Rico gazed between Sultan Hassan’s impassive face and Halina’s frightened and confused one and felt his stomach and jaw both clench. Whatever they’d been talking about, it hadn’t been good.
‘What do you need to tell me, Halina?’ he asked in as mild a voice as he could manage. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Tell him, habibi,’ the Sultan said.
The endearment did not go unnoticed. So that was how Hassan was playing it. The doting father had returned. Rico had often wondered how he would act if his father had ever returned. What he would have said, whether he would have opened his arms to him. He’d known what Halina would do. He saw it in her face, in the unhappy guilt written on her delicate features.
She was leaving him. At least, she was thinking about it. God knew the last few weeks had been hard. He knew that; he’d felt it. Halina’s admission that she wanted love from him, from their marriage, the terrible uncertainty shrouding her pregnancy...all of it had taken its toll. Had made her doubt, made them both doubt, if they were doing the right thing getting married. Because he was honest enough to admit he’d started wondering too, and somehow that made this moment all the harder to bear.
‘Halina?’ he prompted, an edge entering his voice, and she stared at him unhappily, her lips trembling.
‘Let me talk to him,’ the Sultan said, and Rico swung his gaze over to appraise his real adversary. He didn’t trust this man. Not a single inch.
‘I can...’ Halina persisted, but she looked so pale and miserable that Rico took pity on her.
‘Let him say what he wants to say. We can talk later if needed. You should rest.’
They stared at each other for a long moment, a world of yearning and regret spinning out between them, then she nodded and walked wordlessly to the bedroom. As the door clicked shut behind her Rico turned to face Hassan.
‘Well?’ he said coolly.
‘The Princess is coming home with me.’
Rico kept his expression neutral, refusing to give the man the satisfaction of seeing him affected by anything he said. ‘That was your suggestion, I presume?’ he drawled.
‘My suggestion and her desire.’
‘She said as much?’
‘I know it. She’s my daughter.’
‘And she’s the mother of my child.’ Rico stared at the man, refusing so much as to blink. ‘We are to be married.’
‘Yet the wedding was called off.’
‘For health reasons only.’
‘Come now, Falcone.’ Hassan smiled, the genial expression so close to a smirk that Rico itched to wipe it off his face. His fists clenched and he forced himself to unclench them and relax. ‘Let’s be honest with each other, now it is just the two of us.’
‘I am being honest.’
The smile dropped from Hassan’s face like the mask Rico had known it was. ‘I have had people look into you and your background,’ he said in a low voice, his lip curling in an ugly sneer. ‘Seen what a gutter rat you truly are. No matter how many billions you have now, you were born a beggar boy and you still are one now. I will never allow you to marry my daughter, a princess of the royal blood. How could I?’
‘What you will allow is not my concern. Halina is of age and in this country, my country, she is not bound by your archaic laws.’ Rico spoke calmly even though the blood was boiling through his veins.
‘So you would shackle her to you, all because of a child you’ve never wanted?’
‘I’ll always want my child.’
‘Oh, yes, I understand that certain code of honour—’
‘Do you?’ Rico interjected, unable to keep the venom from his voice. ‘Because, by all accounts, you do not possess it.’
‘Halina has spoken to you about that unfortunate incident, I see.’
‘You tried to make your own daughter get an abortion she didn’t want.’
‘I am King of a country, Falcone,’ Hassan said sharply. ‘With it comes responsibilities and expectations, some of them unfortunate. For my people to see my own daughter shamed in such a way...it would be disastrous. For them, for my rule, for the stability of my country and for Halina herself.’ He took a step towards Rico. ‘She sees things from her own view, a simple child’s view. Trust me, the truth is much more complicated. But we are both men of the world. We know that.’