The Di Sione Secret Baby Read online

  Biting her lip, Allegra knew she had to make things right, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think how. ‘Rahim...’

  He started the Jeep and the powerful vehicle rolled forward. ‘You have uttered the vows and taken my name, habibi. This is now beyond you and me. Now you know your imagined harem doesn’t exist, you have no excuse. We will consummate this marriage. You belong to me, and I fully intend to claim you again.’

  Allegra didn’t see the need to argue the possessive point because she wanted to be claimed. She wanted to belong. Now that the subject of other women had been nullified, the thought of belonging to Rahim didn’t terrify her as much as it would’ve only a short while ago.

  It was what made her reply, ‘You can claim me all you want. As long as I get to claim you too.’

  In the darkness, his eyes gleamed. His response was an animalistic growl as he stepped on the gas, steering the Jeep with a deft confidence that she wasn’t ashamed to admit turned her on despite the roiling sensations tearing through her.

  The lone Bedouin tent appeared out of thin air.

  Two stories high, the tent was large enough to fit the huge Di Sione pool back on Long Island. The canvas was made of traditional Dar-Amanian blues and gold, and had been opened up to reveal its warm, lantern-lit interior.

  Rahim parked the Jeep in front of it, and came round to help her out.

  Sliding her body down his, he speared his fingers into her hair and gazed deep into her eyes. ‘You’re mine now. There will be no room for suspicion and uncertainty. The past needs to belong in the past.’

  She knew he referred to her issue with the harem. ‘But because this marriage isn’t a dictatorship, I hope my concerns will be addressed appropriately?’

  ‘They will be, if you bring them to me immediately and not let them fester for weeks,’ he muttered.

  ‘I tried. You wouldn’t take my call.’

  ‘You had every chance to speak to me long before this afternoon, did you not?’ he rebuked.

  ‘Fine. I’m sorry about that. Can I make it up to you?’ she offered boldly as she swayed against him, his proximity, and the need clawing through her, too overwhelming to deny.

  ‘Yes, habibi. You may,’ he instructed thickly.

  He barely allowed her the kiss she tried to initiate before he sealed his mouth, hot and fast, to hers. His tongue delved between her lips to boldly capture hers, the expert, demanding flicks telling her how much he wanted her.

  When he finally lifted his head, she was near-drowsy with desire.

  ‘I’ve been dying to do that since you walked down the beach to me,’ he muttered.

  Her arms tightened around his neck, just to keep upright. ‘Why didn’t you, then?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been able to stop once I started. And I didn’t think you’d welcome me scandalising you in front of your brother and sister.’

  Leaning up, she pressed her lips against his in gratitude. ‘Thank you. Did Alessandro give you a hard time?’

  Rahim’s mouth twitched. ‘We made sure we understood each other. But enough about that. We’re here now, and I can’t wait to have you naked and beneath me.’

  His pure male growl as he swung her into his arms thrilled her blood. His kiss as he carried her into their oasis paradise threatened to send her into orbit. Setting her down next to a low, wide bed covered with a dozen cushions, he undressed her in sure but hurried movements. Then stood back and watched her.

  ‘They say a pregnant woman has a special glow about her. But you, my enchanting bride, transcend beauty itself,’ he said, his voice almost worshipful as his gaze raked her from head to toe and back again.

  Allegra swayed to him, her hands sliding over his broad shoulders as he groaned, laid her down on the bed and wrapped her naked form in his arms. Allegra was sure the boom of fireworks in the distance was her senses detonating at the sexual skill her husband wielded over her. Everywhere he touched, her body heated, then melted under his attention. Almost in direct opposition, his body tensed with each touch, his erection growing harder and thicker with each slide of her leg against him.

  Suddenly, he reared back from her. Stalking to the myriad lamps dotted around the vast space, he turned them all off except the one on their bedside table. He started disrobing as he made his way back to her. By the time he reached the bedside, her husband was gloriously naked and utterly captivating.

  Shamelessly, she arched her body and reached up for him. ‘Rahim, I want you.’

