Winnie shoved a mobile phone in front of her gaze. Her lashes fluttered in bewilderment and then she focused and saw Raj with the one woman in the world she wouldn’t trust him with. Raj in a photo holding hands with Nabila, his lean, darkly handsome features very serious, her face beseeching. Beseeching what from him? Zoe broke out in a sudden sweat and then just as quickly, as familiar queasiness assailed her, was forced to leap out of bed and push past her sisters to make it to the bathroom in time to be sick.
‘Where did you see that photo? Raj only left last night,’ she reasoned when she was able to respond, wondering exactly when that photo had been taken and then questioning whether the timing even mattered.
‘That photo was offered to Grandad for sale first thing this morning,’ Winnie told her in disgust. ‘I imagine it was taken by some greedy paparazzo, who worked out what that picture would be worth on the open market.’
As Zoe drooped over the vanity unit brushing her teeth, still weak with nausea and dizziness, Vivi tugged her gently away and settled her down on the fainting couch. ‘Take a deep breath and keep your head down. What’s the matter with you? Are you ill?’
‘Pregnant,’ Zoe whispered, still in shock at that photo, fighting to withstand the great tide of pain threatening to engulf her. Raj had refused to take her with him the night before...no wonder! Had he known even then that he wanted the freedom to be with his ex-girlfriend?
‘Pregnant?’ Vivi gasped and her sisters engaged in a lively argument above her head, which Zoe was content to ignore because infinitely more important decisions loomed ahead of her, she grasped dully.
How could she remain married to a man in love with another woman and already seeing her behind her back? Holding hands with her? Although that was the least that had probably gone on between them, she recognised sickly, for it was unlikely that Raj and Nabila would not finally have taken the opportunity to have sex. Particularly not when, in that photo, they were staring at each other like long-lost lovers reunited.
‘I’ll be frank,’ Vivi murmured with surprising quietness. ‘You’re in love with Raj and he’s hurting you and we love you enough that we can’t just stand back and allow that.’
‘I’m not in love with him,’ Zoe lied, her eyes watering in a last-ditch effort to save face with her sisters.
But there it was: the truth she had suppressed and refused to face except in the secret depths of her heart. She had fallen madly in love with her fake husband and for all the wrong reasons. Reasons like his smile and the sound of his voice and the raw power of his body over hers in bed. Reasons like the English breakfast tea he had ordered on her behalf and the glorious shoes he’d bought her and had put in the dressing room without even mentioning the purchases. Reasons that encompassed a hundred and one different things and many that she would have found hard to put into words.
Winnie’s eyes were also brimming with tears. ‘Come back with us to Athens...please!’
And Zoe’s first reaction was to say no, until she considered the alternatives. She could confront Raj and he would probably admit the truth, which would not be a comfort to her. She could pretend she hadn’t seen the photograph and silently agonise over it and that prospect had even less appeal. Or she could take advantage of a breathing space in which to decide what she would do next, she reasoned bravely. It wouldn’t be running away, she ruminated, it would be giving herself the time to control her emotional reaction and behave like an adult and deal with the situation. If she stayed, she might cry and let him see that she had been hurt, and what was the point of that?
But what if Raj had not actually cheated on her? Raj was not by nature a cheat, she reasoned, wondering if she was clutching at straws when she thought along such lines. Naturally she didn’t want to think he could’ve been unfaithful, but Nabila was different, Nabila was in a class of her own because once Raj had loved her. Could he have resisted the chance to finally be with the woman he had once loved? And wasn’t hoping he might have resisted only proof that Zoe was weakly willing to make excuses for him? Shame drenched her pale cheeks with hot pink and she decided to listen to her sisters, who had much more experience than she did with men. If Winnie and Vivi both believed that Raj had succumbed to Nabila’s wiles, they were probably right. She trusted their judgement more than she trusted her own because she was all too well aware that her feelings for Raj coloured her every conviction and that she wasn’t capable of standing back and making an independent call.
Zoe had her maid pack only one suitcase, because there was no advantage in advertising the fact that she was leaving and would probably never return to the royal palace. She would send for the rest of her stuff later but when she thought about that, thought about the wardrobe Raj had bought her, thought about his favourite outfits, she as quickly decided that she wanted nothing that would only serve to keep unfortunate memories alive.
