by Lynne Graham
DISTRESS flooded Ruby and for a horrible timeless period she was too upset even to think straight. Men had cheated on Ruby before but invariably because she refused to sleep with them and it had never hurt so much that she wanted to scream and sob and rage all at the same time.
Yet she had instinctively trusted Raja—why was that? She peered down at the photo. Chloe was a very beautiful woman. Few men would feel obligated to ditch a woman with Chloe’s looks and penchant for provocative texts just because they had made an arranged marriage. Why would Raja award Ruby that amount of loyalty when he didn’t love her?
I felt incredibly trapped. I didn’t want a wife I didn’t choose for myself. Today the revelation about the baby had proved such a shock that Raja had at last chosen to be honest with her, sharing what was on his mind and in his heart. All the time that she had subjected him to her bad temper and resentment over the head of their need to marry he had suffered in silence rather than admit that he felt exactly the same way. That truth had cut deep. Was Raja planning to keep Chloe in the background of his life while he pretended to be a devoted husband? Was Chloe to be his secret comfort and escape from the exigencies of his royal life and arranged marriage?
The advent of two children was unlikely to lock Raja closer to home and hearth. In all probability children would make him feel more trapped than ever. The demands of a family and all the accompanying domesticity would never be able to compete with the freewheeling appeal of a Chloe, willing to send him sexy texts about what she longed to do to him between the sheets.
Ruby was devastated. She had understood what Raja meant when he had said that they should have had the time to get to know each other as a couple before they considered becoming parents. She also knew that she had literally shot herself in the foot. Tears trickling down her cheeks, Ruby thought about Leyla and yet she knew she could have done nothing different where that little girl was concerned. Her need to give Leyla the love she craved had been overwhelming. But hadn’t she railroaded Raja into that commitment with her? She missed the little girl a great deal and could hardly wait for the magical day when she would have the right to take Leyla out of the orphanage and bring her home as her daughter. She had already pictured sharing that special day with Raja but Chloe’s texts and the intimate pledges within them might well be much more of an attraction for him.
Having dressed in a denim skirt and tee and slid her bare feet into sandals, Ruby ate a chicken salad in the shaded arbour in the courtyard. Her stomach was mercifully at peace again. It was a beautiful spot with trees, lush greenery and flowers softening the impact of the massive medieval walls that provided a boundary. In the centre water from a tranquil fountain streamed down into a mosaic tiled basin, cooling the temperature. Had she been in a happier mood she would have thought she was in paradise.
She wondered exactly what she was going to say to Raja about those texts. She would have to be blunt and he would have to be honest. How important was Chloe to him? He had to answer that question.
A burst of barking from Hermione warned Ruby that Raja had arrived. Steps sounded on the tiles and Raja appeared, tall and sleek and darkly attractive in a lightweight designer suit.
‘I left my phone here?’ Lean brown fingers immediately descended on the cell phone lying on the table top and swept it up. ‘I’ve been looking for it. I use my phone for everything…’
Ruby’s pensive face tensed. ‘I know,’ she said feelingly. ‘I’m going to be totally frank with you—I’ve read Chloe’s texts. Her photo flashed up and I’m afraid I just had to go digging and I’m glad that I did.’
For a split second, Raja was paralysed to the spot, black brows drawing together, lush lashes flying up on disconcerted dark eyes, his dismay unhidden. ‘Chloe,’ he repeated flatly. ‘That’s over, done with.’
‘If it’s over, why was she still texting you as recently as last week?’
Raja was frowning at her. ‘Did you read my texts?’
Ruby lifted her chin but her colour was rising. ‘We’re married. I felt I had the right.’
Faint colour defined his stunning cheekbones. His proud gaze challenged that assumption. ‘Even married I am entitled to a certain amount of privacy.’
‘Not if you’re going to be married to me, you’re not. All right—I snooped. But I stand by what I did,’ Ruby told him resolutely and without an instant of hesitation. ‘It cuts both ways. Everything in my life is open to you.’
