Читать книгу Magnates: Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 7

BEFORE Elinor could even register what Jasim was about, he had peeled down the top of her swimsuit so that the pale plump mounds of her breasts tumbled free. A low masculine growl of hunger escaped him when he saw the luscious and prominent protrusion of her rose-pink nipples. ‘You have the most wonderful body.’

He kneaded those tender tips with expert fingers and she cried out in shaken acknowledgement of the arrow of sensation darting straight down to the balloon of burgeoning heat expanding low in her pelvis. That fast she was in uncharted territory and at the mercy of the hunger he had unleashed inside her. She craved more and he was not slow to answer that craving. He brought her down on the bed and closed his mouth fiercely to a straining pink crest, taking it between his teeth and toying with the tender tip until her fingers formed into claws that raked the sheet beneath her hands. A frantic sense of swollen heat between her splayed thighs was sending up her temperature and threatening what little remained of her control. He touched her there where she was most tender of all just once while he played with her lush breasts and her spine arched off the bed in a reaction so strong it almost frightened her.

‘You’re too tense,’ he censured, wrenching her free of her swimsuit and rolling off the bed to remove his wet shorts.

Nerves and doubts immediately attacked Elinor again. Everything was going too fast for her and she was trying to work out how she could have allowed matters to go so far without seriously questioning what she was about to do. After all, sleeping with a man for the first time was a very big deal on her terms. Elinor stared at her first daunting view of a man unclothed. He seemed endowed out of all reasonable proportion to her untried body. The shameless burn at the heart of her felt as scary as it was exciting and she wondered feverishly if she was doing the right thing or simply letting passion and the joy of attracting so superlative a male go to her head.

Jasim looked down at her with an amount of pleasure that took even him aback. She looked like a goddess, he decided in awe, the fiery abundance of her hair the perfect complement to her full creamy curves. Never before had a woman made him ache with such ravenous hunger … no, not even Sophia had had that power. But he would never be vulnerable with a woman again or allow desire to overwhelm his judgement, he told himself with fierce confidence.

‘I want you now,’ Jasim confessed, coming down on the bed beside her, his lean powerful body taut with sexual impatience. Overwhelming desire made it an effort for him to recall that his primary motivation in taking her was to ensure she lost the power to lure his brother into an affair.

Just looking at his lean bronzed features, which were compellingly handsome and strikingly serious, Elinor felt her mouth run dry and her heart threatened to drum its way out of her chest. ‘I’ve never felt this way before,’ she whispered unevenly and held back the craven admission that feeling as she did just then was distinctly intimidating.

Immediately discarding that ingenuous assurance as a pre-planned sop voiced to stroke his male ego, Jasim bit back an appreciative sound of amusement and ravished her soft mouth afresh. Against her will, Elinor felt herself melt again. Her insecurities ebbed while every nerve ending leapt in helpless response to the scent and touch of him. He felt like living hair-roughened bronze next to her, hot and hard and strong. She had a delirious image of what it would feel like to have him inside her and was shattered at the leap of her body and the newly wanton direction of her thoughts.

Jasim rubbed the tiny bud below her mound and listened to her cry out her pleasure. She was swollen with arousal and as slippery as wet silk. With a forefinger he probed the delicate cleft and discovered that she was deliciously small and tight within. She gasped and winced and he marvelled at her theatrical ability. Of course, just like Sophia she most likely assumed that an Arab male would only properly value her if she pretended to be a virgin. Sophia had paid a small fortune to have her hymen surgically restored and he had been absolutely fooled by her masquerade, he remembered with deep bitterness.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elinor exclaimed, glimpsing the dark shadowed look in his brilliant eyes at the breathless peak of a rippling wave of almost torturous pleasure. His lovemaking enthralled her, but now she wondered if he had finally registered her lack of experience. Was that a turn-off for him?

‘Nothing could be wrong …’

‘I’ve never slept with anyone else,’ Elinor admitted awkwardly. ‘Is that a problem?’

‘How could it be, when you are about to honour me beyond all other men?’ The sardonic light in his gaze hardened at her careful last-minute assurance of her sexual innocence. Afraid that he might not get the message, she was leaving nothing to chance. He was wild for the hot, tight satisfaction of her body under his, but he would have preferred the cool self-restraint to tell her that she was a liar and that her shoddy, foolish pretence didn’t fool him for a moment.

He settled into the cradle of her thighs and he was so eager for her that little tremors were racking his lean, muscular frame. He pushed into her moist, warm entrance and revelled in the taut feel and softness of her silky inner passage. Driven by a ferocious sense of need, he thrust back her thighs to deepen his penetration and at the same instant that he ensured she stretched to accommodate all of him she vented a sharp cry of pain. He froze, not having expected her to go to town on the virgin act to this extent.

