Magnates: Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence

‘I deserve to pay the price for this,’ Jasim said heavily, his classic profile as grim as his tone of voice.

‘The price? There is no price—’

‘You’re wrong. Either we pay the price, or our child will. If you give birth to a boy he will be an heir to the throne of Quaram, but he can only assume that status if we marry and he is born within wedlock. If he is not, my family will never recognise him.’

‘An heir to the throne—would he be…. honestly?’ Elinor exclaimed in astonishment. ‘Marry?’

‘I don’t think that we have a choice. As soon as you’ve had your pregnancy confirmed by a doctor, I have to marry you. I refuse to embarrass my family with a scandal and it is imperative that our child is born legitimate.’

Elinor realised that his decisions were based on a different set of parameters from hers but she was impressed by his willingness to stand by their child and look into the future. ‘I could have a little girl.’

‘She, too, would be denied her inheritance if she is not born within marriage. The birth of an illegitimate child is still a very serious matter in my country.’

‘You’re prepared to marry me to stop that happening?’ Elinor prompted, because she just couldn’t accept that he was prepared to go to such lengths.

‘I am. Isn’t securing our child’s future the most important issue at stake here?’

‘But we hardly know each other.’ Elinor dealt him a pained glance of shame as she forced out that admission. ‘I’m only a nanny … you’re a prince.’

‘Our child won’t care who or what we are as long as we love him … or her,’ he responded wryly.

She was touched by that assurance and the thought that had gone into it. He was so responsible and he would make a good father; he was already worrying about what was best for their child. All right, she had eyes in her head and she could see that he wasn’t exactly celebrating at the prospect of marrying her, but neither was he thinking of leaving her to deal alone with her pregnancy. ‘Do you think we could make a marriage work?’ she murmured half under her breath.

‘I’m willing to make the effort.’ His beautiful dark eyes wandered over her at a leisurely pace and lingered on her soft pink mouth and the ripe pout of her breasts until her face burned and she shifted in her chair. ‘I find you very attractive. That’s a healthy foundation.’

Elinor knew that, with the smallest encouragement, he would scoop her up and take her back to bed to sate the hunger he made no attempt to hide. Her nipples were tightening and the familiar hollow ache was awakening between her thighs. But she felt too vulnerable to give him that signal. She wanted to be more than the woman who satisfied his sexual needs. But even though she wanted more she knew that she was still prepared to marry him on the practical and unemotional basis that he had outlined. If he was ready to give her his full support, she was willing to do whatever it took to ensure a more secure and happy future for her baby.

‘I’ll marry you, then,’ she told him gruffly.

Jasim almost laughed out loud at the idea that he might have required that confirmation. Of course she was going to marry him and snatch at the chance to live in luxury for the rest of her days! Not for one moment had he doubted that fact. ‘I’ll make the arrangements. Please don’t share our plans with anyone for the moment. We need to keep this a secret if we want to keep the tabloid press out of the picture.’

Jasim retreated back to the doorway. Dark-driven anger was stirring out of the ashes of his shock. He had known that he was dealing with a devious and mercenary young woman, who was willing to encourage a married man’s pursuit to feather her nest. Yet, even armed with that awareness, he too had fallen for her wiles and straight into a sexual honey-trap refined by the guilt-inducing gift of her virginity. He had played into her scheming hands as easily as a testosterone-driven teenager. Elinor Tempest had simply traded her body to the highest and most available bidder and the pay-off promised to be huge on her terms. Marriage into the Rais ruling family would reward her with immense wealth and status and that unhappy truth galled him.

Her face full of uncertainty, Elinor hovered by the bed. His beautiful golden gaze was cold as charity and she flushed. ‘Are you leaving?’

‘I have work to do,’ Jasim delivered curtly. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

On the day of the wedding, Elinor was torn in two with indecision. She had barely laid eyes on Jasim since the day she told him she was pregnant. He had personally accompanied her to the office of a gynaecologist in private practice, who had confirmed her pregnancy. She rather suspected that Jasim had regretted doing so when a well-dressed lady in the waiting room had recognised him and begun chattering away to him. Since then, though she had given up her temping work, he had not visited the apartment again or accompanied her anywhere and they had communicated only by phone. In every way possible he had distanced himself from her, retreating behind a smooth, polite façade that she could not penetrate.

