‘Would it make any difference if she did?’ She shook her head, not expecting an answer. ‘Will you go with her, Kal? While I don’t believe Rose is in any actual danger, I daren’t risk leaving her without someone to watch her back and if I have to ask your uncle to detail an Emiri guard, she’ll simply be exchanging one prison for another.’
‘Prison?’
‘What would you call it?’ She reached out, took his hand. ‘I’m desperately worried about her. On the surface she’s so serene, but underneath there’s a desperation…’ She shook her head. ‘Distract her, Kal. Amuse her, make her laugh.’
‘Do you want me to protect her or make love to her?’ he asked, with just the slightest edge to his voice. He’d done his best to live down the playboy image that clung to the al-Zaki name, but he would always be the grandson of an exiled playboy prince, the son of a man whose pursuit of beautiful women had kept the gossip writers happily in business for forty years.
Building an international company from the floor up, supporting Princess Lucy’s charities, didn’t make the kind of stories that sold newspapers.
‘Consider this as a diplomatic mission, Kal,’ Lucy replied enigmatically, ‘and a diplomat is a man who manages to give everyone what they want while serving the needs of his own country. You do want to serve your country?’ she asked.
They both knew that he had no country, but clearly Lucy saw this as a way to promote his cause. The restoration of his family to their rightful place. His marriage to the precious daughter of one of the great Ramal Hamrahn families. And, most important of all, to take his dying grandfather home. For that, he would play nursemaid to an entire truckload of aristocratic virgins.
‘Princess,’ he responded with the slightest bow, ‘rest assured that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Lady Roseanne Napier enjoys her visit to Ramal Hamrah.’
‘Thank you, Kal. I can now assure the Duke that, since the Emir’s nephew is to take personal care of her security, he can have no worries about her safety.’
Kal shook his head, smiling despite himself. ‘You won’t, I imagine, be telling him which nephew?’
‘Of course I’ll tell him,’ she replied. ‘How else will he be able to thank your uncle for the service you have rendered him?’
‘You think he’ll be grateful?’
‘Honestly? I think he’ll be chewing rocks, but he’s not about to insult the Emir of Ramal Hamrah by casting doubt on the character of one of his family. Even one whose grandfather tried to start a revolution.’
‘And how do you suppose His Highness will react?’
‘He will have no choice but to ask his wife to pay a courtesy visit on their distinguished visitor,’ she replied. ‘The opportunity to meet your aunt is the best I can do for you, Kal. The rest is up to you.’
‘Lucy…’ He was for a moment lost for words. ‘How can I…’
She simply raised a finger to her lips, then said, ‘Just take care of Rose for me.’
‘How on earth did you swing a week off just before Christmas, Lydie?’
‘Pure charm,’ she replied, easing her shoulder as she handed over her checkout at the end of her shift. That and a cross-her-heart promise to the manager that she’d use the time to think seriously about the management course he’d been nagging her to take for what seemed like forever. He’d been totally supportive of her lookalike career, allowing her to be flexible in her shifts, but he wanted her to start thinking about the future, a real career.
‘Well, remember us poor souls chained to the checkout listening to Jingle Bells for the umpteenth time, while you’re lying in the sun, won’t you?’
‘You’ve got to be kidding,’ she replied, with the grin of a woman with a week in the sun ahead of her.
And it was true; this was going to be an unbelievable experience. Rose had offered her the chance of a dream holiday in the desert. An entire week of undiluted luxury in which she was going to be wearing designer clothes—not copies run up by her mother—and treated like a real princess. Not some fake dressed up to look like one.
The euphoria lasted until she reached her car.
She’d told her colleagues at work that she’d been invited to spend a week at a friend’s holiday apartment, which was near enough to the truth, but she hadn’t told a soul where she was really going, not even her mother, and that had been hard.
Widowed in the same accident that had left her confined to a wheelchair, Lydia’s ‘Lady Rose’ gigs were the highlight of her mother’s life and normally they shared all the planning, all the fun, and her mother’s friends all joined vicariously in the excitement.
But this was different. This wasn’t a public gig. The slightest hint of what she was doing would ruin everything for Rose. She knew that her mother wouldn’t be able to resist sharing such an incredible secret with her best friend who’d be staying with her while she was away. She might as well have posted a bulletin on the wall of her Facebook page.
Instead, she’d casually mentioned a woman at work who was looking for a fourth person to share a last-minute apartment deal in Cyprus—which was true—and left it to her mother to urge her to grab it.
Which of course she had.
‘Why don’t you go, love?’ she’d said, right on cue. ‘All the hours you work, you deserve a break. Jennie will stop with me while you’re away.’
That the two of them would have a great time together, gossiping non-stop, did nothing to make Lydia feel better about the deception.
Kal had been given less than twenty-four hours to make arrangements for his absence, pack and visit the clinic where his grandfather was clinging to life to renew the promise he’d made that he should die in the place he still called home.
Now, as he stood at the steps of the jet bearing the Emir’s personal insignia, he wondered what His Highness’s reaction had been when he’d learned who would be aboard it today.
It wasn’t his first trip to the country that his great-grandfather had once ruled. Like his grandfather and his father, Kalil was forbidden from using his title, using the name Khatib, but, unlike the old man, he was not an exile.
He’d bought a waterfront apartment in the capital, Rumaillah. His aircraft flew a regular freight service into Ramal Hamrah, despite the fact that they remained stubbornly empty. No one would dare offend the Emir by using Kalzak Air Services and he made no effort to break the embargo. He did not advertise his services locally, or compete for business. He kept his rates equal to, but not better than his competitors. Took the loss.
This was not about profit but establishing his right to be there.
He’d been prepared to be patient, sit it out, however long it took, while he’d quietly worked on the restoration of his family home at Umm al Sama. But he’d continued to remain invisible to the ruling family, his family, a stranger in his own country, and patience was no longer an option. Time was running out for his grandfather and nothing mattered but bringing him home to die.
He’d do anything. Even babysit a wimp of a woman who wasn’t, apparently, allowed to cross the road without someone holding her hand.
He identified himself to Security, then to the cabin crew, who were putting the final touches to the kind of luxury few airline passengers would ever encounter.
His welcome was reserved, but no one reeled back in horror.
A steward took his bag, introduced him to Atiya Bishara, who would be taking care of Lady Rose during the flight, then gave him a full tour of the aircraft so that he could check for himself that everything was in order.
He