Читать книгу The Billionaires Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 38
ОглавлениеRAHIM JERKED AWAKE, his blood curdling as it always did each time he dreamed of her screaming his name. Sweat dripping from his brow, he rose from his narrow cot and stumbled to the window. The view over the racetrack was the same as it had been yesterday and the day before that. Last week, it’d been views over the cratered land mass that constituted the rejuvenated oil fields in the northernmost point of Dar-Aman. In the three weeks before it’d been over different sites just like these.
The work involved with rebuilding his kingdom was unrelenting and punishing. And he welcomed every second of it. He needed the punishment. Because with each tunnel dug or brick laid with his bare hands, Rahim could reward himself with taking another breath, knowing he was atoning in some small way for his hubris.
How many times had he condemned his father for the same mistakes he’d ended up making?
He’d arrogantly believed he could have it all. Allegra. His child. His kingdom.
His wedding night had showed him just how wrong he could be.
Rahim had believed he’d found a way to taste happiness without losing his heart or his head. When Allegra had spoken of fate and paths taken, he’d even begun to let go of the anger he’d felt for his father, while patting himself on the back for getting it right this time. He’d taken every precaution he could. Allegra’s doctors had assured him his new wife and the baby were both fine. That he could enjoy his wedding night like any newlywed. Heaven had beckoned and he’d lost his mind.
Just like his father had believed he could have it all, once upon a time, Rahim had started dreaming of forever, forgetting that in one single night Khalid Al-Hadi had lost everything. Including the son whose face he hadn’t been able to stomach looking at because he reminded him of his loss.
Rahim knew all this, and yet he’d put himself at the same risk, and placed Allegra and their baby’s well-being on the line through his greedy yearning for what he shouldn’t have craved in the first place.
Laying his head against the cool glass of the nearly completed paddock VIP suite’s window, he tried to stem the other conversations running through his head.
Striding to the phone next to his sleeping place, he punched the numbers.
The voice that answered was groggy and disgruntled.
‘I need an update on how the latest ultrasound went.’
Frantic scrambling in the background proceeded a halting, ‘Your Highness? A thousand pardons but it is the middle of the night.’ At Rahim’s terse silence, more scrambling ensued. ‘Please hold on, Your Highness... I’ll just grab the notes.’
Irrational rage flared up his spine. ‘You mean you can’t remember results of a test you conducted just this afternoon?’
‘Please, Your Highness, I have it.’ The doctor cleared his throat. ‘Both child and mother are in excellent health. The pregnancy is thriving.’
Rahim allowed the veiled implication that others were not thriving sail over his head. ‘And?’
‘I’m sorry, Your...?’
‘How did my wife look?’ Rahim cut across him. ‘Did she look happy? Worried?’ Was she as breathtaking as she’d looked that last time they’d made love? Right before he’d allowed thoughts of hearts and fairy tales to break down his carefully erected barriers? Noting the thickening silence, his hand tightened around the phone. ‘Did you not understand my question?’
‘I... I’m sorry to report that Her Highness believed she felt the baby kick for the first time while I was performing the ultrasound.’
‘What do you mean she believed? Are you calling my wife a liar?’ Rahim grated.
‘No! Never, Your Highness. But in most cases, it’s too early to feel any kicking yet. But she was quite adamant.’
A vice tightened around Rahim’s chest and his vision blurred. ‘Was she pleased?’ he whispered.
‘I thought she was, but then she burst into tears. She was quite inconsolable.’
‘When is her next check-up?’
‘In two weeks, Your High...’
Rahim hung up and dropped to the ground, his skin scraping along the raw concrete floor. The phone clattered away, but he barely heard it.
The thought of the strong, capable woman he’d married reduced to crying alone in her private clinic tore at him in ways Rahim would’ve given anything not to feel.
But he felt each tear like a knife slashing across his skin, the pain engulfing him, drowning him. Panic flared through him, wild and unfettered. Ruthlessly he reminded himself that this was why he’d left Shar-el-Aman. So he could endure the pain.
He would withstand the pain. And he would stay away from Allegra and the baby.
He had to. The alternative was unthinkable.
* * *
‘What’s next on the agenda?’ Allegra looked around the conference room, trying to keep her smile pinned in place. But these days when breathing felt like an extracurricular activity, smiling featured even lower on the unending to-do list that came with being queen.
‘The Hamdi sisters have petitioned for help again,’ Yasmina informed the group.
‘Have we had any success locating their errant husbands?’