Her protection team accompanied her to the airport and flatly refused to leave her there. Suppressing a sigh, she let them board her grandfather’s private jet with her, knowing that Raj would recall them later after he had read her note and had seen the photo she had sent to his phone. He wouldn’t require any other explanation for her departure because he was definitely not stupid.
When that photo came up on his phone, forwarded by Zoe, Raj succumbed to a rage that almost burned him alive and it took Omar stepping in to prevent him from telling Nabila in front of an audience what he thought of her filthy tactics. Omar’s intervention ensured that he did what he had to do at the site, which was his duty, and went home as soon as he possibly could to talk to his wife. A single-line note informing him that she would never ‘share’ a man greeted his return.
The discovery that she had been removed by her siblings and flown to her grandfather’s home in Greece came as a complete shock. It was closely followed by a terse phone call from Stamboulas Fotakis, who accused him of disrespecting his grandchild in a grossly offensive public disregard of his marital status. And as if those punishments were not sufficient, he was summoned by his father, who in his ineffable highly efficient way knew exactly what was happening in his son’s marriage and pointed out that his son only had himself to thank for allowing a harpy like Nabila within a hundred yards of him.
‘When you bring your wife home again, I will have Nabila thrown out of the country,’ the King pronounced with satisfaction.
‘Let us hope I can bring Zoe home,’ Raj breathed with difficulty, mastering his temper but only just in the face of that provocation, for throwing Nabila out of Maraban would only create a scandal that Nabila would relish.
His arrival in Greece late that night was punctuated by further unwelcome attacks. Zoe was in bed and not to be disturbed, according to Stam Fotakis. ‘She’s fragile,’ he told Raj in condemnation. ‘She needs protection from those who would use her soft heart against her.’
‘I would not use...’
Her sister, Vivi, walked into her grandfather’s office and proceeded to try and tear strips off Raj but Raj wasn’t taking that from anyone, least of all Zoe’s fiery sibling, and an almighty row broke out before Stam ran out of patience and demanded that both of them go to bed. ‘If you must, you may speak to Zoe in the morning,’ he informed Raj in a ringing tone of finality.
But Raj wasn’t about to be steered in a direction he didn’t want to go. He let himself be shown to a guest room without any intention of waiting until he could see his wife. As soon as he was alone, he learned where her room was by the simple measure of contacting her protection team.
Zoe was curled up on a lounger on the balcony beyond her room, watching the sea silver and darken in the moonlight.
Misery felt like a shroud tightly wrapped round her, denying her the air she needed to breathe. She had still to accept the concept of a life empty of Raj. Every time she contemplated that terrifying prospect, she felt as though someone were flaying the skin from her bones, only the pain was internalised. How had one man become so important to her survival that her entire world had begun to revolve around him? It both shocked and incensed her that she could have been weak and foolish enough to fall in love with a man she had known from the outset would never be hers on any permanent basis.
When the patio doors behind her slid open, she flinched, expecting it to be one of her sisters, come yet again to offer depressing advice. She didn’t want the assurance that she would get over Raj. She didn’t want to be told that there would eventually be another man worthier of her love in her future when just then, and against all reason and logic, all her body and her brain cried out for was Raj.
‘Zoe...?’
In astonished recognition of that dark deep accented intonation, Zoe was startled and she leapt off the lounger and spun round. ‘Raj?’ she gasped incredulously.
‘Hush...’ Raj put a finger to his lips in warning. ‘I wouldn’t put it past your family to try and drag me out physically and I don’t want a fight breaking out between my protection team and your grandfather’s. But I will allow no man on earth to tell me when I can see my wife.’
‘But I’m not your wife—not really your wife,’ Zoe protested. ‘And I never was.’
Raj studied the pale triangle of her face in the moonlight and guilt cut through him because it was his fault that she had been hurt and upset. ‘I have to explain what happened with Nabila.’
‘No, you don’t owe me any explanations!’ Zoe cut in hastily. ‘But you can’t expect me to live with you and turn a blind eye to an affair either!’
‘Why would I have an affair with Nabila? Have you asked yourself that?’ Raj demanded, moving forward to scoop her gently up into his arms and return her with care to the lounger before stepping back to lean back lithely against the balcony wall.