The Sheikh's Hidden Heir: Secret Sheikh, Secret Baby / The Sheikh's Claim / The Return of the Sheikh

What if the baby was his?

Karim didn’t do sentiment.

He never had and had thought he never would.

Speaking with his father, he had allowed his calculating mind to come up with a rapid solution.

For the sake of their people he would carry the weight of the lie, as would Hassan, and the King would take it to his grave. Once Felicity’s test was taken and the baby proven not Karim’s, Jamal’s belly would appear to grow and the people would cheer.

Felicity offered a solution.

And now he’d had to go and do something stupid—like care. Care about the effect it might have on her. Every day she made him laugh inside, chatting away to herself even as he refused to answer. Every morning was better for waking up with her. Of course there were differences. He had assumed he would iron them out of her, but now he didn’t want to.

How did he tell her that the career she loved must now end? How could he tell her that she was not just a princess but might one day be Queen—that her every last freedom would be gone?

She stirred a little beside him, and there, lying in the darkness, he didn’t care about the people of Zaraq for the first time in his life. He didn’t care about the people, he cared about her. Neither did he care if this child was a boy or a girl, he just wanted it to be his—wanted Felicity to be his too.

He felt her breathing grow shallow and quicken. His hand moved on her waist, bypassing her stomach and moving down, down, to her sweet, warm place, feeling her thighs part a fraction.

Tonight he would love her, Karim decided, and tomorrow he would tell her. And if she couldn’t do it, didn’t want to do it, then; maybe they would work something out.

He was right there, at her entrance, his tip already moist, could feel her oiled and ready beneath his fingers. So easy would it be to slip in, to sink in, to share and to trust…

Not a word had been spoken, not a kiss had been shared, yet she had never felt closer to him. She knew he was awake beside her, had known when it started that this was no idle, sleeping erection. And she knew too that he was thinking of her, even loving her a little bit. She had felt his fingers ponder over her belly and then move down, felt him softly stroke her, felt his mind wander and then return to her.

Parting her legs, she could feel him now, feel the swell of him, the tip of his erection nudging at her clitoris and then moving a tiny way back. She rocked against him, willing him, wanting him, desperate for him.

‘Make love to me, Karim…’

‘Your Highness! Forgive the intrusion…’ Aarif was sobbing.

Karim swore violently in Arabic.

He was cursing and furious. How dared a servant intrude? If his father were sick his aide would ring. Nothing, nothing should disturb him in his chamber.

‘Please forgive me, Your Highness,’ Aarif pleaded. ‘But Bedra is dying, bleeding….’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IN A trice he dressed and sped through the tent. Felicity took a few seconds longer, but almost as soon she raced into the servants’ quarters.

Bedra lay collapsed, her huge brown eyes terrified. Karim deftly examined her belly, and it was only then that Felicity realised Bedra was pregnant. The abaya had concealed it. Karim was speaking in Arabic, then quickly translating for Felicity.

‘She is about six months pregnant.’ There was blood everywhere as Karim delivered his stark diagnosis. ‘Abruptio placentae.’

In a hospital Felicity would have known what to do. There Bedra and her baby would both have a chance. But here in the desert, with help miles away, it was clear from the extent of bleeding they would rapidly lose them both.

Felicity rolled the woman on to her side, to help with oxygen delivery to the baby, and Karim barked rapid orders to a tearful Aarif, who quickly ran off.

‘Should we drive her?’

‘There is not enough time to get her to the hospital.’ In one deft movement Karim scooped up the woman, carried her through long white corridors of tent. Felicity followed, confused as to where they were going. The desert was dark and cool as they stepped outside, and she was even more confused—because Karim had said it was too late to transport Bedra anywhere and yet one of the large four-wheel drives was speeding towards them. It stopped. Aarif jumped down and opened up the rear, and Karim ran towards the vehicle with Bedra in his arms. As Karim lay Bedra down in the rear of the vehicle Aarif was already pulling at leads, while Felicity stood, her nightdress billowing in the wind, unsure as to what exactly was going on.

