mind was stubbornly focussed on the mystery of her appearance.
By ten o’clock that night, when his final interview was concluded and the sun had set over the city in the distance, he allowed his curiosity space to breathe.
He walked with a fatalistic assuredness towards the Elfianan room. It was used for visiting dignitaries and he imagined she would have been comfortable waiting for him there.
He stepped in with ingrained confidence, certain he could not convey to her the emotional storm she’d sparked inside of him.
But he was not prepared for the sight that would greet him.
Abi was asleep. Her shoes were lined up neatly on the floor, and beside them was an old leather handbag. Her petite frame was curled into an arm chair. A book had fallen down the side.
And just like that, a tonne of bricks crushed down on him.
He almost groaned, so great was the desire to wake her with a gentle kiss. But that was something he’d done in the past, and he could no longer give in to such cravings. Though her lips looked just as soft as always; they were shaped like perfect rose petals. He ached to trace them with his tongue; but he did not.
He could look, though, and look he did. Like a man who had been deprived of food led to a table of offerings.
She was wearing a cotton dress and the scarf she’d wrapped around her head had fallen loose, revealing her mane of chestnut hair.
When he had first met her in New York, he’d been a man. At least, so far as she knew, he’d been a man, and not this. A King. A ruler. But here in his palace, he was royal, filled with the powerful blood that had long-since guided his people to peace and prosperity.
He cleared his throat and she startled, her eyes latching to his immediately. He saw the anguish and the shock, the rich emotion that troubled her too. She banked down on it quickly but it had been there. Whatever had brought her to him, the journey for her had been difficult.
“Ki,” she croaked, her voice dry. She blinked again and then looked around them. The room was empty. She pushed her feet into her shoes and stood. The disadvantage of height was as pronounced as ever. Years had passed, yet he stood the same, like a figment of her memory. She almost wanted to touch him to make sure he wasn’t a creation of her subconscious. Only she’d never seen him like this. In New York, he’d worn beautiful clothes but clothes that were somewhat familiar to her. Now, in what she could only guess was a traditional robe — slate grey with pale cream embroidery at the cuffs and collar — he looked regal and imposing. His dark hair was a little shorter than he’d worn it in New York, but still thick with a slight wave. Her fingers tingled with the force of memory; how she’d run them through it whenever she could.
Her gut squeezed and she made an involuntary gasping sound. It was too much. Seeing him like this again had made her entire body vibrate with a deluge of long-forgotten emotions.
“Abigail,” he said, injecting coldness into his tone with effort. She looked at him as though she wanted to strip him naked and make love to him right there amongst the grand and ancient furnishings. She looked at him as though it was three years ago. He spoke coldly to remind them both: they were simply a fragment of a long-ago past; nothing more.
She swallowed convulsively, just as she had the first time they’d met. She’d been nervous then, too. Shy. But she’d glowed with an inner-strength he’d found compelling. That was missing now.
“Thank you for seeing me.” Shock was receding and now the purpose of her visit was uppermost in her mind. Her voice was business-like. Her manner switching from emotionally-charged to focussed and detached.
He hadn’t expected that. She’d been furious when they’d parted. It had come out of nowhere for her. She had not expected him to end their relationship. Not when they’d become so dependent, and so quickly.
“Why are you here?”
Another visible effort to bring herself under control. She opened her mouth to say something and then squeezed her eyes shut.
He couldn’t have known then but she was trying her hardest to get the words out. Only even she, who’d lived with the reality of their son’s illness for so long, found it hard to frame the sentence; to admit the truth of his damaged heart. If Kiral had had any sense of the news she was attempting to broach he might have been patient. To have silently encouraged her. But he didn’t, and patience had never been Kiral’s strong suit.
His words rung with assumed boredom. Assumed because Kiral knew that if he didn’t conclude this conversation swiftly he would do something he would truly regret. “It is late, Abigail, and I am tired. My day has been long. Say what you’ve come to say.” He narrowed his eyes. “Did you come here because of my wedding?”
“What?” She shook her head distractedly. “No. I didn’t even know that was this week until … until I arrived.” She couldn’t meet his eyes but he didn’t doubt her honesty. The admission hurt him. He didn’t want to analyse why her lack of interest in his life bothered him; the emotion was not to his credit
“Then what is it?”
