Читать книгу Claimed For The Sheikh's Shock Son - Carol Marinelli, Carol Marinelli - Страница 9

‘WILL YOU BE speaking at the funeral, Your Highness?’

The questions from the paparazzi started even before Sheikh Prince Khalid of Al-Zahan had stepped out of the luxury vehicle.

Jobe Devereux’s funeral was tomorrow. The press and television crews were gathered outside the late, great man’s Fifth Avenue home, capturing images of visitors arriving to pay their condolences.

Some visitors walked slowly, keen to be photographed and seen, others put their heads down and hurried from their cars to the residence.

Others opted to use the trade entrance.

Khalid did neither.

He had flown to New York from Al-Zahan and at the family’s request had come directly from the royal jet to Jobe’s home. Tomorrow Khalid would be clean-shaven with his thick, black hair freshly cut and he would be wearing a suit. Tonight, though, having come from a retreat in the desert, he was bearded and his tall frame was dressed in dark robes. Khalid was a striking man—tall and slim yet muscular too. Despite his impressive physique he moved in an elegant, unhurried fashion towards the home that he knew well, ignoring the paparazzi’s questions. For Khalid, the presence of the press had barely registered and certainly he didn’t deign to respond. His mind was elsewhere, for he had lost not just a business partner but someone he both valued and respected.

Yet they persisted.

‘Will Chantelle be seated with the family?’

‘Might there be some unexpected guests?’

‘Your Highness, is it true that the King of Al-Zahan is soon to announce your marriage?’

The last question jarred, not that Khalid showed it. But at home the pressure on him to marry was immense. That it was now being aired here in New York, the place he considered his bolthole, now rendered the pressure inescapable.

The door was opened by the housekeeper and as he stepped inside it was clear that even prior to the funeral, Jobe had pulled in quite a crowd. People were mingling and spilling out from the reception room where groups stood talking. Drinks were being served as if the funeral had already taken place.

Khalid was not here to socialise, though, and was taken straight through to Jobe’s study.

‘I’ll let Ethan know that you’re here,’ the housekeeper said. ‘He’s just speaking with the senator.’

‘Tell him there is no rush,’ Khalid said.

‘Is there anything I can get for you?’ she checked, ‘He shouldn’t be long.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Khalid said, but as the housekeeper headed out the door he called to her. ‘Barb,’ Khalid said. ‘I am sorry for your loss.’

She gave him a watery smile. ‘Thank you, Khalid.’

It was a relief to be here in the study and away from the hordes. Khalid could, of course, be polite and make small-talk—his royal status demanded it. He was in no mood to, though.

How odd that one room in a house so far from home could hold so many memories. Jobe’s globe had always been a draw for Khalid. It had been an antique when Jobe had purchased it and Khalid would look at all the old countries now gone, while his island country, independent from the mainland, remained.

And it was from this very decanter that Khalid had first tasted alcohol. On that desk that the first tentative sketch of the Royal Al-Zahan Hotel had been drafted.

It was just a year off completion now.

An impossible dream, first born in this study.

Khalid picked up a heavy paperweight and recalled Jobe, for once awkward, tossing it between his hands as a far younger Khalid had opened the study door.

‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jobe? Even my own kids do.’

But Khalid called his own father by his royal title and bowed to him on arriving and leaving, so he struggled to accept the informal greetings in the Devereux household.

‘Sit down, son.’

Khalid took a seat when he would have preferred to stay standing, for he was certain he was about to be disciplined. At sixteen he had been in New York City for close to a year and he and Ethan had discovered fake IDs and girls.

Yes, there were plenty of reasons Ethan’s father might want to have words with him.

‘There’s no easy way to say this.’ Jobe cleared his throat. ‘Khalid, you need to call home.’

‘Is something wrong with the twins?’ Khalid asked, for he knew his mother was due to give birth any day now.

‘No. Your mother gave birth to twins this morning, but there were complications. Your mom took a turn for the worse and could not be revived. I’m very sorry to tell you this, Khalid, but your mom is dead.’

It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the study and though Khalid determinedly didn’t show it, he felt as if he could not breathe. It simply could not be, for his mother was so alive and, unlike his stern father, she smiled and laughed and loved life. Queen Dalila was the very reason that Khalid was here in NYC.

‘Call home,’ Jobe said. ‘Tell your father we can head straight to the airport and that I will accompany you back to Al-Zahan.’

‘No.’ Khalid shook his head, for Jobe did not understand that Khalid had to arrive aboard the royal plane. ‘But thank you for the kind offer.’

‘Khalid.’ Jobe spoke with exasperation. ‘You are allowed to be upset.’

‘With respect, sir, I know what is allowed. I shall call the King now.’

Khalid awaited privacy, but Jobe remained in his seat and then, to Khalid’s mind, did the oddest thing. Jobe Devereux put his elbows on the mahogany desk and buried his face in his hands.

Jobe, Khalid realised with both bemusement and strange gratitude, had found telling him hard. It had hurt Jobe to break the news, and he hurt for their mother, and his two-year-old brother, Hussain, and for the twins just born.

Then he heard the voice of the King.

