Indian Prince's Hidden Son / Craving His Forbidden Innocent

His hand covered her tense fingers. ‘We won’t let anything split us up,’ Jai told her. ‘Hari’s happiness depends on us staying together.’

‘Did you miss your mother so much?’ Willow heard herself ask without even thinking.

‘I was a baby when she deserted my father and I have no memory of her,’ Jai admitted flatly as he removed his hand from hers. ‘I met her only once as an adult. I don’t talk about my mother…ever.’

Willow swallowed painfully hard as her cheeks burned in receipt of that snub and she knew that she wouldn’t be raising that thorny topic again.

CHAPTER FIVE

THEY DROVE ALONG a heavily wooded and fenced road and over a very decorative bridge on which a cluster of pale grey monkeys was perched. A tall archway ushered the car into a large central courtyard, ringed by a vast two-storey white building, picturesquely ornamented with domed roofs and a pillared frontage. Only then did Willow appreciate that they had arrived at the Lake Palace.

As she climbed out of the car, she was surprised to see a group of colourfully clad musicians drumming and playing with enthusiasm to greet their arrival. A trio of maids hurried down the steps fronting the long pillared façade of the building, bearing cool drinks, hot cloths for freshening up and garlands of marigolds. Behind them, from every corner of the complex poured more staff.

‘It’s traditional,’ Jai dismissed when she gaped and commented.

‘But why on earth do you employ so many people?’

Jai frowned. ‘My father raised me to believe that our role in society is to provide employment wherever we can. Yes, I appreciate that we don’t need the five-star triumphal welcome that my ancestors all enjoyed, but you must also appreciate that those who serve us rely on their employment here. One person may be responsible for keeping an entire tribe of relatives. Never seek to cut household costs unless you see evidence of dishonesty,’ he warned her.

‘I wasn’t criticising,’ Willow backtracked uncomfortably, self-consciously skimming her gaze across the lush garden fronting the palace instead. Glorious shrubs were in full bloom all around them. She couldn’t immediately identify even one of the shrubs and was immediately keen to explore a new world of tropical plants. She turned as the other cars drew up behind them and immediately moved forward to reclaim Hari from Shanaya, her heart lifting as her son greeted her with a huge smile.

‘I keep up the traditions as my father did,’ Jai murmured softly by her side, lifting his son from her as the baby stretched out a hand to touch him and screwed up his face at his failure to make contact with his father. ‘I employ as many people as possible. When I was younger, I was less far-seeing. When a household custom seemed outdated, I banned it, but it wasn’t always possible for those involved to find another position on my staff. Modernising is to be welcomed but not if it means I’m putting people on the breadline to achieve it.’

‘I understand,’ Willow murmured, aware of the stares from the assembled staff, whom Jai invited closer to see their son. The level of their appreciation for the little boy in Jai’s arms warmed her from inside out.

One of the gardeners approached her with a beautiful pink and yellow flower and extended it to her before bowing very low.

‘He is proud to be the first to welcome the new Maharani to her home and he swears that even the frangipani blossom is not your equal,’ Jai translated with an amused grin.

They walked into a huge circular hall fashioned entirely of marble and supported on carved pillars while Jai directed her towards the curving staircase and up to the landing. He walked down an imposing corridor lined with portraits of the former Maharajas of Chandrapur and showed her into a room already set up as a nursery for Hari.

Willow reclaimed her son and sat down with him.

‘When you’re free I’ll join you for a late lunch. I have some work matters to take care of,’ Jai told her before leaving again.

Hari needed to be changed and fed and there were innumerable staff hovering, eager to take care of his needs for her, but Willow didn’t want to lose her position of being first and foremost in her baby’s life, nor did she want him exposed to too many new faces and different childcare practices at once. Overpowered by the grandeur of Jai’s home, she also needed a moment or two of doing ordinary things to feel comfortable again. Thanking everyone cheerfully for the help she wouldn’t accept, she saw to Hari herself before finally laying him down for his nap.

