The Sheik's Love Child (9 page)

Kalil looked down at her, his eyes noting her sincere expression. “Thank you,” he said.

“What do your sisters do?” she asked.

“They are married,” he replied as if that answered her question.

“Yes, but do they work?”

“No, why would they?” he asked, and turned the horse to an area filled with large rocks and desert.

“Why wouldn’t they?” she countered.

“Because they are married.”

Dani sighed and shook her head. “So I guess you are one of those men who think a woman’s life is complete once she finds a man to take care of her?”

“Of course. My mother’s life was raising her four children.”

“What would happen if you married someone who wanted a career outside of her marriage? What if raising your children isn’t fulfilling enough?”

“Then I will make sure it is,” he said.

“What if you can’t? What if she feels she has something more to offer than just acting as a baby machine for her husband’s dynasty?”

He looked down at her enigmatically. “Since you will be my wife, albeit for a short duration, are you concerned that your time as my wife will be boring?”

“Since I’m not going to be your wife because I’m most likely not pregnant, I’m just asking questions out of curiosity.”

“But if you are pregnant, you will marry me.”

Dani hesitated for a long moment before answering. “If it turns out that I am, then I will consider your proposal when you offer it,” she said, determination in her voice and her expression.

Kalil tightened his hold around her waist. “You will marry me,” he said into her ear, his tone just as determined.

“We’ll see. What is your father like?” she asked.

“Strong, fair,” he said with pride.

“That’s what he’s like as a ruler but how was he as a father?” she asked, ignoring the increased speed the horse seemed to move into.

“The same,” was all he said. “What was your father like?”

Dani accepted that he didn’t want to discuss his family life. That was fine with her. Two could play at that game. “He was fair,” she tossed back.

Kalil laughed. “My father was usually busy. I don’t remember him being around much until I was in my teen years. At that point, he was very involved with me and taught me many things. I used to sit in his office sometimes, just to listen to some of his meetings. From the moment I was small, I wanted to be strong like my father, and I always hoped I could be as wise.”

Dani felt her heart swell with emotion as she thought about Kalil as a small boy, hiding in the corner and watching his father with awe. What an inspiring figure he must have presented. If he was anything like Kalil, she would imagine him to be a great ruler. Kalil seemed to inspire people. She’d only witnessed it in the palace staff, but she had the impression that he ruled through wisdom and not through fear.

Since he’d shared a bit of his past with her, she relented as well. “My mother would wake up on Saturday mornings and leave my father in bed. But she’d send us all into his room to wake him up. Me and my sister would try and sneak into the room but we were giggling so much, there was no way he could possibly sleep through it all. Then we’d jump onto the bed in the hopes of pinning him down and tickling him. She and I would end up being pinned down ourselves and tickled unmercifully by him since he was only pretending to sleep after my mom left the room.”

“That sounds like a nice memory.”

“He was a lot of fun.”

“Tell me some of the Arabic you learned this morning,” he demanded, turning the corner and halting the horse looking out to a canyon.

Dani tried to turn around but his arm wouldn’t let her move. She had to stare out at the view, admiring the vision before her but also fuming that Alea had told on her. “I asked Alea not to mention that to you,” she said.

“One thing you’ll learn quickly, there’s really nothing that happens in the palace that I don’t know about,” he explained. “So say something you’ve learned. I’m glad you started learning our language. It will make your transition here smoother.”

“Let’s just change the subject, okay?”

“Tell me what you’ve learned.”

“No.”

“Okay, then I’ll just have to kiss this beautiful neck of yours,” he said.

“No!” Dani said, moving her neck out of his way. But nothing was out of his reach if he really wanted it. “Fine, Kalil, I’ll tell you,” she said, desperate to keep his lips off the sensitive spot on her neck.

She spoke the few phrases she remembered but knew she was slaughtering his language. He replied back to her but she didn’t understand what he said. He repeated his words in English, “I’m proud of you.”

Dani shook her head. “I know that everyone else wants to impress you but perhaps I have an ulterior motive for learning the language and it has nothing to do with impressing you,” she asked.

She ignored the silly glow that his words produced within her. Dani didn’t want him to know that she was planning to escape because that would only increase the security around the palace and possibly herself. But she didn’t want him to think that she was accepting the situation or that she wanted him to be proud of her.

“I wouldn’t dream of assuming that you are trying to impress me. That would mean you have feelings for me and we wouldn’t want to think that, would we?” he said, his hand flattening against her stomach.

Dani gasped and tried to move his hand away. “Kalil, what are you doing?” The heat invading through her entire system.

“I’m proving to you that you have feelings for me, even if they are only sexual.”

Dani’s head rolled back onto his shoulder, gritting her teeth against the power he seemed to hold over her. . “Shouldn’t we get back to the palace? Don’t you have work to do or a horse to take care of, war to start or something like that?”

“I have all the time in the world right now,” he replied. But he turned the horse around and urged the horse to a trot. They rode back to the palace in silence. Dani was considering murdering him for the feelings that were racing through her system. She was too new at the sexual tension, never having experienced it before, to be able to endure it delivered from a master.

It took them only minutes to arrive back at the palace so Dani assumed they had traveled in some sort of circle. She knew she should have been paying attention to the landscape instead of her conversation, but she acknowledged that she hadn’t been nervous on top of the horse. Kalil definitely knew how to distract a person from their fears. It was something she would have to remember for future confrontations with him.

As soon as they arrived, he tossed the reigns to a stable hand, then slid off the horse first. When he reached up to help her off, her eyes were caught with the intensity of his. She noted with trepidation that his were just as on fire as she felt.

