The Desert Lord's Love-Child. Оливия Гейтс

seriously. You must try the occasional letdown, maybe even criticism. Very therapeutic.”

      In answer, he picked up the serving plate, prowled toward her like a panther measuring the moment he’d pounce, savoring the kill. He looked at Mennah. “Your mother is being very brave, Mennah. Or very foolish. Or she knows exactly what she’s asking for.”

      “I’m only asking that you—that you—” The rest struck in her throat. He was nearing her as if he intended to collide into her.

      “That I what? Take you up on your challenge?”

      She leaned back. At the last moment he slowed, imprinting his body on hers as he reached around her with a hand holding the plate, the other joining it, imprisoning her with an arm on either side as he put the plate on the counter behind her. She once again felt something burning. Her skin this time. Her nerves.

      He looked down into her shocked eyes, the gold of his turned to lava. “Wise of you to know when to stop.”

      Before she showed him just how unwise she was and answered with something inflammatory, he leaned harder into her, pressing his erection into her midriff.

      Before she could process that he was aroused, berate herself for the surge of elation that she affected him still, he pulled back, pulled up the high stool for her, his gaze steady on hers, telling her to sit down and shut up.

      As if she could talk now, still feeling his potency digging into her, liquefying her insides. She sat. More like collapsed. Not to obey him or the voice of reason, but because she no longer had solid bones inside her limbs.

      She watched with surreal fatalism as he served the filet. Until she noticed he’d taken two thirds himself.

      “Relative body mass,” he murmured at her glare. “But I’ll feed Mennah from my share. Let’s see what she can consume.”

      He sat down beside her, picked up a knife and fork and sampled a piece of the filet. His eyes rose to hers in surprise.

      “It’s even more delicious than it smells.” Before she voiced the crack that catapulted to her tongue, he turned to Mennah. “And you, ya kanzi, are so clever you knew how good it is, how to ask for more.” He cut a tiny piece over and over, mincing it. “Open up, here comes more …” He carefully forked it into Mennah’s eager mouth.

      Carmen tensed, ready to jump if Mennah choked, felt Farooq’s echoing vigilance. Mennah gulped it down easily, asked for more in delighted shrieks. He chuckled, complied at once.

      It didn’t even occur to Carmen to eat as she watched father and daughter demolishing his portion. It wasn’t until he turned enquiring eyes on her that she realized she was gaping at them.

      At that moment Mennah repeated her sudden sleeping maneuver making him relieve her from his silent interrogation, his eyes captured by Mennah once again. And once again the tenderness there shocked Carmen. It was something that, despite his generous ways with her in the past, she hadn’t suspected he was capable of.

      “Does she always fall asleep that suddenly?”

      Carmen could only nod. His lips melted with indulgence as he rose and removed Mennah from her chair, then, enfolding her, walked out of the kitchen. It took Carmen a minute to lurch after him. She caught up with him as he exited the nursery.

      He closed the door, said without preamble, “You don’t need to pack anything. Make a list of your needs and everything will be at the palace on our arrival in Judar. If you forget anything, order it and it will be brought to you within the hour. After you’ve settled in, I’ll order major store managers to come to the palace with their catalogs for you to pick whatever you wish.”

      She stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

      An edge hardened his rich, dark tone. “We’re leaving right away. My jet should be ready for the return trip.”

      She felt the tethers of her sanity snapping one by one, groped for an anchor against his sweeping incursion. “Listen—”

      He cut her off. “If you decide you feel nostalgic about your things, I’ll send people to pack every shred you have here later.”

      “Now wait a minute. I’m going nowhere….”

      “You are going exactly where I take you. To my kingdom.”

      She shook her head, groped for breath. “I—I can’t travel … my passport isn’t valid….”

      “I don’t need one to take you out of the country and into mine. My word is enough. Anyway, I’ll arrange for one. It will be waiting for you when we arrive at my home.”

      “I’m not leaving my home.”

      “You are. In case you haven’t grasped it yet, I’m having Mennah. Since you are her mother, this means having you, too.”

      His declaration felt like a slap. A stab.

      A hurricane of emotions started churning inside her.

      Even if he had wanted her for real, she would have been in turmoil. He wasn’t just the man she loved—had thought she loved—he was a prince from another culture. She had no idea what being his wife entailed. But to have him state his intentions this way, as if she could have been anyone he’d endure now that he’d accidentally impregnated her, that she was just an unwanted accessory that came with the daughter he wanted so much …

      Trying to hide her humiliation from his all-seeing eyes, she tried to scoff, “Phew, I hope this isn’t how you make your peace proposals. Your region would be up in flames within the hour.”

      He gave her a serene look. “I save my cajoling powers for negotiations. This isn’t one, Carmen. It’s a decree. You had my child. You will be my wife.”

      The world began to tilt, overturn, nausea rising with his deepening coldness and clinical unconcern.

      She somehow found her voice again, found something logical to say. “Okay, I appreciate the strength of your commitment to Mennah. But if you want to be her father, you can do that without going overboard. Parents share a child’s upbringing without being married all the time, all over the world.”

      “I’d never be a long-distance father. My daughter will be brought up in my home, my land, exposed daily to my love and caring, taught her privileges and duties as a princess with her first steps and words. But for her best mental and psychological health, she also needs her mother constantly with her. By marrying you, that’s what I’m providing for her.”

      Put that way, what he’d said was incontestable. But … “This can all happen without marriage. I don’t want to live in Judar, but I would for Mennah. We can both always be there for her.”

      “And what would she be if you don’t marry me? My love child? Do I even need to state that a marriage, to give her her legitimacy, her birthright, is beyond question?”

      “But I …” The quicksand beneath her feet snatched at her. And she cried, “I don’t want to get married ever again!”

      Carmen’s vehemence hit Farooq like a gut punch.

      He’d been fighting the urge to close his eyes every time she spoke, to savor that voice that could bring a man to his knees begging to hear it moaning his name.

      That was until she’d said …

      “You’ve been married before?” he rasped.

      Her face contorted before she looked away.

      Something hideous sank its fangs into him. Jealousy? Why? When he’d long known everything they’d shared had been a sham?

      He knew why. His instincts still insisted he’d been her first passionate involvement. How could they be so misled? Even after she’d claimed he’d been one in a hundred? How did they still insist that had been the lie, and what he’d felt when she’d abandoned herself in his arms had been the truth?