Forget Mac? Impossible. She would never forget him. She wouldn’t even keep him in her heart as a warning; she’d keep him in her heart because that was where he belonged. And if Mac couldn’t see how she felt about him…
He was hardly going to see it now, Lucy reasoned sensibly, giving the table the polish of its life—it was proving harder to bring up a sheen while her tears were falling on it. She didn’t need anyone to tell her that Mac would soon be gone, or that she only had herself to blame for falling in love with him, but it was one thing being a fool and quite another knowing it.
‘Let me pick up the pieces for you,’ Tom offered, ducking his head inside the helicopter.
Pieces? This was a car crash. ‘No need, Tom. I’ve got it covered.’ He’d been right thinking Lucy wasn’t his usual type of woman, and right again, suspecting he was in too deep. So much for holding back on feelings. Lucy had drawn more feeling out of him than he’d realised he had. She’d given more than he’d ever expected anyone to give—and he had expected no more of Lucy than he expected of any woman.
‘Do you want me to pass on any messages?’ Tom shouted above the roar of the rotor blades starting up overhead.
It was better to make a clean break—better for Lucy. He’d known his destiny since Ra’id had explained it to him when he was just thirteen. He was going back to Isla de Sinnebar to put on the robes of duty and devote himself to the service of a country. In doing so he would lose his freedom. He did this gladly, but a pure, free spirit like Lucy Tennant deserved something better than a man who had to be so single-minded for the sake of his country.
‘Razi?’ Tom pressed him as the engine noise increased.
Guilt and longing swept over him. He felt so bad leaving Lucy. The first of many times he would experience such feelings, he suspected as the image of her open, trusting face remained steady in his mind. ‘If she needs anything, anything at all—a job, a reference…’ Tom and he were almost as close as brothers and there was no need for explanation—they both knew he was talking about Lucy.
He felt diminished as he handed Tom his no-frills business card. He’d signed it so it carried his authority. ‘See she gets this, will you, Tom?’ Before Tom had chance to answer or he had chance to change his mind, he gave the signal and the helicopter lifted off.
What was this? She felt sick inside as she sank down on the bed. She had just switched on the bedside light and seen the money someone had left on the nightstand. Before this moment she hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a five-hundred-euro note—and now there was a stack of them within touching distance.
Not that she wanted to touch them, even though they were crisp and new and looked as though they hadn’t been touched, other than to have whatever paper bands had held them together removed.
There must have been tens of thousands of euros in the neat pile, Lucy realised, staring at them. And there was ice in the pit of her stomach, because she knew. She didn’t need it spelling out to her—she didn’t need to think about it. Mac hadn’t come home with the other men and his bodyguards had gone too. Whoever he was—and she had shut the possibilities out of her mind just to live the fantasy—fabulously wealthy Mac had returned to whatever world he belonged to, leaving her with a small fortune in pinkish, purplish notes, as if sufficient money could paper over the cracks in her heart.
He thought money could do that?
She turned her face to the wall, biting down on the back of her hand so she wouldn’t cry out and the other men wouldn’t hear her. Drawing a deep shuddering breath, she told herself she’d got what she’d deserved—a lot more than she’d deserved, in fact; there was enough money here to open her own restaurant…
And even that didn’t begin to ward off the chill creeping through her veins. Her legs felt like lead as she dragged them up onto the bed. Tugging up the duvet to her chin, she lay unsleeping, fully clothed and shivering as she contemplated a world that was not just empty now, but irrevocably changed—by Mac’s opinion of her, and by his pay-off.
Change was inevitable at the end of the ski season. Change was all-encompassing when a pregnancy test turned out to be positive.
