him had her turning those cold eyes on Ranya in accusation. The other girl’s lovely cheeks flushed slightly in response, her soft lips mouthing a silent sound of apology.
‘Thank you, Ranya,’ Crown Prince Hashim murmured coolly. ‘You may leave us.’
‘No!’ It was sheer self-preservation that forced the protest from Evie’s throat. ‘Don’t leave me alone with him,’ she pleaded with Ranya.
Ranya looked uncertain suddenly. ‘Papa…’ She turned anxious eyes on him.
‘Go!’ he commanded. The voice was strong, dictatorial—yet right on the back of that harsh command came a sudden weariness. ‘Please, child,’ he added heavily. ‘Trust me. Give me some privacy to do what I have to do.’
With a rustle of silk and a touch of her hand to Evie’s arm in mute apology, Ranya obeyed without further hesitation. The door closed softly behind her, leaving a stifling silence behind.
Neither moved. Neither spoke. Evie felt that tension in her back increase to tingling proportions. Once again, the Crown Prince seemed to be waiting for her to say something, but once again Evie refused to utter a word until she knew exactly what it was she was dealing with here.
‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You are the golden icon my son was willing to forfeit his illustrious heritage for.’
‘I love your son,’ Evie threw back coolly. ‘Too much to expect him to do anything so drastic for me.’
‘A moot point,’ the old man said. ‘For he was prepared to do it with or without your blessing.’
‘I’m—sorry if that hurt you,’ Evie murmured stiffly. ‘But, as you and I both know, Raschid has a mind and a will of his own.’
‘Too true—too true,’ he ruefully acknowledged. ‘A fact that was brought home to me in the severest way possible. Call me arrogant if you wish, but I did not expect my son to defy me as he did,’ he confessed. ‘It came as a—shock to discover he had grown a strength of will that by far outstretched my own…’
He paused then to study her curiously, as if he was trying to discover what it was about her that had given his son such strength of will. Evie could have told him, but she was refusing to give this man anything.
Maybe he understood that. ‘Still,’ he shrugged. ‘Who am I to complain when Raschid is proving to be the kind of man I always prayed he would become? And I am sorry for frightening you with my unfair tactics while my son taught me this salutary lesson. There,’ he concluded. ‘Does that clear the air between us a little?’
‘Not if you’ve brought me here to repeat the offer,’ she said.
To her surprise he smiled. And it was like watching Raschid come to life in this older version. That smile flipped her heart over. ‘No.’ Ruefully he shook his covered head. ‘A lesson learned so painfully is usually an unforgettable one.’
He went quiet for a moment, his eyes clouding over with what Evie could only interpret as remorse. ‘The child is safe?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Your health is quite recovered?’
Evie gave a stiff nod in reply to both questions. But mistrust in his sincerity kept her lips tightly shut on the return query as to his own health.
His half smile told her he knew exactly why she was refusing to ask that question. ‘If you give my son this much trouble when he does something you do not like, then I pity him,’ he drawled. ‘Please…’ he then said suddenly. ‘Will you come and sit?’
Evie’s instinct was to refuse. She had no wish to move one inch away from this door behind which lay relative safety. But it suddenly struck her that he wasn’t standing so tall as he had been—as if the strength was slowly seeping out of him.
Like his son, she realised, good manners were bred into him. Love her or hate her, he could not bring himself to sit while a lady remained standing.
And, determined though she was not to soften her feelings towards him, neither could she keep a sick man standing when it wasn’t necessary. So she moved warily across the cluttered room to the other wing-backed chair set across the fireplace from the one the Prince had been sitting in when she arrived.
He waited until she sat down on the edge of it before he lowered himself carefully into the other one.
‘Thank you,’ he sighed, easing himself back into the chair then wearily closing his eyes.
An uncomfortable feeling of concern began to gnaw at her. ‘Are you all right?’ she felt constrained to ask. ‘Would you like me to get someone?’
‘No, no.’ He refused the offer. ‘I can sit, I can lie, but I must not stand for long periods,’ he explained. Then his eyes suddenly flicked open, homing in like two sharp golden lances on her face. ‘I offer you this information because I understand that you are loath to request it,’ he said with a small wry smile that made her rather disturbingly aware of just how easily he was seeing through her.
Just like his son.
Then his eyes were suddenly darkening into true gravity. ‘Despite your opinion of me, I am not a barbarian,’ he grimly announced. ‘I do not kill babies.’
Instantly Evie’s chin came up, her lavender-blue eyes filled with damning scepticism.
‘You may believe that or not.’ He coolly dismissed her expression. ‘For as it stands I am guilty as charged of attempting the subtle bribe to get you out of my son’s life,’ he admitted. ‘But the other suggestion presented to you was most definitely not sanctioned by me.’
‘Are you saying that the bed reserved in the private clinic was not your doing?’ Evie questioned.
The nod of his covered head confirmed the point. ‘Though I can accept,’ he added, ‘that I must have given the impression that it would have been better if the coming child had not been conceived or my ill-chosen messenger would not have taken the initiative upon himself to add such a grave suggestion in my name. Needless to say—’ he shrugged ‘—Jamal Al Kareem no longer holds such a trusted position in my employ—or any other position, come to that.’
‘If this is the truth, why hasn’t Raschid told me all of this?’ Evie was already questioning the truth in what he was saying here, for there was no doubt in her mind that Raschid would have rushed to tell her—if only to help clear his father’s name.
But the Crown Prince was shaking his head. ‘Raschid cannot tell you what he does not know,’ he said, then added with a shrug and a grim smile, ‘He would kill the man if he discovered this. Better I continue to shoulder the blame than have my son imprisoned for murder in one of our own jails. He will learn to forgive me in time, you see. Whereas you,’ he added shrewdly, ‘I suspect will never forgive—or even let me get close to my grandchild if you continue to believe me capable of such a dastardly crime. Which is why, of course, I am making this confession to you.’
He was right, and Evie didn’t even bother to pretend otherwise. Now all she had to do was decide whether she could risk believing him or not.
Then she looked into that face that was so like Raschid’s face. Saw the pride there, saw what it was costing that pride for this man to make this confession to her, and at last felt the tension begin to ease out of her backbone.
