Meredith Webber – Midnight at the Oasis: His Majesty's Mistake (страница 15)
He’d apologize to her later, just before he put her in the limousine on the way to the airstrip. And then he’d move forward. He wouldn’t look back.
It was good. Everything was good. Hannah would be off after breakfast, his guests would arrive midafternoon, and he had sorted out his priorities.
Ringing for a fresh pot of coffee, Makin woke up his computer and checked the headlines of the various international papers for world news. He usually devoted an hour to reading his preferred papers every morning, and was reading the online version of
Alejandro’s accident had finally hit the newswire.
Curious to see if there was an update on Alejandro’s condition, Makin clicked on the link and pulled up the article. He skimmed the piece but the article didn’t cover anything new.
Makin looked at the three photos accompanying the story next. The first was one of Ibanez on his horse on the field, one posing with his team at the recent Palm Beach tournament, and one in which Alejandro was snapped talking with the Princess Emmeline of Brabant.
He ignored the first two photos, intrigued by the last. It was a recent photo, he saw, taken a week ago in Palm Beach at the polo tournament he’d hosted and Hannah had organized.
It wasn’t the most flattering photo of either Ibanez or the princess, and Makin suspected they probably weren’t even aware they were being photographed. Alejandro looked angry and the princess was in tears. It didn’t require a lot of imagination to figure out what the fight was about. Perhaps the princess had discovered that there were other women? Women like Penelope. Women like Hannah.
Thinking about Hannah, Makin clicked on the photo, enlarging it. He felt a flicker of unease as he studied the princess.
She looked far too familiar, as if he knew her, but how could that be? He’d only been in the same room with Princess Emmeline once and yet looking at this picture, he felt as if he knew her … intimately.
Impossible.
He studied the photo intently, drawn by Emmeline’s eyes and her expression.
He knew that expression. He knew those eyes.
His uneasiness increased.
He copied and pasted the photo onto his desktop and enlarged the picture once more, studying it carefully, analyzing the princess’s slender frame, the tilt to her head, the twist of her lips.
She was clearly desperately unhappy. And while that wasn’t his problem—the princess was most definitely not his problem—he recognized that face. It was the face he’d seen all night in his troubled dreams.
Hannah’s.
A thought came, unbidden, and it made him even more uncomfortable than before.
Holding his breath, Makin opened the photo folder on his computer, pulled up the photo taken in Tokyo last year at a business dinner. It was a photo of Hannah accepting a ceremonial kimono. The shot had been taken at an angle, just like the photo of the princess talking to Ibanez. Hannah’s hair had been pulled back in a low ponytail, much like the princess’s chignon at the polo match.
He enlarged Hannah’s photo and dragged it next to the shot of the princess.
The resemblance was uncanny. Their profiles were so similar. The chin, nose, brow. Even the eye color. Change the hair color, and they could be the same. Maybe identical. And to think they’d come so close to meeting each other in Palm Beach. They’d both been there at the polo field … they’d both attended Sunday.
Could they … could Hannah be.
No. No. It was too incredible, too impossible. People didn’t switch places … that was a ludicrous idea, something that only happened in Hollywood movies.
And yet, when he glanced from the photo of Emmeline to the one of Hannah and back again, comparing the faces, the profiles, the lavender-blue eyes, he thought,
Change the hair, swap the clothes, mask the accents and Hannah and the princess could easily pass for each other. Makin was rarely truly shocked by anything but he was blown away now. Dumbfounded, he crossed his arms over his chest and stared through narrowed eyes at the computer screen.
Why hadn’t he seen it before? Why hadn’t he picked up on the differences … the changes? Hannah’s sudden extreme thinness. Her fragile beauty. The emotion in her eyes.
Hannah, the Hannah with him here in Raha right now, wasn’t Hannah at all. She was Princess Emmeline d’Arcy, the twenty-five-year-old royal from Brabant engaged to King Zale Patek of Raguva.
Which meant he hadn’t kissed Hannah, but Princess Emmeline.
It hadn’t been Hannah who had captured his imagination and turned him on, it was Emmeline.
It was Emmeline he’d wanted. Emmeline who had created a night of hot, erotic thoughts.
Unbelievable.
