colour highlighted his superb bone structure and his eloquent mouth quirked in reluctant appreciation of that sally. ‘Oh, Ruby …’ he breathed, his hands gathering her slight body up so that he could kiss her with all the devastating expertise that sent her defensive barriers crashing flat like a domino run.
Feeling daring, Ruby pushed the sheet back. ‘You could rest with me,’ she muttered in an intuitive invitation.
‘I have only fifteen minutes to make a meeting on the far side of the city,’ Raja groaned, pausing to extract a second driving kiss, his breathing fracturing as he stared down at her with unalloyed hunger before finally springing up again, adjusting the fit of his trousers to accommodate his response to her. ‘You’re a constant temptation. I’ll see you mid-afternoon and we’ll go over the adoption papers we need to lodge to apply for Leyla.’
He found her very attractive, Ruby told herself consolingly.
It wasn’t love, it was lust, but marriages had survived on less. He was taking the advent of an unplanned baby very much in his stride, but then Raja was the sort of guy who typically rose to every challenge. The very worst thing she could do was brood about what they didn’t have as opposed to what they did. In time he might almost come to love her out of habit. What was wrong with that? Did she need the poetry and the hand-holding? It would have been much worse had she fallen in love with a man she couldn’t have. A man, for example, who belonged to another woman. Here she was safely married to a very handsome, sexy and exciting man and she was still feeling sorry for herself. Why was that? Was she one of those perennially dissatisfied personalities who always wanted more than she could have?
Ruby was dozing when she heard a mobile phone going off somewhere very close to her ear. With a sound of exasperation she lifted her head and focused in surprise on the slim cell phone flashing lights and lying semi-concealed in a fold of the bedding. It was Raja’s phone. It must have fallen out of his pocket while he was kissing her. She closed a hand round it and immediately noticed the photo of the gorgeous blonde.
And that was that. Ruby suffered not one moral pang rifling through Raja’s phone and discovering that someone called Chloe had sent him a series of suggestive texts in English. Obviously a woman who was a lover, a woman who had shared a bed with him, enjoying all the intimacies and no doubt many more than Ruby had ever had with him. In shock Ruby read the texts again.
The skank, she thought furiously, appalled by the sexy little comments calculated to titillate the average male. Raja’s healthy libido did not require stimulation yet he had been receiving those texts ever since they got married. She went through his phone. If he had sent any texts back to Chloe he had clearly had the wit to delete them.
So, who was Chloe and what was Ruby going to do about her? Was she his most recent girlfriend? Why hadn’t he told Chloe to leave him alone? Why hadn’t he told her that his relationship with her was over? He had promised Ruby that he would be faithful and that there would be no other woman in his life while he was with her. Suddenly the cocoon of shock that had kept Ruby unnaturally calm was cracking right down the middle …
DISTRESS flooded Ruby and for a horrible timeless period she was too upset even to think straight. Men had cheated on Ruby before but invariably because she refused to sleep with them and it had never hurt so much that she wanted to scream and sob and rage all at the same time.
Yet she had instinctively trusted Raja—why was that? She peered down at the photo. Chloe was a very beautiful woman. Few men would feel obligated to ditch a woman with Chloe’s looks and penchant for provocative texts just because they had made an arranged marriage. Why would Raja award Ruby that amount of loyalty when he didn’t love her?
I felt incredibly trapped. I didn’t want a wife I didn’t choose for myself. Today the revelation about the baby had proved such a shock that Raja had at last chosen to be honest with her, sharing what was on his mind and in his heart. All the time that she had subjected him to her bad temper and resentment over the head of their need to marry he had suffered in silence rather than admit that he felt exactly the same way. That truth had cut deep. Was Raja planning to keep Chloe in the background of his life while he pretended to be a devoted husband? Was Chloe to be his secret comfort and escape from the exigencies of his royal life and arranged marriage?
The advent of two children was unlikely to lock Raja closer to home and hearth. In all probability children would make him feel more trapped than ever. The demands of a family and all the accompanying domesticity would never be able to compete with the freewheeling appeal of a Chloe, willing to send him sexy texts about what she longed to do to him between the sheets.
Ruby was devastated. She had understood what Raja meant when he had said that they should have had the time to get to know each other as a couple before they considered becoming parents. She also knew that she had literally shot herself in the foot. Tears trickling down her cheeks, Ruby thought about Leyla and yet she knew she could have done nothing different where that little girl was concerned. Her need to give Leyla the love she craved had been overwhelming. But hadn’t she railroaded Raja into that commitment with her? She missed the little girl a great deal and could hardly wait for the magical day when she would have the right to take Leyla out of the orphanage and bring her home as her daughter. She had already pictured sharing that special day with Raja but Chloe’s texts and the intimate pledges within them might well be much more of an attraction for him.
Having dressed in a denim skirt and tee and slid her bare feet into sandals, Ruby ate a chicken salad in the shaded arbour in the courtyard. Her stomach was mercifully at peace again. It was a beautiful spot with trees, lush greenery and flowers softening the impact of the massive medieval walls that provided a boundary. In the centre water from a tranquil fountain streamed down into a mosaic tiled basin, cooling the temperature. Had she been in a happier mood she would have thought she was in paradise.
She wondered exactly what she was going to say to Raja about those texts. She would have to be blunt and he would have to be honest. How important was Chloe to him? He had to answer that question.
A burst of barking from Hermione warned Ruby that Raja had arrived. Steps sounded on the tiles and Raja appeared, tall and sleek and darkly attractive in a lightweight designer suit.
‘I left my phone here?’ Lean brown fingers immediately descended on the cell phone lying on the table top and swept it up. ‘I’ve been looking for it. I use my phone for everything …’
Ruby’s pensive face tensed. ‘I know,’ she said feelingly. ‘I’m going to be totally frank with you—I’ve read Chloe’s texts. Her photo flashed up and I’m afraid I just had to go digging and I’m glad that I did.’
For a split second, Raja was paralysed to the spot, black brows drawing together, lush lashes flying up on disconcerted dark eyes, his dismay unhidden. ‘Chloe,’ he repeated flatly. ‘That’s over, done with.’
‘If it’s over, why was she still texting you as recently as last week?’
Raja was frowning at her. ‘Did you read my texts?’
Ruby lifted her chin but her colour was rising. ‘We’re married. I felt I had the right.’
Faint colour defined his stunning cheekbones. His proud gaze challenged that assumption. ‘Even married I am entitled to a certain amount of privacy.’
‘Not if you’re going to be married to me, you’re not. All right—I snooped. But I stand by what I did,’ Ruby told
