Читать книгу Midnight in the Desert Collection - Оливия Гейтс - Страница 14

FROM her small collection of clothing, Ruby selected a black dress she had bought to wear at her mother’s funeral and a beige cotton casual jacket. She would be too warm in the garments but they would have to do because she couldn’t wear the red suit again. Some minimal make-up applied to conceal the puffiness of her eyes and her pallor, her hair caught up in a high ponytail for coolness, Ruby forced herself to walk out to the dining area and join Raja for breakfast.

‘Good morning …’ Raja murmured lazily as if they had not parted at odds the night before.

‘Good morning.’ One glance at that handsome face and her mouth ran dry and her heart thumped loudly behind her breastbone, while a tiny heated knot of reaction pulled taut in her pelvis and made her clench her thighs together as she took a seat opposite him. Face burning with discomfiture, she suddenly didn’t blame herself any more for succumbing to Raja’s lethal sex appeal. He was a heartbreakingly beautiful man. Her biggest weakness was her failure to appreciate how clever and calculating he might be, but now that she did know she would be a great deal more cautious.

‘I’ve made arrangements for a new wardrobe to be assembled for you in Najar,’ Raja informed her.

‘I do need more clothes. I don’t own dressy outfits but I wouldn’t want anything too expensive or flashy,’ Ruby responded thoughtfully as he poured tea for her and she buttered a roll. ‘The state this country is in, it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be dressed up like some sort of celebrity.’

‘Wajid would disagree with you. He thinks life is too dull here and that you will bring some much-needed colour and the promise that brighter times lie ahead. Here you are a celebrity, whether you like it or not, and celebrities dress up.’

Zuhrah joined them along with her male administrative counterpart, Asim, who organised Raja’s diary. Ruby’s engagements at the orphanage and at a school were discussed and useful sheets of facts tucked into a file for her. She could not help noticing that the heavy-duty visits, like one to a homeless camp and another to a makeshift hospital, fell on Raja’s shoulders, Wajid evidently having decided such venues were no place for a lady. A lighter note was struck when a maid appeared with a crystal vase filled with the most exquisite white roses, which she placed on the table.

‘Oh, how lovely!’ Ruby got to her feet to lean down and draw in the rich opulent perfume of the perfect blooms and only then noticed the gift envelope inscribed with her name. She recognised Raja’s distinctive handwriting immediately. Eyes veiling, her facial muscles freezing, she took the card and sat down again to open it with pronounced reluctance.

I am sorry for upsetting you. Raja

Her teeth gritted. She reckoned there was never a truer word written than that apt phrase but she was unimpressed by the apology, for a wife barely able to look at him never mind speak to him was naturally a problem he had to fix. No doubt any effort made towards that objective would be all for the greater good and the peace treaty, as well.

‘Thank you,’ she said with the wooden intonation of a robot and gave him an even more wooden smile purely for the benefit of their audience of staff. Wajid would have been proud of her, she reflected bleakly. Instead of throwing the vase at her royal husband she had smiled at him, showing a restraint in her opinion that raised her near to sainthood. After all, had he been sincerely sorry would he not just have apologised across the table?

Ruby didn’t do a good fake smile, Raja acknowledged wryly while he wondered if it had been accidental or deliberate that at one point she had actually pushed the vase of roses out of her way to lay down her file. And then he could not credit that he had actually spared the brain power to wonder about something so trivial! He left the room to phone his jeweller and explain what he wanted: a diamond of the very highest calibre. Raja did not embarrass easily but her silence over breakfast had embarrassed him. He did not want their differences paraded in front of their staff for inevitably it would lead to gossip and the news that their marriage was in trouble would enter the public domain very soon afterwards.

Wajid accompanied Ruby to the orphanage and revealed that Raja had requested that he do so as soon as he had realised that Wajid had scheduled them to make visits separately.

‘His Royal Highness is very protective of you,’ Wajid told her with approval. ‘When he is unable to be with you he wants you to have every possible means of support.’