She had fallen crazily in love with a guy who didn’t return her feelings, Elinor conceded wretchedly. Would he ever love her back? Or did the very fact that he felt he had to marry her for the sake of their child mean that she would never, ever inspire him to any warmer emotions? Those were the questions that Elinor struggled to find a fair answer to while she prepared all on her own for what she had once thought would be the happiest day of her life.

Too insecure to purchase the white wedding gown of her dreams and wear it, Elinor made do with a cream lace suit composed of a jacket and a slim skirt that came to just below her knees. None of the romantic frills that most women craved seemed appropriate. Jasim sent a car to collect her and she was ushered into the register office where the civil ceremony was to take place. A limp flower arrangement was the dusty room’s only claim to glamour. But her attention zeroed straight in on Jasim, dramatically handsome in a dark suit teamed with a gold silk tie, his bronzed angel face grave and oddly forbidding.

Her tummy flipped with nerves rather than excitement because her bridegroom looked more as though he were attending a funeral. Give him the option of walking away, a little voice in her head urged her. ‘Could I have a word with you in private?’ Elinor enquired tautly.

Jasim detached himself from the company of the two aides flanking him and approached her. ‘What is it? We haven’t much time.’

‘There is no obligation on you to do this. If you don’t want to marry me, just walk away now. I won’t hold it against you. I won’t stop you seeing the baby either,’ she whispered frantically. ‘Just don’t marry me because you feel you have to, because it’ll cause us both nothing but unhappiness.’

Jasim dealt her a raw appraisal that warned her that he was seething with emotion beneath the cool front. ‘We have a future together with our child. I cannot walk away from either of you.’

‘But I don’t want a noble, self-sacrificing hero of a husband,’ Elinor declared, even as he turned away from her.

Jasim closed a hand over hers and walked her back with him to where the registrar was standing. ‘We haven’t got time for this nonsense.’

The ceremony was brief and over with very quickly. A shiny new ring on her wedding finger, Elinor got into a limousine that wafted them back through the busy city streets to a hugely impressive Georgian town house set in a dignified square with a lush garden at its centre. Jasim spent the entire journey on his cell phone, which, Elinor acknowledged bitterly, at least saved him from the challenge of having to chat to her. She wondered how he would manage without it in bed, or even if he ever planned to make physical contact with her again. I’ve made a mistake, she thought fearfully. I’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake marrying him and now it’s too late to do anything about it!

‘We’ll have lunch now,’ Jasim murmured, guiding her up the steps of the town house and into a spacious hall hung with beautiful oil paintings. ‘Why are you so quiet?’

Elinor almost lost her temper with him there and then, almost told him what a horrible wedding it had been and how she had given him the opportunity to back out and that, if he hadn’t taken it, the least he could have done was make the effort to ensure that it was a pleasant occasion! But, conscious that his bodyguards and the housekeeper were hovering, she bit back her ire. ‘I suppose I’m just tired.’

‘You should lie down for an hour.’ Jasim signalled the housekeeper and she was escorted upstairs to a beautiful bedroom.

Angry tears in her eyes at the ease with which he had dismissed her from his presence, Elinor soon decided that she should go back downstairs and tell Jasim exactly what she thought of the wedding he had put her through. Maintaining a stiff upper lip was unlikely to improve the atmosphere between them, but maybe an argument would, she reasoned in desperation. After all, if he didn’t know how she was feeling, how could he make things better? But what if he didn’t care enough to even want to make things better? That was her biggest fear.

From the window she saw a limo draw up outside. She frowned when she saw Murad’s wife, Yaminah, scrambling out, for it had not escaped her notice that no member of his family had attended their wedding. She left the bedroom and headed for the stairs.

The sound of a shrill, raised, female voice greeted Elinor even before she reached the hall. It was Yaminah and she was ranting in French.

‘It’s my fault you got involved with the girl … didn’t I beg you to show an interest in her so that she would lose interest in my husband and pay him no heed?’ the older woman cried feverishly. ‘Now I’ve ruined your life! I can’t believe what you’ve done. You didn’t even get your father’s permission to marry her!’

