Wanted: A Baby by the Sheikh(3)

“You’ve returned because you want to have a child,” he repeated as a statement, as if unable to understand.

She nodded and focused her attention on brushing her fingertips over the soft pile of the arctic white cushion, noticing how her fingers were so tense that their tips quivered. She sunk them deeper so that he wouldn’t notice. She steeled herself and looked up at him. “Yes, I want our child.”

His gaze was narrowed and he shook his head in disbelief. “You walked away from our wedding, just walked away and kept walking while I waited for you, not knowing. And I heard nothing from you except a trail of bank transactions, credit card bills, for over a year. Now, without explanation you return saying you want our baby. What the hell is going on, Taina?”

A spark of anger at this simplistic version of events chased away the nerves. “You know full well why I left.”

At least he had the grace to look uncomfortable. “I thought you knew everything.”

“I knew I wanted to marry you and I’d believed you wanted to marry me. Just those two things were all I knew.”

“Life is never that simple.”

“Yes, I knew life—my life in particular—wasn’t simple, and yet I still believed it could be.” She shook her head. “Naïve.” She looked down at her drink and swilled it around in irritation at the memory. “I was stupid. I should have realized I’d been sold by my father to the highest bidder. When I found out, I even accepted it until I discovered giving you a child was also part of the deal. I drew the line at that.”

“But now?”

“Now...” She met his steady gaze. “Now, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Why?”

She should tell him straight away. He wanted honesty and she could be honest. It’d just been a long time since she had been. His expression was both curious and mocking. These she could deal with. But there was one emotion she couldn’t risk seeing in his eyes—pity.

“I can’t see it matters. I’m here to keep my side of the bargain.” She forced herself to look him in the eye. “If you’re no longer interested, just say so and I’ll leave. But a child is what you always said you wanted.” She couldn’t show him how much she, too, now wanted it.

With cool deliberation he placed his glass on the mantelpiece, his long dark fingers caressing the crystal momentarily, just as they’d used to caress her. Then he came and stood before her, searching her face as if trying to understand her. In that moment she felt the full blast of her connection with him. He didn’t touch her—he didn’t have to. From the first time they’d met it had been the same. He only had to look at her with those dark eyes—full of the heat of the desert rather than the ice of the north—for her to want him. Despite all that had gone before, it was the same now.

She tried to control the warmth that spread through her body, but she shifted her stockinged legs one against the other instinctively, and his gaze dropped to her legs. When his gaze returned to hers, it was hot with desire. But instead of acting on it, as he had in the past, he shook his head and walked away.

He flung the window open wide, sending in a blast of snowy, late spring air, which set the flames in the fire surging. She watched the snowflakes drift into the room and settle momentarily on the leather sofa before melting, leaving a darkened patch like blood on the honey-colored leather. She shivered.

He turned his back to the window and she dredged up every last bit of courage, rose from her chair and walked over to him. She could smell his aftershave and something more… something indefinably him. It made her mouth water. “It’s what you wanted,” she repeated.

For a moment she thought she had him as he inclined his head to hers. “No longer,” he whispered into her ear, flaring a trail of goosebumps down her spine.

She hadn’t come this far to risk what she wanted so much. She laid her hand on his arm and looked up at him from beneath lowered lashes. “I don’t believe you.” He glanced at her hand and then back into her eyes with an unchanging expression.

He took her hand and for one moment she thought he was going to thread his fingers through hers and pull her to him until she was held tight in his embrace. Just as he had done whenever they used to meet, before they married. But he dropped her hand. “For some reason you’ve returned. I don’t kid myself it’s for me. I don’t even know if it’s for a child. I don’t know whether you’re able to tell the truth anymore.”

“What do you mean? I’ve always told you the truth.” For a moment she faltered. She’d never lied exactly, but maybe she’d withheld the truth.