FERN HURRIED FROM the bus stop with the collar of her raincoat clutched tightly closed against her throat. With her other hand, she grasped the umbrella in a firm grip against the midday gusts trying to yank it away. The rushed walk made her breathless, partly due to the extra weight, she supposed. Possibly because she needed more iron.
Pregnancy was a lot of work, she had discovered with a small pang of understanding for her mother’s beleaguered outlook. It was disconcerting to feel as though your body wasn’t yours anymore, but she didn’t resent the process, Mother. She didn’t blame this baby growing inside her for the anxiety she felt about their future.
She blamed herself.
Tramping quickly through the puddles in her boots, she felt icy splashes strike her knees through her tights, urging her even faster toward the sanctuary of Miss Ivy’s little flat. Not a whole house. Not even a proper two-bedroom. Fern was on the sofa bed at Miss Ivy’s insistence, saving the nest egg she had squirrelled away during her teaching contract with Amineh. She was even bringing in a few extra pounds with some adult tutoring. She hoped to take over a flat two blocks away when it came available in a few months.
None of this was ideal. In fact, it was the kind of repetition of history she hated to own up to, but she would manage. And her baby would not carry the burden of fault that had been hers most of her life.
As she reached the steps to the converted row house that held Miss Ivy’s flat, the self-satisfied lambent green town car at the curb caught her attention. Its tinted windows and details of chrome where out of place in this village. The driver’s side door opened, startling her into halting.
Zafir straightened and slammed the door with a firmness that made her flinch. As he came around the bonnet, seemingly unaware of the rain that pattered onto his uncovered head, she told herself to run, but could only stand there and stare.
No tunic or headdress, but he was as exotic and resplendent as always, even in a bespoke English suit of cast-iron-gray with a sharp white shirt and a silver tie. His beard was shaved to a narrow line that edged his set jaw and cut a goatee around the uncompromising firmness of his mouth.
His remarkable green eyes were as flat as frosted glass as they traveled to the billow of her overcoat. He flinched, but it wasn’t with surprise. More like, okay then.
The way he moved was smooth and unhurried, but his approach still felt like a blast of hurricane-force wind. He covered her hand on the umbrella and lifted it high enough so he could stand under it with her. Her hearing dulled and became more acute at the same time. Damp, earthy, male scents of aftershave and coffee, wool and warm, masculine skin, clouded into the little space and overwhelmed her senses.
She swallowed, falling into lust all over again.
Pathetic. She was in the middle of her third trimester, about as sexy as a cow ready to calf, but she wanted to lie with him. Naked and joined.
“Let’s get out of this mess,” he said in the voice that had been raising the hairs on her scalp since the first time she’d heard it.
Out of the rain? Or the situation?
Her heart kicked into gear as he nudged her into movement. His free hand grazed her elbow and he pointed her in the direction of the steps. She began to tremble as the enormity of his being here hit.
Did he know? Of course he did now. She wasn’t the size of a house, but her coat was tented over her bump like a tarp over the bow of a boat. That radiation of umbrage from him was unmistakable. She’d grown up with those sorts of vibes directed at her. She knew all too well this sense of disapproval jabbing into her like the point of a sword.
But had he known? Had he come to see her? Or because he’d learned of the baby? How?
As they stepped into the small space beneath the overhang of the stoop, he stole the umbrella from her nerveless grip, lowered and shook it, then followed her through the door that her numb fingers could barely unlock. He dropped the umbrella into its stand and paced his footsteps into hers as they climbed the two narrow flights to Miss Ivy’s door.
Her mind raced, but she couldn’t seem to catch a solid thought. Bring him into the flat? Take him somewhere else? Where? Why was he here? What was he going to say?
How much did he hate her for this?
“Fern?” Miss Ivy called from the tiny alcove of the kitchen as they entered. “A woman called for you. She didn’t leave her name, but I told her you’d be back about now so I expect—”
Miss Ivy trailed off as she emerged with a glass and a tea towel in hand. “Hello,” she said with a lilt of curiosity in her tone, eyes going sharp as she looked into Fern’s face—which had to be ghostly pale. Her brows pulled together with concern.
“That was my assistant,” Zafir explained. “You must be Ivy McGill? Thank you for saving me the trouble of waiting in the rain any longer than I had to. You’re well? Our family was given to understand you were quite ill.”
His tone dripped sarcasm. Fern tried to ignore it.
“Miss Ivy, this is Sheikh abu Tariq Zafir ibn Ahmad al-Rakin Iram. Or you might be more familiar with him as, um, Mr. Zafir Cavendish, grandson of the Duke of Sommerton, who sits in the House of Lords. I did—” she cleared her throat “—give the impression that you were in need of care when I cut short my teaching contract with his sister’s children.”
“I see.” No doubt Miss Ivy saw very well. No one had ever accused her of lacking math skills.
“Let me take your coat, Fern,” Zafir said, stepping behind her so her heart nearly leaped out her mouth.
You don’t live here. It’s not your job to take my coat, she wanted to protest. Don’t stay. Don’t talk to me. Don’t even look at me.
Then she felt the brush of his fingertips against her shoulders and the sensuous memory of his stripping her clothing from her body came back to her like sunshine breaking its warmth across her face. She suppressed a shiver of mixed longing and mortification.
He stepped away to hang the dripping coat on the hooks over the rubber mat. Fern balanced a hand on the wall and unzipped her boots, taking extraordinary care with placing them so the insides wouldn’t be filled by the rivulets off her coat, afraid to turn and face him.
