Mills & Boon Modern February 2014 Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ some kind of magic on the people who lived within them. Prick her skin and she would bleed, just like the next woman.

      ‘It was an unconventional introduction, I admit,’ she said. ‘To bring my work to your hotel room unannounced like that and ask you for a job.’

      ‘Please don’t be disingenuous, Leila. That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.’ He sounded impatient now. ‘Which guide to interview technique did you study before you started removing your clothes and climbing all over me? The 1960s Guide to Sexual Behaviour? Or A Hundred Ways To Make The Casting Couch Work For You?’

      ‘You didn’t seem so averse to the idea at the time!’

      ‘Funny that,’ he mused. ‘A beautiful woman comes up to my suite, turns her big blue eyes on me and starts coming on to me. She brushes my arm so lightly that I wonder if I’d imagined it, though my senses tell me I hadn’t. Then she pirouettes around so that there can be no mistaking the tight cut of her jeans or the cling of her blouse as she shows off her amazing body. She gazes into my eyes as if I am the answer to all her prayers.’ And for one brief moment hadn’t he felt as if he could be?

      There was a pause as Leila forced herself to scoop some jewel-coloured rice onto her fork—terrified that someone might notice that she hadn’t eaten a thing and start asking themselves why. Had she done everything which Gabe had accused her of? Had she behaved like some kind of siren? She lifted her head to look at him. ‘You could have stopped me,’ she said.

      Gabe stilled as he met the challenge sparking from her blue eyes. Because hadn’t he been thinking the same thing ever since it had happened? He could have stopped her. He should have stopped her. He should have waited until her bodyguards had gone and then told her to get out of his room as quickly as possible. He could have dampened down his desire, using the formidable self-control which had carried him through situations far more taxing than one of sexual frustration. He could have told her that he didn’t have a type, but that if he did—she wouldn’t be it.

      He didn’t like women who were obvious. Who had persistent exes or brothers who were sultans. He had an antenna for women who were trouble and it had never failed him before. He resisted the tricky ones. The neurotic and needy ones.

      But something had gone wrong this time.

      Because he hadn’t resisted Leila, had he? He had broken his own rules and taken her to bed without knowing a single damned thing about her. And he still couldn’t work out why. He shook his head slightly. It had been something indefinable. Something in those wide blue eyes which had drawn him in. He had felt like a man whose throat was parched. Who had been shown a pool of water and invited to drink from it. He had felt almost...

      His eyes narrowed.

      Almost helpless.

      And that was never going to happen.

      Not twice in a lifetime.

      ‘I could have stopped you,’ he agreed slowly.

      ‘So why didn’t you?’

      He didn’t answer straight away because it was important to get this right. He wanted to send out a message to her. A very clear message she could not fail to understand. That it had meant nothing to him. That it would be a mistake to fall for him. That he caused women pain. Deep pain.

      ‘Sometimes sex is like an itch,’ he said deliberately. ‘And you just can’t help yourself from scratching it.’

      Her face didn’t register any of the kind of emotions he might have expected. No indignation or hurt. He suspected that hers was a world where feelings as well as faces were hidden. But he saw her eyes harden, very briefly. As if he had simply confirmed something she had already known.

      ‘I’m sure that the romantic poets need have nothing to fear from your observations,’ she said sarcastically.

      He picked up his goblet of wine, twirling the long golden stem between his fingers. ‘Just so long as we understand each other.’

      She leaned forward, and he caught a drift of some faint scent. It made him think of meadow flowers being crushed underfoot. He found it...distracting.

      ‘Oh, I get the message loud and clear,’ she said. ‘So forgive me if I ignore you as much as possible for the rest of the meal. I think we’ve said everything there is to say to each other, don’t you?’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      LEILA GRIPPED THE side of the washbasin as terror sliced through her like the cold blade of a sword. She wanted to scream. Or to throw back her head and howl like an animal. But she didn’t dare. Because her fear of discovery was almost as great as the dark suspicion which had been growing inside her for days.

      She stayed perfectly still and listened, her heart thudding painfully in her chest. Had anyone heard her? Had one of the many unseen servants been close enough to the bathroom to catch the sound of her shuddered retching?

      She closed her eyes.

      Please no.

      But when she opened them again, she knew that she could no longer keep pretending. She couldn’t keep hoping and praying that this wasn’t happening, because it was.

      It had started with a missed period. One day late. Two days late—then a full week. Her nerves had been shot. Her heart seemed to have been permanently racing with horror and fear. She was never late—her monthly cycle was as reliable as the morning sunrise. And the awful thing was that she’d had to pretend that it had arrived. She’d forced herself to wince and to clutch at the lower part of her stomach as if in discomfort, desperate not to alert the suspicions of her female servants. Because in that enclosed, watched world of the palace, nothing went unnoticed—not even the princess’s most intimate secrets.

      She had told herself that it was just a glitch. That it must be her body behaving in an unusual way because it had been introduced to sex. Then she had tried not thinking about it at all. When that hadn’t worked, she’d made silent pleas to Mother Nature, promising that she would be good for the rest of her life, if only she wasn’t carrying Gabe Steel’s baby.

      But her pleas went unanswered. The horror was real. The bare and simple fact wasn’t going away, simply because she wanted it to.

      She was pregnant.

      Her one brief experiment with sex—her one futile attempt to behave with the freedom of a man—had left her with a consequence which was never going to leave her. Pregnant by a man who never wanted to see her again.

      She was ruined.

      With trembling fingers, she tidied her mussed hair, knowing she couldn’t let her standards slip. She had to maintain the regal facade expected of her, because if anyone ever guessed...

      She thought about the meagre options which lay open to her and each of them filled her with foreboding. She thought what would happen if her brother found out, and a shudder ran down her spine. She gripped the washbasin, and the cold porcelain felt like ice beneath her clammy fingers. Murat must not find out—at least, not yet.

      She was going to have to tell Gabe.

      But Gabe had gone back to England and there were no plans for her to see him again. He had spent a СКАЧАТЬ