Chapter Eleven
Liliana did not regret sleeping with Rafiq, or the very intimate night.
She relieved him with a mouth he slowly tutored and then lay in the dark in his arms and just before he fell asleep, she asked ‘If I am pregnant?’
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Mr Arrogant as he patted her arm.
‘But if I am?’
‘Seriously, you’ll be fine. I’ll take care of you—surely you know that.’
‘But…’ She didn’t understand. ‘If one kiss by a lake causes offence…’
‘That was too public.’ He thought he was reassuring her. ‘As I said, they probably think I am a father already. Seriously, don’t worry.’
And she would never be first.
Nor her baby.
And so, the decisions she had made earlier remained.
Tomorrow she would go home.
Rafiq had said that the press were sorted and if not, she would join her mother at the hotel.
But she could not stay.
They would lie here forever, making love, eating Turkish delight off her pregnant stomach.
‘What?’ he said as she gave a soft laugh at her own thoughts.
‘Nothing.’
It could not be like this.
She would be hidden from the world, their baby too.
Her mind was made up; she would tell him about the baby from England.
Rafiq woke first and lay there. For once his mind was quiet and it was because she was here by his side, Rafiq knew.
But the peace would not last.
He could not satisfactorily explain his connection to Yara.
Liliana was clever, too clever—honing in on Yara, asking why he was beholden. Of course he wasn’t, but he was bound by Yara’s secret.
He thought of many dark days imprisoned, when the secret he held on to could have brought his freedom. Never, even then, had there been any doubt.
He rolled onto his side and looked at Liliana asleep beside him. She lay on her back, one arm stretched out; the other one, close to him, was up on the pillow and he watched the soft rise and fall of her chest.
Then she started to wake, and he watched her lashes struggle to part, and how she seemed to wrestle in protest of waking up or diving back to sleep. She moaned and he watched her stretch.
The fur slipped and he saw the changes in her breasts, a fullness that hadn’t been there, and the areola were a darker pink, her nipples swollen and not from his attention. His eyes moved to her exposed stomach, and he breathed out in relief, for there was no bump to see.
Or was there?
He looked at her gorgeous golden curls, her pale flat stomach, and he was tempted to wake her with three words.
Are you pregnant?
It was an obvious question to ask. He thought of that night and the off-brand condoms and he recalled his own unease at the change. And it had not just been once; they had made love many times and of course he’d been careful. But perhaps not quite as careful as he usually would be.
He was indeed reckless when it came to Liliana.
Right now, his head was tightened in horror. The thought of a baby, a real one, a person he must love in his life.
Right now, he was wondering how the hell to juggle this latest ball. How did Liliana feel about this?
Did she even know?
‘Hey,’ he said when her sleepy eyes finally opened to him and he watched as, rather too quickly, she retrieved the fur and covered herself, like some shy virgin on her wedding night.
Then he recalled her questions deep in the night.
Oh, Liliana knew!
‘How did you sleep?’ Rafiq asked.
‘Very well.’ Liliana smiled, but then it faded from her lips as she remembered the decision she had made.
It was the right decision.
Surely?
‘Rafiq…’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I tell you something?’
She watched as he inhaled deeply. ‘Yes.’
‘I want to go home.’
It was the last thing Rafiq had expected to hear.
He had braced himself to be told about a baby. Instead, her clear blue eyes held his and she told him she wanted to go home.
‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ he responded evenly. ‘We have a lot to sort out.’
‘No,’ she refuted, and sat up in the bed. ‘You have a lot to sort out—you and Yara, and until that’s sorted…’ She shook her head and then took a breath, perhaps arguing with herself. ‘It’s not just that.’
‘You can tell me.’ He gently touched her back as he did when she was upset. ‘Please tell me what’s on your mind.’
Was he really so unapproachable, even to the person he’d been the most open with?
Rafiq thought of what Yara had said, how she wouldn’t feel able to tell him her secret if it was now.
And he thought too about the slightly mocking headlines beneath the photos of Liliana, which had thankfully all been taken down, but they had expressed surprise that the crown prince might actually have feelings after all.
‘I have to go, because every day, every night that I stay, I become more of your mistress.’
‘I’ve told you,’ he said as patiently as he could, ‘they cannot force me to marry.’
‘It’s not a solution though, is it, because it would cause great offence if you were to marry me. Am I right?’
‘Correct.’
‘And so I’d be tucked away.’
‘Hardly tucked away. You would have a residence in the grounds of the palace…’ His mind flashed to the edicts.
‘We could be together in London.’ He looked at her clear blue eyes and he trusted them, and there was a secret he could share, not the one he’d sworn to keep, but surely it might help.
‘You can’t tell anyone this, but Yara’s father is ill. ’
‘Okay.’ She shrugged impatiently. ‘I’m rather tired of hearing her name every time we speak about us.’
‘I get that, but listen, he is very ill. That’s the reason she was in London—to tell me. She knew things were coming to a head.’ Those blue eyes simply waited for him to reveal more. ‘Perhaps in a couple of years’ time it will be easier for you and I to be together.’