“Why don’t you make us some tea,” Zafir suggested behind her, but Fern suspected he was looking at her, not Miss Ivy. He was willing her to face him and own up to what she’d done. “Fern and I need to talk.”
Hugging herself, as if that could disguise this huge evidence of her carelessness that stretched the knit of her oversized jumper, Fern forced herself around.
Miss Ivy looked worried. She had pressed Fern many times to tell her who the father was and now there was such anxiety in her small dark eyes.
Fern managed a tight smile. “It’s fine,” she assured her.
Miss Ivy nodded jerkily and slipped into the alcove, where she’d be able to hear the murmur of their voices while she filled the kettle and brought out her good china.
Fern dared a glance at Zafir and saw a puzzling mixture of emotions on his face. He aimed his hard stare at her belly. Something fierce yet angry gripped him. Not dangerously threatening, but deeply primal.
She swallowed and edged toward the sofa, where she lowered to perch on the edge of the cushion, facing him, facing up to all of this that she’d mostly been denying. Visiting a doctor and reading ads for flats was only the tip of the iceberg as far as fully accepting her pregnancy went.
A rush of despondency hit as the biggest part that she’d been avoiding—the fact her baby had a father—confronted her with ominous silence.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Zafir.” Her voice was husky with self-castigation.
“It’s mine,” he said, more statement than question, but the demand for confirmation made her choke out a shocked laugh.
“Who else?” she asked, askance.
“I needed to hear it.” He looked away, his profile carved sharply from granite. His hand fisted at his side and his jaw worked, but the news didn’t seem to please him.
“Are you surprised?” she asked as she realized how much easier it would be for him if she’d been promiscuous. And even as her mind told her to change her answer—make things easy so maybe he wouldn’t hate her— she blurted, “Sorry I’m not a slut with a list of possible fathers—”
He swung his gaze back. The hardness in his aqua eyes buttoned her lip.
She felt enough of a slut as it was, whether he wanted to call her one or not. She clenched her pale fingers together, rather wishing for the warmth of a blush to take away this bone-deep chill.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his tone so tight with fury she flinched.
“I didn’t think you would want to know,” she answered, hating how thin her voice had gone.
Again with the glare that encased her in ice.
“Was there something in the way I treat Tariq that suggested to you I would take no interest in my child?”
“No.” She bowed her head under his stark condemnation. His relationship with his son had actually tempted her to tell him, But I didn’t want you to think I did this on purpose. We both know this is... She couldn’t bring herself to call her baby a mistake, but the situation was far from ideal. “You’re not happy, Zafir. You’re barely holding on to a civil tone.” She squirmed her fingers together. “It seemed better not to tell you.”
“And do what instead?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you keeping it?”
“Obviously.” She waved at the size of her belly.
“I mean, are you thinking to give it up for adoption or something?”
“No!” The suggestion astonished her, never once occurring to her as a realistic possibility.
He looked away again, not giving her a chance to read his eyes, but some of his animosity seemed to ease as he said with a husk of emotion, “So you want this baby.”
“Yes! Why would you imagine anything else?”
“You tried to keep my child out of my life, Fern. It follows that you might want to purge it from your own.” He swung his attention back to her and the force of his gaze kicked her low and hard.
Maybe that was the baby, scolding her. She had worried, for about ten minutes, that she would begrudge her child for coming along when she’d finally been free of family obligation. But it wasn’t as if she had had high career plans or wanted to live fast. While her mother had felt cheated as a single parent and had made sure to let Fern know it, Fern viewed raising a child alone as a challenge, yes, but a fairly common one. Many women managed this. Yes, she worried about her future, but because her baby would depend on her. Taking care of another life was a responsibility she wanted to get right. She didn’t want to mess it up.
But while she’d glossed very quickly past any thoughts of not keeping the baby, Zafir had obviously convinced himself she wouldn’t.
“I knew almost from the moment I realized I was pregnant that I’d keep it,” she told him quietly. “But when I looked at all the factors...” She frowned at her twisting fingers, still unable to bring all the dangling threads together into anything less than a messy, painful knot. “It seemed like putting you in this position of acknowledging your child was more unfair than keeping you ignorant of it.”
“You were offering me plausible deniability? How kind.” His voice peeled a layer off her, astringent as paint thinner.
She jerked her gaze up, not liking the acerbic response when she’d honestly been trying to put his needs ahead of her own. “I won’t pretend to be an expert on your country’s politics, but I know this is the last thing you need. I’m doing what I can to keep the baby secret—”
“Obviously,” he said with a bite. “But I’m not here to pay you off. I’m here to claim my child. I want him or her in my life.”
Her heart shook in her chest, quaking with both intimidation and the ferocity of a mother whose child was threatened. “Did you miss what I just said? I have no intention of giving it up. Not even to its own father!”
“Then you’ll marry me,” he stated, like it was as easy as snapping fingers.
And her nerves twanged, mind skewing in a thousand directions because in all her scenarios of what could possibly happen if he learned of this baby, none of them had included his proposing. Even as coldly and flatly as that.
“I...” Her heart, already taxed with stress and emotion, pounded extra hard. The feeling was nearly painful, making tears spring to her eyes. Live the rest of her life under that baleful glare? After the first twenty years of her life had been blistered by the same? No thanks. “I can’t. Or do you mean just to make it legitimate? And I’d stay in England while you—”
“No,” he interrupted, adamant. “You’d live with me and Tariq, in our palace.”
Which sounded like a fairy tale except for the part where she’d be treated like a troll.
