The Royals Collection. Rebecca Winters

put the phone back on the hook. Under his tan he was ashen.

      ‘Your uncle?’

      He shook his head. ‘No, not that, thank God.’

      She was relieved for his sake. She knew how fond Kamel was of his uncle and had also worked out from a few things he had said that he was in no hurry to take the throne. In fact, she had the impression that Kamel inexplicably thought he was not good enough to fill his cousin’s shoes.

      The few times Kamel had mentioned his cousin, the qualities he said he had possessed—the ones that made him the perfect heir apparent—were qualities that Kamel had too, in abundance!

      ‘There has been an earthquake.’

      Hannah gasped.

      ‘Rafiq will stay here with you.’

      ‘Good luck and take care,’ she said, struggling to keep her emotions low-key but wishing he had asked her to come with him.

      ‘It’s on occasions like this that my uncle must feel the loss of Hakim. It was so senseless. It will never make any sense. He had the ability to—’

      Hannah could no longer hold her tongue. ‘I’m sure your cousin was a great guy and it’s desperately sad he is gone, but I’m damned sure he wasn’t perfect. If he had been, he wouldn’t have stolen the woman you loved! You’re as good as he was any day of the week! Your uncle is lucky to have someone so dedicated.’

      There was a long silence, finally broken by his slow drawl.

      ‘So the gossips have been talking? I suppose that was to be expected. Well, one thing they didn’t tell you is the difference between me and Hakim is that he wanted to be the king. I hate the idea. And he had Amira beside him for support and that made all the difference for him.’ Kamel found that lately he was able to think about their incredible devotion to one another without feeling bitter or jealous. It was one burden he no longer carried.

      She gasped as though he had struck her and glanced down expecting to see a blade protruding from between her ribs. ‘And you have me.’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, totally misinterpreting her reaction and her flat tone. ‘I’m not expecting you to hold my hand.’ He paused and cleared his throat. ‘Amira was brought up to this life, and she knew the pressures.’

      Unable to see the desperate pain and longing she knew would be in his face, Hannah looked away, hearing Raini’s words in her head. A beautiful queen.

      ‘I may not understand being royal,’ she admitted quietly, ‘but I do understand that, even though you hate it...’ she lifted her gaze to his face and gave a quick smile ‘...you still put everything into it. That makes you someone who will make a great king one day.’ Under the rather intense scrutiny of his dark eyes, she coloured. ‘A king should have a level of arrogance that would be unacceptable in any other job.’

      This drew a laugh from Kamel, who dropped a kiss on her mouth. Their lips clung...for how many seconds she didn’t know, but it was long enough for Hannah to know she had fallen in love. And the man she loved would only ever see her as a pale imitation of the love of his life.

      * * *

      A little over a month after the earthquake, which had not actually caused any loss of life but had flattened a power plant, Hannah was breakfasting alone. She was in no hurry, as the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a new school had been unexpectedly postponed. When she’d asked why, her secretary had been strangely evasive, but then she was probably reading things into the situation that weren’t there.

      Like today—just because no one had remembered her birthday didn’t mean that she had no friends, that nobody would miss her if she weren’t there.

      Struggling to divert the self-pitying direction of her thoughts, she picked up her fork and toyed with the smoked salmon and fluffy scrambled egg on her plate. It looked delicious, it smelt delicious, but she was not hungry. Her lack of hunger had nothing whatever to do with the fact it was her birthday and nobody had remembered. Actually, there had been other days this week when she had not been able to face breakfast.

      She put down her fork and reminded herself that she was not a child. Birthdays no longer had the same importance, though even last year her father, who always made a fuss of her, despite the memories the day brought back for him—or perhaps because of them—had invited her friends for a pamper spa day. Hannah had known but she had pretended to be surprised.

      Practically speaking you could hardly have a spa day with friends who were hundreds of miles away—and her father, it seemed, had forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind? She had rung him two nights on the run and he hadn’t picked up or responded to her text messages. Presumably he had decided she was Kamel’s problem now. And Kamel had left their bed at some unearthly hour. She had barely been able to open her eyes when he had kissed her and said, ‘See you later.’

      ‘How later?’ she had muttered, wondering how he managed to expend so much energy during the night and still look fresh and dynamic in the morning. Would she have traded a fresh morning face for the nights of shared passion? Hannah hadn’t even asked herself the question. It was a no-brainer.

      The prospect of lying in Kamel’s arms at night was what made the long and sometimes exhausting days bearable. It had been a steep learning curve and a shock to find herself with a personal secretary and a diary of official engagements. And part of the problem was of her own making. Initially, despite being advised to be cautious by her advisor, Hannah had agreed to lend her name to any worthy cause that approached her. Now she was snowed under by obligations to promote the numerous good causes she had lent her name to, and had been forced to be a little more discriminating.

      Not only had she learnt her own life was not to be one of leisure, she had stopped thinking of Kamel’s life as one of glitter and self-indulgence. He worked harder than anyone she had ever known, and as for glamour—some of what he was called upon to do was mind-numbingly boring and the flip side of that was the delicate tightrope of diplomacy he trod when he negotiated with men of power and influence.

      He never complained, and she never told him how much she admired him. He had never mentioned Amira again but she was still there, the silent invisible presence. They could close the door on the rest of the world at the end of the day, but not his dead love. She was a constant. A perfect ideal that Hannah knew she could never live up to. She also worried about what would happen when those forbidden words slipped out in a moment of passion—so she really struggled to stay in control when they made love. Maybe Kamel guessed what she was doing because sometimes he looked at her oddly.

      How would he react? she wondered, picking up her coffee cup. She had taken a sip from the cup before she saw what was concealed behind it: a gold-embossed envelope with her name inscribed in a bold familiar print across it.

      She slopped coffee on the pristine white cloth in her haste to tear it open. It did not take long to read the message on the card inside.

      Your birthday present is in the kitchen.

      He knew it was her birthday and he’d bought her something! Like the child she no longer was, she leapt to her feet with a whoop of delight.

      * * *

      The private jet stood idling. Bad weather had delayed Kamel’s flight. These things happened, and there was always a choice. A man could stress about a situation that was outside his control, fret and fume, and metaphorically or possibly literally bang his head against a brick wall.

      Or he could not.

      Kamel saved his energy for situations he could influence, but today he had struggled to retain this philosophical outlook. By the time his car drove through the palace gates it was almost midnight and he was in a state of teeth-clenching impatience.

      He had bought women presents before, typically expensive baubles, and he took their appreciation for granted. The bauble he had bought Hannah had been in a different class. News of the record-breaking price