by Morey, Trish
He would also act to minimise the consequences to both Polly and her mother. That was the act of an honourable man.
With no real appetite for the job at hand, Rashid sat himself at his desk and worked his way through the latest developments in their investigation. Written confirmation of what he’d already been told verbally. His agent admitted accepting payment from the Duke of Missenden.
The betrayal of a man he’d considered a close friend had wounded him deeply, but his way was clear. With immense regret he would instruct Karim to make the necessary phone calls. Quietly he would let it be known Farid had forged documentation. He would never be in a position where he could accept a bribe again.
And it saddened Rashid.
As did the details of how Shelton was run, where the day-to-day finance of the castle came from, how many staff were employed on the estate…
What was clear was that Karim’s request for the money paid for Golden Mile to be returned could only happen if the Duke of Missenden sold Shelton Castle. And only if he was given a very generous deadline to meet his obligation.
Everything Polly had worked for would be lost. It would be little consolation to her to know it was the consequence of her stepbrother’s actions when it was his hand that wielded the justice.
Rashid shut the file and placed a stick-it note on the top, writing ‘Action. Proceed as arranged’ in his usual bold hand.
He had no choice, but it was the strangest feeling. He’d finally got the evidence he’d been waiting for, he’d given the instruction to proceed and yet he felt no sense of peace about it. No satisfaction.
And the reason for that was Polly.
Not only had they not turned up anything that incriminated her, they had referred to her as Shelton’s ‘salvation’. Without her input it seemed her stepbrother would have lost the castle eighteen months ago.
She was the chatelaine of the castle. It was her strength of character that took a skeleton staff and made it possible to host evenings like the one he’d first seen her at.
Sulaiman, one of his most trusted staff members, came in with a low bow. ‘Your guests are ready to leave, Your Highness.’
He stood immediately. Surely, Polly would agree he had a right to seek redress for a multimillion-pound fraud perpetrated against him?
But Bahiyaa had hit home. He had lied to Polly by omission. And he was going to take away something she’d devoted years of her life to. By the time she returned to England her life would have been altered in a way she could never have expected.
Rashid stepped out into the bright sunshine and immediately saw Polly standing a little away from the rest of her team, her hand shading her eyes, looking up at the vast doors to the palace. Just as she’d stood looking out across the rose garden.
She seemed to sense him because she turned and smiled. Involuntarily he walked towards her.
‘Karim says we are not permitted to take photographs of the palace. Are you sure about that?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Really?’
‘It is my home and, therefore, private.’
‘Shelton Castle is my home and we allow people to take photographs all the time.’
Guilt washed through him. He needed to tell her everything, but he wanted to do so in a way that would soften the blow.
He liked her. He admired her strength.
And for all he’d told himself he would keep his distance from her he still wanted to kiss her. If he’d been able to he would have held her close and shielded her from life’s blows with his own body.
She looked very different from the woman in the rose garden. Her face was clear of make-up, her blond hair secured in a single braid and her clothes were Western. Very much more the woman he’d first met at Shelton.
He wanted to kiss beneath her ear lobe and down the length of her neck to where her clavicle met her collarbone. Run his tongue along her bottom lip, coaxing, teasing…
Beyond foolish. Rashid moved away, walking towards the waiting cars.
Baz looked up from the maps he’d laid out across the bonnet. ‘Will we be taking the main coast road?’
He was deliberately slow to answer, and grateful when Steve sauntered over to ask, ‘How long a drive? It looks like it’ll take the best part of the day.’
Another lie by omission. At least this one was to ensure their safety.
‘Your Highness,’ Karim interrupted, ‘there is a telephone call I think you should take.’
A chill spread through him like ink through water. Rashid forced himself to swallow, finding his voice. ‘I apologise. I will be the shortest possible time.’ Abruptly he turned on his heel and walked back inside.
Karim kept pace. ‘It is His Highness Prince Hanif, Your Highness.’