She realized she was biting her lips together and forced them to relax, soothing them with her tongue. But he made her so nervous, standing there like a—well, like a damned sultan who could demand she give him a baby. She’d seen this uncompromising side of him at the oasis, when he’d taken control and insisted on treatment for the Bedouin girl. It wasn’t a level of command she wanted to pit herself against.
Especially not when he was demanding to be part of his child’s life. Her own father hadn’t even bothered sticking around to find out if she was a boy or a girl. There was a huge part of her that melted beneath Zafir’s show of fatherly interest.
But what about her?
Now she began to understand her mother’s sense of lost entitlement. Sure her baby would force her to make certain compromises, but for the most part, alone as a single parent, she controlled their fate. With Zafir in the picture, she faced huge concessions.
See, Mum? You were actually lucky not to have this dilemma.
“Marriage isn’t on my radar,” she murmured.
“Put it there.”
She shook her head.
“Why the hell not?”
Had he listened when she had introduced him? “Think about who you are—”
His head snapped back like she’d struck him.
“That wasn’t—” What she’d meant...
Miss Ivy clattered her tray into the room, killing Fern’s chance to explain.
A hoar frost coated the room as Miss Ivy set everything out and poured. Into the condemning silence, she said, “Shall I take mine into my room?”
“Please,” Fern said through a tight throat. She needed privacy to straighten out Zafir’s wrong impression.
* * *
Fern’s roommate was the homeliest woman Zafir had ever seen. Small and hunched, she had dull brown hair streaked in gray, definitely a home cut, teeth like an old cemetery and beady brown eyes that were deeply set.
But as she left, she touched Fern’s shoulder with a maternal hand. Fern covered the woman’s gnarled knuckles and the glance the two exchanged was complex. Sheepish and forgiving and reassuring. The kind of unspoken communication women had when they were very close.
As one of the two doors off the main room closed, Zafir swung his gaze around the flat. It was charming, he supposed, in the way of modest, dated rooms kept tidy and warm. There was an odd collection of photos showing young men and women in graduation caps and gowns, accepting awards, waving from the window of a pilot’s seat and standing at a podium.
“Who is she?” he asked, still reeling from Fern’s gross insult, not ready to deal with how deeply she had cut him.
“A teacher. She made me a member of her Shyness Club when I was nine.” Her freckled face tinted. “Zafir, that’s not what I meant. About you being who you are...”
Her voice trailed off as she twisted her fingers. It would be a wonder if the digits remained attached at the rate she was torturing them.
He wouldn’t ask what she had meant. Wouldn’t wheedle to understand. He didn’t even want to face her, there was such an agony of rejection coursing through him, but his gaze snagged on the bump of their child swelling her middle. It continued to stun him. His wife had kept to herself in hundreds of ways, including an almost complete retreat when she became heavily pregnant. If she had been in his presence, she had draped herself in oversized garments that hadn’t really let him see evidence of the child she was giving him.
The heir she had hidden like something unwanted and merely endured because her husband was something unwanted and endured. Lower than her. Not good enough.
Still deeply scarred by that disdain, he focused instead on the way Fern let her bump sit so prominently in her lap. He itched to set his hands on her. All of her. She was fuller everywhere, from her cheeks to her breasts to her bottom. It suited her.
Her hair was longer, drying and starting to spring out from its catch at the back of her neck. Her skin was as much a display of cinnamon and cream as ever. She was tempting and as sweet as almonds and honey, he’d thought when he’d stood under the umbrella with her outside. Her scent had mingled with the rain and wind of English storms and struck him as oddly familiar. Heartening.
Everything about her was the same and more, especially her ability to enthrall him.
But she hadn’t told him about the baby because of who he was. Didn’t she mean what he was?
Funny how dozens of women had overlooked his birth and half-caste status, wishing to marry his money and blue blood, but the two females he’d actually proposed to had been unable to get past it.
Misery lined Fern’s expression. “I meant that a man in your position could have anyone.” Her bottom lip disappeared as she pulled it between her teeth, while her brows crooked and trembled.
“Anyone except you,” he challenged, fighting the tightness that gripped him.
Couched hope glimmered in the gray depths of her gaze, but dimmed as he returned her look with one that refused to give anything away.
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.”
“You’ll hate me,” she stated. Then, with the quiet ferocity she’d used when demanding medical attention for the Bedouin girl, she added, “I won’t live like that again. I won’t.”
Anguish tortured her expression before she looked away, tears standing on her wide, unblinking eyes. She set her jaw, though, so obviously ready to hold her ground, he had to take her seriously.
“Again?” he prompted, disbelief scuffing his tone. Aside from this current streak of obstinacy, she was fairly compliant. Not someone difficult to get along with. He was furious with her, but couldn’t imagine anyone actively disliking her. “What do you mean by that? Who else hated you?”
“My mother,” she said in a small voice, looking at her wringing hands. Her pale brows crushed together and the corners of her mouth went down. Bright red lit her cheekbones while the rest of her was so pale her freckles stood out like stress cracks that warned she was on the brink of crumbling. “She got pregnant with me when she was seventeen. Her parents threw her out. My father disappeared. She barely scraped by trying to support me.”
“And she blamed you for that?” His heart took a sharp swerve. He distantly remembered her saying something like she didn’t like me much. He’d been distracted with making love to her, but now the hackles of his parenting instincts rose at the idea of a mother denigrating her child. His own had made a ton of mistakes, but nothing like that.
