Princess's Secret Baby

Author:Carol Marinelli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2014-02-05T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

LEILA WAS MEASURED for her new robes and slippers. It went on for the entire afternoon. She chose from swatches of heavy silks in light colours and made her selection of beads and threads. It was so different from home where her clothes simply arrived and Leila was expected to wear them without comment.

‘They’re going to be beautiful,’ Leila said as she told James about them when he came out of the shower to dress for dinner with his parents. ‘I have chosen soft colours—back at home it was all silver and gold...’ She could sense his distraction and her voice trailed off. ‘What should I wear to meet your parents?’

‘Whatever you feel most comfortable in,’ came James’s less than helpful response.

She could feel his tension and she recognised it, for it was how Leila had felt every day when she had lived at the palace.

Leila selected her gold robe and she did up the little buttons at the back that her maid had usually done. James tried not to watch the small struggle it took for her to do that. He tried not to remember the night she had unzipped her dress for him while, at the same time, Leila sulked that he did not help her.

‘Did you get buttons at the front for your new robes?’ James asked once Leila had finally done them up.

‘A woman of standing has buttons at the back and doesn’t do up her own. It is common to have them at the front.’

She noticed him, too, though.

There were beads of water on his back that he had missed while drying. As he went to get out his shirt, Leila wanted to take up the towel and dry his back. She wanted to kiss his tense shoulders, but instead she watched as he slipped his shirt on and selected a tie.

‘You didn’t shave,’ Leila commented because he had said that he was going to.

‘And I didn’t cut my hair,’ James clipped, and then he saw her frown. ‘You’ll see.’

They were driven to his parents and Leila attempted conversation. ‘I am thinking that maybe I should try and ring my parents,’ Leila said. ‘Though no doubt I have been disowned.’

‘I dream of the day my parents disown me...’ James stared moodily out of the car window and then stopped. ‘That was insensitive.’

‘You are at times.’ Leila turned and smiled. ‘I like that about you.’

‘Like what?’

‘That you speak your truth.’

‘Well, you’re the only one who does!’

He took her phone and she gave him the number of the palace phone and he found the international code for Surhaadi, which he tapped into the phone.

‘It’s there when you’re ready to call them.’

‘It rings in their lounge,’ Leila said, and she closed her eyes remembering the last time she was there. She knew she might never be brave enough to ring them.

It helped to know that she could though.

‘Come on then,’ he said as they arrived at his parents’ home. God, he remembered the misery of coming home on school holidays.

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