Sheikh's Baby Bombshell
Date: 2013-06-01 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Romance
Description: USA Today bestselling author Melanie Milburne exposes the truth behind the night Crown Prince Talib and English Rose Abby couldn’t forget in this digital novella that will leave you breathless! Crown Prince Talib Muhtadi was only supposed to spend one night in the arms of delectable English rose Abby Wright. Yet the sizzling night they shared is proving inconveniently unforgettable! So when he sees Abby’s delicate face in the crowds outside his palace, he initially thinks it’s his fevered imagination playing tricks on him But Abby is very realand so is her baby bump! To avoid a national scanda
Publisher: Harlequin
Rights: Copyright (c) 2013 by Melanie Milburne

Sheikh’s Baby
Bombshell

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Melanie Milburne

USA TODAY bestselling author Melanie Milburne exposes the truth behind the night Crown Prince Talib and English Rose Abby couldn’t forget in this digital exclusive that will leave you breathless!

Crown Prince Talib Muhtadi was only supposed to spend one night in the arms of delectable English rose Abby Wright. Yet the sizzling night they shared is proving inconveniently unforgettable! So when he sees Abby’s delicate face in the crowds outside his palace, he initially thinks it’s his fevered imagination playing tricks on him...

But Abby is very real—and so is her baby bump! To avoid a national scandal, Talib whisks Abby away to the desert, but under the darkness of the desert skies, their passion burns hotter than ever before...

Don’t miss the other titles in this fantastic collection that celebrates Royal Babies all over the world!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER ONE

ABBY GOT THROUGH the wedding and the reception without once losing it. Not even a tiny wobble of her chin. Not even a single tear. She smiled in all the right places, said all the right things, even stood next to the bride, her best friend, and the groom—the man who for the past nine years was supposed to be her groom—and had photos taken.

She had been polite and gracious on the outside, but inside she was...gutted.

She knew it was time to move on. It had been time to move on for the past ten and a half months, but she hadn’t quite managed to do it.

But tonight was the night.

Yes, indeedy. Abigail Lucinda Wright was going to break out of her pathetically introverted shell and find herself a man and have a one-night stand with him.

Not vanilla sex. No, sirree.

Hot sex.

Chilli-hot sex.

The piano bar was tucked in an alley off one of London’s high streets. It had a classy reputation; no riffraff would dare to come here. There was live music and dancing and the drinks were exotic and hideously expensive. Way too expensive for a cake decorator from south London, but what the heck—it wasn’t every day your best friend married your childhood sweetheart while you stood and smiled like a Cheshire cat for the cameras.

Abby steeled herself as she walked into the bar. You can do this.

The music was romantic and slow and deeply stirring. Emotions she had bolted down tested their restraints. She felt them nudge around the circumference of her heart like tiny fists punching against damp paper.

‘Can I buy you a drink?’

Abby looked at the fresh-faced, slightly chubby mousey-haired man who was an inch shorter than she was—which meant he was very short, because she was no bean pole and she was wearing ridiculously high heels—and smiled. ‘Sure, why not?’

‘What would you like?’

I’d like to go home! I don’t belong here. What was I thinking? Abby forced another smile to her lips. ‘Champagne. If they have it.’

‘Classy.’

‘That’s me.’

That’s so not me, Abby thought as she nervously fiddled with the clasp of her purse while her would-be suitor went to fetch her drink. Maybe she shouldn’t have been so hasty in accepting the first drink offered to her, but she wanted this over with.

It was a rite of passage.

An initiation.

Mind you, she would have liked someone she could feel a little more attracted to. Mousey Man, as pleasant as he seemed to be, didn’t quite fit her fantasy of tall and dark and toe-curlingly handsome.

Abby did a sweeping survey of the bar. Was no one single these days? There were couples everywhere, holding hands, sharing drinks, dancing cheek to cheek to the slow waltz that was being played by the concert standard pianist.

Everyone seemed to belong to someone—hang on a minute—apart from one tall eye-poppingly gorgeous man who was sitting at the end of the long bar, currently looking at her with a slightly hooded watchful gaze.

Abby felt a slow blush steal over her face as those dark eyes held hers. A strange, totally unfamiliar sensation passed through her body. She felt a shifting of her organs, a stirring of something that had long been lying dormant. An awakening.

An awareness.

‘Here you go.’ Mousey Man handed her a glass of fizzing champagne.

Before Abby could take it off him Tall Dark-Eyed Guy stood up and came over. ‘I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,’ he said.

Abby opened her eyes wide at his arrogant impertinence. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It’s not real champagne.’

‘Hey, wait a minute! ‘ Mousy Man spluttered.

Tall Dark-Eyed Guy nailed Mousey Man with a look. ‘Do you want to tell her what you put in her glass or would you prefer to make a statement to the police?’

‘The police?’ Abby swung back to frown at Tall Dark-Eyed Guy. ‘Since when has it been a crime to buy sparkling wine instead of champagne?’

He gave her the sort of look an adult does to a very naive child. ‘Hasn’t anyone told you not to accept unsealed drinks from strangers? He could’ve slipped anything in that glass while you weren’t watching and you’d be none the wiser until you woke up next morning with a bad headache and no memory of what had been done to you the night before.’

Abby’s stomach dropped like an elevator with snapped cables.

‘I didn’t put anything in her drink!’ Mousey Man said.

‘Prove it,’ Tall Dark-Eyed Guy said. ‘Drink it yourself.’

Mousey Man glared at him before finally tipping back the glass and draining it. He put the glass back on the bar with a thwack. ‘Who are you? Her bodyguard or something?’ He threw Abby a dismissive glance as he brushed past them. ‘I’m outta here. This place is too darned expensive anyway.’

Abby swallowed as she looked up at Tall Dark-Eyed Guy. ‘Did you see him put something in my drink?’

