Magnates: Desert Prince, Bride of Innocence

CHAPTER SIX

THE following afternoon Jasim strode out of the office he had picked to work in for its proximity to the nursery. He paused by the glass barrier to look down into the crèche on the floor below.

Sami was in a high chair just within his father’s view, his dark curly head turned towards an assistant, who was serving snacks. Jasim’s ebony brows drew together in a frown. His son appeared to spend too much of the day strapped into seats and play equipment like a miniature prisoner in perpetual physical restraint. He was safe but bored, his freedom to explore severely curtailed, and all elements of fun and even learning denied him by such a restrictive care regime.

A troubled light in his keen gaze, Jasim reluctantly recalled his own desolate childhood. He had never known his mother and he had not even been able to put a face to his father until he was over ten years old. Nobody had ever swept Jasim up in a hug when he cried; the guidelines for his upbringing had been exceedingly strict. He had been schooled from an early age at a military academy abroad where he had learned rigid discipline and self-command as well as how to handle the beatings and pranks that the younger boys endured behind the backs of the staff. His father had been a distant royal figure of unimaginable power who had censured his second son at a distance through the medium of an aide whenever school reports had showed Jasim to be anything less than top-notch at any academic subject or sport. Thankfully, Jasim had been born both clever and athletic and he had excelled. Even so, his many achievements had won him neither praise nor affection.

Having suffered such a tough upbringing, Jasim was eager to ensure a very different childhood for his son. In Quaram, Sami would not spend a good part of his day anchored in one place. He would be free to roam with attentive staff in tow to ensure he didn’t get hurt. He watched as Sami lifted his toast and then, having knocked his elbow on a toy on the tray, accidentally dropped it again. The bread fell to the floor and Sami strained and strained a short arm to recapture it. Sami looked around then, visibly seeking attention, but no one appeared to notice what had happened. Finally the little boy flung back his curly head and started to cry.

Jasim found himself on the stairs without remembering the decision to go there. Huge fat tears were now rolling down Sami’s red cheeks. Never had a baby looked so wretched to Jasim. An assistant gave Sami a toy in an attempt to distract him. Sami flung it away in an expression of hot temper that surprised his father. But the little boy’s anger was short-lived. From the foot of the stairs, Jasim saw tears overflowing again from Sami’s big brown eyes while tempestuous sobs shook his solid little body. His son was the very picture of misery and nobody was even trying to comfort him. Several children were in need of attention and it was a challenge for the assistants to take care of them all. Jasim could not bear to stand by and do nothing for his son. He was pierced to the heart by the sight of Sami’s unhappiness. He strode into the nursery, sidestepped the startled manageress, and headed straight for Sami. It took the matter of a moment to release the sobbing baby from his restraints and hoist him up into his arms. Sami clung to his father and continued to sob inconsolably.

‘I am taking my son home early,’ Jasim informed the manageress.

He lifted another piece of toast from the plate abandoned nearby and presented Sami with it. The child stopped mid-howl, grasped the bread frantically between his short fingers and began to cram it into his mouth. He behaved as if he’d been brought up in a Stone-Age cave, Jasim reflected in appalled wonderment, his immaculate business suit and even his hair bespattered with crumbs.

Jasim emerged with Sami from the nursery to find his security team and his aides awaiting his next move in frank astonishment. Any kind of hands-on parenting in the Rais masculine bloodline had never, ever featured in the annals of the family. But Jasim, in delighted receipt of Sami’s beaming two-toothed gummy smile of gratitude, was experiencing an enlightening high of relief and accomplishment and he was impervious to his shocked and uncomprehending audience.

Elinor worked doggedly through the afternoon, in spite of the fact that she was terrified that she would simply fall asleep over her computer. She had barely slept the night before and had awakened with a headache. It had taken great motivation to go to work and the doubts that had kept her awake during the night continued to interfere with her concentration. She continued to torment herself with questions that she couldn’t answer. Did she owe it to Sami to give her marriage a second chance? Was that the best thing she could do for her son? Sacrifice her needs and wishes in favour of his taking his rightful place as an heir to the throne of Quaram? For how long would Jasim stay in London?

There was little point bewailing what could not be changed now, she told herself heavily. Jasim was who he was—as was Sami. But she loved Sami to the very depths of her soul and feared his father’s interference in their lives. Olivia, thankfully, had kept the secret of Sami’s paternity. A few people had asked Elinor what Prince Jasim was like and why he had been so keen to view the crèche, but nobody suspected that Elinor had been selected as guide for any reason other than that she had a child using the facility.

At finishing time, Elinor caught the lift down to the ground floor. She was relieved to see that Jasim’s security guards were no longer stationed outside the crèche. Had he realised how much comment their presence would cause once enough people noticed them? Walking through the door, her eyes automatically scanning the room for Sami, Elinor stiffened at the look of surprise in Olivia’s face.

