The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction(56)

                Obviously struggling to hold on to her composure, she looked away, her voice scraped raw. “You didn’t come here for me.”

                “No,” he agreed, aware it was cruel to be so bald, but what did she expect? Declarations of love? They’d had an affair. That was all. He still couldn’t believe how many times he’d thought about her. How he’d wanted to set her up in London.

                But as he watched her flinch and nod, absorbing his slight, he realized that the woman who had welcomed him each night to her tent was not the sophisticated mistress he had let her become in his mind. The one confident in her allure and ability to drive him mad. No, Fern didn’t seem to have any idea the hold she still had on him. The depth of want he felt even more intensely now, when she was within reach. His desire, his ability to rationalize making her his, was greater than ever.

                And she made no effort to draw him back. The slump of her shoulders spoke of hopelessness.

                He supposed her ignorance was a relief, but it seemed to open a huge gap in the small room, one he didn’t know how to bridge.

                “How is Amineh?” she asked.

                The sudden change of topic threw him.

                “Fine,” he replied. “According to Ra’id. That was a few days ago. You?” he asked, as it belatedly occurred to him. “Everything is normal with the baby?”

                She gave an absent nod. “The supplements make me feel a bit off and I can’t stand the smell of sausage or bacon, but we’re both healthy and fat.” Her doll’s mouth pursed in a self-deprecating smile. “That’s what the midwife said.”

                “When are you due?”

                She told him.

                It was strange to imagine himself a father again and so soon, but as he mentally counted down the handful of weeks, a rush of eagerness to get there and see his son or daughter unexpectedly slid through him. A girl? With kinky red hair and a pert little mouth like her mother? What would Tariq think?

                He skimmed a hand over his damp hair. He hadn’t even told his son, being totally focused on confronting Fern and discovering if there was a baby on the way. The minute he’d seen her, he’d needed to know it was his. Had needed to claim it.

                He wanted to claim her, lies to the contrary and discomfort with the truth notwithstanding. His mind was exploding with the simplicity of it. Of course he would marry her and bring her back to Q’Amara. His personal ethics would accept nothing else.

                But she didn’t want to marry him. She wasn’t looking at him and he couldn’t look away from her. Heat climbed in him, some of it embarrassment at his partiality for her, so wrong for him, but a fresh emotion brimmed inside him as he took in her fertile figure: determination. She would marry him. She would live in his house with his child. They would make this work.

                He hoped they could make it work. A stealthy fear snaked through him that he was repeating history on more than one front, but he would not turn his back on his child.

                “Fern, marriage is the only—”

                “No it’s not,” interrupted. “You know it’s not.”

                “I won’t be my father,” he insisted, growing annoyed as she vehemently shook her head. “This baby might not be heir and successor to Q’Amara, but I won’t have an illegitimate child. People would look at Tariq as my ‘real’ son and say this one is something less. No. We must marry.”