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‘I am going,’ Sariq insisted firmly, putting a hand on his advisor’s forearm. ‘Arrange the jet, call the embassy, notify them I’ll be there for the weekend.’
‘But, sir...’
‘No, Malik. No. I’m doing this.’
He felt a thousand times lighter than he had the day before. It was only a temporary reprieve but, suddenly, seeing Daisy again felt like the right thing to do, and he was going to enjoy this last weekend before he made the official betrothal announcements.
Her email was a gift, and he had no intention of ignoring it.
CHAPTER SIX
TO SAY THE building was imposing would be to say the sky was vast. She stared at the RKH embassy, just off Park Avenue, her heart hammering against her ribs.
I’m in Manhattan for the weekend. Come and see me.
A map had been attached to the email with directions to this building, and she’d been staring at it for the last twenty minutes, her central nervous system in overdrive as she tried to brace herself for this.
Keeping the truth of this from Sariq over email had been hard enough! But now? Keeping the secret from him when they were face to face? Daisy suspected it was going to take all the courage she possessed to go through with it.
Every instinct she possessed railed against it. She hated the idea! But what was the alternative? If she told him, then what? He’d be devastated.
She knew what was at stake for him, and why he needed to marry one of the women who would help him keep the peace in his country. The fact she’d fallen pregnant wasn’t his fault and he didn’t deserve to have to deal with this complication. More importantly, he wouldn’t want to deal with it. He’d made that perfectly clear during their time together. It had been a brief passionate affair, nothing more. He’d gone back to the RKH and moved on with his life—the last thing he’d be expecting was the news that, actually, they’d made a baby together.
But didn’t he have a right to know? This was his child. When she stripped away the fact he was a powerful sheikh, he was a man who had the same biological claim on this developing baby as she did. She made a noise of frustration, so a woman walking past stopped for a moment, shooting Daisy a quizzical look. She smiled, a terse movement of her lips, then turned away, drawing in a deep gulp of air. It tasted cold, or perhaps that was Daisy’s blood.
The fact of the matter was, she couldn’t strip his title away from his person. He wasn’t just a man, he was a sheikh, and with his position came obligations she couldn’t even imagine. One day, when he had the wife and heirs he’d explained to her were necessary, she might feel differently. Maybe then this child would be less of a problem for him. Maybe then he’d even want to know their son or daughter. But for now, she was better to assume all the responsibilities, to raise their child on her own.
It was the right decision, but she simply hadn’t banked on how hard it would be to keep something of this magnitude a secret when she was going to see him. With him in the RKH, he was an abstract figure. While she dreamed of him at night and was startled by memories of his touch during the day, he was far away, and it was easy to believe he didn’t think of her at all. For the sake of their child, she had to plan for her future knowing he wouldn’t be a part of it.
Digging her nails into her palm and sucking in a deep breath for courage, she looked to the right and dipped her head forward as she crossed the street, approaching the embassy as though she were calm and relaxed when inside a wild kaleidoscope of butterflies had taken over her body.
Four guards stood on the steps, each heavily armed and wearing a distinctive army uniform. She swallowed as she approached the closest.
‘Madam? What is it?’ The guard studied her with an expression that gave nothing away.
‘I have an appointment.’ Her voice was soft. She cleared her throat. ‘His Highness Sariq Al Antarah asked me here.’
The guard’s expression showed a hint of scepticism. ‘What is your name?’
‘Daisy Carrington.’
He spoke into a small receiver on his wrist and a moment later, a crackled voice issued onto the street. The guard nodded, and gestured to the door. ‘Go on.’
Go on. So simple. If only her legs would obey. She stared at the shiny black doors, her pulse leaping wildly through her body, and concentrated on pushing one leg forward, then the next, until she was at the doors. On her approach, they swept inwards. More guards stood here but she barely noticed them at first, for the grandeur of this entranceway.
Walls and ceiling were all made of enormous marble blocks, cream with grey rippling through them. The floor was marble too, except gold lines ran along the edges. At several points along the walls there were pillars—marble—and atop them sat enormous arrangements of flowers, but unlike any she’d ever seen, vibrant, fragrant and stunning. She wanted to stop time and stare at them, to learn the names of these blooms she’d never seen before, to breathe each in and commit its unique scent to memory.
‘Identification?’ The guard’s deep voice jolted her back to the present.
She held out her passport—it had been specified as the only suitable form of identification on the directions she’d received. Her passport had no stamps in it, and in fact she probably wouldn’t have had a passport at all if it hadn’t been necessary for the vetting process at the hotel.
The guard took it, opening it to the photo page and comparing the image to the real thing, then nodded without handing the passport back. ‘Go through security.’
‘My passport?’
‘I need to make a copy.’
She frowned, uneasiness lifting in her belly. But Sariq was here, and so she wasn’t afraid. She trusted him, and these were his people.