Elinor was mortified. ‘I’m sorry, it just hurt a bit … it’s all right,’ she muttered, her mortification so great that she wanted the bed to open up and swallow her.

‘It is for me to apologise. I should have been more gentle,’ Jasim breathed, marvelling that he could match her masquerade, all the while inching his aching shaft into the velvet-smooth honeyed welcome at the heart of her.

As her discomfort receded the excitement came back in steady increments that were stoked by every skilled move he made. Elinor gasped and wrapped her arms round him and discovered he could once again be the giver of such energising sensation as she had never dared to dream existed. The pace quickened to a hypnotic tempo and she was swept away by the erotic excitement of his sensual rhythm. The sweet surges of pleasure ran closer and closer together, driving her to the very peak of an explosive climax and then tipping her off the edge into a blissful weightless fall and satiated indolence.

Jasim stared down at her in the aftermath, his dark eyes blazing gold with passionate appreciation. ‘You took me to paradise and I have never been there with a woman before.’

As he held her to him, his heart pounding against hers, Elinor blinked back sudden tears, for she felt very emotional. She also felt incredibly tender towards him and strung a line of kisses across a broad brown shoulder. She fiercely fought off the sense of shame and awkwardness that she guiltily knew was waiting to pounce on her. He made her feel special and she was desperate to hold on to that reassuring sensation.

‘I should go back to my own room,’ she mumbled, however, a few minutes later.

Jasim’s arms tightened like bars of steel round her. He had every intention of fully satisfying his desire for her. ‘Tonight you are mine and you stay here with me,’ he spelt out thickly.

And she was his now, he reflected in male triumph, his hungry body already quickening against hers again. One stolen night, however, was all he could dare to take beneath a roof that also housed his niece. Anything more would be an insult.

Elinor wakened in the early hours of the next morning when light was filtering with increasing strength through the curtains and illuminating the magnificent unfamiliar room. In that first instant of reason after a very eventful night, she knew only pure terror when she thought of the unknown that faced her.

What the heck had come over her? Complete insanity? It was barely thirty-six hours since they had met and she had spent the night in Prince Jasim’s bed, letting him make love to her over and over again. In truth she wasn’t sure she would be able to walk if she got out of bed, since he had proved a very demanding and seemingly tireless lover.

She lay watching him in the half-light, dreamily, tenderly admiring the strong classic bones of his profile and the way blue-black stubble enhanced his wide stubborn mouth. While her body might ache from his attentions, familiarity had not bred contempt. He was beautiful. He still took her breath away and that scared her, because she had never believed in love at first sight.

But what else was she to make of the powerful emotions assailing her? He had not been out of her mind for a second since they’d met and she felt remarkably comfortable with images and reflections of him fully occupying her every waking thought. On a horse and in bed he was her every dream come true. Yet she hardly knew him and surely he could only think less of her because of the ease with which she had fallen into his arms?

Content to be the full focus of her admiration, Jasim was wondering if he dared take her one more time. He couldn’t get enough of the sweet, tight release of her warm, willing body. But the servants would be up and about soon, and a lifetime in a royal palace had taught him how fast scandal hit the household grapevine and went places one would prefer it did not reach. The deed was done, accomplished in record time too, he savoured with ruthless satisfaction. His brother would never look at her now. Too warm, he sat up and tossed back the duvet and saw the blood stain on the white linen sheet.

‘Good morning,’ she whispered, looking all shy and flushed and utterly adorable.

Unlike his unlamented Sophia, Elinor had been a virgin, Jasim registered in substantial shock. Yet he had taken her with all the finesse of a stallion covering a mare. A virgin: quite a statement for a young woman of twenty-one in a world where casual sex was commonplace. A twinge of rare guilt pierced Jasim; he would never have chosen to seduce a virgin. But even had he known beforehand, would he have left her untouched while he was aware that Murad would have found such purity a mouth-watering temptation? He had now contrived to smash the possibility of a relationship that could well have driven his brother into setting Yaminah aside and replacing her with Elinor as a second wife. For all his extra-marital affairs, Murad was a staunchly traditional man and Jasim was convinced that, had Elinor slept with Murad, his brother would have offered her marriage. Well, at least that disaster could not be enacted now.

Jasim reached for Elinor and pulled her into his arms. ‘Good morning,’ he husked, cupping her pouting breasts and gently teasing the swollen pink buds that crowned them.

Elinor was very tense. ‘I need to go back to my room—’

‘One of the servants will bring you clothes and pack for you,’ Jasim intoned, arranging her against the tumbled pillows and letting his tousled dark head swoop down to capture a straining nipple. One more time, he was thinking, just to get him through the day ahead.

