‘What do you mean, growing up in the shadows?’
Ashraf turned and for the first time she could recall, his dark eyes looked utterly bleak. But only for a moment. Just as she was registering what looked like anguish, his expression became unreadable.
He lifted wide shoulders and spread his hands. ‘I wasn’t meant to be Sheikh, you know.’
Slowly Tori nodded. ‘You said your older brother was supposed to inherit. Is this something to do with him?
‘No.’The word was emphatic. ‘Karim’s reasons for rejecting the throne are his own and private.’ He paused as if to make sure she got the ‘no trespassing’ message.
Tori got it, all right, but that didn’t stifle her curiosity. She watched as Ashraf swung his legs off the lounger to sit facing her, elbows on his thighs. The stance emphasised the power in his athletic frame and awareness fluttered through her, making her hurry into speech.
‘So you weren’t first in line to the throne... What’s that saying? Having an heir and a spare lined up?’
Ashraf’s huff of laughter was humourless. ‘Good in theory, but I was never the spare—not as far as my father was concerned. He hated me because I wasn’t his.’
‘Not his?’ Astonishment gripped her.
‘My mother left him for another man when I was tiny. The official story in Za’daq is that she died. My father couldn’t bear the thought of the public knowing the truth. In those days the press was carefully controlled. Nothing went public that would offend the Sheikh.’
Tori shook her head, still grappling with the first part of what he’d said. ‘She left to be with another man? The man who’d fathered you? Yet she didn’t take you?’
She couldn’t imagine leaving her baby behind.
‘She knew the Sheikh wouldn’t denounce me as illegitimate because his pride wouldn’t permit a public scandal. She was right. Publicly, he didn’t.’
Ashraf’s expression, as hard as cast bronze, confirmed that in private things had been different.
‘Surely she could have taken you?’
‘You didn’t know his pride.’ Ashraf shook his head. ‘Once he’d acknowledged me as his son he’d never release me. Anyway, she probably thought I’d be better off here. Her lover wasn’t wealthy.’
Tori stared, her mind racing. ‘You neveraskedher why she left you behind?’
His mouth tightened. ‘I didn’t get a chance. She died of complications from influenza when I was a child. I only discovered that later—when I set out to locate her.’
Tori sank back, stunned. Ashraf an unloved child...abandoned by his mother and left to the mercy of a proud, arrogant man for whom he was a reminder of his wife’s desertion. Her skin crawled.
‘I never had what you’d call a family life.’
Ashraf’s voice was uninflected. He might have been talking about the weather.
‘Except for my brother, Karim, no one cared about me.’
He drew a breath that made his chest rise, then turned to lock his gaze with hers.
‘My father never told anyone about my parentage but he made his disapproval clear to me in every possible way. There was no warmth or encouragement. He constantly found fault and his attitude rubbed off. The courtiers, all the people who mattered in Za’daq, took their cue from him. Everyone viewed me as useless, shallow, lacking the virtues my brother possessed. Whispers and innuendo followed me no matter how hard I tried.’
‘So you acted up?’
She thought of those press reports about the Playboy Prince, spending his time flitting between scandalous parties and shockingly dangerous sports. Because he’d had nothing better to do with his time? Or because he too had believed he had nothing better to offer?
Tori’s hand went to her throat. It was hard to imagine Ashraf, of all people, so vulnerable.
His mouth twisted. ‘As a kid I tried hard to please my father. But nothing was good enough. Later...’ He shrugged. ‘Later it seemed a fine revenge to make him squirm a little by living down to the reputation he’d built for me.’
She didn’t know what to say. Finally she asked, ‘Did you ever meet your real father?’
Ashraf’s expression had been wry before, his features taut. Now, though, it was as if an iron shutter slammed down, blocking out even the cynical amusement that had gleamed in that half-smile a moment before.