She had told herself that it was just a glitch. That it must be her body behaving in an unusual way because it had been introduced to sex. Then she had tried not thinking about it at all. When that hadn’t worked, she’d made silent pleas to Mother Nature, promising that she would be good for the rest of her life, if only she wasn’t carrying Gabe Steel’s baby.
But her pleas went unanswered. The horror was real. The bare and simple fact wasn’t going away, simply because she wanted it to.
She was pregnant.
Her one brief experiment with sex—her one futile attempt to behave with the freedom of a man—had left her with a consequence which was never going to leave her. Pregnant by a man who never wanted to see her again.
She was ruined.
With trembling fingers, she tidied her mussed hair, knowing she couldn’t let her standards slip. She had to maintain the regal facade expected of her, because if anyone ever guessed...
She thought about the meagre options which lay open to her and each of them filled her with foreboding. She thought what would happen if her brother found out, and a shudder ran down her spine. She gripped the washbasin, and the cold porcelain felt like ice beneath her clammy fingers. Murat must not find out—at least, not yet.
She was going to have to tell Gabe.
But Gabe had gone back to England and there were no plans for her to see him again. He had spent a further fortnight working here in Qurhah without their paths ever crossing. Why would they? He had made it clear that he wanted to forget what had happened and she had convinced herself she felt the same way. She’d found herself reflecting how strange it was that two people who’d been so intimate could afterwards act like strangers.
Even the farewell dinner given in honour of the English tycoon had yielded no moments of closeness. She and Gabe had barely exchanged any words at all, bar a few stilted ones of greeting. During the meal she’d read nothing but cool contempt in his pewter eyes. And that had hurt. She had experienced for the first time the pain of rejection, made worse by the dull ache of longing.
Her mind working overtime, Leila shut the bathroom door behind her and walked slowly back to her private living quarters. Gabe Steel might not be her first port of call in normal circumstances, but right now he was the only person she could turn to.
She had to tell him.
But how?
She looked out over the palace rose gardens where the bright orange bloom which had been named after her in the days following her birth was now in glorious display.
If she phoned him, who wasn’t to say that some interfering palace busybody might not be listening in to her call? And phoning him would still leave her here, pregnant and alone and vulnerable to the Sultan’s rage if he found out.
But if she left it much longer it was inevitable he would find out anyway.
A sudden knock at the door disturbed her, and her troubled thoughts became magnified when one of her servants informed her that the Sultan wished to see her with immediate effect.
Leila’s mouth was dry with fear as she walked silently along the marble corridors towards Murat’s own magnificent section of the royal palace. Had he guessed? Was he summoning her to tell her that she had brought shame on the royal house, and that she was to be banished to some isolated region of their vast country to bring up her illegitimate child in solitude?
But when she was ushered into his private sitting room, Murat’s demeanour was unusually solicitous, his black eyes narrowed with something almost approaching concern.
He began by asking whether she was well.
‘Yes, I am very well,’ she lied, praying that her horror at this particular question would not show on her face. ‘Why...why do you ask?’
Murat shrugged. ‘Just that you seem to have been almost invisible lately. You don’t seem to have been yourself at all. Is something wrong, Leila?’
He’d noticed!
Despite her wild flare of fear, Leila knew that she must not react. She must not give her clever brother any inkling that she was concealing a desperate secret. With a resourcefulness she wasn’t aware she possessed—though maybe desperation was in itself an inspiration—Leila shrugged. ‘I have been feeling a little discontented of late.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘In what way?’
She licked her lips. ‘I feel as if I have seen nothing of the world, or of life itself. All I know is Qurhah.’
‘That is because you are a princess of Qurhah,’ Murat growled. ‘And your place is here.’
‘I know that,’ said Leila, thinking that he made her sound like an ancient piece of furniture which had never been moved from its allocated place on the rug. ‘But you travel. You get to visit other countries. And I...I have seen nothing of the world, other than the surrounding lands of the desert region.’
The Sultan’s black eyes narrowed. ‘And?’
She forced herself to say the words, to make him think that she had accepted the future which had been planned for her. A future which could now never happen, because what prospective royal husband would wish to take a bride who carried another man’s child?
‘I know that my place is here, Murat,’ she said quietly. ‘But before I immerse myself in the life which has been mapped out for me—could I not have an overseas trip?’
Beneath his silken headdress, Murat’s dark brows knitted together. ‘What kind of trip?’ he echoed.
Leila could hardly believe she’d got this far and knew she mustn’t blow it now. She thought about the tiny, forbidden life growing inside her and she drew in a deep breath. ‘You know that Princess Sara has a place in London?’
‘So I gather,’ said Murat carelessly.
Leila watched her brother’s reaction closely, but if he was hurt to hear the name of the woman he’d once been betrothed to, he didn’t show it.
‘She often writes to me and tells me all about the fabulous shopping in the city,’ Leila continued. ‘Many times she has asked me to visit her there. Couldn’t I do that, Murat—just for a few days? You know how much I love shopping!’
There was silence for a moment. Had she made her request sound suitably fluffy? If she’d told her brother that she wanted to go and see a photographic exhibition which was being launched, he would never have approved. He was one of those men who believed that shopping kept women subdued. Lavish them with enough stuff and it kept them satisfied.
‘I suppose that a few days could be arranged,’ he said eventually.
Leila gave a little squeal of joy—showing her brother the gratitude she knew would be expected of her—but it was with a heavy heart that she packed for her forthcoming trip. She thought about the terrifying secret she carried. About how humiliating it was to have to seek out a man who did not want her, to tell him something he would be appalled to hear.
Arrangements were made between the palace and Princess Sara, who Leila had known since she’d been a child. Sara had once been promised to Murat himself but was now married to Suleiman, and they had homes all around the world.
With a retinue of bodyguards and servants, Leila flew by private jet to England where they took over the entire top floor of the Granchester Hotel in central London. She was one step closer to Gabe. One step closer to sharing her news—and didn’t they say that a problem shared was a problem halved?
But