Carrying the Sheikh's Baby Read online

  She raised a shaking palm to his cheek; she felt the muscle bunch as she stroked the rough stubble. Despite everything, she wanted to soothe the sadness in his eyes. But the only words her dazed mind could generate were the truth.

  ‘Because I won’t settle for less than I deserve. The way my father did.’

  He jerked his head back. ‘What has this got to do with your parents? Is this some mad idea based on what happened when you were six?’ he said, but he didn’t sound accusatory, just devastated.

  And suddenly she knew. She’d done the right thing. She’d believed that he was the only one who had to change, but the truth was, he wasn’t. She’d let him get away with never examining his feelings for her—with giving her platitudes instead of promises—because she’d been scared. But she wasn’t scared any more.

  ‘What I’m saying, Zane, is that this is my fault as well as yours,’ she said. ‘My father was a good man, a kind man, but he was also a weak one. I always blamed my mother for the end of their marriage, because she left, because she couldn’t remain faithful. But he was to blame too, for expecting so little from her. And I’ve been doing the same thing with you. I’m not going to do that any more.’ She breathed deeply and gathered all the courage she’d gained in the last days, and weeks and months. Ever since climbing aboard Zane’s plane and diving head first off a cliff. ‘You made me your Queen. You made me your lover. But you refuse to make me your wife—in any real sense of the word. And I won’t settle for less. I can’t, or our child will be just like I was. And you were. Caught in the middle of a relationship that isn’t real.’

  * * *

  The raw, aching wound inside Zane ripped open, the scar tissue no one but he could see tearing apart at her words. All he wanted to do was hold her, keep her safe. She looked shattered, exhausted, the bruised smudges under her eyes, the fragile shudders of her body, driving him wild. But she also looked so brave and indomitable.

  The yearning he’d tried so hard to pretend wasn’t there, that he’d convinced himself couldn’t be true, welled up inside him like a tidal wave.

  He tightened his grip on her arms, and dragged her to him, until his forehead touched hers, and her ragged breathing matched his own.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ he said in a shattered whisper, knowing he couldn’t bear to ever let her go. That no matter what happened he would always want to keep her with him, and the child. To keep them safe and warm and his. ‘I want you to be my wife. In every sense of the word, but I just...’ He shuddered, the terrible fear consuming him. ‘I’m not sure I’m capable of giving you what you want.’

  Her cold hand caressed his face, and his heart shattered. ‘Can you at least tell me why you think that?’ she asked.

  He would have to risk everything now, because he didn’t just want her back, he wanted to know she would stay.

  ‘Why can’t we be a family, Zane?’ she asked again. ‘Why can’t you love me—’

  ‘Don’t...’ He slanted his lips across hers, feeding the hunger inside him he knew would never be satisfied. And silencing the words that cut him to the quick—words he knew he had brought about with his own cowardice.

  All this time he’d been protecting himself. Determined not to see, not to acknowledge, what was right in front of his eyes: that he had fallen in love with her months ago. And this was the result. He could have lost her and his child.

  She kissed him back, the sweet tentative licks of her tongue a benediction to his soul. He felt so tired all of a sudden, so weary of the lies, the subterfuge, the endless loneliness, the penance he’d forced himself to pay for so long.

  At last he drew back and cradled her face in his hands, forcing her to meet his eyes. ‘Catherine,’ he said, tears he had tried so hard not to shed smarting in his eyes. ‘I do love you. I love you so damn much I could hardly breathe when I found out you’d gone.’

  ‘But...are you sure?’ she asked, her sleepy hazel eyes so wide with stunned disbelief he almost wanted to laugh.

  Until the amusement turned to shame.

  He’d let her believe she was somehow unworthy of his love. When it had always...always been the other way around. He had never been worthy of hers. And now he had to tell her why. But first, he needed to come clean about his feelings.

  ‘How could I not love you, Catherine?’ he murmured, his voice hoarse with need. ‘You’re smart and courageous and compassionate and determined and so sweet...’ He grasped her bottom and dragged her towards him until her thighs widened and her core was flush against the already prominent ridge in his pants. ‘And every time you’re in my arms, I know I can never have enough of you.’

  The blush charged across her face. ‘Then why did you try so hard to keep me at a distance?’ she asked and he knew his time was up.

  ‘Because I didn’t want you to know the man you’d married. It’s all a goddamn facade, Catherine. The power, the sex, the invincibility.’

  The small smile that curved her lips broke his heart. ‘But I don’t need you to be invincible, Zane. I just need you to be you.’

  ‘You wouldn’t want me if you knew me,’ he said. ‘If you knew what I did that night... I...’

  She pressed her hands to his cheeks, forced his gaze to meet hers. ‘Zane, whatever it is you have to tell me,’ she said, the faith in her eyes only crucifying him more.

  He tugged his head out of her hands, knowing he couldn’t speak with her touching him, because then the truth would taint her too.

