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The pause at the other end of the line might have been a few seconds, but it felt like for ever. ‘Leila, please,’ Britt prompted.
‘The consortium has taken over the company,’ Leila said flatly.
‘What?’ Britt reeled back. ‘How could they do that? I had the confidence of all the small shareholders before I left.’
‘But we don’t have enough shares between us to stave off a takeover, and they’ve bought some more from somewhere.’
‘The consortium’s betrayed our trust?’ Which meant Sharif had betrayed her. ‘I don’t believe it. You must have got it wrong—’
‘I haven’t got it wrong,’ Leila insisted. ‘Their money men are already here.’
‘In the middle of the night?’
‘It’s that critical, apparently.’
While she was in a harem tent in the desert!
Had nothing changed? Had she learned nothing? Sharif had walked away from her again—distracted her again. And this time it all but destroyed her. For a moment she couldn’t move, she couldn’t think.
‘I’m sorry if I shocked you,’ Leila said.
Shock?
‘I’m sorry that you’ve had to handle this on your own,’ Britt said, forcing her mind to focus. ‘I’ll be there just as soon as I can get a flight.’
She had been stupidly taken in, Britt realised. Sharif had betrayed her. By his own admission, nothing was signed off without the Black Sheikh’s consent. He must have known about the share deals all along.
‘There’s one thing I don’t get,’ she said. ‘How can the deal be done when the family holds the majority shareholding? You didn’t sell out to him, did you?’
‘Not us,’ Leila said quietly.
‘Who then?’
‘Tyr...Tyr has always had more shares than we have. Don’t you remember our grandmother leaving him the golden shares?’
Shock hit her again. Their grandmother had done something with the shares, Britt remembered, but she had been too young to take it in. ‘Is Tyr with you? Is he there?’ Suddenly all that mattered was seeing her brother again. Tyr had always made things right when they were little— Or was that just her blind optimism at work again? She couldn’t trust her own judgement these days.
‘No. Tyr’s not here, Britt. Neither Eva or I has seen him. The only thing I can tell you is that Tyr and the Black Sheikh are the main forces behind this deal,’ Leila explained, hammering another nail into the coffin of Britt’s misguided dream. ‘The sheikh has got his lawyers and accountants swarming all over everything.’
‘He didn’t waste any time,’ Britt said numbly. While she had been in bed with Sharif, he had been seeing the deal through and speaking to her brother. This had to be the ultimate betrayal, and was why Sharif hadn’t been at her side when she woke this morning. He was already on his way to Skavanga. What could she say to Leila—to either of her sisters? Sorry would never cover it.
‘It’s such a shock,’ Leila was saying. ‘We still can’t believe this is happening.’
There was no point regretting things that couldn’t be changed, Britt reasoned as she switched quickly to reassuring her sister. ‘Don’t worry about any of this, Leila. Just stay out of it until I get back. I’ll handle it.’
‘What about you, Britt?’
‘What about me?’ She forced a laugh. ‘Let me go and pack my case so I can come home.’
She had been betrayed by her feelings, Britt realized as she ended the call. She was to blame for this, no one else. And now it was up to her to make things right.
She spun around as the tent flap opened, but her hammering heart could take a break. It was the smiling women with her clothes. And whatever type of man their master was, these women had been nothing but kind to her. Greeting them warmly, she explained with mime that although she would love to spend more time with them, she really couldn’t today.
* * *
It was as if she had never been away, Britt reflected as the cab brought her into the city from the airport. But had the streets always been so grey? The pavements were packed with ice and with low grey cloud overhead everything seemed greyer than ever. After the desert, she reasoned. This was her home and she loved it whatever the climate might be. This harsh land was where she had been born and bred to fight and she wasn’t about to turn tail and run just because the odds were against her. Nothing much frightened her, she reasoned as the cab slowed down outside the offices of Skavanga Mining. Only her heart had ever let her down.
