He had reconsidered his position? As if they were nothing more than a piece of furniture he had decided he no longer wanted.
‘Oh, my God!’
‘I still want her,’ he rasped harshly. ‘But not this way.’
Stunned, Imogen could only stare at him, his words barely registering as her heartbeat raced out of control and her thoughts went along for the ride. All she could think was that he had changed his mind. ‘I told you this would happen.’ Suddenly she was fifteen again and her father was standing in the doorway and her mother was crying on the sofa. Thank God Nadeena wasn’t old enough to witness her own humiliation at the hands of this man. She lifted her chin. ‘Where’s Nadeena now?’
‘I told you she’s with Zach.’ He swiped a hand across his face but Imogen barely noticed.
‘Damn it, Imogen. I thought you’d be happy.’
Imogen felt bile rise up in her throat but she held it back by sheer force of will, determined that he would not see how much he had hurt her again. How much she had let him hurt her again. God, she was an idiot of the most astonishing proportions. ‘I am.’
He nodded. ‘Then there’s nothing left to say.’
‘Nothing,’ she assured him and sailed into the en suite bathroom before he saw the utter despair in her eyes.
* * *
Nadir sat behind his father’s old desk, staring at his computer screen. When the door banged open he looked up and found his brother dressed in celebratory robes with a scowl on his face.
Zach didn’t waste any time on niceties. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Working. You look better.’
‘It’s amazing what a shower and a shave will do.’ Zach parked himself in the chair opposite the desk. ‘Why are you working? You’re getting married in less than two hours.’
Nadir focused on the email he’d been trying to read. ‘Not any more. I’ve instructed Staph to send the guests home.’
‘I know. He came to me.’
‘Well, it’s good that you’re here. We need to discuss who will lead Bakaan and I’ve reconsidered my position. If you don’t want the position then I’ll be the next King.’
‘Big turnaround.’
Nadir grimaced. ‘It’s amazing what can happen in a week.’
He’d found his ex-lover and his daughter, he’d fallen in love with them both and he’d lost them both. And taking on the role of leading Bakaan into the twenty-first century would keep him busy enough so that he wouldn’t think of any of it.
‘Nadir, bro...?’ Zach used the kind of placatory tone he might if he was facing a band of militants with only a soup spoon to defend himself. ‘I’m not sure that’s the most important thing to discuss right now. What’s going on?’
Nadir thought of the scene he had interrupted in Imogen’s room. Her ex-lover holding her tightly in his arms.
At first he’d been furious, his instinct to grab hold of the smarmy buffoon and pull him off her and beat him to a pulp for daring to touch what was his. Then he’d registered that Imogen wasn’t resisting. That she was snuggled against him and that she was weeping. Sobbing, almost.
Those tears had torn at his heart and he’d realised in a flash of unwelcome insight that he was behaving exactly as his father had done in stealing his mother from her tribal village in a fit of passion and then forcing her to bend to his will when he had taken another wife. Of course his circumstances were different from his parents, he knew that, but he also knew that the common denominator wasn’t. He was a tyrant who hadn’t given her a choice. He now had and she’d very definitely exercised it.
He forcibly shut his emotions down. He knew it had been a mistake to let them out. They had confused things. Made him think that sex was love when the truth was that he and Imogen shared a phenomenal chemistry and a child and he cared enough about her that he couldn’t force her to do something she didn’t want to do. ‘Nothing is going on.’
Zach looked at him. ‘Pull the other one—it has bells on it.’
Nadir cut him a brooding glare. ‘Fine. I found Imogen in the arms of her ex-lover.’
‘Naked!’
‘No—’ he heaved a sigh ‘—she was crying.’
Zach frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Because she wants to marry him, not me.’ Nadir surged to his feet in irritation and turned towards the windows. ‘How the hell should I know? Suffice it to say, she invited her ex-lover to our wedding and now they’re together.’
Zach blew out a breath. ‘That’s rough. Why’d she do it?’