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Mikael!
She wanted to scream his name, to plead for him to sort this, to go to bed now and wake up in a year in his arms to find out that it was all somehow over.
Instead she pushed open the bathroom door.
‘Can you take me back to my family now?’ she said. ‘I want my father to know that I am okay.’
Even the ocean was against them, for they slid through the water with rapid ease. Mikael wondered if there might be police waiting at his car—if their goodbye would take place right here—but as he approached, there his car was, as he had left it.
Layla looked at the silver car that had caught her eye before she had even met him, and as they approached Mikael examined the huge scrape down its side and tried to tell himself his more ordered life could return soon.
‘I loved driving,’ she said as he opened the door and she slipped into the passenger seat. ‘I have done all the things on my list and more.’
She put on her own seatbelt, albeit a bit clumsily, but if he neared her she would bury herself in his arms and plead for him to keep her for ever.
Wendy called on Mikael’s private number to say that the police had been in touch and had asked that he call them.
‘Thank you.’
He did not relay the news to Layla, and neither did she ask what the call was about; instead they drove in near silence, but as the city approached she turned the radio on.
‘Don’t.’
Mikael went to turn it off but she stopped him.
‘Let me hear.’
She was the headlines.
He heard her snort as the newsreader said that Princess Layla of Ishla suffered from seizures and might need urgent medical attention, but her mirth turned to a strangled sob as an interview with her father was played.
Even before the translation Mikael could hear grief and bewilderment in the old King’s voice.
The translation even procured a sniff from Mikael—for, as cynical as he was, and as much as he wanted to be angry with the man, he could hear the love.
‘I love my daughter; she is my most precious possession. Please, Layla, come back to your family. Please, whoever is hiding her, make sure she is safe. There is nothing for me if there is no Layla.’
Then there was a statement that said if there was no news by morning the King would travel to Australia to help in the search for his daughter.
It would be morning in Ishla in a few short hours, and at the sound of her father’s promise Layla issued her instructions.
‘Drop me near the hotel that Trinity and Zahid are staying at.’
‘I’m not just dropping you off,’ Mikael balked. ‘I will come and speak with your brother.’
‘No!’ she shouted. ‘No, you will not!’
‘You really think I’m just going to let you out of the car and drive away…?’
‘If you care about me that is exactly what you will do.’
It wasn’t supposed to end like this, Layla thought, resting her head on the window. It was supposed to end happily; she was supposed to leave smiling.
She wanted to cry, wanted Mikael to turn the car around and drive her to his home, but she must never let him see that.
‘Here!’ she said as they passed the café where she and Mikael had once shared breakfast. She knew the way to their hotel from there. ‘Drop me here.’
‘I can’t just—’
‘It was fun,’ she interrupted, her heart breaking. ‘Can we please just keep it at that?’
‘Layla—’
‘Please,’ she broke in, ‘stop the car and let me out.’
It was the hardest thing she had ever done.
Followed by the hardest thing Mikael had ever done.
Watching her get out and simply leave.
* * *
He walked into chambers and didn’t even have to tell Wendy not to speak. One shake of his head was all she got and he stepped into the cool dark of his office, trying to fathom that a few days ago he hadn’t even known her.
The best thing that had ever happened in his life had gone and he had had no choice but to let her go.
He felt as if there had been a death.
Yet he’d never mourned like this before.
He was breathing hard, just trying to get used to the idea of fifty or so years on the same planet as Layla without ever seeing her, when his intercom buzzed.
He ignored it.
‘Mikael?’ Wendy knocked at his door.
‘I don’t want to hear it!’ he shouted, and then turned as the door opened.
‘Yes, you do,’ Wendy said. ‘The café where you have breakfast just called. Layla’s there, apparently. They saw her on the news but instead of calling the police they have called you.’
‘Tell them to take her out to the back!’
‘They’ve tucked her away in a booth and put reserved signs on all the tables near her. Layla doesn’t know that they’ve called you.’
Mikael ran.
He almost flew into the café, to see the smile of Joel.
‘Layla’s fine,’ Joel said as he walked Mikael over. ‘Well, she’s crying. She came and asked if we had any coffees on sub. I don’t think she really gets the concept, but she’s so gorgeous who could say no to her?’
Not Joel—and certainly not Mikael.
Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she nursed her coffee and Mikael knew he was glimpsing the real Layla—the one who hid deep beneath the shining surface, the Layla he had been so privileged to get to know even just a little.
‘Why are you crying in your coffee?’ he said, and saw her jump a little.
And then she looked up and did not even try to wipe her tears.
‘I’m very confused, Mikael,’ she admitted. ‘It was supposed to be fun. I did everything I ever wanted and I don’t understand why I feel so sad.’
