Читать книгу Sheikh's Captured Bride - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 14

‘INVITE ME IN,’ Zahir commanded.

Saffy was uneasily aware of the two security men standing by the lift, of the status and level of protection Zahir now required as the ruler of Maraban, and the very idea that he was now at risk of becoming a target for attack gave her stomach a sick jolt. She swallowed hard, mustering her defences such as they were. ‘No.’

‘Don’t be juvenile,’ Zahir urged, his handsome mouth tightening, his air of gravity lending a forbidding edge to the smooth planes of his lean dark absolutely gorgeous face. ‘We have business to discuss.’

‘Business?’ Saffy parroted, suddenly wishing she hadn’t opened the door with wet hair and a face bare of make-up for, deprived of her professional grooming, she felt defenceless.

‘I told you that I would investigate the trust fund I set up for you.’ Impatience edged his dark deep drawl, energised his stunning dark deep-set eyes with sparks of gold, and as she watched him her mouth ran dry as a bone. ‘I have now done so.’

‘Oh, the missing money,’ she muttered in weak comprehension, and she stepped back with stiff reluctance to open the door, for she didn’t want him inside her personal space, didn’t want one more memory or association with him to further colour her existence.

‘Yes, the money,’ Zahir said drily, in a tone that suggested that he could have no other reason to roll up on her doorstep.

She studied him, in a split second memorising sufficient to commemorate his image for life, and she turned away, colour crawling up painfully over her cheekbones as she led the way into the living room. He wore a business suit, a beautifully tailored designer effort that showcased his height and breadth and long powerful legs. He had had his hair cut since she had last seen him, jet black hair feathering back from lean strong features to brush the collar of his shirt, the inevitable stubble shadowing his sculpted mouth and stubborn jaw line because he needed to shave twice a day. She felt like a vulture swooping down greedily on every tiny intimate detail of him and her tummy hollowed with a sense of dread, for she had never felt so vulnerable.

Zahir focused on the fluid sway of her hips encased in colourful silk as she moved ahead of him. He guessed she had just stepped out of the shower and was naked beneath those swirling folds of fabric and he was assailed by a slew of highly erotic images that sent a surge of lust shooting straight to his groin. He gritted his even white teeth and flung his arrogant dark head high. He knew what he was doing; he knew exactly what he was doing this time. He might have ditched his sense of honour but he had made a decision he could live with. Nobody was perfect, nobody followed every rule… Imperfection had suddenly become newly acceptable to him.

Saffy turned round and regarded him expectantly, her gaze slanting out of a direct meeting with his shrewd eyes and focusing on his wide sensual mouth instead. Instantly she felt hunger flare like a storm in her pelvis and perspiration beaded her short upper lip as she fought the weakness and tried to crush it out. But her body, it seemed, had discovered a treacherous life all of its own and she was suddenly aware of the heaviness of her tender breasts and the straining, aching peaks.

‘That five million you told me about?’ she prompted with deliberate tartness of tone, keen for him to take his leave again.

‘My London lawyer set up the fund with your solicitor. But five years ago nobody involved was aware that your solicitor was in the early stages of senile dementia and, sadly, he didn’t do his job properly,’ Zahir explained grimly. ‘You were not informed about the fund as you should have been and when your solicitor took early retirement through ill health, his son took over his legal practice. When the son realised that you were ignorant of the money accumulating every month, he committed fraud.’

‘Fraud?’ Saffy parroted, her bright blue eyes widening.

‘He’s been syphoning off the funds for his own benefit ever since. I have put the matter in the hands of the police,’ Zahir informed her grimly. ‘I owe you an apology for accusing you of having excessively enriched yourself since our divorce.’

Saffy lifted her chin. ‘Yes, you do.’

‘In spite of everything, I did intend for you to have that money as security and I am very angry that you did not receive it,’ he admitted shortly. ‘It is possible that you would never have become a model had you known that you were already financially secure.’

Saffy blinked in surprise at that suggestion. ‘I doubt that. Had I known about the fund, I would have refused to accept it. We were married for such a short time that I didn’t feel that you owed me anything.’

‘You were my wife and my responsibility. I felt differently,’ Zahir disagreed with unblemished cool.

