The Royals Collection

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IT WAS ON the second night of their honeymoon that the telephone rang in the middle of the night. Kamel shifted her off his dead arm and reached for the phone with the other.

‘I have to go.’

‘What’s wrong?’

Kamel put the phone back on the hook. Under his tan he was ashen.

‘Your uncle?’

He shook his head. ‘No, not that, thank God.’

She was relieved for his sake. She knew how fond Kamel was of his uncle and had also worked out from a few things he had said that he was in no hurry to take the throne. In fact, she had the impression that Kamel inexplicably thought he was not good enough to fill his cousin’s shoes.

The few times Kamel had mentioned his cousin, the qualities he said he had possessed—the ones that made him the perfect heir apparent—were qualities that Kamel had too, in abundance!

‘There has been an earthquake.’

Hannah gasped.

‘Rafiq will stay here with you.’

‘Good luck and take care,’ she said, struggling to keep her emotions low-key but wishing he had asked her to come with him.

‘It’s on occasions like this that my uncle must feel the loss of Hakim. It was so senseless. It will never make any sense. He had the ability to—’

Hannah could no longer hold her tongue. ‘I’m sure your cousin was a great guy and it’s desperately sad he is gone, but I’m damned sure he wasn’t perfect. If he had been, he wouldn’t have stolen the woman you loved! You’re as good as he was any day of the week! Your uncle is lucky to have someone so dedicated.’

There was a long silence, finally broken by his slow drawl.

‘So the gossips have been talking? I suppose that was to be expected. Well, one thing they didn’t tell you is the difference between me and Hakim is that he wanted to be the king. I hate the idea. And he had Amira beside him for support and that made all the difference for him.’ Kamel found that lately he was able to think about their incredible devotion to one another without feeling bitter or jealous. It was one burden he no longer carried.

She gasped as though he had struck her and glanced down expecting to see a blade protruding from between her ribs. ‘And you have me.’

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, totally misinterpreting her reaction and her flat tone. ‘I’m not expecting you to hold my hand.’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Amira was brought up to this life, and she knew the pressures.’

Unable to see the desperate pain and longing she knew would be in his face, Hannah looked away, hearing Raini’s words in her head. A beautiful queen.

‘I may not understand being royal,’ she admitted quietly, ‘but I do understand that, even though you hate it...’ she lifted her gaze to his face and gave a quick smile ‘...you still put everything into it. That makes you someone who will make a great king one day.’ Under the rather intense scrutiny of his dark eyes, she coloured. ‘A king should have a level of arrogance that would be unacceptable in any other job.’

This drew a laugh from Kamel, who dropped a kiss on her mouth. Their lips clung...for how many seconds she didn’t know, but it was long enough for Hannah to know she had fallen in love. And the man she loved would only ever see her as a pale imitation of the love of his life.

* * *

A little over a month after the earthquake, which had not actually caused any loss of life but had flattened a power plant, Hannah was breakfasting alone. She was in no hurry, as the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a new school had been unexpectedly postponed. When she’d asked why, her secretary had been strangely evasive, but then she was probably reading things into the situation that weren’t there.

Like today—just because no one had remembered her birthday didn’t mean that she had no friends, that nobody would miss her if she weren’t there.

Struggling to divert the self-pitying direction of her thoughts, she picked up her fork and toyed with the smoked salmon and fluffy scrambled egg on her plate. It looked delicious, it smelt delicious, but she was not hungry. Her lack of hunger had nothing whatever to do with the fact it was her birthday and nobody had remembered. Actually, there had been other days this week when she had not been able to face breakfast.

She put down her fork and reminded herself that she was not a child. Birthdays no longer had the same importance, though even last year her father, who always made a fuss of her, despite the memories the day brought back for him—or perhaps because of them—had invited her friends for a pamper spa day. Hannah had known but she had pretended to be surprised.

Practically speaking you could hardly have a spa day with friends who were hundreds of miles away—and her father, it seemed, had forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind? She had rung him two nights on the run and he hadn’t picked up or responded to her text messages. Presumably he had decided she was Kamel’s problem now. And Kamel had left their bed at some unearthly hour. She had barely been able to open her eyes when he had kissed her and said, ‘See you later.’

