LITMIR.BIZ

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href="#u50dec99a-19a7-5107-bed3-5a32684f6d12">CHAPTER SIX

      PRIMED FOR THE Sheikh’s knock at precisely eight o’clock, Hannah sneaked one last glance at the mirror, then wished she hadn’t. Because this was the reverse side of the fairy tale, wasn’t it? This was the reality. Last time she’d spent the evening with Kulal, she had been transformed with a wave of the stylist’s magic wand. With her costly jewels and a silken gown she’d looked like someone he might wish to be seen with. But not any more. She had been sick during the early weeks of her pregnancy and, as a consequence, her face had acquired a horrible gauntness. Her dress looked cheap—because it was—her breasts felt heavy, and now she was going to have to endure a stilted dinner in some fancy restaurant with a man who had never wanted to see her again and meanwhile...

       Kulal hadn’t said a single positive word about the baby.

      He hadn’t said any of the things she’d secretly been wishing for, even though she’d told herself it was madness to expect anything from such a man. He hadn’t reassured her that, although becoming a father had been the last thing on his mind, he would step up to the plate and take responsibility—and he certainly hadn’t cooed with pleasure or puffed his chest with pride. He had just studied her dispassionately as if she were no longer a woman, merely an inconvenience who had suddenly appeared in his life. He had installed her in a suite at the Royal Palace Hotel—admittedly the biggest suite she had ever seen. But she had felt small and insignificant within its gilded walls and, when she’d woken from her restless nap, had wandered aimlessly from room to room, wondering what on earth was going to happen next.

      An authoritative rap put paid to any further introspection and Hannah opened the door to find Kulal standing there, the bronze shimmer of his robes alerting her to the fact that he too had changed. Had he rushed back to the real palace for a quick wash and brush-up, she wondered—just about to tell him that she wasn’t sure she could endure going to a stuffy restaurant, when she noticed two hotel employees wheeling a vast trolley towards them, bearing unseen dishes topped with gleaming silver domes.

      ‘I thought we’d eat here,’ he said peremptorily, walking into the room without invitation, the waiters trundling the trolley immediately behind him.

      Hannah opened her mouth to object to his cavalier attitude then shut it again. Because really, what was the point? While one waiter set the table positioned in a far alcove, she was forced to endure the tops of the silver dishes being triumphantly whipped off by the other, like a magician producing a series of rabbits at the culmination of his act. But she felt no enthusiasm for the feast which was revealed, despite the alluring display of pomegranate-peppered rice and vegetables cooked with nuts and a sweet paste she’d never heard of. She waited until she and Kulal were alone before turning to him, not caring whether her face showed her growing frustration or not.

      ‘Why are we eating here?’ she questioned baldly. ‘Because you’re ashamed of being seen with me?’

      He didn’t react to her truculent tone, adopting instead a tone of voice she suspected was meant to calm her down.

      ‘A public appearance will serve little purpose other than to aggravate the situation,’ he said. ‘I don’t particularly want reporters seeing us out together—not at this stage. Sit down, Hannah. You should eat something. Now. Before we have any kind of discourse. Before you keel over and faint—because that really would be a bore.’

      His tone was crisp and authoritative and, although Hannah was still in a mood of rebellion against his high-handedness, she knew that for the sake of her baby she should heed his words. So she sat down opposite him, at a table laid with snowy linen, silver cutlery and crystal glasses—and ate some food with all the enjoyment of somebody being forced to finish a school dinner. It was only when she had put her fork down that she noticed his own plate lay barely touched.

      ‘Yet you aren’t eating yourself?’ she observed.

      ‘I’m not hungry. I have work to attend to after our meeting and food will make me sleepy.’

      His answer left Hannah in no doubt that whatever he was planning, it certainly wasn’t seduction—and she was unprepared for the feeling of rejection which washed over her. Was he regretting ever having been intimate with her? she wondered. Probably. If she had been in his shoes wouldn’t she have felt the same way? Carefully, she folded her napkin—the way she’d seen countless guests do at the Granchester—and placed it on the table. But the first proper meal she’d had in days was actually making her feel stronger—and strength was what she needed right now. Trying not to be affected by the dark glitter of his eyes, she sat back in her chair.

      ‘So,’ she said.

      ‘So?’ He raised his eyebrows at her questioningly.

      Hannah’s foster father had been a gambler and she knew a bit about bargaining. She knew that in a situation like this, where the stakes were high, whoever broke first would lose, and who kept their nerve would win. But she suspected that there weren’t going to be any real winners or losers in this situation and, besides, she hadn’t come here to make demands of him. She didn’t want his money or a title, no matter what he might think. She’d come here to give him her momentous news in person and the rest was up to him. And wasn’t there something else? The only positive glimmer in his attitude towards her?

      ‘I suppose I should be grateful you haven’t demanded a paternity test,’ she said.

      He shrugged. ‘I thought about it. I spent the hours between our meeting this afternoon and coming here this evening wondering whether I should ask the palace doctor to accompany me and have him test you.’

      ‘But you decided not to?’

      His eyes glittered as he acknowledged her challenge. ‘I did.’

      ‘Might I ask why?’

      He leaned back in his chair to study her. ‘I realised that a woman who had waited until she was twenty-five to take her first lover would be unlikely to take two within the space of a few months.’

      There was a pause as she summoned up the courage to say it. ‘Yet you didn’t mention it at the time.’

      ‘Your virginity, you mean?’ he probed.

      For all her newly acquired bravado, Hannah found herself blushing and, as a distraction, took a sip of the delicious sweet-sharp pink drink which she’d never tasted anywhere else. ‘Yes.’

      ‘What was I supposed to do? Exclaim with delirious joy?’ His lips curved into a mocking smile. ‘Or perhaps you expected me to be angry? To demand why you had waited for so long to have sex, and why you hadn’t told me?’ He shrugged his broad shoulders and his powerful muscles rippled beneath the bronze silk of his robes. ‘My ego would not have allowed me to ask such disingenuous questions and, besides, you are not the first virgin I have bedded.’

      Oddly enough, that hurt—even though it infuriated Hannah that it should do. She told herself she shouldn’t allow herself to be hurt by a man who had never intended their liaison to be anything other than a one-night stand—and it was certainly not a good idea to start imagining the other women who had sighed with pleasure in his arms. ‘Anyway, that’s beside the point...’ she said, determined not to allow a dangerous wistfulness to creep into their negotiations.

      His black gaze lasered into her as her words tailed off. ‘Which is?’

      ‘I need to know what kind of involvement you’d like in the baby’s life. If any,’ she added quickly, because she certainly wasn’t going to force him into something he didn’t want to do. And you can’t force him, she remembered. He’s a king. ‘To know how we’re going to deal with this situation.’

      He drifted his fingertip around the rim of his crystal glass before lifting his gaze to hers and his face had assumed an almost cruel expression. ‘And what would you like to happen, Hannah?’ he questioned softly. ‘For me to marry you in a glittering ceremony and make you my Queen—is that your secret dream?’

      Hannah

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