Sheikh’s Secret Love-Child

by Caitlin Crews

  “We have no situation,” Shona said, with a little more force.

  Because there was only one thing that he could possibly be talking about, and Shona was not going to let this happen. She would die first.

  She’d worried about this moment for years. And now that it was here, it was as if she had done all her panicking already. Maybe that was why, despite the pounding of her heart and that sick feeling in her belly, she found herself focusing hard on Malak instead of giving in to all the sick feelings churning around inside of her. She noticed the way his guards had blocked all the exits. She calculated what she had to do to make it through this so she could run, pick up Miles from Ursula’s and get the hell out of New Orleans.

  The great thing about coming from nothing and having only slightly more than nothing to her name now was that disappearing would be no problem. She was barely on the grid as it was. All she had to do was get away from Malak tonight and she could go somewhere—anywhere—far away from here. It would be like she and Miles had never existed.

  She was kicking herself for not doing exactly that five years ago.

  “You are correct, of course,” Malak said, a dangerous light in those eyes of his. Miles’s eyes. “He is not a situation at all, is he? He’s a little boy. I believe you call him Miles, do you not?”

  She wasn’t calm at all, Shona realized then. She was frozen solid, but not in fear. Or not only in fear. She was stitched through with fury, red and bright. “Miles is no concern of yours.”

  “Something you must believe very strongly indeed,” he murmured, and there was something even harder about him then. It pricked at Shona like an accusation. “If you prefer to raise him in squalor rather than as what and who he is. The only son of a prince of Khalia.”

  “I don’t know or care who his father is,” Shona gritted out at him. “What matters is that he’s mine.”

  “Let me tell you what happens when a prince becomes king,” Malak told her, his voice soft with a different kind of menace. “No need to offer your condolences, as I am certain you were about to. Neither my father nor my brother died. They abdicated, one after the next, like royal dominos.”

  And Shona couldn’t quite take that in. She didn’t want to make sense of what he was telling her. Because that would mean...

  But he was still talking. “Transfers of power are always fraught with peril, I am sure, but perhaps never more so than when the new king was never meant to come anywhere near the throne. First, the palace advisors rend their garments and pray for deliverance, of course. That takes some time. But when they are done, when reality has set in on all sides, they launch a full investigation into the new monarch, a man who...how shall I say this—?”

  “Couldn’t keep it in his pants?”

  His mouth curved, though whether it was at her dry tone or because he actually found that description of himself amusing, she couldn’t tell.

  “As you may recall, Shona, nobody wanted me to keep it in my pants. Least of all you.” He shrugged when her eyes narrowed at that. But it wasn’t as if she could argue. He wasn’t wrong. “The palace investigators had their hands full, I regret to say. They found every woman I’ve ever touched.”

  “I wouldn’t think anyone could count that high.”

  Malak inclined his head, but that gaze of his never left hers. And she was beginning to imagine it might leave marks. “Each lucky paramour was thoroughly investigated to make certain there was nothing about her or her liaison with me that could embarrass the kingdom. And of them all, Shona, this great and glorious legion of former lovers, only you were keeping the kind of secret that makes the average palace aide turn gray overnight.”

  “You are mistaken.” She was gripping herself too hard. But she didn’t let up, even though she was half afraid she would crush her own ribs with her crossed arms. “Miles and I have nothing to do with you.”

  “I admire your independence,” he told her in a tone that suggested the opposite. “I do. But I’m afraid there are no choices here. Or, I should say, none I expect you will like. The boy is mine. That makes him the heir to the Khalian throne. And that means he cannot stay here.”

  She dug her fingers into her sides, but she didn’t wake up. This was a nightmare she’d had more than once since she’d given birth to Miles, but this time, she couldn’t jolt herself awake. She couldn’t make Malak go away.

  “Let me make sure that you understand something,” Shona said, though there was a ringing in her ears. Her heart still pounded, but it had gone slow. Intense. And she was focused on Malak as if he was a target, if only she could find the right weapon. “You will not touch my child and if you try, six beefed-up goons with guns won’t save you. Nothing will.”

  She didn’t know what she expected Malak to do then.

  But it wasn’t the way he threw back his head and laughed, with all that infectious delight and lazy sensuality that had been her downfall five years ago. His laughter had not changed at all. The dark and somber suit was new, as were the guards surrounding him. That grave note in his voice, this talk of kings and thrones and palace advisors—all of that was new, too.

  But that laugh... It was as dangerous as she remembered it.

  More, maybe, because unlike back then, it was wholly unwelcome.

  It curled into her like smoke. It wound through her, insinuating itself into every crevice and beneath every square inch of her skin. It licked into her like heat, and then worse, wound itself into a kind of fist between her legs. Then pulsed.

  She’d told herself she’d been drunk that night. She’d told herself she’d imagined that pull she’d felt when she was near him, that irresistible urge to get closer no matter what. That aching, restless thing inside her that hummed for him only. She’d imagined all of that, she’d been so sure—because she’d never felt it again. She’d never felt anything the slightest bit like it, not with any man who’d come near her before or since.