  ‘And I need you. Now, please, ya galbi, before I explode!’

  Sliding between her thighs, he kissed his way down her throat to her sensitive breasts. Despite the tension whipping through him, he took his time, moulding and caressing her, until she begged him to stop torturing her. But he merely transferred his attention lower, stopping to plant reverent kisses on her belly before he parted her thighs with a firm demand.

  Rahim showed her just how potent a lover he was. By the time he reared up over her, Allegra was near-delirious with ecstasy. But she knew she wasn’t complete.

  Not until he truly made her his.

  Finally, he surged inside her. His name spilled from her lips in a stifled scream. He exhaled harshly, his mouth searing across hers before he thrust home again.

  ‘Allegra, my beauty,’ he groaned against her ear as he sent them both higher.

  ‘Rahim...’

  ‘Your husband,’ he croaked, the command clear.

  ‘My husband,’ she obeyed, laying herself wide open to the spiritual sealing of their commitment.

  Then she was soaring, her heart already halfway to delivering itself to the man who owned her. That she wanted nothing more than to place it at his feet right then should’ve been the first sign that she was falling in love with Rahim.

  But Allegra was too wrapped up in bliss to care. After they fell back to earth, she opened her eyes to a renewed brightness in the tent.

  ‘I thought you turned the lights down?’ Her voice was a husky slur.

  Rahim reached out and turned the glare back down. ‘I had to turn it back up for a moment?’

  She stared back at him. ‘Had to?’

  He smiled. ‘A short evidence of the marriage’s consummation.’

  Allegra felt her face flame as she recalled that part of the traditional ceremony. ‘Oh, God! Our silhouettes against the tent?’

  He nodded, laughing at her horror.

  ‘How many people will be watching?’

  He shrugged. ‘No one will confirm it but at least one or two of the elders will be on the mountain to witness our joining. Maybe more.’

  As if on cue, another boom sounded, this time much closer to the tent. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Our union has been approved.’

  Minutes later, Rahim was still chuckling at her embarrassment. Rising, he filled a platter with the food that had been laid on a low table in the sitting area. After feeding her dates, sun-ripened tomatoes and stuffed vine leaves, he disposed of the dishes, came back to bed and pulled her into his arms.

  Settling deeper into the bliss that flowed from her soul, Allegra combed her fingers through his hair, more content than she’d ever been in her life.

  ‘Your beautiful eyes have lost focus. What’s on your mind, habibi?’ he enquired after a few minutes of peaceful silence.

  ‘I’ve never believed in fate and destiny. But after everything that’s happened to us...’ Her voice drifted off, her fear that she would reveal too much and drive him away a living thing inside her.

  ‘And you believe it now?’

  ‘My grandfather believed in hard work and ambition...or so I thought until recently.’

  Rahim leaned back and stared down at her. ‘What are you saying?’

  She cupped his jaw, revelling in the rough maleness of his skin. ‘Today, it occurred to me that everything I’ve done has led me here. It may sound absurd, but I can’t help but think I’m right where I need to be.’

  Leaning down, he kisse
d her long and deep. Then he caught her closer to him, his strong arms wrapping her tight...tighter, until their hearts echoed one another’s, then beat as one.

  ‘It’s not absurd, ya galbi. Not absurd at all.’

  At dawn, Allegra rose to use the bathroom. Smiling at Rahim’s disgruntled protest to her leaving the bed, she entered the luxurious bathroom and crossed to the stall. She wasn’t certain what made her look down.

  The blood on her thighs didn’t make sense at first. She was carrying the child of her heart. Fate itself had handed her this precious gift.

  But then she remembered that until today she’d never truly believed in fate. Fate had only ever taken from her, not given. It’d taken her parents. It was stealing her grandfather right from under her helpless nose.

  And now it was about to take her very soul.

