Читать книгу Magnates: Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence - Линн Грэхем, Lynne Graham - Страница 8

‘ALL right, so he’s not there right now,’ Alissa conceded grudgingly, lodged at the front window and scanning the pavement opposite for the young man she had noticed earlier. ‘But I swear he was out there looking up at this apartment most of the day.’

Lindy, a curvaceous brunette, groaned out loud and rolled her eyes at Elinor. ‘We haven’t got a boyfriend between us but we’ve attracted a stalker? We don’t have a lot of luck, do we?’

Elinor didn’t laugh. Anything out of the ordinary tended to make her tense. She was always a little on her guard. Eighteen months had passed since she had set out to make a new life and preserve her independence by cutting all ties with the old. Kneeling, she bent over Sami, slotting her baby son into a stretchy sleep-suit covered with pictures of toy racing cars. He thought it was a game and continually tried to roll away out of reach. She closed a hand round a chubby ankle to hold him steady.

‘Sami … stay still,’ she scolded, trying to be stern.

Enormous brown eyes surrounded by black lashes as long as fly swats danced with mischief. He rolled again. At ten months old, Sami had buckets of charm and a huge amount of personality. He was a fearless extrovert to his fingertips. When life went his way he was all sunny smiles and chuckles, but when it went wrong he seethed with melodrama and sobbed up a heartbreaking storm.

‘It’s bedtime,’ Elinor told the little boy, tenderly hugging him close, revelling in his squirming warmth and cuddliness and the sweet familiar scent of his skin.

She usually kept Sami up quite late in the evenings because he was cared for in a crèche during the day while she worked full time. Every morning when she left him there she felt guilty, and evenings, weekends and holidays revolved exclusively around ensuring that Sami had lots of fun and got all her attention.

‘Night, Sami.’ Lindy patted his little curly dark head fondly as she moved past Elinor to head into the kitchen. ‘Fancy a cup of tea before bed?’

‘I’d love one,’ Elinor admitted wearily.

‘Nighty-night,’ Alissa said to Sami, tugging Elinor down onto the arm of the sofa so that she could kiss the little boy’s cheek.

Elinor tucked her son into his cot beside her bed. His eyes sparkled and he kicked while she went through their usual bedtime ritual, winding up the music box to play its customary lullaby and tucking his toy lamb in beside him. She read his favourite story, showing him the pictures through the bars of the cot. Slowly Sami wound down, lowering his eyelids until his thick ebony lashes fringed his olive-toned baby cheeks. Content to watch him, Elinor got ready for bed and stayed until he was fast asleep.

‘You’ve let the tea get cold,’ Lindy sighed when she emerged.

‘I’m used to cold tea.’

Alissa had already retired for the night. Lindy was frowning at Elinor. ‘You looked really worried when Alissa mentioned that she thought that guy had been watching the apartment. Did you think it might be Sami’s dad? Was he violent?’

Elinor froze and gave her flatmate a shocked look. ‘My goodness, no, nothing like that!’

‘I couldn’t help wondering and I felt I had to ask just in case someone turns up asking for you.’ Lindy watched Elinor pale at the idea. ‘What are you scared of, then?’

If Elinor had not been so accustomed to sidestepping all such questions to conceal her past history she might have weakened and told all. Lindy and Alissa were more than just flatmates. They were true friends, who had stuck by her throughout her pregnancy and done their utmost to be supportive.

‘Not violence but … maybe losing custody of Sami,’ she confided, finally voicing her deepest fear.

‘I don’t know what you’re worried about. Single mothers outrank single fathers in the custody stakes.’

Elinor shrugged, reluctant to admit that she had married her child’s father, although she was pretty sure that the marriage would have since been dissolved. For what reason would Jasim have retained that bond with an unwanted wife, who had vanished on their wedding day? But she was always afraid that he might still be looking for them because she had kept his child from him. And she felt amazingly bad about that sometimes. However, she didn’t feel she could trust a man who had done what Jasim had done to her. It was Jasim who had taught her how devious, cruel and cold-blooded he could be. He might have married her, but he hadn’t cared about her or even respected her, so how likely was it that he would be happy to share Sami with her? Sami was far too precious to be put at risk.

