Saved by the Sheikh! / Million-Dollar Marriage Merger: Saved by the Sheikh! / Million-Dollar Marriage Merger
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So she settled for the most inane.
“Hi.”
“Tiffany.”
The sphinxlike gaze revealed no surprise. He’d told her he never wanted to see her again. Ever. Now she stood before him, shifting from one foot to the other. The displeasure she’d expected was absent. Typically, he showed no emotion at all. The wall of stony reserve was as high as ever.
He bowed his head. “Please, come with me.”
If it hadn’t been for one never-to-be-forgotten night in Hong Kong, she’d never have known that his reserve could be breached.
That night …
The memory of the catastrophic extremes, heaven and hell, pleasure and shame, still had the power to make her shudder.
Tiffany had been sure nothing would make her contact him again. Nothing. But she’d been so wrong. She pressed her hand to her belly.
Her baby.
He ushered her into the elevator. Unexpectedly, the elevator dropped instead of rising. Her stomach rolled wildly. Tiffany gritted her teeth. Seconds later the doors opened to reveal a well-lit parking level where a black Mercedes-Benz idled, waiting. Rafiq strode forward and opened the rear door.
She hesitated. “Where—?”
His dark gaze was hooded. “There is no privacy here.”
He was ashamed of her.
Despite a tinge of apprehension Tiffany swallowed her protests and, straightening her spine, stepped past him and slid into the leather backseat.
She’d come to Dhahara because of her baby. Not for herself. Not for Rafiq. For their unborn child.
She couldn’t afford to let fear dominate her.
For her daughter she had put aside her desire never to encounter Rafiq again. For the baby’s sake, she would keep her relationship with Rafiq cordial. Unemotional. Her daughter deserved the right to know her father. Nor could she allow herself to indulge in wild notions that he might kidnap her child, hide her away.
He was a businessman. He’d told her he’d been educated in England and the United States. He headed a large bank. Even it if was a position he’d gotten through nepotism, neither he—nor his royal family—could afford the kind of international outcry that would come from taking her baby from her. He was a single man—or at least she hoped he was—what would he do with a baby?
The silence was oppressive. Fifteen minutes later the Mercedes came to a smooth stop, and the rear doors opened. Rafiq’s hand closed around her elbow—to escort her or ensure she didn’t escape? Tiffany wasn’t sure. As he hurried her up a flight of stairs, she caught a glimpse of two guards in red berets standing in front of stone pillars that flanked a vast wooden front door. Then the door swung inward and they were inside a vaulted entrance hall.
She gazed around, wide-eyed. Despite the mansions she’d seen, this dwelling took luxury to new heights. “Where are we?”
“This is my home.”
A hasty glance revealed magnificent dark wooden floors covered in Persian rugs, original art hanging on deep blue walls. Refusing to be impressed, Tiffany focused her attention on Rafiq. “Is there somewhere we can talk?”
His lips quirked, and something devilish gleamed in his eyes. “Talk? Our best communication is done in other ways. I thought that must be why you are here.”
Damn him for the reminder.
Tiffany compressed her lips. “I need to talk to you.”
“Whenever we talk, it seems to cost me money.” The humor had vanished, and he gave her a brooding look.
His words only underscored what she already knew: he thought her the worst kind of woman. What would he say when he discovered she was pregnant with his child? A frisson of alarm chilled her.
“I haven’t come all this way for money, Rafiq.”
“I’m very relieved to hear that.”
He strode down a hall hung with richly woven tapestries that held the patina of age. Tiffany resisted the urge to slow and inspect them.
“But for the moment I will reserve judgment,” he was saying. “I will be more convinced of that once I have heard what you have to say to me.”
He didn’t believe her. He thought this was about money.
“Hey, I sent you a check for what you gave me,” she protested. She hadn’t wanted to be in his debt.
“Sure you did.”
“I sent it last week. Maybe it’s still in the mail.” She’d meant to send it earlier. Discovering she was pregnant had wiped all other thoughts out of her head. But now she was seriously starting to wish that she had called … not come all this way to give him the news about his impending fatherhood.
