‘There is something I feel we should discuss before you come to Qaram.’ He turned to look at her for a few seconds and she thought she caught a flash of wariness and uncertainty in his eyes, before his magnificent lashes swept down to conceal his expression. When he lifted them his gaze was cool and steady once more, and she decided she must have been mistaken. ‘I contemplated waiting until you were there, when things might have been a little less rushed, but, on reflection, I think this is something I really need to say to you before you come...’ He shrugged, suddenly looking uncomfortable, and her gaze sharpened. Perhaps she hadn’t been mistaken after all.
‘What is it? Why are you looking so serious?’
‘Let’s go and sit down.’
‘You’re worrying me, Abe.’
He smiled reassuringly. ‘Don’t be worried.’ But he waited until they were sitting facing one another in her small sitting room before leaning forward, forearms resting lightly on his thighs. ‘I had hoped that my beautiful country might help me build my case for what I am about to say, but then I decided that not being on home ground might put you in an awkward position...’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Abe.’
‘Yesterday, we discussed...’ he hesitated, his eyes keenly on her puzzled face ‘...in a manner of speaking, a possible way forward for us.’
‘Yes, because you want to have a role in Tilly’s life, don’t you?’
‘And yet I am a prince.’
‘I haven’t forgotten, Abe. How could I?’
He sighed and shifted in his seat. ‘I haven’t even met her properly yet, but already I know that it will never be enough for me to simply dabble in my daughter’s life.’
‘What are you trying to say?’
‘I would like you to marry me, Georgie. I genuinely believe this is the best way ahead for us.’
Georgie’s brain sluggishly absorbed what he had said but refused to break it down into bite-sized pieces. She stared at him, confounded, until he asked gruffly, ‘Did it never occur to you it might be an option?’
‘Marry you?Marry you?’ She stared at him wordlessly. No, she could say with her hand on her heart that she hadn’t seen this coming. If Tilly had beenhisbolt from the blue, then this totally unexpected proposal washers.
To show up at this hour for a conversation like this? With their leaving for Qaram a matter of a heartbeat away? How on earth could he expect her to agree tomarryhim?
‘You need to think about it,’ he said, rising fluidly to his feet.
‘You’releaving?’
‘I will see you again in a couple of days.’
‘You can’t just drop this on me and then walk away!’
‘Is that a direct quote from me?’ he teased.
Georgie glared at him and he returned her look steadily.
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I intend to do, Georgie. Leave you to think about this with no pressure. Come to Qaram. Experience what life over there is like and keep an open mind. Remember—if my life is about to change, then yours is about to as well...’
He couldn’t have done a better job of sending her into a tailspin.
She spent the next two days feverishly playing and replaying that marriage proposal in her mind. Had she seen it coming? No! But he was right, she should have. How could she have possibly thought that a crown prince wedded to the notion of duty would be happy to accept the role of part-time dad to his own flesh and blood living on the other side of the world?
It didn’t help that he refused to discuss it on the three occasions when he had telephoned her.
‘When you get here,’ he had told her, gently but very, very firmly, ‘then we can talk about it. There’s still a lot of water under the bridge between us, hence the importance of having plenty of time to consider my proposal.’
Georgie had refrained from asking what would happen if and when she refused. She didn’t want to confront that issue over the telephone either. He’d been shrewd enough to have left her mulling over his explosive proposition knowing that she would have to gnash her teeth and wait until they were face to face to discuss the ramifications.
She didn’t think anything could stop the ceaseless churning in her head, not even Tilly’s excited antics at the thrilling change to her routine, but the shock of being ushered like royalty into a private jet certainly did the trick.
She had been wrenched out of her comfort zone, every atom of self-control and self-preservation hijacked by the astonishing change to every single thing she had ever experienced in her life before.
