“Stay where you are.”
Chloe frowned, her mind blank. Which was where? She blinked again. No. She wasn’t dreaming. The last twenty four hours had really happened.
Malik had died. She groaned, trying to sit up, but Raffa’s hands on her shoulders were like vices. Her head was in his lap, and his body was warm, all around hers. She needed to stand, but being close to him like this was the best thing she’d ever felt.
But then she remembered. The divorce papers.
Their marriage was officially over. Well? What else had she expected? She’d sent them to him. She’d walked out on him, and she’d hidden from him. Did she think he might still be foolish enough to want to convince her to stay?
And even if he did, she couldn’t give into that. She couldn’t give him what he needed – and he needed that baby now more than ever.
It jerked her into action. “Let me go.” She said with desperate urgency and determination, even when her heart was breaking, and now when she tried to move, he didn’t fight her. He helped her up though, and guided her to a seat. Once she was settled, he strode across the room and filled a crystal glass with iced tea, bringing it back to her and holding it out. She took the glass from the bottom, careful not to touch his fingers – there’d been enough touching already.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’ve been travelling all day. I hadn’t eaten. And the shock of Malik…” And seeing you again, she added mentally, closing her eyes as though that might blot her husband from her mind and her heart.
It didn’t.
“The doctor will be here soon,” Raffa said, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“I don’t need a doctor,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’m fine, truly.”
But the door pushed inwards and a medical professional appeared, distinguishable by his white coat and black leather bag. He joined the servants who were hovering in the door, unsure of how to proceed.
Chloe hadn’t seen this man before, but for once, the doctor was a servant who met her eyes. In fact, he smiled into them kindly, and when he spoke it was as though they were equals. How refreshing it was to be seen as a person rather than simply the Sheikha.
“What happened, your highness?” He asked, placing a bag down beside Chloe and crouching at her feet. His voice was accented, but she understood him well enough. She could have slipped into Ras el Kidan but the language was part of her past – a past she needed to forget.
She stuck to English.
“Nothing, I…”
“She fainted,” Raffa contradicted, coming to stand over them. “And she looks terrible.”
Chloe swept her eyes shut, his assessment no less hurtful for being true.
“Would you mind having the room cleared, sir?” The doctor asked, without looking at Raffa.
Raffa barked a command in Ras el Kidan and the servants disappeared.
Apparently the doctor knew better than to ask Raffa to join them. “Lie down please,” he said gently, arranging a pillow behind Chloe’s head.
“This is silly.”
“Chloe,” Raffa’s voice was thick with torment. “Just do as he says. Please.”
She jerked her eyes to his and felt something pass between them, something she didn’t understand. She’d come to Ras el Kida to mourn the passing of her father-in-law, but also because she wanted to see and support this man, and instead, she’d arrived and brought pain to him, and now she was making trouble when he no doubt had other things to attend to.
“You don’t have to stay,” she said softly, lying back against the pillows.
A muscle jerked in his jaw but he remained resolutely where he was.
“You fainted?” The doctor asked, taking a blood pressure cuff from his bag and wrapping it around her upper arm. It squeezed against her flesh and Chloe stared at the ceiling while it did its job.
“Yeah. But it wasn?
?t a big deal. Like I said, I hadn’t eaten and…”
“In how long?” The doctor prompted.