A…crime? Well, that was certainly letting her know how he felt and more than hinted at the weight of blame he intended to foist on her. Resentment stirred like a knife twisting inside her and her soft mouth compressed into a mutinous line. ‘If Sami wasn’t present, I would tell you exactly how I feel about you—’
Jasim elevated a sardonic ebony brow, for he was astonished by the attack. ‘Do you think I am interested in such a dialogue after you walked out on our marriage?’
An involuntary sour laugh fell from Elinor’s lips. ‘Marriage?’ she repeated drily. ‘What marriage? It was as much of a fake and an insult as your supposed interest in m—’
‘Meaning?’ Jasim queried, angling his handsome head back as Sami sank an inquisitive little hand into his father’s luxuriant cropped black hair and yanked hard.
‘Sami, stop that…’ Elinor instructed, leaning forward to detach Sami’s grasping fingers from his father’s hair.
‘He can do as he likes with me,’ Jasim countered squarely.
Elinor slung her child’s father a look of flagrant loathing. ‘Like you do? Your brother’s wife comes to you with some absurd tale of her husband being led astray by the nanny and you leap right in and seduce me to order? Were you proud of the lines you spun me to get me into bed?’ she condemned in a voice that was starting to shake with betraying emotion. ‘What sort of a real man uses a woman like that? How could you sink that low?’
The healthy glow of his complexion had receded while his fabulous bone structure clenched taut. His dark deep set eyes flared bright as flames and he did not back down an inch. ‘You eavesdropped on Yaminah that day. She was hysterical. I did wonder if you had overheard something—’
‘I wasn’t going to stay with you anyway,’ Elinor told him vehemently. ‘Not with the way you were treating me! I’ve got more pride than that, pregnant or otherwise, Your Royal Highness, and the last thing I needed was a reluctant liar of a bridegroom!’
‘Silence!’ Jasim bit out with ferocious disdain, every inch of his rigid bearing telegraphing his outrage at the abuse she was unleashing on him. ‘I will not tolerate being spoken to like that!’
In the smouldering silence that stretched, Sami suddenly burst into noisy tears and stretched his little arms out pathetically to Elinor for comfort.
‘Now look what you’ve done!’ Elinor shot at Jasim furiously as she summarily snatched her son from his grasp. ‘You’ve frightened him.’
‘Your lack of control and manners did that,’ Jasim contradicted without hesitation.
‘Manners?’ Elinor gasped. ‘You can talk about manners after what you did to me?’
‘Enough,’ Jasim told her with icy restraint. ‘I’ll see you at the town house at seven this evening. I’ll send a car for you.’
Elinor banded both arms round Sami in a protective gesture as she recognised in dismay that he clearly already knew where she lived. ‘Don’t bother. I won’t come.’
‘You’re my wife,’ Jasim breathed in a low-pitched growl.
Elinor spun away from him over to the window. ‘We’re still married?’ she prompted tightly.
‘Of course we are still married.’ A lean hand curved to her slim shoulder to turn her back to him. Brilliant dark eyes assailed hers with cool purpose while the achingly familiar scent of his citrus-based cologne drifted into her nostrils. ‘And I want my wife and my child back.’
‘That’s out of the question.’ Elinor rested her chin on Sami’s fluffy black curls and studied Jasim wide-eyed over her child’s head because she didn’t understand where he was coming from. Why would he say such a thing? He could only be saying it because he wanted Sami. As the silence deepened his shrewd gaze looked directly into hers.
Her mouth ran dry and her heart rate speeded up. Images of the night they had shared infiltrated her mind. Instantly she relived the feel of his lean, bronzed, perfect body, hot and urgent against hers, and the insatiable need he had roused and then satisfied over and over again. Her cheeks burned as her nipples tingled and lengthened beneath her clothing and a sensation like warm honey flowed between her thighs.
The atmosphere was thick with sensual tension. Jasim was rigid and strenuously resisting a powerful urge to touch her. ‘I believe I will also enjoy the wedding night you denied me,’ he murmured huskily.
Elinor shut him out by the simple dint of closing her eyes. She was so hot inside her clothes she felt as if she were burning up, but shame that she could be so wanton followed closely in the wake of her body’s treacherous responses to him. ‘It’s not going to happen,’ she told him flatly.
Jasim vented an unappreciative laugh and at the sound of it her eyes flew open. ‘You’re my wife,’ he said again, as if that very fact outranked everything else and rendered even her hostility meaningless.
‘Hopefully not for much lo
nger,’ Elinor traded on the way back into the nursery.
A brooding presence, Jasim watched Elinor tuck Sami back into a baby seat and was then distracted by a nursery assistant while his mother made good her escape.
On the way back to her desk, Elinor was taken aback by the tumult of emotions swamping her and bringing overwrought moisture to her eyes. Dimly she acknowledged that she was very much in shock at Jasim’s descent and what it might mean to her and Sami. She had few illusions about the challenge she faced. Jasim was a Crown Prince with friends and contacts in government circles and big business and he enjoyed unlimited wealth and power. He could easily afford to hire top lawyers and launch a custody battle. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to share Sami with him.
It was not a compromise she found it easy to even consider, for she hated Jasim bin Hamid al Rais. She had believed herself to be strong and he had made her weak. It was degrading to acknowledge that she could have fallen in love as easily as a daydreaming teenager. But, worst of all, Jasim had cruelly misjudged her moral fibre when he’d given credence to Yaminah’s fears that her husband was paying too much attention to the nanny. That was all such ridiculous nonsense, Elinor reflected bitterly. With the exception of their first meeting and their final one at Jasim’s apartment, Elinor had never been alone on any other occasion with Prince Murad. Their few conversations had taken place in either his daughter’s presence or that of other staff. Nothing said during those brief harmless dialogues had been in any way improper or even mildly flirtatious. Her pride and her principles revolted against the knowledge that Jasim and goodness knew who else had chosen to believe she could be capable of any other kind of behaviour.
But consternation swept away her angry thoughts when she picked up her son at the end of the day. Two bulky bodyguards were now stationed outside the nursery.