He nodded, his emotions held taut. Rashid reached across his desk and picked up the receiver. ‘What news?’
His brother equally wasted no time. ‘I’ve just spoken to the consultant oncologist and we’re talking days. His kidneys have failed.’
It was news he’d been expecting, but it didn’t make hearing it any easier. Days. Rashid looked up to see Bahiyaa standing in the doorway. ‘Is he still able to hold a conversation?’ he asked, his eyes watching for his sister’s reaction to his question.
‘Sporadically. He is taking large doses of morphine and is sleeping most of the time.’
‘Has he—?’ Rashid began.
‘No.’
No. He still refused to see Bahiyaa.
‘And I think we have passed the point we might have expected it.’
Rashid shook his head at his sister and she nodded. She had no tears left to cry and that ripped him apart. All that was left was acceptance.
‘Rashid, do you want to be here at the end? I’m sure he could be persuaded to see you. Or at the very least you could be sent for as soon as he slips into unconsciousness…’
His hand gripped the receiver until his knuckles showed white. What was the point of that? He could watch his father take his last breath—but only as long as his father wasn’t aware he was there to see it.
‘No.’
At the other end of the phone there was silence.
‘I will make sure nothing goes awry during filming. The next few days will be crucial for you. We will continue as we discussed.’
‘Rashid—’
‘We agreed.’
There was another lengthy pause. ‘Bahiyaa shouldn’t be alone. Should—’
‘She is here.’ Rashid motioned for his sister to come closer and passed her the receiver.
He turned his back to give her privacy, but he couldn’t help but hear her side of the conversation. It was punctuated by long pauses in which he could only imagine what Hanif was saying.
‘Perhaps it is better like this.’ Another pause and then Bahiyaa said, ‘Will you ring me as soon as you have… news?’
Quiet and dignified and completely in control of her emotions. Rashid heard the click as Bahiyaa ended the call and he came back to hold her in his arms.
She still didn’t cry but stood so stiffly and he couldn’t think of a single thing that might comfort her. Her father was dying, so angry with her he refused to see her. ‘Do you want me to stay?’ he asked softly.
‘No.’ Bahiyaa pulled back. ‘Nothing has changed. I want Hanif to be Amrah’s next king. Nothing must go wrong now. When he is King he will be able to give me my freedom.’
That was true. They had talked about it often. Bahiyaa clung to that with tenacity. It was her one hope.
‘Omeir will never be able to touch me again. I can endure far more than being here alone knowing that.’ She smiled. ‘But I am sorry you have suffered because of me. You should be with our father.’
Rashid leant forward and kissed her cheek. ‘I am sorry you are suffering because of his blindness. He is wrong and makes his own choice.’
‘Where is he?’ Baz asked, looking at his watch for the fifteenth time. ‘This is ridiculous.’
�
��He’s a prince, we are but mortals,’ John quipped, pulling out a cigarette and patting his pocket for matches. ‘Light, anyone?’
Polly said nothing. She watched the door, waiting for Rashid to reappear. To be called back like that couldn’t be good. It had to be news about his father.
And she cared.
Polly shivered. What was happening inside?
Bizarrely, because the circumstances were so dissimilar, it brought back memories of her father’s death. Details she hadn’t thought of in years came flooding back. She remembered standing in Mrs Portman’s red-carpeted hall listening while the other woman spoke about ‘getting the little thing in her coat ready’ and ‘popping her in the taxi’.
Before then she’d thought her father would get better. That had been the longest drive of her life. Eight years old and she’d never been in a taxi on her own before. Her mother had met her at the hospital doors and had held her close.
Polly bit her lip so hard she drew blood. Rashid was no child of eight. Whatever was happening now he would be able to rationalise, but she ached for him. There was unfinished business between him and his father and that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
‘Here he is! Now we can get going.’ Bout bloody time,’ John said under his breath.
