Modern Romance July 2018 Books 1-4 Collection

He felt a flicker of irritation. Did she think he was making a pass at her? That he wanted her to go and bathe and prepare herself for him? That he would actually want to be intimate with her at a moment like this, when his whole life was about to change and she was the instrument of that change? But that wasn’t all he felt, was it? There was something else. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt a steely clench around his heart.

Was it fear?

Yet he was known for his fearlessness—even as a teenager, when he’d run away to join the Zahristan forces during the fierce border war with Quzabar. His late father had hit the roof when Kulal returned, with the livid blade mark which travelled from nipple to navel. He had been lucky not to die, the old King had raged—but Kulal hadn’t cared about his brush with death. Even before he’d left the palace to fight, he had been given hints of the frailty of human existence. He had learnt lessons which had stayed darkly in his heart. And now it seemed there was another lesson to be learnt.

He stared at her, his lips curling. ‘I am merely suggesting you might wish to change—perhaps to rest—before we have dinner.’

She gave a hollow laugh. ‘You really think I want to have dinner with you, Kulal?’

‘Actually, no. I don’t. I think we’ve been forced into a position where we’re going to have to do things which neither of us will find particularly palatable—’

‘I’m keeping my baby!’ she defended instantly.

Kulal stiffened, his nostrils narrowing as he inhaled an unsteady breath. ‘How dare you imply that I should wish otherwise?’ he flared. But although his anger would have filled any of his subjects with fear, it was having no effect on Hannah, for she was tilting her chin in a way which was positively defiant.

‘I’m just letting you know the ground rules from the start, so there can be no misunderstanding,’ she said. ‘And I can’t see the point of us having dinner.’

‘Can’t you?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘You need to eat and we need to talk. Why not kill two birds with one stone?’

Her gaze became hooded, thick lashes shuttering her aquamarine eyes like dark feathers. ‘I feel it’s my duty to tell you,’ she flared, ‘just in case you’re getting any autocratic ideas of whisking me away so I’m never heard of again—that my sister knows exactly where I am and she has the number of the police on speed-dial.’

It was such an outrageous remark that Kulal almost smiled until the gravity of the situation hit him and all levity vanished. Because humble Hannah Wilson was not as compliant as he had initially thought, was she?

‘Let’s say eight o’clock, shall we?’ he questioned, eager to reassert his authority. ‘And please don’t keep me waiting.’

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 didn’t react in the way she wanted to. In the way her seething hormones were urging her to. Years of keeping the peace were finally paying dividends so that she was able to produce a calm look in response to his arrogant statement.

‘Are you making the assumption that I would say yes to such a proposal?’ she questioned coolly.

It gave her an inordinate amount of pleasure to see him looking momentarily wrong-footed. And confused.

‘You’re trying to tell me you would refuse such an offer?’ he demanded.

And suddenly all Hannah’s determination to keep calm dissolved beneath his arrogant sense of certainty. ‘Too right I would,’ she said fervently. ‘I don’t really know you and at this moment, I’m not sure whether I even like you. We both probably want completely different things, so why would I marry you? I’ve had enough experience to realise that unless two people share a common goal, then marriage can be an out-and-out disaster.’

Kulal grew very still because, uncannily, she was echoing his own thoughts on the subject. He stared across the table at her. Had she guessed about his childhood? Pieced together the deliberately vague facts which were the only ones on record and somehow made sense of them? Stored that knowledge away as a point-scoring weapon to use when the time was right?

He sucked oxygen deep into his lungs. No. His parents’ marriage had been a secret to the rest of the world because in those days, the press had not been at liberty to report on rumours and hearsay. And although Kulal was regarded as a modern monarch, he was grateful for those historic restrictions. Even his mother’s death had been hushed up in the only way which had been acceptable at the time and if you buried something deep enough, you could guarantee it would never see the light of day. He swallowed, wanting something to distract him from the bitter memories which were darkening his mind, and so he did what for him was unthinkable. He asked Hannah about her past.

‘Your parents weren’t happy?’

She shook her head. ‘No.’

‘And where are they now?’ he said. ‘Are they going to make a dramatic appearance, demanding I do the right thing by you?’

Did she recognise that his questions were a tactical move to focus attention on her, not him? Was that why a shadow crossed her face and why her curvy little body suddenly tensed?

‘I didn’t have any parents.’

‘You must have—’

‘Oh, there were two people who conceived me,’ she said, not appearing to care that she’d interrupted him. ‘But I didn’t know them. Or rather, I can’t remember them.’

This was the point at which Kulal would normally grow bored, and wary. He’d learnt to his cost that the more you allowed a woman to talk about herself, the more it gave a falsely inflated sense of her own importance. But he could see this was different. Hannah was not some lover who would soon be removed from his orbit as diplomatically as possible, once he had taken his fill of her. If he wanted any part of his child’s life, then she was going to be around for the long-haul.

His mouth hardened. How ironic that his future was to be inextricably linked to a woman he’d spent a single night with. A woman who could not have been more unsuitable for the task of bearing his heir. Yet their child would carry the genes of both their forebears, he reminded himself—so wasn’t it his duty to gather as much information as possible? His mouth hardened with new resolve. Because you never knew when such information might become useful.

He stared at her, aware that her defiant mask had slipped—showing a trace of vulnerability which had softened her face. And for some crazy reason, he was reminded of the night he’d spent with her, when her rosy lips had trembled whenever he had kissed her. When she’d shivered with ecstasy as he’d brought her to yet another breathtaking orgasm. When she’d curled up in his arms afterwards and clung to his neck like a little kitten. ‘So what happened with your parents?’ he questioned, aware that his voice had gentled. ‘Do you want to tell me?’

Actually, no. Hannah didn’t want that. Not at all. But the only thing worse than telling him would be not telling him. He seemed to want to keep their liaison and everything else a secret, but she wasn’t naïve enough to think they could do that for ever. If word got out that she had been the Sheikh’s lover, then wouldn’t people start prying into her background and rooting up all kinds of horrible stuff? She would come over as the victim she had tried so very hard not to be.

So take control of the facts and tell him yourself.

‘I was brought up in care,’ she said slowly. ‘With my sister.’

‘Care?’ he questioned blankly.

‘It’s when your parents can’t look after you—or if they don’t want to.’

‘And which category did yours fall into?’

Hannah shrugged. ‘I don’t really know a lot about them. Only what I was told when I was old enough to understand. My mother was kicked out by her parents when she was seventeen.’ There was a pause before she said it, because she didn’t want to say it. If she told him, would he freak out? Worry that his baby was going to inherit some disturbing traits, like addiction? But if he freaked out, then so be it. She couldn’t change facts and she mustn’t start being afraid of how Kulal might choose to interpret them, just because he was in a position of power. ‘She developed a drug habit.’

‘Your mother was a junkie?’ he exclaimed in horror.

Hannah’s lips tightened. It was funny how you could still be loyal to someone who hadn’t wanted you. Someone who had broken every rule in the parental handbook. ‘She didn’t inject,’ she said defensively, as if that made everything all right, and she found herself wondering if children were conditioned never to give up hope that one day their parents would love them and cherish them. Her hand moved instinctively to lie on her belly and she saw Kulal watching her closely. ‘But she took pretty much everything else which was on offer. My father was a rich student from New York, who enjoyed the same kind of...pastimes. The pregnancy wasn’t planned—obviously.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Apparently, my mother wanted to get married. But then his parents arrived from America, scooped him up and put him into rehab and gave my mother a very large cheque, making it clear that, if she cashed it, they never wanted to see her again.’