‘On the contrary. He had nothing to share. Like I said, you’ve got the wrong Paolo.’
‘Paolo Eduardo Mancini? Married an English student, Helene Elizabeth Grainger, in Paris on March twenty-fifth twelve years ago. Funny that he’d never share that news with you, his lover, his fiancée.’
Okay, so what that he had Paolo’s name right? She bit down on her bottom lip and forced herself further along the hallway. No way was she going to show him he was rattling her. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t.
Although it could explain why Paolo had been so cagey…
No!
She trusted Paolo. She had no reason at all to doubt him. Whereas she had no reason to trust Khaled. No reason at all.
‘You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid,’ she tossed over her shoulder with a wave of her free hand as she kept walking.
‘Then maybe you’d appreciate seeing the wedding video? Or perhaps the photographs. I have an extensive collection.’
Video? Photographs? This time her steps faltered as the air evaporated in her lungs.
‘Why should I believe you?’ She didn’t turn and her voice was barely more than a croak. Surely it couldn’t be true? And if it was, why hadn’t Paolo told her?
All this time!
All this time they’d been dating and seeing each other and not once, even just once, had he intimated that he was already married, that he already had a wife. Why the hell wouldn’t he have admitted to something like that? Dammit—he should have told her!
‘In the end it’s not about what you believe. It’s about the truth. Your fiancé has already been married for twelve years.’
She squeezed her eyes shut as her head dipped to her chest. ‘Then I want to call him,’ she said before sucking air deep into her lungs and looking back at him over her shoulder. ‘Now!’
Five minutes later she was holding on to the receiver in Khaled’s office, clutching the phone with white-knuckled fingers, waiting while the phone rang in an apartment somewhere in New York. She couldn’t sit, nervous energy wouldn’t let her limbs relax.
She had to stand, shifting impatiently from one foot to the other as she waited for the call to be picked up halfway around the globe, all the while trying to ignore the arrogant Jebbai ruler who sprawled unconscionably in the well-worn leather armchair opposite. He obviously had no trouble relaxing and that only added to her fears. The one hope that he’d back down on his crazy claims at her insistence on phoning Paolo drizzled away. He must be so certain that what he was saying was true.
She turned her back on his smug demeanour and glanced at her watch. What time was it in New York now? Some time in the night—he had to be there—she had to discover the truth now—or she didn’t know what she’d do.
Eventually the phone was picked up and Paolo answered. ‘Yes?’ came his voice, thick with sleep and husky as if he’d tumbled straight out of bed to answer the phone. Something squeezed in her heart as she clamped her eyes shut, trying to staunch the flow of tears still so closely threatening. She knew that voice, had once rejoiced in it as he’d held her in his arms, had whispered to her how beautiful she was and that she was the most important person in the world to him.
But now it wasn’t love she felt, love to warm and sustain her and hold her true. Now it was icy panic clamping her inside, compressing her last frantic hopes.
‘Who is it?’ More alert now, she could tell.
‘Paolo,’ she whispered, her voice set to break.
‘Sapphy, bella. Is that you? What’s wrong? Has something happened?’
The once oft-used term of endearment sliced a cold path through her with ruthless efficiency. If what Khaled said was true, she’d never been his darling, his sweetheart. Someone had held that place long before her.
‘Sapphy? Are you still in Jebbai? What’s Khaled done?’ There was fear in his voice too, laced heavily with alarm. Was this just the normal concern of a person woken in the middle of the night to what could be devastating news, or did his reaction signal a deeper dread?
She swallowed back on a sob. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ she lied, feeling her whole world splitting apart as easily as fabric snipped at the edge and ripped in two. ‘Just tell me one thing…’ She hesitated, knowing that this moment was about to change her life, change all her perceptions about living and love, and teach her about betrayal. This moment would be the start of her new life, in whatever form that took.
‘Is it true—are you married? Do you have a wife?’
Silence met her questions, a damning silence that fractured whatever threads of hope remained intact. They were gone, shattered, smashed in his soundless affirmation of the truth.
‘It’s true, then,’ she said on a sniff. ‘You should have told me.’
‘Sapphy, listen to me. I couldn’t tell you—’
Even though his silence had already screamed the truth, his words cemented the facts with a cold, hard reality that shook her.