Modern Romance July 2018 Books 1-4 Collection

‘And?’ he said, into the silence which followed.

‘That’s exactly what she did. She took the money and ran.’

‘So was that a satisfactory outcome?’ he questioned softly.

Hannah shrugged. ‘Satisfactory for her, I guess—until she ran out of cash. She started renting an apartment which was way too expensive for someone with limited funds and no employment. But in the circles she mixed in, she was suddenly seen as something of a catch—for as long as the money lasted. And that’s when she got pregnant with my sister.’

‘You mean, your father came back from America?’

‘No, that’s not what I mean at all,’ she said, giving a hollow laugh. ‘My sister and I don’t share the same father.’

Thoughtfully, he nodded. ‘I see. So you’re not full sisters, just half-sisters?’

His words were like punches and Hannah recoiled from them. ‘Not just anything,’ she contradicted, her hand slapping against a heart which was racing like a train. ‘Tamsyn and I are as close as any two sisters could be and I would do anything for her, do you understand? Anything.’

Again, he nodded. ‘Tell me what happened to you both.’

Had he used the word both to mollify her—a silent admission that he had underestimated her loyalty to her sister? Hannah didn’t know, but she found herself wanting to continue with her story. Was that because she never talked about it? Why would she? Yet she was finding it cathartic to let it all out for once, to tell the father of her child all about her chequered background.

‘The local council stepped in and put us in a home and tried to get us fostered out as quickly as possible.’ She saw another look of non-comprehension cloud his ebony eyes and it occurred to Hannah that, for all his power and position, Kulal was ignorant about some things. Well, of course he was, she thought. He’d been protected for all his privileged life, hadn’t he? He wasn’t like her. Thrown to the wolves and left to fend for herself... ‘They try to find you a family, who can then foster or adopt you,’ she explained.

‘Is that what happened to you?’

Hannah shrugged as she reached for her glass and took another sip of the sweet-sharp cordial. Yes, a foster home had been found for her and Tamsyn. All the boxes on the form had been ticked by the social worker in charge of the case and everyone had been satisfied that two neglected little girls had a stable home to go to at last. But it hadn’t felt like that. How could she explain to a man like Kulal that something which appeared normal on the outside could be anything but normal when you were inside, living it?

‘We had a roof over our heads and beds to sleep in,’ she said.

Kulal’s eyes narrowed. ‘You weren’t happy?’

She hesitated. ‘Happiness is overrated, don’t you think?’ she said brightly. ‘We waste so much time chasing it and, in my experience, it never lasts. My foster father spent most of his money gambling, or wining and dining whichever woman he happened to be seducing at the time.’

His big body suddenly grew tense and his eyes became so dark it was as if someone had suddenly snuffed out all the light which normally gleamed in their ebony depths. ‘I think many people have experience of fathers who like sexual variety,’ he ground out.

Hannah blinked. Was he saying something like that had happened to him? ‘You mean your—?’

‘This is your story,’ he said roughly. ‘Not mine.’

She nodded. ‘My foster mother was the kind of woman who just pretended nothing was wrong, even though there was barely enough money for food sometimes. She liked to put on a bit of a show in front of all the neighbours. I was forced to resort to unsavoury methods of making sure Tamsyn and I got fed. Skips containing food thrown out by the supermarkets was my favourite.’

He recoiled in horror. ‘So why didn’t you tell someone in authority? Ask to be sent to a different home?’

‘Because Tamsyn was mixed up and difficult!’ she burst out, as all the feelings she’d been bottling up for weeks could no longer be contained. ‘She’d had a terrible start in life—far worse than mine—and she acted out on it. Not many people could have coped with her and I knew that if I complained, we would be split up.’ She pushed back her chair so that it scraped against the marble floor and rose shakily to her feet. ‘And I couldn’t bear for us to be split up!’

He rose as soon as she did—moving towards her with his bronze robes shimmering as he gestured towards the chair she had just vacated. ‘Please sit down, Hannah. I didn’t mean to disturb you with my questions.’

‘I don’t want to sit down! I want...’ Her words faded away and suddenly it was all too much. She had told him far too much. Hannah walked over to the window, blinking back the unwanted tears which had sprung to her eyes as she looked out at the turreted skyline.

‘I think I know what you want, Hannah.’

She blinked away the blur of tears as his voice grew closer. She could hear the richly accented inflection which reminded her so vividly of the night she’d spent with him. That unforgettable night, when he’d whispered things in a language she hadn’t understood but that hadn’t seemed to matter at the time. Because Kulal had made her feel like a woman for the first time in her life. He had taken her in his arms and given her the gift of sexual pleasure. Was that why her skin was automatically reacting to the soft caress of his words, even now? Why the tips of her breasts were growing heavy and she found herself longing for him to cup them again, to circle his thumbs over their nail-hard tips and then to take them in his mouth?

