Don’t ever forget me.
He never, ever could.
So much so that as Mikael read the brief for a new client he felt nauseous.
‘He needs to find someone else,’ Mikael said to Wendy.
He simply couldn’t do it any more; he’d assuaged his guilt over Igor and now he was going to use his power for good.
What had Layla done to him?
He just had to know that she was okay.
He took out his phone and stared at it for a long time. He was worried that his calling might make things worse for Layla, but the payment of his fees had gone in today so there was almost a valid reason to call. He would keep his voice brusque, Mikael decided. He would thank Zahid for the payment and check that she was okay.
He just had to do something.
* * *
Layla walked through the palace gardens and had never felt more confused—because she had done more than she could ever have dreamed of in her few days away and so surely she should be happy. As she walked she remembered dancing and laughing with Mikael, and she remembered his kindness too. How he had come back for her that night and stopped her going out. How he had bathed her and watched over her.
She had laughed when he had asked her to marry him and yet it was the nicest thing that had ever happened to her. What she wanted more than anything in the world was to be his wife.
Yet it was impossible. For even if somehow—impossibly—her father agreed, imagine Mikael here, in Ishla…
She could not.
Oh, at first it would be bliss. But without his cases, without the life he had built from nothing, that bliss would surely fade. Layla could not do that to him; she could not bear to think of him living here, with his opinions invalidated by the King and later by Zahid.
No palace would be big enough for such strong men.
A sob came and she could no longer hold it in.
Her father might be watching her from the window, Layla knew, and she fled down a hidden path towards the second palace, where Trinity and Zahid lived. But she did not run to them. Instead she sat on a stone bench and wept and sobbed as she never had in her life—not even when she had gone to choose her suitor. This evening Layla cried not just for herself but for Mikael, for he had no family and yet it felt as if he was a part of hers, and she would never see him again.
‘Layla!’
Trinity had been walking, and at first had thought an animal must be trapped, such was the distress she’d heard. Trinity put her arms around Layla’s heaving shoulders and tried to find out what was wrong, but Layla shook her head at everything Trinity asked.
‘Is your father still cross?’
Layla shook her head.
‘Are you scared of choosing a husband?’
‘No.’ Layla gulped.
There was no room in her heart left to be scared.
‘I fell in love.’ Her tears calmed just a touch with the terrible admission. ‘I always thought I wanted to fall in love but it is horrible…it is agony. Please, please, don’t tell Zahid.’
‘He might understand.’
‘Even if he could understand it would make no difference, Zahid is not yet King.’
‘Who?’ Trinity asked. ‘Who did you fall in love with?’
‘Mikael.’
Trinity blew out a breath. Perhaps Layla was suffering from a serious case of a crush, because if Mikael loved her in return surely he would not have let her leave?
‘I begged him not to let Zahid know there had been anything between us.’
‘He’s a brilliant actor, then,’ Trinity said, remembering Mikael’s bored expression.
‘He did it for me,’ Layla said. ‘No one ever knows what he’s thinking, yet he tells me how he feels.’
‘He feels the same about you?’ Trinity checked, and then double-checked again. ‘You’re sure that Mikael loves you?’