Born Royal

“No. For once, Montebello and Tamir have synoptic vision on an issue. The truth is, Princess, everybody wants to believe it.”

Julia sucked in too much air too suddenly and started coughing. When the fit was over she stared at her press secretary.

“The citizens of both countries are thrilled at the prospect of a marriage that will put an end to this feud once and for all,” he informed her. “As a public relations coup, on top of the military action, it’s pretty damned good. He knows his stuff, Rashid.”

This made her furious.

“No doubt. I don’t know what Rashid Kamal has in mind, but he means us no good, you can be sure. No Kamal can be trusted.” She had a sudden sharp memory of his black eyes, burning into hers. Kiss me. Kiss me.

Valerie leaned forward. “Are you absolutely certain that he isn’t serious? It’s an extraordinary risk to take if he’s not. Where would he be if you publicly said yes?”

A little shock went through her. “Are you suggesting—no. No, of course he’s not serious! A Kamal marry a Sebastiani? Impossible!”

Valerie and Bertrand looked at her oddly. But neither wanted to be the one to point out a more impossible fact—that a Kamal had made a Sebastiani pregnant.

“I imagine the point of this exercise—” she waved at the newspaper “—is that Rashid Kamal gets to look like a knight in shining armour. I’m pregnant. He offers marriage. I turn him down. He’s squeaky clean.”

Her conscience tugged at her a little as she spoke. The Kamals had been characterized as monsters all her life, but Rashid had not seemed like that to her when she met him. If he hadn’t been a Kamal, she would even have called him… But her mind wouldn’t go there.

“Wouldn’t it be wiser to find out for certain what’s in his mind before we jump to any action? Everyone’s been very worried and stressed lately, Princess, afraid that another bomb was going to go off, or they’d be inhaling poison in the streets. It’s not going to hurt them to feel for a few hours that they’ve seen the end of animosity and the beginning of peace.”

Julia eyed Bertrand suspiciously, wondering what was in his mind.

“I don’t accept that the majority of the citizens of this country or of Tamir are rejoicing in the thought of such a marriage, however many calls there have been. But if they are, Bertrand, recollect that it is I who will tear this cup from their lips when the moment finally comes. I’d like to do that sooner rather than later.”

Bertrand gave her a steady look. “With respect, Princess, you’ll need to talk to Prince Rashid. I could start the ball rolling by calling my opposite number at the palace.”

“I’m not going to talk to him,” Julia said, keeping her voice as level as she could.

“Princess, that’s crazy. You—”

Julia got to her feet, catching the other two off guard. They scrambled to follow.

“All right, Bertrand, you can call the palace in Tamir,” she said. “And tell Prince Rashid from me that if he says any more about this supposed marriage to the media or anyone else, I’ll…he’ll…”

The threat, if it was one, was interrupted. There was a hurried knock, and then the office door burst open. One of the junior secretaries came in, wide-eyed and almost babbling with poorly suppressed excitement.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but I thought I should—um…they’ve just notified me that he’s here! He’s actually in the palace. Prince Rashid! And he—he wants to see you!”

“Bertrand, go down to him, please,” Julia commanded, in a low, trembling voice he had to strain to hear. “Will you explain that we are going to issue an unqualified denial of this story, and ask that he support that with a statement of his own.”

“Princess, wouldn’t it be better—” Bertrand began.

“No, it wouldn’t!” she cried, feeling goaded beyond her endurance. “Allow me to be the judge, please! Tell him whatever you like about why. Just make it very clear that I am not going to see him.”

“Predicting the future is a risky business,” chided a deep masculine voice from the open doorway. Julia, Bertrand, Valerie and the junior secretary all whirled.

In the doorway, beside an embarrassed and apologetic member of King Marcus’s staff, stood Rashid Kamal, smiling like an angel of vengeance.

“See? Wrong already,” he said.

Chapter 2

They both stood silent, half the width of the room between them, gazing at each other. Those watching the pair felt a curious sensation, as if they themselves, and the room, had somehow ceased to exist in the same reality.