‘What’s wrong?’ Elinor questioned.

The older woman drew her off to one side. ‘The prince took Sami after lunch. I assumed you knew,’ she admitted worriedly.

‘Took … him?’ Elinor queried, the words slurring together on a tongue that suddenly felt too clumsy to vocalise words.

‘He said he was taking him home.’

Perspiration beading her pale brow and gripped by complete overwhelming panic, Elinor pictured desert sand dunes and the power in her legs gave at the same time as the world around her folded into darkness. For the first time in her life, Elinor fainted. She recovered consciousness to find that she was in a seat with her head pushed down low.

‘Take a deep breath,’ Olivia was urging her in a stressed undertone. ‘Elinor, I assumed it was okay because he’s Sami’s father.’

‘Yes.’ Elinor recalled that conversation in the older woman’s presence and snatched in a shuddering breath. With all her courage she fought off the nausea and the dread that were making it impossible for her to think normally. Would Jasim just snatch Sami and fly him out to Quaram? She suspected that her estranged husband was heartless enough to stake his claim in an aggressive manner. Possession, after all, was nine-tenths of the law and who knew what the law on child custody was in Quaram? She was willing to bet that it would favour the ruling family rather than a runaway wife.

Somehow in the background people were talking and she struggled to regain her focus. ‘Are you feeling any better?’ Olivia prompted hopefully. ‘The prince has sent a car to collect you.’

Elinor glanced up and saw two of Jasim’s security team awaiting her at the door and the sense of relief that swept her then was so immense that she felt weak enough to pass out again. Jasim would scarcely have sent a car for her if he had removed Sami from the country behind her back. But how dared he have taken Sami from the crèche without telling her? She was outraged by an act that had reduced her to a state of sick, almost petrified, fear and an even more terrifying awareness of her own impotence. If Jasim decided to fight dirty rather than talk, what was she going to do to hold her own?

Her nerves honed to a fine edge of impatience, Elinor stalked into the book-lined luxury of Jasim’s library where he greeted her from behind his desk. She noted in some dismay that Sami wasn’t in the room.

‘Where’s Sami?’

‘He’s asleep upstairs. I will take you to him—’

‘I want to speak to you first.’ Elinor wasted no time being relieved that her son was still safe in London. She got between Jasim and the door and stared up at him, apprehension and resentment combining in a fiery combustible mix inside her. Indisputably sexy blue-black stubble was beginning to shadow his strong jaw line and roughen the skin round his handsome mouth. Tipping her head back even further, she clashed with the cool topaz challenge of his level gaze.

‘You had no right to remove Sami from the nursery without my permission!’ she condemned forcefully.

Ice chilled his hard dark gaze. ‘I am his father. I will act as I think best. Sami was upset and he was not receiving the level of care that I would expect. That is why I removed him from the nursery,’ he responded with measured calm.

‘You had no right. Have you any idea how I felt when I found out you’d taken him?’ she demanded half an octave higher. ‘I was afraid you’d taken him back to Quaram and I’d never see him again.’

‘Fortunately for you I have more scruples than you have,’ Jasim said drily. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you or Sami.’

‘But you should have warned me of your plans.’

‘I did try to phone you.’

Elinor dug out her mobile and switched it on, seeing that several missed calls had been logged. Some of her anger ebbed away. He had at least tried to contact her.

But Jasim had not finished with her yet. ‘As for seeking your permission, why should I have done? Did you seek my permission when you deprived me of all contact with my child for almost a year?’

Elinor moved restively away from the door, her angry colour dulling as he hit her on her weakest flank. ‘That was different. I had good reason for acting as I did then.’

‘No, you did not,’ Jasim countered without hesitation, his assurance in contradicting her like a slap in the face. ‘Only if I was an abusive parent would you have had an acceptable excuse for ignoring my parental rights. When you walked out on our marriage on our wedding day, you were thinking only of yourself and how you felt at that moment. I refuse to credit that you considered how that decision would affect our child or me.’

Consternation at the accuracy of his accusations increased Elinor’s tension. She had backed away as far as the edge of his desk and she leant back against it now for added support. When she looked at him, however, her anger was like a hard bitter knot inside her. His face still had a devastating beauty that cut through her defences. But, even more disturbingly, Jasim also had the proud demeanour and aloofness of a statue set in bronze. He seemed untouched by events that had torn her apart. His self-containment mocked her emotional turmoil and she hated him for it.

Was there any way of overcoming the sense of humiliation and shame she always felt in his presence? Once she had fallen head over heels in love with him and made no attempt to hide it. She had surrendered her virginity within hours of meeting him and that knowledge still marked her as painfully as a whiplash on tender skin. She had failed her own standards and made a fool of herself and those were truths that replayed constantly in her mind when he was around, reviving unwelcome memories of her weakness.

