The plane began to move and Emily sucked back the tears that threatened to spill free. This was it. She was leaving Kyr forever, leaving Kadir. She would go home to Chicago, sell her father’s house and move him to Florida, and then she would find another job. Maybe one day she would find another man.
It hardly seemed possible when her body still ached from Kadir’s possession last night. How would she ever be able to let another man touch her? Maybe crashing into a concrete embankment on a dark highway was sometimes a kindness.
Emily gritted her teeth. That was a terrible, terrible thought. Her mother died because she was selfish and uncontrollable, not because it was romantic to die with your lover rather than be parted. And hadn’t Emily already decided she was not that weak?
Emily reached over and threw the window up, determined to watch Kyr slide by as the plane began to charge the runway. The palms and desert and sandstone blended together faster and faster until suddenly she could feel the ground drop out from beneath them. The plane soared into the sky and she pressed her face to the window, hoping for a glimpse of the royal palace.
But it didn’t happen and she sat back again, her heart hurting with everything she felt. She would survive this, but it would take time. She picked up the remote and turned on the television across from her. She needed something to concentrate on, something to distract her. She found a movie and started it. Not a romantic movie, but a taut suspense thriller about some woman running from an organization that wanted her dead.
She’d barely begun the story when the plane banked. There was nothing unusual in that—except that it kept banking, almost as if they were going in a circle. When the nose tilted down rather than up, Emily’s gaze snapped up.
A flight attendant hurried over at the look on her face. “We are returning to the airport, madam. Everything is fine.”
“Justine, please call me Emily. We’ve known each other too long for all this madam stuff.”
Justine nodded. “Emily, then. The pilot says he’s been ordered to return. I don’t know why.”
Ordered to return. Emily hugged her arms around herself as the plane descended. Soon they were on the ground and taxiing back to the terminal. Emily wanted to scream. She’d already made it through one departure. She didn’t want to endure another one, though it seemed as if she would have no choice.
When the door opened, a man in palace robes entered the plane. “Your Highness,” he said, bowing low. “Please come with me.”
Emily couldn’t move for the longest time as she tried to process this latest development. What was going on? Where were they taking her? Had something happened to Kadir?
It was that last thought that had her fumbling for her seat belt and rising on shaky legs to follow the man off the plane and into the waiting limousine. It was nearly dark now and a bloodred moon hung low over the horizon. The sky was that deep purplish-blue that happened only at dusk.
“Where are we going?” she finally asked when the car started to move.
“To the palace, Your Highness. The king commands it.”
She turned her head and leaned against the glass. Why, Kadir? Why? Her throat ached with the giant lump forming there. How could he bring her back again after he’d dismissed her so coldly earlier? He’d sent her divorce papers and sent her to the airport. And now this.
They soon arrived at the palace. Emily smoothed her skirt and lifted her head high. And then she followed the man inside. People stopped and stared as she passed. A few whispered loudly to each other.