Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN

to another man and the child he had already given her. The barbaric intensity of his own emotions shocked him. He had done what he had done for Khalid’s sake, to protect him, he reminded himself, and to reinforce that fact he told her, ‘It’s a little too late for that now! You have already proved to me just what you are, and once Khalid learns how willing you were to give yourself to me he will quickly realise how right I was to counsel him against you.’

      He had taken her to bed for that? Because of that? So that he could denounce her to another man?

      In the outer room Fleur suddenly started to cry. Dragging on her clothes, Mariella hurried in to her, picking her up and holding her tightly as though just holding her could somehow staunch the huge wound inside her that was haemorrhaging her life force. She was shaking from head to foot with reaction, both from what had happened and from what she had just learned.

      Fleur was not Xavier’s child! Xavier’s cousin was Fleur’s father! But Xavier believed that she was Fleur’s mother. And because of that he had taken her to bed, out of a cold-hearted, despicable, damnable desire to prove to his cousin that she was a… a wanton who would give herself to any man!

      Fate had been doubly kind to her, she told herself staunchly: firstly in ensuring that she had not betrayed her sister, and secondly in giving her incontrovertible proof of just what manner of man Xavier was!

      CHAPTER SIX

      AS SHE stepped inside the welcome familiarity of her Beach Club bungalow, Mariella allowed herself to expel a shaky sigh of relief. Her first since she had left the oasis!

      Now that she was safely here, perhaps she could allow herself to put the events of the last forty-eight hours firmly behind her. Lock them away in a very deep sealed drawer marked, ‘Forget for ever.’

      But how could she forget, how could any human being forget an act as deliberately and cold-bloodedly cruel and damaging as the one Xavier had perpetrated against her?

      If she herself had been a different kind of woman she might have taken a grim sense of distorted pleasure in knowing that, for all he might try to deny it, Xavier had physically wanted her. In knowing it and in throwing that knowledge back at him! Instinctively she knew that he would be humiliated by it, and if any man deserved to be humiliated it was Xavier!

      Just thinking about him was enough to have Mariella’s hands curling into small, passionately angry fists. As her heart drove against her ribs in sledgehammer blows. How could he possibly not have recognised that she would never, ever, ever under any circumstances betray her love, and that if she had been another man’s lover nothing he could have done would have tempted her to want him? Hadn’t her body itself proclaimed to him the unlikeliness, the impossibility of her being Fleur’s mother and any man’s intimate lover?

      But believing that he had been Tanya’s lover hadn’t stopped her, had it?

      She would carry that shame and guilt with her to her deathbed, Mariella acknowledged.

      The message light on the bungalow’s communications system was flashing, indicating that she had received several telephone calls, all from the prince’s personal assistant, she discovered when she went to check them. Before answering them, the first thing she intended to do now that she was safely back at the hotel was ring her sister and double check that she had not misunderstood Xavier—he was not Tanya’s lover or Fleur’s father!

      And once she had that confirmation safely in her possession, then Xavier would be history!

      It took her several attempts to get through to Tanya, who eventually answered the phone sounding breathless and flustered.

      ‘I’m sorry, Ella,’ she apologised quickly. ‘But things are really hectic here and… Look, I can’t really talk right now. Is Fleur okay?’

      ‘Fleur is fine. She’s cut her first tooth, but, Tanya, there’s something I’ve got to know,’ Mariella told her, firmly overriding her attempts to end the call.

      ‘I must know Fleur’s father’s name, Tanya. It’s desperately important!’

      ‘Why? What’s happened? Ella, I can’t tell you…’

      Hearing the panic in her sister’s voice, Mariella took a deep breath. ‘All right! But if you won’t tell me who he is, Tanya, then please at least tell me that his first name isn’t Xavier…’

      ‘Who?’ Tanya’s outraged shriek almost hurt her eardrums. ‘Xavier? You mean that horrid cousin of Khalid’s? Of course he isn’t Fleur’s father. I hate him… He’s the one responsible for parting me and Khalid! He sent Khalid away! He doesn’t think that I’m good enough for him! Anyway… how do you know about Xavier, Ella? He’s an arrogant, overbearing, old-fashioned, moralistic beast, who lives in the Dark Ages! Look, Ella, I’ve got to go… Love to Fleur and lots of kisses.’

      She ended the call before Mariella could stop her, leaving her gripping the receiver tensely.

      But at least she had confirmed that Xavier was not Fleur’s father.

      Determinedly Mariella made herself turn her attention to her messages.

      The prince had now returned to Zuran and wanted her to get in touch with his personal assistant.

      ‘Don’t worry,’ the prince’s personal assistant reassured Mariella when she rang him a few minutes later to explain why she had not returned his calls.

      ‘It is just that the prince is hosting a charity breakfast tomorrow morning at the stables and he wanted to invite you as his guest. His Highness is very enthusiastic about his project of having the horses painted, but of course this is something you will be having formal discussions with him about at a later date. The breakfast is a prestigious dressy event, although we do ask all our guests not to wear strong perfumes, as this can affect the horses.’

      ‘It sounds wonderful,’ Mariella responded. ‘However, there is one small problem. I have brought my four-month-old niece to Zuran with me, as the prince knows. I am looking after her for my sister, and—’

      ‘That is no problem at all,’ the PA came back promptly. ‘Crèche facilities are being provided with fully trained nannies in attendance. A car will be sent to collect both you and the baby, of course.’

      Mariella had previously attended several glitzy society events at the invitation of her clients, including one particularly elegant trip to France for their main race of the season at Longchamps—a gift from a client, which she had repaid with a ‘surprise’ sketch of his four-year-old daughter on her pony, and, recalling the sophistication and glamour of the outfits worn by the Middle Eastern contingent on that occasion, she suspected that she was going to have to go shopping.

      Two hours later, sitting sipping coffee in the exclusive Zuran Designer Shopping Centre, Mariella smiled ruefully to herself as she contemplated her assorted collection of shiny shopping bags.

      The largest one bore the name, not of some famous designer, but of an exclusive babywear store. Unable to choose between two equally delicious little outfits for Fleur, Mariella had ended up buying her niece both.

      She had been rather less indulgent on her own account, opting only to buy a hat—an outrageously feminine and eye-catching model hat, mind you!—a pair of ridiculously spindly heeled but totally irresistible sandals, which just happened to be the exact shade of turquoise-blue of the silk dress she had decided to wear to the charity breakfast, and a handbag in the same colour, which quite incredibly had the design of a galloping horse picked out on it in sequins and beads.

      And best of all she had managed not to think about Xavier at all… well, almost not at all! And when she had thought about him it had been to reiterate to herself just what a total pig he was, and how lucky she was that all she had done was give in to a now unthinkable and totally out of character, momentary madness, which would never, ever be repeated. After all, there was no danger of her ever allowing herself to become emotionally vulnerable to any man—not with her father’s behaviour to remind her of the danger of falling in love—never