The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction(75)

                She’d blushed crimson, of course. Zafir had deflected the conversation to boring topics about transferring her file to the specialist he’d contacted to take her in Q’Amara. He hadn’t said a thing about Underhill’s remark afterward.

                But when they’d kissed to seal their marriage, he’d quested for a response and she’d opened as beautifully as desert flowers to rain. He had been quaking inside with wanting her ever since, like a volcano threatening to crack under the pressure of burning lava rising within it.

                If he could have locked out the world and seduced her, he would have. But even though he shouldn’t ignore the interview requests, there was one task, one person, he absolutely could not disregard.

                “Where is she?” Tariq asked as he charged into Zafir’s private apartment and looked around the empty lounge.

                Zafir had left Fern here, suggesting she put her feet up while he fetched Tariq. He’d had quite the father-son chat with the boy before they’d circled back along the second-floor landing to Zafir’s rooms.

                The drawback to having an exceedingly mature and intelligent child, Zafir was learning, was the inability to pull any wool over the boy’s sharp brown gaze, even when it meant reflecting a less than admirable light on himself.

                You told me before that we were born into families of influence and should never misuse that. Did Miss Davenport know that she didn’t have to be nice to you in that way, if she didn’t want to be?

                I believe she did know that, yes, Zafir had claimed, even while a part of him still squirmed under the knowledge that his sophistication and experience well surpassed hers. He might not have coerced her, but he’d taken brazen advantage of her artless joy in discovering passion for the first time.

                And was going mad with wanting to do it again.

                While she was acting very quiet. His one query, when he’d seen her turning his grandmother’s ring around on her finger and asked if she was all right, had been met with a rueful smile. “As you pointed out last night, I like time to consider things and haven’t really had a chance to sort through all this. Yesterday I was going to rent a flat around the corner from Miss Ivy and raise this baby alone. Not everyone operates at light speed the way you do,” she’d teased lightly.

                Which he didn’t think had been meant as a warning that he should put the brakes on his libido, but he’d taken it as such. The guilt he was carrying over thrusting her into this new life was enough to instill some worry in him when they arrived in his rooms and she wasn’t there. Amineh had been anxious to have a webcam conversation, but Fern wasn’t in his adjoining office at his desk or even in the small powder room off that.

                His massive bedroom, which anyone could get lost in, was empty. She wasn’t behind any of the marble colonnades, wasn’t in the vast canopied bed, hadn’t entered the dressing room, wasn’t sitting in the reading alcove and hadn’t walked into his small sunken library to peruse his antique books. The sauna, not recommended in her condition, was empty, as was the bathing pool and the grotto shower with the faux waterfall. She hadn’t walked out to his private balcony or followed the stairs down to the pool, either.

                Disquiet began to creep into his psyche as he called for her and she didn’t answer. Vaguely he was aware of Tariq calling for Miss Davenport as he ran from corner to corner, but Zafir was far more concerned about her condition than maiden names versus married.

                “She probably went to her room in the harem,” Tariq said with snap of his fingers, chuckling as if they should have guessed that first.

                Tariq opened doors that Zafir used so seldom he’d forgotten they were there. A piece of modern art sat in the alcove before them, half blocking the ornate wooden panels, but Zafir’s mother had never lived in this palace and Tariq’s mother had certainly never come through them. About once a year, Tariq grew curious enough to wander through them and staff cleaned all nooks and crannies of the palace regularly, but otherwise no one entered this wing.