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‘If you’re trying to get me to marry you, I can tell you right now it’s not going to happen.’ His voice took on a harsh and forbidding note. ‘Because nothing has changed, Jazz. You are still a foreign divorcee who would be totally unsuitable for the role of Queen. My people would never accept you. Which is why I must put duty first and continue my search to find a suitable bride. But that doesn’t mean that Darius can’t be my insurance policy—just in case I don’t produce another male heir.’

Her look of quiet reflection was replaced by one of incredulity. ‘Trying to get you to marry me?’ she scoffed. ‘Do you really think I’d want to marry a man who treats women like second-class citizens—who regards his little boy as nothing but an insurance policy?’

‘Fortunately, that question is destined to remain academic, since I have no intention of doing so.’ His smile was swift and dismissive. ‘Which means we must come to an alternative arrangement which will satisfy all parties.’

‘What kind of arrangement?’ Defiantly, she tilted her chin. ‘What do you want?’

There was a pause. ‘Who knows his true identity?’

‘Nobody—not even my cousin,’ she answered truthfully. ‘I couldn’t see the point of people finding out his father was a sheikh.’

He nodded. ‘Good.’

‘I didn’t do it in order to get your praise,’ she objected. ‘I did it because I wanted to be able to trust people’s true motives for getting to know us. I didn’t want us to stand out, or for Darius to be made into a talking point.’

‘If my brother had not died then things would be very different,’ he observed reflectively. ‘But he did. One day I hope to have a legitimate heir, but if that doesn’t happen, then Darius will be entitled to inherit the crown. And since you refuse to let me take him back to Razrastan, then it seems he must grow up here. With you.’

‘Well, thank heavens for that,’ she said, breathing out a sigh of relief. ‘Because I can’t think of anything worse for his welfare than being incarcerated in some gilded palace with an autocratic brute like you!’

His nostrils flared. ‘Nobody else would dare speak to me in such a way,’ he iced out.

‘That’s about the only piece of information which has given me pleasure during this entire meeting!’

‘Enough!’ he snapped. ‘It is imperative Darius learns about the country he might one day rule, which is why I want him brought up in London, so he can be schooled at the Razrastanian embassy. In a city which is big, and anonymous. Where nobody is going to discover his true identity—not if you don’t tell them.’

‘But we don’t live in London, Zuhal,’ she pointed out. ‘We live in Oxfordshire.’

‘That is not a problem. You will move.’

‘I am not a pawn on a chessboard! I will not move!’

His patience seemingly exhausted, he slammed his fist down on a flimsy-looking table which shivered beneath the force and when he looked at her, Jasmine could see a fire-like determination blazing from his black eyes.

‘I will take no more of your futile arguments, Jazz—or your defiant show of so-called pride in refusing to accept my support,’ he raged. ‘Because there are some things you need to understand. And number one is that there is no way a royal prince will be brought up somewhere like this! Why, there is barely room to swing a cat!’

‘We don’t have a cat.’

‘Will you stop interrupting me?’ he raged. ‘You will need to be rehoused somewhere befitting my son’s status. Somewhere secure.’ His gaze moved with withering precision to the crack in the peeling window-frame, which was currently sending a whistle of chilly air into the small room. ‘A place which isn’t offering an open invitation for thieves and has room for the bodyguards our son needs and which I will be providing, whether you like it or not. Money is obviously not a consideration and I imagine you will quickly discover that you’ll enjoy living somewhere which is considerably different from this.’ His mouth hardened into a cynical line. ‘Most women find luxury addictive, in my experience.’

Jasmine felt a mixture of fury and pain—and his reference to the other women in his life wasn’t helping matters. He was insulting her home and lifestyle and maybe she should take him to task for that. But couldn’t part of her see the wisdom in what he said, much as she hated to admit it? The modest savings she’d accrued while working at the Granchester hadn’t lasted nearly as long as she’d expected, and her sewing only brought in enough money for them to keep their heads above water. Life was often a struggle and it was only going to get worse. She knew what it was like to be the poor kid in school. The one who was forced to sign up for free school dinners. Who lived in fear of someone commenting about the too-small hand-me-down clothes or the shoes which badly needed heeling. The last thing she wanted was for Darius to grow up like that—so how could she let pride stand in the way?

She gave a reluctant shrug. ‘I suppose what you say makes sense.’

Zuhal’s eyes narrowed. It was not the gratitude he had expected—not by any stretch of the imagination. He inclined his head with regal solemnity, but behind the formal mask he seethed at her stubbornness and thanklessness. ‘I will have my people arrange somewhere for you to live as soon as possible,’ he said coolly. ‘Just pack up the essentials and be ready to leave when you hear from my office.’

