Page 40 of Seduced By the Sheikh

“Yes, I’m fine. I just needed to speak with my father. Alone,” she added.

“What happened, Your Grace?” asked Aabid.

She looked pleadingly at Zak who turned to the others. “Later. My wife and I need time alone before we all meet.”

He led her to a private cabin and closed the door behind her. He took both her hands in his, his eyes still searching her face for answers she’d not yet given him. “Are you sure you’re all right? You scared the hell out of me, disappearing like that.”

“I left a message telling you where I’d gone. Didn’t you get it?”

“Eventually. But you should have discussed it with me first.”

“I couldn’t. I felt too ashamed, at my mother, at my father’s reaction, and not least at how you, and Sirun had been fooled. You’d been landed with a woman who wasn’t what she’d claimed to be, and who couldn’t bring you what you’d been promised.”

“There’s nothing you should feel ashamed about. None of this was a result of your actions.”

“Even so, I know what a scandal this will be for you and Sirun. And I want you to know, Zak, that I understand if you wish to annul our marriage.”

He frowned and shook his head, as if bewildered. “Annul? You mean pretend it never happened? How on earth do you expect me to do that?”

“Easily. I walk away today from you, from your ministers, from this plane and go live somewhere else. You can do the paperwork and marry another woman. Someone royal who will bring you the respect you, and Sirun, deserve.”

He shook his head. “Soraiya. Don’t you understand? I know.”

A wave of icy fear swept through her and she sat in the nearest chair. She licked her lips. “Know what?” she tested.

“I know you’re pregnant. But what I don’t know is why you didn’t tell me.”

“I was about to when…” She grimaced. “Events intervened. I didn’t want it to complicate things.”

“It doesn’t. It makes them more straightforward.” He lifted her chin so she couldn’t hide her thoughts or feelings from him. She’d never been able to. “You’re pregnant with our child which means our future is together. How could I allow the mother of my child to leave? Hey?”

Conflicting emotions clashed and tangled as she let his words sink in. Their future would be together which was exactly what her heart wished for. But the reason? That wasn’t what her heart wished for. She’d hoped he loved her. Hoped that the love which had grown inside of her over the past months had also grown inside of him. But it seemed not. His mother had been correct. It appeared there was no way that any red-blooded king of Sirun was about to allow any child of his to leave him. His need to keep her close was there in how he looked at her, there in the way he held her hand tight, as if he’d never let her go. She was his. And, God help her, she’d settle for that if that was all he was offering. Love was like that—it made you want to take whatever you could get.

She nodded, blinking back the tears. “You couldn’t. I understand.”

A shadow passed over his face. “You didn’t want to leave, did you?”

She shook her head. “No. I left for one purpose only. To see my father.”

He led her to the chairs. “Are you reconciled?”

“No. But I knew he wouldn’t be interested in that.” She paused. “I hoped we would be, of course I did, but deep down I knew that blood lines mean everything to him, and I’ve never meant very much. I mean even less now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. We may not be reconciled but that wasn’t my aim in seeing him.”

His eyes narrowed. “What was?”

“To strike a bargain. I know how important the land is to Sirun. There is so much depending on it that I made my father an offer I knew he couldn’t refuse. You know I inherited property in the most prestigious areas of Paris from my mother’s family. My father once tried to take it from me and might have succeeded if it weren’t for his vizier. He made sure it was untouchable. But I knew it was the only thing that might persuade my father to honor his commitment to my grandmother to pass the land to me. And so it turns out.”

Zak’s face darkened with anger. “Soraiya! You shouldn’t have made such a bargain! That property was yours. It wasn’t part of the matrimonial settlement. It must have been worth millions.”

“It was. And just as well it was because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to make him keep his promise to give us the land. You see, after my eligibility for the land has been revoked, it would revert to him, to do with as he pleases. After our meeting, it pleases him to give it to me.”

He sighed, looked away, and muttered a string of expletives. He turned to her eventually. “You’ve sacrificed everything for me and for Sirun. You shouldn’t have done. We’d have found another way.”

“Maybe. But nothing as effective as this. Besides, I couldn’t bear the shame of my father reneging on the arrangement. No, I had to put things right.”

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