vented an unappreciative laugh and at the sound of it her eyes flew open. ‘You’re my wife,’ he said again, as if that very fact outranked everything else and rendered even her hostility meaningless.
‘Hopefully not for much longer,’ Elinor traded on the way back into the nursery.
A brooding presence, Jasim watched Elinor tuck Sami back into a baby seat and was then distracted by a nursery assistant while his mother made good her escape.
On the way back to her desk, Elinor was taken aback by the tumult of emotions swamping her and bringing overwrought moisture to her eyes. Dimly she acknowledged that she was very much in shock at Jasim’s descent and what it might mean to her and Sami. She had few illusions about the challenge she faced. Jasim was a Crown Prince with friends and contacts in government circles and big business and he enjoyed unlimited wealth and power. He could easily afford to hire top lawyers and launch a custody battle. Whether she liked it or not, she was going to have to share Sami with him.
It was not a compromise she found it easy to even consider, for she hated Jasim bin Hamid al Rais. She had believed herself to be strong and he had made her weak. It was degrading to acknowledge that she could have fallen in love as easily as a daydreaming teenager. But, worst of all, Jasim had cruelly misjudged her moral fibre when he’d given credence to Yaminah’s fears that her husband was paying too much attention to the nanny. That was all such ridiculous nonsense, Elinor reflected bitterly. With the exception of their first meeting and their final one at Jasim’s apartment, Elinor had never been alone on any other occasion with Prince Murad. Their few conversations had taken place in either his daughter’s presence or that of other staff. Nothing said during those brief harmless dialogues had been in any way improper or even mildly flirtatious. Her pride and her principles revolted against the knowledge that Jasim and goodness knew who else had chosen to believe she could be capable of any other kind of behaviour.
But consternation swept away her angry thoughts when she picked up her son at the end of the day. Two bulky bodyguards were now stationed outside the nursery.
Olivia advanced towards Elinor uncomfortably. ‘The prince insisted there must be a security presence to watch over his son while he is in our care. He also asked me not to mention their relationship to anyone else. Naturally I’m not going to breathe a word to anyone. I want to keep my job.’
‘I’m sure this is just a temporary arrangement,’ Elinor declared with more confidence than she felt, particularly when the same men followed her from the nursery and the older one informed her that a car was waiting to take them home. Rather than get involved in a dispute, Elinor acquiesced, but when she finally reached her apartment she was deep in troubled thoughts that were laced with a dangerous urge to simply pull up sticks and flee before Jasim sought to impose any more rules and restrictions.
‘My goodness, you’re back early,’ Alissa commented when she entered the apartment.
And Elinor shocked them both by bursting into floods of tears. She hadn’t let herself cry when she’d walked out on her sham of a marriage or during the unhappy aftermath while she struggled to build a new life rather than wallow in pointless regrets and self-pity. She hadn’t even let herself cry when she’d given birth to Sami alone. But Jasim had taken her by surprise and all of a sudden and without the slightest warning the world had become an intensely threatening place.
‘What on earth has happened? This is not like you at all,’ Alissa muttered in dismay just as Lindy came through the front door and demanded to know what was going on.
There and then, Elinor let down her barriers and told the truth about Sami’s conception and the secret marriage that had broken her heart and smashed her self-esteem.
‘Sami’s father is your husband? And a prince? Does that mean Sami is a prince as well?’ Alissa enquired in a daze.
‘I haven’t a clue.’ Elinor blew her nose and lifted her head again. ‘About the only thing I do know is that I couldn’t face going on the run with Sami—it wouldn’t be fair to him.’
‘Of course, you’re not going to do anything daft like that,’ Lindy interposed. ‘That’s only your panic talking.’
‘I want a divorce. I assumed that Jasim would already have taken care of that!’ Elinor erupted in a helpless surge of resentment over that fact.
‘You can discuss that with him tonight,’ Lindy replied.
Alissa frowned. ‘Shouldn’t you at least try being married for Sami’s sake? I mean, what was the point of getting married in the first place?’
Elinor paled before that uncompromisingly direct enquiry. ‘Everything changed the minute I heard Jasim talking to Yaminah—’
‘Basically I think you only really heard Yaminah raving and what she said could well be hogwash,’ Lindy commented. ‘Anyway, don’t you think that the idea that Jasim deliberately set out to seduce you is a bit, well … improbable?’
Alissa nodded quiet agreement with the other woman’s assessment. ‘You’re a very beautiful girl, Elinor. It’s more likely that Jasim was simply attracted to you and the relationship was ruined by you falling pregnant when you had had virtually no time together as a couple. So dealing with the pregnancy took centre stage. Whatever you say about Jasim, he was very keen to stand by you and support you.’
Elinor groaned out loud and raked a frustrated hand through the auburn curls on her brow, her green eyes clouded by the growing confusion that had replaced her earlier certainty. ‘You two have a totally different take on the whole situation.’
Lindy laughed. ‘Of course we do. We’re not personally involved and we’re being wise after the fact, which is always easier. But I do think Jasim sounds like the sort of guy who might have deserved more of a chance than you were willing to give him.’
Elinor didn’t want to hear assurances of that nature, particularly from Lindy, who always saw the best in people and invariably argued on the side of kindness and common sense.
‘I also think …’ the more shy and less outspoken Alissa ventured, ‘that you need to make allowances for the fact that you didn’t marry into an ordinary family—’
‘Yes,’ Lindy chipped in with her agreement. ‘They’re fabulously wealthy and royal, and Sami isn’t just an ordinary little boy either if he’s in the line of accession to the throne. So how can you possibly expect to keep him to yourself?’
After that conversation Elinor had plenty to think about. She was in shock at an unbiased view of events that was very much different from her own. She wondered if she had been guilty of licking her wounds in silence for too long and if, during that process, her decisions had been unduly influenced by her bitterness, hurt and resentment. Had she overreacted on her wedding day? Should she have confronted Jasim there and then?
Those were the questions Elinor was tormenting herself with while she showered and changed. Shortly after she had bathed and fed Sami and left him in Alissa’s care for the evening, the car arrived to collect her. Casually and comfortably dressed in black leggings and a colourful purple top that finished mid-thigh, she climbed into the limo and breathed in deep. One way or another she would sort everything out and without getting upset. After all, it was eighteen months since their disastrous wedding and it was time she rose above resentment and wounded pride and moved on, she told herself squarely.
CHAPTER FIVE
JASIM, on the other hand, was not in the mood to move on anywhere. The past still had too strong a hold on him and his estranged wife’s dismissive approach to him earlier that day had outraged him. He would not have cared to relive the eighteen months of hell that her disappearance had put him through. A male who had long prided himself on his discipline and equanimity, Jasim could not comprehend why he was suddenly suffering from fierce surges of pure caustic rage.
When Elinor walked into the drawing room at the town house, Jasim was immediately struck by only one fact. ‘Where is my son?’ he