‘If you’d still had a large financial stake in my future, I wouldn’t have felt free to put our marriage behind me,’ Saffy admitted with quiet dignity as she began moving back to the door with obvious intent. ‘But since I didn’t know about the fund, it hardly matters now. I’m just relieved you’ve managed to sort it out. Now, if that’s all you have to say—’

‘No, it’s not all. I have something else I wish to discuss.’

Saffy froze in her tracks and slowly turned back to him. ‘If it’s anything to do with the recent past, it’s unwelcome and I don’t want to hear it.’

Zahir regarded her with glittering dark golden eyes. ‘Tough,’ he told her. ‘I’m here and you’ll listen.’

‘Look, that kind of attitude may go down well in Maraban but it leaves me cold!’

‘But I don’t…leave you cold,’ he affixed as if she might be in some doubt as to his meaning.

A flush of pink washed from her long slender throat up in a wave of burning mortification, for to have him throw that in her face was an affront of no mean order. ‘I’m not listening, Zahir… I’m going to show you out. I want you to leave.’

Instead he stalked towards her like a prowling jungle cat cornering a prey. ‘No, you don’t. You’re being stubborn. You don’t like the tables being turned but you put this ball into my court—’

‘No, I didn’t!’ Saffy exclaimed in angry vexation.

‘You came to me willingly—’

‘I said I wasn’t going to talk about this!’ Saffy flung back at him furiously.

Zahir sent the door behind her crashing shut with an imperious shove of one strong hand. ‘I have a proposition I want you to consider—’

‘No…no.’ Saffy whipped up her hands to press them against her ears in desperate defiance. ‘I’m not listening. You’ve got nothing to say that I could want to hear.’

Zahir grabbed her hands and yanked them down, retaining a firm hold on her wrists. ‘I’ve already bought you an apartment here in London. You’ll move out of this one into it and I will visit you there whenever I am free…’

As simple shock winged through Saffy in a tidal wave her hands went limp in his grasp and she stared up at him wide-eyed with astonishment and no small amount of incredulity. ‘An apartment? What on earth are you suggesting?’

‘That you leave your current lover and become mine,’ Zahir spelt out with barely leashed ferocity. ‘I don’t want you here with him. I don’t care what arrangement you have. I will only come to you if you are mine alone!’

Saffy blinked rapidly, processing his words in disbelief. ‘You’re insane. Five years ago, you divorced me and cast me off like an old shoe you’d outgrown!’ she condemned rawly. ‘And now you’re asking me to be your mistress?’

Brilliant dark eyes narrowed and he freed her hands. ‘That’s an emotive label and rather outdated.’

‘And yet you’ve got the nerve to suggest such a demeaning relationship might suit me?’ Saffy hissed at him furiously.

‘Yes, I have the nerve,’ Zahir declared in a driven undertone, his accent very thick. ‘I want you to the edge of madness but I won’t share you with other men.’

‘My goodness,’ Saffy said in a sharp and brittle voice. ‘Was I that good in the tent?’

‘Stop it,’ Zahir urged harshly, stroking a stern finger across her parted lips, leaving a tingle in the wake of his warning. ‘Don’t reduce us both to that level with that tongue of yours. There is no sin in us indulging ourselves in pleasure. Who would it harm? We would be discreet. I would spend as much time with you as I can find to spare.’

But Saffy was still stunned by what he was proposing. A mistress? A kept woman in the background of his life, a dirty secret? Her? He had to be kidding. Her pride and independence would never allow her to accept such a relationship. Of course, how could he know that? At eighteen she had been loving, clingy and needy and that was probably how he still saw her. Back then marriage and a man she loved had been the zenith of her ambitions. But the more she thought of it the insult of what he was prepared to offer her in the present cut very deep indeed and she could not credit that he would believe even for a second that she could agree to be any man’s secret mistress!

‘It really is time that you go,’ Saffy snapped, throwing her head back, damp golden hair rippling back from her taut cheekbones. ‘You’ve said what you wanted to say and my answer is no. No, no, no! I like my life just the way it is.’

‘Look at me and tell me you don’t want me,’ Zahir growled.

