Too late.
Flo was gone.
He had known that she would be.
Hazin really hadn’t imagined he’d find her sitting there, tucking into breakfast. Instead it had been set up on the table and remained untouched.
He walked through to the bedroom and the unmade bed.
There was the towel he had dropped on the floor and there was another so he guessed she must have showered and left.
Hazin walked back to the untouched breakfast and felt a curl of guilt when he saw a box of tissues by the window and a little pile of knotted ones.
She’d been crying.
Hazin was very used to being a deliberate bastard.
This morning he’d been an inadvertent one.
CHAPTER FOUR
IF EVER THERE was a walk of shame, this was one. Not only was Flo clearly wearing last night’s clothes, she’d also had to go down to the bar to retrieve her phone.
When she stepped out onto the street it was raining.
Of course it was, Flo thought as she trudged in high heels towards the underground.
What on earth had she been thinking last night?
Only she hadn’t been thinking—one look into those smoky eyes and she’d forgotten why she was even at Dion’s. How the hell was she going to tell Maggie the mess she had made of things?
And where the hell was Maggie?
Flo turned on her phone and on a cold, miserable wet morning there was suddenly a reason to smile.
Ilyas had proposed.
Oh, she was going to start crying again and hadn’t thought to stuff her purse with tissues from the hotel.
So she used the back of her hand and read on and saw that Maggie wanted her to come straight over.
Er, that would be a no.
Flo first went back to her tiny flat and pulled on something a bit less last night!
Then she did what she could with foundation because her chin was a little red and her mouth was all swollen from his delicious kisses and soft nips with his teeth.
She was going to start crying again, but that would not do.
So, instead of weeping, Flo headed over to her friend’s and bought a bunch of flowers on the way.
‘What happened?’ Flo smiled, putting her own woes aside to celebrate the wonderful news with her friend, though there were rather too many stars in Maggie’s eyes to see the threat of tears in Flo’s.
‘A lot,’ Maggie said. ‘I was just on my way to meet you when Ilyas came to the door. I’m so sorry I left you waiting...’
‘Of course you did!’ Flo said, for she totally understood the wonderful surprise that it must have been. ‘What did he say about the baby?’
‘He’s thrilled,’ Maggie said, but then her face became worried. ‘I don’t know how the people will react, though, or his family. Flo, there is so much going on back in Zayrinia—Ilyas has challenged his father, the King.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘That Ilyas is to be the silent leader. From now on nothing is to get passed without his approval. He has told his father that if he doesn’t comply then he will take it to the people.’
‘What does that mean for you?’
‘I’m not sure. I know that there’s unrest amongst the people and that there has been a lot of unhappiness at the Palace. Ilyas wants change. He’s gone to speak with his brother to see if he has his backing.’
Flo held her breath. She doubted she’d be at the forefront of Hazin’s thoughts when he found out his brother was challenging the King, yet there was a tiny dart of hope that Hazin would maybe understand that she hadn’t been at Dion’s last night to seduce him.
Maggie had more news as well. ‘After Ilyas has spoken with Hazin he’s heading back to Zayrinia. Now that I’ve accepted his proposal I’m not allowed to see him until we marry.’
‘At all?’ Flo checked, and Maggie nodded. ‘So when will you marry?’
‘Two weeks’ time!’
‘Oh, my!’ Flo looked at her friend and asked, perhaps, a stupid question, but it was all too much to take in. ‘You’ll live in Zayrinia?’
Maggie nodded. ‘I’ll still see you, though.’
Yes, Flo thought, but it won’t be the same. She looked around Maggie’s room within a flat, which she had helped her move into not long ago. She was thrilled for her friend but at the same time Flo was daunted by the distance. Maggie felt more like a sister than a friend. Flo stopped by the café where Maggie worked most days for a catch-up. She had a drawer full of clothes and necessities that she’d been buying for the baby.
And now both Maggie and the baby were moving away—in two weeks’ time!
‘I’m going to miss you,’ Flo admitted.
‘I won’t give you a chance to. But, Flo, I’m so scared it will all go wrong. What if his father doesn’t accept his choice of bride? This challenge to the King is so new and it was made before he knew about the baby. Ilyas knows that nothing happened between Hazin and me on the yacht but what if his parents don’t believe us?’
‘Maggie...’ Flo attempted to calm her friend but Maggie was a touch frantic.
‘I just don’t want anything to go wrong.’
‘It won’t,’ Flo said assuredly, deciding that now possibly wasn’t the best time to tell Maggie she had just come from Hazin’s bed! Maybe once the wedding was over and done with she would tell her friend what had happened last night.
But maybe not!
‘You will come to the wedding?’ Maggie checked.
‘Of course I’ll be there,’ Flo said as she mentally stared down the eye of the off-duty roster. She had fought hard to have three weeks off at Christmas. It would be her first Christmas off since she had started nursing, but she would forfeit it if meant she could be there for her friend. ‘I’ll call work now.’ Flo said. ‘I’ll see if I can swap some annual leave.’
Yet she didn’t have to!
She and Maggie would arrive two days before the wedding and, Flo was delighted to find out, they would be flying in on Ilyas’s plane.
