The pain rose within him until he felt it like a howl of misery within his chest, iron bands tightening around his wasted frame, squeezing the very life, hope and joy out of him.
‘Khaled, let me get you something. Some painkillers…’
Eric’s voice was receding, Khaled’s vision blacking. Still he managed to shake his head.
‘No. Leave me.’ He struggled to draw a breath. ‘Please.’ Another breath; his lungs felt like they were on fire. ‘Don’t…don’t speak to Lucy. Don’t tell her…anything.’ He couldn’t bear her to see him like this, even to know he was like this.
‘She’ll want to know—’
‘She can’t. It would…it wouldn’t be fair to her.’ Khaled looked away, his eyes stinging.
After a long moment, as Khaled bit hard on his lip to keep from crying out, Eric left.
Then Khaled surrendered to the pain, allowed the bitter sorrow and defeat to swamp him until he was choking with it, as the first drops of rain spattered against the window.
Four years later
LUCY BANKS craned her head to catch a glimpse of the island of Biryal as the plane burst from a thick blanket of cottony clouds and the Indian Ocean stretched below them, an endless expanse of glittering blue.
She squinted, looking for a strip of land, anything green to signal that they were approaching their destination, but there was nothing to be seen.
Breathing a sigh of relief, she leaned back in her seat. She wasn’t ready to face Biryal, or more to the point its Crown Prince, Sheikh Khaled el Farrar.
Khaled… Just his name brought a tumbled kaleidoscope of memories and images to her mind—his easy smile, the way his darkly golden eyes had caught and held hers across a crowded pub after a match, the fizz of feeling that one look caused within her, the bubbles of anticipation racing along her veins, buoying her heart.
And then, unbidden, came the stronger, sweeter and more sensual memories. The ones she’d kept close to her heart even as she tried to keep them from her mind. Now, for a moment, she indulged them, indulged herself, and let the memories wash over her, making her blush in shame even as her heart ached with longing. Still.
Lying in Khaled’s arms, late-afternoon sunlight pouring through the window, and laughter—pure joy—rising unheeded within her. His lips on hers, his hands smoothing her skin, touching her like a treasure, as their bodies moved, their hearts joined. And she’d been utterly shameless.
Shamelessly she’d revelled in his attention, his caress. She’d delighted in the freedom of loving and being loved. It had seemed so simple, so obvious, so right.
The shame had come later, scalding her soul and breaking her heart, when Khaled had left England, left her, without an explanation or even a goodbye.
She’d faced his teammates—who’d watched her fall hard, had seen Khaled reel her in with practised ease—and now knew he’d just walked away.
Lucy swallowed and forced the memories back. Even the sweet, secret ones hurt, like scars that had never healed, just scabbed over till she helplessly picked at them once more.
‘All right?’ Eric Chandler slid into the seat next to her, his eyebrows lifting in compassionate query.
Lucy tilted her chin at a determined angle and forced a smile. ‘I’m fine.’
Of all the people who had witnessed her infatuation with Khaled, Eric perhaps understood it—her—the best. He’d been Khaled’s best friend, and when Khaled had gone he’d become one of hers. But she didn’t want his compassion; it was too close to pity.
‘You didn’t have to come,’ he said, and Lucy heard the faint thread of bitterness in his voice. This was a conversation they’d had before, when the opportunity of a friendly match with Biryal’s fledgling team had come up.
She shook her head wearily, not wanting to go over old ground. Eric knew why she’d come as much as she did. ‘You don’t owe him anything,’ Eric continued, and Lucy sighed. She suspected Eric had felt as betrayed as she had when Khaled had left so abruptly, even though he’d never said as much.
‘I owe Khaled the truth,’ she replied quietly. Her fingers flicked nervously at the metal clasp of her seat belt. ‘I owe him that much, at least.’
The truth, and that was all; a message given and received, and then she could walk away with a clear conscience, a light heart. Or so she hoped. Needed. She’d come to Biryal for that, and craved the closure she hoped seeing Khaled face to face would finally bring.
Khaled el Farrar had made a fool of her once. He would not do so again.
Khaled stood stiffly on the blazing tarmac of Biryal’s single airport, watching as the jet dipped lower and prepared to land.
He felt his gut clench, his knee ache and throb, and he purposely kept his face relaxed and ready to smile.
Who was on that plane? He hadn’t enquired too closely, although he knew some of the team would be the same. There would be people he would know, and of course the team’s coach, Brian Abingdon.
He hadn’t seen any of them, save Eric, since he’d been carried off the pitch mid-match, half-unconscious. He’d wanted it that way; it had seemed the only choice left to him. The rest had been taken away.
And what of Lucy? The question slipped slyly into his mind, and he pressed his lips together in a firm line, his eyes narrowing against the harsh glare of the sun.
He wouldn’t think of Lucy. He hadn’t thought of her in four years. It was astonishing, really, how much effort it took not to think of someone. Of her.
The silky slide of her hair through his fingers, the way her lashes brushed her cheek, the sudden throaty chuckle that took him by surprise, had made him powerless to do anything but pull her into his arms.
Too late Khaled realised he was thinking of her. He was indulging himself in sentimental remembrance, and there was no point. He’d made sure of that. He doubted Lucy was on that plane, and even if she was…
Even if she was…
His heart lurched with something too close to hope, and Khaled shook his head in disgust. Even if she was, it hardly mattered.
It didn’t matter at all.
It couldn’t.
He’d made a choice for both of them four years ago and he had to live with it. Still. Always.
The plane was approaching the runway now, and with a couple of bumps it landed, gliding to a stop just a few-dozen yards away from him.
Khaled straightened, his hands kept loosely at his sides, his head lifted proudly.
He’d been working for this moment for the last four years, and he would not hide from it now. He wanted this, he ached for it, despite—and because of—the pain. It was his goal; it was also his reckoning.
Lucy squinted in the bright sunlight as she stepped off the plane onto the tarmac. Having come from a drizzly January afternoon in London, she wasn’t prepared for the hot, dry breeze that blew over her with the twin scents of salt and sand. The landscape seemed to be glittering with light, diamond-bright and just as hard and unforgiving.
She fumbled in her bag for sunglasses, and felt Eric reach for her elbow to guide her from the flimsy aeroplane steps.
‘He’s here,’ he murmured in her ear, and even as her heart contracted she felt a flash of annoyance. She didn’t need Eric scripting this drama for her. She didn’t