The deep steady tones of Jasim’s rich drawl interposed, ‘The King would never have given his permission—’

‘Then it’s not too late. The marriage can be invalidated,’ Yaminah exclaimed. ‘It doesn’t matter that she’s pregnant, that can be hushed up. Pay her off, do whatever you have to do, anything other than sacrifice your happiness with this mockery of a marriage!’

Listening to that uniquely revealing dialogue, Elinor felt much as if she were being eviscerated with a knife. Perspiration beading her upper lip, she hurried back to the bedroom and straight into the adjoining bathroom where she was horribly sick. All of a sudden, she was realising what a total idiot she had been not to question why a spectacularly handsome prince would start showing a pronounced interest in her. Yaminah had asked him to. Murad’s wife had feared that her husband was at risk of being led astray by the nanny and had persuaded her brother-in-law to present himself as an alternative option. Goodness, had they really feared that she might have an affair with a married man as old as Murad? Jasim had been a dazzling success when it came to seduction and too virile for his own good, Elinor conceded painfully. No wonder the complication of a pregnancy had hit him hard! Jasim had never really wanted her at all and even less must he have wanted to marry her.

Elinor freshened up and pressed trembling hands to her damp cheeks. She would do Jasim one last favour: for the benefit of them both she would leave him. There was no true marriage to work at, no future to weave dreams around and clearly no togetherness or mutual passion to retrieve. Their whole relationship from start to finish had been a lie, a big fat fakery, to ensnare her and draw her in. She had been more than a little desperate to believe that he could find her irresistible—even though no other man ever had—and now all she was conscious of was a deeply painful sense of shame and humiliation. What a pushover and a patsy she had been!

She rooted through her luggage, which had been brought up, extracting jewellery, keepsakes, important documentation and a few necessities to keep her clothed until she had time to go shopping. She didn’t care about abandoning the rest—indeed her entire being was bent on leaving the town house just as fast as she possibly could. She piled everything she was taking with her into a smaller bag and changed into a more practical outfit of jeans and a jacket.

She yanked off her wedding ring and left it on the dressing table. Instantly she felt better about herself. He was gorgeous, rich and royal, but he had taken her for a cruelly manipulative ride that she would never forget. How naïve and immature she had been to give her trust so easily! A woman needed a man like a fish needed a bicycle, she quoted to herself, because her heart felt as if it were being pounded into pieces inside her. She didn’t need him when she had herself to depend on, a willingness to work and a comfortable savings account. She and her baby would get by just fine without him.

Even so, tears dampened her face as she crept through the hall and slid like an eel out the front door with barely a sound. She walked briskly down the street and she didn’t once look back. She was already making plans to ensure that even though he looked for her he would find it very difficult to find her again.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘ALL right, so he’s not there right now,’ Alissa conceded grudgingly, lodged at the front window and scanning the pavement opposite for the young man she had noticed earlier. ‘But I swear he was out there looking up at this apartment most of the day.’

Lindy, a curvaceous brunette, groaned out loud and rolled her eyes at Elinor. ‘We haven’t got a boyfriend between us but we’ve attracted a stalker? We don’t have a lot of luck, do we?’

Elinor didn’t laugh. Anything out of the ordinary tended to make her tense. She was always a little on her guard. Eighteen months had passed since she had set out to make a new life and preserve her independence by cutting all ties with the old. Kneeling, she bent over Sami, slotting her baby son into a stretchy sleep-suit covered with pictures of toy racing cars. He thought it was a game and continually tried to roll away out of reach. She closed a hand round a chubby ankle to hold him steady.

‘Sami … stay still,’ she scolded, trying to be stern.

Enormous brown eyes surrounded by black lashes as long as fly swats danced with mischief. He rolled again. At ten months old, Sami had buckets of charm and a huge amount of personality. He was a fearless extrovert to his fingertips. When life went his way he was all sunny smiles and chuckles, but when it went wrong he seethed with melodrama and sobbed up a heartbreaking storm.

‘It’s bedtime,’ Elinor told the little boy, tenderly hugging him close, revelling in his squirming warmth and cuddliness and the sweet familiar scent of his skin.