It occurred to Ruby that that was paradoxical when Raja seemed to have the power to wound her more than anyone else. His protectiveness meant nothing, she reasoned unhappily. The prince was simply one of those very masculine men who deemed a woman to be more helpless and instinctively expected to have to take care of her. That in the desert she had proven him right on that score still blasted a giant hole in her self-esteem. But why did she feel so unhappy? Why had he hurt her as no other man had ever succeeded in doing since her stepfather had gone out of her life?

It hadn’t just been sex for her, Ruby conceded reluctantly, striving to be honest about that. Raja was strong and clever and resourceful and she admired those traits. Add in his looks, boundless sex appeal and equally extensive charm and her defensive barriers had begun crumbling so fast she had barely registered the fact. Of course she had never met the equal of Raja al-Somari before. He came from a different world and culture but he had also been shaped by every educational advantage and great wealth and status. Twenty-odd years earlier, Ruby’s mother Vanessa had made the mistake of falling in love with just such a man. Was Ruby about to make the same mistake? Not if she could help it.

The limousine in which she was travelling drew up outside the orphanage, a cluster of relatively modern buildings that had mercifully not been targeted by the Najari soldiers. As the older couple she had met at the reception the night before appeared on the steps to welcome them, Ruby had no more time for introspection. She had always loved children. As her visit progressed she was alternately appalled by the scale of loss many of the children had suffered in losing their entire families and then touched by the resilience of their spirits. The orphanage was in dire need of more trained staff, bedding and toys but most of the children were still able to laugh and smile and play.

One little girl attached herself to Ruby almost as soon as she appeared by sliding her tiny hand into hers. About three years old, Leyla had big dark eyes, a tangle of black curls and a thumb firmly lodged in her rosebud mouth.

The orphanage director was surprised by the little girl’s behaviour and explained that she was rather withdrawn with the staff. Leyla’s parents had died during the war. Unfortunately there was no tradition of adoption in Ashuri society and many people were struggling just to feed their own families. Leyla clinging to her skirt, Ruby spent the most time with the younger children and listened while a story was being told. When the time came for Ruby to leave, Leyla clung to Ruby as if her life depended on it and, lifted from her, wept inconsolably. Ruby was surprised at how difficult she found it to part with Leyla. Just the feel and scent of that warm little body curled trustingly in her arms had made her eyes sting with tears. All of a sudden her own problems seemed to shrink in comparison.

Ignoring Wajid’s disapproving expression, Ruby promised to come back and visit in the evening. Their next visit to a temporary school housed in tents was a good deal more brisk but also less formal as Ruby mingled with teenagers and answered their questions as best she could, trying not to wince or stiffen when the court advisor admonished those he considered were being too familiar with his royal companion.

‘I don’t like formality. I’m more of a hands-on person and that’s the only style I’m comfortable with,’ Ruby informed the older man as they drove off.

‘Royalty should be more reserved,’ Wajid preached.

A determined look in her level eyes that Raja would have recognised, Ruby said quietly, ‘I’ll carry out my engagements as the ordinary person that I am, Wajid. I can only do this kind of thing because I like mingling with people and chatting to them.’

‘Princess Bariah would not have dreamt of lifting a crying child,’ the older man was reduced to telling her.

‘I am not Bariah. I grew up in a different society.’

‘One day soon you will be a queen and such familiarity from your subjects would seem disrespectful.’

Aware that a man old enough to be her grandfather was almost certain to cherish a less liberal viewpoint on suitable behaviour, Ruby dropped the subject. But she had not noticed Raja standing on ceremony with their guests at the reception the evening before. He had appeared equally friendly and courteous with everybody.

When she got back to the palace she was so tired she lay down. For quite some time she thought sadly about Leyla. The little girl had touched her heart and she was wishing that there were something she could do to help her before she finally fell asleep for several hours. She wakened when a maid knocked to deliver a garment bag. Unzipping it, she extracted an opulent sapphire-blue evening dress and high-heeled shoes. Her expression thoughtful, she checked the size of both.

Only minutes later, Raja joined her in the bedroom.

‘Did you organise this?’ she asked, extending the dress.

