by Trish Morey
‘What?’
‘Oh, come now, Sheikha, surely you can’t have forgotten this little gem? “The dollar signs in my eyes lit up too!” Or maybe this one will strike a chord: “keep listening for the ka-ching”.’
And like a sledgehammer it hit her. The email she’d sent to Matt. The nonsense email to get him excited and frothing at the mouth with anticipation.
‘You read my emails? How dare you? That was private.’
‘What did you think I meant when I warned you? Of course the palace has to monitor communication coming in and out. Did you think your little missive to your cousin would go unnoticed—a cousin you are supposedly finished with now?’
‘I am finished with him.’
‘What, after you sent him the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or will that be after the five hundred thousand you have promised him next?’
‘What? I didn’t send that money to Matt—it went to a solicitor who—’ And with a sickening thud, she realised just who she’d sent the funds through—the very solicitor Matt had instructed to draw up the documents complete with the small print she’d been too naive to read and so signed her inheritance over to him. And if Matt was in some kind of financial trouble, then, chances were...
‘Let me finish your sentence.’ Rashid confirmed it for her. ‘It went to a solicitor who is now being investigated, along with your beloved cousin, for misappropriation of funds.’
Tora squeezed her eyes shut, reeling at her naivety, cursing the rush she’d been in that she’d trusted a colleague of Matt’s. What if that money, too, had been lost?
But surely Rashid couldn’t believe that she’d sent the money to Matt. ‘I didn’t know about the charges. I didn’t know any of that. Matt gave me his solicitor’s name because he was dealing with my parents’ estate. But the money wasn’t for him. That went—’
‘Then why did you tell him not to worry about it?’
‘No. Listen,’ she said, putting out her hands in supplication, ‘you’re confusing two different things. Matt cheated me out of my inheritance from my parents’ estate—that was the two hundred and fifty thousand he was talking about. When he asked for more, I thought I’d send him a taste of his own medicine. What I sent him was rubbish, Rashid, to lure him in and make him think I’d stumbled on a fortune and was going to share it with him. You have to believe me.’
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,’ Rashid said, ignoring her explanation, ‘which just happens to be the same amount of money you asked for and got.’
‘Yes, because I had promised it elsewhere and I needed it as quickly as possible.’
‘Why? What was so urgent that you were so desperate to get the money then?’
‘Because Sally’s husband has cancer and they needed the funds to get him to a cancer clinic in Germany. And I’d promised to loan them the money from my inheritance because they’d already mortgaged their house and they’d exhausted every other means. That’s where your precious two hundred and fifty thousand dollars went, and Steve’s there now lying in that clinic, fighting for his life and close to death and now it looks like everything I’ve done has been for nothing.’
Her vision blurred and swam and she dropped her face to the floor. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, she hadn’t been aware of the tears falling, but now there was no stopping the torrent coursing down her face. Because if Steve died, everything would have been for nothing.
The sound of a clap forced her head up. Followed by another. A slow clap coming from Rashid that matched the slow pace of his feet as he drew closer to where she had fallen. ‘Bravo, Ms Burgess, that was an award-winning performance. It had pathos, melodrama, even tears. Unfortunately some of us recognise that was all it was—an act. I didn’t see you looking too upset last night when you were coming apart in my bed. I didn’t see any tears fall then.’
She sniffed. ‘Sally wrote this morning with the news.’
‘Oh, this morning. How convenient.’
‘Steve is dying. It’s the truth!’
‘I don’t think you’d recognise the truth if it slapped you in the face. You climbed aboard that royal jet and ever since then you’ve been scheming to make it worthwhile to you and your crooked cousin. You played it well. Exceptionally well. One time a siren, another a virgin Madonna, you kept ducking and weaving and spinning your web of lies so well that you almost had me convinced that you were special, that there might even be a future for us beyond this short-term deal.’
His lip curled. ‘What a fool I’ve been.’ His cold dark eyes were filled with abhorrence as they raked over her, all but scraping her skin with their intensity. ‘And I must be a fool because I thought—I actually thought...’ He shook his head. ‘A fool. You will stay here in your rooms until it is time to send you home.’
‘Rashid,’ she begged as he turned to leave, because in his words was a tiny kernel, a glimmer of hope, if she could only prove to him that she was telling the truth. ‘Please, I beg of you...’
His feet paused at the door. ‘What?’
‘There is one thing you should know. One thing you have to believe.’
‘Well?’
She licked her lips, her heartbeat frantic as she prepared to lay it on the line and bare herself to him utterly. ‘I couldn’t do the things you say. I would never betray you. Because... Because, I love you.’
He laughed, the sound cold and jagged as it echoed around her room, until she felt as if her heart had been sliced apart. ‘Nice try.’
And then he was gone.
She threw herself down onto her bed and let herself weep in great heaving sobs—because she’d only ever married Rashid to secure the funds for Steve’s treatment and, somewhere along the line, she’d fallen in love with a despot in the process, a despot who’d laughed at her when she’d bared her soul to him.