Rashid’s mocking smile died as he took in the sight of her. He wondered when her face had become his icon of survival. There had been times in the past few months when he’d come up against the real possibility that he wouldn’t succeed in his mission, wouldn’t even survive it. He realized only now how often in those moments his thoughts had been of Julia. Julia and his child.

Julia licked her lips and swallowed. A huge relief flooded her, taking her completely by surprise. He was alive. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how much of a tragedy it would have been if he were not.

As if embarrassed to be intruding, the others began to shuffle uncomfortably. Reality suddenly returned. Their gaze unlocked.

“We have things to discuss,” Rashid said, entering the room and acknowledging the staff in one friendly but imperious nod. With wonderful noblesse oblige, he held the door for them to leave. And to Julia’s annoyance, her staff all instinctively obeyed, leaving her alone with the enemy.

A dangerously attractive enemy, for whom she was already proven to have a fatal weakness. With whom she had made a total, complete, and utter fool of herself. She shifted uncomfortably, then reminded herself where she was. This was her own private office.

“Are the Kamals now laying claim to this palace, as well as Delia’s Land?” she demanded with icy sarcasm.

Rashid looked at her in level scrutiny, ignoring her outburst. He took a step closer. “How are you, Julia?” She seemed well, with softer curves than when he had last seen her. But the shadow in her eyes as she looked at him was the same.

The scent of her perfume was a sudden, sharp reminder of that wild night when passion had nearly wrecked all his careful plans. In the months since, he had found ways to explain what had happened. His reaction had been a simple side effect of the dangerous enterprise he had been about to embark upon, he had told himself. Men going to war had always been prey to such reactions—the universal unconscious compulsion to leave some trace of his genes in the world before he left it had seized him, that was all.

But that did not explain his reaction to her now—the need to hold her, to wrap her in safety. He reached for her with impatient arms.

She stepped back, evading his embrace.

“All the worse for seeing you!” she retorted.

Rashid’s head snapped back as if a cat had scratched his cheek without warning.

“The worse for seeing me? Why?”

“Why did you tell that Messenger journalist we were engaged?” she demanded.

“The real reason?”

“Of course, the real reason!”

“I thought there was a chance it would go over better with your people if I gave the exclusive to a Montebello paper. I’ve heard it’s going down very well.”

Julia gritted her teeth. “You know perfectly well what I mean! What did you say it for? What’s your agenda?”

He frowned. “What’s yours?”

She wasn’t sure why she was so furious suddenly. “My agenda? That’s simple—to have a baby. With the least possible media intrusion on the event, if you wouldn’t mind!”

“There’ll be a lot less room for speculation and innuendo once we’re married.”

Julia jerked backwards as if he had burned her. She opened her mouth twice, like a fish. “Married?” she whispered faintly. “What—you—we can’t get married!”

The sparkle abruptly left his dark eyes. He had hoped—he had felt almost certain of her support in his plans, if no one else’s.

“Can’t we?”

Julia bit her lip and gazed at him, trying to figure him out. She had been convinced what he had done was merely another move in some elaborate game plan. A game plan in which she was a pawn who would be sacrificed when necessary.

“You seriously imagine that we might get married?”

He watched her, his dark eyes unreadable. She still didn’t believe it. She wished he would tell her what he really wanted. This was making her very uncomfortable.

“Why not?”

“Your name is Kamal. Mine is Sebastiani.”

“We managed to make a baby, nevertheless.”

Julia’s cheeks burned at this calculated reminder of what she had let happen. “Everybody’s allowed to go out of their tiny mind once.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“What do you call it?” she challenged.

He looked at her. Looked at the rich dark hair, the delicate skin moulding fine bones, the wide mouth that seemed to tremble with the passage of every feeling. Her long neck holding her head like a flower on a stem, and the soft, fresh skin of her throat. The slender body, with its high, lush breasts, fuller now than what his hands remembered. The slim hips, curving thighs, fine ankles. Shoes to match her suit and her pink mouth.

His examination left her shaking with a kind of fury.

“I call it going out of my tiny mind,” he admitted. “But why only once?”

She swallowed, her eyes widening at the implication. “You—” she began, half-panicked.

