Rumours: The Billion-Dollar Brides: The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride (Brides for the Taking) / The Italian's One-Night Baby (Brides for the Taking) / Sold for the Greek's Heir (Brides for the Taking). LYNNE GRAHAM

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      In the midst of recalling their last conversation, Polly stiffened and glanced at him from beneath her eyelashes in a quick sidewise foray, noting the classic purity of his strong profile and the more relaxed line of his beautiful mouth. Evidently escaping the wedding fervour at the palace and the street celebrations in Kashan had revitalised him.

      ‘When I was a little boy, my grandfather brought me here to stay with him several times,’ he told her.

      ‘So, you’re into fishing?’ Polly gathered, forcing herself to speak, to make the effort, although it was hard when she herself was in a remarkably tough and unforgiving mood. He had spoiled her day. He had ridden roughshod over her feelings. But then maybe Rashad didn’t have much in the way of feelings, she reflected, feeling downright nasty because he had hurt her. Get knocked up on the honeymoon and please everyone? He had very much picked the wrong bride for that little project. And yet that brief instant when he had carried her out of the helicopter had enveloped her in a cascade of erotic anticipation that made her want to lock herself away because she wasn’t quite sure she could trust herself to maintain restraint around him.

      ‘No, I’m not,’ Rashad admitted. ‘Fishing is too slow a pastime for me. I only have such good memories of those trips because it was rare for me to receive any male attention in those days. I literally never saw my father...and for that matter, I seldom saw my mother. I was my father’s third son by his third marriage and of very little importance in the royal household.’

      ‘So, there was a sort of hierarchy in your family?’ she remarked, her curiosity engaged in spite of her mood. She was taken aback to learn that he had had little contact with his royal parents even before their death. Yes, she had grasped that her mother had been his nanny but she had still possibly naively assumed that he had continued to enjoy regular interaction with his mother and father.

      ‘Of course. Nobody ever said no to my eldest half-brother because they believed that one day he would be King. Naturally as third in line behind two healthy siblings it was not considered possible that I would ever inherit the Dharian throne.’

      Polly watched his lips part and then close again, his strong jaw clenching. She knew that he was remembering the two half-brothers who had died with his parents and her soft heart was pierced on his behalf. ‘I’m sorry that you had to lose your family to become what you are today.’

      ‘As God wills,’ he murmured with husky finality.

      Night was folding in fast around them. The sun was going down in scarlet splendour over the dark shimmering sea while against that backdrop and raised on a rocky outcrop above the beach she could see the silhouette of a battlemented stone building. ‘A...castle...?’ Polly mumbled. ‘We’re going to stay in a castle?’

      ‘My grandfather and his friends once used it as a fishing lodge. Don’t worry,’ Rashad told her, misinterpreting her reaction. ‘It’s not as medieval as it looks. Our private apartments were renovated soon after I became King. The castle is one of our national treasures—’

      ‘You mean it’s open to the public?’ she prompted in surprise.

      ‘Only when we’re not using it—which means it’s open most of the year. It’s a Crusader castle and if we want to attract tourists we must offer historic sites. The royal family owns all the sites but from now on we will share them with our people.’

      Minutes later, Polly slid out of the car in a stone courtyard while staff rushed around them bowing and grabbing up luggage and smiling endlessly to display their pleasure at their arrival. And Polly thought in wonderment, Rashad’s talking again. Was that because it was their wedding night with all the expectations that that signified? What else could it be? Her chin lifted and her mouth compressed.

      They were ushered into a giant stone room furnished like a very opulent historical set piece. She gazed in awe at the huge scarlet and gold fabric-draped four-poster bed and the matching silver and mother-of-pearl-inlaid furniture. ‘Please tell me there are modern washing facilities somewhere,’ she whispered.

      With a husky laugh, Rashad opened a small arched door in one corner and spread it wide to display the marble-tiled bathroom, presumably custom built to fit the circular turret room.

      His laugh and that spontaneous smile brought her head up again, silvery blonde hair spilling across her shoulders, and she connected with black-lashed golden eyes so heated in their steady regard that something in her pelvis burned, liquefied and positively ached. Her heart raced and her face hurt with the effort it took not to smile back but how could she smile and forgive and forget when all her husband wanted her for was to provide him with an heir? He had pretty much ignored her throughout their wedding day, she reminded herself stubbornly, and if his outlook had improved it could only be because he now expected to have sex with her.

      Momentarily, as she freshened up at the vanity unit, she paused when she caught a glimpse of her hectically flushed face in the mirror. She couldn’t do it—she couldn’t do the sex thing coldly, on demand, not the way she felt now!

      She had always wanted that first experience to be special and she had expected it to be special with Rashad right up until he had made her feel like an anonymous female body to be impregnated. Was she being unfair? Even unreasonable? She knew he needed an heir but following on from his behaviour throughout their wedding that had been a step too far into the dark for her to accept.

      Her body was hers alone to share or deny. She had always been the least likely woman to be coaxed into doing anything she didn’t want to do because for all her eagerness to please she had always had a very strong sense of self. But until she met Rashad she hadn’t actually wanted to have sex with anyone, not that acting as her grandmother’s carer for years had given her many opportunities in that department, she conceded ruefully. But right now, this night, this moment felt very wrong to her because she needed more from Rashad than he had so far given her to feel safe with him...and yet?

      Deep down inside she wanted him, craved him as much as her next breath of air, she acknowledged in driven discomfiture. Her brain might say one thing but her body was singing an entirely different tune. Her breasts were full and tight and there was something like a little flame burning low in her pelvis that had made her all tender and damp and aching in a place she had literally never thought about before. But it wasn’t right, she reminded herself doggedly. Where was her self-respect? Her courage?

      Well, what are you waiting for? she asked her now wildly flushed reflection in the mirror. She had to tell him before expectations got out of control.

      Rashad watched Polly emerge from the turret room and he strode forward, involuntarily drawn by the sheer effect of her delicate ethereal looks and all that beautiful trailing white-blonde hair. He stretched out a hand to clasp her smaller one, tugging her to him with an impatience he couldn’t control even though his brain was warning him to go slow. There was so much hunger inside him for the bubbling warmth of her smile and the as yet undiscovered delights of her slender body and he wrapped his arms round her to capture her.

      ‘Rashad...’ Polly gasped, disconcerted by that sudden advance.

      ‘You’re my wife now. In some ways, I don’t really believe it yet,’ he confided in a thickened undertone, slowly winding a brown hand into the fall of her silky hair, long brown fingers gently caressing her pale-skinned throat. ‘I can’t believe you’re mine—’

      ‘Yes, b-but...’ Polly stammered, struggling to hold onto her wits that close to Rashad when she could feel the thump of his heartbeat through their clothing and the heat and strength of his big muscular body against hers. He was fully aroused and СКАЧАТЬ