by Lynne Graham
‘Of course, it isn’t,’ Zoe agreed soothingly because she was shaken as well by the accident that she had so narrowly escaped. ‘OK, you were right and I was wrong.’
‘I swore to look after you and I have failed in my duty,’ Raj informed her hoarsely.
Zoe paled. ‘It’s not your duty, Raj. I’m a fully grown adult and I made an unwise decision when I chose not to consult a doctor. Please don’t blame yourself for my mistake.’
‘How can I do anything else?’ Raj shot back to her with seeming incredulity. ‘You are my wife and you are in a country foreign to you. Who else should stand responsible for your well-being?’
I’m not your real wife. The declaration sprang to her lips but she didn’t voice it, belatedly recognising that whether Raj viewed her as his real wife or otherwise he would still feel that it was his duty to ensure her well-being. Three months ago she would happily have flung that declaration of independence at him but now she knew him a little better, knew the crushing weight of responsibility he took on without complaint. As his father, the King, suffered increasing ill health and days he was unable to leave his quarters, more of his obligations were falling on Raj’s shoulders. Unsurprisingly, Raj didn’t have an irresponsible bone in his lean, beautiful body and he was infuriatingly good at blaming himself for any mishap or oversight.
‘I’m sorry if I seemed to speak rudely and angrily,’ Raj breathed tautly, silvered dark eyes locked to her lovely face. ‘But I was very concerned.’
‘I understand that and I’m fine. In fact I think I’m recovered enough now to make that appointment.’
‘No, they will have to settle for me doing it in your place,’ Raj sliced in forcefully. ‘You’re not going out anywhere until we have heard from the doctor—’
‘Raj, for goodness’ sake, I’m fine,’ she told him again, swinging her feet down onto the floor to punctuate the statement.
‘We’ll see,’ Raj asserted with tact as he reached for her hand to help her upright, tugging her close to him, his stunning dark deep-set eyes below his straight black brows roaming over her delicate face. ‘But we will not see today...however, I am free this evening, and if you were to feel strong enough to welcome me home on that couch, I would be extraordinarily pleased.’
Zoe gurgled with laughter and stretched up on tiptoe to taste his wide sensual mouth with her own. And that was that, he was magically distracted from his overwhelming anxiety about her welfare. Her heart hammered and her fingers closed into his shirtfront because she wanted to rip it off him. Against her, she could feel him hard and ready and hunger coursed through her, turning her wanton with need.
With an enormous effort, Raj set her back from him. ‘We can’t. People are waiting for my arrival,’ he reminded her raggedly. ‘But it is one of those occasions when I wish I had the freedom to tell everyone but you to go to hell!’
Zoe flushed, censuring herself for tempting him merely to distract him because it had been a selfish move and he was never selfish, which made her feel bad. On the other hand, the couch invitation was welcome, she acknowledged with a tiny shiver of anticipation, wondering what had happened to the genuinely shy young woman she had been mere months earlier. She wasn’t shy with Raj. In fact, she was doing stuff with Raj she had never dreamt she would ever do with any man, once alien things like purchasing very fancy lingerie and posing in it, revelling in the rush of powerful femininity his fierce desire for her and his equally audacious appreciation gave her every time. She had discovered a whole new self to explore and secretly it thrilled her.
Outside the office door, she thanked the guard who had saved her from falling and he grinned at her, telling her in broken English that he would have died sooner than let anything happen to her on his watch. His undeniable sincerity shook her and she climbed the stairs, thinking that until now she hadn’t quite grasped how the people around her and those she met during engagements viewed her as Raj’s wife, certainly hadn’t taken that level of care and concern as seriously as they did. It struck her that many of those same people would be disappointed when she and Raj split up. But then there was nothing she could do about that, was there? She was a sham wife but they didn’t know that, didn’t know that she was nothing more than a glossy convenient lie foisted on the public, she ruminated unhappily.
She was having lunch when the middle-aged doctor she had glimpsed in Raj’s office called to see her. Dr Fadel was King Tahir’s doctor and resident in the palace and, fortunately for her, he had qualified in London and spoke excellent English.
After the usual polite pleasantries, he asked if he could dismiss the hovering staff and she nodded acquiescence with a slight frown, her tension rising. Of course, he was about to tell her that her hormones were all out of kilter, which was the most likely diagnosis, and she didn’t want to discuss her absent menstrual cycle with an audience either.
‘I am blessed to be the doctor to break such momentous news,’ he then informed her with a beaming smile. ‘You have conceived, Your Royal Highness...’
‘Conceived...?’ Zoe repeated as if she had never heard the word before, and she tottered back down into the seat she had vacated to greet him, so great was the shock of that announcement. That her deepest fear had been confirmed rocked her world to its foundations.
‘The blood test was positive. Of course, it is impossible for me to tell you anything more without a further examination.’ He looked at her enquiringly. ‘Would that be in order? Or would you prefer another doctor, perhaps a specialist, to give you further information? I’m not inexperienced. I do have many female patients in the royal household.’