‘Yes. This evening you’ll be meeting friends and relatives of your late uncle and his family. You would feel ill-at-ease if you were underdressed in such a gathering,’ Raja forecast smoothly.

‘You even got my sizes right,’ Ruby remarked, thinking how very, very handsome he was, even when in need of a good shave, for dark stubble clearly accentuated the sensual curve of his sculpted mouth. ‘You’re obviously used to buying clothes for women.’

A slight frown at that remark drawing his ebony brows together, Raja swung fluidly away to remove his jacket and made no response.

But Ruby was not so easily deflected. ‘Are you in the habit of buying for your sisters?’

‘They do their own shopping,’ Raja admitted.

‘So, you are accustomed to buying clothes for the other women in your life,’ Ruby gathered, not a bit averse to making him uncomfortable if she could.

‘No comment. I’m glad you like the dress.’

Her brown eyes flamed amber. ‘Your hide is as tough as steel, isn’t it?’

‘I never said I was a virgin,’ Raja shot back at her with sardonic cool, his strong features taut.

‘Oh, I had already worked that out for myself,’ Ruby retorted, thinking of how smoothly he had seduced and bedded her.

In retrospect the level of his experience with her sex was obvious to her and to her annoyance that awareness loosed a whole flock of curious questions inside her head. How had she compared to his other lovers? Did he go for blondes, brunettes or redheads or any of the above? Would he even have found her attractive had she not been a long-lost and almost forgotten Ashuri princess? Every question of that ilk that crossed Ruby’s mind infuriated her. Why was she letting him make her feel insecure and vulnerable? Now that she knew the truth behind their consummated marriage, she would be better able to protect herself.

‘There will not be another woman in my bed while you remain my wife,’ Raja volunteered abruptly, his brilliant, dark eyes welded to her expressive face.

‘My goodness, do you think I care?’ Ruby forced a laugh and then plastered an amused and scornful smile to her lips. ‘I couldn’t care less what you do. I have to take account of the reality that we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future so there’s no sense in fighting every step of the way.’

‘You make a good point,’ Raja responded although outrage had shot flames of gold into his gaze when she declared that she didn’t care what he did.

‘And I’m not asking you to sleep on the sofa tonight and I’m not sleeping on it either. We’re adults. I’m asking you to respect that agreement you think is so foolish and forget that we ever had sex.’

Wonderment consumed Raja as she spoke. Forget about the sex? She stood there looking like every fantasy he had ever had in her little black dress with her beautiful eyes, sultry pink mouth and glorious legs tempting him and she thought he could easily return to treating her like a sexless stranger? He had deceived her by cloaking his true intentions, he reminded himself fiercely. This was the punishment, the payoff. He had to give her time to adjust to her new role.

‘I will do my best,’ Raja replied flatly.

He emanated angry vibrations and she wondered why that was. The need to get inside Raja’s head and understand what made him tick was, Ruby was discovering, a constant craving. Did he only want to make love to her because he thought that should be his right as a husband? Or would he have wanted her anyway just for herself? And why, when she had never planned to become intimate with him, should that distinction matter to her?

Later he did up the zip on the blue dress and it fit her like a tailor-made glove, the rich colour flattering her fair colouring. As she sat at the dressing table straightening her hair Raja came to her side and handed her a jewellery box. ‘It is a small gift.’

Ruby lifted the lid and stared down dumbstruck at the flawless glittering teardrop diamond on a pendant. Small wasn’t the right word. It was a big diamond and, although she knew next to nothing about the value of jewellery because she had never owned any beyond a wristwatch, she guessed that a diamond that large had to be worth a small fortune.

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled in shock.

‘Allow me.’ While she lifted her hair out of the way, Raja clasped the pendant at the nape of her neck. She shivered as his fingertips brushed her sensitive skin and that little knot of sexual hunger in the pit of her stomach tightened up a notch. ‘I would’ve given you earrings but your ears aren’t pierced.’

‘No, I’m a total unbelievable coward. I once went with a friend and she fainted when they did her ears. She bled all over the place too—it put me right off!’ Ruby confided, suddenly desperate to fill the awkward silence.

