Chapter Three
MALIK DIDN’T WANT to stay in Omrhain any longer than was strictly necessary. Ehsan might not be happy about staying behind, but he at least understood the need to remain to ensure that whatever fallout came from the abandoned wedding plans hit neither too hard nor too fast.
Emir Hafiz had offered to provide him a helicopter to take him back to Al Surrahin as the very least he could do after his daughter’s blunder.
Malik would have much preferred to take the private jet back, but having just broken the engagement, he couldn’t afford to push the emir further than he already had.
Ehsan could take the jet and would arrange for Malik’s horse to be returned to Al Surrahin at the earliest convenience.
Not that there was anything convenient about the situation he found himself in.
Large dark honey eyes flashed into his mind.
His shoulder, aching as if protesting Malik’s rejection of his bride.
And if there had been even a single moment, a half second, when he’d felt…
something at seeing her again, something hopeful, something happily surprised, then it had been quickly buried beneath the avalanche of disbelief that he had been betrayed yet again.
Not only by her, but by his own body. By the shocking attraction he’d felt to her.
Malik cursed through gritted teeth, uncaring of what the Omrhain staff member thought of him, and forced his thoughts away from that and onto the present problem.
Malik would have to face his country and let them know that he had failed.
Failed to find someone willing to marry him.
How on earth was he going to explain this?
For the first time in a long time, Malik felt genuinely adrift, unable to find solid ground, all because of her. Anger, the kind that he hadn’t felt for years, whipped around him in an invisible storm, but he harnessed it before it could take hold. He couldn’t afford to feed his reputation further.
As Malik followed the uniformed staff member through the warren of corridors that criss-crossed the small but opulent palace, his phone vibrated with a message from his brother’s doctors.
They were once again trying to set up a meeting, at the very worst possible time.
Malik wondered if it were better to get all the bad news out at once.
To just get it over and done with, but still he couldn’t quite bring himself to arrange the meeting.
It would wait until he got back to Al Surrahin.
Don’t worry, brother, I’m not going anywhere.
That’s not even remotely funny, he snapped at his brother’s imagined response.
It’s a little funny.
Eventually Malik was led out of the palace and up several flights of stairs that opened out onto a helipad. He was hit by the familiar press of wind from the blades, happy that the helicopter seemed as ready as he was to get out of here.
Wordlessly, the staff member pointed to the open door and with a single nod removed himself from the platform so that their take-off could be swift.
Malik simply slipped into his seat at the back, buckled himself in and donned the headphones that allowed the pilot to keep him updated with the flight plan.
‘Flight time is an estimated two hours,’ explained the voice through the headset, adding that there was a strong easterly wind that was creating a little resistance that wouldn’t be too problematic to anything other than their eta.
Malik nodded, and turned his attention out of the window as the helicopter lifted into the air with a smoothness that he appreciated.
He wanted to get the hell out of there and didn’t spare a single thought to the woman that he had left behind. The woman who, had she not betrayed his trust before he even knew her, would have been his wife.
Forty minutes into the flight, Malik was still staring at his phone, rereading the message request from his brother’s doctors.
Guilt warred in his chest. Yara had wanted him to meet with them before he visited Omrhain, but he’d put them off.
He couldn’t really afford to do so any longer.
He was about to reply when he heard the pilot speak through the headset.
‘Your Royal Highness, I’m afraid we’re being forced to land.’
‘Why?’ Malik asked, his gut immediately tensing.
‘We’re experiencing technical concerns and I will not take the risk of continuing further onto Al Surrahin. There is a place not far from here where I can set us down.’
Malik peered out of the window, seeing nothing but the Persian Gulf beneath them.
‘Where?’ Malik repeated, but the pilot failed to reply. ‘I asked you a question,’ Malik warned, his voice cold enough to freeze the air in the small cabin.
The pilot tapped his headset as if to say that he couldn’t hear him, but a quick glance at the lights on the dashboard showed no apparent failures.
