Jewel in His Crown

by Lynne Graham

  As she met that intense appraisal Ruby’s face flushed, her nipples tightening into prominence while a melting sensation of warmth pulsed between her thighs. As he crossed the room, his eyes holding her gaze with a stormy sensuality that filled her with yearning, she was welded to the spot.

  Without a word, Raja pushed the tumble of silky blonde hair back from her cheekbone and lowered his head to trace the seam of her closed mouth with his tongue and then pry her lips apart. Fingers stroking her slender neck, he plundered her mouth with a hungry ferocity that blew Ruby away. Staggered by the passion he made no attempt to contain, she angled her head back, snatching in a ragged breath as she looked up at him through her lashes and collided with the smouldering urgency in his stunning eyes. Her tummy flipped. One kiss and she felt as if he had switched a light on inside her, bathing her in warmth and dazzling brilliance.

  ‘I am already so hot and ready for you,’ Raja breathed thickly.

  Ruby trembled, insanely aware of the surging dampness and the ache at the heart of her body. She was so wound up she couldn’t make her throat produce a recognisable sound. But it was also one of those moments when she knew not a shred of doubt about what she wanted to happen next. Her hands lifted of their own volition to unbutton his shirt.

  A wolfish smile tilted Raja’s handsome mouth. He bent his head to kiss her again with lingering eroticism. ‘I will make it so good for you, aziz,’ he husked in a tone of anticipation that slivered through her like a depth charge of promise.

  And the breath rattled in Ruby’s tight throat and her knees went weak because she had every faith in his ability to deliver on that score. He would drive her out of her mind with pleasure and she was way past the stage where she could deny either of them what they both needed. She wasn’t quite sure when wanting had become a much more demanding need and self-denial an impossible challenge. Mesmerised by Raja’s raw sensuality, she stretched up to touch his face with delicate fingertips, tracing those slashing angular cheekbones, and those beautiful sculpted lips. She gasped beneath that carnal mouth as it captured hers with delicious masculine savagery. Suddenly, as if her caress had unlocked his self-control to free his elemental passion, he trailed off the peignoir with impatient hands and pushed her back on the bed. Throwing off his shirt, he came down beside her bare-chested.

  Breathing shallowly, the level of his hunger for her unhidden, Raja stared down at her. ‘I don’t know how I’ve kept my hands off you for so long. It was pure torment.’

  As she pushed up on her elbows, feeling marvellously irresistible, Ruby’s eyes brightened and she stretched closer to unzip his jeans. The bulge of his arousal made that exercise a challenge and she laughed when he had to help her and then stopped laughing altogether when he drew her hand down to the long, hard length of his erection in an expression of need that was a huge turn-on for her.

  She bent her head and took him in her mouth, silky blonde hair brushing his hair-roughened thighs. Watching her, Raja groaned with intense pleasure, knotting his hands in her hair and then finally pulling away at the peak and surprising her.

  ‘Raja…?’

  ‘I want to come inside you,’ he told her raggedly. ‘And once isn’t going to be enough…’

  Shivering in reaction to the coiled-tight ache of need in her, Ruby let him move her. Her body was eager and ready, charged by a hunger so strong it made her tremble. He filled her with a single thrust, sinking into her with a power and energy that almost made her pass out with pleasure. She cried out as he lifted her legs onto his shoulders and rose over her to plunge down into her honeyed sheath again and again. Uncontrollable excitement gripped her as he drove her slowly, surely to a delirious climax. At the apex of delight she came apart under him, writhing and sobbing with mindless satisfaction as the wild spasms of pleasure ripped through her in wave after wave. Afterwards he cradled her close, murmuring in his own language, stroking her cheek with caressing fingers while his lustrous eyes studied her with unashamed appreciation.

  It was the middle of the night before they ate.

  Ruby wakened feeling sick again at dawn and Raja was very insistent on the point that in his opinion it was time for her to see a doctor. He was worried that she had contracted food poisoning. While Ruby lay as still as she could and fought the debilitating waves of nausea Raja made arrangements for a doctor’s visit and got dressed.

