The Sheikh's Guarded Heart

by Liz Fielding

‘You really are leaving today, Lucy?’

  ‘I have to.’

  ‘Hanif will miss you.’

  ‘He has his daughter. In a few weeks he will rediscover his life.’

  The woman took her hand and patted it, whether with sympathy or gratitude, she could not have said. ‘Go to the summer house, Lucy. I will send him to you so that you can say goodbye.’

  A light breeze was blowing across the pool, cooling the summer house. A servant brought coffee, freshly baked croissants, a bowl of fresh figs.

  After a while Hanif joined her and she poured coffee for them both, handed a cup to him. He took it, capturing her fingers so that she could not let go.

  ‘So, Lucy, you have decided to leave us?’

  ‘Is that what you read in my thoughts?’

  ‘Not just that.’

  No. Caught off guard her thoughts must have blazed like a beacon. ‘You no longer need me, Hanif.’

  He smiled at that. ‘You stayed for my sake?’

  ‘I asked to leave days ago,’ she reminded him. She’d spent a long and sleepless night thinking about what she would say to him. ‘I have to go, Hanif.’ She swallowed, forced herself to continue. ‘But there are some things I have to ask you before I leave.’

  He released her hand, put down the cup.

  ‘Do not ask anything for this man you married—’

  ‘No! Not for him.’ He waited. ‘Steve was living with a woman in Rumaillah. Jenny Sanderson. She’s the office manager of Bouheira Tours. She’s expecting a baby very soon…’

  Lucy struggled to continue, remembering that moment when she’d walked into the office, introduced herself, said, ‘Hi, I’m Lucy Mason. I’m looking for my husband…’

  She hadn’t needed the ‘couple’ photographs pinned to the notice-board to warn her. The look on Jenny Sanderson’s face had been enough to tell her whose baby she was carrying.

  Han said something beneath his breath, but it was not anything she was meant to hear or understand and she didn’t ask him to repeat it.

  ‘How long ago did he marry you, Lucy? Weeks? How many months has this woman been carrying his child?’

  ‘He must have been desperate for money, in real trouble, Hanif, but she and her baby have done nothing.’

  He didn’t leap to agree, but he let it go, said, ‘What do you want me to do for her?’

  ‘She may need support and I’m not sure that Steve can provide it. Maybe money to get home. I don’t know if the company is worth anything, or if the papers that give me a half share in it are valid, but if a buyer can be found I’d like to use that money to give her a fresh start.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Lucy. This woman, for whom you feel such empathy, is the person who denied you existed. If I had not been near, if you had run out of fuel so far from the track, you could have died.’

  ‘What do you mean, far from the track?’

  ‘You were headed to Mason’s camp in the foothills of the mountains?’

  ‘Well, yes…’

  ‘You were miles off track, headed into empty wilderness. The satellite navigation system on the 4x4 was malfunctioning.’

  He saw her take in what he’d told her, the colour leave her face. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Zahir has spent the last few days piecing together exactly what happened. He called me last night. Jenny Sanderson thought you were dead and to cover for this man she had someone drive out and collect the burnt out 4x4, take it away to be crushed.’

  Lucy gripped the arm of the chair for a moment, then forced herself to say, ‘She was protecting her baby, Han. A woman will do anything…’

  She stopped. The air was as fragile as glass. One word, the wrong word, could shatter it.

  ‘You would forgive her anything?’ Han said.

  ‘Please, Han.’

  Han had known from the moment he had stood up and seen her in the stable that she was ready to leave. She had convinced herself that it was the right thing to do. And seeing him with Ameerah had only made it easier for her.

  If the pain of losing her was not enough to convince him that he loved her, the compassion she could show for another of Mason’s victims left him in no doubt. He did not believe the woman deserved a second thought, but he could deny her nothing.

  ‘Very well, Lucy. If you can forgive, then I must too. I’ll see that she comes to no harm.’ He regarded her for a moment. ‘What about Mason?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He is your husband. Having disposed of the pregnant girlfriend, is it your intention to return to him?’

