Darker Side of Desire & the Sheikh's Pregnant Prisoner(19)

Shivering suddenly as she wrapped her body in the thick fleecy towel Zenaide had provided, Claire wondered a little about that love making. The first time she could understand. Raoul had been bitterly, furiously angry and she was not so naïve that she couldn’t appreciate how quickly desire could spring from the loins of anger, once at least. But afterwards, when his anger had had time to die down… He had still wanted her, Claire reminded herself bleakly, and he had decided to assuage that want, desire at that particular moment in time being more important to him than anything else. But later, with his hunger appeased, he would have thought differently. Besides, if she was honest with herself, he had never wanted her to partner him in this charade and she, fool that she was, had given him the perfect excuse to be rid of her. What would he tell his uncle? That she had fallen in love with him, and he found her love embarrassing?

‘If the Sitt is ready, Ali is waiting to drive her to the airport.’

Heeding Zenaide’s calm warning, Claire dressed quickly, donning the clothes Zenaide had put out for her—soft, pure silk underwear in warm cream and a silk dress in the same fabric with a matching unstructured jacket. The ensemble was a sophisticated one, a little too dressy to travel in, but she felt too weary and miserable to change it. When she walked back into her bedroom she saw on the bed the perky hat that went with the outfit. In the shop she had loved it, but now… However, Zenaide was placing it with the rest of her luggage. If nothing else, she was better off by an exclusive brand-new wardrobe, she reminded herself cynically, trying to ignore the inner voice adding that she was also coming close to having a broken heart. She loved Raoul. She couldn’t deny it any longer. With one last kiss for Saud, her lips were trembling badly as she turned to embrace Zenaide. ‘You will look after him, Zenaide, won’t you?’

‘The Lord Raoul has arranged everything,’ Zenaide assured her. ‘He will not be left alone for so much as a moment.’

In that, at least, she had faith in Raoul. He would never let anything injure Saud. But what of love? Would the little boy have that?

A servant placed her case in the car. Raoul was so eager to get rid of her that there hadn’t been time to pack everything, but doubtless the rest of her wardrobe would be sent on after her. Just before she left she had slipped in to Raoul’s room, trying not to look at the large bed as she placed the jewellery he had given her beside it.

All the way to the airport she, was fighting for self-control, trying to force back the tears that, once started, wouldn’t cease until she had cried herself dry. As before, there were no passport formalities to endure. Ali escorted her through the departure hall and out on to the tarmac where a streamlined jet plane waited, bearing the colours of the Omarah royal family. Her mouth twisted in a bitter smile, Claire mounted the stairs. Raoul was so anxious to get rid of her that he wouldn’t even wait for the twice-weekly Concorde flight, and she shuddered to think how much it would cost to transport her back to London in this expensive rich man’s toy.

A steward showed her to a seat. Unlike a commercial plane, this one was furnished more like a luxurious living-room with deep lush seats and a separate section which he told her contained a bedroom and bathroom.

They were airborne almost immediately, the blue waters of the gulf left behind below them as the plane levelled out. The steward had disappeared and yet now, when she had the privacy to cry, Claire found that her pain went deeper than mere tears. She wanted to cry but it just wasn’t possible. Instead her body ached with feverish pain, her mind crawling round in circles as she tried to rationalise the agony of mind and emotions threatening to swamp her. She heard a door open, and anticipated the return of the steward, but instead it was Raoul who stood over her, bending down to speak to her, his face stern and somehow older as he said something that seemed to reach her through a dizzy haze. He turned away then and she closed her eyes thinking he must be a mirage conjured up by her yearning mind, but there was nothing illusionary about the brandy he forced her to swallow, or the anger she could see glittering bleakly in his eyes as he returned the glass to the hovering steward.

‘Claire, are you all right now?’

‘Perfectly,’ she lied in a thin, little voice. ‘It was just that seeing you gave me such a shock. But then I suppose I ought to have guessed. I suppose you’re here to make sure that I actually leave… I’m tired, Raoul,’ she lied again, turning her face towards the window. ‘I think I’ll try and get some sleep. Wake me up when we reach Heathrow,’ she finished sardonically.

