He looked forbidding, a stranger almost, but Rose didn’t care. She couldn’t stop herself from moving across the room and putting her arms around him in a warm gesture of comfort. His body felt stiff, as if it was trying to reject the reality of what he had just heard, but she hugged him all the tighter.
‘I should have been there,’ he told her brokenly. ‘I should have been there!’
‘You couldn’t have known! You were planning to leave first thing! It was unexpected, Khalim. Fate!’
‘Fate,’ he echoed, and tightened his arms around her waist.
Let it go, she urged him silently. Let it go.
And maybe her unspoken plea communicated itself to him in some inexplicable way, for she heard him expell a long, tortured breath and then his arms came round her, his head falling onto her shoulder, and she felt his long, drawn-out shudder.
They stood like that for moments—minutes, aeons, perhaps—until the insistent jangling of the doorbell could be heard.
He raised his head to look at her, and there was the unmistakable glimmer of tears in the black eyes.
‘Khalim?’ she whispered.
The great black cloud of grief which was enveloping him lifted just for a moment as he met the soft sympathy in her eyes, and grief became momentarily guilt.
This was the moment, he realised. The moment of truth. He would have to let her go.
And he didn’t want to.
‘May the gods forgive me for saying this at such a time,’ he whispered, knowing that there would never be another moment to say it, ‘but I do not wish to lose you, Rose.’
Oh, the pain! The spearing, unremitting pain of imagining life without Khalim. ‘It has to be.’ How rehearsed the words sounded, but that was because they were. She had been practising a long time for this very moment. ‘It has to be.’
The doorbell rang again.
He lifted her chin, sapphire light blinding from her eyes. ‘I must be in Maraban,’ he told her, and then he said very deliberately, ‘but I can come back.’
She stared at him as hope stirred deep within her, even while logic told her that any hopes she harboured would be futile. ‘How?’ she whispered.
‘When things are settled.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I will be able to visit you from time to time. It won’t be the same, but…’ His words tailed off as he saw the frozen expression on her face.
‘What, and become your English mistress, while you take a bride back in Maraban?’
‘I have no bride in Maraban!’ he grated.
‘Not yet! But soon you will!’ She let out a deep sigh. ‘Having to be content with little bits of you, when I’ve had…had…’ Only now her words tailed off, too. She had been about to say that she had had all of him, but that hadn’t been true, had it?
She had had his company and his laughter and his body, but there had never been any mention from Khalim of the most important thing of all.
Love.
She shook her head, fighting to keep her dignity. He would remember her as his proud, independent Rose, not a snivelling wreck of a woman. ‘No, Khalim,’ she said firmly. ‘It won’t work.’ She pictured a life where she would always be waiting. Waiting for the infrequent phone call. Waiting for news that he had taken a wife at last. News of his wedding. Or of his baby, perhaps…She shook her head as the pain lanced through her again.
‘Better we end it now, Khalim. Cleanly and completely. At least that way we’ll be left with our memories, instead of destroying what we once had.’
Had he really imagined that she would agree to his outrageous suggestion? Could he honestly see Rose resigning herself to a lifetime of playing the understudy? And yet he did not want to let her go. Damn her! He knew that she still wanted him, just as much as he wanted her—so why could she not just agree to his proposition?
His mouth tightened, and he removed her hands from where they lay locked upon his shoulders.
‘And that is your last word on the subject?’
She met the anger in his eyes and she turned away rather than face it. She did not want her last memory of Khalim to be one of smouldering rage. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘So be it,’ he said, with chilling finality. ‘Philip is waiting.’
She heard him leave the room and go to answer the door, heard him speaking in an undertone to Philip, and then suddenly he was back and she whirled round to find him looking remote and frozen, and she guessed that reality really was beginning to kick in. She wanted to go up and comfort him again, but there was something so forbidding about the icy set of his features that she didn’t dare.
She wondered if her face showed that inside her heart was breaking. ‘Goodbye, Khalim.’