Polly spun round to look at Rashid, searching his handsome face for some sign of what had happened. There was nothing to see. His eyes were emotionless.
‘I am sorry to have delayed you,’ Rashid said by way of a greeting. ‘Shall we leave?’
He barely spared her a glance. She shouldn’t have expected he would, but it hurt that he didn’t look to her. She felt so close to him. Connected.
Because she loved him.
The thought slid into her brain but it brought no surprise. Of course, she loved him. He’d let her see the man behind the prince. Nothing she’d read about him had prepared her for that.
She was in love with the man who shielded his sister. The man who loved his brother without rivalry. The man who had sat in the cool of the evening and listened to her. He was exciting. Compelling. A man she could trust with her life.
Except he didn’t want that. She tempted him, but she was not what he wanted. He’d been conditioned to want an Arabian wife and she could never be that, however much she loved him.
Polly allowed herself to be steered into one of the waiting cars and, unlike last time, Rashid travelled alone. She sat back in the soft leather seat, free to notice the way the convoy moved off in perfect unison and the way the outriders took their place at regulated intervals.
She knew what it was like to live among the British aristocracy, but this was a mode of travel she’d no experience of outside of Amrah. Despite the beauty of Rashid’s palatial home she’d allowed herself to forget he was royalty.
She was in love with an Amrahi prince. A man of influence and power. No amount of physical chemistry was going to make anything other than a temporary relationship between them possible. It wasn’t simply a matter of cultural divide. It was status, expectation, money, connections.
In backing away from their kiss Rashid had been kind. He’d not allowed her to hope.
‘Where are we?’ Pete asked, cupping his hand to peer out of the tinted window. ‘Looks like we’re heading for a private airport.’ He whistled. ‘There are helicopters waiting. Nice.’
All three cars came to a stop in perfect alignment. The motorcycle outriders dismounted and guards with guns took their positions.
‘I suppose the great man didn’t fancy driving.’
Or didn’t think it was safe enough. That had to be a possibility, too. Rashid had personally guaranteed their safety. His father was dead or dying and he was here, keeping his word.
Polly hung back, watching as Rashid disappeared from sight and then waiting until she was directed which helicopter to go to. It was a couple of minutes, no more, before she was climbing in with the blades already spinning above. She settled herself in one of the seats, taking care to fasten the seat belt tightly across her lap, before looking up to see Rashid was at the controls.
It was a visual confirmation of the chasm between them. He lived a life of private planes, helicopters, race horses.
A prince.
She watched as he confidently ran through his pre-flight checks. Then, with a controlled lurch, the helicopter lifted up off the ground. Polly stared, glassy eyed, out of the window as Samaah became an aerial view, the modern motorways cutting a great swathe across it.
This was everything she had dreamed of seeing, the adventure she wanted, but she felt hollow inside. Around Samaah the countryside was vast and empty. For a time. Then the arid stony ground gave way to salt flats and, within minutes, she had her first glimpse of the Arabian Sea. Turquoise blue and edged with Amrah’s famous white sands.
A town spread out in the shape of a pear drop and was dominated by three craggy forts, presumably built to protect from marauding forces from the sea. Al-Jalini. And as dramatically beautiful as anything she could have imagined.
Polly held her breath while Rashid swung the helicopter out over the sea and back towards town, coming to land on a designated helipad in the gardens of what looked like a fanciful sultan’s palace. It was all arches, marble pillars and a stunning domed atrium.
Baz swore softly beside her. ‘Like something out of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, isn’t it?’
She nodded. It was exactly like that. A place for tourists who preferred their experience of Arabia to be sanitised. Polly released her seat belt and reached inside her bag for her sunglasses.
‘Let’s go.’
She nodded again and followed Baz and John as they stepped down from the helicopter into unexpectedly lush gardens. By the time she turned another pilot was at the controls and Rashid had come to stand beside her, tension radiating from him.
‘What is this place?’