She heaved out an enormous sigh. “I need money.” Her fingers lifted and wrapped around the slender column of her neck. “I need money, Ki.” At his look of disinterest, she put a hand on his forearm. “Please help me.”
* * *
Two years earlier
“You need to tell him, sweetheart.”
Abi stared up at her mom’s face with guilt. Little lines of worry were bunched around her eyes and Abi knew she’d put them there. The last six months had been hard on both of them. Absentmindedly, she reached a hand out and stroked Michael’s hand through the hole in his humidicrib.
“I can’t.”
“Abi.” Annette sat down in the vinyl seat beside her daughter. She crossed her slim legs and stared at the small figure curled in the plastic cot. His little body was beautiful, despite the trails of cords that ran in and out of his nose and mouth and were tangled and webbed around his torso.
“Mom,” Abi interrupted. “He wouldn’t want to know.”
“That’s crap,” Annette shook her head firmly. “You told me this guy’s fantastic. That he’s smart, and kind and intelligent. You said you love him.”
Abi compressed her lips. “He is. I do. I thought he was all those things. But he can’t … he’s not … it’s not possible for him to hear about this.”
“Why not?” Annette pushed, putting a hand on her daughter’s knee to draw her gaze.
Abi’s eyes were enormous. “Because. He would take him away, mom.”
“Nonsense. He couldn’t. You’re an American citizen and so is Michael. This man couldn’t simply steal your child.”
Abi’s laugh was muted. She shook her head wearily. “I’m going to do this on my own, mom.”
And Annette recognized the stubborn assurance that ran through her daughter. She saw the petulant determination and sighed. “Not on your own, darling. I’m here too. I’ll always be here for you both.”
THE SHEIKH’S SECRET BABY is available on Amazon and iTunes.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clare Connelly grew up in a small country town in Australia. Surrounded by rainforests, and rickety old timber houses, magic was thick in the air, and stories and storytelling were a huge part of her childhood.
From early on in life, Clare realised her favourite books were romance stories, and read voraciously. Anything from Jane Austen to Georgette Heyer, to Mills & Boon and (more recently) 50 Shades, Clare is a romance devotee. She first turned her hand to penning a novel at fifteen (if memory serves, it was something about a glamorous fashion model who fell foul of a high-end designer. Sparks flew, clothes flew faster, and love was born.)
Clare has a small family and a bungalow near the sea. When she isn't chasing after energetic little toddlers, or wiping fingerprints off furniture, she's writing, thinking about writing, or wishing she were writing.
Contact Clare:
http://www.clareconnelly.com
Blog: http://clarewriteslove.wordpress.com/
Email: [email protected]
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BOOKS BY CLARE CONNELLY
SINGLE TITLES
Marrying Her Enemy
The Velasco Lovechild
The Sultan’s Reluctant Princess
The Sultan’s Virgin Bride
The Sheikh’s Arranged Marriage
In the Hands of the Sheikh
One Night with the Sheikh
The Sheikh’s Virgin Hostage
To the Highest Bidder
The Greek Tycoon’s Forbidden Affair
Bought by the Sheikh
The Billionaire’s Christmas Revenge
Tempted by the Billionaire
The Tycoon’s Christmas Captive
His Loving Deception
A Second Chance at Love
The Sheikh’s Christmas Mistress
Love in the Fast Lane
The Medici Mistress
The Tycoon’s Virgin Mistress
All She Wants for Christmas
The Italian Billionaire’s Betrayal
A Bed of Broken Promises
Raising the Soldier’s Son
The Italian’s Innocent Bride
Bartered to the Sheikh
Betrayed by the CEO
Bound to The Sheikh
The Terms of Their Affair
The Sheikh’s Secret Baby
The Tycoon’s Summer Seduction
Warming The Sheikh’s Bed
The Princess’s Forbidden Lover
COMPENDIUMS
Casacelli Brides
Mediterranean Tycoons
Desert Rulers
Billionaire Bad Boys
Desert Kings
The Hendersons
The Darling Buds of May Café Series
The Princess's Forbidden Lover Page 19