The Sheikh′s Love-Child
The Sheikh's Love-Child
Kate Hewitt
King of the desert, father of her child… With butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Lucy Banks has arrived in the desert kingdom of Biryal – with a secret! Seeing Sheikh Khaled – the man who once loved and left her – at home in his sumptuous royal palace, Lucy is blown away by his barbaric magnificence: he’s king of the desert, his eyes are blacker and harder than before, and he’s no longer the man she once knew.She wants to run away from his overwhelming masculinity. But they’re inextricably bound for ever…for he is the father of her son…
Kate Hewitt discovered her first Mills & Boon
romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.
After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com
Dear Reader
It has been such a thrill to write THE SHEIKH’S LOVE-CHILD as part of Mills & Boon
’s InternationalBillionaires series. I must confess I knew little about rugby before starting the book, and researching the rules (and the players!) was fascinating. I read rugby magazines, watched DVDs of famous matches, and found biographies and interviews of some of the sport’s most celebrated players.
My hero Khaled was inspired by a story I read of a player who suffered a serious injury and was kept from playing rubgy for several years. The effect his injury had not just on his body but his spirit was something I wanted to explore, and I hope you enjoy Khaled’s emotional journey, and how Lucy helps to heal both his body and his heart!
Happy reading
Kate
THE SHEIKH’S LOVE-CHILD
by
KATE HEWITT
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Don’t miss Kate Hewitt’s book
THE SHEIKH’S FORBIDDEN VIRGIN
out in August 2009
part of THE ROYAL HOUSE OF KAREDES
PROLOGUE
I’M SORRY.
The two words seemed to reverberate through the room, even though the man who’d spoken them had gone.
I’m sorry.
There had been a touch of compassion in the doctor’s voice, a thread of pity that had sent helpless rage coursing through Khaled as he’d lain there, prostrate, and watched the doctor shake his head, smile sadly and leave—leave Khaled with his shattered knee, his shattered career. His broken dreams.
He didn’t need to look at the damning X-rays or medical charts to know what he felt—quite literally—in his bones. He was a ruined wreck of a man with an impossible, inevitable diagnosis.
Outside thick, grey clouds pressed heavily down upon London, obscuring the city view with their dank presence. Prince Khaled el Farrar turned his head away from the window. His fists bunched uselessly on the hospital bed-sheets as pain ricocheted through him. He’d refused pain killers; he wanted to know what he was dealing with, what he would be dealing with for the rest of his life.
Now he knew: nothing. No amount of surgery or physical therapy could restore his rugby career or his ruined knee, or give him a future, a hope. At twenty-eight, he was finished.
A tentative knock sounded on the door and then Eric Chandler, England’s inside centre, peered round the doorway.
‘Khaled?’ He came into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
‘You heard?’ Khaled said through gritted teeth.
Eric nodded. ‘The doctor told me, more or less.’
‘There is no more,’ Khaled replied with a twisted smile. He was still gritting his teeth, and there was a pale sheen of sweat on his forehead. The pain was growing, rippling through him in a tidal wave of increasing agony. His nails bit into his palms. ‘I’ll never play rugby again. I’ll never—’ He stopped, because he couldn’t finish that sentence. To finish it would make it real, would open him to the pain and weakness. To admit defeat.
Eric didn’t speak, and Khaled thought more of him for his silence. What was there to say? What pithy tropism could help now? The doctor had said it all: I’m sorry.
Sorry didn’t help. It didn’t restore his knee or his future as a healthy, whole man. It didn’t keep him from wondering how long he had, how long his body had, before the illness claimed him and his bones crumbled away.
Sorry didn’t do anything.
‘What about Lucy?’ Eric asked after a long moment when the only sound in the hospital room had been Khaled’s raspy breathing.
Lucy. The single word brought memories slicing through him, wounding him. What could Lucy want with him now? Bitterness and regret lashed him, and he turned his head away, amazed that when he spoke his voice sounded so indifferent. So cold. ‘What about her?’
Eric glanced at him in sharp surprise. ‘Khaled—she—she wants to see you.’
‘Like this?’ With one hand Khaled gestured to his ruined leg. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘She’s concerned.’
Khaled shook his head. Lucy had feelings, maybe even love, for the man he’d been, not the man he was—and, far worse, the man he would eventually become. The thought of her rejection—her pity, disgust—made his hands bunch on the sheets again. ‘And so are you, it seems,’ he said coolly, and watched Eric flush in anger. Every part of him hurt, from his shattered knee to his aching heart. He couldn’t stand to feel so much pain, physical and emotional; he felt as if he would rip wide open from its force. ‘What is Lucy to you?’ he demanded, knowing he was being unfair, feeling unfair.
After a long moment Eric replied levelly, ‘Nothing. It’s what she is to you.’
Khaled turned his head to stare blindly out of the window. A fog was rolling in, thick and merciless, obscuring the endless cityscape. He closed his eyes, pictured Lucy with her long sweep of dark hair, her air of calm composure, her sudden smile. She’d taken him by surprise with that smile; he’d felt something turn over inside him, like fresh earth ready for planting. When she smiled for him, he felt like he’d been given a treasure.
She was the England team’s physiotherapist, and she’d been his lover for two months.
Two incredible months, and now this. Now he would never play rugby again, never be the man he was, the man everyone loved and admired. It hurt his ego, of course, but it also hurt something far deeper, wounded him inside like a bruise on the heart.
Everything had been snatched from him, snatched and ruined.
He thought of his father’s terse phone call, the life that awaited him in his home country of Biryal. Another prison sentence.
Khaled knew this life, the life he’d won for himself, was over now. There could be no going back. All of it, everything, was over.
Khaled opened his eyes. ‘She’s not that much to me.’ It hurt to say it, to act like he meant it. He turned his head away. ‘Where is she now?’
‘She went home.’
A single sound erupted from him, ringing with bitterness; it was meant to be a laugh. ‘Couldn’t stay around, could she?’
‘Khaled, you were in surgery for hours.’
‘I don’t want to see her.’
Eric sighed. ‘Fine. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘Ever.’
The refusal reverberated through the room with bitter, ominous finality, just as the doctor’s previous words had: I’m sorry.
Well, so was he. It didn’t change anything.
Across the room, Khaled saw his friend freeze. Eric turned slowly to face him. ‘Khaled…?’
Khaled smiled with bleak determination. He didn’t want Lucy to see him like this, couldn’t bear to see shock and dismay, fear and pity, darken her eyes as she struggled to contain the turbulent emotions and offer some weak, false hope. He couldn’t bear to hurt her by knowing she was afraid of hurting him.
He couldn’t bear to be so powerless, so he wouldn’t. There was a choice to make, and in a state of numb determination he found it surprisingly easy. ‘There is nothing for me here, Eric.’ No one. He took a breath, the movement a struggle. ‘It’s time I returned to Biryal, to my duties.’ What little duties he had that his father allowed him. For a moment he pictured his life: a crippled prince, accepting the pity of his people, the condescension of his father, the King.
It was impossible, unbearable, yet the alternative was worse—staying and seeing his life, his friends, his lover, move on without him. They would try to heal him with their compassion, and in time—perhaps not very much time, at that—he would see how his presence, his very self, had become a burden. He would hate them for it, and he would hate himself.
He had seen it happen before. He had watched his mother fade far too slowly over the years, the life and colour drained out of her by others’ pity. That had been far worse than the illness itself.
Better to go home. He’d known he had to return to Biryal some day; he just hadn’t expected it to be like this—limping back, wounded and ashamed.
The pain rose within him until he felt it like a howl of misery within his chest, iron bands tightening around his wasted frame, squeezing the very life, hope and joy out of him.
‘Khaled, let me get you something. Some painkillers…’
Eric’s voice was receding, Khaled’s vision blacking. Still he managed to shake his head.
‘No. Leave me.’ He struggled to draw a breath. ‘Please.’ Another breath; his lungs felt like they were on fire. ‘Don’t…don’t speak to Lucy. Don’t tell her…anything.’ He couldn’t bear her to see him like this, even to know he was like this.
‘She’ll want to know—’
‘She can’t. It would…it wouldn’t be fair to her.’ Khaled looked away, his eyes stinging.
After a long moment, as Khaled bit hard on his lip to keep from crying out, Eric left.
Then Khaled surrendered to the pain, allowed the bitter sorrow and defeat to swamp him until he was choking with it, as the first drops of rain spattered against the window.
CHAPTER ONE
Four years later
LUCY BANKS craned her head to catch a glimpse of the island of Biryal as the plane burst from a thick blanket of cottony clouds and the Indian Ocean stretched below them, an endless expanse of glittering blue.
She squinted, looking for a strip of land, anything green to signal that they were approaching their destination, but there was nothing to be seen.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she leaned back in her seat. She wasn’t ready to face Biryal, or more to the point its Crown Prince, Sheikh Khaled el Farrar.
Khaled… Just his name brought a tumbled kaleidoscope of memories and images to her mind—his easy smile, the way his darkly golden eyes had caught and held hers across a crowded pub after a match, the fizz of feeling that one look caused within her, the bubbles of anticipation racing along her veins, buoying her heart.
And then, unbidden, came the stronger, sweeter and more sensual memories. The ones she’d kept close to her heart even as she tried to keep them from her mind. Now, for a moment, she indulged them, indulged herself, and let the memories wash over her, making her blush in shame even as her heart ached with longing. Still.
Lying in Khaled’s arms, late-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window, and laughter—pure joy—rising unheeded within her. His lips on hers, his hands smoothing her skin, touching her like a treasure, as their bodies moved, their hearts joined. And she’d been utterly shameless.
Shamelessly she’d revelled in his attention, his caress. She’d delighted in the freedom of loving and being loved. It had seemed so simple, so obvious, so right.
The shame had come later, scalding her soul and breaking her heart, when Khaled had left England, left her, without an explanation or even a goodbye.
She’d faced his teammates—who’d watched her fall hard, had seen Khaled reel her in with practised ease—and now knew he’d just walked away.
Lucy swallowed and forced the memories back. Even the sweet, secret ones hurt, like scars that had never healed, just scabbed over till she helplessly picked at them once more.
‘All right?’ Eric Chandler slid into the seat next to her, his eyebrows lifting in compassionate query.
Lucy tilted her chin at a determined angle and forced a smile. ‘I’m fine.’
Of all the people who had witnessed her infatuation with Khaled, Eric perhaps understood it—her—the best. He’d been Khaled’s best friend, and when Khaled had gone he’d become one of hers. But she didn’t want his compassion; it was too close to pity.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ he said, and Lucy heard the faint thread of bitterness in his voice. This was a conversation they’d had before, when the opportunity of a friendly match with Biryal’s fledgling team had come up.
She shook her head wearily, not wanting to go over old ground. Eric knew why she’d come as much as she did. ‘You don’t owe him anything,’ Eric continued, and Lucy sighed. She suspected Eric had felt as betrayed as she had when Khaled had left so abruptly, even though he’d never said as much.
‘I owe Khaled the truth,’ she replied quietly. Her fingers flicked nervously at the metal clasp of her seat belt. ‘I owe him that much, at least.’
The truth, and that was all; a message given and received, and then she could walk away with a clear conscience, a light heart. Or so she hoped. Needed. She’d come to Biryal for that, and craved the closure she hoped seeing Khaled face to face would finally bring.
Khaled el Farrar had made a fool of her once. He would not do so again.
Khaled stood stiffly on the blazing tarmac of Biryal’s single airport, watching as the jet dipped lower and prepared to land.
He felt his gut clench, his knee ache and throb, and he purposely kept his face relaxed and ready to smile.
Who was on that plane? He hadn’t enquired too closely, although he knew some of the team would be the same. There would be people he would know, and of course the team’s coach, Brian Abingdon.
He hadn’t seen any of them, save Eric, since he’d been carried off the pitch mid-match, half-unconscious. He’d wanted it that way; it had seemed the only choice left to him. The rest had been taken away.
And what of Lucy? The question slipped slyly into his mind, and he pressed his lips together in a firm line, his eyes narrowing against the harsh glare of the sun.
He wouldn’t think of Lucy. He hadn’t thought of her in four years. It was astonishing, really, how much effort it took not to think of someone. Of her.
The silky slide of her hair through his fingers, the way her lashes brushed her cheek, the sudden throaty chuckle that took him by surprise, had made him powerless to do anything but pull her into his arms.
Too late Khaled realised he was thinking of her. He was indulging himself in sentimental remembrance, and there was no point. He’d made sure of that. He doubted Lucy was on that plane, and even if she was…
Even if she was…
His heart lurched with something too close to hope, and Khaled shook his head in disgust. Even if she was, it hardly mattered.
It didn’t matter at all.
It couldn’t.
He’d made a choice for both of them four years ago and he had to live with it. Still. Always.
The plane was approaching the runway now, and with a couple of bumps it landed, gliding to a stop just a few-dozen yards away from him.
Khaled straightened, his hands kept loosely at his sides, his head lifted proudly.
He’d been working for this moment for the last four years, and he would not hide from it now. He wanted this, he ached for it, despite—and because of—the pain. It was his goal; it was also his reckoning.
Lucy squinted in the bright sunlight as she stepped off the plane onto the tarmac. Having come from a drizzly January afternoon in London, she wasn’t prepared for the hot, dry breeze that blew over her with the twin scents of salt and sand. The landscape seemed to be glittering with light, diamond-bright and just as hard and unforgiving.
She fumbled in her bag for sunglasses, and felt Eric reach for her elbow to guide her from the flimsy aeroplane steps.
‘He’s here,’ he murmured in her ear, and even as her heart contracted she felt a flash of annoyance. She didn’t need Eric scripting this drama for her. She didn’t want any drama.
She’d already had that, lived it, felt it. Now was the time to stop the theatrics, to act grown up and in control. Cool. Composed.
Uncaring.
She pulled her elbow from Eric’s grasp and settled the glasses on her nose. Tinted with shadow, she could see the landscape more clearly: a stretch of tarmac, some scrubby brush, a rugged fringe of barren mountains on the horizon.
And Khaled. Her gaze came to a rest on his profile, and she realised she’d been looking for him all along. He was some yards distant, little more than a tall, proud figure, and yet she knew it was him. She felt it.
He was talking to Brian, the national team’s coach, his movements stiff and almost awkward, although his smile was wide and easy, and he clapped the other man on the shoulder in a gesture of obvious friendship and warmth.
With effort she jerked her gaze away and busied herself with finding some lip balm in her bag.
She hadn’t meant to walk towards Khaled; she wasn’t ready to see him so soon, and yet somehow that was where her legs took her. She stopped a few feet away from him, feeling trapped, obvious, and then Khaled looked up.
As always, even from a distance, his gaze nailed her to the ground, turned her helpless. Weak. She was grateful for the protection of her sunglasses. If she hadn’t been wearing them what would he have seen in her eyes—sorrow? Longing?
Need?
No.
Lucy lifted her chin. Khaled’s expressionless gaze continued to hold hers—long enough for her to notice the new grooves on the sides of his mouth, the unemotional hardness in his eyes—and then, without a blink or waver, it moved on.
She might as well have been a stranger, or even a statue, for all the notice he took of her. And before she could stop it Lucy felt a wave of sick humiliation sweep over her. Again.
She felt a few curious stares from the crowd around her; there were still enough people among the team and its entourage who remembered. Who knew.
Straightening her back, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and walked off with her head high and a deliberate air of unconcern. Right now this useless charade felt like all she had.
Still, she couldn’t keep the scalding rush of humiliation and pain from sweeping over her. It hurt to remember, to feel that shame and rejection again.
It was just a look, she told herself sharply. Stop the melodrama. When Khaled had left England four years ago, Lucy had indulged herself. She’d sobbed and stormed, curled up in her bed with ice cream and endless cups of tea for hours. Days. She’d never felt so broken, so useless, so discarded.
And now just one dismissive look from Khaled had her remembering, feeling, those terrible emotions all over again.
Lucy shook her head, an instinctive movement of self-denial, self-protection. No. She wouldn’t let Khaled make her feel that way; she wouldn’t give him the power. He’d had it once, but now she was in control.
Except, she acknowledged grimly, it didn’t feel that way right now.
The next twenty minutes were spent in blessed, numbing activity, sorting out luggage and passports, with sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades and beading on her brow.
It was hot, hotter than she’d expected, and she couldn’t help but notice as her gaze slid inadvertently, instinctively, to Khaled that he didn’t look bothered by the heat at all.
But then he wouldn’t, would he? He was from here, had grown up on this island. He was its prince. None of these facts had ever really registered with Lucy. She’d only known him as the charming rugby star, Eton educated, sounding as if he’d spent his summers in Surrey or Kent.