His shrewd, dark eyes screened in his reflection in the mirror, Raja rested a hand on her taut shoulder. ‘Ruby …’

‘My mother said my father chose my name, you know,’ she volunteered abruptly. ‘He said that a virtuous wife was worth more than rubies. It’s kind of insulting that the only future he could see for me was as someone’s wife.’

‘But I am grateful to have you as my wife.’

‘Only because I was part of the peace treaty,’ Ruby fielded, flatly unimpressed by that declaration. ‘Spoils of war and all that.’

Two weeks later, the night before Ruby’s first visit to Najar, Raja was enjoying a pleasant daydream. A century or so earlier had he acquired Ruby as the spoils of war, she would have belonged to him … utterly. It was a heady masculine fantasy to toy with while he was being driven to the orphanage that his wife had contrived to visit alone almost every evening since her initial official visit there. He had Wajid to thank for that information, for Ruby had kept very quiet about where she took off to during their rare moments of leisure.

Ruby took care not to share that time with him. It was yet another vote of no confidence from his wife, who was not his wife in any way that mattered, Raja conceded grimly. They might still share the same bed but she had placed a bolster pillow down the middle of it. That had made him laugh the first night, but within a week the comedy aspect had worn very thin.

His cell phone pinged with a message and he checked, frowning as the snap Chloe had put in of herself shone up at him, all blonde hair and a wide, perfect smile. Ruby did not possess that perfection of feature. Her nose turned up at the tip and she had the cutest little gap between her front teeth. Yet whenever he saw Ruby there was no one else in the room capable of commanding his attention. His handsome mouth curled as he read the suggestive text from his mistress. He had no desire to exchange sexy texts. That didn’t excite him. Chloe was becoming a liability. On the other hand if Ruby had felt the urge to send him a suggestive text he would have responded with imagination and enthusiasm, he acknowledged with self-derision. Unfortunately there was as much chance of a sext coming from Ruby as of Ashur sending a rocket to the moon.

Raja, however, remained conscious that he had no real grounds for complaint. His bride was already performing her duties as a future queen with considerable grace and good humour. Her naturally warm personality had great appeal. The Ashuri people liked her easy manner and chatty approach, not to mention her frankness in referring to the days when she had led the life of a young working woman.

Forewarned by a call of his impending unofficial visit, the orphanage director greeted him in the hall and took him straight to Ruby. Ruby was in the nursery with a little girl on her lap, painstakingly reading out a few brief words from a picture book in the basic Ashuri language, which she was working so hard to learn. A cluster of children sat on the floor round her feet.

‘The princess is a natural with children. It’s unfortunate that the child she is holding—Leyla—is becoming a little too attached to your wife,’ the older woman told him in a guarded undertone.

Raja got the message intended. He watched the little girl raise a hand to pat Ruby’s cheek and then beam adoringly up at her, her other hand clutching possessively at Ruby’s top. He watched Ruby look down at the child and realised that he had a problem that cut both ways, for his wife’s lovely face softened into a deeply affectionate smile. Raja would have been elated to receive such a smile but he never had. When Ruby saw him in the doorway, she leapt almost guiltily upright, arms locking protectively round the child in her arms. A staff member approached to take the little girl and Ruby handed her over, visibly troubled when the child began to sob in protest.

‘Raja …’ Ruby framed in a jerky, almost soundless whisper, for she was so astonished to see him standing there that her voice just deserted her.

Clad in the long off-white tunic called a thaub that he wore most days, Raja looked fantastically handsome, the smooth golden planes of his classic masculine features demarcated by the exotic set of his lustrous dark eyes and high cheekbones. Her tummy flipped like a teenager’s and she froze, feeling foolish and very much aware that she was hopelessly infatuated with her husband, which was one reason why she avoided his company as much as was humanly possible. He was like an ever-growing fever she was trying to starve into subjection in her bloodstream.

‘I had some news I wished to share with you,’ Raja imparted lightly. ‘Until Wajid mentioned it, I had no idea that this was where you were coming most evenings.’

