He didn’t sound like a man proposing marriage.
She pressed shaking hands together, painful memories resurfacing. Dreams she’d spun years ago when she’d begun to fall in love with Toby.
Annalisa had expected a marriage proposal then.
It had never eventuated. Toby had gone back to Canada, taking up a new job as a geologist. Instead of returning for her, as promised, news had arrived months later that he’d married someone else. Someone ‘from home’. Who fitted his world, his expectations.
Not someone like Annalisa, who straddled two cultures and was viewed as alien to both.
Was she doomed always to be an outsider, unworthy of love?
‘Marriage isn’t the only solution.’
When she married it would be for love. Like that her parents had shared. Her father had loved his wife till the end. His whole focus those last days had been surviving long enough to name the Asiya Comet for her.
A cold-hearted marriage to a cold-hearted man would be disaster. Even with her inexperience Annalisa knew that.
‘What else is there? For you to bring up my illegitimate child under my nose?’
She raised her chin. ‘Would it be the first?’
‘I’ve already told you.’ Tahir bit out the words with a restrained savagery that made her shrink back. ‘No other woman has carried my child.’
Spoken like a man with a soft spot for the woman he planned to marry!
‘It needn’t be under your nose.’
‘You intend to emigrate?’
Silently she shook her head, feeling harried. This was too much, too soon. What should she do for the best?
‘You want our child born illegitimate?’
‘No,’ she said miserably. ‘But I don’t want…’
‘What don’t you want, Annalisa?’
She bit her lip, not daring to voice the fears crowding close. How could she tie herself to a man she barely knew? A man she’d naïvely believed she…cared for, only to discover she didn’t know him at all.
Could she trust a man of his reputation? Give herself and her baby into his keeping? In Qusay a husband had real power over his wife. His word was law.
If that husband was also King…They were poles apart, separated by an unbreachable gulf.
‘Annalisa, look at me. Talk to me.’
Slowly she turned. He leaned close, broad shoulders blocking the view. His powerful presence pinioned her as if he held her in his arms.
If only he would hold her. Sweep her into his embrace as he had in the desert. She wanted to lean in and let him comfort her, care for her. But allowing herself to trust him in such a way would pose a dangerous threat to her already vulnerable heart.
She looked up into eyes bright as gems, at a mouth firm and decisive, a chin that jutted just a little aggressively as he waited for her to speak.
‘Thank you for the offer,’ she said in a low voice. ‘No…’ She looked away. ‘I don’t know. I need time.’
She needed time!
How much time did she think there was before her pregnancy became obvious? Before she became the subject of cruel jibes? Before she was shunned for her liaison with him?
Did she want that for herself and her baby?
Guilt punched hard in his gut. This was his fault. He’d given in to temptation and she’d pay the price.
Annalisa was so proud, so obstinate, and she wouldn’t let him help her. Couldn’t see how much worse the scandal would be because of who he was and what he’d been. The memory of that scene with her uncle curdled his stomach. He couldn’t let her face such prejudice alone.
Or his child. Tahir had experience of being hated as a boy. He refused to give anyone the chance to hold his child in contempt.
He raked a hand through his hair as he paced his vast apartments, a sullen mix of emotions boiling over as he recalled her hesitation.
Since when had any woman said no to him? Women fell like ripe peaches into his open palm. Yet this woman hesitated. This little mouse, unsophisticated and innocent.
At least she had been till Tahir met her.
He had to make this right. Even if she didn’t want him to. Even if she didn’t want him.
The absurdity was that, with beautiful women put forward daily for his approval by those hoping he’d marry, it was Annalisa he wanted.
He felt a stirring in his groin and pounded his fist against the wall. It didn’t matter what he wanted.
This was about necessity.
The thought of becoming a husband and father made him break out in a cold sweat. As usual, his desires were less honourable. It was sexual gratification he dreamt of, night after night. He hungered for Annalisa as he hadn’t hungered for any woman.
Yet he couldn’t leave her to cope with pregnancy and child-rearing alone. Not with his child. He might have lived the life of a reprobate, but he wasn’t a complete moral vacuum.