She’d never associated him with anything else, not until he’d gone halfway around the world, and when she’d needed to find him he’d been impossible to reach.
Even a dozen feet away, she reflected with a pang of sorrow, he still was.
Everyone was boarding the bus, and Lucy watched as Khaled turned to his own private sedan, its windows darkly tinted, luxurious and discreet. He didn’t look back, and she felt someone at her elbow.
‘Lucy? It’s time to go.’
Lucy turned to see Dan Winters, the team’s physician, and essentially her boss. She nodded and from somewhere found a smile.
‘Yes. Right.’
Lucy boarded the bus, moving to the back and an empty seat. She glanced out the window and saw the sedan pulling sleekly away, kicking up a cloud of dust as it headed down the lone road through the brush, towards the barren mountains.
Lucy leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Why had she bothered to track Khaled’s car? Why did she care?
When she’d decided to come to Biryal for the friendly match, a warm-up to the Six Nations tournament, she’d told herself she wouldn’t let Khaled affect her.
No, Lucy realised, she’d convinced herself that he didn’t affect her.
And he wouldn’t. She pressed her lips together in a firm, stubborn line as resolve hardened into grim determination within her. The first time she saw him was bound to be surprising, unnerving. That didn’t mean the rest of her time in Biryal would be.
She let out a slow breath, felt her composure trickle slowly back and smiled.
The bus wound its way along the road that was little more than a gravel-pitted track, towards Biryal’s capital city, Lahji. Lucy leaned across the seat to address Aimee, the team’s nutritionist.
‘Do you know where we’re staying?’
Aimee grinned, excitement sparking in her eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear? We’re to stay in the palace, as special guests of the prince.’
‘What?’ Lucy blinked, the words registering slowly, and then with increasing dismay. ‘You mean Prince Khaled?’
Aimee’s grin widened, and Lucy resisted the urge to say something to wipe it off. ‘Yes, wasn’t he gorgeous? I didn’t think I’d ever go for a sheikh, for heaven’s sake, but—’
‘I see.’ Lucy cut her off, her voice crisp. She leaned back in the seat and looked out of the window, her mind spinning. The scrub and brush had been replaced by low buildings, little more than mud huts with straw roofs. Lucy watched as a few skinny goats tethered to a rusty metal picket fence bleated mournfully before they were obscured in the cloud of sandy dust the bus kicked up.
They were staying at the palace. With Khaled. Lucy hadn’t imagined this, hadn’t prepared for it. When she’d envisioned her conversation with Khaled—the one she knew they’d had to have—she’d pictured it happening in a neutral place, the stadium perhaps, or a hotel lounge. She’d imagined something brief, impersonal, safe. And then they’d both move on.
They could still have that conversation, she consoled herself. Staying at the palace didn’t have to change anything. It wouldn’t.
She gazed out of the window again and saw they were entering Lahji. She didn’t know that much about Biryal—she hadn’t wanted to learn—but she did know its one major city was small and well-preserved. Now she saw that was the case, for the squat buildings of red clay looked like they’d stood, slowly crumbling, for thousands of years.
In the distance she glimpsed a tiny town, no more than a handful of buildings, a brief winking of glass and chrome, before the bus rumbled on. And then they were out of the city and back into the endless scrub, the sea no more than a dark smudge on the horizon.
The mountains loomed closer, dark, craggy and ominous. They weren’t pretty mountains with meadows and evergreens, capped with snow, Lucy reflected. They were bare and black, sharp and cruel-looking.
‘There’s the palace!’ Aimee said with a breathless little laugh, and, leaning forward, Lucy saw that the palace—Khaled’s home—was built into one of those terrible peaks like a hawk’s nest.
The bus wound its way slowly up the mountain on a perilous, narrow road, one side sheer rock, the other dropping sharply off. Lucy leaned her head back against the seat and suppressed a shudder as the bus climbed slowly, impossibly higher.
‘Wow,’ Aimee breathed, after a few endless minutes where the only noise was the bus’s painful juddering, and Lucy opened her eyes.
The palace’s gates were carved from the same black stone of the mountains, three Moorish arches with raised iron-portcullises. Lucy felt as if she were entering a medieval jail.
The feeling intensified as the portcullises lowered behind them, clanging shut with an ominous echo that reverberated through the mountainside.
The bus came to a halt in a courtyard that felt as if it been hewn directly from the rock, and slowly the bus emptied, everyone seeming suitably impressed.
Lucy stood in the courtyard, rubbing her arms and looking around with wary wonder. Despite the dazzling blue sky and brilliant sun, the courtyard felt cold, the high walls and the looming presence of the mountain seeming to cast it into eternal shade.
Ahead of them was the entrance to the palace proper, made of the same dark stone, its chambers and towers looking like they had sprung fully formed from the rock on which they perched.
‘Creepy, huh?’ Eric murmured, coming to stand next to her. ‘Apparently this palace is considered to be one of the wonders of the Eastern world, but I don’t fancy it.’
Lucy smiled faintly and shrugged, determined to be neither awed nor afraid. ‘It makes a statement.’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Khaled greeting some of the team, saw him smile and clap someone on the shoulder, and she turned away to busy herself with the bags. She’d barely moved before a servant, dressed in a long, cotton thobe, shook his head and with a kindly, toothless smile gestured to himself.
Lucy nodded and stepped back, and the man hoisted what looked like half a dozen bags onto his back.
‘My staff will show you to your rooms.’
Her mind and heart both froze at the sound of that voice, so clear, cutting and impersonal. Khaled. She’d never heard him sound like that. Like a stranger.
She turned slowly, conscious of Eric stiffening by her side.
‘Hello, Khaled,’ he said before Lucy could form even a word, and Khaled inclined his head, smiling faintly.
‘Hello, Eric. It’s good to see you again.’
‘Long time, eh?’ Eric answered, lifting one eyebrow as he smiled back, the gesture faintly sardonic.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Much has changed.’ He turned to Lucy, and she felt a jolt of awareness as his eyes rested on her, almost caressing her, before his expression turned blankly impersonal once more. ‘Hello, Lucy.’
Her throat felt dry, tight, and while half of her wanted to match Khaled’s civil tone the other half wanted to scream and shriek and stamp her foot. From somewhere she found a cool smile. ‘Hello, Khaled.’
His gaze remained on hers, his expression impossible to discern, before with a little bow he stepped back, away from her. ‘I’m afraid I must now see to my duties. I hope you find your room comfortable.’ His mouth quirked in a tiny, almost tentative smile, and then he turned, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor of the courtyard as Lucy watched him walk away from her.
She murmured something to Eric, some kind of farewell, and with a leaden heart she followed the servant who carried her bags into the palace.
She was barely conscious of the maze of twisting passageways and curving stairs, and knew she wouldn’t find her way out again without help. When the servant arrived at the door of a guest room, she murmured her thanks and stepped inside.
After the harshness of what she’d seen of Biryal so far, she was surprised by the room’s sumptuous comfort. A wide double bed and a teakwood dresser took up most of the space. But what truly dominated the room was the window, its panes thrown open to a stunning vista.
Lucy moved to it, entranced by the living map laid out in front of her. On the ground, Biryal hadn’t seemed impressive, no more than scrub and dust, sand and rock. Yet from this mountain perch it lay before her in all of its cruel glory, jagged rock and stunted, twisted trees stretching to an endless ocean. It wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, Lucy decided, and you wouldn’t want it on a postcard. Yet there was still something awe-inspiring, magnificent and more than a little fearsome about the sight.
This was Khaled’s land, his home, his roots, his destiny. With a little pang, she realised how little she’d known him. She hadn’t known this, hadn’t considered it at all. Khaled had just been Khaled, England’s outside half and rising star, and she’d been so thrilled to bask in his attention for a little while.
With an unhappy little sigh, she pushed away from the window and went in search of her toiletry bag and a fresh change of clothes. She felt hot and grimy, and, worse, unsettled. She didn’t want to think about the past. She didn’t want to relive her time with Khaled. Yet of course it was proving impossible not to.
She could hardly expect to see him, talk to him, and not remember. The memories tumbled through her mind like broken pieces of glass, shining and jagged, beautiful and filled with pain. Remembering hurt, still, now, and she didn’t want to hurt. Not that way, not because of Khaled.
Yet she couldn’t quite protect herself from the sting of his little rejection, his seeming indifference. A simple hello, after what they’d had? Yet what had she expected? What did she want?
They’d only had a few months together, she reminded herself. Only a few amazing, artificial months.
Four years later, that time meant nothing to him. It should mean nothing to her.
Shaking her head, Lucy forced herself to push the disconsolate memories away. She had a job to do, and she would concentrate on that. But first, she decided, she would ring her mum.
‘Lucy, you sound tired,’ her mother clucked when Lucy had finally figured out the phone system and got through to London.
‘It was a long flight.’
‘Don’t let this trip upset you,’ Dana Banks warned. ‘You’re stronger than that. Remember what you came for.’
‘I know.’ Lucy smiled, her spirits buoyed by her mother’s mini pep talk. Dana Banks was a strong woman, and she’d taught Lucy how to be strong. Lucy had never been more conscious of needing that strength, leaning into her mother’s as she spoke on the phone, her gaze still on that unforgiving vista outside her window. ‘Tell me how Sam is.’
‘He’s fine,’ Dana assured her. ‘We went to the zoo this morning—his favourite place, as you know—and had an ice cream. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, and now he’s got a cartload of Lego spread across the lounge floor.’
Lucy smiled. She could just picture Sam, his dark head bent industriously over his toys, intent on building a new and magnificent creation.
‘Do you want to talk to him?’
‘Just for a moment.’ Lucy waited, her fingers curling round the telephone cord as she heard her mother call for Sam. A few seconds later he came onto the line.
‘Mummy?’
‘Hello, darling. You’re being a good boy for Granny?’
‘Of course I am,’ Sam replied indignantly, and Lucy chuckled.
‘Of course you are,’ she agreed. ‘But that also means eating your green vegetables and going to bed on time.’
‘What about an extra story?’
‘Maybe one more, if Granny agrees.’ Lucy knew her mother would; she adored her unexpected grandson. A sudden lump rose in Lucy’s throat, and she swallowed it down. She’d told herself she wasn’t going to get emotional—not about Sam, not about Khaled. ‘I love you,’ she said.
Sam dutifully replied, ‘Love you too, Mummy.’
After another brief chat with her mother, Lucy hung up the phone. Outside the sun was starting its descent towards the sea, a brilliant orange ball that set Biryal’s bleak landscape on fire. Sam’s voice still echoed in her ears, filled with childish importance, causing a wave of homesickness to break over her. Sam, Khaled’s son. And she’d come to Biryal to tell him so.
CHAPTER TWO
THE next few hours were too busy for Lucy to dwell on Khaled and her impending conversation with him. Now that everyone was settled at the palace, she needed to visit the players who were suffering long-term injuries or muscle strain and make certain they were prepared for tomorrow’s match.
The match with Biryal was a friendly and virtually insignificant, yet with the Six Nations tournament looming in the next few weeks, the players’ safety and health were paramount. In particular she knew she had to deal with the flanker’s tibialis posterior pain and the scrum half’s rotator-cuff injury.
She gathered up her kit bag with its provisions of ice packs and massage oils, as well as the standard bandages and braces, and headed down the palace’s shadowy corridors in search of the men who needed her help.
The upstairs of the palace seemed like an endless succession of cool stone corridors, but it would suddenly open onto a stunning frescoed room or sumptuous lounge, surprising her with its luxury. After a few minutes of fruitless wandering, Lucy finally located a palace staff member who directed her towards the wing of bedrooms where the team was housed.
An hour later, she’d dealt with the most pressing cases and felt ready for a shower. The dust and grime of travel seemed stuck to her skin, and she’d heard in passing that there was to be a formal dinner tonight with Khaled and his father, King Ahmed.
Lucy swallowed the acidic taste of apprehension—of fear, if she was truthful—at the thought of seeing Khaled again. It was a needless fear, she told herself, as she’d already decided she would not speak to him about Sam tonight. She wanted to wait until the match was over. And, since Khaled had already shown her how little he thought of her, she hardly needed to worry that he’d seek her out.
No, Lucy acknowledged starkly as she returned to her room, what scared her was how she wanted him to seek her out. The disappointment she’d felt when he hadn’t.
Fool, she told herself fiercely as she stepped into the marble-tiled en suite bathroom and turned the shower on to full power. Fool. Didn’t she remember how it had felt when she’d learned Khaled had gone? Lucy’s lips twisted in a grimace of memory as she stripped off her clothes and stepped under the scalding water.
There must be a letter. My name is Lucy; Lucy Banks. I’msure he’s left something for me…
She’d tried the hospital, his building, the training centre where he’d worked out. She’d called his mobile, spoken to his friends, his neighbours, even his agent. She’d been so utterly convinced that there had been a mistake, a simple mistake, and it would be solved and everything would be made right. A letter, a message, would be found. An explanation.
There had been none. Nothing. And when she’d realised she’d felt empty, hollow. Used.
Which was essentially what had happened.
Lucy leaned her forehead against the shower tile and let the water stream over her like hot tears.
Don’t remember. It was too late for that; she couldn’t keep the memories from flooding her with bitter recrimination. Yet she could keep them from having power. She could be strong. Now.
At last.
Lucy turned off the shower and reached for a thick towel, wrapping herself up in its comforting softness as she mentally reviewed the slim wardrobe she’d brought with her. She wanted to look nice, she realised, but not like she was trying to impress Khaled.
Because she wasn’t.
In reality, there was little to choose from. She had two evening outfits, one for tonight and one for tomorrow. She chose the simpler one, a black sheath-dress with charcoal beading across the front ending just below the knee. Modest, discreet, safe.
She caught her hair up in a loose chignon and allowed herself only the minimum of eyeliner and lip gloss. Her cheeks, she noticed ruefully, were already flushed.
Outside night had fallen, silky and violet, cloaking the landscape in softness, disguising its harshness. A bird chattered in the darkness, and Lucy could hear people stirring in other parts of the palace.
Giving her reflection one last look, she headed out into the corridor.
Downstairs the front foyer, with its double-flanking staircases made of darkly polished stone, was bright with lights and filled with people. The combined presence of the England team and entourage as well as the palace staff created a significant crowd, Lucy saw.
She paused midway down the staircase, looking for someone familiar and safe. She saw Khaled.
He was taller than most men, even many of the rugby players, and he turned as she came down the stairs, alerted to her presence. How, Lucy didn’t know, but she was rooted to the spot as his eyes held hers, seeming to burn straight through her.
Summoning her strength, she tore her gaze from his—this time she would be the one to look away—and continued down the stairs, her legs annoyingly shaky.
‘You look like you need a drink,’ Eric said, handing her a flute of champagne. Lucy’s numb fingers closed around it automatically.
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you spoken to Khaled?’
She glanced at Eric, saw his forehead wrinkle with worry and experienced a lurch of alarm. In the last few years she’d come to rely on Eric’s comforting, solid presence. But his increasing concern over this trip to Biryal and seeing Khaled made her wonder just what he expected of their relationship.
Perhaps she was being paranoid, seeing things, feelings, where there were none.
Hadn’t she done that with Khaled?
Still, Lucy acknowledged, taking a sip of cool, sweet champagne, she didn’t want or need Eric’s protective hovering. It made her seem and feel weak, and that was the last thing she needed.
‘I haven’t talked to him yet,’ she told Eric. ‘There’s plenty of time.’ She met his concerned gaze with a frown, although she kept her voice gentle. ‘Please, Eric, don’t coddle me. It doesn’t help.’
Eric sighed. ‘I know how much he hurt you before.’
Lucy felt another sharp stab of annoyance. ‘That was before,’ she said firmly. ‘He can’t hurt me now. He has no power over me, Eric, so please don’t act like he does.’ If she said it enough, she’d believe it. With another firm smile, she moved away.
A gong sounded, and Lucy turned to see a man standing in the arched doorway of the dining room. He was tall, powerfully built, with a full head of white hair and bushy eyebrows. She knew instinctively this was King Ahmed, Khaled’s father.
‘Welcome, welcome to Biryal. We are so happy and honoured to have England’s team here,’ he said. His voice, low, melodious and with only a trace of an accent, reached every corner of the room. ‘We have worked hard to bring tomorrow’s match to pass, and we look forward to thrashing you soundly!’ King Ahmed smiled, and the English in the room dutifully chuckled. ‘But for now we are friends,’ Ahmed continued with a broad smile. ‘And friends feast and drink together. Come and enjoy Biryal’s hospitality.’
