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CHAPTER TWELVE
‘WHEREWEREYOU?’
Kumu was wide-eyed with worry when Maggie returned to the suite.
‘I just went for a swim,’ Maggie said, and forced herself to smile.
‘Well, I have laid out some clothes for you to choose from,’ Kumu told her. ‘I shall leave you to get dressed and have your luggage taken to the car and then I shall come and do your hair.’
‘I can manage.’
‘Maggie,’ she said, ‘when you are a guest of Crown Prince Ilyas you don’t have tomanage.’
Kumu left her then and Maggie stood alone in the suite, looking out at a beautiful Zayrinian dawn.
She truly was tired of managing.
Maggie was bone tired with trying to find her place in this world that had denied her over and over the one thing she wanted more than anything—a family.
Rarely did she admit it, even to herself, but her breath shuddered as she accepted the truth. Maggie knew she was perilously close to breaking down.
She was scared to, though, for if the tears started they might never stop.
She wanted to stay, she wanted to be looked after, she wanted never to have tomanageagain.
Oh, no, you don’t, Maggie told herself.
Oh, yes she did.
But more than that, so much more than that, she wanted tomatter.
Maggie wanted his love.
If she stayed, it would be with the hope that he would come to love her, and that would be a foolish reason to remain. Maggie knew she could not stay, wishing things would change, all the while waiting for him to tire of the challenge of her.
She could not risk the agony of rejection.
And it would be worse than it had been with Diane, because Maggie hadn’t loved her. But she did love Ilyas.
And he would never return it.
No, he would marry eventually and disband the harem. Ilyas had told her that himself.
It was better to leave now on her own terms than live entirely under his.
She could not stand to behisliving doll.
Or rather his live-in doll.
With her mind made up, Maggie looked at the robes set out for her. The clothes, the hair, the pampering were not for her enjoyment but so that she could be presentable for him, Maggie now knew.
She would have refused to wear a robe except that her backpack had been taken to the car.
Maggie selected the first one she touched. It was a mink velvet, which would likely clash with her red hair. Well, bad luck, Ilyas!
Yet, when she slipped it on, it worked.
She put jewelled slippers on her feet and then Kumu came to the door with make-up and brushes and a bag of tricks to make herpresentablefor the future king.
