by Jane Porter
Dammit.
Why had he thought that going to Kasbah Jolie was a good idea?
How had he thought this could be positive?
He shouldn’t have come. He should have stayed put at Langston House and weathered the media storm and focused on wooing Poppy there. Instead, he was here, jumping from the proverbial fire into the frying pan.
Dal could see the helicopter ahead. He also saw the cars and the crowd and the royal security details. The black helicopter wasn’t just any helicopter but the royal Mehkar helicopter, the elegant gold crest as familiar to him as his mother’s face and name. His heart thudded, his chest tight and hard as he battled memories and a past that gave him nothing but pain.
Maybe one day he’d be able to remember his mother without feeling the grief. Maybe after he’d spent a week at Jolie he’d be more peaceful when he thought of Mehkar. In his teens he used to dream of the summer palace and gardens, and when he woke up, his lashes would be damp and his stomach cramping as though he’d swallowed glass.
All through his twenties he’d continued to miss his mother profoundly. He’d missed his brother, too, but it was his mother that he had been closest to. His mother had been the anchor when his father struggled. Andrew had somehow been able to block out their father’s volatility, but Dal, the sensitive second son, hadn’t been able to unplug from the drama and chaos.
Dal wasn’t proud of the boy he’d been. Sensitive boys were no good to anyone and it took his father ten years to stomp the sensitivity out of him, but Dal survived, and became a man, and a relatively successful, stable man.
The jet came to a stop. His flight attendant, Sadie, rose from her seat to open the door. But Dal didn’t move, not yet ready.
He turned to Poppy, who was reaching for her seat belt. “So we’re in agreement, then? You give me the full two weeks I’m due, and then if you still want to leave, I’ll personally put you on a plane home. But I need the two weeks, and I need you available, round the clock if need be.”
Poppy’s gaze met his. She held his gaze, too, not afraid to let him see the full measure of her disapproval. “Round the clock sounds excessive. I’m not your nursemaid, I’m your secretary. And at the end of the two weeks, I will most definitely still go, so don’t just focus on finding your wife. Work on the replacement for me, too.”
“I trust you to find me a suitable secretary.”
“You’re leaving the entire task to me?”
“You know what I like, and what I need.”
Her brows arched over her clear brown eyes. “You might regret this.”
“Possibly. But I’m in a bind, Poppy, and you’re the only one that can save me.”
“Now you’re laying it on a tad thick.”
The corner of his mouth lifted. “You like to be needed.”
Two spots of color burned in her cheeks. “But I draw the line at becoming a business transaction.”
He said nothing and silence stretched and yet she never once looked away.
“I don’t think I’ve ever refused you anything,” she said after a moment, “but I am now. I won’t be manipulated. You have two weeks and then I’m gone.”
* * *
It had taken every bit of Poppy’s courage and strength to stand up to Randall—Dal—and define her terms, because if she didn’t make it absolutely clear, then she’d find it very hard to resist him.
It had nearly melted her when he’d said he needed her. She liked being needed, and once upon a time, she would have given everything to hear him say that he needed her.
But things had changed, circumstances had changed, and she couldn’t continue in his employment, not when he knew she had feelings for him. He’d use the knowledge to his advantage. He’d be able to manipulate her far too easily.
As it was, he was intimidating. Not frightening intimidating, but thrilling. He was so very handsome, and so very polished and so very accomplished.
Every time he entered a room, he seemed to light it up. She loved the way he moved, and the way he frowned and the way he’d focus on whatever he was reading.
She loved the way he held his teacup—
Oh, heavens, she loved him. She did. And it had been excruciating trying to manage her feelings and her attraction when he’d been engaged to Sophie. How could she possibly manage her envy and jealousy as he began to court someone new? She’d hate the new woman. She’d resent her far too much. It wouldn’t be comfortable for any of them.
Poppy rose from her seat and smoothed her men’s shirt, and then her hair, tucking it behind her ears to control the thick wave.
Dal was leaving the jet, descending the stairs, and she kept her eyes on his broad shoulders as she followed him down the five steps and onto the wide red carpet banded by gold. The brilliant crimson carpet was something of a shock, but even more surprising was the sheer number of people gathered on the tarmac.
There were rows of robed men, and then rows of armed men, and even a couple of men with what looked like musical instruments.
Dal, for his part, did not look pleased by the welcome. From the set of his shoulders and the rigid line of his back, she knew he was tense and angry. She fully expected him to step onto the carpet and proceed toward the helicopter. Instead, he turned to her and offered his hand, to aid her down the last few steps.
She felt a little silly accepting his help when she was wearing jeans and tennis shoes, not the staggeringly high heels Sophie preferred. But his fingers closed around hers, and he gave her hand a quick, reassuring squeeze as she stepped from the stairs onto the carpet.
And then he let her hand go and he started walking down the carpet, which stretched from the plane to the side of a huge black helicopter with a gold emblem on the helicopter’s door. The same gold emblem filled the middle of the crimson carpet, and two rows of men in long white robes and headwear stood on either side of the carpet.
