Modern Romance Collection: June 2018 Books 5 - 8. Jane Porter
only admire her nerve. She had a knack of combining business with pleasure in a way he was beginning to doubt he could do when Millie was involved. Cursing viciously in Khalifan, he let her go and straightened up. ‘Are you determined to drive me to distraction?’
‘That depends on how long it takes,’ she said, and, brushing the creases out of her clothes as coolly as you liked, she climbed down from the table.
‘You’re playing with fire,’ he said as she stared into his face.
‘I hope so,’ she agreed.
Raking a hand through his hair, he began to laugh. ‘You win the prize for the coolest and most infuriating woman I’ve ever met.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’d hate to be an also-ran.’
‘As the mistress of the ruling Sheikh of Khalifa, you’d have no competition—’
‘Your mistress?’ Millie repeated as if she had something unpleasant on her tongue. ‘Are you telling me, if that were the case, I’d have no competition for your attention?’
‘None,’ he confirmed.
‘Forget it, Your Majesty,’ she flared with an incredulous shake of her head. ‘Just tell me what I need to know and we’re done here.’
‘We’re done when I say we’re done,’ he rapped, all out of patience.
‘Perhaps you don’t think I deserve the truth?’ she said, bridling as she confronted him. ‘Or maybe you think I can’t handle the truth. Either way, you’re wrong.’
He’d never had such an outright revolt to handle, and was enjoying the experience. When she started to pick up the mess he’d made when he’d cleared the table, he couldn’t just stand and watch.
* * *
Khalid, Millie thought. As if she could call the titan currently helping her to clear up the floor Khalid. It was one thing having him inhabit her dreams as a sheikh on horseback, or a hero who took the starring role in every one of her erotic dreams, but calling the real live man Khalid, rather than Your Majesty, or Sheikh Khalid, was way too intimate to even contemplate. If she did that, who knew where it might lead? Not to becoming his mistress, that was for sure, she thought as their arms brushed. Having the Sheikh as her lover might hold huge appeal for her erotic self, because in her dreams she had nothing better to do than enjoy the pleasures of the seraglio, the hidden secrets of the desert, and the sensual pleasures concealed within a Bedouin tent. But in the real world? No chance.
‘You wanted to talk,’ he reminded her as, job completed, they both stood up again. ‘So, let’s talk.’
She’d wanted nothing more, but suddenly her mind blanked. ‘You don’t have to protect my feelings,’ she said as the mist cleared. It had occurred to her that maybe he really was trying to protect her. ‘I went through all the stages of grief eight years ago.’
‘When what happened must have seemed black and white to you,’ he said, staring at her keenly.
‘Death doesn’t come in shades of grey.’
‘Indeed not,’ Khalid agreed in the same quiet tone.
‘My mother was a victim.’ She could never say that enough times. It was what she had always believed, totally and utterly. ‘The gutter press may have labelled her a pathetic drunk, but she was always a star to me, and she was my mother, and I’ll defend her to my last breath. If you know anything about that night that could absolve her from any blame or ridicule, I want you to tell me. With the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to see that my mother was deluded, and believed that singing on your brother’s yacht might revive her career. It was all she’d got—’
‘She had you.’
Yes, yes, and the responsibility for leaving the one person who had needed her most alone on this yacht would never leave her. ‘Yes, and I left her,’ she exclaimed, lashed by guilt. ‘Then your brother took advantage of my mother’s vulnerability. How can you possibly sanitise that?’
‘You still hate me,’ he murmured.
‘Tell me something to change my mind,’ she begged, wishing deep down that there could be proof that Khalid had never been implicated directly. There was no excuse for his brother. The late Sheikh Saif was guilty of murder in Millie’s eyes, and all she could do now was to obtain justice for her mother.
‘Your mother brought you into danger that night, and that’s a fact,’ he said as she shook her head slowly and decisively, over and over again. ‘My brother’s parties were notorious. She must have known.’
‘That she was putting me in danger? No. She would never do that.’
‘It depends how desperate she was, don’t you think?’
‘You didn’t know her, I did,’ she insisted stubbornly.
‘She was your mother, and you loved her no matter what. I get that. And I won’t go on, if you can’t take it.’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ she warned. ‘Tell me what you know. You can’t stop now.’
He stared at her for a long time before saying anything, as if he had to be sure she wouldn’t break down. She nodded once, briskly, inviting him to explain.
Another long pause, and then he said, ‘Did you know your mother was a drug addict?’
She battled to suck air into lungs that had inexplicably closed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she blurted at last. ‘Don’t you think I’d have known, if that were the case?’
But she did know. At least, she had suspected. And had needed to hear it from someone else, someone who was deeply involved. Miss Francine had always protected Millie from the truth, and she loved her for it. Khalid had done her another type of kindness by not dressing up the truth, and perhaps his was the greater gift, because he’d given her closure at last.
‘How did you know?’ she asked, feeling the tension seep away as the last piece of the jigsaw settled into place. Her fury at Khalid had been instantly replaced by deep sorrow for her mother.
Taking hold of her hands, he brought them down from her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘I think everyone must have known about your mother’s habit apart from you.’
‘I think I knew,’ she whispered. ‘I’d read rumours in the press, but I didn’t want to believe them. She was always careful around me, so I never saw any proof. Thank you for telling me. I needed to hear it. Then...’ She braced herself to voice the unspeakable. ‘If my mother was the freak show, was I the support act? Did your brother ever speak to you of that?’
* * *
His intention was not to destroy Millie, but to try and lay her ghosts to rest. His late brother would accept no restraint on his perversions. Whatever Millie asked of him now, he had to edit the truth, or cause her endless pain. ‘I didn’t know there was a party on board the Sapphire that night, until I arrived,’ he explained. ‘And as for your mother taking drugs? She would hardly be the first great artist to fall foul of ruthless and unscrupulous drug dealers.’
‘But that doesn’t explain her death,’ Millie said, frowning.
He wasn’t about to explain that he’d chased her mother’s drug dealer into the arms of the police, and had been dockside when Roxy’s body was fished out of the harbour. He’d checked to see if there was a pulse, and had seen the sapphires spilling over the top of her dress. He’d retrieved them before he was asked to stand back, so at least she could never be branded a thief.
‘Did she fall or was she pushed?’
Millie’s voice was hoarse, and her face was pale and strained. She deserved an honest answer, and at least he could give her this. ‘The dealer pushed her into the water.’
Over her gasp, he told her the