The Sheikh's Secret Baby. Sharon Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ flinched and a part of her wished she could have given into the luxury of tears if she hadn’t recognised the need to stay strong. Constitutional significance? Was that the only thing he cared about in the light of his discovery? Of course it was. It was why he’d ended their relationship and why he had turned up here today, to use her body as he might use a stone vessel filled with water to quench his thirst. For him nothing mattered other than the needs and demands of his beloved country and everything else came second to that.

      ‘Did you not think to tell me, Jazz?’ he continued, still in that icy undertone of suppressed fury. ‘That the seed of my loins had borne fruit?’

      Jasmine shivered as his words created a powerful image in her mind which made her heart clench with impotent longing until she forced herself to push it away and focus on what was important. ‘I did try to tell you.’

      His cold expression suggested he didn’t believe her. ‘When?’

      ‘After we…split up.’ When he’d sweetly informed her that she was the kind of woman who made a perfect mistress, but not the kind of woman he could ever marry. ‘Not for many weeks, it’s true. I… I didn’t realise I was pregnant. At least, not straight away.’

      ‘Why not?’ he bit out witheringly. ‘You may have been a virgin when we met but please don’t make out you were born yesterday, Jazz. What do you mean, you didn’t realise you were pregnant? What, were you waiting for the stork to fly in through the window and surprise you?’

      His words were cruel. Sarcastic. Deliberately so, it seemed. Jasmine tried to convince herself that his anger was understandable. Wouldn’t she have felt just as angry if the situation were reversed—to have discovered that she’d become a parent and have been kept in the dark about it? ‘I was all over the place,’ she admitted. ‘I was operating in a bit of a fog—on autopilot, if you like. Just getting through the day took all my energy and I felt disorientated because…well, it was weird getting used to life without you.’

      Zuhal’s lips tightened but to his surprise he found he couldn’t disagree with her because he too had been disconcerted by the discovery that Jazz had left a peculiar hole in his life. He had explained it away by reminding himself that it had all been about sex—the best sex he’d ever had. Against all the odds she had captivated him—for he had never been with someone as low-born as her before. She’d been working in the boutique attached to London’s famous Granchester Hotel where he’d been staying, and on a primitive level he had initially been drawn to her pert breasts and curvy hips. By the buttery swing of her blonde hair and the way her lips curved into a sweet smile whenever she was serving customers. But although many women caught his eye and made it clear they were his for the taking, Zuhal rarely gave into his most base desires. Sometimes he took pleasure in denying himself sexual gratification because deprivation was good for the spirit and what was easily gained was easily discarded. Plus, he liked a challenge—and a challenge had certainly been presented to him when the humble shop girl had blushed as he’d spoken to her and had had difficulty meeting his gaze.

      His hunger ignited, he had been pleased to discover she was divorced because divorced women were often cynical about marriage, with few of the marital ambitions of single women, which bored the hell out of him. They also possessed an earthy expertise which made them the best lovers.

      But Jazz hadn’t been experienced.

      He remembered his shock—and then his pleasure—when he had discovered her innocence. When she had opened those soft thighs and he had broken through the tight hymen, which had flagged up the gratifying knowledge that he was her first ever lover. He remembered the orgasm which had followed. Which had rocked him to the core of his being. And the one after, and the one after that…

      With an effort he dragged his mind back to the present because none of that was relevant now. Not in the light of his discovery that she was a secretive little manipulator.

      ‘Talk me through what happened, Jazz,’ he bit out and could see her trying to compose herself, rubbing her hands up and down over the arms of her sweater, as if she were cold.

      She swallowed. ‘When you went back to Razrastan I just carried on as normal, terrified someone at the hotel was going to discover I’d been having intimate relations with a guest.’

      ‘But nobody did?’ he probed.

      Jasmine shook her head. ‘No. Not a soul. But then, we were very discreet, weren’t we, Zuhal? You made sure of that. I was never even permitted to stay with you in your fancy penthouse suite and we only ever went to the borrowed house of one of your rich friends, under cover of darkness.’

      ‘I have always tried to be discreet about my relationships—and the newspapers would have had a field day if they’d discovered I was sleeping with someone like you,’ he said coldly.

      ‘Someone like me?’ she echoed.

      ‘You know what I’m talking about. It was almost a cliché—the prince and the shop girl. In a way, I was protecting you.’

      Jasmine bit her lip, because it had been much more likely he had been protecting his own precious reputation. Should she tell him how difficult it had felt to carry on serving behind the till with that bright smile pinned to her lips, when she had been missing him so much? Maybe it was the effort of that—of trying to appear normal—which had meant her first missed period had passed by without her noticing. And then when she had noticed something was amiss, she’d been unable to confide in anyone. Her parents were dead and she hadn’t dared place her trust in friends and colleagues, terrified someone might run to the press with the story. She had a cousin she was close to, but Emily lived miles away and Jasmine had never felt quite so lonely.

      Even now, as she looked up into Zuhal’s flinty features, she could still remember the scary sense of isolation she’d felt as she’d realised she was pretty much on her own, with a tiny life to support. Factor in the fact that she’d been missing him so badly and you ended up with someone who had found herself in a precarious situation. ‘I tried to ring you but your number came up as unobtainable.’

      He met the question in her eyes. ‘I make a point of regularly changing my phone number,’ he informed her coolly. ‘My security people tell me it’s safer that way.’

      ‘And, of course, it keeps troublesome ex-girlfriends at bay?’ she guessed, forcing herself to confront the bitter truth.

      He shrugged. ‘Something like that,’ he conceded. ‘When did you try to contact me?’

      Accurately, she was able to relay the exact month—because at that stage her pregnancy had been well established. She’d been determined to show Zuhal that she intended going ahead with the birth, with or without his approval. That she didn’t need a man—or a husband—in order to survive, because experience had taught her that marriage was by no means the magic bullet which so many women imagined it was.

      Feeling on firmer footing now, she sucked in a steadying breath. ‘Eventually, I managed to get through to one of your aides. Adham, I think his name was. I told him I needed to speak to you urgently and he promised he would pass on the message to you.’

      ‘But I never got it,’ he said, his voice hardening.

      ‘So blame him.’

      ‘Adham is a loyal servant who would have been acting in my best interests. The palace was in uproar because of my brother’s disappearance and, of course, that impacted profoundly on my future. And СКАЧАТЬ