loud after all these years. It was soul-destroying to hear it from him.
But Sterling wasn’t running away from the only man she’d ever loved like this, or ever would, because it was easy. She was doing it because it was right. Which meant she couldn’t collapse at that. She couldn’t let all that wild darkness inside of her take her down to her knees. It was too important that he accept this.
“You know, then.” She couldn’t process it.
He looked furious. Impatient. Darkly focused on her.
“I have an idea what those terrible people must have told you. It doesn’t make it true.”
“If you know,” she managed to say, “then there’s no reason for this to be so dramatic. I’m doing you a favor.”
His expression shifted into something incredulous and arrogant at once.
“I do not want a favor, Sterling,” he threw at her. “I want my family.”
And that easily, he broke her heart.
“You can make yourself a perfect family,” she told him, and she only realized as she spoke that her throat was constricted. That tears were welling up and pouring over, splashing down her face. It was as if he hadn’t simply broken her heart—he’d broken her into a thousand tiny pieces and she couldn’t keep them all together any longer. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to do it again. “You can have more babies and a sweet, biddable wife who follows your commands and never shames you in public. You can—”
“You are my family!” he roared at her, and when she jumped back an inch he followed, taking her arms in those hard, surprisingly gentle hands of his. “You are my wife, my queen. We have a daughter. This is your family, Sterling. I am your family.”
“Rihad—”
But her voice was choked and her words were lost somewhere in a great, wild tangle that swamped her then. Far greater than fear. Far more encompassing.
“And I know that you love me, little one,” he told her then, his voice lower, but still so raw it almost hurt to hear it. Almost. “Do you think I can’t tell? When I do nothing but study you, day after day?”
“I don’t,” she managed to respond, though she couldn’t stop shaking. “I can’t. Nothing good ever comes of my loving something.”
His hands tightened slightly on her arms, but his expression softened. He pulled her even closer. His dark gold eyes searched hers.
“Sterling.” He said her name as if it was as beautiful as she’d thought it was when she’d picked it as a teenager. “I know that love for you means a hit must be forthcoming. I know you expect nothing but pain and misery when you dare to hope.” He moved, rubbing his palms along her arms as if he was trying to warm her. Soothe her. Love her. “But I am a man of honor. My word is law. And no one will ever hit you again as long as you live. Especially not me.”
She shook her head, hard, though shivers chased through her, one after the next as if she really was being torn apart. She could feel the tearing, deep inside of her.
“I’m your duty, nothing more,” she said fiercely. “But your duty is to Bakri, not to me. And they deserve better. You deserve better.”
“And you deserve to believe that you do, too.”
She couldn’t breathe past those words. She whispered his name again then, but she couldn’t seem to stop crying. And then he let go of her, which was worse than a hit. Worse than a kick or two. She reached out a hand despite her intention to make him let her go, but then froze, because he wasn’t walking away from her.
Rihad al Bakri, reigning sheikh, Grand Ruler and King of the Bakrian Empire, sank to his knees on the sand before her, never shifting that proud, stern gaze of his from hers.
He reached over, but he didn’t take her hands. He took her hips in his powerful grip instead, as if he could lift her up if he wished. As if he could carry her forever, if she would only let him.
“I ordered you marry me once,” he said in that low, dark, powerful voice of his. “Now I am asking you to stay with me. To live with me, love me, and who cares what the papers say. There are men watching us right now. Does it look as if that bothers me?”
“Rihad. You can’t.” But she didn’t know what she meant to say and he wasn’t listening to her anyway. His hands gripped her hips.
“I want to make more babies with you and this time, I want to hold them in my own hands as they enter this world. I want to make love to you forever. You are worth a thousand kingdoms, and mine is nothing but a pile of sand without you.” His gaze was part of her, inside of her. “Be my wife in every possible way, Sterling. Not because it is my duty, but because it is my deepest wish. You are my heart. My love. I want you to be mine.”
And she understood that vast, unconquerable thing that slammed down on her then. It wasn’t fear—it was so much bigger. It was love. Real love, without conditions or qualifiers. Without lies. Love that might incorporate pain and darkness, as all life must in its time, but wasn’t made of it.
She’d expected him to hurt her because that was all she knew. She’d assumed she would ruin him the way she ruined everything, because that was what the people who’d hurt her had told her to justify their actions.
Terrible people, he’d called them.
But that was the past.
This man, here and now, on his knees before her in a way she imagined he’d never been before and never would be again, was the future.
She had to give herself over to the only thing she’d ever encountered that could beat back the darkness.
Love.
And within that, wrapped up so tightly it was nearly indistinguishable, hope.
“I’m already yours, Rihad,” she whispered, fierce and hopeful at once. “I’ve been yours all along.”
He wrapped his arms around her hips, resting his head against her stomach. She felt the press of his perfect mouth against her flesh and the deep shudder that went with it, as if she was accepting him into her bones.
“I love you,” he told her, dark and imperious against the belly where she would bear his children. She knew she would, and not only because he’d decreed it. “Never doubt that.”
“I love you, too,” she said, her tears falling freely, but this time, they were made of joy. This time, she recognized it for what it was. This time, she believed it really would last forever. That they would, together. “I always will. And always is a very long time, I’m told.”
“It had better be,” he muttered, every inch of him the king.
And then she sank down beside him, and he took her in his arms, and for the first time in her life, Sterling let herself believe in forever.
