He shrugged. “It’s true, I had seven of my own Arabian horses by the time I was six. They were not considered ponies.” He studied the glass of sharbat in front of him. “But you’re wrong.”
His stomach burned as she glared at him, the green turning arctic, the corners of her lush lips curved down. “Is that so?”
“I have been denied things I’ve desired greatly,” he said, thinking of the years he’d gone without her, of the months after she’d left him. Of the feeling of arousal, relief and utter fear he’d felt when she’d called him again.
“Have you?” she said, scraping her empty plate with her fork.
“You have no idea, do you?”
“I don’t play guessing games, Sheikh, so you might as well cut to the chase.”
“Taj. You will call me Taj. And I’m not trying to play a game. Do you think I gave no thought to you over the past three years?”
She tilted her chin up. “I can hardly say.”
“I did. I thought of you every night. Every time a woman looked my direction. I thought of the one woman I truly desired. And how she had been denied to me.”
Her lips thinned, her body going stiff. “Now who sounds like the petulant child, Taj?”
He leaned back in his chair, arousal and annoyance battling each other. “I have been accused of being petulant, it’s true. But I am royal and it’s my right.”
“Indeed!” she snapped.
“Yes. Indeed. But one thing I am not and you should know this, Angel, is a child.”
Crimson color flooded her cheeks and she stood. He stood as well, anger more in play than any sense of good manners. “I can’t deal with you right now.”
She turned to go and he caught her arm. “Then when will we deal with each other?” He leaned in and caught her scent. Vanilla soap and something beneath it, something clean and unique to Angelina. “When?” he asked again, loosening his hold on her but keeping his hand on her soft skin, his thumb stroking her. “On our wedding night? When our child is born?”
She shook her head. “I…no. But not now.”
He leaned in and kissed her, a challenge. To her strength. Her defiance. To the fact that she seemed so utterly composed and distant while he felt like his desire was a living thing, burning him alive from the inside out.
She kissed him back. Her lips clinging to his, her body arching to his. Then, as suddenly as she acquiesced, she broke away, her eyes wide, her chest rising and falling on short, choppy breaths.
“I’m not in the mood for that, either,” she said.
“Your body, and your manner, would suggest otherwise, my Angel,” he said, his need threatening to strangle him.
“My body isn’t running the show. My mind is.”
“Was that true a couple of months ago?”
A false smile curved her lips. “I think we both know it wasn’t. Call it temporary insanity, sugar.” That name again. She used it to put distance between them. He would not allow it.
“With permanent consequences,” he said.
Lust leached from him as he looked down at her flat stomach. A sense of surreal awe filling him. She was carrying his baby. Their baby.
He’d thought about children, in terms of heirs and fulfilled duty. But he’d never thought about what it would really mean to create a child. To have a baby that was part of him, part of its mother. Part of Angelina.
If they had a daughter, would she have her mother’s red hair? Or would his Middle Eastern heritage dominate? He’d never given time to such thoughts before. And now he seemed to be bogged down by them.
“You’re pregnant,” he said, releasing his hold on her completely and taking a step back. It was no longer desire that was trying to strangle him.
She swallowed visibly. “Yes. That is why I’m here.”
“But…you’re having a baby.”
“That’s what pregnant means,” she said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m a wreck, actually, Taj, but thank you for asking.”
He frowned. “What has wrecked you?”
“I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. I slept with a guy, that’s you, with no protection and there’s no excuse for that. None.”
“It was my responsibility. I failed. You were…you were a virgin,” he said.
“So? I didn’t live under a rock. I know how things work. I know about being responsible and I wasn’t.”
“Desire gets the best of people sometimes.” It had certainly gotten the best of him. For the past three years it had gotten the best of him.
She shook her head. “I suppose that’s true. Because there is no other explanation for it.”
She turned to walk out of the room and he felt something large, indefinable, squeezing his chest. “Do you regret it, Angelina?”
She stopped, her shoulders sagging. “I don’t know yet,” she said, her voice quiet.
He vowed right then that she would never regret it. Not if he could help it.
It was only six in the morning and already the temperature was rising. The palace was cool, but stifling, the walls feeling like they were closing in on her. She doubted she would ever get used to this place. She wanted to run. She wanted to hide.
It wasn’t an option.
Taj had sent dressers to her room this morning with beautiful silk gowns in bright colors. They were cut into Western styles but bore beautiful Eastern influences. They were fit for the Queen of Rahat, one of the women said.
And they were right. But she wondered if it was the mistresses of Rahat who had worn them before. If they’d been used by other women. The idea made her skin itch. Made her feel violently possessive and jealous in a way she had no right feeling.
She’d run away from being Queen of Rahat once. Now it seemed she was trapped.
“Sheikh Taj is on his way,” the other woman said. “You are meeting the press this morning and he would like to make sure you are prepared.”
Her stomach sank, a faint impression of nausea wrapping itself around her. “You can tell him that I would rather have bamboo shoots shoved up my fingernails,” she muttered.
“Noted.”
She turned and saw Taj standing in the doorway. She froze and her two aids bent their heads and scurried out of the room.
“Did you bring bamboo, sugar?” she asked, turning her Texas drawl up a notch.
“I thought perhaps you would prefer tea,” he said, lifting a delicate china cup up to chest level. “It’s green tea, no caffeine. I thought it might be preferable to torture.”
“Tea, yes, a meet-the-press moment, no.”
“Our engagement must be announced.”
She wrapped her arms around herself in an effort to keep from falling apart. “I haven’t even been here for twenty-four hours.”
“We’ll need to marry before it becomes obvious you’re pregnant.”