‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘I told you in Geneva I didn’t think I’d make a good mother. I still don’t. And you not being here terrifies me even more.’
His frown deepened. ‘But why does your childhood experience write you off as good parent material?’
Allegra reared back. ‘Are you serious? I have the DNA of a chronic drug addict and a highly strung mother who could barely take care of herself, let alone her seven kids, running through my veins. Not to mention my every attempt to hold my family together after they were gone ended in disaster. Dysfunctional doesn’t begin to describe my family both before and after my parents died. Everything I tried to do made things worse. And you think I should blithely waltz into parenthood?’
‘That’s exactly the point. You’re wealthy enough to follow in your parents’ decadent footsteps, and yet you haven’t. You chose a different path for yourself. And as for holding your family together, I’m sorry to break it to you, but six-year-olds can barely tie their shoelaces, let alone undertake the monumental task of holding a family together.’
Allegra blinked. She’d unveiled her sordid parentage and childhood to Rahim. And he’d barely blinked at the monumental fear that had ruled her life since she was six years old. She didn’t know whether to be hurt or thankful that he’d all but dismissed her fears as inconsequential. Had she blown her inability to help her siblings all out of proportion? Recalling her grandfather stating something similar, she closed her eyes and laid her hand over her belly. Had she really been unrealistic in thinking she was responsible for holding her family together at such a young age? And dared she believe that she could do a better job as a mother?
Any hope that might have dared to grow died at the thought of doing this alone. ‘I know that. I’m not stupid, Rahim. We had nannies and housekeepers to help, but I had a duty to my family too. And yet nothing I did as I got older helped. I have zero confidence that I’ll be able to give my child anything worth a damn. What guarantees do I have that I won’t ruin his life?’ she asked bleakly.
That stopped him for a moment. Then his lips pursed. ‘First of all, this is our child. Secondly, there are no guarantees. And you forget, you won’t be alone in that, Allegra. This is my child too. He will have the benefit of two parents.’
‘You expect me to believe that when you swing by for a few hours, then take off again?’
A thunderous frown clamped his brows. ‘I have work to do. You know the extent of what needs to be fixed for my people.’
‘Our people, Rahim. We’re married, remember? They’re my people too now.’
‘Then you should understand...’
‘Is it what happened with your mother that’s keeping you away? Or me?’
‘Allegra,’ he warned.
‘What happened on our wedding night wasn’t your fault.’
He went rigid, his features hard as stone. Encouraged that she was getting a reaction, she approached. When he didn’t turn away from her, she laid a hand on his chest.
Firming her resolve, she blurted out what she’d been waiting almost a whole day to say to him. ‘What happened to your mother was horrible and devastating. But millions of women deliver babies safely every year. Our baby will be too.’
‘This palace ceased to be a place of fairy tale a long time ago. You can’t flick a magic wand and have everything go your way. The Dar-Amanian people need me. Serving their needs isn’t a job I take lightly. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good.’
Feeling like a pathetic heel but knowing she needed to fight for this, she cupped his jaw. ‘I didn’t sign up for a life of loneliness in a gilded cage, Rahim, greater good or not.’
He glanced sharply at her. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I want you to come back. I want my husband, my sheikh, to come back to me.’ She took another step closer, trapping him between the door and her body.
A shudder moved through him, lifting his chest against hers. Reaching up with her other hand, she cradled his face in her hands, rose on tiptoes and kissed him.
With a guttural groan, he captured her hips and dragged her closer, his touch burning through the flimsy clinic gown. His mouth feasted on hers, biting and lapping, until they were both panting.
‘Come back to me, please. I need you, Rahim,’ she pleaded.
He gave a groan and her heart lifted.
But in the next breath, he was pulling away. Desperately, she clung to him. ‘Don’t leave me again. Please!’
‘No. The baby...’
‘He’s fine and healthy. So am I. But we both need you.’ She pressed her mouth to his, and they clashed once again in a frenzied exchange of pent-up sexual need. Locking her fingers in his hair, Allegra strained against him, her senses on fire, her heart offering up every prayer it could for the love of her life to stay.
But once again he dragged himself away.
She held her breath as Rahim stared down at her. Silently, she willed him to give her something. She’d pleaded. She’d demanded. She wasn’t too far off tears, and she wasn’t sure her heart could withstand another rejection.
But it could lurch wildly. And it did when Rahim took her wrists in his hands and determinedly pulled her hands from his face.
‘No. This cannot happen.’
Her heart in tatters, she stepped away, removing herself from his path. ‘Go, then. But don’t expect me to be here when you come back.’
His eyes darkened until they were almost black. ‘I’m disappointed you feel that way,’ he said stonily.
He walked away, leaving her broken and defeated against the wall.
RAHIM BARELY MADE it to the guest suite before his legs gave out. He’d taken a secret staircase to evade his bodyguards and to prevent being caught up in the royal baby fever sweeping the palace and Dar-Aman.
His bodyguards would find him eventually—they were too efficiently trained not to—but for now he had a few minutes to himself. A few minutes to replay Allegra’s words. A few minutes to lose his mind.
There’d been a time when he would’ve shrugged off a woman’s threat to leave him.
But she wasn’t just any woman. This was Allegra, proud woman of breeding.
His wife. His queen.
Stumbling to the well-stocked bar, he poured himself a drink from a bottle whose label he didn’t read. The drink was bracing, so he poured himself another. His hand froze halfway to his mouth.
Allegra had never made an idle threat. He’d followed her new foundation’s progress for the past few weeks. Each time a course of action was curtailed or bureaucratic red tape thrown up, she found another way. Each time she came up against a male opponent who made the mistake of underestimating her, she promised to get her way. And she did.
He slammed the drink on the bar and caught his head in his hands. His wife had begged him to stay, to work on a marriage he’d pushed on her in the first place. And he’d answered her by walking away like a coward. She was carrying his child, a baby for whom her heart shone through her eyes.
Slowly he lifted his head. If he wasn’t mistaken he’d caught a trace of that same look for him in her eyes. Even if he was mistaken and dreamed up scenarios that weren’t there, every doctor he’d seen regarding Allegra’s and their baby’s health had told him the same thing—the likelihood of something going wrong was low. He’d listened to the advice but he hadn’t believed,