His face was impassive. A smouldering silence stretched between them in the hot, still air and during it a servant delivered mint tea and a plate of the tiny decorative cakes that Raja loved to the table. Dry-mouthed, Ruby poured the tea into the cups, her heart beating very fast.
Raja studied her from semi-screened eyes. Without warning a surprising smile curved his beautiful mouth. ‘The idea of you reading those texts embarrasses me,’ he admitted.
‘Receiving that kind of thing should embarrass you,’ Ruby told him forthrightly, but the ease of his confession and that charismatic smile reduced the worst of her tension, for she could not credit that he could smile like that if there was anything serious going on between him and Chloe.
‘My affair with Chloe is over—it was over the moment you and I consummated our marriage,’ he added.
‘I’m willing to believe that but, if it’s over as you say, why was she still sending you texts like that?’ Ruby pressed uncomfortably.
‘Think about it,’ Raja urged wryly. ‘From my point of view, Chloe was a sexual outlet. From hers, my greatest advantage was that I spent a great deal of money on her and she is naturally reluctant to lose that benefit. As I didn’t wish to see her again I arranged to pay her a settlement through my lawyer last week. I can only assume that the texts are supposed to tempt me back to her bed. I didn’t reply. I thought to reply would only encourage her.’
‘She was your mistress,’ Ruby remarked uneasily, relieved that no deeper feelings had been involved, but troubled by the obvious truth that he could so efficiently separate sex from emotion. ‘That arrangement sounds so…so cold.’
‘It suited both of us. I didn’t want complications or hassle.’ Raja shrugged a broad shoulder, his face reflective. ‘But now I have you and as long as I have you I have no need of any other woman.’
There was something wonderfully soothing about that statement, voiced as it was with such rock-solid assurance in her ability to replace his sexually sophisticated mistress. The worst of the stress holding Ruby taut drained away.
‘I was really upset when I saw those texts,’ Ruby admitted reluctantly.
‘I regret that you saw them and had reason to doubt my integrity. In that field, you can trust me, Ruby,’ he murmured levelly, his sincerity patent. ‘I believe in trust and honesty. I would not deceive you with another woman.’
Her eyes stung like mad and she widened them in an effort to keep the tears from overflowing, but some of them escaped, trickling down her cheeks. ‘I believe you,’ she said in a wobbly voice. ‘And I don’t know why I’m crying.’
‘Hadeel said you might be very emotional over the next few months because of your hormones,’ Raja told her, startling her with that forecast and belatedly adding, ‘I told her that you were pregnant.’
Ruby was disconcerted by that admission. ‘You’ve told your family already?’
‘Only Hadeel, the sister I am closest to, and she will keep our news a secret until we are ready to share it with the rest of the family. It’s such exciting news—I could not keep quiet. I had to tell someone!’ Raja exclaimed, a mixture of apology, appeal and distinct pride in his delivery that touched her heart.
It was the first sign that she had seen that he was genuinely pleased about the baby and a stifled sob escaped her convulsed throat because inexplicably, even though he had set her worst fears to rest, she felt more like having a good cry than ever. ‘I don’t know what’s the m-matter with me.’
Murmuring soothing things, Raja scooped her up in his arms and carried her back indoors
, shouldering open the bedroom door to settle her down onto the comfortable bed.
‘Do you want me to start sending you texts like that?’ Ruby asked him abruptly. ‘I mean, I haven’t done anything like that before but I’m sure I could learn the knack.’
Raja dealt her a startled look and then he laughed with rich appreciation of that proposal. ‘No, thanks for the offer but I can get by without that sort of thing. To be truthful it’s not really my style.’
‘Honestly?’ Ruby pressed anxiously.
‘Honestly. I would much rather do it than talk about it, aziz,’ he husked with considerable amusement gleaming in his lustrous eyes. ‘And of course I have to have you to do it with. That goes without saying.’
