One day she might look back kindly on the girl who had arrived in Zurich looking over her shoulder, broken by misunderstandings and deeper hurts. But in contrast to Natalia’s situation, the Eloise that first came to Switzerland simply looked foolish and spoilt.
Taking a deep breath, Eloise pushed those thoughts aside and tried to focus on the present. What was it her husband wanted? Had he come to the decision that it was time to end their marriage? Or was there a reason that her husband’s summons coincided with her birthday tomorrow? The same day that she would finally be able to access the trust fund her grandfather had so kindly and generously secured for her. Surely just a coincidence.
And if she told herself that one hundred times more, perhaps she would start to believe it.
Eloise fingered the embossed invitation that had arrived, hand-delivered, that morning. She had opened the door with her coffee in one hand and accepted the envelope with the other. Looking back, she could hardly credit that it had been only eight hours ago. Nothing had sprung her into action like that demand from her husband to attend tonight’s charity event. Nothing. Not even Natalia’s illness, her father’s blackmail or her mother’s indifference.
It had taken her an hour to think out her options, to call the hospital and make arrangements to cover her absence. She could have stayed in Zurich. She could have run again. But if Odir had found her then he knew the name on her fake passport, and without help from Malik she couldn’t easily procure another one.
But through all these considerations was the realisation that she should make use of this unexpected summons...and finally put into motion the one thing she’d wanted for the last six months.
Eloise twisted the royal wedding ring around her finger. The weight she’d lost in recent months had made the fitting loose, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was a sign. A sign that perhaps she was finally about to escape the noose that had been placed around her neck the moment her ambitious father had finally got what he wanted as two little words fell from her lips... ‘I do.’
A car horn crashed into the night from somewhere behind the cab. She handed the driver the last of her English money and got out, carefully picking up the long skirts of the black silk dress she had bought at the airport. The halter-neck fitted snugly around her throat, disguising the need for the expensive jewellery that would be expected from the royal princess she had supposedly been for the last eight months. The material clung to her chest like a second skin, and at her bare back she felt a blast of unusually warm air for London, which was in the throes of a summer heatwave. She had spent a fortune on it—almost more than a month’s salary. But it was worth it.
She wasn’t naïve enough to go to a State event in a dress of even half the price. And she wasn’t naïve enough to pick a fight with a prince without armour.
Not when that Prince was her husband.
* * *
As soon as Eloise stepped through the doors of the Heron Tower she was flanked by four men dressed from head to toe in black. For a moment—just a moment—she imagined the cold clasps of handcuffs closing around her wrists, and then discarded the thought as foolish. Her husband might be infuriated with her, but he would never do anything to risk the reputation of the royal family. She knew that better than most. She looked to their faces and was not surprised to see Malik, the only one of the men actually to meet her eye. No one spoke, though if it was a sign of respect, or shame, she couldn’t tell.
As they all entered the lift, the guards barring entry to any of the other guests, she allowed herself to feel a burst of hope that after tonight she might finally be free. Her stomach dropped away as the lift drew them higher and higher, giving her the most spectacular night-time view of London. Multi-coloured lights spread out before her and it was almost enough to take her breath away.
But superimposed over the dramatic vista was her pale, shimmering reflection. Her long blonde hair had not been expertly looped and pinned by stylists who knew what they were doing and charged a fortune. Instead she had done her best in the mirror at the cheap hotel she’d rented for the night. And in her mind the two extremes—the poor hotel and the incredibly rich lavish world of the Heron Tower—summed up the last two years of her life.
The poorer part was so much more valuable to her for its freedom...the richer part coming with a price she could no longer pay.
* * *
Drawing to a stop sooner than she’d expected, the lift doors opened onto a room lavishly decorated with leading members of international society—each adorned in clothes and jewellery that would rival all the gold in the Bank of England.
She glanced around the soft-hued room, its delicate lighting clashing painfully with the sounds of clinking glasses and mind-numbing small talk.
The party, it seemed, had started without her.
With Eloise’s first step into the room those standing nearby stopped talking, and all around her a hush seemed to descend. Many bowed their heads, as if in respect, but she knew it also served to mask their gossiping mouths. And she hated it. She always had. The close attention paid to her and her family before and even more so after she had married Odir. For just a moment she wondered whether this was how her mother felt. Hiding her hurt behind practised smiles. And then she berated herself. Her husband, for all his sins, was nothing like her father.
‘Eloise?’ A familiar voice cut through the crowds.
Eloise turned to take in the face of one of the only friends she could claim from her ‘old life’, as she now thought of it.
‘Emily, it’s good to see you,’ she replied, surprised at the truth of her words, and even more surprised as Emily drew her into a warm embrace.
‘Where have you been?’ Emily whispered into her ear. ‘It’s been ages, El. The rumour mill has had you locked in the Farrehed palace tower by your domineering husband.’
For just a moment Eloise wanted to tell her friend everything. Of the joy she’d found helping others, the freedom she’d found in Zurich, the meaning she’d found in such a simple existence...
‘Mrs Santos,’ Malik said, interrupting Eloise’s thoughts and putting an end to such a foolish whim.
Of course she couldn’t say anything that would reveal her absence from Farrehed...from the Prince.
‘Malik.’ Emily nodded in warm welcome.
‘It’s a long story,’ Eloise replied quietly, with a smile to soften the brush-off. ‘What are you doing here? You’re not usually at these events.’
‘I could say the same for you,’ the brunette replied in hushed tones. ‘My father... He’s... He’s not doing so well.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. And your husband?’
‘Not here—thankfully,’ Emily replied with a rueful laugh. ‘Speaking of husbands... Yours has been like a bear with a sore head all evening.’
‘Really?’ Eloise asked, her heart pounding just at the thought of him.
Emily nodded over her shoulder.
And, as if their discussion had conjured his presence, Eloise caught sight of the man she hadn’t seen in six months. She couldn’t see his face, but the broad lines of his back were etched in her memory as if it were the only way she had ever seen her husband: from a distance and from behind.
Even today he stood a head taller than all those around him, and for one second her breath caught in her lungs. A thousand images of her handsome husband ran through her mind and over her skin. That first ever sight of him, dismounting a formidable black stallion. His impenetrable air of authority before she’d even known he was the son of a sheikh. The way that she had mocked him for his arrogance as he’d flung the horse’s reins at the stable hand and the innocent flirtation they had shared—until later that evening when they had been formally introduced.
Betraying nothing of their first meeting, Odir had eased her humiliation,