He drummed his fingers on the desk.
Unthinkable.
He didn’t know what game she was playing, but he’d soon find out.
Unforgivable.
He slapped his hand down hard on the desk and got to his feet. Time he paid a call on the princess.
EMMELINE answered the knock on her door, hoping against hope it was breakfast as she’d rung for eggs and toast a half hour ago, but it wasn’t anyone from the kitchen on her doorstep. It was Makin Al-Koury, looking elegant and polished, if a tad forbidding in his black trousers and black shirt.
He must have just showered and shaved because his dark hair still gleamed, the skin on his bronze jaw was taut and smooth and she caught a whiff of his spicy sandalwood cologne. “You’re up early,” she said, her pulse racing, her stomach a knot of nerves.
“We’re usually working by seven-thirty,” he answered. “You’ve been taking it easy and sleeping in.”
There was something rather chilling about his smile this morning and her heart faltered and plummeted, making a dramatic swan dive right to her feet.
Locking her knees, she forced herself to look up and meet his gaze head-on. His eyes were light and glacier-cool, like mist rising office.
Last night the kiss had felt so good, but now, in the clear light of day, she knew it had been a dreadful mistake. Sheikh Makin Al-Koury was too big, too powerful, and far from civilized. He might have millions and billions of euros, and expensive toys and homes scattered across the globe, but that didn’t make him easy, or comfortable or approachable.
“No wonder you’re sending me away. I’ve become unforgivably lazy,” she answered lightly, forcing a smile as she placed an unsteady hand over the narrow waistband of her ivory lace skirt, hoping he’d be fooled by her bravado.
“No one can be perfect all the time.” He smiled at her. “How are you this morning?”
“Good.”
“And you slept well?”
He was still smiling but she felt far from easy. “Yes, thank you.”
“Excellent.” He paused, gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. “In that case, I trust you feel well enough to take some dictation?”
“Dictation?” She hoped he didn’t hear the slight stutter in her voice.
“I need a letter written, a letter that must go out today. I’m hoping to put it on the flight with you.”
“Of course.” Emmeline fought panic and reminded herself that she could do this. She could play the game a little longer. pretend a little longer. “Would you like me come to your office?”
“That’s not necessary.” He put a hand on the door and pushed it all the way open. “I’m already here.”
Emmeline stepped aside to let him in. “I just need some paper and a pen.”
“You’ll find both in your desk in the bedroom,” he said helpfully. “In case you’ve forgotten.”
She darted a quick look into his face, trying to understand where he was going with this, because he was most definitely going somewhere and she didn’t like it. “Thank you.”
Heart hammering, stomach churning, she headed to the bedroom to retrieve the pad of paper and a pen from the desk, and then hesitated at the mirror hanging over the painted chest of drawers. She looked elegant this morning in her ivory silk blouse and matching lace skirt. She’d pulled her dark hair back and added a rope of pearls, and Emmeline could only pray that her polished exterior would hide her anxiety. She didn’t know anything about taking dictation. She’d never dictated a letter, either, but she’d never let the sheikh know that.
Back in the living room, Emmeline sat down on the edge of the pale gold silk couch, pen poised. “I’m ready.”
He glanced at her pen hovering above paper and then into her eyes. He smiled, again, all hard white teeth. “I’m not sure how to start the letter,” he said. “Perhaps you can help me? It’s for an acquaintance, King Zale Patek of Raguva. I’m not sure about the salutation. Would I say ‘Dear Your Royal Highness’? Or just ‘Your Highness’? What do you think?”
Emmeline’s cheeks grew hot. She fought to keep her voice even. “I think either would work.”
“Good enough.” The sheikh sat down on the couch next to her, far too close to her. And then he turned so that he fully faced her. “How about we start with ‘Your Royal Highness’?”
She swallowed, nodded and scribbled the words onto the top of the page before looking up at him.
“Something has come to my attention that cannot be ignored. It is an urgent personal matter, and I wouldn’t bring it to you if it weren’t important.” He paused, looked over her shoulder to see what she’d written. “Good. You’ve almost got it all. And it’s very nice handwriting, but I’d appreciate it if you took shorthand. It’s hard to get my thoughts out when you’re writing so slowly.”