Page 15 of From One Night To Desert Queen

She was still standing there a minute later when he opened the door—through which she could still see the people staring at her.

‘We have to talk,’ Kal said, shutting the door behind him and walking forward.

‘Mmm.’ She wasn’t so sure she wanted to talk but she was definitely sure she wanted a bit of breathing space between them so, for every step he took towards her, she took one back until the backs of her knees hit the mattress and she half sat, half fell on the mattress.

She clenched her jaw, trying to block everything out, even sound, but it was impossible as her eyes tracked Kal, pacing back and forth before her, his hands sweeping angrily through his hair. His lips, the perfect, sensual, powerful lips that had worshipped her last night, were bringing words Star could barely process into a room where they’d shared such incredible passion. Words that didn’t make any sense at all.

In a daze, she tried to assemble what he’d said.

‘I’m sorry, can you repeat that last bit? Just one more time.’

‘I am Sheikh Khalif Al Azhar. First in line to the Duratrian throne.’

A sheikh. A prince.

He couldn’t be.

But then she thought of the way he had looked to the horizon as if he owned it. The way that she now remembered his interaction with Wahed and the other guards, as if they had known each other. At how he had known his way around the palace.

How had she missed that?

She knew how. She’d been caught up in the romantic history of Hatem and the terrible tragedy of Crown Prince Faizan and his wife, and the loss that would be to their two small children. The tragedy had made the headlines of almost every international newspaper, with images of the twin girls being held by their grandparents and a stony-faced half shadowed brother she now knew was Khalif. There had been a subtle aspect of the exhibition that covered it—Samira’s wedding dress, pictures, footage. The loss mourned by a nation had been handled well by the exhibition and there were references to an upcoming memorial to the short-lived ruler and his wife, but nothing had yet been confirmed.

He’d lied to her.

‘Star,’ he said, as if reading her thoughts in the widening of her eyes. ‘You didn’t recognise me and I...you were the first person to...’

There was a firm knock on the door.

‘Not now,’ he growled.

Star looked between the door and Kal. No. Not Kal any more. Khalif. His Royal Highness Sheikh Khalif Al Azhar. Hurt, embarrassment and shame flooded her as she realised that he had hidden who he was while she had been absolutely and completely herself. So focused on finding the necklace she hadn’t been able to be anything but plain old Star Soames.

Rich and powerful. Iamimpressed.

Her shaking fingers pressed against her mouth. Oh, God. She’d said that.

It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy.

She’d said that too. Had he laughed at her?

No. While she might not have known he was a prince, shedidknow him well enough that she could tell he hadn’t laughed at her.

‘But why all this?’ she asked, gesturing to the door. ‘Why tell me now? Did something happen?’ she went on, wondering if it was fanciful to worry that perhaps a war had broken out, or that something had happened to a family member.

He came to sit beside her on the bed, their knees not quite touching, as if something more than his title had put a distance between them that hadn’t been there the night before.

‘This morning, I noticed that the protection we used had torn.’

She tried to look at him but he was facing straight ahead, as if confronting some unforeseen future head-on. She frowned. Torn protection? She couldn’t quite see what he...

‘You think I might be...’

‘Pregnant.’

A baby.

Could she be?