Hearing the longing in her sister’s voice, Allegra allowed herself to be pulled into the world of what if for the briefest moment. What if she had known love, enough to be sure her child would be emotionally secure? What if things had gone differently with Rahim, and she hadn’t burned every single bridge in sight to the ground.
Sharply rousing herself from her futile musing, she opened the bottle of water and poured it into a glass. After taking a careful sip, she glanced at her sister. ‘As far as I know, Grandmother was the only woman Grandfather loved. If there’s any more to these items, I’m sure he’ll let us know when he’s ready.’
Bianca sighed, then grimaced. ‘Practical Allegra, party pooper.’
The nickname rubbed her the wrong way, but Allegra kept her composure. After agreeing to meet her in the conference room an hour before it started, Bianca left.
Sliding back in bed, Allegra placed her hand on her stomach. This time the fissure cracked wider, filling her with a warm and protective emotion that made her heart lurch.
From the moment she’d found out, even not knowing which course she would take, she’d safeguarded her baby’s physical health. But Allegra knew she couldn’t ignore the tougher emotional aspect of her situation. She had to tell Rahim.
If nothing else for the fact that the baby she carried was the heir apparent to a desert kingdom. A kingdom whose ruler, she now knew, had been battling against severe odds to do the right thing for his people.
On her return, Allegra had commissioned a more thorough report on Dar-Aman and confirmed Rahim’s claim that things had ground to a halt the moment his mother had died. And in the almost two decades since, Dar-Aman had slipped into devastating decline. But in the past six months the changes Rahim had put into place were staggering. With the economy in free fall, most of the infrastructure rebuilding had been financed by his personal wealth. Contrary to her accusation that he was draining Dar-Aman’s resources to line his own pockets, he’d been doing the opposite.
No wonder he’d been livid.
Shifting in bed, Allegra hugged her pillow close and squeezed her eyes shut. She owed Rahim an apology, possibly more than one.
Taking a deep breath she formulated a plan. Her doctor had told her she would start showing in a little over eight weeks. Regardless of her personal feelings about it, she was fast running out of time to keep her secret to herself.
She would find a way to deliver the news to Rahim before Mother Nature did the job for her. She may have thoroughly and completely bungled her own life, but she owed her baby every decent chance to grow up with as much emotional security as she could provide. And that included giving him or her a chance to know both parents.
* * *
Allegra woke in a better frame of mind than she had since discovering she was carrying Rahim’s baby. She even managed to eat and keep down a whole slice of toast before Bianca knocked on her door at ten.
Together they headed to the vast conference room. As the keynote speaker, her seat was dead centre in the giant amphitheatre. All around her, seats soared to the ceiling, ready to be filled by men and women from all walks of life whose passion for rights for women burned as fiercely as hers.
For the first time in a long while, Allegra felt pride for what she’d accomplished. When her grandfather’s words whispered across her mind, she smiled and hugged it closer.
‘That’s better. You seem almost human this morning,’ Bianca quipped.
She laughed. ‘As opposed to...?’
‘Dead Barbie Walking?’
Allegra rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, right. I’ve never done anything remotely doll-like in my life, and you know it.’
Bianca smiled. ‘True. Your role has always been more of a fairy godmother stroke sister.’
We’re not fictional characters, Allegra... I prefer to live in reality, no matter how unpalatable it can be...
The stark words Rahim had uttered blazed across her mind. Would he find the reality of impending fatherhood unpalatable? Ice drenched her at the thought of a rejection she couldn’t rule out of her immediate future. As a child she’d bore the brunt of such a rejection from her own father. Was she wise to risk exposing her own child to such a fate?
‘Hey, what did I say?’ Bianca enquired anxiously.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing at all.’ Shaking herself free of the dread closing in on her, she plastered yet another fake smile on her face. ‘Tell me what I need to do.’
After a brief examination of Allegra’s face, her sister shook her head resignedly. ‘There are three cameras trained on you. We’re broadcasting live, but there’s a five-second delay in case anything extraordinary happens—please make sure it doesn’t or I’ll skin you alive. Once you’re done, I’ll feed the coverage to the smaller news channels and social media, then do the same for the guest speakers. I won’t bore you with the smaller details, but I’ve told your assistant to set aside an hour for you to do a few press junkets after lunch. And that’s it. Now go put some colour in those cheeks before everyone arrives.’
Allegra left the stage, conscious of her sister’s worry. Praying that she would hold it together for just a while longer, she went into the restroom, sat on the pedestal and concentrated on breathing.
The knock on the stall door sent her surging to her feet. ‘Yes?’
‘Allegra, are you okay?’ Zara asked. ‘Your sister sent me to find you. The conference is about to start.’
Startled, she glanced at her watch and realised she’d been in there half an hour. ‘Thanks, I’ll be right out.’
Rushing out, Allegra washed her hands and reapplied her lipstick. She didn’t need extra colour in her cheeks because her mortification had taken care of that.
Striding onto the stage, she offered quick smiles to her fellow speakers as she took her seat. In the time she’d been locked in the restroom the conference room had filled to capacity.
Allegra told herself the intense tingling along her spine was because she was the centre of attention. But as the organiser and first guests took the podium, the sensation escalated from a tingle to shivers of awareness that wouldn’t abate.
When her name was announced, Allegra rose on shaky legs and approached the podium. Reaching the lectern she adjusted the mic, and looked up.
Straight into the icily condemning eyes of Rahim Al-Hadi.
RAHIM STARED AT her from his seat on the front row. He had to hand it to her. Not once did her mask of professionalism slip, despite the tension that seized her body when their eyes met. A pulse of satisfaction went through him at the reaction. To everyone else, she was merely waiting for the applause to die down before she spoke. But Rahim had caught the tiny gasp which had escaped her parted lips and the darkening of her blue eyes before she regained her composure.
Had he received a cold, callous dismissal from her, he wasn’t sure that he would’ve been able to remain seated. The depths of her duplicity notwithstanding, the fact that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Allegra had been a mild irritation at first but then had grown into an insidious ache that he couldn’t seem to get rid of. Rahim hadn’t been able to understand it at first. He’d had great sex with countless faceless women, but never had he woken up to a gnawing bewilderment as to why a woman’s absence from his bed would disturb him enough to become a problem.
And Allegra had become a problem. Quite apart from helping herself to property that didn’t belong to her, her barbs about the state of his kingdom and the women in particular had stuck long after