He pressed a button and the dark tinted window slid up. She could no longer see him but he could see her.
‘What’s happening to me?’ She managed to wrench the question from her aching throat as she watched the sleek car draw away.
She had not directed the question at anyone in particular so she started when Rafiq, the man of few words, responded.
‘My instructions are to take you to Dr Raini’s home.’
He tipped his head in the direction of the open car door, clearly expecting her to get in. It hadn’t even crossed his mind that she wouldn’t.
Hannah felt a tiny bubble of rebellion. She’d had her independence taken away from her during the past few days, and she would not allow it to happen again. She would not become some decorative, docile wife producing stage-managed performances to enhance her husband’s standing, only to become invisible when she was not needed.
Then show a bit of backbone, Hannah.
She lifted her chin and didn’t move towards the open car door. ‘I don’t need a doctor.’
The big man, who looked thrown by her response, took his time before responding. ‘No, you misunderstand. She is not that sort of doctor. She is a professor of philosophy at the university. She will help you dress for the ceremony, and will act as your maid of honour.’
He stood by the door but Hannah stayed where she was.
‘What about my father?’
‘I believe your father is to meet you at the royal chapel.’
The mention of a chapel drew her delicate brows into a bemused frown. She recalled the rest of the article in the Sunday supplement where she had garnered most of her knowledge about Surana—as well as being a peaceful melting pot of religions, the country was known for its royal family being Christian, which made them a rarity in the region.
After the car left the airport it turned onto a wide, palm-fringed boulevard where the sun glinted off the glass on the tall modern buildings that lined it. From there they entered what was clearly an older part of the city, where the roads were narrow and the design less geometric.
The screen between the front and back seat came down.
‘We are nearly there, miss.’
Hannah nodded her thanks to Rafiq and realised they had entered what appeared to be a prosperous suburb. Almost immediately she had registered the air of affluence, and their car turned sharply through an open pair of high ornate gates and into a small cobbled courtyard hidden from the street by a high wall.
The driver spoke into his earpiece as the gates closed behind them and a suited figure appeared. The big bodyguard spoke to the man and then, with the manner of someone who habitually expected to find danger lurking behind every bush, he scanned the area before opening the door for her.
Hannah’s feet hit the cobbles when the wide wooden door of the three-storey whitewashed house was flung open.
‘Welcome. I’m Raini, Kamel’s cousin.’
The professor turned out to be an attractive woman in her mid-thirties. Tall and slim, she wore her dark hair in a short twenties bob, and her smile was warm as she held out her hands to Hannah.
‘I’d ask what sort of journey you had but I can see—’
The kindness and genuine warmth cut through all Hannah’s defences and the tears started oozing out of her eyes. Embarrassed, she took the tissue that was pushed into her hand and blew her nose. ‘I’m so sorry, I don’t normally, it’s just...I know I look like a nightmare.’
The woman gave her a hug and ushered her into the house, throwing a comment over her shoulder to the bodyguard as she closed the door very firmly behind them.
Hannah half expected the door to be knocked down; her respect for the woman went up when it wasn’t.
‘No need to apologise. If I’d been through what you have I’d be a basket case.’
‘I am.’ Hannah blinked. Inside the house was nothing like the exterior suggested: the décor was minimalist and the ground floor appeared to be totally open-plan.
‘Of course you are.’ She laid a comforting hand on Hannah’s arm. ‘This way,’ she added, and opened a door that led into a long corridor. Several of the doors lining it were open, and it appeared to be a bedroom wing.
The older woman caught Hannah’s bewildered expression. ‘I know, it’s bigger than it looks.’ She smiled sympathetically. ‘I’d love to give you the guided tour and I know you must be dead on your feet but we’re on the clock, I’m afraid. Just in here.’ She pushed open a door and waited for Hannah to enter ahead of her.
It was a big square room with tiled floors. One wall had French doors and another a row of fitted wardrobes. The large low platform bed was the only piece of furniture in the room.
‘I know, bleak. I love clutter, not to mention a bit of glitz, but Steve is a minimalist with borderline OCD.’ The thought of Steve, presumably her husband, brought a fond smile to her face.
The look reminded Hannah of what she wouldn’t have, what she had refused to acknowledge she still wanted. She looked away, conscious of a pain in her chest, and sank down onto the bed. It was a long way down but she barely noticed the soft impact as she landed on the deep duvet. She lifted her hands to her face and shook her head.
‘None of this should be happening.’
Watching her, the other woman gave a sympathetic grimace. ‘I know this isn’t how you envisioned your wedding day,’ she said gently, ‘but really it’s not the wedding that counts. Everything that could go wrong did at mine. It’s the person you’re going to spend the rest of your life with that matters. How did you and Kamel meet?’
Hannah lifted her head. ‘Sorry?’
The other woman misinterpreted her blank look. ‘Don’t worry, it’s a story for another day, I’m just so glad he’s found someone. All that playboy stuff, it was so not like him, but he isn’t as bad as those awful tabloids painted him, you know.’
‘I never read the tabloids,’ Hannah responded honestly.
The other woman patted her hand and Hannah, who was more confused by these tantalising snippets of information than she had been before, realised two things: that his cousin thought the marriage was for real, and that she would be married to a man who, even his very fond cousin had to admit, had a horrific reputation.
‘I prayed he’d recover from Amira one day, but when you lose someone that way...’ She gave an expressive shrug. ‘I ask myself sometimes, could I have been as noble if I knew that Steve had fallen for someone?’
For a moment a frustrated Hannah thought the flow of confidences had ended, but then Raini’s voice dropped to a confidential whisper.
‘Amira told me that Kamel said she’d make a beautiful queen, and that all he wanted was for her to be happy. He and Hakim were like brothers—talk about triangles.’
Hannah gave a non-committal grunt, struggling to put the people and places mentioned in context, and then she remembered what he had said: ‘She found him...preferable.’ This love that Hannah was meant to be replacing was the woman who had married Kamel’s cousin, only to lose her life in the plane crash that had moved Kamel up the line of succession. He had acted as though he didn’t care but if his cousin had it right...? She shook her head, struggling to see the man who had showed her zero empathy caring for anyone. It was almost as strange an idea as him being rejected. Whether he wore a crown or not, Kamel was not the sort of man women ran away from.
‘She would have, too.’
Hannah wrenched her wandering thoughts back to the present and shook