It was intimidating as hell, she thought, swallowing nervously, picking up her pace to catch up to him. “Dal,” she whispered, taking in the men farther back, the armed ones, with their big guns and vests and helmets. “Who are all these people?”
“The welcoming committee,” he answered.
Well, the welcoming committee was bowing now to Dal, every head nodding as he passed. A shiver coursed through her as she trailed after him. It was the strangest greeting she’d ever seen, and beyond formal, reminding her of the ceremony reserved for England’s royal family.
Poppy didn’t know what Randall had done to earn such a welcoming, or what the emblem of sword, lamb and crown represented, but clearly the government of Mehkar was aware of his arrival today, and clearly the government of Mehkar wanted Dal to know they respected him.
At the helicopter Randall stopped and clasped hands with a robed man that looked close to Randall’s age. The man said something to Randall in a foreign language, and Randall answered in the same language, and then they shook hands, and the handshake became a swift hug, and then the hug became a longer, warmer embrace.
When Randall stepped back, there was a sheen in his golden eyes, and a flicker of emotion that Poppy had never seen before. But then the emotion was gone and Randall’s features were hard, and his expression remote. He assisted Poppy into the helicopter and she glanced back at the men Randall had called a welcoming committee, and it was only then that she noticed the rows of cars farther back, black limousines with tinted windows.
“That was quite impressive,” she said, sliding into the seat by the far window and reaching for the harness.
“It was,” he agreed as the pilot shut the helicopter door.
She felt dazed by the pomp and ceremony. “Who do you have to know to get a welcoming like that?”
“The king.”
Her eyes widened. “He’s one of the men you work with?”
“In my international work? No. My relations
hip with King Hamid is personal. I’ve known him my whole life.” Randall hesitated. “King Hamid is my mother’s father.”
It took her a second to put the pieces together. “He’s your grandfather.”
Randall nodded once. “My mother’s father.”
“That’s why you received such a royal welcome.”
“Here in Mehkar I am not Randall Grant, the Sixth Earl of Langston, but rather Sheikh Talal bin Mehkar.”
It had been a day of shocks and surprises and this one was just as stunning. Poppy stared at him, bewildered. “You’re a...sheikh?”
CHAPTER FIVE
POPPY’S HEAD THROBBED, the thumping at the base of her skull making her feel as if her head would soon explode. He was a sheikh and an earl? How was it possible?
Furthermore, how could she not know? Did anyone know?
It was one thing not to know that he had a private jet stashed in London, but another not to know his mother was a princess from Mehkar!
But thinking about it, Poppy realized she’d never read anything in the papers about his mother’s family. There was very little in the society magazines about who she was, or where she came from, and Poppy knew because she used to read everything she could on Dal, and there were stories about his father, and his father’s family, and lots of stories about Langston House itself, but very little about his mother. Some articles did briefly mention the tragic car accident that took the life of his mother and brother, but that was all that was ever said.
Now Poppy wondered if it was the Fifth Earl of Langston who’d kept his wife’s name from the papers, or if it had been the royal family of Mehkar?
Poppy glanced at Dal. He was giving that impression of stone again, the same look he’d had this morning in the chapel. Detached. Immovable. It wasn’t really a good look. It made her worry even more. “Dal?”
“Mmm?”
“Are you okay?”
“Never better,” he answered mockingly.
She sighed and looked out the window, her stomach doing a little free fall when she did.
She’d been in helicopters before. She’d traveled with Randall in his helicopter dozens of times over the years, accompanying him to meetings, taking notes, pulling together his travel details, but the London-based helicopter was small compared to this one, and that one never flew over jagged mountains marked by narrow, deep ravines.
She tried not to look down. She didn’t want to see just how close they were to the mountains, or how far from civilization, either.
There was nothing here.
Just scrub brush. The occasional flock of sheep. What seemed to be a sheepherder’s hut made of mud and stacked stone.
Poppy exhaled softly, fingers curling into her palms, telling herself to relax. Not worry. But how could she not be concerned? The Randall Grant she thought she knew was gone, and this new man was even more complex and mysterious. “I know you said you didn’t want to discuss Sophie anymore,” she said carefully.
“Right.”
“But I’ve been thinking about what you said, and how you feel betrayed by both Sophie and me, and I want to explain—”
“I wanted to hear earlier. But that was earlier. I’ve realized it doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything.”
“But won’t you always wonder?” When he didn’t answer she drew a shaky breath. “Sophie met him in Monaco, during her hen party. It was on the last night. I don’t know all that happened, only that he was there, and then he wasn’t.”
“She went with him?”
She couldn’t meet his eyes. “I didn’t know then that she had. I thought she’d maybe gone to get air, or maybe popped up to the room to freshen her makeup. We waited for her in the casino. We were drinking bubbly and playing roulette and I kept looking for her as I’d saved her seat as it was next to mine.”
“She didn’t return.”
“She was back in her bed when I woke up the next morning.”
