she managed to get through.
‘I’m sorry, who is this speaking, please?’ The firm male voice on the other end of the line checked her when Mariella had asked for Tanya, explaining that she had been unable to make contact with her via her mobile.
‘I am Tanya’s sister,’ Mariella explained.
‘I see… Well, I have to inform you that Tanya has actually left the ship.’
‘Left the ship!’ Mariella repeated in disbelief. ‘But… where? Why…?’
‘I’m sorry. I can’t give you any more details. All I can say is that Tanya left of her own accord and without giving us any prior warning.’
From the tone of his voice Mariella could tell that he wasn’t very pleased with her sister!
Thanking him for his help, she ended the call, turning to look at Fleur, who was fast asleep in her brand-new bed.
As Hera had already warned her, Xavier had instructed a local baby equipment store to provide a full nursery’s worth of brand new things, all of which Mariella had immediately realised were far, far more expensive and exclusive than anything she or Tanya could have afforded.
Tanya! Where was her sister? Why had she left the ship? And why, oh, why wasn’t she returning her calls?
It was imperative that she knew what was happening, and, for all her faults, her impulsiveness and hedonism, Tanya genuinely loved Fleur. It was unthinkable to Mariella that she should not make contact with her to check up on her baby.
In Tanya’s shoes there was no way she would not have been on the phone every hour of every day… No way she could ever have brought herself to be parted from her baby in the first place, Mariella recognised, but then poor Tanya had had no alternative! Tanya had been determined to pay her own way.
Emotionally, she stood over Fleur looking down at her whilst she slept. Increasingly she ached inside to have a child of her own. When she had made her original vow never to put herself in a position where she could be emotionally hurt by a man, she had not foreseen this kind of complication!
Xavier frowned as he paced the floor of his study. A flood of faxes cluttered his desk, all of them giving him the same information—namely that his cousin had not been seen in any of his usual favourite haunts! Where on earth was Khalid?
Xavier was becoming increasingly suspicious that his cousin had been deliberately vague about Fleur’s true paternity. Out of a desire to protect Fleur and her mother, or out of a desire to escape his responsibilities?
Surely Khalid knew him well enough to know that, even if he couldn’t approve of or accept Fleur’s mother, he would certainly have insisted that proper financial arrangements were made for her and Fleur, and if necessary by Xavier himself? Of course he did, which was no doubt why he had now written to Xavier informing him that he was Fleur’s father.
It irked him that he had been so dramatically wrongfooted in assuming that Mariella was Fleur’s mother. The security information the prince had revealed to him had made it brutally clear just how wrong he had been about her.
Here was a young woman who had shouldered the responsibility, not just of supporting herself, but of supporting her younger half-sister as well. Not a single shred of information to indicate that Mariella had led anything other than the most morally laudable life could be found! There were no unsavoury corpses mouldering away in the dusty corners of Mariella’s life; in fact, the truth was that there were not even any dusty corners! Everyone who had had dealings with her spoke of her in the most glowing and complimentary terms.
And yet somehow he, a man who prided himself on his astuteness and his ability to read a person’s true personality, had not been able to see any of this! True, she had deliberately deceived him, but…
But he had behaved towards her in a way that, had he heard about it coming from another man, he would have had no hesitation in immediately denouncing and condemning him!
There were no excuses he could accept from himself! Not even the increasingly insubstantial one of wanting to protect Khalid.
Wasn’t it after all true that the last thing, the last person who had been in his thoughts when he had taken Mariella to bed had been his cousin? Wasn’t it also true that he had been driven, possessed… consumed by his own personal physical desire?
He could find no logical excuse or explanation for what he had done. Other than to tell himself that he had been driven by desert madness, and he felt riddled with guilt, especially for the way he had coerced her into staying with him at his villa. He would of course have to apologise formally to Mariella!
A woman who already had proved how strong her sense of duty and responsibility was. A woman with whom a man could know that the children he gave her would be loved and treasured…
He had sworn not to marry, rather than risk the hazards of a marriage that might go wrong, he reminded himself austerely.
Surely, though, it was better to offer Mariella the protection of his name in marriage rather than risk any potential damage to her reputation through gossip?
He had already provided her with sufficient protection in the form of his great-aunt as a chaperone, he reminded himself grimly. If he continued to think as he was doing right now, he might begin to suspect that he actually wanted to marry her! That he actually wanted to take her back into his bed and complete what they had already begun.
Angrily he swung round as the sudden chatter of the fax machine broke into his far too sensually charged thoughts.
‘So, here we are, then. Xavier has summoned me to be your chaperone, and I am to accompany you to the palace whilst you paint pictures for His Highness, non?’
‘Well, not exactly,’ Mariella responded wryly. It was impossible for her not to like the vivacious elderly Frenchwoman who was Xavier’s great-aunt and who had arrived half an hour earlier, complete with an enormous pile of luggage and her own formidable looking maid.
‘I am not actually working at the palace, but at the new enclosure at the racecourse, and, to be honest, I don’t agree with Xavier—’
‘Agree? But I am afraid that here in Zuran we have to comply with the laws of the land, chérie, both actual and moral.’ Rolling her eyes dramatically, she continued, ‘I know how difficult I found it when I first came to live here. My sister was already married to Xavier’s grandfather for several years by then. She was older than me by well over a decade. Since the death of my husband, I live both in Paris and here in Zuran. The child I understand is Khalid’s?’ she commented, with a disconcerting change of subject. ‘He is a charming young man, but unfortunately very weak! He is fortunate that Xavier is so indulgent towards him, but you probably know Xavier does not intend to marry and he intended for Khalid’s son to ultimately take over his responsibilities! It is such foolishness…’
‘Xavier does not intend to marry?’ Mariella questioned her.
‘So he claims. The death of his own parents affected him very seriously. He was at a most impressionable age when they perished and of course my sister, his grandmother, was very much a matriarch of the old school. She was determined that he would be brought up to know his responsibilities towards his people and to fulfil them. Now Xavier believes that their needs are more important than his own and that he cannot therefore risk marrying a woman who would not