And she looked and lingered on those lean, darkly handsome features and lost, blue eyes fearlessly clashing with smouldering gold, and then it was as if a knot were unfurling faster and faster inside her, unleashing a disturbing blast of emotions and responses that shook her inside out. But even then in the midst of that gathering storm she knew that no way would she ever sink low enough to become his mistress. Yes, she wanted him, but no, she would never take what he was offering because the price was too high.

Saffy parted her lips. ‘I don’t want you enough for that…’

Zahir glowered down at her. ‘Liar.’

Saffy tossed her head. ‘You can’t bully me into giving you the answer you want—’

‘I don’t bully you. I have never bullied you,’ Zahir countered wrathfully.

‘You’ve very domineering.’

‘You like it,’ he told her with a roughened edge to his voice, lush black lashes low over his gaze as he watched the tip of her tongue snake out to moisten her lower lip.

‘I like my men civilised,’ Saffy shot back scornfully.

‘But you still want me,’ Zahir framed with hungry intensity.

‘As I said…not enough to become your personal, private slut,’ she spelt out succinctly, but her breathing pattern was fracturing, her tension so great as he came closer that it was like a tightening band constraining her lungs.

‘Prove it,’ he said, backing her up against the wall, winding long brown fingers into her golden hair to anchor her in place, and drew her head up.

Saffy trembled, pink flying into her cheeks. ‘No kissing, no anything,’ she warned him. ‘I won’t let you do this to me—’

And being Zahir, who had a lot in common with an express train when he was set on a goal, he simply ignored her, bending his head, nuzzling her throat, licking a delicate path along her collarbone with such erotic skill that the pulse there went crazy. Her hands knotted into fists at her side to prevent herself from touching him even while the lips he had so far ignored tingled and burned for attention.

‘And how dare you offer me that option?’ Saffy continued heatedly, her rancour on that point unforgotten.

‘He who does not dare loses,’ Zahir traded with assurance, welding his hard, demanding mouth to hers in an explosion of passion that sent her heart racing and the blood pumping insanely fast through her veins.

‘What the heck are you playing at?’ she gasped strickenly, appalled by the insidious weakness spreading through her lower limbs and the glow of heat and yearning firing up low in her pelvis.

‘I’m not playing,’ Zahir said thickly, returning to plunder her mouth, sliding his tongue in and out between her parted lips and then delving deep in a sensual assault that made tiny shudders rack her tall, shapely frame. He pressed her back against the wall and even through the barrier of the suit she could feel him hard and urgent and ready. ‘I want you. I have wanted you every day since you left Maraban… I can’t sleep for wanting you!’

And although words were easy to say and often empty, something still quickened and tightened inside Saffy’s chest when he admitted that she exerted that much influence over him. Her robe came undone as he jerked it loose, sliding a hand below it to trail his fingers up her inner thigh. Instantly every sense went on red alert. In that moment she wanted him to touch her more than she had ever wanted anything and she went rigid with anticipation, unable to breathe for longing. She burned; she ached. And then with one stroke of his clever fingers he found her and an agonised moan was wrenched from her as he toyed with her tender flesh, rubbing the tiny bud that controlled her until she strained against him, whimpering, quivering, helpless with need while he explored the slick, hot heat between her legs and she gasped under his marauding mouth. Time had no meaning for her. Indeed it felt as if the world had speeded up because she was so frantically impatient, every skin cell reaching for the climax her body was so desperate to experience.

Zahir paused and she heard the sound of a zip, the crackle of foil and she blinked like someone coming out of the dark into the light, but her hunger didn’t abate even a little when she met stunning coal-black-fringed golden eyes alight with desire. She trembled, tried to reason and discovered that she was quite incapable of logic in the grip of the uncontrollable need clawing at her like a kind of madness…terrifying and overwhelming, utterly shameless in its single-minded focus.

‘I cannot take you to another man’s bed,’ Zahir growled, snaking one arm round her waist to lift her off her feet. ‘Wrap your legs round me,’ he urged.

And she did, hungry for him to put his mouth back on hers, unbearably hungry for him to touch her again. Her arms locked round his neck to steady herself and he braced her against the wall while he angled his hips and lowered her until she felt the smooth, hot crown of his bold shaft pushing against her most tender flesh. Her eyes widened to their fullest, her head rolling back on her shoulders as he slowly, strongly pressed his passage up into her tight sheath. Her excitement went into a tail-spin as he stretched her with his fullness, his grunt of all-male satisfaction vibrating sexily in her ear. He angled her back, withdrew from her achingly tender flesh and then brought her down again hard, sending shockwaves of sensation pounding through her lower body.