  ‘Rahim!’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  RAHIM JERKED AWAKE, his blood curdling as it always did each time he dreamed of her screaming his name. Sweat dripping from his brow, he rose from his narrow cot and stumbled to the window. The view over the racetrack was the same as it had been yesterday and the day before that. Last week, it’d been views over the cratered land mass that constituted the rejuvenated oil fields in the northernmost point of Dar-Aman. In the three weeks before it’d been over different sites just like these.

  The work involved with rebuilding his kingdom was unrelenting and punishing. And he welcomed every second of it. He needed the punishment. Because with each tunnel dug or brick laid with his bare hands, Rahim could reward himself with taking another breath, knowing he was atoning in some small way for his hubris.

  How many times had he condemned his father for the same mistakes he’d ended up making?

  He’d arrogantly believed he could have it all. Allegra. His child. His kingdom.

  His wedding night had showed him just how wrong he could be.

  Rahim had believed he’d found a way to taste happiness without losing his heart or his head. When Allegra had spoken of fate and paths taken, he’d even begun to let go of the anger he’d felt for his father, while patting himself on the back for getting it right this time. He’d taken every precaution he could. Allegra’s doctors had assured him his new wife and the baby were both fine. That he could enjoy his wedding night like any newlywed. Heaven had beckoned and he’d lost his mind.

  Just like his father had believed he could have it all, once upon a time, Rahim had started dreaming of forever, forgetting that in one single night Khalid Al-Hadi had lost everything. Including the son whose face he hadn’t been able to stomach looking at because he reminded him of his loss.

  Rahim knew all this, and yet he’d put himself at the same risk, and placed Allegra and their baby’s well-being on the line through his greedy yearning for what he shouldn’t have craved in the first place.

  Laying his head against the cool glass of the nearly completed paddock VIP suite’s window, he tried to stem the other conversations running through his head.

  Striding to the phone next to his sleeping place, he punched the numbers.

  The voice that answered was groggy and disgruntled.

  ‘I need an update on how the latest ultrasound went.’

  Frantic scrambling in the background proceeded a halting, ‘Your Highness? A thousand pardons but it is the middle of the night.’ At Rahim’s terse silence, more scrambling ensued. ‘Please hold on, Your Highness... I’ll just grab the notes.’

  Irrational rage flared up his spine. ‘You mean you can’t remember results of a test you conducted just this afternoon?’

  ‘Please, Your Highness, I have it.’ The doctor cleared his throat. ‘Both child and mother are in excellent health. The pregnancy is thriving.’

  Rahim allowed the veiled implication that others were not thriving sail over his head. ‘And?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Your...?’

  ‘How did my wife look?’ Rahim cut across him. ‘Did she look happy? Worried?’ Was she as breathtaking as she’d looked that last time they’d made love? Right before he’d allowed thoughts of hearts and fairy tales to break down his carefully erected barriers? Noting the thickening silence, his hand tightened around the phone. ‘Did you not understand my question?’

  ‘I... I’m sorry to report that Her Highness believed she felt the baby kick for the first time while I was performing the ultrasound.’

  ‘What do you mean she believed? Are you calling my wife a liar?’ Rahim grated.

  ‘No! Never, Your Highness. But in most cases, it’s too early to feel any kicking yet. But she was quite adamant.’

  A vice tightened around Rahim’s chest and his vision blurred. ‘Was she pleased?’ he whispered.

  ‘I thought she was, but then she burst into tears. She was quite inconsolable.’

  ‘When is her next check-up?’

  ‘In two weeks, Your High...’

  Rahim hung up and dropped to the ground, his skin scraping along the raw concrete floor. The phone clattered away, but he barely heard it.

  The thought of the strong, capable woman he’d married reduced to crying alone in her private clinic tore at him in ways Rahim would’ve given anything not to feel.

  But he felt each tear like a knife slashing across his skin, the pain engulfing him, drowning him. Panic flared through him, wild and unfettered. Ruthlessly he reminded himself that this was why he’d left Shar-el-Aman. So he could endure the pain.

  He would withstand the pain. And he would stay away from Allegra and the baby.

  He had to. The alternative was unthinkable.

