Page 41 of The Innocent Carrying His Legacy

‘Nazir?’

But he didn’t respond. He couldn’t. He had to go and get rid of these feelings somehow, and luckily he knew exactly what would help.

Without a word, Nazir strode from the terrace leaving Ivy sitting there alone.

Ivy stared at the doorway into the house where Nazir had disappeared so suddenly, a familiar anxiety twisting in her gut.

What on earth had happened? Why had he walked away like that?

They’d been having a perfectly lovely dinner, made even lovelier by the things he’d said about her, about how there was nothing wrong with her, that she was perfect. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to guess her underlying fears the way he had, that there’d always been something wrong with her, because why else hadn’t she been adopted by anyone?

That self-doubt had eaten away at her for years, though she hated to acknowledge it in any way. Yet looking into his eyes and seeing the conviction burning in them had felt like balm to a festering wound. As if all those people suddenly didn’t seem important any more, their opinions about her irrelevant.

Nazir believed she was perfect and that was all that mattered.

Of course, she didn’t need validation from anyone, yet she couldn’t deny that his meant a great deal to her. In fact, she was starting to think thathemeant a great deal to her, especially over the past couple of days.

She’d never had someone’s sole attention before. Never had anyone put her needs first. Even something as simple as making sure her favourite tea was available and that the food she liked to eat was in supply in the kitchen. She’d never had anyone be interested in her opinions on a subject and want to talk to her about it, or even listen to what she had to say. Or no, that wasn’t quite true. She’d had Connie, who’d given her a taste of what friendship was like. But it wasn’t friendship she had with Nazir. It was something different, something that felt deeper, that had a physical element, the bond that came with sex and also with the fact that the child inside her was his.

A child she’d been starting to think about as theirs. She hadn’t wanted to stop thinking about Connie as the baby’s mother because Connie had been the whole reason for its existence. But Connie wasn’t here, and, regardless of how the baby had come to be, Ivy would be its mother.

No. She would behismother.

Her hand rested on her stomach, a deep feeling of peace stealing through her, as though she’d come to some kind of agreement within herself. Yes, she would be his mother and Nazir would be his father, and they would be a family together. It was what she’d always wanted—what they’d both wanted, if what he’d said was true.

But...

She glanced again at the doorway, frowning. Something had affected him, causing his expression to harden and his turquoise eyes to ice over.

It’s you. You know you’re always the problem.

Except no, she didn’t think that was true, not this time. They’d been talking about her, it was true, but he’d told her she was perfect, that there was nothing wrong with her, so what had made him suddenly walk away like that?

The Ivy of a week ago would have dismissed it in order to hide her own anxiety that it was something she’d done. But the Ivy she was now was different. The new Ivy had spent a week in his arms discovering that when he smiled he was mesmerising and that he had a playful side she found absolutely delightful. That he was interesting and knowledgeable about the world, having been to a great many places, and hadn’t minded one bit her peppering him with questions about them.

The new Ivy could make him growl with need and pant with desire.

The new Ivy could make him burn.

And that Ivy wasn’t going to let him walk away from her without finding out what was hurting him.

Taking one last sip of her juice, she got to her feet and moved over to the doorway, the silky fabric of the robe whispering against her bare skin.

She had no idea where he might be, but she checked the usual places: the living area, the terrace, the small, cosy library—though, to be fair, that was her preferred place to be rather than his. He wasn’t in the office either, or the bedroom. Which only left one other place that he spent any time in: the gym on the bottom level of the house.

The house was built of stone and there was a timeless quality to it and to the furnishings, but the gym was resolutely modern. It was a big, wide open space, mirrored down one wall and full of different apparatus, treadmills and rowing machines, a stationary bike and an elliptical, weight benches and other constructions built of gleaming steel with bars at different heights.

She found Nazir standing beneath one of these, stripped to the waist. As she paused in the doorway, he raised his arms, made a powerful, graceful leap and caught hold of the bar. He hung suspended there for a couple of seconds, then, with a movement that was nothing but sheer, masculine strength, he began a series of expertly controlled pull-ups.

Ivy leaned against the doorway, watching him.

There was something brutal in the way he moved, in the power and control involved in each pull-up, and it was mesmerising. The lights of the gym highlighted the flex and release of every chiselled muscle, the flat plane of his stomach, the broad expanse of his chest, and the contraction of his biceps as he pulled himself up then let himself down.

He was sleek and immensely powerful, his bronze skin gleaming with sweat.

She swallowed, the ache of desire already building between her thighs. A warrior, that was what he was, a warrior through and through, built to protect. Made to defend.

Yet...that wasn’t all he was. There was a compassion to him that she thought he wasn’t aware of or that perhaps he tried to hide, and she’d seen the evidence of it in how he spoke of his men and how he ran his army. In how he’d cared for her, too.

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