He stepped forward with his hands outstretched to grip her arms. Julia avoided the touch by backing up. Her knees bumped up against the sofa, and she sat down with less grace than she was known for. He stood looking down at her, his eyes dark and assessing. She moved her shoulders nervously.

“You are pregnant with my child. You must have been expecting this.”

“Expecting an offer of marriage?” she repeated disbelievingly. “From the man whose father used every opportunity to accuse me of having slept with you in order to murder you? I’m afraid not!”

She stiffened as Rashid sank down beside her. “I am sorry,” he said. “But you must see I had no control over this. We were working to stop the Brothers of Darkness. There was nothing I could do to set the record straight, without jeopardizing the whole enterprise.”

“Set the record straight? Why would you do that?” she cried. “You’d worked so hard to get me where I was!”

“Worked?” he repeated with a half smile. “You really were a virgin, weren’t you? That wasn’t work, Julia.”

She bit her lip as humiliation flooded her. What a fool she had made of herself with him. And how cruel of him to mock her.

“And how could I have known that you would get pregnant?”

“You knew damned well you were going to disappear that night, though, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Yes. And you arranged it so that I was the last person to see you ‘alive.’ I wonder if you can imagine what’s it’s like to have some very polite police detectives asking you in the kindest terms about the feud your families have been waging for the past century and how strongly you feel about it!”

“It was no part of my plan to incriminate you. Is that what you’ve been thinking? No. It was completely wrong of me to—” he paused and reached out a finger to stroke back a tendril of hair from her temple “—to allow myself to make love to you. But you know what inducement I had, Julia.”

“Inducement? I never—”

His voice changed, turning into a seductive growl as he reminded them both. His fingers caught the delicate curl of her hair, stopping her as she tried to move her head away.

The memory of his touch rippled over her skin.

“You were irresistible. So beautiful. You called my name, and I was lost.”

She struggled to subdue the heat his voice summoned up in her. She could not bear it if he made her look a fool again.

“If it hadn’t been for Lucas’s d-disappearance…” Julia choked. She felt the tears burn again, undermining her. Even now she could not say the word. Like her father, she couldn’t apply the word death to Lucas.

She burned with humiliation. “Yes, all right, I threw myself at you! But if Lucas…if I hadn’t been so distraught over my brother, you wouldn’t have got near me,” she finished.

“It should not have happened,” Rashid agreed, with an edge to his otherwise calm voice. “But it did happen, and we are left with the results. What is the benefit in arguing over how we got where we are? The important thing now—”

“It might help to clear the air!” Julia exclaimed.

“Damn it, what is unclear?”

“What is unclear is what can be feeding your delusion that we are going to get married! Or what you thought gave you the right to undermine me with the announcement of our engagement!”

“Undermine you? Julia, I came home to a barrage of media speculation that I was going to repudiate you and your claim to be carrying my child. My first thought was to protect you from any suspicion that I doubted your child was mine.”

“Your first thought was to get Delia’s Land,” she corrected him. “I suppose it was to please your father.”

Prince Rashid abruptly lost his grip on his calm. “How dare you accuse me of this? You must know that my father was distraught over my disappearance—too distraught to be rational. Your own father has expressed his sufferings in the same unintelligent way!”

“My father at least never used his grief as an excuse to grab Tamir land—”

“Your father accused my father of masterminding your brother’s disappearance,” he interrupted ruthlessly. “Also of planting bombs and orchestrating the kidnap attempts on you and your sister. What was this, if not an attempt to undermine my father’s reign, distance his allies and assist the Ikhwan al Zalaam—the Brothers of Darkness—in their bid to unseat us?”

His voice flicked her like a whip.

“There was good reason to suspect the Kamals!” she cried. “One bomber even confessed he’d been hired by your father! What would you expect my father to think?”

“The bomber lied. It was deliberate disinformation,” Rashid informed her levelly, as if she didn’t already know. “And I would expect from your father what I would expect from any intelligent person in a position of power—a calm and reasoned response to something that could easily have provoked a crisis.”