With an effort, she reminded herself it was no good getting aroused at a time like this. Or sentimental. She needed to fight the sudden rush of longing which was welling up inside her. But deep down, she was praying he would pull her into his arms and comfort her. Smooth her head as you would a frightened child. Tell her that everything was going to be all right and he would do everything within his power to make that happen.

But he didn’t. He just continued speaking in that same measured tone and Hannah didn’t dare turn to face him because she didn’t trust her own reaction.

‘Do you?’ she said woodenly.

‘Indeed I do. A solution which could work well for everyone.’

‘A solution?’ she questioned doubtfully, but her question was definitely tinged with hope as she turned to face him.

‘Something which would minimise the damage of this unexpected event.’

Minimise the damage. Those were not the words of someone intent on soothing a troubled heart. Those were fighting words—Hannah instinctively recognised that. Ironing every trace of emotion from her voice, she stared into his ebony eyes. ‘What exactly did you have in mind, Kulal?’

Unusually, Kulal hesitated before saying his next words, aware of their impact and their power. But what other solution could they reach, in the circumstances? He hadn’t wanted to be a father but, since the decision had now been forced upon him, he needed to take control. To do the right thing—as he had spent his whole life doing. The only thing. He met the blinking scrutiny of her gaze with a renewed feeling of resolve. ‘You say that your own mother was given a cheque in order to make her life easier and that she squandered that sum by living beyond her means.’

‘That’s right,’ she agreed steadily. ‘I did.’

‘What if I were to go one step further?’ he mused. ‘What if I were to guarantee you the kind of sum which would mean you wouldn’t “run out” of cash ever again?’

‘You’re talking about a lot of money,’ she said carefully.

‘I am,’ he agreed, with equal care.

‘And what would I have to do in return for such a sum?’ she questioned, her voice trembling a little now.

‘I think we both know the answer to that, Hannah,’ he said, almost gently. ‘You do the only sensible thing. Give me the child to be brought up as my heir.’

‘G-give you the child?’ she echoed.

He nodded. ‘In the absence of any other heir, this child could inherit all that I own—my lands, my crown and my kingdom. Let your baby go and I promise to do everything in my power to provide everything he or she needs. They will grow up as a Zahristan royal with all the luxury that entails, not someone who is constantly being dragged between two cultures.’ He paused and suddenly his face changed, became a harsh, stark study in light and shade. ‘Between two people who are little more than strangers to one another.’

Hannah felt grateful for the anger which had started to flood through her like a tidal wave, obliterating the trembling emotions which his callous words had provoked. Because anger made you strong. It didn’t weaken or debilitate you in the way that pain or fear or desire did. Perhaps if she had been bigger she might have flown at him and slapped her palm against his arrogant face and hit him over and over again. But her blows would be ineffectual, and to attack him physically would be to humiliate herself.

Instead, she drew on all her reserves of inner strength as her well-honed survival mode kicked in, just as it had done so many times before. And suddenly it was easy to look at those cruel lips without remembering what it was like to kiss them. And even easier to find the right note of contempt in her voice as she stared into the fathomless gleam of his black eyes.

‘I’m not going to dignify your insulting offer with an answer. I’m going back to England, where I will continue working and raising my child on my own as so many other women do. And you can go to hell, Kulal,’ she added bitterly.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘HE DIDN’T SAY THAT? Come off it, Hannah—you’re exaggerating!’

Hannah shook her head as she stared into her sister’s emerald eyes. ‘I wish I was, but that’s the truth,’ she said tiredly.

‘He offered to buy your baby?’

‘He didn’t phrase it quite as brutally as that, but that’s what it came down to, yes.’ Hannah moved her shoulders restlessly. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you.’

‘Too right you should have told me,’ said Tamsyn fiercely. ‘I feel like going to the papers and exposing him for the man he really is. It’s outrageous. It’s barbaric! It’s—’

‘And if you ever do that,’ interrupted Hannah quietly, ‘in fact, if you ever discuss this with anyone without my permission—I will never speak to you again.’

Tamsyn shook her head, her rich red curls shimmering all the way down her narrow back. ‘I just don’t get it. You’re being loyal to him? King Callous? Someone who doesn’t deserve your loyalty?’

‘I’m trying to do what is best for the baby,’ said Hannah as the kettle whistled out the fact that it had boiled. Reaching up, she took two mugs from the cupboard and dropped a peppermint teabag into each. ‘And forming some kind of vendetta against the baby’s father is not what I had in mind.’

‘So he didn’t try to stop you when you told him you were leaving?’

Hannah nodded. ‘He did. He backtracked and apologised and told me he should never have said it, but the damage was done as far as I was concerned. I told him I had no intention of changing my mind and was flying back to England as soon as I could fix a flight. And that’s when he insisted on putting me on one of his private jets.’