‘No.’

‘No? Then what was all the fuss about?’

His eyes were a rich dark brown, so rich they were almost black, fringed with thick sooty lashes and prominent eyebrows that met in the middle when he frowned. ‘You asked for champagne. If he lies to you about the quality of the drink he buys you, then what else will he lie about?’

Abby chewed at her lower lip. ‘I guess you can see I’m pretty hopeless at this hooking-up thing....’

He slanted one brow in a questioning arc. ‘Hooking up?’

She gave him a self-deprecating grimace. ‘I came out tonight specifically to hook up with someone. You know...to have a one-night stand. Today is my wedding day...well, it would’ve been if my fiancé hadn’t married my best friend instead. Ever since we were sixteen we said we’d get married on the first of May when we were both twenty-five.’ She let out a despondent sigh. ‘Some promise that turned out to be....’

Something flickered behind his eyes. A touch of empathy perhaps? ‘It’s a long time to keep a promise. Circumstances change. People change. Feelings change.’

Abby looked at him. Really looked at him. He had a sensual mouth that looked as if it was comfortable with smiling even though it was set rather grimly now. He was olive skinned and deeply tanned, with at least twelve hours of stubble on his lean, somewhat uncompromising take-no-prisoners jaw. He was dressed casually but stylishly. The fabric of his shirt lovingly framed his broad shoulders, the open collar giving a tantalising glimpse of a muscled chest with a sprinkling of dark hair. He was spectacularly good-looking in an intensely male way. And so tall!

She suddenly realised she was staring at his mouth. ‘Um...can I buy you a drink?’ Did I just say that?

His mouth tilted upwards at the corners. ‘Do you know no one has ever asked me that before?’

‘No?’

‘No.’ His gaze slipped to her mouth. ‘Which kind of makes me wonder if I should say yes, just for the novelty of it.’

Abby’s breath moved against her throat like butterfly’s wings as that dark gaze reengaged with hers. ‘I have to tell you I can’t afford champagne. It’s not quite in my budget range. I’ve never even tasted it. Not the real stuff, I mean.’

His eyes glinted with something that looked suspiciously like amusement. ‘Are you usually this honest with people you’ve only just met?’

Abby bit her lip again. ‘I know... It’s totally pathetic. It’s because deep down I’m really rather shy. I overcompensate when I’m feeling nervous and out of my depth. I talk too much. It just comes tumbling out, and once I start I can’t stop because I hate those really awkward silences when no one says anything and you don’t know if people like you or—’ she gave a little gulp as his index finger came towards her lips like someone reaching for the mute button ‘—nofftt.’

His slow smile was dangerously attractive. ‘I like you, Miss Naive, so you can stop fretting and relax.’

‘It’s Wright.’ She offered him her hand with a bashful smile. ‘Abigail—Abby for short—Wright.’

His fingers closed like a warm firm cage around hers. ‘I’m very pleased to meet you, Miss Wright.’

CHAPTER TWO

TALIB FELT A tingling sensation shoot from his fingers all the way to his groin as soon as his hand came into contact with hers. Something about her touch spoke to him, alerted him. Warned him. Her eyes were a nutmeg-brown, wide and innocent looking and darkly and very thickly lashed. Her glossy chestnut hair was slightly curvy and loose about her shoulders. He could smell her fragrance, an unusual mix of spring lilacs and winter violets. Her skin was clear and creamy, with just a tiny dusting of freckles over the bridge of her uptilted nose that her light makeup hadn’t quite concealed.

‘Talib Muhtadi,’ he said, giving the soft little hand in his a gentle squeeze.

Her tongue darted out over her lips in a sweeping motion. ‘How do you do?’

Talib waited for the gasp or flicker of recognition, but surprisingly none came. His name was rarely out of the press, along with his best friend from university days, Remy Caffarelli. It was quite refreshing...liberating to meet someone who hadn’t heard of him. He was so used to women fawning over him because he was a crown prince and ridiculously wealthy that he had totally forgotten what it felt like to be treated like a normal person. It was so hard to know if his lovers wanted him for him or for the prestige it gave them to have been seen with him, even if it was just for a few weeks. None of his relationships lasted more than a month or two. Any longer than that and people starting mentioning marriage and he felt that all-too-familiar clawed fist of claustrophobia clutch at his throat.

He would have to do his duty soon. His father, Sheik Sayid Yasin Muhtadi, had already had The Talk with him. At thirty-two it was time for him to settle down, to marry the bride that had been chosen for him since childhood according to the ancient tradition of his homeland, Dharbiri. He would have to produce heirs, two at least, and take over from his father when the time came. Duty would always come first. It had been drummed into him from a young age. Duty. Duty. Duty.

Talib had come to London for business, but now that it was complete he had put aside this one last night for himself. He had shaken off his bodyguards and booked into a modest hotel just so he could have one night of freedom without the restraints that being a desert province royal entailed.

But even with or without his entourage he felt restless. Bored. Lonely.

He hated that word. It annoyed him. It irked him. How could he feel lonely when he had everything money could buy?

‘So...what would you like to drink?’ Abby asked. ‘Apart from champagne, of course.’

‘I’ll have soda water.’ Talib smiled a half smile. ‘I want to keep a clear head.’

She blushed like a schoolgirl and went off to fetch their drinks.

Talib followed her with his gaze, taking in her slim curves beneath the simple but elegant black dress she was wearing. She had long legs with thoroughbred-thin ankles, dainty wrists and a swanlike neck. Her mouth was full, the top lip only marginally thinner than the lower one and curved upwards in a perpetual Cupid’s bow.

A kissable mouth.

A very kissable mouth.

She came back with a glass of soda water for him and lemonade for herself. ‘What shall we drink to?’

Talib held her gaze as he clinked his glass against hers. ‘To us.’

A tiny frown wrinkled her brow. ‘Us?’

