Harlequin Presents: Once Upon A Temptation June 2020--Box Set 2 of 2

hold while striving not to make a production out of the withdrawal. She was painfully aware that they were not alone, and she was keen to follow his example and behave as though everything between them were normal. ‘Think I’m just tired…’
‘You must rest, of course,’ Rafiq murmured quietly. ‘Beforehand, however, the doctors are asking if they could have your consent to carry out an ultrasound procedure…?’
In awe of his self-assurance, his ability to act as though there were nothing crazy about the situation, she nodded jerkily. ‘Yes, that would be fine, I suppose. Though it might be too early to see much…’
He was sheathed like a rapier blade in a pale grey suit teamed with a white shirt and a red silk tie. Her eyes continually tracked a path back to him, connecting with scorching gold semi-screened by his black lashes, and in the depths of his steady gaze she caught the merest glimpse of all the strong emotion and reaction he was suppressing for the sake of appearances, she assumed. He was so strong, so self-disciplined, she recognised, uncomfortable with that moment of truth and deliberately turning her head away. What on earth had got into her at the airport to say such a thing? Inside herself, she cringed at her reckless impulsive revelation, recalling the astounded response she had drawn from her audience before she fainted.
An ultrasound machine was wheeled in for the scan. A nurse rolled up Izzy’s cotton tunic top a few inches and Izzy lifted her hips to enable the stretchy waistband of her casual trousers to be rolled down a little, baring her still-flat stomach. The transponder ball rubbed over her exposed skin and goosebumps broke out on her skin as a galloping heartbeat began to thunder through the room and she gasped, peering in wonder at the screen the operator was indicating to her, breaking into a flood of words in her own language with a huge smile.
‘T-twins…’ Rafiq stammered in a hoarse undertone. ‘You are carrying twins. It is too early as yet to know the gender, but the doctor believes that they are fraternal, not identical.’
His hand had found hers again, she didn’t know when or how, was, indeed, in too much shock to notice anything beyond the screen where the operator was beaming and chattering away, outlining the two tiny vague bean shapes while their heartbeats went on thundering. Twins, she thought in wonderment, with an undernote of panic because her mother had shared what a challenge it had often been to raise two babies. And yet there they were, already part of her, she acknowledged, struggling to concentrate as Rafiq translated the information she was being given as well as the round after round of hearty congratulations delivered to them both as though they were a proper couple.
In the aftermath of all that excitement, Izzy felt drained and her head flopped back heavily on the pillow. Although their audience had melted away with the promise of pictures of the scan to be brought back later, Izzy was too exhausted to deal with Rafiq and all the many complications that their situation would unleash. Mercifully he seemed to understand that because he released her hand and stood up.
‘You should rest now. We will talk later,’ he murmured unevenly, something ragged in his voice that tugged at her, but her eyelids were too heavy to open and she drifted off to sleep on that last abstracted thought.
* * *
Rafiq had been plunged into a state of earth-shattering shock. In fact, he had to walk out of the palace into the ornamental garden that fronted it to deal with that shock because he didn’t have the slightest doubt that, when Izzy had conceived within such a time frame, he was responsible. That far, he had innate trust in her. He was going to be a father. His bodyguards waited at the edge of the garden, watching Rafiq wander around the lavender-edged paths that traversed the tranquil stretch of green grass, maintained at such huge expense of water in the Zenarian heat. Throughout that aimless wandering he was battling to adapt to the idea that he could truly have a child of his own.
And it was an enormous shock because Rafiq had long accepted that he was infertile, and that fatherhood would never be an option for him. Yet, one little contraceptive accident and Izzy had conceived. How likely was that? What had happened to that birth control she had been taking?
But he genuinely didn’t care. He was so grateful, so ecstatic that it was possible for him to father a child that he could barely catch a breath. Such a development lifted all the weighty responsibility from his little brother’s shoulders because Zayn would no longer be expected to marry to provide an heir to the Zenarian throne. Zayn would be left free as Rafiq had once dreamt of being and, in being free, he would set Rafiq free of guilt and concern.
In fact, Izzy’s pregnancy totally changed everything Rafiq had once taken for granted. A child, two children indeed, he recalled almost dizzily. The palace staff had automatically assumed that Izzy was his wife, married abroad, it being the default position of a conservative culture to believe that a man of his background could only have achieved parenthood within conventional boundaries.
But she wasn’t his wife, this amazing woman who had contrived to conceive his children. Children, he savoured, child in the plural. Nobody else could possibly understand what that single word meant to Rafiq, long accustomed to viewing himself as the inadequate husband who had denied his wife her basic, desperate need to have a child. It transformed his entire view of life in a way that only he could understand. He had to marry Izzy, as soon as it could possibly be arranged. There was no other choice.
But even as he came to terms with the wonderful change Izzy had brought to his life, stark fear underlined that new