‘You’re so tight,’ he growled through gritted teeth, repeating the movement until he was fully seated inside her. ‘You feel so good. I would kill for this!’

‘Don’t stop!’ she cried, shivering as another wild, exhilarating wave of pleasure-pain pulsed through her pelvis, pushing the excitement higher until it was all-consuming and she was battered by both frustration and uncontrollable need.

‘I couldn’t…’ Zahir husked, positioning his hips, grinding against her and withdrawing before driving home again hard. Over and over he repeated that movement until she was literally roused to screaming point.

And the first throbbing upsurge of climax splintered through her like a lightning bolt then and she cried out as the successive spasms of intense pleasure rippled through her. He came with a shudder and a shout and slowly, gently, lowered her legs back down to the floor, which was unfortunate because her legs didn’t want to hold her up. She tipped forward as he balanced her, hands strong on her slim shoulders, and he kissed her breathless in the interim before lifting his tousled dark head and saying with typical practicality, ‘Where’s the bathroom?’

She told him and had to stagger back against the wall to stay upright. She was feeling horribly dizzy. Shock was tearing through her every bit as powerfully as the orgasm had. He had had her against the wall and it had been hideously, horribly thrilling but she didn’t want to accept that she had not only let that happen but urged him on to commit that sin. Her knees wanted to give way but she wouldn’t let them. With shaking hands, she tied the sash on her robe and covered herself up. A little late, a snide voice remarked in her brain and she squashed it. Her body was still pulsing from his possession and she was weak as water, drained by disbelief at what she had allowed to take place between them.

‘Are you OK?’ Zahir asked huskily from the doorway.

Saffy shot him a look from below her tumbled hair that would have slaughtered a weaker man where he stood. ‘Not really,’ she answered truthfully.

‘You’re very pale—perhaps you should sit down.’

Saffy dropped down onto the nearest sofa, lowered her head and breathed in slow and deep while she fought to reclaim her composure. Her head was swimming, her skin damp with perspiration and she felt slightly sick.

‘When would you like to move out?’ Zahir enquired smoothly. ‘Give me a date and I will have all the arrangements made for you. There will be no hassle, no inconvenience—’

‘Move out?’ Saffy questioned blankly. ‘I’m not moving anywhere!’

‘You can’t continue to live here with McDonald.’

With unsteady hands Saffy caught up her trailing hair and shoved it back from her clammy face as she clumsily sat up. ‘What just happened was a bad idea. A really bad idea and letting you keep me in an apartment somewhere as a mistress is never going to happen, Zahir. Just accept that.’

‘I will not accept it.’

Saffy sprang up on a surge of temper and just as suddenly the room seemed to spin violently around her. Disorientated, she swayed sickly, so dizzy she couldn’t focus and she couldn’t combat the rising tide of darkness that engulfed her as she fainted.

With a sharp imprecation, Zahir snatched her limp body up from the wooden floor and he settled her down on the sofa. Saffy recovered consciousness quickly and blinked in confusion to find him on his knees beside her. ‘What happened?’

‘You just dropped where you stood,’ Zahir breathed tautly. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you ill?’

Her lashes fluttered in bemusement as she dimly registered the sound of the front door slamming. ‘No,’ she whispered weakly. ‘But I think the real problem may be that I’m pregnant…’

‘Pregnant?’ Zahir exclaimed, his strong bone structure pulling taut below his olive skin. ‘When did you get pregnant?’

‘Oh, dear,’ a familiar voice interposed from the door, which Zahir had left ajar. ‘Is this one of those moments when I walk out and come back in making more noise so that you know that I’m here?’

‘Cameron?’ Saffy craned her neck and began to sit up as her flatmate stared at her anxiously from across the room. Her brain felt as lively as sludge. She had not meant to blurt out her suspicion that she might be pregnant; she had simply spoken her thoughts out loud and now felt exceedingly foolish. ‘I fainted. I’ve never done that in my life before.’

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Cameron said soothingly.

