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Tears stung her eyes like mad. She was furious with him. He had confronted her with so many unanswerable questions. He had warned her that fear of the unknown shouldn’t be allowed to influence such a major decision. Unmistakeably, he was telling her the truth and how could she fault a man for telling her the truth, no matter how little she wished to hear it?
‘Claire, be reasonable,’ he murmured levelly. ‘You’re my wife. You’re carrying my son. I value what we have. I want you to remain a part of my life.’
‘Shut up!’ she condemned on the back of a sob, no longer convinced that she could take the path she had planned. When push came to shove, actually walking away from Raif felt comparable to sticking a knife in her own chest and she had never been of a self-destructive bent.
‘I need you to keep me level,’ Raif breathed in a raw undertone. ‘Absolutely nobody will tell me to shut up now.’
‘I just can’t do it!’ she exclaimed, stricken, tears choking her. ‘I’m not good enough or clever enough to be a queen...even for you!’
‘I understand,’ Raif murmured flatly, walking back to the door, propping it open with the holder. ‘Idounderstand but I can’t let you make this decision for us both.’
‘What does that mean?’ Claire whispered tearfully.
‘That sometimes fate needs a bloody good push!’ Raif intoned as he swung her up into his arms and locked her in place over one powerful shoulder.
‘What on earth are you doing?’
‘I believe I’m abducting you. I’d be grateful if you didn’t scream, but even if you scream blue murder I’mstillabducting you.’
Two small fists struck his back in concert. ‘You have to be joking!’ she launched back as he strode out into the corridor and straight up the steps to the top deck and the helipad.
‘I never joke about serious stuff...and thisisserious,’ Raif pointed out almost conversationally.
‘Raif...put me down! Youcan’tdo this!’
‘International waters? King? I think I’ll get away with it,’ Raif quipped as he strode to the helipad and very carefully lifted her again to stow her into the helicopter as if she were made of impossibly delicate glass that might shatter.
Since there was absolutely no point in trying to argue above the noise of the helicopter, Claire donned her protective headphones, gritted her teeth and stared into the distance until it was time to get out at the airport. On arrival, they immediately crossed the tarmac to board the private jet awaiting them and she didn’t fancy throwing a scene in front of the assembled air crew stationed at the foot of the boarding steps. Flanked by bodyguards, they boarded the jet.
Facial muscles tight as highly strung wires, Claire dropped straight down into an opulently upholstered tan leather seat and buckled in, her temper like a sharpened razor because Raif had no right, no right whatsoever, to force her into doing what she did not want to do. And she didn’t care whether or not that was craven,did she? Her husband had kidnapped her to make her do his bidding and that was unpardonable. She simmered like a pot of oil over a fire as the bodyguards left the main cabin to settle into the rear one and the jet prepared for take-off.
‘Claire...?’
‘I’m not speaking to you,’ she told him, even though she knew that she was too mad to keep her feelings locked up tight and would inevitably speak to him.
‘This way, we get a chance to see if we can still work,’ Raif breathed tautly. ‘Your way? We would have no chance at all. I couldn’t accept that.’
‘Myway had advantages. I could have slipped off the stage of your new life as if I’d never been there in the first place,’ Claire protested vehemently. ‘If you have not been seen in public with me it could have been donequietlyand the divorce could surely have been achieved discreetly as well.’
‘How quiet and discreet do you expect me to be while you steal my son from me?’
Claire’s mouth fell open in shock at that response.‘Steal?’
‘What else do you call it? You leave and my son goes with you?’
‘For goodness’ sake, he’s not even born yet!’ Claire proclaimed, ramming loose her seat belt to stand up now that the jet was airborne.
Raif subjected her to a fulminating appraisal. ‘Yes, I would in all probability miss out on his birth as well, as divorced couples are unlikely to share such an event. I would also miss out on a great deal more. I will not be free to travel whenever I like and, since I assume you would plan to base yourself in the UK, I could at best hope to be only an occasional caller in my son’s life. That is unacceptable to me.’
Claire was outraged by his raising of perfectly valid points that she had not considered. Maybe it was a sign of her lack of future vision, she thought furiously, but her infant son was only a passenger in her life at present and she was not already thinking of his birth and his life beyond that. ‘You’re not being reasonable!’ she condemned, already terribly afraid thatshewas the one being unreasonable.
‘You’re only just realising that after I abducted you?’ Raif came back at her drily as he too rose to his feet. ‘I will not be reasonable, as you call it, when you’re threatening to deprive our son of a father. Ihadno father! He was a man in the distance in a crowd and we never got any closer than that. That was the result of a divorce. Divorce can only be a bad word in my vocabulary!’
Claire was thoroughly disconcerted by the anger Raif was no longer striving to hide. His caramel-gold eyes were bright with annoyance, his lean, strong face set into hard lines. Suddenly she was being bombarded by undeniable facts.
‘I felt it was too soon to be thinking of our child,’ she muttered unevenly. ‘I’m sorry about that. I should have considered the effect of a divorce on your access to him.’
‘You should also keep in your mind,’ Raif murmured dulcetly, ‘that that little boy will be Crown Prince of Quristan from the moment he is born. That is his birthright, his heritage, and his path now.’
