Читать книгу Scandals Of The Crown: The Life She Left Behind / The Price of Royal Duty / The Sheikh's Heir - Пенни Джордан, PENNY JORDAN - Страница 15

“The wedding will take place in two weeks.” Taj walked into Angelina’s quarters and a hard slug of arousal hit him in the gut.

They’d stayed out in the garden until the sky had started turning pink at the horizon line, bleeding up into the inky blackness, washing it clean. He’d held her until he was certain they would be missed, and possibly discovered, naked on the divan, covered only in her robe.

Then he’d sent her back to her room, and he’d gone back to his. And his body had burned. He’d ended up in an ice cold shower, gritting his teeth as the water hit his skin like a thousand needles and his erection ached, finding absolutely no relief.

He’d ended up shivering and horny.

What was it about her? How was it she’d managed to burrow her way under his skin all those years ago? It was as though she lived in him. A strange thought. A foolish thought, and yet it seemed the only explanation for what he felt when he was around her.

Angelina looked at him, her lush lips shaped into a perfect O. “What? Why so soon?”

He looked pointedly at her stomach.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, I won’t start showing for a while. I mean, I knew you wanted to marry quickly but…two weeks? In the States I would have a hard time getting a wedding cake on two weeks’ notice!”

“You underestimate the power of money.”

“No. I don’t. Trust me. My family is practically made of money.”

“Then you underestimate the power of the sheikh of Rahat. I will have my staff see to the wedding feast. The ceremony will be held here at the palace. Small by royal standards but it cannot be helped.”

Her smooth brow crinkled as she drew her eyebrows together. “Oh, yes. It can’t be helped because I’m disgraced. Can’t have people thinking I’m pregnant, it would reflect badly on me. Not on you, of course, but then, isn’t that the way of it?”

Anger curled his stomach. Anger at whom…Angelina, his country and its traditions, or himself, he wasn’t sure. Possibly all three. “If you had married me three years ago you could have had the finest wedding imaginable,” he said through clenched teeth. “A parade through the city. A handmade wedding gown. Thousands of attendants ready to pay homage to the new queen.”

If she had married him three years ago he would have spared so many sleepless nights, so much longing.

At least he had her now. She would have to stay with him. She would be his wife and the mother of his child. She could not leave him now. That brought a slight sense of a relief, took away some of the pressure in his chest.

“Oh, yes, that’s what I need, Taj. A bigger wedding. That’s the problem. It simply won’t be grand enough if I’m not brought into the church on…on…camel back.” She stood, her pale cheeks flushing a dark rose. “How did you know that was the most essential thing to me? I should have married you three years ago, if not for the wedding, so my wardrobe would be more current.”

He stepped back, the heat in his stomach spreading now, a blaze of anger streaking along his veins. “Is that what you want? More gowns? I will give them to you. I can give you anything. Everything. I am Sheikh. I can provide you with things no other man can.”

“Oh, is that so,” she said, hands on her shapely hips. “Well, I believe that, sugar, I do. But there are men who could provide me with things you will never be able to give me.”

“I think not,” he said, striding forward and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against him. Her eyes widened and he gentled his hold, his heart hammering. “I think not,” he said again, his voice softer.

He moved his thumb over her bottom lip and a shiver of desire racked his body. “The need I feel for you is as much a part of me as my blood,” he said. “And I am certain you feel the same.”

She pulled back. “That’s sex. So maybe we have good sex, and maybe we both want more of it. But sex isn’t everything.”

“You say that, but you are wrong. You have some…misconstrued idea that marriage is about love, I imagine. A modern concept that I have no patience for. Suitability, chemistry, that is what matters. Not some vague idea of a feeling that has no guarantee of existing let alone lasting. This,” he said, putting his hand on her chest, feeling her heart beating rapidly beneath his palm, “this is real. What I make you feel.”

“Go away, Taj.”

Dismissed. No one dismissed him. No one left him. And Angelina seemed to do both of those things freely.

“For now,” he said, taking a step back, ignoring the ugly twisting in his chest that was threatening to cut off his air supply. “But remember this, Angelina. You are pregnant with my heir, and you will be my wife. There is no running from this.”

He said it as much to remind him as her. She couldn’t leave him. Not now.

A good thing. Because if she did…he did not know how he would live with himself.