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CHAPTER TWELVE
ITSEEMEDTO Abby that Zain took a more direct route back to the suite; he appeared lost in his own thoughts and to such a degree that she was struggling to keep up with the pace he set. So after a couple of attempts to break the silence she gave up.
At the door to her room he paused, seeming to notice for the first time that he was a little out of breath, and glanced at the metal-banded watch on his wrist.
‘Sorry, I’m late. I have an appointment with my father.’ He added, evidently feeling guilty he was leaving her alone, ‘Layla will be available if you want anything.’
She nodded absently, still absorbing the fact that she was living in a world where you made an appointment to see your father.
About to turn away, he swung back. ‘He lives quite a secluded life and my brother’s death has hit him hard, so don’t take it personally if he doesn’t want to see you.’ He sketched a forced smile that left his eyes sombre and shadowed. ‘I never do.’
She watched him stride away, tall and powerful, wondering if he’d told himself the same thing when he was a little boy who’d needed his father.
Abby spent some time responding to texts from her grandparents and a much longer one from her agent, who wanted to know where she was. She ate her supper in the small private sitting room, preferring it to the dining room—which had all the intimacy of a banqueting hall—before sinking gratefully into the scented water of a warm bath. She closed her eyes and floated but the calm she sought eluded her, her brain continuing to fire off in all directions, thoughts and questions swirling in her head.
How had Zain’s meeting with his father gone—was the sheikh angry that his son had been secretly married? Was Zain telling Kayla all about it over dinner? Was she making him feel better? Abby couldn’t figure out if she had imagined or over-egged the intimacy she sensed between Zain and the widow...in Abby’s head she had become the black widow, thought that might have just been her jealousy talking.
‘Jealousy!’ she yelped out loud, sinking under the scented water before coming up gasping and spluttering a second later.
‘Do not go there, Abby,’ she told her fogged reflection in one of the many mirrors. So yes, she was attracted to Zain—all right, attracted didn’t really cover it... Zain had woken up a dormant sensual side of her that she hadn’t even known existed—but she couldn’t lose sight of the fact that she was here to do a job, a job that meant they spent a lot of time together in close proximity. But she would be vigilant not to confuse that closeness with real intimacy and in eighteen months she was out of here.
Easing herself out of the warm water, she scrubbed the mist off the mirror and pushed the wet hair back from her face. ‘Do you want sex if it’s just cheap and meaningless?’
It kind of depends on who’s offering it...
Her eyes widened before she closed them with a groan. Sometimes honesty was definitely not the best policy. Standing up, she reached for one of the neatly folded bath sheets, muttering, ‘Just as well he’s not offering,’ and keeping her eyes on the floor as she padded back through to the bedroom, afraid the mirrors might evoke some more unwanted insights. She just had to keep reminding herself that she was here to provide a smooth transition of power and nothing else.
* * *
The two men who had shadowed him at a respectful distance stopped when Zain halted and waited. It was the fourth such pause he had made since he left his father’s apartments, still in a state of shock. As he walked past the two uniformed guards who flanked the entrance to his own private section of the palace he nodded to the men behind him, who peeled away as he shut the door.
He leaned against it. Zain was not a man easily shocked but he was... He closed his eyes as the relevant section of his conversation with his father continued to play on a loop in his head.
‘Several members of the council have come to me to express their...concern over this marriage, and your choice of bride.’
Zain, who had expected this, had only half listened while his father recited the names, and none had surprised him. But then his father had said something that did surprise him.
‘I told them that you have my total support.’
Zain had not doubted his ability to gain his father’s support by appealing to his sentimental nature, but to receive it totally unprompted had surprised him.
‘I am glad you have found someone,’ his father had continued. ‘Leading this country can be a lonely job and it’s not one I would inflict on my worst enemy, let alone my son, without a great deal of thought.’
‘It will not be my job for a long time, Father.’
‘It will; I intend to step down and let you take control, Zain. It is something I would have done sooner but your brother...well, let us not speak ill of the dead.’
Repetition did not lessen the shock value, Zain realised as he began to pace the room.
Hehad never needed a shoulder to lean on or someone to confide his fears to—there was no one in his life to let him down, to leave. But both his father and Abby had spoken about the loneliness of the role.
To Zain, being alone was a positive, but it was not a point of view he imagined he stood any chance of converting Abby to—she rather unexpectedly turned out to have a romanticised view of life which even a profession not known for sentiment had not knocked out of her—and she was stubborn.
One corner of his mouth half lifted as, in his mind, the lines of her face quivered and solidified, becoming so real that for a moment it was as if he could reach out and touch her, but when he blinked and his vision cleared there was just the door she lay behind.
He walked across to it, hand outstretched, only to let it still on the heavy handle for a long time before he dropped it back to his side and walked away, reminding himself that alone was an advantage not a disability.
* * *
