‘Layla…’
‘Princess Layla,’ she corrected.
‘I’d suggest,’ Mikael responded, ‘that if you really want to disappear for a week then you lose the title.’
‘Mr Romanov—’
‘Mikael,’ he interrupted.
‘Mikael,’ Layla amended. ‘I would like you to speak with my brother now.’
‘Very well,’ Mikael said, ‘but you need to understand that I am near the end of a very complex case. I will make one phone call and have you taken to a hotel…’ He briefly closed his eyes. ‘I don’t have time to babysit you.’
‘Good.’
She smiled very widely then, and it was like a fist to Mikael’s guts because the breath was almost knocked out of him when she did.
‘The last thing I want this week is to be watched over.’
Layla didn’t have a phone, but she did have Zahid’s number. Mikael blocked his own number and then made the call.
He did not give his name, but explained that he was representing Layla and that her request for a week away from her family was far from unreasonable.
‘You don’t understand—’ Zahid started.
‘I understand that the laws in your land may be different,’ Mikael interrupted, ‘but—’
‘You don’t understand Layla.’ This time it was Zahid who broke in.
Far from the fury and hysterics that Mikael had expected, Zahid’s response was clipped. ‘She will not manage alone.’
‘Layla is twenty-four.’
‘Which means for twenty-four years she has had everything done for her. Everything,’ Zahid reiterated.
‘Well, she seems very capable to me, and more than independent.’
‘Could I speak with her?’ Zahid asked.
Mikael looked over to Layla, who sat rigid in the chair, her lips pursed. ‘Your brother wishes to speak with you.’
He expected her to shake her head, but instead Layla nodded.
‘You don’t have to,’ he said, but she was holding her hand out for the phone.
‘Don’t give him my name,’ Mikael warned her.
Layla had been right to get him in to handle this, Mikael thought, because whatever was being said in Arabic the conversation was clearly emotional. He watched as she stood and started pacing, shouting and crying, but then, just as he was going to take the phone from her, she switched to English.
‘No, Trinity, I do not accept what Zahid just said and you can tell him the same. Yes, I have messed up your honeymoon—well, guess what? I don’t expect to have a happy honeymoon. I know my honeymoon will be miserable. At least you get the rest of your life to be happy…’
Mikael’s eyes widened a touch in admiration, and then he suppressed the second smile to grace his lips in months as Layla continued.