Elinor went from being all soft and purring and quivering with response to sudden rigidity. ‘Pack … for me?’

Jasim wished he had taken more thorough advantage of her before he broke that news. He lifted his handsome dark head and met the anxious questions clouding her green eyes. ‘You can no longer stay at Woodrow Court.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Elinor gasped in bewilderment, pulling away from him and yanking the duvet up over breasts that suddenly felt indecently bare.

Jasim released his breath on a slow hiss of impatience. ‘Of course you can’t stay here now that we have shared a bed. It would be most inappropriate for you to continue caring for my niece.’

Elinor was so shocked by that announcement that she felt the blood drain from her face and leave her pale. ‘You mean that having sex with you is grounds for giving me the sack?’

‘I wouldn’t put it quite as crudely as that.’

Elinor hugged the duvet to her with furious defensive hands, her eyes prickling with stinging tears. She could not credit what he was telling her, or that he could say such offensive things in that smooth low-key style, as though he were merely making polite conversation. ‘Then how would you put it?’

‘Our relationship will enter another phase,’ he drawled, smooth as polished glass and with a decided hint of warning ice in his tone.

Deaf to that loaded hint of icy withdrawal, Elinor stared straight ahead and worried at her full lower lip with her teeth. ‘What sort of a phase?’

‘I want you to move to London so that we can see more of each other.’

Now horribly conscious of her nudity below the bedding, Elinor flung him as frozen a look as she could contrive. ‘But I like working here. I love looking after Zahrah.’

‘It’s unfortunate but it can no longer continue. I cannot conduct an affair with you in the presence of my family.’

‘Because you’re ashamed of your association with me!’ Elinor condemned, and she flung herself out of bed in a passion of self-loathing regret and snatched up the towelling robe.

‘No, it would be indiscreet and unacceptable behaviour on my part. In London I can do as I like and what I would like is to see more of you,’ Jasim declared, brilliant dark eyes welded to her angry bemused face as he willed her to accept the change in her status. ‘We can’t turn back the clock on our intimacy. You must trust me. Say your goodbyes to Zahrah and I will have you out of here by lunchtime.’

Elinor snatched up her discarded swimsuit with a shaking hand. She was in shock and deeply confused. Throughout the night hours he had been the passionate lover of her dreams but, all of a sudden, he was laying down the law and making non-negotiable demands that threatened to tear apart her entire life. ‘And if I was to say, no, I’m not going anywhere and let’s forget we ever crossed the boundaries?’

‘I believe you are too sensible to challenge me.’

This time around she felt the distinct chill in the air and it raised goosebumps on her exposed skin. His dark gaze was black and cold. For the very first time, she sensed the steel of him, the fierce ruthless purpose that powered him beneath the charisma. The discovery of what lay at the core of him unnerved her. He was determined that she leave Woodrow Court and if that was how strongly he felt, she did not see how she could remain and live in constant fear of her wanton behaviour being exposed. ‘I wish I had known what I was getting into,’ she breathed starkly.

‘You do now,’ Jasim pointed out silkily.

Elinor wanted to shout, but she was too shaken by what had happened to let go of her temper until she knew exactly where she stood. In her own heart she was committed to him but she did not like the way he was treating her. What were the chances that a royal prince would treat her with respect? Or come to truly care for her as anything other than a sexual partner? She realised that she had thrown the dice in a game without knowing what she was really playing for and now it was too late to go back and argue about the rules. As long as she could get a reference she would soon get another job in London. Whatever, it seemed she had thoroughly burned her boats at Woodrow Court.

She managed to return to her room, mercifully without running into anyone. She stood in the shower with tears running down her taut cheeks, trying to overcome the suspicion that in sleeping with Jasim she might well have made the biggest mistake of her life. He was turning her life upside down but she wasn’t ready yet to give up hope of a better future and walk away. As soon as she was dressed she sought out Zahrah and told the little girl that she had to leave to go and see her family. She hated telling a lie and Zahrah was quite tearful until her beloved nurse took her off for breakfast. Elinor knew her charge would be fine without her. Zahrah’s main source of security was the elderly nurse who had always been with her.

She skipped breakfast and packed. A manservant came to the door for her luggage and Jasim called her on the house phone at noon. ‘I’ll see you in London,’ he told her. ‘I’m grateful that you’re being sensible about this. I couldn’t hide our relationship and I don’t intend to.’

Strengthened by what felt like a far-reaching pledge of faith on her terms, Elinor got into the car waiting outside for her and it was only then that she marvelled at her failure to demand to know exactly where she was being taken. Mid-afternoon, she preceded her driver into a lift in a tall block of luxury flats. He had not a word of English so she couldn’t question him and she wondered as she was shown into an apartment if it was where Jasim lived when he was in the city. Was he moving her in with him? Surely not? She reminded herself that she had a healthy bank account and was far from powerless when it came to looking out for her own best interests. But, even so, the sudden changes had cost her dear; she had a cautious personality and her strong attachment to him added entire layers of complexity that made her feel out of control.