“She blamed me for all of it,” Fern said with equal parts incredulity and despondency. “As an adult, I can see it wasn’t really my fault, but this baby is.” She covered her bump with protective palms, turning up a face that was so anguished his gut clenched as though he’d been kicked. “She told me so many times that lust was bad and I slept with you anyway. I don’t blame you for hating me, but I can’t live with the glares and the snide remarks, Zafir. I won’t bring my child up in that. There has to be another way.”
The ground seemed to shift under him. Wasn’t really my fault, but this baby is...
“Fern...” He could hardly believe what she was saying. “Is that the reason you didn’t tell me about the baby? You thought I’d blame you for it?”
“Don’t you? You’re obviously furious.” Her hand came up as she choked out a helpless noise.
“Because you hid this from me!”
She jerked at the sharpness of his tone, but only pinched her mouth into a mutinous purse. “I shouldn’t have let it happen. I knew what I was doing was bad.”
She was ashamed to have slept with him, but not in the way he’d feared.
It struck him that all this time, while he’d been remembering the way she’d kissed him with abandon and taken him greedily into her, he’d been forgetting something far more important. Men don’t come on to me. How much experience do you think I have with refusing one?
Moving forward on feet weighted with self-reproach, he took a seat on the wingback chair that faced her. As he leaned his elbows on his knees, he resisted the urge to tuck the loose tendrils of hair that fell against her cheek behind her ear. He didn’t trust himself to let it end there.
And she had no idea.
“Fern, how many people were in that tent that night?” he asked quietly.
She lifted a baleful glance. “I know what I did, Zafir. I remember exactly who instigated this conception.”
Her skin radiated with color all the way down her neck. He would bet it went well into that belly and even into the thighs that had clamped around his hips with determination to draw his hard sex deeper into her welcoming depths. Not just offering, but begging. Insisting. She dropped her face into her hands as if she couldn’t bear to recall.
While it was all he thought about. Heaven had opened its gates and pulled him inside. He hadn’t even tried to resist. Not really.
“I meant to pull out,” he stated baldly. “I knew the chance we were taking before I let it go as far as it did.” As much as he would love to let her carry all the blame, he remembered precisely the moment when he’d stilled her hips and tried to maintain his sanity. Then she’d said, I want it to be you.
He had wanted it to be him. The thought of any man following where he was being invited had been unthinkable. She belonged to him. He remembered the way the word mine had echoed in his head as he had breached and possessed and imprinted himself so indelibly onto her body that they were now tied together for the rest of their lives.
“You might have been at your best fighting weight that night, but I could have pushed you away. I’m not a victim.”
She shook her head, keeping her face covered. “I knew better. I was reckless and this is the consequence.”
“My baby is a punishment?” he asked testily.
She flinched and scowled at him over her fingers. “No. I just mean that I’m no victim, either. I knew what I was doing.”
The hell she had.
He rubbed the tops of his thighs, hearing Ra’id’s condemnation of him. Accepting it. He never should have touched her.
But he had.
“Maybe we’re both casualties of a divine sense of humor, doomed to repeat our parents’ ill-conceived actions.” He let his brow quirk at his own bad joke. “We made that baby together, Fern. Literally.”
She lowered her hands, face red as a beacon, but a light of earnestness glinted in her wet eyes. “Do you really see it that way? Because I’m not blind. I know what a mess this is.”
“It is,” he agreed. “I’m not going to sugarcoat that part. Right here, the two of us working out what to do, this is the easy part. When we take it out there, it will get ugly. I know that and I’m angry that I’m in this situation, but with myself, not you. If that’s the reason you’re trying to keep your distance from me, because you think I’ll blame you, then stop. Coming here to take responsibility for my child means taking responsibility.”
She seemed to let that sink in, her body seemingly braced, shoulders set with wary tension.
“Is that all you feel?” she challenged in a way that punched his heart. Vulnerability widened her eyes as she hurried to add, “I mean toward the baby.” Her lashes dropped in a way that left claw marks down his insides.
He wished he could offer her love. He was starting to realize she’d probably never known it in any form.
“Because if you just feel a sense of duty...” she continued.
“No, that’s not all I feel,” he assured her, hitching forward on the cushion, willing to lay himself bare because on this topic, he felt no shame and he thought it might reassure her. Win her over. “The first time I held Tariq, I experienced such a rush of emotion. Something I’d never felt before.” He clenched his fist, experiencing again the knock of his heart punching the inside wall of his chest, extending itself outward to try forming a shield around the baby. It reached across the space between them now, trying to take in this new one. “I felt so protective and proud it was laughable, but terrified and overwhelmed, too.”
The intense vulnerability had been foreign and unnerving to a man who took for granted his health and strength and power, but he’d grown to accept this feeling as a part of parenting.
“He was mine and I knew I’d stop at nothing to keep him alive and well. There’s no word to describe that emotion except fatherhood. I already feel that toward this baby.”
Her jaw softened and her expression went misty and soft. “Really?”
“Really. You have to marry me, Fern.”
She brushed impatiently at the tears that brimmed at her eyelids. “But I feel so guilty. Mum warned me so many times not to have sex, not to get carried away, and I just let it happen. I couldn’t face telling you. I was so certain you’d look at me like she would have. Like I was so stupid.”
He wondered if she remembered why they’d let it happen.
She sat there, a ball of misery, not exactly encouraging him to believe she looked back fondly on their time at the oasis the way he did.
Which was neither here nor there, he told himself. Marriage was his priority. The rest could be addressed later. Maybe that was a shortsighted attitude given the hurdles they’d face, but he would marry her.
“You should pack. If we don’t leave soon, we’ll be driving in the dark.”
