The Sheikh's Collection. Оливия Гейтс
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arms crossed over her chest and a defiant expression on her face. ‘Go on, then. I can hardly wait.’
His eyes narrowed, because he could hear the vulnerability she was trying so hard to hide. But he needed to say this. No matter what the consequences. ‘I get it that you grew up in an unhappy home and that your mother felt trapped. But you are not your mother. Your circumstances are completely different.’
‘Not that different,’ she whispered. ‘Not when you treated me like that tonight. Like your possession.’
‘I’ve held up my hands for that. I’ve said sorry. I would tell you truthfully that I would never behave in that way again, but it’s too late.’
Her arms fell to her side. ‘What do you mean, too late?’
‘For us. I’ve tried to change and to adapt to being with you. I may not have instantly succeeded, but at least I gave it a go. But not you. You’ve stayed locked inside your own fear. You’re scared, Sara. You’re scared of who you really are. That’s what made you run away from Dhi’ban. That’s why you let your job consume you.’
‘My father gave me permission to go away to boarding school—I didn’t run away.’
‘But you never go back, do you?’
‘Because my life is here.’
‘I know it is. But you have family. Your only family, in fact. When did you last see your brother? I heard that you were at his wedding celebrations for less than twenty-four hours.’
Briefly she wondered how he knew something like that. Had he been spying on her? ‘I couldn’t stay for long...I was in the middle of an important job.’
‘Sure you were. Just like you always are. But you have vacations like other people, don’t you, Sara? Couldn’t you have gone over to see him from time to time? Didn’t you ever think that being a king can be a lonely job? Hasn’t his wife had a baby? Have you even seen your niece?’
‘I sent them a gift when she was born,’ she said defensively, and saw his mouth harden with an expression which suddenly made her feel very uncomfortable.
‘You might want to reject your past,’ he grated. ‘But you can’t deny the effect it’s had on you. You may hate some things about desert life—but half of you is of the desert. Hide from that and you’re hiding from yourself—and that’s a scary place to be. I know that. You were one of the reasons I knew I could no longer work for Murat, but what happened between us that night made me re-examine my life. I realised that I couldn’t continue playing a subordinate role out of some lingering sense of gratitude to a man who had plucked me from poverty.’ He looked at her. ‘But that’s all irrelevant now. I need to pack.’
Her head jerked up as if she were a puppet and somebody had just given the string a particularly violent tug. ‘Pack? What for?’ She could hear the rising note of panic in her voice. ‘What are you packing for?’
‘I’m going.’ His voice was almost gentle. ‘It’s over, Sara. We’ve had good times and bad times, but it’s over. I recognise that and sooner or later you will, too. And I don’t want to destroy all the good memories by continuing to slug it out, so I’m leaving now.’
She was swallowing convulsively. ‘But it’s late.’
‘I know it is.’
‘You could... Couldn’t you stay tonight and go in the morning?’
‘I can’t do that, Sara.’
‘No.’ She shrugged as if it didn’t matter. As if she didn’t care. ‘No, I guess you can’t.’
Her lips were trembling as she watched him turn round and walk from the sitting room. She could hear the sounds he made as he clattered around in the bathroom, presumably clearing away that lethal-looking razor he always used. A terrible sense of sadness—and an even greater sense of failure—washed over her as he appeared in the doorway, carrying his leather overnight bag.
‘I’ll collect the rest of my stuff tomorrow, while you’re at work.’
She stood up. Her legs were unsteady. She wanted to run over to him and tell him to stop. That it had all been a horrible mistake. Like a bad dream which you woke from and discovered that none of it had been real. But this was real. Real and very painful.
She wasn’t going to be that red-eyed woman clinging onto his leg as he walked out of the door, she reminded herself. Was she? And surely they could say goodbye properly. A lifetime of friendship didn’t have to end like this.
‘A last kiss?’ she said lightly, sounding like some vacuous socialite he’d just met at a cocktail party.
His mouth hardened. He looked...appalled. As if she had just suggested holding an all-night rave on someone’s grave.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said grimly, before turning to slam his way out of her apartment—leaving only a terrible echoing emptiness behind.
THE APARTMENT FELT bare without him.
Her life felt bare without him.
Sara felt as if she’d woken up on a different planet.
It reminded her of when she’d arrived at her boarding school in England, at the impressionable age of twelve. It had been a bitter September day, and the contrast to the hot desert country she’d left behind couldn’t have been more different. She remembered shivering as the leaves began to be ripped from the trees by the wind, and she’d had to get used to the unspeakably stodgy food and cold, dark mornings. And even though she had known that here in England lay the future she had wanted—it had still felt like being on an alien planet for a while.
But that was nothing to the way she felt now that Suleiman had gone.
Hadn’t she thought—prayed—that he hadn’t meant it? That he would have cooled off by morning. That he would come back and they could make up. She could say sorry, as he had done. They could learn from their mistakes, and work out what they both wanted from their lives and walk forward into the future together.
He didn’t come back.
She watched the clock. She checked her phone. She waited in.
And even though her pride tried to stop her—eventually she dialled his number. She was clutching a golden pen she’d found on the floor of the second bedroom—the only reminder that Suleiman had ever used the room as an office. He had loved this pen and would miss it, she convinced herself, even though she knew he had a dozen other pens he could use.
But he didn’t pick up. The phone rang through to a brisk-sounding male assistant, who told her that Suleiman was travelling. In as casual a tone as she could manage, she found herself asking where—only to suffer the humiliation of the assistant telling her that security issues meant that he would rather not say.
Where was he travelling to? Sara wondered—as she put the phone down with a trembling hand. Had he gone back to Paris? Was he lying in that penthouse suite with another blonde climbing all over him wearing kinky boots and tiny knickers?
With a shaking hand she put the gold pen down carefully on the desk and then she forced herself to dress and went into the office.
But for the first time in her life, she couldn’t concentrate on work.
Alice asked her several questions, which she had to repeat because Sara wasn’t paying attention. Then she spilt her coffee over a drawing she’d been working on and completely ruined it. The days seemed to rush past her in a dark stream of heartache. Her thoughts wouldn’t focus. She couldn’t seem to allocate her time into anything resembling order. Everything seemed a mess.
At the end of the week, Gabe called her into the office and asked her to sit down and she could see from