‘Pregnant,’ Zahir said again as though he could not get past that single word, and he studied Cameron grimly. ‘Your child?’

‘No, you can leave me out of this little chat. I bat for the other team,’ Cameron confided with a wry smile. ‘You need to make an urgent appointment with the doctor, Saffy.’

Zahir’s brow indented. ‘What do you mean?’ he queried.

‘I’m her gay best friend and you can only be Zahir,’ Cameron responded ruefully. ‘The guards at the front door and the limo flying the little flag parked outside are a dead giveaway.’

‘You’re gay?’ Zahir murmured wrathfully, and he fixed brilliant dark golden eyes accusingly on Saffy. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’

‘It was none of your business.’

‘And the baby?’ Zahir prompted tautly.

‘Excuse me,’ Cameron said quietly, and he walked back out of the room, carefully closing the door in his wake.

Sitting up then because she no longer felt light-headed, Saffy swung her feet down onto the floor and swivelled round to face Zahir. ‘Look, I don’t even know yet if I am pregnant,’ she admitted heavily. ‘I have a test but I haven’t used it yet. My suspicions may just be my imagination.’

His face granite hard, Zahir studied her intently like a male struggling to concentrate on only one thing at a time. ‘If he’s gay, why do you live with him?’

‘Because he’s my friend and we both were keen to buy an apartment at the same time. We get on very well,’ Saffy told him wryly, wishing she had bitten her tongue out of her head before letting drop the fact that she suspected that she might be pregnant, for such a threat—and she had no doubt that he would see it as a threat—would only create more stormy waves in her dealings with Zahir.

‘If McDonald’s gay, why do people believe you and he are a couple?’ Zahir persisted.

Saffy sighed. ‘Cameron was raised by elderly grandparents and he’s very attached to them. He doesn’t think they could accept his sexuality and he says he won’t come out of the closet until they’re gone.’

‘So, in the meantime he uses you for cover.’

‘We use each other,’ Saffy parried without hesitation. ‘I get bothered less by aggressive men as long as Cameron appears to be part of my life. Now can we please leave my friend out of this discussion?’

Zahir gritted his even white teeth together. ‘Pregnant,’ he repeated afresh.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Saffy muttered wearily. ‘Look, I’ll go and do the wretched test now and we’ll see if there’s anything to worry about.’

‘If it is true, how will we know whether or not it is mine?’ Zahir demanded icily.

‘Don’t make me slap you, Zahir. I haven’t the energy right now,’ Saffy sighed unhappily, moving past him.

Long brown fingers snapped round her wrist to hold her still. ‘Do you have any idea how major an event this could be for a man in my position?’ he raked down at her.

‘No and, right now, I don’t want to think about it. I only want to find out if there is anything for us to worry about. You shouldn’t have come here, Zahir. You should have kept your distance. What happened between us in Maraban ended there. You’re screwing up my life,’ Saffy condemned, dragging her arm angrily free.

‘It won’t be at an end if you’re carrying my child.’

Without another word, Saffy trudged through the hall to the bathroom, retrieved the test kit from the cupboard and pulled out the instructions. Minutes later she stood at the window holding the wand, waiting to see the result. She still felt shell-shocked by the explosive passion that had erupted between them, had never dreamt that she could lose control of her own body to such an extent, had not even suspected that the desire for sex might so badly betray her principles. Of course it had not occurred to her either that she would see him again, that he would deliberately seek her out in London or tell her that he couldn’t sleep for wanting her. At least she wasn’t the only one of them tossing and turning sleepless in the dark of the night, she thought wretchedly. But without the smallest warning, everything had changed. She had believed she could shrug off their encounter in Maraban; she had tried to tell herself that she had used him. In short, she reflected painfully, she had told herself a whole lot of face-saving rubbish in an effort to persuade herself that she was fully in control of events and now reality was banging very loudly at her door.

Almost absent-mindedly she looked down at the wand in her hand and her entire body froze. She gulped in a breath, checked her watch, gazed down transfixed at the line that had formed just as the instructions had explained. Her legs suddenly felt so woolly she had to perch on the side of the bath. Be careful of what you wish for…for according to the test result, she was pregnant. For a split second a rush of joy consumed her and then she recalled Zahir’s hard, forbidding expression and she groaned out loud, for nothing but complications lay ahead. Zahir and an accidental pregnancy would be a very dangerous combination: Zahir liked to plan everything; Zahir had to be in control; Zahir had been raised in a culture in which such a development was totally unacceptable, socially, morally and every other way there was.

