The Sheikh's Baby Omnibus Read Online Free PDF

Apart from the fact that Tanya would be beside herself if she could not get in touch with her, what was the prince going to think if he returned and she wasn’t there?
    ‘I have to feed and change Fleur.’
    Luckily she had brought the baby bath with her as well as the changing mat, and Fleur’s pram cum carry-cot, mainly because she had not been quite sure what facilities would be available at the oasis.
    ‘Since it is obvious that you will have to stay the night, it is probably best that you and the child sleep in my... In the sleeping quarters,’ Xavier corrected himself. Mariella’s mouth went dry.
    ‘And...where will you sleep?’ she asked him apprehensively.
    ‘In here, of course. When you have fed and bathed the child I suggest that we both have something to eat. And then—’
    ‘Thank you, but I am perfectly capable of deciding for myself when I eat,’ Mariella told him sharply.
    * * *
    S HE WAS FAR more independent, and a good deal more fiery, than he had anticipated, Xavier acknowledged broodingly when Mariella had disappeared with Fleur. And quite definitely not his younger cousin’s normal type.
    Thinking of Khalid made his mouth tighten a little. He had been both furious and disbelieving when Khalid had telephoned him to announce that he had fallen in love and was thinking of marrying a girl he had met in a dubious nightclub. Khalid had been in love before, but this was the first time he had considered marriage. At twenty-four Khalid was still very immature. When he married, in Xavier’s opinion it needed to be someone strong enough to keep him grounded—and wealthy enough not to be marrying him for his money.
    His frown deepened. It had been his cynical French grandmother who had warned him when he was very young that the great wealth he had inherited from his father would make him a target for greedy women. When he had been in his teens his grandmother had insisted that he spent time in France meeting the chic daughters of her own distant relatives, girls who in her opinion were deserving of inheriting the ‘throne’ his grandmother would have had to abdicate when Xavier eventually married.
    Well-born though they were, those girls had held very little appeal for him, and, practical though he knew it would be, he found himself even less enamoured of the idea of contracting an arranged marriage.
    Because of this he had already decided that it would be Khalid who would ultimately provide the heir to his enormous fortune and, more importantly, take his place as leader of their historically unique tribe. But he hadn’t been in any hurry to nudge Khalid in the direction of a suitable bride—until he had learned of his plans vis-à-vis the impossible young woman who had forced her way into his private retreat!
    He didn’t know which of them had angered him the most! Khalid for his weakness in disappearing without leaving any indication of where he had gone, or the woman herself who had boldly followed up her pathetic attempt at blackmailing him via the letter she had sent Xavier, with a visit to his territory, along with the baby she was so determined to claim his cousin had fathered!
    Physically he had not been able to see any hint in the child’s features that she might be Khalid’s; she was as prettily blonde as her mother, and as delicately feminine. The only difference was that, whilst her mother chose to affect those ridiculous, obviously false turquoise-coloured contact lenses, the baby’s eyes were a warm hazel.
    Like Khalid’s?
    There was no proof that the child was Khalid’s, he reminded himself. And there was no way he was going to allow his cousin to marry her mother, without knowing for sure that Khalid was the father, especially now that he had actually met her. It was a wonder that Khalid had ever fallen so desperately in love with her in the first place!
    ‘She has the grace of a gazelle,’ he had written to him. ‘The voice of an angel! She is the sweetest and most gentle of