And, given Maggie and Ilyas would be off to the desert straight afterwards, she didn’t need much time off work.
It just meant a jiggle of the roster and Flo got to keep her Christmas leave.
Of course, while organising her leave there was a coil of hope rising that she would get to see Hazin!
* * *
It was the busiest run-up to a wedding and was beyond exciting.
Maggie sorted out her life and planned her big move, and Flo worked right up to the last minute.
‘I am so tired,’ she admitted, as she and Maggie, along with a couple of other good friends—Paul the café manager and his wife Kelly—all collapsed on the sumptuous leather seats on Ilyas’s private jet. ‘But not too tired for champagne!’
It was brilliant.
A whirlwind.
The take-off was abrupt and then they were served a sumptuous lunch of dips and then a delectable kuku sabzi—a Persian herb frittata with walnuts, decorated with crushed rose petals and berberis leaves, all washed down with a sweet hibiscus tea.
Paul and Kelly went for a rest in one of the guest cabins but Flo refused hers; instead, she and Maggie went into the Royal suite.
‘Oh, my gosh!’ Flo said. ‘You and Ilyas get to have sex here!’
There was a huge bed draped in furs, and the lighting was demure. It was just a sexy man cave miles in the sky. ‘Is this just for Ilyas?’ Flo asked, fishing a little.
‘It is.’ Maggie nodded.
‘What about his parents?’
‘They have their own plane.’
‘And the brother?’ Flo, oh, so casually asked.
‘Hazin has his own, I believe,’ Maggie said. ‘They do
their own thing.’
They lay on the bed together and marvelled at the journey ahead, as well as the one that had brought them here.
It was so nice to take some time out, for they simply had not had a chance to just relax and talk.
‘What will happen about your antenatal care?’ Flo asked.
‘I’ll have the Palace doctor apparently.’
‘What about scans and things?’
‘Anything I need shall be brought to the Palace but if there’s a problem in labour and I need to go to the hospital there’ll be a helicopter on standby.’ She must have seen the dart of concern in Flo’s eyes for Maggie spoke on. ‘It’s a ten-minute flight away. I don’t think they’ll be taking any chances with the future King.’
‘Of course not.’ Flo agreed, and then sighed. ‘I’d have loved to deliver you.’
‘Well, I know it’s your job and everything but I’d find that strange.’ Maggie smiled. ‘A doctor that I rarely have to see suits me just fine.’
They decided to get some sleep so they put on the eye masks provided and lay there, drifting off. Flo wasn’t offended in the least at Maggie’s dismissal of her suggestion to deliver her. It was a moot point now anyway, given that she would be living so far away. Flo just knew how things changed when you were actually in labour. Maggie had no family. Well, of course she now had Ilyas, but when Flo had first offered, it had been because Maggie really had no one else.
She had Ilyas now, Flo consoled herself. And as Maggie herself had said, they were hardly going to take any risks with the future King.
It was her friend who concerned her, though.
‘Hey, Flo...’ Maggie said, as they lay in the dark, and the question that Flo had been anxiously avoiding, while simultaneously waiting for Maggie to ask, arose.
‘Did you ever catch up with Hazin?’
‘Sorry?’ Flo pretended that she’d misheard.
‘At Dion’s, when you went there that night, did you speak to Hazin?’
‘Is he going to be the best man?’ Flo asked, terribly glad of the eye masks to cover her obvious change of subject.
‘I don’t think they have best men,’ Maggie said. ‘Anyway, he’s not coming to the wedding apparently.’
‘Not coming?’ Flo frowned, whipping off her mask and sitting up. ‘But he’s Ilyas’s brother.’
‘I know that.’ Maggie yawned. ‘I hope he changes his mind.’
‘Are they arguing?’ Flo asked. ‘Is that why he’s not coming?’
‘They don’t talk enough to argue,’ Maggie said. ‘But I don’t think it’s that that’s keeping Hazin away, I think it’s more...’
‘What?’ Flo prompted, tempted to whisk off Maggie’s eye mask and shake her for more information. But she held back from doing that and just hovered over her unseen.
‘Hazin’s wife died,’ Maggie said. ‘It’s coming up for the tenth anniversary of her death and Hazin’s dreading it apparently. They’re opening a new oncology wing in her name. I think he still misses his wife and that’s why he hates going back so much.’
Oh.
‘How long were they married?’
‘A year, I think,’ Maggie said. ‘They were very young.’
Flo sank back on the bed and lay there, listening to the hum of the engines, and she thought of Hazin and his lovely eyes and smile and the pain that must be behind them.
She could not get him out of her mind.
Despite working right up to the last minute, despite helping Maggie with all the wedding plans, she had not forgotten, even for a moment, the bliss of that night.
There should have been a stab of relief that there was now little chance of Maggie finding out before the wedding that she had slept with Hazin.
There wasn’t, though.
Flo had been desperately hoping to see him, knowing that surely by now he would have worked out that she had been there about Maggie and not simply for a hook-up with a royal prince.
Perhaps he didn’t care enough to work it out, Flo thought as she lay there.
