Unknown Royal Baby

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

P RIVATE ACCOMMODATION , HE ’ D SAID .

A place to relax and recuperate after a difficult year, he’d said. A place where they could take their time to discuss the future.

Well, two out of three wasn’t bad, she supposed.

Avril had seen Isam daily since arriving in Zahdar four days ago. He seemed fascinated by Maryam, wanting to spend time with her and Avril when his schedule permitted, but so far there hadn’t been enough time for them to discuss the future in any detail.

Do you really want to?

There would be difficult decisions to make, compromises she wasn’t looking forward to, because she couldn’t deny Isam the right to know his daughter. Inevitably that would mean time when Maryam would be with her father, not her.

Avril had no illusions. Isam was a king, he wouldn’t spend his precious time with his daughter at Avril’s tiny London house.

Yet she couldn’t imagine being parted from her little girl. The thought made Avril’s chest tighten and her hands tremble.

A gusty sigh escaped as she folded her arms, her mind shying from that horrible thought to her surroundings.

The accommodation Isam had organised was private as he’d promised and quiet enough to relax in, if you could forget it was in the heart of Zahdar’s royal palace!

It was a small mercy, she supposed, that this luxurious suite of rooms didn’t have ceilings gilded with real gold like some of the rooms they’d passed on the way here. Nor were there columns studded with rubies and lapis lazuli like in the entrance colonnade where they’d entered the enormous complex. And that, she’d learned later, hadn’t even been the main entrance!

Yet everything here, from the artworks to the vast proportions and sumptuous furnishings, screamed royal . Her en-suite bathroom could accommodate a hockey team, the sunken bath clearly designed for more than one person.

An illicit image crept into Avril’s mind, of sharing it with Isam. Even after a year she had perfect recall of his lean, powerful body and how it had felt, naked, against hers.

She shivered, not with cold but with a heated awareness that belied the fact she’d given birth only four months ago.

Surely new mothers weren’t supposed to be interested in sexy men. Particularly men who’d lost interest in them as objects of desire.

Isam was the perfect host. But he never, by so much as a sidelong glance, gave any indication he viewed her as an attractive woman any more. As if the carnal heat saturating his gaze on their one night together had been a mirage.

What do you expect? The man’s forgotten that night, erased it from his memory.

If it had been significant enough to him he’d remember.

You weren’t significant enough.

The carping inner voice had only made a reappearance in Avril’s life since Isam left her without a word in London. Before that, with Cilla’s help, she’d virtually banished the old self-doubt from her life, the belief she wasn’t special enough to make her parents stay. Wasn’t special enough to inspire love.

Avril stiffened. She was an adult and knew she wasn’t responsible for her parents’ actions.

She was capable and strong. Yet she felt undone by the insistent tug of attraction for Isam that still lurked deep inside. Even though to him she was merely an inconvenient problem. She was a complete stranger to the one man to whom she’d ever given her trust. How that hurt.

She grimaced. Scratch the surface and there, after all, was the needy little girl she’d once been. The one who’d cried when Mummy left and didn’t come back. Who’d stifled tears when Daddy went away too. But at least by then she’d had Cilla and some stability in her world.

Which is what Maryam will need. Stability and love, lots of it.

She’d deliver that for her daughter. She’d do everything necessary to ensure it. Including negotiating a shared parenting arrangement with a royal sheikh!

Avril stared out at their private courtyard.

Filled with scented flowers, it was glorious, so pleasing to the senses that even she could tell every plant, every path and fountain had been put together by a master. As for the pool with its hand-painted tiles and cushioned sunbeds with embroidered silk canopies and gauzy curtains...

The whole place was beyond anything she could have dreamt. Was it any wonder she felt out of place?

Cilla had raised her to be independent and practical, and Avril had worked for some powerful people, occasionally glimpsing their more rarefied worlds.

But this was on a different scale. This wasn’t just wealth. This was royal privilege, complete with liveried staff, a palace bigger than her old neighbourhood, and a labyrinthine web of protocols governing everything right down to modes of address and appropriate clothing. She knew from the compendium of information that had been supplied to help her and Bethany acclimatise.

