‘How did you manage it?’
‘Well, seeing as you’ve insisted I have bodyguards follow me around, I put them to actual work and told them to get me a photo of your most beloved horse.’
‘It’s amazing!’ He kept admiring it, turning it this way and that to catch the light and admire new aspects of the painting. Then he put it down and kissed her. ‘Thank you.’
‘There’s this, too.’ She handed him the wrapped teddy bears.
He opened the gift, smiling when he saw it was two honey-coloured bears.
‘Squeeze their tummies.’
He did, and his face broke into a huge smile when he heard the babies’ heartbeats, which she’d had recorded at one of her antenatal visits.
‘Samuel and James. I’ll treasure them. Always.’
Freya felt she could burst with happiness! She hadn’t been sure how he’d feel about the gifts, but she was thrilled with how much he liked the painting of his horse. It meant so much to her that he did.
‘There’s only two gifts left. Both for you, Freya.’ Her mum smiled, passing over the gifts.
They were both small boxes. Jewellery-sized boxes. The type that rings came in…
Feeling nervous, Freya accepted the first one and began to unwrap it.
She’d been right. It was a small, red velvet box, shaped like a heart.
What if he was going to ask her to marry him again? Here and now? What would she say?
Sucking in a deep breath, she pushed open the lid.
There, nestled on a cushion of dark blue silk, was a pair of beautiful earrings. Silver, each encircling a beautiful jewel.
‘They’re platinum, and the jewels are black diamonds. The largest I could find.’
‘They’re beautiful!’
‘Put them in, Freya,’ urged her mum.
Part of her felt relief that his gift wasn’t a ring. But there was still that second box. There could be a ring in there. It wasn’t over yet.
She smiled nervously and put in the earrings, which both her mum and Jamie admired.
‘They look beautiful on you, love.’
‘Diamonds for my diamond.’ Jamie smiled.
She leant over as much as she was able to and kissed him, meeting his gaze and holding it, trying to tell him without words just how much he meant to her and how frightened she was by his next gift.
It had to be the ring in that box, didn’t it? And she wanted to say yes, but how could she? When the worst happened and Jamie got called back to Majidar she would have to go with him if she were his wife. It would be expected. But if she said no then she’d be ruining this beautiful day and breaking both their hearts, when right now they were both so happy.
Why had he done this? Why?
She felt a small surge of anger inside, irritation flooding her that it was all about to go wrong. She was about to feign a headache, or something, when the front doorbell rang.
Her mum frowned. ‘Who on earth could that be? It’s Christmas!’
‘I’ll go,’ Jamie said, getting to his feet.
But Freya, feeling the need to escape the anticipation of what was in that tiny box, laid her hand upon his arm, stopping him. ‘No. I’ll go. You two have been looking after me all day—I need to stretch my legs for a moment.’
It was an excuse, but a welcome one, whoever it was. She just needed time to try and think. To try and decide what to do.
More than anything she would love to be Jamie’s wife. To stand by his side with their babies as part of a loving family. But she knew she couldn’t put herself under that much scrutiny. The world’s press would have a field-day.
‘Just coming!’ She waddled down the hallway, exhaling loudly as she approached the door. She had no idea who it could be.
Standing before her was a man wearing a long white robe and a traditional keffiyeh on his head. He looked sombre, and bowed slightly at her appearance. ‘Madam MacFadden. My name is Faiz and I am the personal emissary of His Majesty King Ilias Al Bakhari. It is imperative that I speak with his brother, Prince Jameel.’
Freya froze for a moment as she took in his appearance and his message. Personal emissary? Why would Jamie’s brother send a message on Christmas Day? It could hardly be a festive greeting. She was sure that they didn’t celebrate Christmas over there in Majidar.
‘An emissary?’
Faiz bowed again. ‘Time is of the essence. If I may be allowed entry to speak with My Prince?’
Freya blinked rapidly as her brain raced through a thousand and one possibilities. Numb, she moved back and said nothing as Faiz stepped inside and past her.
‘Who is it, Freya?’ she heard her mum call from the room where moments ago everything had been perfect.
A chill crept over her as she began to suspect the reason for Faiz’s visit. No. It couldn’t be that. Could it?
Fighting back tears, she followed Faiz to the living room, where he stood just inside the doorway.
Jamie had got to his feet, his face stoic and ashen. ‘Faiz?’
‘My Prince. I must speak with you privately.’
Jamie glanced at her. The briefest eye contact. He must have seen the horror on her face before he looked away again.
‘Anything you have to say, Faiz, can be said in front of everyone here.’
Faiz gave her a considered look, then nodded. ‘Your brother has been taken ill. He is in hospital and it is imperative that you return to the kingdom.’
‘Ill?’
‘It is believed that His Majesty has suffered a stroke.’
Jamie stared at the floor, his body tense, his fists clenched at his side. ‘Is Jasmeen with him?’
‘The Queen has not left his side.’
‘So you need me to return?’
His voice was thick with emotion, and more than anything Freya wanted to go to him and put her arms around him and comfort him, but her own grief kept her glued to the spot.