Lucy rested against the wall of her bathroom with her eyes shut. When she opened them again the betraying blue line was still there. She’d been feeling sick every morning recently, and all-over funny—different—changed—as if she weren’t alone in her body any longer. There was a very good reason for that, as she now knew for sure…
Stroking her hands down her still-flat stomach, she felt an incredible sense of wonder—instant love—instant fight-tothe-death protective instincts towards the little bud of life sheltering and growing inside her—someone to love—someone she hoped would love her—a family all of her own…
And Mac?
Why did he have to know?
Remembering the pile of money he’d left her and the way he’d left her—leaving Tom to pass on his business card of all things—he didn’t deserve to know.
Grit her teeth against the pain as she might, she still loved him. She would always love Mac. Though she hated what he’d done, she couldn’t fight the flood of memories—so many good memories and so few bad—until that last bitter blow, when he’d left the resort without saying goodbye—without leaving a proper message, nothing but that wretched business card that Tom had put in an envelope and sealed. ‘You never know when you might need something,’ Tom had said in his kindly way, after explaining what the envelope contained.
‘I’ll never need anything from Mac,’ she had assured him tightly, planting the unopened envelope deep in her apron pocket.
‘A job, maybe?’ Tom had said with a shrug as if he sensed her hurt and wanted to ease it.
‘No, nothing,’ she had insisted, shaking her head. When she’d returned to her room she had stuffed the envelope to the back of a drawer where it still lay to this day, untouched.
Well, it gave her a use for the stack of untouched banknotes currently residing in a large padded envelope with her name on it in the company safe, Lucy reflected, throwing away the third pregnancy test she’d done that morning. There was so much to consider. She could hardly arrive at her parents’ house with a baby. She would need a home for one—a home with a proper garden where a little girl could play. She was so sure it was a little girl. There was a business to think about. She’d get a job to start with to help with the fund and then she’d strike out on her own.
She was going to be a mother…
The thought had not only filled her with joy, but with renewed ambition. She had someone to fight for now—someone who would need a college fund and a prom dress and every advantage she could give her.
And Mac?
Unfortunately, she had to tell him. She had to relent. She didn’t want anything from him, but he should know. Mac should be given the opportunity to know he was going to be a father. She had to give him that chance. She had no choice. Telling him was the right thing to do.
R. Maktabi. CEO Maktabi Communications. Having dived into her sock drawer in a frenzy of ‘let’s-get-this-over-with’, she found that was all that was printed on the card. She almost laughed out loud to think Mac was in the wrong business—communicating was hardly his forte. But there were three telephone numbers: London, New York and somewhere in the Arabian Gulf called Isla de Sinnebar. So that explained Mac’s exotic looks, Lucy mused, staring blindly out of the window. Mac had contacts in both east and west and now he had returned to…She shrugged and dialled the London number. Mac wasn’t there, a frosty secretary told her. She could practically see the woman flinching over the phone when she’d asked for Mac. She realised now that Mac was an abbreviation of his surname, and guessed not many women used it—or, at least, not to the old battleaxe on the other end of the phone. ‘Sorry to have troubled you—’
She drew a blank with New York too—but she’d saved the best ’til last. Closing her eyes, she allowed the vision of a desert encampment complete with billowing ivory silk tents to flow
through her mind—and had to stop that thought dead when she discovered how many gorgeous women dressed in rainbow hues like so many lovely butterflies were queuing up to serve canapés to a recumbent Mac, who was reclining on silken cushions as they fed him dainty morsels. That wasn’t such a great image.
‘An appointment with the CEO of Maktabi Communications?’ a very polite man enquired in the softest, creamiest voice Lucy had ever heard when she got through to Mac’s office in the Arabian Gulf. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’
‘But he is there?’ She was clutching Mac’s card so tightly, she had crumpled it, Lucy realised as she waited for an answer. ‘And if he is, may I speak to him, please?’ she persisted, remembering who had made her brave. ‘It’s of the utmost importance.’
‘May I enquire what your business is?’