* * *
“Pack?” Fern was still absorbing the fact that he wasn’t pinning all the blame for this pregnancy on her when he made a suggestion that was more of a politely worded order. Her brain emptied all over again.
He smiled faintly. “We’ll stay with my grandfather until you’re cleared to travel. If that means waiting until the baby comes...” He shrugged.
She felt her world dissolving and pressed her lips together, trying to keep herself in control of her own destiny. “But...” There were too many arguments rising in her to find them and put them in order of importance.
“As comfortable as this flat looks, it’s not very secure. Do you even have a real bed here? Or are you pulling a mattress out of that thing?” He pointed at the sofa she perched upon.
She glanced at the blankets she folded each morning and set on the hassock before putting her bed back under these cushions. “Miss Ivy and I do it together,” she murmured. “It’s spring-loaded, not heavy. Just awkward.”
“Well, I don’t want you tripping around, rearranging furniture.”
“But I have work here. Students who are counting on me.”
“You left one teaching job without notice. Surely someone can step in?”
Fern had already talked to a few students about helping them over email or webcam, especially after the baby was born. The library had a modern setup and Zafir was right. Miss Ivy was retired, but she could take over until other arrangements were made.
“I’m not ready to change my whole life,” she protested.
“Your whole life has already changed,” he reminded her with a patronizing smile.
He was right, but she still scowled anxiously toward the small bureau where she kept her clothes. Her own photo stood upon it, showing her accepting her teaching diploma. That’s who she was supposed to be: a middle grade teacher in a quiet village here in the north of England.
“I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” she told him. Had he heard the bit about how she was illegitimate? She knew nothing about her father.
“My first marriage was arranged and we were even less acquainted than you and I. I’m already a father. I grew up the son of a sheikh and an Englishwoman. There won’t be many surprises for me in any of this.”
Right. His first marriage to a woman he always spoke about with reverence, according to Amineh. Did that mean he was capable of loving a spouse he acquired through an arrangement based on logic? Could he come to have feelings for her?
Worrying her lip, she glanced up to see him watching her and licked where her teeth had made her bottom lip raw, then swallowed as forbidden thoughts crept into the corners of her mind. Would they...?
The consequences of giving in to lust were bad. She was being slapped in the face with them right now.
Come on, Fern, a voice chided in her head. How much more pregnant could you get?
But even if he wasn’t angry with her, it didn’t follow that he liked her. While she was in love with him. What sort of future did that set up? Her pulse started to trip into a racing flight and clammy sweat broke out all over her skin. She’d never imagined she would marry anyone, especially a catch like him. This was surreal. He was going to wake up tomorrow and scream loud and long at what he’d proposed today.
He stood and glanced around. “Is there a case somewhere that I can fetch?”
“Can I...” Oh, he looked very tall and dapper and unreachable, standing over her that way. They were the worst match ever. She’d have to make him realize that before things went too far. “Can I just say that I’ll come with you and we’ll talk more about the marriage idea later?”
“If you want to say that, go ahead,” he said dryly. “But we’re marrying, Fern. As soon as I can arrange it.”
“I really do think you’ll regret it, when you’ve had time to realize what you’re suggesting,” she insisted.
“Your concern for me is cute. If I had an ounce of chivalry in me, I’d extend the same consideration toward you. Give you more time to talk both of us out of it. But even though I don’t blame you, neither of us is going to hide from this. We made a baby. We’re going to marry. Then we’re going to live in Q’Amara and raise it together.”
* * *
Fern ruminated in the car, aware that she was being a pushover. Did you call a woman easy when she couldn’t seem to say no to marriage?
His already having regard for their child had moved her, she couldn’t deny it, but she was letting him take complete control of her life and she knew that was wrong.
Part of her was relieved, of course. His plan would lift some huge worries off her shoulders, like where would the money come from? But she was a fairly independent person. She’d had to be. Emotionally and financially. And the fact was, she might have got to know what he liked between the sheets, she might be certain she was in love, but in many ways, they were still strangers.
“You’re sighing a lot,” he remarked, gearing down to take the off ramp.
He drove with smooth confidence, not like he had anything to prove, but owning the road regardless. Late winter rain battered the roof and swished under the tires. The wipers slapped at full speed. There was no use trying to listen to music so they’d been sitting in silence since she’d made him stop to let her use the loo at a fast-food place.
“How well did you know your first wife when you married her?” she asked.
There was a pause of surprise, then in a cautious and very neutral tone, he said, “Not well.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, a thin, transparent, bullet-proof wall had just slid up between them. It was disconcerting and certainly didn’t reassure her. It made her think she should leave things at that, but as much as she liked to avoid confrontations, this marriage idea of his needed more discussion before she could get behind it.
“How did you come to choose her? Or...how did it all work?”
He kept his gaze on the road, movements still steady and economical, but a hint of stiffness shaded his voice. “Given the situation with my parents, I knew when I took over that I would have to prove I was more Arab than English.” His mouth twisted in dismay.
“The expectation that I would reject my mother and the Western half of my life did not sit well with me,” he admitted with a sidelong glance. “We have our differences, but my mother is as much my family as my father. However, I knew that marrying a woman from Q’Amara, proving I was not given to blind passion for all things English—” another glance, this one filled with dry significance “—was necessary. Sadira was from an excellent family. Her father was known for his traditional values. Politically, the match allayed many fears that I would try to force change at the pace my father had. The fact that I thinned the foreign blood in my successor helps my approval rating and eases their acceptance of Tariq as my successor.”
A small “oh” of apprehension escaped her as she computed that his second child might not be viewed so charitably.