  The question had to be faced; he knew she was the kind of woman who would always honour a promise, keep a vow.

  ‘Is that what a good Ramal Hamrah girl would do?’ she asked, surprising him.

  ‘A good Ramal Hamrah girl would hunt him down and cut out his treacherous heart,’ he assured her. ‘But your marriage was not arranged, it was a love match. As you have just proved, a woman in love will forgive anything…’

  ‘Hanif…’

  She said his name and he saw a reflection of what she must see in his eyes.

  ‘Lucy…’

  If he did not look away, if he could hold her, like this, locked in his eyes, she could not leave him…

  ‘Lucy…’ The voice became more insistent and with a sigh she turned away from him to look at the man she’d married. The man who’d so cruelly cheated not only her but the woman who was carrying his child.

  ‘Oh, my God, look at the state of you! Your face…’

  Mason reached out as if to touch her and it was all Hanif could do to stop himself from slamming him back against the trunk of the nearest tree.

  ‘My apologies, Excellency,’ Zahir said quickly. ‘I was told you were here. I assumed you were alone.’

  Hanif rose to his feet, waving away his apology. ‘I did not hear the helicopter.’

  ‘There is a shamal blowing down the coast. We had to come by road.’

  He nodded, turned to confront the man. ‘You have something to say, Mason?’

  ‘Your Highness,’ he said, bowing, ‘Thou who hast long life. I can do nothing but offer the humblest of thanks for rescuing Lucy. For taking care of her.’

  His contempt for the man knew no bounds. Did he think to charm him with formal greetings, smooth words?

  ‘Not to me. To your wife.’

  Lucy stared, first at Hanif who had, before her eyes, it seemed, morphed from the gentlest of lovers into the most aloof of autocrats, then at Steve, blathering nonsense in an attempt to ingratiate himself with Hanif.

  Embarrassed for him, she said, ‘Save the apologies.’ Then, as he opened his mouth to say something, no doubt some well rehearsed story that was meant to melt her heart, but she’d had enough of his lies, ‘Just tell me why you did it.’

  It was strange. Now she knew he was lying she could see what he was doing, recognised the exact moment when he realised that the truth would serve him better. The subtle rearrangement of his expression from humble penitent to frankness and honesty.

  ‘You’re right. You deserve an explanation.’

  Lucy made no comment on what she deserved, simply waited for him to continue.

  ‘I came to England to try and raise some finance for the business. I needed capital, but no one here would back me. My last hope was that my parents would raise a loan on their house. It’s a brilliant business, Luce—’

  ‘Lucy,’ she snapped, cringing at the familiarity of a diminutive that she’d once thought meant something. ‘My name is Lucy.’

  ‘Lucy,’ he repeated.

  She waved him on and Han found himself having to hide a smile. Not one of his sisters could have done it with more authority, more disdain, he thought.

  ‘It’s a brilliant business,’ Mason repeated, now less certain of himself. ‘There are endless possibilities. The desert is the last great tourist destination…’

  ‘But you are not a great credit risk, are you?’ Zahir said, cutting hi
m short. ‘This isn’t the first business you’ve tried. You take short cuts. You have no staying power.’

  Mason looked for a moment as if he was going to protest, but finally he shook his head.

  ‘No. Even my parents turned me down. I was going into town to book my flight back when I saw the For Sale sign up outside your house, Lucy. My mother had mentioned that your gran had died and I realised that she must have left you the house.’

  ‘I was surprised you remembered me. School was a long time ago.’

  ‘Oh, please. All those brains. All that hair. It was a matter of considerable debate whether, if you cut your hair, you’d lose the power of thought. The way that Samson lost his strength.’

  ‘And no one thought to corner me somewhere, cut it off, to find out?’

  He looked embarrassed. Probably a first, Han thought.

  ‘You had something about you, even then, Lucy. We were all a bit in awe, to be honest.’

  Han saw her eyes, felt the loneliness of the girl she’d been, saw her rally as she realised that this was no more than a ploy to gain her sympathy.

  ‘Not that much in awe, obviously,’ she said. ‘You let me keep my hair, but my money was something else.’

