Denial flew from her lips as she gripped the edge of the table, pushing her chair back. “Are you kidding me?”
She’d been thinking of her son as hers, singularly hers. She didn’t want anyone to have any claim on him, let alone someone as powerful as a sheik. Her son would have a future as a normal little boy, not crippled by expectations and responsibility in some strange, distant country. “That’s not necessary. As soon as you’re well, you can go back home. You don’t need to be involved in this.”
“As soon as I’m well, we’re getting married.” The somber look on his face said he wasn’t kidding. Nor was he happy.
Welcome to the club. Maybe they could have T-shirts made and have membership cards printed.
She’d spent the last nine months planning on how she was going to be the best single mom ever. Her plans did not, whatsoever, include being married to a sheik.
The sounds of a chopper came through the open windows, coming from the east.
Amir immediately tensed and set his spoon down. “We’ll pack and leave now. No hideout is secure if used too long. My enemies had a whole month to track me here.”
“This is Wyoming, not the Middle East.” Honestly, they were at her father’s cabin, in the middle of nowhere. Even some of the locals couldn’t find their way out here.
They had the Wind River Mountains to the west and nothing but the Rattlesnake Badlands on the other side as far as the eye could see. Beyond a couple of farmers way down the road, few people lived out this way.
She went to the window to look up at the sky. Amir limped over to pull her back, but she resisted until she got a good look. Did the chopper slow as it flew over them? She couldn’t tell for sure, but soon it moved on toward the badlands. “Probably one of the charter tours. They take tourists to see the antelope and the wild mustangs.”
He didn’t look convinced, didn’t relax until he tugged her back to the table. “It might be too late to leave. I shall summon my security here. When they arrive—”
“You’re welcome to go with them.”
“When you’re my wife—”
“Let’s make one thing clear,” she said as unequivocally as she could. “I’m not marrying you. And I’m not in any kind of danger. You can’t use that as an excuse to wrap me in cotton and lock me away. I’m not going to be any man’s emotional slave. And I’m not going to be any powerful guy’s power play. I’m not going to be your prisoner, with you holding this baby over me.”
She clamped her mouth shut, regretting most of that monologue as soon as the last word was out. A simple no would have sufficed. She was projecting and she knew it. But at least she didn’t leave any doubt about how she felt. Considering how used to getting his way he must be, that couldn’t be a bad thing.
His face hardened on cue, his eyes filling with determination as he took her hands and kept them. “My purpose is not capturing you for selfish reasons. I want only what is best for you and my son. I would give my life to keep you from danger.”
The I-control-you-for-your-own-good song and dance. She knew that one by heart, had watched her mother live it with various men after she’d abandoned the family.
“I’m not marrying you, and you can’t make me,” she told the sheik and she meant it.
He glared regally.
He was the only man she knew who could look magnificent in a hospital gown and make her head swim. Figured. Somehow he managed to radiate strength—along with massive disapproval—even in his current, weakened state.
She hadn’t forgotten him in the past nine months, and she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have forgotten him—even if he hadn’t returned—for as long as she lived. But he did return. She’d been moonstruck enough so that if he’d suggested a loose liaison after the baby was born, she might have gone for it. He was the perfect man to have an affair with.
But what he wanted was to control her completely.
“You carry my son,” he said with the arrogance of a man who knew he held the trump card.
“And this is not the Middle Ages,” she told him with the certainty of a woman who believed she had sanity and progress on her side. She pulled her hands out of his, at last, away from his tingling heat.
His voice dropped an octave as he said, “Do you hate me that much for not coming back sooner? I did not abandon you. You were gone when I woke. Matters of the state… I had to return home to take care of things.”
“I hate you?” She threw her hands up, her frustration escaping at last. She didn’t have as good a grip on her emotions these days as she would have liked. A flood of hormones ruled her mind and body.
“Right. I hate you. That’s why I put my entire career and everything I worked so hard for at risk by hiding a patient. If anyone found you, I could have lost my medical license. I could have gone to jail.”
She’d had plenty of time to worry about that while he’d been out cold. Giving birth in jail wasn’t on the list of things she wanted to try. She had risked everything, because she couldn’t do otherwise. Because she’d believed him when he’d said he was in danger.
His eyes never left her face. “I do thank you for keeping me here all this time. Ask for any reward and I will see that you shall receive it. But the matter of my heir is nonnegotiable.”
Of all the magnanimous… She walked away before she could have said something she would regret. “I think I preferred you in a coma. You’re much nicer when you’re not talking, you know that?”
The prince of Persia she remembered was passionate and…well, very passionate and intelligent and had a sense of humor. Also, um, passionate. She swallowed. Sheik Amir Khalid was arranging her life without any regard to her wishes. Nobody was the boss of her. She’d worked hard to make sure that her choices would be her own, that she wouldn’t owe anyone anything, that she wouldn’t depend on anyone for anything. Ever. She would never be like her mother.
She needed to get out of the cabin and away from him for a while. She had the perfect excuse. “Why don’t you lie down and get some rest, give your mind a little time to settle? I need to leave for an hour or two. I have a doctor’s appointment today.”
“Is something wrong?”
“A regular, scheduled checkup.”
Relief crossed his face as he returned to his food. She could see that swallowing was difficult for him, but he was determined to finish. He understood that eating was necessary to regain his strength. Good. At least they wouldn’t have to fight about that, because she was about out of the patience she kept in reserve for stubborn sheiks.
“You will not go,” he decreed between two spoonfuls. “I will have the royal physician flown in by tomorrow. He shall take over your care.”
She could feel her blood pressure inch up. “I will go to the doctor of my choice. Because I’m a free woman in a free country, and not one of your subjects.” She folded her arms over her chest, working hard not to say anything she might regret later. He was the father of her child, and he would be that forever.
