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She took a breath and said the sum she was short of for the house purchase and her grandparents’ pension pot very quickly, but it still sounded an awful lot. She looked at him warily through her lashes.
‘Per week, it sounds reasonable.’
She looked him as though he were mad. ‘Week!’ she yelped. ‘Are you insane?’
He shook his head. ‘I really hope you have an agent for your modelling work, otherwise you’d be paying them.’
Abby watched as he reached for the phone that lay on the locker beside the bed and punched in a number while she stood there wondering what the hell she had signed herself up for as he spoke quickly to someone at the other end.
‘Well, that is organised,’ he said, sliding seamlessly into English as he finished the call. ‘Hakim has just arrived at the hospital. He was bringing me some personal items,’ he added by way of explanation. ‘He will escort you back, and have Layla, my housekeeper, settle you in.’
‘Take me back where?’
He looked surprised by the question. ‘To the palace.’
‘Right now...?’ Panic gave her question a shrill edge.
‘What if I see someone, what do I say, and Mr Jones is waiting...he...?’
‘I will attend to Mr Jones, and I imagine you will see several people. None of them will ask you any difficult questions; they are there to make you comfortable. If you need anything just ask Hakim.’
‘You’re not giving me time to think,’ she protested weakly. ‘And who is Hakim?’
As if on cue there was a knock on the door before it opened to reveal a man who was so broad you didn’t immediately notice he was not above average height.
‘This is Hakim, my right hand.’
Excluded as Zain slid into what appeared to be a mixture of Arabic and French—presumably he was issuing instructions because the other man nodded several times—it wasn’t until after Zain had finished speaking that Hakim turned and bowed his head once again, this time to her.
‘I hope you will enjoy your stay with us, Your Royal Highness.’
‘Thank you...’ Her glance skittered towards Zain lying in the bed—his position did not stop him manipulating everyone like some sort of chess master but her little blip of resentment faded as she saw the lines of fatigue around his eyes.
‘You should get some sleep,’ she scolded, missing the thick-set man’s startled expression when she added sternly, ‘And don’t do anything really stupid like getting out of bed!’
* * *
Zain did close his eyes after the door closed...and lay there wondering if he’d done something very stupid. Did she have the faintest clue of what she had agreed to?
Though present, the doubts tinged with guilt flickering through his head did not last. Doubts were a luxury, a weakness he could not afford. Opposing a forced marriage to Kayla and making enemies along the way would expend time and energy he also could not afford. His father may have lost sight of the fact that in their position of privilege a personal life must always be secondary to duty, but Zain had not.
He knew it was essential that, as heir apparent, he must establish his authority without delay if he was to stand any chance of bringing about the reform the country needed.
And it did need it.
Always held up as a shining example of liberal thinking and progress over the past few years, Aarifa, without a strong figurehead, was increasingly becoming a country run on a system of patronage and tribal alliances between the ruling families. Corruption was already rampant and worst of all it was becoming an accepted business practice. Zain had watched from the sidelines, painfully aware of the decline but impotent as the younger son to do anything to prevent what was happening. He had watched while the country’s oil wealth was siphoned off into tax-haven accounts, while the growing inequality caused discontent and unrest.
For those who would resist his reforms Zain knew the scandal of his mother would resurface and they would try to smear him by association. There was nothing he could do about that but he could stop them weaponising his single state. A temporary marriage of convenience was the obvious solution even if that did mean throwing Abby Foster into the palace life of intrigue and deception...how would she cope?
He ground his teeth as he brushed away the question but not before his thoughts had been infiltrated by guilt once more. She would not lose out by this situation, he reminded himself, and in eighteen months when he had established his authority she would be free to take up her life once more without the burden of debt hanging over her head. She would have the freedom to choose, something that Zain knew he had lost in the moment of his brother’s death.
He dug his head a little deeper into the pillow and reached behind his head with a grunt of effort to switch off the oxygen and the irritating hiss. Settling back, he closed his eyes.
Behind his flickering eyelids his thoughts continued to swirl until he closed them down, refusing to allow emotions to rule his actions the way his father always had. He fell asleep not thinking of reform but of a woman with green eyes smiling at him while she wrapped her fiery hair and her slim arms around his body.