  ‘I always meant to pay you back. You have to believe that. I thought I’d be able to pay off the cards, or at least some of them, before you ever knew.’

  ‘And the bank loan?’ Han interjected, growing impatient. ‘When were you going to repay that?’

  ‘I intended to pay off the first instalment. Once I’d done that I was going to explain everything,’ he said, turning to Lucy with all the natural confidence of a man who believed all he had to do was smile. That something would always turn up to save him. ‘Cash flow is the killer.’

  ‘Not quite as deadly as a malfunctioning satellite navigation system in the desert,’ Zahir suggested.

  ‘Look, Jenny didn’t know Lucy had taken the 4x4. She’d left it for the garage to pick up. It was only when you called that she realised what had happened. She called me in the most terrible state. She thought Lucy was dead.’

  ‘So you told her to collect the burned out vehicle, have it crushed and no one would ever be able to prove anything.’

  He drew a breath. ‘No. I organised that. I panicked…’

  ‘She told Zahir that she had done it.’

  ‘She was protecting me.’

  ‘More fool her,’ he said.

  Lucy caught his eye. A woman will do anything…

  ‘I did give you half the company, Lucy, and there are bookings. Zahir will tell you. He’s seen the books. Seen everything. I was desperate for capital. I needed more equipment, better transport, a decent website. Time. Give me a chance and I will repay you every penny and more.’

  ‘It is true, Excellency. The money he took has certainly been ploughed into the business and there appears to be no shortage of people who want what Bouheira Tours is offering.’

  Han could almost feel Zahir’s excitement, enthusiasm.

  ‘Han?’ Lucy prompted.

  He had thought it a blessing, a treasure, to be able to read Lucy’s thoughts, but now he saw all too clearly what she wanted. Mercy.

  He didn’t want to breathe the same air as this man and yet he appeared to expect to be treated as a businessman rather than the criminal he undoubtedly was.

  ‘You plead for him? When he has betrayed you in every way a man can betray a woman?’

  ‘I’m not pleading for him.’ She reached out, didn’t quite touch his hand. ‘I ask your mercy for the girl who loves him, her unborn baby.’

  ‘You ask me to allow this man to remain in Ramal Hamrah? Polluting my country with his presence?’

  ‘If he is ever to repay me, the company has to be made to pay.’

  ‘Pay? You believe he will repay you?’

  ‘If I have to stand over him with a whip.’

  ‘You will stay? Work with him?’

  Live with him?

  Never, while he had breath in his body and, recalling her compassion for a wife who had to share her husband, he used it shamelessly.

  ‘You are prepared to share him?’ he demanded. ‘Play the role of the second wife? Counting the baubles. Keeping watch to make sure he does not visit his girlfriend more often than he visits you.’

  He turned away before he saw her answer in her eyes.

  Why wouldn’t she? Hadn’t Lucy told him, over and over, that a woman would do anything, not just for her child, but for the man she loved? He recognised that he was being given a second chance to prove that he could do as much for a woman who had given him back the capacity not just to love, but to live, no matter how much it cost him.

  ‘Actually…’

  They all turned to Mason.

  ‘The thing is that Jenny…’ All the colour had leached from his skin, leaving him looking yellow rather than fit and tanned and his voice was less than steady. ‘I’m sorry, Lucy, but she’s not my girlfriend, she’s my wife.’ He looked terrible, but even so he seemed to be standing a little taller, looking more of a man. ‘The thing is I love her. I’d do anything for her.’ Shrugged. ‘Have done just about anything…’

  Lucy’s face was expressionless and, for the first time since their eyes had met in the split second before she’d passed out on him, Han didn’t have the slightest idea what she was thinking.

  No one prompted Mason, demanded answers. They all simply waited.

  ‘The emergency that called me back here straight after the wedding ceremony was a fake, Lucy. All that flap about getting a seat on a plane was just so much window-dressing. I already had my flight booked.’

  ‘Am I supposed to thank you for that?’