  An hour and a half later, Ruby received the answer to the big question she had been asking herself for more than a week.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Dr Sema Mansour pronounced with a wide smile. ‘I am honoured to be the doctor to give you such important news.’

  Ruby smiled back so hard her facial muscles ached under the strain. ‘Please don’t tell anyone else,’ she urged, although even as she said that she appreciated that it was not a secret that she could hope to keep for long.

  ‘Of course not. It is a confidential matter.’ Lifting her doctor’s bag, the young female medic, recommended by Princess Hadeel, took her leave.

  A light breakfast was served to Ruby in bed and the maid plumped up her pillows first to ensure her comfort. Indeed all the staff involved in her care in the magnificent bedroom displayed a heart-warming level of concern for her welfare. Munching on a piece of roll without much appetite, Ruby stared into space and wondered how Raja would feel once she made her announcement. Last night they had made love and she had felt buoyant at the knowledge that her husband desired her so much.

  But starting a family wasn’t something they had ever discussed or planned, although he had proved keen to encourage her desire to adopt Leyla.

  Ruby had always assumed that some day she would want children. But until she had met Leyla and Mother Nature had turned her broody, she had believed that the family she might ultimately have lay somewhere far into her future. Leyla, however, had stolen into Ruby’s heart and she had experienced such a strong longing to be Leyla’s new mum that she had been amazed at herself. And now she was carrying Raja’s baby. That hadn’t taken long, although it was true that they had been very active in that line in the desert. Ruby flushed hotly at the recollection of a night when she had barely slept, indeed had behaved like a sex addict wonderfully well matched with another sex addict. Wretchedly virile fertile man, she thought ruefully and in shock, for there was no denying that a royal baby in the offing would change everything.

  In the short term Ruby had been willing to ditch the concept of divorce and future freedom if it meant she could qualify to adopt little Leyla and raise her as her daughter. In spite of that, though, she had still believed somewhere in the back of her mind that there remained a slight possibility that ten years or more down the line she and Raja might be able to separate from each other and lead their own lives without causing too much of a furore within their respective countries. Now with the needs of a second child entering the equation she felt that she had to be a good deal more practical. She had to ask herself if she was willing to subject possibly Leyla and her future child to the rigours of a broken home solely because she wanted a husband who loved her the way she already loved him. Children got attached to their parents living together as a couple. She had seen the heartbreak among school friends when their parents broke up and one parent moved out. Although in many cases there was no alternative to a separation, Ruby felt that she was in a position where she was still lucky enough to have choices to make.

  Raja appeared in the doorway, brilliant dark eyes alive with concern, the taut line of his handsome mouth easing with relief when he saw that she was eating. ‘It was a stomach upset, probably the result of you being given so much unfamiliar food,’ he reasoned. ‘Perhaps we should ask one of the chefs to cook English meals for you.’

  ‘No, what we needed was better birth control,’ Ruby contradicted, taking tiny sips of tea to moisten her dry mouth while she stared mournfully back at her husband. ‘And I’m afraid that ship has sailed.’

  Raja was staring fixedly at her, shapely ebony brows quirked, bewildermen
t stamped in the angles of his strong face. ‘Better birth control?’

  ‘We didn’t use any in the desert—didn’t have any to use,’ she conceded heavily for so far being pregnant, between the nausea and the sore breasts, was not proving to be a lot of fun. ‘And…you’ve knocked me up.’

  Raja had never bothered to try and imagine how he might hear that he was to become a father for the first time, but had he done so he was certain that not once would the colloquial British phrase ‘knocked up’ have featured on his dream wife’s lips. ‘You’re…’ Shaken by the concept, he had to clear his throat to continue. ‘You’re pregnant?’

  ‘Yes, congratulations, you’re a real stud.’ Ruby sighed in a tone that would not have encouraged him to celebrate. ‘But it’s such a shock.’

