‘In the next hour?’
‘If need be.’
She stared at him for a long beat, and he felt tension gather inside him in a tight, hard knot. He knew he was making an unusual request, to say the least. He also knew he had to get Olivia to agree. He didn’t want to threaten her, God knew, but he needed her. He didn’t have any other woman in his life who he trusted to be discreet and competent, the way Olivia was. He supposed that said something about his own life, but at this moment all he could care about was achieving his goal. Securing the crown of a kingdom he’d been born to rule...even if many didn’t believe it. Even if he’d never been sure he would.
Never sure if his father would change his mind and disinherit him, just as he had Khalil.
‘And if I say no?’ Olivia asked and Aziz gave her his most charming smile.
‘But why would you?’
‘Because it’s insanity?’ she shot back without a shred of humour. ‘Because any paparazzi with a telephoto lens could figure out I’m not Queen Elena and plaster it all over the tabloids? I don’t think even the Gentleman Playboy could charm himself out of that disaster.’
‘So cutting, Olivia.’ He shook his head in gentle mockery. ‘If that happened, I’d be responsible. All the blame would fall to me.’
‘You don’t think I’d be dragged through the gossip mill, every aspect of my life dissected in the tabloids?’ For a second her features contorted, as if such a possibility caused her actual physical pain. ‘No.’
‘If you were discovered, which you won’t be,’ Aziz answered calmly, ‘No one would who know you are.’
‘You don’t think they could find out?’
‘Possibly, but we’re theorising to no purpose. There are no journalists out there. The country has been closed to foreign press for years. I have yet to change that decree.’
‘The Kadaran press, then.’
‘Have always been in the royal pocket. I’ve requested no photographs on this occasion, and they’ll comply.’ His insides tightened. ‘I’m not condoning the way things are here, but it’s how my father ran things, and currently it continues.’
She stared at him for a moment, her slate-blue gaze searching his face. ‘Are you going to do things differently now you’re Sheikh?’ She sounded curious but also a bit disbelieving, which Aziz could understand, even if he didn’t like it.
He hadn’t proved himself capable of much besides being a whiz with numbers and partying across Europe, at least to someone like Olivia. She’d seen his hedonistic lifestyle first-hand, had cleaned up its excesses. He could hardly blame her now for being a little sceptical of his ability to rule well, or even at all.
‘I’m going to try.’
‘And you’ll start with this ridiculous masquerade.’
‘I’m afraid it’s necessary.’ He cocked his head, offering her a smile that didn’t even make her blink. ‘It’s for a good reason, Olivia. The stability of a country. The safety of a people.’
‘Why has Khalil kidnapped Queen Elena? And how did he even do it? Wasn’t she guarded?’
A hot, bright flare of anger fired his insides. Aziz didn’t know whom that anger was directed at: Khalil, for taking his bride, or his staff, who had not been alert to the threat until it was too late. No, he realised, he was angry at himself, even though he knew he could not have prevented the kidnapping. He was angry that he couldn’t have prevented it, that he didn’t know this country or people well enough yet to command their loyalty or obedience—or to find Elena hidden somewhere in its endless, barren desert.
‘Khalil is the illegitimate son of my father’s first wife,’ he explained tersely. ‘He was raised as my father’s son for seven years, until my father discovered the truth of his parentage. My father banished him, along with his mother, but he insists now that he has a claim to the throne.’
‘How awful.’ Olivia shook her head. ‘Banished.’
‘He was raised in luxury by his aunt in America,’ Aziz told her. ‘You needn’t feel sorry for him.’
She eyed him curiously. ‘You obviously don’t.’
Aziz just shrugged. What he felt for Khalil—when he even allowed himself to think of the man who shadowed his memories like a malevolent ghost—was too complicated to explain even to himself, much less to Olivia. Anger and envy. Sorrow and bitterness. A potent and unhealthy mix, to say the least.
‘I admit,’ he said, ‘I don’t have much sympathy for him now, considering he is destabilising my country and has kidnapped my bride.’
‘Why do you think he believes he has a right to the throne?’