‘Alab,’ Khalid said, calling him Father.

A mistake.

‘I am your King first,’ he reminded Khalid. ‘You must never forget it, not even for a moment, and especially in dark times.’

‘Is it true?’ Khalid said. ‘Is she dead?’

The King confirmed the grim news, but said there was much consolation that an heir had been spared. ‘We celebrate that this morning another heir to the Al-Zahan kingdom was born.’

‘So she had a boy and a girl?’ Khalid checked.

‘Correct.’

‘Did she get to see them?’ Khalid asked. ‘To hold them? Did she know what she had?’

‘Khalid, what sort of question is that? I was not with her.’

That he hadn’t even found out had Khalid fold then, and an agonised breath shuddered out of him that the King heard.

‘There will be no tears,’ the King said sharply. ‘You are a prince, not a princess. The people need to see strength, not their future King acting like some peasant who weeps and keens.’

As Khalid was being reminded he was royal, and so above emotion and pain, Jobe came around the desk and placed his hand on Khalid’s shoulder. Jobe did not know what was being said, for Khalid spoke in Arabic, yet his hand remained, even when the phone call had ended.

‘I’m so sorry, son. You’ll get through this. Abe and Ethan lost their mom too.’

‘They had you, though.’ It was the most honest admission.

‘So do you, Khalid,’ Jobe said, for having himself spoken to Khalid’s icy father he knew the young man would get no true support at home.

Here in this study Khalid had wept for his mother.

For a short while he had been sixteen and flailing, scared and desperately sad, and Jobe had allowed him to be.

Jobe Devereux had been the only person ever to see him cry for, even as a child, tears had been forbidden.

Khalid had been an only child until he’d been a teenager and his brother, Hussain, had been born, lifting from him the full weight of being the only heir. Now there were twins but no mother to love them.

Yes, Khalid had cried.

But by the time the royal plane had arrived the mask had been back on and it had never, to this day, slipped.

‘Khalid?’

He realised that he had not heard Ethan come into the study and turned and offered his condolences to his business partner and friend, although they could never have been considered close.

Khalid was not close to anyone.

‘Thank you for coming, Khalid.’

‘Of course, I was always going to be here for Jobe’s funeral.’

‘I meant tonight. It’s appreciated. How long are you here for?’

‘Till the day after tomorrow.’

‘You have to leave so soon?’

‘I am increasingly needed at home,’ Khalid said.

‘Well, it was good of you to come.’

‘Enough small-talk, Ethan.’ Khalid cut straight to the point. ‘What’s going on?’

‘A lot,’ Ethan admitted. ‘And it cannot get out.’

‘You know it will go no further.’ Khalid was one of the few who could be trusted with bombshell news. He would never gossip—Khalid was far too remote and royal for that—and so Ethan told him what had been revealed since his father’s death.

Jobe Devereux’s life had been interesting, to say the least, and had played out in the press for all to see. His sons, Abe and Ethan, had seen it all.

Or had thought that they had.

‘There was an account we didn’t know about,’ Ethan told him.

Khalid listened as Ethan revealed they had found out that Jobe had had a penchant for gambling and showgirls. As it turned out, those long weekends away that Jobe had frequently taken hadn’t always been spent at the Hamptons; instead they had been taken in Vegas.

Sin City.

‘Are there debts?’ Khalid asked, for he always dealt first with business.

Ethan shook his head. ‘No, he was actually ahead, but this wasn’t an occasional thing, Khalid. There were a lot of women, oh, and a marriage we didn’t know about.’

‘A marriage?’

‘Between his first wife and my mother, it turns out he was married to a woman named Brandy for all of seventy-two hours.’

‘Ancient history,’ Khalid dismissed.

‘Perhaps, but it’s ancient history that might resurface tomorrow.’

‘Jobe’s reputation can handle it.’ Khalid’s words were calm and measured as he poured oil on troubled waters. ‘And so can you. Of course, anything that is recent may prove hard on his current partner.’ Khalid checked his facts. ‘He got back with Chantelle before he died?’

‘Not really.’ Ethan held out his hand in a wavering motion. ‘But they were together on and off for quite a few years.’

‘Ethan,’ Khalid calmly responded. ‘Everyone has a shadow side. And that Jobe kept mistresses, and was married briefly, is hardly going to come as too much of a surprise, surely? Jobe led a colourful life and we all know how much he loved women.’

‘Women, yes,’ Ethan sighed, and Khalid could see his friend’s discomfort and knew he was about to hear the real reason he’d been asked to come by in advance of the funeral. ‘For the last four years my father has been sending a considerable monthly sum to an Aubrey Johnson...’

Now Khalid frowned, for this indeed came as a surprise. ‘Jobe was having an affair with a man?’

And on this dark sombre night Ethan actually laughed. ‘No, Khalid. Jobe wasn’t gay.’

‘But Aubrey is a man’s name.’

‘Not here it isn’t, it’s a unisex name. Believe me, Aubrey Johnson is definitely not a man.’

Ethan handed him some photographs.

No, Aubrey was certainly not a man.

She was barely a woman.

