For one stomach-churning second, Hannah actually thought she might be sick. But it wasn’t just the Sheikh’s swaggering arrogance which she found so nauseating—it was the way he had said the word love. As if it were some unspeakable type of illness. As if it were something beneath his contempt... Clenching and unclenching her fingers, she looked up at him, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘You have been pining for me, I guess,’ he said softly, before shrugging his broad shoulders. ‘That in itself is not unusual—but the fact that I took your virginity has probably given our night together more significance than it warrants. Am I right, Hannah?’
Hannah flinched, wondering how she could ever have fallen into the arms of someone so unspeakably arrogant.
You know how, whispered the voice of her conscience. Because he’s so irresistible—even now, when he’s looking down his haughty nose at you.
Because despite the insulting reception he’d given her, she was far from immune to the attraction which had got her into all this trouble in the first place.
In Sardinia, she had only ever seen Kulal dressed in western clothes. Faded jeans and T-shirts, impeccably cut business suits or, on that fateful night, a dark dinner suit, just like those worn by all the other men at the party. But today, he was looking emphatically sheikh-like in a robe of white silk which flowed down over his muscular body. A matching headdress, held in place by a circlet of knotted gold, emphasised the stark outlines of his hawk-like features. He looked exotic and powerful. He looked like a stranger. He was a stranger, she reminded herself bitterly. A stranger whose child was now living beneath her breast.
‘I hate to disillusion you,’ she said, concentrating on trying to match his own emotionless tone. ‘But I am definitely not pining for you.’
‘No? So why come here?’ he drawled. ‘Why bother flying out here in secret?’
But it hadn’t been a secret, had it? His words reminded Hannah that this whole set-up seemed premeditated and that a car had been waiting for her when the plane had touched down. She lifted her chin, the pulsing of a nerve above her jaw the only outward sign of her growing anxiety—because if Kulal knew she was here, then who else did? How would such an action appear to the outside world—and, more importantly, to her employers? A lowly chambermaid flying out to confront a desert king! She reflected on her many years of service at the Granchester and a ripple of fear whispered down her spine at the thought of being sacked for such unprofessional behaviour. ‘How...how did you know I’d be on that flight?’ she questioned croakily.
‘Are you really that naïve?’ He spat out the question impatiently. ‘My security people run automatic checks over all the flight lists and flag up anyone of particular interest and naturally you fell into that category. A woman who needs an urgent visa to visit my country—didn’t you consider that might have alerted the suspicions of the authorities?’ He gave an impatient sigh. ‘Especially since you were asking so many questions about access to the royal palace—and a further check threw up the fact that you work for the Granchester Group and I’d recently been staying in one of their hotels.’
Hannah stared down at her fingernails she’d spent the past few weeks forcing herself not to chew, and suddenly she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. She had to tell him. But it was with an instinctively sinking heart that she met the ebony coldness of his eyes. ‘I’m pregnant, Kulal,’ she said quietly.
There was a pin-drop silence as he looked at her, the expression on his hawk-like features inscrutable as he shook his head.
‘You can’t be. I used protection.’ His voice was cold. ‘I always do.’
Had he added that last bit just to hurt her? To remind her that she was nothing special? Just another women who had succumbed to all that arrogant alpha appeal...? Hannah chewed her bottom lip. Probably. But she wasn’t here to protect her own feelings—she was here to do the best for her baby and reacting with anger to his inflammatory comments would serve no useful purpose. ‘I’m afraid I can,’ she contradicted. ‘I’m carrying your baby, Kulal,’ she added for extra emphasis and saw his body tense.
Kulal felt the sudden rush of blood to his head as adrenalin flooded through his system and disbelief warred with the evidence right in front of his eyes—because she was here, wasn’t she? A place where she had no right to be. He observed her stillness and the unnatural calmness of her expression—as if he was waiting for her to relax and tell him she’d made the whole thing up—but he knew he was waiting in vain. Of course she was pregnant—why else would she have flown out here in a dramatic way he suspected was completely out of character? His heart began to pound loudly in his chest and he recognised the sensation instantly because he used to feel that way when he was about to go into battle. But war had never filled him with the uncertainty which now assailed him and which instantly put him on the offensive.
‘So have you come here to bargain with me, Hannah?’ he demanded. ‘To see how much money you can get out of me?’
Hannah flinched. If she had been in London—if her baby’s father had been a normal man—she would have risen from the chair, no matter how shaky her legs, and walked out of the room, telling him she would speak to him when he was prepared to be reasonable. Because surely a display of emotion would be justified in those circumstances.
But she wasn’t in London and Kulal was not a normal man, no matter how much she wished he were. She was stuck in a fancy hotel room in his country, miles away from home and everything she knew. The air felt icy from the over-efficient pump of the air-conditioning and outside the huge windows she could see the golden gleam of a beautiful dome. It couldn’t have been more unlike the view from her own humble little bedsit, but she mustn’t let the undeniable glamour of the location stop her from dealing with practicalities.
‘No, I haven’t come here to bargain with you,’ she said quietly. ‘Nor to be spoken to as if I were someone motivated by nothing other than greed.’
