Читать книгу The Royals Collection - Ким Лоренс, Rebecca Winters - Страница 23

CHAPTER TWELVE

HANNAH KICKED OFF her shoes as she walked into the bedroom. Kamel stood, his shoulders propped against the door jamb, and watched as she sat at the dressing table and struggled with the clasp of the sapphire necklace she wore.

He had never imagined that the nape of a woman’s neck could be erotic, but he had to accept that some of life’s normal rules did not apply where his wife was concerned. When she had walked into the room at his side tonight, making him think of a graceful swan in her slim-fitting white gown, she had been literally shaking with fear but nobody would have guessed as she smiled and charmed everyone present at the formal state dinner.

The fierce pride he had felt as he had watched her across the table, graceful and lovely, had only been matched in the emotional stakes by the rush of protectiveness he had experienced when, during the press-the-flesh session following the formal banquet, when those who were being rewarded for good works got a chance to meet the royals, Hannah’s interest in the diverse range of people who lined up to shake her hand had seemed real—as had the fear in her eyes when she had seen the Quagani colonel. The moment had passed and she had recovered her poise, but Kamel had kept an eye on the man. Diplomatic incident or not, he was poised to throw the guy out personally if he so much as looked at Hannah the wrong way.

In the event he had seemed to behave himself. Even so, Kamel intended to make damned sure that in the future their favourite cuddly colonel had his card marked when it came to entry into this country.

‘Let me.’

She looked at him in the mirror, unable to disguise the shiver of pleasure as his fingers brushed her neck.

‘Thank you,’ she said, looking at him through her lashes with eyes that shone brighter than the gems he was removing.

He paused. She seemed about to say something but then, as if she had changed her mind, she tipped her head in acknowledgement as he dropped the necklace into her hand.

‘You did well tonight.’

The comment smoothed the small groove in Hannah’s brow and she released the sigh she’d felt she had been holding in all night. ‘So I passed?’

He didn’t return her smile. ‘Is that how you saw tonight? As a test?’ The idea troubled him. ‘You’re not being graded, Hannah. No one is judging you.’

Hannah shrugged. She had been here long enough to learn a little of the politics of the place, and she knew that she was resented in certain quarters. More than a few people were just waiting for her to mess up. She would never be Amira, but she was determined to prove them all wrong.

‘Especially not me.’

Whatever trust issues he had with Hannah had long gone. He often watched her—which was not exactly a hardship—and found himself wondering how he had ever even for a second thought she was a cold, spoilt bitch!

He was not a man who looked deep inside himself, maybe because he knew that he wouldn’t have liked what he’d have seen.

He’d once told Hannah to lose the attitude, but now he saw that it was advice he ought to have been directing at himself. He’d seen marriage as a life sentence the moment when the doors slammed shut. He had not faced his resentment of the role that had been thrust on him. Hannah had made him do that.

He’d never for one second thought that marriage might be better than the life he’d had to let go. He’d put so much effort into seeing himself as someone who had missed out on the chance of happiness when he had lost Amira that when it had fallen at his feet he’d not recognised it.

And yet there was a cloud. Hannah welcomed him into her bed but he sensed a new restraint in her. She was holding back. On more than one occasion he had nearly demanded to know what the hell was the matter—but he’d stopped himself. What if she told him and he didn’t like the answer?

His quiet admission that he hadn’t been judging her made her throat ache with unshed tears.

‘I was dreading it,’ she admitted.

‘I know.’

‘It was strange sitting next to the man who once held my fate in his hands.’ Protocol dictated that she was seated next to the daunting Sheikh Malek. ‘He could have signed my death warrant.’

‘No!’

The explosive interjection made her pause and touch his hand. His fingers unclenched under the light pressure. ‘Tonight he was telling me about his rose collection. He invited me to a tour of his rose gardens.’

Kamel let out a silent whistle as he brought his hands up to rest on her shoulders. ‘You’re honoured. I haven’t made that invite yet. It’s the hottest ticket in town, I promise you.’