Because everyone else does. Because my father adored him, even when he learned he wasn’t his son. Even when he didn’t want to. ‘I’m not sure he does believe he has a right,’ he told her with a small shrug. ‘This might just be revenge against my father, a man he thought to be his own father for much of his childhood.’ Aziz glanced away from Olivia’s inquisitive gaze. Revenge against me, for taking his place. ‘My father was not a fair man. This extraordinary will is surely proof of that.’
‘And so Khalil has kidnapped Queen Elena in order to prevent your marriage,’ she stated slowly, and Aziz nodded, his jaw bunching. He hated to think of Queen Elena out in the desert, alone and afraid. He didn’t know his prospective bride very well, but he could only imagine how terrifying such an experience would be for anyone, and especially for someone with her history. She’d told him a little of how her parents had died, how alone she’d been. He just hoped Khalil would keep her safe now.
‘If you don’t marry within the six weeks,’ Olivia asked, ‘What happens?’
‘I lose the throne and title.’
‘And who does it go to?’
Aziz hesitated. ‘The will doesn’t specify a particular person,’ he answered. ‘But a referendum will have to be called.’
‘A referendum? You mean the people will decide who is Sheikh?’
‘Yes.’
Her mouth curved slightly. ‘That sounds nicely democratic.’
‘Kadar has a constitutional monarchy,’ Aziz answered, struggling to keep his voice even, dispassionate. ‘The succession has always been dynastic. The referendum is simply my father’s way of forcing me to jump through his hoops.’
‘And you don’t want to jump?’
‘Not particularly, but I recognise the need.’ He’d spent over three weeks trying to find a loophole in his father’s will. He didn’t want to marry, didn’t want to be forced to marry, and certainly not by his father. His father had controlled his actions, his thoughts and desires for far too long.
Yet even in death his father had the power to control him. To hurt him. And here he was, jumping through hoops.
‘Why not just call the referendum?’ Olivia asked.
‘Because I’d lose.’ Aziz spoke easily, lightly, using the tone he’d taken for so long it was second nature to him—a second skin, this playboy persona of his. But talking about his father—about the possibility of Khalil being Sheikh because his country didn’t want him—was making that second skin start to peel away, and he was afraid of what Olivia might be able to see through the tatters. ‘Hazard of not spending much time in Kadar, I’m afraid,’ he continued in a mocking drawl. ‘But I’m hoping to remedy that shortly.’
‘But not in time for the referendum.’
‘Exactly. Which is why I need to appear with my bride and reassure my people that all is well.’ He took a step towards her, willing her to understand, to accept. ‘My father left his country in turmoil, Olivia, divided by the choices he made twenty-five years ago. I am trying my hardest to right those wrongs and keep Kadar in peace.’
He saw a flash of something in her slate-blue eyes—understanding, or even compassion. He was getting to her. He hoped. ‘And if you don’t find Queen Elena?’ she asked.
‘I will. I just need a little more time. I have men searching the desert as we speak.’
It had all been so cleverly, capably done. Khalil had planted a man loyal to him in Aziz’s new staff, a man who had given Aziz the message that Elena’s plane had been delayed by bad weather. He’d bribed the pilot of the royal jet to divert the flight to a remote desert location and he’d had his men meet Elena as she came off the plane.
That much he knew, had pieced together from witnesses: from the steward who had helplessly watched Elena disappear into a blacked-out SUV; the maid who had seen one of Aziz’s staff looking secretive and shifty, loitering in places he shouldn’t have been.
Aziz sighed. Yes, it had been capably done, because Khalil still had the loyalty of many of the Kadaran people. Never mind that he’d left Kadar when he’d been seven years old and had only returned to the country in the last six months. They remembered the young boy they’d known as Sheikh Hashem’s beloved son—the real son, or so the whispers went.
Aziz was the interloper. The pretender.
He always had been, from the moment he’d been brought to the palace at just four years old. He remembered the way the staff had pretended not to hear his mother’s humble requests, how they’d sneered even as they’d served them. He’d been bewildered, his mother desperate. She’d stopped trying to please anyone and had remained isolated in the women’s quarters, rarely seen in public.