‘I’m not used to palaces. I’ll never be used to palaces. I hate them and I hate him!’ Then it all came tumbling out—the whole story.
‘I knew something was wrong,’ Sarah said as she piled sugar in a cup of tea and made Hannah drink it. ‘I don’t know what to say, Hannah. I really don’t.’
‘There’s nothing to say. I’m sorry I dumped on you like this.’
‘Heavens, girl, that’s what I’m here for. You know I’ve always thought of you as my second daughter.’
‘I wish I was,’ Hannah replied fiercely, envying Eve her mother. ‘Dad thinks I’m all right with it. You won’t tell him, will you? I worry so much that the stress will...’ She didn’t have to explain her worries to Sarah, who knew about the heart attack. She’d been with Hannah when she’d got the call and had travelled with her to the hospital.
Having extracted a firm promise that Sarah would not reveal how unhappy she was, Hannah made her way to the guest room and discovered that Sarah had not exaggerated about the makeover.
She explored the luxurious bedroom. An opulent silk curtained four-poster bed occupied one end of the room. She quickly looked away, but not before several illicit images slipped through her mental block. Her stomach was still flipping lazily as she focused on the opposite end of the room where a bathtub deep enough to swim in sat on a raised dais.
Behind it there were two doors. One opened, she discovered, into a massive wet room—she pressed one of the buttons on a glass control panel that would have looked at home in a space station and the room was filled with the sounds of the ocean. Unable to locate a button that turned it off, she closed the door and pushed open the other door. The lights inside automatically lit up, revealing a space that was the size of her entire flat, lined with hanging space, mirrors and shelves.
It was not a full wardrobe, but neither was it empty. The selection of clothes and shoes that were hung and neatly folded were her own. Shoes, bags, underclothes—there was something for every occasion, including an obvious choice for this evening where all eyes would be on her. She pushed away the thought of the evening ahead and lifted a silk shirt to her face. Feeling the sharp prick of tears behind her eyelids, she blinked them back.
After the last few days Hannah had imagined that nothing could shock her ever again. But when she opened the large velvet box on the dressing table and looked at the contents displayed on the silk lining, she knew that she had been wrong!
* * *
Kamel glanced at the closed door, then at his watch. He was expecting her to be late and he was expecting her to be hostile; she was neither. At seven on the dot the door opened and his wife stepped into the room.
Kamel struggled to contain his gasp. He had seen her at her worst and that had been beautiful. At her best she was simply breathtaking. The satin gown she wore with such queenly confidence left one shoulder bare, Grecian style. The bodice cut snugly across her breasts, continued in a body-hugging column to the knee where it flared out, sweeping the ground. Her skin against the black glowed with a pearly opalescence.
The silence stretched and Hannah fought the absurd urge to curtsey. What was she meant to do—ask for marks out of ten?
Anxiety gnawed her stomach lining and tension tied the muscles in her shoulders but her expression was serene as she took a step towards him and fought the ridiculous urge to ask for his approval. ‘Am I late?’
‘You are not wearing the diamonds,’ he said, noticing the absence of the jewels he had had removed from the vault that morning.
‘I’m a “less is more” kind of girl.’ She could not explain even to herself her reluctance to wear the jewels.
He arched a sardonic brow. ‘And I’m an “if you have it flaunt it” sort of guy.’
‘All right, I’ll put them on,’ she agreed without good grace before sweeping from the room. ‘Satisfied now?’ she asked when she returned a short while later wearing the jewellery. On the plus side, nobody would be looking at her now—they’d be staring at the king’s ransom she wore.
Hannah watched the lift doors opening and felt her stomach go into a steep dive. She did not question the instinct that warned her not to be in an enclosed space with this man. She picked up her skirt in one hand. ‘I’m fine with the stairs.’
‘I’m not.’
Not anticipating the hand against the small of her back that propelled her forward, she tensed before retreating into a corner and standing there trying not to meet her own eyes in the mirrors that covered four walls of the lift.
She exited the lift a step ahead of him, almost falling out in the process.
‘Relax.’
The advice drew a disbelieving laugh from the resentful recipient, who turned her head sharply and was reminded of the chandelier earrings she wore as they brushed her skin. ‘Seriously?’
The man had spent most of their flight giving her a last-minute crash course in how princesses were meant to behave. The consequences of her failing had not been spelt out, but had left her with the impression the political stability of a nation—or possibly even a continent—could be jeopardised by her saying the wrong word to the wrong person or using the wrong fork.
So no pressure, then!
‘If I’d been listening to a word you said I’d be a gibbering wreck, but happily I’ve started as I mean to go on. I tuned you out.’ She smiled at his expression, catching the flicker of shock in his eyes, and chalked a mental point in the air. Then, producing a brilliant smile, she laid a hand on his arm as they reached the double doors of the ballroom.
‘I do know how to work a room, you know.’
Despite the assurance, she was actually glad to enter the room beside a figure who oozed authority. She’d been acting as a hostess for her father for years, but it was a shock to find few faces she recognised in the room.
Despite her initial misgivings, a glass of champagne later she was circulating, accepting congratulations, smiling and doing a pretty good job of lying through her clenched teeth. Until she saw a familiar figure. She went to wave, and then the man he was speaking to turned his head.
She knew, of course, that her father and Rob Preston still saw one another on a personal and professional level, but her ex-fiancé had never been invited to any event when she was present previously.
Hannah moved across the room to where her father stood chatting.
‘Excuse me, can I borrow my father for one minute?’
‘What’s wrong, Hannah?’
‘Rob is here!’
‘He is one of my oldest friends. You’re married now, and I think it’s time we drew a line under what happened, if Rob is willing to forgive and forget.’
‘I should too.’ She took a deep breath. This was what happened when you put your pride before the truth. ‘You’re right, Dad. Fine,’ she said, thinking that it was so not fine.
As the party progressed a few people began to drift outside into the courtyard, and Hannah joined them, having spent the evening avoiding Rob, who to her relief had shown no inclination to speak to her.
With the tree branches filled with white lights and the sound of laughter and music from inside drifting out through the open doors, it was a magical scene. Most people had sensibly avoided the damp grass and remained on the paved area around the pool, laughing and talking, all except a middle-aged couple who reappeared from amongst the trees. The woman’s hair was mussed and her shoes were in her hand.
Hannah looked down at her own feet—they ached in the high heels that matched her gown. She wriggled her cramped toes, forcing blood back into the cramped extremities and wincing at the painful burn. What page on the princess handbook said you weren’t allowed to take off your shoes