The Scandalous Collection. Кейт Хьюит
Didn’t he deserve all the recriminations she chose to hurl at his head? ‘Yes.’
‘To bring her up as your father once did, without a mother?’
‘Yes.’ He shook his head, as if he was coming out of a deep sleep. ‘It’s only been during the past few weeks that I realised I couldn’t possibly go through with it. That I couldn’t inflict on my own child what I had suffered myself. But for a while, the intention was there.’ He met the question which blazed from her eyes. ‘How you must hate me, Ella.’
For a second she thought that perhaps it would be easier if she did, because the man who stood before her was the most complex individual she’d ever met. And didn’t she suspect that the dark and complicated side of him wanted her to hate him? That it would be easier for him if she did, if she pushed him away and thus reinforced all his prejudices against women.
But Ella realised that nobody had ever been there for Hassan, not emotionally. After his mother had left, he’d never let anyone get close enough to try, and she wondered if she had the courage to do that. To risk being rejected by him all over again.
Yet what choice did she have? To live a life blighted by regret because she hadn’t had the guts to put her pride aside and reach out for a man who badly needed love. Her love—and their daughter’s love. Couldn’t she and Rihana help his damaged heart to heal?
‘I don’t hate you, Hassan,’ she said softly. ‘In fact, I love you. Even though you didn’t want me to love you. And even though you did your best to make me turn my heart against you. I have to tell you that it hasn’t worked. And that if you were to ask me to stay here, with Rihana, and to be a proper wife in every sense of the word, then I would do it in a heartbeat. But I will only do it on one condition.’
Her soft and powerful words had momentarily stilled him, but now he stirred because conditions were familiar territory to him. His eyes were wary as they looked at her. ‘Which is?’
She swallowed. ‘I need to know that you care for me in some small way. That there’s a small seed of affection in your heart which maybe we can nurture and grow. And that you will nurture it, because while I’ve grown rather fond of the sand which surrounds us, I can’t live my life in an emotional desert.’
For long, silent seconds he stared at her, recognising the courage it had taken to lay open her feelings like that. How she humbled him with her courage! His eyes began blinking rapidly and when eventually he could bring himself to speak, his voice sounded strangely hoarse to his ears—the way it had done when he’d had his tonsils removed as a boy. ‘Not a seed,’ he said brokenly.
‘Not a seed?’ she repeated in confusion.
He shook his head. ‘Not a seed, no, but an eager young plant in its first rapid flush of life. For that is the strength of my “affection” for you, Ella!’ A rush of emotion surged through his veins as he reached out and pulled her in his arms. ‘But I do not know it by such a mediocre word as affection, because for days now I have been realising that it is called something else. Something I have never known before, nor dared to acknowledge.’
‘Could you perhaps try acknowledging it now?’ she suggested gently, knowing instantly what he meant because she could see it written all over his face. But she needed badly to hear it. She had bared her heart to him and now Hassan needed to redress the balance. To be her equal in every way there was.
He took both her hands in his. ‘Ella, I … love you. You hear how my voice falters on these words, but that does not mean you should doubt them. With all my heart and body and mind, I love you. You are everything a woman should be and I do not know why a generous fate should have brought you into my life. You have offered me your heart when I do not deserve—’
‘No!’ Her fierce word cut him short but her hands were trembling as she reached up to cup his dark and beloved face between her palms. ‘You didn’t deserve the childhood you had and maybe I didn’t either. But I think it’s time we had some lovely things in our life together, and they are right here at our fingertips. We can reach out and take them any time we want, starting right now. Not palaces or privileges or some flashy lifestyle with stuff, but you, me and Rihana.’
‘And our marriage will not fail,’ he declared softly.
‘No, it won’t—because we won’t let it fail,’ she agreed shakily. ‘We will learn from all the mistakes our parents made and we will give Rihana the kind of childhood that neither of us knew.’
His lips were passionate as he claimed hers in a kiss far deeper than any kiss he’d ever known. It was about more than passion and maybe about even more than love. It was about understanding and forgiving. About commitment and sharing. About making a happy home for the little girl who lay sleeping in her crib.
Bobby Jackson had christened his daughter Cinderella because he’d wanted her to marry a prince and somehow his rather ambitious dream had come true.
But Ella and Hassan had very different aspirations for their little girl, and that was why Rihana’s middle name was Hope.
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‘NOW there, at least, is a Jackson who has bettered himself.’
Princess Natalia Santina glanced at her mother, whose arctic tone belied what had sounded like a compliment. Queen Zoe’s eyes were narrowed, her lips pressed together in disapproval. Her usual look then. Natalia turned to see who was the subject of her mother’s grudging praise. Her gaze moved through the crowd of well-heeled guests who had come to the engagement party of her older brother Alessandro and his unexpected fiancée, Allegra, daughter of British tabloid fodder and ex-footballer Bobby Jackson, to finally rest on Ben Jackson, Allegra’s older brother and self-made millionaire. Not that the money made a difference to her mother. Anyone, she liked to say with a sniff, could make money. Breeding was what mattered.
After all, the fiancé who had thankfully just broken Natalia’s own engagement—Prince Michel of the small mountain principality of Montenavarre—hadn’t had much money. He’d claimed Natalia had possessed impossibly expensive tastes, which was undoubtedly true for him. Prince Michel might be second in line to the throne but he was practically penniless, and in any case Natalia had no intention of spending her life in some draughty castle in the Alps, listening to her husband go on and on about his country’s tediously noble history.
The question of just how she intended to spend her life remained, as yet, unanswered. For the moment Natalia was simply glad to enjoy her reprieve from matrimony. Nothing in her experience so far had recommended it.
Now her own gaze narrowed as she took in Ben Jackson’s powerful form. He was dressed in a well-cut grey silk business suit, his tie a sober navy, his movement restrained and precise as he chatted to another guest. Unlike his father, whose flashy tie, booming voice and expansive gestures proclaimed