An hour later, Jasim strode through the front door. He hauled her straight into his arms and kissed her as if he was set on reminding her of his power over her. Pink lit her cheeks and butterflies fluttered inside her. Everything, she promised herself as she gazed up into his breathtakingly handsome face, was going to be fine. She just had to give them both a little time and space.

But time, she soon learned, was at premium.

‘This evening I’m flying to New York for two weeks,’ Jasim imparted with a casualness that made her vulnerable heart sink like a stone. ‘That’s why I had you brought here. I own this apartment and you’ll be comfortable here while I’m abroad.’

‘I can afford my own accommodation, although I may not need it for long. Most nanny jobs are live-in and if you can sort out a reference for me, I’ll have another job by the time you get back—’

Jasim studied her in wonderment. Unable to believe that she could possibly be serious in her desire to be self-sufficient, he released a slightly harsh laugh. ‘There’s no need for you to look for another position. Nannies must work hellish hours—how would I ever see you? Don’t you understand what I’m offering you?’

Elinor stood there very still and straight-backed and increasingly pale. ‘No, I must be incredibly thick because I haven’t quite worked out yet what you’re offering me …’

His charismatic smile slashed his lean dark visage and he took a measured step forward. ‘Naturally, I want to take care of you …’

‘No, thanks.’ Elinor forced a smile that felt rigid on her tense mouth and mentally willed him not to demean her with some sordid proposition. ‘The only man who will ever take care of me with my agreement will be my husband. I’m willing to wait for you to come back but I’m not willing to be kept by you. I’m a very independent woman and what I give, I give freely.’

Jasim frowned. ‘You make it all sound so serious.’

‘What happened between us last night drove a coach and horses through my life and left pure chaos in its wake,’ she reminded him gently, a slender hand resting on the lapel of his pinstripe suit jacket. ‘Right now, I don’t know whether I’m on my head or my heels. I’ll stay for a while because I have nowhere else to go in the short term, but I need to fall back to Planet Earth again so maybe it’s good that you’ll be away for a while.’

Jasim pulled out his wallet to extract a card. ‘My private number,’ he told her, presenting her with it as though it was a precious gift—which indeed it was. Many women would have done just about anything to gain access to that direct hotline to him, but his staff guarded his privacy with scrupulous care.

Before he could close the wallet, his thumb brushed over the condom packet slotted into it and his blood ran cold in his veins in a deeply disturbing wake-up call. He realised that in his excitement the evening before he had neglected to use contraception with Elinor. Consternation rolled through him. How could he have made such a serious oversight? Although he was usually very careful, they had shared numerous encounters of unprotected sex during the night. What if he had got her pregnant? He reminded himself that, according to Murad, a woman didn’t fall pregnant that easily. Certainly, Yaminah had been most unfortunate in that regard. He thought of all that he had read about ‘morning-after pills’, but he had too much respect for the gift of new life to persuade a woman into taking that option as a preventative measure. He decided that he could more easily live with hoping for the best. Yet, he knew that an unplanned pregnancy would engulf his life like an avalanche, crush his freedom and suffocate him. He barely stilled a shudder at the threat of such an outcome and thought how ironic it was that what his older brother had longed and prayed for to secure the line to the throne should strike Jasim as an absolute disaster.

Within twenty-four hours of Jasim’s departure, Elinor quietly signed up with an agency as a relief nanny and found herself plunged straight back into regular, reasonably well-paid employment. Going from one family to the next and staying only a few days in each household was surprisingly enjoyable and kept her too busy to brood. She knew she wouldn’t like dealing with a merry-go-round of change for ever but, just then, the freedom from having to forge new meaningful relationships felt like what she most needed. Every night she returned to the luxurious but anonymous comfort of the apartment and fell asleep within minutes of getting into bed.

Jasim phoned her almost every day. The conversations were curiously impersonal and unsatisfying and only made her feel more insecure. The only information he gave about himself was superficial. He never mentioned the future, or that he was missing her. Her period was due at the end of that first week and when it didn’t arrive as expected she tried not to worry. She started to feel that she had been very foolish once she acknowledged that she had no memory of Jasim taking precautions that night at Woodrow Court. Had he falsely assumed that she was taking contraceptive pills as so many women did? How could she have been so dense? When her nerves could stand the waiting game no longer, she bought a pregnancy test. The test was guaranteed to give an accurate result within days of a malfunctioning menstrual cycle, so she made immediate use of it.

