The Call of the Desert

Julia barely heard her. Shock was like a wall between her and the words. Of course she’d suspected something for the last two months, but she’d buried her head in the sand and told herself that fate couldn’t be so cruel—not after years of trying for a baby with her husband. Hence the reason why her doctor knew her so well.

But then the problem hadn’t been on her side. It had been her husband’s.

The doctor was looking at Julia expectantly, and she forced herself to focus. “I just … I couldn’t believe what it might be.”

Her doctor smiled wryly. “Well it’s a baby, due in about six months if all goes well.” She continued gently, “I take it that as you’re divorced the father is …?”

“Not my ex-husband, no.” Julia bit her lip. “The father is someone I once knew, long ago. We met again recently …”

“Are you going to tell him?”

Julia looked at her friend. “To be honest? I don’t know yet … what I’m going to do.”

The doctor’s manner became more brisk. “Well, look, first things first. I’ll book you in for a scan, just to make sure everything is progressing normally, and then we can take it from there— OK?”

One month later

Kaden paced in his office. The ever-present simmering emotions he’d been suppressing for about four months were threatening to erupt. Julia was here. Outside his office. Right now. She’d been waiting for over an hour. He would never normally keep anyone waiting that long but it was Julia, and she was here.

He ran a hand through his hair impatiently. What the hell did she want? His heart beat fast. Did she want to continue the affair? Had she spent the last months waking in the middle of the night too? Aching all over? He felt clammy. Would she be wearing that necklace?

He clenched a fist. Dammit. He’d hoped that by now he’d have chosen a wife and be in the middle of wedding preparations, but despite his aides’ best efforts every potential candidate he’d met had had something wrong with her. One was too forward, another too meek, too sullen, too avaricious, too fake … The list was endless.

And now he couldn’t ignore the fact that Julia Somerton had come to Burquat, going unnoticed on the flight lists because of her married name. In Burquat all repeat visitors were noted. She’d made her way to the castle and now she was sitting outside his door.

His internal phone rang and he stalked to his desk to pick it up. His secretary said, “Sire, I’m sorry to bother you, but Dr Somerton is still here. I think you should see her now. I’m a little concerned—”

Kaden cut her off abruptly, “Send her in.”

Julia finally got the nod from Kaden’s secretary, who was dressed not in traditional garb, as everyone used to be when she’d been here last, but in a smart trouser suit, with a fashionable scarf covering her hair. She’d been solicitous and charming to Julia, but Julia had noticed her frequent and concerned looks and wondered if she really looked so tired and dusty.

Her flight from London had left at the crack of dawn, and the journey from Burquat airport in a bone-rattling taxi with no air-conditioning had left her feeling bruised and battered. Thankfully, though, the incessant morning sickness she’d been suffering from had finally abated in the last month, and she felt strong enough to make the journey. Physically at least. Mentally and emotionally was another story altogether.

She knew that she’d lost weight, thanks to the more or less constant morning sickness, and she was pale. She couldn’t even drum up the energy to care too much. She wasn’t coming here to seduce Kaden. When he’d said that clipped and cold goodbye in B’harani after seeing the necklace it couldn’t have been more obvious that he’d been horrified. She’d watched his physical reaction and known that any desire had died a death there and then.

Julia stopped herself from touching her neck now, and reminded herself that the necklace was safely back in the UK. She stood up and walked to the door. The secretary had told her to leave her suitcase by her desk. Julia hadn’t even booked into a hotel yet, but she’d worry about that after.

The door swung open and she took a deep breath and stepped into Kaden’s office. The early evening sunlight was in her face, so as the door shut behind her all she could see was the formidable outline of Kaden’s shape.

She put a hand up to shade her eyes and tried to ignore the wave of déjà-vu that almost threatened to knock he

r out. The last time she’d been in this room—

“To what do I owe the pleasure, Julia?”

So cool.

Julia forced herself to breathe deep and focus on getting the words out. “I came because I have to tell you something.”

Kaden finally stepped forward and blocked the light, so now Julia could see him. She felt her breath stop at being faced with his sheer male beauty again. And also because he had a beard—albeit a small one. His hair was longer too. He looked altogether wild and untamed in traditional robes, and her heart took up an unsteady rhythm.

Stupidly she asked, “Why do you have a beard?”

He put up a hand to touch it, almost as if he’d forgotten about it, and bit out, “I’ve spent the last ten days in the desert, meeting Bedouin leaders and councils. It’s a custom among them to let their beards grow, so whenever I go I do the same. I haven’t had time to shave yet. I just got back this morning.”

Julia found this unexpected image of him so compelling that her throat dried. He was intensely masculine anyway, but like this … Her blood grew hot even as she looked at him. And he was looking at her as if she’d just slithered out from under a rock.

He quirked a brow. “Surely you haven’t come all this way to question me on my shaving habits?”