  Raja shifted his proud dark head in agreement. In receipt of her announcement, which had rocked him on his feet, he felt a little light-headed. ‘I feel rather foolish,’ he admitted wryly. ‘This possibility didn’t once cross my mind.’

  ‘Me neither—until afterwards. I worried after we were rescued,’ Ruby told him ruefully.

  ‘You should have told me that you were concerned. I can’t believe it but in the excitement of the situation I overlooked the risk of such a development,’ Raja declared gravely.

  ‘That’s not like you,’ Ruby remarked helplessly, for she always got the feeling that Raja worked everything out to the nth degree and rarely got taken by surprise. ‘At the beginning I even suspected that conceiving a child might have been part of the seduction plan. After all, once you got me pregnant it would be harder for me to walk away from our marriage.’

  ‘But not impossible and I wouldn’t wish an unwilling mother on any child of mine.’ Raja scored impatient fingers through his cropped black hair, his clear, dark golden gaze melding to hers in reproach. ‘I am not a Machiavelli. My desire for you was very strong and I acted on it for the most natural of reasons.’

  It disturbed Ruby that she could not work out how he felt about her revelation that she was pregnant. She had originally assumed that he would be pleased, which was why she had announced it in that quirky fashion, striving to be cool. But now she was no longer so certain of his reaction because his innate reserve concealed his true reaction from her. ‘I bet you that Wajid turns wheelies when he finds out—it’s another piece of good PR, isn’t it? Three weeks of marriage and I’m pregnant?’

  ‘And you feel even more trapped than you did already,’ Raja assumed, his stubborn jaw line clenching, a muscle pulling taut at the edge of his handsome mouth. ‘I know you had already decided that you wanted to offer a home to Leyla, but you are very young to take on the responsibility of parenthood—’

  ‘Raja…girls of fourteen were falling pregnant when I was at secondary school. At twenty-one I’m mature enough or I wouldn’t have been talking about trying to adopt Leyla,’ Ruby argued, feeling insulted and wondering if he considered her immature.

  Raja strolled over to the window and looked out at the lush tranquil garden in the courtyard. His lean classic profile was taut. ‘I do understand how you must feel. Such massive changes in your life are a challenge to cope with. Be honest with yourself and with me—’

  Tension made Ruby sit up a little straighter in the bed. ‘Honest about what? And how do you feel?’

  ‘I felt incredibly trapped when I knew I had to get married as part of the peace accord,’ he admitted without warning, the words escaping him in a low-pitched driven surge. ‘I didn’t want a wife I didn’t choose for myself. My father reminded me that he didn’t even meet my mother before he married her but, as I pointed out to him, he was raised in a different world with exactly that expectation. I never dreamt that I would be asked to make an arranged marriage. I had to man up.’

  With that confession, which Ruby was quite unprepared to receive at that moment, she felt as though he had driven a knife into her. It shook her that she had been happy to feel like a victim while ignoring the reality that he might have felt equally powerless on his own behalf. I didn’t want a wife I didn’t choose for myself. That one sentence really said all she needed to know. At heart they had always had much more in common than she was prepared to accept. No doubt he had not shared his feelings on the score of their marriage when they first met for fear of influencing her into a negative response. She could understand that. Yet even so, regardless of how she had felt at the beginning, she had adapted, a little voice pointed out in her head—adapted, without even appreciating the fact, to her new position and responsibilities to live a life that was a great deal more demanding but also more interesting than the life she had left behind her in England.

  Paradoxically it had wounded Ruby to hear her husband admit that he too had felt trapped when he had learned that he had to marry her. It was a case of very bad timing to learn that truth at the same time as she told him she had already conceived his child. But perhaps once again she was being unfair to him, Ruby reasoned uncertainly, reluctant to come over all dramatic like his first love. After all, how much enthusiasm could she reasonably expect from him? A baby with a woman he didn’t love could only feel like another chain to bind him even though he had already agreed to take on Leyla.

  Raja sank down on the side of the bed and reached for her hand. ‘We will have two children. We will be a family before we have learned how to be a couple.’

  ‘Not how you would have planned it?’ Ruby prompted.