‘Two single people at a loose end with nothing better to do than pick up strangers in a bar.’ He drank a mouthful of his drink before looking at her again. ‘What?’

Her eyes suddenly seemed too big for her heart-shaped face. ‘Is that what you’re doing? Picking me...um, up?’

Talib stroked a lazy finger down the regal slope of her cheek. Her skin was velvet soft and pure as cream. ‘You want a one-night stand, don’t you?’

Her tongue moved over her lower lip, her throat rising and falling on an audible swallow. ‘Um...yes...’

He edged up her chin so her eyes locked with his and his groin turned to fire. ‘I want you.’

Her eyes almost popped. ‘Y-you do?’

Talib was bewitched by her unguardedness, by her innocence and naivety. He was used to women who played every trick in the How to Catch a Prince handbook, but she was completely and utterly guileless. ‘You can’t tell?’ he asked as he traced a slowly moving finger across the fine scaffold of her collarbone.

‘I don’t have a lot of experience....’ Her gaze went to his mouth. ‘I’ve only had one lover....’

‘Did he satisfy you?’

Her eyes flicked back to his. ‘Pardon?’

Talib gave a cynical grunt. ‘Apparently not.’

She bit her lip again and shifted her gaze. ‘It wasn’t his fault. I’m not very good at being...intimate. I have trouble letting go. I think I’m a control freak. I find it impossible to relax. I’m easily distracted. My mind is always racing with all the things I’ve got to do or want to do or ought to do and never have the time.’

Talib placed a fingertip beneath her chin and turned her back to face him. Her eyes were bright and wide, her mouth slightly open, her breath sweet and warm and vanilla-scented as it danced in front of his face. ‘Do you want to come back to my hotel?’

Did she just gulp, or had he imagined it? ‘And do...um, what?’

‘I think you know what.’

She let out a fluttery sounding breath. ‘Wow...’

He quirked his brow. ‘Wow?’

‘I didn’t realise it would be this easy, you know, finding someone to sleep with.’

Talib took her hand and pulled her to her feet. ‘Who said anything about sleeping?’

CHAPTER THREE

Five weeks later... The Royal Palace of Dharbiri

‘But you’ve postponed the announcement of your engagement for a month as it is,’ Sheik Sayid Yasin Muhtadi said to Talib. ‘What is the point of putting off the inevitable?’

Inevitable. Talib mentally rolled his eyes. Was there anything in his life that wasn’t inevitable? Predicted for him? Programmed? Planned?

He felt so hemmed in, so trapped. The wide-open spaces of the desert normally made him feel so free and unfettered, but now they were like the walls of a prison cell closing in on him.

His mind kept drifting back to that night in London with Abby Wright...how interesting she had been, how delightfully refreshing and unaffected. She had treated him like a normal person—as an equal. She hadn’t kowtowed to him or been intimidated by him.

It had been such a standout night for him. Make that half a night. That was another thing that irked him. She had left without saying goodbye. She hadn’t even left a note.

He wasn’t used to being left. He couldn’t remember a woman ever walking out on him before. He usually had to nudge them out of his life, to give them their ticket of leave accompanied by a consolation prize of expensive jewellery.

But ever since that night he’d felt as if his life was in limbo. He’d felt jammed. Stuck on pause.

Talib let out a heavy exhalation as he turned to face his father. ‘I’ll make the announcement in a week’s time.’

‘You don’t sound very enthusiastic.’

‘That would be because I’m not.’

‘Talib, you have a duty to—’

‘To what?’ Talib stared down his father. ‘To live a lie like you did with Mama? You hated each other from the minute you were shackled together in marriage. She’s been dead seventeen years and you still can’t think of a positive thing to say about your time with her.’

Sheik Sayid sighed. ‘I know, but that’s why such care has been taken over choosing your wife for you. Yashira is nothing like your mother. She is familiar with royal protocol, comes from an impeccable family and won’t bring disgrace or shame on your name.’

Talib had nothing personal against the girl. Yashira was beautiful and demure and...boring. He didn’t feel any attraction to her, physically or mentally.

Whereas with Abby—

He had to stop thinking about that girl!

‘There are people waiting outside the palace in expectation of an announcement,’ his father said. ‘They’ve been camped there for days.’

‘I want another week before I announce the engagement.’ The engagement. Not my engagement.

‘But why?’ his father asked. ‘What’s got into you? You’ve not been the same since you went to London in May. You’ve seemed restless and on edge ever since you came back.’

Talib hadn’t realised he had been showing any outward sign of the inner turmoil he was experiencing. He knew what was expected of him. He’d known it for a long time. But that didn’t mean he didn’t feel constrained by the role he’d been born into. He had the money to buy anything he wanted...except his freedom.

He was his father’s sole heir.

With his parents’ troubled marriage they had been lucky to produce one child, let alone a spare or two. He couldn’t abdicate even if he wanted to. He was born to be sheik and he would do it because his country desperately needed stability. It was a rocky region politically. Quarrels between various factions had broken out in neighbouring provinces and the threat of civil war was ever present. The old world and modernity constantly clashed. It would be his role as ruler to bring the two sides together in some sort of working compromise.

‘Nothing’s got into me.’

‘It’s because you spend so much time with that Caffarelli boy,’ his father said. ‘Remy is a loose cannon. I’ve always told you that. He and his older brothers are such rakes. You can’t live that life anymore, Talib. You are a desert prince. You have heavy responsibilities resting on your shoulders.’

Talib turned to look out the window and sighed. Don’t remind me....

Abby got off the tour bus just outside the royal palace of Dharbiri. There was an air of expectation in the air, an atmosphere of celebration as she joined the other tourists gathered outside the imposing-looking residence. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked a woman standing next to her holding an impressive-looking camera.