Why, oh, why had she opened her silly mouth and told him? Regret touched her deep. Now whether she liked it or not he was involved and it would have been much better for both of them if he was not. She didn’t want him involved. Even less did she want him to be hostile to her condition. She might never before have allowed herself to dream of having a baby, but she would never, ever have chosen to have a child by a man who couldn’t possibly want either of them.

Saffy walked back into the living room where Zahir was drinking coffee—Cameron evidently having played host in her absence—and staring moodily out of the window. He didn’t like cities: he felt claustrophobic in them. Why did she still remember that? Hearing her entrance, he swung round, stunning dark golden eyes shooting straight to her pale, tight features.

And he knew, that fast he knew, read the defensiveness there and the reluctance to get any closer to him. Why? Was she afraid of him now? Did she think that in some way he meant her harm? Her golden hair had dried into loose, undisciplined waves round her lovely oval face and her eyes were incredibly blue against her pallor. Even with strain etched in every line of her visage she was hauntingly beautiful.

‘We do have something to worry about,’ she confirmed.

Zahir released his breath in a slow hiss, not a muscle moving on his lean bronzed face. ‘I thought you were taking the contraceptive pill.’

‘You assumed I was. I saw no reason to tell you otherwise because I didn’t think this situation would arise,’ Saffy admitted doggedly, determined to be honest now because matters had become too serious for her to risk even half-truths.

‘Why were you not taking precautions to protect yourself against this development?’ he demanded.

‘I had no reason to. I wasn’t having sex with anyone, so you don’t need to wonder whose child it is,’ she told him tightly, colour mantling her cheekbones.

‘Naturally I will wonder. I have no wish to offend you but I was certainly under the impression that you had other lovers,’ Zahir countered flatly.

‘Don’t believe all that you read in the papers,’ Saffy advised, lifting her head high, her blue eyes guarded.

‘I don’t but, even allowing for a fair amount of exaggeration and invented stories, there is room for me to doubt the likelihood that in one brief encounter I have fathered your child,’ Zahir fielded very quietly.

‘I didn’t think it was very likely either, but we’re both young and healthy, it was the wrong time of the month for me to have an accident and clearly you have killer sperm,’ Saffy told him drily.

‘Don’t make a joke of it,’ Zahir growled.

‘I can’t prove it’s your baby until after it’s born,’ Saffy murmured ruefully. ‘DNA testing is too risky during pregnancy. On the other hand you could think back sensibly to that day in the tent and appreciate that ironically you are the only lover I’ve ever had.’

Zahir frowned, winged ebony brows pleating above questioning dark as night eyes flaring with disbelief. ‘That is not possible.’

‘Forget the newspaper stories and your prejudices and think about it rationally,’ Saffy urged with quiet dignity, determined not to allow him to continue to cherish doubts about who had fathered her child. ‘You’re not stupid—I know you’re not. I was a virgin.’

All colour bled from below his olive-toned complexion as he stared back at her with smouldering golden force and she recognised the exact moment when he recalled the blood stains on the bed because he suddenly swore in Arabic, tore his stunned gaze from hers and half swung away from her, his lean brown hands clenching into fists. ‘If that is true, I have greatly wronged you,’ he bit out rawly.

‘We wronged each other a long time ago,’ Saffy cut in. ‘I chose to share that bed with you. It was my decision and this is my…er, problem.’

‘If it’s my child, it’s mine too and I don’t see our child as a problem,’ Zahir retorted with a harsh edge to his dark deep voice. ‘We’ll remarry just as soon as I can arrange it.’

‘Remarry?’ Saffy gasped in wonderment. ‘You have to be joking!’

‘Our child’s future is too serious to joke about and it can only be secured through marriage.’

‘And we all know how that turned out the last time,’ Saffy returned doggedly, fighting to think logically because his proposal had shaken her to her very depths. Was he serious? Was he really serious?

‘When my father died and I took the throne, everything changed in Maraban,’ Zahir declared levelly. ‘We would be able to lead normal lives now. You’re pregnant. Of course, I want to marry you.’

