The Santina Crown Collection. Кейт Хьюит

rectangle of water. A vast creamy-gold building rose up in the distance—a structure so wide and so grand that, once again, she wanted to pinch herself to convince herself she wasn’t dreaming.

      They had reached the royal palace at last, and suddenly all her doubts came skimming to the surface, making her stomach churn with fear. Had she forgotten who she was? Just one of the notorious Jacksons whose father had kept the British press entertained for years. How could she go from being mocked and ridiculed to wearing a crown on her head and carrying it off with any degree of confidence?

      ‘Hassan, I can’t do this,’ she croaked. ‘What if your people won’t accept me?’

      Hearing the crack in her voice, Hassan turned, trying to see her as others would see her for the first time. She was wearing an exquisite Kashamak robe in bridal colours of deep scarlet and ornamental gold. Her hair was covered by a golden veil and her eyes were ringed heavily with kohl pencil. Even her scarlet lipstick had been replaced by a glimmering rose-pink, which made her mouth look so much softer.

      She had told him that she wanted her first appearance in his land to be as traditional as possible and he respected her for her thoughtfulness. And she looked, he thought with a sudden wrench of longing, absolutely beautiful. A delectable mixture of East and West, she seemed to represent the very best of both their cultures.

      ‘Your appearance is faultless,’ he said slowly. ‘You need not concern yourself on that score. And as king, my people will accept what I tell them to accept.’

      His reassuring words gave her a moment of comfort and she clung to it, as a child would to a security blanket. ‘And what about your brother, Kamal?’

      He flicked her a glance. ‘What about him?’

      ‘I’m … looking forward to meeting him.’

      His smile was bland. ‘That won’t be happening immediately, I’m afraid, since he has decided to ride off into the desert in order to escape the rigours of court life.’

      Ella swallowed. Or to escape from having to meet her? she wondered. ‘Didn’t you say that he’s been running the country while you were away fighting the war? Won’t he mind handing back the reins to you?’ She hesitated. ‘Power can be addictive stuff.’

      He gave a hard smile. ‘Kamal is going to have to get used to a lot of changes,’ he said. ‘And to build a new role for himself. Because, of course, of much greater significance to him than my returning to rule is the fact that you are carrying my child.’ And hadn’t he always led his brother to believe that he had no desire to procreate? Would Kamal think that he had broken his word and thus changed both their destinies?

      Ella’s voice broke into his troubled thoughts.

      ‘And that child will one day inherit?’ she asked.

      ‘Only if it is a son.’ His black eyes bored into her. ‘Is it a son, Ella? Do you know that already?’

      She felt colour rising in her cheeks as his gaze washed over her. ‘No, no, I don’t. They couldn’t tell on the first scan and I …’

      ‘What?’

      She shook her head, hating the way that he made her feel like a butterfly pinned onto a piece of cardboard. ‘I don’t want to know!’ she said fiercely. ‘I don’t want that kind of pressure spoiling the pregnancy in any way. I don’t want you being pleased if it’s a boy and your brother being pleased if it’s a girl, so that I’ll end up feeling tugged both ways. I want the surprise of not knowing. Otherwise it will be like knowing what all your Christmas presents are before you actually get around to unwrapping them.’

      For a moment, he smiled. ‘I’m afraid we don’t celebrate Christmas in Kashamak,’ he offered drily.

      ‘Well, your birthday presents, then.’

      ‘I wouldn’t really know about that either.’

      She stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re not trying to tell me you never had any birthday presents?’

      ‘So what if I didn’t?’ He shrugged. ‘My father was too busy for that kind of thing. Sometimes he remembered, sometimes not. It wasn’t important.’

      Ella’s heart gave a funny little flip. Of course it was important, especially to a child. It was the one day a year when you could guarantee that all the attention would be focused on you. You got the feeling that you were loved and cared for. Even when money was at its tightest her mother had always managed to pull together some sort of celebration. And it couldn’t have been easy for her, she realised suddenly. Not easy at all.

      ‘And what about your mother, didn’t she want a birthday cake for her little boy?’

      Silently, he cursed her overemotional use of language. Was that deliberate? Was she trying to get under his skin, in the way that women always did? ‘My mother wasn’t around,’ he clipped out.

      ‘What happened to her?’ Ella’s voice softened. ‘You never mention her, Hassan. Did she … did she die?’

      The knuckles of his fists gleamed white as Hassan clenched his hands over his silk-clad thighs. ‘No, she didn’t die—at least, not then. She left us to find a different kind of life, and I don’t particularly want to talk about it. Especially not now at such a significant moment. Look, here are my advisers and staff come out to greet us. Prepare yourself, Ella, for I am sure you know how important first impressions are.’

      Hearing the finality in his voice as he halted the discussion about his childhood, Ella straightened her golden veil with trembling fingers. She certainly remembered her first impression of him. How his dark and proudly arrogant beauty had seemed to call out to something deep inside her. How for one blissful night she thought she’d found it, only to have it swept away by his callous desertion of her. Had that been just an illusion? she wondered. And had she been guilty of imagining a special bond where none existed, as a way of justifying her own wanton behaviour?

      The powerful car drew to a halt and her memories melted away in the presence of a practical dilemma. Because how on earth did you prepare yourself to face people as their brand-new queen?

      ‘Do they know I’m pregnant?’ she asked.

      At this he gave an odd kind of smile. ‘Of course not, though it is fairly obvious to all but the most careless observer. But you need not concern yourself with that, Ella. Don’t you know what they say about royalty? Never complain and never explain. There will be no need for any kind of announcement. Many of my people will not realise the good news until a child is presented to them, for you will largely be hidden from view.’

       Hidden from view?

      What the hell did that mean?

      His words sent feelings of alarm skittering over her skin but there wasn’t time to demand further explanation because the door to the car was being opened and a warm blast of fragrant air hit her. Ella exited the car as gracefully as she could—not an easy move, given that her beautiful gown was so jewel-encrusted that it weighed a ton.

      Slowly, she walked along two lines of assembled people, where the advisers were exclusively male and wore subdued versions of Hassan’s robes. The only women present were servants and they lowered their eyes deferentially as she walked along the line, shyly uttering the Kashamak greeting she’d been practising for days.

      There was so much to take in. High ceilings and marble floors, the glimmer of gold and the glitter of crystal. Was this how her sister Allegra had felt when she’d first arrived in Alex’s royal palace? Blown away by the sense of history and tradition? And the wealth, of course. Only this was the real thing. Not the kind she’d known when she was growing up, when one minute they’d all be driving around in a gold limousine and the next hiding from the bailiffs.

      This was rock-solid wealth. Enduring and sustaining. Money like this could totally influence your thinking and behaviour. And yet, this was their child’s heritage, she realised. All this splendour