‘No, our investigators believe they’ve fled the country with their company’s embezzled funds. Oh, and His Highness wants to sit in on any further meetings regarding the Hamdi sisters.’
Allegra tensed at the mention of her husband’s name. ‘Why?’ she snapped.
Yasmina looked up warily. ‘He went to university with the younger sister’s husband. I think he feels responsible...’
Allegra couldn’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping. ‘He feels responsible for a situation he had no hand in creating?’
Yasmina shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, those are his instructions.’
‘Well, he’s not here to enforce them, is he?’ Her snap cracked a little this time, and her throat tightened in warning of tears.
Two of the women seated at the table exchanged wary glances.
‘Is that all?’ Allegra asked.
At the affirmative answer, she rose, pinned a smile on her face again and walked out with the ten businesswomen comprising the newly formed Dar-Aman Women’s Foundation.
The moment she reached the hallway leading to the royal wing, she fled, desperate to get away before the floodgates opened. Lately, they’d taken to bursting wide open when she least expected it. Like this morning, when she’d spotted a bird with feathers the same colour as Rahim’s eyes. She’d cried for an hour straight in the royal suite she’d slept in alone for the past three and a half weeks.
All because she’d lost her heart on her wedding night to a husband who had no use for it.
At first Allegra had thought Rahim had been worried about the baby. Even after the doctor had reassured them that her condition was nothing more than a little spotting since her wedding night had fallen on the same day her period normally came, Rahim had been adamant that she be admitted to hospital and monitored for another forty-eight hours. She’d lain there in blissful ignorance of the fact that her husband was laying tracks to absent himself from her life.
Her phone call to him once she’d returned and he’d still kept away after a week, to ask when he was coming home, had been the most humiliating ten minutes of her life. The only saving grace had been biting her tongue before she made the folly of telling him she needed him home because she’d fallen in love with him. That was a secret she intended to take to her grave. Or channel into the already overflowing love for her baby.
Allegra stopped in the doorway to her bedroom, and gasped as the fluttering the doctor had blatantly disbelieved she was experiencing beat its tiny wings in her belly.
The wonder of it never got old. Kicking off her navy shoes and matching jacket, she got into bed and lay on her back, her hands cradling her small bump. As if waiting for just that act, the fluttering came again.
‘Oh.’ And just like that, tears filled her eyes. She allowed herself a short cry this time, then rolled over and picked up the bedside phone.
Punching in the number she knew by heart despite having used it only twice, she gripped the handset and waited.
‘Hello?’ Rahim’s voice was harshly gruff, dripping with impatience.
‘Rahim...it’s me... Allegra.’
‘You think I wouldn’t recognise the voice of my queen?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t seem to know much these days.’
‘What do you want, Allegra?’
She laughed, the sound scraping her throat. ‘Are you sure you want an answer to that?’
His tense silence spoke volumes.
‘I guess I should get to the point. Will you be attending the fundraiser for the schools in the northern district tomorrow night as you promised last month, or am I expected to attend another event alone and make your excuses, again?’
‘Harun will let you know.’
Her throat threatened to close up. ‘You know what? Don’t bother. I’ll go on the premise that I’ll be attending alone. If you turn up, it’ll be a happy surprise for your adoring subjects, I’m sure.’
She slammed the phone down a second before the tears came. Clutching the pillow, she cried until her temples ached and her heart bled. After dragging herself to the shower, she slid into bed, thankful when she grew drowsy immediately. But of course, like clockwork, she dreamed of Rahim, and their night in the Bedouin tent, before the fleeting happiness she’d known had been snatched.
And when she woke with tears in her eyes, she determinedly brushed them away and prepared for the day ahead.
Making sure to take lengthy breaks and conducting her meetings from the office set up in the palace, she returned to her suite at five, conferring with her stylist over what to wear to the fundraiser before heading for the shower.
An hour later, dressed in a blood-red silk gown with criss-crossing shoulder straps, with a clutch and shoes to match, she slid into the back of the royal limo.
Her first hint that she wasn’t alone was the heart-wrenchingly familiar scent that hit her nostrils before she turned to find her husband lounging in the far corner.
‘Rahim!’ She couldn’t help but drink him in, her senses jumping to high alert as they absorbed the long-denied visual of her husband. His hair had grown at the back, almost covering his nape. His cheeks were shrunken and his body was a sleeker version of the man she’d married. But he was still impossibly handsome, so breathtakingly masculine, he aroused every cell in her body. ‘What... You came...’
‘As you said, I made a promise. Put your seat belt on, Allegra.’