Acclimatise! Avril had read it from cover to cover and wished Isam had found them rooms in an anonymous hotel in the city.

Here everything reminded her of the immense power Isam wielded. The imbalance between them.

What was she, an ordinary woman from an ordinary background, doing here? Already she felt at a disadvantage and they hadn’t even begun their negotiations.

‘Avril?’

Isam’s rich baritone slid across her skin as if conjured by her thoughts. Her flesh prickled, every fine hair on her body standing alert while her heartbeat quickened.

She whipped around to discover Isam in the doorway. Instead of a dark suit, he wore long white robes and a headscarf secured with a twist of dark cord. The simple clothes suited him, emphasising his height and the lean strength of his body.

A dull throb started low in her abdomen and she fought to ignore it. She no longer had the defence of anger against him. The news he hadn’t deliberately cut her out of his life changed everything.

Avril feared that at the core of her jumbled emotions was something too strong, too dangerous to her peace of mind.

‘I knocked, several times.’

She nodded, throat catching on a stifled breath of mingled appreciation and nerves. ‘Please, come in.’

Even though she wanted to tell him to leave. She didn’t feel up to the discussion they had to have. She knew, no matter how reasonable he was, that she’d hate the outcome. The idea of leaving her precious girl for even a short length of time, a couple of days, even weeks, churned nausea through her belly.

He glanced around the large room. ‘Maryam’s sleeping?’

That twist of sensation low in her body changed to something like disappointment.

What sort of woman is jealous of her own daughter?

You should be pleased he’s so interested in Maryam. That’s as it should be, a father wanting to see his girl.

This isn’t about you.

Avril stood straighter. ‘Yes, she’s sleeping. Bethany is with her, while I—’

Isam crossed the room. It was less than twenty-four hours since she’d seen him, yet she was struck anew by the depth of her response. The softening, low in her body. The spark of heat. The humming need.

As if her body had awoken to one man and one alone. A terrifying thought!

‘You...?’

She’d been going to venture out of the palace for an hour, take up the standing offer of a guide to take her into the city. She’d spent too long here, stewing over things she couldn’t change, growing more rather than less nervous by the day despite the extra rest she was getting.

‘It doesn’t matter. Won’t you sit down? I want to talk to you about Maryam.’

‘She’s all right? There’s nothing wrong?’ Concern sharpened his voice.

‘She’s fine. As I said, she’s sleeping.’

Avril perched on the edge of a damask-covered settee and watched him take a seat opposite.

‘Excellent. But if ever you have concerns, at any hour of the day or night, we can summon the palace doctor.’

She frowned, imagining an echo of anxiety in his tone.

She must be mistaken. Maryam had shown no negative effects from the travel. As for Isam anxious... He was one of the most competent, confident men she knew. Surely as Sheikh he had the power to make problems vanish from his life.

Avril wished she could do the same.

Lacing her fingers, she drew a deep breath. She couldn’t put this off any longer. ‘It’s time we talked about Maryam.’

Isam inclined his head. ‘Yes, and I want to know more about us.’

‘Us?’ That hit out of the blue. ‘There isn’t an us.’

Was it imagination or did the proud angles of his face grow more pronounced, more severe? ‘Yet here we are, parents with a child. I want to know more about our relationship. How we came together.’

Avril had assumed that after pregnancy and giving birth, with strangers performing intimate examinations and procedures on her body, nothing could make her blush.

She was wrong. Heat surged up her throat and into her cheeks. She was tempted to blurt in the usual way , but stopped herself in time.

He’s not asking what the sex was like.

‘Does it matter now? The important thing is our daughter.’

He leaned closer, elbows on the arms of his chair and fingers touching. ‘As you say, she’s paramount. But... I feel at a disadvantage. You have full recall of something intimate and significant between us and I have none.’ His mouth tightened and she saw something in his eyes that looked like vulnerability. ‘It’s a terrible thing to have blank spaces in your memory with no understanding of how you behaved.’