Karim snapped her out of it. ‘Felicity—come on.’ He was strapping on a tourniquet as Aarif opened large labelled boxes, pulled out drapes. Here, right here in the desert, a mini operating theatre was being created. ‘We must operate now.’

He was a surgeon, yes—but to operate, to perform a Caesarean section here…

‘I am a surgeon,’ Karim said, his eyes locked with hers. ‘I know what I am doing.’

Aarif, on a strange kind of auto-pilot, where he was detached from his wife and baby in the hope of saving them, was slapping at Bedra’s arm, trying to find a vein. It was then that Felicity stepped in. How and why didn’t matter for now. They were in the middle of the desert in a four-wheel drive that looked like a mini-ambulance—and Karim about to perform a Caesarean section!

Karim was drenching Bedra’s belly in iodine; Aarif was pulling up drugs. ‘I cannot give them,’ Aarif said, handing her the vials, and Felicity looked at them. A strong analgesic, and a relaxant that would cause temporary amnesia. It wasn’t a general anaesthetic, but in such a strong dose it would compromise her airway.

‘Give them,’ Karim said, setting up his instruments. ‘Aarif will watch her airway. Felicity, get ready to receive the baby.’

His authoritative tone was welcome now. On Karim’s instruction she shot the drugs into Bedra, but she was acting on her own instincts now, opening up a large resuscitation box and selecting the smallest equipment. Aarif took the ambu bag and bagged his wife, delivering vital oxygen as if he had done it a hundred times before.

The surgery was urgent and basic. It had to be. It was a classic Caesarean, a vertical incision, performed for haste. In seconds Felicity was being handed a scrap of life, and Karim delivered the placenta that had been ripping away from the uterine wall. It was the only way to stop Bedra from haemorrhaging to death.

Felicity worked on. The baby was flaccid, but responding to her resuscitation. She tried not to think, just to do.

Still her heart went out to Aarif. He looked over a few times, his eyes blank. This quiet man was guarding his emotions because it wasn’t safe to have them yet.

Karim was calling to Aarif to give him more drugs, then packing the abdomen to prepare Bedra for transfer. Just as Felicity was about to ask Karim how she should summon help she heard the sound of a chopper landing.

Here in the desert Karim had saved not one life but two, against impossible odds, and now help had arrived.

He was shouting rapid orders to a doctor Felicity recognised from the hospital. It was Dr Habib running from the chopper to the four-wheel drive, but thankfully he didn’t glance at Felicity, just headed straight for the mother. A paediatrician came to take over the infant’s care. Aarif must have seen the fear in her eyes, and Felicity wondered whether he understood or misinterpreted it as shame at being uncovered. But he threw her a drape and hastily Felicity put it over her head.

Just not in time.

She saw the absolute shock on Helen’s face. There was a stunned, questioning second, where both women swallowed the response on their lips. Then Felicity gave Helen a quick, urgent shake of her head, to indicate that this must not be acknowledged, and they did what they had to—got on with the job of preparing the little babe for urgent transfer. He had pinked up and was crying, but his cry was weak. To Felicity he looked around twenty-six weeks’ gestation, and the paediatrician agreed.

Karim only relaxed when Bedra was under full anaesthetic and blood was dripping into her veins. Resting back on his heels, he stared over at the incubator, stared at the little life he had saved, and remembered his nephew, Kaliq, whom his brother had refused to hold. He remembered too Jamal’s wailing, his father’s tears—the whole country had been in mourning for the tiny little baby that had died in his hands.

And then he stared over at Felicity, chatting with the paediatrician, her eyes watchful on the child, and he knew that it would kill her to give her child away.

He straightened his back, refusing to let sentiment in. Because…Well, she might have to.

Only when they had loaded the mother and infant into the rescue chopper, the blades whirring as it prepared for takeoff, did Felicity manage to utter a few vital words to Helen—her only link with the real world, the one woman who could understand her predicament.

‘I’ll make contact.’

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

IT SHOULD have brought them closer, what they had shared, what they had achieved. Karim had been about to make love to her before the interruption, of that Felicity was absolutely sure, but as for the first time in his life Karim prepared his own bath his silence spoke volumes. He stonewalled her questions, pretending to be asleep by the time she’d bathed and returned to his bed.

