The Desert King's Blackmailed Bride

‘Hayat’s your sister-in-law?’ Polly exclaimed in disbelief. ‘Why did nobody tell me that?’

‘It wasn’t a secret. I didn’t think it was important. I didn’t want to discriminate against her either because she is, or was, very efficient.’ Rashad lifted his handsome dark head high and expelled his breath in an audible rush, frustration and regret tensing his lean dark face. ‘I made a mistake in allowing her access to you and I’m afraid you paid for my lack of judgement.’

Long lashes fluttering down, Polly cloaked her eyes to conceal her incredulity. How could he not have warned her about his familial relationship with the other woman? She remembered Hayat admitting that she had watched her sister break her heart over her inability to conceive and, remembering her own unease around the attractive brunette, she swallowed back angry words of condemnation. His first wife’s little sister, someone who would be challenged to wish Rashad’s second wife a long and happy life after Ferah’s tragic fate.

‘Hayat admitted that she resented my remarriage and our happiness,’ Rashad volunteered tautly. ‘I should have foreseen that likelihood and her spite.’

‘Well, it’s done and dusted now,’ Polly pointed out curtly, because she was annoyed at what she had learnt. ‘She’s left the staff and as it happens I’m all right—’

‘Inshallah,’ Rashad breathed, rising to leave as her grandparents bustled in, all smiles and concern, to present her with a very large basket of fruit. Their caring and affectionate presence was exactly what she needed to soothe her ruffled feelings at that moment. She received a hail of anxious words and a hug from her grandmother and a quiet squeeze on the shoulder from Hakim, who wasn’t given to drama.

Rashad came to collect her from the hospital. He explained that there were crowds waiting for a glimpse of her outside the hospital and they left by a rear entrance.

‘Why won’t you look at me?’ Rashad pressed on the drive back to the palace.

‘I’m angry with you,’ Polly admitted curtly.

Rashad released his breath on a slow hiss. ‘Of course you are. I spoiled what should have been a special moment—’

She assumed he meant that she had missed the chance to tell him privately about their baby.

‘Not only that,’ she broke in jaggedly. ‘You behaved as if I was some kind of harlot who couldn’t be trusted alone in a room with a man!’

‘I deeply regret the way in which I behaved,’ Rashad admitted levelly. ‘If I could go back and eradicate what I said I would…but I cannot.’

Colour scoring her cheekbones, Polly chewed the soft underside of her lower lip and made no response. What could she say? She knew he regretted it.

‘I didn’t like being confronted with the reality that you could think of me like that.’

‘We will talk when we get home. I don’t want to be interrupted,’ Rashad murmured tautly.

A tense silence fell and Polly did nothing to break it. In truth she was as annoyed with herself as she was with him. Wasn’t she usually a forgiving person? But what Rashad had said had struck at the very heart of their relationship and had deeply wounded her because she loved him. He didn’t know that she loved him. He hadn’t asked her to love him. And she wouldn’t tell him because he would assume that she craved some kind of matching response from him when she did not. She didn’t want Rashad to feel that he had to pretend to feel more for her than he actually did. It would make him uncomfortable and he would be hopeless at faking it. Over the long term, honesty and common sense would be safer than emotional outpourings that would only muddy the water between them.

Tearful staff greeted her on their knees in the entrance hall. She was deeply touched by that demonstration of affection. Rashad’s people were very emotional and unafraid to show it. She marvelled that they had a king who worked so hard at concealing every emotion he experienced as if emotion were something to be ashamed of.

‘The doctors advised that you rest now,’ Rashad reminded her as they entered the private wing of the palace.

Flowers were everywhere in the airy drawing room and piles of gifts cluttered every surface. ‘What on earth…?’ Polly began to ask.

‘As soon as it was known that you had suffered an accident the flowers and the presents came flooding in,’ Rashad explained. ‘There has been no official announcement of your pregnancy, nor will there be for some time, but I suspect rumours are already on the streets. There were too many servants and guards hovering after your accident and Dr Wasem’s anxiety on your behalf was unmistakeable.’

‘And what about you?’ Polly whispered. ‘How did you react?’

‘It was the worst moment of my life,’ Rashad declared without hesitation, his strong jaw clenching hard. ‘Until I realised you were still breathing I was afraid you were dead—’

‘Or that I would lose the baby,’ she slotted in wryly.

‘I could have borne that better than the loss of you,’ Rashad parried harshly. ‘There could always be another baby…but there is only one you. And you are irreplaceable.’

There was a little red devil in Polly’s brain because somehow she was not in the mood to listen while he made such comforting complimentary statements. ‘No, I’m not,’ she disagreed, turning her violet eyes onto his lean, perfect profile. ‘You would still have women queuing up to marry you and become your Queen and the mother of your children.’

‘Two dead predecessors in the role would limit my appeal somewhat. I would seem like a regular Bluebeard.’

A startled laugh was wrenched from Polly. ‘There is that,’ she conceded, turning away to hesitantly finger a tiny velvet soft frog toy that had been unwrapped.

It was undeniably a toy intended for their unborn child. Her eyes prickled with tears. Her most private secret had become public and she had been deprived of the right to share the news of her first pregnancy with her husband. She dashed the tears away with an angry hand, scolding herself for getting upset by gifts intended to express heartfelt good wishes.

‘I wanted to tell you myself,’ she framed gruffly.