Lynne Graham - Working With Cinderella

‘No …’ She changed her plea. She was sobbing as he kissed her down onto the bed, but she was grateful for the mattress that met her back for she got the gift of his full weight pressed into her. ‘We mustn’t …’ She pushed at his bare chest but her fingers attempted to grip his skin, her nails wanted to dig in and leave her mark. ‘Emir, you know that we mustn’t …’

He took her hands and captured her wrists, held them over her head and hungrily kissed her. Then with words he fought for what they both needed tonight. ‘We must.’

His words were truthful, and he was fierce. Even naked he ruled her as he told her that he would make it work.

‘We will be together …’

‘There is no way …’

‘I will find a way,’ he told her. ‘I will make this work. I will come to you in the night-time and in later years I will visit you and the girls in London.’

‘Your mistress …?’

‘More than a mistress,’ he said between frantic kisses. ‘You will care for the twins. You will raise them.’

Was it possible to love and hate at the same time?

To be filled with both want and loathing as he bound her to him, but with a life of lies?

He offered her everything, yet gave her nothing.

A life with no voice, Amy realised, and it was then that she found hers.

‘ No.’

His hands released their grip but she did not push him off. Instead she wrapped her arms around his back. ‘This ends tonight.’

Their bodies knew that she lied.

All night he had been wanting her, and all night she had been waiting for him. They met now and their kisses tasted of fury for the future they could not have. She felt his anger as he stabbed inside her—anger at the rules that denied him the woman he wanted by his side. But for now there was an outlet, and he was animal. He bucked inside her and she lifted her hips to him. Their eyes locked in a strange loathing of what they might make the other do so easily. So easily she came to him.

And so deeply he delivered.

He knew she would shout. He felt her lungs fill and the tension in her throat as he shot into her; he felt her scream even as it rose, for his body and his soul knew her.

She came in a way she never had before, tightened in possession as he drove her further. She was grateful for his hand that smothered her mouth, furious that the only restraint he could muster was to stifle her screams with the hand she could never take.

She told herself she hated him.

Reminded herself she did not want to be his wife.

She was relieved it was over, surely?

They lay for a suitable while, waiting for normality to return, for the madness to subside, for him to rise from her bed and head to his own. But as he went to do so Amy’s hand reached out to him and it was then that she cried, for she had proved that she lied.

Her fierce vow that it would end tonight had already been downgraded to the morning.

MORNING came whether she wanted it to or not.

The sun did not care that it ended them.

It did what it was born to—it rose and dictated that their time was over.

She knew Emir was awake next to her. She watched the fingers of light spread across the floor and before they reached the bed she felt his hand on her hip, then her waist. She closed her eyes as he tucked her body towards him, felt his erection and wanted to wake every morning to him. She did not want to be a woman who settled for a slice of his life—didn’t want to fit into allocated times. Yet had the phone not rung Amy knew that she would have.

‘The twins are on their way.’ Her voice was urgent as she hung up, ‘Kuma is bringing them now.’

There was no time for Emir to dress and leave, but he dealt with it instantly. Picking up the uniform he had so readily discarded last night, he headed to her en suite bathroom. This time it was he who hid there.

More than a little breathless, Amy searched for something to put on. Her panic was broken by a smile as a well-manicured hand appeared from the bathroom, holding her robe.

‘You need to relax,’ he warned her.

It was far easier said than done, because even as she tied the knot on her robe there was a knock on the door. When she opened it, there stood Kuma holding the smiling twins, who were clearly delighted to see Amy.

‘They had a wonderful night,’ Kuma explained, putting them down. The twins crawled happily in. ‘Clemira is really taken with the new Prince, but I think they both want someone more familiar this morning. How was your night?’ Kuma beamed. ‘I hear you were asked to join in the celebrations.’

‘I was.’ Amy nodded, nervous and trying not to show it, attempting to carry on the conversation as if she didn’t have the King of Alzan hiding in her room.

But thankfully Kuma did not prolong things. She wanted to get back to her young charge, so she wished Amy good morning and reminded her that the twins were expected to join the royals for breakfast in hour. ‘I hope that your time in Alzirz has been pleasant,’ Kuma said and then she was gone.

As was their time.

Like two homing devices, or observant kittens, the twins had made a beeline for the bathroom door, their dear little hands banging, calling out to the rather big secret behind it.

‘She’s gone.’ Amy’s face was burning as the door opened and out stepped Emir. She had expected him to be wearing his uniform, but instead he was dressed in a more standard thick white towelling robe.

‘I will say that I’m looking for the twins if someone sees me in the corridor.’ He had already worked out how to discard all evidence. ‘If you can pack my uniform …?’

‘Of course.’ Amy nodded, telling herself that this was what it would be like were they to continue.

The twins let out a squeal of delight as they realised the two people they loved most in the world were together in the same room. And the man who had asked her to believe that he had his daughters’ best interests at heart, even if he did not always show it, the man who so often did not reveal his feelings, confused her again as he picked up the girls and greeted them tenderly.

He went to hand them to Amy, but changed his mind.

‘I hear you take them swimming at the palace?’

‘Every day,’ Amy said. ‘They love it.’

Go , her eyes begged him.

‘Show me,’ he said.

And so she dressed them in their little costumes, put on yesterday’s red bikini, and now he wasn’t a distant sheikh king who watched from the poolside. Instead he made do with his surprisingly modern black hipsters and took to the water with his daughters.

Amy was suddenly shy.

It felt wrong at first to be in the water with him—wrong to join them, wrong when he splashed her, when he caught her unguarded, when he pulled her into the trio. But after a moment she joined in.

Amy knew what was wrong—it was because it felt right. For a little while they were a family—a family on vacation, perhaps—and they left their troubles behind.

Emir was a father to his daughters this morning, and the twins delighted at the love and affection surrounding them. Emir splashed around with Nakia, hoisted Clemira on his shoulders as she giggled in delight. And in the water with them was Amy, and he did not leave her out. They stopped for a kiss.

The pool was shaded by the palms, but the sun did not let them be. It dotted through the criss-cross of leaves and glimmered on the water. It chased and it caught up and there was nothing they could do.

‘Let me get a photo,’ Amy said. ‘For the nursery.’ She wanted the girls to have a picture with their father—a picture of the three of them together and happy.

This was how it could be, Amy realised as she looked at the image on her phone, looked at the people she felt were her family.