‘There’s a rumour Crown Prince Talib Firas Muhtadi is going to announce his engagement some time this week,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve been here for the last five days. I want to get the first picture of the royal couple.’

Abby felt her heart plummet. ‘Oh... how exciting....’

She had come all this way....

She had found out who Talib was the morning after their night of passion. She had been absently leafing through a gossip magazine in a café when she saw his picture. The shock had made her spill her tea. But it was nothing to the shock of seeing those positive lines appear on the pregnancy test two days ago.

Abby hadn’t tried to call the palace, because she wasn’t sure if anyone would be listening in, even if by some remote chance she were put through to Talib. Servants and officials would surround him every minute of the day. How could she simply announce over the phone she was carrying his child? It was probably naively optimistic of her, but she had flown all this way hoping to catch a glimpse of him, to somehow get a message to him that she was here and would like to see him in private.

But how could she tell him now just days before the announcement of his engagement?

Abby turned away from the palace and, shielding her eyes from the blinding sun, looked at the dunes of the desert shimmering in the distance.

She suddenly felt a very long way from home.

Talib was still standing at the window of his private study after his father left when he caught a glimpse of a chestnut-haired girl standing apart from the crowd of onlookers and tourists that had spilled out of the tour buses. His heart gave a little kick against his chest wall. He had been doing it for the past month, imagining he was seeing her in the crowd. He narrowed his gaze in focus and, as he was looking, she turned away from the palace and began walking with dogged steps towards one of the tour buses. ‘Abby?’

As if she heard him, the slim girl turned and gave the palace one last wistful look before turning back to the bus again.

Talib quickly phoned his personal assistant Isham. ‘There’s a young Englishwoman getting on tour bus number twenty-two at the palace gates. Her name is Abigail Wright. Take her to my private residence in the desert. Make sure no press or anyone knows she is my guest. Tell her I will join her shortly.’

‘Yes, Your Highness.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Erm...will you require a chaperone?’

‘No.’

CHAPTER FOUR

ABBY TRIED TO quell her panic as she was transported to a remote desert residence by a robed man who had said only five words to her since he had whisked her away from the other passengers on the bus: He will join you shortly.

She felt as if she had stepped into an Arabian Nights fantasy. The desert stretched out as far as the eye could see in rolling dunes of blindingly white sand, initialled by the wind’s ten thousand playful fingers. A bird of prey rode the thermal currents above, its lonely cry piercing the hot dry silent air.

There was a stark, almost savage beauty about the desert. It was untamed, wild, unexpected and treacherous.

‘This way.’

The robed official ushered her into a blessedly cool foyer where a large indoor fountain trickled over a marble statue. The floor and walls were all made of gold inlaid marble, and ornate bronze sconces were lit at various points, their leaping tongues of flame creating a golden glow across the area.

Abby turned in a slow circle to take it all in. ‘It’s so beautiful....’ She stopped and put a hand up to her throat when she saw a tall dark figure step out of the cool shadows. ‘Oh!’

Talib’s expression was impossible to read. ‘That will be all, Isham,’ he said to his servant. ‘I do not wish to be disturbed for the next twenty-four hours.’

Abby waited until the servant had gone before speaking. ‘I would’ve called, but I didn’t have your number and then I worried that someone would listen in and then I thought I’d just fly here and then I—sorry. I’m babbling....’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Um...’ Oh God, she couldn’t just dump it on him. She had to work up to it a bit. Garner her courage. ‘I was in the area and I thought I’d pop in and say hello?’

His frown brought his brows together. ‘It is very dangerous for you to be here. I am breaking ancient cultural mores by allowing you access to my private resort. Only royal family and dignitaries are allowed here.’

Abby took affront at his cool and distant manner. ‘You’re the one who had me brought here. I was just another tourist until I was whisked away. I didn’t know if I was being kidnapped or used as a hostage. I was scared out of my wits.’

‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but no one must know you are here. No one. Do you understand?’

‘Right. Got that.’

‘Isham will clear things with your tour company,’ he said. ‘When do you fly home?’

‘A week from today.’

He studied her face for a beat or two. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again.’

Abby still wasn’t able to make out his mood. His face was as unreadable as the four walls of marble that surrounded them. ‘I didn’t expect to see you again, either. I kind of hoped I would.... I mean that’s why I came out here, to see you. If I could...’

He came over to her and stopped right in front of her. Her breath stalled in her chest as he tipped her face upwards, his thumb moving over her chin in rhythmic fashion as his gaze held hers. ‘Why didn’t you leave a note or a number so I could contact you?’

Abby blinked at him in surprise. ‘You were going to contact me?’

His thumb stilled before he dropped his hand from her face, his face masklike again. ‘I would’ve liked the option.’

‘Yes, well, I’m not up-to-date on one-night-stand protocol. I thought it best to make an early exit in case you had another appointment lined up.’

Something hardened around his mouth. ‘I might have a reputation as a playboy, but I don’t have a revolving door on my bedroom.’

‘Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘That you’re about to announce your engagement.’ Abby wasn’t sure why those words should hurt her so much, but they did.

Your engagement. Not our engagement.

He stepped away with a frown as he raked a hand through his hair. ‘Yes.’

Ouch.

‘Congratulations.’ Her face almost cracked on her forced smile.

‘It is my duty to marry and produce an heir.’ His tone was flat, as if he were reading the words from a formal document.

Abby had to stop her hand from straying to her abdomen to cover it protectively. ‘Do you love her?’

The shutter came back down over his face. ‘Love has nothing to do with the arrangement. In fact, it is better if it doesn’t.’

She frowned at him. ‘How can you do that? How can you marry someone you don’t love?’

His mouth had that grim set to it again. ‘It is my destiny. I have no choice but to fulfil my duty.’

‘It sounds like it totally sucks to be royal,’ Abby said. ‘I would hate someone telling me who I could or couldn’t marry. I would only ever marry for love.’