Saffy was reeling from a dozen different reactions: disbelief, scorn, anger, frustration among them. Zahir was set on taking charge as usual. He wasn’t reacting on a personal level, he was reacting as a public figure, keen to hide an embarrassing mistake within the respectability of marriage.

‘I don’t want to marry you just because I’m pregnant.’

‘And what do you think your child would want?’ Zahir shot that icily controlled demand back at her. ‘If you don’t marry me, you will deprive that child of a father and of the status in life he or she has a right to enjoy. Without marriage, the child will have to remain secret and it will be almost impossible for me to establish a normal relationship with him or her.’

In one cool statement, Zahir had given Saffy a lot to think about, but then faster than the speed of light her child had gone from being a line on a test wand to a living, breathing being, who might well question her decisions at a later date. For the first time she appreciated that she could not continue to put her own wants and needs first because, whatever she chose to do, she would, one day, have to take responsibility for the choices she had made on her child’s behalf.

‘We could get married just to ensure that the baby was legitimate…and then get another divorce,’ she suggested tautly.

Brilliant dark eyes flamed golden as flames. ‘Is that really the very best you can offer? Is the prospect of being my wife again such a sacrifice?’

Saffy studied the floor. She thought of the wicked forbidden delight of his passion, recognising that on that level everything between them had radically changed. She looked up, feeling the instant mesmeric pull of him the moment she saw his lean dark face. Her heart hammered inside her, her mouth running dry.

‘Couldn’t you give our marriage a second chance?’ Zahir asked huskily.

‘It’s too soon to consider that,’ Saffy argued. ‘The first thing I need to do now is see my doctor and confirm that I am pregnant. Then we’ll decide what to do. Look at this from my point of view. When you arrived here, you asked me to be your mistress…now suddenly you’re talking marriage, but I don’t want to get married purely because you accidentally got me pregnant.’

Zahir surveyed her with stormy intensity and the atmosphere thickened as though laced with cracked ice. ‘I believe in fate, not accidents. What is meant to be will be.’

Saffy rolled her eyes, compressed her lips and stood up. ‘You shipped me out to the desert for seduction, not fatherhood. You brought this roof down over our ears—you sort it out!’

‘Marriage will sort it out,’ he contended stubbornly.

‘Oh, if only it were that simple.’

‘But it is.’ Before she could even guess his intention, he had closed a hand over hers. His brilliant gaze sought and held hers by sheer force of will. ‘Right now, it’s the best choice you can make. Let go of the past. Trust me to look after you and my child. I will not let you down.’

‘And would you agree to a divorce at a later date?’ Saffy prompted shakily, more impressed than she wanted to be by his promise of good intentions.

‘If that’s what you wanted, if you were unhappy as you were before, yes,’ Zahir agreed grittily, not choosing to add the unpleasant realities that would accompany any such decision on her part. Complete honesty was not possible. What really mattered was getting that ring back on her finger and securing their child’s future. ‘This is not about us, this is about our child, what he or she needs most.’

‘If you really mean that…’ Saffy drew in a ragged breath, terrified of the confusing thoughts teeming through her head. She was trying very hard to put the welfare of her child first and not muddy the waters with the bitterness of the past and the insecurity of the present. He would keep his promise: she knew that. On that level she trusted him and she quite understood that he wanted their child to have the very best start in life possible. They owed their child that chance.

‘I do,’ Zahir confirmed levelly.

‘Then on that basis, I agree.’ So great was the stress of making that announcement that Saffy felt light-headed again as all the little devils in her memory banks began queuing up to remind her of how vulnerable she would be if she put herself in Zahir’s power again.

Zahir released her hand. ‘I’ll organise it.’

He got as far as the door before Saffy called him back to say tautly, ‘I want a proper wedding.’

‘Meaning?’ Zahir sought to clarify.

‘No hole-in-the-corner do in the embassy for me this time,’ Saffy spelled out with scorn. ‘I want a bridal gown and a family occasion with my sisters as bridesmaids and all the rest of the wedding hoopla.’

Taken aback by the admission, Zahir literally paled.

‘Those are my terms and I won’t budge on them,’ Saffy completed doggedly.