She complied, fighting to breathe around the hot arrows shredding her heart. ‘And what makes this particular promise worth keeping and others not?’
In the semidarkness, his jaw clenched tight. ‘Perhaps this was a mistake.’
‘No! The mistake is you thinking that what you’re doing isn’t hurting this marriage. Or the people you claim to care about so much. Or do you think the work is done simply because you put a ring on my finger and a baby in my belly?’ Her voice rose, every miserable day she’d spent without him seeking redress.
‘Allegra, calm down...’
‘Don’t tell me to calm down! You asked me to bring my concerns to you. Well, you’re my concern. Your absence from our home, from our marriage bed, from our baby’s life, is my concern.’
His head went back, the streetlamps dotted along the highway throwing his features into intermittent light and dark. ‘I can’t be in your life, or the baby’s, while you’re pregnant. I can’t be around you. The risk to you both is too much.’
‘But that’s not all, is it? Please don’t insult my intelligence by denying that there isn’t more going on. You’ve shut me out completely, and you won’t tell me why. Did I do something?’ she pressed, willing to ditch her pride for a minute if that’s what it took.
Rahim shut his eyes in a pained grimace. ‘I can’t do this now, Allegra. But no, you didn’t do anything.’
‘And that’s all I’m going to get? The it’s not you, it’s me line?’
‘We’re here, so unless you want to take this outside, I suggest we shelve it.’
The Rolls glided to a perfect halt on the edge of the red carpet of the five-star hotel where the fundraiser was taking place. As patron and guest of honour, she and Rahim’s much desired presence was being televised.
Knowing she had less than ten seconds before the driver opened her door, she turned to her husband, and gave in to the urge to touch him. Placing her hand on his arm, he stalled his forward movement. ‘There are only so many things you can stick up on a shelf before the whole thing comes crashing down, Rahim. I want to make this work, but it won’t as long as you keep shutting me down.’
The door opened before she could insist on a reply. With no choice but to force a smile and face the six-deep paparazzi, Allegra slid into her role.
She was still smiling three hours later when the auction part of the evening ended, raising three times more than the charity had hoped for. When the string quartet struck up a waltz, she granted a dance to the prime minister of Dar-Aman’s neighbouring state.
Halfway through the song, she stiffened slightly as Rahim strode through the dance floor and stopped beside them.
‘I hope you don’t mind, but I need my wife back.’
‘Of course,’ the older man replied, smiling fondly at them before heading back to the table.
‘How well you seem to fool everyone,’ she muttered, willing herself not to lean into the body she’d missed more than she knew was healthy for her.
She felt a sigh move through him, then the whisper of air against her neck as he drew her closer. Despite her best efforts, both her heart and body leapt with foolish joy.
‘I know you think I’m staying away to make you suffer. But I’m not. I only have your best interest and that of our child at heart. You just have to trust me.’
‘It’s hard to do when you won’t talk to me, Rahim. Something happened in Geneva when you saw the first sonogram.’
‘I wasn’t expecting to be a father. Chalk it up to being overwhelmed.’
The song ended and she drew back more than a little forcefully from him, exasperation and anguish eating her alive. ‘Lie to yourself if you want, but don’t lie to me.’ She kept her voice low so she wouldn’t be overheard. ‘When you’re ready to let me in, I’ll be at our home. The one you insist on running away from.’
She turned and walked from the dance floor. The moment the end-of-evening speech was done, she gathered her clutch and wrap and headed for the door.
Rahim helped her into the car and slid in beside her. Neither of them spoke as they drove away from the hotel. She was so busy fighting the tears that she started when she noticed they’d pulled up at the royal private airport.
On the tarmac, Rahim’s private chopper slowly powered up. She told herself she wouldn’t look at him, or acknowledge his departure.
But she couldn’t help herself, especially when his gaze focused on her, compelled her to look at him. His eyes burned with almost demonic intensity, and when his gaze dropped to her mouth, it was all she could do not cry out and beg him to stay.
‘Take care of yourself and our baby, ya galbi. I’ll be in touch soon.’
Alighting with lithe grace, he turned to slam the door. She blocked it with a firm hand. ‘If you expect me to smile and say, “Yes, husband, go with my blessing,” you’re in for a nasty surprise. You don’t have my blessing to go, Rahim. All you’re doing is making me hate you more for what you’re doing to us. Is that what you want?’
A touch of his vibrant colour receded. His lips firmed but she was past caring. ‘I don’t need your permission to carry out my duty. Go home, Allegra. We will resolve this when I return.’ He turned and started to walk away.
