He thought of Ra’if and frowned. “I can’t say. More likely, Ra’if will be flown to Dashan as soon as the doctor feels he is stable.”
Olivia felt as though she was falling through a crack in the earth. Lava was burning her being. “You’re not really ending things with me, are you?”
He wanted to say anything that would wipe the shock and grief from her face. But he would not lie to her. He spoke gently, but with firmness. “I’m going to be Sultan. Whether my father recovers or not, he will choose to abdicate his role to me now. I cannot fool around like this, with someone like you. My people would never take me seriously.”
Olivia gripped the wall behind her for support. “You … fool around … someone like me …” she repeated, her brain unable to process the characterisation of what they were doing.
“The timing is crucial. I must focus everything I am on what I must be. I cannot be distracted any longer.”
Olivia, hurt and furious, swore. “I love you. I’m in love with you. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Zamir closed his eyes and exhaled with regret. “Don’t say it, Olivia. Don’t say things that will only make me feel worse.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry that I’m making you feel bad!” She raged. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re saying you don’t love me?”
He stared at her and his whole life was blurring around him. “I am not talking about love, or impossibilities. I am talking about reality. My father is sick. I am his heir. After what happened to Ra’if, it is even more important that I perform my role well.”
“And there’s no room for me in your life, so long as you’re Sultan.”
“No.” His face was implacable. “And you have always understood this. I have always been honest about this.”
Olivia spun away from him so that she could shield him from her expression of betrayal. “Right.” She nodded jerkily.
“I will have this room reserved for as long as you choose to use it.” He came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Your agency will be paid for the next month, so that you may take time off.” He ran his hands down her arms, and she was too numb to shake off his touch.
“And that’s it?” She whispered into the darkness.
“No.”
Hope flared in her chest.
“I also thank you. From the bottom of my heart. My time with you has been something I will always look back on with wonder.” He kissed the top of her head, forcing himself not to breathe in her sweet fragrance. “You must promise me that you will look after yourself.”
“You too,” she snapped, but the fight had left her. How could she argue with such obvious determination?
“You are not going to kiss me goodbye?”
She didn’t turn around. “No.” A sob was wrenching through her chest. “Just go, Zamir. Please.”
* * *
For days, Olivia was incapable of anything except breathing.
Of course, she couldn’t stay in Zamir’s hotel room. Not when every single inch of it reminded her of him. Of them. Of perfection.
She’d returned to her own apartment, and bit by bit, she’d made it through each day. But she’d barely eaten. And she hadn’t drunk. She’d simply sat, and stared. And tried to make sense of how she could have been so wrong.
She had loved him. She had loved him as a fish needs water and the sky needs stars. She had loved him with the intensity of having been designed to do so.
And he had walked away from everything she’d offered. As though she meant nothing to him.
Only she knew that he had cared for her! He’d never said it, but how could Olivia not know? He loved her. He loved her as she loved him. But he cared more for his country and crown than he did her. Could she understand that? Could she forgive him such devotion?
On the fourth morning, she managed to eat some toast and drink a coffee. She wasn’t sure she’d ever touch tea again.
On the fifth day, she actually dressed in something other than a tracksuit.
And six days later, she listened to her voice mails and read her emails. And hope died anew as she saw that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, from Zamir. Not so much as a ‘Hey, I’m here safe.’ He had gone, and it was as though it had all been a crazy dream.
Ten days later, Olivia could still barely function. She was in an unbreakable fog. Anger occasionally came to her, and it brought strength. She was right to be angry with him! He’d made her love him, and then he’d left. With his actions, if not his words, he’d promised her the world; and then he’d left. Yes, she was angry all right.
And what about Ra’if! Another piece of discarded junk in Zamir’s spectacular rise to the throne. It was an ungenerous thought, but she was warming to the role of the scorned woman.
But the anger was transient. It was always replaced by despondency.
Almost three weeks after he’d disappeared, Olivia forced herself to leave her home. She convinced herself that if she could dress like herself, and party like herself, then she would be a step closer to returning to herself.
And so she pulled on a pair of skin-tight leather pants and a silk top that tied around the neck, and she met up with some of the girls who worked for the agency. It was rare for them to have a night off together, and Olivia had told herself she’d regret not making the most of it.
So she’d gone out, and she’d danced, and she’d drunk champagne, and she’d flirted with the hottest guys she could find. And then she’d come home, miserable and alone, but worse, because the next day, she was also hung over.
But somewhere, in the fog of post-alcohol-pain, her mind wandered again to Ra’if, and she felt a rush of guilt.
Why hadn’t she thought of him more? Why hadn’t she thought of him sooner? For they had both been left by Zamir, only he was couped up in hospital.
It all happened very quickly. She organised one of the agency’s vehicles and pointed it in the direction of the clinic. She knew the way well; she’d only been a passenger, but she’d been an attentive one.
She turned the car radio right up to avoid hearing her own thoughts, for they were becoming increasingly clouded by doubt as she got closer to the facility.
