‘Then for once, your father was right,’ commented Hassan drily. ‘I am rarely surprised, but I certainly was when the registrar read out your full name during the marriage ceremony.’
‘I wasn’t planning on announcing it,’ she admitted, giving a little shrug of her shoulders. ‘It’s something I tend to keep quiet about, but the registrar insisted that I declare it.’
‘You must have been teased about it a lot at school,’ he observed.
‘Oh, being a Jackson was enough to ensure that. Having a ridiculous Christian name didn’t really make any difference.’
But her airy assertion didn’t quite ring true and Hassan surveyed her with thoughtful eyes. He’d dismissed her as nothing but a playful flirt when she’d first introduced herself with the storybook name. He’d never have dreamt in a million years that she was telling the truth. And yet it had fitted his stereotypical views of women to think of her as a sexy and teasing minx, rather than this rather solemn mother-to-be who now wore his wedding band. He let his gaze drift over the paleness of her skin and felt a sudden beat of anxiety. ‘The car is not too bumpy for you? You don’t feel sick?’
‘No sicker than I was feeling back in London, and it’s nothing to do with the car, or the road. Why, it’s so smooth that you’d hardly believe we were speeding along in the middle of a desert!’
‘Probably because you imagined the roads of Kashamak would be primitive dirt tracks, potted with holes and barely passable because of camels? Didn’t you once say something predictable about camels?’
‘Maybe I was a little guilty of that,’ she said as she stared down at the shiny new wedding ring on her finger, still dazed by the speed of everything that had happened. Still unable to believe that the dark-faced man sitting at her side really was her husband, as well as the father of her child.
Had she been out of her mind to agree to their hasty marriage, or simply too dazed by sickness and general worries to protest about the future? And hadn’t her decision to wed him been made easier by his offer of an ‘easy’ divorce, should she want one?
She sat back against the soft leather of the car seat. ‘I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got here, but so far everything has defied all my expectations.’
The insights as to how her new life would be had begun the moment she’d boarded the luxury jet on a private airfield just north of London. The flight had been seamless and further than she’d ever flown before. With mainland Europe far behind them, they’d skirted the edges of the beautiful Caspian Sea before coming in to land at the airport in Samaltyn, the capital city of Kashamak.
Protocol had been discreet on the plane, which had been empty save for them and the crew members who outnumbered them. But the moment they’d landed and Ella had heard the national anthem being played, she had realised that she was actually in the company of a real-live king.
While she—unbelievable as it seemed—was his new queen. A queen kitted out in lavish silks which covered every bit of available flesh, except for her face and hands.
Their marriage had taken place in the Kashamak Embassy in central London, with only two diplomats as their witnesses and no advance publicity given out, not even to their respective families. Hassan had been adamant he didn’t want an international frenzy with swarms of paparazzi clustering around to take photos of the sheikh’s new Western queen.
But Ella knew this wasn’t the only reason he had insisted on no fuss and why a quiet statement about their union had been issued only this morning, just as they were about to board their jet. She suspected he was terrified of all the negative publicity which always surrounded the Jackson family. And if that was the case, then she was forced to concede that he might be right.
She could just imagine how her family might have sabotaged their wedding day. Her father boasting that his daughter was marrying one of the most powerful men in the Middle East. Her mother playing her habitual doormat role beside him. And Izzy—heaven forbid—trying to sing her congratulations.
But Ella was also afraid that one of her sisters might have discovered the truth behind her bright smile and realised the heavy burden she was carrying. That Hassan was only marrying her to stamp his mark of possession on their unborn baby.
And now they were travelling in a sleek air-conditioned car towards Hassan’s palace, on roads which were as flat as millponds. She felt … well, she felt as displaced as most women would feel if they were newly pregnant and leaving behind everything they knew. But most women in her position would have the comfort of knowing that they were loved and desired, instead of regarded as some sort of royal incubator.
Her actions instinctively mirroring her turbulent emotions, she moved her hand to let it rest on her stomach.
‘You are experiencing discomfort?’ questioned Hassan instantly. ‘Some kind of pain?’
She shook her head, because she had decided that she was going to be strong. She wasn’t going to start whingeing every time she had a little ache or wave of sickness. ‘Hassan, I’m fine.’
He stared at the fingers which were curled protectively over her stomach, wondering when this would all start to feel real. As if it was happening to him and not to someone else.
He stared at the unfamiliar bump and tried to make sense of it. ‘The baby is kicking?’
‘No, not yet.’
‘When?’
Her fingers tightened around the still unfamiliar swell. ‘Any day now, I hope.’
‘How can you know all these things?’
His dark, gleaming eyes were curious and Ella thought at that moment how gorgeous he looked, and yet how unreachable too. His traditional Kashmakian robes made him look so darkly foreign and yet the flowing silk emphasised the honed body beneath, mocking her with memories of that snatched and forbidden night they’d spent together. The first and only time they’d made love.
Blocking out the sudden flare of desire which shimmered over her skin and the inevitable questions that raised, she attempted to answer his question.
‘There’s a chart which you can download from the internet and it tells you all the things you can expect,’ she explained carefully. ‘Movement starts around sixteen weeks.’
‘And will you let me feel my child when it kicks, Ella?’ he questioned suddenly. ‘Will you let me lay my hand on your belly so that I can feel it move?’
Despite the cool of the air conditioning, Ella’s cheeks grew heated at the intimacy of his question. Their night of passion had happened so long ago that sometimes it seemed as if it was nothing but a distant dream. And the more time passed, the more unreal it seemed. Because there had been no revisiting of that passion since that night. No sense that he wanted to touch her in any way at all.
So if he laid his hand on her stomach, would that start her yearning for a greater intimacy altogether? Did he still want her in that way? she wondered.
‘Yes, of course you can,’ she answered quietly, knowing that she couldn’t possibly refuse him. Not just because he was the baby’s father, but because he’d done so much to help her. And for once in her life she had just sat back and let him help with a passivity which she put down to her pregnancy and to the accompanying nausea which still hit her in waves.
Somehow, Hassan had produced a clutch of women who were eager to step into her shoes at work and Ella had interviewed every one of them. And right now, back in England, Daisy was working quite happily alongside her replacement, while the business was ticking along just fine.
But there were