Christmas Bride For The Sheikh. Carol Marinelli

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      It was Ilyas.

      Ilyas was persistent and Hazin was in just the mood for a row.

      ‘What the hell happened to you last night?’ Hazin shouted by way of greeting when he took the call.

      ‘We need to speak.’

      ‘Well, had you turned up as arranged we would have.’

      ‘Hazin, this is important.’

      * * *

      They met at a café and drank strong coffee.

      Hazin could feel his brother’s eyes sweep over his neck and the bite mark Flo had left. ‘I don’t need another lecture.’

      ‘I’m not here to lecture you,’ Ilyas said.

      ‘And I don’t need to be reminded that the yachts and jets will be pulled. I can afford to pay for my own.’

      Hazin was not idle.

      After Petra’s death he had returned to England with the intention to further his education and attend university, as had always been his aim. He hadn’t been able to focus, though, so had started to dabble in property.

      Whatever Hazin dabbled in did well.

      He did not need Royal privilege to survive; in fact, without it Hazin thrived. Yes, he had been given an amazing start but he had a good eye and even if he had been born to a beggar he still would have done well.

      His parents knew it and loathed that fact.

      ‘Hazin,’ Ilyas said, ‘I have already told you that I am not here to lecture you. I have something important to tell you—yesterday I spoke with our father in front of the Palace elders and I told him that things are changing—’

      ‘They will never change.’ Hazin dismissed the notion. ‘Not while he is King.’

      ‘I have told him that there are to be no decisions made without my approval and that there is to be a transition of power to me.’

      Now Hazin looked up. ‘He would never agree to that.’

      ‘I gave him no choice but to agree. I made it clear that if he refused then I am prepared to take it to the people,’ Ilyas said. ‘Would I have your support?’

      ‘You don’t need it.’

      ‘I want it, though.’

      Hazin looked at his brother.

      A stranger.

      He wanted to believe change could happen, yet could not really see it taking place. Yet there was a stir of relief within Hazin that his brother would be stepping up, an intrinsic trust that Ilyas would get things right, yet he did not know where that feeling came from for they had been raised apart. ‘You have my support.’

      ‘I want you beside me.’

      ‘Oh, no.’ Hazin shook his head. He would support his brother in his ventures but he would not be returning home.

      ‘Hazin, there has been a lot of damage done by him. If things are to be put right it’s going to take a lot of work to win back people’s trust. You returning to Zayrinia would speak volumes.’

      ‘You expect me to upend my life on the premise that things may change?’

      ‘They shall change. And there is something else I am here to tell you,’ Ilyas said. ‘I am going to marry in two weeks’ time.’

      ‘So much for change.’ Hazin shrugged and took a drink of his coffee. Ilyas had always refused to marry, insisting the harem more than sufficed. ‘You simply gave in to him.’

      It had infuriated their father that Ilyas had refused to marry. He had long wanted to select a bride for his son and for there to be a Royal wedding.

      At the age of eighteen Hazin had received his exam results. He had worked incredibly hard and the results had been outstanding.

      His father hadn’t even commented.

      Instead of attending university in England, as had been Hazin’s dream, finally he’d found something he could do that might please his father the King.

      There was going to be a Royal wedding—Hazin’s.

      Petra had been chosen as his bride and they had first met at the wedding itself.

      Both had been eighteen and Hazin could well remember looking out from the balcony at the cheering crowds and wondering what the hell he had done, while trying to hide it from his bride.

      Ilyas dragged him from his introspection. ‘You remember Maggie?’

      Hazin frowned at the sound of that name again.

      He hadn’t seen her in six months. Even then, all they had shared was a conversation and that alone had caused so much trouble.

      Yet in the space of an hour he had heard her name twice.

      Once from Flo, now from his brother.

      ‘What about her?’

      ‘Last night I asked Maggie to marry me.’

      Hazin suddenly felt caught.

      Nothing at all had happened between Maggie and himself. It had been a set-up and the cameras watching had hoped something would.

      It hadn’t.

      But Hazin had asked the Palace to pay the ransom demand because of the conversation that had taken place between them. Thankfully, though, their voices had not been recorded and so no one other than Maggie knew what had been said.

      He had spoken openly, perhaps far too openly, but he had felt safe in the knowledge he would never see Maggie again.

      Yet now he was being told she was to marry his brother!

      Had she told Ilyas what he had said?

      ‘Maggie is pregnant,’ Ilyas told him. ‘The baby is due in three months.’

      ‘So while you were nailing me to the wall for something Maggie and I didn’t do, all the time you were—’

      ‘Hazin,’ Ilyas interrupted, ‘I had Maggie brought to the desert to find out what was going on, because I assumed she was blackmailing you. She wasn’t. We fell in love.’

      And that silenced Hazin, for it was something he’d never thought he would hear from Ilyas’s mouth.

      His brother had always seemed cold and aloof and yet he was sitting in a café, telling him there would be changes in the Palace and that he had fallen in love.

      And, yes, Maggie had spoken.

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