Yet Khalid was no martyr.
He also yearned to be King and to completely rule this beautiful land.
It clawed at his throat, though, that for now he had to comply and hold back from ruling Al-Zahan as he saw fit, and making strong and deep relations with the mainland. And, worse, now that the hotel had been built, the excuses had ended and it was time now to accept the King’s choice of a suitable wife.
There was no solution that worked for everyone.
At least, though, there would be a rare reprieve tonight.
* * *
‘Five minutes, angels...’
Aubrey wriggled into the flimsy white costume with inbuilt knickers that she was to wear for the finale. The bodice was jewelled and the rest was sheer. She wore white trapeze boots, that were just slips of leather, and, having dressed, Aubrey frantically retouched her sparkly make-up as her hair was done.
With seconds to spare she held her locket between finger and thumb as she ran up the internal stairwells and through the back corridors, with burly guards pointing the backstage way.
As the esteemed guests left the celebrations and walked through the foyer, overhead would be a sleepy, angelic sky to wave them on their way.
And Aubrey knew it would be the last time she ever saw Khalid.
‘Angels, take your places.’
She chalked her feet and hands and then climbed a long ladder and took to the platform and her hoop, and when she gave the signal she was ready she was lifted high into the dome.
She felt very safe with the equipment and had trained hard. The nerves fluttering in her chest were reserved for Khalid.
Aubrey knew now that she wasn’t here for the extra money, or to find out about Aayiz’s heritage. She was here for a far more pathetic reason—the mere chance to lock eyes with Khalid. To somehow let him know that he had been, and always would be, in her heart and in her thoughts, even if they could never be together.
The music was subtle, for it was not a show as such, more a pleasing feature as the dignitaries passed, but it thrummed through her as beautiful music should.
Aubrey felt teary at the strains of violin and the throb of bass and she took her gazelle position in the hoop, her head hanging downward, her left leg held straight while she held onto her right calf.
And she held her position, even while watching the beauty of him walking by.
Yet he did not see her.
She pulled herself up and sat in the hoop and waited the necessary beats until she performed the next move, for it was the doves’ turn.
Now Khalid looked up.
And, when he did, Aubrey thought she might fly.
His eyes did not scan the foyer, he did not search for her amongst many, or try to pick her out, he just raised his noble head and looked straight into her eyes. And had he held out his arms she would have surely dropped into them for the pull of Khalid was so strong.
There was no question that he recognised her.
Her heart was sure of that, and she would hold onto this moment for ever, Aubrey knew.
This long moment when they locked eyes and the music felt like the score had been written for them, for the violin sounded as if it was crying.
She could not look away.
Even when Philippe scolded her for missing her next move, she would smile secretly to herself, for Khalid had seen her. The miles she had travelled, the separation from Aayiz was all worth it for this.
Until he withdrew his gaze.
Khalid looked away and turned to walk out and Aubrey realised that that brief moment was all she would have of him as, from on high, she was forced to watch him leave.
And a glimpse was no longer enough.
This whole week, and all the hope she had pinned on tonight, all the dreams she had suppressed in anticipation of this moment, ended in the most terrible anti-climax. She wanted to call out his name, to scream Khalid!, to tell him she loved him, if he would only turn around.
But he didn’t.
Without even a backward glance he departed.
Aubrey couldn’t even cry, for the show must go on and she was being paid very well after all.
And so she twirled and she stretched and she spun in the air for what felt like for ever, until finally the last of the esteemed guests had left and she could step down.
As she climbed down the ladder the only relief was that soon she could call home and check on Aayiz. But for now there was no chance to gather her breath, or to wipe the tears that were starting to fall. ‘This way!’ She was being directed up and Aubrey followed to where the stagehand was pointing.
And then up again, when Aubrey was sure she should be now heading down but the rest of her troupe weren’t behind her.
Instead, two suited men were climbing the stairs but as she moved to flatten herself and let them pass they took her by the elbows.
‘What are you doing?’ Aubrey shouted, but they offered no response, just lifted her up so that her feet didn’t touch the floor, carrying her, kicking and twisting, up the stairwell and then into a goods elevator, and then up, ever up, until she was taken, resisting, through an exit door and to a waiting helicopter.
And it was then that she knew that it was no accident or stroke of fate that had brought her here to Al-Zahan.
‘Get off me,’ she shouted, though of course to no avail, for the wind from the rotors drowned her shouts, and the noise of them was deafening as they hurried her across the roof.
Aubrey wasn’t scared of heights—she wouldn’t be able to perform if that were the case—but the sudden ascent as the chopper lifted into the night sky had her stomach lurch and fear that she might simply disappear invade her.
Aayiz.
She wanted to scream his name as real terror took hold, as it dawned on her that if Khalid had arranged for her to be here, then he might already know about their son.
CHAPTER TWELVE
‘WHERE ARE YOU taking me?’ she demanded of the men, but then decided to save her strength.