“Like King Ahmed’s, I suppose! Waiting till my father’s beside himself over Lucas and then demanding Delia’s Land again.”

They were almost shouting. He realized, not for the first time, how little self-control he had around her.

Rashid shook his head in exasperation. “Julia, can’t you understand that what Delia’s Land represents to my father isn’t land, but a sense of closure, of justice? Rightly or wrongly, a century ago the Kamal family believed that their Crown Prince was murdered by the Sebastianis. In their view they were entitled—”

Julia flared up. Nothing was more certain to get Sebastiani blood hot than a repetition of this stupid, baseless accusation. Tamir’s Crown Prince Omar Kamal and Montebello’s Princess Delia Sebastiani had been engaged lovers when copper was unexpectedly discovered on the Montebellan land marked out as her dowry, and to suggest that the Sebastianis had been so greedy as to murder the prince in order to prevent the marriage and retain the rich dowry land was an appalling slur against the Sebastiani name.

“In their view,” she interrupted in a hot, unstoppable flood, “the Kamals figured if they made an accusation of foul play they could still get their hands on Delia’s dowry land after Omar’s and Delia’s deaths. It was cynical manipulation then and it’s cynical manipulation now. The Sebastianis were just as horrified as the Kamals when Omar was killed. Your family doesn’t seem to want to remember that Delia was so unhappy over Omar’s death she committed suicide! The Sebastianis were hit just as hard as the Kamals. And then to be accused of murder on top of it! The accusation was disgusting enough a hundred years ago. For your father to—”

Rashid held up a hand. “Whatever my father feels about this feud, Julia, I am not interested in prolonging it.”

She stared at him, her anger arrested in surprise. This was the first she had ever heard that Rashid did not share his family’s century-old obsession.

“Really? Why?”

“Because it is futile. It serves no good purpose. You must see this. If I could uncover the truth about Omar’s death and satisfy my father’s need to know, I would. But for myself I have no need to know. We are where we are. If Omar had lived, I would be only a very distant cousin of the Crown Prince of Tamir, if I existed at all. He did not live. I am Crown Prince. Mash’Allah. What occupies me is not how I came to this position, but how I will fulfill it for the people’s good.”

Julia said nothing.

“You and I could work together in this, Julia. And bequeath to our son a nation that lives in peace.”

“Oh!” She drew a long, enlightened breath. So this was the answer. Not an elaborate game, not that he loved her, or even that he felt obliged to protect her unborn child.

It was a political marriage that motivated him. Her heart clenched painfully. She couldn’t speak.

“Over the past few months I have had time to think,” Rashid began quietly. “I thought about whether you had a reason for what happened. Sometimes I wondered if it was your intention to put us in this very situation—you pregnant with my child. I thought perhaps we had a similar view of the stupidity of this feud between our families, and how to heal it. Was I right?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean? That I planned to—that I meant to trick you into getting me pregnant so you’d be forced to marry me, for the sake of…” She faded off, swallowed, and continued in a whisper, “For the sake of peace between Tamir and Montebello?”

“Is it not so?”

She flung herself to her feet, unable to contain her feelings. “Is that what my child means to you—he’ll force us into a political marriage that will be advantageous to your country?”

He was watching her from where he sat, not quite understanding her ferocity. “To both our countries, I hope,” he said. “It is an end I have had in mind for a long time.”

“An end you’ve had in mind for a long time?” she repeated blankly.

“It is years since I first thought of it as the surest way to re-establish peace between our countries. A marriage between the two ruling houses would be as advantageous now as it would have been a century ago. But when you married, I naturally gave up on it.”

She blinked at him in amazement. “Why? You clearly didn’t care about me personally.”

“I did not know you personally. But I had seen you—”

She didn’t want to hear the calm appraisal he had made of her suitability for the post of royal wife taken to cement a peace.

“Why not Christina, then? She wasn’t married up until last month! Or Anna? She’s available!”

“I never considered them,” Rashid returned. Having said it, he was aware that such a position required some explanation. “Christina had renounced public life.”

