Carol Marinelli – Claimed For The Sheikh's Shock Son (страница 7)

These days he was rarely maudlin but the loss of his mother he felt again as he looked out on New York City in spring. ‘Oh, Khalid,’ his mother had said long ago, ‘there is nothing better than walking through Central Park, holding hands, kissing in the sun...’

‘You held hands and kissed?’ He had been fifteen and stunned by his mother’s revelations. ‘With a man other than my father?’

‘Khalid...’ She’d laughed. ‘I have never held hands with your father, neither do we kiss. Oh, abnay alhabib...’ she implored. ‘Oh, beloved son, I have fought for you to walk in the sun and laugh as I did when I was a young princess. One day you will be King but for now, promise me you will have fun.’

Khalid had tried to.

There was another heir, and two more had been on the way.

He could breathe, his mother had told him, before duty called him home for ever. His cold heart had just started to thaw under the hazy New York sun when she had died.

Khalid missed her very much today.

His phone buzzed and for once it wasn’t the palace but Ethan, asking where he was. Remembering his duties, Khalid peeled some money from a clip to tip the drivers and bar staff and then headed down to the wake.

* * *

In the main, it was a very Upper East Side crowd that had been invited back, but to her great surprise Aubrey had found herself being guided into a black car and driven to a hotel, and now she stood in a plush room labelled ‘Private Function’.

Brandy and the others had commandeered the hotel bar and Aubrey was wondering if it might be better to head out there and join them.

Waiters were doing the rounds with trays of drinks and delectable food, but, though hungry, Aubrey declined to accept as her stomach was too knotted up to accept and her hands were too unsteady to be around glass.

Aubrey could feel the daggers being shot in her direction and felt her cheeks burn amidst curious stares. She had done her absolute best not to stand out, but amongst the elite, of course, she did. Her friend’s dress was just a little too polyester and a little too big, and the same friend’s shoes a touch too long and wide. There were low, polite conversations going on all around but Aubrey stood alone until one portly gentleman came over. He didn’t mince his words. ‘You knew Jobe how?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Aubrey responded. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

He blustered for a moment and then went back to his wife and Aubrey again stood alone.

Chantelle worked the room, thanking the guests for their attendance, presumably accepting condolences while sharing small anecdotes, but she gave Aubrey a wide berth.

Aubrey again declined a drink from a passing waiter and was wondering if it might just be simpler to leave. She was already seriously questioning the wisdom of coming back for the wake when a very elegant woman came over and proffered a kind smile before reducing Aubrey with words—‘I think you’ll find your friends are all at the bar.’

It was the final straw. With her mind made up that she was leaving, Aubrey headed for the doors, but unfortunately, as she did so, the brothers turned from the group they were speaking with and she came face to face with one of the sons that she knew from the tabloids to be Abe.

‘Miss Johnson.’ He offered a thin smile and a vice-like handshake but even if his stance was polite, his black eyes were unfriendly and the message was clear—You are not welcome.

‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ Aubrey offered, surprised that he knew her name and realising it hadn’t been chance that she had been allowed into the service. Perhaps they knew about Jobe and her mom after all. ‘It was a lovely service.’

He didn’t respond.

‘I was actually just leaving,’ Aubrey said.

‘Perhaps that would be for the best.’

Ouch.

Khalid now came and stood at her side, like a security guard, Aubrey thought, and it angered her, for they all clearly thought she was either trouble or not good enough to be here.

Aubrey was actually now tempted to accept a drink from the passing waiter just to throw it in Abe’s face, to tell him that his father had never looked at her or her mother with such contempt. She was suddenly sick of the Devereuxes and their closed ranks and minds, and tired of being looked at as if she’d brought in dirt on her shoe.

Khalid could feel the tension rip through her, and privately he considered it deserved—Aubrey had been nothing but polite and discreet and had clearly been about to leave.

It was too late for that now, though, for Chantelle had arrived.

Ah, Chantelle.

Khalid inwardly sighed.

She had never quite made it to wife and remained bitter about that fact. Her hair was coiffed to perfection as always, yet her face was flushed from champagne and, if there was such a thing as too many diamonds, Chantelle, to Khalid’s mind, was just that.