He thought how detached she looked, as if nothing could touch her. And perhaps nothing could—for he certainly could not. She wanted no part of him, unless she could have everything of him. She wanted too much! ‘You will continue to live here?’ he questioned.
‘How can I?’ She meant—how could she possibly stay in a place which had been filled with his presence if he was no longer there? How could she bear to face the empty space on the bed beside her? Or consign herself to being without his warm body enfolding hers night after night?
‘The deeds of the house are in your name,’ he said. ‘I bought it for you.’
‘And why did you do that?’ she demanded. ‘As a kind of insurance policy?’
‘You have a way of reducing everything down to the lowest possible denominator, don’t you, Rose?’ he stormed. ‘It was supposed to be an act of generosity—nothing more sinister than that!’
But suddenly she felt cheap. So this really was the pay-off, was it? An expensive house in Chelsea to compensate for the fact that her sheikh lover had left her!
‘I don’t want your charity, Khalim!’
His face grew cold. ‘Then please accept it as my gift, for that was the only way it was intended. Goodbye, Rose.’ His black eyes raked over her one last time, before he turned away and out of the room without a backward glance.
Rose waited until she had heard the front door slam shut behind them and then counted slowly to a hundred, before she allowed herself the comfort of tears.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘ROSE, are you mad?’
Rose calmly finished placing the last of her clothes into a suitcase, and clicked the locks into place before looking up at Sabrina—a particularly glowing-looking Sabrina, she thought, with a brief pang of envy. But that was what being newly married did for you, wasn’t it?
‘No, I am certainly not mad. Why should I be?’
‘Because this house is beautiful, and if Khalim wants you to have it—’
‘I can’t live here without him, Sabrina!’ Rose thought how strained her voice sounded. Well, at least it would match the strain on her face. ‘Can’t you understand that?’
‘I guess so.’ Sabrina sighed. ‘Guy was worried that something like this might happen.’
‘You mean that Khalim would inevitably leave me to go back to Maraban and find someone more suitable?’
‘Well, yes.’ Sabrina bit her lip. ‘I wanted to warn you about his reputation, but Guy said—’
‘No.’ Rose shook her head to interrupt her friend. ‘I don’t want Khalim portrayed as some feelingless heartbreaker who used me and then dumped me. I went into this with my eyes open, Sabrina. I knew exactly what would happen, and now it has.’ And the pain of his leaving was more intense than she had imagined in her worst nightmares.
Sabrina had come straight round soon after Khalim had left for the airport. ‘Khalim has just rung me,’ she announced to a red-eyed Rose when she opened the door to her. ‘Oh, darling Rose—I’m so very sorry.’
‘He told you about his father, I suppose?’ Rose questioned dully.
‘Yes.’ Sabrina shut the front door behind her. ‘He also told me to look after you. He’s worried about you, you know.’
‘I’m not an invalid, Sabrina,’ said Rose stiffly.
But actually, maybe she was beginning to feel like an invalid.
In the two hours since Khalim had left for the airport, she had wandered around the flat like a robot, picking up all her possessions and placing them in neat piles, ready to go.
It was surprising really, just how much of a home they had made. In three months of living together, they had built up much more than she remembered. Lots of books. Vases. A coffee set. A beautiful backgammon set. Little things she had brought to their home. A lump formed in the back of her throat and she swallowed it down.
No point in thinking like that. No point at all.
‘But where will you go?’ asked Sabrina.
Rose looked at her with a calm, frozen face. ‘I’ll be fine. Don’t forget—I’ve still been paying the mortgage on my flat, all the time I’ve been living here with Khalim.’
‘But I thought you said that Lara had moved that ghastly boyfriend of hers in.’
‘Yes, she has.’ Rose gave a worried frown, before a little of her customary fire returned to reassure her that she hadn’t become a complete walking piece of misery. ‘And she can jolly well move him out again!’
‘And you’re really going to sell this place?’