He covered her hand and squeezed with warm strength, pressing reassurance, but also a streak of sexual awareness, through her blood.
“We’ll make it work, Fern.”
She stiffened in surprise at the way his light touch flooded her with giddy warmth. Should she squeeze back? She was sure that continuing to behave like a teenager in heat would only cloud things. His people expected decorum, for heaven’s sake! Not some British nymphomaniac as their First Sheikha or whatever she’d be called.
“I don’t see how,” she protested, voice made husky by the weight of his hand on hers. “Did you have a happy marriage with your first wife even though you were strangers? Is that why you’re so confident we can prevail?”
He removed his touch and draped his hand on the stick, but didn’t change gears.
“She knew what was at stake,” he said in a level tone. “We both went into the marriage willing to make compromises for the sake of maintaining peace within the palace and beyond it.”
“See, Zafir? I can’t offer you that! I’m a guarantee of conflict for you.”
“My mother never once came to Q’Amara. My father didn’t think it safe, but from remarks I’ve heard over time, her actions were taken as a snub. I am hopeful that your willingness to live there, your acceptance of our culture, will go a long way to smoothing rough edges.”
“Yes, well, you have to know it’s one thing to take a contract in a foreign country, quite another to adopt one as your home. Especially one so patriarchal.”
“We visit my mother two or three times a year. You won’t be held hostage there,” he said with a twitch of impatience around his mouth. Then, somewhat defensively, he stated, “I know we’re behind with women’s rights, but change doesn’t happen overnight. I have learned from my father’s experience to take things one step at a time. And I can’t be everywhere, doing all things,” he added tiredly, then perked up. “But look at the work Amineh does. You could take up those same causes in Q’Amara,” he urged, warming to the topic. “You’re bright. A natural educator. I would like that, Fern. I would like that very much.”
The suggestion stunned her. She considered working with women to ensure the health of their children. It wasn’t bra burning, but it was something everyone could get behind and benefit from. Within seconds, her eager mind was leaping with excitement to get started. And it meant she could be an asset to him, not a detriment.
But the way he said it, like it had only just occurred to him, made her wonder.
“Did your first wife do that sort of thing?” she asked, already sensitive to wearing the woman’s shoes.
“No,” he said flatly. Something flashed in his expression, but she could only see his profile and whatever it was gone before she could identify it. “She was pregnant. Tariq was young.”
I’m pregnant, she almost said. And Amineh managed a work schedule around having two children.
He must have sensed her puzzlement because he added, “As I said, she was very traditional. Not complacent, but not like Amineh, who was educated here and exposed to different ideas. Sadira wasn’t interested in taking a public role.”
Sitting deeper into her bucket seat, Fern let that explanation sink in. “She didn’t really have time, did she? Amineh said she died of cancer.”
“She did.” The privacy field he’d erected swelled with thick layers.
“Did you come to love her?” she worked up the courage to ask, even though her trepidation of the answer was so strong her voice shrank.
His jaw worked as he took care to gear down and follow a curve through a gate and into a tunnel of wet, overhanging tree branches down a long graveled drive.
“Love—the passionate kind found in marriage—is a Western notion. Not something that served my father well.”
Zafir is more Arab than English, remember that, Fern. Her lungs shrank and hardened, squeezing her heart. But Amineh has love, she wanted to argue.
The boulevard of trees ended abruptly and the estate house, gloriously regal with spiking chimneys and a staid facade, struck her in the face. It perched on the highest hillock that overlooked rolling grounds, a pond and, farther in the distance, thick green woods, all of it curtained by a fey mist of rain.
The house itself was intimidating in its sense of peerage, and consisted of ancient bricks and tall windows. The north side was coated in ivy, the south held what she thought might be a solarium. The garage was its own building with seven double doors.
Zafir followed the circular drive around a fountain then parked before the wide front stairs, clicked off the engine and turned toward her while the rain pattered loudly on the roof above them.
“Sadira is Tariq’s mother. I love him with everything in me. For giving him to me, I will always have the utmost regard and respect for her. You already have the same from me, Fern.”
Meeting his steady stare was hard. She was afraid he’d see the shadows of wanting more in her eyes when she’d never realized how badly she did want more until this moment. He expected her to tie herself to him for the rest of her life, cut off any chance of meeting the man who might love her and settle for what was, quite possibly, more than she had ever expected before today.
“I’m worried you won’t respect me in the long run,” she admitted. “I’m not a good match for you. I don’t have a strong personality. You can, quite obviously, talk me into anything,” she said with a disparaging gesture at where they were. “I don’t want to be a doormat and I don’t want to see your contempt as I turn into one.”
He frowned, deflating her.
“That puts me in a difficult position,” he growled. “If I disagree with what you just said, you’ll accuse me of talking you around. Let’s do this. Try me, Fern. I’ve seen you hold your ground. I’ll keep in mind that a little defiance is a lot for you and we’ll see how far we get.”
She snorted and said, “Okay,” then rolled her eyes at the irony of capitulating. Again.
He grinned, looking so handsome he made her catch her breath. When his gaze fixed on her mouth, her heart stopped.
A flicker behind him made her nod toward the house through the drizzle-coated window.
“Someone’s coming,” she told him, reaching for her handbag. Had he been thinking of kissing her? She really would be a puddle of spent willpower if he did.
“Stay there,” he commanded as she started to reach for her door latch.
He pushed out of his side and said something to the man who’d rushed out with an open umbrella.
Now would be the time to push back against one of his dictates, but it was no easy task to throw herself from a vehicle these days in a fit of independence. She sat there like a lump and waited for him.