He bent his head and Hannah closed her eyes, but the anticipated kiss did not arrive on her waiting lips. With a disgruntled little frown between her feathery brows, she opened her eyes and saw him digging into the pocket of his jacket.

‘I almost forgot. This is yours, I believe.’

Her frown deepened as she shook her head and looked at the small fat brown envelope he held. ‘It’s not mine.’

He turned it over. ‘Well, it’s got your name on the front.’

Sliding her finger under the sealed flap, she split it open and angled a questioning look up at him, suspecting this was Kamel’s way of delivering a surprise. ‘There’s no celebrity chef hiding inside, is there?’

Kamel responded to the teasing with a lopsided grin. ‘The man’s ego wouldn’t fit into this room, let alone an envelope.’

Hannah turned the parcel around, feeling an odd reluctance suddenly to open it. ‘Where did it come from?’

‘Someone saw you drop it, handed it to someone who passed it on to me. I assumed it fell out of your bag.’

Her lips quirked into an amused smile. ‘My bag will just about hold a lipstick.’

Her explanation drew a puzzled look. ‘Then why carry it?’

‘Only a man would ask that question.’

‘What is it?’ he asked as she tipped the contents of the envelope onto the dressing table.

‘I’ve no idea,’ she admitted, staring as several photos clipped together fell out, then, after another shake, a card. ‘It says here that...’ She read the logo on top of the card and her brows lifted. ‘Private investigator!’

Kamel picked up the photos. He did not look beyond the one on the top. A muscle in his lean cheek clenched.

‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, struggling to read his shuttered expression.

‘See for yourself.’ He slid the clip off the bundle and fanned them out, playing-card style, on the surface in front of her.

Hannah accepted the invitation, and the nausea she had been feeling intermittently all evening resurfaced with a vengeance. There were two people in each grainy print and, even though they had clearly been taken using a telephoto lens and there was some graininess, there was no mistaking one at least of the faces...or the body.

Kamel’s mouth twisted in distaste.

‘I thought we had all of these.’

Of course, once images made their way onto the Internet they were there for ever, but the person who had taken these had been refreshingly pragmatic. The only thing he’d been interested in was money, not causing embarrassment.

‘You knew about these?’ She held a clenched fist to her pale lips.

‘These were taken long before we were married. You do know that, don’t you?’ He could have pointed out that the dress she was wearing—when she was wearing one—was the gold number that had been the trigger for their poolside tussle. But he shouldn’t have to.

He had not needed to ask Hannah if she had employed a private investigator; he knew she hadn’t. He recognised this for what it was—a rather obvious and malicious attempt at mischief-making, one that could only work in a marriage where there was a lack of trust that could be exploited.

‘Do you believe me, Hannah? Do you trust me?’

Saying she did amounted to an admission that she loved him. Was she ready to make it?

The realisation that she was came hand in hand with the even stronger realisation that if she didn’t move fast she was going to throw up all over his shiny shoes.

She threw him an agonised look, then dashed to the bathroom with her hand pressed to her lips, and slammed the door in his face.

When she finished being violently sick, Hannah got weakly to her feet and washed her face. A look in the mirror told her she looked like death warmed up. She went back into the bedroom.

She squared her shoulders and opened the door. It was time she manned up and came clean. She would tell him that, not only did she trust his word, she trusted him with her life and that of their unborn baby.

She curved a protective hand over her flat belly and whispered, ‘Here goes.’

It was empty.

The anticlimax was intense, but it only lasted a moment. She looked back on their conversation before she had made her dash for the bathroom, and she saw the situation from his perspective. He had asked her if she trusted him and she had bolted.

She put herself in his shoes—what was he thinking?

The answer was not long coming. He thought she didn’t trust him. The knowledge buzzed in her head and she knew it wouldn’t go away until she told him how she felt.

He had to know she wasn’t that person. Fuelled by an urgency that infected every cell of her body, that defied logic, she ignored the heels she had kicked off and shoved her feet into a pair of trainers.

The bodyguard standing outside the door moved to one side as she exploded through the door.

