The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus Read Online Free Page A

was? Then?
    ‘I want to see Sheikh Xavier Al Agir,’ Mariella told him again, gathering her composure together. ‘I presume he is here?’
    ‘What do you want to see him for?’
    Mariella had had enough. ‘That is no business of yours,’ she said angrily. Inwardly she was worrying how on earth she was going to get back to the city and the comfort of her Beach Club bungalow and what on earth a man as wealthy as the sheikh was reputed to be was doing out here with this...this...this arrogant predator of a man!
    ‘Oh, I think you’ll find that anything concerning Xavier is very much my business,’ came the gritted reply.
    Something—Mariella wasn’t sure what—must have alerted her to the truth. But she was too shocked by it to voice it, looking from his eyes to his mouth and then back again as she swallowed—hard—against the tight ball of shock tightening like ice around her heart. ‘You...you...can’t be the sheikh,’ she told him defiantly, but her voice was trembling lightly, betraying her lack of confidence in her own denial.
    Was this man her sister’s lover...and Fleur’s father? What was that sharp, bitter, dangerous feeling settling over her like a black cloud?
    ‘You are the sheikh, aren’t you?’ she acknowledged bleakly.
    A brief, sardonic inclination of his head was his only response but it was enough.
    Turning away from him, she reached into the baby carrier and tenderly removed Fleur. Her whole face softened and illuminated with love as she hugged her and then kissed her before looking him straight in the eyes and saying fiercely to him, ‘This is Fleur, the baby you have refused to both acknowledge and support.’
    She had shocked him, Mariella realised, even though he had concealed his reaction very quickly.
    As he stepped back from the vehicle for a second Mariella thought he was going to tell her to leave—and cravenly she wanted to do so! The man, the location, the situation were so not what she had been anticipating and prepared herself for. Each one of them in their different ways shattered not just her preconceptions but also her precious self-containment.
    The man—try as she might she could just not envisage him in the club where Tanya had performed. The location made her ache for her painting equipment and brought her artistic senses to quick hunger. And her situation! Oh, no... Definitely no! This man had been her sister’s lover, and was Fleur’s father—
    The shadowy fear that had stalked her adult years suddenly loomed terrifyingly sharply in front of her. She would not be like her mother; she would not ever allow herself to be vulnerable in any way to a man who could only damage her emotionally. The ability to fall in love with the wrong man might be learned, but it was not, to the best of Mariella’s knowledge, inherited!
    ‘Get out!’
    Get out? With pleasure! Gripping the steering wheel, Mariella reached for the door, slamming it closed and then switching on the ignition at the same time, then she threw the vehicle into a furious spurt of reverse speed.
    The tyres spun; sand filled the air. She could hear a thunderous banging on her driver’s door as the car refused to budge. Looking out of the window, she saw Xavier looking at her in icy, furious disbelief.
    Realising that she was bogged down in the swirling sand, Mariella switched off the engine. If he wanted her to leave he would have to move the vehicle for her, she recognised in angry humiliation.
    As the engine died he was yanking the door open, demanding, ‘What the hell do you think you are trying to do?’
    ‘You told me to get out!’ Mariella reminded him, equally angry.
    ‘I meant get out of the car, not...’ As he swore beneath his breath, to her shock he suddenly reached into the vehicle and snapped off her seat belt, grasping her so tightly around her waist that it actually hurt.
    As he pulled her free of her seat and swung her to the ground she had a sudden shocking image of the two of them in