"I know."
What did she know? He didn't know anything. His brain was as empty as his soul. Something in him leaped to thinking he could survive without sex. He would hate it and burn with need, but he could live without holding her as long as she stayed in his life.
"You can't-" He cut himself off, unable to find the reason she couldn't leave. His sisters had moved on to new, very safe situations. His brother would handle the sensation caused by his own children. Even the online trolls targeting Isidora had subsided to something to keep an eye on, not truly fear.
"I can't play pretend anymore." Her voice held only a small rasp, but it was as gritty as sandpaper across his ears, making every hair on his body stand up. "And it's never going to be real. Is it?"
It wasn't a question. She was confirming a fact. Her parents' relationship was not something she could control and neither was he.
The way she looked at him so nakedly, heart open so he could see how desolate she was in her acceptance of this hard fact, pushed him into the maw of a black hole.
"No," he agreed. Had to. The kindest thing he could do for her was free her of him once and for all.
Still, the way her breath caught in a hiss made him feel cruel. He wanted to apologize, but she nodded distantly and turned away.
She didn't see his hand lift, clench into a fist and get forcibly pushed into his pocket.
She disappeared into thin air.
She went from his apartment to the secure flat above Maison des Jumeaux. He knew that much, but a week later, he realized she had slipped out of Paris and he had no way to trace her. She took over paying her security team and that was that.
It threatened to drive him mad.
Ramon knew this feeling. He hated it above all others. It was precisely the reason he was so careful about allowing people into his heart. Worry gave him a vulnerability, a pressure point. It was a type of gnawing pain that never ceased.
He barely slept, either spending the night conjuring a kind of hell he didn't want to contemplate, or recalling the heaven he'd had. He woke in an empty bed and checked his phone, saw no messages from her and was forced to wonder where the hell she was. With whom.
Her father said she had taken a PR position with a very exclusive client. He didn't know who it was, but she had assured him she was happy and well looked after.
After another two weeks, Ramon broke down and called Killian, their security specialist. "I want you to locate Isidora for me."
After a beat of surprise, Killian admitted with a hint of reluctance, "I can't fulfill that request."
"Why the hell not?" Then, with suspicion, he asked "Is she working for you?"
"No."
"A client?"
"You know I don't discuss clients."
"I love this conversation we're not having, Killian. Can you give me proof of life? Is she well?"
"Yes."
It was a relief, but a very small one. Killian wouldn't say where she was or how he knew. He had clients all over the world so Ramon had to continue to speculate.
When Angelique called a few days later, claiming to be homesick, and begged him to visit, he complied. She was always comforting to be around when he was unsettled, but the minute he landed, he was uneasy, wanting to be in Paris in case Isidora turned up there, looking for him.
Why the hell would she look for him? He had savaged her heart yet again.
"I was surprised you agreed to come," Gili said as he was shown into her obscenely lavish private apartment inside the palace of Zhamair. "When we were here for Sadiq and Hasna's wedding, you were quite put out at the cultural restrictions, if I recall."
Her gentle teasing came with a hug that contained volumes of an embroidered dress with a cape. Her head was loosely covered in a beaded scarf, her forehead graced with chains of gold. Her eyes were made up with dramatic dark liner and thick lashes, but this was no stranger. His compassionate sister lurked in her searching gaze as they drew apart.
"Chatting up women doesn't interest me the way it used to," he admitted grimly, making a restless turn past an ottoman to a tinted window that overlooked the well-watered grounds. "Have you spoken to her?"
"Who?"
He sent her an impatient look. "Isidora. Trella said you suspected more was going on with our pretend engagement. Has she been in touch? Said anything about where she is? What she's doing?"
Gili adjusted the fold of her scarf alongside her face. "When she called to ask to use the Paris flat, she said things didn't work out between you, but she has always drawn a line between our friendship and her feelings for you." She moved to sit and carefully arranged her skirt. "She has never once tried to prevail on us the way other women have, to try to get near you and Henri. That's why we love her."
Love. He shoved his hands in his pockets, fearful that that was the root cause of his discontent. He used to like using Gili as a sounding board, but suddenly he was loath to open up. The things he had shared with Isidora, the way she made him feel, were far too personal to reveal to even his most trusted sibling.
"It's why I wanted to help her when you broke her heart yet again," she murmured.
He whirled around. "You-What do you mean? You sent her somewhere?" His brain clicked to the answer very quickly. It made perfect sense, but he still couldn't believe it. "She's here? Working for you?" The sense of betrayal was startlingly sharp. "Why would you keep that from me? Does Henri know? Does Trella?" His tone was a lot harsher than he would normally take with her.
Rather than tear up, however, his sister folded her hands in her lap and set her chin, regal in the way she regarded him. Angelique was always toughest when defending those she loved and right now, he knew exactly whose side she was on. Not his.
"She deserves a chance to heal in private, after you made such a spectacle of her."
He grimaced and looked away.
"But when Killian said you were concerned about her, I thought I should let you know that she's perfectly safe. She has a room here in the palace and forms part of my entourage when I have royal duties. We're all under royal guard. She's safer here than she would be anywhere," she mused. Then she grinned like her old self as she confided, "I almost miss the tourists and the selfies. The press is so respectful here, it's kind of funny."
He was glad for her and wanted to hear more about that, but not right this second. "I want to see her."
She sobered. "Why? Just because she hasn't given me details doesn't mean I can't see how miserable she is. If I thought you loved her-"
"I do." It came out through clenched teeth-he'd resisted to the very last second. It came with a wrench that reframed his heart, cracking the vault, spinning the dials, opening to allow her in, then sitting agape. That aching sense of exposure was nearly more than he could stand. "Take me to her, Gili. Now."
Isidora was living a fairy tale, the kind that took place over a thousand and one nights.
Her job was much the same work she'd been doing for all the Sauveterres, but she focused on Angelique now. Kasim had a team that handled his palace concerns, but she had been hired to comb the English-language sites, addressing rumors that specifically affected his wife, especially anything that had the potential to reflect poorly on her, his country, or his ability to rule.
From a career standpoint, the job outshone even the Sauveterre name on her CV. On a more personal level, while her boss was a man, she rarely needed to speak directly to him. She had two female coworkers and, since fraternization between the sexes was discouraged, rarely spoke to any men at all.
She was making new friends and helped keep Gili from feeling homesick. They lunched together a few times a week, practiced their Arabic on each other, visited the spa together and traded opinions on the designs Angelique's team sent from Paris. Sometimes, if Kasim was tied up for an evening, they ordered a Western movie and watched it in Angelique's private chamber.
Isidora thought her own lodging plenty fit for royalty. It was ridiculously beautiful for a midmanagement PR clerk, not that she would dare to say so and risk being kicked out of it. More of a bachelor suite, the sleeping area was part of the main room, but the space was enormous. It had marble floors, a lounge and dining area, and a pretty screen to hide the dressing area that also led to an attached bathroom.
It was like living in a hotel. She ordered food by speaking to her personal attendant and her meal was delivered hot and fresh at the requested hour. Tonight she said, "I'll call you when I've finished my swim."
Her private bathing pool was too tiny for laps. She could walk end to end in its waist-deep, kidney shape in less than ten steps. It sat under a trellis in a walled garden, where a handful of birds sang and fluttered amid a riot of colorful blooms from climbing roses to dangling fuchsias. The fragrances off the lavender and lemongrass, cloves and saffron, were exotic and dream-inducing-it was the perfect place to relax.