Had she actually agreed?

That was Kate’s first thought when, three days after Ibrahim’s morning visit, Isaac, the man who’d first seen Tippy, arrived at the house, bringing with him a young stableboy, several mounds of luggage and an elegant leather folder, embossed in gold, with what must be the crest of Amberach and Kate’s name.

It contained not only details of the flight she would take to Amberach with the sultan in two days’ time but also coloured brochures about the country, its people and history right up to recent times, where a picture showed the sultan, in a long white robe and gold-edged headscarf, cutting the ribbon in front of the new emergency hospital.

A tall, distinguished-looking man, similarly dressed except for black edging on his headscarf, stood beside Ibrahim.

Fareed!

Kate peered at the photo—hoping to read something positive in the shadowed features?

He was as good looking as she’d first thought him, but good looks were usually way down on her list of important manly attributes.

Manly attributes?

What was she thinking?

‘I do wish you hadn’t made such a quick decision about going over there to work,’ her mother said when she saw the documents, and Kate knew her mother suspected something.

Not a marriage something, that was for sure, but she knew something had gone on between Ibrahim and Kate.

‘Mum, it’s a brand-new hospital—look—and I’m only going for a year. It’s not as if I haven’t been away before, and think how exciting it will be. Look at the brochures Ibrahim has sent. What’s more, you’ll be so busy with training and getting the new staff into order, you won’t even notice I’m gone.’

Sally smiled.

‘It is good for us all, isn’t it? Like a gift from heaven, to be able to keep Tippy here for Billy—’

‘And for you to train him, Mum, to show what you can do with a really good horse! It’s time to stop dreaming and get working.’

Sally hugged her hard and Kate swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat.

This is all for Mum and Billy, she reminded herself, and for the future of this family—my family.

Twelve months of her life was a small price to pay for the happiness she was bringing these two people, whom she loved with all her heart.

And there was no way she could think beyond that—except perhaps, from a purely selfish motive, it would offer a chance to put her life back together after Mark …

‘Snow-capped mountains?’

Ibrahim smiled at the disbelief in Kate’s voice.

‘You did not expect them?’

‘I saw the pictures in the brochures, but it still seems strange to see snow in a desert.’

Her host had spent most of the flight tucked away in what he called his mobile office, catching up on business and resting when he could. Perhaps he wasn’t well, the kindly Ibrahim—could this be why he was so anxious to marry off his nephew?

You don’t know enough about any of it, Kate told herself. Just be glad you had a good sleep so you can face whatever lies ahead. She felt fresh and rested, having lazed and slept in first-class luxury until a steward had brought breakfast and opened the blind for her to see Amberach for the first time.

Ibrahim had slid into the seat beside her as she’d blurted out her surprise.

‘Amberach has everything,’ he explained. ‘It is winter now so there is more snow, but on the highest peaks a little snow remains all year round. It is the snow melt that makes the land around the base of the mountains fertile, and has provided a good living for our farmers throughout the ages. But the fertile plain is narrow and on two sides of my country the great desert has encroached more and more—right to the coast, where many of my people have lived on fishing and pearl diving for generations.’

‘Do you still have a pearling industry?’ Kate asked.

‘I am trying to revive it, if only as an added incentive for tourists to visit my country,’ Ibrahim said, as the plane swooped lower, over dark blue sea and yellow-gold sand. ‘Once cultured pearls came on the market, our pearling fleets went out of business. Most turned to fishing, but the fisherman must go farther and farther from shore to get a good catch.’

Kate nodded, remembering the things she’d read, but the plane was coming in to land and a mixture of excitement and apprehension at what lay ahead held her silent.

The plane landed but no one moved and to Kate’s surprise it was then towed into a huge hangar, sumptuously decorated in deep reds and purple and gold.

‘The women of the family prefer to alight in privacy,’ Ibrahim explained, ‘although these days many of them, especially the younger ones, frequent the shopping malls and go with friends to the theatre.’

They disembarked, Ibrahim ushering Kate into yet another sleek black vehicle—into the front seat this time.

‘I have asked Fareed to meet us here. He will take you for a short drive along the esplanade and past the old fort on the way to the palace. It will be an opportunity for the two of you to talk a little but remember, he knows nothing of the wedding plans. It is not necessary for him to know until the wedding night.’

Kate frowned at the man she’d discovered was so devious and felt her stomach knot at the thought of the deception she would have to play.

Or was it deception if Fareed didn’t know?

She heard voices and looked up to see him striding into the hangar.

‘Is this really necessary, Uncle?’ he demanded. ‘Do you not have enough lackeys that one couldn’t be found to show Dr Andrews around this morning? I’m barely back at work and you call me away.’

His face might be a mask, but his eyes glittered with fury.

Kate tried to blend into the car, to pretend she wasn’t there at all, but Ibrahim was unrelenting.

‘It is a small thing I ask of you,’ he was saying to Fareed. ‘Dr Andrews is our guest and all I would wish of you is to show her a little hospitality. Perhaps as a mark of your gratitude …’

‘In that great hulking limousine? If you want me to play tour guide she can ride with me in my car.’

Kate thought she detected a quick smirk on Ibrahim’s face and wondered just how wide his manipulative streak might be.

‘Well, come along!’

Fareed this time, the order curt.

She longed to rebel, to tell the pair of them she wasn’t just a piece of meat to barter over, but she bit her tongue because, sadly, that was exactly what she was—Ibrahim’s pawn.

She forced herself to think of the rewards of the position—the continued success of the family business, her mother’s and Billy’s happiness …

Billy! In her head she saw the tiny scrap of humanity that had been her longed-for baby brother, born twelve weeks early and looking like the living doll she’d been imagining. All tied up with wires, his little eyes taped shut, tiny hands and feet and tubes everywhere.

Billy, who’d fought to live, then battled through one illness after another to survive.

Billy, who’d only really come fully alive when Tippy had been born and the two of them had formed some magical bond.

She shut away the memories and followed meekly behind the angry man who so obviously didn’t want to be stuck with her.

If he only knew …

Fareed’s vehicle was a high-set SUV, black like most of the vehicles she’d seen these people use.

‘Why are all the cars black?’ she asked, as she clambered in, unaided by her husband-to-be.

‘They aren’t,’ he replied—two crisp words cutting off any further conversation.

Kate studied his profile—more stern than arrogant—and shivered inside. Perhaps there was still time to pull out of this arrangement. She could speak to Ibrahim and ask if she could work for two years—even three—instead of marrying this man, but she knew she couldn’t risk the happiness of the two people she loved best in all the world.