Читать книгу Prince Nadir's Secret Heir - Michelle Conder, Michelle Conder - Страница 9

CHAPTER TWO

WHO’S THE FATHER?

Imogen stared at Nadir, slowly digesting his snarled words. She’d only heard him use that tone once before and it was on the phone to some poor sod in his home country and the shock of it kick-started her brain into a usable gear. Steadying her trembling knees, she forced a smile to her lips and thought that of course he would want to know about the baby. Why wouldn’t he? It was his doctor, after all, who had confirmed her pregnancy that fateful night in his Paris apartment all those months ago.

God, if she’d only left work five minutes earlier or later this whole situation might have been avoided. She swallowed heavily and forced herself to meet his hard stare, his raised eyebrow that could make him look either wickedly seductive or incredibly foreboding. Today it was definitely foreboding, which didn’t help to explain the electrodes of excitement pulsing through her body, making her both shivery and hot at the same time.

No, not excitement, she corrected; it was adrenaline. Her fight or flight system was on overload; her reaction could hardly be considered excitement after the way he had treated her. The reminder of that helped calm her down and she gave him a tight smile, a deep sense of self-preservation warning her not to answer his question just yet. ‘It’s a surprise to see you like this.’

‘I’m sure it is, habibi. Now answer my question.’

Swallowing heavily, she raised her chin. He used to whisper that term of endearment to her when he was about to seduce her and God, she wished it wasn’t such an effort to hold those erotic memories of their fleeting time together at bay but it was. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Don’t play games with me, Imogen. I’m not in the mood.’

A ripple of unease slid down her spine and Minh, obviously sensing Nadir’s ire as much as she could, half stepped in front of her. ‘Ease up there, chief. There’s no need to be aggressive.’

Nadir slowly turned his razor-sharp gaze to Minh and, although Minh didn’t flinch, Imogen did. Unfortunately Minh had no idea that the infamous rebel prince was Nadeena’s father. Imogen hadn’t told anyone.

‘And you are?’ Nadir’s question came out as if he’d just asked Minh if he had any last requests.

‘Imogen’s friend.’

‘I suggest you back off, Imogen’s friend.’ Nadir’s lip curled into a sneer. ‘This is not your business.’ Then he turned the full force of his attention back to her and Imogen really wished that he hadn’t. ‘Well?’

How could he make one word sound so powerful?

‘Sorry, but I don’t like your attitude, chief.’ Minh puffed out his chest and Imogen groaned. ‘You need to dial it down a little.’

‘It’s okay, Minh.’ She gave his arm a squeeze, only just realising that her arm was still linked with his. ‘I know him.’

Nadir pinned her with a patronising look. ‘That’s putting it mildly, habibi.’

His meaning was clear and Imogen felt a flush rise up her neck.

‘I don’t like him,’ Minh said softly.

Neither did she but she drew on all her training as a performer and gave him a smile worthy of an award. ‘It’s okay. Really. Why don’t you head home? I can take care of this.’

‘You’re sure?’ Minh looked dubious.

‘She just said she was, didn’t she?’

Imogen only just managed to prevent Minh from trying to stand up to Nadir again and patted a sleepy Nadeena, who had grown restless. ‘Go. Really. We’ll be fine.’

‘Call me if you need me,’ Minh ordered, reluctantly heading towards Green Park tube station.

As soon as he was out of sight she let out a relieved breath. One hardcore male was better than two, wasn’t it?

Reluctantly turning back, she calmed her breathing and faced Nadir. ‘What’s this about, Nadir?’

‘What do you think?’

She tried to pull off a nonchalant shrug but her movements felt stiff and disjointed. He’d walked away from her fourteen months ago so she had no idea. ‘If I knew I wouldn’t ask,’ she countered, slightly annoyed herself now.

His silvery gaze transmitted how unimpressed he was with her response. ‘How old is she?’

‘How do you know she’s a she?’ Imogen hedged.

‘I don’t think it’s customary to dress a boy in a pink sunhat.’

‘Maybe I’m just bucking the trend.’

His hissed breath held a wealth of reaching-the-end-of-his-tether impatience. ‘How. Old. Is. She?’

Completely unprepared for both his anger and his relentless questioning, Imogen was at a loss as to how to follow the advice of her inner voice that warned her to tread cautiously and found herself blurting out the truth. ‘Five months.’

He rocked back on his heels, his hands going to his waist and pushing his jacket back to reveal his broad chest. ‘Then our affair did result in a child.’

Their affair? Talk about clarifying how he had felt about her back then... ‘I didn’t say that,’ she retorted forcefully.

The words came out rushed and his eyebrows shot up. ‘Then you were sleeping with someone else while we were together.’ His voice held the tenor of a wounded bull, which didn’t impress her at all.