‘Where is he?’

The steely face betrayed a concern as he looked down at her.

‘Shall I get someone for you—?’

‘No, just tell me where he went!’ she screeched, fighting the impulse to beat her hands on his chest.

After a pause that seemed to Hannah to go on for ever, he nodded to the door that led to the stone spiral steps that in turn led to the side entrance to their apartment.

Hannah’s grateful smile shone, causing the big man to blush but she didn’t notice. Slinging a ‘Thank you!’ over her shoulder, she flew down the stairs at record-breaking speed, slowing only when she remembered the baby.

Outside her burst of optimism vanished as she scanned the surrounding area lit by spotlights. Her anxious gaze failed to pick up any sign of movement amongst the rows of fragrant lemon trees that grew in the manicured expanse of green, a green maintained by high-tech underground irrigation.

She was about to concede defeat when she saw a figure who had been previously concealed by a hollow in the undulating ground outlined on the horizon.

‘Kamel!’

Maybe he didn’t hear her, or maybe he chose to ignore her. Her jaw firmed; she’d make him listen, she told herself grimly, or die in the attempt!

In her head she could hear him calling her a drama queen. Tears welled in her eyes and she tried to call his name but nothing came out of her mouth. Swallowing tears and the frustration that lay like a weight in her chest, she willed herself on.

He had vanished from view before she had made it halfway across the grass, but when she reached the top of the rise she had a lucky break: she saw his tall figure enter the massive garage block.

With cruel timing as she came around the building a sports car emerged through the open doors, kicking up a cloud of dust that made her cough as it vanished.

Well, that was it.

Feeling utterly deflated, she stopped to catch her breath, pressing her hand to a stitch in her side. She experienced a moment’s panic before telling herself not to be stupid. Pregnant women played sport, rode horses, did things a lot more physically demanding than jog a few hundred yards. Her only problem was she was unfit.

Actually it wasn’t her only problem. Why had she hesitated? If she had told him how she felt he wouldn’t have needed to be told she trusted him. He’d have known. But, no, she’d been busy covering her back, protecting herself from the man who, whether he had intended to or not, had shown her what love was about.

It had been weeks since she’d admitted it to herself and she’d been too scared to let him see she loved him. She was disgusted by her own cowardice. Maybe it was only sex for him, but she had to know. She needed to know. She needed to tell him she was alive and Amira was dead. She had to be brave for their baby.

Hands braced on her thighs, she leant forward to get her breath. It was time to be honest. If she didn’t it would be her own insecurity that stretched the gulf that had opened up between them tonight.

She was so caught up with her own internal dialogue that as she straightened up and brushed the hair back from her face she almost missed the figure that emerged from the garage block, the figure carrying the cane. The figure of the colonel...

For a moment literally paralysed with fear, Hannah felt herself dragged back to that room of her nightmares—the bright white light, the stains on the wall that she didn’t like to think about and the sinister tap, tap of that cane.

But he wasn’t tapping his stick. He wasn’t doing anything to attract attention to himself. As he moved towards the staff quarters he looked furtively left and right, then over his shoulder. For a moment he seemed to be looking straight at her and, standing there in the pale ball gown, she felt as though there were a neon arrow above her head. Then he turned and walked away quickly.

It was only after he had vanished that she began to breathe again.

She was ashamed that she’d felt so afraid. He couldn’t hurt her any more. He never had; he’d only been playing mind games. He was harmless really. But harmless or not, remembering the expression she had caught a glimpse of earlier that evening when his cold little eyes had followed Kamel across the room made her shudder.

‘Hannah, you’re way too old to believe in the bogey man.’ Firmly ejecting the hateful little creep from her head, Hannah was turning to retrace her steps when she lost her footing. By some miracle she managed not to fall, but she did jar her ankle. Flexing her toes and extending her foot to see the damage, she noticed a dark patch on the ground. There was a trail of similar spots leading all the way back to the garage. Unable to shake the feeling that something was not quite right, she found herself following the breadcrumb trail of spots. It led back into the large hangar of a building that housed Kamel’s collection of cars.

