Читать книгу A Surprise For The Sheikh - Sarah M. Anderson - Страница 10

Two

Rafe just...sat there. For Pete’s sake, he didn’t even blink when Mac walked back into the room. Violet’s whole world was falling apart around her and Rafe looked as though she’d announced she liked French fries instead of the fact that she was carrying his child.

She couldn’t take it. She needed to go. If she could make it back to a bathroom, where she could throw up in peace and quiet, that’d be great.

“Actually,” she said, forcing herself to stand. “I’m not thirsty. Thanks anyway, Mac.”

The father of her unborn baby was not just some nameless stranger she’d met in a bar. Oh, no—that would be getting off easy. If that were the case, she’d merely be pregnant and alone. Which was a terrifying prospect, but comparatively?

The father of her child was a sheikh. And not just any sheikh. Her brother’s former friend, the one who had blamed Mac for seducing his sister and ended the friendship under no uncertain terms.

Oh, she was going to be so sick.

She willed her legs not to wobble as she stood. Ben or Rafe or Sheikh Saleed or whatever his name was stood with her.

In the past thirty-some-odd minutes, her perfect fantasy night had somehow become an epic nightmare. Had she been dreading telling Mac she was pregnant before? Ha. How the hell was she supposed to tell him now? I’m expecting and by the way, the father is your old friend. Isn’t that a laugh riot?

Mac already treated her as though she was still a lost little girl of sixteen. What would he do now that she’d proven how very irresponsible she was?

Oh, God—this was going to change everything. It already had.

She turned and headed for the door, but due to her wobbly legs, she didn’t get out of the room fast enough. “Violet,” Rafe said in his ridiculous voice, all sunshine and honey, and damned if the sound of her name on his lips didn’t send another burst of warmth and desire through her. Her head may have been a mess, but her body—her stupid, traitorous body—still wanted this man. Hell.

It didn’t matter. She couldn’t let his accent melt her from the inside out, because what had happened the last time? She’d ended up pregnant and unmarried. Violet did not often think of her parents—the loss was too painful, even after all these years—but right now, what she wanted more than anything was her mother.

“What?”

Mac winced and Violet could almost hear him adding, Said Violet, impulsively.

“I would like to know more about Royal and catch up with my old friends.” Something about the way Rafe said friends hit Violet wrong, but before she could figure out what it was, he went on, “Would you both join me for dinner tomorrow night?”

What had she done to deserve this? Because the torture of sitting through dinner with both her brother and her former lover at this exact moment of her life and pretending that nothing had changed was right up there with being stepped on by a herd of stampeding cattle.

“Well, damn,” Mac said. “I’m going to be out of town. But Violet can go with you.”

That was just like Mac, to assume that she spent all her free time painting her nails and listening to Backstreet Boys. She rolled her eyes at Rafe, which must not have been something people in his country did, given the way the color on his cheeks deepened.

Still, Rafe forged on, by all appearances completely unbothered by her impulsiveness or her pregnancy—except for that blush, which only made him look more sinfully handsome. Damn the man.

“Ah, that is acceptable. That way I can keep an eye on you.” His gaze never wavered from hers. “Shall we meet tomorrow, say at seven?”

And Mac, the rat bastard, nodded his approval, as if they were having this entire conversation about her without remembering she was in the room.

She was totally going to blame this on hormones, this mix of rage and self-pity and the sudden urge to cry, all folded in together with desire and relief until she was so mixed up she couldn’t think straight.

But had Mac already asked this man to keep an eye on her? Violet so did not need a babysitter at this point. In six months or so, yes, she would need a babysitter. But before she had an actual baby, she did not. “I don’t—”

“Sure, that’d be great,” Mac said warmly, as if Violet were incapable of having dinner on her own without getting into some sort of trouble. “I have a meeting with Andrea scheduled that I can’t get out of—Andrea’s my assistant,” he added, seeing Rafe’s quizzical look. “But you two can go on and have a nice time.”

A nice time? Oh, she had some things she wanted to say to her brother—about Rafe—but the fact was, she did actually need to talk with Rafe. Alone. “Yeah,” she said, trying to sound at least a little bit excited about the prospect. Four months ago, another evening with her mystery man, Ben, would have been too good to be true. But now? “Sure. Dinner.”

Rafe gave her a small smile that absolutely did not appease her. She hated him right then, because her entire world had just blown up in her face and the father of her child stood there looking as sexy as he had the night he’d taken her to bed. This pregnancy was going to change everything for her—but for him?

Yeah, they needed to talk. Preferably where no one would interrupt them to offer lemonade. “Tomorrow, then,” Rafe said.

“Sounds good.” Mac was staring at her, so she dug deep for something polite to say. “I look forward to it.”

Rafe tilted his head down but kept his gaze locked on hers. “As do I.”