Zoe was in a daze. She pushed her hands down on the table to rise again. Pregnant? she was screaming inside her head, still wondering if it could be a mistake and willing to subject herself to any check-up that could possibly reveal his diagnosis was a mistake, she reasoned fearfully as she followed him from the room and he lamented the lack of lifts in the palace. A lift would have to be installed immediately, the doctor began telling her, particularly when her near accident earlier was taken into consideration. A pregnant woman couldn’t be expected to run up and down flights and flights of stairs, particularly not a woman carrying a child he described as ‘so precious a child for Maraban’.
It wouldn’t be precious to Raj, Zoe thought miserably, not to a man who had frankly referred to such an unlikely event as a disaster. Suddenly she was in total conflict with herself and split into two opposing halves. On the one hand she adored children and she very much wanted her baby if she did prove to be pregnant, but on the other, she was sort of guiltily hoping that the doctor’s verdict was wrong because of the way Raj would feel about it and that felt even more wrong.
A glimpse of the trim and determined little nurse who had jabbed her with a syringe the night she was kidnapped was not a vote winner in the troubled mood she was in, but Zoe refused to react, deeming her potential pregnancy more important as she lay down on an examination couch and an ultrasound machine was wheeled in. An instant later she heard the whirring sound of her baby’s fast heartbeat and she paled, feeling foolish for thinking that the doctor could have been in error. It was an even greater surprise to discover that she was already three months along and almost into the second trimester, which meant that she had conceived very early in their marriage.
The doctor happily dispensed vitamin tablets and congratulated her on her fertility, studying her literally as if she were a walking miracle. She supposed in comparison to the last generation of the royal family, she did strike him that way because it had taken over thirty years and three wives to produce Raj.
‘The King will be overjoyed,’ he told her cheerfully.
‘Oh, but...’ Zoe hesitated, questioning if it was even possible to keep a lid on such a revelation within the palace.
‘The King needs this good news, with his health as precarious as it has been,’ his doctor assured her with gr
‘Then my husband can tell him after I have first told him,’ Zoe countered firmly.
But on one level she thought she was probably wasting her breath because the cat was out of the bag and there was nothing she could do about that: the doctor, the nurse and whoever had done the blood test already knew of her condition. Just how fast the news had spread was borne out only minutes later when she returned to her room and was ushered into the bedroom where tea, a ginger biscuit and the book she had been reading awaited her by the bed like a heartfelt invitation to rest as pregnant women were so often advised to do. Smothering a groan, she lay down, ironically worn out by the day she had had. Off came her shoes and then her dress and she lay back, confronted by the daunting evening lying ahead of her because she had no choice other than to tell Raj immediately. Would it sound better if she did the couch thing first? Or would that look manipulative?
In the event, she didn’t get to make that decision because she slept through most of the afternoon, only wakening when the sound of a door closing jolted her awake. She opened her eyes on Raj striding towards the bed and the slumberous expression in his shimmering dark scrutiny as he looked at her lying there in her flimsy underwear. He sank down on the edge of the bed. ‘How are you feeling now?’
‘OK—hungry now that the sickness has taken a break. Dr Fadel said that with a little luck that should start fading soon,’ she told him tightly. ‘You see, I’m not ill as such. I’m pregnant...’
As she hesitated, her nerves getting the better of her for a moment, she studied Raj; his lean, darkly handsome features had locked tight, his jaw line clenching hard.
‘I think it must’ve been that time in the shower just after the wedding. You forgot to use anything. I should’ve said something then but I really didn’t think anything would come of it,’ she acknowledged uncomfortably, wishing he would say something.
Raj blinked because for an instant his surroundings had vanished; what she had told him had to be the very last development he had expected, but it also led to a revelation that hit him even harder. He turned pale, in the matter of a moment recognising the situation he was in.
‘We’ve barely got out of bed to eat for three months,’ Raj breathed in a rueful undertone. ‘What can I say? I was in charge of contraception and I forgot. So, we are going to become parents...forgive me, I am stunned by the concept of something so surprising.’
‘You said it would be a disaster if I became pregnant,’ Zoe reminded him uncertainly, still unable to read his mood, particularly when he sprang upright again and started pacing across the floor, clearly too restless to stay seated.
‘A disaster more from your point of view than from mine,’ Raj qualified with level clarity. ‘We agreed to part but I cannot agree to let you leave me carrying our child and I do not want our child raised without either one of us. Surely we are doing well enough together for you to stay in our marriage for some time to come?’ A straight ebony brow lifted enquiringly, intense dark eyes scanning her triangular face for an answer. ‘Could you accept that? If we remain married, we can raise our child together.’
A quivery little breath ran up through Zoe, allowing her lungs to function again. The backs of her eyes prickled and stung. Until Raj had asked her to stay married to him, she had not realised how horribly tense she had become and the painful tension slowly ebbed out of her stiff muscles.
‘So, we just go on as normal?’ Zoe checked.
‘Why not? Are we not both content as we are?’ Raj prompted tautly.
