Читать книгу A Shocking Proposal In Sicily - Rachael Thomas, Rachael Thomas - Страница 10

SHE’D HAD HER FREEDOM. Freedom which now needed to be paid for. The last five years of resisting the urge to fulfil the archaic traditions of her country counted for nothing. Her duty to Ardu Safra could no longer be ignored. Or avoided.

Kaliana Benhamed stood outside her father’s office. She knew exactly why he’d demanded she return from London. From the new life she’d carved for herself after the tragedy of five years ago. Why he’d insisted she leave a job she loved, as campaign manager for Charity Resources. It didn’t concern him she’d have to say goodbye to Claire, a friend who knew everything about her but still treated her like an everyday girl. With that one command, her father had all but brought her world crashing down around her, leaving her no option but to return to her homeland and face him. Face her duty.

Kaliana stood taller, taking a deep breath, desperate to quell the churning of her stomach, her heart pounding hard and fast at the thought of the discussion to come. She swallowed down the nerves she couldn’t allow her father to see. She was a different woman from the one who’d left Ardu Safra after the nightmare of losing the man she’d loved. Since then, she’d found her independence and happiness. She’d pushed aside her dreams of love and happy ever afters. Made a new life for herself. A life she wasn’t about to relinquish easily.

Not even to her father, ruler of Ardu Safra, a small desert kingdom on the north-eastern edge of the African continent. He’d been a strict father, but fair. Would he really force her to do the one thing she didn’t want to do? Would he force her to accept a man he’d selected, as her husband? After everything she’d endured?

She closed her eyes briefly, sending up one last prayer for the strength to do this, wishing her mother had a more modern outlook on life. Wishing she would stand up for her only child. But those wishes were futile. Her mother was kind and loving, but of a very different era.

Kaliana tried to shake the tension from her shoulders as she gave the command to the guards, always stationed around the palace, to admit her to her father’s office.

The big doors swung wide and she walked across the vastness of the marble floor to the ornate desk at the far end of the room. Her father looked up from his work, watching her intently. Did he notice how different she was? How strong? How ready she was to do battle with him? To fight for her right to be a modern woman in a modern world?

She knew she had to marry and when that happened she wanted to drag the kingdom of Ardu Safra into the twenty-first century. For the people of the small kingdom as much as for herself. But she wasn’t ready yet.

‘Kaliana.’ His voice was cool. Distant. As if he was addressing one of his aides, not his daughter. His only child. And that was the core of her problem. She was the only heir of Ardu Safra. ‘At last you return to your country.’

The reproach in his voice bounced round the vastness of the ornate office, mirroring itself in his dark, watchful eyes. Warning her he wasn’t in the mood for her wilfulness, as he often called it.

‘You didn’t leave me much choice.’ Kaliana stopped a short distance from her father’s desk, satisfaction racing through her as he took in, with annoyance, her shorter hair. She loved the long bob style she’d opted for as part of the new Kaliana. Already she could feel her hackles rise, her indignation at the injustice surging to the fore. She battled to keep it contained. Keep it from her father. ‘You made it clear that my coming was not a request, Father, but a demand.’

The shock of receiving the curt email directly from her father still hadn’t subsided. Neither had the knowledge that the life she’d built herself was in serious danger. She was expected to marry and, at twenty-five, she was acutely aware he considered that duty well overdue.

She’d stepped outside the life of Kaliana Benhamed, Princess of Ardu Safra, for five years and now it was time to go back to the life her title demanded. It was time to do the duty she’d hoped she’d never have to do. Live the life she’d tried to be free of.

‘What are you wearing?’ His gaze took in her fitted navy skirt and white blouse, teamed with heeled shoes. Her chosen clothes for her new work life. He wouldn’t approve of them, just as her traditionally brought-up mother didn’t. Kaliana was a big disappointment to her parents in many ways.

‘This is who I am now, Father.’ She lifted her chin defiantly as he stared at her, his annoyance that she’d turned her back so blatantly on her country vividly clear on his face. Once again it was clear she was a total disappointment to him. The daughter who’d brought shame to him. To the country. ‘Whatever it is you want of me, this is who I am now.’

He stood up quickly, his heavy chair scraping noisily on the marble floor. Anger burned in his eyes as he leant on the desk. ‘What I want is for you to do your duty.’

Kaliana wanted to step back from his fury. ‘My duty, Father?’ she asked, in a voice so light it didn’t even sound like her own. But to show her fear to him, her fear of what he now expected her to do, would be to hand him the ace card. Give him all the power.