The following morning, Elinor checked Sami into the workplace crèche that made her daily life so much simpler than it might otherwise have been. The crèche was brand new and state-of-the-art and it was the main reason why Elinor had been overjoyed when she got a job at Havertons. Having passed a year-long business course with flying colours after Sami’s birth, she was now happily employed in a position with the company. Indeed there was only one cloud in Elinor’s sky. At the start of the month, finding it difficult to negotiate the uncertainties of the financial markets, Havertons had changed hands, swallowed up by a much larger player in the insurance hierarchy. Ever since then office tensions had risen. Everyone was worried that jobs would be shed and Elinor was equally afraid that the new ownership would close the crèche as a cost-cutting measure.

When Elinor arrived at her desk, the buzz in the accounts department was unusually loud. ‘What’s all the racket about?’ she asked her neighbour.

‘The CEO of RS Industries is paying us a personal visit today. The big bosses are hyper at only getting a few hours’ notice.’

Just over an hour later Elinor was summoned to her manager’s office and she was only a little anxious as to the cause.

‘Miss Leslie,’ Daniel Harper greeted her with a frown, using the surname she had assumed when she’d left Jasim. ‘You’re to go up to the top floor immediately and present yourself at Executive Reception.’

Elinor looped a straying auburn curl back behind a delicate ear and murmured uncertainly, ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

Daniel sighed. ‘You can ask but I can’t answer you. Your presence has been requested upstairs and I’m afraid that’s all I know about the matter.’

Made uneasy by his perplexity and concerned that somehow she had got into trouble, for she had never before been on the executive floor, Elinor headed for the lift. As she was whirred up several floors she reminded herself that her recent appraisal had rated her well for her diligence. She studied her reflection in the shiny stainless-steel wall, wondering if she should have taken a moment to tidy her hair, for her rebellious curls were always trying to escape confinement. Her calf-length grey skirt and white ruffled blouse were unexciting, but when she had begun putting together an office wardrobe she had found it easiest to ring the changes by sticking to plain base colours.

In the act of walking towards the reception area she centred her attention on the group of men already standing there. She recognised the MD of Havertons first, a tall toothy man with thinning hair and an anxious expression. Only as she drew closer did she recognise the bold classic profile of the even taller male to one side of the MD and her footsteps faltered. Shock washed over her like a drowning tidal wave. Her skin turned clammy and broke out in goose bumps. It was Jasim! Yet she fought the conviction, reasoning that such a coincidence was so unlikely that she had to be mistaken.

But when he turned his arrogant dark head in her direction there could no longer be any room for doubt. Her heart started to thump frighteningly fast, adrenalin pumping up her responses as apprehension threatened to overwhelm her. Sheathed in a faultlessly cut black business suit that was the last word in tailored sophistication, Jasim looked spectacularly handsome and stylish. For a split second, Elinor collided with deep-set dark golden eyes that glittered like fire in the impassive planes of his bronzed face. Her throat closed over. Yet, even on edge with stress and trepidation, she could not suppress the leap of her senses in response to his presence. Although she hated him she could not be impervious to his charisma or the simple fact that, from the crown of his proud dark head to the soles of his almost certainly handmade shoes, he was still indisputably the most gorgeous guy she had ever seen in human form.

‘Miss Leslie?’ The MD addressed her as affably as though they were friends instead of complete strangers. ‘I believe you have a child in the crèche here. His Royal Highness, Prince Jasim, the CEO of our parent company, has requested a tour of the crèche facility in your company.’

