Princess's Secret Baby

by Carol Marinelli

  There must be a hundred of them!

  There nearly was.

  There was one for every day she had been here.

  He understood her disappoint now as James remembered all the fragrances laid out on the table at her hotel and he thought of her in search of her own scent.

  James walked back into the bedroom; the safe was open. Though he’d already guessed that if she couldn’t operate the phone properly, then the safe might be beyond her. Finally he breathed again when he opened a drawer and found it stuffed full of cash and saw that her passport was there too.

  Perhaps she’d decided to have a spa.

  Or shopping perhaps, but no, he hadn’t sorted out a credit card for her yet. James got on to that and as he was ordering one he pulled a curtain and looked down, worried about her out there alone and then telling himself she’d been here for three months now and had survived.

  James then spent his requisite half hour updating his portfolio and was just about to take a very big gamble and move an awful lot of stocks into something not quite so secure, but with rapid potential indeed, when he hesitated. God, it had all been Monopoly money to him until now. All he had wanted to achieve was enough money to carry on living his depraved lifestyle and to leave his dysfunctional family behind.

  He had much more than that on his mind now and it would seem that he might just have ended up with the most high-maintenance wife in the world! He chose a slightly more sensible option and just played the gamble with half.

  And then he thought about Leila, searching for her own scent and the tears she had shed last night and he picked up the phone to fix the little he could.

  She was a mystery.

  A complete one because at 4:00 p.m. he looked up as the door opened and a very different-looking Leila walked in carrying several bags.

  She was dressed in gold, and her long black hair was flowing; her eyes were made up with kohl. He had possibly never seen anything more beautiful but, just as relief hit, he also remembered how worried he’d been. ‘Where have you been, Leila?’

  ‘We’re not married yet,’ Leila said, and hit him with his own response to her question this morning.

  ‘You look...’ He was rather lost for words. ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Leila said. ‘Though really I am so tired of wearing this robe but it is the only one I brought with me...’ She was honest. ‘I don’t do well with the clothes here. I have tried so many things—I like to be covered but long dresses make me feel like a gypsy and trousers make me feel like a man.’

  ‘You are so not a man, Leila.’

  ‘I like being covered though.’

  ‘I’ll have someone come and bring a selection of clothes...’

  ‘Authentic Surhaadi robes?’ Leila shook her head. ‘I think that might be a little hard for even James Chatsfield to arrange.’ She opened up her handbag and took out a large wad of cash. ‘Look at my tips.’ Leila smiled.

  ‘Tips?’ James did a double take. ‘Leila, where have you been?’

  ‘Working.’

  James blinked.

  ‘So you were wrong yesterday—I do know about hourly rates!’

  He couldn’t believe that she’d gone and got a job.

  ‘Where are you working?’

  She told him where and James frowned; it was a very exclusive Middle Eastern restaurant close to where he lived, a restaurant that James visited on occasion. ‘You’re not waiting tables?’ James checked.

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Dishes?’ James asked in horror.

  ‘Oh, no, I tried that three times and I got let go three times.’

  ‘Belly dancer!’

  She heard the hope in his voice and narrowed her eyes. ‘Don’t be crude,’ Leila said, but she gave in to his curiosity, as it was incredibly nice to have someone who actually asked about her day and seemed interested. ‘I play the qanun in the restaurant. They are delighted with me and have asked if I will do nights too.’ She saw his mouth gape open. ‘Did you think that I would have stayed hiding in my room, James?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.

  ‘I earn little—one week would not pay for even one night here.’

  ‘Er, it probably wouldn’t get you an hour.’

  ‘I get that, but it is the only job I could do. Now they are offering me more shifts for more money. It really is a start. I will not be a burden on you forever.’

  ‘You don’t need to work.’

  ‘But I like it,’ Leila said.

  ‘I don’t think you understand that you’re known now.’

  ‘I wear my veils to work,’ Leila said. ‘None of the customers know who I am. I like getting dressed up and playing my music. I like the appreciation. I like that I get a meal each day that I provide for.’ She picked up some of the bags she’d brought in and took them over to the bar fridge and started to load it with containers of food. ‘I like that I nourish my baby with food that I understand. James, I really do not need a husband. We don’t need to get married...’

  ‘Aside from everything, Leila, and it’s just a minor point, but if you want to live here, then it might be preferable for you to be a US citizen and possibly the easiest way for you to get that is to marry me.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You can’t just choose which country you reside in. Don’t take my word for it though, maybe check with the Surhaddi embassy.’ James rolled his tongue in his cheek. ‘If there is one.’

  ‘I shall,’ Leila snapped back. ‘I mean it, James. I can support my baby. You are welcome to visit us when you wish but you don’t have to fund me.’

  She tested his patience but in a way that was starting to amuse him.

  ‘So where are you going to live?’

  ‘I will find somewhere.’

  ‘On your music money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what happens when the baby gets here?’

  ‘I will still work. I will get a nanny.’

  ‘On your music money?’