  ‘That last night in LA after the argument with my mother, it wasn’t a coincidence that my father arrived the next day.’ Shame and disgust engulfed him. He struggled to breathe, to finally expel the words he’d never told another living soul. ‘I contacted him. I called the Narabian embassy in New York.’ The words choked up in his throat as the bitter guilt flooded back. ‘I told them I was the Sheikh’s son, that I wanted to be with my father. That my mother couldn’t look after me any more. I knew she loved me, despite all the arguments, the money problems, the drinking...’ He couldn’t say the word, the disgust making his whole body shake now. ‘But I begged them to contact him, to tell him. To take me away from her.’

  A trembling finger touched his lips—and he was forced to look at her at last. ‘Zane, don’t... You don’t have to say anything more.’

  All he saw in her face was acceptance—and so the rest of it tumbled out.

  ‘I didn’t mean for her to die. She was an alcoholic. She was vulnerable and I deserted her when she needed me the most. After he told me she was gone, I knew it was my fault. That if I had stayed, if I hadn’t been so selfish, if I’d managed to get away from him and back to her, I could have stopped her from taking the overdose. The only way I could stop myself from falling apart after she died was to stop myself from caring about anyone that deeply again. But my grand plan went to hell when I met you... Those feelings terrified me. They still do. It’s why I can’t even hold you after we make love, can’t risk falling asleep with you and waking up with your arms around me. Why I’m scared to love the baby. What if I let you down the way I let her down? I never even said goodbye.’

  * * *

  ‘Zane.’ Cat’s heart shattered. He looked so tortured, the guilt and remorse making his broad shoulders slump, his beautiful face a mask of exhaustion. ‘Alcoholism is a disease. She should have got help but she didn’t. Don’t you see that’s not on you? It’s on her. You were desperate and you were a child. You can’t possibly be responsible for what happened after you left.’

  ‘But even if that were true, I can’t...’ He jumped off the cargo bay, strode away from her, agitation in every step as he paced in front of her, thrusting shaking fingers through his hair. ‘I feel as if I’m trapped by the events of that night. It never goes away, it’s always there. What if it never does? How can I ever be a whole man if I can’t get over what happened to me as a boy? How can I offer you what you need?’ His g
aze strayed to the soft mound of her belly. ‘What our baby needs?’

  She climbed down and went to him, taking his hands in hers, squeezing them tight. ‘Stop it, Zane.’

  He’d opened up to her, told her something she was sure he’d never told anyone else. He didn’t understand yet how huge that was. But he would, because now, at last, they had trust. Something they could build on, which would allow them to share the pain.

  He was scared. She understood that, because she’d been scared too. She’d been looking for intimacy, not realising that intimacy was the one thing he was most afraid of.

  ‘We can make this work together, if you let me in,’ she said. ‘If you tell me how you’re feeling. And if I do the same. If we communicate openly and honestly with each other we can overcome anything, even our fear.’

  He pressed his forehead to hers and she heard the gulp of breath as he swallowed. ‘Yes, yes, I want that. If it means I won’t lose you, I’ll do anything. If you can still love me knowing that I let her die alone...’

  ‘Don’t.’ Cat flung tired arms around Zane’s neck, her giddy heart racing as she buried her face against the strong column of his throat and inhaled that delicious scent of cedarwood soap and man and desert air—the love sweeping through her on a wave of emotion.

  She kissed his chin and his cheeks, hooking her legs around his waist and letting him lift her into his arms. His deep sigh of relief reverberated against her chest as he sat down on the helicopter bay door with her on his lap.

  ‘I love you so much, Zane. As long as you love me back, we can figure out the rest,’ she said, pressing her cheek to his chest as she banded her arms around his broad body and listened to the strong solid beats of his heart. ‘If you trust me.’

  ‘I do,’ he murmured, stroking her hair back from her face, then cupping her head. He lifted her mouth to his in a drugging, dizzying kiss, full of love and longing and hope.

  As she watched the reddening dawn turn to gold on the horizon, she made herself a promise.

  Whatever struggles lay ahead of them—as a new couple, new parents, a new monarchy—from this day forward they must never doubt their ability to overcome them, or the strength of their love for each other, ever again.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘YOU NEED TO stop that. She’s supposed to be going to sleep,’ Cat said, trying to sound stern, but it was next to impossible with the sound of her husband’s deep chuckles and her daughter’s high-pitched baby giggles echoing round their bedchamber—interspersed with the sound of loud raspberries as Zane bent his dark head to blow on his daughter’s stomach and elicit a new round of laughter from them both.

  As the game continued, the two of them totally oblivious to her admonitions, Cat found herself chuckling along with them, not sure whose enjoyment she found more wonderful, little Kaliah’s or her father’s. The brooding man she had first met a year ago in her old boss’s office in Cambridge had almost completely disappeared now, she realised. He was still just as masculine and magnificent—and still far too overwhelming, especially in bed. But these days, he was so much more relaxed and approachable.

  His daughter, for one, didn’t seem to find him the least bit intimidating.

  With her heart so swollen with happiness it was a wonder she could actually breathe, Cat lay back on the bed beside them, loving the sound of their joint laughter ringing off the bedchamber’s luxurious Moorish furnishings, the intricately carved screens and mosaics. And wondered when exactly the change in Zane had happened.

