“First, I’m going to call my brother. I’m going to tell him the truth, and I’m going to tell him I will be home in three days.” She lifted her finger. “Three days.If I’m not, you had better believe every Xenakis will descend upon you and all hell will break loose. Do you understand?”
His jaw clenched and his shoulders showed tension but he nodded stiffly. “If you really want to do that, then go ahead.”
Shedidn’treally want to do it. In fact, it was the last thing she felt like doing, but it seemed like a sensible precaution to take, all things considered, so she dialled Nicholas’s number. In a stroke of good luck, it went to voicemail. She kept the message short but comprehensive.
“Hi Nick. I left the wedding early. Brace yourself, I know this will come as a shock, but I’m pregnant, and Samir al Qadi’s the father. He’s taking me back to Al Medina to…discuss custody arrangements. Come for dinner at my apartment on Wednesday and I’ll explain more. And if I’m not there by Wednesday, tell the family and come get me. Love you.”
She batted her lashes at Samir in a gesture designed to imply innocence when inside she was fuming.
As was he.
“Thank you for that,” he snapped, his own tone rich with sarcasm.
“What?”
He moved past her to a cabin at the back of the helicopter and pulled out a dark green piece of fabric. “I would recommend putting this on.”
She stared at the beautiful silk, like the golden scarf she’d worn for the memorial service. Evidently, Samir mistook her slow reply for hesitation.
“It is a sign of respect.”
She glared at him—that was too hard to swallow, given the tumult of her feelings. “Respect for you? Idon’trespect you though, Samir. I don’t respect you, I don’t like you, in fact, right now, I absolutely loathe you. Do you have a pretty little piece of fabric that can communicate those feelings?”
“Respect for my people, my culture. Wear the damned thing, don’t wear it, I don’t care.”
Fire flooded her veins but she reached out and snatched the fabric from him, lifting it over her head and arranging it as best she could.
Samir apparently didn’t feel it was enough. He closed the distance between them abruptly, his hands lifting to her hair first, pushing it back from her face, then taking hold of the fabric and repositioning it, slowly, purposefully, draping it elegantly over one shoulder. And damn it, having him so close, his breath warm against her cheeks, his lips right there, his body strong and powerful and tantalisingly near, she could only stare and long and ache, and remember, fierce slashes of recollection, fragments of dreams and need. The headscarf was perfect but his hands remained on either side of her face, his wrists resting on her shoulders, his eyes at the top of her head at first and then, dropping lower, to her eyes, so he saw the way she was staring at his lips, fantasising, remembering.
The noise he made was a low, gruff growl and then one hand moved to her chin, his finger and thumb gripping her there and lifting her face, so her eyes shifted to his. She saw the intent in them, she understood, but a second later, he was kissing her, his lips crushing down on hers in a masterful reminder of how alive their chemistry was, how desperately and totally it consumed her. He kissed her until she was breathless, her hands lifting and curling in the hair at his nape, her body cleaved to his with an almighty hunger, her heart shimmering with a feeling that made no sense—a feeling that everything was finally okay.
He kissed her and she felt as though she’d…come home. It was that simple. It was that terrifying.
He broke the kiss, and when her eyes fluttered open, she saw him initially through a haze of lust and the love that still stirred in her heart.
His obsidian eyes glittered darkly.
“Do not say you loathe me,azeezi, or I will prove you to be a liar on that score.”
It took a moment for the words to filter through her sensuality-addled brain but when they did, and she felt the full, angry force of them, she gasped, lifting a hand to her lips as though she could smudge away his kiss.
She trembled from head to toe but when she spoke, her voice was almost steady. “What you just proved is that you’re a first-grade asshole and I’m right to hate you.” She glared at him. “That kiss was proof of nothing but sexual chemistry.” She stepped away from him, until her back collided with the wall of the cabin. “I’m giving you three days, and only because it’s right for our baby that we work out how we’re going to deal with this. I amnotmarrying you. Not now, not ever.” She let her statement fill the air of the cabin then exhaled slowly. “Let’s go: the clock’s ticking.”
12
THERE HAD BEEN NO PHOTOGRAPHERS at the airport, Cora realised belatedly. She was adept at spotting the signs—shadows against the sky, flashes that didn’t make sense. She’d seen none of them tonight.
Which meant he’d lied to get her to agree to this.
He’d used her biggest fear against her. He’d taken something she’d shared with him in confidence and exploited it to manipulate her into accompanying him.
It turned her blood to ice.
She sat in the divinely comfortable seat of his royal jet, one hand protectively over her stomach, face angled towards the window, skin paler than she knew.
Samir couldn’t helpbut stare at her.
His gut churned with emotions he didn’t comprehend, but he felt worried—he recognised that feeling, at least; he understood it.