“Say, Rafe, in two nights, I’ll be at the Texas Cattleman’s Club—we’ve got a meeting. If you’re interested in setting down some roots locally, you could come with me.”

Violet started choking. Somehow, the air had gotten very sharp in her throat. She couldn’t have heard that right—could she have? “What?”

Rafe inclined his head at Mac, but he spoke to Violet. “I have been considering branching out into the energy business, so naturally I sought out my old friend.”

“Oh, naturally. That makes total sense.” She tried to smile, but it must have looked more like teeth baring, because both men recoiled slightly.

Something didn’t add up here. But her head was such a hot mess right now that she had no hope of figuring out what it was.

“I shall see you for dinner tomorrow night,” Rafe said, and she didn’t miss the particular timbre of his voice that seemed designed to send a thrill through her body. Then he turned, giving Mac a big smile that seemed less than sincere, Violet thought. “And I would be delighted to see this club of yours.”

“Great,” Mac said, clearly missing the forced smile. “It’s a plan!”

* * *

Morning sickness was a lie. This was what Violet had concluded after a night and a day of suffering with a roiling stomach.

Of course, there was also the possibility that it was not morning sickness. A quick web search revealed that most people were only sick for the first three months, and Violet was safely in her fourth month. After all, she knew the exact date of conception.

Just thinking about that night in Ben’s—Rafe’s—arms again made her stomach turn. Frankly, she defied anyone to not have an upset stomach in a situation like this.

She stood in front of her meager closet in nothing but her panties and bra—her regular bra, not the black-with-white-embroidery number she’d been wearing when she met Rafe. This was a smooth white T-shirt bra. Not a danged thing sexy about it.

Because that’s who she was—functional and dull and not terribly sexy. If Rafe thought she was going to show up for dinner tonight as V again, he had another think coming.

Besides, her one fancy cocktail dress—black with the lacy sleeves—well, it didn’t exactly fit right now. She’d already tried it on and she couldn’t get it zipped.

All those little changes her body had been experiencing—the slight weight gain, the nausea, the overwhelming urge to nap—she’d written off each and every little bump in the road as exhaustion or a bug or the changing of the seasons or stress or, hell, the phases of the moon. But now?

Not a bump in the road. A baby bump.

She had a plan. She had an appointment with an obstetrician in Holloway in two weeks. It was ridiculous that she felt she had to go to the next town over, but she hadn’t exactly decided just yet on how she was going to tell Mac about this “bump in the road.” She kind of had it in her mind that once she had a doctor’s official...whatever, it would be easier to talk to Mac. But if she went to the local doctor in Royal, word might get back to Mac before she could gird her loins. So she was just buying a little time here.

And as for Rafe...okay, she was still working on that part of the plan. She’d done another quick internet search on his country, Al Qunfudhah. The Wikipedia article had stressed that, compared to some of the neighboring countries and kingdoms, women enjoyed a great deal of freedom in Al Qunfudhah, but the article had hit Violet funny. Why would anyone make such a big deal about women being able to drive as if it were some wondrous gift?

She did not know what Rafe intended to do. He really was, according to that same article, a sheikh. His brother ruled the country. His father had died a few years ago. But beyond that?

It had been bad enough when she’d been pregnant with some random stranger’s baby. But a sheikh’s baby?

She was getting ahead of herself. Dinner first. And that meant she needed to put on clothes.

She finally settled on one of her few dresses—the fanciest dress she’d owned, until she’d bought the black one on a whim. It was an olive-green cotton dress with tiny pink flowers printed on it, and it had a pink satin bow at the scoop neck. It was just a little bit girlie but also, due to the darker color, not so girlie. Plus, it was a forgiving cut and it still fit. She paired it with her jean jacket and her nice pair of brown boots, the ones with the pointed toe. She twisted her hair up and pinned it into place, but she decided against dangly earrings. This wasn’t a date. This was a...negotiation, really.

That didn’t stop her from putting on small hoops, as well as mascara and a little blush, though. Not enough that it looked like she was trying, but every little bit helped.

At least Mac wasn’t here. If he saw her in any dress at all, he’d start asking questions. Outside of weddings and Easter services, she was not known for busting out the dresses.

She was debating the merits of her regular tinted lip balm versus actual lipstick when the doorbell rang. Crap. Violet started to hurry, but then thought better of it. She was not at Rafe’s beck and call. She was pregnant. She would not hurry to accommodate him. He’d better get used to doing the accommodating around here. She slowly applied a light layer of a deep pink lipstick and then grabbed her jacket. She was cool, calm and collected. No reason to be nervous, right? Just dinner with the father of her child. Easy peasy.

But by the time she got downstairs, she was on shaky legs and it only got worse when she opened the door to find Rafe standing there, a devilish grin on his face and a single red rose in his hands. And then he took her in, her dress and her boots and her jacket, and she wished in that moment she’d tried a little harder to get the zipper up on her black dress.