‘Trust you to take that line of thinking,’ she said scathingly, remembering how he had basically accused her of the same thing their last night together in Paris. ‘And it’s none of your business.’

‘If she’s not mine then whose is she?’ His gaze once again narrowed in on Nadeena.

‘Mine,’ she countered evenly.

Nadir’s lips turned up into a snarl. ‘Do you really think you can fob me off with semantics?’

Imogen felt a dull pain tweak behind her right eyebrow. After the way he had treated the news of her pregnancy, she wanted to know his current motivation before blurting out any more home truths. ‘Look, Nadir—’

He said something in Arabic, cutting her off, and stepped closer to her, his wide shoulders blocking out all the natural light behind him. Imogen felt the cool glass of the shop window at her back and briefly closed her eyes to try and steady her racing heartbeat, only to snap them open again when Nadir’s voice sounded way too close to her ear. ‘Dammit, you’re not going to faint, are you?’

Faint? Faint? She stared up at him and then darted her eyes to the side. No, she wasn’t going to faint. But she did want to run. Fast.

‘Uh-uh.’ As if reading her thoughts, Nadir shook his head. ‘You’re not going to run again, Imogen, my sweet.’

Again? What was he talking about—again?

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about but I really need to go. I’m working another shift tonight.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Just so we’re clear, habibi,’ he grated silkily, ‘I have not searched for you for the past fourteen months to be given the runaround now.’

Imogen immediately felt hot and cold and then hot again and, just like the first time she had laid eyes on him, all the oxygen went out of the air—something that had almost been disastrous at the time as she’d been in the middle of performing the can-can in front of a full house. She’d noticed Nadir watching her almost straight away. He’d been sitting at a small front table with his brother—she’d later found out—but she had only had eyes for Nadir. And he for her, right up until the moment he’d found out she was enceinte.

As if sensing her distress, Nadeena stirred and shifted against her chest and Imogen tried to calm her nerves, if for no other reason than to keep Nadeena asleep.

Her first priority was to keep her daughter safe.

Secure.

Not that she expected Nadir to hurt her physically. No, what she feared was his power to hurt her emotionally, which was often much worse because most bruises healed while mental scars remained for ever. Imogen knew because she had spent many years trying, and failing, to win her father’s love and she wasn’t about to condemn Nadeena to the same fate.

A picture of the secret service type in the café came to her on a rush just as she caught sight of him standing a little way off to the side. Had Nadir been looking for her all this time? It seemed impossible.

Her troubled eyes flew to Nadir and her ripple of unease ratcheted up to dread. ‘Fourteen months? What are you talking about?’

* * *

Noting the deep groove between Imogen’s beautiful green eyes, Nadir instantly regretted his emotionally ragged outburst. What he needed to be right now was cool and controlled. Finding her with a child strapped to her body challenged that considerably. As did her evasive attitude, which implied that she had something to hide.

‘We will not discuss this any further on the street,’ he decided. Apart from the fact that Imogen looked uncomfortably hot, it was also far too public a place for this type of discussion. ‘Come.’

‘No.’

Haughty as ever, Nadir noted as he turned back to her. He’d been attracted to that regal aspect of her nature when they’d met. Now the trait annoyed him. As did her wide-eyed ingénue look.

Back when he’d first noticed her she’d seemed different from the other women who had adorned his life from time to time. Less artificial. More sincere. More genuine. Hell, he could laugh at that now. Imogen Reid had turned out to be as genuine as a whore with a hundred euros in her hand.

He glanced at the baby sleeping in her arms. Everything inside him said that she was his child and he wondered how much longer Imogen would have waited before turning up ‘ta-da’ style on his doorstep and demanding maintenance payments worthy of a queen. Not that it mattered. He had found her and that definitely gave him the upper hand.

And it mattered even less that her complexion had leached of all colour. These past months of not knowing if she had given birth to the child she had claimed was his, if she was okay, if the baby was okay, hell, if either one of them was even alive had eaten away at him. When she’d sent him a text telling him she had ‘taken care of everything’ he’d assumed she’d terminated the pregnancy. He’d felt sick at the thought but then knowing he’d got her pregnant in the first place hadn’t exactly made him feel like dancing around a room.

Fatherhood wasn’t something he’d ever contemplated before. Now it seemed that the fates had other ideas and if this woman had kept his child from him...deliberately... Callously...

He glanced at her. He didn’t think he could like a person less if he tried.

‘Nadir, please, if I...’ She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘If I tell you that you’re the father can we just leave it at that? Can we just...can we just part as friends?’

Nadir reeled. Was she serious? Because she couldn’t possibly expect him to walk away from her after basically admitting the child was his with little more than Have a nice life. In fact, if he discovered that this child really was his then he wouldn’t be walking away at all.

He stared down at her and noticed she had the look of a frightened mouse that had just been caught in a very large inescapable trap.

