Bound by the Sultan's Baby

Bound by the Sultan's Baby

Author:Carol Marinelli [Marinelli, Carol]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2017-03-31T16:00:00+00:00


CHAPTER NINE

‘THE CONTRACTS ARE still with Bastiano?’ Alim frowned when Violetta gave him the news. ‘This should all have been dealt with by now.’

Despite Alim’s rapid departure, an offer on the Grande Lucia had been made and accepted, but nearly three months later the sale seemed to have stalled.

Alim needed the hotel gone!

He sat in his sumptuous office in the palace and tried to take care of business with a mind that was elsewhere.

Seeing Gabi again had proved to be his undoing.

Temptation beckoned more with each passing day but never more so than now.

A wedding was being held there this weekend and Matrimoni di Bernadetta was the company that had been hired for the event.

The itinerary was open on his computer and Alim scrolled through it, hoping for a glimpse of her name, or a note that she might have left in the margins, as Gabi often did.

There was none, though.

‘Do you want me to contact his attorney?’ Violetta asked, but Alim shook his head.

‘I will speak with Bastiano myself,’ Alim said.

He might even speak with him face to face.

Alim was sorely tempted to summon the royal jet, with the excuse of meeting with Bastiano, but really for the chance to see Gabi.

He was dangerously close to breaking the diktat.

‘That will be all,’ Alim said, and, having dismissed Violetta, he attempted to deal with the day’s correspondence.

He didn’t get very far.

It had been months since he had seen Gabi again but the feelings had not faded.

If anything, they had intensified for, despite the pressure his father and the elders exerted, Alim was no closer to agreeing to a wedding.

His mind was in Rome, rather than here in Zethlehan, where it should belong.

He thought of the days he had loved most at the Grande Lucia.

Gabi, arriving early in the morning, and how she would become increasingly frazzled throughout the working day.

And he thought too of the wedding nights, and how she would finally relax again and enjoy watching the show she had produced.

He missed her.

Not the risqué life he had once led, but the small moments that were now long gone—stepping through the brass doors and seeing her sitting in the lounge with Marianna. Knowing that there would be another wedding soon and the chance to see her again had brought him more pleasure than he had realised at the time.

His times at the hotel had been made better by her—the scent of flowers coming from the ballroom and Gabi directing brass trolleys laden with gifts and arrangements...

Alim missed those times.

And they would soon be gone for ever.

He had done all he could to sever his ties to Rome, yet it felt as if his heart had been left there.

He looked up as his mother knocked at his open office door and he shook his head.

‘Not now,’ Alim said.

‘Yes, now,’ Rina said and came in.

He had always been polite—if a little distant—with others, though now he was stone cold.

The vast palace felt too small, and there was no company that he wished to keep.



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