A Royal Bride at the Sheikh s Command

That could have been, perhaps if only he had not judged her as he had. Now of course he saw her as a person he could not trust. They could have had so much together, worked so closely together. Natalia blinked away the pain given tears clouding her eyes and went in her bathroom.

Tonight, as he had done every night since their return to Niroli, Kadir would emerge from his own dressing room to share their huge bed with her, but he would not touch her. Not now. Not until she told him whether or not the intimacy they had shared had resulted in a child. Natalia placed her hand to her still flat stomach. She had first suspected the truth the morning of their return flight from Hadiya, but she had had to wait until she had gained the privacy of her grandfather’s home and the services of the old family doctor who was her grandfather’s close personal friend and sworn to secrecy to confirm those suspicions. The tell-tale line in the pregnancy-testing kit the doctor had given her had confirmed what she had suspected—she had conceived Kadir’s child. The dates also confirmed that this child, this son or daughter, had not been conceived after their marriage in Hadiya, but in Venice. But how, when he had used a condom? It was hardly a question she could ask her family doctor. All she could do was assume that the condom had failed as she now remembered reading somewhere that they weren’t a hundred per cent effective.

Perhaps because of the concern of her own thoughts she had lingered longer in her bathroom than she had intended with the result that Kadir was already in bed when she returned to the bedroom.

Kadir slept naked, and she knew it was that knowledge that caused her heart to jerk sharply as she tried not to see the way the light from the bedside lamp played on the smooth olive tautness of his shoulders and chest as he lay propped up against the pillows reading a document, and not the fact that she was concealing from him something he had every right to know.

Kadir watched Natalia approach the bed. She was wearing a thin silky robe that, whilst concealing the feminine curves of her body, somehow still drew mental images for him of a highly sensual and intimate nature.

‘I have to thank you for the role you played in the success of tonight’s reception,’ he told her as she sat down on the edge of the bed with her back to him, discreetly slipping out of the robe before getting into the bed.

‘I was only doing my duty,’ Natalia told him woodenly.

Immediately his mouth thinned and he put down the papers he was holding.

‘I would strongly advise you against adopting the role of a martyr,’ he told her. ‘It does not suit you. You are an extremely intelligent woman well versed in world affairs, with an important role to play in the future of Niroli.’

Natalia stared at him, astonished that he should compliment her.

Kadir was a proud man, it wasn’t easy for him to admit that he had made any kind of error of judgement, never mind a huge misjudgement, but he was also a formidably fair and honest man. He had watched Natalia today interacting with their guests during the formal reception. He’d seen just how valuable an asset she was going to be to him and to the future of Niroli. He had been surprised and impressed today at the ease with which their separate roles had harmonised, thanks to Natalia. He had watched her speaking on a one-to-one basis to several of their male guests and at no time had her body language been anything less than confidently professional. She had not flirted, or teased; she had not used the obvious sensuality of her body or her beauty to focus their attention on her. Instead she had held them captive with her intelligence, winning their respect with that air of calmly regal distance he had watched her adopt in public. That they were charmed by her was not in doubt, that they would envy him such a wife so openly and obviously, he had always known, but that she should by her manner know exactly how to ensure that she was treated with the respect her role demanded had surprised him. Even if no one had introduced her to anyone within that room today as Niroli’s future Queen, everyone there would have guessed it from her dignified warmth. Natalia possessed that rare ability to be both genuinely herself and what others expected of her. He looked across at her as she lay next to him all too aware of the now-familiar ache that wanting her brought to his body. They were married, their future lay together, he wanted her, and he knew he could arouse her to desire for him. Maybe these were the things he should concentrate on instead of focusing on her sexual past?

Natalia reached out to switch off her own bedside light, tensing a little when Kadir did the same.

‘Don’t let me stop you from reading your papers,’ she said lightly.

‘They can wait. Right now I have far more pleasant duties I prefer to perform,’ Kadir told her smokily, catching her off guard as he reached over to her.

Wasn’t it poor, unloved Catherine de Medici who had desperately refused to tell her husband that she was already pregnant because she longed so much to be intimate with him and to keep him in her bed and out of that of his mistress? Natalia thought guiltily as she felt her body flooding with response to the deliberate intimacy of Kadir’s actions.

‘Perhaps I should be grateful that fate has given me a wife so easily stirred to passion,’ he murmured.

The trouble was that it was no longer merely physical passion he aroused in her, Natalia admitted as she shivered with pleasure beneath the sensual play of his fingertips against her naked flesh.

‘Natalia…’

It shocked her to feel the warmth of his breath so close to her lips, and it shocked her even more to recognise that he was going to kiss her. The intimacy of shared kisses had not after all been something that had played a role in their relationship. The sweetness of eager, hungry kisses belonged to lovers and they were not and never could be that. And yet her lips were parting on a small exhaled breath, and then softening beneath the persuasive hard warmth of Kadir’s. How easy it was to wrap her arms around him now and to pretend that this was a new beginning for them, a chance to start again. How easy and how very foolish and yet she couldn’t stop herself from doing so as she melted into his hold as the intimacy of his kiss deepened from slow, masterful exploration to a fierce possession that had her heart thudding against her chest wall.

‘Natalia…My wife…’ Kadir whispered softly against her lips as he threaded his fingers through her hair and held her still beneath him.

‘My wife…My Queen…’ He kissed her slowly and lingeringly, making her shudder with female longing for what was to come. He kissed the corners of her mouth and then traced its outline with his tongue tip.

‘Your perfume is as permanently etched into my senses as the perfume of life itself. I breathe it in with every breath until I am constantly filled with the memory of you, but tonight you are not a memory, you are a reality…’ His tongue thrust against the frail barrier of her lips, deliberately taking possession of the inner sweetness that lay beyond them, stroking against her own tongue until he had seduced it into begging to reciprocate his intimacy.

Natalia could feel her head spinning. This was like no intimacy, no kiss she had ever known before. It was unique, overwhelming, possessing her…branding her as his for all time.

‘There were many at the reception today who let it be known that they expected us to make haste to fill the palace nurseries and provide Niroli with a new heir, but none of them are quite so persuasive as my father,’ Kadir told her. ‘He reminded me only the other day that he may not have much time left to him…’

Natalia went cold as she listened to Kadir and realised just why he had initiated this intimacy.

Of course he was only making love to her because it was his duty to do so, and she was a fool if she had thought anything different. If? Why was she bothering to try to deceive herself? She had responded to him, welcomed him in her arms as a woman welcoming the man she loved. Had Zahra been right after all? Could she have seen what Natalia herself had not wanted to see?

‘What is it?’ Kadir was asking her. ‘What’s wrong?’

She couldn’t bear to have him guess the truth and realise what a fool she had

been. Bearing his contempt was hard enough; she didn’t want to have to bear the burden of his pity as well.

‘Nothing,’ she told him lightly. ‘I am sure that King Giorgio would admire your dedication to your duty.’