  ‘Yes,’ Leila answered, but then thought for a moment. ‘Though you could maybe buy me a house.’

  ‘And a couple of servants?’ James checked, and Leila nodded.

  ‘That would be very kind.’

  ‘How about I try and see if there’s a fiscal awareness course for displaced princesses?’

  ‘How about you accept that despite your lavish proposal, despite your attempt to pressure me, it is not what I want. I don’t want to be married to a man with a penis that acts like an untrained puppy jumping to greet any vague passerby.’

  She looked at him and saw that he was smiling.

  The oddest thing was, that even though she hadn’t been joking, Leila found herself smiling back.

  ‘Was that a row?’ Leila checked.

  ‘It was a discussion,’ James said. ‘Now, I’ve found an OB—you have an appointment tomorrow, at six.’

  ‘Six?’ Leila checked. ‘But I eat my dinner at six.’

  ‘She’s staying back to accommodate you.’ James rolled his eyes at her ingratitude. ‘I’ve also booked dinner in the restaurant tonight for seven but I can change it to six if you prefer.’

  She wrinkled her nose.

  ‘What?’ James asked. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

  ‘Your array of silverware tires me,’ Leila said, and then flounced off to bed for a rest as she often did in her life, simply to pass time.

  She was very used to a knock on the door that woke her in the evening and told her she was allowed to come out for dinner.

  Leila sighed as James gently knocked and reminded her that dinner awaited. She rolled from the bed and padded out to get a glass of water before she dressed up for dinner and then she froze.


  The lights were dim; there was cloth on the floor and cushions too. The food she had brought back from the restaurant was dressed on beautiful plates and there was a package of silver in the middle with a bow.

  ‘I thought that we might eat here,’ James said as she sat down. ‘Not a fork in sight.’

  He poured her some lovely cool tea and she sipped it. As she tore some pita and ladled it with minted lamb, her eyes were drawn to the silver box, but she did not comment.

  ‘Why are we not eating in the restaurant?’

  ‘Because...’ James shrugged and then looked over to her. ‘I didn’t think you’d prefer to eat here. Most people like eating out.’

  ‘I do,’ Leila said. ‘I was very excited to try it when I first came here, but I find it all just so confusing. I like the restaurant that I work at. I recognise the food there.’

  ‘I might have to pay it a visit again,’ James said. ‘I hear they have an amazing musician.’

  He got the reward of a small smile.

  ‘Don’t tell me if you ever come in,’ Leila said. ‘It might make me nervous to play.’

  ‘Well, you’ll see me if I do,’ James said, but Leila shook her head.

  ‘I don’t lift my eyes to meet the guests.’

  The food was amazing, even by James’s high standards, and yes, he might drop in for dinner one night to hear her play.

  ‘Maybe it would be nice to eat out more,’ Leila mused as she thought of going out to dinner with James and the nice way he explained things to her. She didn’t tell him that part though. ‘Now that I don’t feel so unwell.’

  ‘How long have you felt unwell?’

  ‘Pretty much since the morning you left.’ Her voice was accusing and she looked at him and then acknowledged to herself that those early days after he had so coldly left her had been grief. She had lain on her bed crying and shut herself away just to mourn the man who had walked out on her. ‘Well, a couple of weeks after you left me alone after a whole night of making love to me...’ She watched the press of his lips as she remade her point. ‘Then the ill feeling started. I had no idea what was wrong.’ She blinked and he could see her confusion as to that time.

  ‘Tell me,’ James said, because he had missed out on so much. ‘When did you know you were pregnant?’

  ‘Not for a few weeks. I was ill and thought it was because of the different food, but even when I stopped eating it and went to a restaurant where the food was more familiar, still I felt sick. I asked the hotel to send me honey water but it tasted wrong. In my home the honey is from bees that pollinate orange blossom. I have a very sensitive palate... I told them to call for a doctor when I could not even keep honey water down. She came to the room and...’ Leila could still recall the shock, from being told to pass urine onto a plastic stick of all things, to being told that she was with child. ‘I told her I was on the pill.

  ‘I tried calling you and then when Zayn tracked me down I had to tell him what was wrong.’ She was a little bit more giving with information. ‘My sister, Jasmine, was in trouble with men when she died. That is why my brother is so protective of me,’ Leila lightly explained. ‘When I told him you left after one night and didn’t come back, that you didn’t even call...’

  ‘It was supposed to be a one-night stand.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t feel like it,’ Leila said, and she stared at him. For the first time she saw colour darken his cheeks and he shifted in discomfort, for no, it had not felt like a one-night stand at the time.

  ‘How do you do it, James?’ Leila challenged. ‘How do you kiss with such passion and make love to a body and then walk away?’

  ‘Leila, I sent you flowers not once but five times and still you didn’t pick up the phone. Do you really think I was going to stay celibate just in case ten years from now you might suddenly decide that you’d changed your mind?’

  ‘You sent me flowers?’ Leila frowned.