She refused to con herself into not caring any more. The truth was that she cared. Far too much to stand this ravaging pain any longer.
Rahim didn’t love her.
Most times during the past weeks those four words had cut her in half. Other times she’d assured herself she was better off with a man who would disappear for weeks rather than face her and tell her he didn’t return her feelings. That her talk of fate and being where she was meant to be would never include him in any way but as the father of her baby.
Either of those states of being hadn’t stopped her from missing him all the time.
Which was why the thought of him walking away from her one more time shredded her heart. It was why she leapt out of the car and slammed the door shut.
He whirled around, his eyes widening. ‘What are you doing?’ he shouted over the loud thwopping of the chopper blades.
‘If you won’t stay and talk to me, then I’m coming with you,’ she yelled back.
He lunged forward the same time she quickened her steps. With the manufactured wind whipping at her evening gown, Allegra couldn’t gather it out of the way in time to keep her heel from catching in the hem.
She stumbled forward.
She managed to brace her fall with one hand, her palm scraping painfully along the tarmac before he snatched her up. ‘For God’s sake, are you insane?’
‘Yes. I’m off-my-head crazy, and it’s all your fault!’ she blurted before her voice fractured.
He swung her into his arms, his strides swift and urgent as he carried her back to the car.
‘Yes, I’m aware everything bad that has happened to us is my fault, but that is no reason to put yourself and the baby in danger.’ His voice was a thin, desolate line that cut her to the heart.
She glanced up at him, and noticed he’d lost every trace of colour. His eyes when he looked down at her as he deposited her in the seat were bleak, black pools.
Heart wrenching at his obvious distress, she murmured, ‘I’m fine, Rahim.’
He slid in beside her and secured her seat belt. Without answering he pressed the intercom and issued terse instructions. As the limo rolled away from the chopper, he picked up her hand and gazed at the blood seeping from her cuts. ‘I beg to differ, Allegra,’ he drawled. Taking a handkerchief from his jacket, he pressed it against the small wounds. ‘Consider your point well made.’
She gasped. ‘You think I did this deliberately?’
He shrugged. ‘You wanted my attention. Now you have it.’
Allegra wanted to scream with despair. She wanted to close her eyes and absorb that deep, sexily exotic voice and fool herself into believing everything would be all right. Most of all, she wanted to weep with joy that Rahim was here with her, touching her, albeit under harrowing circumstances.
But, dammit, she’d wept far too much lately. And all the reasons revolved around him. She snatched her hand from his, ignoring the throbbing in her palm.
‘Think what you like. It’s obvious I’m fighting a losing battle.’ Desperate for him not to witness how much those words hurt she glanced out of the window, saw where the limo had stopped on the palace grounds. ‘Why are we at the clinic?’
‘You just suffered a fall. You don’t think it prudent to check that you and the baby are fine?’ His tone held the same bleakness that lingered in his eyes, laced with a vulnerability Allegra had never heard before.
Her heart cracked but she reminded herself that Rahim was doing this for the baby. Before she could answer, the door opened. Her doctors and nurses swarmed the car.
She was ushered inside the private clinic Rahim had had created for her. A nurse saw to her hand as the doctors consulted in hushed tones. Through it all, Rahim stayed aloof, his expression unreadable as she was prepared for her scan.
The realisation that she hadn’t got through to him shook hard through her. She knew in her bones that the moment the scan was over, he would leave. And she would once again become the broken, pathetic creature who craved him to live.
No.
No more.
She didn’t care what it took. She was taking back her power.
Strolling to the curtain where she would be changing into her gown shortly, she glanced casually over her shoulder. ‘So where will you be heading to this time once this is over? Vietnam or the wilds of Scotland?’
His eyes stayed on the monitor, his folded arms tensing as he shifted on his feet. Somewhere along the line, his bow tie had come free, along with his two top buttons. Allegra forced her gaze away from the strong column of his throat and concentrated on removing the evening gown.
‘The Port of Dar-Aman. Berthing contracts were sold to foreign entities. I’m in the process of buying them all back.’
‘And you need to do that three hundred miles from home?’
‘Yes.’ Simple. Succinct. Cutting.
She got the message. But she was getting angrier by the minute. With herself. With him, for her inability to stem the waves of pain that hurled relentlessly at her.
Taking deep, calming breaths, Allegra met his gaze over the screen, and asked the question she’d been holding to her breast like a precious talisman which might crumble to dust any minute.