  Had it been during those first few months, when they’d been kidding themselves that they weren’t in love while indulging in the insatiable sexual chemistry that continued to astound and excite her? Or later, after that heart-stopping declaration in the middle of the desert? Or had it been during the months after that, when he had finally been able to open himself up to the possibility of love after the traumas of his childhood? And had insisted on treating her as if she were the only woman in the history of the human race ever to have a child.

  Well, you’re the only woman who’s ever had my child.

  She grinned at the memory of his outraged exasperation every time she pushed back against his overprotectiveness—which was often.

  Or maybe it had been after the birth of their daughter, when he’d held the tiny new life in his arms as if she was the most precious thing on earth—because, of course, she was—and declared that she had to be the brightest, strongest, most brilliant child who had ever lived, without an ounce of irony or hesitation.

  Cat would have to agree with him there, because their daughter was as magnificent as her father, but then her gaze landed on the pile of toys Zane had insisted on purchasing for their three-month-old on their recent state visit to the UK.

  Kaliah might be the brightest, strongest, most brilliant child who had ever lived, but Cat was going to have her work cut out preventing their daughter from becoming the most spoilt child who had ever lived too, when her daddy was so utterly besotted with her.

  ‘Okay, Princess Perfect, you really have to go to bed now. I have some very important business to discuss with your mommy.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ Cat murmured, her smile widening as she watched Zane finish buttoning up his daughter’s sleep suit, then stand and lift the little girl—who was still chortling and kicking—onto his broad shoulder.

  ‘Do you doubt my ability to get my own daughter to obey me, woman?’ Zane raised an amused eyebrow as he stroked his daughter’s back, attempting to calm the baby down after all the activity—without a lot of success.

  ‘Absolutely,’ she said.

  ‘We’ll just see about that,’ he replied. The sensual look he gave was one she recognised—but one she now knew hid a wealth of compassion and tenderness. ‘I’m the Sheikh. My women obey my every command.’

  ‘If you say so, Your Divine Majesty,’ Cat said with a mocking smile.

  ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes,’ he announced, busy rocking their daughter—who was starting to protest in earnest now at the prospect of actually having to do what her father told her for once. ‘And when I return I expect you to be waiting for me. Naked.’ His eyes darkened. ‘So we can have that very important discussion,’ he finished, then sent her a provocative wink before striding out of their room.

  The room they had shared ever since her aborted attempt to run away from him.

  A delicious heat rushed through Cat’s body as she flopped back on the bed, still smiling—rather smugly now. It was going to take him longer than a few minutes to settle Kaliah, because their daughter was as headstrong as her father. But by the time Zane came back, she would be more than ready for that very important discussion.

  As she waited, listening to Zane patiently attempting to soothe his fretful daughter to sleep in the room next to theirs, she decided it really didn’t matter when Sheikh Zane Ali Nawari Khan had changed from the moody, intimidating man she had first met into a playful, protective and devoted father and the gorgeous, supportive and equally devoted husband and lover she adored so much today. Because all that really mattered was that he belonged to her and Kaliah and all the other children she hoped they would have together some day.

  And that they belonged to him.

  * * *

  If you enjoyed Carrying the Sheikh’s Baby by Heidi Rice, you’re sure to enjoy these other One Night With Consequences stories!

  Princess’s Nine-Month Secret

  by Kate Hewitt

  Consequence of the Greek’s Revenge

  by Trish Morey

  The Innocent’s Shock Pregnancy

  by Carol Marinelli

  Pregnant by the Desert King

  by Susan Stephens

  Available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Tycoon’s Shock Heir by Bella Frances.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

&nbs
p; Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

  http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010003

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Presents title.

  You want alpha males, decadent glamour and jet-set lifestyles. Step into the sensational, sophisticated world of Harlequin Presents, where sinfully tempting heroes ignite a fierce and wickedly irresistible passion!

  Enjoy eight new stories from Harlequin Presents every month!

  Connect with us on Harlequin.com for info on our new releases, access to exclusive offers, free online reads and much more!

  Other ways to keep in touch:

  Harlequin.com/newsletters

  Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

  Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

  HarlequinBlog.com

  Join Harlequin My Rewards and reward the book lover in you!

  Earn points for every Harlequin print and ebook you buy, wherever and whenever you shop.

  Turn your points into FREE BOOKS of your choice

  OR

  EXCLUSIVE GIFTS from your favorite authors or series.

  Click here to join for FREE

  Or visit us online to register at

  www.HarlequinMyRewards.com

  Harlequin My Rewards is a free program (no fees) without any commitments or obligations.

  The Tycoon’s Shock Heir

  by Bella Frances

  CHAPTER ONE

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON. BEST TIME in the world. Working week wrapped up and the party just about to start. And, with the news he’d just heard, Matteo Rossini knew it was going to be some party.

  He stepped out of the car, loosened his tie and took the steps into his jet for the last task of the day—the short flight from Rome to London and a call to the Executive Director, Signora Rossini herself. Mamma to him.