  ‘When it comes to us nothing seems to go as planned and who is to say that what we have now is not all the better for that?’ Expression reflective, he sounded more as if he was trying to convince her of that possibility than himself. ‘I’m accustomed to change and I will handle this, but you have already had so many challenges to overcome in so short a space of time. This is a tough time for you to fall pregnant.’

  Ruby was bewildered. ‘I—’

  ‘Naturally I feel guilty. I should have been more careful with you,’ Raja breathed curtly. ‘You have enough to deal with right now without this added responsibility.’

  ‘You still haven’t told me how you feel about the baby. Don’t you want it?’ Ruby queried anxiously.

  Raja dealt her an astonished appraisal. ‘Of course I want my own child, but not at the cost of your health and emotional well-being.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’ Ruby was disappointed that he had said nothing more personal. ‘But most of those fancy clothes you bought me aren’t likely to fit in a few months.’

  ‘Not a problem. I like buying you things,’ Raja volunteered, his thumb rubbing gently over the pulse in her narrow wrist. ‘I want you to spend the next couple of days just acclimatising and catching up on your rest.’

  Ruby gave him an impish grin. ‘No more all-night sex sessions, then?’

  Dark colour highlighted his superb bone structure and his eloquent mouth quirked in reluctant appreciation of that sally. ‘Oh, Ruby…’ he breathed, his hands gathering her slight body up so that he could kiss her with all the devastating expertise that sent her defensive barriers crashing flat like a domino run.

  Feeling daring, Ruby pushed the sheet back. ‘You could rest with me,’ she muttered in an intuitive invitation.

  ‘I have only fifteen minutes to make a meeting on the far side of the city,’ Raja groaned, pausing to extract a second driving kiss, his breathing fracturing as he stared down at her with unalloyed hunger before finally springing up again, adjusting the fit of his trousers to accommodate his response to her. ‘You’re a constant temptation. I’ll see you mid-afternoon and we’ll go over the adoption papers we need to lodge to apply for Leyla.’

  He found her very attractive, Ruby told herself consolingly. It wasn’t love, it was lust, but marriages had survived on less. He was taking the advent of an unplanned baby very much in his stride, but then Raja was the sort of guy who typically rose to every challenge. The very worst thing she could do was brood about what they didn’t have as opposed to what they did. In time he might almost come to love her ou
t of habit. What was wrong with that? Did she need the poetry and the hand-holding? It would have been much worse had she fallen in love with a man she couldn’t have. A man, for example, who belonged to another woman. Here she was safely married to a very handsome, sexy and exciting man and she was still feeling sorry for herself. Why was that? Was she one of those perennially dissatisfied personalities who always wanted more than she could have?

  Ruby was dozing when she heard a mobile phone going off somewhere very close to her ear. With a sound of exasperation she lifted her head and focused in surprise on the slim cell phone flashing lights and lying semi-concealed in a fold of the bedding. It was Raja’s phone. It must have fallen out of his pocket while he was kissing her. She closed a hand round it and immediately noticed the photo of the gorgeous blonde.

  And that was that. Ruby suffered not one moral pang rifling through Raja’s phone and discovering that someone called Chloe had sent him a series of suggestive texts in English. Obviously a woman who was a lover, a woman who had shared a bed with him, enjoying all the intimacies and no doubt many more than Ruby had ever had with him. In shock Ruby read the texts again. The skank, she thought furiously, appalled by the sexy little comments calculated to titillate the average male. Raja’s healthy libido did not require stimulation yet he had been receiving those texts ever since they got married. She went through his phone. If he had sent any texts back to Chloe he had clearly had the wit to delete them.

  So, who was Chloe and what was Ruby going to do about her? Was she his most recent girlfriend? Why hadn’t he told Chloe to leave him alone? Why hadn’t he told her that his relationship with her was over? He had promised Ruby that he would be faithful and that there would be no other woman in his life while he was with her. Suddenly the cocoon of shock that had kept Ruby unnaturally calm was cracking right down the middle…

  CHAPTER TEN