Zoe nodded but couldn’t help wishing he could be a little more emotional about staying married to her. There she went again, wanting what she couldn’t have, she scolded herself, because she knew herself better now. She could look back and recognise the raging jealousy that had assailed her after seeing those photos of Raj with Nabila that had so clearly depicted his love for the beautiful brunette. There was nothing she could do about such feelings except keep them under control and hidden. And considering the circumstances in which they had married, each for their own very practical reasons, it was illogical and pathetic to long for Raj to fall in love with her as well.
‘You said...“stay in our marriage for some time to come”,’ Zoe recited tightly. ‘What sort of time frame were you considering?’
At that question for further clarification, Raj stiffened and raked long brown fingers through his tousled black curls. ‘Must we be so precise?’
Zoe swallowed hard at the edge of reproof in his tone. ‘Well, it would be easier for me to know how you see the future.’
‘With you and our child together. I would impose no limits. I would like to throw away all the boundaries we agreed and make this a normal marriage,’ Raj spelt out without hesitation. ‘I still can’t believe that you’re pregnant.’
‘Neither can I,’ Zoe revealed, scrambling off the bed only to be immediately caught up into his strong arms.
‘I didn’t think it could happen that easily...it is a brilliant accident,’ Raj murmured with husky conviction as he came down on the bed with her. ‘Are we still allowed to share this bed?’
‘Of course, we are. I’ve been fully checked out.’ A kind of sick relief combined with dizzy happiness was filtering through Zoe as she dimly acknowledged that he was giving her what she most wanted. She wasn’t going to have to give him up like the salted caramel ice cream she had recently become addicted to, she was going to get to keep him. Of course, it wasn’t perfect, she conceded reluctantly, not when he only wanted her to stay married to him because she was pregnant. Even so, being accepted as a normal wife was a huge upgrade on being labelled a friend with benefits.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Raj chided, lying back on the bed with his gorgeous dark eyes fiercely welded to her reflective face.
‘Nothing remotely important,’ she told him, and she meant it when she said it even if she dimly understood even then that sooner or later she would once again fall into the trap of craving more than he had to give her.
He toyed with her mouth, soft and gentle, and then nipped wickedly at her bottom lip with the edge of his teeth. Her hands lifted and her fingers speared into his black curls, liquid heat pooling in her pelvis as he deliberately snaked his lean hips into the junction of her thighs, the thrust of his arousal unmistakeable. He was always so hot for her. It was enough, it was more than enough to be desired, cared for, appreciated. Even if she felt as though she was keeping him by default? She crushed the thought, burying it deep. She already had more with him than she had ever thought she would have, so craving anything else would be greedy.
‘I want you so much,’ Raj confided rawly, sitting up over her to wrench off his shirt, yank roughly at his tie. ‘Knowing my baby is inside you is so sexy...’
Zoe blinked. It was? He was lifting her to deftly undo her bra, groaning with satisfaction when her small pouting breasts came free to hungrily claim an engorged nipple with his mouth. A gasp was wrenched from her as he teased the other with his fingers. ‘You’re more sensitive there than ever,’ he husked. ‘I love your body.’
She knew he did: he never left it alone. He couldn’t walk past her without touching her in some way and if they were alone, it almost always concluded in their bed, although they had succumbed to christening his office sofa a time or two and they had once had sex in a limousine on a long drive. He had an astonishingly strong sexual appetite. Anyone watching him could have been forgiven for thinking he hadn’t had the freedom to enjoy her for a couple of days at least but that was not the case.
He tugged off her panties and yanked down the zip in his trousers, shedding his clothing with an impatience that never failed to add to her excitement. There he was, all sleek and golden and beautiful, and he was finally hers to keep like a precious possession she had been fighting for without even appreciating what she was doing or even what was happening inside her own head. She had wanted love but then what woman didn’t? If he could settle for less, she could settle, she reasoned as he snaked down her body with darting little kisses and caresses that set her on fire, ultimately settling between her spread thighs to pleasure her in the way he enjoyed the most.
As a rippling spasm of pleasure gathered low in her body, she clutched at his hair, writhed, squirmed, begged until at last she climaxed in an explosive surge that certainly didn’t feel in any way as though she were settling for less. Raj shifted over her then, hungrily kissing her, and the excitement began to rocket again as he sank into her with delicious force, pushing her legs back to deepen his penetration. Definitely not less, she told herself as she rose breathlessly to meet his every thrust, every move instinctive and raw with the excitement she could barely contain. There was more and then even more of that insanely thrilling pleasure before he sent her flying into a wild breathless climax that shattered her senses and her control, leaving her slumped in a wreck of heavy, satiated limbs in the aftermath.
She hadn’t heard a phone ring, had been too far gone, but she surfaced when she realised that Raj wasn’t holding her close as he usually did. She turned over, saw him talking urgently on his phone while he strode about, naked and bronzed and muscular, and she propped her chin on the heel of her hand, enjoying watching him. That enjoyment gradually faded when he went on to make several other quick calls in succession, alerting her to the knowledge that something must have happened, and because his expression changed from smiling to grim she couldn’t tell whether what had happened was a good or bad thing.
‘I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you for the night,’ Raj told her with a frown. ‘The construction workers have stumbled on archaeological remains at the Josias site.’
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