Nature hadn’t wanted her to be a mother. Hadn’t she been told she wouldn’t conceive again?
Her skin tightened. Her forehead and the back of her neck prickled, turning clammy with the cold sweat of fear.
The test indicator clattered to the floor as Samira’s vision hazed with nightmare memories. Blood and pain and the devastatingly gentle tone of a stranger telling her it was too late, she’d lost her child.
Instinctively Samira pressed her legs together so hard they grew numb. She blinked back the hot tears glazing her eyes and forced herself to think. She’d hunched over into a foetal position, body bowed and knees drawn up to protect the new life inside.
Her breath hissed, loud in the silence. She carried a new life!
She was pregnant. Against the odds she was pregnant.
And if one miracle could happen—her conceiving again—perhaps it was possible another miracle might happen and her child would be born alive and healthy.
Samira gulped over the burning ball of emotion in her throat.
If she’d learned one thing it was never to give up. She’d dragged herself from the darkest of places after the grief and scandal of her past. She refused to go back to living in the shadows.
Gingerly she straightened, taking stock of how she felt.
A smile hovered. She felt fine. More than fine, she felt fit as a fiddle, except for the way nerves made her stomach roil.
She breathed deep, then bent to pick up the test result, her fingers closing tight around it.
It could be a false positive. Gravely she nodded to herself as if she actually believed that. As if excitement wasn’t skittering through her, as if her blood wasn’t fizzing with elation and her toes curling.
What she needed was certainty, a doctor.
Again she nodded. Good, she was thinking clearly and logically.
Yet when Samira stood up she saw that the woman facing her in the mirror wore a smile so broad it could only be described as rapturous.
* * *
Tariq paused midstride and stared at the retreating back of the man following one of the maids at the far end of the corridor. An icy hand clamped his neck.
No, he was mistaken. It was a trick of the light. The obstetrician had no reason to visit the palace.
Yet Tariq was blindsided by memories of the last time he’d seen that doctor. Tariq had been hollow with shock, unable to believe the world had turned on its head. He’d been given his precious sons but at the cost of Jasmin’s life. Joyful expectation had turned to disaster.
He’d grappled with the unnerving sense that he’d lost control. All his wealth and influence hadn’t been able to save Jasmin. In fact, his need for an heir had caused her death.
Shaking off fraught memories, he continued on, opening the door to the royal suite and striding in. He wanted Samira. Just being with her made him feel good. How corny was that? Her warmth and understanding, her company, were as essential to him now as her physical generosity.
After that moment in the corridor, when dark tendrils from the past had wound around him, squeezing so he couldn’t breathe, he needed Samira.
She wasn’t in her room but he heard water running in her bathroom. His step quickened.
‘Samira?’ He rapped on the door.
Fragrant steam rose from the bath, hazing her skin, warming it to a delectable rose pink. His gaze dropped to the neckline of the unbuttoned shirt she clasped closed in one hand, then to her silky, loose trousers. She looked ripe and delicious. His hands twitched as he stepped into the bathroom.
‘Tariq.’
The husky way she breathed his name recalled nights of carnal delight. He reached for her, the lingering tightness in his chest disintegrating as he wrapped his hand around her waist and felt her, warm and alluring, beneath his palm.
‘I want you,’ he growled, spreading his feet wide and hauling her in between his thighs. ‘Now.’
Her lips tasted like heaven. Her body arched into his as he slid his hands down the sweep of her back and anchored them on her taut buttocks.
She sighed into his mouth and Tariq wanted nothing more than this, to be here with Samira.
‘The bath!’ She leaned back in his hold, twisting to look over her shoulder.
Tariq feasted on his view of bountiful breasts, plump above her creamy lace bra. He swallowed a groan.
Fortunately for his sanity Samira had yet to realise how utterly compelling he found her body. She didn’t play coy games but always gave herself generously, participating equally in every erotic adventure.
He’d lifted his hand to caress her breast when she pulled away, bending to turn off the taps.