The Sheikh's Prize (A Bride for a Billionaire 2)

Saffy dropped down onto the nearest sofa, lowered her head and breathed in slow and deep while she fought to reclaim her composure. Her head was swimming, her skin damp with perspiration and she felt slightly sick.

‘When would you like to move out?’ Zahir enquired smoothly. ‘Give me a date and I will have all the arrangements made for you. There will be no hassle, no inconvenience—’

‘Move out?’ Saffy questioned blankly. ‘I’m not moving anywhere!’

‘You can’t continue to live here with McDonald.’

With unsteady hands Saffy caught up her trailing hair and shoved it back from her clammy face as she clumsily sat up. ‘What just happened was a bad idea. A really bad idea and letting you keep me in an apartment somewhere as a mistress is never going to happen, Zahir. Just accept that.’

‘I will not accept it.’

Saffy sprang up on a surge of temper and just as suddenly the room seemed to spin violently around her. Disorientated, she swayed sickly, so dizzy she couldn’t focus and she couldn’t combat the rising tide of darkness that engulfed her as she fainted.

With a sharp imprecation, Zahir snatched her limp body up from the wooden floor and he settled her down on the sofa. Saffy recovered consciousness quickly and blinked in confusion to find him on his knees beside her. ‘What happened?’

‘You just dropped where you stood,’ Zahir breathed tautly. ‘Did I hurt you? Are you ill?’

Her lashes fluttered in bemusement as she dimly registered the sound of the front door slamming. ‘No,’ she whispered weakly. ‘But I think the real problem may be that I’m pregnant…’

‘Pregnant?’ Zahir exclaimed, his strong bone structure pulling taut below his olive skin. ‘When did you get pregnant?’

‘Oh, dear,’ a familiar voice interposed from the door, which Zahir had left ajar. ‘Is this one of those moments when I walk out and come back in making more noise so that you know that I’m here?’

‘Cameron?’ Saffy craned her neck and began to sit up as her flatmate stared at her anxiously from across the room. Her brain felt as lively as sludge. She had not meant to blurt out her suspicion that she might be pregnant; she had simply spoken her thoughts out loud and now felt exceedingly foolish. ‘I fainted. I’ve never done that in my life before.’

‘There’s a first time for everything,’ Cameron said soothingly.

‘Pregnant,’ Zahir said again as though he could not get past that single word, and he studied Cameron grimly. ‘Your child?’

‘No, you can leave me out of this little chat. I bat for the other team,’ Cameron confided with a wry smile. ‘You need to make an urgent appointment with the doctor, Saffy.’

Zahir’s brow indented. ‘What do you mean?’ he queried.

‘I’m her gay best friend and you can only be Zahir,’ Cameron responded ruefully. ‘The guards at the front door and the limo flying the little flag parked outside are a dead giveaway.’

‘You’re gay?’ Zahir murmured wrathfully, and he fixed brilliant dark golden eyes accusingly on Saffy. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that?’

‘It was none of your business.’

‘And the baby?’ Zahir prompted tautly.

‘Excuse me,’ Cameron said quietly, and he walked back out of the room, carefully closing the door in his wake.

Sitting up then because she no longer felt light-headed, Saffy swung her feet down onto the floor and swivelled round to face Zahir. ‘Look, I don’t even know yet if I am pregnant,’ she admitted heavily. ‘I have a test but I haven’t used it yet. My suspicions may just be my imagination.’

His face granite hard, Zahir studied her intently like a male struggling to concentrate on only one thing at a time. ‘If he’s gay, why do you live with him?’

‘Because he’s my friend and we both were keen to buy an apartment at the same time. We get on very well,’ Saffy told him wryly, wishing she had bitten her tongue out of her head before letting drop the fact that she suspected that she might be pregnant, for such a threat—and she had no doubt that he would see it as a threat—would only create more stormy waves in her dealings with Zahir.

‘If McDonald’s gay, why do people believe you and he are a couple?’ Zahir persisted.

Saffy sighed. ‘Cameron was raised by elderly grandparents and he’s very attached to them. He doesn’t think they could accept his sexuality and he says he won’t come out of the closet until they’re gone.’

‘So, in the meantime he uses you for cover.’