Again, she was shaking her head, the long plait swinging like a blonde pendulum, and Zuhal was suddenly filled with an urgent desire to see her newly long hair spread out over his pillow.

‘Actually, I would prefer to have some choice in our new home,’ she said.

He opened his mouth as if to object, before closing it again. ‘Very well,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘I will have a shortlist drawn up for you to consider. And you’ll need a new wardrobe—not just for the baby, but for you.’

She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I don’t want your charity, Zuhal. I never did. I’ll wear what I always wear and make my own clothes.’

‘You will do no such thing,’ he contradicted icily. ‘Because you are no longer a shop-worker living in hotel accommodation, or a single mother struggling to get by. You will be living in an expensive part of the city and it will naturally arouse suspicion if you look out of place—which, given your current appearance, wouldn’t be difficult.’

Jasmine might have objected if his words hadn’t been painfully true. She’d always tried to keep herself looking nice but it wasn’t as easy as it had been in the past. Darius took up a lot of her waking hours and there simply wasn’t the time to make new outfits for herself. Or the money. She tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. It was why she’d stopped going to the hairdresser—why she’d let her trademark bob grow out.

She chewed her lip. It would be awful if she refused Zuhal’s charity—because that was essentially what it was—and then got mistaken for a cleaner or a nanny when she was stepping into the elevator in her smart new London home. Because she knew how money worked. She’d worked at the Granchester long enough to recognise that rich people were only really comfortable with people like themselves. Who looked like them and spoke like them. And she didn’t. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Not in her cheap jeans and a thrift shop sweater from which no amount of washing could shift the stubborn stain of regurgitated carrot purée which sat on the shoulder like a faded epaulet.

And then something else occurred to her. ‘What about you?’ she questioned.

He had been gathering up the Manila envelope which he had dumped on the table on his arrival but he looked up when she spoke, his black eyes watchful. ‘What about me?’

‘Where will you be living?’

He shrugged. ‘I shall make sure I have a base in London close enough to see my son, but for the rest of the time I shall be in Razrastan, preparing for my future. For the formal signing of government papers to allow me to rule until…’ his voice faltered slightly ‘…until my brother can be legally declared dead.’

She nodded, forcing herself to remember the human tragedy which lay at the heart of all this. ‘Of course,’ she said, sympathy softening her voice despite his harshness towards her.

There was a pause. He seemed to hesitate. ‘And of course, I have another important matter to consider.’

‘Oh? What’s that?’

‘My marriage,’ he stated coolly.

Jasmine started, her heart jolting as if someone had just pulsed an electric shock right through it. ‘Your marriage?’

He nodded. ‘I still need someone by my side to help me rule my country—and as soon as possible. Which is why I must find a suitable candidate. I just wanted to warn you in advance, in case the press start speculating.’ His gaze seared over her like a dark laser. ‘I know what you’re thinking, Jazz. That the discovery of my son and heir is a complicating factor in my matrimonial plans, but I don’t anticipate any problems.’ He smiled. ‘My future wife will need to be a very understanding woman, for that is one of my requirements. And during access visits, she will love our son and treat him as her own. I will make sure of that.’

Jasmine prayed her face wouldn’t betray her feelings. Had he really said he knew what she was thinking? He didn’t have a clue. The hurt. The anger. The shame. The fear. She told herself she didn’t care what Zuhal did with his life or who he took as his wife. But she did. Of course she did. She wanted to rail against the thought of another woman becoming stepmother to Darius, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. It was a fact of modern life. She’d had a stepmother herself, hadn’t she?

And look how that had turned out. Her father’s much younger wife had resented all evidence that he’d been married before. She hadn’t even allowed Jasmine to play with her baby stepsister—though that had actually worked in everyone’s favour, because Jasmine’s mother had been hysterical at the thought her daughter might prefer her new ‘blended’ family.

Painful memories of the past dissolved and Jasmine met the ebony ice of Zuhal’s stare. She wished she could tell him to go to hell and that she had no intention of letting him move her into an apartment in a strange city, no matter how luxurious it happened to be. But she couldn’t do that, because she recognised that Zuhal wanted the best for his son and maybe anonymous London was a better option than a rural little village. But that didn’t mean that she had to roll over like a puppy dog and accept whatever he was prepared to throw her way, did it? Which meant she didn’t have to entertain him for a second longer than she needed to. This man who was impervious to her pain.

‘Would you like to look in on Darius before you leave?’ she questioned in a calm voice, slightly mollified by his look of bemusement.

‘Leave?’ He frowned. ‘Weren’t you supposed to be cooking me supper?’

Her expression didn’t change. ‘There’s nothing on the go, I’m afraid. But even if there was, I seem to have lost my appetite. And quite frankly, you’re the last person I feel like sharing a meal with right now, Zuhal.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘SO.’ ZUHAL’S DEEP voice was clipped and matter-of-fact. ‘What do you think of your new home?’