Yet it had seemed the right thing to do. She’d wanted to break the news in person, not over the phone separated by thousands of miles, unable to register the nuances of his expression. And certainly not by an e-mail that might go astray.
This was too important. Her child’s whole life, her baby’s relationship with her father, would be determined by the course of this conversation.
And she wasn’t about to let Rafiq Al Dhahara cause her to regret the decision she’d made to come here to tell him.
Pushing open a door, he gestured for her to precede him. Tiffany entered a book-lined room that was clearly a man’s domain. His domain. Before her nerve could give out, she drew a deep breath and spun to face him.
“I’m pregnant,” she announced.
Rafiq went very still, and his eyes narrowed to dark cracks that revealed nothing.
All at once the dangerous man she’d seen glimpses of in Hong Kong, the man she’d known lurked under the polite, charming veneer, surfaced.
“We used a condom,” he said, softly.
She spread her hands helplessly. “It must’ve been faulty.”
“Did you know it was faulty?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Did you tamper with it?”
“How?” Outrage filled the question. “It was sealed!”
“Nothing a pinprick couldn’t have taken care of.”
“You’re sick.”
His mouth tightened. “Be careful how you talk to me.”
Tiffany’s front teeth worried at her bottom lip. His gaze flickered to her mouth, before returning to clash with hers. “How much do you want?”
“What?”
She stared at him, not sure she’d heard right. His eyes were fixed on her, his mouth tight. No sign of softness in the features that were so difficult to read. He’d pay money so that he’d never have to see his child again?
What kind of man did that?
Tiffany turned away, defeated. At least she would always carry the knowledge in her heart that she’d tried. And if her daughter one day wanted to know who her father was, she’d tell her. Rafiq might be a sheikh. He might be desert royalty. But he would be the loser … he’d have forfeited the chance to know his child.
But he’d been given the choice.
“I’ve been a fool.”
Tiffany spun back and focused on him. He’d positioned himself behind an antique desk. One hand was raking through his hair. Straight and dark, it shone like silk under the overhead lights.
Unable to bear to look at him, she closed her eyes.
He’d been a fool? What did that make her?
“And I have absolutely no excuse. I even know how the scam works. Start with small amounts, get the idiot hooked and then, when he can’t back out, increase the amount.”
Her mouth fell open as she absorbed what he was saying. “You honestly think I’d travel here to blackmail you?” Her hand closed protectively over her belly. “That I’d blackmail the father of my child?”
From beyond the barrier of the desk, his glance fell to her still-flat stomach, and then lifted to meet her eyes. Black. Implacable. Furious. Tiffany felt the searing heat of his contempt. “Enough. Don’t expect me to believe there is a child.”
Rafiq thought—
She shook her head to clear it. “You really do think I came all this way to blackmail you.”
He arched a brow. “Didn’t you?”
“No!”
“Previous experience makes that impossible for me to believe.”
What was the point of arguing that she hadn’t wanted to blackmail him in the past, either? Tiffany placed her fingertips to her pounding temples. God, why had she allowed her conviction that she was doing the right thing to persuade her to come? He didn’t care about the child. All he cared about was protecting himself.
There was nothing here for her daughter … nothing worth fighting for.
She started to back away.
“Where are you going?”
“To my hotel. I’m pregnant. It was a long flight. I’m tired. My feet ache. I need a shower and a sleep.” She listed the reasons in a flat, dead tone.
He was around the desk before she could move and caught up to her with two long strides. Planting himself in front of her, he folded his arms across his chest. “You will stay here.”
Tiffany shook her head. “I can’t stay here.” He was a man—an unmarried man. It would not be sanctioned. “Besides, my luggage is already at the hotel.”
His jaw had set. “I am not letting you stay in the city alone. I want you where I can watch you. Give me the name of the hotel and I will have your luggage sent here.”
“I’d be your prisoner.”
“Not a prisoner,” he corrected, “my guest.”
“It’s hardly appropriate for me to stay here, even I know—”
Holding up a hand, he stopped her mid-sentence. “My aunt Lily will come stay. The widow of my father’s brother, and the perfect chaperone. Zara, her daughter, is away studying at present, and Aunt Lily is missing her. She’s Australian, so you should get along well. But don’t think you can wind her around your little finger. I will be there all the time you are together. Rest tonight, and I will escort you back to the airport myself tomorrow.”
