Desert King, Pregnant Mistress(20)

'Ring me if you need me,' she said  calmly to a girl in nurse's uniform  who was obviously on duty that  morning in the babies' darkened  sleep-room.                       
       
           



       

'Don't worry, I will,' the girl said, looking curiously at him.

Beth  braced herself and turned around. 'Hello, Khal … ' Nothing could  have  prepared her for seeing him again. All the warnings in the world   wouldn't have been enough. In essence he was the same, but there were   lines of strain around his eyes and his mouth, and recent scars on his   face. Had it only been just over a year? A year in which her world had   been turned upside down-but then so had Khal's, and in a different, ugly   way.

'May I?' he said.

She recognised that tone in his  voice. It echoed her own sense of  wonder whenever Hana was in view. 'Of  course,' she said. She would  never stop him seeing his daughter, but she  had feared this moment most  of all. 'So, you knew … '

'Of course I knew,' Khal murmured, nursing his daughter.

Of  course he knew. That was the power he wielded. And as Khal stared  into  Hana's face Beth feared that this was not the tender lover she'd  known  who had returned on a visit-but a warrior fresh from a war, a man  who  had come to claim his child.





CHAPTER TEN




THERE  were so many unanswered questions, but all Beth was aware of was a   creeping sense of dread. There was such intensity in Khal's gaze as he   stared down at their baby daughter. She understood it, but it  frightened  her. There was a sense of loss too, lodged in the pit of her  stomach  like a heavy weight. Her feelings for Khal were unchanged, but  that  sense of loss was for something that had never been hers.

Oblivious  to these undercurrents between her parents, Hana woke. The  bond between  father and daughter was instantaneous. Stretching out her  tiny hand,  Hana claimed Khal, curling her palm around his index finger.  The look on  his face transformed him, and when he smiled back at Hana  Beth knew for  certain that all their lives must change for good now.  Instinct drove  her to take up position on the opposite side of the cot  to Khal, where  she remained like a lioness in defence of its cub. Since  Khal's shock  appearance she hadn't been thinking straight, but she was  acutely alert  now. She had to keep her wits about her. Khal was  supremely powerful,  and used to wielding that power. If he decided to  walk out with Hana,  what could she do? And if he took their baby to  Q'Adar would she ever  see Hana again? The only thing left to her was to  open a line of  communication between them. 'Say hello to your daddy,  Hana,' Beth said,  hoping this might touch Khal's icy heart.

'Hana's a baby,' he  said impatiently, 'and she can't speak yet.'  Lifting his head, he gave  Beth an admonishing stare. 'And when you  address a royal child you  should remember that baby-talk is  inappropriate.'

Beth recoiled  inwardly. Was this something he'd learned in the royal  nursery at  Q'Adar? She couldn't imagine it had come from his mother:  from a nurse,  perhaps. But didn't a baby love the tone of its parent's  voice, and  couldn't it hear the affection and love? Was that wrong now?  As Khal  turned his back on her Beth felt like she had been slapped in  the face.  She didn't have a model for parenting, and had done her best  using  instinct. That instinct was telling her now that Khal had just   reinforced their respective positions in life, and that he was going to   take Hana to the opposite side of the great divide. She spared a   reassuring glance for Faith, who was doing her best to seem invisible,   and then moved deeper into the shadows where she and Khal could talk   discreetly. She beckoned him over. His dark eyes queried her   impertinence at ordering him, but she stood her ground until he joined   her. She told him straight. 'Please don't inflict your cold, unfeeling   ways on Hana.'


Khal's eyes were like black diamonds, hard and unmoving. 'You'll do as I say where our daughter is concerned.'

'Our  daughter,' Beth whispered, trying to remind him that she had a  say. But  she also had to remember that this was a man who had lived his  entire  life without emotion, a man whose world was not a cosy home but  a  palace, a man who had come here fresh from subduing his opponents.  She  had to find a way to make him see that this was a very different   situation, and to do that she had to swallow a bucketful of pride.   'Khal, I'm begging you … '                       
       
           



       

'Not here.' He glanced at Faith. 'In my office; five minutes.'

Inwardly  Beth was furious, but she would show none of that in front of  Hana. She  might be a mouse confronting the hawk of the desert, but when  it came  to their child Khal must learn that she would fight. 'I'm  going to  settle Hana back in her cot first,' she said, reaching for  her, 'and  then I'll come to your office.'

'Can't the nurse do that?'

Beth  didn't answer. She remained where she was with her arms  outstretched,  waiting for her child; she wasn't going anywhere until  Khal passed Hana  over.



'There can be no agreement between us while you  make these insane  demands,' Beth argued. She was standing rigid with  disbelief in the  office Khal had taken over for his visit. He had  insisted she must  return immediately with him to Q'Adar and forget her  life in England.  'I can't just throw everything up. I have a job here,   responsibilities-'

'Yes,' he cut across her. 'Responsibilities, to me and to your daughter.'

She  knew she didn't count, but the expression on Khal's face cut Beth  out  of the picture completely. He wanted his daughter, and if he  couldn't  part Beth from Hana then she must come too; that was what it  amounted  to. Her heart ached for the closeness they'd known, and for  Khal too,  but this was not the time for her to soften. It was crucial  to meet  Khal's steel with steel, or she'd go down. No chance that was  going to  happen with Hana to protect. Khal might be a slave to duty and  cut off  from emotion, but she was a mother devoted to her child. 'You  can't  uproot Hana on a whim. She has a routine.'

'Which can be reinstated in Q'Adar-and this is not a whim. I'm here because the safety of our daughter is at stake.'

'Hana's  safety?' Beth felt sick. The world as she knew it was  disintegrating,  and taking its place was something frightening and  unknown. The rights  and wrongs of going with Khal were irrelevant. Her  whole concentration  was focused on keeping Hana safe. 'What do you  mean?' she whispered.

'I intended to explain that to you on our flight back to Q'Adar.'

'You thought I would come with you meekly and without question?'

'I thought you would trust me.'

Beth's gaze flickered. 'It's not enough, Khal. I must know what you mean before I make a decision like this for Hana.'

'The situation in Q'Adar is turbulent and unpredictable.'

'All the more reason for staying here.'

'No,'  he said firmly. 'I cannot guarantee Hana's safety when she's so  far  away from me. The troubles in Q'Adar are like the random thrashings  of a  mad dog in the final throes of its agony. We are close to  stamping it  out, but there are those who bear grudges and would try to  slip away to  try and distract me from my purpose. They would stab me in  my heart,' he  said bitterly.

'Your heart?' The look in Khal's eyes stopped  Beth making any more  remarks along those lines. Hana had released  something inside him he  had been frightened of admitting, even to  himself-that not only did  Khal have a heart, but he was capable of love  so instant, so deep and  lasting, it had taken even him by surprise.

'There can be no delay. I have made my decision.'

'You have made a decision?' Beth said, refocusing. 'Hana has two parents.'

'What are you doing?' he said, snatching a phone out of her hand.

'Calling  my lawyer.' Thank goodness she had appointed one, along with  all the  other precautions she had taken, like obtaining a passport for  Hana so  they would never be trapped anywhere by anyone.

'And alert my  enemies? There isn't time for you to call a lawyer and  book an  appointment for some time next week. This is an urgent matter.'

'For you, but I must consider all Hana's options. I need time to think.'

'There  is no time to think. We don't have that luxury. I can assure you  I  wouldn't have come unless there was real and pressing danger. I came  to  you the instant the situation in Q'Adar was under control, but when   you're here I can't protect you both properly.'