She slid her car into the space reserved for visitors and stared up at the building.
Was she being stupid? Was she crossing some kind of line?
She pushed the door open before she could lose her nerve completely, and walked up the staircase.
A receptionist with a badge that proclaimed her name to be Delores sat behind the counter. “Hello. How can I help you today?”
Olivia cleared her throat. “I have been sent by his royal highness Zamir Fayez,” she lied convincingly.
“Ah!” Delores’s smile was so rich with relief that Olivia felt guilty for deceiving her.
“I’m here to see Ra’if.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m so pleased. He’s taken a step backwards since his brother left.”
And just like that, Olivia exhaled. She had done the right thing. She had been betrayed by Zamir, and she would probably never forgive him, but she still loved him. And that love extended to his brother, because he was part of Zamir’s family.
That mattered to her.
“Would you take me to him?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Delores beetled around the desk with far more alacrity than a woman of her portly shape should have been able to muster, and then she was off, unlocking doors and shuffling down the corridor with impressive speed.
She paused outside the door. “He can be quite foul tempered at times.”
Olivia thought of his brother and smiled. “That’s fine. I can manage.”
“Very well.”
Delores knocked sharply, twice, and then pushed the door inwards.
Ra’if was sitting in a chair, staring out of the window. The grilles across it were depressing, but Olivia understood their necessity.
“You have a visitor, sir,” Delores said loudly, then smiled encouragingly at Olivia. It w
as as though Delores thought the younger woman might flee in terror, after all. She stepped out of the room and pulled the door behind her.
“That fat nurse thinks I am deaf because I do not speak her language as a native,” he grumbled in a tone so shockingly like Zamir’s that Olivia was momentarily flummoxed.
Ra’if’s eyes scanned Olivia with interest. She had dressed conservatively; it was cold out and she’d been drawn to black clothes of late. But still he studied her with undisguised admiration; eyes the exact shade and shape of Zamir’s lingered on her gentle curves. They were not as impressive as they’d once been. Having barely been able to eat for a month, she was at least a whole dress size smaller than normal.
“ I do not know you,” he said simply.
“No.” She forced herself to cross the room. Her legs were like jelly. What an idiotic thing to have done! “I worked for your brother.” It was simpler to stick to a version of the truth.
“Did you?” More speculation.
Olivia was glad then that she didn’t blush easily. She took up the seat opposite him. “Yes. Though I didn’t meet you, I came to this clinic with him every day. I wondered if you are missing him.”
Ra’if’s lip lifted in a cynical smile. “Why do you wonder this?”
Because I am missing him, she thought wretchedly. “Because,” she leaned forward, a conspiratorial smile plastered on her face, “If you are, I have the perfect solution.”
He laughed. “Whether I am or not, I will say that I am interested to hear what your plan is. For you speak with such glorious deviousness, it must be good.”
She laughed, and though she hadn’t expected to find him charming, he was. “Well, you see, in my family, I am the undefeated champion of Monopoly. Ask my sisters. They’ll tell you how ruthless I am.”
His brows arched and his lips smiled with true amusement. “I find it hard to believe you have a ruthless bone in your body.”
She deflected the compliment. “Is that your way of saying you know you’d never beat me?”
“I understand the spirit of your challenge.” He settled back in his chair, and stared at her, as though weighing his options up. “Fine.” He said after a long pause. “We shall play.”
Olivia didn’t realise until then that she’d been holding her breath. She smiled at him and then looked around. “Where is the board?”
“In the shelves, behind the door.”
Olivia fetched it and walked towards the table. “Here?”
“Yes.”
She lifted the lid off and began to lay the pieces out. It was a cathartic and nostalgic act; one she had completed many times with her own sisters.
“You say you worked for Zami?”
“Yes,” she agreed, keeping her eyes averted.
“What was your function?” He pushed, curiosity obviously inherent to both men’s character.
“My function?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m a concierge. I work for an agency. We make visits to Vegas easier for celebrities or VIPs.”
“In what ways?”
“Any way,” she said with a shrug. “I once had a singer who just wanted me to watch her rehearse. She’s very, very famous, but, as it turns out, completely riddled by insecurities. She had become so sick of hearing from her management team how amazing she was yada yada yada that she asked me to give her my honest opinion.”
He lifted his brows. “And?”
“She was amazing.” Olivia grinned. “Every bit as fantastic as the music videos would have you believe.”
“Who was it?” He held the dice out and Olivia took them.
“Thanks,” she murmured, shaking them in her hand. She skittled them into the centre of the board. “Ten’s the number to beat.”
He picked them up and rolled them. “Six. Don’t get too confident. I am letting you relax on purpose.”
She sent him a look of exaggerated fear and then grinned.
“So?” He prompted.
She caught the thread of his question. “I can’t say.” At his pained look, she laughed. “We take our clients’ privacy very seriously.”
“And my brother was your client.”
“Yes.”
“What was your purpose?”
“I already told you…” She frowned.