He understood only distantly that this was an after-the-fact rationalization. The truth was, he had never once considered Princess Christina in his plans—not even to reject her. And facing that fact now, he found it oddly inexplicable. He had given up his ideas of a political marriage with the Sebastianis when Julia married. “And Anna is too young.”

“So when Luigi and I divorced your plans kicked right back in,” she said dryly.

“It was not as simple as this, Julia. Let’s not argue over the past. We have a child to think of. And our countries.”

“There’s a little drawback here. I’m not interested.”

Rashid suddenly found himself exasperated. “Do you tell me you prefer to give birth to a child unmarried? You are a princess! You are in the public eye whatever you do! Have you not had enough of scandal?”

Julia gritted her teeth. The fact that he was only saying aloud what she had been saying to herself did nothing to calm her.

“I’ve already been through the worst of it in your absence,” she said. “You may be a hero to your citizens, but don’t try riding into my life on your white horse! You have overwhelmed me once. That will have to be enough for you. I intend to use my own judgement here, and that tells me—”

His lips tightened and his eyes narrowed as he watched her. “What did you tell your father about how your pregnancy happened?” he interrupted roughly.

“Not much.”

“And the police?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Have I been looking in the wrong direction? Is this merely another Sebastiani attempt to make the Kamals look like wild animals?”

Julia gasped. “How dare you?”

“What have you told the world about how you got pregnant? Has our moment of madness become a rape, perhaps? Did I meet you at Harry and Mariel’s wedding only to assault you?”

She gritted her teeth against overwhelming fury. “I told them nothing beyond the bare facts.”

“How blind I’ve been! Of course you can’t marry me, if you have been painting me in such colours! No wonder you are so furious! If this was a calculated move to make me look like a monster—of course a proposal of marriage is the last thing you want!”

A cold calm suffused Julia at his words. “So because I won’t marry you, you suddenly see a plot to blacken your reputation? Is it really impossible to believe that a woman could actually prefer life as a single mother to marriage with you? What an ego!”

“When there is so much good to be derived from the marriage—” he began.

“Rashid,” she said hoarsely, holding up a hand. “I am not going to marry you. I have had one loveless marriage already. Believe me, it was one too many.”

“Loveless?” He reached out to cup her shoulder with one strong palm, stopping her retreat. “Why should it be loveless? We already know, Julia, how well we suit each other physically.” His other hand gently tipped her chin up, then slipped around her back, drawing her irresistibly into his embrace.

Julia licked her lips. It was impossible to resist him when he touched her. Half of her longed to throw herself into his arms and accept the protection he offered.

But he was a Kamal. A member of the family that had blackened the proud Sebastiani name a century ago and was still raking over the coals of that ancient dispute.

Her eyes were suddenly burning. Julia twisted out of his embrace and stood facing him.

“It would be loveless,” she said, with a precision born out of her determination not to weaken, “because you do not love me. And I do not love you.”

Chapter 3

“Who the hell is this?” growled a deep male voice. Julia took a breath.

“Jack? This is Julia, Christina’s sister. Is she there?”

“Julia.” He cleared his throat. “Right. Hi. Hang on.”

She heard the click of a lamp, and a confused murmur, then Christina’s sleepy voice came on the line. “Tiss? What’s up?”

“Oh, God, Squidge, you were sleeping! I’m sorry! I completely forgot the time difference. Is it really late?”

“No, that’s okay,” her sister said softly. “Actually…it’s almost morning.”

Julia gave a half laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry! I’ll call back!”

“No, no, I’m awake now. Let me just…” Another murmur, followed by the noise of the receiver being set down on a hard surface, then her brother-in-law’s voice in the distance.

“Going somewhere?”

“I’ll talk in the other room so you can get back to sleep. Will you hang this up?”

“Yes. Where exactly are you taking the duvet?”

“To the other room. It’s a bit chilly.”

“Yes, it is. Bathrobe,” she heard in tones of firm masculine command. “The duvet stays with me.”

“My he-man! I thought you were immune to cold!” Christina’s voice teased.

“The duvet is my insurance,” he said. There was a smile in his voice. “You might forget where you were if you didn’t have a warm bed to come back to.”