And now Steve was fighting for his life in a German clinic and it had all been so pointless.
It had all been for nothing.
And she hated the man who had done this to her with all her heart.
The man she’d thought she had loved.
* * *
She loved him. Talk about desperate. As if he’d believe that. As if she’d thought it would excuse what she’d done.
Atiyah was crying when he returned to his rooms and the black cloud above his head thundered and roared.
‘She won’t stop,’ a tearful Yousra said. ‘She wants Tora.’
‘Give her to me!’ he demanded, and the young woman’s eyes opened wide with surprise, but still she handed the bundle over. He juggled the unfamiliar weight, the arms and legs working like little pistons, the face screwed up and red, and he caught a flailing arm with one finger and tucked her in close to his chest as he tried to remember how Tora had told him to try to calm her. ‘Atiyah,’ he said, trying to stop the storm cloud hanging over him from making him shout over her screams, ‘Calm down. Calm down.’
He walked with her one way, he walked back the other, but there was no settling her. ‘Atiyah,’ he said, ‘little sister, you must stop this.’ And on impulse, when he could not think of anything else that might help, he started humming the tune, the lullaby he’d heard Tora sing to her, the lullaby that had been dredged up from the depths of his memories. And eventually, somewhere along the line, the notes filtered through to the tiny infant and Atiyah’s cries became more brief, staccato bursts between the listening moments, bursts that became hiccups. Until finally she fell silent apart from a low whimpering sound.
‘Is she asleep?’ Yousra whispered in awe. And he shook his head as he sang that soft lullaby, because, while her face had unscrunched, she was wide awake and staring up at him, a frown knitting her brow as she focused intently on his face, almost as if she recognised him.
He stared back at her, equally fascinated until h
e came to the end of the song and he smiled, and the little girl wiggled in his arms and smiled right back.
And his world turned on its axis and he knew it would never be the same.
‘Like the world lights up and wraps you in love.’ Tora had said that.
And yet he should have known that, because that was exactly how he’d felt when Tora had smiled at him. When she’d come apart in his arms. When he’d seen tears in her proud eyes at his coronation.
Those tears... Had she been scheming even then? How could she have known he’d turn to her in that moment? How could she have faked those tears? Tora had been the one who had got him through the coronation. Knowing she was there had been his one constant. Having her in his corner had lent him strength and made him wonder if their relationship could not be more permanent.
She’d made his duty more possible, more bearable, more palatable.
She’d made him wish she could stay by his side for ever.
She’d said she’d never betray him.
She’d said she loved him.
Oh, God, and arresting her was how he repaid her? He’d been so angry, had felt so betrayed, so manipulated, as if he’d been played for a fool from the start.
And the rank, horrible feeling in his gut told him that they had got things very wrong, and that he’d been the fool all along, he hadn’t needed anyone to play him.
He had to find the truth—find the story behind the email to her cousin—there had to be proof. He owed her that much. There was an email this morning, she’d said, saying her friend was dying. It would be easy enough to check. Surely there would be something to prove or disprove her story one way or another. ‘Yousra,’ he said, the child still held close in his arms. ‘Get me Kareem.’
* * *
An hour later, he had what he needed. A small stack of printed emails. ‘Innocuous,’ Kareem had labelled them. ‘There was no mention of any amount of money.’
And Rashid believed him. Innocuous by themselves, but together with her story they painted a different picture... You’re a lifesaver... Next stop, Germany! And the kick to the heart he deserved with the subject header on the email that had come overnight—Prayers needed!—and he knew with an icy cold rush down his spine that she’d been telling the truth.
And he dropped his head into his hands.
What the hell had he done?
And how was he ever to make amends?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TORA’S HEAD JERKED up from her pillow when she heard the sound of the door opening. For a moment she hoped it was Rashid so she could tell him exactly what she thought of him. She got out of bed and ran her fingers over her cheeks. Her tears had dried in the heat of her growing anger, but her skin felt tight, as if it were crusted with salt.
But it wasn’t Rashid returning, but two young women, smiling shyly and holding baskets. They bid her to sit down and fed her honey tea while they brought out warm towels to wash her face and hands, and a hairbrush to brush her hair. There was even a freshly laundered gown to wear, and Tora didn’t know what it meant but it was so blissful to clean the salt from her skin that she went along with it.
‘Come with me, Sheikha Victoria,’ the guard said, when she was feeling refreshed and human again and the women had vanished.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Where are you taking me?’ But he said nothing, just turned and led the way out.
Only one guard, she thought as she followed him. There had been four outside her doors and now only one—what did that mean?
‘Where is the Emir?’ she asked, but the man in front of her said nothing as he strode ahead of her through the long corridors and past the accumulated treasures of millennia and out the front doors of the palace and into an inky night.
A car idled quietly, its lights on low beam.
And there was Kareem, standing there, watching her approach. He bowed low, his hand on his chest.
‘Sheikha,’ he said. ‘I have done you a great disservice. Please forgive me.’
And she guessed it was Kareem who had been alerted to her email to Matt and who had then alerted Rashid.
