Would she live in the royal palace? Raise her child there, under the benevolent eyes of her parents? It was so far from the fury and sick disappointment they’d shown her before, she couldn’t quite believe in it. Somehow it didn’t much matter any more, because Rico had rejected her.
Throughout the journey, even as she remained dazed, one hard truth had emerged from the fog of her mind. His claim that he was thinking of her, of her happiness, was nothing more than an excuse. Of course it was. Rico would never give up his child unless he wanted to. Unless he’d decided that marriage and fatherhood wasn’t for him, after all.
Bitterness rooted in her heart as she replayed their last conversation in her mind. He was a coward. He should have had the courage to tell her the truth—that he’d changed his mind, that he didn’t want to marry her—instead of dressing it up with fine sentiments about thinking only of her happiness.
Back at the palace her sisters swarmed her, and Halina hugged each of them in turn, her heart emerging from its chrysalis of grief as she realised afresh how much she’d missed her family.
‘Halina.’ Aliya pressed her cheek against her daughter’s. ‘We are so glad you have returned home.’
‘Thank you, Mother,’ Halina whispered.
‘We have much to do,’ Aliya said as she gestured for Halina to sit down in the family’s private living area. A member of staff poured glasses of mint tea.
‘Much to do?’ Halina’s youngest sister was curled up on her lap and Halina put her arms around her, grateful for the easy affection.
‘Yes, for the wedding.’ Halina stared blankly at her mother and Aliya’s eyes narrowed. ‘To the Sultan of Bahari. Surely your father told you?’
‘No,’ Halina said numbly. ‘He didn’t tell me.’
‘But the wedding is in a week! The Sultan wants to marry you before you show too much.’ With her lips pressed together, Aliya glanced repressively at her younger daughters. ‘You are lucky to have such a match arranged for you, Halina.’
‘Lucky?’ Halina stared at her mother in disbelief as realisation bloomed poisonously inside her. Her father had duped her with his words of love and regret. He’d wanted her home only so he could marry her off again to his political advantage, this time to a man over three times her age.
She knew the Sultan of Bahari. She’d sat next to him at one of those stuffy diplomatic receptions; he had to be at least seventy, and he had two wives already. And it seemed she was to be the third. Bile churned in her stomach and rose in her throat.
‘Mother,’ she whispered, ‘Are you really intending this for me?’
Aliya folded her arms. ?
?It is all you have left.’
‘Rico Falcone, the father of my child, a billionaire in his own right, was willing to marry me,’ Halina retorted, even as a treacherous little voice inside whispered, Was he? ‘Surely he is more appropriate than an aging lecher with two wives already?’
‘Do not speak so disrespectfully. Falcone is not appropriate because he does not offer any political alliances, and his reputation is quite beyond the pale. This is your duty, Halina. Surely you see that? After all your disgrace, this is the least you can do for your family.’
The least? She’d be giving up her whole life, and in far worse a way than any future she could have envisioned with Rico. But Rico didn’t want her, and Halina was left yet again with no freedom, no choice, in the worst situation she’d ever had to face.
She turned from her mother, tears blurring her eyes. She could hardly believe she was right back where she started, only worse. So much worse.
Rico. Her heart cried out his name. She should have told him she loved him. Even if she had to marry the Sultan of Bahari, at least Rico would have known. It would have been small comfort during the bleak, barren years that stretched ahead of her now.
* * *
Three days had passed since Halina had walked out of his flat, his life. Three endless days. It was long enough for Rico to reconsider his decision, which now seemed unaccountably rash. What had he been thinking of, letting her go? Letting his child go?
Sultan Hassan had played on all his doubts, all his fears of inadequacy and commitment. The fear he had of risking his heart for someone, holding it there for her to crack or crush. Halina had been right. He was a coward. He’d chosen to let her go rather than fight to hold on. To tell her the truth, which had come to him in a shocking moment of naked realisation: that he loved her. He’d loved her for a while, but he’d been hiding it from himself because he’d been so afraid. Afraid to fall, to risk, to beg her to stay. So he’d chosen the cowardly option of walking away.
Now he would live the rest of his life knowing he’d loved and lost. It was the price of his cowardice, his shame. And all he could do was pray and hope that she had a better life without him.
Then, on the fourth day after Halina’s departure, Rico read the headline in the society section of the newspaper: Abkaran Princess to Marry Sultan.
Everything in him stilled as he scanned the few scant lines.
Princess Halina of Abkar, recently engaged to billionaire tycoon Rico Falcone, is now poised to marry the Sultan of Bahari on Saturday. The Sultan has two wives already, and the Princess will be his third.
Rico’s head jerked up from the newspaper, shock slamming into him, leaving him breathless. The third wife? He glanced back down at the article and saw a grainy black-and-white photograph of the Sultan, a paunchy old man with jowly cheeks and a smug smile. His skin crawled. He hadn’t let go of Halina for this. He hadn’t sacrificed his own happiness, his own heart, for her to be married off to some old lecher.
And he was sure, with a stony certainty, that she hadn’t known what she was walking into when she’d returned to Abkar. Her father had tricked them both.