‘But you refused, right?’

Hannah picked up the kettle and poured boiling water onto the peppermint teabags. She had wanted to refuse and pride had been urging her to do just that, but she’d been emotionally wrung out by everything that had happened and physically exhausted, too. She had started to worry that so much stress would be bad for the baby and the thought of being able to sleep in a proper bed on the Sheikh’s plane instead of being cramped in the middle of a row of four had proved too powerful a lure to resist. But she hadn’t given him her acceptance until one final streak of defiance had reared its head and she had blurted out a sarcastic question to the black-eyed Sheikh who stood before her.

‘But what will people think when they see some unknown English chambermaid using the Sheikh’s private jet?’

‘I don’t care what they think,’ he’d ground out. ‘I am trying to do what is best.’

Her laugh had been bitter. ‘Don’t you think it’s a little late for that, Kulal?’

She had seen him flinch in response to that particular dig and had tried to enjoy his discomfiture. But it hadn’t seemed to work like that. She’d just felt completely wretched. So wretched that she hadn’t had the energy to refuse a ride in the limousine that had been waiting on her arrival back in London and had whisked her home in purring luxury. It had felt strange stepping out into the gusty chill of the October evening after her brief exposure to the Zahristan sun, but at once she was back to her small room in the Granchester’s staff quarters, she’d finally felt able to rest. She had lain down and slept for a solid twelve hours and had woken with a feeling of resolve before demolishing an enormous breakfast.

She’d convinced herself it was best to keep her dreadful trip to Zahristan quiet, but force of habit had made her text Tamsyn to tell her she was back and when her sister had come rushing round, Hannah had found herself blurting everything out. Because they’d always told each other everything...and because she’d felt as if she would burst if she didn’t tell someone.

‘So how did you leave it with the cold-hearted bastard?’ Tamsyn was saying as she sipped the peppermint tea which Hannah had just handed her.

You never entirely relinquished the role of elder sister, Hannah thought as she fixed her sister with another expression of mild reproof. ‘Please don’t say that. His name is Kulal and I refuse to get into name-calling.’

‘But he’s—’

‘He’s probably still reeling from the shock of discovering I’m pregnant—and shock makes people react in all kinds of weird ways.’

‘Hannah, why do you always have to be so kind?’

‘I am not being kind,’ said Hannah, twisting a strand of her long hair round and round one finger. ‘I am trying to be practical. Kulal is the father of my child and even if he never wants to see either of us again, I am not going to bring this baby up to hate him.’

‘So you’ll lie to your child?’ accused Tamsyn bitterly. ‘Just like you lied to me?’

Hannah’s lips flattened. How the past came back to haunt you when you least expected it! Or when you were least equipped to deal with it. ‘I never lied to you, Tamsyn. I just tried to present reality in its least painful form,’ she said. ‘Just like I’m going to do with this baby. When the subject arises, I will just say that I was swept off my feet by a dashing man—which is true.’

‘But words won’t pay the bills. How the hell are you going to manage, Hannah? Do you really think you can live life as a single mother on a chambermaid’s wages?’

‘Other women manage.’

‘And aren’t you forgetting something else? I thought Granchester employees weren’t allowed to sleep with the guests. What if somebody finds out?’

Hannah winced at her sister’s candour. ‘Nobody’s going to find out, are they?’ she said with a confidence she didn’t quite feel as she picked up her mug and sipped from it. But the loud ringing of her phone suddenly broke into the uneasy silence and her heart gave a sudden clench as she glanced down at the number before accepting the call. With a rapidly escalating heartbeat, she listened to the voice at the other end and when she’d cut the connection, she looked into Tamsyn’s eyes and tried to keep the tremble of fear from her voice. ‘That was HR,’ she said unsteadily. ‘And they want to see me immediately.’

* * *

Kulal knocked on a door which was exactly the same as all the others on both sides of the narrow corridor, unprepared for the tiny redheaded figure who flew at him when it was opened.

‘You bastard!’ she declared, curling her hands into small fists. ‘How dare you?’

He honestly thought she might be about to hit him and was wondering whether to summon the female bodyguard he’d had the presence of mind to bring and who was standing just along the corridor, when he saw Hannah appear behind the redhead.

‘Tamsyn,’ she said, her voice sounding unnaturally calm. ‘That kind of talk isn’t going to help.’

The redhead didn’t budge. ‘Says who?’

‘I do. And now I’d like you to go home because I need to talk to Kulal.’

‘You think I’m leaving you alone? With him?’

For the first time, Kulal spoke, realising who the little spitfire must be. ‘And if I give you my word that I have your sister’s welfare at heart?’

The redhead tilted her chin to fix him with a spitting emerald gaze which was so unlike the cool blue of Hannah’s eyes. ‘I wouldn’t trust your word just as far as I could throw it and I’m not going anywhere!’ she declared.