And it was a power she’d slowly and bit by bit taken from him over the last five years as her new life had proved she could succeed without the title of Princess Kaliana of Ardu Safra. She’d got herself a managerial job, a place to live and friends she could count on without disclosing her royal title. Only Claire knew the truth. To her employer, her colleagues and friends, she was simply Kaliana Benhamed. And the fact she’d achieved all that irritated her father far more than he let on.

‘Marriage.’ He hurled the word she least wanted to hear at her. ‘Marriage is your duty, Kaliana. Your duty as Princess to the kingdom of Ardu Safra. Your duty as my daughter and only heir.’

She clenched her hands tightly, her nails digging into the sweaty palms. ‘Not in the life I now lead, Father.’

‘The life you now lead?’ Her father’s voice lowered with disappointment, the scowl on his face full of annoyance and frustration. She was only making this worse. Making it harder for herself. Making him angrier. ‘I’ve allowed you to indulge in that fancy long enough.’

She stepped forward, her own frustration making her reckless. ‘It’s not a fancy, Father, it’s my life now. One I needed to make for myself.’

He sighed slowly and looked at her, his expression softening very slightly, making her think of the father he’d been when she was younger. The father who’d loved her even though she hadn’t been born a son. The father who had been more relaxed—until the burden of inheriting and ruling a financially struggling and small kingdom had snatched that man away. ‘I understand why you needed to go. That’s why I said nothing when you turned your back on the lifestyle your title could have brought you.’

‘Then you will understand why I can’t marry. Not ever.’

‘It’s not that simple, Kaliana. Our kingdom is in jeopardy. Our people too. The only way out of it is for you to marry.’ The resignation in his voice shocked her. The angry ruler of moments ago had gone. The man she’d loved as a carefree child had returned. It was that man who tugged on her conscience.

‘And who will I marry, Father? Alif, the man I loved, the man you were perfectly happy for me to marry, died—remember?’ A stab of pain shot through her as she recalled being told her fiancé had been killed in a tragic helicopter crash just weeks before their wedding.

‘Nassif has asked for your hand in marriage.’ Her father’s words cut savagely through that memory.

‘Nassif?’ Kaliana couldn’t believe she was hearing right. How could he do this to her? How could her father even think she would marry anyone? But Nassif?

‘Alif’s uncle? Alif’s cruel and spiteful uncle? You can’t mean that?’ Her voice was a strangled cry of pain and despair. Her throat had gone dry, as if she’d walked all day in the heat of the desert and not taken one sip of water. Her head spun and she dragged in rapid deep breaths, desperate to regain control of herself and this conversation. ‘I can’t. I. Can’t.’

‘Marriage to Nassif will unite our countries, just as they should have been five years ago, if you’d married Alif.’ Her father sat once again behind his desk, the formidable ruler he’d become slipping back into place. The glimpse of the father she’d known long ago, gone. Or was it just her wishful thinking? She’d foolishly been hoping her father would be pleased to see her after five years. How wrong could she be?

Kaliana’s knees weakened and she wished she could slump to the floor as past hurt, past pain and heartache collided with the panic of what her father had planned. What he expected her to do without question. ‘But Nassif is so much older than me.’

‘That is true,’ he said slowly, his response to her objection so obviously rehearsed. ‘Now that his wife has passed away, he wants to make you his wife.’

Kaliana backed away, needing the roar of panic in her head to stop, needing the wild spinning of her mind to cease. ‘No. I will not marry him.’

Sweat prickled on her forehead. Nausea rose and the need to turn and run became almost irresistible. But she couldn’t run. Somewhere deep inside her, the duty her mother had implanted so innocuously into her from a young age resurfaced. Took over.

She wanted to run. But she couldn’t. She had a duty to do. Duty to her family. Her kingdom.

Deep down, she’d always known her father had allowed her time away, allowed her time to heal the pain of her broken heart. But now that reprieve was over. It was time for her to do the right thing. Do the duty she’d been born to.

But marriage to Nassif? She shivered with sickening revulsion. Marriage to anyone would be bad enough, but to her late fiancé’s vile uncle? Unthinkable.

Her father watched her without saying anything. He didn’t even flinch when, with a great shuddering breath that could lead to tears if she let it, she looked at him. Imploring him to understand. Imploring him to tell her he’d find someone else.

