‘What is it?’
‘I want to apologise for my conduct to you,’ Hassan said seriously. ‘I regret the way I acted very much.’ He bowed his head, seemingly overcome, and Halina stared at him, too shocked to feel gratified or hopeful. Yet.
‘Do you...do you really mean that?’
Hassan looked up, tears gleaming in his dark eyes. ‘Yes, I do. Events overtook me, my daughter, and I let them carry me away. I couldn’t think properly with everything that had happened. Prince Zayed’s kidnapping attempt, your situation... There was so much to deal with.’
‘I know,’ Halina whispered. ‘For me too, Father. And I... I know I acted improperly. Recklessly. I regret that very much. I do.’
‘And I acted recklessly as well,’ the Sultan returned seriously. ‘But let us have no more regrets, Halina. Now that the wedding is called off, I am here to take you home.’
Halina stared at her father in shock, his words penetrating her overwhelmed state and leaving her cold. ‘Take me home...?’
‘Where you belong. Where you’ll be happy. This is no place for you.’
‘Rico Falcone is the father of my child.’
‘I have had investigators research his past,’ Hassan returned, his tone becoming cold. ‘Do you know this man, Halina? Do you really know him?’
She loved him. ‘What did you find out?’
‘That he grew up a gutter rat, and then made his fortune in property investments, and has been known for years as being a cold, ruthless, heartless man. That he has had many women, more than you can imagine, and they never lasted for more than a week. That he has been quoted as saying he doesn’t believe in love and he doesn’t have time for marriage. This is not a man you want to marry, habibi.’
Nothing her father had said about Rico was a surprise to her, but to hear it spelt out so plainly, so terribly... It was hard to bear. Hard to accept. And yet Halina knew she had to.
‘This is not the man for you,’ Hassan said definitively. ‘Or for your child.’
‘Rico would never leave his child,’ Halina said, unsure what she was really saying. That he would leave her? That she wanted to go but couldn’t? She felt a welter of confusion and grief, and it didn’t help that things had been so strained between Rico and her recently. She was fill
ed with doubt and fear.
‘Are you sure about that?’ Hassan asked, his tone gentle. ‘Has he said so?’
‘He took me from the Palace of Forgotten Sands,’ Halina reminded him bitterly. ‘Where you’d left me to rot.’
‘That is not true, habibi. I put you there to keep you safe.’
Her father had a penchant for viewing things through his own singular lens. He always had. It hadn’t mattered when she’d been treated like a spoilt pet, but now it made a difference.
‘That’s what it felt like, Father,’ Halina said quietly. ‘And I don’t have any desire to return to such circumstances.’
‘That’s not what I’m suggesting at all,’ Hassan protested. ‘Halina, I am asking you to return to your home, your family. Your sisters long to see you, and so does your mother.’
‘You forbade me from seeing my sisters.’
Hassan bowed his head. ‘An impetuous decision that I regret. Halina, come home. We all want you to come home. Falcone can’t force you to stay here, and in all truth I suspect he would be relieved if you left. Such a man is not made for marriage and family.’
Halina flinched, because her father was only voicing her own terrible suspicions. What if they were both right? What if Rico secretly wanted her to go? Yes, he had a protective streak a mile wide, and he’d been determined to look after her and their baby. But she didn’t sense any joy from him, any gladness that he had to do it, that she was here. In her darkest moments she’d even wondered if Rico would be relieved if things ended, if they had no child together.
‘Halina,’ Hassan said gently. ‘I have the royal jet at the airport. We can be heading back to Abkar, to your family, in an hour.’
She ached to see her sisters, her mother. To feel safe and loved, instead of restless and uncertain.
‘I can’t leave without telling Rico,’ she said, hardly able to believe she was saying the words.
‘Telling me what?’ Rico demanded as he stepped through the doors of the lift and surveyed them both with a dark glare.
* * *