‘I enjoy being with the children. There’s no formality here—it’s relaxing,’ she told him.

‘Mrs Baldwin said you’re fond of one particular child—’

‘Leyla … there’s just something about her that grabs my heart every time I see her,’ Ruby admitted, opting for honesty. ‘I really love spending time with her. She’s so sweet and smart.’

Installed in the limo he had arrived in, Ruby said, ‘What news wouldn’t wait until I got back to the palace?’

‘There have been arrests here and in Najar. The members of the royal households who shared our itinerary with the kidnappers have been identified and arrested, as have their supporters.’

Taken by surprise by that information, Ruby frowned and asked, ‘Who were they?’

‘An aide on my father’s staff and a private secretary from Wajid’s team here in the palace. Wajid is very ashamed of that link. Be tactful with him if he raises the subject. He is very much aware that the kidnapping could have ended tragically.’

‘But we were unhurt,’ Ruby hastened to remind him.

Her husband looked grave, his sensual mouth compressing. ‘Ruby … tempers run high with memories of the war still so fresh. Fighting could have broken out again. Our lives and those of others were put at risk. The mercenaries whom the perpetrators hired to act for them have fled the country and are unlikely to be apprehended but a prison sentence is inevitable for the citizens involved.’

‘I understand.’ The justice system was rigid and retribution fell swift and hard on those who broke the laws in their countries. Ruby was already learning to temper her opinions in the light of the society in which she now lived, but it still occasionally annoyed her to depend so much on Raja’s interpretation of events and personalities.

Just weeks earlier she had claimed that she intended to be as much involved as Raja in ruling Ashur and could only marvel at her innocence, for the longer she lived in the palace, the more she appreciated how much she still had to learn about the constantly squabbling local factions and the council of elderly men who stalled and argued more than they made decisions. Raja spent a good deal of his time soothing difficult people and in meetings with the Najari investors financing the rebuilding of Ashur. His duties seemed endless and he was working very long hours because he was also dealing with his duties as Regent of Najar from a distance. Unable to offer much in the way of support, Ruby felt guilty.

Indeed the longer she stayed in Ashur, the more confused and unsure of her own wishes Ruby was becoming. She was fully conscious that Raja had married her with the best of intentions and acted as he saw fit in an effort to turn their platonic marriage into a lasting relationship. He had played the hand he had been given without intending to hurt or humiliate her. He wanted her to stay married to him but to date he had put no pressure on her to do so and she respected him for that. Yet while he was bearing the blame for the dissension between them she knew that she had played a sizeable part in her own downfall by being so violently attracted to him. Her decision to surrender to that attraction had badly muddied the water and her thinking processes and encouraged her to want more from him than he was ever likely to give her. When she had specified and demanded a marriage of convenience, how could she blame him for her change of heart?

At the same time avoiding Raja and keeping to the other side of the bolster in the bed was beginning to feel a little childish. She was also living on her nerves because her period was currently overdue. She had told herself that her menstrual cycle could just be acting up. But in her heart of hearts she was terrified that her misfiring cycle combined with the new tenderness of her breasts meant that she had fallen pregnant. She had abandoned all restraint in the desert with Raja and it looked as though she might well be about to pay a price for that recklessness.

‘The little girl you were with,’ Raja commented quietly.

Instantly, Ruby tensed. ‘Leyla? What about her?’

‘Have you gone to the orphanage every evening?’

‘Have you a problem with that?’ Ruby countered defensively.

‘The child seems very attached to you. Is that wise?’ he prompted gently. ‘She will be hurt when you disappear from her life again.’

Annoyance hurtled up through Ruby and she closed her hands together very tightly to control her feelings. ‘I have no plans to disappear.’

Sensing her distress at what he had suggested, Raja stretched out a hand to rest it on top of her tensely knotted fingers. ‘We’re leaving Ashur tomorrow for a couple of weeks. You have many claims on your time now.’