Aubrey gave a wry laugh.
What strength?
She had no might against Khalid. She looked down on the vast desert, in trepidation rather than awe, and felt like nothing more than a speck, a tiny pawn in whatever game Khalid was playing.
They flew for what felt like for ever, though was probably closer to half an hour. There was no moon in the sky to orientate her, no markers she could see, until they hovered and the lights caught a huge white tent billowing in the desert winds. She could see horses fenced on one side, and at first they looked like toys, but they were soon low enough that Aubrey could see them startle and circle in alarm at the lights and noise.
And she was terrified but, as always, determined not to show it.
She was taken from the helicopter to a vast tented complex. The air was cold in her lungs and the sky was a dense navy and she had never in her life seen more stars. There were universes swirling in a moonless sky and even the noise of the rotors was soon drowned by the shrieking winds.
Then silence as she stepped inside, only the silence wasn’t soothing.
She was met by a woman but led by the guards along long white corridors towards the centre.
The air grew warmer and more scented, and Aubrey was in no doubt she was being led to him.
There was a fire pit in the centre and lavish drapes and rugs adorned the walls and there was a platform, but she could barely take in her surroundings, for there on the platform, more formidable, more powerful than she had ever known him, stood Khalid.
‘You will kneel before the Sheikh Prince,’ the woman said.
‘I already knelt for him once and look where that got me,’ Aubrey retorted, and she watched the tightening of his jaw.
‘Kneel for the Sheikh Prince,’ The woman urged.
‘Not until I’m told why I’m
here.’
‘Leave her to me.’ Khalid dismissed them and the woman and the burly men melted away so that she faced him alone.
‘How have you been, Aubrey?’
‘Fine, until I was kidnapped.’ Her teeth were chattering but she was defiant.
‘Don’t be so dramatic,’ he drawled. ‘How else was I to bring you here? This liaison has been most difficult to arrange.’
‘Liaison?’ Aubrey frowned.
‘You surely don’t think it was by accident that you are here in Al-Zahan.’
‘Not now I don’t,’ Aubrey admitted, ‘but for a while there I thought it was down to hard work.’ Of all the things to cry about, and there were plenty, right now, that was the one that hurt the most.
She had been proud of being chosen, despite a less than brilliant audition.
Proud of the work she’d put in and the decent money she would finally earn.
Yet this was nothing more to him than a liaison.
Right now, she hated that word.
‘How else was I supposed to get you here?’ Khalid asked, bemused by the tears in her eyes, for he had been certain they would fall into each other’s arms.
Instead she stood warily and looked at him with suspicious eyes.
‘I hoped to see you at the memorial,’ Khalid admitted, though he omitted to mention the gut-wrenching disappointment he had felt when she’d failed to arrive.
‘I couldn’t afford it,’ Aubrey said in a hollow voice, not knowing how to tell him about their son. She looked at his narrowed eyes and knew he did not accept her pale excuse. Hell, if it hadn’t been for Aayiz she’d have thumbed a lift for a chance of seeing him. ‘How did you arrange it?’ she asked, simply not getting it. ‘My aunt was the one who told me about the auditions.’
‘I spoke with Brandy at the memorial and from there Laisha arranged things.’
If the Sheikh Prince wanted a discreet liaison with a certain Vegas trapeze artist, then the Sheikh Prince got it.
And if the Sheikh Prince wanted said Trapeze artist to have no clue as to his hand in this, then of course that too could be arranged.
Except this was not the joyous reunion he had envisaged.
‘Are you marrying soon?’ Aubrey asked.
‘I don’t want to discuss that.’
‘Neither do I,’ Aubrey snarled, ‘but it happens to be relevant, Khalid.’
He stepped down from the platform and as he approached he saw that Aubrey was shaking in fear, and he did not understand her terror.
‘I am sorry if you had a fright, it was the only way to get you here...’
But it wasn’t the method of her arrival that now terrified her.
It was that she was here and knew she must tell Khalid that he had a son.
She knew that she had to tell him. For more than a year her secret had been bursting inside her and now with only a wall of air between them, Aubrey did not know how to lie.
‘We need to speak,’ Aubrey said through chattering teeth.
‘Later,’ Khalid said. His hand came to her arm and she quaked at his touch and she could feel the locket on her throat jump with each nervous beat of her heart.
A year of no contact, a year of pain and lies, and she wanted to collapse in his arms and bury her head in his chest, but instead she trembled, in fear, in want and in anger, that he assumed she would simply succumb.
And in shame that she would.
‘I meant,’ Khalid rectified, ‘first you need to eat.’
She shot out a hollow laugh. ‘Eat?’
‘You have been performing.’
She could not accept his friendliness, for she knew it might disappear when the truth was out.
‘You need to eat,’ Khalid pushed on. ‘You are surely hungry.’
‘Khalid...’ She covered her eyes with her hands but there was no hiding there, yet the words simply would not come.
