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‘Oh, Gabe,’ she said, and walked back across the room to hug him and when she stopped hugging him she could see that he was actually smiling.
Leila threw herself into a frenzy of organisation. She booked the award-winning wedding room at the Granchester Hotel and hired a party planner who came highly recommended by Alice.
The party’s colour scheme of gold and indigo was chosen to reflect the colours of the Qurhahian flag and the cuisine was intended to offer delicacies from both cultures. A group of barber-shop singers had been booked for a cabaret spot at ten and dozens of fragrant crimson roses were on order.
Responses soon came flooding in. Everyone at Zeitgeist who’d been invited said yes. Sara and Suleiman were going to be there and also Sara’s brother. Even Murat accepted his invitation, much to Leila’s pleasure and surprise. It seemed that everybody wanted to attend the wedding celebration of a desert princess and a man known for never giving parties. Leila bought a new dress for the occasion—a gorgeous shimmery thing with threads of silver running through a grey silky material, which reminded her of the mercurial hue of Gabe’s eyes.
She took off the day before the party but Gabe was tied up with wall-to-wall meetings all morning.
He was frowning as he kissed her goodbye. ‘I’ll meet you for lunch,’ he said. ‘And for goodness’ sake—calm down, Leila. You’re wearing yourself out with this damned party.’
Something in his tone had made her tilt her head back to look at him. ‘You do want this party, don’t you?’
For a moment there was silence and his smile was faintly rueful as he shook his head. ‘I never said I wanted it, did I? I agreed to it because it makes you happy.’
She stared at the door as it closed behind him.
Wanting to make her happy was a step forward, she guessed—even if it made her feel a bit like a child who needed to be placated with a new toy. Like a spoilt little princess who’d stamped her foot and demanded a party. The same spoilt princess who had finally remembered to throw away her apple cores and to remember that there wasn’t a squad of servants poised to tidy up after her.
In an effort to subdue her sudden feeling of restlessness, she decided to try a little displacement therapy. Walking over to the concealed wardrobe, she pulled out her new skyscraper grey heels, which were jostling for room with the rest of her shoes. She really was going to have to ask Gabe to give her more cupboard space, since she had far more clothes than he did. Or maybe she should just do the sensible thing and acquire some for herself.
She practised walking around the bedroom in her new shoes and decided that they didn’t hurt a bit. Then she jigged around a little and decided they would be fine to dance in. And in spite of all her reservations, she felt a soaring sense of excitement to think that she might get to dance with her husband for the first time ever.
Pulling open one of the wardrobe doors which Gabe rarely used, she was relieved to find it almost empty. She could shift some of her clothes in here. She took off her shoes and bent down to place them neatly on the rack at the bottom, when she noticed the corner of a drawer protruding, spoiling the otherwise perfect symmetry of the wardrobe’s sleek interior.
She wondered what drew her eyes to the manila colour of an envelope inside, but it was enough to make her hesitate. Was that why she didn’t immediately push the drawer shut, but slowly open it as curiosity got the better of her?
She didn’t know why her heart was beating so fast, only that it was. And she didn’t know why her husband should have wedged an envelope in some random drawer when he kept all his paperwork in the bureau in his study next door. Fingers trembling, she flipped open the top of the envelope because she could see that inside there were photos. Photos of a man. A stranger, yet...
Her heart missed a beat as she pulled out another photo. This time there were two men and one she recognised instantly because it was Gabe. But of course she recognised the other man too, because his features were unmistakeable.
High, slashed cheekbones. Piercing pewter eyes and dark golden hair. She swallowed. Two men standing outside what looked like a Parisian café. One of them her husband and the other very obviously his father.
But Gabe had never met his father! He’d told her that. She remembered the way his mouth had tightened and the bitter look which had darkened his eyes as he’d said it.
The envelope slipping from her fingers, Leila slid to her knees. He had met his father. There was photographic evidence of it right in front of her eyes. He had told her that this marriage would be based on truth, but it seemed that it was based on nothing but a tissue of lies.
