Sultan is known for his love of horses.’
‘Yes.’ Briefly Zayed thought about how Olivia had said she couldn’t ride. Right then he should have known it wasn’t the Princess. Why had he been so unbelievably blind, seeing only what he’d wanted to see?
‘I need to find Miss Taylor,’ he said. ‘Do you know where she is?’
‘She has spent the morning with some of the women,’ Jahmal answered. ‘In the gardens.’
Some of his staff and soldiers had wives who lived in the palace. It was an isolated but safe existence, and he knew they all longed for the day when they could return to Arjah and their normal lives. They’d all been waiting a long time for that.
Outside the sun was shining brightly, the air still holding a hint of crispness from the cold night. Zayed strolled through the gardens, enjoying the sunlight on his face. He’d forgotten how pleasant it was out here, with the orange and lemon trees, the trailing flowers, the tinkle of the many fountains.
He wandered for several minutes through various landscaped gardens, each one surrounded by its own hedge, until he came onto a small, pretty courtyard with a fountain splashing in the middle and several ornate benches around. Lahela, one of his aides’ wives who had just had a baby, was laughing at something Olivia said.
And Olivia... She sat on a bench, wearing a casual sundress the exact shade of her eyes, her hair falling down her back in tumbling chestnut waves, Lahela’s baby on her lap gurgling up at her. She looked so happy and natural, almost as if...
Zayed’s mind suddenly screeched to a halt, freezing on one simple fact that he’d completely ignored since he’d first taken Olivia and married her. Had slept with her.
He hadn’t used birth control.
Of course he hadn’t. It had been his wedding night; if he’d got Halina pregnant it simply would have strengthened his cause. Since then he hadn’t thought for a moment, a single second, that Olivia could be pregnant...pregnant with his child. His heir.
Her laughter drifted across the courtyard, a deep, delighted sound, and she bounced the fat, smiling baby on her knee. Then she looked up and her gaze caught Zayed’s, clashing with it so he felt as if he’d come up against a brick wall.
Her eyes widened, pupils flaring, and colour touched her cheeks. She looked away, bending her head so her hair fell forward and hid her face. Zayed’s chest tightened. The pain he thought he’d banished crept back.
Keeping his voice as even as he could, he greeted the other women in the courtyard before turning his attention resolutely to Olivia. She still wasn’t looking at him.
‘Miss Taylor,’ he said. ‘May I have a word?’
* * *
Olivia handed the baby back to Lahela, trying not to let her trepidation show. Her heart was thumping in her chest as she followed Zayed out of the garden, both of them silent. He seemed angry, and she could only suppose it was about last night...and what had almost happened between them.
She’d spent most of the night practically writhing in shame—and unsated desire. When Zayed had started touching her, she’d been helpless to do anything but respond. Want. Beg. Just as he’d once said. Even now the memory made her face flood with colour and she closed her eyes briefly against it. How could she be so helpless when it came to her response to this man?
Zayed walked swiftly through several corridors and then finally opened the door to a small, ornate room that looked like a private study. Olivia stood in the centre of the room, knotting her hands together so they wouldn’t shake.
Zayed closed the door and then whirled around to face her. ‘Could you be pregnant?’ he demanded tersely.
Olivia blinked. That had not been what she was expecting at all. ‘Pregnant...?’
‘From our wedding night.’ He ground the words out, his mouth compressing. ‘I did not use birth control and, as you were a virgin, I question whether you were on it.’
‘I’m not,’ she confirmed quietly.
‘And you have no...issues with fertility?’
Her face burned even hotter. ‘None that I know of, no.’
Zayed swore under his breath and turned away from her in one abrupt movement. At least she knew how he felt about a possible pregnancy, and could she even be surprised? He was planning to divorce her. Of course he didn’t want her to have his baby. Yet strangely, stupidly, Olivia felt hurt.
Zayed squared his shoulders, his taut back to her. ‘So there is a chance you could be pregnant?’
‘Yes, I suppose.’
He turned around. ‘You suppose?’
Irritation bit. ‘Yes, I suppose. I’m not omniscient, Zayed, and this is not my fault.’ Her voice quavered. ‘I thought you’d realised that, but it seems you’re back to blaming me.’
‘No, I’m sorry.’ He rubbed a hand wearily over his face. ‘I don’t mean to blame you. I blame myself, if anyone, for being so presumptuous and rash. It’s just another complication in what is already a very complicated situation. And I should have thought of it sooner.’ He dropped his hand from his face, giving her a surprisingly wry and honest look. ‘I’m ashamed that I did not.’
‘It’s understandable,’ Olivia murmured. Her flush had thankfully faded but she still felt embarrassed to be talking about this at all. ‘You’ve had a lot on your mind.’
‘Yes, but...’ He stared at her for a moment, his gaze hard and assessing. Olivia looked back at him warily. ‘You realised,’ he said, and it was a statement. ‘A while ago, I think. Yet you didn’t say anything.’
‘What was I supposed to say?’
‘That you might be pregnant?’ His brows drew together in a line. ‘I know it’s stating the obvious, but it is clearly a potential issue, and one that we needed to discuss.’
‘I suppose I didn’t see the point of discussing it until it was a certainty.’
‘But by that point you might have been out of my life!’ Zayed took a step closer to her. ‘Were you considering not telling me about my child, Olivia?’
She gazed at him in disbelief. ‘Are you serious, Zayed? Are you accusing me of something that hasn’t even happened yet? I may not even be pregnant. I’m probably not.’
‘Probably? Why do you say that?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but there’s a good chance I’m not.’
‘But there is a chance you are. That is the point.’ He gave her a long, level look. ‘Would you not have told me?’
‘I...I don’t know. I didn’t think that far ahead.’ She turned away from him, hating this whole conversation, all the what-ifs that had come into her life when everything had once been so certain, so safe, if a little staid. And she hated that a conversation about their possible child was so clinical, so cold. Some part of her wished for an alternative scenario,
