“Was it?” she asked, pain making her lash out. “If so, I hate to be the one to tell you, using your mouth on me, no matter how much fun it might be, will never produce an heir.” Talking about a baby like this, a child, their child was suddenly a new, sharp pain. A sliver shoved beneath her skin, adding to the rest.
An heir was no longer a detached title, a strange, hazy goal. But a baby. Part her. Part Tarek.
A dream she hadn’t realized she’d wanted so badly. One that was sifting through her fingers like sand with each angry word, each passing second.
His dark brows locked together. “I will not deny I derived enjoyment from it. But that is not an indication of finer feelings.”
“What are you afraid of? What are you hiding from?”
“Hiding seems to be your game, my queen, not mine.”
His words hit her with the full force of a slap. Because they were true. She was an expert at hiding. She preferred to hide among people, smiling, feigning connection, because it was a wonderful way to disguise the yawning ache of loneliness inside her. To pretend it was being satisfied. But she had admitted it to herself, so his words held no power. “Says the man who spent years hunkered down in this empty shell of a building?”
“I cannot keep my eyes on you and on my country. I have to remain focused.”
“Life isn’t that simple, Tarek.”
“It got me this far.”
“But there’s more. Don’t you want more? I want more. I’m tired of just getting by. I was protecting myself for so long. Accepting the blandest drop of human emotion because it meant I wouldn’t have to give anything back. It meant I wouldn’t have to risk anything. But when you don’t risk anything, you get no reward. I ran all the way to Tahar from Alansund to avoid being alone. To avoid having to deal with the emptiness inside myself. I was willing to marry a stranger in order to keep from dealing with the fact that I just... My parents could never show that they loved me as much as they love Emily. And rather than admitting I needed it, that I missed anything I just kind of closed in on myself, made myself strong. I asked for more and found they were unwilling to give it, and so I stopped. I was married to a man I could barely go beyond small talk with because I would rather have a shell than lose the pretense we had. But it’s not enough. I’m not going to let you get away with that. I’m going to ask for more than you think you can give. I’m going to demand it. If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t care if you ever said that you loved me. If this were me two years ago, I would never demand it. But this isn’t me two years ago. This is me now. This is me, being the woman that you helped me discover I am. So now you have to deal with it.”
“And I am the stranger that you chose to marry. I am not now a man you can fashion into the image you would like to see. I am all you see before you. I am what I was made to be.”
She got out of the bed, took a step toward him, bracketed his face with her hands. “Be more. You can be more than a goal. More than an ideal. Just because your brother was twisted, and evil, and completely beholden to all of his vices doesn’t mean you have to be.”
“You say that, and yet you know nothing of what I have seen. He killed my parents. Our parents. Our blood. He stopped just short of killing me because he thought I might be of some use, or perhaps because in his twisted mind he had power so he didn’t need to destroy me completely. I will never know for certain. He said that he loved me. As he tortured me, he said that he loved me. That is love to me. Love is nothing more than pain.”
She closed the distance between them, kissing him hard, not pausing to think her actions through. When she parted from him, they were both breathing hard. “Is that pain? Do you think I would cause you pain?”
“I think between the two of us we would cause nothing more than pain if we went down that road.”
“It’s too late. I’m down that road.”
“Then, understand I will never meet you there.”
His words sent a stab of pain straight through her, the kind of pain she had spent her life avoiding. She had laid herself bare to him, opened herself up, and he had rejected her. It was her deepest fear, and she was standing here in a hot, empty room, living it.
“I understand.”
She understood, but she could not accept it. Not now. Not any longer.
“We must return now,” he said. “We have a nation to rule. We can afford no more distractions.”
Olivia knew there was much she could no longer afford. But it had nothing to do with the kingdom.
She had found the strength to love him. Now she would have to find the strength to walk away.
* * *
When they walked back into the palace, the antechamber was empty. Their footsteps echoed on the marble floor. Olivia had been silent on the drive back from the desert, but that didn’t surprise Tarek. She was upset, but she would be fine. She had not come to Tahar for love. Had not married him for love. And so he had confidence she would survive the disappointment. And he would regroup. Rebuild. They would continue on as they had started. In that he was confident.
He would have to guard himself more closely, but he was able.
They didn’t need love. She was wrong about love. Love was pain.
Love was only pain.
He began to walk deeper into the palace and sensed that Olivia was not walking with him.
He paused, and turned. “Olivia?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What are you talking about?”
She shook her head. “I have to leave. I have to leave here. I have to leave you.”
“Don’t be foolish. You are not leaving me. You are my wife.” He had never expected to have a wife. And now, he could not imagine his life without one. Without her. Pain wrenched through him, and he pushed it back.
“I know. And I married you before the entire country. I made vows to you. Promises. But I didn’t know then what I wanted. I thought I could have a marriage like the one I’d had before. Where I asked for nothing, where I expected nothing in return. But that only works when I’m not really in love. You... I love you. And I need you to love me back. I deserve to be loved back.”
A red haze fell over his vision, any control he’d laid claim to over the past fifteen years deserting him in that moment. He strode toward her, his heart thundering hard. “You think you can leave me? Have you forgotten who I am? Have you forgotten what I am?”
“It’s you who have forgotten who you are. You’ve forgotten everything but the poison your brother put in your head. And I will not spend my life on the other side of your walls. I want more than that. I deserve more than that. You deserve more than that. Malik nearly destroyed Tahar with his indifference. And he tried to destroy you, too. But you would heal this country and never afford yourself the same. If they deserve it, your people, if this dust and rock you profess to love deserves it, why don’t you deserve it?” She was shouting now, screaming at him. All of her pristine, contained
