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‘Your fairies have been at work.’
‘I’m not sure how the staff would feel to be called that.’
‘Well, they’re invisible and do your bidding and don’t you dare say you don’t believe in fairies,’ she warned, a slight tease to a tone that must cast spells over the children she taught.
‘So that would make me Peter Pan?’ he asked.
‘And me Wendy,’ she said, the teasing gone.
And suddenly he couldn’t explain it, but his heart hurt at the thought of her returning home while he stayed in Neverland.
They both started when the sound of his phone cut through the moment.
‘You can go anywhere you like—apart from that wing. I’ll meet you here at seven and we can go for dinner.’
‘Oh, taking me to the best restaurant in town?’ she joked, as if his father’s call wasn’t important.
‘It’stheplace to be,’ he assured her with a quirk of his lips. And as he closed the door behind him, his smile flattened into a grim line and he flexed his hand from fist to open three times before retrieving the phone from his pocket.
This was not going to be fun.
Two hours later and the tension that had built across his shoulders and up his neck was as solid as concrete. The conversation with his father had gone about as well as any interaction they’d had in the last three years—terribly.
Have you forgotten your promise to Nadya and Nayla? You were supposed to spend the evening with them.
He had. He’d completely forgotten—but he couldn’t reveal to his father why. Bitterly disappointed in himself, guilt and grief swirling thickly in his stomach, he promised his father he’d make it up to them.
But the words were over-familiar to them both. They had been a constant refrain in the weeks, months and first few years following his brother’s death. Khalif had returned to Duratra and, even before the earth had settled on the coffins of his brother and sister-in-law, he had thrown himself into his duty. He’d sat up for nearly three straight nights, consuming every single piece of information needed. He’d made state calls, international calls, presenting himself as the first in line to the Duratrian throne. He’d handed over the running of an internationally successful business, stopped drinking, womanising, misbehaving and he’d worked. Hard. But he’d also hidden in that work. Hidden from his father, from his mother and most especially from Nadya and Nayla, who had been distraught not only at the loss of their parents, but also their uncle.
He couldn’t face them. Any of them. It hurt too much. To see his own grief reflected in their eyes. He hadn’t found solace with them, he’d found judgement, he’d found himself wanting.
Raza had intervened. They’d argued and fought until both were a little beaten and bruised, but Khalif had seen the truth of it. In the last year he’d been better, but he knew deep down he’d just been going through the motions.
Until a woman standing before a painting, with flame red hair, had caught his eye.
He almost growled as he stalked along the hallway towards the steam room in the lower level of the palace. His towel low on his hips and his bare feet slapping against the cool stone, diminishing some of the ire-fuelled heat that sparked across his skin.
He’d wanted one night. Just one. With a beautiful woman who made the weight of the crown lighter because it had been invisible to her. He’d wanted the taste of freedom she was unaware she had...and instead he’d quite possibly bound her to him for ever. Trapped her.
He banged the meaty side of his fist against the stone wall as he rounded the corner, welcoming the wet heat that was reaching out to him from the room beyond. He sent a prayer of thanks that Masoud knew him well enough to ensure the steam room was ready for his stay.
He pushed through the door and was hit by a bank of wet white air. He breathed in deeply, welcoming the mandarin and bergamot scented steam into his body, willing the heat to soak into his skin and relieve the stresses of an almost diabolical day.
He grounded himself, mentally drawing power up from deep beneath the ground, letting it fill his feet, his calf muscles, the base of his spine and up his back. He rolled out his powerful shoulders and flexed his neck from side to side. He just needed a moment. One to himself. He inhaled deeply again when he felt something brush past him.
Adrenaline and shock sliced through him as he reached out his hand and his fingers curled around a slender bicep.
‘Star?’ he asked, surprised and confused.
‘Yes. It’s me.’ She sounded almost guilty. ‘I don’t want to intrude.’
He willed his heart to recover from the surprise of there being someone else in here, but his pulse didn’t slow. Instead, his sight blocked by the steam, his other senses were heightened. He registered the silky sheen to her skin, his thumb smoothing away a drop of moisture, and found himself pulling her towards him. As he drew her closer and closer, she came through the thick vapour into soft focus. His eyes dropped to her chest, straining against a white towel pulled tight beneath her arms, rising and falling with the quickening of her breath and making him want to lose himself in the exquisite pleasure of her all over again and damn the consequences.
With one hand still wrapped around her slender bicep, he raised the other to cup her jaw. She leaned into his touch as if she craved it as much as he did. His thumb traced down her neck and tripped over a gold chain. He followed the loops of precious metal to the pendant that lay beneath her collarbone and stopped.
He took the pendant in his hand, holding it up to his inspection and clenched it in his palm, rocked by fury, shock and a grief as swift and as powerful as the harshest of desert storms.
‘Where the hell did you get this?’ he demanded.
