Protecting the Desert Princess(67)

                Layla was right: they loved her.

                ‘We will go,’ Zahid said, and glanced briefly over to Mikael. ‘Your account will be settled as soon as I return to Ishla. Or now, if you—’

                ‘When you return to Ishla is fine.’

                ‘Come,’ Zahid said to Layla. ‘We do not discuss our business in front of strangers.’

                Mikael handed over the ruby and glanced at Layla, who looked defiant, angry, happy—a strange combination only she could manage.

                She shot him a brief smile.

                ‘Thank you for your assistance, Mikael.’

                ‘You’re welcome.’

                That was it.

                The coolest goodbye ever.

                She turned and simply dismissed him, and Mikael stood there as they all walked out and did not flinch. He kept his face impassive.

                For her sake.

                Only when she was gone did he pull out her note and stare at the pretty curves and dots. He had no idea what she’d written.

                Whatever it meant, Mikael felt it too.

                For the first time in his life he did not have a solution.

                For the first time in his life Mikael cried.





                                      CHAPTER SIXTEEN

                LAYLA RETURNED INTACT.

                A little swollen, the doctor commented as she examined her.

                ‘I know!’ Layla said. ‘There was no one there to bathe me! The hotel refused to send someone, and the baths are high there and not sunken. I slipped getting out. I am still very sore.’

                She spoke with the same authority she always did and looked the doctor in the eye as she lied.

                ‘Does my father have to know about that?’

                The doctor hesitated, for perhaps King Fahid should know. Yet she was a kind woman, and she had been the one who had delivered Layla the awful day that her mother had died, and she had also fabricated the story about a seizure just to help Layla.

                ‘Of course not.’

                The King breathed out a long sigh of relief when it was reported that there was not a bruise nor a cut on his daughter’s skin and that it appeared no harm had come to her. He sent for her and Layla stood, resigned, staring above and over his shoulder as her father delivered a very stern lecture and demanded more details as to what had happened in her time in Australia.

                ‘You lied to me,’ Fahid said. ‘Even now you lie. What was the whole point of running away if all you were going to do was sit with people who have just had a baby? You don’t even like babies.’

                Layla breathed out through her nostrils.

                ‘I want the truth, Layla,’ her father demanded. ‘Did you dance?’

                ‘Yes, I danced,’ she said.

                ‘And drink alcohol?’