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His aide cracked a microscopic wry smile before shaking his head. ‘No, Your Majesty.’
‘Then I caution you to avoid it now,’ he replied tightly.
Ali cleared his throat, moved his pen another fraction, then, ‘The visitor is a Miss Lauren Winchester, Your Majesty—’
Tahir jerked upright, sending his chair skidding back on the polished floor.
Suddenly, the vast office felt like an airtight cage, closing in on him with alarming speed. A glass cage where all his emotions were on display. Shock. Shame. Fury. Despair. Everything he’d suffered during those three harrowing days in England.When he’d been at her mercy.
‘What did you say?’ he demanded, his voice, unlike the turbulence coursing through him, thankfully bled of all emotion except chilling fury.
Now he understood his aide’s hesitancy. Just as he fully grasped the term ‘shoot the messenger’. Because he was furious with Ali for dropping this forbidden name into his life. For breathing it into existence in this space of measured contemplation and incisive forward-thinking. In this imperial domain where every brave and worthy decision about his kingdom was taken with a level head.
‘I’m sorry, sire. We tried to make the problem go away but...’
His eyes narrowed. ‘But what?’
Ali shrugged. ‘She’s been careful to make an appearance at the right times. She knows the protocol well enough not to stray outside the parameters of the law, like some occasional protestors do.’
Of course, she did.
Lauren Winchester had a sharp, brilliant mind.
It was the first thing he’d gleaned about her when he’d strayed into that geo-politics Q&A at his university in England twelve years ago. He’d lingered in the back, watching the woman who faced away from him run rings around some of the most learned professors and gurus in the field.
At first, he’d been intensely fascinated with her argument; with her husky, impassioned voice that spoke truth to power. Then the glorious, waist-length tumble of blonde curls he’d itched to sink his fingers into. The slim, elegant hand that had periodically gesticulated and flipped her hair over her shoulders, giving him brief glimpses of her smooth, elegant neck.
Then, after a thoroughly engrossing hour, she’d risen.
Turned.
He’d seen her face.
And he’d been enraptured...
Three short months later, she’d turned his world upside down.
His father had branded him a disgrace, his mother giving him a wide berth because he’d stopped being useful to her. Friends and family alike had treated him like a pariah. His banishment to the desert had been a welcome reprieve, a place where he could unmask his shock and bitterness without prying eyes alternately judging and pitying him.
That year-long cloistering had cured him of many things. Had forged a new path he’d never looked back from. And if he’d caught traces of disappointment in his father’s eyes occasionally before his death, well...that was a stain he’d had no option but to live with.
All because of Lauren Winchester.
Against his will, his gaze strayed to the wide window, despite it not overlooking the palace gates. Security protocol dictated his office be placed in the centre of the vast Moorish castle that was Jukrat Palace. That way he was protected from people like Lauren Winchester and the many fervid subjects who camped at his palace gates, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Sheikh or under the misguided impression they could gain access to him by simply turning up.
Unlike his mother, who’d been carefree and naive enough to make impromptu trips to the palace gates, much to the adulation of her subjects, until a near-assassination attempt had put paid to all that, Tahir’s appearances were ruthlessly vetted and strictly scheduled.
Of course, a woman like Lauren Winchester would believe she was above such strictures.
Hadn’t she been...once upon a time?
Tahir pivoted away from the question and from the probing gaze of his aide. Every cell in his body vibrated with the unequivocal need to issue the command to turn her away, but when he opened his mouth, entirely different words emerged. ‘Did she try to schedule a visit through the usual channels?’
‘Not that I’ve been able to verify,’ Ali answered.
Because she knew it was futile or because she believed it was beneath her?
Tahir’s lips flattened. ‘You could’ve dealt with this without my ever learning of it,’ he rasped, still half enraged at his aide for dropping this unsavoury subject into his lap. ‘What were you hoping to achieve by telling me?’
