‘YOU BIT ME...’ James accused.
They were in the elevator, heading up to his suite, and James was wiping her lipstick from his mouth and trying to fathom that she had bitten his tongue, and worse, thanks to his gathered crowd, he hadn’t been able to react.
‘If you put your tongue in my mouth, then know it shall get bitten,’ Leila said, tossing her hair in his face. ‘Every time. And that wasn’t a bite, that was a mere warning.’
They stepped off the elevator and walked hand in hand, smiling to the butler, who opened their door.
‘Where’s Leila’s luggage?’ James asked him.
‘There was no luggage.’ The butler responded in concern because James had been very specific with his instructions.
‘I am keeping a room at The Harrington,’ Leila sweetly explained.
‘There’s no need for that, darling.’ James smiled to Leila and then spoke to the butler. ‘Arrange for it to be brought over now, please, but don’t bring it up till tomorrow. My fiancée is tired...’
‘Your fiancée,’ Leila said as the door closed on them, ‘is furious. What the hell was that about, James? You forced me to say yes, you gave me no option but to say yes...’
‘How many options did you give me?’ James demanded. ‘I had to find out via the media that I was going to be a father. You told your brother rather than me...’
‘I told my brother because I didn’t know what else to do and I wanted him to help me.’
‘Well, he handled things brilliantly,’ James sneered.
‘I have already apologised for that,’ Leila said. ‘I wanted him to sort this out but...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want that anymore. I know that I have to be responsible for my baby.’
‘Well, guess what,’ James shouted. ‘So do I!’
There was silence, just the sound of their breathing, and then James told her how it would be.
‘I’m not asking for the rest of your life, Leila. I don’t want to be stuck in a loveless marriage any more than you do, but I am going to be there for my child. I’m not having him over for some bloody access visit, or worse, you taking the baby back to Sur...Sur...’ He could think of nothing worse than a child in a country whose name he had only heard of yesterday, one he couldn’t now pronounce.
‘It’s called Surhaadi!’ Leila shouted. ‘But now, thanks to you, I am not welcome there.’ That wasn’t strictly true, Leila knew. She hadn’t been welcome in her home for twenty-four years, but she was too angry with James to stick to strict facts.
‘Leila, your parents shall forgive you and when they do...’
‘I was never intending to return there,’ Leila said. ‘I ran away, James, remember?’
‘Well, I’m not taking that chance,’ James said. ‘I want seven years.’
‘Seven?’ Leila frowned. ‘Why seven?’
‘Give me the boy till he’s seven...’
‘It might be a girl.’
‘I meant,’ James gritted, ‘that I want input during my child’s formative years.’
He had thought about it. All night James had thought about the coldness of his own upbringing, the constant pressure. He wanted nothing like that for his child. He could barely stand the thought of his child knowing the pressure of being royal. Even if she didn’t go back, what if she met someone else? He thought of how his father had been with his half-brother, Spencer, over the years, and no, James did not want some step-parent raising his own.
‘We’re going to do the right thing by this baby and the right thing is marriage.’
‘There will be no sex in this marriage,’ Leila hurriedly told him, sure that would put him off.
‘Pity.’ James shrugged. ‘Because despite the terrible deflowering of precious maiden Leila, despite the fact your brother seems to think I forced you, that you were some poor little martyr lying there as big bad James coaxed you, the fact is you loved it, you wanted it and you pleaded for it.’ He watched the colour burn on her cheeks. ‘But you know what, Leila? Don’t worry about sex—it’s the furthest thing from my mind right now.’
He lied.
At the start of the sentence it had been, but recalling that night, even with bitterness, he wanted her again.
‘Well,’ Leila coolly responded, ‘your behaviour in recent weeks means it is the furthest thing on my mind for the rest of my life, so know that before you take me as your bride.’
‘We’ll kiss for the cameras,’ James said. ‘We’ll hold hands in public and we’ll share a bed for the sake of the servants.’
‘They are your servants,’ Leila said. ‘Surely you can pay for their silence.’
‘Oh, my,’ James laughed in her face. ‘You know nothing about hourly rates, do you? Poor princess...’
She slapped him.
A little unmerited perhaps—he’d only called her by her title—but it felt so good. It felt better in fact than kicking a tree. She slapped him not just for that though, but for telling her he would shame her again by leaving her in seven years. For admitting that it would be a loveless marriage. It was the nightmare she had run from and she had no desire to live with a man void of feelings for her.
‘If you weren’t pregnant I’d slap you straight back,’ James warned, and then he saw her gold eyes and acknowledged to her he lied. ‘Actually, I wouldn’t. It would seem that I come from slightly more modern stock than you.’
She went to slap him again but he caught her wrist.
‘Savage lot the Al-Ahmars,’ James said. ‘But don’t worry, dear Leila, because I’m not. You might not be familiar with them but I’m actually a gentleman.’
‘You are no gentleman, James. Ask your sharmotas.’
Inexplicably he was almost smiling. Leila was like no one he had ever met, but instead of smiling James went and poured a very large drink of whisky and then went to pour her one but stopped. ‘I guess you can’t have one.’
