sure you’ve got it all worked out,’ he commented bitterly.
‘Don’t be angry,’ she begged. ‘I want you to know how much I appreciate this opportunity—’
‘Stop! Stop right now,’ he insisted. He was done with the emotional battering. ‘Make this project part of your final assessment at college.’
‘I will,’ she said, latching onto his cool tone with what he thought might even be relief.
They really wrung it out of each other, he thought as they stared unblinking into each other’s eyes. The bond between them was as tight as ever, and would remain so when their child was born, but when it came to the most basic human feelings they were both hopeless communicators.
‘I’ll miss you,’ Lucy said in a wry, offhand way, but her eyes were sad.
‘You don’t have to go home right away.’
‘I do,’ she insisted. ‘I’ve got your brief for the exhibition safe in my head, and we’ll keep in touch. We can talk online and make arrangements when my due date is closer.’
To discuss the future of their child via a screen over the internet reminded him of a child sitting on a suitcase, split between countries and two sets of people, one with generous hearts, who had wanted him to join them out of love they weren’t afraid to show, while the others’ social lives were more important. His worst nightmare was to be that type of parent. ‘I’ll be in touch regularly,’ he said.
‘Better that we get on with our lives,’ Lucy told him.
Raising barriers so neither of them could see the future was as much his fault as hers, he supposed. His loathing for her stepfather and the damage that man had done to Lucy quadrupled as she turned away to hide her tears. Once hurt, never mended, he thought as they faced up to the long journey home.
LEAVING QALALA WAS AGONY. Leaving on a commercial flight, which Lucy had insisted on taking, only made things worse, because she had to hide her emotions and pretend her heart wasn’t breaking. That shouldn’t have been too hard for someone who had learned to guard her feelings growing up, but it was, because she might be as buttoned up as Tadj, but surely they should have been able to talk and make plans for their baby? Wasn’t that more important than visits to a mine, and schemes for an exhibition?
They were both at fault, Lucy concluded. Tadj was duty-bound to Qalala, and refused to grant himself a private life, while she was equally inflexible when it came to remaining independent. Imagining Tadj marrying for the good of his country tore her up inside. It would destroy him, as well as his wife and any children they might have. Was that the reward of duty? If so, duty was a vindictive mistress, and it was up to Tadj to change things in Qalala. She couldn’t help with that, and must concentrate on moving forward to build a stable base for her child. If Tadj wanted to be involved in their baby’s upbringing, then so much the better, she would never stop him, but could she afford to put things on hold in the hope that he might?
As the aircraft soared high above the cloud line, she was sad for the things he’d miss. She wanted to share the first precious flutters of life with him, so he could feel the joy she felt at that moment. Maybe he’d had enough of her, and was glad to see her go. He hadn’t exactly helped her to pack, but once they’d returned to the fort he’d done everything possible to smooth her journey home. On the one hand, she’d been relieved, because there’d been no ugly scenes between them, but right up to the last minute she’d hoped he’d ask her to stay, so they could somehow work this out.
That was a fantasy too far, Lucy accepted with a sigh as she stared unseeing out of the small window at her side. Tadj’s position as the Emir of Qalala would always stop him following his heart. ‘I’ll get back to you,’ he’d said at the airport, where they’d both held in their feelings, parting with a dispassionate kiss on both cheeks.
‘About the job?’ she’d pressed.
‘About everything,’ he’d said, and then he’d turned and strode away with a phalanx of royal guards surrounding him, keeping everyone, including Lucy, at bay. That was Tadj’s life, his lonely life.
They’d have contact through their joint involvement in the Qalalan sapphire project, if nothing else, Lucy tried to reassure herself, and meanwhile she must concentrate on completing her studies and holding down her jobs. If Tadj delegated his side of the arrangements for their child to a member of staff, it would really hurt, but she’d have to get over that too. In this mood of absolute determination, she pulled out her sketch pad and started work on her initial design for the inaugural exhibition of the world-famous Qalalan sapphires.
* * *
Ruling Qalala ran through his veins alongside a rich vein of duty. Those two things had always been enough for him in the past, because he was devoted to his country and its people, but without Lucy in his life Tadj couldn’t rest, he couldn’t think straight, he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t function.
After the longest span of loneliness in his life, action was called for. It was long overdue. If such a thing as a eureka moment existed, this was it, Tadj concluded as he slammed down the lid on the latest stack of royal papers. The most important document of all wasn’t there. Hardly surprising, when it didn’t exist yet. Now he knew what he’d lost, and what he stood to lose, he was ready to fight, not just for Qalala, but for Lucy and their unborn child.
Having called an extraordinary meeting of the royal council, he read out the marriage act, and when his twenty-first-century advisors heard the pronouncements of a bygone age, they had to agree with him that changes must be made.
‘Do I take it that love is in the air?’ Abdullah, his childhood friend who sat on the council, and who had first shown Lucy around Wolf Fort, asked him with barely concealed excitement when the meeting had concluded.
‘It means I will marry a woman of my choice,’ he told Abdullah. ‘If she’ll have me,’ he added dryly, with a hint of humility that was wholly unaccustomed.
‘Lucy! I knew it!’ Abdullah exclaimed, practically dancing on the spot with excitement. ‘She’s a challenging one,’ he added as if that were the greatest praise, ‘and just what you need.’
Tadj hummed as he strode away to put the change in the law into operation.
* * *
He grunted with impatience as he disembarked his jet. Lucy would be seven months pregnant by now. That was how long it had taken to ‘speed along’ the change to the law in Qalala. What had she done to him? Was this love? The thought hit him like a thunderbolt.
Thankfully, being the Emir of Qalala, as well as one of the richest men in the world, came with advantages, one of which was access to the royal fleet of aircraft as well as a royal yacht, added to which were the lack of formalities confronting him when he landed in a foreign country. His yacht was berthed at King’s Dock, and he was soon on his way to join it.
He should never have let Lucy go, and he willed the limousine to travel even faster. Seven months pregnant. Only two months to go. Valuable time in a pregnancy. It wasn’t too late for him to share the birth of their child, but they still had to discuss the details of what would happen next, and Lucy had steered every conversation they’d had towards talk of the exhibition