“Ah,” he said in a voice that sent a shiver through her. The voice was so unlike the way he’d spoken to her yesterday that she stared at him. This was the man she’d met in a bar. This was the man who’d taken her to bed.

“Hello,” she said, feeling unsettled because it was so hard to reconcile this man with the one who’d sat in the living room yesterday and looked at her as if she were a deer and he were a wolf.

He still looked as though he wanted to devour her, but the difference was so startling that she was helpless to do anything but stand there, gaping.

He held out the rose. “A beautiful flower for a beautiful woman.”

She couldn’t help it: she wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to feel the way he’d made her feel, beautiful and sensual and desirable. But now that they knew who the other was, she didn’t think chasing that little bit of happiness was the best idea. “Look—is this a date? What is this?”

There was that hardness in his expression again and she had to fight the urge to step back. She was not imagining that. “I would never force you to do something against your will, Violet. If you would like to go to dinner as friends, then we may do that. If you would like to consider this a more romantic evening...” His voice trailed off as his eyes warmed.

She took the rose and set it down on the foyer table. “The last time we had a romantic evening, things went wrong.” Two-positive-pregnancy-tests wrong. “I think we should get a few things settled before we do anything else.”

“Yes, that is a wise choice. It would be too easy to...well.” She could be seeing things but he might have actually blushed. “Shall we? I made reservations at Claire’s.”

“Oh.” Claire’s was one of the nicest restaurants in town and she was wearing a jean jacket. Crap. She looked down at her outfit. “Maybe I should change?”

“You look beautiful,” he said, stepping toward her. Before she could react, he had cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face. “You were beautiful that night and you are beautiful now. And anyone who would deign to criticize you will face my wrath.”

Wow, that was the sexiest-sounding threat she’d ever heard. Violet was speechless. Even if she could talk, she had no idea what might come out of her mouth. Something impulsive? Something stupid? Both?

Or, worse, would she tell him how much she’d missed him, how much she’d savored their night together?

Because it would be terrible for him to back her into this house and carry her up the stairs the way he’d carried her down the hall of his hotel. It would be awful if he laid her out on her own bed and did all those things he’d done before.

Yup. It would simply be the worst.

“Ah,” he breathed, so close to her that she could have tilted her head just a little and brought her lips against his, “you asked me what this evening is about. But now I ask you—what is it you want this evening to be?”

Violet was used to dealing with men. She did a man’s work, day in and day out. She dealt with cowboys and her brother, and didn’t spend a hell of a lot of time in a beauty salon, gossiping with other women. She could more than hold her own when some jerk got it into his head that she, a delicate female, shouldn’t be fixing fences or branding cattle or any of those manly things men liked to think they were the only ones capable of getting done. Men who decided they were alphas and she had to fall into line either got their metaphorical butts handed to them on a platter or a black eye as a souvenir of the experience.

So, really, Violet should not have felt this urge to give in to Rafe, to tell him that whatever he wanted, she wanted. But she was tempted. The masculinity coming off him was so strong, so potent, it was almost as if she could see the air shimmering around him, like heat off a highway.

All those men before—they’d been all talk. They had to tell people they were the boss because otherwise, no one else would know it. But Rafe? Jesus, he was in a different class. This was not just an alpha man, this was a man born to power, a man who breathed it as easily as he breathed air.

This was a sheikh. Her sheikh.

But just as she was about to succumb to his sheer machismo, she remembered their situation.

So she forced herself to lift her chin out of his grasp and she forced herself to stare into his eyes—dark and warm and waiting on her to say the word so he could strip her right out of her dress—and she said, “I want to figure out how we got here and what we’re going to do next.” Dang it all, her voice came out as something closer to sultry than businesslike.

Rafe heard it, too, and his lips curved into a knowing smile. “Ah, yes. How we got here. I seem to recall carrying a beautiful, mysterious woman to my room and—”

“No, stop.” Heat flushed her body, but she was not going to fall for him a second time. She had enough going on right now. “I mean more along the lines of what happened afterward. I’m pregnant. We need to be taking this seriously.”

That worked. Rafe straightened and, sighing, nodded. “Would you like to discuss this over dinner or somewhere more private?”

Private was good. Private was great. But private also meant more of those smoldering looks and hot touches from this man and again, she was totally going to blame the hormones on this one, but she didn’t know how strong she could be if she had to fend off those sorts of advances all evening long. “Dinner,” she said decisively.

Rafe, to his credit, didn’t use all of his innate power to overrule her, just as he hadn’t coerced her into doing anything she hadn’t wanted that night. Instead, with a nod of his head that veered closer to a bow of respect than anything else, he said, “Dinner, then.”