‘Yes, I think so, Amira...’
Abby reached into the pocket of her trench coat, her fingers curling around the passport she had not removed.
‘Do you have paper...a pen?’
* * *
Zain stood there for a full ten minutes after he had read the note.
He didn’t trust himself to move.
She was gone; the note, the ink blurred, was some drivel about leaving for him...she had left!
He had never chased after a woman in his life and he wasn’t about to now.
Last night he’d lain awake longing and aching for something he could not name that she gave him, missing her softness, her scent, her warmth.
But life was a hell of a lot simpler without her. Without her there was no temptation to allow her to do to him what his mother had done to his father. His mother had drained his father, making him grow weak, making him love her so much that she blocked out his responsibilities...to his people and to the son who needed him.
He couldn’t silence the counter-argument in his head.
Had Abby made him weak...? Could he have done what he had done these past weeks without her support? She didn’t take from him, didn’t drain him. She gave instead.
And now she had gone.
The thoughts tumbled in circles around his head until he took a deep breath and blinked like a man waking up and realising he had one more shot. He hit the ground running.
Considering she was not exactly inconspicuous, it took him a long time to find anyone who had actually seen her. It took him fifteen minutes to track her as far as the stables and another five to discover that she had been seen deep in conversation with Kayla, after which it seemed she had been driven away.
A phone call to the private jet confirmed his suspicions. He made it clear that under no circumstances was the plane to take off, and went around to the garages.
His fastest car got him as far as the palace gates, where he found his way totally blocked by a hundred or so banner-waving protestors taking advantage of the fact that such gatherings were no longer prohibited—one of his reforms that had definitely backfired!
Frustrated but not defeated, he flung the high-powered car into reverse and drove back to the stable yard.
He saddled the stallion himself with stable hands watching and wondering who knew what? Zain didn’t actually care—the burning frustration that drove his every action was choking him.
* * *
‘Shall I stop, Amira?’
Dragged from the depths of her despairing reflections, Abby looked up. It didn’t matter how many times she told herself her life was not over, it felt as if it was and so she could only try to take comfort from the fact she was doing the right thing. Maybe this knowledge would make her feel better in the future but right now it didn’t.
‘Pardon?’
The driver nodded to the rear-view mirror and Abby turned to see what he was looking at. The blood drained from her face and her heart began to thud as fast and hard as the hooves of the stallion that was galloping full pelt towards them.
‘No!’ she said in a wobbly voice of panic. ‘Don’t stop!’
‘Amira!’
‘Don’t stop for anything!’ she ordered imperiously as Zain and the stallion began to overtake the car.
‘Yes, Amira.’
He did, of course, but he didn’t really have a choice when there was a rearing stallion in the road ahead, the hooves inches away from the car bonnet.
‘Sorry, Amira.’