Nadir sighed. He’d never seen the benefit of rehashing the past and he still didn’t. A man either took action or he bowed out of the game. Nadir had no intention of bowing out. Not with Imogen at any rate.
He glanced at the admiral’s chair his father used to occupy at the end of the room during council meetings. As heir to the throne he had always been encouraged to sit in on those meetings and he’d loved them. He’d loved listening to his father taking charge and issuing orders. Watching him handle political issues.
His father had openly shared this side of himself and it wasn’t until Nadir had left Bakaan that he’d realised how isolated and increasingly paranoid his father had become. How only a select few were ever allowed into his inner sanctum and then only if those select few agreed with him. From the age of twelve Nadir had started to do that less and less and that was when the rot had set in. That was when his father had started trying to keep him from his mother and sister, explaining that the ties he found the hardest to cut were the ones that needed to be cut most of all.
He rubbed a hand across his face. One of the issues between him and Imogen was that she was, at heart, an emotional and sensual woman who didn’t hold back. It was both a draw and a deterrent—although right now he was honest enough to admit that the draw side was definitely winning out. Probably it had been too long since he’d had a woman. It wasn’t natural for a healthy male to go without sex for fourteen months.
Hell.
Did he owe Imogen an apology for his behaviour back then? It wasn’t a position he had found himself in for years and the last two people he’d needed to apologise to were dead.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed one of his father’s senior council members break away from the group and, like a drowning man grasping for a life raft, he welcomed the interruption to his thoughts.
Old and set in his ways, Omar had never been on Nadir’s list of favourite people but he was knowledgeable and, as far as he was aware, loyal to a fault.
‘Well?’
‘We don’t know where he is, Your Highness. He’s not answering his phone.’
Nadir gritted his teeth. His brother had said he needed to go into the mountains on some business or other. He’d flown the helicopter himself. Now he was nowhere to be seen and the helicopter was still at the airfield. There was no sign of foul play or anything amiss. ‘Fine—we’ll proceed without him.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible, Your Highness.’
‘Why not?’
‘In order for you to renounce your position as King, we need to have your successor present.’
‘Well, he’s not here and I have a business to run.’
‘The council understand, Your Highness,’ he said in a way that let Nadir know they didn’t understand at all. ‘But you are still our acting King and there is a UAE dinner tonight that has been planned for months. It is too late to cancel. Many of the heads of state have already flown into Bakaan. It was quite a coup for Prince Zachim to arrange it. Many will be staying all week on official business.’
‘Then Zachim should be here to run it,’ Nadir bit out.
‘Indeed, Your Highness.’ Omar nodded deferentially.
Aware that he was being manipulated but knowing that he was boxed in until Zachim returned, Nadir muttered a curse. ‘Okay, I’ll do it.