‘Yes, I am.’
‘Don’t you think it’s a little soon to be making major decisions like that?’
Rose shook her head. In a world which now seemed to have all the security of quicksand, there was only one thing she knew for sure. ‘I won’t change my mind,’ she said quietly. ‘I just know I have to go.’
‘So will you buy somewhere else with the proceeds, if it’s just the fact that you can’t bear to live here without Khalim?’
‘It isn’t. I just don’t want to be beholden to him in any way.’
‘Oh, Rose, he can afford it!’
‘That’s not the point! I know he can afford it! But it will make me feel like it’s some kind of pay-off.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘So I’m going to give the money to charity instead!’ she declared.
‘Khalim wouldn’t want you to do that. He’d want you to use it on yourself. Guy says he’s genuinely concerned about you—’
‘Well, he needn’t be,’ said Rose stubbornly, because concern made her stupid heart leap with excitement. He might be concerned, but he wasn’t here, was he? And he never would be, either. ‘He’s always telling me how brave and how strong I am. I’ll get over it.’
Maybe if she said it often enough, she just might convince herself.
She stared at Sabrina’s worried face. ‘Khalim asked you out once, didn’t he, Sabrina?’
Sabrina’s eyes widened. ‘Who on earth told you that?’
Rose smiled. ‘Khalim did. He said…’ Her voice began to waver as she remembered the closeness they had shared the night he had made the admission. ‘He said that he didn’t want there to be any secrets between us…’ Her eyes filled with tears and she turned a stricken face to Sabrina who instantly came over and put her arms around her.
‘Oh, Rose,’ she whispered. ‘Poor, darling Rose.’
‘Just tell me one thing, Sabrina!’ sobbed Rose helplessly. ‘Why the hell did he have to be a prince? Why couldn’t he have just been a normal man?’
The death of Khalim’s father was announced on the national news that evening, and Rose found herself watching the set obsessively, unable to turn the television off, even though her sanity pleaded with her to.
There was a short clip showing Khalim arriving at Dar gar airport, with hordes of people clogging up the tarmac and paying homage to their new leader.
How stern he looked, in his pure white robes, she thought longingly. And how icily and perfectly remote. Looking at the footage of his arrival, it seemed hard to believe that just a few hours ago they had been making love in the room next door.
She swallowed, and as the news switched to other items she turned the set off.
She went home to her flat that same evening, to find the place almost unrecognisable and Giles snoring on the sofa.
Biting back her temper, she marched over and shook him by the shoulder.
‘Whoa!’ He opened bleary eyes and blinked at her. ‘Whassa matter?’ he slurred.
Rose took a steadying breath as she backed off from the stench of stale alcohol. ‘Where’s Lara?’
‘She’s away filming. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m moving back here—in to my home. I know it’s short notice, but would you be able to find somewhere else to live, please, Giles? And if it’s at all possible I’d like you out tonight.’
Giles sat up and sneered. ‘What’s happened? Has he kicked you out? Has your pretty prince tired of you?’
‘Khalim’s father died this morning,’ she said, in a voice which was threatening to break.
Giles narrowed his eyes. ‘So he’s in charge now, is he? Wow!’
It shamed her that he had not expressed one single sentiment of sorrow for Khalim’s father—even for convention’s sake.
‘Just go, will you, Giles?’ she said tiredly.
‘Okay, okay—I’ll go and stay with my brother.’
Once he had gone, she set to cleaning the flat, and at least it gave her something to do to occupy herself, so that by midnight, when everything was looking pretty much normal again, she was able to take a long bath and fall into bed.
But she couldn’t sleep.
For too long she had been used to drifting off in the warm haven of Khalim’s arms. Now she felt cold. And alone. She put on a baggy T-shirt for comfort, but there was still precious little warmth to be found.
She found a purchaser for the house almost immediately. That part of Chelsea had people just queuing up to buy homes there—and she was lucky enough to find a newly engaged merchant banker who was a first-time buyer.
