Modern Romance February 2020 Books 1-4. Louise Fuller

tired-looking display of flowers in a cheap vase and tensed as Jai threaded the wedding ring onto her finger. She turned in the circle of his arms, thinking numbly, I am married to Jai now, but it didn’t feel remotely real. It felt like a fevered dream, much as that night in his arms had felt.

      It felt a little more real when she shivered on the steps outside and posed for the photographer that awaited them. Jai smiled down at her, that killer smile of his that made her stupid heart flutter like a trapped bird inside her chest, and she remembered him smiling down at her that night in the aftermath of satisfaction. And, of course, Jai was pleased, she told herself ruefully—he had accomplished exactly what he wanted for Hari.

      They returned to the house for a light lunch. Hari was brought down to meet Sher and then Sher offered to give Shelley a lift home.

      ‘Does he have a limousine?’ Willow asked with amusement in her clear eyes after she had hugged her scatty friend and promised to invite her out to Chandrapur for her annual holiday.

      ‘I should think so. Sher made his fortune in the film world before he went into business,’ Jai told her. ‘And we need to make tracks now for the airport.’

      ‘I’ll get changed.’ But, still immobile, Willow hovered in the hall as Jai closed the distance between them and reached for her, his eyes as bright as a silvery blue polar flame.

      ‘It is a shame that you have to take off that dress without me to do the honours,’ Jai husked soft and low, his fiery attention locking so intently to the luscious pout of her pink lips that a convulsive shiver rippled through her slender frame. ‘But if I joined you now, if I even dared to touch you, we would never make the flight this side of tomorrow.’

      Her breath feathered dangerously in her throat, her entire body quickening and pulsing in response to that heated appraisal and the smooth eroticism of those words while he kept his lean, powerful frame carefully separate from hers. Her five senses were screaming with a hunger that hurt, the achingly familiar scent of him, which only made her want to be closer to taste him, the tingling in her fingertips at the prospect of touching him, the rasp of his dark deep voice in her ears throwing up the recollection of his ecstatic groan in the darkness of the night. It was an overwhelmingly potent combination.

      ‘Go upstairs, soniyaa,’ Jai urged thickly.

      On trembling legs, Willow spun away, only to get a few steps and halt again to turn back to him. ‘What does that mean?’

      ‘In Hindi? Beautiful one,’ he translated.

      Shaken, Willow climbed the stairs, breathless from the spell he had cast over her, the sheer shocking effect of that high-voltage sexuality focussed on her again. And yet he had not touched her once since she had moved into his house, had left her alone in her bed, maintaining a polite and pleasant attitude without a hint of intimacy when they met at occasional mealtimes. Why was that? Why had he kept his distance even after she had agreed to marry him?

      It had made Willow feel that his former attraction to her had been a short-lived thing, a flash in the pan, one of those weird, almost inexplicable incidents that struck only in a moment of temptation. Now it seemed that Jai was much more drawn to her than he had been willing to reveal but, while he had maintained his reserve, he had damaged her self-esteem because the awareness that she still craved him when he did not seem to return that compliment or share that weakness had felt humiliating.

      After checking on Hari, who was enjoying a comfortable nap after his midday feed, Willow changed into one of her new outfits, an elegant fitted sheath dress and slender high heels teamed with a jacket for the cooler temperatures of London.

      She had never travelled in a private jet before and Jai’s was spectacularly well-appointed in terms of comfort and space. She sat down beside Hari’s crib in the sleeping compartment and fell deeply, dreamlessly asleep. Jai glanced in at the two of them and when he saw her curled up on the bed next to his son’s crib, his chest tightened, and he breathed in deep and slow. They were his wife and child, his family now, and, in spite of what he had expected, he didn’t feel trapped. No, so intense was his hunger for her that he couldn’t think further than the night ahead when that raw hunger would finally be sated.

      Willow’s strawberry-blond waves tumbled across the pristine pillow, her soft mouth tranquil, her heart-shaped face relaxed in slumber. She was a beauty and his tribe of relatives would greet her like manna from heaven for they had long awaited his marriage. Hari would simply be the cherry on the top of an award-winning cake.

      Willow wakened to the news that they were landing at Chandrapur in half an hour and with the time difference it was almost lunchtime. Hari occupied the first fifteen minutes until Shanaya took over and the remainder of the time Willow hurtled around showering and changing.

      Jai’s bodyguards moved round them as their party emerged from the VIP channel and a roar of sound met her ears. Dozens of photographers were leaning over the barriers with cameras and shouting questions. The flashes blinded her. Until that unsettling moment she had forgotten how famous Jai was in his birth country. Single as well as very good-looking and immensely successful, he was highly photogenic and a media dream. His sports exploits on the polo field, his business achievements and the gloss of his playboy lifestyle provided plenty of useful gossip-column fodder.

      ‘Sorry about that. I should’ve timed the announcement of our marriage better,’ Jai breathed above her head as he steered her down a quiet corridor and back out to the sunlit tarmac. The heat of midday was more than she had expected as she scanned the clear blue sky above them and she was relieved to climb into the waiting vehicle that, Jai assured her, would quickly whisk them to journey’s end.

      ‘Where’s Hari?’ she gasped worriedly.

      ‘In the car behind us. I often make this transfer by helicopter but Shanaya doesn’t trust a helicopter with a child as precious as Hari.’ Jai chuckled.

      Precious, Willow savoured, enjoying that word being linked to her son. A crush of noisy traffic surrounded them, and she peered out of the windows. There were a lot of trucks and cars, colourful tuk-tuks painted with bright advertisements and many motorbikes with women in bright saris riding side-saddle behind the driver in what looked like a very precarious position. Horns blared, vehicles moved off and then ground to a sudden halt again to allow a herd of sacred bulls to wander placidly through the traffic. Bursts of loud music filtered into the car as they drove along beside a lake. By the side of the dusty road she saw dancers gyrating.

      ‘It’s a festival day and the streets are crammed. Luckily our palace isn’t far,’ Jai remarked.

       Our palace.

      Willow almost smiled at the designation, for she had never dreamt that those two words used together would ever feature in her future. ‘So, you’re taking me to where your family’s story began—’

      ‘No. My family’s story began at the fortress in the fourteenth century. Look out of the window,’ Jai urged. ‘See the fort on the crags above the city…’

      Willow looked up in wonder at the vast red sandstone fortress sprawling across the cliffs above the city. ‘My ancestor first invaded Chandrapur in the thirteenth century. It took his family a hundred and forty years of assaults and sieges but eventually they conquered the fort. We will visit it next week,’ he promised. ‘At present it’s full of tourists…we would have no privacy.’

      ‘Then, where are we going now?’

      ‘The Lake Palace,’ Jai told her lazily. ‘It’s surrounded by water and a private wildlife reserve and immensely private. It is where I make my home.’

      ‘So you like…have a choice of palaces to use?’ Willow was gobsmacked by the concept of having a selection.

      ‘The third one is half palace, half hotel, built by my great-grandfather in high deco style in the twenties. We will visit there too,’ Jai assured her calmly.

      ‘Three? And that’s it…here?’ Willow checked.

      ‘There is also the