his heart. She hadn’t even loved him, and the man she’d thought she loved… He wasn’t that man any more.
He leaned his head against the car’s leather seat as his driver pulled away from Lucy’s house onto the darkened street. Pain racked his body, but worse was the desolation that swept him as he considered Lucy’s words.
He didn’t want to feel that consuming emptiness again. It reminded him of the bleakest time in his life: alone in his hospital bed, refusing visitors, because for anyone—for Lucy—to have seen him like that—helpless, hopeless, with a crippling diagnosis—was more than he’d been able to bear. More than Lucy could have borne, even if she’d thought she could…
He’d seen what his kind of long-term diagnosis did to someone. He’d watched his father gaze at his mother, first in compassion, then pity, then disgust, and finally resentment and hatred. Oh, he’d disguised it, of course; his father had always been solicitous. But Khaled had seen it, his mother had seen it, and in the end it had caused her to wither away and die from despair rather than disease.
He wouldn’t let that happen to him; he wouldn’t let it happen to Lucy.
And it still wouldn’t, he reminded himself with harsh determination. He’d allowed himself a few moments of weakness. Lord, how he’d wanted, needed, to touch her! Even if he couldn’t have her for more than that moment.
He closed his eyes, battling against the images that danced through his mind anyway, enticing, impossible: Lucy in his bed. Lucy on his arm. Lucy as his wife, with Sam, a proper family…
The family he’d never had.
The family he couldn’t have.
Lucy didn’t want him. She didn’t want Khaled the cripple, she wanted Khaled the rugby star. The man he’d been—laughing, charming—the world as his oyster. That was the man the world had courted and admired, the man everyone had loved. The man Lucy had loved.
Not as he was now, both weakened and hardened. Weakened by his illness, the endless surgeries and rounds of therapy, the loss of the career he’d found his whole self in; hardened by his father’s constant mistrust and suspicion, his grudging admission of Khaled’s rights as prince, by four years of fighting for just one corner of the kingdom that would one day rightfully be his.
And Sam’s. This was all for Sam’s sake. The pain he’d have to endure living with Lucy—seeing her, needing her, and not having her, was for Sam. His son.
And that made it worth it, Khaled told himself. It had to.
A sudden, insistent trill had him flicking open his mobile. His mouth hardened into a grim line as he saw who was ringing him; it was the Biryali palace’s private number. His father. It was a conversation he’d been avoiding, and yet one he knew was inevitable. Setting his jaw, Khaled opened the connection and spoke into the phone.
The next few days passed in a flurry. It was strange, Lucy thought, how quickly Khaled had settled into their lives, how Sam—and even Lucy herself—had begun to expect his presence. Somehow the new had become routine. Lucy would set a third place at the table, and Sam would perch on top of the sofa, looking for Khaled’s sedan to come stealing softly down the street.
And yet, as each day slipped past, Lucy knew she needed to brace herself for irrevocable change. Sam and Khaled had both submitted to the DNA test, which had confirmed what had already been glaringly obvious. She’d taken Sam to the Birayli embassy, and with Khaled’s assistance a passport had speedily been arranged.
She spoke to the HR manager at work, and was reluctantly given a fortnight’s absence.
‘I suppose it’s important?’ Allie the manager asked with a raised eyebrow, and Lucy had smiled thinly.
‘Yes. Rather.’
Nothing was more important than Sam.
Questions niggled at her with insistent worry. How long did Khaled want Sam in Biryal? How often did he expect him to visit? It was a fourteen-hour flight; it was halfway around the world. For Sam’s sake, he couldn’t keep bouncing between England and Biryal; some kind of compromise would have to be made.
She just didn’t want to be the one to do it. Already her life had bent and stretched to a nearly unrecognisable shape; any more and Lucy was afraid it would break. Or that she would.
She knew she should consult a solicitor, or come to some formal custody arrangement with Khaled, yet she was unwilling to be the first to do so. Right now things were calm, cozy even, and though she knew it couldn’t last part of her wanted it to.
Yet how long did anything last?
And then suddenly, too soon, it was over, and a new phase began…Biryal.
‘This is the best aeroplane ever!’ Sam bounced in his seat, gazing round the sumptuous luxury of the Biryali royal jet with obvious delight.
Lucy leaned back in her own seat, her fingers nervously clicking and unclicking the metal clasp of her seat belt.
Smiling at Sam, Khaled reached over and covered her hand with his own. ‘You’re going to drive me crazy with that noise,’ he said, and Lucy gave a nervous little smile.
‘Sorry.’
‘Why are you so jumpy?’
She shook her head, unwilling, unable, to explain. Why was she so nervous? Why did going to Biryal feel like some kind of monumental, irrevocable step, so much more so than having Khaled in her life? Now she would be in his, and she didn’t know if there was a place for her.
‘Sam will love Biryal,’ Khaled said firmly. ‘Don’t worry.’
Lucy bit her lip and said nothing. Was that what she was afraid of—that Sam would love Biryal and his new life there more than the one she’d been able to give him? Was she actually jealous?
Lucy leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. The plane began to taxi down the runway, and within minutes they’d left the dank fog of London for cloudless blue sky.
Sam had started to fidget, and she busied herself organising him with an array of toy trains, glad to avoid talking with Khaled for a little while.
But of course she had to talk to him; she’d come to the conclusion several sleepless nights ago. Life was spiralling out of control, and it needed to stop. She needed stability. Safety. Security. And the only way to gain them was by talking to Khaled.
She waited until Sam had fallen asleep in his seat, exhausted from so much excitement, curled up with a fleecy throw tucked around him.
Khaled was sitting near the front of the plane, some papers spread out before him on a table. Lucy moved to sit across from him.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Work.’ Khaled smiled faintly and shrugged. ‘Trying to make Biryal a bit more of a tourist destination, and in so doing boost our revenue.’ He tapped the papers in front of him with a gold fountain pen. ‘These are plans for a luxury resort on the island—tasteful, in keeping with Biryal’s untouched beauty.’ There was a trace of irony to his voice, and he laughed aloud at Lucy’s expression. ‘You don’t think Biryal beautiful? But
