Zafir el-Kalil of Zachariah, and naturally my wealth and position draws attention...not all of it innocent.’
Distraught that he clearly still thought she was a liar, when all she’d ever done was stay loyal to him and give him her devotion, she found his words hard to bear. But suddenly part of his statement registered more emphatically.
‘I’ve just realised... That was your father’s title, wasn’t it? I mean...he was the Sheikh of Zachariah, wasn’t he? Are you saying that he’s passed away and now you’re the...?’
‘Sheikh of the kingdom... Yes, I am.’
It was as though a shutter had slammed down over his enigmatic gaze and rendered his feelings impossible to read. Was he still grieving? He must be. Darcy knew that father and son had been close.
As she twisted her hands together she felt genuine sympathy, unsullied by the turbulent waters that flowed between them. She knew only too well what it meant to lose a devoted father. And once upon a time Zafir had told her how much he loved and admired his esteemed parent, and one day hoped to display some of the wisdom and knowledge he was revered for himself.
‘I’m sorry... I mean I’m sorry for your loss,’ she added softly.
For a brief moment it looked as if the mistrust and suspicion in his eyes had lessened. But very quickly his expression was stony again, and it brought her firmly back to the present.
Raising his chin, he remarked, ‘As I was saying, my position inevitably draws attention and not all of it is welcome. I am fully aware that those who are unscrupulous might try and steal from me from time to time.’
‘Well, I’m not one of those.’ Her brilliant blue eyes didn’t hide her dismay. ‘And there’s nothing I want that I would be prepared to steal from anyone...certainly not anything material. If I couldn’t buy it for myself then I’d just as soon forget it.’
‘Then what is this urgent need you have to see me? The reason for all the messages you say you left at my office...messages that I never received?’
‘I wanted to tell you about that in private. Somewhere we can speak freely.’
The expression on his face told Darcy that she was sorely testing him. His glance impatiently swept the room before returning to rest on her. ‘This is private enough. You might not get another chance.’
‘Why? Do you despise me so much that you can’t bear the thought of seeing me again?’
Hearing the disturbing catch in her voice, Zafir was alarmed. Could any man despise a woman who looked like she did?
He remembered the day she’d walked into his office, having been assigned to him as his PA. He had arranged that the bank’s administrative manager would select someone for him, as it would be one less thing for him to do on his arrival from Zachariah, and the man who had selected Darcy from the pool of highly qualified secretaries the bank employed had assured him that she was one of the best. Having read her credentials, Zafir had agreed.
When he’d finally met her, his heart had stalled in surprise and pleasure. Her beauty had been the ethereal kind that romantic poets wrote the most exquisite accolades to...
All thoughts of work and the demanding schedule he’d had ahead of him had been instantly forgotten. Being a red-blooded, virile male, all he’d been able to think about was what it would be like to seduce her.
He’d never before experienced wanting a woman as much as he’d wanted Darcy. Her shapely body and golden hair had captivated him from the very first. And it hadn’t been only that. As he’d begun to get to know her he’d realised she had so many more attributes for him to admire. Kindness, generosity, and a ready smile no matter what she might be feeling. All came to her as easily as breathing, it had seemed.
A mere week later, having developed the habit of calling her in to his office more regularly than was strictly necessary—either on the pretext of taking dictation or to look over some ‘important correspondence’ with him—he had known he was falling in love...
Now, pushing his long hair back from his face, he immediately honed his gaze in on her tearful eyes. ‘I don’t despise you,’ he said throatily. ‘What is it you want to say? You may as well tell me now.’
Breathing out a sigh, he dropped down beside her on the bed, taking care not to jolt her elevated ankle. She immediately looked startled, then she quickly collected herself.
‘All right, then. After you dismissed me... I—I found out that I was pregnant.’
There was a sudden deafening silence inside Zafir’s head. The intensity of it, along with his racing heartbeat, tuned out any other sound. He likened it to standing in the vicinity of an explosion. When he finally composed himself, he considered the possibility that he might be dreaming. She had been pregnant? How could that be? He’d always made sure to protect her.
He was suddenly furious. ‘Is this some kind of twisted joke you’re playing on me, Darcy? I always took care to protect you from such an event. If you were pregnant, then the baby couldn’t have been mine. Are you telling me that it was my brother’s?’
The very idea made him feel sick to his stomach.
‘I know you don’t regard me very highly, but that’s a vile accusation. The baby I had is yours, Zafir...your son. That first time we were together neither of us were as careful as we should have been. I’d started taking the pill, but I hadn’t been taking it long enough before we...before we spent the night together. Even though we’d planned it, everything happened so fast—don’t you remember? We could barely contain our feelings.’
She meant that they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off each other.
Even now the memory made him feel weak with longing. But at the back of his mind it suddenly nagged at him that in the throes of a desire as powerful and urgent as theirs had been he probably hadn’t been as diligent with protection as he should have.
The evening they’d first become intimate had been when he’d taken her to one of the newest and most exclusive hotels in London. They had only stayed one night, but Zafir had made sure it was a night she would remember. He’d arranged for the lavish bed to be strewn with rose petals and the luxurious suite to be scented with a rare perfume that he’d had flown in from Zachariah. There had been nothing he wouldn’t have done to help Darcy feel as if she was the centre of his universe...to show her that he was devoted to her happiness.
But later, when he’d learnt that she’d been cheating on him, his hopes that they would share the most joyous future together, that he would even go against tradition and make her his Queen, had shatteringly blown up in his face. And now she was telling him that he’d left her pregnant...
Zafir was glad he was sitting down. He felt as if he was in the middle of a storm whose power threatened to unbalance him no matter how hard he fought to stay upright. It wasn’t the first time he’d reflected that he might have made the most terrible mistake when he’d let her go. But now, faced with the damning consequences of that decision—as well as wanting to somehow put things right—he needed to absorb the real possibility that he was a father. And if he was, he now had an heir.
His dearest wish had seemingly come to pass and he hadn’t even known it. But the cruelty of doubt, of not being able to receive the news with any real confidence, still tormented him. Could he really have been