‘It was a shock,’ Khalid said, ‘for you to be removed like that. I did not want to scare you but no one could know—’
‘Khalid,’ she broke in again, but it was hopeless, so her hands moved to her throat and she undid the clasp and handed the locket to him.
‘What is this?’
‘Open it.’
She almost dared not watch as he did, yet she forced herself to, watching his long, deft, fingers deal with the tiny clasp, then she looked at his face.
Withheld was a word she had once used to describe him.
It felt apt now, for not by a flicker did Khalid give away what he was thinking.
* * *
Khalid did not know what to think.
Except for one thing—the baby was his.
To ask for clarification of that fact would be an entire waste of words. For he was there in the baby’s features, and so too were his siblings and mother, yes, even his father the King.
There was no silence in the desert.
He could hear the flap of the tent walls and the shrieks from the wind. And he could hear the crackle of wood from the fire pit, yet he could not hear his heart.
Odd when he could feel the quickening beat of it as it pounded in his chest.
How could he not have known?
How, Khalid begged of himself, could he simply not have known that his child had been born?
‘You never thought to tell me?’
Aubrey dragged in a breath when finally he spoke, but it did not steady her voice, for it came out high and strained. ‘I’ve thought of telling you every day.’
‘Yet you didn’t,’ Khalid said. ‘Had I not brought you here, were you ever going to tell me you had given birth to my child?’
‘I don’t know,’ Aubrey admitted.
‘What sort of answer is that?’
‘An honest one.’
‘How can a liar claim to be honest?’
She wished he would roar, for the icy calm of his voice was more terrifying. She wanted to flee but there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide so she faced him.
‘You told me it would be unprecedented.’ Aubrey was the one who was shouting. ‘You warned me that I could not get pregnant by you...’
‘But you did?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Aubrey said, and all the terror of these months rose within her then, all the anger she had held onto was unleashed and she pummelled at his chest. ‘And I dealt with it, because I was scared how you might...’
‘Might?’ He caught her wrists. ‘Meaning?’
‘That you’d make me get rid of my baby.’
‘No.’
‘Or that you’d bring him here where I couldn’t be with him.’
‘Him?’
‘Him.’ She nodded, and the tears she cried then were not for herself but for Khalid, for he hadn’t even known he had a son. ‘Aayiz. Our son is called Aayiz.’
‘Replacement.’ Khalid’s voice was husky. ‘For something lost.’
‘Except he could not replace you. I love him so much but he cannot replace you...’
‘Then you should have told me!’ His voice was rising, the truth taking hold. He was aware that this news could bring him down, for his father would like nothing more than to dispose of the next in line, and move a more malleable Hussain into place. But that was not what troubled him now. ‘I should have been informed.’
‘How?’ she demanded. ‘Should I have left a message with the palace switchboard? Or gone to newspapers perhaps? You didn’t give me contact details...’
Deliberately so, for it would have been beyond impossible to resist.
He had been coming to thin air for more than a year, his body screaming for her, and the only barrier had been distance and that he would have to call in others to be with her again.
Even then he had given in.
She was, after all, here.
> ‘Aayiz Haris Johnson.’ She watched his eyes briefly shutter when she gave Aayiz’s surname. ‘He was born ten weeks early.’ And she watched his face pale. ‘He did so well, Khalid,’ Aubrey told him. ‘He only needed a little bit of oxygen and help with his feeds.’
He could have died and Khalid would not have even known of his existence. ‘You should have told me!’ he roared.
For the first time this contained man shouted and his anger was returned straight back to him tenfold.
‘And what if I had?’ Aubrey shrilled. ‘What would have been your solution, Prince Khalid?’ She was angry on behalf of them, rather than at him, but she let Khalid have it anyway, goading him with her words. ‘You can please your people, you can take the strain from Hussain, and you can please your father, but that doesn’t solve us! There is no solution, Khalid.’
He loathed the burden, the constraints on his life. In that moment he loathed it so much that on a whim he tore off the kurbash he wore on his shoulder, unsheathing the jambiya in one deft motion, to discard it, but it terrified Aubrey and she screamed.
‘Aubrey!’ He did not shout now, his voice was clear and measured. ‘I removed them so as not to intimidate you.’
She looked at him then and the scary desert warrior she had somehow been confronted by simply faded and before her stood the man she knew. ‘Khalid, I didn’t know what to do.’
Neither did he but now he could hear his heart, now it roared in his ears and it flooded his veins.
Love was a luxury denied to him, yet here it stood in front of him, and it was not just the thought of something happening to Aayiz that terrified him but all that might have happened to her.
He was through with niceties and accepting her independent ways.
He wanted his forbidden family here.
Here in Al-Zahan where he could keep them protected and safe.
Here.
‘Khalid?’
Claimed For The Sheikh's Shock Son (Secret Heirs 0f Billionaires) Page 12