Aubrey Johnson had a curtain of blonde hair and china-blue eyes, but her pretty, delicate features were overwhelmed by elaborate stage make-up, with false eyelashes and painted red lips. Her petite, toned figure was shown to effect in a crimson, sequined leotard.

And nothing else.

‘How old is she?’ Khalid asked, his deep voice hoarse with disappointment.

‘Twenty-two,’ Ethan said. ‘She’ll be twenty-three next month.’

Jobe had been seventy-four.

‘She’s a dancer,’ Ethan said.

‘I’m assuming we’re not talking ballroom...’ Khalid started, and then answered his own question as he looked at the next image. From barely a woman to all woman, she wore a tiny, revealing dress and elaborate make-up and his jaw gritted at her provocative pose.

‘She’s also an aerial trapeze artist, apparently,’ Ethan said as Khalid flicked through the photos of Aubrey. ‘Though not a very good one,’

‘Why do you say she’s not any good?’ Khalid frowned.

‘Well, she’s not a big name or anything. Ms Johnson lives in a trailer park and does a routine over the gaming tables. And when she’s not performing it would seem she’s my father’s...’ Ethan couldn’t finish. ‘She was barely eighteen when the payments started.’

What the hell had Jobe been thinking?

Khalid could not stand to think that the man he had so deeply admired would be involved with someone so young. No, he could not accept that from Jobe. ‘Could there be another explanation?’

‘If there is, we’re doing our damnedest to find it.’ Ethan shook his head. ‘But no.’

‘Could she be his daughter?’ Khalid persisted, still not wanting to think the worst.

‘No.’ Again Ethan shook his head. ‘My father was a generous man and if he’d known he had a daughter she would not be living in a trailer park. If the money was for a benevolent reason he had trusts and charities set up for that but the payments to Ms Johnson came from the buried account—he didn’t want anyone to know.’

‘It’s better that you do,’ Khalid said. ‘Before it gets out.’

‘Look, if there’s scandal brewing, Abe and I will deal with it, we just don’t want anything to hit at the funeral tomorrow. We want our father to have a dignified send-off.’

‘Of course.’

‘We’ve made security aware of the names of these women and they are to be kept well back—’

‘No, no,’ Khalid interrupted. ‘You are to let them into the funeral.’

‘Absolutely not,’ Ethan stated. ‘We are not turning Jobe’s send-off into a Vegas show.’

‘Ethan, I thought you invited me here for advice.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Do you want a scene outside with the cameras where you have no control?’

‘Of course not.’

‘Then add these women to the guest list. If they arrive, have security watch them and my detail shall keep an eye out too. You focus on saying farewell to your father. And remember, if any of them do turn up it might just be to pay their respects. No one should be denied that chance.’

‘No.’ Ethan let out a long breath, but it hitched when Khalid spoke on.

‘If they are at the funeral they are to be invited back to the private wake.’

‘No way! That really is just for family and close friends.’

‘You don’t need me to tell you to keep your enemies close, Ethan.’

‘And risk his wake being turned into a circus?’ Ethan gave a shake of his head, but he knew Khalid well enough to know that he never offered rash advice and so, rather wearily he nodded. ‘I’ll speak to Abe.’

‘This will all be sorted,’ Khalid reassured him. ‘Your father might have had some secrets, but he was inherently a good man.’

‘I know.’ Ethan nodded. ‘Look, thanks for being here. It would have meant an awful lot to Jobe.’

‘Your father meant a lot to me,’ Khalid said.

With that out of the way, they went through the details for the next day. Khalid’s royal title had been omitted from the order of service at his own request.

‘You’re sure about that?’ Ethan checked, as Khalid stood to leave.

‘Absolutely. That was always the best thing about being here,’ Khalid admitted to Ethan. ‘I wasn’t treated as a prince, or next in line to be King. Here I was just Khalid.’ He grew serious then. ‘Tomorrow you are to focus on remembering your father. Any problems are now mine to deal with.’

Ethan gave a grateful nod, for he knew that Khalid would take care of things.

As formidable as he was to outsiders, Khalid looked after his own.

‘What about you, Khalid?’ Ethan asked as he walked him out of the study.

‘What about me?’ Khalid frowned.

‘If everyone has a shadow side, what’s yours?’

‘You really don’t expect me to answer that, do you?’ Khalid said, and opened the door.

Of course not.

For no one really knew Khalid.

Here the press described him as a playboy, but that was inaccurate for he did not play.

At anything.

His emotions were always kept strictly in check and he allowed no one close to him, even in bed.

Especially in bed.

For his own reasons he had chosen not to have a harem. He loathed how his mother had suffered when his father had taken himself there. How he had taunted her when another infant had been sired and he could tell her the ‘problem’ with her failing to provide more heirs was clearly not his.

Those children had no status and were considered unrelated to Khalid, and he did not want those ways to be his own. So he had rejected the harem, but here in New York he dated sophisticated, experienced women who accepted there would be no feigned tenderness.

It was sex.

Khalid’s absolute lack of affection was paid for in diamonds, gifts and sometimes plain old hard cash.

Tonight he had plenty with him.