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Hakim let out an angry sigh. “I do not wish to argue with you, Phoebe. I valued your stepfather a great deal, and I do not know how to diplomatically tell you this. When he asked me to assume the role as your legal guardian, he assured me I would have carte blanche with you. Believe me, he left me in little doubt that you would require a firm hand.” Phoebe began to shake. It was a familiar reaction to her. Fear and adrenalin formed a taste of iron in her mouth. She dug her fingernails into her palms, until the pain became so intense that the shaking stopped. She lifted her eyes to Hakim’s, forcing an expression of idle boredom onto her face. “In short, whatever I decide, you must do. At least, until you are twenty one.”
The freedom Phoebe had felt, upon learning of Etienne’s death, all but evaporated. She had simply lost one dictatorial bastard, only to have him usurped by another.
“Eighteen,” she said automatically.
“Eighteen is when you come of age, Phoebe, but your fortune is not to be released to you until I feel you are ready for it.”
She opened her mouth, anger and surprise making speech difficult.
“Were you not aware? It was your mother’s wish, as well as your father’s.”
“Step-father,” she grunted harshly, leaning her head forward.
“Etienne did not want generations of wealth to be squandered by a young woman with a predilection for fashion and expensive friends.”
How Phoebe hated this man! To hear him spouting words she had heard Etienne himself say so many times was despicable. She picked an invisible piece of lint from her pants. “My friends are nice people.”
Hakim let out a short laugh, without humor. “I care not for your friends, Phoebe. I do not need to know details of your life. Do not misunderstand my reason for taking this on. It is for Etienne alone that I have agreed to this.”
Phoebe understood. She was alone. Thoroughly alone in the world. Her father, she had never known. Her mother had died many years earlier. And now even the horrid Etienne was gone. Soon, she would be removed from her friends and her home, too. “I understand,” she said, so quietly he had to strain to hear.
“You will do as I say, without arguing. Provided you do not give me any trouble, and can prove that you have turned into a respectable woman, your fortune will be signed over to you. In the mean time, the best of everything will be provided for you. As it always has been.”
She wanted to say something horrible to him. She wanted to rant and rave at the inequity of life, to scream that she was always a good little girl, and it had only ever earned her beatings and abuse. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Silence was a long ingrained habit; one of life preservation. Her policy with Etienne had been simple, and carved out after many years of terror and withheld love. She knew the best way to survive a dictator’s rule was to fall in with his plans, or appear to, at least.
While fantasies of slapping that sardonic grimace off his handsome face ran through her mind, she nodded, her hair moving like a wave down her back. “Fine,” she responded. After all, at sixteen, what else could she do? “I’ll go wherever, and whenever you want me to. But please, let me be now.”
“I’m sorry?” He asked, uncertain suddenly at her acquiescence.
“I said,” she was yelling at him, and she didn’t care, “that’s fine! If that’s what you want, I’ll bloody move to Switzerland.” She stood up and stalked away from him, towards the grand house that was home to so many memories, most of them painful.
Hakim watched her go.
She had proved true everything he’d thought about her.
She was spoiled. She was unable to control herself. She was a wild, moody, angry teenager. And though he had taken on the role of her legal guardian, he swore to himself then and there that he would see very little of the girl again, between that moment and her twenty first birthday. He could pay people to educate her; he did not need to be personally involved. No matter how he cared for Etienne, putting up with a brat like Phoebe Douglas-Cauve was not in his future.
CHAPTER ONE
Present day.
She had heard many stories of Mehran, but nothing had prepared Phoebe for the reality of the country. Its beauty, and it was beautiful, was nothing compared to its spice-scented heat. She fanned her face with her hand, absentmindedly noting that one of her nails had lost a chip of color somewhere on the flight over. She made a mental note to book an appointment with her manicurist upon her return to London.
Three months, she had agreed to spend in Mehran.
She grimaced, leaning forward and peering out of the heavily tinted windows. The sleek limousine bearing the crest of the ruling Sheikh moved slowly through downtown Karut, the capital of Mehran. There were shanty markets stalls erected from each building, and children ran from one to the other. Shabbily dressed children, and women clutching young babies to their chest.
Phoebe knew Mehran was a large, wealthy country; it was a surprise to be confronted with such evidence of poverty, only minutes from the shiny, clean airp
ort. Then again, it seemed to support the image she’d developed of the man who ran the country.
Her face flickered briefly with a surge of emotions. She concealed them immediately.
Sheikh Hakim Al Meshuda had terrified her into compliance. She had done everything he’d asked of her, starting with her relocation to the painfully exclusive boarding school in Switzerland. She’d mentally armored herself at all times, in preparation for the fact he might arrive unexpectedly, to check on her progress. But he had not. She’d graduated school and been accepted into university, and still, no word from the man who had become her legal guardian.
Oh, she’d become technically unshackled from him on her eighteenth birthday, but still, he controlled her fortune. At twenty one, she would finally, once and for all, be free from all men. Free to live her life as she saw fit, not needing to meet the approval of anyone in order to receive her trust fund.
She expelled a sigh of relief. This was the last hoop she needed to jump through, and then, she could run away from it all.
