his mother’s life, his cowardly scurry to freedom. Not that anyone would say so to his face, but he knew. He knew.
‘I didn’t realise you’d seen it,’ Olivia said quietly after a moment, her hand still on his arm, as if she could imbue him with the strength he was just beginning to realise she had. The incredible strength. ‘I didn’t think you were there.’
‘I was. I was in the palace, watching them take off. My father and his heir.’ His lips twisted. They’d been going to do their civic duty, to speak at the opening of a hospital in another city, a landmark of Kalidar’s recent transition to national healthcare. Of course Malouf had taken that away. He’d taken away so much. ‘Perhaps you’re wondering why I didn’t go with them,’ he said, his voice harsh, his breathing ragged. Olivia’s fingers tensed on his arm.
‘No,’ she said carefully. ‘But perhaps you want to tell me?’
He didn’t, but he would, because she deserved to know. After everything, he owed her that much. The truth he’d kept from everyone else. ‘I was bored by the idea,’ he said flatly. ‘I’d just got back from Cambridge and I found the desert so very tedious. My father asked me to accompany them and I said no. Minutes later I watched them go down in flames.’
Olivia was silent for a moment. ‘Then perhaps you should be thankful,’ she said finally, ‘that you were so bored.’
He drew back from her, disgusted by the suggestion. Just as he was disgusted by his own actions all those years ago. ‘Thankful?’ he repeated, the word a sneer. ‘How can I be? I deserved to die that day!’
‘And if you had Kalidar would have no rightful King.’
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ He felt caught between fury and despair. ‘Why do you think I fight so hard? Why did I try to kidnap the Princess?’ He let out a harsh bark of laughter. ‘Everything I do, everything, is for their memory. And for mine. Because I failed my family once, and I never will again.’
‘I understand why you are so driven,’ Olivia said steadily. ‘But you did not plant that bomb in the helicopter, Zayed. You did not poison your mother.’
She knew that too, then. ‘She died in my arms a few months later. Wasted away to nothing. But the doctors didn’t even think it was the poison. She’d recovered from that. It was from grief. She had no reason to live.’ He felt a spasm of pain, like a knife thrust in his gut. For a second he couldn’t breathe, and he swung away from Olivia, hating that she could see this weakness exposed in him. See his need, his hurt.
‘I’m sorry,’ Olivia said quietly. ‘I know how painful that must have been for you.’
Something in her voice made him ask, ‘You do?’
Olivia was silent for a moment. ‘My mother died when I was young. Cancer—very quick. I don’t remember much about her, but we have photos—family photos that are so different from what I became used to as a child. Looking at them is like seeing someone else’s life.’
Zayed frowned, waiting for her to go on. ‘After she died, my father shut down. He hired a nanny and hardly ever saw me, and then sent me to boarding school as soon as he could. He was a stranger to me but, when I see those photos, I realise he wasn’t always that way. Before my mother died, he hugged me and tickled me and read me stories at night. I have the photographic proof.’ Her voice was wistful and sad. ‘And it made me realise that he chose to be a stranger. He didn’t think I was worth being something more.’
‘Perhaps he couldn’t be anything more, because of grief.’
‘Perhaps,’ she acknowledged, ‘and perhaps your mother didn’t have the strength to go on just for you. But it still hurts. It still feels like you failed somehow. Like you weren’t enough.’
Her perception left him breathless, because he knew she was exactly right. His mother’s death, the way she’d seemed to choose it over life, had been a further blow after his father and brother’s death. A further and harder grief, because they could have held each other up, supported each other, been strong for each other. And she’d chosen for him to go it alone.
‘I’m sorry, Zayed.’ Olivia stepped closer to him, reaching up on her tiptoes to cup his cheek with her palm. Zayed closed his eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘You have nothing to be sorry for, Olivia,’ he said. ‘I know that absolutely.’
‘I’m sorry all the same. For all you’ve endured, and for so long. I’m in awe of your strength. To keep fighting for all these years, to be so determined; I wish I possessed such courage. Such conviction.’
‘You are brave,’ Zayed told her, opening his eyes and giving her a small smile. ‘You have shown me that.’
‘Brave?’ Olivia shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. But I try to be useful. That’s something, at least.’
Useful? It sounded like so little. Did Olivia hope for more from her life? For the love of a husband, of children? She wouldn’t get it from him, and yet...
‘I promise I will do everything in my power to make your marriage with Princess Halina go forward,’ she told him. ‘I’ll write that letter, whatever it takes.’
The letter, the damned letter. Zayed stared at her, a conviction growing inside him, crystallising into clarity. ‘No,’ he said, and Olivia’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I don’t want you to write a letter. I don’t want to contact the Sultan, not until we know whether you’re pregnant or not.’
‘But...’
‘And, considering what we just did, we may have to wait awhile.’
‘You can’t jeopardise your country’s future—’
‘I already have. Kidnapping you has infuriated Hassan. He’s taken Halina to Italy, away from my possible clutches.’ He smiled wryly. ‘Not that I would try such a foolhardy and desperate act again.’
‘But you will contact him? You will try to make amends?’
How could he, when he already had a wife, and one who could very well be pregnant? Zayed shook his head. ‘Like I said, not until we have ascertained your condition.’
Olivia’s hand crept to her belly in a gesture as old as time. ‘And if I am pregnant?’ she asked.
‘Then,’ Zayed said, his tone brooking no argument whatsoever, ‘we stay married. The child in your belly will be my heir and the future King of Kalidar.’
OLIVIA GAZED OUT at the mountain peaks dusted with snow, at the sun shining brilliantly, and let out a sigh that was half happy, half discontented. They’d been in Rubyhan for nearly two weeks now and it had been a surprisingly wonderful two weeks.
Olivia, as she was wont to do, had made herself useful helping out in the administrative office—as her knowledge of both French and Italian had proved useful—and also taking care of Lahela’s baby so the new mother could get an occasional rest. The atmosphere in the palace was a surprisingly cheerful one, with everyone determined to work towards the same
