‘You took that from my pocket,’ he accused her.
‘No. It must have dropped out.’
Dragging off his howlis, he tossed it aside. ‘I picked it up at the fort and intended waiting until you had recovered before showing it to you.’
‘Recovered?’ she said with only the smallest shake in her voice to betray her feelings. ‘Let me assure you, I have recovered.’
‘I was trying to protect you, Antonia.’
‘I don’t need that sort of protection, Ra’id. I need to face life, however ugly it is.’ And it was ugly sometimes, Antonia thought, as an image of her mother as a very young girl, writing down her deepest thoughts and fears because she had no one to confide in, appeared to be.
‘I have your best interests at heart.’
‘And thought you could woo me with expensive trinkets and the promise of more money than I could spend? Do you really think you can buy me, Ra’id?’
‘I’m doing everything I can think of to reassure you.’
‘To reassure me that it will be cosy in my gilded cage?’ Antonia’s voice broke as she shook her head in despair. ‘You really don’t know me.’ Would Ra’id never be Saif again? Would he never hear her again?
‘I’m prepared to give you everything I thought you wanted,’ he said.
In fairness, that was exactly the type of girl she’d been, Antonia reflected. How long had her journey been? And how short was Ra’id’s? Very short, she concluded. Nothing about the all-powerful ruler of Sinnebar had changed. What was he thinking now? She could usually read him, but today that famous connection of theirs had interference on the line. Something big was brewing. Ra’id would never have left her side for a minute if it had not been to make some special plan.
‘I want nothing but the best for you.’
‘And the best is to be your prisoner, because I’m carrying the heir to the throne?’ Ra’id’s expression stopped her. She had come here with him willingly, and in doing had crossed into dangerous, uncharted territory—to take on a man who was accustomed to his every word being law. Ra’id frightened her, but her fierce maternal instinct turned out to be stronger. Brandishing her mother’s note at him, she demanded, ‘Have we learned nothing from this, Ra’id? Am I to be kept in a palace as my mother was—another bird in a gilded cage, awaiting the sheikh’s pleasure, while you carry on as normal?’ Shaking her head decisively, she exclaimed, ‘I won’t do it!’
‘Think, Antonia.’
‘Oh, believe me, I’ve thought about this. Why would I agree to your plan when my only purpose in life would be to perfect the art of becoming invisible? I’d spend every day waiting for you, never knowing if you would turn up.’
‘You’re growing hysterical. You will have the charity to occupy your time, and very soon your child.’
‘A child to occupy me?’ Antonia protested in outrage. ‘Looking after my baby will be a privilege. Yes, I’m expecting motherhood to be demanding, but never a chore—never something to fill in my time. A child is far too precious for that, Ra’id—something I don’t expect you to understand.’
‘I understand more than you know.’
Something about the way he spoke sent a flash of guilt through her, and then she realised he was thinking about Razi, the half-brother Ra’id had brought up when his mother had been driven away and his father had cared for no one but himself. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have said that. I’m just—’
‘Frightened of taking a step into the unknown?’ Ra’id suggested. ‘Your life doesn’t have to be a repeat of the past, Antonia.’ He glanced at the sheet of paper she was still holding clenched in her hand. ‘The path you decide to take from here is up to you, and not some letter written years ago.’
‘You would allow me to choose that path?’
‘Why are you so certain I want to crush you?’
‘I don’t know, Ra’id. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you led me to understand our child would live with you?’
‘I would never agree to a child of mine living apart from me.’
‘So you would never agree to live apart from your child, but I must?’ Her voice shook as he touched on her Achilles heel.
‘You will have full access, naturally.’
‘And for that I must be grateful?’
‘For that you must obey.’
So there it was, Antonia thought, turning pale. After all the niceties and tactics were out of the way. Ra’id was a desert king, a warrior; a man she was only coming to know. ‘This is your country where I must live by your rules and forget that I was ever free?’ When he didn’t answer, she added passionately, ‘I’m not my mother, Ra’id. I’m not Helena. I’m not looking to escape, or excuse, and I’m certainly not looking for a man to keep me. I’m going to stay here and work to make the best use I can of my inheritance.’