“But she wasn’t there when you went to bed.”
Poppy drew a deep breath. “No.”
“What time was that?”
She hesitated, debating telling him the details, wondering whether or not the details mattered now, after everything else that had happened.
“Late.”
“Midnight? One? Two?”
Later than that, she silently answered, seeing herself in the opulent hotel room, sitting in the upholstered chair closest to the door, holding her phone, keeping vigil.
The other girls had all gone to bed.
Poppy couldn’t, imagining the worst. Poppy was just about to dress and go down to the hotel reception and ask if she should contact the police when the text arrived.
Am fine. With Renzo. Go to sleep.
After getting Sophie’s text, Poppy pressed the phone to her brow and squeezed her eyes shut, heartsick instead of relieved.
The fact that Sophie knew she’d be worried was small comfort.
Everything had changed.
Poppy continued her vigil until four-thirty when she finally fell asleep in that overstuffed chair. She was still curled in the chair when she woke an hour later and discovered the room dark, and Sophie tucked into her bed, pretending to sleep.
“We never discussed it,” Poppy said carefully, and that much was true. As they packed for their return to London, Sophie acted as if nothing had happened. And maybe nothing did happen. Maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe Sophie would have married Randall Grant this morning if Poppy hadn’t sent the newspaper clippings to retired racecar driver, Renzo Crisanti, letting him know just who he’d taken to his bed five weeks before her wedding to the Earl of Langston.
On one hand, it was a terrible thing for Poppy to do.
On the other, it wouldn’t have signified if Renzo hadn’t stormed into the church and carried Sophie away with him.
Clearly, Sophie meant something to Renzo, and clearly Sophie had some interest in Renzo, too, because she hadn’t kicked and screamed on the way out of the church.
It had been quite a scene, and profoundly uncomfortable, but the morning’s events reassured Poppy that she’d done the right thing. She’d given Sophie not just a chance at love, but passion, too—
“Convenient,” Dal said drily, sardonically. “Whatever you do, don’t discuss the one thing that needs to be discussed.”
The helicopter dipped and she grabbed at the harness straps connected to her lap belt and gave it a desperate tug. Thankfully, she was still secure, even though she felt as though her entire world had turned upside down.
Dal’s gaze met hers, but he said nothing. He didn’t need to, though. She could feel his fury.
Poppy looked away, out the window, fighting the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her as it crossed her mind that her note to Renzo hadn’t just wrecked Sophie and Dal’s wedding, but it’d wrecked her life, too.
* * *
Dal clenched his hand. He was so angry. So incredibly angry. He longed to smash his fist into Renzo Crisanti’s face. He’d like to follow that blow with a series of hard jabs. Crisanti had no right. But then, Sophie had no right, either.
Jaw gritted, Dal glanced from the jagged red mountain range beneath them to Poppy’s pale, stricken face and then he couldn’t even look at her because she would marry him.
She didn’t know it yet, but she didn’t have a choice.
They traveled the rest of the way in tense silence, and then they were landing, heading for a sprawling pink villa. Tall, rose-pink walls surrounded the estate, while inside the walls it looked like a miniature kingdom complete with stables and barn, orchards and garden, and three different pools. They swooped lower, still, and her stomach dropped, too.
While the Gila airport transfer had been formal and choreographed, the arrival at the Kasbah was loud and joyous and chaotic. People were everywhere, and
there was so much noise. Shouts and cheers and laughter and song.
Dal hadn’t expected such a welcome, and from the look on Poppy’s face, neither had she.
* * *
Poppy kept her smile fixed as she was greeted by one bowing, smiling woman after another, the women in long robes in bright jeweled colors. She was aware that the women greeted her only after first bowing to Randall. He, of course, received the biggest welcome, and it was a genuine welcoming, every staff member clearly delighted to see him. Several of the older men and women had tears in their eyes as they clasped his hand. One small, stooped woman kissed his hand repeatedly, tears falling.
Randall, so stoic in England, seemed to be fighting emotion as he leaned over to kiss the elderly woman’s wrinkled cheek and murmur something in her ear.
Poppy got a lump in her throat as she looked at Randall with the tiny older woman. He wasn’t affectionate with any of the staff in England, which made her even more curious about the elderly woman, but before she could ask, he brusquely explained the history as they walked toward the villa, shepherded by the jubilant staff.
“Izba was my mother’s nanny,” he said. “She used to look after me when we would visit Jolie. I hadn’t expected her to still be alive.”
“She was so emotional.”
“She raised my mother from birth, and was closer to my mother than her own mother. Izba would have followed my mother to England, too, if my father had permitted it.”
“Why wouldn’t your father allow it?”
Randall shot her a mocking look. “He wanted my mother’s wealth, not my mother’s culture or family.”
“It’s not right to speak ill of the dead, but your father was—” She broke off, holding back the rest of the words.
“He was hard to love,” Dal agreed. “And while he and I didn’t have a good relationship, he was loving toward my brother. Andrew was his pride, his joy. My father was never the same after he died.”