‘How did you expect me to feel after I heard what Yaminah had to say to you on our wedding day?’ Elinor demanded fiercely. ‘Was I really supposed to swallow my disgust at the way you had taken advantage of me to think about whether or not you would make a good father?’

‘I didn’t take advantage of you. Clearly you were incapable of judging the most important issues at stake. You are too keen to remind me of my supposed sins while ignoring your own,’ Jasim intoned with sardonic cool. ‘When you staged your vanishing act you put me in an appalling position with my family. I had to tell my father that I had married you but I was unable to produce my wife.’

‘Any woman would have walked out after that ghastly wedding!’ Elinor launched at him helplessly. ‘You hated every minute of it and you couldn’t even be bothered to hide how you felt!’

His dark eyes were cold as black ice. ‘I was conscious that I was acting without my father’s knowledge and I was ashamed of the fact.’

‘I offered you a get-out clause before the ceremony even began,’ Elinor reminded him with spirit.

‘Empty useless words,’ Jasim derided. ‘To deny our child the status of legitimate birth would have condemned him to a lifetime in the shadows. He could never have known my family or claimed his rightful place among them. I could not have lived with that option. Presenting my elderly father with our marriage as a fait accompli was a lesser evil but not an act I can take pride in.’

‘Of course it would have helped had you simply explained all that to me at the time,’ Elinor argued bitterly. ‘But you kept me at as much distance as you might have kept a stranger, so I’m not about to apologise for the fact that I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes! You showed no consideration to how I felt and I am never, ever going to forgive you for that!’

Troubled by her continuing defiance on the score of an event that he considered trivial, Jasim surveyed her. Why were women so irrational? A wedding was a wedding; they were still married, still legally husband and wife. Anger had banished her pallor, accentuating the jade-green brilliance of her eyes against her flawless skin. Her tumbled Titian curls were equally vibrant and drew his eyes against his will. His gaze dropped to the dewy pout of her mouth and then to the tantalising swell of the lush breasts that stirred with her ragged breathing. Strong and insistent desire surged with ravenous force through Jasim’s lean, powerful length.

‘Don’t you dare look at me like that!’ Elinor warned him, fully aware of the tension building in the atmosphere and the wicked coil of heat already forming low in her pelvis.

‘You’re my wife,’ Jasim drawled. ‘And I haven’t been with a woman since I was last with you.’

Elinor was stunned by that information, while the intimacy of the declaration cut through the distance she was trying to achieve and made her face burn with hot colour. She had believed that their marriage was a mere formality on his terms and had not expected him to stay faithful during their separation. Indeed she had assumed he would divorce her. While she had struggled with a body made clumsy and weary by the later stages of pregnancy, she had miserably pictured Jasim wining, dining and bedding more sophisticated women, turning their heads with his charisma as he had once turned hers. The knowledge that he had practised celibacy just as she had was, nonetheless, a sudden source of immense satisfaction to Elinor. It would have been quite a challenge for him to rein in that high voltage sex drive of his, she reflected sourly, reluctantly prompted to recall the one night she had spent with him.

‘I knew I’d find you,’ Jasim intoned in husky addition.

‘I’d like to see Sami now,’ Elinor said eagerly, desperate to escape the charged atmosphere and the wickedly potent sexual images she was already struggling to wipe from her thoughts. She wondered if that was what she hated most about Jasim: his ability to transform her into a sexual creature, alien to the sensible self that she had long known and depended on. But her body was indifferent to such fine principles and she was painfully aware of the hollow ache at the heart of her and the slick moisture gathering there in a response that she could not seem to suppress.

Engaged in watching the wild fluctuation of colour in her cheeks, Jasim was amused until he wondered if she was faking a show of shy unease to impress him. After all, a husband who appreciated her would be much more easily manipulated than one who saw through her wiles. But his suspicions about her true nature no longer added up as neatly as they had once done. Surely a gold-digger would never have walked out on a marriage to a male as wealthy as he was and stayed away without failing to launch a lucrative alimony claim? Of course, she had had a very valuable diamond ring to sell, but she had not netted sufficient funds from that to enable her to survive without seeking employment. The modest office job she had taken didn’t fit his cynical view of her either, he acknowledged, while he questioned how deep her attachment to Sami really ran. Did she really love his son? Or was Sami simply a weapon to be used?

He accompanied her upstairs to a room outside which a nurse sat on a chair ready to instantly respond to the little boy’s first cry. Zahrah’s needs had been equally well catered for, Elinor remembered. Sami was fast asleep in an abandoned sprawl. Elinor looked down at her sleeping son with a lump forming in her throat. Sami was unaware of the struggle of wills created by his very existence. The very thought of losing him terrified her. In such a short time Sami had become the centre of her world and the very reason she lived. Her eyes stung and she blinked rapidly. Sami, she was convinced, was infinitely more deserving of her love and loyalty than any man would ever be.