‘When her father has died?’ she checked, and he nodded.
‘Her father is the one who is pushing for marriage.’
‘So I have to wait for a man to die for us to be together?’ She shook her head. ‘Marriage or not, you and Yara share something, a bond, a promise, sex, I don’t quite know what. But I am not going to stay hidden, I shall never be your mistress. I simply refuse to be.’
‘I am not sleeping with Yara.’
‘I believe my father used to say the same to my mother,’ she angrily retorted. ‘Don’t tell me you are not like my father and don’t tell me the circumstances are different, because right now it feels the same.’
She pulled the fur up tightly around her. ‘Rafiq, you promised me that I could leave at any time.’
Only that was before and this was now, and she was going to leave without telling him.
‘I did,’ he reluctantly agreed and then he looked at the person he trusted the most, and swore that one day she would trust him enough to reveal her truth. ‘I shall make the arrangements.’
Rafiq really was a man of his word because a short while later he came into the lounge where she was dressed in the clothes she’d arrived in and seated on a cushion by the seraglio.
‘The plane is being readied, and the helicopter will take you to the airport in an hour or so.’
‘Aren’t you coming to see me off?’ she said, while knowing they could not be seen together again.
‘You know I can’t.’ He sat down beside her, ‘Liliana, I think your leaving is a really bad idea. We can talk uninterrupted here.’
‘And sleep together.’ She turned to him. ‘I don’t have a cast iron heart like you, Rafiq. Every time we sleep together, I’m…’ She paused, scared to tell him the true depth of her feelings, scared that she was stuck loving a prince who could never deeply commit or sustain her needy heart.
Such a needy heart.
She did not want to go back to eager smiles and fighting for attention.
‘Every time we sleep together, I become more entangled,’ she explained. ‘And that’s something that you don’t really want.’
‘I am trying…’ He looked over. ‘I know I keep people at a distance. I know I’m different to the man you first met. I’ll be Mr Nice Guy…’
‘I like both of you,’ she admitted. ‘But if I stay here, I’m going to break a promise to myself. And I don’t want to do that. Don’t make this hard for me. Please.’
This parting was the hardest.
She felt as if she were choking in an effort not to cry, and though he didn’t want her to go, he didn’t seem cross. Instead when the helicopter arrived, he held her for a full moment.
‘You’re not annoying,’ he said. ‘You’re cute.’
‘Thank you,’ she sniffed and half laughed, clinging on to him. ‘But I need more.’
‘Call me,’ he said. ‘Anytime. For anything.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean it,’ Rafiq said. ‘We can talk anything through. There’s nothing that you can’t tell me.’
‘I only wish you felt the same.’
She was so uncertain if she was right to be leaving, even now. She had to peel herself from his arms and fight the urge to simply stay. But all too soon she was on the helicopter, torn with indecision.
She had been so close to telling him about the baby.
So close.
Rafiq did not come out to see the helicopter, and not just because of discretion.
He could not.
There was the crushing weight of emotion and he sat on the cushion outside the seraglio, his elbows on his knees, head in hands.
How could he let her leave, but then how could he demand she stay?
He felt as close to despair as he had the day he had found out Khalid had died.
As if a part of his soul had left his body.
And that was about Liliana.
He could not even begin to get his head around the idea of a baby.
Unless he was imagining things, unless she wasn’t pregnant after all? Surely she’d have told him.
Surely she knew she could.
‘Sir?’
Rafiq frowned at the sound of his security guard’s voice and then looked up.
‘Salar?’
‘I don’t know if I should be mentioning this. If you want it to just go ahead…’
‘Mention what?’
Salar could not acknowledge he had seen Liliana; was that why he appeared so uncomfortable?
‘It’s fine,’ Rafiq said.
‘I just can’t imagine I’d want my…’ He paused. ‘Princess Yara.’
‘Just tell her no. I don’t want to see anyone today.’ Certainly he did not want Yara crying and pleading they marry.
But that was not Yara’s intention, it would seem.
‘Do you know about the airside meeting?’ Salar asked.
‘What meeting?’
‘Princess Yara has arranged a VIP lounge, airside.’
‘With?’
Oh, God, no wonder Salar looked uncomfortable; who would want the women in their lives meeting to speak?
Not that Yara was in his life, but Salar didn’t know that.
But worse than that, far worse than that, was the thought of Liliana coming face to face with Yara.
Not because he had anything to hide. In fact, he hoped Yara was going to confide in Liliana.
No, the dread was for Liliana, and her reaction when she opened the door and found Yara waiting.
‘Arrange a helicopter,’ Rafiq ordered. ‘Now. And get me airside.’
He’d get onto a plane if he had to.
There were strict controls to get through.
Yara would have flown in from Al-Nawar, but technically, while she remained airside, there would be no immigration, no record of her entering Al-Zahir.
This meeting never took place.