Apt, he thought—very apt. From the minute he’d laid eyes on her, his first instinct had been primal. He’d wanted to wrap her up and keep her. He’d wanted to brand her as his own. Disconcertingly, that urge was just as strong as ever.

He tugged on the collar of his shirt. Somehow, in the time between meeting her and now, he had lost his equilibrium and he wanted it back. Not even the thought of having to renounce the throne tomorrow affected him as deeply. Or maybe it was the combination of the two. ‘I don’t think you could have ever called us friends, Imogen.’ Bed partners. Lovers. Now those fitted. Friends, not so much.

She looked up at him as if he’d just kicked a puppy. ‘Good to know,’ she said flatly, her ponytail swinging around her shoulders as she made to move past him. ‘Frankly, I don’t know why you’re even here.’

It was supposed to be her parting shot but Nadir moved so that once again he was directly in front of her.

‘Come now, habibi. I know you’re smarter than that.’

‘Look, Nadir, the stand-over tactics are very intimidating. Well done you. But you can’t stop me from walking away.’

He blew out a frustrated breath. ‘If you’d cooperate and tell me what I want to know I wouldn’t need to use any tactics. Now, my car is waiting at the corner.’ He arched his arm towards a low-slung black beast of a Mercedes. ‘Shall we?’

‘No,’ she bit out, ‘we shall not. Not until I understand what this is about.’

The line between her brows reappeared as she stared at him and a pulse point beat frantically in the base of her throat. A pulse point he still had an inexplicable urge to cover with his lips. His tongue.

He muttered an old Arabian curse and realised what he’d just done. What was it about this woman that made him unconsciously regress to his native language? By Allah... He cursed again. Jerked his eyes back to hers. ‘What this is about,’ he began with a calmness that belied the heated blood pounding through his veins, ‘is that it looks very much like you had my child and didn’t tell me.’

If possible, the line between her brows deepened and he had the stupidest notion to place the pad of his finger against it and smooth it away. ‘What’s her name?’ he asked gruffly.

Emerald eyes darkened almost to black before dropping from his. ‘This is pointless, Nadir.’ Her soft, desperate plea fell between them as insignificant as one of her gauzy dance costumes and he savoured the defeat in it.

‘Pointless for you, perhaps,’ he agreed pleasantly.

A soft moan broke from her lips and his body registered it as one she used to make in bed and it appalled him that he could be so angry one minute and so aroused the next. It was those damned memories of having her spread out naked on his bed that were the problem.

During his more unguarded moments those memories crept up on him like the flu and reminded him that once—once—he had thought he’d found something special with a woman.

A low growl filled the base of his throat. This, he would have said, was not an unguarded moment and yet his control over his body felt tenuous, tangled up in the silken awareness of the female in front of him, who was dressed in nothing more provocative than denim jeans and a red T-shirt.

‘Please, Nadir...’

‘Please what, Imogen?’ he rasped, hating the sound of his name on her treacherous lips and welcoming another shot of anger as it jetted through him. ‘Please forgive you for keeping the birth of my child from me? Because she is mine, isn’t she?’

He didn’t know if it was his words or his tone that brought her chin up but her beautiful eyes glittered angrily. ‘I did not keep her birth from you. You knew I was pregnant and you didn’t want anything to do with her.’

Her voice had grown shrill and a couple of shoppers hesitated before passing them by.

‘I don’t think so. Now come.’

‘You didn’t even believe it was your baby. God,’ she exclaimed, ‘can’t you just forget that we ever saw each other again?’

‘Like you want to?’

She didn’t answer, to her credit, which was just as well because his control was heading in the same direction as his day. ‘Tell me,’ he began silkily. ‘Do you believe in fate, Imogen?’

‘No.’

‘Then you’ll just have to put this meeting down to luck, won’t you?’

She glared at him and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, which meant she was thinking hard. Not that it mattered. He stepped closer to her, inhaling her wonderful, sweet scent that was somehow the same and yet different. He swallowed against a sudden rush of conscience. He had nothing to feel guilty about here. ‘You’re coming with me,’ he said quietly. ‘Even if I have to put you into that car myself.’

Her brows shot up at that. ‘Not even you would do something so heinous.’

Nadir gave a sharp bark of laughter. If only she knew how close he was to doing exactly that.

‘Then what are you afraid of, habibi?’

‘I’m not afraid. I’m confused,’ she said with bald honesty. ‘What do you want?’

‘To talk.’ He had a lot of questions to clear up; not least of all was how she had hidden herself away so effectively his security team hadn’t been able to find her until now. And then there was the small matter that he wanted to be a part of his child’s life. A permanent part. But he had no doubt she’d welcome that. It would mean money and status and he hadn’t met many people who wouldn’t put that ahead of integrity and self-respect.