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His eyes grew hard. ‘Did you set it all up so that we’d bump into that woman Carrie—who has clearly run straight to the newspapers about us?’
‘How could I do that when I had no idea that you were going to take a walk with me?’
Zuhal sliced the condemnatory palm of his hand through the air. ‘You could have phoned her when you were putting on your hat!’
‘Well, I didn’t!’ she flared. ‘I can’t believe you’d think me even capable of such a thing—of putting my son at risk like that. How dare you?’
Zuhal was so taken aback by the fury in her voice that he let his hand fall to his side. And the crazy thing was that all he wanted to do was to kiss her—long and hard and deep. He wanted to take her in his arms and strip them both bare and lose all this anger and these recriminations. He scowled, because now was not the time to be distracted by the lure of sex, no matter how much he ached to be inside her again. The whole situation had got completely out of hand and it was now time for him to rein it all in, using the most effective means at his disposal.
He was going to have to do what he should have done the moment he found out about his son.
‘You will have to come back to Razrastan with me,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t think my statement requires any clarification.’
‘You don’t think your statement requires any clarification?’ she repeated. ‘Well, I do! What happened to keeping me here, with Darius as your insurance-policy heir, while you went out seeking a suitable bride?’
‘I’ll tell you exactly what happened,’ he gritted out. ‘My son has been discovered by the press. It hasn’t hit the newspapers yet because my lawyers currently have an injunction out—but it will, because the courts will probably throw it out on the grounds that it’s in the public interest to announce that Razrastan has a new heir. Even if they don’t you can’t keep something like this quiet for ever. Which is why the best kind of damage limitation is for you to agree to return to the guaranteed safety of my homeland.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t do that, Zuhal,’ she whispered.
Beneath his silken robes, Zuhal’s body stiffened. Was she really refusing the gift he could offer her—a place of sanctuary while he worked out some kind of future for them all, even though he didn’t yet know what that future could possibly be? She was a mass of contradictions, he conceded unwillingly—a woman who continually perplexed him. Who kept him at arm’s length with a determination which was in itself a turn-on.
Yet he found himself remembering that moment in the park when he’d touched her and had seen her whole demeanour soften. Her green eyes had blazed with something passionate and unspoken. If that woman—Carrie—had not burst in on them, might he not have taken Jazz into his arms and kissed her? Brought her back here and spent the rest of the day having sex with her, so that once again she would become his compliant lover of old, eager to agree with whatever he suggested? When, instead, she was returning his gaze with a cool confidence which was making him seethe. So how best to proceed? He couldn’t exactly drag her kicking and screaming back to Razrastan, could he? No matter how vivid that particular fantasy was turning out to be!
‘You must realise that now I have discovered the existence of my son, nothing can ever be the same, Jazz.’
‘You didn’t discover him,’ she answered. ‘You came across him by chance.’
‘However you care to define it,’ he iced out, ‘the facts remain the same. You are the mother of the Sheikh’s son and you both remaining here in England is no longer a satisfactory option. You have no experience of press harassment but I do. You will be given no space until you provide them what they want, which is a story.’
She tipped her head back, her green eyes on a collision course with his. ‘You really think I’d sell a story to the papers?’
‘Actually, no. I don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘But the story won’t go away and in the meantime rumours will abound.’
‘Rumours?’ she questioned wryly. ‘Or the truth?’
‘The fact of our son is undeniable.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I just need to figure out the best way to present it to my people and I can’t do that if I’m constantly worried about you being besieged by all and sundry.’
‘I don’t know,’ she hedged.
Sensing weakness, he swooped. ‘Come back to Razrastan with me, Jazz,’ he urged. ‘Which will at least give us the space to think about the future.’
Jasmine turned away, touching her tongue to her dust-dry lips, her heart pounding as she acknowledged his words. He was promising nothing—certainly not on the emotional front. He’d spoken as if she were a plant he was eager to pluck from her native soil, to transplant her in his own, but with no assurances that she could thrive there. He wanted her to go to his palace and his country—where he literally ruled the roost. She would have absolutely no power there, and very little say in matters. And all this was complicated by her feelings for him, which wouldn’t seem to go away. Because she still wanted him. Not just her body, but her heart, too. She wanted him in a way which was never going to happen and she knew that to go to his desert home would be to make herself vulnerable.
But what alternative did she have? Staying here and playing a constant cat-and-mouse game with the press? Continuing to obsess about him finding himself a suitable wife—a scenario which made her want to batter her fists against the walls of this elegant apartment which still didn’t feel like home.
Would the royal palace feel any different?
She bit her lip.
The chances were that it wouldn’t but, for her son’s sake, shouldn’t she give it a try? To see if Zuhal’s suggestion was in any way workable, even if she had no real faith in the idea?
‘Very well,’ she said slowly. ‘I will bring Darius to Razrastan and we will consider our options.’
Zuhal nodded, but there was no sense of triumph or satisfaction in his heart at