  ‘You didn’t get them?’ James checked, furious at the florist and about to declare that heads would roll when Leila spoke.

  ‘The floral displays that were delivered to my room were all from you?’

  ‘Hello!’ James said. ‘Did you not read the cards?’

  ‘What cards?’ Leila said.

  ‘The card that came with the flowers? Didn’t you read them? Did you even notice them?’

  ‘The flowers at the palace get changed every day. I thought it was that. I told them off for not taking the old ones out.’ She was still frowning. ‘Why would you send me flowers?’

  ‘To thank you for that night, to ask you to dinner, to ask you to please just pick up the phone...’

  ‘I rang the number three and complained when the floral displays stopped arriving,’ Leila said, and was surprised by the sound of his laughter.

  Not just surprised that he was laughing, but surprised at how much she had missed it and how that very sound made her lips want to smile.

  She did not let them though; instead they pursed because she was so very hurt by him.

  ‘When the flowers clearly weren’t working I went to France.’ James explained a little of what had been happening to him. ‘I went there in an attempt to get you out of my head. It didn’t work. I came back a couple of weeks ago and, sad bastard that I am, was heading to The Harrington hoping to see you when I ran into your brother—after that I decided to head back to France till the dust had settled and only then...’ He didn’t elaborate.

  He didn’t need to.

  It was a regrettable fact for both what had occurred from that point on.

  ‘Why don’t you try speaking with your brother?’

  ‘I miss my brother,’ Leila said. ‘But I am cross with him.’

  ‘What about your parents?’ James pushed. ‘Surely the fact we are getting married must help.’

  ‘I doubt it. I just hope that, though they won’t forgive me, they don’t hate my baby,’ Leila said. ‘I want them to love my child and not take it out on him or her.’

  Which, to James, seemed a rather reasonable request.

  They carried on eating and when her eyes lingered again on the present, James moved it towards her.

  ‘Are you going to open it?’ James asked, for he was as impatient as she was.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘A present.’

  ‘For?’ Leila checked, for she was used to her mother and to Jasmine getting presents. She had been gifted stones from other palaces although she did not dare get her hopes up that this might be a present for her.

  ‘You.’

  She had never had a personal present before. Especially not one that was wrapped in pretty paper and had a bow that took forever to open.

  ‘Come on, Leila,’ James said, but not with the snarky impatience he had used the day she had taken forever to dress.

  ‘What is it?’ Leila asked, and opened a box and stared at a small dark bottle.

  ‘Open it.’

  She unscrewed the small lid and bent her head and James watched as she closed her eyes and inhaled her scent.

  ‘It’s me,’ Leila said, and poured some oil on her fingers. ‘But how?’

  ‘I’m not telling you,’ James said, and watched as she ran her fingers through her hair and added a drop to her throat.

  She smelled now of that night and it was a dangerous place to recall. Especially when James later said goodnight and stretched out on the sofa. But the glitter of tears in her eyes when she’d opened it had made it worthwhile.

  Leila stared at the ceiling. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and this time he heard it.

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Why did you buy me a present?’

  ‘Why not?’ James asked.

  ‘But why?’ Leila persisted.

  ‘I hate that you’re h
omesick.’

  She wasn’t though. Leila stared into the dark and tried to recall a night when she had known such care of her heart, even if it came from a man who didn’t love her.

  When later she cried, James walked over and shook her shoulder, and when still she cried, instead of lying on top of the bed this time he got in. Leila rolled into him and he inhaled the delicious scent of her. He’d had his shirt, the one that held her fragrance from their one night together, analysed. Now a scent with a base of jasmine and a woody note of oud, frankincense and musk lingered in delicate combination, and James drew her closer in.

  Oh!

  Leila lay with his heartbeat in her ear and strong arms around her and lovely hairy legs beneath her smooth ones and a hand that caressed her arm. She awoke to it too, and lingered there just a moment, trying to pretend she was still asleep, just to revel in the feel of another. The crinkle of hair on his stomach had her fingers itching to explore but she denied them.

  ‘You got in,’ Leila said as she untangled herself and lay on her back on a sheet that felt too cool.

  ‘You didn’t complain when I did.’ James looked over and smiled. ‘You were purring like a cat.’

  Leila poked out her tongue to him and then got back to staring at the ceiling.

  ‘I don’t feel sick.’

  ‘Yay!’

  ‘Do you think that could be bad?’

  ‘Of course not, you’re a textbook pregnancy. Well, according to Dr Internet—morning sickness fades in the second trimester.’

  ‘You looked it up.’

  ‘Of course I did.’

  She liked that he did.

  ‘You can ask the physician all your questions this evening,’ James suggested. ‘I know what I want to ask her...’

  ‘You?’ Leila frowned. ‘I don’t want you there.’

  ‘Well, I have to be there,’ James answered tartly, and got out of bed.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Leila asked.

  ‘To the shower,’ James said.

  ‘But breakfast will soon be delivered,’ Leila protested because she was enjoying speaking with him.