With murmurs of acceptance and thanks, the crowd moved as one towards the dining room. Ahmed took a seat at the head of the table, Khaled at the other end. Lucy immediately went for a safely anonymous place in the middle, and found herself sandwiched between Dan and Aimee.
The first course was served, Arabian flat-bread with a spicy dipping sauce of chillies and cilantro, and Lucy determinedly lost herself in mindless chitchat with her neighbours.
If her gaze slid to Khaled’s austere profile once in a while, it was only because she was curious. He had changed, she realised as the bread and sauce was cleared and replaced with melon halves stuffed with chicken and rice, and seasoned with parsley and lemon juice.
The Khaled she’d known in London had been charming, arrogant, a little reckless. His hair had been thick and curly, his clothes casual and expensive. The man at the end of the table held only the arrogance and little of the charm. His hair was cut short, a scattering of grey at his temples. He wore the traditional clothes of his country: a white cotton thobe topped with a formal black bisht, a wide band of gold embroidery at the neck.
His eyes were dark and hooded, the expression on his face purposefully neutral. She remembered him smiling, laughing, always gracious and at ease.
But now, even as he smiled and chatted with his neighbours, Lucy saw a tension in his eyes, in the taut muscle of his jaw. He wasn’t relaxed, even if he was pretending to be. Perhaps he wasn’t even happy.
What had happened in four years? she wondered. What had changed him? Or perhaps he hadn’t changed at all, and she’d just never known him well enough to realise his true nature.
Of course, she knew about his knee. She knew that last injury had kept him from playing. Yet she couldn’t believe it was the only reason he’d left the country. Left her. All rugby players had injuries, sometimes so severe they were kept from playing for months or even years. Khaled was no different. With the right course of physiotherapy, or even surgery, he surely could have recovered enough to play again. Eric had told her as much himself, and as Khaled’s best friend—not to mention the last person to have seen him—he should have known.
Just as Lucy had known he’d always had muscle pain in his right knee, and that the team physician as well as a host of other surgeons and specialists had been searching for a diagnosis. Lucy had treated him herself, given him ice packs and massage therapy, which is how it had all started…
I love it when you touch me.
They’d been alone in the massage room, and she’d been meticulously rubbing oil into his knee, trying to keep her movements brisk and professional even as she revelled in the feel of his skin. She’d been so infatuated, so hopeless.
And then he’d spoken, the words no more than a murmur, and she’d been electrified, frozen, her fingers still on his knee. He’d laughed and rolled over, his chest bare, bronzed, his muscles rippling, and he’d captured her fingers in his hand and brought them to his lips.
Have dinner with me.
It hadn’t been an invitation, it had been a command. And she, besotted fool that she was, had simply, dumbly nodded.
That was how it had begun, and even now, knowing all that had and hadn’t happened since, the bitterness couldn’t keep the memory from seeming precious, sacred.
She forced her mind from it and concentrated on her food. Yet she felt the burdensome weight of Khaled’s presence for the entire meal, even though he never once even looked at her. She breathed a sigh of relief when the last course was cleared away and King Ahmed rose, permitting everyone else to leave the table.
Of course, escape didn’t come that easily. With a sinking heart Lucy saw Ahmed lead the way into another reception room, this one with stone columns decorated in gold leaf, and gorgeously frescoed walls. Low divans and embroidered pillows were scattered around the room and Lucy’s feet sank into a thick Turkish carpet in a brilliant pattern of reds and oranges.
A trio of musicians had positioned themselves in one corner, and as everyone reclined or sat around the room, they began their haunting, discordant music.
A servant came around with glasses of dessert wine and plates of pastries stuffed with dates or pistachios, and guests struck up conversations, a low murmur of sound washing through the crowded space.
Lucy dutifully took a cup of wine and a sticky pastry, although her stomach was roiling with nerves too much to attempt to eat. She balanced them in her lap, the music jarring her senses, grating on her heart.
Khaled, she saw, was sitting next to Brian Abingdon, a faint smile on his face as his former coach chatted to him—although even from a distance Lucy could see the hardness, the coldness, in his eyes. She could feel it.
Did anyone else notice? Did anyone else wonder why Khaled had changed? He’d brought them here; Lucy knew he’d orchestrated the entire match. Yet at the moment he looked as if he couldn’t be enjoying their company less. Why did he look so grim?
Lucy took a bite of pastry, and it filled her mouth with cloying sweetness. She couldn’t choke it down, and the incessant music was a whining drone in her ears. She felt exhausted and overwhelmed, aching in every muscle, especially her heart.
She needed escape.
She put her cup and pastry on a nearby low table and struggled to her feet. Almost instantly a solicitous servant hovered by her elbow, and Lucy turned to him.
‘I’d like some fresh air,’ she murmured, and, nodding, the servant led her from the room.
She followed him down a wide hallway to a pair of curtained French doors that had been left ajar. He gestured to the doors, and with a murmur of thanks Lucy slipped outside.
After the stuffy heat of the crowded reception room, the cool night air felt like a balm. Lucy saw she was on a small balcony that hung over the mountainside. She rested her hands on the ornate stone railing and took a deep breath, surprised to recognise the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine.
The moon glided out from behind a cloud and, squinting a bit in the darkness, Lucy saw that the mountainside was covered in dense foliage—gardens, terraced gardens, like some kind of ancient wonder.
She breathed in the fragrant air and let the stillness of the night calm her jangled nerves. From beyond the half-open doors, she could still hear the strains of discordant music, the drifting sound of chatter.
I didn’t expect this to be so hard. The realisation made her spirits sink. She’d wanted to be strong. Yet here she was—unsettled, alarmed—and she hadn’t even spoken to Khaled, hadn’t even told him yet.
And what would happen then? Lucy didn’t let herself think beyond that conversation: message delivered…and received? She couldn’t let her mind probe any further, didn’t want to wander down the dangerous path of pointless speculation. Perhaps it was foolish, or even blind, but she knew the current limitations of her own spirit.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and Lucy straightened and turned, half-expecting to see Eric frowning at her in concern once more.
Instead she saw someone else frowning, his brows drawn sharply together, his eyes fastened on hers.
‘Hello, Khaled.’ Lucy surprised herself with how calm and even her voice sounded. Unconcerned, she turned all the way round, one hand still resting on the stone balustrade.
‘I didn’t think anyone was here,’ he said tersely, and Lucy inclined her head and gave a small smile.
‘I needed some air. The room was very hot.’
‘I’m sorry you weren’t comfortable.’ They were the words of a cordial host, impersonal, distant, forcing Lucy to half-apologise.
‘No, no. Everything has been lovely. I’m not used to such star treatment.’ She paused, and gestured to the moonlight-bathed gardens behind her. ‘The palace gardens look very beautiful.’
‘I will have someone show you them tomorrow. They are one of Biryal’s loveliest sights.’
She nodded, feeling somehow dismissed. There was a howl inside her, a desperate cry for understanding and mercy.
After everything we had…
But in the end, it—she—had meant nothing to Khaled. Why couldn’t she remember that? Why did she always resist the glaring truth, try to find meaning and sanctity where there had been none? ‘Thank you,’ she managed, and then lapsed into silence as the night swirled softly around them.
Khaled said nothing, merely looked at her, his gaze sweeping over her hair, her face, her dress. Assessing. ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said quietly, almost sadly.
Surprised by what felt like a confession, Lucy blurted, ‘You have.’
Khaled stilled. Lucy hadn’t realised there had been a touch of softness to his features in that unguarded moment until it was gone. His smile, when it came, was hard and bitter. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘Khaled…’ She held one hand out in supplication, then dropped it. She didn’t want to beg. There was nothing left to plead for. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’
Khaled arched one eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’
‘Not now,’ Lucy said, suddenly wishing she hadn’t started this line of conversation. ‘Tomorrow. I just wanted you to know… Perhaps we could arrange a time?’ Her voice trailed away as Khaled simply stared, his lips pressed in a hard line, a bleakness in his dark eyes.
‘I don’t think we have anything to say to each other any more, Lucy.’ Startled, she realised he sounded almost sad once more.
‘You may feel that way, but I don’t. I just need a few minutes of your time, Khaled. It’s important.’
He shook his head, an instinctive gesture, and Lucy felt annoyance spurt through her. She hadn’t come to Biryal to be rejected again, and for something so little. Was he not willing to give her anything? Would she always feel like a beggar at the gates when it came to Prince Khaled el Farrar?
‘A few minutes,’ she repeated firmly, and without giving him time to respond, or time to betray herself with more begging, pleading, she moved past him. Her shoulder brushed his and sent every nerve in her body twanging with feeling as she hurried back into the palace.
Lucy didn’t sleep well that night. She was plagued with half-remembered dreams, snatches of memory that tormented her with their possibility. Khaled inhabited those dreams, invaded her heart when her body and mind were both vulnerable in sleep. Khaled, laughing at a stupid joke she’d told, his head thrown back, his teeth gleaming white. Khaled, walking off the pitch, his arm thrown casually yet possessively over her shoulders. My woman. Khaled, smiling lazily at her from across the lounge of his penthouse suite.
Come here, Lucy. Come to me.
And she had, as obediently as a trained dog, because when it came to Khaled she’d never felt she had a choice. What hurt more than her own foolish infatuation was Khaled’s easy knowledge of it. He’d never doubted, never even had to ask.
Muttering under her breath, Lucy pushed the covers off and rose from the bed. The sun had risen, fresh and lemon-yellow in a cloudless sky, and she was relieved to be free of her dreams, for the new day to finally begin.
The day she’d been waiting for since she’d heard of the match with Biryal. The day Khaled would find out he was a father.
As she dressed in her physio scrubs, she found her mind sliding inexorably to the question of how Khaled would react to the news, wandering down that dangerous path. Would he deny it? Deny responsibility? Lucy couldn’t see many other possibilities. You couldn’t trust a man who walked out; it was a lesson she’d learned early. A lesson her mother had taught her. And, after the way Khaled had walked out on her, she couldn’t imagine him taking an interest in his bastard child.
She didn’t want him to; that wasn’t the point. The point, as she’d explained to her mother and to Eric—who’d both disapproved of her intention to come to Biryal—was for Khaled to know the truth. He had a right, just as she felt she’d had a right to a goodbye all those years ago. And now she had a right as well: to finish with Khaled once and for all. To know it was finished, to feel it. To be the one to walk away.
Turning from her own determined reflection, Lucy left her bedroom in search of the others.
Biryal’s new stadium, completed only a few months before, was an impressive structure on the other side of Lahji with a breathtaking view of a glittering ocean. All modern chrome and glass, it was built in the shape of an ellipse, so the ceiling appeared to hover over the pitch.
As Lucy arranged her equipment in the team’s rooms, she saw the stadium was outfitted with every necessity and luxury. Khaled clearly had spared no expense.
‘It seats twenty thousand,’ Yusef, one of the staff who had shown them to the rooms, had explained proudly. Considering Biryal’s population was only a few hundred thousand, it seemed excessive to Lucy. The building also jarred with Lahji’s far humbler dwellings. Yet she had to admit the architect had designed it well; despite its modernity, it looked as if it belonged on the rocky outcropping facing the sea, as if about to take flight.
Lucy was used to before-game energy and tension, although the match with Biryal did not have the high stakes most matches did. There was something else humming through the room, Lucy thought, and she knew what it was.
Memory.
At least a third of the team had played with Khaled, seen him fall on the pitch. Had felt the betrayal of his abrupt and unexplained departure. The reason Brian Abingdon had agreed to this match at all, Lucy suspected, was because of Khaled and the victories he had brought to England’s team in his few years as its outside half.
As the match was about to start, Lucy found herself scanning the crowds for a glimpse of Khaled. Her eyes found him easily in the royal box near the centre of the stadium. As usual, he looked grim, forbidding.
The match started without her realising, and almost reluctantly she turned to watch the play. After a few moments a man came to stand next to her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw it was Yusef.
‘The stadium’s full,’ she remarked, half-surprised that twenty-thousand Biryalis had come to watch.
‘This match is very important to us,’ Yusef replied with a faint smile. ‘Although it’s small to you, this is one of Biryal’s first matches. The team was only organised two years ago, you know.’
‘Really?’ Lucy hadn’t realised the team was quite so recent a creation, although perhaps she should have. Biryal was a small country, and there was no reason for it to possess a national rugby team.
No reason save for Khaled.
‘Khaled began it,’ Yusef explained, answering the half-formed question in Lucy’s mind. ‘When he returned from England. Since he couldn’t play himself, he did the next best thing.’
‘He couldn’t play himself?’ Lucy repeated, a bit too sharply. Yusef glanced at her in surprise.
‘Because of his injury.’
‘He’d always had trouble with his knee,’ Lucy protested, and Yusef was silent, his expression turning guarded and wary.
‘Indeed. Prince Khaled arranged for the stadium to be built as well. He hired one of the best architects, helped with the design himself.’
Lucy knew there was no point in pressing Yusef for more information about Khaled’s injury, even though her mind spun with unanswered questions and doubts. She smiled and tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘It was clearly an ambitious project, especially when Biryal could benefit from so much.’
Yusef gave a little laugh, understanding her all too well. ‘We are a poor country in the terms you understand,’ he agreed. ‘And Prince Khaled realises this. He understands our nationalistic pride, and he built us something we could show to the world. You might think we’d benefit from more hospitals or schools, but there are other ways of helping a country, a people. Of giving them respect. Prince Khaled knows this.’
He smiled, and Lucy found herself flushing. Had she sounded so snobbish, so judgemental? ‘Besides,’ Yusef continued, ‘Rugby will bring with it more tourism, and with that a better and stronger economy. Prince Khaled has taken this all into consideration. He will be a good—a great—king one day.’
A king. King Khaled. The thought was so strange, so impossible. The Khaled she’d known would never have been a king. She’d barely been aware he was a prince. He’d simply been Khaled—fun, sexy, charming Khaled. Hers, for a short time.
Except, of course, he really hadn’t been.
Lucy glanced up at him and saw Khaled lean forward, one white-knuckled hand clasped in the other, watching the match with an intent ferocity. She wondered what had brought him to this moment, what had made him work so hard. What made him look so…unhappy.
Since he couldn’t play himself… Was that really the truth? Was that the reason he’d left so suddenly? And did it really make any difference? Lucy wondered sadly. If he’d loved her, as she’d loved him—had thought she’d loved him—he would have shared such important, life-changing information with her. He would have wanted her to be there.
She’d tried to be there, God knew. She had been turned away from the hospital when a nurse had flatly explained that Prince Khaled had requested no visitors. No visitors at all.
A cry rose from the crowd, and Lucy saw that Biryal had scored. She narrowed her eyes, noticing that Damien Russell, the team’s open-side flanker, was limping a bit, and went to get one of her ice packs.
The next hour was spent fulfilling her duties as team physio, checking injuries, watching for muscle strain, fetching the tools of her trade. She kept her mind purposely blank, refused to think of Khaled at all, even though her body hummed with awareness, ached with tension.
The match seemed to go on for ever. For a fledgling team, Biryal was surprisingly good—thanks to Khaled and his insistence on one of the best coaches in the game, Lucy suspected. She also suspected the England team wasn’t trying as hard as it might, wanting to save its energy and stamina for the more important matches coming up in the Six Nations.
And then finally it was over. John Russell, England’s outside half, spun away from an opposing player in a daring move that sent a ripple of awareness through the stadium like an electric current. When he went on to score, the stadium erupted in cheers.
For a moment, Lucy was startled; Biryal had lost, yet they were cheering.
‘Close match,’ Yusef murmured. ‘And, as you just saw, won by one of Prince Khaled’s signature moves.’
Of course. Lucy had recognised that half-spin; now she knew why. Khaled had invented it. How many times had he been photographed for the press in that almost graceful pirouette?
And now England had taken that from him too.
Lucy didn’t know why that thought slipped into her mind, or why she suddenly felt sad. She didn’t know what Khaled felt, although she could see him smiling now as he walked stiffly towards the pitch to shake hands with the players.
He was limping. The thought sent a ripple of shocked awareness through her. Khaled was limping, although he was trying not to show it. Just as Yusef had intimated, his old injury must have been a good deal worse than anyone had thought.
Than she had thought—and she had been his physiotherapist! Shouldn’t she have known? Shouldn’t she have guessed?
Shouldn’t she have understood?
Lucy shook her head, wanting to stem the sudden, overwhelming tide of questions and doubts that flooded through her. She didn’t want to have sympathy for Khaled, not for any reason. It would only make this trip and everything else harder.
The stadium was in its usual post-match chaos, and numbly Lucy went about her duties, checking on players, arranging care.
At some point Aimee told her there was another party tonight at the palace, a big celebration—for, even though Biryal had lost, they’d played such a good match that it felt like a victory.
