He made no attempt to speak to her again. Once the car was brought to a stop somewhere within the palace — Abi presumed she would one day become used to its complex layout — he stepped out of the car and walked swiftly to her side of the vehicle. “I have an urgent matter to attend to,” he said, the coldness back in his voice.
“I thought we had to speak urgently?” She retorted with true indignation.
“We do,” he assured her. And for a moment, his expression softened. “My sister will meet you now.”
“Your sister?” Abi turned to him sharply. “What? Why?”
“She is to show you my wing of the palace, including the room that will be for Michael.”
“Why can’t you?” She was being demanding but she was too overwhelmed and tired to care.
“Because, Abi, I am saying farewell to the woman I was supposed to marry in three days time.”
Jealousy: hot, sharp and unmistakable flashed like fire over her skin. The woman I was supposed to marry. What was she like? And how did he feel about putting aside this wedding he’d planned for so long? “Are you sure you’re not having second thoughts?”
“I’ve had a thousand second thoughts,” he promised darkly. “But there is only one decision we can make in the circumstances.”
Her mind was immobilized by confusion. The problem was, Abi agreed with him. Kiral was not a man who would find it acceptable to be absent in his child’s life. And Abi sure as hell wasn’t going to surrender her child to him and his new wife. Perhaps if he hadn’t been Sheikh everything might have been different. Were he not so high-profile, there might have been an amicable way to split custody of Mikey.
But such a solution was a pipe dream far, far out of her reach.
“What is your sister’s name?” She said on a sigh of weary acceptance.
Her defeated expression touched something within him. He softened his tone a little. “Jalilah. But she will only answer to Lilah.”
“Lilah. Fine.” She bit down on her lip and stared at the palace. “I’m never going to get used to this, am I?”
He shrugged, as if to say that her comfort mattered little to him.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She fidgeted with her fingers.
Abi was appalled. “The guards will take you to Lilah.”
“You’re not even going to introduce me?”
His eyes narrowed. “As you did my son?”
She felt like she’d been sucker-punched. “I never would have thought you could be so vindictive.”
He didn’t say anything for several long beats. “Nor would I,” he conceded finally. “Anger is the last thing I would have said I could feel towards you.” His words formed a gravelly plea. “You who once made me happier than I knew possible.” His eyes were tormented as he dragged them over her face, seemingly searching for the relics of what he’d once felt for her. “How do I forgive this? How do I accept your betrayal?”
She stared at a tree just behind him as though it contained the memories she needed desperately to bring to mind; the reasons she’d kept their son from this man so assiduously.
“If our positions were reversed, would you forgive me?”
Her lower lip trembled; the emotions were tearing through her. “No,” she admitted finally. “But Ki, you have to understand … By the time I found out I was pregnant, I knew what you were.” She swallowed; her throat was thick with emotion. “You weren’t just ‘Ki’. You weren’t just … the man I’d fallen desperately, stupidly in love with.” She swallowed again. “You were powerful and scary and I was terrified.” Her voice was a whisper. “I was so scared you would take him away. I knew how important your marriage was to you. I knew that you were marrying for your people and for an heir. And I thought … I thought …”
“I understand. You did not want to lose your son.” He finished grimly.
She nodded jerkily. “I hadn’t even laid eyes on him and I knew I could never, ever let him go. From the moment I learned that I was pregnant with your child, I knew I could never see you again. I was terrified you would block me out of his life.”
The softness was there and it endangered everything he wanted to feel. But he would not permit weakness. “You claim that you loved me and yet you thought me capable of such barbarism?”
“You slept with me all the while knowing you were to marry another woman,” she pointed out with a sharp edge to her words. “Is it any wonder I saw the worst in you?”
He ground his teeth together and tried a different approach. “Did it ever occur to you that I would have welcomed this news with relief? That I would have cancelled my arrangement with Melania much sooner and begged you to marry me?”
“No,” she answered weakly. “Not in a thousand years and a million dreams did I think a fairytale ending like that would be our story.” She blinked away hot, stinging tears. “You were so determined when you left me. You told me how important the marriage was to you. You told me that it was a sacred duty. You told me that you should never have become involved with me. A dozen things you said convinced me that you would not welcome my news.”
He stared at her long and hard, but remorse at the words he’d used then, the finality of his tone, came back to haunt him now. “You misunderstood me.”
“Did I?” Her lips twisted into a grimace of uncertainty. “I don’t think so.”
His sigh was heaved from his chest. “We could discuss this for hours and still nothing would change the facts. You were wrong, Abi. So wrong.” He lifted a hand and curled his palm around her soft, pink cheek. “I would have looked after you. I would have made sure you were happy.”
“As you’re doing now?” She whispered, her eyes searching his face, wishing he could understand.
He shook his head. “I must leave now. I cannot insult Melania any more than I already have. I cannot be late to farewell her.”
Abi nodded disjointedly. “Of course. Fine.”
He took a step away from her and then turned slowly. His eyes met hers and she felt a thousand butterflies begin to flip inside her tummy. “I would have begged you, Abi. I would have turned my life upside down for you if you’d told me.”