The heat intensified in Avril’s cheeks. Not from embarrassment but from shame that she hadn’t thought about this from Isam’s perspective. The reality of memory loss was something she could barely conceive. He shouldn’t have to beg to find out more.

‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ She cleared her throat. ‘We worked together for several months before you came to London. Our working relationship was good. You trusted me and I handled the work well.’

‘I didn’t interview you in person?’

‘You did, but via a video call, after all I was going to be your virtual PA, working remotely. You also set me some tasks to do then assessed my performance.’ Still he didn’t look convinced. ‘My previous employer, Berthold Keller, recommended me to you. I’d worked for him for several years but he knew I wanted to work from home.’

Isam nodded. ‘Why did you want to work from home?’

Avril paused, fighting a natural instinct for privacy. But there was no harm in sharing this. Besides, guilt at being so thoughtless about his amnesia spurred her on. ‘I lived with my great-aunt. She was well in spirit and mind but growing physically frail. I wanted to be on hand to help her.’

‘She shares your house? I didn’t see her in London.’

Avril looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. ‘Actually, I lived in her house. She raised me. But she died after I began working for you.’

‘I’m sorry for your loss, Avril. Was it after my time in London?’

She looked up to see dark pewter eyes fixed on her, full of sympathy. She drew a wobbly breath. ‘No, just before.’

He jerked back in his seat. ‘You were bereaved when we met in person? Did I know?’

‘You had no idea.’ It wasn’t something she’d wanted to speak about. ‘It was actually a relief to spend that week with you, concentrating on work rather than everything else.’

The funeral and its aftermath had left her drained. Did that explain her fixation with Isam? Her no-holds-barred need for him? Maybe her yearning had been some sort of reaction to grief.

So what’s your excuse now? Cilla’s been gone for more than a year and he only has to look at you to make you melt.

Avril lifted her head and discovered his expression was sombre. ‘I owe you an apology, Avril.’

She frowned. His amnesia explained why he hadn’t been in contact. ‘What for?’

‘For seducing you when you were my employee. For crossing a boundary that should never have been crossed. For taking advantage of you in your grief.’ He shook his head, his gaze leaving hers to fix on a point behind her. ‘For taking your innocence. My behaviour was—’

‘You’ve got it wrong!’ She leaned forward, aghast at his misunderstanding. ‘You didn’t seduce me. We... It was utterly mutual.’

‘Nevertheless, given our professional relationship—’

‘You’re not hearing me. We were both...attracted.’ What an anaemic word for that full-blooded, desperate craving. Avril didn’t have words to describe the urgent compulsion she’d felt that night. ‘We’d both been fighting it, and you were adamant we shouldn’t act on it, precisely because I worked for you. But I insisted. I wanted, needed you that night as I’d never needed anyone before.’

It was simultaneously terrifying and liberating to admit it. But seeing Isam’s anxiety over what he believed his unpardonable actions, she was determined to clear any misunderstanding. The man had suffered enough, losing his father and his memory, without adding to his misery.

It was a relief to know her original assessment of him was right. She’d spent most of the last year despising him for his apparent decision to cut her from his life. This proof of his true character reassured and warmed her.

Not for her own sake, since there’d be no going back to their fleeting relationship. But it was a relief to know Maryam’s father was a decent man.

‘You didn’t pressure me, Isam. On the contrary, you said no, but I wouldn’t listen. I understood your scruples. I knew it could be no more than a single night. But I—’

Had to have you.

‘I initiated it. I coaxed you into it.’

‘You’re saying you seduced me ?’

Heat tinged her cheeks and ears. That made her sound like some femme fatale, alluring and confident. In fact she’d simply been desperate. She shrugged. ‘Yes.’

Those grey eyes were narrowed on her. What did he see? A weary mother with bags under her eyes. Hardly a temptress.

She shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, not with what she’d done that night, but knowing he was wondering why he’d slept with someone so ordinary. She’d seen the old media reports, the photos of him at high-profile events with glamorous, sophisticated women.

Avril sat straighter, needing to change the subject. ‘That doesn’t matter now. It’s in the past. We need to discuss Maryam’s future.’