Taking in his hard face, Tiffany made herself straighten. She’d come all this way, and he didn’t even believe she was pregnant. Right now she was too weary to argue further but she’d be damned if she’d let him see that. He’d only interpret it as weakness. Tomorrow she’d be ready to fight again.
At least she’d have a chance to meet a part of his family, his aunt. For her daughter’s future relationship with her father, Tiffany knew she would do her best to get along with the woman.
Before he took her by the scruff of her neck and threw her out of his country.
Five
Tiffany hadn’t been lying about being weary, Rafiq saw that evening. Seated across from him at the dinner table, alongside his aunt Lily, who was clearly bursting with curiosity about her presence in his home, Tiffany barely picked at her food.
There were shadows beneath her eyes. Pale purple hollows that gave her a heart-wrenching fragility that tugged at him—even though he refused to put a name to the emotion.
The array of dishes at her elbow remained untouched. The succulent pieces of skewered lamb. The breads baked with great care in his kitchens. The char-roasted vegetables on earthenware platters. Even her wineglass remained full. Something of the fine spread should have tempted her. But nothing had.
Finally, his aunt could clearly contain herself no longer. “My daughter is at university in Los Angeles. Did you meet Rafiq when he studied abroad?”
Rafiq answered before she could reply. “Tiffany and I are … business acquaintances. She’s been traveling—and decided to visit.” It didn’t satisfy his aunt’s curiosity but she wouldn’t ask again.
“You look tired, dear.”
“I am.” Tiffany gave Lily a smile. “I can’t wait to go to bed.”
“After dinner I’ll show you where the women’s quarters are.”
“Thank you.”
The subdued note in her voice made Rafiq want to confront the turmoil that had been whirling around inside his head. He’d been rough on her earlier. Even his aunt could see that her travels had worn her out.
A trickle of shame seeped through Rafiq, then he forced it ruthlessly aside. What else was he supposed to have done? Accepted the lie that she was pregnant? Paid through the nose for the privilege of silencing her new blackmail attempt?
Never.
He’d taken the only course of action open to him: he’d brought her here, away from the bank, away from any possible contact with his father, brothers and staff to learn what she wanted.
Pregnant? Hah! He would not let her get away with such a ruse. Now she was confined to his home. And he would make sure she wasn’t left alone with his aunt. He made a mental note to assign one of the maids to keep the women company. His aunt would never gossip in front of the servants.
Tomorrow she would leave. He’d escort her to the airport himself. He certainly wouldn’t allow himself any regrets. Tiffany was not the stranded innocent she’d once almost managed to con him into believing she was. He’d already allowed her to squeeze him for money once.
By foolishly possessing her, taking her under a starlit sky, he’d made a fatal mistake. One that she would milk for the rest of her life—if he let her.
Rafiq had no intention of becoming trapped in the prison she’d created with her soft touches and sweet, drugging kisses.
He became aware that Tiffany was talking to his aunt. He tensed, and started to pay attention.
“You must miss your daughter,” Tiffany was saying.
Lily nodded. “But I’ll be joining her when the holidays come. She wanted a little time to find her feet.”
“How lucky for her that you respect her need for independence.”
“I still worry about her. She had a bad romantic experience a while back.”
That was enough! He wasn’t having this woman interrogating his family, discovering pains better left hidden.
“Wine?” Rafiq brusquely offered Tiffany.
She shook her head, “No, thanks.” And focused on his aunt. “Do you have any other children?”
“No, only Zara.”
“I’m an only child, too.”
“Oh, what a pity Zara wasn’t here for you to meet. You would’ve gotten along like a house on fire.”
Rafiq narrowed his gaze. If Tiffany even thought she might threaten his family’s well-being she would learn how very ruthless he could be.
“I would’ve liked that.”
She sounded so sincere. His aunt was glowing with delight. Lily put a hand on his arm, “I’m sure your father and brothers would like to meet Tiffany.”
“I’d like that but—”
His killing glare interrupted the woman who had caused all this trouble. “Tiffany will not be staying for very long,” he said with a snap of his teeth.
