‘So that you can try and clear your conscience?’
‘Perhaps I, also, have thought about the past and what we had...’
Her heart jerked, a weakness she knew had to take second place to the cold business that lay ahead of her. She loathed the pathetic, desperate voice inside her that ached for him to tell her just what those thoughts had been.
Had he missed her the way she’d missed him, even when she’d resigned herself to the superficial role she’d played in his life?
‘Consider it, Georgie,’ he urged softly, rising to his feet but continuing to watch her. ‘This time, let us part ways in peace.’
She would have loved nothing more than to have ripped up that card in front of him. Peace? Over dinner? Two adults burying hatchets? Did he think that they would part company with a solid handshake, a‘You must drop by if you happen to be in the area’and maybe a kiss on the cheek? Did he? How far from the truth that was. Time and events had put paid to any such thing.
She watched in silence as he waited, head tilted to one side, before turning on his heel to head for the door, and as he opened it she caught a glimpse of his bodyguards, waiting outside for him, stoic and incurious.
The door closed with a soft click and she reached for his card, shutting her eyes as her fingers curled around it.
CHAPTER TWO
TWENTY-FOURHOURSLATER, practically to the minute, Georgie was standing in front of the impressive five-star hotel where the Prince was staying.
There had been no need for him to tell her the name of the hotel because she’d known even before he and his entourage had arrived in London to finalise the details of the sale of the hotel. She’d been told that the food would have to be superb and she had dutifully done her own due diligence and scoured the hotel’s menu so she wouldn’t replicate any of their dishes when preparing the delicacies for his visit.
Of course, she could simply have called the number on the card, thatvery specialcard with itsvery specialhotline number to the big man himself, but she had rejected that idea because the mere thought of it had made her feel sick.
Such a card was the very thing she had craved four years ago. Now it felt like an insult, something that cheapened her, something dished out with the arrogant pity of a guy who hadn’t thought twice about leaving her and now wanted to set the record straight with his conscience by letting her know why.
Poor Georgie, with all her dreams of making it big in the world of illustration and all her high hopes and hard-won contracts... Where had it all gone? Down the proverbial...
Anyway, the thought of hearing that dark, dangerous voice down the end of a phone line had given her too much pause for thought.
Best to take the bull by the horns and just show up at his hotel because her morals were far too deeply ingrained for her to turn her back on what had to be done, even though what had to be done filled her with simmering panic and fear.
She had dressed for the part. Not quite office ready, but certainly not casual. The flight attendant had been replaced, she now thought, heading towards the hotel, by mourner at the funeral of a distant relative. Just enough decorum to pay her respects but no wailing or howling because she hadn’t known the relative very well. Black knee-length skirt, black roll-neck jumper—and a black cardigan on top of that because it was freezing—and black tights. Underneath the puffer jacket, she felt she was sartorially equipped for what lay ahead.
It was going to be the most difficult conversation of her life, one she had anticipated having years ago but since then she had moved on with her life, and now she was scared stiff of the unknown because she had no idea where this conversation would take her. She just knew first-hand what loss felt like. She had lost both her parents, so there was no way she wanted Abbas to stroll into Tilly’s life, upend it, and then casually walk away again. He’d done that withher, hadn’t he? Telling him the truth was the decent thing to do, for her theonlything to do, but she would need to make it known to him that there would be no room in the equation for someone unreliable and a prince from a faraway country carried the definite whiff of unreliability.
The guy who’d walked away without a second thought would definitely not be the man who was suddenly overpowered with a sense of duty to a child he hadn’t asked for.
She would do what she had come to do and her conscience would be clear. He didn’t have the monopoly on wanting a clean slate. But when she tried to imagine what she was going to say and how he might react, she felt the sickening twist of dread deep inside her and she had to remind herself that this was about Tilly; this was about their child and his right to know of her existence.
Head down, looking neither left nor right and definitely not behind to the entrance to the Tube and the temptation of flight, Georgie made her way into the hotel.
The call from reception came through just as Abe was about to phone his father.
Georgie. In the foyer of the hotel.
He tossed his cell phone on the leather sofa where he’d been sitting and strolled towards the bank of windows in his suite that offered extensive views of the City of London.
At a little after seven in the evening, it was dark and the city was like a blurry impressionistic artwork, washed out by the steady torrent of rain that had been falling since mid-afternoon.
She’d come. He hadn’t realised how wired he’d been since he’d left her at the hotel with his card. Of course, there was no way he could have chased her if she’d decided not to take him up on his offer, but it would have left a sour taste in his mouth.
Seeing her again... Yes, he could understand her antipathy towards him. He’d left. No tearful goodbyes or weeping and wailing. He’d done as he’d seen fit at the time because there had been no way the future he’d instinctively known she wanted would have been compatible with what Fate had chosen for him.
Everything in life came with its own limitations and subclauses and caveats—and his life came with more than the usual amount. Nothing was ever straightforward for him.
When he thought about that snatched moment in time in Ibiza, when there had only been the sea and the sun and Georgie and so much lust there were times he felt he might combust from it, it was like a glimpse of what normal life might look like. Naturally, he had not yearned for what lay outside his reach, but it had been...liberating and he had enjoyed every second of it and seeing her again now brought all those memories flooding back.
He remembered her youthful plans and felt intensely sad that those plans had come to nothing.