‘The Al-Ruwi Palace Hotel,’ Rashid answered her question crisply, his eyes focused on the helicopters hovering like gnats above. ‘I’m sorry if the change of plan has unsettled you but it is safer to fly.’
Polly so desperately wanted to ask about his father. She wanted to reach out and smooth the crease between his eyebrows, kiss away the tiredness in his eyes. There was no opportunity, even had she dared. Baz joined them, smiling broadly. ‘Fantastic view coming in. Just wished we’d had a chance to get some shots of that.’
‘If you wish I can arrange it,’ Rashid said, turning his attention to the second helicopter.
‘Bikini-babes everywhere,’ John whispered in her ear, reaching into his pocket for his packet of cigarettes. ‘Bit different from Samaah.’ He stepped away before lighting up and Baz wandered over to join him.
Polly took a sharp intake of breath. She couldn’t wait any longer. She had to know. ‘Was the news bad?’
A tell-tale muscle pulsed in his cheek. ‘Expected.’ Rashid met her gaze briefly. ‘Hanif will ring when it is over.’
‘Shouldn’t you be there? With the rest of your family at least?’ Rashid shouldn’t be here baby-sitting a Western film crew he’d never really wanted to come.
‘I have not been asked for.’
‘And Bahiyaa?’ She asked the question even though she knew the answer.
‘Is content to remain in Samaah.’
‘Couldn’t she have come here with us?’
Rashid’s face broke into a half-smile, the bleak look vanishing. ‘To the desert? Bahiyaa would rather shave her head.’
Polly choked on a sudden laugh. It was strange how crying and laughter were so close. Flip sides of the same coin. ‘She does hate it, doesn’t she? She told me riding camels was a male preserve and that they were welcome to it.’
A frisson of awareness crackled between them.
‘S-so, is that true?’
‘Among the Bedouin people of the Atiq Desert, yes. Their womenfolk walk behind.’
‘Sexist!’
His eyes smiled down at her. ‘You have yet to sit on a camel
. We will talk after.’
It was their only chance to talk before they were joined by her colleagues.
‘I have taken the liberty of arranging rooms here at the Al-Ruwi Palace Hotel. Its security is tight and they’re used to accommodating Western visitors. There are good sports facilities, a bar…’
‘Did someone say bar?’ John asked, looking about him for an ashtray only to have a uniformed hotel employee hurry over.
Polly soon wandered away. Down two broad steps to her right there were fifty or so chefs dotted along the edge of a sweeping circular courtyard and cooking on giant open grills.
‘Who knew the Garden of Eden was in Amrah?’ Pete said, coming alongside her. ‘Something, isn’t it?’
Polly looked at him curiously. This wasn’t Eden. It was like some fabricated film set. Fun, but not real. Not at all like the beauty of the whitewashed and sand-coloured buildings they’d flown over.
‘Rashid wants us to get our room keys and then we can explore what’s available here.’
‘Sorry. Yes, of course.’
The path meandered through improbable planting and passed four tennis courts. No one paid the slightest bit of attention to them until they walked into the exuberantly decorated reception hall. Then the Amrahi nationals noticed Rashid. Curious eyes turned on them from all directions and those nearest executed deep bows.
And Polly felt sad for him. Sad, not sorry. He wasn’t a man you could feel pity for. But, sad, yes. Surrounded by people but essentially very alone. She hung back, noticing the care he took of other people. The skill with which he stopped them becoming over-familiar.
If she could she would have brushed them all aside and given him the peace and solitude he must want. Her own colleagues seemed oblivious to anything other than their own reasons for being in Amrah. It didn’t even seem to have occurred to them that Rashid was greatly inconvenienced by their being there.
They didn’t seem anything other than thrilled at the prospect of good sports facilities and a bar. Within minutes of noticing the sign they’d made plans for the rest of the morning, planning to meet as soon as they’d seen their luggage safely installed in their rooms.
