SHE’D HAD HER FREEDOM. Freedom which now needed to be paid for. The last five years of resisting the urge to fulfil the archaic traditions of her country counted for nothing. Her duty to Ardu Safra could no longer be ignored. Or avoided.
Kaliana Benhamed stood outside her father’s office. She knew exactly why he’d demanded she return from London. From the new life she’d carved for herself after the tragedy of five years ago. Why he’d insisted she leave a job she loved, as campaign manager for Charity Resources. It didn’t concern him she’d have to say goodbye to Claire, a friend who knew everything about her but still treated her like an everyday girl. With that one command, her father had all but brought her world crashing down around her, leaving her no option but to return to her homeland and face him. Face her duty.
Kaliana stood taller, taking a deep breath, desperate to quell the churning of her stomach, her heart pounding hard and fast at the thought of the discussion to come. She swallowed down the nerves she couldn’t allow her father to see. She was a different woman from the one who’d left Ardu Safra after the nightmare of losing the man she’d loved. Since then, she’d found her independence and happiness. She’d pushed aside her dreams of love and happy ever afters. Made a new life for herself. A life she wasn’t about to relinquish easily.
Not even to her father, ruler of Ardu Safra, a small desert kingdom on the north-eastern edge of the African continent. He’d been a strict father, but fair. Would he really force her to do the one thing she didn’t want to do? Would he force her to accept a man he’d selected, as her husband? After everything she’d endured?
She closed her eyes briefly, sending up one last prayer for the strength to do this, wishing her mother had a more modern outlook on life. Wishing she would stand up for her only child. But those wishes were futile. Her mother was kind and loving, but of a very different era.
Kaliana tried to shake the tension from her shoulders as she gave the command to the guards, always stationed around the palace, to admit her to her father’s office.
The big doors swung wide and she walked across the vastness of the marble floor to the ornate desk at the far end of the room. Her father looked up from his work, watching her intently. Did he notice how different she was? How strong? How ready she was to do battle with him? To fight for her right to be a modern woman in a modern world?
She knew she had to marry and when that happened she wanted to drag the kingdom of Ardu Safra into the twenty-first century. For the people of the small kingdom as much as for herself. But she wasn’t ready yet.
‘Kaliana.’ His voice was cool. Distant. As if he was addressing one of his aides, not his daughter. His only child. And that was the core of her problem. She was the only heir of Ardu Safra. ‘At last you return to your country.’
The reproach in his voice bounced round the vastness of the ornate office, mirroring itself in his dark, watchful eyes. Warning her he wasn’t in the mood for her wilfulness, as he often called it.
‘You didn’t leave me much choice.’ Kaliana stopped a short distance from her father’s desk, satisfaction racing through her as he took in, with annoyance, her shorter hair. She loved the long bob style she’d opted for as part of the new Kaliana. Already she could feel her hackles rise, her indignation at the injustice surging to the fore. She battled to keep it contained. Keep it from her father. ‘You made it clear that my coming was not a request, Father, but a demand.’
The shock of receiving the curt email directly from her father still hadn’t subsided. Neither had the knowledge that the life she’d built herself was in serious danger. She was expected to marry and, at twenty-five, she was acutely aware he considered that duty well overdue.
She’d stepped outside the life of Kaliana Benhamed, Princess of Ardu Safra, for five years and now it was time to go back to the life her title demanded. It was time to do the duty she’d hoped she’d never have to do. Live the life she’d tried to be free of.
‘What are you wearing?’ His gaze took in her fitted navy skirt and white blouse, teamed with heeled shoes. Her chosen clothes for her new work life. He wouldn’t approve of them, just as her traditionally brought-up mother didn’t. Kaliana was a big disappointment to her parents in many ways.
‘This is who I am now, Father.’ She lifted her chin defiantly as he stared at her, his annoyance that she’d turned her back so blatantly on her country vividly clear on his face. Once again it was clear she was a total disappointment to him. The daughter who’d brought shame to him. To the country. ‘Whatever it is you want of me, this is who I am now.’
He stood up quickly, his heavy chair scraping noisily on the marble floor. Anger burned in his eyes as he leant on the desk. ‘What I want is for you to do your duty.’
Kaliana wanted to step back from his fury. ‘My duty, Father?’ she asked, in a voice so light it didn’t even sound like her own. But to show her fear to him, her fear of what he now expected her to do, would be to hand him the ace card. Give him all the power.
And it was a power she’d slowly and bit by bit taken from him over the last five years as her new life had proved she could succeed without the title of Princess Kaliana of Ardu Safra. She’d got herself a managerial job, a place to live and friends she could count on without disclosing her royal title. Only Claire knew the truth. To her employer, her colleagues and friends, she was simply Kaliana Benhamed. And the fact she’d achieved all that irritated her father far more than he let on.
‘Marriage.’ He hurled the word she least wanted to hear at her. ‘Marriage is your duty, Kaliana. Your duty as Princess to the kingdom of Ardu Safra. Your duty as my daughter and only heir.’
She clenched her hands tightly, her nails digging into the sweaty palms. ‘Not in the life I now lead, Father.’
‘The life you now lead?’ Her father’s voice lowered with disappointment, the scowl on his face full of annoyance and frustration. She was only making this worse. Making it harder for herself. Making him angrier. ‘I’ve allowed you to indulge in that fancy long enough.’
She stepped forward, her own frustration making her reckless. ‘It’s not a fancy, Father, it’s my life now. One I needed to make for myself.’
He sighed slowly and looked at her, his expression softening very slightly, making her think of the father he’d been when she was younger. The father who’d loved her even though she hadn’t been born a son. The father who had been more relaxed—until the burden of inheriting and ruling a financially struggling and small kingdom had snatched that man away. ‘I understand why you needed to go. That’s why I said nothing when you turned your back on the lifestyle your title could have brought you.’
‘Then you will understand why I can’t marry. Not ever.’
‘It’s not that simple, Kaliana. Our kingdom is in jeopardy. Our people too. The only way out of it is for you to marry.’ The resignation in his voice shocked her. The angry ruler of moments ago had gone. The man she’d loved as a carefree child had returned. It was that man who tugged on her conscience.
‘And who will I marry, Father? Alif, the man I loved, the man you were perfectly happy for me to marry, died—remember?’ A stab of pain shot through her as she recalled being told her fiancé had been killed in a tragic helicopter crash just weeks before their wedding.
‘Nassif has asked for your