Midnight in the Desert Collection. Оливия Гейтс

met as students at Oxford. I was besotted with her.’ He grimaced, openly inviting her amusement. ‘We read poetry and went everywhere together holding hands.’

      ‘People apparently do stuff like that when they’re in love,’ Ruby remarked stiltedly, well aware that he had never shown any desire to read her a poem or to hold her hand and, as a result, feeling distinctly short-changed rather than amused.

      ‘The romance turned into a nightmare,’ Raja confided tight-mouthed, his beautiful dark eyes bleak with recollection. ‘She was very jealous and possessive. Everything was a drama with her. If I even spoke to another woman she threw a scene. I was nineteen years old and totally inexperienced with your sex.’

      Sipping the mint tea, which she had learned to find refreshing, Ruby was touched by his honesty, for baring his soul did not come naturally to a man accustomed to keeping his own counsel and concealing his feelings. ‘At that age you must have found a volatile woman hard to cope with.’

      ‘She threatened to kill herself when I tried to break it off. I stood up to her but she carried through her threat—she did take an overdose,’ he admitted gravely, acknowledging her wince of sympathy with compressed lips. ‘When I said it was a nightmare I wasn’t exaggerating. Eventually Isabel’s parents put her into a clinic to be treated for depression. It took me a long time to extract myself from my entanglement with her.’

      ‘And of course it put you off what she saw as love,’ Ruby conceded thoughtfully, understanding that perfectly, her brown eyes soft as she tried to picture him as a naive teenager spouting poetry and holding hands. ‘But Isabel sounds as if she had a very twisted idea of love. It was just your bad luck to meet a woman like that and get burned.’

      Raja shrugged a broad shoulder in a fatalistic gesture.

      ‘My mum, though—she got burned twice over,’ Ruby volunteered, startling him. ‘She lacked good judgement. She just fell in love and believed the man would be perfect. My father married his second wife behind her back and then told Mum he had no choice because he needed a son and she had had to have a hysterectomy after giving birth to me.’

      ‘And the second burning?’ Raja queried curiously, for he was already familiar with the first, although he had been given a rather different version.

      Ruby grimaced. ‘The reason Hermione distrusts men around me—my stepfather, Curtis. He was always trying it on with me—’

      ‘Your stepfather tried to abuse you?’ Raja ground out in an appalled tone, black brows drawing together.

      Ruby nodded in uneasy confirmation. ‘He started bothering me when I was about twelve. By then Mum was going out several nights a week to a part-time job and I was left alone in the house with him.’

      Raja was outraged that she had been targeted at such a tender age by a man within her own home where she should have been safe. For the first time he understood what had given Ruby her essentially feisty and independent nature as well as her distrust of his sex. Angry concern in his gaze, Raja was frowning. ‘You didn’t tell your mother what he was doing, did you?’ he guessed. ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because it would’ve broken her heart,’ Ruby proffered heavily. ‘She adored Curtis and she’d had a bad enough time with my father.’

      ‘Your stepfather never actually managed to touch you?’

      ‘No, but I lived in terror that he would. It was such a relief for me when he walked out on us. He made me very suspicious of men. He also left Mum absolutely broke.’ Ruby set down her cup and began to move towards the bedroom.

      ‘Ruby?’

      Ruby glanced back at him warily.

      ‘How much do you want to give Leyla a home?’

      Ruby paled and contrived to look both very young and very determined. ‘I’ve never wanted anything more …’ Apart from you, but that was a truth she refused to voice, watching him as he stood there poised, darkly beautiful and dangerous to her every sense and emotion.

      ‘I will make enquiries on our behalf—’

       ‘Our?’

      ‘Only a couple could be considered to adopt her. It would have to be a joint application from us both.’

      Astonished by that speech, Ruby trembled with emotion. ‘Is that an offer?’

      Raja surveyed her steadily. ‘No, it is my assurance of support in whatever you decide to do.’

      And Ruby knew very well what was going unsaid in that statement. A married couple naturally meant a couple planning to stay married. Lashes lowering, she was too enervated to respond and she turned away and went for a shower. Towelling herself dry in the bathroom, she took stock of her situation. She was in love with him. Why not just come clean about that? She was madly, hopelessly in love with Raja al-Somari! Aside from that sense of duty of his, which had hit her pride squarely where it hurt, she liked everything about Raja. His strength, his intelligence, his generosity. His protectiveness, his understanding, his tolerance. He was no longer just a very good-looking, sexy guy, he was the one she had learned to love to distraction even though she had done her utmost to resist his considerable appeal.

      The bedroom was empty. But she left the bolster pillow in the foot of the wardrobe where it stayed by day. Tonight she saw no need for a barrier. In fact she was not quite sure which of them had required the restraint imposed by the presence of the bolster the most.

      Thirty minutes later, Raja came to bed and the very first thing he noticed was the missing bolster. He slid into the bed in semi-darkness and lay there. There might as well have been a ten-foot wall down the middle of the bed, he reflected wryly. He refused to give her the excuse of believing that there had been any sort of a price attached to his support in the adoption application she was hoping that they would make. He was very much impressed by her commitment to the child, her willingness to become a mother at a young age when so many women would have chosen only to make the most of his unlimited wealth.

      Barely a foot away Ruby lay wide awake, as well. She knew that she wanted him quite unbearably. She also knew that suddenly bringing the sex factor back in before other things were sorted out between them would be extremely imprudent but she was still madly hoping that he would take her unspoken invitation.

      But the invitation was ignored and it took her a long time to get to sleep. Hours crept past while she thought about Leyla, wondering if they would be allowed to offer the little girl a home and if Raja would learn to love her, as well. She should have discussed the subject more with him. She had to learn how to be half of a couple and wondered why that skill seemed to come so much more naturally to him. It felt as though she had barely slept when she woke up and recalled that this was the day when she would finally meet Raja’s family and see Najar for the first time.

CHAPTER NINE

      ‘WAJID said that adopting an Ashuri child would be a fantastic PR exercise,’ Raja revealed with a look of distaste mid-morning the following day as they travelled to the airport for their flight. ‘The orphanage director is pleased about our decision because she hopes that our example will encourage people to consider the other children available for adoption.’

      ‘My goodness, you’ve been busy,’ Ruby commented a tad guiltily at his obvious industry with regard to her hopes concerning the little girl. Having woken soon after dawn when Raja always got up, she had felt distinctly nauseous and had returned to bed only to sleep in late and have a rushed breakfast. A stomach upset, she was wondering now that she felt perfectly fine again, or a symptom of a more challenging condition? Could she be pregnant? How soon would she be able to find out? And how could she check discreetly without anyone finding out?

      She was startled when the limousine turned in the orphanage gates.

      ‘I think it’s time that I met Leyla properly,’ Raja announced, recognising her surprise