The Sheikh's Pregnant Bride Page 16

  The famous spa was as imposingly luxurious as Saskia had heard, although as Princess Saskia of Dalmaya she was accorded the kind of reverential welcome plain Saskia Harper with her maxed-out credit card and second-hand clothes would never have enjoyed. She pushed that thought away, determined to wring the most out of the hot stone massage, facial and manicure that had been booked for her.

  By the time she was escorted to the personal hot tub with rose petals sprinkled in the water and candles lit on every conceivable surface she felt like a new woman and ready for the difficult conversation that lay ahead. It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate this thoughtful gesture, but she recognised that through her entire childhood she’d been bought off with lavish gifts. Her questions had never been answered. She had never found out why she didn’t meet her father’s dates, why her mother had left her, where her father’s money had come from. Not until it all came crashing down.

  She needed knowledge and agency, not just gestures.

  Before she knew it her time was up and a smiling assistant helped her into one of the luxurious silk robes, guiding her to a small dressing room. Saskia stopped at the threshold and stared. A beautiful, full-length dress in her favourite pale pink hung on the wall, its cap sleeves embellished with a silver thread, the same thread accenting the waist and the hem, tiny delicate crystals shimmering in the chiffon overskirt. Silver sandals and a matching clutch bag were carefully placed on a stool and a make-up artist stood by the dressing table, the tools of her trade spread out in front of her. ‘Please take a seat, Your Highness,’ she said. ‘Would you like your hair up or down?’

  ‘I...’ Saskia looked over at the dress again. ‘I don’t actually know where I’m going.’ What on earth was going on? Her pulse sped up; surely she wasn’t heading straight to an official event? Not when she was still living down the last one?

  ‘Half and half, I think, if we’re going to use this tiara.’ The stylist held up a delicate silver chain punctuated with crystals in every twist.

  ‘Fine. Thanks.’ Every item in this room was perfect, exactly what she would have picked for herself, from the rose-pink bra and knickers draped over the chair behind her to the tiara dangling from the stylist’s fingers. Only she had no idea who had chosen them for her and where she would be going in them.

  Saskia took a deep breath, willing her panicked pulse to calm. She’d spent the last seven years micromanaging every second. It was the only way she had managed to survive. She didn’t know what Idris expected from this gesture but as far as she was concerned their talk had just moved from important to urgent, and once they had had that talk she’d know whether she could stay with him, or if the marriage he offered was too painful for her to bear.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  IDRIS PACED UP and down the famous domed foyer, reflecting that with all the marble and archways it was a little like being back in his own palace. He should feel at home, but, despite the coolness of the autumn evening, his suit felt too warm, too constricted. He pulled at his bow tie, wishing he’d opted for Dalmayan formal dress rather than the restrictions of a tuxedo. He glanced at his watch. Saskia should be here by now. Had he done the right thing, springing this on her? What if she hated it? What if he had got it all wrong? Relying on the judgement of a nine-year-old boy and of his impulsive mother could be the biggest mistake of all.

  No, not the biggest mistake. That had happened seven years ago. It was time to atone.

  His heart thumped as the great doors finally swung open. Saskia stood poised at the entrance, eyes wide as she looked in at the well-lit hall. ‘What on earth are we doing at the V&A?’ She stepped inside but made no move to come any closer to him.

  ‘It’s your favourite place.’

  ‘Yes. But...’ She shook her head, the soft waves of her hair rippling as she did so. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I wanted you to know that I notice things, that I’m not quite as cold, as unfeeling as I appear. I wanted you to know that I know your favourite colour is pink even though fashion tells you not to wear it.’

  She tilted her chin at that, one hand touching the ends of her vibrant hair. ‘It’s a stupid rule.’

  ‘You look beautiful in pink,’ he said softly. His mother had picked out her dress with her unerring eye for style. Saskia was like a goddess of light, the silk and chiffon draping every curve and falling in folds to the floor. Marlowe’s immortal words came back to him, just as they had that day at the library all those years before. She could launch one thousand ships, ten thousand and he would be at the very lead, doing whatever it took to win his wife back.

  ‘I know afternoon tea is your favourite meal. How were the scones at the spa, by the way?’

  ‘Delicious.’ Her face was still suspicious. ‘Everyone else was on watercress soup. I thought I might be lynched, especially when I spread the butter on extra thick.’

  ‘I know that you prefer white gold to rose gold and your jewellery less ostentatious than Dalmayan fashion.’ The delicate tiara flashed, wound through her fiery hair, and the charm bracelet glinted on her wrist. ‘And I know I owe you an explanation.’

  She held up one elegant hand. ‘Idris, why did you put those clauses in the wedding contract?’

  He stilled. This wasn’t what he had expected her to say. ‘Clauses?’