‘I don’t believe we’ve met,’ she said to Aubrey. ‘I’m Chantelle, Jobe’s partner.’

Khalid felt his jaw grit a little. Chantelle had been Jobe’s date on many an occasion, yes. But the great man himself had kept her at arm’s length before his demise.

‘I’m Aubrey,’ she said, and held out her hand. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’

Aubrey’s hand wasn’t accepted.

‘The correct thing to do, at an occasion such as this,’ Chantelle hissed, ‘is to say who you are and your relationship to the deceased.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Aubrey said, refusing to let on she was terrified. ‘I wasn’t aware of that—it’s my first funeral.’

And Khalid, who rarely smiled, especially on a day like today, found that he was suppressing one, as Aubrey sidestepped the demand for more information as to who she was.

Yet Chantelle, having spent a week locked out of Devereux discussions and attorneys, having spent a week being less than magnanimously told that while she could join the family at the service, the fact was she wasn’t one of them.

The Devereuxes were bastards to those not their own.

And Aubrey, alone, stood in the volatile thick of it.

‘So where have you travelled from?’ Chantelle asked, assuming correctly that Aubrey wasn’t from the East Side.

‘Vegas.’

‘Oh.’

Yes—oh.

Just. How. Old. Is. She? Chantelle’s eyes screamed as she spoke. ‘Do you get to Manhattan much?’

‘It’s my first time here,’ Aubrey answered.

‘And you know Jobe, how?’

He had a long affair with my mother, Aubrey was tempted to sweetly reply. He adored her and treated her like a queen. They used to play strip poker in our trailer. Not while I was there, mind. Jobe was a gentleman like that. He really was. I only found that out the other day when my mom was reminiscing. I was there, though, when he drank cheap whiskey while my mom cooked him spiced chicken wings. They were his favourite, not that you’d know.

He helped with my homework. You’d twist that and make that sound sleazy, but it never, ever was. He took us to Disney and to see the Hoover Dam and we went in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon. Me! A girl from a trailer park who’d never had a daddy, let alone been on a holiday, flew over the Grand Canyon in a helicopter.

They loved each other and my mom never took a single red cent. Not even when she got so burnt, so broken she couldn’t afford her bills, still she didn’t let him know. She wanted him to remember her as the beauty she had been and the love they had once had.

But, of course, Aubrey didn’t say any of that.

She had nothing left in the tank. Fuelled on no sleep and a single granola bar, suddenly she felt a little sick and also terribly close to tears when Chantelle, her eyes bulging, finally snapped. ‘Who exactly are you?’

Aubrey could feel all the eyes on her. She had no idea what to say and was ruing her decision to come. Her heart felt as if it had moved up to her throat and she wanted to turn and run.

Khalid could feel her silent agony as she stood before the inquisition.

While his brief was to protect the Devereux family from Aubrey, his instinct was suddenly to protect her from them. As much as he loved them, Khalid knew their might and, aware of their ruthlessness with outsiders, he stepped in. ‘Aubrey is here with me.’

Aubrey blinked as he spoke and dared not turn to him; instead she watched as Chantelle turned from angry, to confused, to mollified, right before her eyes.

‘Oh...’ Chantelle’s pursed lips parted in surprise. ‘I must apologise. I didn’t realise.’

‘Why would you, Chantelle?’ Khalid responded. ‘I never discuss my private life.’

‘So, how long have you two been—?’ Chantelle persisted, but Khalid would not be interrogated by anyone and interrupting the question he turned to Aubrey. ‘Come on.’

Oh, the blessed relief of walking out of the wake with Khalid by her side where it felt no harm could come to her. She liked it that he did not take her hand or snake an arm around her waist, just because the scenario he’d created possibly meant he could, and in the foyer Aubrey turned and faced him, and was suddenly shy. ‘Thank you for that.’

‘It’s no problem.’

‘I just didn’t know what to say...’

‘You don’t have to explain your dealings with Jobe to me.’

Dealings? Aubrey frowned at his choice of word, unsure quite what he meant. ‘Well, thanks again.’ She offered her hand and perhaps that was the wrong thing to do, for he did not accept it, though for a reason Aubrey hadn’t thought of—‘Isn’t that a little formal when we’re supposed to be a couple? Chantelle is just over there.’