The kind of feelings that put butterflies in her stomach and made her chest tighten with tenderness. “It’s not my place,” she choked. “I wasn’t your bride!”

“But you were part of today’s circus. You took part in the charade.”

“It wasn’t a charade!”

“Then where is Sophie?”

* * *

His question hung there between them, heavy and suffocating, and Dal knew Poppy was miserable; her brown eyes were full of shadows and sorrow, and usually he hated seeing her unhappy. Usually he wanted to lift her when she struggled but not today. Today she deserved to suffer.

He’d trusted her. He’d trusted her even more than Sophie, and he’d planned on spending the rest of his life with Sophie.

Dal shook his head, still trying to grasp it all.

If Sophie had been so unhappy marrying him, why didn’t she just break the engagement before it got to this point?

It was not as if he didn’t have other options. Women threw themselves at him daily. Women were constantly letting him know that they found him desirable. Beautiful, educated, polished women who made it known that they’d do anything to become his countess, and if marriage was out, then perhaps his mistress?

But he’d been loyal to Sophie, despite their long engagement. Or at least he’d been faithful once the engagement had been made public, which was five and a half years ago. Before the public engagement was the private understanding, an understanding reached between the fathers, the Earl of Langston and Sir Carmichael-Jones. But for five and a half years, he’d held himself in check because Sophie, stunning Sophie Carmichael-Jones, was a virgin, and she’d made it clear that she intended to remain a virgin until her wedding night.

He now seriously doubted that when she’d walked down the aisle today she’d still been a virgin.

Dal swore beneath his breath, counting down the minutes until they reached their cruising altitude so he could escape to the small back cabin, which doubled as a private office and a bedroom.

Once they stopped climbing, he unfastened his seat belt and disappeared into the back cabin, which had a desk, a reclining leather chair and a wall bed. The wall bed could easily be converted when needed, but Dal had never used it as a bedroom. He preferred to work on his flights, not rest.

Closing the door, he removed his jacket, tugged off his tie and unbuttoned his dress shirt. Half-dressed, he opened the large black suitcase that had been stowed in the closet and found a pair of trousers and a light tan linen shirt that would be appropriate for the heat of the Atlas Mountains.

Hard to believe he was heading to Mehkar.

It’d been so long.

No one would think to look for him in his mother’s country, either, much less his father’s family. Dal’s late father had orchestrated the schism, savagely cutting off his mother’s family following the fatal car accident twenty-three years ago.

It was on his twenty-first birthday that his past resurrected itself. He’d been out celebrating his birthday with friends and returned worse for the wear to his Cambridge flat to discover a bearded man in kaffiyeh, the traditional long white robes Arab men wore, on his doorstep.

It had been over ten years since he’d last seen his mother’s father, but instead of moving forward to greet his grandfather, he stood back, aware that he reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke, aware, too, of the disapproval in his grandfather’s dark eyes.

Randall managed a stiff, awkward bow. “Sheikh bin Mehkar.”

“As-Salam-u-Alaikum,” his grandfather had answered. Peace be to you. He extended his hand, then, to Randall. “No handshake? No hug?”

It was a rebuke. A quiet rebuke, but a reproof nonetheless. Randall stiffened, ashamed, annoyed, uncomfortable, and he put his hand in his grandfather’s even as he glanced away, toward the small window at the end of the hall, angry that his mother’s father was here now. Where had he been for the past ten years? Where had his grandmother gone and the aunts and uncles and cousins who had filled his childhood?

He’d needed them as a grieving boy. He’d needed them to remind him that his beautiful mother had existed, as by Christmas his father had stripped Langston House of all her photos and mementos, going so far as to even remove the huge oil family portrait only completed the year before, the portrait of a family in happier days—father, mother and sons—from above the sixteenth-century Dutch sideboard in the formal dining room.

Perhaps if Dal hadn’t spent a night drinking, perhaps if Dal’s phone call with his father the evening before hadn’t been so tense and terse, full of duty and obligation, maybe Dal would have remembered the affection his mother had held for her parents, in particular, her father, who had allowed her to leave to marry her handsome, titled, cash-strapped Englishman.

And so instead of being glad to see this lost grandfather, Dal curtly invited his grandfather in. “Would you like tea? I could put the kettle on.”

“Only if you shower first.”

And Randall Grant, the second-born son who shouldn’t have become the heir, the second son who had never flaunted his wealth or position, snapped, “I will have my tea first. Come in, Grandfather, if you wish. But I’m not going to be told what to do, not today, and certainly not by you.”

Dark gaze hooded, Sheikh Mansur bin Mehkar looked his oldest living grandson, Randall Michael Talal, up and down, and then turned around and walked away.

Randall stood next to his door, his flat key clenched in his hand, and watched his grandfather head for the steep staircase.

He should go after him.

He should apologize.

He should ask where his grandfather was staying.

He should suggest meeting for dinner.

He should.

He didn’t.

It wasn’t until the next morning that Randall discovered the envelope half-hidden by the thin doormat. Inside the envelope was a birthday greeting and a packet of papers.