‘We aren’t going to Heathrow.’

The quiet words were like a douche of cold water. ‘Not… Then…’

‘We’re flying to Paris, Claire,’ Raoul told her in the same cold emotionless voice, glancing at his watch, the gold strap glinting in the light, as he added, ‘where we shall be married at five o’clock this evening. Everything is arranged. I have your passport, and I have checked with your Embassy. Since I possess dual citizenship and have retained my Christian religion, there is no bar to our civil marriage being performed in Paris. I have arranged matters with as much discretion as possible. Officially, we are travelling to Paris because my father has been taken ill, and you, in your capacity as my wife, have persuaded me to be reconciled with him.’ His mouth tightened a little. ‘My father has, of course, had to be included in my plans. He expressed himself most willing to participate in my charade…’

‘Married? You and I? But…’

‘Surely you did not think there could be any other outcome after what passed between us? Even now you might be carrying my child. Do you honestly think I would allow him to be brought up as I was, not knowing the love and care of his father?’

‘Your child? But…’

‘But what?’ he asked sardonically. ‘But it is not possible? On the contrary, Claire, it is all too possible! And our marriage need not be without its compensations. Sexually, at least, we are compatible, even if you do love another…’

Claire’s head was reeling. Did he honestly still think she loved someone else, after what had happened between them? Even if he did, she suspected it would not be long before he guessed the truth, and dredging up every last ounce of her courage, she said firmly, ‘No, Raoul, I will not marry you.’

‘And I say you will.’ His eyes had darkened to jade and Claire felt a frisson of fear as she looked into their obsidian depths. ‘And I mean what I say. You will marry me, even if I have to drug and bind you to get you to the altar. Is that the way you want it, Claire?’

He wasn’t lying. He had every intention of carrying out his threat if she didn’t agree, and all because of a slender chance that she might be carrying his child.

‘It seems a rather drastic course of action to take simply because we’ve been lovers,’ she pointed out drily. ‘We don’t even like one another…’

‘And I am the one to blame for this state of affairs because I gave in to my physical need of you, is that what you are trying to say?’ His face darkened, the skin melding itself to his hard bones. ‘You, Claire, are you not equally responsible? Do you think for one moment that if you had told me that you were still a virgin I…’

‘But you did,’ Claire reminded him hotly, his angry words unleashing her own temper. ‘Afterwards you…’

‘I am a man, not a boy, Claire,’ he cut in jeeringly. ‘What did you expect me to do? Carry you back to your own bed when every part of me still clamoured for release? But what is done is done and we must now think of the future. Our future and that of the child you might be carrying.’

There was no way she could make him listen to reason, Claire thought despairingly, and bearing in mind the traumas of his own childhood, was it so hard to understand why he was so determined that they should marry? He was, after all, right; impossible though it felt at the moment, she could be carrying his child. Taking a deep breath, Claire made up her mind what course of action she must take.

‘Very well, Raoul, I will marry you,’ she agreed with a calm she was far from feeling, ‘but only if you give me your word that until we know whether I am pregnant or not, we live… separately, and that if I am not carrying your child you will divorce me.’

‘And if you are carrying my child?’

‘Then…’

‘Then you will still want a divorce, even knowing you must leave your child with me, is that it? How you must love him, this man who holds your heart, even though it is I who have possessed your body. Very well,’ he said tautly, ‘it shall be as you wish, with one further stipulation. There will be no divorce until Saud is out of danger. Do you agree?’

Saud! She had almost forgotten him in the trauma of more recent events. ‘And if I do will you…?’

‘Allow you to sleep alone in your own bed?’ His eyebrows rose. ‘You are letting your imagination run away with you, Claire. What happened between us last night happened, but you have my word that while you live under my roof, whatever hungers and appetites I might have, I will not seek to satiate them in your bed. Does that reassure you?’