Jamie was leaving.
Now.
She wasn’t ready. She wasn’t ready to let him go! They’d only just started to be happy. They’d only just decided to be together. This wasn’t fair! What about the babies? It was so close to her due date…he’d miss seeing them born!
‘Jamie?’ Her voice croaked in a painful whisper of grief.
He couldn’t look at her. He just kept staring at the floor.
‘Faiz? Are you absolutely sure that I must return?’
‘I am not to return without you.’
Her mum hurried over to her and draped an arm around her shoulders. She turned into her mum’s body and began to cry.
Behind them, she heard Jamie dismiss Faiz. ‘Give me a moment.’
‘Yes, My Prince.’
‘Freya?’
She couldn’t look at him. It hurt too much. She just clutched her mother harder.
‘Freya? Please…’
Her mother released her and stepped away. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen.’
Freya folded her arms around herself and stared at Jamie through her tears. ‘You can’t go!’
‘I must.’
He stepped forward and reached for her, intending to hold her, but she couldn’t bear the idea of him touching her. If she let him hold her then she would never let him go.
She stepped back. ‘Don’t.’
‘I never expected this. We were meant to have years…’
‘But we both knew that it would happen one day,’ she threw back.
‘I’m so sorry. I never wanted this.’
She couldn’t say anything. Words were not enough to express how she felt right now.
He looked remorseful. ‘I could be back in time for the birth. Ilias may recover.’
‘He might. But I can’t compete with a million people who need you. And that’s how it should be. The needs of a million people outweigh my own. You have to go. I understand.’
‘I want to stay.’
‘But you can’t!’ Her voice broke. ‘We knew this day would come. We were fools to
think we could cheat it.’
‘There must be a way?’
She nodded. ‘There is. Accept your fate. It’s always been there for you. Coming to England, meeting me…it could never stop that wheel from turning.’
He looked hurt. ‘You know that I would stay if I could?’
She nodded, fresh tears running down her cheeks.
‘You’ll keep me informed?’
She frowned. ‘How?’
‘I’ll leave my men. They can get messages to me.’
‘No, Jamie. Take them all with you. Leave nothing behind.’
‘I’m leaving you behind.’
She stared directly at him, through her tears and her pain. ‘Exactly.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. Do we have to end this? Now?’
‘We do. Because I can’t live a half-life, Jamie. I’ve already done that for far too long…hiding from the world, living in the shadows. I’ve got to live for me now. For my children. And I deserve—we deserve—a happy, full life.’
‘I can’t walk away from my children.’
She winced. So he could walk away from her?
‘But you will, Jamie. You’ve already made your choice. You’ve been called and you’re going and you should go. Your brother is sick—has had a stroke. You need to see him, just in case his condition does not improve. You will be called upon to rule the country in his stead, and if he does not recover you will rule permanently. By going now you’re choosing Majidar over us—as it should be. It’s your duty.’
‘You truly are the bravest woman I have ever known.’
She swallowed down her pain. ‘You need to go now. Just go, Jamie.’
He looked away, his gaze taking in the twinkling Christmas tree, the wrapping paper discarded on the floor, the presents, the painting of his horse. And the small gift that she still had to open.
Jamie picked it up and held it in his hands. Staring at it for a moment, twisting it this way and that. Then he put it in his pocket, bent to pick up the teddy bears and gave her one last look.
‘I love you, Freya MacFadden.’
She stared back, her heart breaking at this one last message, more tears falling freely down her face. ‘And I love you, Jameel.’
And he went.
He turned his back and disappeared through the doorway.
Grief and pain tore sobs from her as she sank to her knees on the floor.
And on the television was the Queen, in her annual speech, talking to the nation. She focused on the Queen’s face. A monarch addressing her people. Her whole life committed to her country.
How had she ever believed she could come between a man and such a love?
*
The house on Hayling Island had been closed up for a while.
Freya went through it, opening windows, letting in the aroma of the sea air despite the winter cold.
She turned up the thermostat on the central heating, made herself a mug of tea, and then stood outside on the small balcony and looked out to sea.
It was very still, calm, as if it was waiting for something. Grey-green, dully reflecting the grey sky above.
Down by the water she could see a dog walker, wrapped up in a thick jacket, throwing a tennis ball for three small dogs that chased after it happily.
This was what she needed—calm. The relaxed, unhurried way of life here, where no demands could be made of her and where she wouldn’t have to find a brave face when inside she could feel herself crumbling.
She and Jamie had had their time cut short. Much too short. Both of them had believed—hoped—that they would have years…decades, perhaps. She’d begun to believe that her two sons would have a father. A great father. One who would adore them, teach them, raise them to be good boys. Good men.
Only now she would have that task alone.
What would she tell them about him? And when? As they got older they would begin to understand what a prince was, what a king was. Would they want to go to him?
She toyed with the idea of going with them one day. But she could only foresee agony in doing so. Meeting Jamie after many years… What if he had moved on? Married, as a king would be expected to do? What if he had a new family? Would she be welcomed in Majidar? Or spurned? Would Samuel and James always be known in Majidar as the King’s illegitimate children?