‘How later?’ she had muttered, wondering how he managed to expend so much energy during the night and still look fresh and dynamic in the morning. Would she have traded a fresh morning face for the nights of shared passion? Hannah hadn’t even asked herself the question. It was a no-brainer.

The prospect of lying in Kamel’s arms at night was what made the long and sometimes exhausting days bearable. It had been a steep learning curve and a shock to find herself with a personal secretary and a diary of official engagements. And part of the problem was of her own making. Initially, despite being advised to be cautious by her advisor, Hannah had agreed to lend her name to any worthy cause that approached her. Now she was snowed under by obligations to promote the numerous good causes she had lent her name to, and had been forced to be a little more discriminating.

Not only had she learnt her own life was not to be one of leisure, she had stopped thinking of Kamel’s life as one of glitter and self-indulgence. He worked harder than anyone she had ever known, and as for glamour—some of what he was called upon to do was mind-numbingly boring and the flip side of that was the delicate tightrope of diplomacy he trod when he negotiated with men of power and influence.

He never complained, and she never told him how much she admired him. He had never mentioned Amira again but she was still there, the silent invisible presence. They could close the door on the rest of the world at the end of the day, but not his dead love. She was a constant. A perfect ideal that Hannah knew she could never live up to. She also worried about what would happen when those forbidden words slipped out in a moment of passion—so she really struggled to stay in control when they made love. Maybe Kamel guessed what she was doing because sometimes he looked at her oddly.

How would he react? she wondered, picking up her coffee cup. She had taken a sip from the cup before she saw what was concealed behind it: a gold-embossed envelope with her name inscribed in a bold familiar print across it.

She slopped coffee on the pristine white cloth in her haste to tear it open. It did not take long to read the message on the card inside.

Your birthday present is in the kitchen.

He knew it was her birthday and he’d bought her something! Like the child she no longer was, she leapt to her feet with a whoop of delight.

* * *

The private jet stood idling. Bad weather had delayed Kamel’s flight. These things happened, and there was always a choice. A man could stress about a situation that was outside his control, fret and fume, and metaphorically or possibly literally bang his head against a brick wall.

Or he could not.

Kamel saved his energy for situations he could influence, but today he had struggled to retain this philosophical outlook. By the time his car drove through the palace gates it was almost midnight and he was in a state of teeth-clenching impatience.

He had bought women presents before, typically expensive baubles, and he took their appreciation for granted. The bauble he had bought Hannah had been in a different class. News of the record-breaking price it had fetched at auction had made the news headlines.

It had been a fortnight ago, the same night that Kamel, who normally worked in his office after dinner, had found himself wondering what Hannah did while he worked. He spent each and every night with her, he saw her in the morning and her personal secretary told him what her schedule was for the day. Sometimes they ate together in the evening but after that...? It had not previously occurred to him to wonder what she did with herself in the evenings.

So he asked.

‘The princess takes a walk and usually spends some time in the small salon. She enjoys watching television.’

‘Television?’

Rafiq nodded. ‘I believe she follows a cookery programme. Sometimes she reads...’ Without any change of expression, he had somehow managed to sound reproachful as he added, ‘I think she might be lonely.’

‘That will be all.’ Only a long relationship and a respect for the older man stopped him saying more, but Kamel was incensed that his employee should think it came within his remit to tell him he was neglecting his wife!

If she was lonely, all she had to do was tell him. The trouble was that she had no sense, and could not accept advice. She had taken on an excessive workload, despite his giving her secretary explicit instructions to keep her duties light. She had ignored him, she had... His anger left him without warning, leaving him exposed to the inescapable fact that he had been guilty of neglect. Outside the bedroom he actively avoided her. But then logically if they were to be parents there would, for the child’s sake, need to be some sort of mutual understanding outside the bedroom.

Lonely. A long way from home and anyone she knew, living in a totally foreign environment by a set of rules that were alien to her. And Kamel had needed someone to tell him that?

