“Class,” she said, trying to salvage the session and her dignity at the same time, “this is His Majesty King Zafir bin Rashid al-Khalifa of the Kingdom of Bah’shar. We are honored to have you, Your Majesty.”
Zafir inclined his head, as if he’d fully expected to be welcomed like a visiting potentate. “May I speak with you privately, Dr. Gray?” he said, never missing a beat.
“As you can see, class has just begun. You’ll have to come back later.”
“Ah—please excuse the interruption. But if you don’t mind,” he said, his polite smile turning devilish, “I would like to listen.”
His arrogance made her waspish. What was he doing here? How could she ever put him behind her if he kept popping up when she least expected it? “I’m afraid we don’t have a throne available for you to sit on.”
He shrugged. “There is a chair behind your desk. I will sit there.”
Genie fumed. She didn’t know why he was here and it irritated her. He’d dismissed her from his life so easily, so coldly, and now he was here, in her classroom, larger than life. Why?
No matter how she tried to ignore it, little bubbles of joy were popping in her veins like champagne fizz. She didn’t trust the feeling, however.
She didn’t trust him.
“By all means. Make yourself at home.”
Zafir crossed to the desk and took a seat, and Genie turned back to the board. She soldiered on with the lecture for the next forty-five minutes, though she deliberately did not look at Zafir again. She could feel his eyes burning into her, and she kept hoping he would get bored and leave.
But he stayed until the class was over. Several of the girls lingered over their desks, laboriously putting their books and laptops away. Once they were gone, she turned to him.
“What is this all about?” she demanded, hands on hips, frustration and confusion zipping around inside her.
Zafir stood, his easy demeanor gone. He looked mildly angry. “The Temples of Al-Shahar. I wanted you to lead the team, but you did not come.”
She looked away. “I thought better of it.”
“We made a deal, Genie.”
“No, you made a deal. As I recall, I didn’t have much choice.”
“I wanted you,” he repeated.
“Dr. Walker is fully qualified. Hell, he’s more qualified than I am, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Zafir took a step toward her. “I wanted you.”
“We don’t always get what we want, Zafir.”
He closed the distance between them. “I wanted you.”
He stood so close, the heat of his body reaching out to envelop her. He smelled exotic, spicy, and she remembered running her tongue along his skin. She gave herself a mental shake. “I get it, Zafir. You wanted me to lead the dig, and now you’re angry because you didn’t get your way.”
“No,” he cut in, “I wanted you. You, Genie Gray.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” she cried. She whirled away from him, intending to put distance between them.
But he caught her, pulled her against his hard body. “Genie,” he said in her ear, “I want you.”
And then she understood. He loosened his grip and she turned in his arms, pulling away when he didn’t try to keep her.
“You came all this way for sex?”
His laugh was unexpected. “I came for you. Come to Bah’shar with me, Genie.”
Her heart was thundering in her ears. “Why would I want to do that?” she whispered.
“Because you love me.”
She closed her eyes. Swallowed. “I do love you,” she said. “But it’s not enough, Zafir.”
“And what if I said I loved you too?”
“I can’t come with you, Zafir,” she said, shaking her head. “I can never settle for being second best in your life. I can’t believe you would ask me this again—”
“I want you to be my queen,” he cut in.
He looked lost, uncertain, and her heart contracted with pain and love.
“You can’t mean that,” she said. “It’s impossible.”
“Why? Because of your career?”
Was he that obtuse? Did he have to make her say it? “No, because of you. It’s Bah’sharan law—”
“Not any longer,” he said fiercely.
Genie blinked, dumbfounded. “You changed the law?”
“It was an old law, and it made no sense. The people agreed.”
“You had a vote?”
“Yes.”
Her heart was beginning to believe, but her head couldn’t quite accept it. “But how do you know you really love me? That it’s not just attraction and—?”
Zafir groaned. “My God, woman, do you think that I couldn’t find a willing female to have sex with in Bah’shar if that was my only problem? That I’ve flown halfway around the world to get down on my knees and beg, if that is what it takes, for you to come to Bah’shar with me simply because I have an uncontrollable erection?”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation she wanted to laugh suddenly. Somehow she managed not to. “When you put it like that…”
He looked offended. “Exactly.”
“Then why did you send me away after you were stabbed?” It still hurt that he had done so, and she wanted to understand. “I was so scared for you, and you dismissed me as if it meant nothing.”
“I know, and I’m sorry. But there had been threats against my life, and when I was attacked I realized that I had put you in danger too. I couldn’t live with that. Your safety is the most important thing in the world to me.” He blew out a breath. “But now you aren’t there, and I still think of you constantly. I need you, Genie. Without you, I’m only half the king I should be.”
“I’m not afraid of a little danger,” she said a touch unsteadily. The conversation seemed so unreal that she was having a hard time processing all the implications. “Being an archaeologist can be dangerous at times.”
“I know, but this danger was different. And though there may always be some degree of danger when one lives such a public life, I am confident the people of Bah’shar will love you as I do.”
“I don’t want to give up archaeology entirely,” she said. “I love what I do.”