“You should have done it anyway.” It was a pointless, anguished recrimination; the past was a horrible, desperate figure before them. “Michael was an accident. A happy, beautiful accident. But I loved you even before him. Were there no Michael, I still would have wanted you, Ki. If you’d loved me, as you claim you did, you would have ended your engagement for me.”
“You say that as though it would have been easy. Believe me, it wasn’t possible.”
“It should have been. I should have been enough. Me. Just me.” She broke the eye contact and moved nearer to the guards. They walked as she approached, so that it was easy for her to fall into step with them without looking back at Kiral. If she’d turned to him she would have seen an expression on her face that spoke of his heartbreak. She would have understood that he was as confused as she by the havoc their revelations had wrought.
But Abi didn’t turn back. Looking back was where their problems began! She had to focus on the present and the future. For the sake of Michael, she needed to let the past rest.
The palace looked different now. Despite the fact she’d walked these corridors only days earlier, she saw them now through different eyes. She tried to imagine them as her home. To imagine Michael tottering along the marble, driving his precious racing cars over the walls and she laughed despite her tension.
He was going to need some serious re-training when it came to decorum. Undoubtedly Kiral would have an army of nannies employed to ensure Michael learned the ways of a future prince.
The guards stopped walking shortly after entering the building.
“Her Royal Highness is awaiting you in the Billono.”
“Billono?” She repeated, stepping out into what could only be described as the most stunning courtyard she’d ever seen. An enormous pool with water the colour of glistening
aquamarine stood at its centre, surrounded by potted palms, crisp white day beds and terracotta tiles. There was a building to one side, constructed in a tribute to the Grecian style with gold pillars and a domed roof. And looking perfectly ornamental beside one of the trees was a woman whose beauty matched completely her surrounds.
She was tall and elegant like Kiral, with his dark complexion and tiger-like eyes. Abigail walked towards her nervously. She felt ridiculously underdressed in the simple cream pants and long-sleeved top she’d pulled on that morning. If only she’d had a few more minutes to pack a little more appropriately, she thought with a wince as she crossed the pavers.
Lilah was regarding her with unashamed interest.
“You are the American?” She said, when Abi was close enough to hear. Even her voice was like Kiral’s. She had the same haughtiness in her tone and huskiness in her words.
Abi nodded. “Pleasure to meet you,” she said, though she wasn’t sure yet if that was true.
Lilah sighed. “I am not certain if the same can be said.” She narrowed her eyes; they were perfectly feline, rimmed with black, curling lashes. “You have kept my nephew from me for a very long time. Why?”
Abigail startled. She was direct like him too. “Oh.” Her eyes flew wide as she searched for the words that might politely tell the other woman it was none of her business.
“I do not ask because I wish to judge you,” Lilah said after a moment. “But you will be judged.” She indicated that Abi should move along the terrace. It was then that Abi noticed a white table with two chairs had been set with a pitcher of a pale brown liquid and some glasses.
Lilah sat with easy grace and began to pour the liquid into two glasses. “It is quince tea,” she handed one to Abi. “Very refreshing on a day like this.”
“Thank you,” Abi murmured. She hadn’t even noticed the heat, so strong had her turmoil been. She leaned forward. “Judged by whom?”
Lilah’s smile was almost sympathetic. “Everyone, of course.” She sipped her tea. “Has my brother told you the story of The First Sheikh?”
Abi shook her head and then she was still. “He mentioned it once. But only … he didn’t tell me anything about the story. Only that it had something to do with why he had to leave me. To marry her.”
Lilah sighed. “Of course. It has everything to do with it.”
“Why?” She forgot to be nervous and she leaned forward, closer to the woman who would become her sister-in-law.
Lilah exhaled thoughtfully. “A long time ago a man walked this desert. He was a strong warrior with a kind heart, and he fought many battles both on land and at sea. On one of these voyages, a lightning bolt is said to have cast his ship in two, sending him to the bottom of the ocean. A mermaid found him — and made him fall in love with her. Only she could never live on the land and so he chose to cast off his humanity and join the water people.”
Abi pulled a face, but despite herself, the words were wrapping around her in a web of beauty.
“They had a child together. A boy. Only he could not survive at sea and the moment he was born he began to die again. They left him on the shore, with a kiss on both cheeks to bless his life. The boy was discovered by a wanderer. The man raised him as his own, and unbeknownst to him, the powerful blessing began to spread wizardry across the kingdom. Everywhere the boy went, prosperity and success followed. Legends began to swirl around him.”
Lilah paused to sip her tea. “Then, on his sixteenth birthday a dreadful famine cursed the land. Crops began to fail for no apparent reason. Crime flourished. Disharmony and dissent grew. It was understood that the country’s wealth and prosperity was linked to this child’s powerful lineage. The world was scoured, and the undersea too, until a princess was found. She had the beauty of a mermaid and the voice of our most sacred desert bird, with the heart of a tigress, but the boy did not wish to marry her. He was stubborn, and determined to select his own partner. But when he met her, he fell in love. They married that very night and prosperity immediately returned. Their baby brought greater stability to the region. So it has always been in Delani that the marriage and lineage of the royal family is seen to determine the prosperity of the land.”