‘Am I really going to be enough for you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Raja asserted. ‘More than enough.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘You’re special and you were from the start. My first introduction to you was a photo of you when you were fourteen. It was taken outside the cathedral in Simis. Wajid had it in his possession—’
‘My goodness, you saw that snap? Mum sent it after we came home from that holiday in Ashur when we were turned away from the palace gates,’ Ruby explained. ‘I think it was her way of saying that we were perfectly happy whether the royal family ignored us or otherwise.’
‘I was very impressed with the photo, and when I saw you for real I was stunned by your impact on me and by how much you challenged me,’ Raja confided. ‘I only had to look at you to want you. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.’
‘I couldn’t take my eyes off you either,’ Ruby said. ‘But you admitted earlier that you were very resentful of the need for us to marry…’
‘The instant I saw my beautiful bride my fate became instantly more bearable,’ Raja told her, laughing at the face she pulled. ‘Yes, I’m a very predictable guy—I desired you at first glance and I’m afraid that went a long way towards settling my objections to our arranged marriage.’
Ruby frowned, studying him in disbelief. ‘That is just so basic.’
Raja spread his hands as if to ask her to hold that opinion. ‘But then when I was least expecting it I fell in love with you…’
‘And then you…what?’ Ruby gasped, utterly bemused by that declaration.
‘At first it was just sexual desire that motivated me and then it was your smile, your strength and your sense of fun that had even more appeal. I fell in love without even realising what was happening to me,’ Raja declared, gazing at her with hot golden eyes in which possessiveness was laced with pride. ‘All of a sudden you became the most important element in my world.’
‘I don’t believe you. You said you slept with me in the desert because you wanted to make our marriage a real marriage.’
‘I slept with you purely because I wanted you. Any other aspirations which I cherished were secondary to that simple fact,’ Raja intoned levelly. ‘I’m not too proud to admit that I wanted you any way I could get you. I was very hurt when you said later that you didn’t care what I did.’
Ruby was beginning to believe but she wasn’t prepared to let him off the hook too easily. ‘But there was a seduction plan?’
Raja curled her fingers into his palm. ‘I couldn’t resist you.’
‘I was pretty horrible to you in the desert. I mean, it wasn’t your fault that we were there but I behaved as though it was.’
‘You were scared and trying not to show it. I understood that.’ Raja bent his dark, arrogant head and brushed his sensual mouth very slowly and silkily across her soft pink lips. ‘And then you gave me your body and there was nothing I wouldn’t have done for you, nothing I wouldn’t have forgiven.’
‘I thought that night was amazing but it can’t have been so special to you.’
‘It was, aziz.’ Raja extracted a deep drugging kiss that made her tremble and look up at him with dazed eyes. ‘But I think I fell in love with you when you said over that hotel lunch you walked out on that I would have been equally willing to marry a dancing bear. No other woman would ever have said such a thing to me. Or maybe our defining moment came when you said very ungraciously that you would only drink bottled water from now on—’
‘Stop teasing me.’ Her fingers speared into his thick black hair and she kissed him back with all her heart and soul, the longing he could awaken slivering through her in a piercing arrow of need.
‘That second night we spent together was extraordinary. It was our wedding night,’ Raja pointed out, his brilliant eyes resting appreciatively on her beautiful face. ‘And wonderful.’
‘Yes, it was, wasn’t it?’ Ruby agreed, arching up to taste his mouth again for herself and hauling him back down to her again with greedy hands.
‘I thought I would never love a woman again and then I met you and it was a done deal right from the start. I was so resentful of the need to marry you until I actually met you. You got right under my skin. I tried to stay in control but it didn’t work. And then after we were rescued you made it clear that you wanted nothing more to do with me. The flowers and the diamonds didn’t make much of an impression and that’s about all I had in my repertoire. You vanished every evening and only spoke to me when you had to. I’m not used to being ignored.’
‘It probably did you the world of good. I felt stupid.’ Ruby wrinkled her nose. ‘I’d demanded a platonic marriage and then got intimate with you the first chance I got. I didn’t know how to behave after that.’