‘I … I was thinking of adopting Leyla!’ Ruby flung at him, finally putting into words the idea that had been growing at the back of her mind for two weeks and working on her until it began to seem a possibility rather than a wild idea. ‘I know you’ll probably think I’m crazy but I’ve become very fond of Leyla. Whatever it takes, I’d very much like to give her a home.’

Astonished by that outspoken admission, Raja studied her. ‘But you’re planning to divorce me …’

Ruby frowned. ‘Well, eventually, yes, but—’

‘Then I suspect that you have not thought this idea through,’ Raja intoned. ‘The Ashuri Court of Family Law would not countenance foreign adoption and would wish the child to be raised here where she was born with her own language and people. I doubt that you are willing to offer her that option.’

‘I would love her,’ Ruby breathed in stark disagreement as the limo drew up outside the side entrance to the palace. ‘Leyla needs love more than she needs anything else!’

‘Love is not always enough,’ Raja drawled softly.

In receipt of that hoary old chestnut, Ruby shot him a furious look of disagreement and took the stairs to their suite two at a time. Her heart was hammering like mad behind her breastbone because she was genuinely upset. Having finally got up the courage to voice her hopes with regard to Leyla, she had been shot down in flames. The hard facts Raja had voiced rankled and hurt. Evidently there was no question of her trying to adopt Leyla if she was planning to ultimately divorce Raja. But was she planning to divorce him?

Exactly when would she be able to walk away from Raja without that decision impacting on the stability of Ashur? She could not imagine a date even on the horizon when she might leave her marriage without there being a risk of it leading to political upheaval in her late father’s country. Her decision to marry Raja had been rash in the extreme, she conceded ruefully. She had not looked into the future. She had failed to recognise that a short-term fix might be almost worse for her country of birth than her refusing outright to marry Raja. A divorce would unleash more political and economic turmoil. Raja was right about that, for she had listened to people talking and seen for herself how much weight rested on their marriage as a symbol of unity and reconciliation. An image of Leyla’s tear-stained little face swam before her now and her heart turned over inside her chest.

‘What do you know about love?’ Ruby demanded, challenging Raja as she poured the mint tea waiting for them on a tray. ‘Have you ever been in love?’

‘Once was enough,’ he admitted sardonically.

Ironically Ruby felt affronted by that admission. He didn’t love her but he had fallen for someone else? ‘Who was she?’

His lean strong face took on a wry expression. ‘Her name was Isabel. We met as students at Oxford. I was besotted with her.’ He grimaced, openly inviting her amusement. ‘We read poetry and went everywhere together holding hands.’

‘People apparently do stuff like that when they’re in love,’ Ruby remarked stiltedly, well aware that he had never shown any desire to read her a poem or to hold her hand and, as a result, feeling distinctly short-changed rather than amused.

‘The romance turned into a nightmare,’ Raja confided tight-mouthed, his beautiful dark eyes bleak with recollection. ‘She was very jealous and possessive. Everything was a drama with her. If I even spoke to another woman she threw a scene. I was nineteen years old and totally inexperienced with your sex.’

Sipping the mint tea, which she had learned to find refreshing, Ruby was touched by his honesty, for baring his soul did not come naturally to a man accustomed to keeping his own counsel and concealing his feelings. ‘At that age you must have found a volatile woman hard to cope with.’

‘She threatened to kill herself when I tried to break it off. I stood up to her but she carried through her threat—she did take an overdose,’ he admitted gravely, acknowledging her wince of sympathy with compressed lips. ‘When I said it was a nightmare I wasn’t exaggerating. Eventually Isabel’s parents put her into a clinic to be treated for depression. It took me a long time to extract myself from my entanglement with her.’

‘And of course it put you off what she saw as love,’ Ruby conceded thoughtfully, understanding that perfectly, her brown eyes soft as she tried to picture him as a naive teenager spouting poetry and holding hands. ‘But Isabel sounds as if she had a very twisted idea of love. It was just your bad luck to meet a woman like that and get burned.’

Raja shrugged a broad shoulder in a fatalistic gesture.

