Free The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus by Penny Jordan

her to bed, out of a cold-hearted, despicable, damnable desire to prove to his cousin that she was a...a wanton who would give herself to any man!
    Fate had been doubly kind to her, she told herself staunchly: firstly in ensuring that she had not betrayed her sister, and secondly in giving her incontrovertible proof of just what manner of man Xavier was!

CHAPTER SIX
    A S SHE stepped inside the welcome familiarity of her Beach Club bungalow, Mariella allowed herself to expel a shaky sigh of relief. Her first since she had left the oasis!
    Now that she was safely here, perhaps she could allow herself to put the events of the last forty-eight hours firmly behind her. Lock them away in a very deep sealed drawer marked, ‘Forget for ever.’
    But how could she forget, how could any human being forget an act as deliberately and cold-bloodedly cruel and damaging as the one Xavier had perpetrated against her?
    If she herself had been a different kind of woman she might have taken a grim sense of distorted pleasure in knowing that, for all he might try to deny it, Xavier had physically wanted her. In knowing it and in throwing that knowledge back at him! Instinctively she knew that he would be humiliated by it, and if any man deserved to be humiliated it was Xavier!
    Just thinking about him was enough to have Mariella’s hands curling into small, passionately angry fists. As her heart drove against her ribs in sledgehammer blows. How could he possibly not have recognised that she would never, ever, ever under any circumstances betray her love, and that if she had been another man’s lover nothing he could have done would have tempted her to want him? Hadn’t her body itself proclaimed to him the unlikeliness, the impossibility of her being Fleur’s mother and any man’s intimate lover?
    But believing that he had been Tanya’s lover hadn’t stopped her, had it?
    She would carry that shame and guilt with her to her deathbed, Mariella acknowledged.
    The message light on the bungalow’s communications system was flashing, indicating that she had received several telephone calls, all from the prince’s personal assistant, she discovered when she went to check them. Before answering them, the first thing she intended to do now that she was safely back at the hotel was ring her sister and double check that she had not misunderstood Xavier—he was not Tanya’s lover or Fleur’s father!
    And once she had that confirmation safely in her possession, then Xavier would be history!
    * * *
    I T TOOK HER several attempts to get through to Tanya, who eventually answered the phone sounding breathless and flustered.
    ‘I’m sorry, Ella,’ she apologised quickly. ‘But things are really hectic here and... Look, I can’t really talk right now. Is Fleur okay?’
    ‘Fleur is fine. She’s cut her first tooth, but, Tanya, there’s something I’ve got to know,’ Mariella told her, firmly overriding her attempts to end the call.
    ‘I must know Fleur’s father’s name, Tanya. It’s desperately important!’
    ‘Why? What’s happened? Ella, I can’t tell you...’
    Hearing the panic in her sister’s voice, Mariella took a deep breath. ‘All right! But if you won’t tell me who he is, Tanya, then please at least tell me that his first name isn’t Xavier...’
    ‘Who?’ Tanya’s outraged shriek almost hurt her eardrums. ‘Xavier? You mean that horrid cousin of Khalid’s? Of course he isn’t Fleur’s father. I hate him... He’s the one responsible for parting me and Khalid! He sent Khalid away! He doesn’t think that I’m good enough for him! Anyway...how do you know about Xavier, Ella? He’s an arrogant, overbearing, old-fashioned, moralistic beast, who lives in the Dark Ages! Look, Ella, I’ve got to go... Love to Fleur and lots of kisses.’
    She ended the call before Mariella could stop her, leaving her gripping the receiver tensely.
    But at least she had confirmed that Xavier was not Fleur’s father.
    Determinedly