  But she hadn’t imagined it.

  It turned out that he was the only man in the entire world who made her feel all those things. And if anything, she’d let time and memory mute his potency.

  He was standing here with armed guards, threatening her baby and life as she knew it, and that didn’t keep her from feeling it. What the hell was the matter with her?

  When his laughter faded and he looked at her again, Malak’s eyes were gleaming bright and she was breathless.

  And in more trouble that she wanted to admit, she knew.

  “There is a certain liberty in having so few choices,” he told her, almost sadly, and it felt like a cage closing, a lock turning. “This will all work out fine, Shona. One way or another.”

  “There’s nothing to work out,” she said fiercely. Desperately. “You need to turn around and go back where you came from. Now.”

  “I wish I could do that,” Malak said in that same resigned sort of way, and oddly enough, she believed him. “But it is impossible.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Miles is the son of the king of Khalia,” Malak said, and there was an implacable steel in that dark gaze and all through that body of his, lean and sculpted to a kind of perfection that spoke of actual fighting arts, brutal and intense, and not a gym.

  And she believed that, too, though she didn’t want to. She believed that every part of him was powerful. Lethal. And that she was in over her head.

  Again.

  “Congratulations, Shona,” he continued, all steel and dark promise. “That makes you my queen.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  MALAK WAS FURIOUS.

  That was too tame a word. He was nearly volcanic, and the worst part was, he was well aware he had no right to the feeling because he’d been the one to cause this situation in the first place. No one had asked him to carry on as he had, following pleasure wherever it led.

  But knowing his own culpability only made it worse.

  He hadn’t believed it when the palace advisors had put the photographs before him. He’d had
enough on his plate, with his brother Zufar’s abdication following so soon after their father’s and the bracing news that after a life of being ignored—which he had always quite enjoyed, in fact, as it had meant he could do exactly as he pleased without anyone thundering at him about his responsibilities—he was to be king.

  Malak had never wanted to be king. Who would want such a burden? He’d preferred his life of excess and extremes, thank you. But Zufar was happy, a thing that Malak would never have believed possible if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, not after the way they’d grown up. And Malak loved both his brother and his country, so the decision was simple.

  The decision, perhaps, but not the execution of it. His initiation into his new role had thus far been all that he’d feared and more, starting with a close examination of his entire sybaritic existence. Laying all his exploits bare, one by one, until Malak was profoundly sick of himself and the great many salacious, debauched urges he’d never attempted to curb in the slightest.

  He had never been much for shame, but it was difficult to avoid when faced with so many photographs and so many thick dossiers enumerating his indiscretions, one after the next, on into infinity. And particularly when so many of the women in those pages were nothing but vaguely pleasant blurs to him.

  And yet he remembered Shona. Distinctly.

  How could he not? Of the many beautiful women he’d been privileged enough to sample, she had been something else entirely. It had been his last night in New Orleans after a week of blues and all manner of questionable behavior. He had settled in for a quiet drink in the lobby of his quietly elegant hotel to prepare himself for the trip back home to see his family, who would all have been deeply disapproving of his antics if they’d ever spared him a moment’s notice.

  And then there she was. She’d been almost unbearably pretty, with rich, creamy dark skin and a lush mouth that made him feel distinctly greedy at a glance. And her beautiful hair, arrayed in a great halo around her head with springy curls he’d longed to sink his hands into. She’d worn a skimpy little dress that had glittered like gold and had made a delectable poem out of her lean curves.

  Better still, she’d walked to the gleaming wooden bar and taken the only empty seat, which had been directly next to his.

  Malak was only a man. And not much of one, according to his family when they bothered to pay attention to him and all the newspapers that breathlessly recorded his every salacious move.

  Which had made it the easiest thing in the world to smile at the prettiest girl he’d seen in ages, and lean in when she smiled back with what had seemed to him, as jaded as he was, like innocence.

  It had been a revelation.

  “This is my first time here,” she’d told him, angling her head toward his as if she was sharing a secret. “Tonight is my twenty-first birthday and I decided to celebrate in style.”

  It had taken him a minute to remember where he was. And more, recall those American laws he found so strange, that called young boys and girls adults when they were eighteen and wished to head off to war, but restricted their drink.

  “And you chose to celebrate it here?” he’d asked. “Surely there are more exciting places to go for such a grand occasion than a subdued hotel bar on a quiet street. This is New Orleans, after all.”

  Her smile had only gotten better the longer she’d aimed it at him. “I used to walk past this hotel all the time when I was a kid and I always dreamed I’d come in here one day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

  Malak had known full well that he hadn’t been alone when he’d felt that spark between them. That fire.

  It had never occurred to him to ignore such things back then, for some notion of a greater good. He hadn’t. He’d bought a pretty girl her first drink and then he’d happily divested her of her innocence in his suite upstairs. He could remember her wonder, her uncomplicated joy, as easily as if it had all happened yesterday.