She had seen them before and had made a few appropriate noises of approval, though in all honesty her interest in high-end vintage cars was limited. So long as the car she drove got her from A to B she was happy.

The lights were off in the building, but as she walked inside the internal sensor switched them on, revealing the rows of gleaming cars inside. Only one was absent—the vintage sports car that Kamel had driven off in. Where it had stood in the empty space the trail came to an end.

While Hannah’s interest in cars was limited, a condition of her being given driving lessons for her seventeenth birthday had been she attend some basic car-maintenance classes. Some things had stuck with her, like the unpleasant smell of brake fluid.

She dipped her finger in the pool, lifted it to her nose and gave a whimper, the colour fading from her face. The images clicked through her head. The hate in that man’s eyes, his furtive manner as he’d left the building. Why hadn’t she challenged him? Would the little coward dare...?

She didn’t follow the line of speculation to its conclusion; she didn’t think of the security guard who might have kept a discreet distance but was undoubtedly within calling distance, or even the internal phone on the wall behind her. She just ran.

The palace compound was more like a village or small town than a single residence, and, though it was possible to take a direct route to the heavy entrance gates, there was also a more circuitous route. She had complained recently that Kamel treated it as if it were his own private racing track. He had laughed when she’d closed her eyes and squealed at the last hairpin bend, convinced they were heading straight into a wall.

Without brakes... She shook her head to clear the image and pushed on. On foot it was possible to take a much shorter, direct route. She ought to be able to cut him off before— She refused to think that she was not going to make it in time.

The information did not make it to her lungs. They already felt as though they were going to explode and when she was forced to stop to catch her breath it also gave her body time for the pain in her ankle to register. That was when she remembered the phone in the garage block. She could have rung through to the entrance gate—someone would be there now, ready to warn Kamel. She was trying to decide between the options of going back to the phone or trying to intercept him when she saw a really ancient bike propped up against a wall.

Sending up a silent thanks to whoever had left it there, she climbed aboard and began to pedal through the trees.

* * *

Kamel had gunned his way out of the garage.

It all happened so fast the sequence of events was a blur: the car appearing, throwing herself into the road, arms waving, then the crunch of metal as the front of the Aston Martin embedded itself into a tree.

I’ve killed him!

She felt empty, her body was numb—and then the door of the car was being wrenched open. It actually fell off its hinges as Kamel—large, very alive and in what appeared to be a towering rage—vaulted from the vehicle. The feeling rushed back and she began to laugh and cry at the same time.

‘You little fool! What the hell were you doing? I could have killed you!’ Looking white and shaken and a million miles from his indestructibly assured self, Kamel took her roughly by the shoulders and wrenched her around to face him. He registered the tears sliding down her face and hissed out a soft curse. How could you yell at someone who looked like that? ‘You just took ten years off my life.’ If he had no Hannah he would have no life; the blinding insight stretched his self-control to the limit.

‘I had to stop you—the car, the brakes...’

His ferocious frown deepened. ‘How the hell did you know about the brakes?’

She wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of one hand and sniffed. ‘You knew?’

‘I stopped a few yards after I left the garage.’ To ask himself what the hell he was doing. Throwing some sort of tantrum because she didn’t immediately express unconditional trust? He’d moved the goalposts of this relationship on an almost daily basis. Hell, at the start, he hadn’t even wanted a relationship. If he had to work for her trust, he would. ‘Or tried to.’ He had used the gears to slow down to a crawl, planning to pull over at an appropriate place, which was the only reason he had not hit Hannah.

He closed his eyes and swallowed, reliving the nightmare moment when she had rushed into the road.

‘So you knew about what he tried to do?’

‘Who tried to do what?’

‘The colonel. He cut your brakes and I think he might be the one who sent the photos.’

Understanding softened his dark eyes as he placed a thumb under her chin, tilting her tear-stained face up to him. ‘Really sweetheart, that man can’t hurt you and I promise you will never have to see him again.’

