“Son, it’s late for a call.” His father answered the phone with no preamble, no gruff tone to his voice. He’d been awake. He was often awake in the stillness of the night. He enjoyed it, he’d told Kyril, now that he didn’t have the worries of the country on his shoulders. No, that was for his son.
“I’m sorry. I’ll call back.” Kyril said the words, but he knew what his father would say next.
“Don’t. Tell me what’s happened.” Kyril never called this late for no reason and Zafir, his father and former ruler of Al-Dashalid, knew it.
“I spent a week with a woman about three months ago.”
“What woman?”
“An American on holiday.” A pressing nervousness rose to Kyril’s chest. His mother had been at the forefront of the pressure to be married, but he knew his father wanted the same thing. And now…he might as well say it bluntly, get it over with. “She’s pregnant. And the baby is mine.”
There was a silence.
And then, “Congratulations, my son. Fatherhood! Who ever thought it would come so soon?” There was a warmth to Zafir’s voice that shocked Kyril and pleased him in equal measure.
“Certainly not me.”
Zafir laughed, his happiness ringing over the line. “I’m ready to be a grandfather, even if you’ve been caught unprepared.”
“I don’t know what to do.” Kyril moved to the window and put a hand to his hair. “She seems to want nothing to do with me.” He hadn?
??t mentioned his frantic search across Europe for Hannah to his parents, thinking he’d turn up with her as his fiancée and all of that would fade into the past, right in line with the country’s ancient law breathing down his neck. He was running out of time to marry, a requirement for keeping the throne. “I…met with her in Paris and she got on a train to Venice without looking back.”
“Keep your mind where it belongs, Kyril.” Zafir’s voice took a serious tone. “She’s not your wife—not yet. And a woman cannot be wooed by a man chasing after her. She has to come to you on her own.”
“But—”
“I know it can be difficult, son. Waiting is never easy. But you can’t force her into a happy marriage. Let her know you are open to talking, but don’t push her. And whatever you do, don’t chase her to Venice.”
“All right.” Kyril didn’t bother confirming or denying his location. “Thank you for your advice. I’ll move slowly.”
“Best for all the lives involved,” his father said. “A child! For my oldest child. What a wonder. Call me whenever you need, Sheikh Kyril.” His father’s sense of humor shone whenever he called him by his formal title. He did not do it often, only when he was feeling particularly amused by his oldest son.
“I will.”
Kyril hung up the phone and tossed it onto the bed, where it bounced once and fell to the floor with a sharp clatter. His father was going soft in his retirement. That was the only explanation for this advice, which he certainly wasn’t going to follow.
Let Hannah roam Europe, alone and vulnerable, while she carried his child? Not a chance.
3
Hannah’s heart still fluttered against her breastbone as she lifted the strap of her bag to her shoulder and waited for the train to stop in Venezia Saint Lucia, the only stop in Venice proper. She’d watched the sun rise as the train rumbled through Verona—fair Verona—from the comfort of the private sleeper car, the sheet slung over her shoulders. Kyril’s face as the train doors closed in the Gare de Lyon had kept her up most of the night.
She stepped carefully from the train onto the gray brickwork and squared her shoulders. A clear, bright morning in Venice. What could be better? Hannah took a deep breath and raised her eyes to the blue and yellow sign pointing the way out through a hallway lined with shops encased in gleaming glass, travelers tugging rolling suitcases, and Kyril.
Her heart beat faster at the sight of him, standing casually in his dark suit, eyes scanning the platform. His gaze fell on her, and he straightened, power evident in the strong lines of his shoulders, and it was then that she realized she wasn’t alone.
Kyril was thirty feet away, but a man in a pleasantly dull outfit—dress pants and a blue dress shirt—fell into place beside her.
“Good morning, Miss George.” His accent reminded her more of the marketplace in Al-Dashalid than Kyril’s did.
“You must have traveled fast, to beat me here.” Her face felt hot, flushed, even though she couldn’t say she was surprised. It made sense that Kyril was here, waiting. That was why he’d allowed her to board the train. He was already planning to follow. Or lead, she supposed.
She walked faster, slightly ahead of the bodyguard. Kyril had a few of his own casually ringed around him, and she felt drawn to him as if by gravity itself. Run, said a small part of her heart. But the majority was too entranced.
Kyril greeted her with a smile that sent warmth down to the tips of her toes. “Hannah. Did you sleep well?”
She found herself smiling back. “As well as could be expected.”