let myself.’
‘Even if you wanted to?’
‘Are you worried I’m going to fall in love with you, Khalil?’
No—he was terrified that he was already in love with her. Khalil spun around. ‘Put like that, it sounds arrogant.’
‘I’ll try to keep myself from it.’ She spoke lightly, but he had a feeling she was serious. She didn’t want to fall in love with him, and why should she? He would only hurt her. He wouldn’t love her back.
Except maybe you already do.
‘We’ve both been hurt before,’ Elena said after a moment. ‘I know that. Neither of us wants that kind of pain again, which is why an arrangement such as the one I’m suggesting makes so much sense.’
It did. He knew it did. He shouldn’t be fighting it. He should be agreeing with her, coolly discussing the arrangements.
Instead he stood there, silent and struggling.
Elena didn’t want his love, wouldn’t make emotional demands. In that regard, she would make the perfect wife.
And yet looking at her now he saw the welter of hope and sadness in her eyes. Felt it in himself. And he knew that no matter how they spun it, no matter what they agreed on, marriage to Elena would be dangerous. Because, even if some contrary part of him actually longed for the things he said he couldn’t do, didn’t want—love, intimacy, trust, all of it—the rest of him knew better. Knew that going down that road, allowing himself to feel, yearn and ache, was bad, bad news.
No matter how practical Elena’s suggestion might be, he couldn’t take it.
‘I’m sorry, Elena,’ he said. ‘But I won’t marry you. I can’t.’
She stared at him for a moment, her wide, grey eyes dark with sadness, and then turning darker still with acceptance. Slowly she nodded.
‘Very well,’ she said, and without another word she turned and left the tent.
Khalil stared at the empty space she’d left, his mind spinning, his heart aching, hating that already he felt so bereft.
* * *
It had been worth a shot, Elena told herself as she walked back to her tent, escorted by the same men who guarded her. They didn’t speak and neither did she, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to manage a word. Her throat ached and she was afraid that if she so much as opened her mouth she’d burst into tears.
Back in her tent she sat on her bed, blinking hard to contain all the pain and hurt she felt. Then suddenly, almost angrily, she wondered why she bothered. Why not have a good cry? Let it all out? No one was here to hear her or think her weak or stupid or far too feminine.
She lay down on her bed, drew her knees up to her chest and swallowed hard. Crying—letting herself cry—was so hard. She’d kept everything in for so long because she’d had to. Men like Markos were always looking for chinks in her armour, ways to weaken her authority. Shedding a single tear would have been just handing them ammunition. The only time she ever cried was when she had nightmares.
In Khalil’s arms.
She hadn’t consciously, deliberately accessed that hidden, vulnerable part of herself for years, and it was hard to reach it now, even when she wanted to. Sort of.
She took a shuddering breath and clutched her knees harder, closed her eyes and felt the pressure build in her chest.
Finally that first tear fell, trickling onto her cheek. She dashed it away instinctively, but another came, and another, and then she really was crying. Her shoulders shaking, the tears streamed as ragged sobs tore from her throat. She pressed her hot face into the pillow and let all the misery out.
It was not just sadness about her wrecked wedding, or Khalil, but about so much more: the needless deaths of her parents and the fact that she hadn’t been able to grieve for them as she should have. Her broken relationship with Paulo, her shattered trust. The four lonely years she’d endured as Queen, working hard for the country she loved, suffering Markos’s and other councillors’ sneers and slights, trying desperately to hold onto the one thing her parents wanted her to keep.
And yes, she realised as she sobbed, she was crying about Khalil. He’d helped her in so many ways, opened her up, allowed her to feel and trust again. She’d miss him more than she wanted to admit even to herself. More than he’d ever want to know.
* * *
Khalil turned back to the reports he’d been studying, reports detailing Kadar’s response to Aziz, polls that confirmed outside of Siyad he was not a popular choice as Sheikh. It was news that should have encouraged him, but he only felt restless and dissatisfied—and it was all because of Elena. Or, really, all because of him and his reaction to her and her proposal.
He should have said yes. He should have been strong and cold and ruthless enough to agree to a marriage that would stabilise his country, strengthen his claim. Instead he’d let his emotions rule him. His fear had won out, and the realisation filled him with self-fury.
‘Your Highness?’
Khalil waved Assad forward, glad to think about something else. ‘You have news, Assad?’
Assad nodded, his face as stony and sombre as always. Khalil had met him eight years ago, when he’d joined the French Foreign Legion. They’d fought together, laughed together and saved each other’s lives on more than one occasion. And, when the time had been right for Khalil to return to Kadar, Assad had made it possible. He’d gathered support, guarded his back.
None of this would have been possible without Assad, yet Khalil still didn’t trust him. But that was his fault, not his friend’s.
‘Is something the matter?’ he asked and Assad gave one terse nod.
‘Aziz has married.’
Khalil stilled, everything inside him going cold. He’d always known this was a risk, yet he was still surprised. ‘Married? How? Who?’
‘We’re not sure. Intelligence suggests someone on his staff, a housekeeper or some such.’
‘He married his housekeeper?’ Poor Elena. No matter what she had or hadn’t felt for Aziz, it would still be a blow. And with a jolt Khalil realised he shouldn’t even be thinking about Elena; he should be thinking about his rule.
Aziz had fulfilled the terms of his father’s will. He would be Sheikh.
And Khalil wouldn’t.
Abruptly he rose from his chair, stalked to the other side of the tent. Emotion poured through him in a scalding wave, emotion he would never have let himself feel a week ago. Before Elena.
She’d accessed that hidden part of himself, a part buried so deep he hadn’t thought it existed. Clearly it did, because he felt it all now: anger and guilt. Regret and fear. Hurt.
‘All is not lost, Khalil,’ Assad said quietly, dropping the honorific for once. ‘Aziz is still not popular. Secretly marrying a servant will make him even less so.’
‘Does
