‘Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,’ Rashid said, ignoring her explanation, ‘which just happens to be the same amount of money you asked for and got.’
‘Yes, because I had promised it elsewhere and I needed it as quickly as possible.’
‘Why? What was so urgent that you were so desperate to get the money then?’
‘Because Sally’s husband has cancer and they needed the funds to get him to a cancer clinic in Germany. And I’d promised to loan them the money from my inheritance because they’d already mortgaged their house and they’d exhausted every other means. That’s where your precious two hundred and fifty thousand dollars went, and Steve’s there now lying in that clinic, fighting for his life and close to death and now it looks like everything I’ve done has been for nothing.’
Her vision blurred and swam and she dropped her face to the floor. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, she hadn’t been aware of the tears falling, but now there was no stopping the torrent coursing down her face. Because if Steve died, everything would have been for nothing.
The sound of a clap forced her head up. Followed by another. A slow clap coming from Rashid that matched the slow pace of his feet as he drew closer to where she had fallen. ‘Bravo, Ms Burgess, that was an award-winning performance. It had pathos, melodrama, even tears. Unfortunately some of us recognise that was all it was—an act. I didn’t see you looking too upset last night when you were coming apart in my bed. I didn’t see any tears fall then.’
She sniffed. ‘Sally wrote this morning with the news.’
‘Oh, this morning. How convenient.’
‘Steve is dying. It’s the truth!’
‘I don’t think you’d recognise the truth if it slapped you in the face. You climbed aboard that royal jet and ever since then you’ve been scheming to make it worthwhile to you and your crooked cousin. You played it well. Exceptionally well. One time a siren, another a virgin Madonna, you kept ducking and weaving and spinning your web of lies so well that you almost had me convinced that you were special, that there might even be a future for us beyond this short-term deal.’
His lip curled. ‘What a fool I’ve been.’ His cold dark eyes were filled with abhorrence as they raked over her, all but scraping her skin with their intensity. ‘And I must be a fool because I thought—I actually thought...’ He shook his head. ‘A fool. You will stay here in your rooms until it is time to send you home.’
‘Rashid,’ she begged as he turned to leave, because in his words was a tiny kernel, a glimmer of hope, if she could only prove to him that she was telling the truth. ‘Please, I beg of you...’
His feet paused at the door. ‘What?’
‘There is one thing you should know. One thing you have to believe.’
‘Well?’
She licked her lips, her heartbeat frantic as she prepared to lay it on the line and bare herself to him utterly. ‘I couldn’t do the things you say. I would never betray you. Because... Because, I love you.’
He laughed, the sound cold and jagged as it echoed around her room, until she felt as if her heart had been sliced apart. ‘Nice try.’
And then he was gone.
She threw herself down onto her bed and let herself weep in great heaving sobs—because she’d only ever married Rashid to secure the funds for Steve’s treatment and, somewhere along the line, she’d fallen in love with a despot in the process, a despot who’d laughed at her when she’d bared her soul to him.
And now Steve was fighting for his life in a German clinic and it had all been so pointless.
It had all been for nothing.
And she hated the man who had done this to her with all her heart.
The man she’d thought she had loved.
* * *
She loved him. Talk about desperate. As if he’d believe that. As if she’d thought it would excuse what she’d done.
Atiyah was crying when he returned to his rooms and the black cloud above his head thundered and roared.
‘She won’t stop,’ a tearful Yousra said. ‘She wants Tora.’
‘Give her to me!’ he demanded, and the young woman’s eyes opened wide with surprise, but still she handed the bundle over. He juggled the unfamiliar weight, the arms and legs working like little pistons, the face screwed up and red, and he caught a flailing arm with one finger and tucked her in close to his chest as he tried to remember how Tora had told him to try to calm her. ‘Atiyah,’ he said, trying to stop the storm cloud hanging over him from making him shout over her screams, ‘Calm down. Calm down.’