Aunt Lily looked crestfallen. “What a pity.”
Rafiq wished savagely that he’d been less respectful of Tiffany’s modesty. He should’ve known better than to introduce her to any member of his family.
“She’ll be leaving us tomorrow.”
The bedchamber Lily and the little plump maid called Mina showed Tiffany into was rich and luxurious. Filmy gold drapes surrounded a high bed covered by white linen while beautiful handwoven rugs covered the intricately patterned wooden floors. On the opposite walls, shutters were flung back to reveal a view of a courtyard containing a pool surrounded by padded loungers. Water trickled over a tiered fountain on the far side of the pool, the soothing sound adding to the welcome.
It felt as if she’d been transported into another, far more exotic, world.
Alone, Tiffany stripped off her crumpled clothes and pulled on a nightie. She felt dazed and disoriented and just a little bit queasy. Jet lag was setting in with vengeance.
Through an open door, she caught a glimpse of an immense tub with leaping dolphins—dolphins!—for faucets before weariness sank like a cloud around her. She padded through to the large bathroom to brush her teeth before heading for the bedchamber and clambering between the soft sheets where sleep claimed her.
The next thing she knew she was being wakened by the loud sound of knocking. Seconds later the door crashed open.
Tiffany sat up, dragging the covers up to her chin, thoroughly startled at being yanked from deep sleep.
“What do you want?” she demanded of the man looming in the doorway.
“Neither of the maids could awaken you.” Whatever had glittered in Rafiq’s eyes when the door first opened had already subsided.
“I was tired,” she said defensively. “I told you that last night.”
“It’s late.” He glanced at his watch. “Eleven o’clock. I thought you might’ve run out—” He broke off.
Eleven o’clock was all she heard. “It can’t be that late.”
He strode closer, brandishing the square face of his Cartier timepiece in her direction. “Look.”
The wrist beneath the leather strap was tanned, a mix of sinew and muscle. Oh, God, surely she wasn’t being drawn back under his thrall?
“I believe you,” she said hastily, her grip tightening on the bedcovers as she pulled them up to her chin so that no bare flesh was visible. Her stomach had started its now-familiar morning lurching routine.
“Will you please go?”
And then it was too late. Tiffany bolted from the bed and into the adjoining bathroom, where she was miserably and ignominiously sick.
When she finally raised her head, it was—horror of horrors—to find Rafiq beside her, holding out a white facecloth. She took it and wiped it over her face, appreciating the cool wetness.
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
“You look terrible.”
This time her “Thanks” held no gratitude.
“I don’t like this. I’m going to call a doctor.” He was already moving away with that sleek, predatory stride.
“Don’t,” Tiffany said.
He halted just short of the bathroom door.
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” She gave him a grim smile.
“Maybe it was something you ate.” Two long paces had him at her side. “You may need an antibiotic.”
“No antibiotic!” Nothing was going to harm her baby. “I promise you this is a perfectly normal part of being pregnant.”
His hands closed around her shoulders. “Oh, don’t try that tall tale again.”
“It’s the truth. I can’t help that you’re too dumb to see what’s right in front of your nose.” She poked a finger at his chest, but to her dismay he did not back away. Instead she became conscious of his muscled body beneath the crisply ironed business shirt. A body she’d touched all over the night they had been together.
She withdrew her finger as though it had been burned.
“I’m not dumb,” he growled.
Right. “And I’m not pregnant,” she countered.
“I knew you were faking it.”
The triumph in his voice made her see red. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
Tiffany broke out of his grasp and, slipping past him, headed for the bedroom. Grabbing her purse off the dressing table she upended it onto the bed and scrabbled through the displaced contents. Snatching up a black-and-white image in a small frame she spun around to wave it in front of his nose.
“Look at this.”
“What is it?”
Couldn’t he see? He had to be blind … as well as obtuse.
“A photo of your daughter.”
“A photo of my daughter?” For once that air of composure had deserted him. “I don’t have a daughter.”
She pushed the picture into his hands. “It’s an image from a scan. A scan of my baby—” their baby “—taken last week. See? There’s her head, her hipbone, her arms. That’s your daughter you’re holding.”
