An heir.
A child.
What else could be worth all that Al Makthabi would have to pay out?
‘Raoul…?’
The distance in his withdrawal had communicated itself to Imogen. She knew the reason for it too, if the dawning horror in her eyes was anything to go by.
‘Raoul…’ she began, her voice in the same condition as his had been.
This was where it began. This was how she was preparing to tell him the truth. She was going to admit what had happened to the child she hadn’t even given him a chance to know.
He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want her actually to speak the words.
‘No!’
It was sharp, brutal, meant to cut off this topic before it had time to form. He didn’t want her to confirm the one thing that could come between them. He wanted to stop this right now, freeze the moment so it couldn’t go any further. Before he said something he totally regretted.
‘Raoul—we have to talk.’
Imogen felt like she was fighting her way through frozen fog, so thick she couldn’t even see Raoul’s face, in spite of the fact he was so close. But the ice she took in with each breath told her that he was there and that he had changed from the second she had said that one word.
An heir.
‘Nothing to talk about.’
Something of the mist had thinned so she could see his expression, and deep down she wished that she’d stayed frozen and blind. There was nothing to help her in the opaque blankness of his eyes, the way his mouth was clamped tight into a thin, hard line.
‘Of course there is.’
The shake of his head was adamant, but far worse was the way that he had turned from her, snatching up the shoes that had been discarded on the floor—a lifetime ago, it seemed—and pulling them on with brutal efficiency, his silence shocking after all that had been between them.
What had happened to the ardent, passionate lover? The man who had taken her to the stars and held her as she splintered into a thousand tiny pieces under him? Where was the man who, however unemotionally, had said they should marry?
Did that ‘proposal’ still hold now? Was she a fool to fear that what she’d said changed everything? That Raoul had no intention of marrying her, even in the businesslike way he had suggested?
He was fully dressed now, shirt buttoned up with frightening precision, belt tightened around his narrow waist. But it was not the clothing or the move away from her that emphasised the distance between them. That was stamped onto his face, etched around his nose and eyes.
‘I understand,’ she managed. ‘If…if you don’t want a child.’
Now what had she done to bring his head up like that, the blaze of his eyes threatening to shrivel her where she stood?
‘Not want a child?’ It hissed in between clenched teeth. ‘Of course I want a child.’
Was it relief or lack of understanding that made her head swim? Or was it the unravelling of bitter memories twisting out from under the mental rocks she had tried to pile on top of them, demanding to be heard?
‘I want my child.’
It was the tiniest emphasis on that word that told her all she needed to know.
Raoul knew. Somehow he had found out what had happened and he knew all about the secret she had tried to keep hidden. He knew about the baby. Dark tendrils of grief were tangling round her heart, making it impossible to think straight, to find any way to answer him.
‘Our child,’ she hedged.
It did nothing to lighten the glazed darkness in those stunning eyes. There was no easing of the tension in any muscle.
‘You can’t just demand—’
‘Why not?’ Dark, brutal, savage. ‘You were prepared to have one with Adnan.’
But that had been so much easier. She had cared about Adnan and she would have loved the child. Adnan’s child wouldn’t have come trailing such memories, complications, such unhappiness and loss. She had known that baby would have been wanted and Adnan would have loved his son or daughter.
‘Adnan—Adnan is a friend.’
‘We were more than friends.’
‘We were not! I fancied you like hell—couldn’t keep away from you—but how could we even be friends? I didn’t even like you—I still don’t!’