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He didn’t respond. He didn’t need to. He’d manoeuvred her into a position that made her agreement essential. She wasn’t as naïve as he seemed to think. She knew what this baby would mean for her, she knew that there’d be a stream of paparazzi wanting to capture their child’s first everything, following her around mercilessly.
‘I need you both in the RKH where I can protect you.’ He spoke simply, the words so final they sent a shiver down her spine. ‘I’m sorry for the necessity of this, but I am not prepared to take any chances with your life.’
‘You’re being melodramatic.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘My mother was killed by terrorists. She was eight months pregnant. I was supposed to be with her that day.’ Each sentence was delivered with a staccato-style finality but that didn’t make it any easier to digest. ‘I will not let anyone harm you.’
Her heart slowed down. Pity swarmed her and, despite the situation she found herself in, she lifted a hand and pressed it to his chest. ‘I’m so sorry, Sariq. I had no idea.’
He angled his face away, his jaw clenched. ‘It was kept quiet. My father was determined to maintain the peace process and so news was released that she died in childbirth.’ His features were like granite. ‘The perpetrators were found and convicted in a court convened for the purpose of conducting the trial away from the media’s eyes.’
She sucked in a breath, with no idea what to say. A shiver ran down her spine. She was deeply sorry for him, for the boy he’d been and the man he was now, and yet she had to make him see things were different. ‘I’m in America, not the RKH, and if you hadn’t released this, no one would even know who I am.’
‘You underestimate the power and hatred of these people.’ He lifted a hand, touching the back of his fingers to her cheek so lightly that she had to fight an impulse to press into his touch.
‘But no one knew me.’
‘They would have found you. Both of you. Believe me.’
His hand dropped to her stomach. ‘I know we each want what is best for our child, Daisy.’
He was right. On that point, they were in total agreement.
‘Tell me what you want from me, when we are married,’ he said quietly. ‘What will make this easier for you?’
It was an attempt at a concession. She bit down on her lip, with no idea how to answer. The truth was, she really couldn’t have said. She had so many questions but they were all jumbling around her head forming a net rather than a rope, so she couldn’t easily grasp any single point.
‘I just need space,’ she said simply. ‘Once we’re married, I need you to leave me alone and let me get my head around all this. And then, we’ll have this conversation.’
He looked as though he wanted to say something but then, after a moment, he nodded. ‘Fine. This, I can do.’
Daisy’s head was spinning in a way she doubted would ever stop. From the short wedding ceremony at the embassy to a helicopter that had flown them to a private terminal at JFK, to a plane that was the largest she’d ever been on that was fully private. It bore the markings of the RKH and was, inside, like a palace. Just like the embassy, it was fitted with an unparalleled degree of luxury and grandeur. A formal lounge area with large leather seats opened into a corridor on one side of the plane. Sariq had guided Daisy towards it and then gestured to the first room. ‘My office, when I fly.’ A cursory inspection showed a large desk, two computer screens and a pair of sofas.
‘A boardroom, a cinema,’ he continued the inventory as they moved down the plane. ‘A bathroom.’ But not like any plane bathroom she’d ever been on. Then again, they’d been short domestic flights from one state to the next, never anything like this. A full-sized bath, a shower, and all as you’d find in a hotel; nothing about it screamed ‘airline’.
‘Here.’ He’d paused three doors from the end of the plane. ‘It’s a twelve-hour flight to Shajarah. Rest.’
She’d looked into the room to see a bed—king-size—made up sumptuously with cream bed linen and brightly coloured cushions. She still wore the dress in which she’d said her wedding vows—in English, out of deference to her, but at the end in the language of Haleth. She’d stumbled while repeating the words and her cheeks had grown pink and her heart heavy at the enormity of what was ahead of her. She would need to learn this language, to speak it with fluency, to be able to communicate with her child, who would grow up hearing it and forming it naturally.
‘I’m not tired.’
Except she was. Bone tired and overwhelmed.
‘There are clothes in there.’ He gestured towards a small piece of furniture across the room, but made no effort to leave her. His eyes were locked to hers and her pulse began to fire as feelings were swamped by instinct and she wanted, more than anything, to close her eyes and have things go back to the way they used to be between them. She remembered the feeling of being held by him, his strong arms wrapping around her and making her feel whole and safe. But there was no sense seeking refuge from the man who had turned her life upside down.
‘Thank you.’ A prim acknowledgement. She stepped into the room, looking around, then finally back to facing him. Just in time to see him pull the door closed—with him on the other side of it.
Alone once more, she still refused to give in to the tears that had been threatening her all day. She blinked furiously, her spine ramrod straight as she walked across the room, pulling open the top drawer of the dressing table and lifting out the first thing she laid her hands on. It was a pair of pants, and, despite the fact they were a comfortable drawstring pair, they were made of the finest silk. Black, they shimmered as she held them, and at their feet there was a fine gold thread, just like the robes he wore. A matching shirt was beneath the pants. With long sleeves and a dip at the neck, it was like wearing water—so comfortable against her skin that she sighed. The engines began to whir as she pulled the blankets back and climbed into bed. She was asleep before the plane took off.
Daisy would have said she was too tired to sleep, but she slept hard, almost the entire way to the RKH. She might have kept sleeping had a perfunctory knock at the door not sounded, wrenching her from dreams that were irritatingly full of Sariq. His smile when they’d talked, his laugh when she’d made a joke. His eyes on her in that way of his, so thoughtful and watchful, intent and possessive, so her blood felt like lava and her abdomen rolled with desire.
And then, the man himself stood framed in the door of her room and her dreams were so tangible that she almost smiled and held a hand out to him, pulling him towards her. Almost. Thank goodness sanity intervened before she could do anything so stupid.
‘Yes?’ The word was cold. Crisp. He didn’t react.
‘In two hours, we will land. There is some preparation you will need to undergo, first.’ His eyes dropped lower, to her décolletage, and she was conscious of the way the shirt dipped revealing her flesh there, showing a hint of her cleavage. ‘You must be hungry.’
The last words were said in a voice that was throaty.