‘Why didn’t you tell me your mother died in childbirth?’
Rahim jerked from the wall, his eyes full of warning as he glared at her. ‘Because it wasn’t a subject I felt should be shared with a pregnant woman.’
‘What about your wife?’
His lips pursed. ‘You seem to be spoiling for a fight, habibi.’
‘Since when is wanting to know a few basic facts about the man you’re married to spoiling for a fight?’
He sighed and dragged his hands down his face. ‘You know enough about my parents. Why is this further questioning necessary?’
‘Because we agreed to discuss things before we jump to conclusions, remember? Of course you’d have to actually be here for any discussion to happen.’
Tension tightened his body. ‘You have a palace and every luxury at your disposal. Surely you can’t feel that neglected?’
Anger and pain rearing up like two coiled snakes, she stalked to where he stood. ‘How about you stop second-guessing my feelings and have a frank discussion with me? Or is this something else you want to shelve?’
‘I won’t have a discussion with you about what happened to my mother. What would that achieve?’
Something inside her broke right then. ‘I can’t believe you’d ask me that,’ she whispered raggedly.
A flash of something close to pain tightened his features. Then he looked away.
She was staring at him, wondering what to say, when her team of doctors returned. The nurse sent to help her took over when Allegra’s hands shook too badly to don the clinic gown. On wooden legs, she returned to the ultrasound room and lay on the bed while the gel was spread over her stomach. Over her shoulder, Rahim’s tense presence bore down on her.
‘Since Her Highness was due to come in tomorrow anyway, we’ll make sure everything’s fine first, then take some measurements, Your Highness. It shouldn’t be too long.’
The process took less than ten minutes, but it felt like forever. ‘Everything’s fine with the baby, and with you too, Your Highness.’ The doctor smiled at her.
Allegra heard Rahim’s shaky exhalation and she swallowed the painful lump in her throat, unable to suppress the wish that his relief was for her too, and not just their baby.
Averting her gaze from him, she blinked back threatening tears as another doctor stepped forward. ‘I don’t believe you’ve seen a 3D image of the royal baby yet. Since you’re both here, we thought it would be the perfect time?’
Her breath caught, but before she could agree, Rahim rasped, ‘Will it hurt the baby or my wife?’
‘No, Your Highness. It’s not harmful.’
Rahim must have nodded, because the equipment was swiftly set up and Allegra positioned in place. She felt rather than saw Rahim step closer.
At the first picture of their son, he inhaled sharply. A second later, his hand gripped her shoulder. Her heart flipping up from where it’d fallen to her stomach, she reached up. He meshed his fingers with hers and they watched as the image was rotated to show their healthy, thriving baby.
‘He’s beautiful,’ Rahim murmured.
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
She looked up and his gaze connected with her, the emotion in his eyes naked and raw. They stared at each other until a throat cleared—the medical team was stepping outside.
Rahim’s withdrawal was swift and complete, like a sheet of bracing cold water thrown over her. The roar of pain filled her ears as she swung her legs over the side of the bed and watched Rahim heading for the door.
Allegra jumped up before she could talk herself out of it.
‘Don’t go. Rahim, please don’t go.’
He balled his fists and turned from the door. ‘What the hell do you want from me, Allegra?’
‘For starters, I’d like to feel like I’m not in this alone.’ She laced her fingers together, desperately fighting for the words to make him stay. ‘I told you my parents died. But I didn’t tell you how they died or what my life was like when they were alive.’
He remained silent, and she forced herself to continue.
‘My father was a chronic drug abuser and a mean drunk. He was constantly in and out of rehab. Each time he vowed to my mother it would be the last time, but he’d relapse within days, sometimes within hours. And they fought, all the time. Living with them was like living in a constant war zone.’
Rahim frowned. ‘You’re close to your grandfather. Where was he when this was happening?’
She shrugged, the weight of her childhood drowning her. ‘He was around, and he did everything he could, but even at five I knew there was only so much anyone could do. I was six when I watched my mother get into my father’s car to stop him leaving after he’d been drinking. They were screaming at each other when he drove away. That was the last time I saw either of them alive.’
The teardrop that landed on her hand was the first indication that she was crying. Scrunching her features to stem the torrent, she jerked as Rahim loomed in front of her. He stared at her for several seconds, the hard look on his face not dissipating.
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I told you in Geneva I didn’t think I’d make a good mother. I still don’t. And you not being here terrifies me even more.’
His frown deepened. ‘But why does your childhood experience write you off as good parent material?’