‘How can we possibly resolve this?’ she asked Jasim painfully.

‘We have only two options. I take Sami to Quaram alone or you accompany us there as my wife,’ Jasim proffered smoothly, a light hand at her spine urging her back towards the stairs again.

‘You believe that those are the only options I’ve got?’ Elinor exclaimed in a tone of angry rejection as they reached the hall.

A manservant pressed wide the door of the library where Jasim invited Elinor to take a seat. ‘Of course, if you chose to remain in London where you could discreetly lead your own life, I would naturally compensate you for giving Sami into my care. You would be a very wealthy woman,’ Jasim informed her, determined to test the level of her attachment to their son.

Elinor glowered at him in disbelief. ‘You honestly believe that I might be willing to sell my son to you?’

‘It’s your decision and sell is an unnecessarily emotive word,’ Jasim replied softly.

‘No, it’s a word as offensive as your offer. I gave birth to Sami, I brought him into this world purely because I loved and wanted him. I will never give him up to anybody else’s care and, believe me, no amount of money will make me change my mind!’ Elinor proclaimed heatedly.

Jasim strode forward and closed his hands round hers. ‘I am happy to hear that assurance. Naturally Sami needs his mother. You must come to Quaram with me—’

Elinor winced, her brow furrowing as she tried and failed to slide her hands free of his without making a production out of it. ‘Does it have to be with you? I mean, maybe I could travel out to Quaram and stay somewhere and you could see Sami as often as you liked—’

Jasim frowned. ‘I will not even dignify that foolish suggestion with an answer.’

‘Well, if I ask foolish things that irritate you, whose fault is that?’ Elinor demanded between gritted teeth. ‘You’re the guy who set out to charm me and who hauled me off to bed where you didn’t use protection!’

‘Haven’t we got beyond the stage of hurling recriminations yet?’ Jasim demanded, smouldering dark golden eyes welded to the bewitching vivacity of her lovely face and the inner glow of emotion that she could not hide. ‘Let us leave the anger behind and move forward. I live in the present and when I look at Sami I do not see a mistake, I see the future of my family—’

‘But what about when you look at me?’ Elinor slung helplessly. ‘I’m a mistake who doesn’t belong in your world!’

A lean masculine hand curved to her hip to ease her closer. Against her stomach she felt the hard swell of his erection and the insistent strength of his potent masculinity. ‘I think you belong,’ he breathed huskily.

‘That’s just sex!’ Elinor proclaimed, so full of emotion and frustration she could almost have burst into tears. Her heart was pounding, her mouth bone-dry.

Jasim pinned her to him in that intimate connection with impatient hands. She trembled, fighting the magnetic draw of him as well as the treacherous weakness of her own body. Stunning topaz eyes held hers and a breathtakingly beautiful smile tilted his beautiful mouth. ‘You like sex too, aziz.’

Her skin burned beneath that confident pronouncement and she had to still an instinctive protest. She wanted more from him than his body, and even as she surprised herself by thinking that thought she wondered where her hatred had gone and loathed herself more than she had ever loathed him. ‘We would need a lot more than that to make a marriage work,’ she said tightly.

‘Stay with me tonight,’ Jasim urged, his breath stirring the vibrant curls on her pale brow. ‘Let’s make a new beginning.’

All atingle inside and out and with goose bumps marking her skin in response to the strong deep tone of his rich dark drawl, Elinor pulled free of his hold before her self-control wavered and let her down again. Once burned, twice shy, she rhymed inside her head. Sex was not that important to her, sex could not be that important to her that just the sound of his voice sent receptive shivers down her spine. ‘That’s out of the question.’

‘I have to fly home within forty-eight hours,’ Jasim imparted gravely. ‘My father’s health is very poor and I can’t stay abroad for much longer. I must have your answer quickly.’

The speed with which he had snapped back into businesslike mode had taken Elinor aback. But then what more had she expected from him? Persuading her to accompany him home to Quaram was an easier option for him in the short term than trying to wrest custody of her child from her. Jasim bin Hamid al Rais was very practical and far from averse to manipulating her into doing his bidding. When he had described Sami as the future of his family she had truly understood the strength of the opposition she was facing. Unfortunately, a reluctant husband willing to offer her a new beginning on the basis of a night of rampant sex wasn’t a tempting proposition. At least not to a sensible woman with some pride, Elinor affixed to the stream of her feverish thoughts. She might have made a total idiot of herself over Jasim eighteen months ago, but that should not mean that she had to spend the rest of her life paying for that act of bad judgement.