‘We go live in five...’
‘Just say yes, Odir?’ she asked.
‘Four...’
‘It’s as easy as breathing.’
‘Three...’
His finger reached up to wipe away the trace of a tear that had appeared at the corner of her eye.
‘Two...’
The doors swung open on the front steps of the embassy, where the international press was waiting and the flashbulbs of the paparazzi exploded in front of them.
‘Yes.’
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press, Sheikh Odir Farouk Al Arkrin of Farrehed and his wife have an announcement to make...’
EPILOGUE
Three years later, the Farrehed Embassy, London
THE SHEIKH OF FARREHED and his wife chased down the rich red carpeted halls of the Farrehed Embassy after a giggling, determined two-year-old hell-bent on freedom.
‘Your child has inherited your waywardness, Wife,’ complained Odir.
‘And your stubbornness, Husband,’ Eloise replied with a smile, slightly out of breath. ‘I am too far gone for this, Odir,’ she replied, stopping to lean against the cool walls of the embassy.
Glancing down, she placed a comforting hand over her seven-month pregnancy bump.
Odir checked the end of the hallway, seeing Jarhan scoop up his nephew, grin knowingly at Odir and head off, leaving a trail of tiny hysterical giggles.
‘One day I fear that my brother will tickle our son to death.’
‘Don’t be silly. Besides, it’s good to have someone to help out. God knows we’ll need it when this one comes along.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider hiring a full-time nanny?’ Odir asked.
He understood his wife’s reluctance, but still feared that two children would exhaust her.
‘Absolutely. Besides, Mum has offered to come and stay—and Natalia’s also on hand if we need her. Though I think she might have her own hands full soon enough.’
Shock registered in her husband’s features. ‘Really?’
‘Really. But my lips are firmly sealed,’ she replied playfully.
‘More secrets, Wife?’ he said, without a trace of the bite with which he had once spoken to her.
Eloise marvelled at how dramatically their lives had changed in three short years.
Despite her doubts, her mother had been telling her the truth that night almost three years ago to the day. Angelina Harris had sought the help she’d needed, but she had done it on her own terms, and Eloise wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
Her father had been deeply shocked two years before, when Angelina had served him with divorce papers and simultaneously—and very publicly—ended his political career.
Eloise and Odir had weathered the storm of family revelations, and the press had quickly lost interest once some other international scandal had taken its place. Two years on, Eloise and her mother had managed to carve out the tentative foundations of what Eloise hoped would be a strong, loving and honest relationship. It wasn’t easy, but it was something that both women worked at each time they came together.
Natalia had also worked hard to overcome her personal demons and had undergone a successful transplant almost a year ago.
She felt a jerk in her stomach and groaned out loud.
‘What’s wrong?’ Odir asked, concern building in his eyes in a second.
She laughed. ‘Nothing. Just hiccups.’ She took his hand and laid his palm over her stomach. ‘I think it was all that running.’
Odir’s hand jumped as another hiccup vibrated through her frame. And love, so pure and so strong, filled his gaze.
‘Have I told you how much I love you?’ he asked.
‘Only yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. And all the days—’
Odir smothered his wife’s response with the kind of passion-fuelled kiss he knew his wife craved more than any of the bizarre food she had desired during this pregnancy.
She pulled away from his kiss, leaning her head against the wall, eyeing him with a seriousness he had not seen for some time.
‘Odir, I have a confession to make.’
His stomach clenched as he waited for his wife to continue.
‘I have been keeping a secret from you.’
He waited, knowing that whatever she felt her secret was they would survive it, they would face it together. For there was nothing his amazing wife couldn’t tell him. Nothing that would make him feel anything other than love for her.
‘It’s a girl.’
The smile that lit his wife’s eyes wrapped itself around his heart, and in that moment Odir honestly couldn’t want for anything more.
He leaned in close to his wife’s ear and whispered his love for her over and over again. His heart only settled when she turned and told him the same. Truth and love was all they had ever needed and all they ever would.
* * * * *
Coming soon
CLAIMING HIS HIDDEN HEIR
Carol Marinelli
‘We were so hot, Cecelia, and we could have been good, but you chose to walk away. You left. And then you denied me the knowledge of my child and I hate you for that.’ And then, when she’d already got the dark message, he gave it a second coat and painted it black. ‘I absolutely hate you.’
‘No mixed messages, then?’ She somehow managed a quip but there was nothing that could lighten this moment.
‘Not one. Let me make things very clear. I am not taking you to Greece to get to know you better, or to see if there is any chance for us, because there isn’t. I want no further part of you. The fact is, you are my daughter’s mother and she is too young to be apart from you. That won’t be the case in the near future.’
‘How near?’
Fear licked the sides of her heart.
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I know nothing about babies, save what I have found out today. But I learn fast,’ he said, ‘and I will employ only the best so very soon, during my access times, Pandora and I will do just fine without you.’
‘Luka, please…’ She could not stand the thought of being away from Pandora and she was spinning at the thought of taking her daughter to Greece, but Luka was done.
‘I’m going, Cecelia,’ Luka said. ‘I have nothing left to say