His expression changed. When he finally raised his head, his eyes were glazed with shock.
“You really are pregnant.”
Six
“No, I’m only faking it. Remember?”
Rafiq glared at Tiffany, unamused by the flippant retort—and the sharp edge he detected beneath it. He tightened his grip on the photo, conscious of a sense that his world was shifting.
“So how do you know it’s a girl? Can they tell?”
She stared down her nose at him in a way that made him want to kiss her, or throttle her. Then she said, “My intuition tells me she is.”
Her intuition? The ridiculous reply brought him back to reality, and he shut down the string of questions that he’d been about to ask. Rafiq almost snorted in disgust at how readily he’d crumbled. She was softening him up—and worse, it was working.
“You don’t think I’m going to fall for this?” He shoved the picture back at her. “This could be any man’s baby.”
Her fingers closed around the small framed image with great care. She slid it into the bag and walked back to the dressing table where she set the bag down. Her back to him, she said, “Doctors will be able to estimate the time of conception close enough to that night—”
“They won’t be able to pinpoint exactly. The baby could’ve been conceived anytime around then.” He paused as she wheeled around to face him. “It doesn’t mean it is my child.” He sneered. “I hardly met you under the most pristine conditions.”
The gold flecks in those velvet eyes grew dull. “I told you that it was my first night at Le Club.”
“I don’t know you at all.” He shrugged. “Even if it was the truth, who knows what’s behind it?”
Tiffany flushed, and the gold in her tawny eyes had brightened to an accusatory flame. She looked spirited, alive, and Rafiq fisted his hands at his sides to stop himself from reaching for her. Instead he said, “I want to have DNA tests done before I pay a dollar.”
“Have I demanded even one dollar from you since I got here?” she asked, her eyes blazing with what he realized in surprise was rage. Glorious, incandescent rage that had him blinking in admiration.
“I’m sure you intend to demand far more than that.”
“There’s no trust in you, is there?”
“Not a great deal,” he said honestly. “When you grow up as wealthy as I have there’s always someone with a new angle. A new scam.”
“Everyone wants something from you?”
He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
There was a perturbing perception in her gaze. As if she understood exactly how he felt. And sympathized. But she couldn’t. He’d found her in the backstreets of Hong Kong—hardly the place for someone who could have any insight into his world.
Crossing to the bedroom door that he’d left wide open, he paused. “I’ll arrange for the DNA tests to be done as soon as possible.” That would give him the answer he wanted and put an end to this farce.
“But you were going to take me to the airport.”
Rafiq’s gaze narrowed. Tiffany looked surprisingly agitated. “You’re not staying in Dhahara long. You’ll be on the first plane out once I have confirmation that your child is not mine. You’re not going to hold that threat over my head for the rest of my life.”
Once a week Rafiq met his brother Khalid for breakfast in one of Dhahara’s seven-star hotels. As the two men were heavily invested in the political and economic well-being of the desert kingdom, talk was usually lively. But Rafiq was too abstracted by the rapidly approaching appointment for his and Tiffany’s DNA tests that he’d arranged after their argument yesterday.
Before he could temper it, he found himself asking, “Khalid, have you ever thought what might happen if you get a woman who is not on father’s list pregnant?”
His brother’s mouth fell open in surprise. He looked around and lowered his voice. “I take great care not to get a woman pregnant.”
So did Rafiq. It hadn’t helped. He’d been a fool. “But what if you did,” he pressed, pushing his empty plate away. “What would you do?”
Khalid looked disconcerted. “I don’t know. One thing is for sure, an abortion would be out of the question. I suppose it would depend on the situation. The woman in question would have to be suitable for me to consider marrying her.”
Suitable. Just thinking of the night he’d met Tiffany made Rafiq squirm. She couldn’t have been more totally unsuitable if he’d scoured the entire earth. “That is true.”
And there lay his problem.
“Of course,” continued his brother, then pausing as a white-garbed waiter filled their cups with black, fragrant coffee and waiting until he’d left, “there has never been an illegitimate heir in our family. That’s something else to consider. I suppose even an unsuitable marriage would be better than that,” mused Khalid. “Later I could always find a second, more suitable wife who would perform the state duties.”