A moment later, while the young man extended his arm to cover them both with the umbrella, Zafir helped her from the car, giving her an illusion of grace as he levered her bulk with a firm but gentle hand under her elbow.
With a murmur of thanks, Zafir exchanged keys for an umbrella and escorted her inside while the servant—was he called a footman?—collected her case from the boot.
Is this it? Zafir had asked when she had only that one case and an overnight bag after completing her packing.
She had a few boxes in Miss Ivy’s storage compartment in the basement. “But they’re just sentimental things I wasn’t ready to part with after my mother passed. Nothing I really need,” she’d explained. “I was starting fresh when I took the overseas contract.”
He hadn’t said much to that, had only carried her things to the car while she’d said her goodbyes to Miss Ivy. Fern had lingered to assure her friend that while she didn’t know if she was marrying Zafir, she had to admit that he was devoted to his baby and that meant more to her than only another child rebuffed by their father could understand. She couldn’t in good conscience keep him out of her baby’s life.
Somewhat reassured, Miss Ivy had repeated that she was always there for Fern and now, entering what looked more like a museum than a house, Fern wondered if it was too late to change her mind and go running back to the sofa bed with the iron bar that had dug into the middle of her back every night.
A butler greeted them. At least, that was Fern’s assumption of his title when introduced to Mr. Peabody, who bowed and took her coat. He glanced at the footman as the young man entered with her case. “I’ll ask Mrs. Reid to prepare a room in the guest wing—”
“Miss Davenport will stay in my suite,” Zafir interrupted. “I’ll take her there now. Please let my mother know we’re four for dinner.”
“Of course.” Another bow and Mr. Peabody disappeared.
Zafir guided Fern up the right wing of the curving dual staircase to the landing where they were level with the ornate chandelier over the entranceway. So much space! It was like visiting a posh opera theater, not a home.
Their footsteps made no sound on the thick ivory carpet. They passed ancient portraits and little tables and vases and candle sconces that she had enough history education to assess as Tudor and Regency and Victorian. Old, old family heirlooms.
Zafir was out of his mind, bringing her into this.
His “suite” was essentially a town house, taking up all three floors of the southeast corner of the main house.
“My mother converted it for when my father stayed with us. After he passed, she couldn’t bear to be in here so she moved back into her old rooms. Tariq has the upstairs to himself. I don’t bother keeping a full staff. We eat in the main house, but there’s a kitchen below along with laundry and the rest.”
The rest being...an indoor pool? A bowling alley?
“And you make do with this,” she murmured, pacing the lounge that could fit a dozen of Miss Ivy’s little parlor.
An archway on the left led to an expansive dining room with a balcony that overlooked the outdoor pool, covered at the moment. The fading light through those windows was the only natural light into the lounge because, she quickly realized, the front of the apartment was dominated by the master bedroom. Peeking through one of the sets of French doors into his private space, she noted that he liked earth tones and modern art and tons of room to stretch. The view of fields and woods beyond the tall windows was breathtaking.
The footman left her case at the bottom of the stairs. His curious eyes glanced off her belly before he offered a quick smile. “Will that be all?”
“Thank you, James,” Zafir said.
With a bow, the young man started off, pulling a buzzing mobile phone from his pocket as he went. Glancing at it as he reached the door, he turned and said, “Excuse me, sir. I’m to let you know that Ms. Calloway has arrived. Mrs. Reid will bring her up. She wants to check that the guest room is in order. Also, your mother would like to speak with you.”
“Leave the door open for Vivienne, tell Mrs. Reid we’re not using the guest room and please inform my mother that I’ll be tied up until dinner.”
James nodded and hurried off, leaving the door open.
Fern stared hard at Zafir’s stony expression. Had he heard her at all in the car five minutes ago? Her nerves pulled taut with anxiety at having a confrontation, and part of her was so hot for him, she didn’t even want to fight him on this, but...
“Is this a test? You just told a stranger that I’m sleeping with you without asking me first.” She didn’t even know if she was allowed to have sex!
He blinked as though her complaint surprised him. “It’s a little late to pretend we haven’t shared a bed.”
“And a little early to start doing it again!”
“What do you...? It’s a big bed,” he said, going a little darker beneath his deeply tanned skin. “I realize we might have to wait until the baby comes, but where you sleep is not negotiable. We can’t make this marriage work if you’re haunting another side of the house.”
Haunting. Interesting choice of words, but hardly the most pertinent factor here. “But you are expecting this to be a real marriage. With, um, sex and everything.” Oh, she hated herself for blushing with anticipatory heat.
He tucked his chin and lifted his brows. “You said you weren’t a good match for me, but when it comes to bed, we’re inflammable.”
She’d love to think that would be enough, but... “There’s no guarantee that sort of thing sustains,” she argued, crossing her arms. “What if it wears off?”
“Shall we see if it’s still there now?” He took a step toward her.
“No.” She retreated and hugged herself, trying to contain the bloom of excitement that expanded in her. She could barely think when the prospect of sex with him filled her mind.
He stopped, rooted and still, his posture aggressive, and scowled as he narrowed his sharp gaze into some kind of tractor beam that willed her toward him.
“This is what I mean, Zafir! I don’t have any defenses against you, especially physically. Marriage is the biggest decision a person makes. Look where giving in to my hormones has got me so far. Do I really want the rest of my life to be decided by the simple fact that you turn me on?”
“So you don’t want to sleep with me?” he demanded.
“I’d like a chance to think about it!” she cried as she finally identified which door led to the powder room and moved through it.