‘Karim?’ She spoke to tense broad shoulders. ‘You did so well out there…’

Yes, pretending to be asleep. Because in response to her question he proceeded to snore. And for all his ruthless ways, there were some redeeming features—and one of them was that Karim didn’t actually snore.

It was worse than being told to be silent.

She persisted in her own way. She refused a husband who was less than he could be, refused to live with his silence. So at various times, as the days dragged on and they were truly alone in the desert, she chatted happily, though mostly to herself.

‘I’ve cut myself,’ she said—and she had, lounging on cushions, reading a magazine. She had a tiny paper cut that really didn’t need anything doing to it, but she mentioned it just the same. ‘I wonder if there are any plasters…’ He was reading a thick black book, and he didn’t look up as she stood, just lay stretched out on cushions. ‘I know!’ Felicity said brightly. ‘They’ll be in the fully equipped mobile theatre which just happens to be close by. I might go out and look…’

There was a ghost of a smile on the edge of his mouth as she walked past him.

‘No, don’t bother getting up, Karim. I’ll get them.’

He caught her ankle, smiled up at her, and it was brighter than the sun outside. Scorching, warming, and it dazzled.

‘You talk too much.’ Still he held her ankle.

‘You talk too little.’

‘Sit.’ He let go of her ankle and patted the cushions beside him, but she just kept on walking. ‘Felicity,’ Karim said with a rather strained sigh, ‘why don’t you have a seat and we can talk for a while?’

It was a little like being back in the restaurant—formal and awkward at first. But they avoided hot topics, like sex and babies, and given there wasn’t much else between them spoke about the one other thread they had in common—their work.

‘I just always wanted to be one,’ Felicity answered when he asked. ‘I think I was born wanting to be a midwife. I love pregnant women, and I just adore newborns.’

But that was about babies…At every turn they couldn’t avoid their issues, couldn’t talk about her hopes to work in a natural birthing centre when she returned to England, because somehow it was too much to acknowledge that that hope was now gone. And she couldn’t talk about her family, about her father and the legacy his alcoholism had left, because that would mean she trusted Karim.

And she didn’t.

Finally, after a few stalled attempts, they spoke about Karim—which didn’t help either, because the more that was revealed the more she liked him.

And the more confused she became.

‘So you practise medicine out here?’

‘With Bedra’s help.’

It was Stockholm syndrome, Felicity told herself—where you fell in love with your captor. Only she’d loved him long before that, and every moment he intrigued her more.

‘It is like a mobile hospital,’ Karim explained. ‘I cannot practise any more at the hospital. It is not appropriate.’

‘But you trained as a surgeon.’ Felicity blinked. ‘You worked as a surgeon.’

‘I cannot be accessible to the people.’ He frowned at her, and she chose to stay silent—chose instead of arguing just to listen. After a long pause, Karim delivered perhaps his first honest admission. ‘I do miss it at times.’

Felicity blinked at the revelation, at his first display of emotion, feelings—proof that this remote man was actually real.

‘You do not choose to be a surgeon. I believe it chooses you. And yet my country, my role, for reasons you do not understand make it impossible to do both. But here in the desert…’ He was silent for a moment, as if drawing on the vastness. Even the wind wailing outside hushed for a moment as he centred himself and drank from the endless cup of wisdom this hard land brought. ‘I can fulfil both. I can be a royal and I can heal—Bedra is a doctor,’ he explained. ‘She trained overseas and has returned to Zaraq to help her people. That is why I chose her to be here. The palace staff think she and Aarif are really servants. The Bedouin people are proud and remote, they would not line up at a royal tent for help, so Bedra takes help to them. That is the vehicle you saw, and with GPS she can summon assistance from the hospital. Sometimes, for things Bedra cannot do—she is not a surgeon—I go out with her…’

‘You run clinics?’

‘My family do not know. You are not to say anything,’ he warned. ‘I am working on a project to send doctors into the desert as part of the hospital rotation. However, for now I am servicing that need quietly.’