Lucy listened, nodded, smiled. Somehow she got through the rest of the afternoon, though both her body and mind ached. She’d never wanted to talk to Khaled more, even as she dreaded it.
Yet he was as inaccessible as he’d been since she’d arrived in his home country, and she wondered if he would ever grant her the opportunity of a moment alone—or if she would have to make one.
From the top of the foyer’s staircase Lucy heard the drifting sound of a classical quartet; there would be no discordant music tonight. Tonight, she saw as she came down the stairs, was a show of wealth as well as a celebration. White-jacketed waiters circulated through the palace’s reception rooms with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, and King Ahmed stood by the front doors that were thrown open to the warm night air, dressed Western-style in a tuxedo.
Lucy ran her palms down the sides of her evening dress, an artfully draped halter-neck gown in cream satin. It was the most formal piece of clothing she owned, as well as the sexiest, even though the draped fabric didn’t cling or reveal, simply hinted. With her hair pulled back in a slick chignon, she felt glamorous—as well as nervous.
Judging from the crowds below her, she wasn’t overdressed; Aimee’s pink-ruffled concoction made her own gown look positively plain. But she felt it. She felt like she was parading herself for Khaled, never mind every other man who turned with an admiring glance as she came into the foyer.
A few glasses of champagne later, her bubbling nerves had begun to calm. Lucy circulated through the crowd, smiling, chatting, laughing, looking.
Where was Khaled? She wanted to see him now, she wanted that conversation. Fortified with a bit of Dutch courage, she was ready, and she simply wanted it to be over.
Yet he was avoiding her, he must be, for as she wandered through the crowded reception rooms she couldn’t find him anywhere.
Disappointment sliced through her as she surveyed the foyer once more. It was getting late, and her head ached from the more-than-usual amount of champagne she’d consumed. Yet she was leaving tomorrow morning, and this was her last chance. Her only chance.
Lucy’s face felt stiff from smiling, and fatigue threatened every muscle of her body. She felt anger too, a surprising spurt of it. Khaled had known she wanted to talk to him. She’d told him it was important, yet now he was avoiding her.
Or did he just not care at all?
Shaking her head, Lucy turned towards the stairs. Fine; if Khaled was going to act this way again, then he didn’t deserve to know about his son. Message forgotten.
Angry, annoyed and hurt, Lucy stormed down the hallway towards the maze of rooms in the back of the palace. Over the thudding of her heart and the silky swish of her gown, she heard another, surprising sound.
A moan. Of pain.
She stopped, waited. Listened. And she heard it again, a low, animal sound.
After a moment’s hesitation, her medical training coming to the fore, she knocked once and then pushed open the door from behind which had come those terrible sounds.
Another moan, coming from the hunched figure on the edge of the bed.
‘Can I help…?’ she began, only to have the speech and breath both robbed from her as the figure looked up at her with pain-dazed eyes.
It was Khaled.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY stared at each other for a long, frozen moment before Khaled jerked his head away.
‘Leave me…’ he gritted, his teeth clenched, sweat pearling on his forehead. Lucy ignored his plea, dropping to her knees in front of him.
‘Is it your knee?’
‘Of course it is,’ he retorted. Both white-knuckled hands were curled protectively around his leg. ‘It’s just acting up. Leave me. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Khaled—’
‘There’s nothing I want you to do,’ Khaled cut her off. Lucy looked up at him, and saw misery and fury battling in his eyes. ‘Go.’
‘You must have painkillers,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘Let me get them for you.’
Khaled was silent, and Lucy felt the struggle within him, although she didn’t fully understand it. Finally he jerked a shoulder towards the bedside table, and Lucy went quickly to rummage through it. When she found the small brown bottle, she experienced a jolt of alarmed surprise: it contained a powerful narcotic. A prescription for a powerful narcotic.
Wordlessly she checked the dosage label, and shook two pills out into her hand. She fetched a glass of water from the en suite bathroom and handed both to Khaled, who took them silently.
A few moments ticked by in taut silence and then Khaled eased back onto the bed, his hands braced behind him. ‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘You can go now.’
‘The narcotic doesn’t take effect that quickly.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I can’t leave you in such a vulnerable state,’ Lucy replied. ‘As a medical professional—’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Khaled snapped. ‘You don’t think I know what I’m doing? You don’t think I’ve been dealing with this for four years?’ He glared up at her, his eyes flashing fury. Lucy took a step back.
‘Khaled—’
‘Go.’ It came out as a roar of anguish, a plea, and Lucy almost, almost went. But she couldn’t leave him like this, couldn’t walk away from the pain in his eyes and the unanswered questions in hers.
So she sat across from him on a low, cushioned stool and waited.
After a long moment Khaled let out a ragged laugh. ‘I dreamed of seeing you again, but not like this. Never like this.’
Shock rippled through her, cold and yet thrilling. ‘You dreamed of seeing me again?’ she repeated, the scepticism in her voice obvious to both of them.
‘Yes.’ Khaled spoke simply, starkly, before he shook his head. ‘But I don’t want you here now, Lucy. Not like this. So go.’
‘No.’
He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You know I can’t make you go.’
‘No.’
‘But I would if I could.’
‘I gathered that.’ She paused, sifting the memories and recollections in her mind. ‘Has your knee been bothering you the whole time we’ve been here?’
‘It’s just a flare up,’ he said flatly, but Lucy thought she understood why he’d looked so grim. He’d been in pain.
Another few moments passed; the only sound was Khaled’s ragged breathing. Finally he pushed himself off the bed and limped stiffly to a table by the window, where Lucy saw a decanter of whiskey and a couple of tumblers.
‘You shouldn’t drink that on top of a narcotic,’ she said as Khaled poured himself a finger of scotch. He smiled grimly as he tossed it back and poured another.
‘I have a strong stomach.’
Lucy watched him quietly for a moment. ‘Everyone was told your injury wasn’t too serious,’ she finally said. ‘Yet obviously it is if you’re still suffering.’
Khaled shook his head, the movement effectively silencing her. ‘I told you, this was nothing more than a flare up.’
‘How long do they last?’
He turned to face her, a smile twisting his features. ‘You’re not my doctor, Lucy.’
‘Are you having some form of physiotherapy?’ she pressed, and he poured some more whiskey.
‘Yesterday you said you wanted to talk to me. Now seems like a good opportunity.’
‘Why, Khaled?’ Lucy asked softly. ‘Why did no one know the truth?’
‘Why,’ he repeated, swinging round to face her, ‘don’t you tell me what I supposedly need to know and then get out?’ He took a deep swallow of his drink. ‘I’d like to be alone.’
Lucy hesitated. This wasn’t exactly the way she’d wanted to have this conversation, yet she recognised that there might not be another opportunity. She drew a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Fine. Khaled…when you left England four years ago I was pregnant.’ She saw a current of some deep, fathomless emotion flicker in Khaled’s eyes before he stilled, became expressionless. Dangerous.
There was no way she knew of to make this information more palatable, less surprising, so she ploughed on. ‘You have a child, Khaled. A son.’
The silence ticked by for a full, taut minute. Khaled just stared at her, a blank, unnerving stare that made Lucy want to explain, apologise, but she did neither. She just waited.
‘A son,’ he finally repeated, his voice still so terribly neutral. ‘And you did not seek to apprise me of this fact until now?’
‘Actually, I did.’ Lucy kept her voice even. Now that she’d told him, now that he knew, she felt calm, composed. In control. All the things she’d wanted to be all along—all the things she’d wanted to be four years ago. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until after you left,’ she continued. ‘And, when I did, I tried to get in touch with you. Your mobile number had been disconnected—’
‘That’s all?’ Khaled bit out. ‘One attempted phone call?’
‘Not quite,’ Lucy returned coolly. ‘I sent an e-mail to you in Biryal. I got the address off the government website—’
‘You sent an e-mail to a generic government e-mail address and expected me to get it?’ Khaled interjected, raking a hand through his still sweat-dampened hair. ‘With the kind of information it contained, it was undoubtedly dismissed as a tabloid’s ploy or the ravings of a scorned mistress.’
‘And isn’t that what I was?’ Lucy flashed, her own temper rising to meet his. ‘Except I didn’t happen to be raving.’
They glared at each other for a long moment and then with a sudden, ragged sigh Khaled turned away. ‘What’s his name?’ The question surprised Lucy, softened her.
‘Sam.’
‘Sam,’ he repeated, and there was a note of wonder in his voice that made him seem somehow vulnerable, and made Lucy ache.
‘He’s three years old,’ she continued quietly. ‘He had his birthday four months ago.’
Khaled nodded slowly, his eyes on a distant horizon. From downstairs there came a sudden burst of raucous laughter that felt like an intrusion in the sudden cocoon of warmth Sam’s name had created.
Khaled straightened. ‘I’ll have to have a DNA test done.’
Lucy blinked. It was no more than she expected, but still it hurt. ‘Fine.’ She drew a breath. ‘Khaled, I didn’t tell you about Sam because I wanted something from you. You don’t need to worry—’ She broke off because Khaled was staring at her in what could only be disbelief, his eyes narrowed, his mouth no more than a thin line.
‘Worry?’ he repeated softly, and Lucy shrugged, the movement defensive.
‘Worry that I came here asking for money or something. Sam and I are fine. We don’t need—’
‘Me?’ he finished, and Lucy felt a chill of apprehension. This wasn’t what she’d expected, what she’d wanted.
‘We’re fine,’ she repeated firmly, and Khaled shook his head.
‘Every boy—every child—needs his father.’
‘Plenty of children are raised without one.’ Like she had been. Children didn’t need fathers—not ones who walked away, at any rate. She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight, and met his gaze. She saw sparks firing the golden depths of his eyes.
‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want me in my son’s life?’
His words were almost a sneer, a condemnation and a judgement. Lucy threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She was ready to fight. God only knew, after four years of living with so many unanswered questions, the broken pieces of a shattered existence—not to mention of her heart—she was ready. ‘Yes, I am saying that. You haven’t exactly proven yourself reliable, Khaled. The last thing I want is for Sam to come to know you, love you, and then for you to do another disappearing act.’
The skin around Khaled’s mouth had turned white, his eyes narrowed almost to slits. ‘You are insulting me,’ he said in a dangerously quiet voice.
‘Is it an insult?’ Lucy arched one eyebrow. ‘I rather thought I was telling the truth.’
Khaled muttered a curse under his breath, then stalked back to the table by the window to pour himself another drink.
‘I think you’ve had enough, considering you’re on medication.’
‘I haven’t even begun,’ Khaled snarled, his back to her. ‘And I don’t need any advice from you.’
‘Fine.’ Lucy’s heart thudded but she kept her voice cool. Still her fingers curled inwards, her nails biting into her slick palms.
What did Khaled want?
His back and shoulders were taut with tension and fury as he tossed back another finger’s worth of whiskey. Lucy was suddenly conscious of how tired she was; her mind spun with fatigue, every muscle aching with it.
‘Why don’t we continue this conversation tomorrow?’ she said carefully. ‘I don’t leave until noon. I think we’d both be in a better frame of mind to consider what’s best for Sam.’
‘Fine.’ His back still to her, Khaled waved one hand in dismissal. ‘We can have breakfast tomorrow. A servant will fetch you from your room at eight.’
‘All right,’ Lucy agreed. She waited, but Khaled did not turn round. ‘Till tomorrow, then.’ She walked towards the door, only to be stopped with her hand on the knob by Khaled’s soft warning.
‘And, Lucy…’ He turned round, his eyes glittering. ‘We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow.’
The door clicked softly shut and Khaled raised his glass to his lips before he thrust it aside completely with a muttered oath. It clattered on the table and, pushing a hand through his hair, he flung open the doors that led to a private balcony.
Outside he took in several lungfuls of air and let it soothe the throbbing in his temples, the still-insistent ache in his knee. He hadn’t had a flare up like the one tonight in months, years…and Lucy had seen it. Seen him, weak, prone, pathetic.
He’d never wanted that. He’d never wanted anyone—especially her—to know. Hadn’t wanted the pity, the compassion that was really condemnation. He didn’t want to become a burden, as his mother had, to her own shame and sorrow.
It was why he’d left, why he’d taken the decision out of Lucy’s hands. It was the only form of control he’d had.
Yet now he realised he would have to put that control aside. Things would have to change. He would have to change. Because of Sam.
Sam…
The air was sultry and damp; a storm was coming. He felt as if one had blown through here, through his room, his life, his heart.
Sam. He had a son. A child; flesh of his own flesh. A family at last. It was an incredible thought, both humbling and empowering.
A three-year-old son who didn’t even know of his existence. Khaled frowned, guilt, hurt and anger all warring within him. He wanted to blame Lucy, to accuse her of deceiving him, of not trying hard enough to find him, but he knew that would be unfair. He had not wanted to be found.
He had pushed her out of his mind, his heart, his whole existence, and thought things would stay that way. He’d made peace with it, after a fashion. He’d certainly never planned on seeing her again.
Loving her again.
For a moment, Khaled allowed himself to savour how she’d looked—kneeling before him, the sweep of her glossy hair, her slender, capable hands that had once afforded him so much pleasure. He remembered the way that satin dress had clung to her curves, pooled on the floor, and even in the red haze of pain he had a sharp stab of desire.
Desire he wouldn’t—couldn’t—act upon. Yet neither could he deny that Lucy was in his life once more, and now he would not let her leave it. He wouldn’t leave, because things were different.
Sam had changed everything.
* * *
Exhausted, Lucy entered her bedroom and peeled off her evening gown, leaving it in a puddle of satin on the floor. She knew she should hang it up, keep it from creasing, but she couldn’t be bothered. Her mind and body cried out for sleep, for the release of unconsciousness.
For forgetfulness…for a time. A few hours; that was all the respite she’d been given.
And then tomorrow the reckoning would come.
What did Khaled want?
Just the question sent her heart rate spiralling upwards, her breath leaking from her lungs. She hadn’t anticipated him wanting anything. She’d planned, hoped, believed that after today she would walk away, free.
Yet now she realised she might have entangled herself in Khaled’s snare more firmly than she had before. Now perhaps Sam was entangled too.
What did Khaled want?
And had she been so naïve—stupid, really—to think he wouldn’t want anything?
That he wouldn’t want his son?
But he didn’t want me.
She slipped under the covers and pressed her face into the pillow, trying to stop the hot rush of tears that threatened to spill from behind her lids.
She didn’t want to cry now. She didn’t want to feel like crying now.
Yet she did feel like it; she craved the release. She wanted to cry out in fear for herself and for Sam, and in misery for all she’d felt for Khaled once and knew she could not feel again.
And, surprisingly, she felt sad for Khaled. What was he hiding? Lucy couldn’t tell what kind of injury had him in its terrible thrall, but it was serious. More serious than she could treat as a physiotherapist. It was the kind of injury, she suspected, that could keep him from playing rugby ever again…no matter what Eric had said.
Had he left England because his rugby career was finished? And why would that have meant they were finished? The only answer, even now, was that she simply hadn’t meant enough to him. Not like he’d meant to her.
Her mind still spinning with too many questions and doubts, her heart aching like a sore tooth with sudden, jagged, lightning streaks of pain, she finally fell into a restless and uneasy sleep.
Lucy hadn’t even risen from bed when she heard a perfunctory knock on her bedroom door the next morning. With a jolt she realised it was already eight o’clock, and Khaled’s servant had come to fetch her.
‘Just a moment,’ she called out, throwing off the sheets and reaching hurriedly for clothes. Unshowered, groggy from sleep, she knew she’d be at a disadvantage for her breakfast with Khaled.
Calling out an apology, she quickly splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth and indulged herself in a touch of make-up.
She didn’t need any disadvantages now.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/kate-hewitt/the-sheikh-s-love-child/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Kate Hewitt
King of the desert, father of her child… With butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Lucy Banks has arrived in the desert kingdom of Biryal – with a secret! Seeing Sheikh Khaled – the man who once loved and left her – at home in his sumptuous royal palace, Lucy is blown away by his barbaric magnificence: he’s king of the desert, his eyes are blacker and harder than before, and he’s no longer the man she once knew.She wants to run away from his overwhelming masculinity. But they’re inextricably bound for ever…for he is the father of her son…
Kate Hewitt discovered her first Mills & Boon
romance on a trip to England when she was thirteen, and she’s continued to read them ever since. She wrote her first story at the age of five, simply because her older brother had written one and she thought she could do it too. That story was one sentence long—fortunately they’ve become a bit more detailed as she’s grown older. She has written plays, short stories and magazine serials for many years, but writing romance remains her first love. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travelling, and learning to knit.