  ‘No. It wasn’t that you aren’t lovely, Lucy. Any man would be proud…’

  ‘But you loved Jenny too much to be unfaithful to her?’

  He nodded. ‘I sort of surprised myself. I guess I must have some standards—’

  ‘Standards?’ Han demanded, quite certain that this was nothing more than a ploy for sympathy. ‘Isn’t bigamy a criminal offence?’

  ‘Not one that gets taken very seriously these days. The worst I’m likely to get is a caution.’

  ‘You checked it out, did you? I think you might be just a little optimistic; I’ve no idea what we do with bigamists in Ramal Hamrah, but we do take fraud very seriously.’

  ‘He has a wife, Han, and a baby on the way. I’d already talked to a lawyer about a divorce, but now I can get an annulment. That’s all I want.’ Lucy’s voice was trembling a little, as if she’d been under a tremendous strain and suddenly it was over.

  ‘Divorce?’

  She gave an awkward little shrug. ‘I’m sorry, Han, you’re going to have a heck of a telephone bill and it appears that I haven’t, after all, got a husband for you to send it to.’

  Her words, her face were solemn enough, but her eyes…Her lovely silver eyes were smiling.

  ‘If you say one word about paying for it yourself,’ he warned, ‘I shall have to insist that you marry me.’

  He’d thought he’d been losing his mind, but even when he’d thought her married he’d seen the innocence shining from her. He hadn’t needed Mason to tell him that he had not touched this wife, had not stolen from her the one thing that he could never return.

  It occurred to him that everyone was staring at him and he turned to Zahir.

  ‘Miss Forrester wishes to sell her half of Bouheira Tours, Zahir. As a graduate of Harvard Business School and a keen advocate of our burgeoning tourist industry, it seems to me that you might be interested in investing in such a venture.’

  ‘I would be delighted to have such a partner,’ Mason began.

  ‘I’m sure you would,’ Han said, cutting him short. ‘However, the State of Ramal Hamrah does not allow felons to profit from their crimes. Your assets will be confiscated and sold to repay your creditors, of whom, I’m sure, there are many.’

  ‘You’re going to deport me?’

  He looked
, Han thought, almost indignant.

  ‘Deport you? On the contrary. We will deport your wife. Pregnant or not, she was a party to your crime. A willing accomplice—’

  ‘Han! You promised!’

  ‘—but you, Mason, will remain in Ramal Hamrah until our courts decide what to do with you.’

  ‘Han, please!’

  ‘Do not plead for him, Lucy. This man stole your money, very nearly stole your life. He’s full of remorse now, but if I let him walk away, how long do you think it will be before he’s cruelly abusing the trust of some other vulnerable woman, stealing her money and destroying her life in the process, now that he knows how easy it is? How reluctant she would be to press charges. Are you prepared to take the responsibility for that?’

  Her eyes blazed at him. ‘You promised me that you would take care of Jenny Sanderson.’

  ‘I will. She’ll be repatriated at my expense, which is rather more than she was prepared to do for you.’ She turned away, furious with him. Or more probably furious with herself. The fact that she somehow felt guilty for their crimes was one of the nastiest things about this. ‘Zahir, after you’ve delivered Mr Mason to the relevant authorities, I suggest you take immediate control of Bouheira Tours. We can’t have our tourists left stranded.’

  ‘Excellency…’ The boy seemed unable to speak. Totally overcome. ‘His Highness the Emir, your father…’

  ‘I will be returning to Rumaillah, Zahir. Your duty here is done.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  LUCY stared out of the window at an aircraft taxiing towards the terminal building. Anywhere but at Han.

  She’d stayed with Milly while her papers had been organised, been introduced to Hanif’s mother, his grandmother, and received with the utmost courtesy.

  Did they have any idea of the trouble she’d been in? How much Hanif had done for her? She couldn’t ask him. She hadn’t seen him since she’d been left in Milly’s care. According to his sister, he was spending all his time with his father.

  ‘They’re discussing Han’s future,’ she said.

  ‘Future?’ It was none of her business, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘He’s resuming his diplomatic career, going to the UN as a special envoy to the commission on world poverty.’