‘My mum, though—she got burned twice over,’ Ruby volunteered, startling him. ‘She lacked good judgement. She just fell in love and believed the man would be perfect. My father married his second wife behind her back and then told Mum he had no choice because he needed a son and she had had to have a hysterectomy after giving birth to me.’

‘And the second burning?’ Raja queried curiously, for he was already familiar with the first, although he had been given a rather different version.

Ruby grimaced. ‘The reason Hermione distrusts men around me—my stepfather, Curtis. He was always trying it on with me—’

‘Your stepfather tried to abuse you?’ Raja ground out in an appalled tone, black brows drawing together.

Ruby nodded in uneasy confirmation. ‘He started bothering me when I was about twelve. By then Mum was going out several nights a week to a part-time job and I was left alone in the house with him.’

Raja was outraged that she had been targeted at such a tender age by a man within her own home where she should have been safe. For the first time he understood what had given Ruby her essentially feisty and independent nature as well as her distrust of his sex. Angry concern in his gaze, Raja was frowning. ‘You didn’t tell your mother what he was doing, did you?’ he guessed. ‘Why not?’

‘Because it would’ve broken her heart,’ Ruby proffered heavily. ‘She adored Curtis and she’d had a bad enough time with my father.’

‘Your stepfather never actually managed to touch you?’

‘No, but I lived in terror that he would. It was such a relief for me when he walked out on us. He made me very suspicious of men. He also left Mum absolutely broke.’ Ruby set down her cup and began to move towards the bedroom.

‘Ruby?’

Ruby glanced back at him warily.

‘How much do you want to give Leyla a home?’

Ruby paled and contrived to look both very young and very determined. ‘I’ve never wanted anything more …’ Apart from you, but that was a truth she refused to voice, watching him as he stood there poised, darkly beautiful and dangerous to her every sense and emotion.

‘I will make enquiries on our behalf—’

‘Our?’

‘Only a couple could be considered to adopt her. It would have to be a joint application from us both.’

Astonished by that speech, Ruby trembled with emotion. ‘Is that an offer?’

Raja surveyed her steadily. ‘No, it is my assurance of support in whatever you decide to do.’

And Ruby knew very well what was going unsaid in that statement. A married couple naturally meant a couple planning to stay married. Lashes lowering, she was too enervated to respond and she turned away and went for a shower. Towelling herself dry in the bathroom, she took stock of her situation. She was in love with him. Why not just come clean about that? She was madly, hopelessly in love with Raja al-Somari! Aside from that sense of duty of his, which had hit her pride squarely where it hurt, she liked everything about Raja. His strength, his intelligence, his generosity. His protectiveness, his understanding, his tolerance. He was no longer just a very good-looking, sexy guy, he was the one she had learned to love to distraction even though she had done her utmost to resist his considerable appeal.

The bedroom was empty. But she left the bolster pillow in the foot of the wardrobe where it stayed by day. Tonight she saw no need for a barrier. In fact she was not quite sure which of them had required the restraint imposed by the presence of the bolster the most.

Thirty minutes later, Raja came to bed and the very first thing he noticed was the missing bolster. He slid into the bed in semi-darkness and lay there. There might as well have been a ten-foot wall down the middle of the bed, he reflected wryly. He refused to give her the excuse of believing that there had been any sort of a price attached to his support in the adoption application she was hoping that they would make. He was very much impressed by her commitment to the child, her willingness to become a mother at a young age when so many women would have chosen only to make the most of his unlimited wealth.

Barely a foot away Ruby lay wide awake, as well. She knew that she wanted him quite unbearably. She also knew that suddenly bringing the sex factor back in before other things were sorted out between them would be extremely imprudent but she was still madly hoping that he would take her unspoken invitation.

But the invitation was ignored and it took her a long time to get to sleep. Hours crept past while she thought about Leyla, wondering if they would be allowed to offer the little girl a home and if Raja would learn to love her, as well. She should have discussed the subject more with him. She had to learn how to be half of a couple and wondered why that skill seemed to come so much more naturally to him. It felt as though she had barely slept when she woke up and recalled that this was the day when she would finally meet Raja’s family and see Najar for the first time.