Mac was there. She knew it. She clutched the phone to her chest, her heart hammering so hard she was sure the man could hear it beating in Isla de Sinnebar. She put the phone to her ear again. ‘I’m afraid it’s personal. Perhaps I could meet with him?’ She had no intention of telling some stranger her business—but if she could just get into the building, maybe she could find Mac.
‘You cannot possibly make an appointment to see—’
Cannot possibly? She held the phone away from her ear. Was Mac contagious? Had he suddenly become so aloof, so untouchable, he wouldn’t speak to people he knew? ‘But I know him,’ she protested, ‘and I’m sure he’ll want to speak to me.’
There was silence and then a rather offensive laugh. ‘You cannot imagine how many people say the same thing,’ the man derided.
How many women? Lucy wondered.
Her heart shrank to the size of a bitter, joyless nut. Suddenly she saw how it must sound—a young girl that no one had heard of rang up to demand an appointment with the head of a large multinational corporation…
‘And in any case,’ the man rapped dismissively, ‘we have a public holiday coming up so there would be no one here to see you. Should you be so foolish enough to decide to come you’ll find no one here—everywhere will be shut from—’
‘From when?’ Lucy demanded eagerly.
‘From Thursday,’ he said, sounding surprised that she hadn’t folded yet.
In three days’ time. ‘Perfect. Can we arrange our meeting for Wednesday?’
‘Our meeting?’ There was silence as the man absorbed her sleight of hand. ‘I don’t think you heard me. There can be no meeting, Ms—’
‘Miss Tennant—’
‘Goodbye, Miss Tennant.’
Lucy stared at the silent receiver in disbelief. How rude. It was another dead end, but she couldn’t leave it here. She was shaking and not feeling brave at all after such a humiliating put-down, but with the baby to consider nothing would stop her seeing Mac. Dialling the operator, she got ready to book her flight.
Chapter Nine
THE purser on board had just announced they would soon be landing in Isla de Sinnebar. Consumed with curiosity, Lucy stared out of her tiny window as the commercial jet swooped in low over an azure sea. Tiny dots of white marked the passage of sailing boats while a patchwork quilt of ivory, green, gold and tan land stretched away towards distant purple mountains. As the plane banked a city came into view. White spires half hidden in a heat haze. No wonder Mac had an office here. If the rest of Isla de Sinnebar was half as magical as it appeared from the air, he was a lucky man.
A lucky man in so many ways. He was about to become a father. If Mac felt only a fraction of the love she already felt for their baby, he would be the luckiest man alive. She fretted as she thought about it, knowing she could only hope he would love their baby, and only hope that he would make time in his busy working life to see something of their child. He would miss so much if he didn’t—and she couldn’t wish that on him.
Resolutely, Lucy cleared her mind. It was early morning, and she planned to travel straight to Mac’s office from the airport and wait for as long as it took to see him. She had to be businesslike and determined. This wasn’t a social call. Her baby’s happiness, and, yes, Mac’s happiness depended on a successful outcome to this visit. And time was tight. Until she got a new job her savings from the ski season had to be eked out, and, much as she would have liked to, she had allowed no time for sightseeing on the Isla de Sinnebar, and just thirty-six hours for discussions with Mac on the way forward. Her homeward flight was booked in two days’ time, just before the public holiday closed everything down.
Dragging her gaze away from the window, Lucy tried to contain her emotions. Fear and apprehension at what lay ahead of her in a country she didn’t know competed with her blind faith in what she believed would be Mac’s instinctive love for their child. She had to believe he would be thrilled by her news, especially when she reassured him that she was going to take on full parenting responsibility, bringing up their baby as a single mother. But with so little settled it was hard to stop doubt setting in.
She had to concentrate on the positive, she told herself; even on such a short visit she could absorb so many things in a land of eternal sunshine where everything was new to her, but before she could do that she had to change her clothes before the seat belt sign lit up. She had worn a tracksuit for the twelve-hour flight, but had brought a lightweight business suit to wear when she met Mac. She was carrying such momentous news she had left nothing to chance. She must look professional and in control when she met him. She had even run a number of scenarios in her mind to work out how he might react when he heard the news. The only thing she was sure about was that it was important to keep her cool—and in every respect. Her time with Mac was done. She had to face that and get over it. She had a baby to think about now.
