After brushing her teeth, she rinsed her mouth then poured the water down the sink. She looked into the mirror and could justify no more.
Taking the glass, she picked up the intercom and walked out through her suite and into the hallway to where he stood on the balcony. He didn’t turn to greet her and she hadn’t expected him to.
‘I’m sorry.’ But Ibrahim shook his head. ‘I’m trying to apologise.’
‘Well, you don’t have to.’ Finally he turned and filled her glass. ‘I should not have put you in that situation.’ The most difficult, complicated man she had ever met looked into her eyes and she wished that she could read what was in his. ‘You are not beholden to me.’ Always he surprised her. ‘But, Georgie…’ he glanced down at the intercom ‘…neither are you to your sister.’
‘I’m just looking after my niece for the night.’
‘I’m not just talking about that—there is tension between the two of you.’
‘We love each other.’
‘I know you do,’ Ibrahim said. ‘But there is…’ He could not quite identify it. ‘You hold back and so does she.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘Maybe,’ Ibrahim admitted. ‘But sometimes a row can be good. Sometimes the air needs to be cleared. You feel you are beholden?’ he asked. ‘That you owe something to her?’ And his voice for the first time ever was tender, and there was both guilt and relief as she nodded, being more honest with another person than she had been in her life. Georgie rarely cried, and only really for physical pain but she hadn’t fallen over in a long time. But just as he had at the nightclub, Ibrahim brought her near tears with just a few words.
‘That’s not good, Georgie.’ He knew her from the inside; he pulled out her demons and told her to banish them. For a moment she wanted to run.
‘She’s helped me so much, though.’
‘Have you thanked her?’
‘Of course.’
‘Did you mean it?’
She nodded.
‘Then you’re done,’ Ibrahim said, except it surely wasn’t that simple. ‘Lose the guilt, Georgie…’ he smiled ‘…and come to bed with me instead.
‘That last bit was a joke,’ he added, then it wasn’t his smile but the swallow beneath that told her something else—that he was remembering. For the first time in months he moved closer into her space and there was an almost imperceptible tightening to his nostrils, but to Georgie it was magnified tenfold, for she knew he was drawing in her scent as he lowered his head.
‘Bal-smin.’ He inhaled the fragrant air that swirled between them and she wondered if he would kiss her, could hardly hold onto her breath as she tried to keep speaking normally.
‘We call it melissa…’ And then there was no hope of speaking because his breath was on her cheek.
She thought he might kiss her, so badly she wanted to taste him again, she thought he might pull her just a little further in, but all he did was torment her with a slow appraisal that made her feel faint. He breathed in her scent, though he did not touch her physically, but to have him so close made her feel weak and, whatever his assessment, he was right to assume he could kiss her; he could touch her; he could have her right here on the balcony, and that, Georgie thought in a brief moment of clarity, was a very good reason to say goodnight.
‘I’ve got to go,’ she croaked.
‘Then go now,’ Ibrahim warned, which was wise.
She took the baby monitor from the ledge, walked to her room and made herself, forced herself, not to turn round, but there was little sanctuary in her bedroom.
She took off her dress and lay naked between cool sheets, knowing there was just one door between them and wondering if he’d pursue her—already she knew what her response would be.
But he didn’t.
He left her burning, aroused and inflamed as once she had left him, as perhaps was his intention, Georgie realised. Maybe he did want her on her knees, begging, just so he could decline.
Thank God for the baby monitor.
An electronic chastity belt that blinked through the night and made lots of noise, and, far from resent it, Georgie was grateful to have it by her side.
For without it she’d have roamed the palace, looking for his door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘YOU wanted to see me.’ Ibrahim strode into the king’s plush office ten minutes early. Yesterday’s reprieve from his father had come more as an irritation than a relief to Ibrahim. He did not avoid things and though he wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, he would rather it was over.
That he state his case and move on.
‘Have a seat.’ The king’s voice was tired rather than assertive, which was unusual, but what came next was a complete surprise. He had expected to be met with a tirade, a challenge, but it was the father, not the ruler who met his eyes. ‘You were right.’
‘I’m always right.’ Ibrahim smiled, perhaps the only one of the sons who dared and sometimes could get away with cheeking his father. ‘Can I ask about what?’
‘I should have informed your mother.’ The smile faded from Ibrahim’s face as his father continued. ‘She deserved better than to hear it from her son, or the news, or my secretary.’
She deserved better, full stop, Ibrahim wanted to add, but knew better than to push it.
‘She would not come to the phone this morning to accept my apology, so I am heading there to deliver it in person.’
‘You are leaving Zaraq now?’ It was almost unthinkable. The streets were awash with celebration, this was Zaraq’s greatest day, and his father was leaving?
‘I will be home in time for his discharge from hospital and I will visit the baby this morning. The people do not necessarily have to know. And if they do find out…’ The king gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I am visiting my wife to share in person the joyous news.’ He looked at his son, at the youngest but the deepest, the one, out of all of them, he could read the least. ‘You don’t look pleased.’
‘Why would I be?’
‘Since my illness I have been going to London more often. Your brothers are pleased to see your mother and I getting on…but not you.’
‘No.’ Ibrahim was honest, to his detriment at times, but he was always honest. ‘I don’t like my mother being treated as a tart.’
‘Ibrahim.’ There was a roar that would surely have woken Azizah, but Ibrahim didn’t even flinch. ‘Never speak of her like that.’
‘That is what you make her,’ Ibrahim said. ‘For years you ignored her.’
‘I housed her, she had an allowance.’
‘Now you lavish her with gifts, fly over there when you are able…’ He lifted his hands and danced them like a puppeteer and just sat as his father came round the table and raised his fist to him. ‘Go ahead,’ Ibrahim said, ‘but it won’t silence me—it never has before.’ As his father dropped his fist, Ibrahim continued his tirade. ‘You expect her to be home, to drop everything when you deign to come over, yet at important times, at family times, she cannot be present—what would you call her then?’
‘I don’t need your approval.’
‘That is good,’ Ibrahim said, ‘because you will never get it.’ He stood and his father ordered him to sit.
‘I would prefer to stand.’
‘I did not dismiss you. There is more to discuss.’
‘As I said, I would prefer to stand.’
‘Then so too will I,’ the king said, and he stood and faced his youngest. There was challenge in the air and neither would back away from it. ‘I have been patient,’ the king said. ‘More than patient. But that patience is now running out. You are needed here.’
‘I am needed there,’ Ibrahim retorted. ‘Or will you only be happy when she is completely alone—will her punishment be sufficient when all her children are here in Zaraq?’
‘This isn’t about your mother. This is about you and your duty to Zaraq.’ Ibrahim refused to listen. He turned to go but his father’s words followed him. ‘Your place is here—you can run, but the desert will call you, I know that it is calling you.’
Ibrahim laughed in his face. ‘I cannot stand the desert.’
‘You fear it,’ his father taunted. ‘I see you ride along the beaches and along the outskirts, but this time home you have not been in. If you choose not to listen to that call, then you will listen to me. I am selecting a bride—’
‘I can make my own choices.’
‘You never make wise ones, though,’ the king said to his son’s departing back.
He wanted to leave and he would, Ibrahim decided, just as soon as his father had gone—he did not care to share a flight with his father. He wanted no more of this land, of its rules, and he would not have his wife chosen for him.
He had been right to come back, Ibrahim realised. It reminded him how he could not bear it.
And then he saw her.
A very unwise choice.
Sitting on the sofa, her laptop on her knee, her blonde hair high in a ponytail and with credit card in hand. He saw her blush as he entered, though she didn’t look at him.