She hadn’t complained and he had been happy and even relieved to take her seeming contentment at face value. Determined to make up for his neglect, he had gone to see for himself, but any expectation of discovering a forlorn figure had vanished when he’d walked into the small salon and found Hannah sitting cross-legged on a sofa giggling helplessly at the screen. She seemed surprised to see him but not interested enough to give him all her attention. Most of that remained on the television. Of course, it was a relief to discover she didn’t need him to entertain her.

‘A comedy?’ He sat on the sofa arm and looked around. The room was one that he rarely entered but he recognised there had been some changes. Not just the television and bright cushions, but where a large oil painting had stood there was now a row of moody monochrome framed photographs of rugged mountain landscapes.

On the desk there was a piece of driftwood and some shells beside an untidy stack of well-thumbed paperback novels.

Hannah caught him looking. ‘The painting made me depressed and the other stuff is in a cupboard somewhere.’

‘What a relief. I thought you might have pawned it.’

She looked at him as though she couldn’t decide if he was joking or not. ‘Do not let me interrupt your comedy.’

‘It’s a cookery competition. His sponge sank.’

‘And that is good?’

She slung him a pitying look and shook her head. ‘If he doesn’t pull it out of the bag with his choux buns he’s out.’

Kamel had stayed, not because he found the competitive side of baking entertaining, but because he found Hannah’s enjoyment contagious. She was riveting viewing. It fascinated him to watch her face while she willed on her favourite, the sound of her throaty chuckle was entrancing, and her scolding of a contestant who, as she put it, bottled it, made him laugh.

When the programme finished he was sitting beside her, sharing the sofa, and it was too late to go back to work. So he accepted her suggestion of a second glass of wine and watched a documentary with her. It was then he discovered that Hannah, renowned for her icy control, cried easily and laughed even more easily. Her aloof mask concealed someone who was warm, spontaneous and frighteningly emotional.

She had been pretending to be someone she wasn’t for so long that he wondered if she remembered why she had developed the mask. But then his research into the subject had said that dyslexics developed coping mechanisms.

After that first evening it had become a habit for him to break from work a little earlier and join her. On the night he had taken receipt of her birthday gift he had cut his evening work completely and when he’d entered the salon had been feeling quite pleased with himself as he’d contemplated her reaction when she opened her gift the following week.

‘No cookery programme?’

‘No,’ she’d snuffled, looking up at him through suspiciously red eyes. ‘It’s too early. This is an appeal for the famine.’

The appeal had been followed by a news programme where the headline was not the famine but an item on the diamond purchased at auction by an anonymous buyer and the record-breaking price it had achieved.

When she’d expressed her condemnation of a society where the values were so skewed that people put a higher price on a shiny jewel than they did on children’s lives, he’d agreed wholeheartedly with her view before going away to pass the ring he’d bought for her on to the next highest bidder, and to make a sizeable donation to the famine appeal. He’d then spent the rest of the evening wrestling with the problem of what the hell to buy for the woman who could have everything and didn’t want it!

For a man who had never put any thought into a gift beyond signing a cheque it had not been easy, but he considered his solution inspired.

Would Hannah?

At some point he would have to ask himself why pleasing her mattered so much to him, but that remained a question for tomorrow. Today things were going rather well. This marriage could have been a total disaster but it wasn’t.

* * *

The sound of music as he walked into the apartment drew him to the salon. A soft, sexy ballad was playing. The room was empty but the doors of the balcony were open and the dining table there was laid for two, with red roses and candles. The roses were drooping, the candles in the silver candelabra had burnt down, spilling wax on the table, and the champagne in the ice bucket was empty, as were the plates.

He was making sense of the scene when Rafiq appeared.

‘Where?’

‘I believe they are in the kitchen.’

‘They?’

‘The chef is still here.’

Rafiq opened the kitchen door, but neither his wife nor the celebrity chef he had flown in to give her a day’s one-to-one teaching session heard him. Could that have had something to do with the open bottle of wine and two glasses on the table?

Or the fact they were having a great time? The guy with his fake smile and spray tan was relating an incident with enough name-dropping to make the most committed social climber wince.

Hannah wasn’t wincing, though, she was eating it up, with her amazed gasps and impressed ahhs.