He made it sound as if he were running a brothel instead of practising medicine. How could saving lives be a secret?

‘Change has to be slow,’ Karim said at her furrowed brow. ‘But there is change. There is the university, the new hospital. Women will not have to go overseas to study. I can work as a surgeon, and of course save lives, or as a royal prince I can slowly implement programmes that will change lives.’

As King he could just do it. Karim swallowed on that uneasy thought.

As King he could make more progress than his father or Hassan ever would. He loved his country, the traditions, its ways. But at times, at certain points, it frustrated him—angered him, even. Progress was so slow, yet as King himself more good could be done.

But it couldn’t be about what he wanted, and it had nothing to do with Felicity, so he stood up and ended the conversation there.

Felicity didn’t understand. He made her head spin. At every turn it was a different Karim—the man in England, the Prince in his palace, and this doctor in the desert. But she wanted him—all of him. She wanted the blurred image to focus, for the many facets of this man to join into one.

She wanted him.

‘I have to leave tomorrow.’ He offered no explanation other than that, but this time Felicity refused to stay quiet. He always did this, Felicity was beginning to realise. Gave a little of himself and then regretted it, withdrew further and confused her more.

‘Where are you going?’

‘That is not your concern.’

‘Karim, please…’

‘My father has surgery in a couple of days.’

‘And you didn’t think to tell me? Karim, I am your wife.’

‘A wife who refuses sex is a poor wife.’

‘A husband who doesn’t trust is a poor husband!’ Felicity retorted, but he was prowling the tent now.

‘When the helicopter comes to collect me, they will bring staff to take care of you.’

‘No!’ She hurled herself off the cushions towards him, scared of being left in the desert with strangers. ‘No, Karim. I won’t stay.’

‘You will do as you are told.’

‘No!’ she begged. ‘Surely your wife should be with you? Surely your family will expect that?’

His family expected nothing from her. He stared at her with black soulless eyes, held her wrists as she attempted to claw at him. Could she not understand that his family did not care, that all that was wanted from her was her baby—be it as Hassan’s or his.

His.

For a second he relented, let go of her wrists and let her beat at his chest.

They did not care about her and he must not, Karim told himself, holding her arms again. But she kicked with her feet, beating her way into his closed heart.

‘Let me come with you, Karim. Surely I should be—?’

Only his mouth could silence her, and it felt so good to feel her. He held her angry body in his arms and kissed her quiet. Every time she pulled back he kissed her harder. Now he could taste her, his tongue curling around her rigid one, pressing her right into him so that she could feel what she was missing, feel the heat that had been building for so long now. It was a heat he had refused to douse himself, relishing the challenge like a fast in the desert—because when she came to him, and she would come, how much sweeter victory would taste.

Her mouth was softer now, her body more pliant in his arms. But then she resisted again—and Karim dropped her.

‘I have told you already—the desert is our home till the marriage is consummated. It is entirely up to you.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

SHE had to get back to Zaraqua. Would not be left in the desert alone.

Felicity lay in bed, pondering her baby’s future. She wanted to give it the best chance to have a father, a loving father, and to grow up in a happy, loving home, yet it was up to Karim to take that chance—to trust in her.

How she hated him. Yet somehow she couldn’t completely…

She closed her eyes as she recalled his lovemaking, the tenderness he could at times display, the insight that had freed her from her fear of sex only to plunge her into another prison.

He had to trust that this was his baby. On that she refused to waver. Karim had to make love to her without protection or tomorrow she would be left alone.

As Karim prayed for his father and his country, Felicity drew her bath.

She had no seduction routine, no experience, but, drying herself off, she stared at the rows of glass bottles Bedra had prepared her with on her wedding night. She had poured rose water into the bath and Felicity did the same, then stepped into the fragrant water.

After, as she dried herself, she remembered Bedra’s excited chatter as she had massaged Felicity’s pulse-points with oil from tiny glass bottles. Attar, Bedra had explained—mixed fragrances. This oil was a heady mix of sweet amber, oudh and musk that would please the Prince.

‘Oudh?’ Felicity had asked.

