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CHAPTER FIVE
Ten months later
EVENINAN area where conspicuous wealth and status symbols were the norm, the low-slung silver designer car sitting glinting in the afternoon attracted attention and covetous stares, but not as much attention or as many stares as the man who walked along the tree-lined boulevard towards it. Even had he been dressed in charity-shop rejects, the man would have stopped traffic. He had an almost tangible aura, authority mingled with masculinity in its most raw form.
Zain was oblivious to the swivelled heads and raised designer shades as his attention was focused not on the car, but on its owner.
He was a few feet away when the crowd of giggling young women that had surrounded the man when he got out of his car parted to reveal someone he didn’t immediately recognise.
When recognition did strike, his eyes widened behind the darkened lenses of his shades and he made a rapid mental calculation. In the—what?—six weeks since he’d last seen his brother, Khalid, whose dissipated lifestyle, lack of self-control and love of excess had made him pile on the pounds and look older than his thirty-two years, had lost a good twenty pounds.
Perhaps it was the speed of the dramatic weight loss that was responsible for the drawn look on his brother’s face, and Zain’s jaw tightened as Khalid curved his hand around the bottom of one of the giggling women. The waistline might have improved but clearly his brother’s morals had not, as, for better or most probably for worse, his brother was married.
So are you.Zain’s lips twisted into an ironic half-smile as he recognised the element of hypocrisy in his disapproval—or, at least, it would have been hypocrisy had his marriage existed anywhere but on a piece of paper signed under a desert sky.
There was an added irony to the situation in that he was the one brother who hadn’t actually cheated.
Of course, his fidelity was of the purely accidental variety and nothing to do with respecting his marriage vows or the lingering memory of the redhead he had married—that would have been insane. Instead his celibacy had been the consequence of a non-stop work schedule so intense that he hadn’t yet got around to doing something about the marriage certificate still sitting in his safe.
He had considered the simpler option of burning the offending sheet of paper but after a period of reflection he had opted to retain the document rather than destroy it. Less ‘doing the right thing’ and more the conviction that history was littered with men brought down not by the mistakes they made but the denial of their mistakes—the cover-ups and the lies that turned a minor blip into an earthquake of scandal.
Zain had never doubted there would be a scandal. The only question was the degree of damage caused by a story, so in the interests of damage limitation it had made sense to find out as much as he could about Miss Abigail Foster.
But so far there had been no approach from her agents, no tabloid headlines, no talk of book deals, no rumours circulating at all that he had been made aware of. The only reference to a rescue had been at a British Embassy dinner by one of the anonymous suits, who, letting him know he knew, had assured Zain of his complete discretion.
The man had also made a suggestion that might explain why there had been no attempt to cash in on the story.
‘I’m not sure that Miss Foster, a rather naïve young lady, I think, actually knew who you were.’
The image that floated into his head slowed his stride as he recalled the details of that perfect oval face, which was dominated by extraordinary eyes framed by dark lashes the same sooty black as the sweeping brows.
‘Zain, glad you could make it.’ Pushing away the distracting image, but not before his body had hardened in reaction, Zain held his brother’s eyes as Khalid slid an arm around the waist of the nearest blonde and, leaning in close, said something that made her giggle.
It took effort but Zain didn’t deliver the reaction the provocative action had been designed to shake loose and his facial expression stayed locked in neutral, the contempt in his eyes concealed by the mirrored lenses of his designer shades.
After a moment, Khalid let the girl go, his expression petulant as he nodded to one of the minders standing a few feet away, the man quickly reacting and ushering the fawning crowd away.
Khalid did not speak until the sound of their high heels had vanished.
He stood to one side and pulled open one of the doors, inviting his brother with a nod to look inside the interior of the expensive plaything. ‘So, what do you think? They have only made five of these beauties...’
‘I think that the people affected by the cuts to the health budget might question your priorities.’
Khalid’s laughter was not a pleasant sound and neither was the hacking cough that followed it.
As the paroxysm of coughs continued Zain’s brow creased in a frown of reluctant concern, though his eyes remained wary as he framed his brusque question. ‘Are you all right?’
A white linen handkerchief pressed to his mouth, Khalid straightened up, his eyes above the white filled with glittering black enmity that was in stark contrast to his words as he took away the handkerchief and made his response without answering his brother’s question. ‘So, you think the health cuts are a bad idea?’
Zain lifted one darkly defined brow. ‘And I’m meant to believe that you are actually interested in what I think?’
The handkerchief spoilt the line of his tailored trousers as Khalid shoved it back into his pocket and pulled the passenger door wide. ‘We don’t have to be enemies, do we?’ His sigh was deep and his tone wistful.
An olive-branch moment. Logic and experience should have made Zain walk away, but he didn’t. Instead he called himself a fool and stood there thinking optimistically that maybe it was true what they said about blood being thicker than water. Either that or he was certifiable.
Zain dragged a hand across his dark hair, the action weary. ‘I’m not your enemy, Khalid.’ Something flashed in his brother’s eyes but it vanished too quickly for Zain to tell if it was anything more than a trick of the light.
‘I’ve always been jealous of you, you know. Your friends, your—’