His stare told her he knew she was changing the subject deliberately. But to her relief, instead of objecting, he nodded. ‘That’s why I carved out time from today’s schedule. We need to make some decisions. Nothing matters more than our daughter.’

On that they both agreed. Maybe this might be easier than she’d anticipated. Easier yet still distressing.

‘She can’t inherit the throne, can she? It’s males only?’

‘As the constitution stands, yes.’

That was a relief. Not that she wanted her daughter to miss out on opportunities, far from it. But if she’d been heir to a throne, Avril might have had a fight on her hands, raising their daughter in the UK.

‘Why do you ask? What do you want for Maryam?’

‘Don’t worry, Isam. I don’t have royal aspirations for her. I just want her to have a loving, secure home life. To have a decent education and a chance to pursue her dreams when she’s older.’

‘Good. I want something very similar for her.’

Similar but not the same? Avril moistened her lips, about to ask where they differed but he was already speaking.

‘There are excellent schools and universities in Zahdar.’

She stiffened. ‘And in the UK.’

‘I know. I attended one for several years. My grandmother was English and a few years being educated in another country was very beneficial.’

The flutter of anxiety in Avril’s stomach eased. So he was talking about Maryam, when older, spending some time here. Avril couldn’t object to that. Even in the months when she’d thought Isam had cruelly deserted her, she’d been determined her daughter would learn something of her father’s culture and heritage. Growing up with two languages and two cultures could only be an asset.

‘That sounds reasonable.’

His lips quirked up at the corners in the hint of a smile that brought back memories of that week in London. Memories of his warmth and ready charm, how enthralled she’d been.

But it wasn’t all memory. Little shivers of awareness were even now thrumming through her core. Her nipples had peaked at the mere hint of his smile.

Avril crossed her arms then uncrossed them, shifting in her seat. ‘But that’s years away. In the meantime we need to think about access.’ She paused, wishing she didn’t have to say it. ‘I’m assuming you want to be involved?’

Something flared in those grey eyes. Something that saturated her body with heat then left it shivering with cold. Did she imagine his mouth tightened?

‘You assume right. I’m her father. I’ll be very much involved.’

He didn’t raise his voice but it had a sharp edge that made her think of honed steel.

Avril made herself nod and smile. ‘Just checking. I didn’t know, given your royal responsibilities—’

‘I take those very seriously, Avril. But nothing is more important to me than Maryam’s well-being. Than family.’

Emotion coursed through her. If things had been different, if they’d shared more than a one-night stand, his words would have been music to her ears. She’d imagined that one day she’d find love with a steadfast, wonderful man and together they’d create a loving family. In other circumstances, Isam would have made a perfect father and partner.

Meanwhile, her little girl deserved a caring family. Parents who’d always be there for her. Not deserting her and making her feel she didn’t deserve their attention.

It was only now she had a daughter that Avril felt the full weight of anger at the way her own parents had treated her. For years she’d felt bereft and insecure, her self-confidence damaged until Cilla did her best to change that. Now she was determined that her daughter wouldn’t be abandoned as she’d been.

‘I want to be part of Maryam’s world. I want to be with her as she grows up, someone she can depend on for love, guidance and support.’

She felt her eyes grow round. That sounded more hands-on than she’d expected. ‘And I assume you want the same, don’t you, Avril?’

‘Of course. But I’m certainly not going to hand her over to be raised elsewhere.’

Isam nodded. ‘I agree. We both want her to have the best and we both need to be involved. So there’s one obvious solution. We marry and raise her together.’

His mouth curved into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. They looked sombre and she felt a chill run along her backbone, because she knew he was serious.

Yet the idea was preposterous. ‘Marry? We can’t marry. You’re a king and I’m your PA. Was your PA.’ His minders at that meeting in London had made it clear her services wouldn’t be required any longer. ‘Royals don’t marry women they barely know. Commoners from another country.’

His smile became a twist of the lips. ‘You’d be surprised at how often royals marry virtual strangers, for the good of their country. And there’s nothing preventing a king from marrying outside his own nation.’

