Bride Behind The Desert Veil (Mills & Boon Modern) (The Marchetti Dynasty, Book 3)
Page 18
When Sharif and Liyah looked at the photo later, they laughed. All the kids were making faces, and Daniel was, indeed, making rabbit ears again—this time behind his sister Olympia’s head.
Maks was looking down at Zoe indulgently, and she was the only one smiling at the camera. Nikos was kissing Maggie. Sharif was looking at Liyah, who was smiling enigmatically. The fact that he had his hand placed over her abdomen was the first hint of the secret they’d just shared over dinner.
In seven months’ time, the Marchetti/Al Nazar/Spiros clan was going to grow by two more little people.
After much congratulations, and tears and hugs and exclamations, Zoe had groaned theatrically. ‘Twins? I’m definitely not signing up to take any more family photos. You can find someone else!’
But the next day Sharif and Liyah were due to welcome Sasha, Maks’s sister, with her husband and their children. So inevitably another photo would be taken.
The sounds of the happy family gathering had faded into the night by now, and after putting Stella to bed Sharif found his wife standing at the wall of the terrace that wrapped around their bedroom suite—the one they’d spent a very enjoyable month choosing—which looked out over the desert beyond. The night sky was huge, lit up with a crescent moon and bright stars.
Sharif moved behind Liyah, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on her head. ‘What are you thinking?’
Liyah wrapped her arms around his. Having a family hadn’t happened straight away for them. It had taken a couple of years for Liyah to fall pregnant. They’d been about to make investigations when she’d become pregnant with Stella. So they didn’t take this latest good news for granted for a second.
Liyah turned in his arms and looped hers around his neck. She wore a short silk nightdress and nothing else, and Sharif could feel every provocative curve. His blood simmered.
‘You mean you can’t read my mind?’ she teased.
Sharif smiled. ‘I would never presume to know what’s going on in your head. From the moment I first saw you, you were a mystery, and you still are. You have the power to fell me—as you well know.’
Liyah made a disbelieving sound. And then she touched his jaw, traced the small scar. ‘You fell me too—on a regular basis. But, since you want me to spell it out, I’m thinking that I love you, and I love Stella, and I love our extended family so much. I never knew what it was to be part of a loving family. I think I was too scared to admit I wanted one for a long time. We were so happy it felt like tempting fate.’
Sharif said huskily, ‘I know.’
She put her hand on her belly. ‘I love these babies already, but I’m also terrified because I don’t want anything to ever harm them.’
Sharif lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to the centre of her palm. ‘No harm will come to them—not from us anyway. And we will love them and protect them until they can fly away and be free to live their own lives. And then they’ll come back...with their families.’
Tears sprang into Liyah’s eyes. ‘I love you so much.’
Sharif shook his head, his eyes shining too. ‘Not half as much as I love you. You saved me, Liyah.’
Liyah pressed a kiss to his mouth, and whispered, ‘We saved each other.’
‘For ever.’
‘Yes, my love.’
They turned and went into their bedroom, the vast night around them wrapping them in its protective cloak and echoing the sounds of their love.
Coming next month
CINDERELLA’S NIGHT IN VENICE
Clare Connelly
As the car slowed to go over a speed hump, his fingers briefly fell to her shoulder. An accident of transit, nothing intentional about it. The reason didn’t matter though; the spark of electricity was the same regardless. She gasped and quickly turned her face away, looking beyond the window.
It was then that she realized they had driven through the gates of City Airport.
Bea turned back to face Ares, a question in her eyes.
‘There’s a ball at the airport?’
‘No.’
‘Then why…?’ Comprehension was a blinding light. ‘We’re flying somewhere.’
‘To the ball.’
‘But…you didn’t say…’
‘I thought you were good at reading between the lines?’
She pouted her lips. ‘Yes, you’re right.’ She clicked her fingers in the air. ‘I should have miraculously intuited that when you invited me to a ball you meant for us to fly there. Where, exactly?’
‘Venice.’
‘Venice?’ She stared at him, aghast. ‘I don’t have a passport.’
‘I had your assistant arrange it.’
‘You—what? When?’
‘When I left this morning.’
‘My assistant just handed over my passport?’
‘You have a problem with that?’
‘Well, gee, let me think about that a moment,’ she said, tapping a finger to the side of her lip. ‘You’re a man I’d never clapped eyes on until yesterday and now you have in your possession a document that’s of reasonably significant personal importance. You could say I find that a little invasive, yes.’
He dropped his hand from the back of the seat, inadvertently brushing her arm as he moved, lifting a familiar burgundy document from his pocket. ‘Now you have it in your possession. It was no conspiracy to kidnap you, Beatrice, simply a means to an end.’
Clutching the passport in her hand, she stared down at it. No longer bothered by the fact he’d managed to convince her assistant to commandeer a document of such personal importance from her top drawer, she was knocked off-kilter by his use of her full name. Nobody called her Beatrice any more. She’d been Bea for as long as she could remember. But her full name on his lips momentarily shoved the air from her lungs. dpg!
‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’
He lifted his shoulders. ‘I thought you might say no.’
It was an important clue as to how he operated. This was a man who would do what he needed to achieve whatever he wanted. He’d chosen to invite her to this event, and so he’d done what he deemed necessary to have her there.
‘Your business is too important to our company, remember?’ She was grateful for the opportunity to remind them both of the reason she’d agreed to this. It had nothing to do with the fact she found him attractive, and everything to do with how much she loved her friends and wanted the company to continue to succeed.
‘And that’s the only reason you agreed to this,’ he said in a deep voice, perfectly calling her bluff. Was she that obvious? Undoubtedly.
Continue reading
CINDERELLA’S NIGHT IN VENICE
Clare Connelly
Available next month
Copyright ©2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Clare Connelly for her contribution to the Signed, Sealed…Seduced miniseries.
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