So determined was Elinor not to betray her nervous tension that she automatically half extended a hand in polite greeting and then let it drop back to her side again as Jasim’s stunning eyes smouldered like punitive flames over her. She sensed the anger restrained by his fierce self-discipline and, since she considered herself to be just as much an injured party as he evidently did, she lifted her head high and thrust up her chin in challenge.

Jasim was inflamed by that defiant look in her bright green eyes. After what she had done, how dared she challenge him? How dared she masquerade under a name that was not hers and stroll up to him without so much as a womanly blush on her cheeks? What a performer she was! A woman without a drop of shame over her conduct, he reflected bitterly, repressing his bitter anger with difficulty, for she had run away with his son and kept him apart from him.

‘Miss Leslie,’ he breathed in gritty acknowledgement, his veiled gaze scanning her flawless features and lingering for several taut seconds before lowering to the cushioned swell of her full lower lip. His memory of the taste of her sent a current of electrifying erotic intent straight to his groin and he set his teeth together, infuriated by that unruly physical reaction.

An aide already had the lift waiting for them. Elinor stepped in again, her mind a hive of bemused activity. ‘CEO of our parent company,’ the managing director had said. Jasim? Did that mean that his was the visit that had got everyone in such a tizzy? And that he was the new owner of Havertons and also the CEO of RS Industries? And if it did, did that mean he had accidentally contrived to take over the company that employed her? Elinor did not believe in ridiculous coincidences. In her opinion if something looked suspicious, it probably was. The silence sizzled with undertones. Her tummy sank like a stone while the lift travelled downward. Sami was surely the only reason that would lead Jasim into professing an interest in seeing the crèche, she reasoned fearfully. He had to know that their son was there … he wanted to see Sami.

‘I wasn’t expecting our next meeting to happen in a public place,’ Elinor remarked, only recalling the two bulky bodyguards occupying the lift with them after she had spoken.

‘Be grateful for it,’ Jasim breathed with roughened bite.

The raw anger in his hard gaze sent a spooky chill down her taut spinal cord. Even so, Elinor could not resist shrugging a slim shoulder in dismissal of that masculine warning. ‘We have nothing to say to each other.’

‘On the contrary,’ Jasim contradicted icily. ‘I have a great deal to say to you.’

Infuriated by his patronising tone of address, Elinor breathed in deep, because while she could easily have matched that assurance she was not looking forward to the inevitable confrontation. He was a rat, a dangerously clever, unfeeling and unscrupulous rat, who had brazenly played on her trust and naivety to get her into bed. Her face burned at the humiliating recollection of what an easy touch she had proved to be. At the same time, however, there was one subject that she felt she had to tackle.

‘I was very sorry to hear of your brother’s death,’ she remarked stiffly, recollecting how shocked and upset she had been to read about Prince Murad’s sudden death from a heart attack the previous year.

‘We were all shocked. Murad had a health check every few months but nothing irregular was ever identified,’ Jasim proffered grimly. ‘He was a bitter loss.’

Elinor had felt sad when she had read about the older man’s demise and then rather guilty when, soon afterwards, she had gone out and sold the diamond engagement ring she had inherited from her mother, Rose. The eye-watering value of the ring had astonished her and she had used the proceeds to buy the flat she currently shared with her friends. The security of a decent roof over her head had made single parenthood seem less intimidating.

She entered the crèche at a smart pace. The manageress, Olivia, had been pre-warned and was waiting at the entrance for them. Jasim was quick to engage her in well-bred conversation.

Elinor, however, was in panic mode. Spotting Sami reclining in a baby seat and playing with a brightly coloured toy, Elinor went straight to her son and released his safety belt to lift him. Sami chortled with pleasure and opened his arms wide. Anxious tears prickled the back of Elinor’s eyes as her arms closed round his precious weight and warmth.

‘Elinor …’ Olivia called. ‘You can go into my office if you like.’

The older woman’s eyes were bright with curiosity. Elinor evaded them, pacing back towards Jasim’s tall, darkly handsome figure with extreme reluctance. But he wasn’t looking at her. His entire attention was welded to the little boy she held and when she got close he startled her by reaching out. ‘Let me hold my son,’ he urged with unconcealed impatience.