‘But I’m...’ Ordinary. Unremarkable. Not glamorous or well connected. ‘Not cut out to be a queen.’

‘You love your daughter, don’t you? We’d be marrying for her. As for the rest, you can learn our customs, learn to be royal. If I hired you as my PA, you must be clever and diligent, trustworthy and dedicated.’ He leaned forward, his voice coaxing. ‘I don’t pretend it will always be easy. But I’ll be by your side, on your side, yours and Maryam’s. You can rely on me. I’ll help you through the challenges and it will be worth it to give our daughter a stable, loving home.’

Avril opened her mouth, about to list all the logical, sensible reasons why it was a far-fetched idea.

But his words echoed in her head.

‘You can rely on me. A stable, loving home.’

The sort of home her parents hadn’t provided, because she hadn’t been their priority. Her mother had deserted her to take up with a new lover and the freedom of life on the road. Her father, who’d always travelled for work, had gone for longer and longer periods rather than less while Avril grew up. Until finally he fell in love with a Canadian woman and followed her across the Atlantic to start a new family.

And here was Isam, offering marriage, willing to withstand the inevitable backlash if he married a foreigner with nothing to recommend her as Queen, all for the sake of Maryam.

That he was a man who felt strongly, not just about duty, but about their daughter, was obvious. When he married he expected it to be permanent. It was there in his grave expression and the stillness of his tall frame.

Avril’s heart squeezed. That he would do this for their daughter.

But what about you? What about your happiness? Are you willing to throw that away?

But would it be throwing it away? Surely it would be building a future for Maryam. And who was to say Avril wouldn’t find happiness here with Isam and her daughter?

It struck her that while she’d inherited her mother’s colouring and her father’s organisational skills, she was fundamentally different to them. She might not be the world’s most adept mother. She still had a lot to learn. But when it came to priorities she put her daughter’s needs first.

Avril sighed and sank back in her seat. ‘What if you fall in love? Would you want a divorce?’

He was already shaking his head by the time she stopped speaking. ‘I’ve never been romantically inclined. I’ve known many women and never imagined myself in love. I was raised to expect an arranged marriage.’ He paused, pinioning her gaze so it felt as if he saw deep into her soul. ‘I’m proposing a real marriage, Avril. We’d be partners and lovers. And you have my word that I’ll be faithful.’

She blinked in astonishment as unmistakable heat fizzed in her veins, coalescing low in her core. Sexual anticipation. She recognised it now and it made a liar of her attempts to tell herself this was totally about Maryam. For there was part of her that wanted Isam, just as she had from the first.

But suggesting marriage was one thing. Vowing fidelity was another. ‘You don’t even know if we’re compatible—’

‘I may not remember the details, Avril. But the fact I broke every rule so I could have you tells its own story.’ Those serious eyes glazed hot, intensifying the eager, melting sensation deep inside. As if he now remembered that night and the pinnacles of ecstasy they’d reached together. ‘We’re sexually compatible. Everything tells me I trusted you and I see no reason for that to change. I hope you trust me too. Plus we have Maryam.’ He lifted those wide shoulders in a shrug. ‘We have a better basis for marriage than many.’

He made it sound so reasonable. Instead of utterly shocking.

‘Once I give my vow, I won’t break it. I’m a man of my word.’

She believed him. The gravity of his expression and the tone of his voice, plus all she knew about him, said so.

‘I take my promises seriously too.’

If she were to agree to this, she’d commit wholeheartedly.

‘Excellent. So you—?’

‘It’s an...extraordinary idea. I’ll need time to think about it.’

His expression told her it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Impatience danced in his glittering eyes. But instead of trying to push her into a decision, he nodded.

‘Naturally. But time’s of the essence. The palace staff are discreet but the longer you’re here, the greater the risk the news will leak. I want to control the release of information, rather than have rumours circulate. I won’t allow anyone to turn you and our daughter into fodder for gossip.’

It was a reminder that she’d stepped into a new world under the public spotlight.

Not what she wanted.

He looked at his watch then rose. ‘I’ll expect your answer by the end of the week.’