any reason other than that she had a child using the facility.
At finishing time, Elinor caught the lift down to the ground floor. She was relieved to see that Jasim’s security guards were no longer stationed outside the crèche. Had he realised how much comment their presence would cause once enough people noticed them? Walking through the door, her eyes automatically scanning the room for Sami, Elinor stiffened at the look of surprise in Olivia’s face.
‘What’s wrong?’ Elinor questioned.
The older woman drew her off to one side. ‘The prince took Sami after lunch. I assumed you knew,’ she admitted worriedly.
‘Took … him?’ Elinor queried, the words slurring together on a tongue that suddenly felt too clumsy to vocalise words.
‘He said he was taking him home.’
Perspiration beading her pale brow and gripped by complete overwhelming panic, Elinor pictured desert sand dunes and the power in her legs gave at the same time as the world around her folded into darkness. For the first time in her life, Elinor fainted. She recovered consciousness to find that she was in a seat with her head pushed down low.
‘Take a deep breath,’ Olivia was urging her in a stressed undertone. ‘Elinor, I assumed it was okay because he’s Sami’s father.’
‘Yes.’ Elinor recalled that conversation in the older woman’s presence and snatched in a shuddering breath. With all her courage she fought off the nausea and the dread that were making it impossible for her to think normally. Would Jasim just snatch Sami and fly him out to Quaram? She suspected that her estranged husband was heartless enough to stake his claim in an aggressive manner. Possession, after all, was nine-tenths of the law and who knew what the law on child custody was in Quaram? She was willing to bet that it would favour the ruling family rather than a runaway wife.
Somehow in the background people were talking and she struggled to regain her focus. ‘Are you feeling any better?’ Olivia prompted hopefully. ‘The prince has sent a car to collect you.’
Elinor glanced up and saw two of Jasim’s security team awaiting her at the door and the sense of relief that swept her then was so immense that she felt weak enough to pass out again. Jasim would scarcely have sent a car for her if he had removed Sami from the country behind her back. But how dared he have taken Sami from the crèche without telling her? She was outraged by an act that had reduced her to a state of sick, almost petrified, fear and an even more terrifying awareness of her own impotence. If Jasim decided to fight dirty rather than talk, what was she going to do to hold her own?
Her nerves honed to a fine edge of impatience, Elinor stalked into the book-lined luxury of Jasim’s library where he greeted her from behind his desk. She noted in some dismay that Sami wasn’t in the room.
‘Where’s Sami?’
‘He’s asleep upstairs. I will take you to him—’
‘I want to speak to you first.’ Elinor wasted no time being relieved that her son was still safe in London. She got between Jasim and the door and stared up at him, apprehension and resentment combining in a fiery combustible mix inside her. Indisputably sexy blue-black stubble was beginning to shadow his strong jaw line and roughen the skin round his handsome mouth. Tipping her head back even further, she clashed with the cool topaz challenge of his level gaze.
‘You had no right to remove Sami from the nursery without my permission!’ she condemned forcefully.
Ice chilled his hard dark gaze. ‘I am his father. I will act as I think best. Sami was upset and he was not receiving the level of care that I would expect. That is why I removed him from the nursery,’ he responded with measured calm.
‘You had no right. Have you any idea how I felt when I found out you’d taken him?’ she demanded half an octave higher. ‘I was afraid you’d taken him back to Quaram and I’d never see him again.’
‘Fortunately for you I have more scruples than you have,’ Jasim said drily. ‘I wouldn’t do that to you or Sami.’
‘But you should have warned me of your plans.’
‘I did try to phone you.’
Elinor dug out her mobile and switched it on, seeing that several missed calls had been logged. Some of her anger ebbed away. He had at least tried to contact her.
But Jasim had not finished with her yet. ‘As for seeking your permission, why should I have done? Did you seek my permission when you deprived me of all contact with my child for almost a year?’
Elinor moved restively away from the door, her angry colour dulling as he hit her on her weakest flank. ‘That was different. I had good reason for acting as I did then.’
‘No, you did not,’ Jasim countered without hesitation, his assurance in contradicting her like a slap in the face. ‘Only if I was an abusive parent would you have had an acceptable excuse for ignoring my parental rights. When you walked out on our marriage on our wedding day, you were thinking only of yourself and how you felt at that moment. I refuse to credit that you considered how that decision would affect our child or me.’
Consternation at the accuracy of his accusations increased Elinor’s tension. She had backed away as far as the edge of his desk and she leant back against it now for added support. When she looked at him, however, her anger was like a hard bitter knot inside her. His face still had a devastating beauty that cut through her defences. But, even more disturbingly, Jasim also had the proud demeanour and aloofness of a statue set in bronze. He seemed untouched by events that had torn her apart. His self-containment mocked her emotional turmoil and she hated him for it.
Was there any way of overcoming the sense of humiliation and shame she always felt in his presence? Once she had fallen head over heels in love with him and made no attempt to hide it. She had surrendered her virginity within hours of meeting him and that knowledge still marked her as painfully as a whiplash on tender skin. She had failed her own standards and made a fool of herself and those were truths that replayed constantly in her mind when he was around, reviving unwelcome memories of her weakness.
‘How did you expect me to feel after I heard what Yaminah had to say to you on our wedding day?’ Elinor demanded fiercely. ‘Was I really supposed to swallow my disgust at the way you had taken advantage of me to think about whether or not you would make a good father?’
‘I didn’t take advantage of you. Clearly you were incapable of judging the most important issues at stake. You are too keen to remind me of my supposed sins while ignoring your own,’ Jasim intoned with sardonic cool. ‘When you staged your vanishing act you put me in an appalling position with my family. I had to tell my father that I had married you but I was unable to produce my wife.’
‘Any woman would have walked out after that ghastly wedding!’ Elinor launched at him helplessly. ‘You hated every minute of it and you couldn’t even be bothered to hide how you felt!’
His dark eyes were cold as black ice. ‘I was conscious that I was acting without my father’s knowledge and I was ashamed of the fact.’
‘I offered you a get-out clause before the ceremony even began,’ Elinor reminded him with spirit.
‘Empty useless words,’ Jasim derided. ‘To deny our child the status of legitimate birth would have condemned him to a lifetime in the shadows. He could never have known my family or claimed his rightful place among them. I could not have lived with that option. Presenting my elderly father with our marriage as a fait accompli was a lesser evil but not an act I can take pride in.’
‘Of course it would have helped had you simply explained all that to me at the time,’ Elinor argued bitterly. ‘But you kept me at as much distance as you might have kept a stranger, so I’m not about to apologise for the fact that I had no idea what was going on behind the scenes! You showed no consideration to how I felt and I am never, ever going to forgive you for that!’
Troubled by her continuing defiance on the score of an event