Elinor saw comprehension fly into Olivia’s face, only to unleash an even more avid expression of curiosity. Although she had no desire to let go of Sami, she did not want to risk a scene that might upset her child. And Jasim, she registered as she clashed with his expectant dark eyes, was very likely to fight hard for what he wanted. She waited until she was inside the older woman’s office before handing Sami over. Jasim’s hand inadvertently brushed her arm and she was so aware of him that she was vaguely surprised not to see fingerprints left behind on her skin. Jasim clasped the little boy with care and held him out to examine, keenly scrutinising every inch of Sami’s fearless little face. There was a quality of bemusement and wonder in Jasim’s stern gaze that unsettled Elinor and made her feel very uncomfortable. Brown eyes sparkling, Sami smiled at Jasim and made no objection when Jasim brought him closer. His father’s confident handling made it clear that he was no stranger to young children.

‘He is the only boy born in my family for many years,’ Jasim said gravely. ‘It is a crime that we have been unable to celebrate his birth.’

A … crime? Well, that was certainly letting her know how he felt and more than hinted at the weight of blame he intended to foist on her. Resentment stirred like a knife twisting inside her and her soft mouth compressed into a mutinous line. ‘If Sami wasn’t present, I would tell you exactly how I feel about you—’

Jasim elevated a sardonic ebony brow, for he was astonished by the attack. ‘Do you think I am interested in such a dialogue after you walked out on our marriage?’

An involuntary sour laugh fell from Elinor’s lips. ‘Marriage?’ she repeated drily. ‘What marriage? It was as much of a fake and an insult as your supposed interest in m—’

‘Meaning?’ Jasim queried, angling his handsome head back as Sami sank an inquisitive little hand into his father’s luxuriant cropped black hair and yanked hard.

‘Sami, stop that …’ Elinor instructed, leaning forward to detach Sami’s grasping fingers from his father’s hair.

‘He can do as he likes with me,’ Jasim countered squarely.

Elinor slung her child’s father a look of flagrant loathing.

‘Like you do? Your brother’s wife comes to you with some absurd tale of her husband being led astray by the nanny and you leap right in and seduce me to order? Were you proud of the lines you spun me to get me into bed?’ she condemned in a voice that was starting to shake with betraying emotion. ‘What sort of a real man uses a woman like that? How could you sink that low?’

The healthy glow of his complexion had receded while his fabulous bone structure clenched taut. His dark deep set eyes flared bright as flames and he did not back down an inch. ‘You eavesdropped on Yaminah that day. She was hysterical. I did wonder if you had overheard something—’

‘I wasn’t going to stay with you anyway,’ Elinor told him vehemently. ‘Not with the way you were treating me! I’ve got more pride than that, pregnant or otherwise, Your Royal Highness, and the last thing I needed was a reluctant liar of a bridegroom!’

‘Silence!’ Jasim bit out with ferocious disdain, every inch of his rigid bearing telegraphing his outrage at the abuse she was unleashing on him. ‘I will not tolerate being spoken to like that!’

In the smouldering silence that stretched, Sami suddenly burst into noisy tears and stretched his little arms out pathetically to Elinor for comfort.

‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Elinor shot at Jasim furiously as she summarily snatched her son from his grasp. ‘You’ve frightened him.’

‘Your lack of control and manners did that,’ Jasim contradicted without hesitation.

‘Manners?’ Elinor gasped. ‘You can talk about manners after what you did to me?’

‘Enough,’ Jasim told her with icy restraint. ‘I’ll see you at the town house at seven this evening. I’ll send a car for you.’

Elinor banded both arms round Sami in a protective gesture as she recognised in dismay that he clearly already knew where she lived. ‘Don’t bother. I won’t come.’

‘You’re my wife,’ Jasim breathed in a low-pitched growl.

