Carol Marinelli - Royal Temptation

‘I don’t know how to let you go,’ he admitted.

‘If you care for me you will. I love my family. They will be cross, yes, but you are not sending me to savages, Mikael—you are returning me to my family and to people who love me.’

He thought of her kitten-soft feet and how pampered and looked-after she had been, and of her father, who was devastated that she was missing and in agony that he might have lost her.

Mikael was in agony too.

‘Please, Mikael—please don’t make this worse for me than it already is.’

He couldn’t say no to her, and so he said yes to the most impossible task of his life.

‘We’ll do it at my chambers.’

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THEY WENT OVER and over their stories before Mikael would call Zahid.

‘I’ll have Wendy make up a bill for units of time.’

‘Reduce them!’ Layla gave a thin smile.

‘Yep—and I’ll add the hotel costs…’

‘The hotel?’

‘I’m sure they would have remembered you and called the police—your family will know by now that you stayed there, I’ll tell Zahid that you stayed between there and Demyan and Alina’s.’

He missed nothing.

Mikael called the hotel and asked them to send an amended bill—with the alcohol removed.

‘Thank you.’

He even rang Demyan and Alina, just to firm up her alibi.

‘ Every night,’ Mikael reiterated to Demyan in English, so that Layla heard it too, ‘and you or Alina would call me and say that she was okay, and then I would text Zahid. The other night the baby was upset and crying and you simply forgot till much later to call me.’

‘Okay,’ Demyan said. ‘Mikael, is there any way Layla can stay…?’

Mikael switched to Russian and Layla closed her eyes at his angry voice as he swore at his lifelong friend—because if there was any way Mikael would be utilising it now.

When he had ended the call Mikael switched back to being impassive, but Layla had glimpsed his anger and his pain and she knew he was hurting just as much as she was.

‘Okay, Demyan and Alina know what to say if asked.’

‘What if they mess up?’

‘Forget that,’ he said. ‘They’ll do the right thing by you.’

‘You need to call my brother now.’ Layla’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘My father will be flying from Ishla if there is no news by morning. I want him to know as soon as possible that I am safe. He is ill…’ She was starting to panic—not for herself but her father. ‘Mikael, my father is sick and no one must know that. I should not have done this when he is so ill…’

‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Zahid now.’

‘I have been trouble, remember?’ she said as he punched in the numbers.

Zahid answered on the first ring. Mikael was certain he must have spent the last few days with his phone permanently to hand.

‘Your sister has asked that you collect her,’ Mikael told Zahid, and gave his address. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘Yes, I put her in a hotel, but you were right—she’s completely incapable and so I had a couple I know looking out for her.’ His voice changed to irritated. ‘They happen to have just had their first baby, so having your sister dumped on them was a huge inconvenience—’

Mikael pulled the phone from his ear. Zahid had hung up on him.

‘How did he sound?’

‘Relieved—which will soon turn to angry,’ Mikael warned. ‘But that’s normal, and it will be the same for your father. It was the same for me when you didn’t come back to the hotel that night.’ He took her in his arms. ‘Then, when they’ve calmed down, they’ll remember how relieved they are because they love you. As do—’

‘No.’ She stopped him before he could say it. ‘Those words belong between a husband and wife.’

He poured two glasses of sparkling water, added lime and ice and placed one either side of the desk as they took their seats.

‘Have you any mints?’ she asked, and he took a packet from his pocket and rolled them across the desk.

She didn’t take one; instead she put them in her tunic—she would keep them for ever.

She wrote him a note and folded it. ‘Read it when I am gone.’

‘Is it in English?’

‘No,’ Layla said as he pocketed it, and tried with all she had to make their parting easy on him. ‘It will be good to get back to my students.’ She gave him a smile, for it was surely kinder to do that than to cry. ‘And you can get back to your cases and your blonde girlfriends…..’

He said nothing—just looked at her for the very last time.

Sooner than they could ever be ready the intercom buzzed.

‘They’re here,’ Wendy said.

Mikael knew he was tough, but he wasn’t a patch on Layla. She put on her brightest smile and sat, her eyes rolling, as a furious Zahid marched in.

Then she stood and screamed at him in Arabic.

‘English, please!’ shouted a blonde woman—presumably Trinity. ‘I want to know what the hell has been going on too!’

‘I want to know why you called Father!’ Layla shouted. ‘All this could have been kept between us…’

‘We didn’t call your father,’ Trinity said. ‘Zahid said to leave it, to keep it between us. It was Jamila who couldn’t…’

‘How dare she step in?’ Layla flared. ‘How dare a lowly servant—?’

‘That so-called lowly servant held you the day you were born.’ Zahid was livid. ‘That lowly servant loved you when your parents…’ He halted.

Mikael noted it.

‘Go and take your fury to Jamila, Layla. Go and shout at an old woman who has been weeping for days over you,’ Zahid said. ‘You are a spoiled brat and you always have been. Well, you got your way again—no matter the cost to everyone else. So, what have you been doing?’

‘Having fun!’ Layla shrugged. ‘The same sort of fun you and Trinity have always had.’

‘What sort of fun ?’ Zahid demanded.

‘Expensive fun,’ Mikael said.

‘And you’ve paid for it for she had no money with her?’ Zahid’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Mikael. ‘Why would you do that?’

‘I had a retainer.’ Mikael opened the safe and displayed the ruby. ‘I’d prefer a wire transfer.’

The room was starting to calm down.

‘Can I see your expenses?’

Mikael buzzed Wendy and asked her to bring in the current bill for Layla.

‘Today hasn’t been added yet,’ Mikael said, and handed the paper to Zahid, who scrutinised it for a few moments. So too did Trinity, who frowned.

‘How can you spend more than five hundred dollars on apples?’ Trinity asked, but that was the least of Zahid’s concerns.

‘These friends of yours…?’ He turned to Mikael. ‘I wish to speak with them.’

‘I doubt that they wish to speak with you ,’ Mikael responded coolly. ‘Layla says that you two are expecting a baby of your own. Remind me to dump a problem like Layla in your lap a couple of days after your baby is born.’

‘Zahid…’ Trinity was the voice of reason. ‘She’s safe—that’s all you need to know.’

Mikael watched as Zahid’s jaw gritted and knew that Layla’s brother was struggling to hold back tears of relief.

Layla was right: they loved her.

‘We will go,’ Zahid said, and glanced briefly over to Mikael. ‘Your account will be settled as soon as I return to Ishla. Or now, if you—’

‘When you return to Ishla is fine.’

‘Come,’ Zahid said to Layla. ‘We do not discuss our business in front of strangers.’

Mikael handed over the ruby and glanced at Layla, who looked defiant, angry, happy—a strange combination only she could manage.

She shot him a brief smile.