The positive result stunned Elinor. Somehow she hadn’t really believed that she could have conceived; somehow such a development hadn’t really seemed possible to her. Now she learned that she was very much mistaken. She was expecting a baby, a real, live little baby. In the space of one wildly reckless night Jasim had contrived to get her pregnant.

That same evening she received an unexpected visitor. The doorbell buzzed and when she addressed the caller through the intercom, it was Prince Murad’s voice that answered her. Elinor was appalled by his arrival and would have done just about anything to avoid the humiliation of answering the door and actually having to deal with her former employer. Unfortunately there was no decent way of avoiding the issue.

‘May I come in and speak with you?’ the older man asked politely.

‘Of course.’ In the elegant living room, Elinor linked her hands tightly together. ‘You must be wondering why I left Woodrow so suddenly—’

‘Elinor … let me be frank. I know that this apartment block belongs to my brother,’ the prince admitted, his expression grave and concerned. ‘I am sorry that you have left my employment and I would rather that it had been for any other reason than this. I had a great affection for your mother and I feel responsible for you as her daughter. You have chosen to take a most ill-advised step.’

Her strained face flamed with colour. ‘I know you mean well, but I’m an adult and I’m here of my own free will, Your Highness.’

‘Jasim has had many women in his life, Elinor. He cherishes none of them, and he will not marry any woman who has already lived with him.’

Elinor’s hands twisted. Confronted by such cruel candour, she felt as if her heart were being ripped out at the seams. ‘I’m not looking for marriage—’

‘But you deserve better than this tawdry arrangement,’ Murad pronounced with an angry wave of dismissal that encompassed their surroundings. A small and portly but still dignified figure, he sighed. ‘I loved and respected your mother. I would never have asked her to be my mistress. You must value yourself more. Surely this cannot be the future that you wanted?’

Although it was still only early evening, when Murad left Elinor went to bed and cried. Seeing how she had sunk in the older man’s estimation had upset her. But, at the same time, she knew that there was no way that she was prepared to become Jasim’s mistress! Apart from anything else, her pregnancy would alter everything, she reasoned wretchedly. When he had carted her off to bed in an excess of lusty passion, conceiving a child with her would have been the very last thing on his mind. How was he likely to react to such a shattering development?

Jasim had returned from New York a day early. Warned by his security team that his brother had visited Elinor, he arrived at the apartment a couple of hours later. Murad’s seeking out of Elinor had confirmed his every suspicion about the nature of their relationship and he was angry and full of distrust. Never before had his older sibling sought to interfere in his private life! So what kind of a hold did Elinor have over Murad that he had felt the need to come up to London specifically to confront her?

‘Jasim …’ Elinor sat up in bed with a start as the overhead light went on. ‘I had no idea you were coming back tonight!’

Sheathed in a charcoal grey business suit that was beautifully tailored to fit his lean, tautly muscled physique, he looked spectacular. Deprived of the sight of him for almost two weeks, she couldn’t help staring and drinking in every tiny detail of his appearance.

In his turn, Jasim was studying the tumbled bed, questioning why she was in it at barely past eight o’clock and asking himself if his own brother could have shared it with her earlier that evening. Her nose was pink and her eyelids reddened and swollen, making it clear that she had been upset and that she had cried. Fierce anger and disgust filled him. ‘Evidently …’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ she questioned in bewilderment.

‘Did you entertain my brother in that bed as well?’

Her eyes widened in shock at that question. ‘That’s a horrible thing to ask me—’

‘But an even more disgusting thing to have to suspect,’ Jasim countered rawly, dark eyes glittering like golden diamonds of derision over her. He strode round to the side of the bed, closed a hand round her arm and tugged her upright to face him without ceremony. ‘Answer me.’

‘Why? Do you and your brother make a habit of sharing women?’ Elinor demanded shakily, her outrage threatening to strangle her voice. ‘I slept with you so, for that reason, you assume I’m just some slut who would be quite happy to sleep with your brother as well?’

The level of her incredulity cooled Jasim’s temper and sharpened his wits. He registered that he had come within an ace of revealing too much knowledge. He had given her no reason to suspect his motives in pursuing her and if Murad was still chasing after her, it would be unwise to either alienate her or turn her loose.

Deeply wounded by his lack of faith in her, Elinor stared at him in angry reproach. What had happened to the guy who had sworn he wanted to see more of her? He pushed a hand through the black hair on his brow and raked it back in a gesture of frustration. She noticed that his hand wasn’t quite steady and registered that he was a great deal more disturbed than he was prepared to show. On the outside he seemed so cool and controlled, but inside he seethed with anger, outrage and passion. Suddenly she believed she understood what was wrong. Evidently, the reverse side of that passion was a jealous, suspicious streak a mile wide. On the balance side, however, when she had challenged him he had backed off, presumably appreciating that his suspicions were ridiculously irrational. She wondered if the behaviour of some other woman had taught him to distrust her sex.