Elinor spun away from him over to the window. ‘We’re still married?’ she prompted tightly.

‘Of course we are still married.’ A lean hand curved to her slim shoulder to turn her back to him. Brilliant dark eyes assailed hers with cool purpose while the achingly familiar scent of his citrus-based cologne drifted into her nostrils. ‘And I want my wife and my child back.’

‘That’s out of the question.’ Elinor rested her chin on Sami’s fluffy black curls and studied Jasim wide-eyed over her child’s head because she didn’t understand where he was coming from. Why would he say such a thing? He could only be saying it because he wanted Sami. As the silence deepened his shrewd gaze looked directly into hers.

Her mouth ran dry and her heart rate speeded up. Images of the night they had shared infiltrated her mind. Instantly she relived the feel of his lean, bronzed, perfect body, hot and urgent against hers, and the insatiable need he had roused and then satisfied over and over again. Her cheeks burned as her nipples tingled and lengthened beneath her clothing and a sensation like warm honey flowed between her thighs.

The atmosphere was thick with sensual tension. Jasim was rigid and strenuously resisting a powerful urge to touch her. ‘I believe I will also enjoy the wedding night you denied me,’ he murmured huskily.

Elinor shut him out by the simple dint of closing her eyes. She was so hot inside her clothes she felt as if she were burning up, but shame that she could be so wanton followed closely in the wake of her body’s treacherous responses to him. ‘It’s not going to happen,’ she told him flatly.

Jasim vented an unappreciative laugh and at the sound of it her eyes flew open. ‘You’re my wife,’ he said again, as if that very fact outranked everything else and rendered even her hostility meaningless.

‘Hopefully not for much longer,’ Elinor traded on the way back into the nursery.

A brooding presence, Jasim watched Elinor tuck Sami back into a baby seat and was then distracted by a nursery assistant while his mother made good her escape.

On the way back to her desk, Elinor was taken aback by the tumult of emotions swamping her and bringing overwrought moisture to her eyes. Dimly she acknowledged that she was very much in shock at Jasim’s descent and what it might mean to her and Sami. She had few illusions about the challenge she faced. Jasim was a Crown Prince with friends and contacts in government circles and big business and he enjoyed unlimited wealth and power. He could easily afford to hire top lawyers and launch a custody battle. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to share Sami with him.

It was not a compromise she found it easy to even consider, for she hated Jasim bin Hamid al Rais. She had believed herself to be strong and he had made her weak. It was degrading to acknowledge that she could have fallen in love as easily as a daydreaming teenager. But, worst of all, Jasim had cruelly misjudged her moral fibre when he’d given credence to Yaminah’s fears that her husband was paying too much attention to the nanny. That was all such ridiculous nonsense, Elinor reflected bitterly. With the exception of their first meeting and their final one at Jasim’s apartment, Elinor had never been alone on any other occasion with Prince Murad. Their few conversations had taken place in either his daughter’s presence or that of other staff. Nothing said during those brief harmless dialogues had been in any way improper or even mildly flirtatious. Her pride and her principles revolted against the knowledge that Jasim and goodness knew who else had chosen to believe she could be capable of any other kind of behaviour.

But consternation swept away her angry thoughts when she picked up her son at the end of the day. Two bulky bodyguards were now stationed outside the nursery.

Olivia advanced towards Elinor uncomfortably. ‘The prince insisted there must be a security presence to watch over his son while he is in our care. He also asked me not to mention their relationship to anyone else. Naturally I’m not going to breathe a word to anyone. I want to keep my job.’

‘I’m sure this is just a temporary arrangement,’ Elinor declared with more confidence than she felt, particularly when the same men followed her from the nursery and the older one informed her that a car was waiting to take them home. Rather than get involved in a dispute, Elinor acquiesced, but when she finally reached her apartment she was deep in troubled thoughts that were laced with a dangerous urge to simply pull up sticks and flee before Jasim sought to impose any more rules and restrictions.

