More Precious than a Crown

‘Had you bothered to come to any of the fittings then you might have had a say in what you were wearing. As it is...’ She lifted up Trinity’s arm and attempted to pull up the concealed zip that was located at the side. ‘You’ve put on weight!’ Dianne accused.

‘No,’ Trinity said. ‘I gave you my measurements exactly.’

‘Then why can’t I do it up?’

Because you refused to believe I was ten pounds heavier than your goal weight for me, Trinity thought, but said nothing, just sucked in her stomach and chest as her mother tugged at the stupid zip until finally it was up.

‘Is breathing an optional extra?’ Trinity quipped.

‘Yes,’ Dianne snapped back. ‘But smiling isn’t. This is your brother’s day.’

‘Oh, funny, that, I thought it was Yvette’s.’

‘Trinity!’ Dianne was struggling to hold onto her temper. ‘Don’t start.’

‘I’m not starting anything, I was just saying...’

‘Well, don’t!’ Dianne warned. ‘You’ve already done your level best to ruin this day. All you have to do now is smile. Can you manage that?’’

‘Of course, but I’m not singing.’

‘And lose the smart mouth.’ Dianne secured her hat as she issued instructions. ‘Go now and apologise to Yvette. I’m going to make my way to the church. I’ll see you there and I’m warning you...’

‘Noted.’

‘I mean it, Trinity, I don’t want a scene from you today.’

She should say nothing, Trinity knew that. She should just nod and reassure her mum that she’d behave, but, hell, she had a voice and as much as her parents loathed that fact, Trinity was determined to find it.

‘Then just make sure I’m not put in any position where I might need to make a scene,’ Trinity said, and her mother’s silk-clad shoulders stiffened and Trinity watched as the feather sticking out of Dianne’s hat shivered in anger as Trinity refused to comply with orders.

‘Will you just...?’ Dianne hissed, and turned around. ‘Can you try and remember that this is your brother’s wedding and not spoil a family gathering for once.’ Her face was right up at Trinity’s. ‘For once can today not be about you?’

‘Of course.’ Trinity stared back coolly but her heart was hammering in her chest. ‘Just make sure that you keep that sleaze well away from me.’

‘Are you still going on about that? It was years ago...’ Two champagnes on an empty stomach that was fluttering with mother-of-the-groom nerves and Dianne would not be argued with, and certainly she wanted nothing to spoil what had to be a perfect day. ‘You will behave, Trinity, you will be polite and you will smile.’

It had been stupid to hope things might be different.

Nothing had changed, Trinity realised.

Nothing ever would.

‘What are you doing?’ Trinity asked, as she watched her mother’s painfully slow attempt to write a text. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘It’s done,’ Dianne said, as her phone made the small whooshing sound that meant her text had been sent. ‘I was just letting Zahid know that you’re on your way to Yvette and that everything’s back on schedule.’

As she took the elevator to Yvette’s room for the first time that morning Trinity smiled.

As he pulled his phone from his pocket and read the text, so too did Zahid.

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f6a5096e-a416-5c3e-b69a-d245bfb5083e)

IT WAS NOT the bride who drew Zahid’s eye as she entered the church; instead, it was the woman who walked behind her who held his attention.

There was a smile fixed on Trinity’s face but her eyes were as wary and as truculent as the teenage Trinity’s, but then they met his and Zahid watched as her pale cheeks infused with pink. For both of them there was a moment’s return to a wood many years ago and a kiss that both wished had drawn to a more natural conclusion.

Zahid smiled, which he rarely did, and Trinity was so lost for a moment, so taken aback by Zahid’s smile that as the bride halted, for a second Trinity didn’t. She actually forgot her place, for it was as if she should simply walk on to Zahid—to go now and greet him as her body wanted to and wrap her arms around his neck, but instead, after a brief falter, Trinity halted and took the flowers from Yvette.

Zahid turned his back to her then and the service commenced.

The service was long, not by Zahid’s standards, just terribly long to stand there and not turn around when he would have preferred to.

Though Zahid stared ahead, he was looking at her very closely in his mind and re-examining the Trinity he’d seen today.

Her dress was terrible. Like a synthetic sapphire, it lacked depth and mystery and it was far too tight. Her hair was worn up and dotted with violets that matched the dark smudges under her eyes, yet she looked, to Zahid, amazing. Sun-kissed, dirty blonde, fragile and sexy, she was everything he remembered her to be and more.

Trinity stared ahead, loathing that her shoulders were bare and wondering whose eyes were on them. She hated the loud sound of her aunt’s husband singing a hymn, as if he meant the words, as if he were a decent man.

So, instead of dwelling on the man behind and to the right, she fixed her gaze ahead and stared at Zahid, a man who did not know the words but neither did Zahid pretend to sing. He stood firm and dignified and she willed him to turn around.

He didn’t.

He could have no idea the torture today was for her, for she could tell no one about her past—that had been spelt out to her many years ago. His raven hair was glossy and immaculate, his shoulders wider than before and possibly he was taller. She saw the clenching of his fist in the small of his back and remembered that same hand on her waist when the world had seemed so straightforward. As he handed over the rings she was treated to a glimpse of his strong profile and her ears strained to capture whatever words he murmured to Donald.

Zahid was as conscious of Trinity as she was of him, so much so that as they all squeezed into the vestry for the signing of the register, despite the chatter from others, he only heard her exhale in brief relief.

‘Trinity...’ her father warned as she leant against the wall to catch her breath, so relieved was she to be away from Clive.

Donald and Yvette signed the register and Gus added his signature with a flourish. Trinity watched as Zahid added his. Sheik Prince Zahid Bin Ahmed of Ishla.

‘Leave some space for me.’ Trinity smiled and then added her own signature.

Trinity Natalii Foster.

Her hand was shaking, Trinity realised as she put down the pen, only the nerves she had now felt very different to the ones that she’d had before.

As she stepped back from the register she caught the deliciously familiar scent of Zahid and as he lowered his head to her ear the tiny bones all shivered awake to the deep, long-buried thrill of his low, intimate voice.

‘Natalii?’

‘Born at Christmas,’ Trinity said. ‘Please never repeat it again, I hate it.’

Of course she had been born at Christmas, Zahid thought, for, unbeknown to Trinity he had returned to the Fosters’ in the hope of seeing her in the new year after she would have turned eighteen.

Trinity hadn’t been there.

She was here now, though, and Zahid spoke on.