‘We use each other,’ Saffy parried without hesitation. ‘I get bothered less by aggressive men as long as Cameron appears to be part of my life. Now can we please leave my friend out of this discussion?’

Zahir gritted his even white teeth together. ‘Pregnant,’ he repeated afresh.

‘Maybe, maybe not,’ Saffy muttered wearily. ‘Look, I’ll go and do the wretched test now and we’ll see if there’s anything to worry about.’

‘If it is true, how will we know whether or not it is mine?’ Zahir demanded icily.

‘Don’t make me slap you, Zahir. I haven’t the energy right now,’ Saffy sighed unhappily, moving past him.

Long brown fingers snapped round her wrist to hold her still. ‘Do you have any idea how major an event this could be for a man in my position?’ he raked down at her.

‘No and, right now, I don’t want to think about it. I only want to find out if there is anything for us to worry about. You shouldn’t have come here, Zahir. You should have kept your distance. What happened between us in Maraban ended there. You’re screwing up my life,’ Saffy condemned, dragging her arm angrily free.

‘It won’t be at an end if you’re carrying my child.’

Without another word, Saffy trudged through the hall to the bathroom, retrieved the test kit from the cupboard and pulled out the instructions. Minutes later she stood at the window holding the wand, waiting to see the result. She still felt shell-shocked by the explosive passion that had erupted between them, had never dreamt that she could lose control of her own body to such an extent, had not even suspected that the desire for sex might so badly betray her principles. Of course it had not occurred to her either that she would see him again, that he would deliberately seek her out in London or tell her that he couldn’t sleep for wanting her. At least she wasn’t the only one of them tossing and turning sleepless in the dark of the night, she thought wretchedly. But without the smallest warning, everything had changed. She had believed she could shrug off their encounter in Maraban; she had tried to tell herself that she had used him. In short, she reflected painfully, she had told herself a whole lot of face-saving rubbish in an effort to persuade herself that she was fully in control of events and now reality was banging very loudly at her door.

Almost absent-mindedly she looked down at the wand in her hand and her entire body froze. She gulped in a breath, checked her watch, gazed down transfixed at the line that had formed just as the instructions had explained. Her legs suddenly felt so woolly she had to perch on the side of the bath. Be careful of what you wish for…for according to the test result, she was pregnant. For a split second a rush of joy consumed her and then she recalled Zahir’s hard, forbidding expression and she groaned out loud, for nothing but complications lay ahead. Zahir and an accidental pregnancy would be a very dangerous combination: Zahir liked to plan everything; Zahir had to be in control; Zahir had been raised in a culture in which such a development was totally unacceptable, socially, morally and every other way there was.

Why, oh, why had she opened her silly mouth and told him? Regret touched her deep. Now whether she liked it or not he was involved and it would have been much better for both of them if he was not. She didn’t want him involved. Even less did she want him to be hostile to her condition. She might never before have allowed herself to dream of having a baby, but she would never, ever have chosen to have a child by a man who couldn’t possibly want either of them.

Saffy walked back into the living room

where Zahir was drinking coffee—Cameron evidently having played host in her absence—and staring moodily out of the window. He didn’t like cities: he felt claustrophobic in them. Why did she still remember that? Hearing her entrance, he swung round, stunning dark golden eyes shooting straight to her pale, tight features.

And he knew, that fast he knew, read the defensiveness there and the reluctance to get any closer to him. Why? Was she afraid of him now? Did she think that in some way he meant her harm? Her golden hair had dried into loose, undisciplined waves round her lovely oval face and her eyes were incredibly blue against her pallor. Even with strain etched in every line of her visage she was hauntingly beautiful.

‘We do have something to worry about,’ she confirmed.

Zahir released his breath in a slow hiss, not a muscle moving on his lean bronzed face. ‘I thought you were taking the contraceptive pill.’

‘You assumed I was. I saw no reason to tell you otherwise because I didn’t think this situation would arise,’ Saffy admitted doggedly, determined to be honest now because matters had become too serious for her to risk even half-truths.

‘Why were you not taking precautions to protect yourself against this development?’ he demanded.

‘I had no reason to. I wasn’t having sex with anyone, so you don’t need to wonder whose child it is,’ she told him tightly, colour mantling her cheekbones.