Rising Stars & It Started With… Collections. Кейт Хьюит

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СКАЧАТЬ snapped her eyes open, prayed for a futile second that no one had heard. But just in case they hadn’t Nakia followed the leader as she always did.

      ‘Ummi!’

      ‘Amy!’ She forced out the correction, tried to sound bright and matter of fact, but her eyes were filling with tears, her heart squeezing as still the twins insisted on using the Arabic word for mummy.

      ‘I’ll go and get them ready for the journey home.’ She picked up Clemira, her hands shaking, grateful when Natasha stood and picked up Nakia.

      Natasha was the perfect hostess, instantly realising the faux pas the little girls had made. Doing her best to smooth things over, she followed Amy out of the room with Nakia. But as Amy fled past the table she caught a brief glimpse of Emir. His face was as grey as the incoming storm—and there would be a storm. Amy was certain of it.

      The tension chased her from the room. The realisation that continuing on was becoming increasingly impossible surrounded her now. She wished Natasha would leave when they reached the nursery, wished she would not try to make conversation, because Amy was very close to tears.

      ‘I will go back and explain to them.’ Natasha was practical. ‘I know how difficult things can be at times, but once I explain how similar the words are …’ She tried to make things better and, perhaps selfishly, yearned for Amy to confide in her. The only thing missing in her life was a girlfriend—someone from home to chat to, to compare the country’s ways with. ‘Anyway, it’s surely natural that they would think of you in that way.’

      ‘I’m not their mother.’

      ‘I know.’ Natasha misinterpreted Amy’s tears as she cuddled Clemira into her—or perhaps she didn’t. Her words were the truth. After all, she had heard them as a family that morning. ‘It must be so hard for you—to detach, I mean, you’ve known them since the day they were born.’

      ‘Why would it be hard for me to detach?’ Amy met the Queen’s eyes and frowned, her guard suddenly up. Natasha sounded as if she really did know how hard it was for her, and she must never know—no one must ever know. But Amy was suddenly certain that Natasha did, and her attempt to refute it was desperate. ‘I’m a royal nanny—as Kuma is.’

      Natasha knew she had meddled too far, but she stepped back a little too late. ‘Of course you have to keep a professional detachment.’ Natasha nodded. Amy was not going to confide in her, she realised, so she tried to salvage the conversation as best she could. ‘After all, you will have your own babies one day.’

      Amy was tired—so tired of women who assumed, who thought it was so straightforward, that parenthood was a God-given right. Maybe, too, she was tired of covering up, tired of saying the right thing, tired of putting others at ease as they stomped right over her heart.

      She looked up at Natasha. ‘Actually, I can’t have children.’ She watched the blush flood Natasha’s cheeks and then fade till her skin was pale. She knew then that somehow Natasha knew about herself and Emir—perhaps they had given themselves away last night at the celebration? Perhaps they’d ignored each other just a touch too much? Or was their love simply visible to all?

      Yes, love, Amy thought with a sob of bitterness—a bitterness that carried through to her words. ‘So, yes, while it might have been a touch awkward for everyone at breakfast to hear the twins call me Ummi, for me it hurts like hell. Now …’ She wanted her tears to fall in private, for Natasha was not her friend. ‘If you’ll excuse me …?’

      ‘Amy—’

      ‘Please!’ Amy didn’t care if it was the Queen she was dismissing, didn’t care if this was Natasha’s home. She just wanted some privacy, some space. ‘Can you please just leave it?’

      Had she looked up she would have seen tears in Natasha’s eyes too as she nodded and left her. And Natasha’s eyes filled again when she took her place back at the table and saw Emir sit tall and proud, but removed.

      Natasha had seen that expression before. It was the same as it had been when he had lost Hannah. Grey and strained, his features etched in grief.

      As Emir looked up, as he saw the sympathy in Natasha’s expression, he knew she had been told—that Amy must have somehow confided the truth.

      That it was impossible for her to be Queen.

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

      HE MET the day he dreaded and rose at dawn.

      His prayers were deep.

      Guilt lashed like a whip to his back. He had not allowed a year to pass before he touched another woman and deep was Emir’s prayer for forgiveness; yet there was nothing to forgive, his soul told him. That wasn’t the prayer that she needed to hear.

      He could feel Hannah reaching from the grave, desperate for him to say it, for without those words how could she rest?

      ‘I will make the best decision.’

      Still it was not what she wanted; still he was forced to look deeper. Yet he dared not.

      He visited the nursery. There was Amy, curled up on the sofa, reading a book with the twins. He could not look at her. Later they rode with him in the back of a car to the edge of the desert, to visit Hannah and pay their respects.

      Amy sat in the vehicle and watched the trio. When he turned to walk back to the car she watched him unseen, for the windows were heavily tinted. She ached to comfort him, to say the right thing, but it was not and could never be her place.

      It had been five days since they’d returned from Alzirz.

      Five days of ignoring her, Emir thought as they drove back.

      Five days of denial.

      And a lifetime of it to look forward to.

      She could see his pain, could feel his pain as they walked back into the palace, and she proved herself a liar again.

      ‘I’m sorry today is so hard.’

      He could not look at her.

      ‘If …’ She stopped herself, but with a single word it was out there: If it gets too tough, if things get too hard, if the night is too long …

      He turned and did not wait for the guards to open his office door; instead he strode in, saw Patel and the elders quickly shuffle some papers. But Emir knew. He did not attempt politeness, nor even ask to see what was written. He just strode to the desk and picked them up. He looked through them for a moment, a muscle flickering in his cheek as he read them.

      ‘Sheikha Princess Jannah of Idam?’ He looked to Patel—a look that demanded a rapid answer.

      ‘She has many brothers.’ Patel’s voice was a touch high from fear. It was his turn to be on the receiving end of the King’s anger and he did not like it one bit. ‘She has many brothers. Her father too has many brothers …’

      ‘Sheikha Noor?’ Emir’s voice was low, but no less ferocious.

      ‘A СКАЧАТЬ