“I understand this,” he replied. “Just as I want to build things, you want to dig in the dirt. But there is much to excavate in Bah’shar. And if you need to go elsewhere on your digs, we will work it out.”
She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. The man she loved was standing here, offering her everything she’d ever wanted, and she was scared. Scared she was missing something, or that there was a catch somewhere. Could she really be Queen of Bah’shar?
“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this, Zafir.”
He didn’t need to ask what she meant. “I wasn’t supposed to be a king,” he said, “but I’m learning. You will learn too.”
Genie’s heart was swelling, daring to hope, daring to believe.
How could she not take the leap? She had to. Had to. She loved this man with all her heart and she didn’t want to let him go ever again. She’d be queen of anything if that was what it took.
“You’re sure you really love me?”
He put his hands on her shoulders, bent to look her in the eye. “Dr. Geneva Gray, I love you. Only you. Forever you. Come to the desert with me. Be my wife, bear my children, grow old with me.”
A tremor passed through her. It was real. He was real.
“Kiss me, Zafir,” she said.
“Gladly.”
The kiss was everything she’d hoped. It was the kiss of a man who loved her. Happiness flooded her soul with sunshine, breaking through all the pain and emptiness of the last few weeks.
“I love you, Zafir. This time you can’t get rid of me.”
“Exactly as I’d hoped,” he said, before kissing her again.
EPILOGUE
One year later…
KING ZAFIR BIN RASHID AL-KHALIFA was in a hurr
y. He strode through the palace corridors at a pace that had the staff scurrying out of his way. Finally he burst into the royal apartments and kept going until he found his wife in the bathroom, removing her soiled clothing.
Genie looked up when he came in, her face creasing in a smile that did odd things to his heart. Dirt and mud streaked her fair skin. Her hair, spiked with drying sweat, stood at odd angles from her head.
Zafir thought she’d never looked more beautiful. “You are home early, habiba,” he said.
She continued to remove clothing, dropping it in a pile at her feet. The more of her luscious body that was revealed, the more his own body responded. Oh, yes, he was definitely going to have her.
In the shower. On the bed. Perhaps even the floor if he couldn’t make it to the bed first.
“I was feeling a bit tired,” she said.
Zafir frowned. “But you went to bed early last night. I remember this quite well. Did you awaken?”
“No, I slept straight through.” The last of her clothing fell in a poof of dust. She reached for the taps and turned on the shower. Zafir worked hard to make his brain function. Her gorgeous pink nipples were ripe for his touch. He needed to touch them. Needed to taste them.
Marrying Genie was the best decision he’d ever made. Not just because he needed her with a fierceness that hadn’t abated in the last twelve months, but also because she made him whole. She filled his life and took away every ounce of loneliness he’d ever felt.
She was the other half to his soul.
“I have sent for the doctor,” she continued, and Zafir’s heart dropped to his toes. She was his greatest treasure, his reason for being. She could not be ill.
“Doctor?”
“Don’t look so worried,” she said, coming over and giving him a quick squeeze while trying not to soil his clothing at the same time. “It’s nothing serious.”
“You can’t know that. You aren’t a doctor—” He stopped, amended the statement when she arched an eyebrow. “Not that kind of doctor.”
She walked into the steamy shower and stood under the spray. “I simply need him to confirm something for me.”
Why would she need a doctor to confirm…?
And then it hit him. His knees felt suddenly weak, his heart thudding into his throat. He realized that Genie had opened her eyes and was watching him.
“Are you…? Do you mean…?” He couldn’t find the words.
Genie smiled and opened her arms. “Why don’t you join me?”
He ripped off his clothes and stepped under the spray, taking her into his arms. “No more digging in the dirt in the middle of the hot day, Genie,” he ordered. “And no more crawling into dank tombs beneath the temples.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she said. “Besides, I doubt I’ll be able to get inside those narrow spaces in the next few months anyway.”
“I love you,” Zafir said. “More than you can ever imagine.”
Her eyes sparkled. “Oh, I can imagine a lot.”
“So can I, thanks to you.”
And then he proceeded to show her the depths of his very creative imagination.
*
Read on for the thrilling first chapter of
THE ITALIAN’S PREGNANT PRISONER
by New York Times bestselling author
Maisey Yates
CHAPTER ONE
Once upon a time…
LET DOWN YOUR HAIR…
Charlotte Adair’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure the person next to her could hear it. And she was shaking. Shaking and fighting against the rising tide of emotions and memories that were threatening to compromise her ability to think straight.
Although, it could easily be argued that her being here at all was proving she lacked any ability to think with clarity.
She had escaped. For five years she had been free.
But there was unfinished business. Rafe.
He would always be unfinished business. There would be no fixing that. But she could see him. She could see him one more time.
And, at least, he wouldn’t be able to see her.
Pain burst in her chest, hot and acidic, her stomach tightening. Yes, his abandonment had hurt her. Immeasurably. But that didn’t mean the thought of such a powerful man being injured in the way he had been wasn’t painful.
Of course, any thoughts of Rafe were painful.