After marrying the man of her dreams—her older brother’s childhood friend—she lived in England for six years, and now resides in Connecticut with her husband, her three young children, and the possibility of one day getting a dog. Kate loves to hear from readers—you can contact her through her website, www.kate-hewitt.com
Dear Reader
It has been such a thrill to write THE SHEIKH’S LOVE-CHILD as part of Mills & Boon
’s InternationalBillionaires series. I must confess I knew little about rugby before starting the book, and researching the rules (and the players!) was fascinating. I read rugby magazines, watched DVDs of famous matches, and found biographies and interviews of some of the sport’s most celebrated players.
My hero Khaled was inspired by a story I read of a player who suffered a serious injury and was kept from playing rubgy for several years. The effect his injury had not just on his body but his spirit was something I wanted to explore, and I hope you enjoy Khaled’s emotional journey, and how Lucy helps to heal both his body and his heart!
Happy reading
Kate
THE SHEIKH’S LOVE-CHILD
by
KATE HEWITT
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Don’t miss Kate Hewitt’s book
THE SHEIKH’S FORBIDDEN VIRGIN
out in August 2009
part of THE ROYAL HOUSE OF KAREDES
PROLOGUE
I’M SORRY.
The two words seemed to reverberate through the room, even though the man who’d spoken them had gone.
I’m sorry.
There had been a touch of compassion in the doctor’s voice, a thread of pity that had sent helpless rage coursing through Khaled as he’d lain there, prostrate, and watched the doctor shake his head, smile sadly and leave—leave Khaled with his shattered knee, his shattered career. His broken dreams.
He didn’t need to look at the damning X-rays or medical charts to know what he felt—quite literally—in his bones. He was a ruined wreck of a man with an impossible, inevitable diagnosis.
Outside thick, grey clouds pressed heavily down upon London, obscuring the city view with their dank presence. Prince Khaled el Farrar turned his head away from the window. His fists bunched uselessly on the hospital bed-sheets as pain ricocheted through him. He’d refused pain killers; he wanted to know what he was dealing with, what he would be dealing with for the rest of his life.
Now he knew: nothing. No amount of surgery or physical therapy could restore his rugby career or his ruined knee, or give him a future, a hope. At twenty-eight, he was finished.
A tentative knock sounded on the door and then Eric Chandler, England’s inside centre, peered round the doorway.
‘Khaled?’ He came into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
‘You heard?’ Khaled said through gritted teeth.
Eric nodded. ‘The doctor told me, more or less.’
‘There is no more,’ Khaled replied with a twisted smile. He was still gritting his teeth, and there was a pale sheen of sweat on his forehead. The pain was growing, rippling through him in a tidal wave of increasing agony. His nails bit into his palms. ‘I’ll never play rugby again. I’ll never—’ He stopped, because he couldn’t finish that sentence. To finish it would make it real, would open him to the pain and weakness. To admit defeat.
Eric didn’t speak, and Khaled thought more of him for his silence. What was there to say? What pithy tropism could help now? The doctor had said it all: I’m sorry.
Sorry didn’t help. It didn’t restore his knee or his future as a healthy, whole man. It didn’t keep him from wondering how long he had, how long his body had, before the illness claimed him and his bones crumbled away.
Sorry didn’t do anything.
‘What about Lucy?’ Eric asked after a long moment when the only sound in the hospital room had been Khaled’s raspy breathing.
Lucy. The single word brought memories slicing through him, wounding him. What could Lucy want with him now? Bitterness and regret lashed him, and he turned his head away, amazed that when he spoke his voice sounded so indifferent. So cold. ‘What about her?’
Eric glanced at him in sharp surprise. ‘Khaled—she—she wants to see you.’
‘Like this?’ With one hand Khaled gestured to his ruined leg. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘She’s concerned.’
Khaled shook his head. Lucy had feelings, maybe even love, for the man he’d been, not the man he was—and, far worse, the man he would eventually become. The thought of her rejection—her pity, disgust—made his hands bunch on the sheets again. ‘And so are you, it seems,’ he said coolly, and watched Eric flush in anger. Every part of him hurt, from his shattered knee to his aching heart. He couldn’t stand to feel so much pain, physical and emotional; he felt as if he would rip wide open from its force. ‘What is Lucy to you?’ he demanded, knowing he was being unfair, feeling unfair.
After a long moment Eric replied levelly, ‘Nothing. It’s what she is to you.’
Khaled turned his head to stare blindly out of the window. A fog was rolling in, thick and merciless, obscuring the endless cityscape. He closed his eyes, pictured Lucy with her long sweep of dark hair, her air of calm composure, her sudden smile. She’d taken him by surprise with that smile; he’d felt something turn over inside him, like fresh earth ready for planting. When she smiled for him, he felt like he’d been given a treasure.
She was the England team’s physiotherapist, and she’d been his lover for two months.
Two incredible months, and now this. Now he would never play rugby again, never be the man he was, the man everyone loved and admired. It hurt his ego, of course, but it also hurt something far deeper, wounded him inside like a bruise on the heart.
Everything had been snatched from him, snatched and ruined.
He thought of his father’s terse phone call, the life that awaited him in his home country of Biryal. Another prison sentence.
Khaled knew this life, the life he’d won for himself, was over now. There could be no going back. All of it, everything, was over.
Khaled opened his eyes. ‘She’s not that much to me.’ It hurt to say it, to act like he meant it. He turned his head away. ‘Where is she now?’
‘She went home.’
A single sound erupted from him, ringing with bitterness; it was meant to be a laugh. ‘Couldn’t stay around, could she?’
‘Khaled, you were in surgery for hours.’
‘I don’t want to see her.’
Eric sighed. ‘Fine. Maybe tomorrow?’
‘Ever.’
The refusal reverberated through the room with bitter, ominous finality, just as the doctor’s previous words had: I’m sorry.
Well, so was he. It didn’t change anything.
Across the room, Khaled saw his friend freeze. Eric turned slowly to face him. ‘Khaled…?’
Khaled smiled with bleak determination. He didn’t want Lucy to see him like this, couldn’t bear to see shock and dismay, fear and pity, darken her eyes as she struggled to contain the turbulent emotions and offer some weak, false hope. He couldn’t bear to hurt her by knowing she was afraid of hurting him.
He couldn’t bear to be so powerless, so he wouldn’t. There was a choice to make, and in a state of numb determination he found it surprisingly easy. ‘There is nothing for me here, Eric.’ No one. He took a breath, the movement a struggle. ‘It’s time I returned to Biryal, to my duties.’ What little duties he had that his father allowed him. For a moment he pictured his life: a crippled prince, accepting the pity of his people, the condescension of his father, the King.
It was impossible, unbearable, yet the alternative was worse—staying and seeing his life, his friends, his lover, move on without him. They would try to heal him with their compassion, and in time—perhaps not very much time, at that—he would see how his presence, his very self, had become a burden. He would hate them for it, and he would hate himself.
He had seen it happen before. He had watched his mother fade far too slowly over the years, the life and colour drained out of her by others’ pity. That had been far worse than the illness itself.
Better to go home. He’d known he had to return to Biryal some day; he just hadn’t expected it to be like this—limping back, wounded and ashamed.
The pain rose within him until he felt it like a howl of misery within his chest, iron bands tightening around his wasted frame, squeezing the very life, hope and joy out of him.
‘Khaled, let me get you something. Some painkillers…’
Eric’s voice was receding, Khaled’s vision blacking. Still he managed to shake his head.
‘No. Leave me.’ He struggled to draw a breath. ‘Please.’ Another breath; his lungs felt like they were on fire. ‘Don’t…don’t speak to Lucy. Don’t tell her…anything.’ He couldn’t bear her to see him like this, even to know he was like this.
‘She’ll want to know—’
‘She can’t. It would…it wouldn’t be fair to her.’ Khaled looked away, his eyes stinging.
After a long moment, as Khaled bit hard on his lip to keep from crying out, Eric left.
Then Khaled surrendered to the pain, allowed the bitter sorrow and defeat to swamp him until he was choking with it, as the first drops of rain spattered against the window.
CHAPTER ONE
Four years later
LUCY BANKS craned her head to catch a glimpse of the island of Biryal as the plane burst from a thick blanket of cottony clouds and the Indian Ocean stretched below them, an endless expanse of glittering blue.
She squinted, looking for a strip of land, anything green to signal that they were approaching their destination, but there was nothing to be seen.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she leaned back in her seat. She wasn’t ready to face Biryal, or more to the point its Crown Prince, Sheikh Khaled el Farrar.
Khaled… Just his name brought a tumbled kaleidoscope of memories and images to her mind—his easy smile, the way his darkly golden eyes had caught and held hers across a crowded pub after a match, the fizz of feeling that one look caused within her, the bubbles of anticipation racing along her veins, buoying her heart.
And then, unbidden, came the stronger, sweeter and more sensual memories. The ones she’d kept close to her heart even as she tried to keep them from her mind. Now, for a moment, she indulged them, indulged herself, and let the memories wash over her, making her blush in shame even as her heart ached with longing. Still.
Lying in Khaled’s arms, late-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window, and laughter—pure joy—rising unheeded within her. His lips on hers, his hands smoothing her skin, touching her like a treasure, as their bodies moved, their hearts joined. And she’d been utterly shameless.
Shamelessly she’d revelled in his attention, his caress. She’d delighted in the freedom of loving and being loved. It had seemed so simple, so obvious, so right.
The shame had come later, scalding her soul and breaking her heart, when Khaled had left England, left her, without an explanation or even a goodbye.
She’d faced his teammates—who’d watched her fall hard, had seen Khaled reel her in with practised ease—and now knew he’d just walked away.
Lucy swallowed and forced the memories back. Even the sweet, secret ones hurt, like scars that had never healed, just scabbed over till she helplessly picked at them once more.
‘All right?’ Eric Chandler slid into the seat next to her, his eyebrows lifting in compassionate query.
Lucy tilted her chin at a determined angle and forced a smile. ‘I’m fine.’
Of all the people who had witnessed her infatuation with Khaled, Eric perhaps understood it—her—the best. He’d been Khaled’s best friend, and when Khaled had gone he’d become one of hers. But she didn’t want his compassion; it was too close to pity.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ he said, and Lucy heard the faint thread of bitterness in his voice. This was a conversation they’d had before, when the opportunity of a friendly match with Biryal’s fledgling team had come up.
She shook her head wearily, not wanting to go over old ground. Eric knew why she’d come as much as she did. ‘You don’t owe him anything,’ Eric continued, and Lucy sighed. She suspected Eric had felt as betrayed as she had when Khaled had left so abruptly, even though he’d never said as much.
‘I owe Khaled the truth,’ she replied quietly. Her fingers flicked nervously at the metal clasp of her seat belt. ‘I owe him that much, at least.’
The truth, and that was all; a message given and received, and then she could walk away with a clear conscience, a light heart. Or so she hoped. Needed. She’d come to Biryal for that, and craved the closure she hoped seeing Khaled face to face would finally bring.
Khaled el Farrar had made a fool of her once. He would not do so again.
Khaled stood stiffly on the blazing tarmac of Biryal’s single airport, watching as the jet dipped lower and prepared to land.
He felt his gut clench, his knee ache and throb, and he purposely kept his face relaxed and ready to smile.
Who was on that plane? He hadn’t enquired too closely, although he knew some of the team would be the same. There would be people he would know, and of course the team’s coach, Brian Abingdon.
He hadn’t seen any of them, save Eric, since he’d been carried off the pitch mid-match, half-unconscious. He’d wanted it that way; it had seemed the only choice left to him. The rest had been taken away.
And what of Lucy? The question slipped slyly into his mind, and he pressed his lips together in a firm line, his eyes narrowing against the harsh glare of the sun.
He wouldn’t think of Lucy. He hadn’t thought of her in four years. It was astonishing, really, how much effort it took not to think of someone. Of her.
The silky slide of her hair through his fingers, the way her lashes brushed her cheek, the sudden throaty chuckle that took him by surprise, had made him powerless to do anything but pull her into his arms.
Too late Khaled realised he was thinking of her. He was indulging himself in sentimental remembrance, and there was no point. He’d made sure of that. He doubted Lucy was on that plane, and even if she was…
Even if she was…
His heart lurched with something too close to hope, and Khaled shook his head in disgust. Even if she was, it hardly mattered.
It didn’t matter at all.
It couldn’t.
He’d made a choice for both of them four years ago and he had to live with it. Still. Always.
The plane was approaching the runway now, and with a couple of bumps it landed, gliding to a stop just a few-dozen yards away from him.
Khaled straightened, his hands kept loosely at his sides, his head lifted proudly.
He’d been working for this moment for the last four years, and he would not hide from it now. He wanted this, he ached for it, despite—and because of—the pain. It was his goal; it was also his reckoning.
Lucy squinted in the bright sunlight as she stepped off the plane onto the tarmac. Having come from a drizzly January afternoon in London, she wasn’t prepared for the hot, dry breeze that blew over her with the twin scents of salt and sand. The landscape seemed to be glittering with light, diamond-bright and just as hard and unforgiving.
She fumbled in her bag for sunglasses, and felt Eric reach for her elbow to guide her from the flimsy aeroplane steps.
‘He’s here,’ he murmured in her ear, and even as her heart contracted she felt a flash of annoyance. She didn’t need Eric scripting this drama for her. She didn’t want any drama.
She’d already had that, lived it, felt it. Now was the time to stop the theatrics, to act grown up and in control. Cool. Composed.
Uncaring.
She pulled her elbow from Eric’s grasp and settled the glasses on her nose. Tinted with shadow, she could see the landscape more clearly: a stretch of tarmac, some scrubby brush, a rugged fringe of barren mountains on the horizon.
And Khaled. Her gaze came to a rest on his profile, and she realised she’d been looking for him all along. He was some yards distant, little more than a tall, proud figure, and yet she knew it was him. She felt it.
He was talking to Brian, the national team’s coach, his movements stiff and almost awkward, although his smile was wide and easy, and he clapped the other man on the shoulder in a gesture of obvious friendship and warmth.
With effort she jerked her gaze away and busied herself with finding some lip balm in her bag.
She hadn’t meant to walk towards Khaled; she wasn’t ready to see him so soon, and yet somehow that was where her legs took her. She stopped a few feet away from him, feeling trapped, obvious, and then Khaled looked up.
As always, even from a distance, his gaze nailed her to the ground, turned her helpless. Weak. She was grateful for the protection of her sunglasses. If she hadn’t been wearing them what would he have seen in her eyes—sorrow? Longing?
Need?
No.
Lucy lifted her chin. Khaled’s expressionless gaze continued to hold hers—long enough for her to notice the new grooves on the sides of his mouth, the unemotional hardness in his eyes—and then, without a blink or waver, it moved on.
She might as well have been a stranger, or even a statue, for all the notice he took of her. And before she could stop it Lucy felt a wave of sick humiliation sweep over her. Again.
She felt a few curious stares from the crowd around her; there were still enough people among the team and its entourage who remembered. Who knew.
Straightening her back, she hitched her bag higher on her shoulder and walked off with her head high and a deliberate air of unconcern. Right now this useless charade felt like all she had.
Still, she couldn’t keep the scalding rush of humiliation and pain from sweeping over her. It hurt to remember, to feel that shame and rejection again.
It was just a look, she told herself sharply. Stop the melodrama. When Khaled had left England four years ago, Lucy had indulged herself. She’d sobbed and stormed, curled up in her bed with ice cream and endless cups of tea for hours. Days. She’d never felt so broken, so useless, so discarded.
And now just one dismissive look from Khaled had her remembering, feeling, those terrible emotions all over again.
Lucy shook her head, an instinctive movement of self-denial, self-protection. No. She wouldn’t let Khaled make her feel that way; she wouldn’t give him the power. He’d had it once, but now she was in control.
Except, she acknowledged grimly, it didn’t feel that way right now.
The next twenty minutes were spent in blessed, numbing activity, sorting out luggage and passports, with sweat trickling down between her shoulder blades and beading on her brow.
It was hot, hotter than she’d expected, and she couldn’t help but notice as her gaze slid inadvertently, instinctively, to Khaled that he didn’t look bothered by the heat at all.
But then he wouldn’t, would he? He was from here, had grown up on this island. He was its prince. None of these facts had ever really registered with Lucy. She’d only known him as the charming rugby star, Eton educated, sounding as if he’d spent his summers in Surrey or Kent.
She’d never associated him with anything else, not until he’d gone halfway around the world, and when she’d needed to find him he’d been impossible to reach.
Even a dozen feet away, she reflected with a pang of sorrow, he still was.
Everyone was boarding the bus, and Lucy watched as Khaled turned to his own private sedan, its windows darkly tinted, luxurious and discreet. He didn’t look back, and she felt someone at her elbow.