‘I want to complete the sale as quickly as possible, that’s my only condition,’ she told him and his horse-faced fiancée.
‘Soon as you like,’ he agreed smoothly, barely able to contain his glee as he examined the luxurious wealth of fixtures and fittings.
Rose tried to throw herself into her work, and when the money for the sale came through she went straight to the Maraban Embassy in Central London. It was difficult to keep a rein on her emotions as she spoke to the receptionist—a man whose glittering black eyes reminded her of Khalim, and made her feel such a deep sadness.
‘Yes?’ he asked.
Rose pulled the cheque out of her handbag, still finding it difficult to come to terms with just how much money the house had made. Khalim had been correct, she thought wryly—it had been a good investment.
‘I’d like to make a donation to the Maraban Orphans’ Fund,’ she said.
The receptionist put his pen down and his look of surprise quickly became a smile of pleasure. ‘How very kind,’ he murmured. ‘I will ask one of our attachés to come down and speak with you.’
‘Can’t I just leave the money, and go?’
He glanced down at the cheque, narrowed his eyes in shock and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that will not be possible. You are extremely generous, Miss…’ he glanced down at the cheque again ‘…Thomas.’
Twenty minutes later, Rose was shaking hands with a courteous if somewhat bland attaché, who kept thanking her over and over for her generosity.
‘You would like to sign the book of condolence before you leave?’ he asked.
Rose hesitated. ‘Yes, please,’ she said quietly.
They left her alone in a room where a black-draped photograph of Khalim’s father hung above a simple arrangement of lilies, alongside which a single candle burned. It was a photo which must have been taken when he was in his prime. How like his son he looked with those stern, handsome features and those fathomless black eyes, she thought.
Hot tears stung her eyes as she lifted the pen and stared at it as if seeking inspiration. What to write?
And then the words seemed to come pouring out all by themselves.
‘You w
ere a fine ruler,’ she wrote, ‘whose people loved and respected you. May you rest in peace, in the knowledge that your only son has inherited your strength and your wisdom to take Maraban into the future.’
Somehow she got out of there without bursting into tears, but at least there was a sense of a burden having been lifted. She’d cut her ties with Khalim, she realised—and, in so doing, had shown her own strength and wisdom. Now she must get on with rebuilding her life.
But this was easier said than done.
A job which had once enthralled her now became a number of hours in the day to be endured. I must snap out of it, she told herself fiercely—or I won’t have a job as well as my man.
Yet, try as she might, she found herself gazing sightlessly out of the window time after time.
In the weeks which followed Khalim’s departure, images came back to burn themselves in her mind’s eye—and to haunt her with their poignant perfection.
She remembered the first time she had shared a bathtub with him, and after the inevitable love-making they had washed each other’s backs, giggling as bubbles frothed up and slid over the side and onto the floor.
He had looked at her with an expression of mock-horror. ‘Now who is going to clean that up?’
‘You are! You’re the one who insisted on joining me in the bath!’
In that split-second of a moment Khalim had looked carefree—his rare and beautiful smile making her heart race. ‘You’ll have to make me, Rose!’
‘I have my methods,’ she had purred boastfully, her hands sliding underneath the water to capture him, and he had closed his eyes in helpless pleasure.
So what was she doing remembering that? Trying to torture herself? To remind herself of how unexpectedly easy it had been to adjust to a man like Khalim? And it had.
She hadn’t expected to be able to sit enjoying such simple companionship with him in the evenings as they’d played backgammon or cooked a meal together. Oh, why had it been so easy? she asked herself in despair.
And then, two nights later, she had a visitor when she arrived back at the flat after work.
Philip Caprice was sitting in a long, dark limousine outside the flat and Rose’s heart leapt when she saw the car, her eyes screwing up in an attempt to scan the smoky glass, in futile search for the one person she really wanted to see.
Surrender to the Sheikh (London's Most Eligible Playboys Book 2) Page 16