“On Monday, but there are telephones and the Internet. If you want to contact me, you still can. It doesn’t have to be a deadline.”
It would be, though. Once Khaled had time to think through her proposal, she was certain he would see the sense in it. She’d fly back to Aberdeen and that would be the end of her desert romance with the Arabian sheikh. She’d have a story to tell her own grandchildren one day, though she doubted they would believe something so farfetched that she hardly believed it herself.
First she’d have to tell her father that the deal was off. He’d be disappointed but unsurprised, and she could kiss good-bye to her hopes of the CEO job. For the moment, anyway. There’d be another deal, another chance to prove herself. She’d given up more than enough for Khaled Saqat. She wasn’t going to let him take that dream away from her, too.
…
“It is the state reception tomorrow night.”
They were almost back at Saqat City. On the long drive through the desert, they had hardly spoken. Even now, Khaled’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead.
“Yes. I received a formal invitation to the event a few weeks ago.” Jemimah had confirmed that it was still going ahead, despite the emir’s recent illness.
“I will understand if you prefer not to attend, and I will make your excuses known.”
They had reached the edge of the city now, and outside Olivia’s window was only glittering white sand and the perfect kingfisher blue of the Persian Gulf. She could reschedule her flight. There was no reason for her to stay in Saqat any longer, but failure to attend a state occasion would probably cause some kind of minor diplomatic crisis, and the last thing she wanted was to draw attention to herself by doing something so stupid.
“You’re going to marry her, then?”
“It seems so.”
“Despite this afternoon.”
His jaw clenched tight and he spoke through gritted teeth, “Yes.”
“Because you think it is your duty.”
He didn’t answer that.
“Poor Aliya,” she said after a pause.
“Poor Aliya?” He sounded as though it had never occurred to him to pity the girl. “She will be my wife. The most important woman in the country.”
“She will be married to a man who chose her because he thought it was his duty. Not a man who loves her.”
“She could refuse if she felt like that about it.”
Olivia pressed her lips tight. She’d seen the girl. Young and overawed by the royal palace, there was no chance Aliya would dare refuse Khaled’s proposal. Perhaps she even thought she might be happy as the emir’s wife. Perhaps she would be. Khaled would never intend to hurt her. They might find a comfortable contentment together. Perhaps it would be enough.
It wouldn’t be enough for Olivia, not now she knew what it was like to be loved the way Khaled loved her. Even before he’d said it, in a million tiny ways, she had seen the evidence of it. In the tenderness of his eyes, in the encouraging touch of his hand, in the huskiness of his voice when he whispered in her ear, he had shown her how he felt about her. He’d spoiled her and now she would never be able to settle for a man who loved her less.
Chapter Nine
He loved her.
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock to him. Every time the subject of his prospective marriage had been mentioned, it was Olivia his thoughts turned to. When he imagined standing before his people, taking on his father’s mantle, it was Olivia he wanted by his side. He didn’t know how he would have got through this last, nightmarish week without her calm presence in the palace to soothe him. But he had been so focused on all the reasons why he couldn’t have her that he’d forgotten to ask himself why he wanted her.
Olivia was beautiful, yes, but no more so than Aliya. She was intelligent and easy to talk to, but he had found Aliya surprisingly good company on the few occasions when they had met. True, he was sexually attracted to Olivia, while Aliya left him cold, but he didn’t love Olivia for the passionate way she kissed or the way she could set his pulse racing with a simple touch of her hand.
There were no reasons except one. She was Olivia and that was why he loved her. His Livvy, who made him feel alive. And she was right, as she always was. He couldn’t marry another woman while he was in love with her. He would have to stop it, and fast. He needed to speak to his father, and then he needed to speak to Aliya.
Khaled waited in the ostentatious entrance to the stateroom, watching for the moment when she arrived. At their previous meetings, Aliya had been dressed in the traditional Saqati outfit that hid everything and was supposed to drive a man wild wondering what lay beneath. Tonight, she had adopted a Western style of dress, with a fitted, beaded bodice and a long flowing skirt of pale pink silk.