Everything ran like clockwork. The airport terminal was a haven of calm, clean efficiency, and the cabs were lined up outside the exit door. Lucy began to relax and to believe that in this sunlit, purposeful country things could only work out well for her.
Everything was so exotic she couldn’t stop staring around and had to be reminded with a gentle nudge from a kindly woman standing behind her to move along in the queue. How hard was it to believe that she was here—surrounded by the swish of robes, the click of prayer beads, the faint scent of spice in the air, and the pad of sandalled feet? How could she not feel excited—by the sight of everything around her and the thought of seeing Mac again?
Well…She’d warned herself that he might not exactly welcome her with open arms. And that was before she told him her news. But for now with her heart thundering in her chest she would feast her eyes on his country and, though she might not have long here, she would make the most of every minute so she could tell her baby about it one day.
He had stamped his authority on the kingdom in the first few hours of ascending the Phoenix throne. He had been conducting from the wings as CEO of Maktabi Communications with an office in the capital of Isla de Sinnebar, but now he was firmly established centre stage. The learning curve had been steep for those of his courtiers who were used to the old, lax ways—and for men like his cousin Leila’s father, who had imagined the playboy prince would be an easy target when he became King. They should have realised his success in business was founded on his overseeing everything, and that he might be expected to run a country to the benefit of its people in exactly the same way. There would be no sleaze, no corruption, no royal favourites; no exceptions. Even he would have to learn to live within the tight moral structure he had laid out in law. His personal life would be an arid desert until the day he took a wife—and even then he didn’t expect love to enter the equation; mutual respect was the most he could expect.
All this activity, along with the eighteen-hour days that accompanied it, should have come as a relief, because it left no time to dream about a young woman who would have been a breath of fresh air amongst all the girls they tried to foist on him now he was the ruling Sheikh. His new powers had encouraged a steady parade of dunderheads with porcelain teeth and falsely i
nflated bosoms to pay court to him, along with those who had to be dusted down as they were removed from the shelf. When he compared any of them to a girl too honest for her own good and as natural as sunlight, he was tempted to swear off women for life. She might not know it, but Lucy Tennant was as rare a find as a flower in the desert. And like that flower he had carelessly trampled her underfoot.
For Lucy the drive to Maktabi Communications was an education in itself. There was clearly order in Isla de Sinnebar, and a respect for the history and tradition of the ancient land that went as far as a camel lane on the six-lane highway. There was a respect for the environment too. Lucy had yet to see a single piece of litter, or graffiti, and the wide, perfectly constructed roads were lined with vivid banks of flowers.
Flowers in the desert, Lucy mused, settling back in her seat as the cab she’d taken from the airport turned onto a slip road, heading for the city, and one rampant lion waiting somewhere close by. The thought that she was getting closer to Mac with every yard the cab travelled had an inevitability about it that made her quiver with excitement and doubt her own sanity all in the same instant. Instinctively cradling her stomach, she wished she could reassure her baby that this was for the best, and that whatever happened her mother would protect her.
The cab drew to a halt outside one of the buildings with gleaming white spires she’d seen from the air. It was even more magnificent from this perspective, and absolutely huge. Maktabi Communications was written over the entrance, and there was a flagpole outside with a large standard fluttering. Her stomach clenched as she identified the rampant lion and scimitar she had last seen on Mac’s ring. How at home that emblem seemed here in this land of power and wealth and glittering exoticism. Now everything made sense about Mac’s striking looks. And nothing made sense, Lucy thought, noting the guards on the door. Doormen, she might have expected—but soldiers?
Ruling Sheikh, Unruly Mistress Page 7