Someone else. The words wandered around her mind like mist on an autumn morning in London, shrouding all other thoughts. What if she did marry someone else?

Spurred on by the idea, the desperate thought that this was the solution, she moved back towards him. ‘I can’t marry Nassif, Father.’

‘Ardu Safra is facing financial ruin. Whilst you have been in London things have become very bad here.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘It is for me to deal with. I was counting on your marriage to Alif to make things right.’ The sharpness of his words only just hid his panic, the seriousness of the situation.

‘There were problems even then?’ she asked, saddened to think she’d been happy and free in London, while her mother and father had carried this burden.

‘Yes. And now I must ask that you make a marriage with Nassif.’ His voice had hardened. Was that to hide his shame that things had got so bad in the country he ruled? Guilt raced through her, forming a potent cocktail, mixing with her fear. A cocktail that made her almost physically sick.

‘Father, no. Not Nassif.’

‘He is a very wealthy man.’ Her father looked at her, no longer the strong ruler but a man who looked broken and defeated. A man who was depending on her. Her heart wrenched. ‘And he is willing to invest in Ardu Safra.’

She shook her head in protest, but the straight line of her father’s mouth warned her it was in vain.

‘Your marriage will bring the finances you should have brought with your marriage five years ago.’ She knew that gritty determination in his voice. He would get what he wanted. One way or another. And he wanted to save Ardu Safra by marrying her off to a wealthy man.

But did that man have to be Nassif?

A solution barged into her mind, making any further words almost impossible. Her heart thudded loudly. Dare she risk telling him? Risk his anger? And, worst of all, his disapproval of her. ‘No. I can’t do it.’

‘Imagine the shame your mother will face.’ He believed he held the ace cards, but she wouldn’t allow him to emotionally blackmail her. He wouldn’t use the close relationship she and her mother had always shared. He wouldn’t do that to her any more.

‘This isn’t about Mother,’ she said flatly, glaring at him, that wilful streak of hers beginning to take over as the solution to her problem grew in possibility. Like the sun as it rose over the mountains of the desert. Becoming bigger and stronger with each passing minute.

‘And the people of Ardu Safra? Will you stand by and allow them to wallow in poverty and hunger because you won’t do your duty? Because you won’t make a marriage to bring wealth back to our kingdom?’

Damn it, he did hold the ace cards. All of them. And he played them well. Too well.

‘Don’t, Father,’ she snapped.

‘How will your charities view you when they know who you really are? That you turned your back on the country of your birth? Its people?’ He stood once more, realising she was retreating, on the verge of accepting defeat. His threat to reveal her true identity, even though he’d helped her keep it secret, all he needed to use.

‘That’s not fair.’ How had she thought he was a fair man?

‘You will have to marry someone, Kaliana. A man with great wealth. A man able to rule by your side when the time comes.’ He paused, letting the image of her future permeate her mind. ‘This is your country. Your people.’

Marry someone. That was what he’d said. Again, the other less hideous option rushed into her mind. That was it. She would find her own husband.

‘Then I will find someone else.’ The words tumbled out in a panic and she knew she was in danger of losing the control she was fighting to keep on her emotions. ‘I will find a man to marry who can bring the finances needed to Ardu Safra.’

Her father looked at her, scowling, but before he could shut down her idea she spoke again. ‘I cannot and will not marry Nassif.’

She expected him to be angry. Braced herself for his wrath, but it didn’t come. He looked as stunned as she felt.

He shook his head in disbelief. ‘You really think you can find a man, one wealthier than Nassif, willing to marry you and take on the demands of being husband to a princess?’

‘Yes, Father, I do.’ Now her panic changed direction. How could she ever achieve that?

‘Very well, I will prepare for a wedding.’

‘What?’

‘On the day of your twenty-sixth birthday you will be married.’

‘But that’s...’ She paused to calculate, her mind too numb to function. ‘October. The beginning of October. Only four months away.’

He nodded solemnly. She wanted to rail against him, but he’d changed. There was something different about him. Something that tugged mercilessly at her heartstrings. Something that once again hinted that the father she’d loved as a child, the man she wished he could be, lingered beneath his tough exterior.

But she wasn’t about to let go of the chance he’d given her. ‘And if I haven’t found a husband by then?’ Inside she was a wild rush of panic. She could do this. She had to do this.

‘You have until September,’ her father solemnly said. ‘Find a suitable husband by then or marry Nassif on your twenty-sixth birthday.’