‘How did you know your brother came to see me?’

‘My security team have been keeping an eye on this apartment.’

Wondering if she was supposed to be flattered that he should consider she required that protection, Elinor nodded and began to pull clean clothes out of the drawers in the cabinet by the bed. ‘I’ll get dressed. We have to talk.’

Jasim tensed. The idea of further discussion was the sort of womanly threat he avoided like the plague. He would much have preferred joining her in bed. Sex would have released his tension and buried the argument much more effectively than a verbal post-mortem.

Stiff and self-conscious now in his presence, Elinor went into the en-suite bathroom to dress, pulling on the jeans and the T-shirt she had chosen at speed. She wished she had had some warning that he would be returning early, for she would have liked the chance to dress up. Glancing in the mirror, she groaned, convinced that she looked horribly plain with her pink-rimmed eyes and weary pallor. When she re-entered the bedroom, Jasim was standing by the window in the living room. He still looked unrelentingly severe and he swung round, saying flatly, ‘What did my brother want with you?’

An uneasy flush warmed her cheeks and she wished she could have been more frank with him about her late mother’s relationship with Murad. But, on her first day of employment, the older man had made her promise never to divulge that connection to anyone, for he had feared that the truth would be misinterpreted and would cause them both embarrassment. Since her friend, Louise, had already made seedy insinuations about the same issue, Elinor had decided that Prince Murad had been more astute than she in foreseeing what others might make of the story and she had no intention of being equally frank with anyone else. ‘The prince thought that I was making a mistake leaving my job and getting involved with you. He said that he felt responsible for me.’

Jasim’s superb bone structure set hard as granite beneath his bronzed skin. Well, that was certainly telling him the lie of the land! Murad had been sufficiently angry to follow her to London and question her current circumstances. Jasim studied her exquisite face and the tumble of Titian curls that were so bright against her creamy skin. He wondered how he had ever deemed that hair unattractive. How had he also failed to appreciate the obvious fact that so beautiful a woman might also have the power to set brother against brother? He was stunned that he had contrived to overlook that obvious angle and it was now too late to redress the balance. Wasn’t it? He was outraged that Murad had even dared to approach her, crossing boundaries that Jasim had assumed would be respected. She was his now.

Elinor sank down in a leather armchair and straightened her slight shoulders. ‘I have something to tell you.’ Having breathed in deep, she mustered the strength not to make a theatrical production out of her news. ‘I’m pregnant.’

However, her quiet low-pitched admission had the same effect on Jasim as a sudden devastatingly loud clap of thunder. He went very still. His expressive eyes hooded over and his aggressive jaw line clenched hard. His sins, it seemed, had truly come home to roost and the minute she spoke he saw his well-organised life spinning out of control. ‘It’s my fault,’ he acknowledged flatly. ‘When we spent the night together I didn’t use protection.’

A little less defensive once he assumed the lion’s share of the blame for her condition, Elinor released her pent-up breath.

‘I deserve to pay the price for this,’ Jasim said heavily, his classic profile as grim as his tone of voice.

‘The price? There is no price—’

‘You’re wrong. Either we pay the price, or our child will. If you give birth to a boy he will be an heir to the throne of Quaram, but he can only assume that status if we marry and he is born within wedlock. If he is not, my family will never recognise him.’

‘An heir to the throne—would he be…. honestly?’ Elinor exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Marry?’

‘I don’t think that we have a choice. As soon as you’ve had your pregnancy confirmed by a doctor, I have to marry you. I refuse to embarrass my family with a scandal and it is imperative that our child is born legitimate.’

Elinor realised that his decisions were based on a different set of parameters from hers but she was impressed by his willingness to stand by their child and look into the future. ‘I could have a little girl.’

‘She, too, would be denied her inheritance if she is not born within marriage. The birth of an illegitimate child is still a very serious matter in my country.’

‘You’re prepared to marry me to stop that happening?’ Elinor prompted, because she just couldn’t accept that he was prepared to go to such lengths.

‘I am. Isn’t securing our child’s future the most important issue at stake here?’

‘But we hardly know each other.’ Elinor dealt him a pained glance of shame as she forced out that admission. ‘I’m only a nanny … you’re a prince.’

‘Our child won’t care who or what we are as long as we love him … or her,’ he responded wryly.

She was touched by that assurance and the thought that had gone into it. He was so responsible and he would make a good father; he was already worrying about what was best for their child. All right, she had eyes in her head and she could see that he wasn’t exactly celebrating at the prospect of marrying her, but neither was he thinking of leaving her to deal alone with her pregnancy. ‘Do you think we could make a marriage work?’ she murmured half under her breath.