She pulled away from him. ‘No!’ she gritted emphatically through clenched teeth. ‘Don’t look at me like that, and don’t even think about humouring me. I am not imagining things and it was you he was trying to hurt. You humiliated him. I saw the way he looked at you tonight, and then when I followed you he was in the garage and he didn’t want to be seen. So when I saw the brake fluid I knew...’ She pressed a hand to her chest and gulped back a sob and whispered, ‘I had to stop you.’

‘You were following me?’

‘I just told you—someone tried to kill you.’

‘I’ll look into it. He will be brought to justice if he is guilty.’ There was no hint of doubt in Kamel’s voice. ‘You followed me?’

She nodded.

‘Why?’ He hooked a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him, Hannah met his interrogative dark stare steadily, not trying to look away, feeling weirdly calm now the moment was here.

‘Because you asked me a question and you left before I could answer.’

‘You ran away.’

‘It was that or throw up all over your shoes.’

He stiffened. ‘You’re ill?’

‘Not ill.’ For the first time she struggled to hold his gaze. ‘You asked me if I trust you and the answer is yes, I do. Totally and absolutely. I know you always have my back—that’s one of the things I love about you. Of course, there are an awful lot of things about you that drive me crazy but they don’t matter because I love you...’ She gave a quivering smile. It hadn’t been as hard as she had anticipated, speaking the words that had been locked within her heart. ‘The whole package. You.’

This was the moment when in her dreams he confessed his love for her. But this wasn’t a dream; it was real. And he stood there, every muscle in his stark white face frozen, tension pulling the skin tight across the bones of his face.

Hannah walked into the wall of pain and kept going, her expression fixed in a reasonable mask. No matter how hard she wanted it, it just wasn’t going to happen.

‘It’s all right. I know that love was not part of the deal. I know that Amira...you will always love her, but it doesn’t have to be a deal breaker, does it?’

She felt the tension leave his body. ‘Say it again. I want to hear it.’

The glow in his eyes was speaking not to her brain, which was counselling caution, but directly to her heart. It stopped and then soared, and she smiled.

‘I love you, Kamel.’ She left a gap and this time he filled it.

‘Je t’aime, ma chérie. Je t’aime. I have been too stubborn, too scared to admit it to myself.’

‘Amira...?’

‘I loved Amira, and her memory will always be dear to me. But what I felt for her was a thing that... If I thought you loved another man I would not let you go to him. I would lock you up in a tower. I am jealous of everyone you smile at. That damned chef creep...’

‘Jealous? You... You’re not just saying that because of the baby?’ She saw his expression and gave a comical groan. ‘I didn’t mention that part yet, did I?’

‘Baby...there is a baby? Our baby?’

She nodded.

He pressed a hand to her stomach. ‘You do know how much you have changed my life?’

‘I thought that was exactly what you didn’t want.’

He shrugged. ‘I was a fool. And you were charming and infuriating and brave and so beautiful. You swept into my life like a cleansing breeze, a healing breeze.’

He opened his arms and, eyes shining, she stepped into them, sighing as she felt them close behind her. ‘I love you so much, Kamel. It’s been an agony not saying it. It got so that I couldn’t even relax properly when we made love—I was so scared of blurting it out.’

‘So it was not that you had tired of me?’

She laughed at the thought. ‘That is never going to happen.’

He put a thumb under her chin, tilting her glowing face up to him. ‘You can say it as often as you wish now. In fact, I insist you say it.’

She was giggling happily as he swept her into his arms, and still when the security guard accompanied by a grim-faced Rafiq found them.

‘Kamel, stop him. He’s calling a doctor. Tell him I’m not ill,’ she urged as her husband strode on, refusing her requests to be put down.

‘You have had a stressful day and you are pregnant and I think it might be a good idea if a doctor gives you a check-over.’

‘And I suppose it doesn’t matter what I say?’

‘No.’

She touched the hard plane of his lean cheek.

‘You’re impossible!’ she said lovingly.

‘And you are mine,’ he said simply.

* * * * *