Page 20 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

He was, damn him.

Ivy let out a breath. ‘I don’t like being told what to do.’

‘What a shock.’ His expression didn’t change and yet she could have sworn his hard mouth relaxed slightly. ‘Actually, neither do I. Yet if someone told me to go and eat, and I knew my body needed food, I’d eat, and not waste time arguing about it.’

The strange surge of emotion that had caught her just before was receding, taking with it her anger and her stubborn refusal to give in. She didn’t have the energy for it and somehow, here in this calm, cool room, the urgency to do so had faded too.

Irritated, she picked at the hem of her dusty, sandy robe. ‘Telling me I’m not allowed to leave and that you’re going to marry me didn’t help.’ She knew she sounded petulant, but right now she didn’t care.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘It probably didn’t. But you needed to know my intentions upfront and the sooner I told you, the more time you would have to come to terms with it.’

‘You don’t have to, you know,’ she said. ‘I’m sure there are much easier ways to protect me and the baby than marriage.’

‘Perhaps.’ He rose to his full height in a surprisingly graceful liquid movement then turned, going over to another of the couches and picking up a soft throw in muted blues and greens that had been tossed over the back of it. ‘But that is what I’ve decided.’ He came back to where she lay and tucked the soft fabric around her. ‘We’ll talk about this later. Right now you need some sleep. I don’t want you fainting on me again.’

Ivy gave him an indignant look even as she snuggled beneath the throw. ‘It wasn’t exactly a faint.’

‘Swooned, then,’ he said, without any discernible change of tone.

She narrowed her gaze suspiciously. Was he teasing her? Surely not. He didn’t look like a man who even knew what a tease was. ‘Swoon? Do women swoon these days? I certainly don’t.’

His expression remained enigmatic. ‘You might. Given the right circumstances.’

A delicious lassitude was creeping up on her, as if the warmth and softness of the throw and the soothing sound of the fountain outside were wrapping around her, easing her, relaxing her.

She fought it briefly, determined not to give him the last word. ‘And what circumstances are those?’

One side of his mouth lifted in the barest hint of a smile, something glittering in the depths of his eyes that for once wasn’t cold. ‘Sleep, Miss Dean,’ he said.

And much to her annoyance, she found herself doing just that, his almost-smile following her into her dreams.

CHAPTER FIVE

NAZIRFELTODDLYenergised and he wasn’t sure why. By rights he shouldn’t. The operation he’d just concluded and the broken sleep he’d had before Ivy Dean had turned up on his doorstep should have meant at least a certain level of tiredness.

Yet it wasn’t tired he felt as he sat in his office that afternoon, making yet more arrangements in regard to Ivy. He’d directed one of his aides to find out as much as he could about her and then spent a good hour scrolling through the information the aide had sent him on his laptop.

She was an unremarkable woman at first glance, working as the manager of a children’s home in London. She had no family, it seemed, had grown up in the home she now managed, and was doing a very good job of it if all the financials were correct.

She spent all her time there, from the looks of things, didn’t travel, didn’t go out, nor did she seem to have many friends. It was on the surface a small, undistinguished life.

And it didn’t match at all the sharp, spiky, fiery woman who’d turned up in his guardhouse.

She was a capable, brave woman certainly, yet one who hadn’t thought twice about confronting him or arguing with him. Who’d been afraid and yet had challenged him. Who’d told him she didn’t consider the baby hers and yet who’d put her hand over her stomach protectively and seemed convinced it was a boy.

A woman who was very no-nonsense on the surface but who hid a certain...fire.

There were intriguing contrasts to her, he had to admit. She was so sharp and annoyed with him, and yet as her strength had left her earlier and he’d had to catch her before she fell, she hadn’t protested. She’d relaxed against him, all warm and soft and delicately feminine. That had surprised him, though he wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he’d been expecting her to be as sharp and spiky as her manner, or as flat as her no-nonsense stare. But no. There had been delicious curves and intriguing softness, the gently rounded bump of her stomach pressing against him. And her scent had been a light musk and a subtle, but heady sweetness that reminded him of the jasmine that grew outside the Sultana’s rooms at the palace.

He hadn’t been sure what had possessed him to pick her up and take her into the part of the fortress that had once, a century ago or more, housed the harem. His father had had it remodelled into rooms for Nazir’s mother for their forbidden trysts, and though it was tempting for Nazir himself to bring his lovers there, since that wing was a much more pleasant place to be than the fortress proper, he’d never done so. It hadn’t been worth the risk of disclosing the location of the fortress simply for the sake of a night or two’s pleasure.

Yet he hadn’t thought twice about picking Ivy up and taking her into the bright, pretty little salon that his mother had once delighted in. It had just seemed...right. Besides, there hadn’t been anywhere else to take her. There was a set of rooms put aside for medical purposes, but he hadn’t wanted to take her there. Everything was austere and utilitarian and not at all comfortable for her.

Her comfort shouldn’t have been relevant, just as her feelings shouldn’t have been relevant, and yet he’d found himself concerned with both. It was disturbing. He couldn’t afford to be distracted by one person, not when he had a whole army to look after and foreign governments to liaise with, not to mention those private interests. And that wasn’t even thinking about the Sultan’s growing displeasure with him and the private army he commanded. An army that was rapidly growing more powerful than that of Inaris.

His father’s life had been ruined by his obsession with the Sultana, his eventual banishment leaving him a broken and embittered man. Nazir would not be the same. Physical passion was one thing, but he’d ensured there was only emptiness where his heart should be.

Once, it had been different. When he’d been a boy, his arid upbringing in his father’s house had been transformed by the infrequent meetings he’d had with his mother. He’d lived for those meetings, brief moments of time where he’d had warmth and softness and understanding. Moments when he’d been loved. But they’d never lasted and they’d been never enough.

---