‘I’m willing to make the effort.’ His beautiful dark eyes wandered over her at a leisurely pace and lingered on her soft pink mouth and the ripe pout of her breasts until her face burned and she shifted in her chair. ‘I find you very attractive. That’s a healthy foundation.’

Elinor knew that, with the smallest encouragement, he would scoop her up and take her back to bed to sate the hunger he made no attempt to hide. Her nipples were tightening and the familiar hollow ache was awakening between her thighs. But she felt too vulnerable to give him that signal. She wanted to be more than the woman who satisfied his sexual needs. But even though she wanted more she knew that she was still prepared to marry him on the practical and unemotional basis that he had outlined. If he was ready to give her his full support, she was willing to do whatever it took to ensure a more secure and happy future for her baby.

‘I’ll marry you, then,’ she told him gruffly.

Jasim almost laughed out loud at the idea that he might have required that confirmation. Of course she was going to marry him and snatch at the chance to live in luxury for the rest of her days! Not for one moment had he doubted that fact. ‘I’ll make the arrangements. Please don’t share our plans with anyone for the moment. We need to keep this a secret if we want to keep the tabloid press out of the picture.’

Jasim retreated back to the doorway. Dark-driven anger was stirring out of the ashes of his shock. He had known that he was dealing with a devious and mercenary young woman, who was willing to encourage a married man’s pursuit to feather her nest. Yet, even armed with that awareness, he too had fallen for her wiles and straight into a sexual honey-trap refined by the guilt-inducing gift of her virginity. He had played into her scheming hands as easily as a testosterone-driven teenager. Elinor Tempest had simply traded her body to the highest and most available bidder and the pay-off promised to be huge on her terms. Marriage into the Rais ruling family would reward her with immense wealth and status and that unhappy truth galled him.

Her face full of uncertainty, Elinor hovered by the bed. His beautiful golden gaze was cold as charity and she flushed. ‘Are you leaving?’

‘I have work to do,’ Jasim delivered curtly. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

On the day of the wedding, Elinor was torn in two with indecision. She had barely laid eyes on Jasim since the day she told him she was pregnant. He had personally accompanied her to the office of a gynaecologist in private practice, who had confirmed her pregnancy. She rather suspected that Jasim had regretted doing so when a well-dressed lady in the waiting room had recognised him and begun chattering away to him. Since then, though she had given up her temping work, he had not visited the apartment again or accompanied her anywhere and they had communicated only by phone. In every way possible he had distanced himself from her, retreating behind a smooth, polite façade that she could not penetrate.

She had fallen crazily in love with a guy who didn’t return her feelings, Elinor conceded wretchedly. Would he ever love her back? Or did the very fact that he felt he had to marry her for the sake of their child mean that she would never, ever inspire him to any warmer emotions? Those were the questions that Elinor struggled to find a fair answer to while she prepared all on her own for what she had once thought would be the happiest day of her life.

Too insecure to purchase the white wedding gown of her dreams and wear it, Elinor made do with a cream lace suit composed of a jacket and a slim skirt that came to just below her knees. None of the romantic frills that most women craved seemed appropriate. Jasim sent a car to collect her and she was ushered into the register office where the civil ceremony was to take place. A limp flower arrangement was the dusty room’s only claim to glamour. But her attention zeroed straight in on Jasim, dramatically handsome in a dark suit teamed with a gold silk tie, his bronzed angel face grave and oddly forbidding.

Her tummy flipped with nerves rather than excitement because her bridegroom looked more as though he were attending a funeral. Give him the option of walking away, a little voice in her head urged her. ‘Could I have a word with you in private?’ Elinor enquired tautly.

Jasim detached himself from the company of the two aides flanking him and approached her. ‘What is it? We haven’t much time.’

‘There is no obligation on you to do this. If you don’t want to marry me, just walk away now. I won’t hold it against you. I won’t stop you seeing the baby either,’ she whispered frantically. ‘Just don’t marry me because you feel you have to, because it’ll cause us both nothing but unhappiness.’

Jasim dealt her a raw appraisal that warned her that he was seething with emotion beneath the cool front. ‘We have a future together with our child. I cannot walk away from either of you.’

‘But I don’t want a noble, self-sacrificing hero of a husband,’ Elinor declared, even as he turned away from her.

Jasim closed a hand over hers and walked her back with him to where the registrar was standing. ‘We haven’t got time for this nonsense.’