  ‘Yes. I asked one of the embassy staff to translate it for me. There were clauses in there that weren’t in the version my lawyer read to me. Handwritten clauses, which were evidently added after I’d approved the draft.’ She watched him carefully. ‘In the version I read I was to have appropriate alimony for the boys if we divorced. Generous alimony, life-changing alimony but appropriate. In the version I read this week I have been given the villa outright, I am allowed to divorce you at any time with no contest, keep full custody of the boys, as long as I bring Sami to Dalmaya every summer, and I’m entitled to the kind of alimony people tear each other apart in divorce courts for. That’s not just generous, Idris.’ She swallowed. ‘That’s an invitation. An invitation to divorce.’

  He had added those clauses the night after they slept together, knowing they had crossed a line they might not be able to retreat back to. Idris held her gaze. ‘I forced you into marrying me. I wanted to make sure you had options, a genuine choice.’

  ‘I didn’t go into this marriage intending to end it as soon as it got hard. I’m not saying I thought we’d grow old together but neither was I planning to cash my chips in and waltz out as quickly as I entered. My word means something, Idris.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Was it about giving me a choice or about giving me a push? I know I embarrassed you, embarrassed the palace...’

  ‘No, Saskia. You didn’t.’ Here it was. The moment he had been both anxious for and dreading. The moment he told her who he was and what he was and allowed her to judge him. To walk away if he was unworthy. The moment Idris Delacour stopped hiding from life, from love, from the agony of feeling. ‘The truth was I was jealous.’

  ‘Jealous?’

  ‘Jealous. You were having so much fun, and not with me. That’s understandable.’ He huffed out a laugh. ‘I sent you into that room with a list of strictures and rules and didn’t think for a moment that a woman in her twenties, a woman who’s done nothing but be responsible for the last seven years, might need to unwind sometimes. Just because I never allow myself to unwind. When you fell I could have, should have laughed it off. It was nothing, but all I could see was headlines, judgements.’

  He paused, searching for the right words to confess. ‘The truth is I was still reeling from seeing how happy you had looked just before you fell, how happy you were away from the palace and the responsibilities I had forced on you. Those aren’t escape clauses, Saskia, they are a promise that you can walk away any time. That I was wrong to bully you into this world. God knows, it’s hard enough for me, and
I at least had some training, some awareness of what it entails.’

  Saskia’s eyes were fixed on him, her gaze almost painful in its intensity. ‘It was just so nice to see Robbie I forgot why I was there. What I should have done was arrange to see him later, at the palace, when you were there and we could have caught up away from prying eyes and cameras. I know that now. I was just so tired of everyone watching me, of being on display all the time, I relaxed too much. The fall was an accident but it wouldn’t have happened if I’d been more careful.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘The thing is I can’t guarantee I won’t mess up again, Idris. In fact I can guarantee I will. I’m not trained for this, any of it, and I’m not naturally dignified like you and Maya. And that would be okay, if I thought you were on my side. But if you are going to freeze me out every time I mess up...’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t need obscene alimony or want it. But if you’re not on my side then I can’t stay with you. Not even for the boys because they shouldn’t have to grow up seeing that...’

  His heart swelling, Idris walked over to his wife, to the woman he knew he loved so much he would let her walk away if that was what she needed—the woman he would then spend every moment winning back, proving he could love her the way she needed to be loved, valued for everything she was. He took her hands. ‘Look at me, Saskia.’

  She raised her eyes to his, the vulnerability in their depths striking him harder than anger or hatred ever could have.

  ‘I am on your side,’ he said. ‘Always. It took me a while to realise that, but I am. I let you down, back when we were younger, and I let you down last week. I let you down because I put my pride first, because I didn’t want to admit I was jealous. Because I didn’t want to admit I loved you.’

  * * *

  The words echoed round and round the great hallway. ‘You...you what?’ Saskia was trembling, with hope, with the first glimmers of happiness, with fear that this was all a dream.

  Idris’s grip tightened on hers and she returned the pressure, holding on as if he were all that was holding her up. ‘I love you, Saskia Harper. You have grown into an extraordinary, intelligent, compassionate woman and Dalmaya is lucky to have you as its Queen. Saskia, I am so proud to be able to call you my wife and I’m so sorry that I haven’t made that clear, that, rather than show the world how much I love you, our wedding was behind closed doors.’ He looked down at her, the dark eyes simmering. ‘I said I wanted to give you choices, Saskia, and I am. Here, today.’ His mouth quirked into a half-smile. ‘If that’s what you want, that is.’

  ‘Choices?’ All she could do was parrot the words back to him.

  ‘Choices. And this time the choice is genuinely yours. Either we stay as we are, a marriage of convenience. Joint monarchs, parents, hopefully friends. I know it won’t be easy, not after the events of the last few weeks, but I promise to work harder, to make it easier.’

