AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’d been over this ground before. Hadn’t he just thought the same thing again? The complications if he did such a crazy thing? Even the nasty possibility that her responses to him had been deliberate because she figured she could divert him from his plan?
His body tightened.
Or maybe, like him, she needed to get this impossible hunger out of her system.
Maybe this was the night to do it. Maybe—
What was that?
A sound. A whimper.
It was the baby.
Karim hesitated. He thought of the last time he’d heard the child crying, how he’d found him awake and Rachel asleep …
He stepped forward and opened the door.
It was the same. The dark sitting room. The soft light glowing through the partly open door of the nursery. And Rachel, asleep in the big wing chair, her hair loose and shining against the ivory fabric of one of those old-fashioned nightgowns he’d never known any other woman to wear.
His mistresses wore silk. Or lace. Sexy stuff, meant to turn up the heat …
And never getting it half as high as Rachel did in throat-to-toe cotton.
He wanted to kneel beside her, take her in his arms, draw her down to the floor with him. Kiss her, taste her, make her moan with hunger.
The baby. Concentrate on the baby.
Ethan was in the crib, wide awake, kicking those little arms and legs like a marathon runner and smiling from ear to ear.
Karim smiled back.
“Hey, pal,” he whispered.
He moved forward. Stepped on something. A pen and, under it, a notebook. He picked it up, glanced at the page. Rachel had scrawled a “To Do” list. None of his business what it was …
Except he could see it was about keeping Ethan.
He felt a quick tug of guilt. Which was ridiculous.
He had no reason to feel guilty. The baby was a prince’s son. He owed it to his brother’s memory, his king and his people, to see to it he was raised as a prince.
“Gaa gaa?”
Karim put the pad and pen on a table, scooped the baby into his arms and tiptoed from the room.
It was close to dawn when something drew Rachel from sleep.
A noise. A stir of sound somewhere in the vast apartment.
