'Ring me if you need me,' she said calmly to a girl in nurse's uniform who was obviously on duty that morning in the babies' darkened sleep-room.
'Don't worry, I will,' the girl said, looking curiously at him.
Beth braced herself and turned around. 'Hello, Khal … ' Nothing could have prepared her for seeing him again. All the warnings in the world wouldn't have been enough. In essence he was the same, but there were lines of strain around his eyes and his mouth, and recent scars on his face. Had it only been just over a year? A year in which her world had been turned upside down-but then so had Khal's, and in a different, ugly way.
'May I?' he said.
She recognised that tone in his voice. It echoed her own sense of wonder whenever Hana was in view. 'Of course,' she said. She would never stop him seeing his daughter, but she had feared this moment most of all. 'So, you knew … '
'Of course I knew,' Khal murmured, nursing his daughter.
Of course he knew. That was the power he wielded. And as Khal stared into Hana's face Beth feared that this was not the tender lover she'd known who had returned on a visit-but a warrior fresh from a war, a man who had come to claim his child.
CHAPTER TEN
THERE were so many unanswered questions, but all Beth was aware of was a creeping sense of dread. There was such intensity in Khal's gaze as he stared down at their baby daughter. She understood it, but it frightened her. There was a sense of loss too, lodged in the pit of her stomach like a heavy weight. Her feelings for Khal were unchanged, but that sense of loss was for something that had never been hers.
Oblivious to these undercurrents between her parents, Hana woke. The bond between father and daughter was instantaneous. Stretching out her tiny hand, Hana claimed Khal, curling her palm around his index finger. The look on his face transformed him, and when he smiled back at Hana Beth knew for certain that all their lives must change for good now. Instinct drove her to take up position on the opposite side of the cot to Khal, where she remained like a lioness in defence of its cub. Since Khal's shock appearance she hadn't been thinking straight, but she was acutely alert now. She had to keep her wits about her. Khal was supremely powerful, and used to wielding that power. If he decided to walk out with Hana, what could she do? And if he took their baby to Q'Adar would she ever see Hana again? The only thing left to her was to open a line of communication between them. 'Say hello to your daddy, Hana,' Beth said, hoping this might touch Khal's icy heart.
'Hana's a baby,' he said impatiently, 'and she can't speak yet.' Lifting his head, he gave Beth an admonishing stare. 'And when you address a royal child you should remember that baby-talk is inappropriate.'
Beth recoiled inwardly. Was this something he'd learned in the royal nursery at Q'Adar? She couldn't imagine it had come from his mother: from a nurse, perhaps. But didn't a baby love the tone of its parent's voice, and couldn't it hear the affection and love? Was that wrong now? As Khal turned his back on her Beth felt like she had been slapped in the face. She didn't have a model for parenting, and had done her best using instinct. That instinct was telling her now that Khal had just reinforced their respective positions in life, and that he was going to take Hana to the opposite side of the great divide. She spared a reassuring glance for Faith, who was doing her best to seem invisible, and then moved deeper into the shadows where she and Khal could talk discreetly. She beckoned him over. His dark eyes queried her impertinence at ordering him, but she stood her ground until he joined her. She told him straight. 'Please don't inflict your cold, unfeeling ways on Hana.'
Khal's eyes were like black diamonds, hard and unmoving. 'You'll do as I say where our daughter is concerned.'
'Our daughter,' Beth whispered, trying to remind him that she had a say. But she also had to remember that this was a man who had lived his entire life without emotion, a man whose world was not a cosy home but a palace, a man who had come here fresh from subduing his opponents. She had to find a way to make him see that this was a very different situation, and to do that she had to swallow a bucketful of pride. 'Khal, I'm begging you … '
'Not here.' He glanced at Faith. 'In my office; five minutes.'
Inwardly Beth was furious, but she would show none of that in front of Hana. She might be a mouse confronting the hawk of the desert, but when it came to their child Khal must learn that she would fight. 'I'm going to settle Hana back in her cot first,' she said, reaching for her, 'and then I'll come to your office.'
'Can't the nurse do that?'
Beth didn't answer. She remained where she was with her arms outstretched, waiting for her child; she wasn't going anywhere until Khal passed Hana over.
'There can be no agreement between us while you make these insane demands,' Beth argued. She was standing rigid with disbelief in the office Khal had taken over for his visit. He had insisted she must return immediately with him to Q'Adar and forget her life in England. 'I can't just throw everything up. I have a job here, responsibilities-'
'Yes,' he cut across her. 'Responsibilities, to me and to your daughter.'
She knew she didn't count, but the expression on Khal's face cut Beth out of the picture completely. He wanted his daughter, and if he couldn't part Beth from Hana then she must come too; that was what it amounted to. Her heart ached for the closeness they'd known, and for Khal too, but this was not the time for her to soften. It was crucial to meet Khal's steel with steel, or she'd go down. No chance that was going to happen with Hana to protect. Khal might be a slave to duty and cut off from emotion, but she was a mother devoted to her child. 'You can't uproot Hana on a whim. She has a routine.'
'Which can be reinstated in Q'Adar-and this is not a whim. I'm here because the safety of our daughter is at stake.'
'Hana's safety?' Beth felt sick. The world as she knew it was disintegrating, and taking its place was something frightening and unknown. The rights and wrongs of going with Khal were irrelevant. Her whole concentration was focused on keeping Hana safe. 'What do you mean?' she whispered.
'I intended to explain that to you on our flight back to Q'Adar.'
'You thought I would come with you meekly and without question?'
'I thought you would trust me.'
Beth's gaze flickered. 'It's not enough, Khal. I must know what you mean before I make a decision like this for Hana.'
'The situation in Q'Adar is turbulent and unpredictable.'
'All the more reason for staying here.'
'No,' he said firmly. 'I cannot guarantee Hana's safety when she's so far away from me. The troubles in Q'Adar are like the random thrashings of a mad dog in the final throes of its agony. We are close to stamping it out, but there are those who bear grudges and would try to slip away to try and distract me from my purpose. They would stab me in my heart,' he said bitterly.
'Your heart?' The look in Khal's eyes stopped Beth making any more remarks along those lines. Hana had released something inside him he had been frightened of admitting, even to himself-that not only did Khal have a heart, but he was capable of love so instant, so deep and lasting, it had taken even him by surprise.
'There can be no delay. I have made my decision.'
'You have made a decision?' Beth said, refocusing. 'Hana has two parents.'
'What are you doing?' he said, snatching a phone out of her hand.
'Calling my lawyer.' Thank goodness she had appointed one, along with all the other precautions she had taken, like obtaining a passport for Hana so they would never be trapped anywhere by anyone.
'And alert my enemies? There isn't time for you to call a lawyer and book an appointment for some time next week. This is an urgent matter.'
'For you, but I must consider all Hana's options. I need time to think.'
'There is no time to think. We don't have that luxury. I can assure you I wouldn't have come unless there was real and pressing danger. I came to you the instant the situation in Q'Adar was under control, but when you're here I can't protect you both properly.'