Jasmine wasn’t sure what to think. She was still whirling from the speed with which her move to London had happened, and, with Darius now fast asleep in his luxury new baby seat, this was the first chance she’d had to get her bearings since arriving in the city that morning. To get used to her new accommodation. Home, Zuhal had called it—yet it didn’t feel a bit like home.

She glanced around the sitting room—trying to get used to a room the size of a football pitch, with its stunning views over the bright green treetops of Hyde Park. It was the place she’d liked best out of the shortlist of properties the Sheikh’s office had drawn up, mainly because it was the only one which didn’t make her feel as if she was hemmed in by other buildings. This high up the traffic was just a distant hum—like bees—so it almost felt as if you were in the country rather than in the middle of a city. Jasmine had seen the apartment when it had been empty and cavernous—but in the interim, it had been completely and luxuriously furnished by an unknown hand.

She would have liked some say in the furniture herself and although she couldn’t fault the decor, it had a distinctly impersonal feel to it—as if some top-end designer had simply thrown a lot of money at it. Giant velvet sofas were coloured in shades echoing the soft hues of the silken rugs which adorned the gleaming wooden floors. Vibrant oil paintings hung on the pale walls and a bronze sculpture of a horse’s head was silhouetted against one of the tall windows. There were even glossy unread magazines artistically placed on one of several coffee tables and coloured glass vases full of fragrant roses. It looked like a set from a film—a room designed in a single day—not built up with memories, bit by bit, like a normal home. But whoever had said any of this would be normal? It wasn’t normal to have been whisked here by darkened limousine, was it? Nor to have been followed by a fleet of bodyguards who, as far as she knew, were still lurking outside with those suspicious-looking lumps beneath their loose jackets.

Zuhal had arrived soon afterwards, sweeping in without any of his usual coterie of aides, which meant she was now alone with him, something which was making her pulse race and her breasts to become engorged and she hated it. She hated her body’s instinctive reaction to a man who had proved how cold and heartless he could be. Who had announced his intention to take a royal bride and who regarded his firstborn son as his ‘insurance policy’. But she was trying her best not to pass judgement, because that wouldn’t benefit Darius in the long run, would it?

She wondered if she would ever get used to living somewhere which had three bathrooms—three!—all gleaming white and flashing silver and now crammed with the same bath products she’d sold in the Granchester Hotel boutique, so she knew exactly how eye-watering their cost.

She had chosen her own bedroom after the most cursory of glances because she had no desire to be in any room containing a bed, not with Zuhal breathing down her neck and creating the kind of flashbacks she could have happily done without. The most beautiful room of all was the nursery, which had been prepared for Darius. There was a curved crib fashioned from wood which felt satin-soft to the touch and a mobile full of planets and stars dangling from the ceiling above it. On a pristine window sill was a line of toys—fluffy bears and a soft little monkey with bright eyes. And somehow, the simple comfort of this room made Jasmine feel that the decision to move here had been the right one, if only for her son’s sake.

She walked over to the window—away from the subtle sandalwood of Zuhal’s scent—and peered down into the park, where she could see people braving the light spring breeze and sitting on benches to eat their supermarket sandwiches. A teenage boy was doing gravity-defying things on a skateboard. Around the line of the lake, she could see the yellow blur of daffodils, all dancing and fluttering in the breeze—just like in the poem she’d learnt at school. She’d been hopeful back then—until her mother’s final meltdown about her father’s supposed sins had made schooling something she’d just had to fit in whenever she could, and attention to homework an impossible dream.

But something about that memory made her think about the future. Her own ambitions might have tumbled along the wayside, but Darius still had a lifetime to look forward to. Shouldn’t she try to put a positive spin on everything which was happening, despite her many misgivings? To answer the Sheikh’s question with enthusiasm rather than doubt.

‘It’s lovely,’ she said, as she turned back to face him.

If he had been expecting a slightly more ringing endorsement, he made no reference to it. ‘And do you think you can be happy here?’ he persisted.

Happy? It was a funny question. Since Darius’s birth, all Jasmine had wanted was to ensure security for him and now she’d done just that—even though she hadn’t planned it. From now on the two of them were going to be living in unbelievable splendour, while Zuhal picked up all the bills. She should have been relieved, and yet…

How could she possibly be relieved—or relaxed—when part of her still wanted the Sheikh so badly, even though she knew it was wrong to feel that way? Her body ached whenever he was in the vicinity and she was poignantly reminded of how it had felt when he used to make love to her, and a big part of her wanted that to happen all over again. Yet he’d blithely told her he was going in search of a bride who would one day become her baby’s stepmother. Wouldn’t that kind of cold cruelty fill most people with anger instead of desire?