‘What do you want from me, Lucy?’
She sank back on the pillows, speechless. He was so cold towards her. Their time together had meant nothing to him. Mac had closed his mind to ever seeing her again, and yet here she was, stirring up unwanted memories of how easy she’d been, how plain, how infinitely replaceable. She couldn’t blame him for thinking she would only be here if she wanted something from him.
She had to leave her feelings aside and concentrate on rescuing something for the sake of their child. Easing her legs over the side of the bed, she tried to stand, but only succeeded in swaying towards him as a second wave of dizziness swept over her. Mac’s lightning reflexes prevented her from falling to the ground. But there was such a thing as pride. He had taught her that. Easing her arm from his grip, she felt for the side of the bed and shakily sank down. ‘Could you give me a moment, please?’
To his credit, the man she must learn to call Razi stood back as she planted her fists on the mattress, willing herself to be as strong and businesslike as he was. If she was going to finish what she was here to do she had to find strength from somewhere.
‘When did you last eat?’ he demanded.
She stared up distractedly. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘You can’t—’ He stopped. ‘Fortunately, I ordered broth from the kitchen.’ He pointed to a dish on a heated trolley. ‘You’d better drink it before we talk.’
There was no warmth in his eyes as he crossed the room to put the dish on a tray. He brought it to the bed where she had intended to turn her head, but pregnancy intervened and she was consumed by ravening hunger.
‘Drink,’ Razi insisted, standing back. ‘I’ll wait. You’ll feel stronger when you’ve eaten something.’
She drank the soup greedily, relieved to feel warmth and nourishment flooding her veins. When she looked up to thank him Razi’s expression remained unchanged. He was telling her the easy relationship they had shared in Val d’Isere was over and must never be mentioned again, let alone rekindled.
She had barely laid down her spoon before he took the tray away. Having put it down, he turned to face her. ‘Why are you here, Lucy?’
Yes, why was she here? Suddenly all the reasons that had seemed so sensible in England appeared ridiculous. She had no idea about the laws governing Isla de Sinnebar, except that the ruling Sheikh held all the power. So where did that leave her? She was the chalet girl Razi had got pregnant on his last holiday before taking the throne. Would he care?
She had to steel herself to see beyond that. There was a child to consider. ‘I apologise for arriving uninvited,’ she began politely, ‘but I had to see you.’
‘You had to?’ Razi’s dark gaze narrowed with suspicion.
He didn’t need to tell her the short time they’d shared was over and he had no interest in revisiting any part of it or that they were two strangers who shared no intimacies now. Razi was the all-powerful ruler of a country with much weightier matters to consider than some dalliance with a cook. Would he even be interested in her rights as a mother, or when she told him would he insist on keeping the child and simply dismiss her as superfluous to requirements?
This last thought was so shocking she grasped her throat in anguish and, misreading her gesture, Razi poured her a glass of water. ‘You look exhausted,’ he said. ‘Was it really worth putting yourself through this?’
Yes. A thousand times yes, Lucy thought fiercely, drinking the cooling fluid down. But not for the reasons Razi imagined. He thought she was on some pathetic mission to reawaken his interest in her, which was why he was at such pains to make it clear he didn’t want her. Why would he want her when she could only be an embarrassment to him?
‘I asked you a question,’ he prompted coldly. ‘Why are you here? What do you hope to gain from this visit?’
‘Gain?’ She couldn’t think of a single thing other than the knowledge that she had done what she believed to be right by coming to Isla de Sinnebar to tell Razi he was about to become a father, but it was clear from Razi’s expression that he took her weak voice for an admission of guilt. ‘I don’t want anything from you,’ she insisted firmly.
‘You don’t? Really?’ he mocked. ‘It’s a long way to come for nothing, Lucy.’
What could she say to convince him? Lucy wondered as Razi’s sweeping brows rose in disbelief. He was a formidable all-powerful sheikh, while she was a rumpled mess, sitting up in bed half dressed, sipping from a glass of water in an attempt to act normally, as if she were strong, as if she were recovering.
He walked across the room to flick a switch and the curtains parted. She recognised the familiar skyline outside and deduced the bedroom was a penthouse suite on top of his office building. There would be staff on call and she had no doubt her time with Razi could be counted in seconds now. The fact that he was here at all was nothing more than a common courtesy he had granted to a member of staff who had passed out at his feet. He could hardly ignore her under those circumstances—he could hardly wait to get away, either. ‘Razi—I really must talk to you before you go.’
‘I don’t believe we have anything to say to each other.’
His stark rebuff showed how misguided she’d been. She had imagined the man she had known as Mac would take a civilised view after a civilised conversation in the sterile confines of his office. Trying to impose her thoughts and wishes on a ruling Sheikh was a hopeless task. Asking him to recall some holiday flirtation with a chalet girl sounded ridiculous, even to her. How could she tell Mac her wonderful news when there was no Mac?
‘Are we finished here?’ he demanded.
She was hit by panic as he turned to go. ‘I don’t even know what to call you.’
‘Razi or Mac—whatever you like.’
His dismissive gesture suggested it really didn’t matter what she called him as she wouldn’t be part of his life for very much longer. Mac had seemed appropriate for the sexy guest who, once you got over the shock of his blistering glamour, was at least human, but this man was a warrior king with all that that implied. The desert had always seemed such a romantic place to her, as had the image of a desert king, but the reality was so very different. The desert was a hostile environment and the desert king a stranger. ‘Your Majesty,’ she called after him.
He spun around to face her at the door. ‘Call me Razi.’
With that one command Mac had shed his playboy skin and become Razi the King, a man who was so resolute and inflexible he was as removed from her as if they’d never met. Yet there was something between them. And she had to believe it was more than the memory of what an explosive combination they’d been in bed. There was a real connection between them that she felt more strongly than ever and she refused to believe he didn’t feel it too.
‘What do you want?’ he said, picking up on these thoughts.
It took all her strength to hold his dark, brooding gaze and not show the love she felt for him, or blurt out the truth for why she’d come in the pointless hope that Razi would relent and soften towards her and that somehow they could cross the barriers dividing them and make this work.
‘Do you want a job?’
The question was so unexpected she almost laughed. Not even as his cook—and certainly not as his mistress. Any woman waiting for Razi al Maktabi would truly wait in lonely isolation until and if he found time for her. She had made a huge mistake coming to Isla de Sinnebar, and a second mistake imagining she could reason with this man—but worst of all she had placed her baby in danger, because Razi would never let her go if he knew she was carrying the royal child. Going home must be her aim. The only safe way to