Zarif's Convenient Queen

‘That was bad for you,’ Ella breathed on the back of a long dragged-out gasp as he pushed up her hips and plunged into her with a stirring groan of appreciative hunger that she felt down to her toes.

‘You’re good for me,’ Zarif intoned hoarsely, circling his hips to longer enjoy the hot, tight, wet depth of her welcome. He shifted into a series of fast, deep thrusts that drove all prospect of dialogue from her head.

Every mad skip of her heartbeat and every impelling plunge of his possession was breathlessly, insanely exciting. He laboured long and hard over her yearning body and she came in a great pulsating surge of release, his name breaking from her lips as he shuddered over her.

They lay still, wrapped tightly together, both of them struggling for breath.

‘You had a right to ask those questions,’ he conceded wryly. ‘But although I should stop the tasteless comparisons, Azel never asked and I’m not accustomed to full and frank discussions of that nature.’

Stunned by his sudden loquaciousn

ess on the forbidden topic of Azel, Ella lay as still as a mouse facing up to a cat. ‘She never asked you if you were faithful to her?’

‘She was probably aware that I had been told I didn’t have to be faithful when I agreed to marry her. Her parents would have prepared her for that eventuality. They left nothing to chance. We were pawns in a much bigger game. Halim might not have got the throne but his consolation was that his daughter would become my queen.’ Zarif sighed.

‘Was she ambitious for that status?’ Ella whispered.

‘No. She genuinely loved me,’ Zarif conceded, rolling back from her to throw himself into a cooler spot on the bed. He stretched out a hand though and enclosed hers. Suddenly the future no longer seemed so threatening and uncertain. The silence stretched and it was a strangely soothing silence. Ella slid slowly into a deep sleep, more relaxed and happier than she had been in weeks.

* * *

‘You mean, this is not the first time?’ Zarif exclaimed, unfurling his cell phone to contact Halim’s doctor and furious that he had been left out of the loop. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Oh, do go away and stop fussing, Zarif,’ Ella groaned as she endeavoured to freshen up at the sink after a bout of sickness had sent her careening out of bed straight into the bathroom where the very last thing she had wanted was an audience. ‘It’s only a little tummy upset...probably the change of diet. I’m eating so much spice.’

‘I will hire a British cook if this is the result. How often has this happened?’ Zarif demanded, directing a stream of Arabic at the two hovering maids, nodding, compressing his wide sensual mouth as the answers came and confirmed his worst suspicions. His lean, devastatingly handsome face darkened along with his mood.

‘You’re going back to bed,’ Zarif informed Ella, scooping her up and carrying her back into the bedroom where he laid her down with great care.

Ella felt too dizzy and sweaty to argue. Dr Mansour arrived with a nurse, his voice a deep soothing rumble that eventually contrived to make Zarif simmer down. Anyone would be forgiven for thinking that a minor bout of sickness was an emergency, Ella thought ruefully. Some tests were done with her assistance and were quickly followed by an examination.

At the end of it all, Dr Mansour asked the nurse to wait in the other room. A big beaming smile had transformed his guarded expression and the look he spread between Zarif and Ella was warm with appreciation. ‘I am deeply honoured to offer my congratulations on this happy event, which will mean so much both to you and to our country...’

‘H-happy event?’ Ella stammered in bewilderment.

‘You have conceived, Your Majesty. You must’ve conceived almost immediately after your marriage,’ the older man informed her cheerfully. ‘Hardly a surprising development for a young and healthy couple but a very welcome one.’

In shock, Ella focused on Zarif, who appeared to be frozen in the centre of the room. She could see the pallor spreading below his bronzed complexion, the skin tightening over his spectacular bone structure. Pregnant? How on earth could she be pregnant?

‘But I’ve been taking the contraceptive pill,’ Ella protested and named the brand.

‘We wanted to wait a few months,’ Zarif breathed stiltedly, clearly already engaged in a cover-up because the older man had not been able to hide his surprise that in their circumstances they could have chosen to use contraception rather than try immediately to provide the very much wanted heir to the throne.

The older man smiled wryly. ‘Of course but that particular brand, I’m afraid, was not a good choice. It is usually prescribed to regulate a woman’s system.’

‘Which is what I was taking it for...’ Ella’s voice was dwindling away while the great tide of sheer astonishment was rolling over her. A baby... She was going to have a baby, Zarif’s baby? Even in that first piercing moment of disbelief, she was aware of the warm tide of acceptance and happiness rising inside her. She might not be able to have him but he couldn’t stop her from having his child, she thought helplessly.

‘Unfortunately that type of pill has to be taken strictly at the same time every day and it is not reliable if pills are missed or there is an episode of illness, such as you had on your wedding day,’ Dr Mansour explained. ‘Other precautions would have had to be taken for the rest of that month.’

Ella nodded with all the animation of a marionette and dared not look at Zarif to see how he was reacting to the news that her ignorance of the efficacy of her contraception had contributed to their current predicament. ‘Thank you for clarifying that, Doctor.’

The older man lingered to advise her on how best to cope with the morning sickness and recommended an obstetrician in the city, while adding ruefully that it would be unwise to consider conducting the allergy tests he had advised until after she had given birth.

A baby? Zarif was in a daze. He studied Ella’s flat stomach and thought of his child growing there and he wanted to touch her so badly at that moment that his hands knotted into fists by his side. Ella had conceived. Had she planned it that way? There could be no surer way of holding onto her status as his wife than by giving him a child.

‘You said it was safe,’ Zarif reminded her tautly as soon as they were alone.

Ella stared up fixedly at the canopy of the bed above her, guilt slashing through her at the simplicity of that reminder that really said all that needed to be said. He felt he had been deceived. He felt trapped by a development he would actively have guarded against had he known it was possible.