heir?’ she echoed.
‘There has been impatience in some quarters. The news I am married will be greeted with a sigh of relief.’
‘You expect me to have your children?’ She looked at him in horror.
A nerve clenched along his jaw. ‘Whose children did you expect to have?’ he asked, seeing the handsome blond academic.
‘No one’s … that is, children are meant to be the result of love, not …’
‘Empty sex?’ he suggested, not quite sure why her reaction made him so angry, but totally sure she was in the wrong. ‘Are you looking for love, Eva?’
She flushed and bit her quivering lip. ‘No, I’m not.’
Liar, he thought, looking at her face and not wanting to stop. ‘Let it stay that way. I don’t want you falling for me,’ he warned. ‘I’m not into needy women.’
He could be very cruel. She wondered about the first wife who had given him the daughter he clearly adored, presumably he had loved her. Maybe he still did?
She lowered her eyes and struggled to lower the emotional temperature.
It hardly boded well—married literally five minutes and they were already fighting. And she had no idea how or why—it had just sort of exploded like the sexual chemistry that had preceded it. ‘Like you said, this isn’t the right time for this conversation.’
Karim scowled. He knew that this was not the right time but all he could see was the horror on her face at the suggestion she have his children. ‘Contrary to your belief, empty sex produces children just as efficiently as true love, which is as well for us.
‘And don’t act as though it would be a hardship, because I just kissed you and you didn’t want me to stop. For some people empty sex is all there is and so far we’ve both been enjoying it with other people. The only change is we start enjoying it with each other.’
Eva went paper white. ‘I don’t want sex with you, empty or otherwise, and if I were you I’d invest in a good self-help book. They probably have an entire chapter on men who have to precede sex with empty!’
Karim gave a thin-lipped smile. ‘You want it so badly you can taste it …’ His voice trailed off as he looked at her and felt need flood through his body. He had never needed a woman before … wanted but not needed.
It was suddenly very important to Karim to prove this had not changed, that what he was feeling now was a reaction to the weeks of stress and the sudden release of tension.
‘You want me so badly that you’ll beg me to take you.’ At what point in this exchange had the connection between his brain and vocal cords become severed? Or had he regressed to his teenage years? wondered a deeply embarrassed Karim.
The words brought a rosy flush of outrage to Eva’s cheeks, but she was too mortified to register the thin strips of hot colour along his cheekbones. ‘Never!’ she choked.
‘You’ll—’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know.’ The nurse standing in the doorway gave an apologetic smile. ‘I can come back.’
Eva shook her head and forced a stiff smile. ‘No, it’s fine. I’m just going.’
The nurse glanced towards Karim and, in response to the almost imperceptible movement of his head, vanished in a swirl of efficient white.
Eva, who had watched the interplay, felt her temper spike. ‘Lovely!’ She flashed him a smile of fake sincerity and added grimly, ‘I can look forward to a life of total invisibility.’ She flashed the child in the bed a sideways look and struggled to contain her emotions as she began to back towards the door. Karim was right about one thing: this was not the place or time.
‘I spoke in the heat of the moment …’ Karim could hardly believe the childish taunt had come from his lips, but this woman somehow had the ability to goad him into rash actions and unconsidered words.
Eva stopped backing and stared, her breathing gradually slowing, as astonishment replaced anger. ‘Did you just apologise?’
He gave a non-committal shrug that Eva interpreted as assent. ‘So I don’t have to beg?’ Her eyes fell from his. It suddenly felt as if that was exactly what she was doing.
‘You …’ This time it was Karim’s eyelashes that swept downwards, concealing his expression from a frustrated Eva.
‘Well?’ she prompted.
‘You have been forced by circumstances to accept me as your husband, but it is clear you have not thought through the implications.’
Eva stared. ‘When would I have been doing this deep thinking—on the way up in the lift?’
‘Well, now I am giving you the time. You consider yourself sexually experienced …’
He raised a brow at the squeak that escaped her lips, but Eva shook her head and said in a choked whisper, ‘Go on, this is fascinating.’
‘If you come to my bed it will not be for one night or even two … there will be no other men.’
‘So you’re giving me the option of sleeping with you or taking lovers?’
‘No!’
The violent explosive negative made Eva take an involuntary step backwards and the sleeping child in the bed mumbled and tossed restlessly.
His guilty glance swivelling towards his daughter, Karim clenched his jaw.
He struggled to compose his thoughts into some semblance of logic and order. One thing an arranged marriage had going for it was it made for a peaceful life—sterile but peaceful. No strong emotions, no jealousies and no passion to distract a man who had a country and people who needed him.
So what had gone wrong?
Amira’s mother had taken lovers and he had not lost a moment’s sleep over her discreet infidelities, so why did the thought of Eva’s hypothetical lovers drive him close to losing control?
His angry eyes swept her upturned features. The impulse to tangle his fingers in her hair and draw her face to his was so strong that for the space of several seconds he could not breathe.
He did not need her. He wanted her.
The subtle differentiation made the torrent of emotions that had surfaced in him—emotions that he saw no reason to name—easier to file under ‘unusual but not important’.
‘There will be no lovers, and if you come to my bed you must accept that we will have children.’ He spoke with a calm he was struggling to claim.
He had survived his disastrous first marriage emotionally intact because his first bride had awoken nothing that approached the primal hunger that tied his stomach into a frustrated knot, but it was just sex and he could and would stay in control.
A man who gave anything more than