Mikael moved into the seat opposite and took her hands without thought.
He looked at the little circular scar on her wrist and knew that even if it hurt them both he would try one more time—because not only did he not want her to go back, his guts folded over at the thought of her with another man, going through the trauma of having babies she simply wasn’t ready for and might never be ready for.
He did not want her scared—and if she had to be then he did not want her scared in the world without him.
‘Layla, I meant what I said this morning—will you marry me?’ he asked again. ‘I will sort it all out. I will speak with your brother, your father…’
‘No.’ She looked at him. ‘It can never happen.’
‘Layla—’
‘Please, Mikael, you are making this worse for me. I just wanted to sit with my coffee and my thoughts before I face my brother. I am more scared than I thought I would be, and I am so cross with them for telling my father.’
Her tears ran silent now and he did not want her to leave. It was the last thing on earth he wanted, and yet he needed to do as she asked and somehow make this better for her, not worse.
Mikael knew he needed to make this about her now, rather than them.
‘Is there anything I can do that will help?’
‘There is.’ She gulped. ‘Will you speak with Zahid? Can you tell him that nothing happened between us…? Can you tell him that I stayed with your married friends and that you were not with me when you texted in the evenings and nights, that your friends let you know how I was…?’
‘Will that make it easier on you?’
‘Much,’ Layla said. ‘If my father thinks I was alone with a man…’ She shook her head. ‘He cannot know. But please only agree if you are sure you can act as though you have no feelings for me—as though I am the trouble you first thought I was.’
He moved into the seat beside her and she felt his arms around her for the last time, then his mouth on hers. It was a very tender kiss, for Mikael had not shaved, but it was so loaded with passion it would burn her lips every time she remembered it.
‘I don’t know how to let you go,’ he admitted.
‘If you care for me you will. I love my family. They will be cross, yes, but you are not sending me to savages, Mikael—you are returning me to my family and to people who love me.’
He thought of her kitten-soft feet and how pampered and looked-after she had been, and of her father, who was devastated that she was missing and in agony that he might have lost her.
Mikael was in agony too.
‘Please, Mikael—please don’t make this worse for me than it already is.’
He couldn’t say no to her, and so he said yes to the most impossible task of his life.
‘We’ll do it at my chambers.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#udf5bcffa-daff-5220-88df-914fbf2b1eb6)
THEY WENT OVER and over their stories before Mikael would call Zahid.
‘I’ll have Wendy make up a bill for units of time.’
‘Reduce them!’ Layla gave a thin smile.
‘Yep—and I’ll add the hotel costs…’
‘The hotel?’
‘I’m sure they would have remembered you and called the police—your family will know by now that you stayed there, I’ll tell Zahid that you stayed between there and Demyan and Alina’s.’
He missed nothing.
Mikael called the hotel and asked them to send an amended bill—with the alcohol removed.
‘Thank you.’
He even rang Demyan and Alina, just to firm up her alibi.
‘Every night,’ Mikael reiterated to Demyan in English, so that Layla heard it too, ‘and you or Alina would call me and say that she was okay, and then I would text Zahid. The other night the baby was upset and crying and you simply forgot till much later to call me.’
‘Okay,’ Demyan said. ‘Mikael, is there any way Layla can stay…?’
Mikael switched to Russian and Layla closed her eyes at his angry voice as he swore at his lifelong friend—because if there was any way Mikael would be utilising it now.
When he had ended the call Mikael switched back to being impassive, but Layla had glimpsed his anger and his pain and she knew he was hurting just as much as she was.
‘Okay, Demyan and Alina know what to say if asked.’
‘What if they mess up?’
‘Forget that,’ he said. ‘They’ll do the right thing by you.’
‘You need to call my brother now.’ Layla’s voice was suddenly urgent. ‘My father will be flying from Ishla if there is no news by morning. I want him to know as soon as possible that I am safe. He is ill…’ She was starting to panic—not for herself but her father. ‘Mikael, my father is sick and no one must know that. I should not have done this when he is so ill…’
‘Calm down,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Zahid now.’
‘I have been trouble, remember?’ she said as he punched in the numbers.
Zahid answered on the first ring. Mikael was certain he must have spent the last few days with his phone permanently to hand.
‘Your sister has asked that you collect her,’ Mikael told Zahid, and gave his address. ‘She’s fine,’ he said. ‘Yes, I put her in a hotel, but you were right—she’s completely incapable and so I had a couple I know looking out for her.’ His voice changed to irritated. ‘They happen to have just had their first baby, so having your sister dumped on them was a huge inconvenience—’