He looked at her for a long moment. He seemed to be memorising her features, one by one, storing them away for a time when he would revisit them. He touched her face again, an almost absent touch, as if he wasn’t quite sure if she was really standing there or just an apparition he had conjured up in his mind. ‘I’ve thought of you a lot over the last month.’ He traced a fingertip over her lower lip until every nerve was on fire. ‘Wondering what you were doing. Who you were with.’

Abby suppressed a little shiver. ‘Me, too... I mean I thought of you, not me. A lot. About what we did that night. The one-night-stand thing. It was fun—’ fun? ‘—I mean it was wonderful. The best night of my life, actually...’

His hands settled about her waist, his eyes dark and intense as they held hers. ‘Stay here with me this week. Just the two of us. Alone.’

Abby bit her lip until she tasted blood. ‘Talib...I have something to tell you. It’s the reason I’m here.... The thing is...I’m not sure how to say it. I’ve been rehearsing it for the last couple of days, but there’s no way of saying it without shocking you. I’m shocked myself. I nearly passed out when I saw those positive lines come up on the test....’

His face suddenly stilled and then drained of colour. ‘You’re... pregnant?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘YES...’

Talib closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them again and Abby was still standing in front of him with those big nutmeg-brown eyes, her face looking pinched and worried. ‘You’re sure?’

She gave a miserable nod and said in a soft whisper. ‘I’m so sorry....’

He tightened his hands on her waist. ‘It’s mine?’ Her face immediately fell and he felt like a jerk for even asking. ‘Of course it’s mine. You wouldn’t have come all this way if it wasn’t, would you?’

Her forehead was puckered. ‘I don’t understand how it happened.’

Talib did. He had been very slow to withdraw the last time. He had wanted to hold her for as long as he could, to store the memory of her touch in his head. In his body.

‘Condoms can leak or tear.’ He held her against him, stroking her back to soothe her as he tried to think.

Abby was having a baby.

His baby.

His heir.

‘Are you well? Is everything all right with the pregnancy so far?’

‘Yes, I’m fine. I feel fine. But I don’t want to get rid of it. Please don’t ask that of me.’ Her voice was soft but no less implacable.

Talib eased her away to look at her. ‘No one is going to make you do that, least of all me. I’ll sort something out. A way to manage this.’ There has to be a way to manage this.

‘But you’re about to become engaged.’ Her expression was so crestfallen it pained him to witness it.

‘Not officially. I haven’t made any announcement as yet.’ And I don’t want to. I never wanted to marry Yashira.

‘But it’s not like you’re going to marry me instead,’ she said in a dispirited tone. ‘We don’t even know each other, not really.’

Talib felt he had learned more about her in that first five minutes of meeting her in the piano bar than he had learned about any other lover he had spent weeks or a couple of months with. Spending the night with her had only confirmed to him she was a one-in—a-million girl. A girl he hadn’t been able to forget. A girl he wasn’t finished with just yet.

Why couldn’t he marry her?

It would be a perfect solution. His people would be surprised, but they would soon get over it, especially if it looked like a love match. Yashira’s family would have to be paid off, but he had a feeling Yashira would be privately relieved at being released from the burden of being a royal princess. He’d heard a rumour she was interested in a young man from a neighbouring province, but he hadn’t been able to establish the veracity of it as yet.

Talib’s father would take a little more convincing, but he would do his best to present Abby in the best light possible. It was surely better to marry someone he knew he could have a passionate relationship with long enough to secure heirs. After that, if things soured, then no one would blame him for moving on with his life, as long as he did it discreetly as his father and forefathers had reputedly done.

He took her by the hands and brought her close to his body. ‘Marry me, Abby. Be my desert bride. Be the mother of my children.’

Her eyes widened. ‘But you don’t love me...do you?’

Talib felt a sharp tug on his conscience like a dog pulling on a tug-of-war toy. Abby was an old-fashioned girl who believed in fairytale endings. He was a little more streetwise and cynical. He knew romantic love was not a reliable emotion. But he wasn’t going to turn his back on his responsibility towards his child.

He would marry Abby because it was in the best interests of the baby and his country.

‘I want to be with you, Abby. I haven’t been with anyone else since that night. I couldn’t get you out of my mind. I think that’s a great basis for marriage, don’t you?’

She chewed at her lower lip, her forehead creased in a worried frown. ‘I didn’t come here to force your hand. I came here because I needed to tell you. I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn’t want to do it over the phone. I wanted to see you face-to-face. To tell you in person.’

Talib brushed his thumbs over her cheeks as he cupped her face in his hands. ‘I’m glad you came, my little dove. I’ll make a public announcement soon. We will stay here until then, away from the prying eyes of the press. Once the news is made public we will have to be chaperoned until we are married according the ancient customs of the land.’

A flicker of uncertainty passed through her gaze. ‘It’s all happening so fast.... I can’t keep up. I have a life back home...a business to run. What will I tell my friends and my clients?’

He brought her up against his body where his need for her was thrumming. ‘Tell them you were swept off your feet by a handsome prince. That’s what happens in the fairytales, isn’t it?’

And before she could answer yay or nay he covered her mouth with his.

CHAPTER SIX

ABBY WAS SWEPT off her feet by his kiss. But then, she had been from the first moment her eyes had met his in the piano bar. Feeling his mouth come down on hers brought it all back—the magic of his touch, his taste, the strength of his arms as they gathered her close against his deliciously hard body.

His tongue stroked the seam of her mouth, teasing her lips apart before entering with an erotic thrust that sent shivers dancing over her flesh like a shower of tiny bubbles. He tasted fresh and minty and yet quintessentially male. Irresistible.

She whimpered as she kissed him back with all the passion that had been put on pause since she had last seen him. It poured out of her like a flood, hot and urgent and unstoppable.