Well, she wasn’t lonely, and she certainly wasn’t missing him.

Scowling, he tugged at his tie and walked inside. He was paying the man to give his wife cooking lessons. He could manage the other things himself.

‘Happy birthday.’

At the sound of the voice she had been waiting to hear all evening, Hannah’s head turned. She started to her feet just in time, restraining the impulse to fling herself at him.

To his mind, her reaction had all the hallmarks of guilt.

‘Have you had a good day?’ His eyes slid to the chef, who had risen slowly to his feet.

‘Yes, thank you.’

Her response and her demure, hand-clasped attitude reminded him of a child summoned to the headmaster’s study, and he felt his temper rise.

‘I made us a meal but you—’

‘You missed a great meal, really great. This girl is a talent.’

‘The girl is my wife.’ Kamel had spent the day being pleasant to idiots but enough was enough.

‘Hannah is a great pupil. Really talented.’

‘Yes, you mentioned that. Well, thank you for stepping into the breach, but I would like to say happy birthday to my wife—alone. Shall I have someone show you to your room or can you—?’

‘I’ll be fine. Goodnight, all.’

The door closed and Hannah gave a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness for that.’

Her reaction sent his antagonism down several levels.

‘You did not enjoy your birthday present?’

‘It was the best birthday present I have ever had! It was fine before he started drinking and then...’ She shook her head. ‘He kept telling the same story over and over and I couldn’t get rid of him. Thank goodness you came when you did. I was ready to hide in the pantry, but at least it stopped me brooding. Dad didn’t call. I hope he’s all right. Some years he is worse than others,’ she admitted, worriedly.

Kamel shook his head. ‘Worse?’

‘Sorry, I was talking as if you knew.’

Kamel struggled to contain his frustration. He had to drag every bit of information out of her. ‘I would like to know.’

‘My mother died when I was born. Well, actually she died a few weeks earlier. She was brain dead but they kept her alive until I was strong enough to be delivered. Dad stayed by her side night and day all that time and when I was born they switched off the life support. It’s hardly any wonder it was months before he could even look at me. If it hadn’t been for me she’d be alive.’

The fist around his heart tightened as she raised her swimming blue eyes to him.

‘Your father doesn’t blame you for your mother’s death.’ No father could do that to an innocent child. It was more likely, knowing Hannah, that she blamed herself. How had he ever thought this woman was selfish and shallow?

‘Well, if he did I guess he’s been trying to make up for it ever since by spoiling me rotten. I wish he’d ring.’

‘Your father will be fine.’

Hannah nodded and stood there noticing the lines of fatigue etched into his face. Presumably he’d had a bad day—the same bad day that was responsible for the air of menace he had been radiating when he’d walked in. He’d made her think of a big panther, all leashed violence and tension.

‘Come here.’

The rough invitation and the glow in his eyes made her tummy flip. ‘Why?’

‘I want to make up for missing your birthday.’ He wanted to make up for every moment of pain in her life.

‘What did you have in min—?’ She let out a shriek as he scooped her up into his arms. ‘What are you doing?’

He kicked open the door and grinned. ‘I am taking you upstairs to give you the rest of your birthday present. It might,’ he added, his eyes darkening as they swept her face, ‘take some time.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

HANNAH KICKED OFF her shoes as she walked into the bedroom. Kamel stood, his shoulders propped against the door jamb, and watched as she sat at the dressing table and struggled with the clasp of the sapphire necklace she wore.

He had never imagined that the nape of a woman’s neck could be erotic, but he had to accept that some of life’s normal rules did not apply where his wife was concerned. When she had walked into the room at his side tonight, making him think of a graceful swan in her slim-fitting white gown, she had been literally shaking with fear but nobody would have guessed as she smiled and charmed everyone present at the formal state dinner.

The fierce pride he had felt as he had watched her across the table, graceful and lovely, had only been matched in the emotional stakes by the rush of protectiveness he had experienced when, during the press-the-flesh session following the formal banquet, when those who were being rewarded for good works got a chance to meet the royals, Hannah’s interest in the diverse range of people who lined up to shake her hand had seemed real—as had the fear in her eyes when she had seen the Quagani colonel. The moment had passed and she had recovered her poise, but Kamel had kept an eye on the man. Diplomatic incident or not, he was poised to throw the guy out personally if he so much as looked at Hannah the wrong way.