And as she stood in the darkened corner of the antechamber that led into the ballroom, her palms beginning to sweat, the red gown she was wearing started to feel so tight she could scarcely breathe.
She couldn’t hold off the memories any longer…
*
“Let down your hair.”
“You know I’m not allowed to,” Charlotte said, moving away from Rafe, every nerve ending in her body tingling. Every part of her demanding that she follow his simply issued command, regardless of the consequences.
Which was basically the same demand she’d been issuing to herself from the moment she’d first seen him.
She wanted him. Whatever that had meant at first, she hadn’t fully known. Only that she wanted to be near him. Always.
“I see. And what exactly are the rules concerning men in your bedroom?”
She blushed, her skin heating all over. “Well, I would assume that it’s frowned upon. Of course, it is nothing my father ever thought to forbid me expressly from. I suppose I’m meant to take it as read.”
Rafe smiled, and she felt the impact of it all the way down to her toes. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. That had been her very first thought about seeing him when he’d come to work for her father two years earlier.
She wasn’t entirely sure of the circumstances, only that he was an apprentice of sorts, which made her stomach tremble in a not-too-pleasant way. Because while the circumstances of her father’s business were kept largely secret to her, she wasn’t stupid. Yes, she lived a secluded life at his villa in Italy, transplanted from their native United States when Charlotte had been just a child, but in that seclusion she had taken the opportunity to learn how to gain information by quiet observation.
Charlotte had become part of the wallpaper in the villa many years ago, and as a result she was often underestimated. She liked it that way.
Being invisible.
But then Rafe had appeared, and he had not allowed her to remain invisible. He had seen her. From the first. She had been sixteen the first time she’d laid eyes on him, when she had been certain that her heart was going to claw its way up her throat and out of her mouth. Not just because he was beautiful—though, he was certainly beautiful. In his early twenties at the time, with broad shoulders, a jaw so square she thought she might cut her finger on it, and dark, fathomless eyes that she wanted desperately to get lost in.
He was a tall man, well over six feet, and she had the feeling that if she were to walk up to him and stand just in front of him that she would only come up to the middle of his chest. Which, she could not help but think, would be solid, strong, perfect to rest against.
Yes, her obsession had begun that first moment, and it had not abated. Apparently, it had been the same for him. He had tried to warn her away from him. But she’d persisted. She’d made a fool of herself, following him around. But it had worked. Eventually, he had stopped telling her to go away. Eventually, they had begun to form a friendship.
Except, she supposed friends didn’t have to sneak around. Friends did not have to wait until the house was dark, and everyone was safely asleep to meet out in the stables, or to catch a moment with one another in the brilliant light of day out in one of the fields well away from the house.
It was chaste. Always.
Until one afternoon when they’d been in the corner of the barn, and he had told her it was time for him to go back to his post—whatever that meant—and she’d been filled with a strange kind of desperation that she could not fathom or fight.
She had reached up, touched his face with her fingertips.
And then she’d had his iron grip wrapped around her wrist, his dark eyes burning hotter than she had ever seen them before.
Before she could protest—before she could question anything—his mouth had been on hers. Claiming. Marking her as his own.
She had never been kissed before that moment. Hadn’t even thought much about it. But kissing Rafe was like touching the surface of the sun. She could hardly bear it.
It was too hot. Too bright. Too much.
And far too brief.
But that night, he had climbed the trellis and come into her room. Her tower bedroom, high above the rest of the house, separated from everyone, as she always was. No one came into her bedroom.
But he had. And he had treated her to another kiss. Then another.
He had come to her room every night for the past two weeks. Their kisses had gotten longer, deeper. They’d begun shedding clothes. Lying on the bed together. Trading intimacies she would have found shocking before him. Would have found shocking if it were with anyone but him.
With Rafe, all these things felt right. She’d been asking him for more. Asking him to take her virginity. But so far he’d kept it to pleasuring her, and never taking things to their ultimate conclusion.
She had been okay to wait. But tonight she felt urgency. Tonight, there was a rock in her stomach, and she knew that she had to tell him about the conversation she’d had with her stepmother earlier that day.
Her father didn’t often speak to her, if he did at all. Most of the relevant information was conveyed through Josefina, her stepmother, who was the most hardened, suspicious person Charlotte had ever known.
And given Charlotte lived in a compound with criminals, that was quite a feat.
Earlier today she had informed Charlotte that her father’s ultimate purpose for her was about to be fulfilled. He had found another kingpin in a corner of Italy Charlotte had never been to who was looking for a wife. And it was an alliance her father wanted to cement with his own bloodline. A dynastic union. The one use he could think of for a daughter he had never wanted.
Josefina seemed nothing but happy to be rid of the stepdaughter she had always seemed jealous of. A jealousy Charlotte could not understand, given she was a glorified prisoner in her father’s home. But Josefina had once been a poor girl from the village her father’s estate was built near, and she had clawed her way from poverty to being Michael Adair’s mistress, then ultimately his wife. She wasn’t quiet about that achievement, and it was Charlotte’s belief that her stepmother was secretly afraid she might someday lose her elevated position, which made her a bit vicious.
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