He clenched his jaw, his entire body going on alert. He had been too distracted by concerns about his brother and in the space of a heartbeat, a million scenarios ran through his mind that covered everything from helicopter crashes to sea rescues and acts of sabotage.
Was Omrhain really stupid enough to try something so rash?
Just how much danger was he in? In a single inhale of breath Malik understood what it would mean if something happened to him; for his country, for his nephew.
They had lost two rulers in six years. There was no way that they could stand to lose a third.
Malik didn’t fear for himself, but his young nephew, who would be cut loose in a sea of councillors and advisers—most of whom were still his father’s cronies, focused only on lining their own pockets.
Malik hadn’t done enough yet. He hadn’t done enough to make Al Surrahin secure for Aayan.
He recalled his frantic thoughts, getting himself under control with the same iron grip that had harnessed his wayward temper. By the time they started descending towards one of the islands, Malik was as calm as the sea below.
The pilot put the helicopter down expertly on the single pad built onto, from what Malik could see, a small island with two structures on it.
He didn’t trust the pilot, and was convinced that the man would be up in the air as soon as Malik disembarked.
He discreetly checked his phone, but there was no signal, so no way of getting help. Yet.
‘You made a grave mistake,’ Malik told the pilot before he disembarked.
‘Quite probably,’ the man said. To his credit, the pilot didn’t even flinch. Whoever had made him do such a reckless thing—the kind of thing that started wars—clearly had his utmost loyalty.
Malik stepped out onto the platform and looked out at his surroundings, tensed, ready for armed men, ready for anything.
Apart from who he saw coming towards him as the helicopter lifted into the air behind him.
‘You!’ The shocked word fell from his lips before he could take it back.
Hana steeled herself against the powerful presence of the man she still hoped to marry.
Malik had changed into more comfortable travelling attire; the loose, layered shirt style thobe was pressed against the contours of his body by the same furious wind that whipped his long hair about his face.
Black over black, his dark olive skin appeared almost bronze against the grey sky overhead.
Her gaze hungrily ate up the commanding physique that was indelibly imprinted on her mind, until she raised her eyes to his face where she saw shock, disbelief and then anger. A lot of anger.
She had her work cut out for her.
‘Your Highness—’ she tried.
‘Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?’ he demanded, his fury as powerful as the wind that pushed and pulled at them from where they stood at the highest point of the island.
‘I—’
‘Do you?’ he demanded, his eyes flashing furiously. ‘Did you think about what my nephew might think to hear that I’ve disappeared? What my country might think?’
He was standing on the helicopter pad, not yet closing the distance between them as if he were having to hold himself and his fury back with nothing but an iron-strong will and need.
‘They won’t know!’ she yelled back, because he wouldn’t let her get a word out. He just kept interrupting her. ‘This won’t take long. I just need to talk to you.’
He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. As if her response had either shocked him or angered him so much that all the words got stuck in his throat.
Guilt formed in her stomach like a stone as the helicopter rose into the sky behind him, the noise so loud that talking—or more accurately yelling—was impossible.
He continued to stare daggers at her until the helicopter was long gone and he seemed to realise that they couldn’t continue to stand there facing off against each other.
She tried to approach him, but he raised a hand to ward her off. She could see that there was something behind his anger, the way that there was pain beneath his shoulder injury.
‘Do you ever think?’ he demanded without shouting this time.
Hana didn’t really know how to answer that because actually kidnapping a sheikh had taken quite a considerable amount of thinking.
She’d had to convince Danesh, the pilot, to aid her and had done so, even if Amara’s nephew was unhappy about it.
He’d brought her out here to the island, shortly before he returned to pick Malik up.
Danesh’s cousin had been working on the renovation of the villa on the island, owned by a Swiss billionaire, before it had been put on hold while he and his wife worked through a tricky divorce.
The villa was almost complete, had running water, electricity and guaranteed privacy.
Since the building plans had stalled, no one had set foot on the island in months.
It was perfect for what she needed; the small, idyllic island was a quiet place for just a few hours, to make her case and hopefully salvage a marriage from the mess she had made.