had she refused? Oh, no, she hadn’t refused him anything but immediate sexual gratification! How could she have been so understanding? So ready to make allowances and forgive? In a passion of denial and self-loathing, she peeled off the kaftan and stalked through to the bathroom to wash her face clean of make-up. In the dressing room she dragged out fresh underwear, a shirt and cotton trousers, choosing from her own clothes, not from the designer wardrobe he had bought her. She was leaving him, she was going home to her mum. He could get stuffed! He could keep the fancy togs and all the ancestral jewellery, as well. She set the diamond engagement ring on the chest by the bed. She wasn’t hanging on to that as though it were a sentimental keepsake! Her throat was thick with tears. It was better to travel light.
Tying her hair back, she put on a jacket and checked her passport. She ripped a sheet of paper out of a notebook and put it on top of the file, which she left lying on the bed. She wrote: ‘You don’t deserve me. I’m never coming back. I want a divorce.’
Only when she reached a side entrance of the palace did she appreciate that her bodyguards had seemingly come out of nowhere to follow her every step of the way. Consternation assailed her, because, not only had she hoped to make a sneaky exit, but she had also thought that she was barely recognisable in her plain and ordinary outfit.
‘You would like a car, Your Royal Highness?’ Musraf, the only English speaker in her protection team, asked with a low bow.
‘Yes, thank you. I’m going to the airport.’ Tilda endeavoured to behave as though a late run to the airport on her wedding night was perfectly normal. But the Royal Highness appellation almost totally unnerved her, because she had not known she was entitled to that label and it made anonymity seem even more of a forlorn hope.
Within minutes a limousine pulled up. Ushering her into it, Musraf enquired about the time of her flight.
‘I want to go to London-but I haven’t organised it yet,’ Tilda informed him loftily.
She was assured that all such arrangements would be made for her. A private room was made available to her the instant she arrived at the airport. There she sat for two hours before being taken out to a private jet with the colours of the royal household painted on the tail fin. She crept aboard, feeling it was rather cheeky to leave Rashad by fleeing the country in one of his own aircraft. As it occurred to her that a wife who vanished within hours of a state wedding would cause him rather more serious embarrassment than that, she came up with an invented cover story for Musraf to relay to Rashad.
‘Say my mother’s not well and that’s why I left in a hurry,’ she instructed him helpfully before take-off.
Dawn was breaking when the jet landed in the U.K. Tilda had slept several hours and felt physically refreshed, but her spirits were at rock-bottom. Her protection team stayed close and while she was struggling to work out how to dismiss them politely her mobile phone rang.
‘It’s Rashad,’ her husband murmured, making her stiffen in dismay. ‘I’ll see you at the town house in an hour.’
‘Are you saying that you’re in London, too?’ Tilda vented in a hastily lowered voice that was the discreet version of a shriek. ‘That’s impossible!’
‘One hour-’
‘I’m going to see Mum-’
‘One hour,’ Rashad decreed.
‘I won’t be-’
‘If you’re not there I will come to Oxford for you,’ Rashad informed her with ruthless clarity. ‘You are my wife.’
Her face burning, Tilda thrust the phone back in her bag. He must have flown out of Bakhar very shortly after she had. His wife? His accidental wife would have been a more accurate description. How many women got married without even getting a proposal? Her teeth gritted. Well, if Rashad was that determined to stage a confrontation, he could have one with bells on! She had done nothing to be ashamed of. Although dating him in the first place struck her as being a hanging offence; he’d looked like trouble with a capital T. From start to finish, that was what he’d proved to be.
But even as she fought in self-defence to keep her furious defiance at a high, she remained miserably conscious of how devastating she had found the contents of that file. Actually seeing in print the kind of stuff that Rashad had believed her capable of had ripped any sentimental scales from her eyes. Love was a total waste of time with a guy who could happily make love to a woman he believed to be a total slut. That file had also resurrected the terrible pain that he had inflicted on her five years earlier. Well, there would be no more of it. He had done enough damage.
It was closer to two hours before Rashad strode into the drawing room of the town house where, just six weeks earlier, he had enforced his terms for their relationship. From the window, Tilda had watched him arrive and her chest had tightened and her breathing had shortened as though she was on the brink of a panic attack. She didn’t want to notice that he looked drop-dead gorgeous in a very snazzy black designer suit. She didn’t want to feel a hot, quivery sensation of near dizziness when she inadvertently collided with his smouldering tawny gaze.
Dark vibrations of anger were rippling through Rashad. ‘You went into my briefcase to see that file.’
Her chin came up. ‘I’d have blown up a safe to get a look at that file and I’m really glad I did.’
‘That’s not and will never be an excuse to walk out on our marriage.’
‘I didn’t walk, Rashad. I ran! And where were you? What was your reaction to the discovery that everything you accused me of, everything you dared to think about me, was hopelessly wrong?’ Tilda demanded grittily, her wide eyes burning with tears. ‘You went for a shower.’
Rashad vented a phrase in Arabic that sounded like a curse. ‘I was in shock-I was upset-’
‘Since when did you do “upset”?’ Tilda threw at him bitterly. ‘I’ve seen you cold, angry, scornful, silent. I’ve never seen you shocked or upset. Heaven forbid that anyone might suspect you have any real emotions!’
Rising to that challenge, Rashad settled blazing golden eyes on her. ‘I was schooled from an early age not to reveal what I thought or I felt. Initially, that training was aimed at ensuring I had good manners, but before I was much older my safety and that of others often depended on my ability to stay in control. I have never had the freedom to parade my emotions as you do.’
Reminded of his background, Tilda squirmed and felt guilty, but she could not help feeling that her hurt was increased by the extent of his rigid self-discipline.
‘Of course I was upset,’ Rashad added in fierce continuance. ‘How could you doubt it? The filthy lies in that file destroyed what we had found together five years ago.’
Her lashes lifted on mutinous turquoise eyes. ‘No, you did that. You believed those filthy lies. You didn’t give me a chance, not one single chance to speak up in my own defence.’
Rashad spread lean golden hands in a sudden driven movement that betrayed the level of his stress. ‘I believed the source of that file to be above reproach. When I realised last night that the contents were an unforgivable tissue of lies designed to destroy our relationship, I had to know who was responsible. For that reason I approached my father first to find out if he had ordered the fabrication of that file.’
‘Your father?’ she echoed in surprise.
His lean, strong face was set in grim, angular lines. ‘He was most distressed when I showed it to him. He had never seen it before.’
Fabrication or not, Tilda was aghast at him having showed that file to King Hazar. ‘You actually showed the file to him?’
Rashad expelled his breath in a taut hiss. ‘I wanted him to see for himself how you were maligned. He was appalled because he believes that he was indirectly responsible. He was concerned when I told him five years ago that I wanted to marry you.’
‘You wanted to marry me way back then?’ Tilda whispered in utter astonishment at that declaration.
‘Let me explain this without interruptions,’ Rashad urged, strain marking the set of his stubborn jaw line. ‘My father is a man who did not become a ruler until he was past middle age. When I met you, he was still new to the throne and nervous of many things. A son and heir proposing to marry a foreigner was a source of worry to him.’
‘Yes,’ Tilda conceded rather numbly.
‘He shared his anxiety with his closest adviser, who was at the time in charge of Bakhar’s secret service. No course of action was discussed. My father did not feel he could interfere. But when I later told him that my relationship with you was over, he did wonder if the adviser had taken independent action. But he chose not to
