The Sheik's Love Child (5 page)

His mouth actually dropped open. “I will wait as long as you require,” he said and leaned against the wall outside her flat.

“You’re going to wait here?” she asked, shocked.

“Yes ma’am.”

“It may be a while,” she replied.

“I have my orders.”

“What is your name?”

The man hesitated again. “I am called Adir,” he replied.

“Well, Adir, please return to your place of work and I’ll be ready in a few hours,” she said and without another word, she closed the door and shook her head in exasperation. She refused to have her weekend dictated to by someone else’s schedule. She stomped over to the sewing machine and sat back down.

It took her a while, but eventually, she became more absorbed in her task again and was able to push the arrogant Kalil out of her mind again. Three hours later, she pulled the soft blanket out of the machine and surveyed the completed project with satisfaction. It looked wonderful, she thought. There were furry, silky and bumpy textures and it had a double layer so it could be used either as a play blanket or to keep the baby warm.

Stretching her neck, she released the tension that entered her body from bending over her sewing machine for so many hours. Dani didn’t discount the tension from the messenger, sure that the visit was contributing to the stress. She was going to see Kalil again. Was that wise? Initially, she had wanted to vent her anger and humiliation at him, but should she see him again? Perhaps it would be better to just close off that day in her life, chalk it up to an extremely bad choice and move on.

When the man came back again, she could simply hand him a note, just as Kalil had done. It would allow a certain amount of turnabout, she thought.

Moving into her bedroom, she showered and changed into a soft, well worn pair of jeans and a tee-shirt. She needed to do her grocery shopping for the week and perhaps she would make a special lunch for Carrie to celebrate her good news. She wanted to hear how Tim took the news. Picking up her purse, she pulled it over her shoulder and grabbed her keys, grabbing the blanket as well in the hopes of maybe getting some buttons to add to the blanket at the sewing store. It was only a few blocks from the grocery store and it might still be open at this time of the evening.

But as soon as she opened the door, she found herself face to face with Adir. “Oh! Goodness, have you been here all afternoon?” she asked, looking down at her watch. “It’s been five hours!”

“I’m here to escort you, ma’am. My orders were to wait until you were ready,” he said. Adir pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and started walking down the stairs. He said something in a foreign language that she assumed was Arabic and then led the way down the steps.

“But…Adir, I’ve decided that I’m not going to see him. There’s no need,” she explained. They reached the street and she turned to face him. “Here,” she said and handed him the letter she’d printed out. “This is all that needs to be said.”

She started walking down the street only to be stopped by Adir presenting his large form in front of her. “Please, my orders are to bring you.” He placed a hand on the small of her back and guided her towards a waiting car. With a simple movement, he placed her in the back seat and then proceeded to the front.

Within moments, they were driving away towards some destination she was unaware of. “Where are we going?” she asked.

No one answered and she sat back in the luxurious seat, fuming.

Twenty minutes later, she recognized the signs to Heathrow Airport and shook her head. The man was meeting her on his way to a business meeting? How horrible!

But the car didn’t stop at any of the main gates. It drove down a side street and then right onto the tarmac. A jumbo jet was waiting with stairs leading to it from the pavement. Adir got out of the car and opened the door for her, indicating that she should precede him to the plane.

“I’m meeting him in there?” she asked, intimidated despite her determination not to be.

“He is waiting for you,” he said, waving in the general direction of the plane.

Dani climbed the stairs, aware of Adir directly behind her, acting protectively for some reason she couldn’t understand. There were many people on the plane, all busily engaged in some activity or another. Some were working on computers, others were taking in various languages on the phones. As soon as she boarded, the area quieted. Phones were put down, hands hovered over keyboards and several pairs of eyes watched her progress through the room.

Dani was led to the back of the plane and up a wide staircase to what looked more like a luxurious living room than any plane she’d been on. It was more luxurious than anything she could have even imagined.

She looked around and her eyes finally settled on the point of her anger and humiliation. “You!”

He acknowledged her with a slight bow of his head. “Good afternoon, Danielle. You’ve kept me waiting for a long time.”

“I didn’t know you were on a schedule.”

She could see the smile that he tried to smother and it only made her angrier. “And if you did know it, would that have influenced you to arrive earlier?”

“No,” she said, squaring her shoulders and wishing she wasn’t so intimidated by this man. And she also wished her stomach didn’t have butterflies flitting through it just at the first sight of the man. His shoulders seemed broader in the white collared shirt versus the suit she’d seen him in, and out of, the last time. Her face turned red at the memory of just how “out” of his suit he’d been.

“I can see that you have a great deal of respect for me and my title.”

Dani braved her way through the interview. “I’m not sure about your title but I can assure you that I don’t have a lot of respect for you,” she said, warming to her topic. “In fact, the only reason I’m here right now is to tell you how angry I am at you trying to pay me off, as if I were some sort of…” she couldn’t even say the words. “Well, you know.”

He shot out of his chair and walked over to her, towering over her smaller frame. “Don’t ever say something like that again,” he replied angrily. “It was never a payment for services rendered.”

“Then what was it?” she challenged? “If it smells like a rose…” she started, leaving the ending to Shakespeare’s famous words hanging.

She saw the muscle flex in his jaw but refused to back down. “What you did was horrible. And I’ll never forgive you,” she said. “I lost….” She hesitated again, still ashamed of what she’d done with him but determined to let him know how she felt. “Well, I lost something…important to me that night. Something I’ll never get back but one thing I’ll never give away is my self-respect.”

