Sandra Marton - Pleasure - The Sheikh's Defiant Bride

He had come here for only one reason and it was time to get to it. He took a deep breath, slowly expelled it and looked at her.

“I suggest it’s time you listen to what I have to say.”

She answered by walking to the door and reaching for the knob.

“Goodbye, your highness.”

“Madison. Damn it, I said—”

“I heard what you said. Now, you listen!” Her face was cold as she swung the door open. “If you ever so much as come near me again—”

“You are pregnant.”

Her mouth fell open. Good, he thought grimly. He had her attention, at last.

“What did you say?”

“You found out today, when you visited your doctor.”

“How—how do you know that?”

“Shut the door and I’ll tell you. Unless, of course, you’d prefer to invite your neighbors to join us …?”

A second ticked by, then another. Finally she closed the door and folded her arms. Her stance was defiant but her eyes were dark with shock.

“How do you know that I’m pregnant?”

He shrugged. “Information is not difficult to acquire when you know the right people.”

“Damn it, what’s this all about? You’re poking into my private life.”

“Yes.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Your private life—and mine.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You became pregnant through artificial insemination.”

“What is this?” Her eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me. You can’t really think you can blackmail me into bed—”

He laughed. Her eyes narrowed; she stalked toward him and, despite everything, he found himself admiring her courage.

“I want answers, damn it! And I want them immediately.” She stabbed a finger into the center of his chest. “How do you know these things about me? Why have you invaded my privacy?”

As he had moments ago, Tariq caught her hand, trapped it within his, his laughter gone.

“You have it wrong,” he said coldly. “It is you who invaded my privacy.”

“I never even knew your name until five minutes ago!”

“No,” he said softly. He waited; her eyes lifted to his. “But it was my sperm that made you pregnant.”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. She even laughed. Whatever reaction he’d expected, it wasn’t that.

“Very funny.”

“Damn it, woman,” Tariq growled, “this is no joke. I’m telling you the truth. There was a mix-up somewhere. I—I gave a donation of—of my semen.” Hell, this was no time to stumble over explanations. “My doctor sent it to your company for storage but it ended up at your doctor’s office.”

Her face drained of color.

“I don’t believe it.”

Her voice was thready. Good, he thought coldly. At least he was no longer the only one in shock.

“There couldn’t have been a mistake! FutureBorn never—”

“Never be damned. It did.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not possible!”

“I said the same thing but it looks like we were both wrong. You were inseminated with my seed. The child you carry in your womb—”

The words wouldn’t come. Thinking about it in the abstract had been difficult enough. Saying it to her was impossible.

“The child—this child inside me is—is yours?”

Her voice had gone from thready to the faintest whisper.

Tariq nodded. “Yes.”

Her mouth opened, then shut. Good, he thought with harsh satisfaction. For once, he’d rendered her speechless.

“However,” he said briskly, now that the worst was out of the way, “though you are hardly the woman I would have chosen to bear my son—or my daughter—the situation is easily remedied.”

She was staring at him, no expression on her face at all. Good. She was taking the news well but then, she was a businesswoman. She would surely accept his settlement offer with the same equanimity with which he would make it.

How right he’d been to break the news himself. Strickland would probably still be talking his way into her apartment.

“Your child,” she said. “Your child …”

She started to laugh, which he thought was odd despite her calm acceptance of what he’d just told her … except, she wasn’t laughing, she was gasping for air.

“Madison?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

Her eyes rolled up in her head. All Tariq had time to do was curse and catch her in his arms as she slumped toward the floor in a dead faint.

IF THIS had been a movie, Madison knew she’d have come out of the faint with feminine grace, the back of her hand to her forehead, fluttering her lashes as she looked up at the dark-haired hero holding her safely in his arms.

But this wasn’t a movie. It was reality, and she came to abruptly in the arms of a man she’d hoped she would never see again.

“What,” she said shakily, “what happened?”

“You fainted, habiba.”

“I never—”

“Nonetheless, you did.”

His tone was sharp but she could have sworn she saw concern in his eyes. It startled her until she realized any man would be concerned if a woman dropped to the floor, unconscious.

Unconscious, because he’d told her she was pregnant with his baby.

The shock hit for a second time. The room spun; she moaned. Tariq cursed but his touch was gentle when he drew her head to his shoulder.

“Easy. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. That’s it. And again.”

Get up, she told herself. Damn it, shove him away and get on your feet.

But the room was still tilting. And—and despite everything, his arms felt like a safe haven.

His shoulder was hard, but somehow it cushioned her head better than the softest pillow.

His arms were hard, too, but they felt gentle as they held her.

Even his scent was comforting, masculine and clean.

She could hear the beat of his heart against her ear, steady and reassuring and—and—

“Habiba?” He cupped her face in one big hand and looked into her eyes. “Good,” he said gruffly. “Some color has come back into your face.”

She nodded.

“How do you feel?”

“Better.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes. Thank you, I’m—I’m—”

Thank you? Had she lost her senses? What was she thanking him for?

He had just told her the most monumental lie.

What he claimed wasn’t possible. FutureBorn prided itself on running a mistake-free operation. They would never have sent her doctor the wrong sperm and this man, all ego and arrogance, would never have offered himself as a donor.

She was on FutureBorn’s board. She knew the profile of what the company thought of as its typical contributors. Young medical students, struggling to pay their way through school. Scientists and artists who believed their DNA should live on into the future. A handful were simply men who understood how desperately some women wanted to conceive and contributed sperm as an act of selflessness.

Tariq al Sayf, or whatever he called himself, was not a struggling student. He was not a scientist or an artist and to think of him as an altruistic man with the good of humanity in mind was a joke.

He was the rich, self-centered prince of a country undoubtedly trapped in the dark ages.

If he was a prince at all.

New York was filled with people claiming empty titles.

So, no, she didn’t believe what he’d told her. He was lying, though she couldn’t imagine why he would.

And why was she still in his arms wearing nothing but a robe as thin as a handkerchief? Thin enough so she could feel his heart, beating against hers, felt his body infusing hers with its heat?

Madison jerked upright.

“Thank you for your help,” she said stiffly, “but I’m fine now.”