Her arms went around his neck, her hips pushed up against him until she could feel every pulsing throb of his erection against her body. Her need of him was a tight ache that begged to be assuaged. ‘Is it wrong to want you so much it hurts?’ she asked against his lips.

He nibbled at her lower lip in little teasing tugs and releases that made her spine loosen. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anyone the way I want you. I thought I’d imagined it that night in my hotel, but it’s still the same. Maybe even stronger.’ He kissed her mouth again as if to test his theory. ‘Yes, definitely stronger.’

He picked her up and carried her through to a luxuriously appointed bedroom that was bigger than Abby’s bedsit at home. Rich blue velvet was draped in regal folds on the pelmets and either side of the windows, the floor was covered in ankle-deep hand-woven rugs, and smaller versions of the ornate brass sconces in the foyer were alight on the wall, giving the room a muted glow that made Abby feel as if she was stepping into a previous era.

Talib lowered her to the floor before gently running his hands down the length of her arms to encircle her wrists. A tiny frisson of delight went through her at that possessive touch. He made no apology for being an alpha male. He was born to rule, after all.

How unfathomable it seemed to her that he wanted her so badly that he was prepared to put aside his arranged bride for her. Abby was so ordinary and he was so...so extraordinary. He was her fantasy man, the romantic hero she had dreamed of as a young girl when her life with her mother had been so erratic and unpredictable. She had dreamed of a knight in shining armour who would one day carry her away from all the heartache and loneliness of not belonging to someone who cared enough to stay sober.

He doesn’t love you.

Abby shrugged off the annoying reminder with the reassurance he didn’t love the bride who had been selected for him, either. She closed her mind to her thoughts as she pressed her mouth to his.

This was what she wanted, what she craved.

To be with him, to feel his body and his passion until no thought could take foothold and destroy the precious moment of being back in his arms.

Talib kept his mouth on hers as he removed her cotton shirt, peeling it away from her like a master sculptor uncovering a valuable piece of work. ‘You’re so beautiful, so elegant and natural.’

Abby felt some of her ordinariness slip away along with her cheap cotton shirt. Her hands went to work on his shirt, unbuttoning it with more haste than skill, her heart beating like a trapped sparrow inside her rib cage. She had thought her one-night stand with him had been daring, but cloistered away with him in his private desert oasis resort took it another step further. A dangerous step further.

His chest was hot to touch, his skin rough with hair, his smell an intoxicating mix of sandalwood and musk and salty male. She pressed her open mouth to his flesh, trailing her tongue over his flat nipple, lightly scraping her fingertips down the carved perfection of his muscles. She felt him draw in a breath as her hand drifted lower to skate over his abdomen and the proud jut of his erection. It made her even more daring and brazen. She slid his zipper down and freed him, caressing him without the shyness of their first encounter.

She knew him now.

She knew how he felt, how he tasted, what he liked and how he responded to her touch. She explored him until he was breathing hard, but before she could slither down in front of him to take him in her mouth as she had dreamed of doing for the past month, he pressed her down on the bed and came over her in a sexy jumble of limbs.

‘I want you this way.’ He entered her with a deep thrust that made her gasp in surprised delight.

He set a frantic rhythm that made the base of Abby’s spine and the backs of her knees tingle like sherbet. Her body was slick with moisture, his rock hard and urgent. Her sensitive nerves stood up and took notice, every one of them doing a pirouette of joy as each of his thrusts drove harder. He lifted her pelvis with a hand beneath her bottom, the slight tilt of her hips giving her more friction. She felt a delicious drag, that wonderful climb to the summit of human pleasure that for so long had been out of her reach.

Only with him had she been able to achieve it.

Abby felt the soar of her flesh as soon as he touched her with his fingers, the stroking, caressing movement sending her reeling into a world where nothing but sensation mattered. She wrapped her arms around him as he surged one last time, his body taut as a wire as he finally let himself go. She felt the pumping action of his body within her, felt him spill and then felt him finally relax....

After a long silence he lifted his head and brushed the hair back from her face with a gentle hand. ‘I was going to come back to London this week. I’d planned to come looking for you.’

‘Why?’

He stroked a fingertip down the length of her nose. ‘I’ve never had a woman walk out on me before without leaving her contact details.’

Abby looked at him archly. ‘And that rankled?’

‘Yes, but you’re here now and that’s all that matters.’ His eyes glinted as he bent his head to kiss her. ‘And I’m not letting you run away a second time.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

TALIB STOOD ON the terrace as he watched the sun set over the desert. The fireball of the sun painted the sky in orange and rich red ochre. The fierce heat had gone out of the day and a light breeze had come like a ghostly spirit to tease the fronds of the date palms that fringed the oasis below.

This was his favourite time of the day. A time of peace and reflection before the night closed in, with just the peepholes of the stars and planets scattered like diamonds over the deep black velvet of the night sky.

He had made the announcement to his father and his press secretary a short time ago while he left Abby resting. The palace would be awash with paparazzi by morning, but he knew he was doing the right thing by offering her the security and protection of marriage. It was a daunting prospect for her to marry into a royal household, but he had assured her she would receive every bit of support she needed. He had taken care of everything so she could settle into her new role as his bride-to-be. The wedding would take place in a month’s time, and then and only then would they announce the news of the baby.

It was a good solution all around.

All the boxes were ticked.

‘Why didn’t you wake me?’ Abby asked as she came out to join him on the terrace. ‘I’ve been asleep for hours.’

He turned and, holding out an arm, drew her close. ‘I thought you needed your rest before we head back to the palace tomorrow. Things will get pretty crazy over the next couple of days.’

Her eyes swam for a moment with uncertainty. ‘What did your father say?’

Talib stroked a strand of wayward hair off her forehead and tucked it securely behind the shell of her ear. ‘He wasn’t as surprised as I thought. He’d sensed I was unhappy about something since I came home from London.’

