Rico stared at him, his jaw clenched so tight he thought he might break a tooth. He recognised the truth in the Sultan’s words, a truth he had not wanted to see before. He didn’t condone the man’s actions; he could never do that. But he could understand them.
‘Halina belongs in Abkar with her own people, her own family.’
‘And would you marry her off to a man of your choosing, a stranger?’ Rico demanded. ‘Because those do not seem the actions of the loving father you are professing to be now.’
‘Come, Falcone.’ Hassan smiled. ‘We both know that her marriage to you would be no different, and in some ways worse, for there would be no political benefit to you. You would tire of her eventually, whether you are willing to acknowledge it or not.’ The Sultan levelled him with a starkly honest and challenging stare. ‘Do you honestly think you could ever make her happy?’
Rico tried not to flinch at that question and the lack it revealed in himself. Because the truth that he’d been trying to avoid staring in the face for the last few weeks was that he didn’t. And he knew in his gut, in his heart, that Halina deserved more than he could ever give her.
‘Would you marry her off against her will?’ he asked, the words dragged from him, scraping his throat.
‘Against her will? No. In time, when she has recovered from this and longs for a husband and a family? We would make the decision together. That much I have learned.’ The Sultan met his gaze unblinkingly; Rico knew he had no choice but to trust him.
‘And the child?’ he asked painfully, the sting of tears behind his lids, in the back of his throat.
‘Would want for nothing. He or she would grow up in the palace, a member of the royal family.’
‘Your people would accept that?’
Hassan smiled grimly. ‘They will have to.’
Several moments ticked by; it took all of Rico’s energy and effort simply to breathe. To keep standing. ‘Fine,’ he said finally. ‘Leave us now. I want to talk to Halina.’
‘I’ll return in an hour.’
‘An hour...’
‘It will be better if it’s quick,’ the Sultan said, then walked towards the lift.
Rico stood where he was, waiting for the man to leave before he moved. Before he told Halina what he intended.
As the doors pinged open and then shut Rico let out a shuddering breath. So this would be the end. He would let her go, because he cared for her too much to shackle her to him. He saw that now.
And, in a jolt of sorrowful realisation, it occurred to him that he finally had a glimmer of understanding of what his father might have gone through in leaving him at the orphanage all those years ago.
Perhaps, just as Rico had, his father had come to the grief-filled conclusion that he could not make the person he loved most in the world happy. That he could not provide for them in the way he longed to. That leaving was the better, and harder, choice.
With a leaden heart, Rico walked towards the bedroom door.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
HALINA HEARD THE rise and fall of low, tense voices from behind the door but she couldn’t make out any words and she didn’t think she wanted to. What was her father saying to Rico? And what was Rico saying to her father?
She paced the room in a ferment of anxiety and fear, wondering if the two men she loved most in the world were deciding her future without her. Here, then, was the ultimate loss of freedom. Her fate was completely out of her hands, even while she waited in the next room.
Then she heard the lift doors open and closing. She stilled where she was by the window, one hand resting on the sill. She couldn’t hear a sound from the other room; had Rico gone?
Just when she was about to go and find him, the bedroom door opened and Rico stood there. The haggard and grim look on his face struck a cold note of fear in Halina’s heart.
‘Rico...’
‘Your father will return in an hour.’
‘Return? Why?’
‘It’s better this way, Halina.’
‘Better?’ She stared at him wildly. The doubts that had been festering in her heart burst into painful reality. ‘What are you saying? You want me to go?’