And she realised that was the truth. She hadn’t lied to him when she’d told him she’d changed. She had found herself in Zurich and that had endowed her with a sense of self and a strength that even the Prince of Farrehed couldn’t take away.
‘You can take your lies, your money, and stick it up your...your royally wiped arse.’
‘My royally wiped...? Are you kidding me right now?’
‘No, Odir. I’m serious. Very serious. I will have that divorce. No matter what you do or say.’
* * *
Out across the river Big Ben began its peal, chiming the twelve strikes of midnight. Each tone crashed through him like an embodiment of impending doom.
Bong.
‘No, habibti. You won’t. Because you can’t.’
Bong.
Each chime prevented him from taking a breath. Each chime punctuated the air between them just as her words had.
‘Why do you need this so badly, Odir? Why can’t you let me go?’
She was always going to ask him the question, and he was always going to have to answer it.
There was an innocence, a wealth of curiosity in her words, because she knew nothing of what she was asking. But he would answer her. Just as he would answer the questions of the rabid press in eight hours’ time.
‘Because, Eloise, at seven this morning, Swiss time, my father died. I am now King of Farrehed.’
CHAPTER FIVE
August 2nd, 00.00-01.00, Heron Tower
FOR THE SECOND time in as many hours Eloise felt as if the world had turned on its axis and everything she’d thought she knew, thought she could trust in, was gone.
‘Dead? How can that be?’ she asked.
Despite her feelings for him, it seemed utterly impossible to her that Abbas, King of Farrehed, was gone. He had been so full of grit and determination. Even if that determination had often pointed in the wrong direction.
Odir’s father had seemed like an indestructible force of nature—not one who would ever leave this world. She knew that Odir and his father had had a difficult relationship. One that had been fraught with undercurrents she had barely been privy to. Odir had never discussed his father with her. Not once. Even before their marriage.
‘Three weeks ago he suffered a stroke and fell into a coma. The doctors tried everything they could,’ Odir said, blocking the painful memories of the last time he had spoken with his father and instead focusing on the words the doctor had shared with him over the phone only eighteen hours before.
He looked at his wife and suddenly wanted to reach out to her. Offer comfort at her obvious distress. And then he realised how ridiculous that was. Because surely it was he who should need comfort? He who should be in distress? But he searched his soul and all he felt was numb. A numbness that had descended long before his argument with his father three weeks before.
‘Why have we not heard about this? What are you doing in England? You should be in Farrehed.’
Her voice peppered him with the questions and accusations he had aimed at himself over and over again that day. But discussions with his brother, with his closest advisors, had all reached the same conclusion. For him to return to Farrehed and assume the throne—without contention from the tribes on the outskirts of Farrehed, from the neighbouring countries who were still trying to cash in on the secret deals his father had done—he would very much need Eloise by his side. To present a traditional, perfect royal family picture.
After all these years and everything he had done to prove himself—everything he had done in the name of bettering his country—it was still absolutely nothing, almost insignificant, without this woman on his arm.
‘I will return to Farrehed later today. With my Queen beside me.’
And finally he could see, dawning on his wife’s beautiful face, the true implications of this news. The true need he had for her to be by his side.
* * *
Even with shock after shock raining down on her, it surprised Eloise to find out just how much that hurt. That it wasn’t because of her, and it wasn’t born of any feelings for her that he wanted her back.
Even though she had suspected some ulterior need beneath Odir’s proposal, it had never been this. And it was then that Eloise realised she had been cherishing a small hope that perhaps her husband had wanted her for more than just a means to an end.
Not that she should be focusing on that. Odir had lost his father—Farrehed had lost its King. Eloise realised just as much as her husband clearly did that there was no way the country would survive without its Queen.
Even if she was only a means to an end Eloise wasn’t sure that she could turn her back on the country where she had spent two years. When she’d worked for the medical foundation she had found something that had made sense to her. She had fallen in love with the people and had loved Farrehed as much as she did her birth country.
But was that enough? Could she really sacrifice her happiness for Farrehed?
Eloise wanted to sink down onto one of the small white squares that littered the balcony, feeling the weight of just half of what Odir must be feeling, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She had been brought up better than that. She couldn’t crumble. Not if Odir had not.
‘Obviously you need some time to process this, Eloise,’ Odir said.
‘What? More time than you have allowed yourself?’
‘Stop fighting me. Please.’
It was the first time she’d ever heard that word fall from his lips. Please. There