She chewed at her lower lip in that way he found so endearing. ‘What if people don’t like me?’

He bent and kissed the top of her head. ‘They will love you the minute they see you.’

Abby walked out onto the palace balcony with Talib the following day. The huge crowd below was a mix of locals, tourists and members of the press. It was a sight she was totally unprepared for. Loud cheers and applause rose, streamers and flowers were flown and placards of congratulations were held up.

She had already met the palace household, including Talib’s father, who had made her feel much more welcome than she had expected. So much so, the niggling doubts had crept away to the corners of her mind like secretive mice on the opening of a cellar door.

‘Kiss!’ The crowd roared from below. ‘Kiss!’

Talib smiled as he gathered Abby into his arms. ‘This is the fun part.’

His mouth came down and sealed hers with a kiss that was light and yet intense at the same time. She felt the stirring of his body against hers. It responded to her every time she came near, but while she was confident of his physical need of her, she desperately wanted him to respond to her emotionally.

He was like his private oasis. Closed off. Guarded. Locked.

Talib lifted his mouth from hers and turned with her to face the ecstatic crowd of well-wishers below. ‘What did I tell you, my little dove? They love you.’

Abby smiled and waved back as a tiny ache settled like an anchor around her heart. What did it matter if everyone down there loved her but the one person who mattered the most to her didn’t?

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE WEDDING PREPARATIONS went into full swing almost immediately and at a dizzying pace at that. The palace officials scurried about organising invitations and accommodation for all the visiting dignitaries who would fly in for the wedding. The banquet hall was being redecorated in time for the royal wedding feast that would go on for days after the ceremony.

Abby was measured for the ancient wedding dress of Dharbiri, a beautiful but heavy and ornate affair that had antiquity stitched in with every thread of gold and every glittering diamond that was fitted to the bodice. Putting on those robes during one of the fittings reminded her of the awesome responsibility it would be to be a royal princess. She was effectively giving up her freedom and her privacy for the man she loved.

She hadn’t seen much of Talib, because she had been assigned separate sleeping quarters in keeping with the tradition of the land, and when they were together they were always chaperoned, which would continue until the wedding. It made her feel uneasy to
not be able to talk freely to him. All her doubts and insecurities plagued her, but she had no way of addressing them. It was too early to tell him she loved him, but being alone with him would surely settle some of her doubts.

She was appointed a lady-in-waiting, who saw to her every need. It was as if her old life had been put on hold while this new, exciting, almost surreal life played out like a fairytale.

Abby had been at the palace only a week when the news broke about her pregnancy. She wasn’t sure how it had been leaked or even if it was just speculation, but the press ran wild with it. It was on every news report and splashed over every paper. It hadn’t been how Talib had planned to announce it, but once it was out there was no way of denying it. But surprisingly for such a traditional culture, the news was not received negatively. The prospect of a royal heir was too exciting to be overshadowed by moral rectitude.

But the news of Abby’s pregnancy also triggered an intense, almost morbid interest in her background. An unscrupulous journalist unearthed some details of Abby’s mother’s struggle with addiction. Photos were published, gossip circulated. Rumours started.

The pressure of pretending it wasn’t getting to her made Abby feel as if she was living a lie. Panic set in. Gripped her. Frightened her. Terrified her.

This will be my life now.

One of speculation and intrigue, gossip and slander. Everything she did or said would be documented and pored over. Every move she made, every smile, every frown, every grimace would be plastered over some newspaper or internet site. She would be hounded like prey on a daily or minute-by-minute basis.

I can’t do this...I can’t do this....

* * *

Talib was going over some business in his study when Isham announced that Abby wished to speak to him in private. He had been hoping to steal a few minutes with her. He was aching to be with her.

To hold her.

To feel her body respond to his in that totally captivating way that moved him as no other encounter ever had. It was only when he was connected to her physically that he could express the bone-deep longing he felt for her. It wasn’t something he could put easily into words. He wasn’t the type of man to wax lyrical about his feelings, because from a young age he had witnessed the extreme emotional outbursts of his mother. He had learned to suppress what he felt because a lifetime of living in the public eye had taught him to keep such things hidden.

But he did feel something for Abby. It was something he had never felt before. He had felt it from the first moment he laid eyes on her. The fusion of their gazes had unlocked something inside him. He could never be the same even if he wanted to. Wasn’t that why he had wrestled with himself for the past month?

‘I will wait outside the door, Your Highness,’ Isham offered.

‘Thank you.’ Talib smiled as Abby came in, but then he frowned when he saw her tote bag. ‘Are you going out, darling?’

Her small chin came up. ‘I want to go home.’

Home? Talib controlled his panic. Schooled his features. Locked down. ‘This is your home now.’

‘I can’t do this, Talib.’ Her mouth was set in a grim line. ‘You can’t make me live like this. I don’t want to be gossip fodder. I don’t want to be accused of not being good enough for you. They’re saying it already, that I’m the daughter of a drug addict and not worthy of being your wife. I can’t stand it. I won’t stand it.’

‘This is nonsense, Abby. You can’t just walk away because of a bit of gossip. That’s the way the press play the game. Just ignore it.’

‘I can’t ignore it. I want to leave. I can’t think when there are cameras around every corner. I can’t smile or frown without a flash going off in my face, and now everyone is staring at my belly just waiting for it to pop out. I feel like I’m constantly under a microscope. I want to go home.’

Talib’s back stiffened. He was not used to people walking out on him. He was not used to caring if they did. His chest pounded hollowly at the thought of not seeing her again. It would be like that morning at the hotel. He had woken and reached for her and found...nothing. Empty space. She had even gone to the trouble of smoothing out the dent in the pillow where her head had lain beside his. That acute sense of loss, of something important missing from his life had plagued him until she had appeared outside the palace.