When she emerged from the nursery again, a moustachioed man in a bright red turban and traditional attire spread open an inlaid brass door on the other side of the landing and bowed his head in a deferential invitation. Willow passed by him into the most breathtaking interior and her steps slowed as she paused to admire the intricate glass mosaic tiles set into the walls to make superb pictures of a bygone age. Depicted on the walls were hunting scenes with elephants and tigers and grand and very vivid ceremonial processions. Talking on his phone, Jai was striding across the shaded terrace beyond the room that overlooked the lake. In that airy space a table and chairs were arranged.

Willow watched him move, absorbing the elegant grace of his lean, powerful figure as he moved and talked, spreading expressive fingers, shifting his hands this way and that in fluid stress or dismissal of a point. A thrill of desire pierced her soft and deep, making her breath catch in her throat. He was so extremely good-looking and she was married to him now, which still didn’t seem real to her. His head turned as he noticed her hovering for the first time and the heat of his stare sent the blood drumming up beneath her skin.

Willow sank down into a dining chair. A napkin was laid over her lap with a flourish by a bearded middle-aged man.

‘This is Ranjit,’ Jai explained, dropping his phone down on the tabletop and settling down opposite her. ‘He speaks excellent English and oversees our household. Anything you need, you ask him, and he will provide it. After we’ve eaten, I’ll show you around.’

‘It’s a fascinating building and the surroundings only make it more exotic,’ she commented, watching a crocodile slide off a mudflat into the lake, his two beady eyes creepy bumps above the surface as he swam. ‘But I shouldn’t like to meet that gator on a dark night.’

‘For safety we only ever leave this building in vehicles. I’ll take you on a mini safari some afternoon, although it’s amazing how many of the animals you can view from up here. Sooner or later, they all visit the water. He’s not a gator, by the way, he’s a marsh crocodile.’

‘I don’t know much about wild animals,’ she confided. ‘Only what I’ve learned from watching documentaries. Tell me, why so many palaces?’

‘Every generation wanted to be current. Centuries ago this palace and the land around it was for the royal family to hunt.’ Jai grimaced. ‘And now it’s a wildlife reserve. The original fortress above the city is magnificent but could not possibly be adapted to modern life and my grandfather’s deco palace is more of a showpiece than a home. Approximately two thirds of that building is now an award-winning hotel and the remaining wing remains ours. We will entertain my relatives and friends there at a party to be held in a few weeks to celebrate our marriage. Is there anyone you wish to invite on your own behalf?’

‘No relatives left alive,’ she reminded him. ‘And no friends who could afford to fly out to India just for a party.’

‘I would cover the expense for any of your guests. Shelley?’

Willow winced and coloured. ‘She has no holiday leave left. She had to take time off to help me with Hari after he was born.’

His ebony brows furrowed. ‘Why? Was he very challenging?’

‘No, I was the problem,’ Willow confessed. ‘I had to have an emergency Caesarean and it was a couple of weeks before I was fit enough to look after him on my own. They don’t keep you in hospital after surgery for long these days.’

Jai compressed his lips. ‘And yet you still didn’t think of contacting me for help?’

‘We got through it,’ Willow muttered with a troubled shrug.

‘Why…an emergency?’ he pressed. ‘What happened?’

‘I’d been in labour for hours and it wasn’t progressing as it should’ve done. Hari was a big baby and they had to operate for his sake.’ Willow relaxed a little as the food arrived and relaxed even more when she registered that it was entirely a British chicken meal without even a hint of spice.

Jai’s high cheekbones were prominent beneath his bronzed skin. He could have lost his son without ever knowing he existed. He could have lost Willow as well. The acknowledgement shook him and her lack of guilt on that score annoyed him, no matter how hard he worked at suppressing such negative reactions. Jai was accustomed to being in charge, used to women who were eager to please him, certainly not a woman who shunned his support and thrust her independence unapologetically in his face. Or perhaps it was the fact that she still refused to admit that she had made a mistake in not telling him that she was pregnant. Had behaved as though he could have no possible importance as a father in his son’s life.