The ceremony was brief and over with very quickly. A shiny new ring on her wedding finger, Elinor got into a limousine that wafted them back through the busy city streets to a hugely impressive Georgian town house set in a dignified square with a lush garden at its centre. Jasim spent the entire journey on his cell phone, which, Elinor acknowledged bitterly, at least saved him from the challenge of having to chat to her. She wondered how he would manage without it in bed, or even if he ever planned to make physical contact with her again. I’ve made a mistake, she thought fearfully. I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake marrying him and now it’s too late to do anything about it!

‘We’ll have lunch now,’ Jasim murmured, guiding her up the steps of the town house and into a spacious hall hung with beautiful oil paintings. ‘Why are you so quiet?’

Elinor almost lost her temper with him there and then, almost told him what a horrible wedding it had been and how she had given him the opportunity to back out and that, if he hadn’t taken it, the least he could have done was make the effort to ensure that it was a pleasant occasion! But, conscious that his bodyguards and the housekeeper were hovering, she bit back her ire. ‘I suppose I’m just tired.’

‘You should lie down for an hour.’ Jasim signalled the housekeeper and she was escorted upstairs to a beautiful bedroom.

Angry tears in her eyes at the ease with which he had dismissed her from his presence, Elinor soon decided that she should go back downstairs and tell Jasim exactly what she thought of the wedding he had put her through. Maintaining a stiff upper lip was unlikely to improve the atmosphere between them, but maybe an argument would, she reasoned in desperation. After all, if he didn’t know how she was feeling, how could he make things better? But what if he didn’t care enough to even want to make things better? That was her biggest fear.

From the window she saw a limo draw up outside. She frowned when she saw Murad’s wife, Yaminah, scrambling out, for it had not escaped her notice that no member of his family had attended their wedding. She left the bedroom and headed for the stairs.

The sound of a shrill, raised, female voice greeted Elinor even before she reached the hall. It was Yaminah and she was ranting in French.

‘It’s my fault you got involved with the girl … didn’t I beg you to show an interest in her so that she would lose interest in my husband and pay him no heed?’ the older woman cried feverishly. ‘Now I’ve ruined your life! I can’t believe what you’ve done. You didn’t even get your father’s permission to marry her!’

The deep steady tones of Jasim’s rich drawl interposed, ‘The King would never have given his permission—’

‘Then it’s not too late. The marriage can be invalidated,’ Yaminah exclaimed. ‘It doesn’t matter that she’s pregnant, that can be hushed up. Pay her off, do whatever you have to do, anything other than sacrifice your happiness with this mockery of a marriage!’

Listening to that uniquely revealing dialogue, Elinor felt much as if she were being eviscerated with a knife. Perspiration beading her upper lip, she hurried back to the bedroom and straight into the adjoining bathroom where she was horribly sick. All of a sudden, she was realising what a total idiot she had been not to question why a spectacularly handsome prince would start showing a pronounced interest in her. Yaminah had asked him to. Murad’s wife had feared that her husband was at risk of being led astray by the nanny and had persuaded her brother-in-law to present himself as an alternative option. Goodness, had they really feared that she might have an affair with a married man as old as Murad? Jasim had been a dazzling success when it came to seduction and too virile for his own good, Elinor conceded painfully. No wonder the complication of a pregnancy had hit him hard! Jasim had never really wanted her at all and even less must he have wanted to marry her.

Elinor freshened up and pressed trembling hands to her damp cheeks. She would do Jasim one last favour: for the benefit of them both she would leave him. There was no true marriage to work at, no future to weave dreams around and clearly no togetherness or mutual passion to retrieve. Their whole relationship from start to finish had been a lie, a big fat fakery, to ensnare her and draw her in. She had been more than a little desperate to believe that he could find her irresistible—even though no other man ever had—and now all she was conscious of was a deeply painful sense of shame and humiliation. What a pushover and a patsy she had been!

She rooted through her luggage, which had been brought up, extracting jewellery, keepsakes, important documentation and a few necessities to keep her clothed until she had time to go shopping. She didn’t care about abandoning the rest—indeed her entire being was bent on leaving the town house just as fast as she possibly could. She piled everything she was taking with her into a smaller bag and changed into a more practical outfit of jeans and a jacket.

She yanked off her wedding ring and left it on the dressing table. Instantly she felt better about herself. He was gorgeous, rich and royal, but he had taken her for a cruelly manipulative ride that she would never forget. How naïve and immature she had been to give her trust so easily! A woman needed a man like a fish needed a bicycle, she quoted to herself, because her heart felt as if it were being pounded into pieces inside her. She didn’t need him when she had herself to depend on, a willingness to work and a comfortable savings account. She and her baby would get by just fine without him.

Even so, tears dampened her face as she crept through the hall and slid like an eel out the front door with barely a sound. She walked briskly down the street and she didn’t once look back. She was already making plans to ensure that even though he looked for her he would find it very difficult to find her again.