It was as much an escape as to use it for its intended purpose, but she didn’t come to any firm conclusions until she emerged to find him talking to an attractive brunette. The woman was smiling and nodding and blinking her thick, darkened lashes with flirty awe at him.
A green monster, warty and equipped with dangerously sharp teeth, rose inside Fern. He’s mine, she thought, and knew in that second that she was sunk. The idea of him sleeping with any other woman was abhorrent. He had said to her at the oasis that if he couldn’t have her, no one else would. Well, if she didn’t accept him, someone else would. The only way she could ensure he wasn’t making love to other women would be to lie with him herself.
Such a chore, she chided herself. But there was an insecure part of her that wondered if they really were still as volatile as they’d been. She wasn’t the pristine virgin he’d had eight months ago.
“Here we go,” Zafir said, indicating Fern so the supermodel pivoted on her high heels and gave Fern a once-over with a sharp, critical gaze. “Fern, this is Vivienne Calloway, Amineh’s stylist.”
“I’m delighted to work with you. Please call me Vivienne,” she said as she came forward and shook Fern’s hand. Her stomach was concave and her hips were the width of a soda straw. Her shiny hair slithered with silky, shampoo-ad brilliance. Her perfect teeth practically dinged as she smiled. “May I call you Fern? Amineh and I are on first-name terms and she has instructed me to pull out all the stops for you.”
“Amineh?” Fern repeated, glancing warily toward Zafir.
“I spoke with her while I was loading your things into the car.”
Fern’s knees weakened. Her hand was still in Vivienne’s warm grip and turned into cooked asparagus. “What did she say...?”
“That you would need something to wear tonight,” Zafir answered blithely. “We dress for dinner.”
“She suggested the blue dress from her own wardrobe and I agree, now that I’ve seen you. The color will bring out your eyes. Let’s try it on, see if it needs adjustment.”
Minutes later, Fern was in a silver slip with a powder-blue lace sheathe over it. The sleeves were a demur three-quarter length, the collar scalloped across her plump breasts. Shoes were another matter, but Vivienne brought a bag filled with a variety of sizes and styles from her car.
“Maternity wear is so tricky, but if you feel comfortable in those, they’ll do,” she said about a pair of low silver pumps. “We’ll have more choices when we’re not worrying about swollen ankles. Now lie down and rest while I tailor that dress and set up to do your hair and makeup.”
Fern did as she was told, partly out of genuine exhaustion, partly to escape what was happening to her. This morning she’d woken in Miss Ivy’s flat, gone to work for a few hours, caught her regular bus and wondered if there was enough of last night’s chicken to make a sandwich for lunch. In the last few hours, her entire life had spun into chaos and she needed to be still for a few minutes to let the pieces settle.
She didn’t expect to sleep, but crashed hard and woke to the click of the lamp.
Vivienne smiled. “I let you sleep as long as I could. Rest is the ultimate beauty enhancer. But it’s time to dress.”
Fern submitted to makeup and hairpins and a fitting for a new bra, one in ice-blue lace with matching bottoms that she was thankfully allowed to change into privately. When she looked at the final result, she blinked at the stranger in the mirror.
Her eyes popped like freshly minted shillings from a face where her freckles had been downplayed with a layer of light powder. Her mouth was coated in a shiny nude gloss and her hair was gathered like an Edwardian maiden’s with a pearlescent blue ribbon woven through it. She looked as modest as she usually did, but sweetly maternal and, she had to be honest, quite pretty.
When she moved into the lounge, she was both anxious and excited to see Zafir’s reaction.
He wore black pants and a white shirt closed at the throat with a black bow tie, and he shrugged on a white dinner jacket as she emerged. He looked her over as he buttoned his jacket, his gaze incredibly thorough, but dispassionate and assessing.
“No?” she prompted uneasily. Behind her, Vivienne was zipping and clipping things back into bags and cases. She’d taken such care and shown such enthusiasm for the result, but maybe Fern was a lost cause.
“Honestly?” he asked.
Bracing herself, she nodded. “Yes.”
“Don’t cover your freckles. And I prefer your hair loose. But you look very lovely.” He moved close to brush his lips against her cheek. Something flashed in his eyes as he drew back. Pride or possessiveness. Maybe both. When he showed her what he was holding, his expression shifted from a hard stubborn set to something less implacable. Appeal. “Will you wear this? Please?”
A ring.
“Oh,” she breathed.
“It was my English grandmother’s. My first wife wore one that belonged to my father’s mother.”
Another heirloom from some yesteryear when jewelers were romantic enough to set a blue sapphire in white gold and encircle it with diamonds like petals on a flower. A pair of green stones off either side played the part of leaves.
It was elegant and priceless. Fern could only stare.
“In my country, wedding rings are worn on the right. Do you mind?” He held up his palm, inviting her to place her hand in his.
“Zafir, are you sure...?”
He picked up her hand himself, but just held it as he said, “I can’t see into the future any better than you can, Fern. But right now, yes, I’m sure this is what I want. I’m sure you are what I want. Do you want me?”
She couldn’t lie. Deception wasn’t ever easy for her and right now, with him standing so close and looking at her like she meant something to him, she couldn’t be anything but completely honest.
“I do,” she whispered, and reinforced her agreement with a shaky nod.
His breath came out in a light caress on her knuckles and he smiled with arrogant satisfaction, but what looked like relief, too. Like she’d made him happy.
His touch as he threaded the ring onto her finger and kissed her knuckle sent a thrill of joy through her. Maybe he was right. Maybe they could make it work.