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Why had Natalia almost run from the room like that? He had seen her talking with the king. Had his father said something to her to upset her? Had he perhaps asked her when he might look forward to hearing the news he so longed to hear?
‘You cannot deceive me, Kadir,’ Zahra was saying. ‘I know that it is me who you want. Let me be the one to give you your first child, not her, that nobody you have married. Let me give you your first son…come to me tonight and we can—’
‘Zahra, you are talking nonsense and you know it,’ Kadir checked her firmly. ‘Besides, it’s already too late,’ he told her curtly. Natalia was already carrying a child she claimed was his, but which he knew quite simply could not be. After all, he had used a condom. It was far too convenient for her to suggest that the condom might have been flawed.
Like her? Like the feelings for her he did not want to admit to? He shook the thought of Natalia away and tried to focus on Zahra instead. What on earth had got into her? She knew it was out of the question that they should restart their relationship, never mind that she should have his child, and he couldn’t understand why on earth she should be saying such nonsense. He hoped that letting her know that Natalia was already pregnant would underline those facts and bring her to her senses.
The door from their bedroom to Kadir’s dressing room stood open, the space beyond it dark and empty. Wherever Kadir was he was not here in their private apartments. Wherever he was, Natalia taunted herself bitterly. It was three o’clock in the morning. Where else could he be other than in the bed of his mistress? No wonder he had been so adamant that Zahra should not stay at the palace, but should instead have the use of a small private villa close by for the duration of her visit. Her visit or her permanent residence?
To her shock the outer door to the bedroom suddenly opened. Through the shadows Natalia could see Kadir look across to the bed where she lay.
‘What’s wrong? Did you decide it might not be a good idea to spend the night with your mistress after all?’
Why had she said that? She had promised herself she would not humiliate herself by descending to that kind of revealing sarcasm, but, as Natalia was beginning to discover, her emotions were far stronger than her logic.
‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’
Natalia could hear something beyond anger in Kadir’s voice that could have been exhaustion, but she did not want to listen to it.
‘You know exactly what I mean, Kadir. Zahra is your mistress; she made that plain enough to me in Hadiya. You invited her to come here and tonight you made it plain to everyone just what your relationship with her is.’
‘I did not send for Zahra.’ He had dropped down onto his own side of the bed and was sitting there with his back to her, Natalia saw as she switched on her own bedside light.
‘You don’t really expect me to believe that, do you?’ she threw at him scornfully.
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ he told her angrily. ‘You see, unlike you I do not lie and use deceit.’
‘Unlike me! You criticise me as freely as though you know everything there is to know about me, Kadir. And yet the truth is you know nothing about me, because if you did you would know that whilst, yes, I understand and enjoy my sexuality—what woman of my age does not unless she has serious issues on both counts—but that does not mean that I abuse it. In fact it may interest you to know that prior to my folly in Venice in giving in to…to what we did, I had been celibate for well over five years
—and by choice. You, of course, will not believe that because you would much rather believe the worst you can of me because that reinforces your decision to think badly of your mother and you have to do that otherwise you might—just might,’ she told him bitterly, ‘find yourself having to admit that you misjudged her. And that would mean that she died longing for your forgiveness and being refused it—’
‘No…’
His tormented denial shamed her back to reality. No matter how unhappy she was, that did not give her the right to try to hurt him, and, besides, the truth was that in reality she loved him too much to want to do so. Loved him! How that knowledge tore at her vulnerable heart, and how she wished it were not so.
A terse apology quivered on the tip of her tongue but before she could offer it he repeated, ‘No…you are wrong. I did…that is…No matter what I thought privately I could not let her die thinking…Of course I told her that I understood. How could I not? She was my mother…’
There was a huge lump in Natalia’s throat. ‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ she told him huskily. ‘I should not have said that.’
‘No, you shouldn’t have,’ Kadir agreed tiredly. ‘And as for your accusation that Zahra is my mistress. Yes, once that was true, but it ceased to be true with my mother’s death. Zahra’s decision to come here had nothing to do with me and I have made it clear to her that there is no place here for her, and certainly not in my life or my bed.’
Could that be true, and, if it were, perhaps this sudden mood of admittedly somewhat hostile exchange of confidences between them could lead to a better understanding between them? Perhaps that might mean that in time…What? That in time he would love her?
‘So if you haven’t been with her, then where have you been?’ she challenged him.
‘Driving…and then walking.’ Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘You say you were celibate before Venice. I am not a fool, Natalia. I’ve seen just what a woman will do to protect the child she carries. My mother told me that it was not out of love for King Giorgio that she allowed her husband to believe he was my father, it was out of love for me, her child. She told me that when a woman conceives a child, no matter what her feelings or her moral stance was before, from the moment she knows of the new life she carries within her, protecting that life becomes her prime concern. In many ways you remind me of my mother. You share the same concern for others and the same strength of purpose and spirit.’
‘And because of that you believe that I would lie to you about the paternity of your child—is that what you are saying?’ Natalia asked him.
It seemed incredible that they should be having a conversation of such intimacy when less than an hour ago she had believed him to be holding another woman in his arms. How odd and unfair it was that she should be able to accept his words as the truth when he could not do the same with hers. But then she did not have his experience with his mother to contend with.
‘You are lying to me. I know that.’
‘That is not true. I am telling you the truth. This baby is your baby.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you I was pregnant,’ Natalia burst out miserably when he made no response. ‘Perhaps I should have held back the truth and let you think I had conceived after we were married,’ she told him. ‘Only, you see, I didn’t want to think that the future relationship I hoped we might have together had been built on a lie.’ She put her hand on her stomach. ‘This is your child, Kadir. If you can’t believe that—or me—then there are always DNA tests,’ she reminded him, hating herself for being so weak as to offer him this instead of insisting that he accept her word. ‘Although they cannot be done until after the baby is born.’
‘Do you think I’m completely stupid? We used protection—this child cannot be mine and so there is only one way the situation can be resolved.’