‘Lucy? It’s time to go.’
Lucy turned to see Dan Winters, the team’s physician, and essentially her boss. She nodded and from somewhere found a smile.
‘Yes. Right.’
Lucy boarded the bus, moving to the back and an empty seat. She glanced out the window and saw the sedan pulling sleekly away, kicking up a cloud of dust as it headed down the lone road through the brush, towards the barren mountains.
Lucy leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Why had she bothered to track Khaled’s car? Why did she care?
When she’d decided to come to Biryal for the friendly match, a warm-up to the Six Nations tournament, she’d told herself she wouldn’t let Khaled affect her.
No, Lucy realised, she’d convinced herself that he didn’t affect her.
And he wouldn’t. She pressed her lips together in a firm, stubborn line as resolve hardened into grim determination within her. The first time she saw him was bound to be surprising, unnerving. That didn’t mean the rest of her time in Biryal would be.
She let out a slow breath, felt her composure trickle slowly back and smiled.
The bus wound its way along the road that was little more than a gravel-pitted track, towards Biryal’s capital city, Lahji. Lucy leaned across the seat to address Aimee, the team’s nutritionist.
‘Do you know where we’re staying?’
Aimee grinned, excitement sparking in her eyes. ‘Didn’t you hear? We’re to stay in the palace, as special guests of the prince.’
‘What?’ Lucy blinked, the words registering slowly, and then with increasing dismay. ‘You mean Prince Khaled?’
Aimee’s grin widened, and Lucy resisted the urge to say something to wipe it off. ‘Yes, wasn’t he gorgeous? I didn’t think I’d ever go for a sheikh, for heaven’s sake, but—’
‘I see.’ Lucy cut her off, her voice crisp. She leaned back in the seat and looked out of the window, her mind spinning. The scrub and brush had been replaced by low buildings, little more than mud huts with straw roofs. Lucy watched as a few skinny goats tethered to a rusty metal picket fence bleated mournfully before they were obscured in the cloud of sandy dust the bus kicked up.
They were staying at the palace. With Khaled. Lucy hadn’t imagined this, hadn’t prepared for it. When she’d envisioned her conversation with Khaled—the one she knew they’d had to have—she’d pictured it happening in a neutral place, the stadium perhaps, or a hotel lounge. She’d imagined something brief, impersonal, safe. And then they’d both move on.
They could still have that conversation, she consoled herself. Staying at the palace didn’t have to change anything. It wouldn’t.
She gazed out of the window again and saw they were entering Lahji. She didn’t know that much about Biryal—she hadn’t wanted to learn—but she did know its one major city was small and well-preserved. Now she saw that was the case, for the squat buildings of red clay looked like they’d stood, slowly crumbling, for thousands of years.
In the distance she glimpsed a tiny town, no more than a handful of buildings, a brief winking of glass and chrome, before the bus rumbled on. And then they were out of the city and back into the endless scrub, the sea no more than a dark smudge on the horizon.
The mountains loomed closer, dark, craggy and ominous. They weren’t pretty mountains with meadows and evergreens, capped with snow, Lucy reflected. They were bare and black, sharp and cruel-looking.
‘There’s the palace!’ Aimee said with a breathless little laugh, and, leaning forward, Lucy saw that the palace—Khaled’s home—was built into one of those terrible peaks like a hawk’s nest.
The bus wound its way slowly up the mountain on a perilous, narrow road, one side sheer rock, the other dropping sharply off. Lucy leaned her head back against the seat and suppressed a shudder as the bus climbed slowly, impossibly higher.
‘Wow,’ Aimee breathed, after a few endless minutes where the only noise was the bus’s painful juddering, and Lucy opened her eyes.
The palace’s gates were carved from the same black stone of the mountains, three Moorish arches with raised iron-portcullises. Lucy felt as if she were entering a medieval jail.
The feeling intensified as the portcullises lowered behind them, clanging shut with an ominous echo that reverberated through the mountainside.
The bus came to a halt in a courtyard that felt as if it been hewn directly from the rock, and slowly the bus emptied, everyone seeming suitably impressed.
Lucy stood in the courtyard, rubbing her arms and looking around with wary wonder. Despite the dazzling blue sky and brilliant sun, the courtyard felt cold, the high walls and the looming presence of the mountain seeming to cast it into eternal shade.
Ahead of them was the entrance to the palace proper, made of the same dark stone, its chambers and towers looking like they had sprung fully formed from the rock on which they perched.
‘Creepy, huh?’ Eric murmured, coming to stand next to her. ‘Apparently this palace is considered to be one of the wonders of the Eastern world, but I don’t fancy it.’
Lucy smiled faintly and shrugged, determined to be neither awed nor afraid. ‘It makes a statement.’
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Khaled greeting some of the team, saw him smile and clap someone on the shoulder, and she turned away to busy herself with the bags. She’d barely moved before a servant, dressed in a long, cotton thobe, shook his head and with a kindly, toothless smile gestured to himself.
Lucy nodded and stepped back, and the man hoisted what looked like half a dozen bags onto his back.
‘My staff will show you to your rooms.’
Her mind and heart both froze at the sound of that voice, so clear, cutting and impersonal. Khaled. She’d never heard him sound like that. Like a stranger.
She turned slowly, conscious of Eric stiffening by her side.
‘Hello, Khaled,’ he said before Lucy could form even a word, and Khaled inclined his head, smiling faintly.
‘Hello, Eric. It’s good to see you again.’
‘Long time, eh?’ Eric answered, lifting one eyebrow as he smiled back, the gesture faintly sardonic.
‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Much has changed.’ He turned to Lucy, and she felt a jolt of awareness as his eyes rested on her, almost caressing her, before his expression turned blankly impersonal once more. ‘Hello, Lucy.’
Her throat felt dry, tight, and while half of her wanted to match Khaled’s civil tone the other half wanted to scream and shriek and stamp her foot. From somewhere she found a cool smile. ‘Hello, Khaled.’
His gaze remained on hers, his expression impossible to discern, before with a little bow he stepped back, away from her. ‘I’m afraid I must now see to my duties. I hope you find your room comfortable.’ His mouth quirked in a tiny, almost tentative smile, and then he turned, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor of the courtyard as Lucy watched him walk away from her.
She murmured something to Eric, some kind of farewell, and with a leaden heart she followed the servant who carried her bags into the palace.
She was barely conscious of the maze of twisting passageways and curving stairs, and knew she wouldn’t find her way out again without help. When the servant arrived at the door of a guest room, she murmured her thanks and stepped inside.
After the harshness of what she’d seen of Biryal so far, she was surprised by the room’s sumptuous comfort. A wide double bed and a teakwood dresser took up most of the space. But what truly dominated the room was the window, its panes thrown open to a stunning vista.
Lucy moved to it, entranced by the living map laid out in front of her. On the ground, Biryal hadn’t seemed impressive, no more than scrub and dust, sand and rock. Yet from this mountain perch it lay before her in all of its cruel glory, jagged rock and stunted, twisted trees stretching to an endless ocean. It wasn’t beautiful in the traditional sense, Lucy decided, and you wouldn’t want it on a postcard. Yet there was still something awe-inspiring, magnificent and more than a little fearsome about the sight.
This was Khaled’s land, his home, his roots, his destiny. With a little pang, she realised how little she’d known him. She hadn’t known this, hadn’t considered it at all. Khaled had just been Khaled, England’s outside half and rising star, and she’d been so thrilled to bask in his attention for a little while.
With an unhappy little sigh, she pushed away from the window and went in search of her toiletry bag and a fresh change of clothes. She felt hot and grimy, and, worse, unsettled. She didn’t want to think about the past. She didn’t want to relive her time with Khaled. Yet of course it was proving impossible not to.
She could hardly expect to see him, talk to him, and not remember. The memories tumbled through her mind like broken pieces of glass, shining and jagged, beautiful and filled with pain. Remembering hurt, still, now, and she didn’t want to hurt. Not that way, not because of Khaled.
Yet she couldn’t quite protect herself from the sting of his little rejection, his seeming indifference. A simple hello, after what they’d had? Yet what had she expected? What did she want?
They’d only had a few months together, she reminded herself. Only a few amazing, artificial months.
Four years later, that time meant nothing to him. It should mean nothing to her.
Shaking her head, Lucy forced herself to push the disconsolate memories away. She had a job to do, and she would concentrate on that. But first, she decided, she would ring her mum.
‘Lucy, you sound tired,’ her mother clucked when Lucy had finally figured out the phone system and got through to London.
‘It was a long flight.’
‘Don’t let this trip upset you,’ Dana Banks warned. ‘You’re stronger than that. Remember what you came for.’
‘I know.’ Lucy smiled, her spirits buoyed by her mother’s mini pep talk. Dana Banks was a strong woman, and she’d taught Lucy how to be strong. Lucy had never been more conscious of needing that strength, leaning into her mother’s as she spoke on the phone, her gaze still on that unforgiving vista outside her window. ‘Tell me how Sam is.’
‘He’s fine,’ Dana assured her. ‘We went to the zoo this morning—his favourite place, as you know—and had an ice cream. He fell asleep in the car on the way home, and now he’s got a cartload of Lego spread across the lounge floor.’
Lucy smiled. She could just picture Sam, his dark head bent industriously over his toys, intent on building a new and magnificent creation.
‘Do you want to talk to him?’
‘Just for a moment.’ Lucy waited, her fingers curling round the telephone cord as she heard her mother call for Sam. A few seconds later he came onto the line.
‘Mummy?’
‘Hello, darling. You’re being a good boy for Granny?’
‘Of course I am,’ Sam replied indignantly, and Lucy chuckled.
‘Of course you are,’ she agreed. ‘But that also means eating your green vegetables and going to bed on time.’
‘What about an extra story?’
‘Maybe one more, if Granny agrees.’ Lucy knew her mother would; she adored her unexpected grandson. A sudden lump rose in Lucy’s throat, and she swallowed it down. She’d told herself she wasn’t going to get emotional—not about Sam, not about Khaled. ‘I love you,’ she said.
Sam dutifully replied, ‘Love you too, Mummy.’
After another brief chat with her mother, Lucy hung up the phone. Outside the sun was starting its descent towards the sea, a brilliant orange ball that set Biryal’s bleak landscape on fire. Sam’s voice still echoed in her ears, filled with childish importance, causing a wave of homesickness to break over her. Sam, Khaled’s son. And she’d come to Biryal to tell him so.
CHAPTER TWO
THE next few hours were too busy for Lucy to dwell on Khaled and her impending conversation with him. Now that everyone was settled at the palace, she needed to visit the players who were suffering long-term injuries or muscle strain and make certain they were prepared for tomorrow’s match.
The match with Biryal was a friendly and virtually insignificant, yet with the Six Nations tournament looming in the next few weeks, the players’ safety and health were paramount. In particular she knew she had to deal with the flanker’s tibialis posterior pain and the scrum half’s rotator-cuff injury.
She gathered up her kit bag with its provisions of ice packs and massage oils, as well as the standard bandages and braces, and headed down the palace’s shadowy corridors in search of the men who needed her help.
The upstairs of the palace seemed like an endless succession of cool stone corridors, but it would suddenly open onto a stunning frescoed room or sumptuous lounge, surprising her with its luxury. After a few minutes of fruitless wandering, Lucy finally located a palace staff member who directed her towards the wing of bedrooms where the team was housed.
An hour later, she’d dealt with the most pressing cases and felt ready for a shower. The dust and grime of travel seemed stuck to her skin, and she’d heard in passing that there was to be a formal dinner tonight with Khaled and his father, King Ahmed.
Lucy swallowed the acidic taste of apprehension—of fear, if she was truthful—at the thought of seeing Khaled again. It was a needless fear, she told herself, as she’d already decided she would not speak to him about Sam tonight. She wanted to wait until the match was over. And, since Khaled had already shown her how little he thought of her, she hardly needed to worry that he’d seek her out.
No, Lucy acknowledged starkly as she returned to her room, what scared her was how she wanted him to seek her out. The disappointment she’d felt when he hadn’t.
Fool, she told herself fiercely as she stepped into the marble-tiled en suite bathroom and turned the shower on to full power. Fool. Didn’t she remember how it had felt when she’d learned Khaled had gone? Lucy’s lips twisted in a grimace of memory as she stripped off her clothes and stepped under the scalding water.
There must be a letter. My name is Lucy; Lucy Banks. I’msure he’s left something for me…
She’d tried the hospital, his building, the training centre where he’d worked out. She’d called his mobile, spoken to his friends, his neighbours, even his agent. She’d been so utterly convinced that there had been a mistake, a simple mistake, and it would be solved and everything would be made right. A letter, a message, would be found. An explanation.
There had been none. Nothing. And when she’d realised she’d felt empty, hollow. Used.
Which was essentially what had happened.
Lucy leaned her forehead against the shower tile and let the water stream over her like hot tears.
Don’t remember. It was too late for that; she couldn’t keep the memories from flooding her with bitter recrimination. Yet she could keep them from having power. She could be strong. Now.
At last.
Lucy turned off the shower and reached for a thick towel, wrapping herself up in its comforting softness as she mentally reviewed the slim wardrobe she’d brought with her. She wanted to look nice, she realised, but not like she was trying to impress Khaled.
Because she wasn’t.
In reality, there was little to choose from. She had two evening outfits, one for tonight and one for tomorrow. She chose the simpler one, a black sheath-dress with charcoal beading across the front ending just below the knee. Modest, discreet, safe.
She caught her hair up in a loose chignon and allowed herself only the minimum of eyeliner and lip gloss. Her cheeks, she noticed ruefully, were already flushed.
Outside night had fallen, silky and violet, cloaking the landscape in softness, disguising its harshness. A bird chattered in the darkness, and Lucy could hear people stirring in other parts of the palace.
Giving her reflection one last look, she headed out into the corridor.
Downstairs the front foyer, with its double-flanking staircases made of darkly polished stone, was bright with lights and filled with people. The combined presence of the England team and entourage as well as the palace staff created a significant crowd, Lucy saw.
She paused midway down the staircase, looking for someone familiar and safe. She saw Khaled.
He was taller than most men, even many of the rugby players, and he turned as she came down the stairs, alerted to her presence. How, Lucy didn’t know, but she was rooted to the spot as his eyes held hers, seeming to burn straight through her.
Summoning her strength, she tore her gaze from his—this time she would be the one to look away—and continued down the stairs, her legs annoyingly shaky.
‘You look like you need a drink,’ Eric said, handing her a flute of champagne. Lucy’s numb fingers closed around it automatically.
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you spoken to Khaled?’
She glanced at Eric, saw his forehead wrinkle with worry and experienced a lurch of alarm. In the last few years she’d come to rely on Eric’s comforting, solid presence. But his increasing concern over this trip to Biryal and seeing Khaled made her wonder just what he expected of their relationship.
Perhaps she was being paranoid, seeing things, feelings, where there were none.
Hadn’t she done that with Khaled?
Still, Lucy acknowledged, taking a sip of cool, sweet champagne, she didn’t want or need Eric’s protective hovering. It made her seem and feel weak, and that was the last thing she needed.
‘I haven’t talked to him yet,’ she told Eric. ‘There’s plenty of time.’ She met his concerned gaze with a frown, although she kept her voice gentle. ‘Please, Eric, don’t coddle me. It doesn’t help.’
Eric sighed. ‘I know how much he hurt you before.’
Lucy felt another sharp stab of annoyance. ‘That was before,’ she said firmly. ‘He can’t hurt me now. He has no power over me, Eric, so please don’t act like he does.’ If she said it enough, she’d believe it. With another firm smile, she moved away.
A gong sounded, and Lucy turned to see a man standing in the arched doorway of the dining room. He was tall, powerfully built, with a full head of white hair and bushy eyebrows. She knew instinctively this was King Ahmed, Khaled’s father.
‘Welcome, welcome to Biryal. We are so happy and honoured to have England’s team here,’ he said. His voice, low, melodious and with only a trace of an accent, reached every corner of the room. ‘We have worked hard to bring tomorrow’s match to pass, and we look forward to thrashing you soundly!’ King Ahmed smiled, and the English in the room dutifully chuckled. ‘But for now we are friends,’ Ahmed continued with a broad smile. ‘And friends feast and drink together. Come and enjoy Biryal’s hospitality.’
With murmurs of acceptance and thanks, the crowd moved as one towards the dining room. Ahmed took a seat at the head of the table, Khaled at the other end. Lucy immediately went for a safely anonymous place in the middle, and found herself sandwiched between Dan and Aimee.