And if they did visit there would always have to be another goodbye, and it wouldn’t just be Freya who would be distraught afterwards it would be the boys, too, and she would be the one who would have to deal with the fallout. She would be the one to pick up the pieces of her children and slowly put them back together again.
Perhaps it might be best not to tell the boys who their father was? But the idea of lying to them, of manipulating the truth, made her feel sick.
What to do?
This was why she had come here to Hayling Island. To get some space. To think clearly. Not to see the nursery every day and be reminded of the ticking of the clock. She had mere weeks left of her pregnancy, and as if in reminder of that she felt her first Braxton Hicks contraction. A tightening of her belly. Her body preparing itself for the battle to come.
She rubbed her hand underneath her bump and breathed through it. There wasn’t any pain, just a tightness, her belly going hard and rigid before slowly softening and relaxing again.
‘I’ll always be here for you,’ she said to them, before going to close all the windows she’d opened. so she’d feel the benefit of the central heating.
She wanted to go down to the water, to walk along the beach and feel that sea air invigorate her lungs.
She grabbed her coat, hat and scarf and wrapped up well, then opened the door and stepped out, locking up behind her.
As she turned to begin her walk she felt something touch her cheek. Then her nose.
She looked up and saw that snow was finally beginning to fall, and it pained her to know that he was missing it.
‘Oh, Jamie…’
*
Security guards lined the floor of the private hospital in which his brother the King lay. Escorted by Faiz and his own personal assistant, Rafiq, Jamie strode down the corridor towards his brother’s room.
He had been kept informed throughout his seven-hour flight back home on the Bakhari private jet. And the briefcase of documents awaiting his attention on the plane had reminded him of the life he had left behind when he’d first come to England.
He was trying his hardest to remain stoic, but his mind was a mess. He’d left her behind.
I left her behind!
Freya and his two babies. His sons. His heirs.
My heart.
But duty had called him and he felt helpless to try and fight it. He would never be the same again now that he’d been ripped in two.
Part of him hoped that when he walked into that hospital room and saw his brother lying in a hospital bed Ilias would open his mouth to speak and smile, maybe hold his brother in greeting, give him a hug, pat him on the back and say, Welcome home, brother.
That would be the best solution for them all.
His duty, his future, hung over him like a guillotine. He hated to refer to his noble duty in such a way, but it was how it had always felt to him. He’d never asked to be royal, never asked to be born into such a family, and being King had never interested him. Not once.
Leaving his country, his family, and flying thousands of miles away as a young man had taken a lot of courage, but he had followed his heart and done what he’d thought was right.
He came to his brother’s room and placed his hand upon the door. The doctors had informed him that Ilias appeared to have a blood disorder. They weren’t sure of it yet, but they were running tests.
He hoped they would learn what it was soon. So his brother could be treated and recover as quickly as possible.
He opened the door.
Chapter Ten
THERE WERE MONITORS sounding out the beats of his brother’s heart.
&nbs
p; He is alive.
But then he saw him—pale and wan against the hospital pillows, with his wife Jasmeen dutifully by his bedside, clutching his hand.
The shock of seeing him looking so ill stopped Jamie in his tracks.
‘Jameel? You’re here!’ Jasmeen let go of her husband’s hand and came over to embrace her brother-in-law.
‘How is he?’
‘The doctors say he is stable…but I have never seen him like this before.’
‘Nor I.’
Jamie took a seat by his brother’s bed and took hold of Ilias’s hand.
‘Ilias? It’s Jameel. I’m here. I’ve come home.’
‘He sleeps deeply since the stroke. It’s like he has a tiredness that cannot be quenched.’
‘Can he speak yet?’
‘Sounds, but not words. It distresses him greatly. He tries to write, but he is right-handed, so it takes a while to read his words.’
Jamie squeezed his brother’s fingers and felt tears sting the backs of his eyes. But he refused to cry here. Crying would be an admission of just how out of control he was, when he was desperately clinging to the one bit of hope that he still had.
‘Ilias?’
His brother moaned and then began to blink, looking about him to find the source of his brother’s voice.
‘Nurgh…’
Tears appeared in Ilias’s eyes when he saw his brother, and Jamie leant forward to kiss his brother’s cheeks.
‘I am here, brother. I am here.’ He held his brother’s face in his hands, touching his forehead to Ilias’s.
His brother signalled for his writing pad and Jasmeen presented it to him.
I’m sorry you had to come home.
Jamie read the tight scrawl and smiled. ‘Don’t be sorry. You couldn’t have known this was going to happen.’
You’re about to become a father.
He nodded, thinking of Freya and her huge belly, of his hand resting on her abdomen, feeling the boys kick and stretch inside. He’d left them. Left them behind. Maybe never to see them again.
The ache in his chest was palpable. ‘Yes.’
I did not want to do this to you.
‘It’s not your fault, brother. None of this is. I am just so grateful that you are still alive. You must fight hard, Ilias. Fight hard to get better.’
Pregnant with His Royal Twins Page 15