‘My goodness, you’re back early,’ Alissa commented when she entered the apartment.

And Elinor shocked them both by bursting into floods of tears. She hadn’t let herself cry when she’d walked out on her sham of a marriage or during the unhappy aftermath while she struggled to build a new life rather than wallow in pointless regrets and self-pity. She hadn’t even let herself cry when she’d given birth to Sami alone. But Jasim had taken her by surprise and all of a sudden and without the slightest warning the world had become an intensely threatening place.

‘What on earth has happened? This is not like you at all,’ Alissa muttered in dismay just as Lindy came through the front door and demanded to know what was going on.

There and then, Elinor let down her barriers and told the truth about Sami’s conception and the secret marriage that had broken her heart and smashed her self-esteem.

‘Sami’s father is your husband? And a prince? Does that mean Sami is a prince as well?’ Alissa enquired in a daze.

‘I haven’t a clue.’ Elinor blew her nose and lifted her head again. ‘About the only thing I do know is that I couldn’t face going on the run with Sami—it wouldn’t be fair to him.’

‘Of course, you’re not going to do anything daft like that,’ Lindy interposed. ‘That’s only your panic talking.’

‘I want a divorce. I assumed that Jasim would already have taken care of that!’ Elinor erupted in a helpless surge of resentment over that fact.

‘You can discuss that with him tonight,’ Lindy replied.

Alissa frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you at least try being married for Sami’s sake? I mean, what was the point of getting married in the first place?’

Elinor paled before that uncompromisingly direct enquiry. ‘Everything changed the minute I heard Jasim talking to Yaminah—’

‘Basically I think you only really heard Yaminah raving and what she said could well be hogwash,’ Lindy commented. ‘Anyway, don’t you think that the idea that Jasim deliberately set out to seduce you is a bit, well … improbable?’

Alissa nodded quiet agreement with the other woman’s assessment. ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, Elinor. It’s more likely that Jasim was simply attracted to you and the relationship was ruined by you falling pregnant when you had had virtually no time together as a couple. So dealing with the pregnancy took centre stage. Whatever you say about Jasim, he was very keen to stand by you and support you.’

Elinor groaned out loud and raked a frustrated hand through the auburn curls on her brow, her green eyes clouded by the growing confusion that had replaced her earlier certainty. ‘You two have a totally different take on the whole situation.’

Lindy laughed. ‘Of course we do. We’re not personally involved and we’re being wise after the fact, which is always easier. But I do think Jasim sounds like the sort of guy who might have deserved more of a chance than you were willing to give him.’

Elinor didn’t want to hear assurances of that nature, particularly from Lindy, who always saw the best in people and invariably argued on the side of kindness and common sense.

‘I also think …’ the more shy and less outspoken Alissa ventured, ‘that you need to make allowances for the fact that you didn’t marry into an ordinary family—’

‘Yes,’ Lindy chipped in with her agreement. ‘They’re fabulously wealthy and royal, and Sami isn’t just an ordinary little boy either if he’s in the line of accession to the throne. So how can you possibly expect to keep him to yourself?’

After that conversation Elinor had plenty to think about. She was in shock at an unbiased view of events that was very much different from her own. She wondered if she had been guilty of licking her wounds in silence for too long and if, during that process, her decisions had been unduly influenced by her bitterness, hurt and resentment. Had she overreacted on her wedding day? Should she have confronted Jasim there and then?

Those were the questions Elinor was tormenting herself with while she showered and changed. Shortly after she had bathed and fed Sami and left him in Alissa’s care for the evening, the car arrived to collect her. Casually and comfortably dressed in black leggings and a colourful purple top that finished mid-thigh, she climbed into the limo and breathed in deep. One way or another she would sort everything out and without getting upset. After all, it was eighteen months since their disastrous wedding and it was time she rose above resentment and wounded pride and moved on, she told herself squarely.