The first course was served, Arabian flat-bread with a spicy dipping sauce of chillies and cilantro, and Lucy determinedly lost herself in mindless chitchat with her neighbours.
If her gaze slid to Khaled’s austere profile once in a while, it was only because she was curious. He had changed, she realised as the bread and sauce was cleared and replaced with melon halves stuffed with chicken and rice, and seasoned with parsley and lemon juice.
The Khaled she’d known in London had been charming, arrogant, a little reckless. His hair had been thick and curly, his clothes casual and expensive. The man at the end of the table held only the arrogance and little of the charm. His hair was cut short, a scattering of grey at his temples. He wore the traditional clothes of his country: a white cotton thobe topped with a formal black bisht, a wide band of gold embroidery at the neck.
His eyes were dark and hooded, the expression on his face purposefully neutral. She remembered him smiling, laughing, always gracious and at ease.
But now, even as he smiled and chatted with his neighbours, Lucy saw a tension in his eyes, in the taut muscle of his jaw. He wasn’t relaxed, even if he was pretending to be. Perhaps he wasn’t even happy.
What had happened in four years? she wondered. What had changed him? Or perhaps he hadn’t changed at all, and she’d just never known him well enough to realise his true nature.
Of course, she knew about his knee. She knew that last injury had kept him from playing. Yet she couldn’t believe it was the only reason he’d left the country. Left her. All rugby players had injuries, sometimes so severe they were kept from playing for months or even years. Khaled was no different. With the right course of physiotherapy, or even surgery, he surely could have recovered enough to play again. Eric had told her as much himself, and as Khaled’s best friend—not to mention the last person to have seen him—he should have known.
Just as Lucy had known he’d always had muscle pain in his right knee, and that the team physician as well as a host of other surgeons and specialists had been searching for a diagnosis. Lucy had treated him herself, given him ice packs and massage therapy, which is how it had all started…
I love it when you touch me.
They’d been alone in the massage room, and she’d been meticulously rubbing oil into his knee, trying to keep her movements brisk and professional even as she revelled in the feel of his skin. She’d been so infatuated, so hopeless.
And then he’d spoken, the words no more than a murmur, and she’d been electrified, frozen, her fingers still on his knee. He’d laughed and rolled over, his chest bare, bronzed, his muscles rippling, and he’d captured her fingers in his hand and brought them to his lips.
Have dinner with me.
It hadn’t been an invitation, it had been a command. And she, besotted fool that she was, had simply, dumbly nodded.
That was how it had begun, and even now, knowing all that had and hadn’t happened since, the bitterness couldn’t keep the memory from seeming precious, sacred.
She forced her mind from it and concentrated on her food. Yet she felt the burdensome weight of Khaled’s presence for the entire meal, even though he never once even looked at her. She breathed a sigh of relief when the last course was cleared away and King Ahmed rose, permitting everyone else to leave the table.
Of course, escape didn’t come that easily. With a sinking heart Lucy saw Ahmed lead the way into another reception room, this one with stone columns decorated in gold leaf, and gorgeously frescoed walls. Low divans and embroidered pillows were scattered around the room and Lucy’s feet sank into a thick Turkish carpet in a brilliant pattern of reds and oranges.
A trio of musicians had positioned themselves in one corner, and as everyone reclined or sat around the room, they began their haunting, discordant music.
A servant came around with glasses of dessert wine and plates of pastries stuffed with dates or pistachios, and guests struck up conversations, a low murmur of sound washing through the crowded space.
Lucy dutifully took a cup of wine and a sticky pastry, although her stomach was roiling with nerves too much to attempt to eat. She balanced them in her lap, the music jarring her senses, grating on her heart.
Khaled, she saw, was sitting next to Brian Abingdon, a faint smile on his face as his former coach chatted to him—although even from a distance Lucy could see the hardness, the coldness, in his eyes. She could feel it.
Did anyone else notice? Did anyone else wonder why Khaled had changed? He’d brought them here; Lucy knew he’d orchestrated the entire match. Yet at the moment he looked as if he couldn’t be enjoying their company less. Why did he look so grim?
Lucy took a bite of pastry, and it filled her mouth with cloying sweetness. She couldn’t choke it down, and the incessant music was a whining drone in her ears. She felt exhausted and overwhelmed, aching in every muscle, especially her heart.
She needed escape.
She put her cup and pastry on a nearby low table and struggled to her feet. Almost instantly a solicitous servant hovered by her elbow, and Lucy turned to him.
‘I’d like some fresh air,’ she murmured, and, nodding, the servant led her from the room.
She followed him down a wide hallway to a pair of curtained French doors that had been left ajar. He gestured to the doors, and with a murmur of thanks Lucy slipped outside.
After the stuffy heat of the crowded reception room, the cool night air felt like a balm. Lucy saw she was on a small balcony that hung over the mountainside. She rested her hands on the ornate stone railing and took a deep breath, surprised to recognise the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine.
The moon glided out from behind a cloud and, squinting a bit in the darkness, Lucy saw that the mountainside was covered in dense foliage—gardens, terraced gardens, like some kind of ancient wonder.
She breathed in the fragrant air and let the stillness of the night calm her jangled nerves. From beyond the half-open doors, she could still hear the strains of discordant music, the drifting sound of chatter.
I didn’t expect this to be so hard. The realisation made her spirits sink. She’d wanted to be strong. Yet here she was—unsettled, alarmed—and she hadn’t even spoken to Khaled, hadn’t even told him yet.
And what would happen then? Lucy didn’t let herself think beyond that conversation: message delivered…and received? She couldn’t let her mind probe any further, didn’t want to wander down the dangerous path of pointless speculation. Perhaps it was foolish, or even blind, but she knew the current limitations of her own spirit.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and Lucy straightened and turned, half-expecting to see Eric frowning at her in concern once more.
Instead she saw someone else frowning, his brows drawn sharply together, his eyes fastened on hers.
‘Hello, Khaled.’ Lucy surprised herself with how calm and even her voice sounded. Unconcerned, she turned all the way round, one hand still resting on the stone balustrade.
‘I didn’t think anyone was here,’ he said tersely, and Lucy inclined her head and gave a small smile.
‘I needed some air. The room was very hot.’
‘I’m sorry you weren’t comfortable.’ They were the words of a cordial host, impersonal, distant, forcing Lucy to half-apologise.
‘No, no. Everything has been lovely. I’m not used to such star treatment.’ She paused, and gestured to the moonlight-bathed gardens behind her. ‘The palace gardens look very beautiful.’
‘I will have someone show you them tomorrow. They are one of Biryal’s loveliest sights.’
She nodded, feeling somehow dismissed. There was a howl inside her, a desperate cry for understanding and mercy.
After everything we had…
But in the end, it—she—had meant nothing to Khaled. Why couldn’t she remember that? Why did she always resist the glaring truth, try to find meaning and sanctity where there had been none? ‘Thank you,’ she managed, and then lapsed into silence as the night swirled softly around them.
Khaled said nothing, merely looked at her, his gaze sweeping over her hair, her face, her dress. Assessing. ‘You haven’t changed,’ he said quietly, almost sadly.
Surprised by what felt like a confession, Lucy blurted, ‘You have.’
Khaled stilled. Lucy hadn’t realised there had been a touch of softness to his features in that unguarded moment until it was gone. His smile, when it came, was hard and bitter. ‘Yes, I have.’
‘Khaled…’ She held one hand out in supplication, then dropped it. She didn’t want to beg. There was nothing left to plead for. ‘I’d like to talk to you.’
Khaled arched one eyebrow. ‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’
‘Not now,’ Lucy said, suddenly wishing she hadn’t started this line of conversation. ‘Tomorrow. I just wanted you to know… Perhaps we could arrange a time?’ Her voice trailed away as Khaled simply stared, his lips pressed in a hard line, a bleakness in his dark eyes.
‘I don’t think we have anything to say to each other any more, Lucy.’ Startled, she realised he sounded almost sad once more.
‘You may feel that way, but I don’t. I just need a few minutes of your time, Khaled. It’s important.’
He shook his head, an instinctive gesture, and Lucy felt annoyance spurt through her. She hadn’t come to Biryal to be rejected again, and for something so little. Was he not willing to give her anything? Would she always feel like a beggar at the gates when it came to Prince Khaled el Farrar?
‘A few minutes,’ she repeated firmly, and without giving him time to respond, or time to betray herself with more begging, pleading, she moved past him. Her shoulder brushed his and sent every nerve in her body twanging with feeling as she hurried back into the palace.
Lucy didn’t sleep well that night. She was plagued with half-remembered dreams, snatches of memory that tormented her with their possibility. Khaled inhabited those dreams, invaded her heart when her body and mind were both vulnerable in sleep. Khaled, laughing at a stupid joke she’d told, his head thrown back, his teeth gleaming white. Khaled, walking off the pitch, his arm thrown casually yet possessively over her shoulders. My woman. Khaled, smiling lazily at her from across the lounge of his penthouse suite.
Come here, Lucy. Come to me.
And she had, as obediently as a trained dog, because when it came to Khaled she’d never felt she had a choice. What hurt more than her own foolish infatuation was Khaled’s easy knowledge of it. He’d never doubted, never even had to ask.
Muttering under her breath, Lucy pushed the covers off and rose from the bed. The sun had risen, fresh and lemon-yellow in a cloudless sky, and she was relieved to be free of her dreams, for the new day to finally begin.
The day she’d been waiting for since she’d heard of the match with Biryal. The day Khaled would find out he was a father.
As she dressed in her physio scrubs, she found her mind sliding inexorably to the question of how Khaled would react to the news, wandering down that dangerous path. Would he deny it? Deny responsibility? Lucy couldn’t see many other possibilities. You couldn’t trust a man who walked out; it was a lesson she’d learned early. A lesson her mother had taught her. And, after the way Khaled had walked out on her, she couldn’t imagine him taking an interest in his bastard child.
She didn’t want him to; that wasn’t the point. The point, as she’d explained to her mother and to Eric—who’d both disapproved of her intention to come to Biryal—was for Khaled to know the truth. He had a right, just as she felt she’d had a right to a goodbye all those years ago. And now she had a right as well: to finish with Khaled once and for all. To know it was finished, to feel it. To be the one to walk away.
Turning from her own determined reflection, Lucy left her bedroom in search of the others.
Biryal’s new stadium, completed only a few months before, was an impressive structure on the other side of Lahji with a breathtaking view of a glittering ocean. All modern chrome and glass, it was built in the shape of an ellipse, so the ceiling appeared to hover over the pitch.
As Lucy arranged her equipment in the team’s rooms, she saw the stadium was outfitted with every necessity and luxury. Khaled clearly had spared no expense.
‘It seats twenty thousand,’ Yusef, one of the staff who had shown them to the rooms, had explained proudly. Considering Biryal’s population was only a few hundred thousand, it seemed excessive to Lucy. The building also jarred with Lahji’s far humbler dwellings. Yet she had to admit the architect had designed it well; despite its modernity, it looked as if it belonged on the rocky outcropping facing the sea, as if about to take flight.
Lucy was used to before-game energy and tension, although the match with Biryal did not have the high stakes most matches did. There was something else humming through the room, Lucy thought, and she knew what it was.
Memory.
At least a third of the team had played with Khaled, seen him fall on the pitch. Had felt the betrayal of his abrupt and unexplained departure. The reason Brian Abingdon had agreed to this match at all, Lucy suspected, was because of Khaled and the victories he had brought to England’s team in his few years as its outside half.
As the match was about to start, Lucy found herself scanning the crowds for a glimpse of Khaled. Her eyes found him easily in the royal box near the centre of the stadium. As usual, he looked grim, forbidding.
The match started without her realising, and almost reluctantly she turned to watch the play. After a few moments a man came to stand next to her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw it was Yusef.
‘The stadium’s full,’ she remarked, half-surprised that twenty-thousand Biryalis had come to watch.
‘This match is very important to us,’ Yusef replied with a faint smile. ‘Although it’s small to you, this is one of Biryal’s first matches. The team was only organised two years ago, you know.’
‘Really?’ Lucy hadn’t realised the team was quite so recent a creation, although perhaps she should have. Biryal was a small country, and there was no reason for it to possess a national rugby team.
No reason save for Khaled.
‘Khaled began it,’ Yusef explained, answering the half-formed question in Lucy’s mind. ‘When he returned from England. Since he couldn’t play himself, he did the next best thing.’
‘He couldn’t play himself?’ Lucy repeated, a bit too sharply. Yusef glanced at her in surprise.
‘Because of his injury.’
‘He’d always had trouble with his knee,’ Lucy protested, and Yusef was silent, his expression turning guarded and wary.
‘Indeed. Prince Khaled arranged for the stadium to be built as well. He hired one of the best architects, helped with the design himself.’
Lucy knew there was no point in pressing Yusef for more information about Khaled’s injury, even though her mind spun with unanswered questions and doubts. She smiled and tried to inject some enthusiasm into her voice. ‘It was clearly an ambitious project, especially when Biryal could benefit from so much.’
Yusef gave a little laugh, understanding her all too well. ‘We are a poor country in the terms you understand,’ he agreed. ‘And Prince Khaled realises this. He understands our nationalistic pride, and he built us something we could show to the world. You might think we’d benefit from more hospitals or schools, but there are other ways of helping a country, a people. Of giving them respect. Prince Khaled knows this.’
He smiled, and Lucy found herself flushing. Had she sounded so snobbish, so judgemental? ‘Besides,’ Yusef continued, ‘Rugby will bring with it more tourism, and with that a better and stronger economy. Prince Khaled has taken this all into consideration. He will be a good—a great—king one day.’
A king. King Khaled. The thought was so strange, so impossible. The Khaled she’d known would never have been a king. She’d barely been aware he was a prince. He’d simply been Khaled—fun, sexy, charming Khaled. Hers, for a short time.
Except, of course, he really hadn’t been.
Lucy glanced up at him and saw Khaled lean forward, one white-knuckled hand clasped in the other, watching the match with an intent ferocity. She wondered what had brought him to this moment, what had made him work so hard. What made him look so…unhappy.
Since he couldn’t play himself… Was that really the truth? Was that the reason he’d left so suddenly? And did it really make any difference? Lucy wondered sadly. If he’d loved her, as she’d loved him—had thought she’d loved him—he would have shared such important, life-changing information with her. He would have wanted her to be there.
She’d tried to be there, God knew. She had been turned away from the hospital when a nurse had flatly explained that Prince Khaled had requested no visitors. No visitors at all.
A cry rose from the crowd, and Lucy saw that Biryal had scored. She narrowed her eyes, noticing that Damien Russell, the team’s open-side flanker, was limping a bit, and went to get one of her ice packs.
The next hour was spent fulfilling her duties as team physio, checking injuries, watching for muscle strain, fetching the tools of her trade. She kept her mind purposely blank, refused to think of Khaled at all, even though her body hummed with awareness, ached with tension.
The match seemed to go on for ever. For a fledgling team, Biryal was surprisingly good—thanks to Khaled and his insistence on one of the best coaches in the game, Lucy suspected. She also suspected the England team wasn’t trying as hard as it might, wanting to save its energy and stamina for the more important matches coming up in the Six Nations.
And then finally it was over. John Russell, England’s outside half, spun away from an opposing player in a daring move that sent a ripple of awareness through the stadium like an electric current. When he went on to score, the stadium erupted in cheers.
For a moment, Lucy was startled; Biryal had lost, yet they were cheering.
‘Close match,’ Yusef murmured. ‘And, as you just saw, won by one of Prince Khaled’s signature moves.’
Of course. Lucy had recognised that half-spin; now she knew why. Khaled had invented it. How many times had he been photographed for the press in that almost graceful pirouette?
And now England had taken that from him too.
Lucy didn’t know why that thought slipped into her mind, or why she suddenly felt sad. She didn’t know what Khaled felt, although she could see him smiling now as he walked stiffly towards the pitch to shake hands with the players.
He was limping. The thought sent a ripple of shocked awareness through her. Khaled was limping, although he was trying not to show it. Just as Yusef had intimated, his old injury must have been a good deal worse than anyone had thought.
Than she had thought—and she had been his physiotherapist! Shouldn’t she have known? Shouldn’t she have guessed?
Shouldn’t she have understood?
Lucy shook her head, wanting to stem the sudden, overwhelming tide of questions and doubts that flooded through her. She didn’t want to have sympathy for Khaled, not for any reason. It would only make this trip and everything else harder.
The stadium was in its usual post-match chaos, and numbly Lucy went about her duties, checking on players, arranging care.
At some point Aimee told her there was another party tonight at the palace, a big celebration—for, even though Biryal had lost, they’d played such a good match that it felt like a victory.