She did, though.
She cared, not just what he thought of her but Flo had found that she cared for him.
The Rebel Prince.
A widower.
And also a man who would decide not to attend his own brother’s wedding.
There was so much she wanted to find out and also to explain.
But if Hazin wouldn’t be attending the wedding, there would be no chance to. None at all.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE PALACE WAS INCREDIBLE.
Maggie had told her just how amazing it was but nothing could have properly prepared Flo for its splendour. The plane came in over the sea and Flo got her first glimpse of the stunning white building, a stark contrast to the burnt orange canyon it sat atop.
And, because they were aboard the Royal jet, they would land at the Palace. It was both terrifying and exhilarating as the plane aligned with the canyon. ‘How big is this place?’ Flo asked, still unable to fathom that it had its own landing strip.
‘Huge,’ Maggie said. ‘And magnificent.’
They landed and were met by a woman named Kumu, who greeted them warmly, and they were then driven to a side entrance.
‘The grand entrance,’ Kumu explained, ‘is used only by the Royals and for official occasions.’
And Maggie wasn’t quite that yet, though the side entrance wasn’t exactly shabby! They were led into a huge marble foyer and introduced to the wedding co-ordinator, who told them where they would be sleeping.
‘Maggie, you asked to stay in the westerly wing in your previous suite and that has been accommodated. The Palace is very full, though, with wedding guests arriving so your friends are in another section.’
It would seem that the westerly wing was rather the place to be, but Flo was just so thrilled to be here she really didn’t care where she had been put.
Paul and Kelly were led off. ‘Miss Andrews, I shall take you to your suite now and—’
‘I’ll go with Flo,’ Maggie said. ‘I want to know where she is.’
They were led through long corridors and up ancient steps and finally they arrived at what would be her home for the next few nights.
It was stunning.
The beautiful suite was bigger than her entire flat and the centrepiece was a high four-poster bed that was draped with heavy gold silk.
‘There is no direct hammam access from here,’ the co-ordinator regretfully explained.
‘That’s fine,’ Maggie said. ‘There’s access from my suite so we can go from there.’
‘Of course,’ the co-ordinator agreed, ‘but you cannot wander, Maggie. It is imperative that you do not see the groom, so when you are out of your suite, Kumu or I shall escort you.’ Maggie was handed a schedule and when the co-ordinator had gone she and Flo went through it.
Basically, it was two days of utter bliss.
There was to be a lot of hammam time and a cleansing diet of fruit, then an hour from now the dressmaker would come to Maggie’s suite to make adjustments.
‘Dressmakers,’ Flo corrected as she read through it. ‘Oh, it’s like a luxury retreat.’
‘With a wedding at the end of it,’ Maggie said, and Flo could hear the nervousness in her voice.
‘It’s going to be wonderful.’
‘I know it is.’ Maggie nodded. ‘I just hate it that I can’t see Ilyas until then. It feels like him coming to the flat was all a bit of a dream.’
‘Well, it clearly wasn’t,’ Flo said, and she opened the huge French window. They stepped out onto the balcony to breathe the fragrant evening air.
‘You have to come to my suite and see the sunset,’ Maggie said. ‘You’ve got planes for a view.’
�
�I like planes,’ Flo said.
She actually did.
As Maggie went off for her fitting it was incredible to watch the private jets come in over the desert and see the helicopters land.
Dignitaries descended the steps of private jets in richly coloured robes. Some were taken by car while others walked across a small ornate bridge. It took an evening of sipping fragrant tea and eating slivers of fruit for Flo to work out that the more esteemed guests crossed the bridge rather than being met by a car.
Maggie clearly wasn’t royal yet!
In the two days prior to the wedding, the bride-to-be and her guests were pampered and spoiled. There was a huge hammam beneath the Palace and because Paul and Kelly were married they were taken to the couples’ area. Due to her impending status, Maggie had her own private section and Flo was allowed along for company.
‘Think of it as one of our spa days,’ Maggie had said the first time they had gone down there.
More often than not they gave each other a spa day for birthday presents. This meant that twice a year they got a wonderful girly day.
They weren’t like this, though.
Their spa days had been taken in a swish hotel and had always felt decadent as they lay wrapped in fluffy towels with face packs on, followed by a dip in a gorgeous pool.
Here, though, they were underground and they walked through tunnels decorated in mosaics. It really was another world. There were natural steam rooms and waterfalls and maids who took care of everything.
Maggie’s long red curls were oiled in preparation for the big day and Flo’s blonde hair received several treatments. Her skin was pummelled with salt, and by the time it came to Maggie’s wedding day, all that was left to do was relax and prepare for the service, which was just a few hours away.
Maggie was nervous and Flo didn’t blame her a bit. She hadn’t seen Ilyas since he had proposed to her! Apparently his family was being difficult as Ilyas enforced the new order. Hazin was still a no-show, though his jet was apparently in Dubai. Yes, there was a lot for Maggie to be tense about. Not just the service—afterwards she would go out onto the balcony and the people would get their first glimpse of the obviously pregnant bride.
Christmas Bride for the Sheikh Page 4