‘Really? Then what do you want?’
Wasn’t it obvious? Wouldn’t anyone with a shred of decency in their soul have done the same—or was Hannah just hypersensitive about the subject of paternity because her own start in life had been less than ideal? She looked into his eyes, but they were cold and hard. As hard as the dagger she’d suddenly noticed was hanging at his hip... ‘Because I wanted to give you the opportunity to be a part of your baby’s life,’ she said quietly.
‘In what capacity?’
He was so cold. So unfeeling. Hannah wanted to pick up a tiny golden box which sat on one of the polished tables. She wanted to hurl it against the wall or the chandelier. To make a noise and to break something—as a gesture of defiance as well as one of protest. But she wasn’t going to act like a wronged woman—causing a scene and wringing her hands together as she begged him for help. She was going to act with a dignity which would surround her and the baby with a calm and protective aura.
‘I hadn’t thought that far ahead,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get much further than figuring that you deserved to hear it from me, before anyone else. It’s why I came.’ She tried and failed to suppress the sudden shiver which made her skin grow all goosebumpy. ‘I would have phoned if I could—but, as we both know, you didn’t leave a number.’
Kulal nodded, the sudden blanching of her cheeks plucking at his conscience and making him walk towards an inlaid table on which reposed a selection of bottles and glasses. He poured her a long glass of fire-berry cordial and handed it to her, and as their skin touched, the sheer enormity of the life-changing fact once again hit him like a sledgehammer.
She was pregnant.
Pregnant with his baby.
Didn’t matter that he’d never wanted a child of his own. That he sometimes thought he would prefer his paternal cousin to inherit the kingdom, rather than condemning himself to family life—a way of life he had always carefully avoided becau
se of the chaos and pain of his own childhood. Even his natural love of independence now took second place, because this changed everything. And he needed to think carefully about what to do next.
Very carefully.
He stared at Hannah, at the fatigue which was creasing the corners of her mouth and the untidy tumble of her hair. ‘It’s been a long day and you look exhausted, so why don’t you go and freshen up?’ he suggested.
She put down the half-drunk cordial and as the pink liquid sloshed against the sides of the glass, she regarded him with suspicious eyes. ‘What exactly are you suggesting?’
He felt a flicker of irritation. Did she think he was making a pass at her? That he wanted her to go and bathe and prepare herself for him? That he would actually want to be intimate with her at a moment like this, when his whole life was about to change and she was the instrument of that change? But that wasn’t all he felt, was it? There was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt a steely clench around his heart.
Was it fear?
Yet he was known for his fearlessness—even as a teenager, when he’d run away to join the Zahristan forces during the fierce border war with Quzabar. His late father had hit the roof when Kulal returned, with the livid blade mark which travelled from nipple to navel. He had been lucky not to die, the old King had raged—but Kulal hadn’t cared about his brush with death. Even before he’d left the palace to fight, he had been given hints of the frailty of human existence. He had learnt lessons which had stayed darkly in his heart. And now it seemed there was another lesson to be learnt.
He stared at her, his lips curling. ‘I am merely suggesting you might wish to change—perhaps to rest—before we have dinner.’
She gave a hollow laugh. ‘You really think I want to have dinner with you, Kulal?’
‘Actually, no. I don’t. I think we’ve been forced into a position where we’re going to have to do things which neither of us will find particularly palatable—’
‘I’m keeping my baby!’ she defended instantly.
Kulal stiffened, his nostrils narrowing as he inhaled an unsteady breath. ‘How dare you imply that I should wish otherwise?’ he flared. But although his anger would have filled any of his subjects with fear, it was having no effect on Hannah, for she was tilting her chin in a way which was positively defiant.
‘I’m just letting you know the ground rules from the start, so there can be no misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘And I can’t see the point of us having dinner.’
‘Can’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You need to eat and we need to talk. Why not kill two birds with one stone?’
Her gaze became hooded, thick lashes shuttering her aquamarine eyes like dark feathers. ‘I feel it’s my duty to tell you,’ she flared, ‘just in case you’re getting any autocratic ideas of whisking me away so I’m never heard of again—that my sister knows exactly where I am and she has the number of the police on speed-dial.’
It was such an outrageous remark that Kulal almost smiled until the gravity of the situation hit him and all levity vanished. Because humble Hannah Wilson was not as compliant as he had initially thought, was she?
‘Let’s say eight o’clock, shall we?’ he questioned, eager to reassert his authority. ‘And please don’t keep me waiting.’
CHAPTER SIX
PRIMED FOR THE Sheikh’s knock at precisely eight o’clock, Hannah sneaked one last glance at the mirror, then wished she hadn’t. Because this was the reverse side of the fairy tale, wasn’t it? This was the reality. Last time she’d spent the evening with Kulal, she had been transformed with a wave of the stylist’s magic wand. With her costly jewels and a silken gown she’d looked like someone he might wish to be seen with. But not any more. She had been sick during the early weeks of her pregnancy and, as a consequence, her face had acquired a horrible gauntness. Her dress looked cheap—because it was—her breasts felt heavy, and now she was going to have to endure a stilted dinner in some fancy restaurant with a man who had never wanted to see her again and meanwhile...