Lucy listened, nodded, smiled. Somehow she got through the rest of the afternoon, though both her body and mind ached. She’d never wanted to talk to Khaled more, even as she dreaded it.
Yet he was as inaccessible as he’d been since she’d arrived in his home country, and she wondered if he would ever grant her the opportunity of a moment alone—or if she would have to make one.
From the top of the foyer’s staircase Lucy heard the drifting sound of a classical quartet; there would be no discordant music tonight. Tonight, she saw as she came down the stairs, was a show of wealth as well as a celebration. White-jacketed waiters circulated through the palace’s reception rooms with trays of champagne and hors d’oeuvres, and King Ahmed stood by the front doors that were thrown open to the warm night air, dressed Western-style in a tuxedo.
Lucy ran her palms down the sides of her evening dress, an artfully draped halter-neck gown in cream satin. It was the most formal piece of clothing she owned, as well as the sexiest, even though the draped fabric didn’t cling or reveal, simply hinted. With her hair pulled back in a slick chignon, she felt glamorous—as well as nervous.
Judging from the crowds below her, she wasn’t overdressed; Aimee’s pink-ruffled concoction made her own gown look positively plain. But she felt it. She felt like she was parading herself for Khaled, never mind every other man who turned with an admiring glance as she came into the foyer.
A few glasses of champagne later, her bubbling nerves had begun to calm. Lucy circulated through the crowd, smiling, chatting, laughing, looking.
Where was Khaled? She wanted to see him now, she wanted that conversation. Fortified with a bit of Dutch courage, she was ready, and she simply wanted it to be over.
Yet he was avoiding her, he must be, for as she wandered through the crowded reception rooms she couldn’t find him anywhere.
Disappointment sliced through her as she surveyed the foyer once more. It was getting late, and her head ached from the more-than-usual amount of champagne she’d consumed. Yet she was leaving tomorrow morning, and this was her last chance. Her only chance.
Lucy’s face felt stiff from smiling, and fatigue threatened every muscle of her body. She felt anger too, a surprising spurt of it. Khaled had known she wanted to talk to him. She’d told him it was important, yet now he was avoiding her.
Or did he just not care at all?
Shaking her head, Lucy turned towards the stairs. Fine; if Khaled was going to act this way again, then he didn’t deserve to know about his son. Message forgotten.
Angry, annoyed and hurt, Lucy stormed down the hallway towards the maze of rooms in the back of the palace. Over the thudding of her heart and the silky swish of her gown, she heard another, surprising sound.
A moan. Of pain.
She stopped, waited. Listened. And she heard it again, a low, animal sound.
After a moment’s hesitation, her medical training coming to the fore, she knocked once and then pushed open the door from behind which had come those terrible sounds.
Another moan, coming from the hunched figure on the edge of the bed.
‘Can I help…?’ she began, only to have the speech and breath both robbed from her as the figure looked up at her with pain-dazed eyes.
It was Khaled.
CHAPTER THREE
THEY stared at each other for a long, frozen moment before Khaled jerked his head away.
‘Leave me…’ he gritted, his teeth clenched, sweat pearling on his forehead. Lucy ignored his plea, dropping to her knees in front of him.
‘Is it your knee?’
‘Of course it is,’ he retorted. Both white-knuckled hands were curled protectively around his leg. ‘It’s just acting up. Leave me. There’s nothing you can do.’
‘Khaled—’
‘There’s nothing I want you to do,’ Khaled cut her off. Lucy looked up at him, and saw misery and fury battling in his eyes. ‘Go.’
‘You must have painkillers,’ Lucy said firmly. ‘Let me get them for you.’
Khaled was silent, and Lucy felt the struggle within him, although she didn’t fully understand it. Finally he jerked a shoulder towards the bedside table, and Lucy went quickly to rummage through it. When she found the small brown bottle, she experienced a jolt of alarmed surprise: it contained a powerful narcotic. A prescription for a powerful narcotic.
Wordlessly she checked the dosage label, and shook two pills out into her hand. She fetched a glass of water from the en suite bathroom and handed both to Khaled, who took them silently.
A few moments ticked by in taut silence and then Khaled eased back onto the bed, his hands braced behind him. ‘Thank you,’ he said stiffly. ‘You can go now.’
‘The narcotic doesn’t take effect that quickly.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I can’t leave you in such a vulnerable state,’ Lucy replied. ‘As a medical professional—’
‘Oh, give it a rest,’ Khaled snapped. ‘You don’t think I know what I’m doing? You don’t think I’ve been dealing with this for four years?’ He glared up at her, his eyes flashing fury. Lucy took a step back.
‘Khaled—’
‘Go.’ It came out as a roar of anguish, a plea, and Lucy almost, almost went. But she couldn’t leave him like this, couldn’t walk away from the pain in his eyes and the unanswered questions in hers.
So she sat across from him on a low, cushioned stool and waited.
After a long moment Khaled let out a ragged laugh. ‘I dreamed of seeing you again, but not like this. Never like this.’
Shock rippled through her, cold and yet thrilling. ‘You dreamed of seeing me again?’ she repeated, the scepticism in her voice obvious to both of them.
‘Yes.’ Khaled spoke simply, starkly, before he shook his head. ‘But I don’t want you here now, Lucy. Not like this. So go.’
‘No.’
He let out an exasperated sigh. ‘You know I can’t make you go.’
‘No.’
‘But I would if I could.’
‘I gathered that.’ She paused, sifting the memories and recollections in her mind. ‘Has your knee been bothering you the whole time we’ve been here?’
‘It’s just a flare up,’ he said flatly, but Lucy thought she understood why he’d looked so grim. He’d been in pain.
Another few moments passed; the only sound was Khaled’s ragged breathing. Finally he pushed himself off the bed and limped stiffly to a table by the window, where Lucy saw a decanter of whiskey and a couple of tumblers.
‘You shouldn’t drink that on top of a narcotic,’ she said as Khaled poured himself a finger of scotch. He smiled grimly as he tossed it back and poured another.
‘I have a strong stomach.’
Lucy watched him quietly for a moment. ‘Everyone was told your injury wasn’t too serious,’ she finally said. ‘Yet obviously it is if you’re still suffering.’
Khaled shook his head, the movement effectively silencing her. ‘I told you, this was nothing more than a flare up.’
‘How long do they last?’
He turned to face her, a smile twisting his features. ‘You’re not my doctor, Lucy.’
‘Are you having some form of physiotherapy?’ she pressed, and he poured some more whiskey.
‘Yesterday you said you wanted to talk to me. Now seems like a good opportunity.’
‘Why, Khaled?’ Lucy asked softly. ‘Why did no one know the truth?’
‘Why,’ he repeated, swinging round to face her, ‘don’t you tell me what I supposedly need to know and then get out?’ He took a deep swallow of his drink. ‘I’d like to be alone.’
Lucy hesitated. This wasn’t exactly the way she’d wanted to have this conversation, yet she recognised that there might not be another opportunity. She drew a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Fine. Khaled…when you left England four years ago I was pregnant.’ She saw a current of some deep, fathomless emotion flicker in Khaled’s eyes before he stilled, became expressionless. Dangerous.
There was no way she knew of to make this information more palatable, less surprising, so she ploughed on. ‘You have a child, Khaled. A son.’
The silence ticked by for a full, taut minute. Khaled just stared at her, a blank, unnerving stare that made Lucy want to explain, apologise, but she did neither. She just waited.
‘A son,’ he finally repeated, his voice still so terribly neutral. ‘And you did not seek to apprise me of this fact until now?’
‘Actually, I did.’ Lucy kept her voice even. Now that she’d told him, now that he knew, she felt calm, composed. In control. All the things she’d wanted to be all along—all the things she’d wanted to be four years ago. ‘I didn’t realise I was pregnant until after you left,’ she continued. ‘And, when I did, I tried to get in touch with you. Your mobile number had been disconnected—’
‘That’s all?’ Khaled bit out. ‘One attempted phone call?’
‘Not quite,’ Lucy returned coolly. ‘I sent an e-mail to you in Biryal. I got the address off the government website—’
‘You sent an e-mail to a generic government e-mail address and expected me to get it?’ Khaled interjected, raking a hand through his still sweat-dampened hair. ‘With the kind of information it contained, it was undoubtedly dismissed as a tabloid’s ploy or the ravings of a scorned mistress.’
‘And isn’t that what I was?’ Lucy flashed, her own temper rising to meet his. ‘Except I didn’t happen to be raving.’
They glared at each other for a long moment and then with a sudden, ragged sigh Khaled turned away. ‘What’s his name?’ The question surprised Lucy, softened her.
‘Sam.’
‘Sam,’ he repeated, and there was a note of wonder in his voice that made him seem somehow vulnerable, and made Lucy ache.
‘He’s three years old,’ she continued quietly. ‘He had his birthday four months ago.’
Khaled nodded slowly, his eyes on a distant horizon. From downstairs there came a sudden burst of raucous laughter that felt like an intrusion in the sudden cocoon of warmth Sam’s name had created.
Khaled straightened. ‘I’ll have to have a DNA test done.’
Lucy blinked. It was no more than she expected, but still it hurt. ‘Fine.’ She drew a breath. ‘Khaled, I didn’t tell you about Sam because I wanted something from you. You don’t need to worry—’ She broke off because Khaled was staring at her in what could only be disbelief, his eyes narrowed, his mouth no more than a thin line.
‘Worry?’ he repeated softly, and Lucy shrugged, the movement defensive.
‘Worry that I came here asking for money or something. Sam and I are fine. We don’t need—’
‘Me?’ he finished, and Lucy felt a chill of apprehension. This wasn’t what she’d expected, what she’d wanted.
‘We’re fine,’ she repeated firmly, and Khaled shook his head.
‘Every boy—every child—needs his father.’
‘Plenty of children are raised without one.’ Like she had been. Children didn’t need fathers—not ones who walked away, at any rate. She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight, and met his gaze. She saw sparks firing the golden depths of his eyes.
‘Are you trying to tell me that you don’t want me in my son’s life?’
His words were almost a sneer, a condemnation and a judgement. Lucy threw her shoulders back and lifted her chin. She was ready to fight. God only knew, after four years of living with so many unanswered questions, the broken pieces of a shattered existence—not to mention of her heart—she was ready. ‘Yes, I am saying that. You haven’t exactly proven yourself reliable, Khaled. The last thing I want is for Sam to come to know you, love you, and then for you to do another disappearing act.’
The skin around Khaled’s mouth had turned white, his eyes narrowed almost to slits. ‘You are insulting me,’ he said in a dangerously quiet voice.
‘Is it an insult?’ Lucy arched one eyebrow. ‘I rather thought I was telling the truth.’
Khaled muttered a curse under his breath, then stalked back to the table by the window to pour himself another drink.
‘I think you’ve had enough, considering you’re on medication.’
‘I haven’t even begun,’ Khaled snarled, his back to her. ‘And I don’t need any advice from you.’
‘Fine.’ Lucy’s heart thudded but she kept her voice cool. Still her fingers curled inwards, her nails biting into her slick palms.
What did Khaled want?
His back and shoulders were taut with tension and fury as he tossed back another finger’s worth of whiskey. Lucy was suddenly conscious of how tired she was; her mind spun with fatigue, every muscle aching with it.
‘Why don’t we continue this conversation tomorrow?’ she said carefully. ‘I don’t leave until noon. I think we’d both be in a better frame of mind to consider what’s best for Sam.’
‘Fine.’ His back still to her, Khaled waved one hand in dismissal. ‘We can have breakfast tomorrow. A servant will fetch you from your room at eight.’
‘All right,’ Lucy agreed. She waited, but Khaled did not turn round. ‘Till tomorrow, then.’ She walked towards the door, only to be stopped with her hand on the knob by Khaled’s soft warning.
‘And, Lucy…’ He turned round, his eyes glittering. ‘We’ll finish this conversation tomorrow.’
The door clicked softly shut and Khaled raised his glass to his lips before he thrust it aside completely with a muttered oath. It clattered on the table and, pushing a hand through his hair, he flung open the doors that led to a private balcony.
Outside he took in several lungfuls of air and let it soothe the throbbing in his temples, the still-insistent ache in his knee. He hadn’t had a flare up like the one tonight in months, years…and Lucy had seen it. Seen him, weak, prone, pathetic.
He’d never wanted that. He’d never wanted anyone—especially her—to know. Hadn’t wanted the pity, the compassion that was really condemnation. He didn’t want to become a burden, as his mother had, to her own shame and sorrow.
It was why he’d left, why he’d taken the decision out of Lucy’s hands. It was the only form of control he’d had.
Yet now he realised he would have to put that control aside. Things would have to change. He would have to change. Because of Sam.
Sam…
The air was sultry and damp; a storm was coming. He felt as if one had blown through here, through his room, his life, his heart.
Sam. He had a son. A child; flesh of his own flesh. A family at last. It was an incredible thought, both humbling and empowering.
A three-year-old son who didn’t even know of his existence. Khaled frowned, guilt, hurt and anger all warring within him. He wanted to blame Lucy, to accuse her of deceiving him, of not trying hard enough to find him, but he knew that would be unfair. He had not wanted to be found.
He had pushed her out of his mind, his heart, his whole existence, and thought things would stay that way. He’d made peace with it, after a fashion. He’d certainly never planned on seeing her again.
Loving her again.
For a moment, Khaled allowed himself to savour how she’d looked—kneeling before him, the sweep of her glossy hair, her slender, capable hands that had once afforded him so much pleasure. He remembered the way that satin dress had clung to her curves, pooled on the floor, and even in the red haze of pain he had a sharp stab of desire.
Desire he wouldn’t—couldn’t—act upon. Yet neither could he deny that Lucy was in his life once more, and now he would not let her leave it. He wouldn’t leave, because things were different.
Sam had changed everything.
* * *
Exhausted, Lucy entered her bedroom and peeled off her evening gown, leaving it in a puddle of satin on the floor. She knew she should hang it up, keep it from creasing, but she couldn’t be bothered. Her mind and body cried out for sleep, for the release of unconsciousness.
For forgetfulness…for a time. A few hours; that was all the respite she’d been given.
And then tomorrow the reckoning would come.
What did Khaled want?
Just the question sent her heart rate spiralling upwards, her breath leaking from her lungs. She hadn’t anticipated him wanting anything. She’d planned, hoped, believed that after today she would walk away, free.
Yet now she realised she might have entangled herself in Khaled’s snare more firmly than she had before. Now perhaps Sam was entangled too.
What did Khaled want?
And had she been so naïve—stupid, really—to think he wouldn’t want anything?
That he wouldn’t want his son?
But he didn’t want me.
She slipped under the covers and pressed her face into the pillow, trying to stop the hot rush of tears that threatened to spill from behind her lids.
She didn’t want to cry now. She didn’t want to feel like crying now.
Yet she did feel like it; she craved the release. She wanted to cry out in fear for herself and for Sam, and in misery for all she’d felt for Khaled once and knew she could not feel again.
And, surprisingly, she felt sad for Khaled. What was he hiding? Lucy couldn’t tell what kind of injury had him in its terrible thrall, but it was serious. More serious than she could treat as a physiotherapist. It was the kind of injury, she suspected, that could keep him from playing rugby ever again…no matter what Eric had said.
Had he left England because his rugby career was finished? And why would that have meant they were finished? The only answer, even now, was that she simply hadn’t meant enough to him. Not like he’d meant to her.
Her mind still spinning with too many questions and doubts, her heart aching like a sore tooth with sudden, jagged, lightning streaks of pain, she finally fell into a restless and uneasy sleep.
Lucy hadn’t even risen from bed when she heard a perfunctory knock on her bedroom door the next morning. With a jolt she realised it was already eight o’clock, and Khaled’s servant had come to fetch her.
‘Just a moment,’ she called out, throwing off the sheets and reaching hurriedly for clothes. Unshowered, groggy from sleep, she knew she’d be at a disadvantage for her breakfast with Khaled.
Calling out an apology, she quickly splashed water on her face, brushed her teeth and indulged herself in a touch of make-up.
She didn’t need any disadvantages now.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/kate-hewitt/the-sheikh-s-love-child/) на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
Кейт Хьюит
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
Отзывы: Пока нет Добавить отзыв
О книге: King of the desert, father of her child… With butterflies fluttering in her stomach, Lucy Banks has arrived in the desert kingdom of Biryal – with a secret! Seeing Sheikh Khaled – the man who once loved and left her – at home in his sumptuous royal palace, Lucy is blown away by his barbaric magnificence: he’s king of the desert, his eyes are blacker and harder than before, and he’s no longer the man she once knew.She wants to run away from his overwhelming masculinity. But they’re inextricably bound for ever…for he is the father of her son…