‘No,’ Leila said, and her lips pursed when he took his drink and went to the bed. He kicked off his shoes and lay on top of the bed. ‘I think that is rude,’ Leila said. ‘I can’t have a drink and yet you do.’
‘I do,’ James said, and grinned as he took a sip. ‘I’m not going to go on the wagon for the next six months.’
‘So, you’re just going to carry on as before...’
‘And so the nagging starts.’ James sighed and stretched out on the bed, propped up on one arm.
‘Why did you bring me here and not to your home?’ Leila asked. ‘There we could have separate rooms.’
‘We’ll go there once we’re married,’ James said. His home was his haven and the thought of sharing it with anyone made him shudder, though he didn’t tell Leila that. ‘I think we might have slightly less chance of killing each other here. There’s the restaurant, there’s the gym, you can take yourself off for a spa, or whatever...’
‘And it’s public,’ Leila said.
‘Exactly.’
‘James...’ Leila took a breath. She didn’t know how to tell him her truth but she made herself say it. ‘I can’t share a bedroom with you. I get bad dreams...’
‘I’m having one at the moment,’ came his glib response.
‘I shout out,’ Leila said. ‘I cry.’
‘You didn’t the night...’ His voice trailed off, for James did not want to think about that night.
‘I forced myself to stay awake.’
‘Do you grind your teeth?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘We’ll go with the positives then.’ He gave her a thin smile. ‘So here we are.’
Here they were.
She looked at her finger marks on his cheeks. ‘I am sorry I hit you.’
‘Not that sorry,’ James said. ‘Given you went to again...’ Then he saw tension in her features. ‘It was a row.’
‘Even so.’
‘People row.’
She felt like crying. Leila had spent her life avoiding rows. She was just terrified of them and rightly so because the one row she’d had revealed her mother’s truth.
‘You don’t have to force yourself to stay awake, Leila, and I’m not going to ship you off for a bit of noise. We all have our things. I’m sure, perfect though I am, there might even be a couple of things about me that annoy you...’
Oh, there were many things, but she chose not to deal with the biggest one— that he had been with another since her.
‘Like forcing me into a marriage I don’t want?’
‘Yep!’
‘Like your socks?’
‘Excuse me?’ James frowned.
‘They are horrible.’
‘They’re black socks,’ James pointed out, but then he remembered her instruction to remove them, with so much authority to her voice that he’d thought she was about to produce a whip—they really knew anything about each other. ‘You want me barefoot in robes, do you?’ He peeled off his socks and threw them. ‘Better?’
‘It can never be better,’ Leila said.
‘How melodramatic.’ James yawned.
‘I’m going to have a bath.’ It was the only place she could think of to get away from him.
She sat on the edge of the bath as it filled and thought about her situation. He seemed worried that she would flee, that her parents might come for her. He had no idea just how unwanted she was and was too embarrassed to tell him.
She would prove that he did not have to marry her, Leila decided. Over the coming weeks, she would show James that she could take care of herself and the baby.
She was surprised that he wanted to be in the baby’s life. Leila honestly thought he would have been only too pleased to let her take care of things.
He surprised her at every turn.
Even as she came out of the bathroom dressed in a white fluffy robe, he did so.
He was undressed, his clothes were over a chair, but instead of getting into bed James was asleep on the long sofa with a blanket covering him.
‘Thank you,’ Leila said reluctantly, but he didn’t stir.
Grateful for the reprieve Leila slipped into the vast bed and willed herself to stay awake.
James hadn’t slept since he had found out he was going to be a father. Today had been exhausting— calling in all numbers of favours for the showy proposal. As soon as Leila had gone in the bathroom he had undressed and then set an alarm for six and had gone out like a light.
He didn’t hear Leila come out of the bathroom and climb into bed. He didn’t hear her stilted ‘Thank you’ for allowing her to sleep alone.
What he did hear a few hours later was the sound of agony.
James’s eyes opened to the sound of her crying and it was the most pitiful sound that he had ever heard.
James had led a very privileged life, if void of much emotion. He had never heard pain like it. The tears were not loud, there was no shouting out, yet it was possibly the most wretched sound he had heard in his life.
He pulled a pillow over his head and tried to block out the sound, rather wishing that she did grind her teeth.
‘Leila...’ James went over to the bed, because he could no longer ignore it. He put his hand on her shoulder and tried to rouse her. ‘You’re dreaming.’
Still the crying continued and James lay on top of the bed and stroked Leila’s shoulder. When she rolled into him, James wrapped his arm around her and the crying stopped.
He lay there in the city that never sleeps not sleeping just so that she might, wondering how best to explain why he was there in the morning.
Leila had never been comforted, not once.
No one had ever interrupted her tears, nor held her as she wept.
Apart from Jasmine’s rare cuddles that always came at a price, no one had really held her at all.
It was alien, it was surreal, it was more beautiful than the feel of her silk gowns on her skin; it was more soothing than music.
Leila awoke to a naked chest on her cheek and James’s arm around her. She hated him but would be forever grateful for knowing the balm of touch.
‘Did I cry a lot?’ Leila asked, mortified.
