in a muted tone, and in his own language. To her ears, he seemed calmer, happier. Perhaps the Princess was very beautiful and he’d relented. Digging her fingers into her palms until her nails cut the skin, she was glad he was talking in Khalifan. She couldn’t bear to hear the truth as written by her imagination.
‘Take refreshments before you go,’ she heard Khalid say in English. ‘I will follow you back to the palace in due course.’
She clung to the tent pole, feeling dizzy as she waited for the men to leave. Being hidden in the pavilion should have been wake-up call enough. She could only ever be hidden away. She could choose to be his mistress, even now. The offer had never been rescinded. Think of the engines she could work on, while she waited for him to find time for her.
Even humour couldn’t help her now, Millie concluded; she was long past laughing at this situation. And she couldn’t fudge how she felt when he came to find her.
‘Millie?’
Her head was swimming. For the first time in her life, she didn’t feel strong, or capable, she felt faint, physically, mentally, and it must have shown. As if alarmed by her pallor, Khalid took hold of her arm and drew her to him. The pretence was over. A prospective bride with ironclad credentials was waiting at the palace in his capital city. There was no place for Millie in Khalid’s life going forward. ‘I’ve always known this had to end,’ she said, smiling as she tried to make it easy for him. ‘I just didn’t think it would happen so soon. But,’ she added in a fiercely upbeat tone, ‘better now, and quickly, than death by a thousand cuts.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ he demanded. ‘Didn’t you hear me send them away? This is not the end, unless you want it to be the end. We can have as long as you want.’
As his mistress, she thought. A muscle flicking in his jaw betrayed his tension as he waited for her answer.
‘You’ve spent too long away,’ she said, ‘and the country is missing you. It’s time for us both to go home.’
He held her at arm’s length so he could stare into her face. ‘I don’t regret a moment of this.’
That sounded like a death knell.
Dreams, she mused as she stared into Khalid’s harsh, warrior face. They all had to end somewhere, and she would never hurt him by prolonging this. How could she hurt the man she loved?
‘Nothing has changed,’ he insisted. ‘Those men answer to me.’
‘But I don’t,’ she said.
There was a silence, as if he needed to come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t a princess to be paraded in front of him for his approval, but Millie, the laundress, soon to be engineer, who made her own decisions.
Millie could deliver a rebuke with her silent defiance more effectively than with a million words. His men would go back to the palace, and send the Princess and her family away, but the damage was done. The expression in Millie’s eyes said this idyll was over, and it wasn’t up to him to change the rules. He would try to persuade her she was wrong, but Millie was her own woman, and would plough her own furrow. Wealth and status meant nothing to her. She looked for more meaning that that.
‘The Princess is one of many my royal council has asked me to consider. Our constitution allows the royal council to choose a bride for me—’
‘What?’ Millie exclaimed.
‘The law didn’t trouble Saif. He would have his women and his bride—’
‘And you’re different?’ she said, feeling faint, feeling unlike herself, feeling furious.
‘I will change the law,’ he said.
‘In time?’ And when he didn’t answer, she added, ‘I’ve no intention of waiting in line to learn if you’re engaged or married. I have a life too, and I need to be getting on with it. I can’t postpone everything each time you decide to go back to Khalifa to trial a prospective wife.’
‘I have no intention of trialling anyone—’
‘Then?’ she interrupted, tight-lipped.
* * *
She brought him up short, staring at him with such trust, when he knew he could offer her nothing. There would be an engagement. His country expected him to make an advantageous marriage, and he couldn’t put it off for ever.
‘So, it’s definite, then?’ she said.
He couldn’t lie to her and only briskly nodded his head.
‘Why prolong the agony?’ she demanded, lifting her chin, strong for both of them now. ‘I should go, and so should you. This is over.’
Something tore in his heart as she said the words that needed to be spoken. ‘I had planned to show you the desert.’
‘As I had planned to learn more about Khalifa,’ she agreed, ‘but that will never happen now. I think we both have to be realistic.’
She’d come through so much. Why must he be the one to hurt her like this?
‘Can you call for the helicopter, please?’ she asked briskly. ‘I’d like to leave now, or as soon as possible.’
He admired her so much. Nothing knocked Millie down, or, if it did, she soon bounced back again. ‘I’ll drop you at the airport when I leave,’ he agreed stiffly, knowing she was giving them both an easy way out. But she flinched, and he supposed he must have sounded clinical. After the wild passion they’d shared the contrast to this was just too stark. But he couldn’t hurt her, and the surest way of doing that was to keep her close.
‘One more night,’ he insisted, catching her close. ‘I’m not asking your permission,’ he added. ‘This is a direct order. We have one more night in each other’s arms.’
‘No. I can’t,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Or, you won’t?’ he asked softly.
‘Khalid, please, don’t you think this is hard enough without spinning out the agony?’
He now proved how ruthless he could be, and seduced her.
‘You don’t play fair,’ she complained in a shaking sigh.
‘That’s right, I don’t,’ he agreed.
* * *
The bed Khalid was backing her towards was composed entirely of down-filled pillows, covered in the softest, finest silk. In this fragrant shaded cool, he laid her down and then joined her as he continued to soothe and arouse. She knew it was wrong, but who could resist him when he lifted her and rested her buttocks on the cushions, and spread her legs wide?
‘No, we mustn’t,’ she said, thrashing her head.
‘I’d say, we must,’ he argued.
‘It will only make things worse,’ she said as she wavered between reason and need.
‘For you or for me?’ he