In the event he had seemed to behave himself. Even so, Kamel intended to make damned sure that in the future their favourite cuddly colonel had his card marked when it came to entry into this country.

‘Let me.’

She looked at him in the mirror, unable to disguise the shiver of pleasure as his fingers brushed her neck.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at him through her lashes with eyes that shone brighter than the gems he was removing.

He paused. She seemed about to say something but then, as if she had changed her mind, she tipped her head in acknowledgement as he dropped the necklace into her hand.

‘You did well tonight.’

The comment smoothed the small groove in Hannah’s brow and she released the sigh she’d felt she had been holding in all night. ‘So I passed?’

He didn’t return her smile. ‘Is that how you saw tonight? As a test?’ The idea troubled him. ‘You’re not being graded, Hannah. No one is judging you.’

Hannah shrugged. She had been here long enough to learn a little of the politics of the place, and she knew that she was resented in certain quarters. More than a few people were just waiting for her to mess up. She would never be Amira, but she was determined to prove them all wrong.

‘Especially not me.’

Whatever trust issues he had with Hannah had long gone. He often watched her—which was not exactly a hardship—and found himself wondering how he had ever even for a second thought she was a cold, spoilt bitch!

He was not a man who looked deep inside himself, maybe because he knew that he wouldn’t have liked what he’d have seen.

He’d once told Hannah to lose the attitude, but now he saw that it was advice he ought to have been directing at himself. He’d seen marriage as a life sentence the moment when the doors slammed shut. He had not faced his resentment of the role that had been thrust on him. Hannah had made him do that.

He’d never for one second thought that marriage might be better than the life he’d had to let go. He’d put so much effort into seeing himself as someone who had missed out on the chance of happiness when he had lost Amira that when it had fallen at his feet he’d not recognised it.

And yet there was a cloud. Hannah welcomed him into her bed but he sensed a new restraint in her. She was holding back. On more than one occasion he had nearly demanded to know what the hell was the matter—but he’d stopped himself. What if she told him and he didn’t like the answer?

His quiet admission that he hadn’t been judging her made her throat ache with unshed tears.

‘I was dreading it,’ she admitted.

‘I know.’

‘It was strange sitting next to the man who once held my fate in his hands.’ Protocol dictated that she was seated next to the daunting Sheikh Malek. ‘He could have signed my death warrant.’

‘No!’

The explosive interjection made her pause and touch his hand. His fingers unclenched under the light pressure. ‘Tonight he was telling me about his rose collection. He invited me to a tour of his rose gardens.’

Kamel let out a silent whistle as he brought his hands up to rest on her shoulders. ‘You’re honoured. I haven’t made that invite yet. It’s the hottest ticket in town, I promise you.’

He bent his head and Hannah closed her eyes, but the anticipated kiss did not arrive on her waiting lips. With a disgruntled little frown between her feathery brows, she opened her eyes and saw him digging into the pocket of his jacket.

‘I almost forgot. This is yours, I believe.’

Her frown deepened as she shook her head and looked at the small fat brown envelope he held. ‘It’s not mine.’

He turned it over. ‘Well, it’s got your name on the front.’

Sliding her finger under the sealed flap, she split it open and angled a questioning look up at him, suspecting this was Kamel’s way of delivering a surprise. ‘There’s no celebrity chef hiding inside, is there?’

Kamel responded to the teasing with a lopsided grin. ‘The man’s ego wouldn’t fit into this room, let alone an envelope.’

Hannah turned the parcel around, feeling an odd reluctance suddenly to open it. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘Someone saw you drop it, handed it to someone who passed it on to me. I assumed it fell out of your bag.’

Her lips quirked into an amused smile. ‘My bag will just about hold a lipstick.’

Her explanation drew a puzzled look. ‘Then why carry it?’

‘Only a man would ask that question.’

