Her hand trembled. She couldn’t share him! She would not share him! She would sooner be without him than be able to bear the thought of him in another woman’s arms!
Her fingers still shaking, she picked up the telephone and rang her sister on the other side of the world. ‘Nadia?’
‘Jenna, is that you?’
‘Of course it’s me.’
‘But you sound terrible—what on earth is the matter?’
‘R-Rashid has flown to Paris.’
‘And?’
‘Nadia—he has a mistress in Paris.’
‘Had a mistress,’ Nadia corrected gently. ‘He’s married to you now, remember?’
As if she could forget! ‘I have to know if he’s seeing her, Nadia,’ she said urgently. ‘I can’t live my life like this—I have to find out!’
‘Well, can’t you just fly to Paris and surprise him?’
Jenna shook her head. ‘Oh, sure—he’s surrounded by minders and aides who would lie through their teeth for him! If I announced that I was taking a plane to Paris he would probably hear about it before the airline did!’ An idea began to take root in her mind. ‘Unless I was arranging to meet you for a holiday in London, of course!’
‘London isn’t Paris,’ Nadia pointed out.
‘I know it isn’t—but I could catch a train from London straight to Paris.’
‘And what about your bodyguards? Can you really see them letting you do that?’
Jenna gave a small tight smile at her strained reflection. ‘You know how people always say how similar we look?’ she queried softly. ‘Why, if you were wearing my clothes and I was wearing yours—well, anyone could easily mistake us for one another!’
‘Jenna—you aren’t suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you? Are you going to pretend to be me?’
‘How long have I covered up for you and Brad?’
‘That’s blackmail,’ her sister objected jokingly.
‘Or you could say that one good turn deserves another.’ There was a pause. ‘So how soon can you fly to London?’ Jenna asked crisply.
Her plans proved almost ridiculously easy to execute. She arrived in London accompanied by a lady-in-waiting and two bodyguards and went straight to the large penthouse suite at the Granchester hotel, which Nadia had booked.
She hadn’t seen her sister since the wedding, and the two of them embraced tearfully.
‘Jenna, what on earth are you going to say to Rashid?’ asked Nadia worriedly. ‘Won’t he go mad if he finds out you’ve been checking up on him? And won’t someone tell him that you’ve left Quador?’
‘I don’t care. I have to find out the truth,’ said Jenna urgently. ‘The man I married is like a stranger to me.’
‘Already?’ asked Nadia sadly.
‘Except during our honeymoon, when we seemed as close as a couple could be.’
‘But you love him? You do still love him, don’t you?’
‘As life itself,’ answered Jenna simply. ‘That much has not changed. But I can’t live a lie, Nadia—and my love for him will be eaten away if he intends to be free with other women. I would sooner divorce him than have that happen.’
‘He would never allow it, Jenna—you know that.’
‘We shall see. We’re in the twenty-first century now, not the Dark Ages—he cannot keep me a prisoner to his will!’