Or, more probably, had she thought of her own father’s cruel indifference to her feelings when she’d failed to meet his exacting academic standards? Possibly she had decided that a father figure was not so necessary. Jai, however, had enjoyed a father who was caring and supportive and it was a role he took very seriously. Suddenly impatient, he thrust his plate away and stood up.

‘Let me show you the palace,’ he urged, watching as she rose to her feet, her jewelled eyes bright in her heart-shaped face, her lush mouth pink and succulent. Even as he dragged his attention from her mouth, he was hard and full and throbbing. The result of more than a year’s celibacy, he told himself in exasperation. In those circumstances, it was natural, even normal, for him to be almost embarrassingly wound up. He had not gone that long without sex since he became an adult. There was no reason whatsoever for him to get worked up about the prospect of having sex with his wife when it was a purely practical element of a marriage undertaken simply to confirm his son’s status.

He escorted her downstairs to the two-storey library that had been his father’s pride and joy. Sheltered beneath one of the domes, it rejoiced in a twisting narrow marble staircase to the upper floor.

Willow stopped dead to look around herself in amazement at the towering columns of bookcases. In several places there were alcoves backed by stained-glass window embrasures and upholstered with comfortable cushions, little reading nooks, she registered in fascination, never having entered so inviting a library space. ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous,’ she murmured appreciatively. ‘I may not be academic but I love to read, so it’s ironic that all the books here will mostly be in another language.’

‘No. There are many English books in this library.’ Jai watched her sink down into one of the reading nooks. A tiny delicate figure in a pale blue dress that somehow brought out the peach glints in her hair and the perfect clarity of her porcelain skin, against which her green eyes gleamed like emeralds.

Willow inched back on her elbows until she was fully reclined, her head resting back against a soft cushion, and grinned. ‘I can tell you now… I’ll be spending time in here.’

Jai studied her with helpless intensity. She was entirely unaware of her own appeal, entirely divorced from the reality that her hem had ridden up and a deeply erotic view of the space between her slender thighs was open to him. Without even being aware of it, prompted more by his senses than by anything else, Jai moved closer. ‘You’re the most beautiful thing in here,’ he said in a driven undertone.

‘Less of the sauce, Jai…as Shelley would say,’ Willow teased, coming up on her elbows again and preparing to get up. ‘I’m not and have never been a beauty. You don’t need to say that sort of stuff to me just because we’re married. I don’t expect it.’

Jai moved so fast she was startled when he came down over her, caging her in the nook with his lean, powerful body. ‘I very rarely say anything I don’t mean,’ he rasped, coming down to her to claim her mouth with a hungry brevity that only made her crave him more. ‘It is for me to tell you that you are beautiful, not for you to disagree, because what would you know about it?’

Willow blinked, disconcerted by that sudden kiss. ‘Well…er…’

‘Because you haven’t got a clue!’ Jai growled in reproof, pushing down on her with his lean hips and shifting with sinuous grace against her pelvis to acquaint her with his arousal.

It was the most primal thing he had ever done to her and it set Willow on fire, inside and out. It was as though he’d lit a pulse in the most sensitive area of her body, a part of herself she had more or less forgotten existed after the discovery that she was pregnant. There had been no more lying awake restless in the night hours, shifting in frustration while she wantonly recalled the heated expertise of his body on hers. No, she had shut that sensual side down, recognising that that was what had got her into trouble in the first instance and that, with a child on the way, she had more important stuff to focus on. But in that moment, there was nothing more important than the powerful allure of Jai’s hot-blooded invitation and the wanting took her by storm. Her arms reached up of their own seeming volition and snaked round his neck to pull him down to her.

‘No, not here…perhaps some other day but not on what is virtually our wedding night,’ Jai specified authoritatively.