“I’ll see you tonight for dinner,” was all he said before he walked quickly back through the stables towards the palace, leaving her standing there alone, staring at his retreating back and wondering what was going on in that mind of his.

Kalil walked determinedly back through the halls of the palace. He saw his top advisor waiting at the entrance but waved him off. He couldn’t talk about business right at the moment. Without another word to anyone, he made his way to his quarters, stripping off his clothes as soon as the door was closed behind him. He walked right into the shower, turning the jets to cold in an effort to get his body under control.

What had he been thinking? Taking Danielle out on a horse was just asking for punishment. And then kissing her neck, touching her sweet, responsive body. It had been pure torture!

He remembered that one night they’d shared together and how he had kissed her, intending to leave her at the door. Something inside him had known she was innocent and that he was only asking for trouble. But he’d wanted just one kiss that night, hoping for an opportunity on another trip to London to sample more of the lovely Danielle’s charms.

Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined the kind of flames that would explode between the two of them with that one kiss. He’d tried to stop at the door, then again when he’d laid her down on the bed. But she’d wanted him and he’d never wanted another woman like he’d wanted her. There was just something electrifying about her soft, tentative touch that eliminated coherent thinking.

The discovery that she really was as innocent as he’d suspected had only intensified the pleasure he’d felt that night. The idea that no other man had ever touched his Danielle, and he knew he’d started thinking about her as his after that first kiss, had made him feel powerful, strong and definitely caveman-like. He’d wanted to beat his chest and throw open the windows to stake his claim.

When the bracelet and shredded contractual documents had come back to him, Kalil had been furious. He’d been so sure she’d felt the same things he’d felt. How could she not? No woman had ever affected him like she had.

It had been his intention to buy her a house and convince her to become his mistress. That’s why he’d put security guards trailing her. When the reports indicated that she may be pregnant, Kalil had been ecstatic, and furious as well. Why hadn’t she contacted him? What was she thinking, not coming to let him know about their child at the first sign? The fact that she didn’t really know who he was didn’t occur to him until she’d arrived on the plane, furiously putting him in his place, or at least where she thought he should be.

So he’d taken matters into his own hands. Bringing her here had soothed his sense of frustration and had given him justification for bringing her along. He knew she’d balk at becoming his mistress no matter how prettily he’d tied it up. If she really was pregnant, he could then marry her to legitimize the children, then he’d have months to show her how wonderful they could be together.

Shutting off the jets, he hoped he was back in control of his libido. It had never been a problem before. So what was it about this tiny woman that drove him so hard to possess her? It certainly wasn’t her words of flattery since almost every word out of her mouth was insolence and wouldn’t be tolerated in anyone else. But it was such a gorgeous mouth, he thought, thinking of her luscious lips and bright smile.

Sighing, he pulled on some clothes, not really caring what he was wearing or what was on his agenda for the rest of the day. All he knew was that he’d cleared his calendar so he could spend the evening with her. And perhaps the night? He definitely hoped so, he thought with a smile as he walked into his office to greet the waiting diplomats.

Chapter 8

Dani held the towel around her, pulling the ends closer as she stared at the dress Alea had laid out for dinner.

“I can’t wear that,” Dani said, swallowing hard.

“You don’t like it?” Alea asked, the disappointment evident in her tone.

“It’s beautiful,” Dani said honestly. It was a shimmering gown of cream silk with spaghetti straps and a bias cut skirt. It was barely more than what she would wear as a slip.

“You don’t think His Highness would approve?”

Dani shook her head. “Oh, I think ‘His Highness’ would definitely approve as long as we’re dining alone tonight.”

“That was the request.”

Dani’s eyes snapped to her. “Kalil wants to dine alone tonight?” Dani didn’t think she’d be able to handle being along with him tonight. There had already been two instances today when he’d broken through her defenses with almost no effort at all. Wearing that shimmering dress that would cling to every curve of her body, revealing every reaction to his word or touch.

“I definitely don’t think I can wear that,” she said with more emphasis, swallowing hard just at the thought of an intimate scene with Kalil, candlelight and soft music. “I think I’ll have to wear something else,” she said definitively.

Alea took the dress and disappeared back into the closet. Dani followed after her and her mouth dropped open at how full the room was becoming. “Were more clothes delivered today?”

“Absolutely. Aren’t they lovely?” she asked, taking two other day outfits out. One was a pantsuit in a soft blue with embroidery at the bottom of one and the other was a lovely shade of pink with a fitted jacket and white silk shirt. There were others that were still in the bags and all of them still had the tags on them indicating that they were not borrowed from some other lover of Kalil’s.

“Why are so many clothes coming?” Dani asked, wishing the expenses weren’t piling up. She was only going to escape and leave it all behind. At least the tags were still on them so they could be returned once she was gone.

“I think I’ll just wear my jeans and shirt. That’s probably the safest route tonight.”

“But dinners are more formal at the palace.”

Dani was starting to become uncomfortable in the wet towel. She glanced at the other dresses hanging in the closet and pointed to the one that looked safe enough. “How about that one?”

Alea smiled broadly and pulled the black one out of the closet. “This is also lovely,” she said and carried what Dani could now see was a strapless, satin sheath.

Now that she’d finally made a choice, Dani didn’t feel like she could go back on the decision but she surveyed the other choices. There were five other evening dresses, all of them just as lovely but still very sexy. She wondered why her dresses were so revealing. She would have thought that Kalil wouldn’t want his woman displayed in such a way.