But he would not lower himself by begging her to stay.

If she wanted to go she could go, but he had a trump card and he would use it to get his way.

‘You are free to leave, but have you forgotten you are carrying my child? It is the law of this land that any royal heir must be raised with its father if the parents undergo a separation. Once the child is born he or she will be returned to Dharbiri by law.’

Her face paled, but she had a defiant spark in her gaze. ‘Would you really do that to your child? Take it from its mother as soon as she delivers it?’

Talib ignored the prick of his conscience. ‘It is my duty to inform you of the law. You are free to do as you wish, but there will be consequences that may not be palatable to you in the long run.’

She opened and closed her mouth as if she couldn’t quite think of what to say. One of her hands gripped the strap of her bag so tightly he could see the whitened skin of her knuckles.

‘Is there anything else you wish to discuss?’ His tone was curt and businesslike, because that was the only way he knew how to handle an emotionally charged situation.

‘No.’

He held her gaze for a moment before returning to the papers on his desk as if they were of greater importance. ‘I will see you at dinner. Close the door on your way out.’

CHAPTER NINE

TALIB PROWLED THE length of his study like a hyena housed in a hatbox. He was taking a chance. A big chance, but he was sure it would pay off. He would give Abby an hour or two to think things over. She would soon see she had no choice but to stay.

Of course she would stay.

He would not harbour the thought that she would leave. What woman in her right mind would? He could think of dozens of women who would happily trade places with her. He was no egotist, but wasn’t marrying a prince every girl’s dream?

He glanced at his watch for the thousandth time. Why was each minute crawling past like a snail on sedatives? He was jammed back on Pause. He wanted this sorted out. Right now.

Talib came into the smaller of the two palace dining rooms to find his butler and chief housekeeper looking sheepish. ‘What’s going on?’ He flicked his gaze to the table, where only one place was set. ‘Where’s Abby?’

His housekeeper exchanged a look with the butler. ‘She’s gone, Your Highness. She left the palace two hours ago.’

Talib felt his chest seize. His scalp prickled. His stomach hollowed. His mind filled with images of her boarding a plane back to London. He pictured the plane lifting off and disappearing into the clouds, leaving no trace of her behind....

How had he not realised what she meant to him until now? Of course he loved her. He adored her. Her shyness, her understated beauty, her natural grace and elegance. He loved everything about her. He hadn’t expected falling in love would be something that happened to him, rather than a choice he made. But he had fallen irrevocably in love with Abby the night he met her. Their chance meeting had changed everything for him. He could not imagine his future without her at front and centre of it.

‘Gone?’ His voice sounded strangled. ‘Gone where? Why wasn’t I told?’

‘She asked us not to.’

He gave them a furious frown. ‘And you obeyed her? What is wrong with you?’

‘Beg pardon, sir, but we felt we were doing the right thing,’ the butler said. ‘She said she needed some time alone to think.’

Talib glared at them both. ‘She doesn’t need to get on a plane to London to think! You should’ve stopped her, for pity’s sake!’

‘She didn’t catch a plane to London,’ the butler said.

Talib stopped fuming and pacing. ‘What?’

‘She’s gone to the oasis,’ the housekeeper said. ‘She said it’s the only place she can be alone with you. I think that’s what she needs, sir. To be alone with you, just till she finds her feet.’

‘She’s at the oasis?’ Talib’s heart gave a leap inside his chest. She hasn’t left me? She’s still here? ‘Then why the hell didn’t you say so?’

* * *

Abby stood out on the terrace and watched a shooting star fall all the way to the earth in a rolling ball of silver. She made a wish and closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the desert: the whistling wind, the rustling of the date palm fronds, the trickle of the fountain near the pool, the hooting of an owl.

The tread of firm footsteps...

She swung around to see a tall dark figure standing at the French doors that led out to the terrace.

Her Tall Dark-Eyed Guy.

‘Did you make a wish on that shooting star?’ Talib asked.

‘You saw it, too?’

‘It was a big one, wasn’t it?’ He came and stood in front of her. ‘Do you think it was big enough for two wishes?’

Abby looked up into his face. There was a hint of a smile playing about his mouth and his eyes were warm and tender. ‘What did you wish for?’

He stroked a finger down her cheek. ‘I wished that I could be better at expressing how I feel.’ He gave her a rueful smile. ‘I should’ve told you how I was feeling back at the palace when you told me you wanted to leave. But instead I said the opposite. I made it seem like I didn’t care at all, when nothing could be further from the truth.’

‘You care about me?’

He brought her closer. ‘I love you. I fell in love with you that night at the piano bar. I met your eyes, and zap. That was it. I was off the market. I was yours and have been ever since. It just took me a while to realise it.’

Abby smiled a wide joyous smile. ‘It was the same for me. I didn’t realise how quickly it could happen. I thought people were lying when they said they fell in love at first sight. But that’s exactly what happened when I met you.’

Talib stroked her cheek again. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask you to stay with me. You will gain a lot in being a royal bride, but I realise you will have to give up an awful lot, too. But I want you with me, Abby. I love you and can’t imagine being happy without you by my side.’

Abby’s heart felt as if it was going to explode with happiness. ‘I want to be with you. I can face just about anything now I know you love me. And if we can come here now and again to be alone that would be wonderful. It’s so peaceful here. So private and isolated.’

‘This will always be our special place,’ Talib said. ‘We can come here to get out of the spotlight whenever you feel the need.’

‘What about that hotel in London?’ she asked with a little twinkling smile. ‘Do you think we could go back there now and again?’

‘Of course.’ Talib kissed her lingeringly before finally raising his head to ask, ‘So, what did you wish for?’

Abby linked her arms around his neck and smiled. ‘You.’

* * * * *

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ISBN: 9781459253827

Copyright © 2013 by Melanie Milburne

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