She turned on her heel and started walking away. But his next words stopped her. “I’m sorry,” he said and she could hear the sincerity in his voice. She felt his heat through her clothes as he came closer and her whole body tensed in anticipation of his touch. Swinging around, she thought to stop him but he was already too close. Her hands reached out to steady herself and ended up on his chest, her fingers feeling the strong muscles flexing under her fingers and her breath caught in her throat.

“I’m sorry,” he said again and his voice was husky, his hands gently touching her waist as he looked down into her face. “I can honestly say that I’ve never lost control with any woman before until I met you.”

She couldn’t hold his gaze. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked, hating the way her voice was breathless and the way her mind was wishing he’d just kiss her and make her forget everything, just as he had a week ago.

“Yes.” His hand caressed her cheek, gently touching her collar bone. “You’re more beautiful than I remembered,” he said.

Dani swayed closer to him. “Don’t say things like that,” she said and looked at the buttons in his shirt.

“Why not?”

“Because…” Dani hated the fact that she couldn’t seem to hold a thought around him. What was wrong with her? She was here to tell him off, then leave. Why was she just standing here in his arms, letting him caress her, wishing he’d do so much more? It wasn’t fair.

“Anyway, I have to go,” she said and tried to step backwards out of his arms.

“Go?”

“Yes. Thank you for letting me talk to you one last time. Please don’t send any more messengers to my flat,” she said and took a deep breath before priming to step out of his arms.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand,” he said, his voice hard and unyielding. “You need to come with me now. In fact, the engines have started and I believe we are now taxing down the runway. It would be best if you sat down and got your seatbelt on,” he explained and guided her towards one of the comfortable looking leather chairs.

It took a long moment before his words sunk in but her horror was close behind her comprehension. “What do you mean? The plane can’t be taking off. I’m still on board,” she said and started to move towards the doors that she’d entered several minutes ago.

Kalil took her hand and shook his head. “In your condition, I think it would be best if you relaxed and took a seat,” he said.

“In my condition?” Dani replied, not sure she understood that one but was too focused on the fact that the engines were indeed revving up. “I have to get off this plane.”

“That is not possible,” he countered.

She turned to look at him, her blue eyes wide with fear and frustration. “Well, make it possible,” she yelled back at him.

He simply bent down and kissed her, tenderly at first, but when her lips trembled under his, he employed more pressure.

Dani didn’t know what was happening to her, all she knew was that Kalil was kissing her. And it was just like the last time. At his first touch, every thought flew out of her mind and she was transported to a world where everything centered around Kalil and the feelings he could stir within her.

The next thing she knew, she was buckled into the seat and Kalil was sitting next to her, casually talking on the phone as if he kissed like that every day.

She looked out the window and her jaw dropped open to find that they were already airborne. “What have you done?”

He ignored her for a moment and concluded his brief conversation. When he was done, he calmly turned to her, looking at her through hooded eyes. “I did what was expedient.”

“Expedient?”

“Exactly. There was no way I was going to let you leave this plane so I just took measures to ensure your safety.”

Her angry eyes could barely look at him. “Has the word kidnapping come to mind?”

Kalil surveyed her angry face for a long time before he answered. “You don’t really know who I am, do you?”

Dani’s hands were fisted in her lap she was so furious. “I don’t care if you’re a bloody prince, you can’t do this to me!”

She saw the smile tilt his lips and her mouth went dry. “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes,” he countered.

“You’re a prince?”

“Exactly. Prince Kalil Estabi del Misiri, at your service.”

“Prince Masiri?” she said in a small voice, praying he would tell her he was teasing her.

“I guess that name is familiar to you.”

“But that would mean you’re the crown prince of Basir,” she said, her throat constricting slightly over the words. Basir was one of the richest countries in the world because of its oil and industries. And if this man was the Crown Prince, that meant he was basically ruling the country now since his father was ill and unable to rule. That also meant he was so completely out of her league her mind started spinning at the possibility.

Before, when she’d only thought of him as some sort of business tycoon or financier, he’d been out of her sphere. But the Crown Prince? Royalty? Good grief!

“You know your world events,” he said.

“You can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“Because last week…we…I didn’t….not with a prince,” she said haltingly.

His smile turned cynical. “Ah, but you did.”

She shook her head, denying the truth of what he was saying. “That’s simply not possible.”

“Not only is it possible, it is an absolute. Which means that baby you are carrying is the next in line to rule.”

She blinked at his words, not really understanding their meaning for a long moment. “Baby? I’m not carrying a baby,” she squeaked.

His mouth turned hard. “Don’t lie to me, Danielle. You were seen walking out of an obstetrician’s office. Initially you were excited, then overwhelmed if the pictures are to be believed.”

She really didn’t like the sound of that. “Pictures? You had me followed?”

“Absolutely,” he answered. “We had unprotected sex.” He had to grit out the words as he said them. “And the consequences are your current condition.”

“But, Kalil,” she started, her hand covering her stomach, “I was at the obstetrician’s office for my friend Carrie. She’s the one having the baby.”

“Is that also why you are making a baby’s blanket?” he countered, one eyebrow raised cynically.

Dani glanced down at her lap where the blanket was now resting, no longer folded but crumpled in a heap. “Yes,” she said, folding the blanket, needing to hide her shaking hands. “Actually, I made it for her.”