Kulal hadn’t said a single positive word about the baby.
He hadn’t said any of the things she’d secretly been wishing for, even though she’d told herself it was madness to expect anything from such a man. He hadn’t reassured her that, although becoming a father had been the last thing on his mind, he would step up to the plate and take responsibility—and he certainly hadn’t cooed with pleasure or puffed his chest with pride. He had just studied her dispassionately as if she were no longer a woman, merely an inconvenience who had suddenly appeared in his life. He had installed her in a suite at the Royal Palace Hotel—admittedly the biggest suite she had ever seen. But she had felt small and insignificant within its gilded walls and, when she’d woken from her restless nap, had wandered aimlessly from room to room, wondering what on earth was going to happen next.
An authoritative rap put paid to any further introspection and Hannah opened the door to find Kulal standing there, the bronze shimmer of his robes alerting her to the fact that he too had changed. Had he rushed back to the real palace for a quick wash and brush-up, she wondered—just about to tell him that she wasn’t sure she could endure going to a stuffy restaurant, when she noticed two hotel employees wheeling a vast trolley towards them, bearing unseen dishes topped with gleaming silver domes.
‘I thought we’d eat here,’ he said peremptorily, walking into the room without invitation, the waiters trundling the trolley immediately behind him.
Hannah opened her mouth to object to his cavalier attitude then shut it again. Because really, what was the point? While one waiter set the table positioned in a far alcove, she was forced to endure the tops of the silver dishes being triumphantly whipped off by the other, like a magician producing a series of rabbits at the culmination of his act. But she felt no enthusiasm for the feast which was revealed, despite the alluring display of pomegranate-peppered rice and vegetables cooked with nuts and a sweet paste she’d never heard of. She waited until she and Kulal were alone before turning to him, not caring whether her face showed her growing frustration or not.
‘Why are we eating here?’ she questioned baldly. ‘Because you’re ashamed of being seen with me?’
He didn’t react to her truculent tone, adopting instead a tone of voice she suspected was meant to calm her down.
‘A public appearance will serve little purpose other than to aggravate the situation,’ he said. ‘I don’t particularly want reporters seeing us out together—not at this stage. Sit down, Hannah. You should eat something. Now. Before we have any kind of discourse. Before you keel over and faint—because that really would be a bore.’
His tone was crisp and authoritative and, although Hannah was still in a mood of rebellion against his high-handedness, she knew that for the sake of her baby she should heed his words. So she sat down opposite him, at a table laid with snowy linen, silver cutlery and crystal glasses—and ate some food with all the enjoyment of somebody being forced to finish a school dinner. It was only when she had put her fork down that she noticed his own plate lay barely touched.
‘Yet you aren’t eating yourself?’ she observed.
‘I’m not hungry. I have work to attend to after our meeting and food will make me sleepy.’
His answer left Hannah in no doubt that whatever he was planning, it certainly wasn’t seduction—and she was unprepared for the feeling of rejection which washed over her. Was he regretting ever having been intimate with her? she wondered. Probably. If she had been in his shoes wouldn’t she have felt the same way? Carefully, she folded her napkin—the way she’d seen countless guests do at the Granchester—and placed it on the table. But the first proper meal she’d had in days was actually making her feel stronger—and strength was what she needed right now. Trying not to be affected by the dark glitter of his eyes, she sat back in her chair.
�
��So,’ she said.
‘So?’ He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly.
Hannah’s foster father had been a gambler and she knew a bit about bargaining. She knew that in a situation like this, where the stakes were high, whoever broke first would lose, and who kept their nerve would win. But she suspected that there weren’t going to be any real winners or losers in this situation and, besides, she hadn’t come here to make demands of him. She didn’t want his money or a title, no matter what he might think. She’d come here to give him her momentous news in person and the rest was up to him. And wasn’t there something else? The only positive glimmer in his attitude towards her?
‘I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t demanded a paternity test,’ she said.
He shrugged. ‘I thought about it. I spent the hours between our meeting this afternoon and coming here this evening wondering whether I should ask the palace doctor to accompany me and have him test you.’
‘But you decided not to?’
His eyes glittered as he acknowledged her challenge. ‘I did.’
‘Might I ask why?’
He leaned back in his chair to study her. ‘I realised that a woman who had waited until she was twenty-five to take her first lover would be unlikely to take two within the space of a few months.’
There was a pause as she summoned up the courage to say it. ‘Yet you didn’t mention it at the time.’
‘Your virginity, you mean?’ he probed.
For all her newly acquired bravado, Hannah found herself blushing and, as a distraction, took a sip of the delicious sweet-sharp pink drink which she’d never tasted anywhere else. ‘Yes.’
‘What was I supposed to do? Exclaim with delirious joy?’ His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘Or perhaps you expected me to be angry? To demand why you had waited for so long to have sex, and why you hadn’t told me?’ He shrugged his broad shoulders and his powerful muscles rippled beneath the bronze silk of his robes. ‘My ego would not have allowed me to ask such disingenuous questions and, besides, you are not the first virgin I have bedded.’
Crowned for the Sheikh's Baby Page 7