  * * *

  ‘What’s next on the agenda?’ Allegra looked around the conference room, trying to keep her smile pinned in place. But these days when breathing felt like an extracurricular activity, smiling featured even lower on the unending to-do list that came with being queen.

  ‘The Hamdi sisters have petitioned for help again,’ Yasmina informed the group.

  ‘Have we had any success locating their errant husbands?’

  ‘No, our investigators believe they’ve fled the country with their company’s embezzled funds. Oh, and His Highness wants to sit in on any further meetings regarding the Hamdi sisters.’

  Allegra tensed at the mention of her husband’s name. ‘Why?’ she snapped.

  Yasmina looked up warily. ‘He went to university with the younger sister’s husband. I think he feels responsible...’

  Allegra couldn’t stop the bitter laugh from escaping. ‘He feels responsible for a situation he had no hand in creating?’

  Yasmina shrugged. ‘I’m sorry, those are his instructions.’

  ‘Well, he’s not here to enforce them, is he?’ Her snap cracked a little this time, and her throat tightened in warning of tears.

  Two of the women seated at the table exchanged wary glances.

  ‘Is that all?’ Allegra asked.

  At the affirmative answer, she rose, pinned a smile on her face again and walked out with the ten businesswomen comprising the newly formed Dar-Aman Women’s Foundation.

  The moment she reached the hallway leading to the royal wing, she fled, desperate to get away before the floodgates opened. Lately, they’d taken to bursting wide open when she least expected it. Like this morning, when she’d spotted a bird with feathers the same colour as Rahim’s eyes. She’d cried for an hour straight in the royal suite she’d slept in alone for the past three and a half weeks.

  All because she’d lost her heart on her wedding night to a husband who had no use for it.

  At first Allegra had thought Rahim had been worried about the baby. Even after the doctor had reassured them that her condition was nothing more than a little spotting since her wedding night had fallen on the same day her period normally came, Rahim had been adamant that she be admitted to hospital and monitored for another forty-eight hours. She’d lain there in blissful ignorance of the fact that her husband was laying tracks to absent himself from her life.

  Her phone call to him once s
he’d returned and he’d still kept away after a week, to ask when he was coming home, had been the most humiliating ten minutes of her life. The only saving grace had been biting her tongue before she made the folly of telling him she needed him home because she’d fallen in love with him. That was a secret she intended to take to her grave. Or channel into the already overflowing love for her baby.

  Allegra stopped in the doorway to her bedroom, and gasped as the fluttering the doctor had blatantly disbelieved she was experiencing beat its tiny wings in her belly.

  The wonder of it never got old. Kicking off her navy shoes and matching jacket, she got into bed and lay on her back, her hands cradling her small bump. As if waiting for just that act, the fluttering came again.

  ‘Oh.’ And just like that, tears filled her eyes. She allowed herself a short cry this time, then rolled over and picked up the bedside phone.

  Punching in the number she knew by heart despite having used it only twice, she gripped the handset and waited.

  ‘Hello?’ Rahim’s voice was harshly gruff, dripping with impatience.

  ‘Rahim...it’s me... Allegra.’

  ‘You think I wouldn’t recognise the voice of my queen?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t seem to know much these days.’

  ‘What do you want, Allegra?’

  She laughed, the sound scraping her throat. ‘Are you sure you want an answer to that?’

  His tense silence spoke volumes.

  ‘I guess I should get to the point. Will you be attending the fundraiser for the schools in the northern district tomorrow night as you promised last month, or am I expected to attend another event alone and make your excuses, again?’

  ‘Harun will let you know.’

  Her throat threatened to close up. ‘You know what? Don’t bother. I’ll go on the premise that I’ll be attending alone. If you turn up, it’ll be a happy surprise for your adoring subjects, I’m sure.’

  She slammed the phone down a second before the tears came. Clutching the pillow, she cried until her temples ached and her heart bled. After dragging herself to the shower, she slid into bed, thankful when she grew drowsy immediately. But of course, like clockwork, she dreamed of Rahim, and their night in the Bedouin tent, before the fleeting happiness she’d known had been snatched.