‘Wood,’ Bedra had said. ‘And I will place this dish of almond oil by the bed…’

‘For perfume?’ Felicity had asked, sniffing the bland dish, but Bedra had just laughed.

It seemed strange to Felicity to be massaging her pulsepoints with oil of wood, but the fragrance was heady, and she remembered again him holding her that night, before it had all gone so wrong. She did what Bedra had done, and placed a slim silver dish of almond oil by the bed, waiting for him, as nervous as any bride on her wedding night.

He was ‘too tired’ to talk when he came to bed. He shrugged onto his side, with his back to her, and promptly feigned sleep. Yet she could feel his tension, could feel the black energy in the bed. When finally he did sleep he rolled over and held her, just as he did most nights. His hand in sleep on her belly made her weep.

She was protecting him from himself, Felicity knew. The man he really was would never jeopardise the safety of his baby. She turned over and stared at him.

She touched him.

She felt his body, reluctant, angry, even in sleep.

‘I won’t have the test, Karim.’ She spoke to darkness, and didn’t know whether or not he was listening, but she told him, warned him, begged to his soul to listen to her plea. ‘I will not take the risk, however small, just to appease—’

‘Felicity.’ Annoyed with himself for having rolled towards her, he turned away from her again. ‘Can we get through these next days?’

He willed sleep to come again. For Karim it was going to be a long night, made bearable only by having her beside him. He had considered taking a wife, but only for the sake of duty. There would be no real benefit to him. There had been so many lovers, so many women, and he had felt so many pleasures. Yet after the grim conversation he had had on the phone to his brothers insomnia had beckoned. He had never expected to feel peace this night—his father’s operation looming, so many decisions to be made. Yet climbing in beside her, angry with her, with himself, with his brothers, with his father, suddenly all there was was the dark tent and silence, and the musky scent of her that gently spirited him to a better place. Hearing her breathe beside him had brought a rare peace that was unexpected.

Perhaps the future was a touch more bearable with her in his bed at night. And then she had awoken him.

And now he couldn’t sleep.

He didn’t want the test either—didn’t want to find out the truth. This wretched time was only bearable because of her. Her scent was too heavy, too much woman lay untouched in the bed beside him. He considered asking her to go and bathe, to remove that fragrance so he might rest, except he didn’t want to.

‘I cannot sleep,’ he admitted, half an hour of silence later.

‘Would this help?’

‘What?’ He heard the nervousness in her voice.

‘This.’ Her hands were at his shoulders and softly she stroked them. She could feel the knot of tension in the muscles beneath the silken skin, felt him arch his neck as she smoothed a hard knot. ‘Does it help?’

And because it seemed it did she gently guided him to turn to his stomach. She wanted this closeness as much as him—wanted this chance for Karim to see sense before morning came.

She knew what Bedra had meant now, was glad for the silver dish of almond oil that was by the bed. Felicity dipped her fingers in it, rubbed it the length of his back, moving her thumbs along his vertebra, her oiled fingers pushing into his loins then up towards his shoulders. She felt the tension seep slowly from him, and when it had, when he was relaxed beneath her, she peeled off her nightgown and turned him over. She dipped her fingers back in the oil as those black eyes caressed her body. She rubbed the sweet potion into him, slid it into the thick black hair, and cupped him tenderly in her hand.

‘You know too much.’ He grabbed her wrist. ‘For one so innocent, you know way too much.’

‘I know nothing,’ Felicity corrected. ‘Except what my body tells me—what your body shows me it wants.’

She meant it. Always sex had been feared, yet with Karim it was instinctive, her body, her hands, guided by more than her mind, by more than just thought.

The oil in her palm made him slide through her fingers, no grip in her hold as she touched him. Her two hands slid in perpetual motion, feeling him grow. Even as he slipped out of her grip the other hand was waiting to slide up to his peak, an endless tunnel that closed around his member. She was enchanted, feeling him grow strong in her hand, feeling his mind weaken. This proud, contained, distant man was coming close now to the man she had first met, the man she had first loved.

His eyes were soft as he took in her body. ‘Your body is changing.’ It was his first real acknowledgment of her pregnancy, and it made her melt.