‘I lay in that bed every night burning for you.’ Raja groaned, his body shuddering against hers in recollection. ‘I have never felt so frustrated and yet so aware that I would be putting unfair pressure on you if I made another move.’
‘I did need breathing space.’ Ruby rubbed her cheek comfortingly against his hand in a belated apology, hating the idea that he had been unhappy, as well. ‘I wanted you as well but I had so many other things—like my new royal life—to worry about. I was exhausted and living on my nerves and afraid that it would be a mistake to trust you too much.’
‘The greatest mistakes were mine. I was too impatient, too hungry for you.’ Raja sighed, discomfiture darkening his beautiful eyes and stamping his features with regret. ‘I should never have touched you in that tent. I rushed you into something you weren’t ready for and almost lost you in the process.’
‘You can’t plan stuff like that. I fell in love with you too,’ Ruby murmured, looking at him with loving eyes, revelling in the tenderness of his embrace and loving his strength and assurance. ‘But I was so scared I was going to get hurt, that I was falling for a guy who would never feel the same way about me.’
‘I won’t hurt you, aziz. You are my beloved and I can only be happy if you are happy with me—’
‘Obviously you got over that trapped feeling—’
‘I trapped you with me,’ Raja pointed out, dropping the mask of his reserve completely. ‘I felt so guilty about letting you fall pregnant. That shouldn’t have happened. I was selfish, thoughtless. I should have abstained from sex when I couldn’t protect you.’
‘That night was worth the risk. I would make the same choice again,’ Ruby told him, running a caressing hand across the muscular wall of his warm hard torso and smiling with satisfaction when he pushed against her and sought out her mouth again with barely restrained passion.
‘Some day I would like to take you back into the desert and show you its wonders.’
‘You were enough of a wonder for me,’ Ruby countered, in no hurry to recapture the magic of sand and scorpions, before he kissed her breathless and all sensible conversation was forgotten.
‘I really do love you,’ he told her some time later when they had sated their desire and they lay close and satisfied simply to be together.
‘I love you too but words are cheap—you didn’t give me the poetry or the hand-holding,’ she complained with dancing eyes.
‘Not the poetry, please,’ he groaned, wincing at the prospect. ‘I don’
t have a literary bone in my body.’
Unconcerned, Ruby squeezed the fingers laced with hers and kissed his stubborn jaw line, loving the scent of his skin. She was very happy and she would settle quite happily for the hand-holding.
EPILOGUE
A LITTLE less than two years later, Ruby smiled as Leyla told her brother, Hamid, to put away his toys and began showing him how to go about the task.
A lively little girl of five years, Leyla was very protective of her little brother but bossy, as well. For the sake of peace, Hamid toddled across to the toy box on his sturdy little legs and dumped a toy car in it, ignoring the rest of the cars scattered across the rug. Of course, even as a toddler Hamid was accustomed to the reality that servants would cheerfully tidy up after him and go out of their way to fulfil his every need and wish.
Hamid, the heir to the united throne of Najar and Ashur, was treated like the eighth wonder of the world in both palaces. Hamid might easily have become spoilt by overindulgence but Raja was very aware of the potential problem and he was a strict but loving father. With his black curly hair and big dark eyes, Ruby’s son was the very image of his father and an energetic child with a quick temper and a wilful streak. Ruby tried not to laugh as Leyla tried to pressure her brother into lifting more cars and he sat down and refused to move another step in silent protest.
Ruby still felt surprised to be the mother of two young children, nor did it seem possible to her that she and Raja had already reached their second wedding anniversary. The two years had flown by, packed with events and precious moments. Leyla’s adoption had been a joy. Ruby still remembered the memorable day when she and Raja had collected the little girl from the orphanage and explained that they would now be acting as her mother and father and that she would be living with them from then on. A decree from the throne had made Leyla an honorary princess so that she would not be the odd one out among any siblings born to her adoptive parents. Happily many of the other inmates of the orphanage had also found adoptive homes since then.
