Caught in His Gilded World

‘Oh?’

‘People aren’t happy about it.’

‘The local people seem relatively friendly.’

‘The road traverses traditional grazing land. Nothing new gets built without clan approval.’

‘And you need clan approval for the road?’

‘Smart girl.’

‘How will you get it?’

‘That’s where you come in.’

‘You want me to help?’

And that was when Khaled knew he was going to hurt her.

‘The day I brought you here I’d received a phone call that morning, letting me know the clan elders were willing to talk.’

She kept wiping the blade, nodding as he spoke.

‘A few weeks before that I spoke to the head man here. He wanted to know why I didn’t have a home here, why I wasn’t married, where my children were—’

Gigi looked up with interest.

‘And he told me if I respected their customs they would see it my way.’

She gave a nervous laugh. ‘So when do I meet your wife and children?’

‘It’s you, Gigi. You’re the custom I’ve respected.’

She went very still.

‘The Moscow papers were reporting that I’d stolen you off the stage in Paris. The elders approved. I was given this meeting.’

A sudden gust of wind scythed the grass around them and the towel over Gigi’s shoulder flapped away.

She didn’t move an inch.

‘You brought me here to win permission for your road?’ Her voice sounded very small, hollow.

‘I brought you here because I wanted to be with you,’ he said with passionate conviction because he knew now it was true, only to add slowly, ‘and because it was politic for the road.’

Gigi stared past him.

‘I had no idea this was going to be the result.’ His voice was slightly hoarse as emotions he didn’t recognise began to push up through his body.

‘But once it was, you went ahead and did it anyway? Without asking me?’

‘I didn’t think it mattered that much, Gigi.’

Her eyes shot to his.

‘I was wrong to do it.’ He made a gesture towards taking hold of her but she backed away. ‘I should never have brought you here.’

But Gigi wasn’t listening. She was running.

She ran up the slope, the breath coming short and sharp from her lungs. She would have kept running if she’d had a choice, but there was nowhere to go.

She was stuck—in a strange, wild country with a stranger, wilder man.

Whom she was in love with.

* * *

She had waited on the hillside until she’d seen Khaled leave before she returned. It was only when she was inside, packing her few belongings, that her hand began to sting and she unfisted it to discover a nasty red welt across her palm from where she’d tightly held on to the razor.

She’d been so worried about cutting him, but in the end he’d been the one with the blade to her throat. She’d just been blinded by her own feelings and what she’d thought were the genuine feelings of the man sitting before her to notice.

He’d been the one to draw her blood.

* * *

Khaled had gone no further than halfway down to the village when he knew he couldn’t do it.

He shut off the engine and sat in the truck, looking down at the flat roofs and winding roads of the mountain pass where he’d been raised.

If he went down to that community hall there would be some macho posturing, the scratching of pens, and then he would get the signatures he needed. But for the rest of his life he would see Gigi’s trust being shattered in front of him.

He’d have to find another way.

He started the engine, turned the truck and tore back up the hill.

He didn’t know what he wanted with Gigi, but he knew it wasn’t this.

Which was when he swung out of the truck and looked up.

The top of the tower caught the late-afternoon sun.

Unease settled on him.

He looked across the yard and his belly went cold.

The Jeep was gone.

* * *

Khaled’s head was pounding. His stepfather had used the claim of love as his weapon of choice. He’d used it like a gun, and like any weapon it made a man weak, prey to the worst of his nature when things went wrong. As a grown man Khaled only carried a rifle when he went hunting, a situation in which he had a purpose, and he never fired without the knowledge of every available variable. He did not inflict needless suffering on an animal. Everything he did in life had a moral centre and was a choice.