CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ASHRAFSEETHEDAShe marched into his office. There’d been satisfaction in sacking the Minister for the Interior, but not enough.
‘Meeting didn’t go well?’ Bram looked up from his desk.
‘It went as expected. We now have an opening in the Ministry.’ And an offended ex-minister, shocked that his King had actually dismissed him. The old goat had thought himself untouchable.
‘Good. The Council will run better without him.’
Ashraf shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘I expected you to counsel patience.’ That had run out last night.
Bram shrugged. ‘You gave him chance after chance, compromising to bring the old guard along with you and allow him some pride. But he’s dead wood, holding the government back.’
Ashraf lifted his eyebrows. Bram really was speaking his mind today. ‘What’s happened?’ He knew his friend. Something had prompted his militant attitude.
Bram nodded to his computer. ‘The press reports are worse than we first thought. Somehow they’ve got a photo of Tori and Oliver, taken in Australia. Speculation is rife that he’s your son.’
Ashraf ploughed his fingers through his hair. It had been a gamble, waiting to legitimise Oliver. Ashraf had wanted to announce a wedding simultaneously, but he’d respected Tori’s need for time.
‘The cat’s out of the bag, then.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Arrange a press release. I’ll—’
‘That’s not all.’ Bram looked grim. ‘I’ve received a petition from a small group of Council members. They’ve heard about Oliver and know that you’ve moved out of your apartments to be with him and Tori. They insist you give them up or abdicate.’
Ashraf snorted. ‘As if they have the power toinsist! Let me guess.’ He named three cronies of the sacked Minister and Bram nodded. ‘They seem to forget it’s only bymypleasure that they have a role in government.’
‘They threatened to approach Karim and ask him to assume the throne.’
Ashraf gritted his teeth. The last thing Karim wanted or needed was a delegation of old fogeys bothering him. ‘Karim rejected the throne. He can’t simply change his mind. Even if it were possible, he’d never agree.’
Bram lifted one eyebrow but Ashraf said no more. Only he and his brother knew the reason for his action. A medical test had revealed that Karim, not Ashraf, was the cuckoo in the nest, the son of another man.
Privately Ashraf thought that had precipitated his ailing father’s death. The revelation that the son he’d groomed as heir wasn’t his while the despised younger child was his true son.
Karim had stayed after the funeral only long enough to see Ashraf crowned and then left Za’daq. He had no plans to return.
‘Is that all?’
‘One of the latest press reports has a particularly nasty edge. It makes a great deal of Tori’s work in isolated areas, often as the only female on a team. It draws conclusions about her morals and insinuates...’
Bile rose in Ashraf’s throat. ‘I can imagine. Where, precisely, was this from?’
Bram mentioned a media outlet owned by a friend of the sacked Minister. Ashraf nodded. ‘Show me, and call the legal office. They can check the libel laws.’
He’d end thisnow, before it came to Tori’s ears.
But as the afternoon wore on Ashraf’s fiery indignation was overtaken by something far harder to bear. Especially when the lawyers dithered over whether the law had actually been broken. Ironically, if Tori were Za’daqi, or if she’d already married him, the reports could have been taken down and the outlet closed. As a foreigner, her situation was less clear.
Ashraf had grown up being vilified by his father. He was used to people assuming the worst about him. But to see Tori belittled and be unable to stop it tore at something vital within him.
He stalked the offices, trying to find a solution but finding none. He either abided by the laws he’d introduced, allowing more freedom for the press, or he gave up all pretension of being anything other than an autocratic ruler, thus destroying the hard work he’d put into turning Za’daq into a more democratic country.
He was caught by his own insistence on reform, and his inability to sweep the ugly innuendos away and protect his woman ate at him. He’d expected scandal. But seeing the negative focus shift to Tori, with such snide inferences, sickened him.
His wonderful woman had been through so much. Now, generously, she’d finally agreed to marry him for their son’s sake. She’d signed on for a marriage without love, though it wasn’t what she wanted. She’d agreed to learn a new way of life—not only in a country foreign to her, but as a royal, under constant scrutiny. He’d promised she wouldn’t regret her decision.
And now... How could he ask this of her?
The answer was simple and terrible.