‘What is it?’ he asked as she tipped the contents of the envelope onto the dressing table.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she admitted, staring as several photos clipped together fell out, then, after another shake, a card. ‘It says here that...’ She read the logo on top of the card and her brows lifted. ‘Private investigator!’

Kamel picked up the photos. He did not look beyond the one on the top. A muscle in his lean cheek clenched.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, struggling to read his shuttered expression.

‘See for yourself.’ He slid the clip off the bundle and fanned them out, playing-card style, on the surface in front of her.

Hannah accepted the invitation, and the nausea she had been feeling intermittently all evening resurfaced with a vengeance. There were two people in each grainy print and, even though they had clearly been taken using a telephoto lens and there was some graininess, there was no mistaking one at least of the faces...or the body.

Kamel’s mouth twisted in distaste.

‘I thought we had all of these.’

Of course, once images made their way onto the Internet they were there for ever, but the person who had taken these had been refreshingly pragmatic. The only thing he’d been interested in was money, not causing embarrassment.

‘You knew about these?’ She held a clenched fist to her pale lips.

‘These were taken long before we were married. You do know that, don’t you?’ He could have pointed out that the dress she was wearing—when she was wearing one—was the gold number that had been the trigger for their poolside tussle. But he shouldn’t have to.

He had not needed to ask Hannah if she had employed a private investigator; he knew she hadn’t. He recognised this for what it was—a rather obvious and malicious attempt at mischief-making, one that could only work in a marriage where there was a lack of trust that could be exploited.

‘Do you believe me, Hannah? Do you trust me?’

Saying she did amounted to an admission that she loved him. Was she ready to make it?

The realisation that she was came hand in hand with the even stronger realisation that if she didn’t move fast she was going to throw up all over his shiny shoes.

She threw him an agonised look, then dashed to the bathroom with her hand pressed to her lips, and slammed the door in his face.

When she finished being violently sick, Hannah got weakly to her feet and washed her face. A look in the mirror told her she looked like death warmed up. She went back into the bedroom.

She squared her shoulders and opened the door. It was time she manned up and came clean. She would tell him that, not only did she trust his word, she trusted him with her life and that of their unborn baby.

She curved a protective hand over her flat belly and whispered, ‘Here goes.’

It was empty.

The anticlimax was intense, but it only lasted a moment. She looked back on their conversation before she had made her dash for the bathroom, and she saw the situation from his perspective. He had asked her if she trusted him and she had bolted.

She put herself in his shoes—what was he thinking?

The answer was not long coming. He thought she didn’t trust him. The knowledge buzzed in her head and she knew it wouldn’t go away until she told him how she felt.

He had to know she wasn’t that person. Fuelled by an urgency that infected every cell of her body, that defied logic, she ignored the heels she had kicked off and shoved her feet into a pair of trainers.

The bodyguard standing outside the door moved to one side as she exploded through the door.

‘Where is he?’

The steely face betrayed a concern as he looked down at her.

‘Shall I get someone for you—?’

‘No, just tell me where he went!’ she screeched, fighting the impulse to beat her hands on his chest.

After a pause that seemed to Hannah to go on for ever, he nodded to the door that led to the stone spiral steps that in turn led to the side entrance to their apartment.

Hannah’s grateful smile shone, causing the big man to blush but she didn’t notice. Slinging a ‘Thank you!’ over her shoulder, she flew down the stairs at record-breaking speed, slowing only when she remembered the baby.

Outside her burst of optimism vanished as she scanned the surrounding area lit by spotlights. Her anxious gaze failed to pick up any sign of movement amongst the rows of fragrant lemon trees that grew in the manicured expanse of green, a green maintained by high-tech underground irrigation.

She was about to concede defeat when she saw a figure who had been previously concealed by a hollow in the undulating ground outlined on the horizon.

‘Kamel!’

Maybe he didn’t hear her, or maybe he chose to ignore her. Her jaw firmed; she’d make him listen, she told herself grimly, or die in the attempt!

In her head she could hear him calling her a drama queen. Tears welled in her eyes and she tried to call his name but nothing came out of her mouth. Swallowing tears and the frustration that lay like a weight in her chest, she willed herself on.