‘You did,’ James said. He could feel the heat of her blush on his chest. ‘I kept saying, “It’s fine, Leila, you’re dreaming,” and then I gave in and came to the bed. You will have observed that I didn’t get in.’
‘I did.’
He was about to say he was cold, or make some lame excuse to get under the covers, possibly for decency’s sake because Leila was surely getting an eyeful as his morning erection attempted to escape the confines of his hipsters.
Leila actually hadn’t noticed; she was willing the nausea to abate. God, it was bad enough that she’d been crying, but now here she was fleeing to the bathroom and there wasn’t even time to close the door.
‘You’re quite a noisy housemate,’ James said when she came out a little while later.
Leila smiled, embarrassed but grateful that he simply addressed things rather than ignored them. It was time for her to do the same because he had got into the bed.
‘You’re under the covers,’ Leila accused.
‘Because I’ve called for breakfast and I want the maids to see us looking all loving and happy,’ James said, ‘or will that make you feel sick again?’
She misunderstood.
‘I feel better when I have eaten.’
‘Does it happen a lot?’ James asked, more curious than revolted.
‘Most mornings. Earlier on it was any time of the day, but now it is just when I am hungry.’
She had brushed her teeth and rinsed her mouth and, a little pale, she sat on the sofa.
‘I am sorry that you had to hear it though,’ Leila said. ‘Some things should be private.’
‘Why?’ James asked. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it—you’re talking to the king of hangovers. Although I’ve given it some thought and I am going to go on the wagon.’ He saw her frown. ‘I’ve decided that I’m not going to drink while you can’t. We’ll crack open the champagne the day it’s born.’
‘That would be lovely.’
‘Come to bed,’ James said, and she startled.
‘I would rather sit here.’
‘Come here,’ James said, and patted the bed beside him, but Leila shook her head.
‘Well, sit on the sofa then.’ James shrugged. ‘But it’s a bloody long way off. We’ll have to keep saying “Pardon?” and “What did you say?” and it might look a bit odd to the maids.’
‘Your English is too fast for me.’
‘Come here,’ James said. ‘I can’t say it any more simply than that.’
‘No.’ Still Leila chose the sofa. ‘I don’t care what your servants think of me.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I don’t care what...’ Leila started, and then reluctantly smiled as she realised his little joke.
And James smiled back.
There was a knock at the door and James called for breakfast to be brought in.
Leila was very used to maids coming in in the morning. She asked for green tea sweetened with honey and for a pastry. James took his coffee and then told them they’d manage the rest but Leila called them back.
She told them to open the curtains and to run her a bath. She told them to add extra oils and to ensure that her luggage was here on the hour and could they get orange blossom honey for her tea in future.
‘I bet you’re popular with your servants back home,’ James commented as one went to run the bath and the other left them alone.
‘I was not.’ Leila blinked.
‘I was being sarcastic,’ James said. ‘You don’t need to be so rude to them.’
‘They are not your friends.’ Leila knew that.
She knew how the servants whispered about the princess who even the queen did not want. It was servants who had removed her when she tried to speak to her mother. Servants who had peeled a crying toddler from her mother’s lap when she jumped on it and then scolded a little girl for upsetting the queen.
‘It doesn’t hurt to be nice,’ James said.
‘Sometimes it does.’
She could smell the fragrant bath water that was being run and it did not upset her stomach when so many scents did.
‘I prefer the fragrances at The Chatsfield than the other hotel,’ Leila admitted.
‘Spencer will be very pleased to have your tick of approval,’ James said, tucking into his second pastry, then he halted as she continued.
‘I miss my scent,’ Leila said.
So, too, did he.
‘Every day,’ Leila said, ‘I think I have found it, every day I am disappoint.’
‘Disappointed,’ James mildly corrected her, and then he thought for a moment. ‘Can you get it here?’ he asked. ‘I can have it made up if you tell me what the oils were.’
‘I don’t know what oils the maids used.’
The maid came out and said that her bath had been run and was there anything else Leila needed.
‘You’re dismissed,’ Leila said, and then hesitated. ‘Thank you.’
James watched her select a pastry.
‘I thought you wanted a bath.’
‘I bathe after breakfast,” Leila said. ‘I like to know it waits for me.’
“Well, I’m going to have a shower.”
James headed for the shower as Leila nibbled her way through her breakfast.
The pastry was perfect, lovely and sweet, and the tea was refreshing and the honey here was actually quite nice.
When James came out of the shower he saw that the colour had come back to her face.
In fact, she was opening up a newspaper.
‘I’d give them a miss if I were you,’ James commented as he dressed.
‘Why?’
‘I just would.’
She unfurled the newspaper and was reminded why she was so cross with him when she saw the headline above a photo of them kissing just after James had proposed to her.
A Very Forgiving Princess.
‘I’m not forgiving though,’ Leila said to James, who was peering over her shoulder.
‘Yes, well, my tongue had already worked that one out,’ James said.
‘Where are you going?’ Leila asked as he headed for the door and, unused to such a question, James stiffened.
‘We’re not married yet, Leila,’ James said, and continued towards the door, but he wasn’t quick enough to get out before she delivered her warning.
‘And if I have my way, we never will be.’