  Just as he was sure that if he tried, he would be able to remember her taste, too.

  Because it wasn’t only Shona’s smile that had been a revelation to him.

  The pictures his advisors had shown him—his aides bristling with officious dismay as they’d set each one before him—were of the only woman he remembered in such perfect detail. He knew time had passed—years, in fact—but he wouldn’t have known that by looking at the photographs they’d placed before him. Shona was as pretty as ever, whether she wore what appeared to be a server’s uniform or one of those long, flowing sundresses she seemed to prefer that Malak greatly approved of, so perfectly did they showcase those curves he could almost feel beneath his hands again.

  Or perhaps she was even prettier because he found he could also remember the wild sounds of wonder and discovery she’d made as he’d explored her, and the sumptuous feel of her silky dark skin against his.

  But his advisors had not been primarily interested in reacquainting Malak with his every mistake. Those forced marches down memory lane had become tense for all concerned, since Malak had resolutely refused to apologize or show the faintest shred of regret for the way he’d lived his life as the spare with no hope of ascending the throne. Ever.

  It was the child his advisors were interested in.

  The child, who was four years old and bore a striking resemblance not only to Malak, but also to every member of his family. And if there had been any doubt, the little boy sported the same dark green eyes that had been a gift from Malak’s great-grandmother. The same damn eyes Malak saw every time he looked at his reflection.

  And he had never expected to be king, it was true. He’d never wanted such a burden. But he was a prince of Khalia whether his distant father ignored him while campaigning for his mother’s affections, or his mother ignored him because she’d preferred the son Malak had only recently learned she’d had and given away after falling in love with another man. Royal blood ran in his veins and despite his many heedless years of living down to everybody’s worst expectations of him, Malak had agreed to do his duty and was fully prepared to acquit himself well.

  Without the issues that had plagued his parents, thank you, since Malak had no intention of ruining himself for love the way they each had, in their way.

  He was getting his head around the constant surveillance, whether from his own security detail or the public that had always wanted a piece of him and now wanted everything. He was getting up to speed on current affairs and was learning to pick his way between competing agendas to find his own opinion on matters of state.

  He was no one’s first choice to be king—he recognized that. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his best to be a good one.

  And that meant that Malak did not have to be told what it meant that a one-night affair had borne such fruit. Not that this spared him numerous lectures on the topic from his affronted advisors, as if, left to his own devices, he would simply ignore the fact that he had a child out there in the world he’d never met.

  He knew what it meant. And he was furious that Shona had concealed his son from him—even though he was fairly certain he hadn’t told her who he really was. That didn’t change the fact that he had missed years of his own child’s life.

  Or that he was now trapped in a mess of his own making.

  A mess that would have to become a marriage, regardless of any feelings he might have on the matter.

  Furious barely began to cover his feelings on the topic, no matter how pretty Shona still was or how sweetly she’d surrendered her innocence to him all those years ago. There was not one part of Malak that wanted to marry a woman he hardly knew, or any woman at all if he was honest, simply because he’d clearly made a very big mistake five years back.

  But it turned out he liked her horror at the same idea even less.

  “I hope you mean your ‘queen’ in a metaphoric sense,” she snapped at him in obvious outrage, as if he’d suggested she prostitute herself on the nearest corner. Her arms were crossed, as if she was trying to ward off
one of the many disreputable persons he’d had to step over on the street outside.

  As if he was one of said disreputable persons.

  New Orleans, it turned out, was a very different city in the light. And while sober.

  And perhaps Shona was, too.

  He studied her a moment while he fought to keep his temper in check. “You will find I rarely traffic in metaphors.”

  “I don’t care.” She shook her head at him, very much as if he was insane. “What you do or don’t do is of no interest to me. You need to leave, now, or I’m calling the police. And believe me when I tell you that I’m not into metaphors, either.”

  She pulled her mobile from the pocket of her apron and Malak believed her. If there was a woman alive on this earth who would dare summon the local police to attempt to handle him, it would be this one.

  Shona was fierce, it turned out, and his was the blood of desert kings. Fierceness was appreciated—or it would be, eventually, if he could focus it in the right direction. She was threatening him, as if she had no fear at all of the armed men who would die to protect him, and he could appreciate that, too. Theoretically.

  But the truth was, he wasn’t at all certain that an American waitress of questionable finances and a “career” in restaurants like this depressing, grotty pit should find the idea of marrying the king of Khalia quite so appalling.

  What he found he was certain of was that he didn’t like it.

  “I invite you to call all the police you imagine will help you,” he told her, and he could hear that volcanic rage in his voice, humming just there beneath the surface. The faint widening of her perfect brown eyes told him she could, too. “I’m sure they will enjoy a lesson in diplomatic immunity as much as they’ll enjoy discussions with you about wasting their time. But the end result will not change. Perhaps it is time you considered accepting the inevitable.”

  She made an alternate, anatomically impossible suggestion that made Malak’s entire security team bristle to outraged attention.

  “The disrespect, sire!” the man on his right growled.