‘It doesn’t matter, Kareem. It was never meant to be. Can you tell me what is happening?’
‘You are leaving,’ he said, and, as if to support his words, her suitcase was delivered to the top of the steps. She swallowed.
‘Now?’ she said, caught between relief and a pang of regret for all she’d leave behind. The soft velvet night sky. Atiyah. Her heart. ‘Already?’
‘Already. His Excellency insisted.’
‘Where is Rashid?’
‘Waiting at the plane. He thought you would be happier travelling to the airport without him.’
Coward, she thought, but it was an accusation tinged with sadness. So she was to be seen off the premises like an employee who had been dismissed, her possessions hastily flung together, no chance to say goodbye to those she wished to? There was a lump in her throat the size and shape of a small child. ‘You’ll give Atiyah a hug for me?’ she said, trying to push back on the sting of tears, and Kareem solemnly nodded.
She hauled in a breath, casting a look over her shoulder at the amazing fairy-tale palace that wasn’t, before she turned back to Kareem and said with false brightness, ‘Then let’s go.’
* * *
He saw the headlights approach from where he stood at the foot of the stairs and felt sick to the stomach. She was leaving. Well, she’d always been going to leave, she was just leaving a little earlier, that was all.
And how could he not let her go? How could he keep her here as his prisoner and punish her for his own blind stupidity? How could he expect her to forgive him?
The car drew alongside the plane, its engines starting to whine, pulling up so the back door lined up with the red carpet that had been rolled out waiting for it, and Kareem emerged and offered his hand to the other passenger. Rashid swallowed.
Tora.
Looking like a goddess. Wearing the robe of orange and yellow she’d worn that day when they’d toured Malik’s palaces. Such a few days ago and yet it seemed like a lifetime, so much had happened, so much had been felt. He saw her thank Kareem as he handed her out and retrieved her suitcase and then she glanced up and her eyes snagged on his. She looked away at her feet, and his heart snapped in two.
Well, what did he expect? It was no more than he deserved. She’d told him she loved him and he’d flung that love back in her face with a few choice insults besides. Call himself an Emir? A ruler of men? He couldn’t even rule his own heart and mind. And if he couldn’t make them act in consensus, how was he supposed to manage a country?
As he might have, with this woman by his side. He might have believed it was possible.
‘Tora,’ he said as she drew closer.
She angled her head, her eyes sharp like daggers, even if their edges seemed a little dulled with disappointment. ‘Seeing me off the premises, Rashid? Making sure I don’t escape with the silverware.’ She held her arms out. ‘Do you need to frisk me to make sure I haven’t run off with any of Qajaran’s treasures to pawn when I get home?’
He sucked in air that smelt of aviation fuel. He deserved that. ‘I was wrong,’ he said. ‘And in so many ways, and I know I can never apologise for all the wrongs I have done to you. But please believe me when I say I am truly sorry for the hurt I have done to you.’
Her lips pressed tightly together. ‘Well, I guess that’s all right, then. So, what about my divorce?’
‘You will be notified when it is finalised.’
He saw her hesitate. ‘What will become of Atiyah now?’
And it struck him that even in the midst of her own private hell, she was worried about his sister. His sister, for whom Tora had cared more and been more loving. God, he’d been a fool!
>
‘She will be fine. She smiled at me tonight.’
‘She did?’ And Tora smiled, too, for a moment, until she remembered why she was here. ‘Excellent,’ she said before her teeth found her lip, and she looked up at the stairs, putting one hand on the rail. ‘I’m looking forward to being back in Sydney.’
‘Tora,’ he said, stopping her from taking that first step just yet, ‘once upon a time, you said you loved me. Did you mean it?’
She turned her head to the velvet sky and the wide belt of stars that was more clearly visible now they were out of the city precinct. ‘I thought I did. And then I was just so angry with you, that it blocked everything out. I hated you for what you had done and what you had believed of me. After everything we had been through. I was so angry.’
He closed his eyes. ‘And now?’
‘Now I’m just sad for what could have been.’
And he couldn’t let her go without telling her. ‘I know it’s too late, but I am a fool where love is concerned, but I want you to know that there was love between us. There is love that I feel for you.’
She swallowed back on a sob. So good of him to tell her that now, when he was putting her on a plane to leave. ‘Do you call it love to judge someone as guilty before you even ask them for the truth? Do you call it love to treat that person like a criminal? Because if you do, you have a very warped idea of love.’
‘Tora, I am so sorry. I didn’t want to believe it was true, but you said you had nothing to do with your cousin, and there was evidence you’d spoken to him just recently, and I felt betrayed and deceived and it was like my father all over again, except this time it was you, and that felt a hundred times worse.’
She stared at him. ‘My darling cousin stole my inheritance. All the money from my parents’ estate. All the money I’d promised Sally and Steve. I’d just come from a meeting with him to tell me the happy news that all the money was gone. Why do you think I was so angry that night in the bar?’
He hung his head. ‘God, I’m a fool. I will never make up to you the wrongs I have done you.’