  Saskia could feel the beat of her heart, each one just that little bit faster than the one before, the rush of her blood around her shaking body. Could she go back to the marriage of convenience she had agreed to? Knowing that she loved him and that he loved her?

  ‘Or,’ he continued, ‘you take advantage of the clauses in that contract and walk away, no hard feelings.’

  Just like that she could have her life back. The house, the degree, the career. They didn’t hold the allure they once had. She was beginning to love Dalmaya, the people and the desert and the all-encompassing heat. She could see a role there, a way to make her mark on the evolving country. ‘They’re my choices?’ The hope had fizzled out, flat like left-out lemonade. He’d said he loved her but there was no love in this sterile pair of choices. She tried to tug her hands away but he still held them firmly in his grasp.

  ‘No. There’s one more.’ The tenderness in his eyes was new and as Saskia stared into their dark depths she knew she had no defences against it. All she could do was stand there, holding onto him. ‘Through there, in one of the galleries and the gardens, are your friends. Work colleagues who miss you, fellow students who can’t wait to discuss essays with you, neighbours hoping you’re coming back. Some of our old Oxford friends—including Rob—who mourn Maya and Fayaz as much as we do. Jack’s old school friends and their parents. You told me you had no one, Saskia, but when my mother, Faye, Lucy and I rang around the names Jack gave us I realised you made an impact on every person you knew. The mother whose sons you took to the park with Jack when her baby was colicky. The neighbour you made stews for when she was ill. The students you coached online. The other temps you supported through job after job. They all love you and they are all here.’

  The litany of names was a revelation. Saskia felt the truth of Idris’s words as each one sank in, warming her from within. She’d been too scared to let anyone in, to confide in them, to admit how hard it was but she hadn’t been a lone wolf, not all the time.

  ‘They’re here?’

  ‘Officially they’ve been invited to celebrate our new family, a party for Sami and Jack. But there’s an official standing by ready to marry us, if that’s what you want. If you want more than signing a contract in a language you don’t understand. If you want to make vows, a commitment. Because that’s what I want, Saskia, to tell the world how much I love and cherish you. To make you my wife in more than name, to make you the wife of my heart.’

  It took several moments for his words to register. To realise just what he was saying. ‘I...I...’ She pulled her hands away and placed them on her hips. ‘You call that a proposal, Your Highness Sheikh Idris Delacour Al Osman?’

  The anxiety vanished from his eyes as Idris’s mouth tilted into his rare and, oh, so sweet smile. ‘Sheikha Saskia Harper, Princess, mother, wife, Queen. Will you do me the very great honour of becoming my wife in reality as well as in name?’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out a box, opening it up as he sank onto one knee before her. ‘Rubies, Saskia. Red like your hair, like the desert sunset, like the fire in my soul. A fire I didn’t even know existed until I met you.’

  At his words her heart swelled, all the love she had been keeping banked up, hidden away, finally rushing free, filling every nerve, every atom, every cell with the knowledge she was his as he was hers. Saskia stared at the antique ring, her heart swelling, then back at Idris, allowing herself to soak in the tenderness, the hope and passion in his eyes.

  ‘Yes. Of course I will. I thought I loved you when I was nineteen, and in some ways I did, but I was just a child. I didn’t really understand what love was. But I do love you now, with all my heart, and I want to marry you, properly, with vows and meaning and love. Yes, I do.’

  Idris slid the delicate ring carefully onto her finger before getting up, joy writ all over his usually impassive face. ‘You won’t regret it,’ he vowed as he held her close. ‘I love you, Saskia.’

  Looking up at him, she saw the truth of it and knew that although their road would never be an easy one if they could walk it together they could face anything.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story, check out these other great reads from Jessica Gilmore:

  A PROPOSAL FROM THE CROWN PRINCE

  HER NEW YEAR BABY SECRET

  UNVEILING THE BRIDESMAID

  IN THE BOSS’S CASTLE

  All available now!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from A PROPOSAL FROM THE ITALIAN COUNT by Lucy Gordon.

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  A Proposal from the Italian Count

  by Lucy Gordon

  PROLOGUE

  ‘I DID WRONG. I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it. All in a moment I found that I could be wicked.’

  The old man lying on his deathbed spoke weakly, for his strength was fading fast. Vittorio, the young man sitting beside him, grasped his hand and spoke urgently. ‘Don’t say such things, Papà. You’re not wicked. You never could be.’

  ‘Try saying that to George Benton. He was the man I robbed of a million, whose life I ruined, although he never knew it.’

  Vittorio rubbed a frantic hand over his eyes and said fiercely, ‘But that’s impossible. How could he not have known?’

  His father’s eyes closed and he turned his head, as though too full of despair to say any more. Vittorio rose and went to the window, looking out onto the grounds. They were lavish, extensive, perfectly suited to the Counts of Martelli, their owners for five hundred years.