Allegra reared back. ‘Are you serious? I have the DNA of a chronic drug addict and a highly strung mother who could barely take care of herself, let alone her seven kids, running through my veins. Not to mention my every attempt to hold my family together after they were gone ended in disaster. Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to describe my family both before and after my parents died. Everything I tried to do made things worse. And you think I should blithely waltz into parenthood?’
‘That’s exactly the point. You’re wealthy enough to follow in your parents’ decadent footsteps, and yet you haven’t. You chose a different path for yourself. And as for holding your family together, I’m sorry to break it to you, but six-year-olds can barely tie their shoelaces, let alone undertake the monumental task of holding a family together.’
Allegra blinked. She’d unveiled her sordid parentage and childhood to Rahim. And he’d barely blinked at the monumental fear that had ruled her life since she was six years old. She didn’t know whether to be hurt or thankful that he’d all but dismissed her fears as inconsequential. Had she blown her inability to help her siblings all out of proportion? Recalling her grandfather stating something similar, she closed her eyes and laid her hand over her belly. Had she really been unrealistic in thinking she was responsible for holding her family together at such a young age? And dared she believe that she could do a better job as a mother?
Any hope that might have dared to grow died at the thought of doing this alone. ‘I know that. I’m not stupid, Rahim. We had nannies and housekeepers to help, but I had a duty to my family too. And yet nothing I did as I got older helped. I have zero confidence that I’ll be able to give my child anything worth a damn. What guarantees do I have that I won’t ruin his life?’ she asked bleakly.
That stopped him for a moment. Then his lips pursed. ‘First of all, this is our child. Secondly, there are no guarantees. And you forget, you won’t be alone in that, Allegra. This is my child too. He will have the benefit of two parents.’
‘You expect me to believe that when you swing by for a few hours, then take off again?’
A thunderous frown clamped his brows. ‘I have work to do. You know the extent of what needs to be fixed for my people.’
‘Our people, Rahim. We’re married, remember? They’re my people too now.’
‘Then you should understand...’
‘Is it what happened with your mother that’s keeping you away? Or me?’
‘Allegra,’ he warned.
‘What happened on our wedding night wasn’t your fault.’
He went rigid, his features hard as stone. Encouraged that she was getting a reaction, she approached. When he didn’t turn away from her, she laid a hand on his chest.
Firming her resolve, she blurted out what she’d been waiting almost a whole day to say to him. ‘What happened to your mother was horrible and devastating. But millions of women deliver babies safely every year. Our baby will be too.’
‘This palace ceased to be a place of fairy tale a long time ago. You can’t flick a magic wand and have everything go your way. The Dar-Amanian people need me. Serving their needs isn’t a job I take lightly. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good.’
Feeling like a pathetic heel but knowing she needed to fight for this, she cupped his jaw. ‘I didn’t sign up for a life of loneliness in a gilded cage, Rahim, greater good or not.’
He glanced sharply at her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I want you to come back. I want my husband, my sheikh, to come back to me.’ She took another step closer, trapping him between the door and her body.
A shudder moved through him, lifting his chest against hers. Reaching up with her other hand, she cradled his face in her hands, rose on tiptoes and kissed him.
With a guttural groan, he captured her hips and dragged her closer, his touch burning through the flimsy clinic gown. His mouth feasted on hers, biting and lapping, until they were both panting.
‘Come back to me, please. I need you, Rahim,’ she pleaded.
He gave a groan and her heart lifted.
But in the next breath, he was pulling away. Desperately, she clung to him. ‘Don’t leave me again. Please!’
‘No. The baby...’
‘He’s fine and healthy. So am I. But we both need you.’ She pressed her mouth to his, and they clashed once again in a frenzied exchange of pent-up sexual need. Locking her fingers in his hair, Allegra strained against him, her senses on fire, her heart offering up every prayer it could for the love of her life to stay.
But once again he dragged himself away.
She held her breath as Rahim stared down at her. Silently, she willed him to give her something. She’d pleaded. She’d demanded. She wasn’t too far off tears, and she wasn’t sure her heart could withstand another rejection.
But it could lurch wildly. And it did when Rahim took her wrists in his hands and determinedly pulled her hands from his face.
‘No. This cannot happen.’
Her heart in tatters, she stepped away, removing herself from his path. ‘Go, then. But don’t expect me to be here when you come back.’
His eyes darkened until they were almost black. ‘I’m disappointed you feel that way,’ he said stonily.
He walked away, leaving her broken and defeated against the wall.