Abi felt the power of the words and for the first time began to grasp the pressure that must have been on Kiral’s shoulders. And yet, he was hardly a likely candidate to believe folk tales. “That is a lovely story … but it is just a story.”
Lilah pressed her hand against her cheek. “There are some who might agree with you. I am not one of them.” She toyed with her diamond earring. “Since my parents died, our country has been conflicted once more. Even if you do not believe the legend, stability is good for the country. The certainty of an heir. This is important.”
“I didn’t know anything about this story,” Abi said honestly. “But I did worry your brother would want to take Michael from me. I couldn’t risk it.”
Lilah frowned. “Ki would never have separated you from the baby.”
“I was terrified that he might. I knew he was determined to marry her.” She toyed with her fingers in her lap. “And I knew that I couldn’t stand on the sidelines and watch him with his wife. It would have killed me.”
Lilah considered this for a time. “Michael has been very ill, I understand.”
“Yes,” Abi felt a lurch of concern. “In fact, I should check in with the hospital.” Abi reached for her bag and then realised she didn’t have it. She must have left it in the hospital or in the car. “Oh! I don’t have my phone.” She scraped the chair back noisily and stood. “What if there’s a problem? What if the hospital has been trying to call?”
“Shush, shush,” Lilah said gently. “They would have called my brother.”
“No, but my mother would have called me.” She looked at Lilah with consternation and then started back towards the palace.
“If there was a problem, Kiral would …”
“He’s my son,” Abi interrupted, not caring that she was risking offending the princess. “Mine. I have spent the last two years being the one who cared for him. Being here while he’s in hospital is impossible. I have to go. I have to speak to someone …”
“I’m sure everything is fine.”
“You don’t understand.” She pushed a hand into her chest. “I can’t presume he’s fine. Not when so much could have gone wrong. I need to know for certain.”
“Wait,” Lilah nodded, moving quickly to follow Abigail. “Use my phone. Speak to your mother.”
Abi’s breath whooshed out of her in a huge cloud of relief. “Thank you.” She dialled Annette’s number from memory and waited for it to get past the strange international dialling code and then connect.
“Mom,” she exclaimed as soon as Annette answered. “What’s happening?”
There was a pause that sent fear churning through Abi anew.
“What do you mean?” Annette’s voice was confused. She was groggy.
“Were you sleeping?” Abi looked at her watch. It was the middle of the afternoon.
“Napping. Yes. We’ve had a busy few days.”
“I’m sorry. I was just … I hadn’t heard. I was worried.”
“Of course you were, darling,” Annette said, and Abi could hear the smile in her words. “But I’m sitting right beside your precious boy. He’s fine. Itching to get up and run is the only problem.”
“Oh, is he?” Abi’s heart squeezed and she felt a physical ache of longing to be with her son. “I wish I was there,” she said truthfully.
Framing a response was difficult for Annette. After all, she understood her daughter’s feelings completely, and could only cluck sympathetically.
“If he asks for me, please, mom, let me know. I don’t want him to think … He must be confused enough as it is. Please just hold him tight and sing to him and cuddle him until I can be there.”
She disconnected the call and passed the phone back to Lilah, but her mood was dampened. “It feels all kinds of wrong to be aw
ay from him right now.”
“I can imagine,” Lilah murmured, and she felt, for almost the first time in her life, a wave of disapproval towards her brother. “Come and see Michael’s room first. You can take pictures to show him.”
Abi’s reluctant smile transformed her face into one of serene beauty. “Yeah, okay. He’d love that.”
The rooms that had been assigned to them were above the pool area. Abi couldn’t place them in terms of where she’d gone with Kiral on that first night in the palace, but it all looked different.
“My brother had it decorated for a two year old, but you may add whichever touches you would like, of course,” Lilah said as she pushed the door inwards. Abi stepped into the room, expecting to see a bed and perhaps some posters on the walls. What she saw instead was a room larger, by far, than her entire apartment. There was a bed, yes, but there was also an enormous play space, and a tree had been painted onto the wall with shelves carved out of the branches. They were laden with books. Picture books down low and story books higher. In the middle was a chair cushioned with fluffy pillows. Lilah took some photographs on her phone, and evidently great pleasure in studying the effect of the room.
It was so much more than Abi could ever have provided for their son. In this room was the enormous visible insight into how different Michael’s life was about to become.
“Through here is a room for his nanny,” Lilah continued, oblivious to how overwhelming the grandeur was to Abi.
“This is too much,” she said with a shake of her head as they moved into the adjacent bedroom. This was more mature in styling but still lavishly appointed and generous in size.
“For the heir to the throne, it is just the beginning.” Lilah’s smile was encouraging. “My brother thought it best that the next room be allotted to the doctors to use. It has been converted into a sitting room. That is boring. Let me show you instead to your dressing room and private parlour.”
“Private parlour?” Abi queried, her feet moving in neat steps behind Lilah’s. Silently, though, she disagreed with Lilah, she knew she could double back later to make sure the team of doctors would be suitably close to her son.
The Sheikh's Secret Baby: Nothing stays hidden forever ... Page 9
