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She sucked in an agonized breath. “I do not!”
“I am surprised no one has ever mentioned it to you before.”
She dipped her head, unconsciously shying away from the implied question. Who would have mentioned it to her? As a girl, Cassandra had teased her about the secrets she let slip overnight, but since she’d been at college, she hadn’t shared a room with anyone.
She rubbed her eyes with her palms. “Where are we?”
“You have had a good sleep; we are nearly there. Are you hungry?”
“I must have slept forever.” She craned to peek outside the window but it was just black, as far as the eye could see.
“Are you hungry?”
His concern was surprising. She realized that she was. She’d skipped breakfast and things had been so hectic since then that she had not had a chance to eat. “Starving,” she answered honestly.
He picked the phone up from the armrest of his chair and spoke into it. Fatima appeared minutes later, carrying a steaming tray of vegetables with a light curry sauce.
“Thank you, Fatima,” Emma said with a polite smile. The food was delicious, but she could hardly enjoy it because she was so hyper-aware of the man sitting beside her the whole time. She felt gauche and young, and incredibly, frustratingly attracted to him.
“Emma, tell me. Why did you fly half way around the world to do your sister’s bidding for her?”
Emma paused, fork halfway to her lips. She placed it back on the tray. “What would you have had me do?”
He shrugged. “I’m asking about you. Why did you not leave her to sort her own mess out?”
“Mess!” She said, louder than she’d intended. And then, at his warning glare, she lowered her voice. “This is not a mess. This baby is going to be loved and adored, however you might feel about it. If you’re coming to America just to say stupid stuff like that, then I’m starting to seriously regret having told you.”
A strange knot of panic gripped his stomach as he thought about what would have happened if she had not informed him that an heir presumptive to the Kingdom of Amar’a was on its way.
“I’m very glad you did tell me.” And his relief was so palpable in his words that Emma felt the knife twisting in her gut. She hated herself for not being more thrilled that this guy was going to do right by her sister, but damn it, did the one man she had felt attracted to, ever, really have to be Cassandra’s baby daddy?
“However,” he cut across her anguished train of thought, “this is a matter for Cassandra and the baby’s father. It seems odd that she asked her sister to go running on her behalf.”
Emma shook her head. “It’s not like that. She doesn’t even know I’m here.” If she’d been paying attention, she might have seen the way his face tightened at that revelation. “She was adamant that you wouldn’t want to know.”
“And yet you went against her wishes. Why?”
“She is heartbroken, Rafiq,” she said, using his name for the first time. “Sorry, it just doesn’t feel appropriate to call you Your Highness anymore.”
He shook his head. “What you call me is irrelevant.”
“Well, Rafiq, my sister is at home, pregnant and sobbing into her pillow every night. Because of you! So what would you have done? Sat back and done nothing?”
He thought about the fruitless search he’d been overseeing for his wayward brother Mansour and knew that Emma was right. She had had no choice.
“You must be very close to Cassandra?” He surmised.
“Yes. As she must have told you, our parents died when we were sixteen. It’s been just the two of us for a long time.”
“No grandparents?”
“No. Our parents were in their forties when they had us; we never knew any of our grandparents.”
An experienced flyer, he felt the way the plane had started a slow descent. Beside him, Emma tensed, and he spoke to reassure her. “It is a clear evening. Our landing will be smooth.”
“Landings are never smooth,” she disagreed, curling her fingers around the lip of the armrest, nervous and queasy all at the same time.
He thought about the response he would usua