“No.” He moved her piece along the board and then rolled. “I understand what your job is. However, my brother, as the heir to Dashan, can never go anywhere without a small band of servants. You might have noticed them? Enormous men, dressed in black. Usually carrying guns.”
She nodded. “Of course.”
“So why did he need you?”
Olivia watched as he slipped his own piece down the board. “I think he was anticipating that there might be some media interest in his visit. My job was to make sure he went relatively unnoticed.”
“And how did you manage this?”
By keeping him in bed, she thought with a small flash of remembered desire in her gut. “Ah. Trade secrets.”
“He wanted, I suppose, to keep my name out of the media, too.”
“I presume so,” she agreed.
“My problems have become an embarrassment to both him and our father.”
Olivia’s gaze startled to his face. “I never got that impression,” she responded with honesty.
“My brother would not have expressed his innermost thoughts to a woman sent to serve him,” Ra’if said, unconsciously inflicting pain on her. “He does not share easily, particularly not with those he perceives as his lesser.”
It hadn’t been like that, Olivia wanted to say. We were in love. Only they hadn’t been. She had loved Zamir. But what had he been doing? Passing time? Assuaging his guilt for taking her innocence by spinning it into some kind of relationship?
“You’re trying to distract me so that you can win.” She lightened the mood with a joke, and Ra’if rewarded her with a laugh.
Olivia was surprised, when she had almost bankrupted Ra’if, to realise that three hours had passed.
“My goodness,” she stood. “I should get going.”
“Yes,” Ra’if observed with a small smile. “Unlike me, I suppose you have far more important things to do.”
Actually, she didn’t. Zamir had made sure of that. He’d paid her off so generously, and she hadn’t yet felt that she could face the demands of her job. She lifted her handbag over her shoulder.
“Will you come again?” He asked suddenly, his expression serious.
He looked so like Zamir that her chest began to thump with the racing of her heart. “Would you like me to?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll come again.”
“I’ll have the board ready,” he nodded towards their game.
“I suppose it’s only fair to give you a chance to defend your honour.” She lifted her hand in a wave, and slipped back into her car.
She cried the whole way back to town. Her heart was being ripped from her chest. Spending time with Ra’if was like a perfect Band-Aid to her Zamir scar. For he was similar enough to constantly remind her of the man she loved. And he spoke of Zamir with ease and comfort. She could take those tiny conversational breadcrumbs and use them to bind together some of her soul.
Eventually, she hoped, she would feel like herself again.
CHAPTER NINE
“You don’t want to get out?”
The sun was shining, despite the cold, and it dappled across their legs in a cross-hatch pattern cast by a nearby lattice.
“I don’t feel ready to get out,” Ra’if corrected. He ran his fingers over a leaf. “I’ve become used to it here.” He squinted up at the sky. “It is calm. It is quiet. I know there is no risk of my being tempted.”
Olivia settled her legs under her and studied his profile. She was looking at Ra’if, but she saw Zamir, and it hurt like hell. “But you’ve come so far. You’ve done so well.”
“Yes.” He slid a sidelong smile in her direction. “I look almost like myself now.”
/> “I don’t mean that you look well. I mean that you seem well. You’ve been here for months. You’re clean. You’re eating properly.”
“It is not so simple. I fear returning to the palace and meeting with my friends. Friends who were part of the life I used to lead.”
“These people were not your friends,” she snapped caustically. “Surround yourself with better people. Let your brother be your friend, and only him, until you are certain of your strength.”
“My brother,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Zamir has far too much regard for his duties to waste time on me.”
“How can you say that?” She asked, feeling a burning need to defend the man she had loved. “He came and stayed here, and visited you every day, because he cares for you. I would say you are more important to him than anything or anyone.”
Her impassioned plea watered the seed of suspicion he’d carried for the past three weeks. Since Olivia had arrived as an angel of mercy and brought sunshine back to his days.
“You speak, at times, as though you know my brother well.”
“Oh.” She shook her head and pulled her glasses down over her eyes in the same movement. It was an obvious gesture that she was hiding something, even if Ra’if didn’t know her as well as he now considered he did. “I don’t.” She swallowed nervously. “I haven’t spoken to him since he left.”
Ra’if sighed. “Liv …” It occurred to Olivia that the shortened version of her name was something Zamir had never used. He had always called her Olivia or Habibi. But then, she had become friends with Ra’if. They were friends. Nothing more. There was none of the same angst-filled tension thumping between them.
“What?” She looked at him bravely.
“My brother has his good points. He will be an excellent Sultan for our people. But he has his limitations too.”
“I don’t care about his limitations,” she said with what she hoped was a breezy nonchalance.
Ra’if laughed gently. “Oh, Liv. You’re a terrible liar.” He put a hand on her knee. “Why do you not tell me what happened between the two of you?”
Her mouth was dry. “Confidentiality, remember?”
“Then leave me to draw my own conclusions.”
The Sheikh's Convenient Mistress: What he needed from her went well beyond the call of duty... (The Henderson Sister Series Book 2) Page 9
