* *
Eloise wanted to scream. Her hands were clenched into fists and she knew that her nails would leave crescent-moon-shaped indentations in her palms, but still she couldn’t release them. Because if she did they would be hurled against her husband, and she didn’t know if she would be able to stop.
Never had he asked her for the truth of that night. Not once.
‘Get out! Get out of my sight and don’t you dare come back!’
The words rang through her mind and she felt her heart break twice over—once for the past and once for the present. Odir had made an assumption. The wrong one. And he had never looked back, using it instead as an excuse to avoid his bought bride.
The night Odir had found his brother trying to kiss her had been one of the worst of her life. He hadn’t given either her or his brother the chance to explain. And clearly Jarhan had never put him right. Then again, she hadn’t really expected him to.
She tried to shake off the memory of Jarhan’s drunken attempts to kiss her but its hold was too great and it dragged her under.
She was in a different room...in a different country. She had been keeping Jarhan company ever since Sheikh Abbas had unveiled his plans for his younger son to wed the Princess of a nearby principality—Kalaran. She had been trying to comfort him, trying to convince him to explain, to tell the truth. But the fear in Jarhan’s eyes had been very real.
Stains from the red wine he’d been drinking all night had scored red grooves into the corners of his mouth, and the second his thin lips had crashed painfully against hers the young Prince had gone from being someone she had considered a friend and confidant to becoming the weapon of her undoing.
It was a kiss that had broken a marriage, a brotherhood, and the tentative future she had hoped one day to have.
‘So you still won’t believe me.’
‘Believe what? More lies from that delicious mouth of yours?’
The scorn in his words was completely at odds with the compliment he had given away so easily. He turned away and she let out a breath so heavy with grief it surprised even herself.
There had been a time, she acknowledged, when she’d cherished the idea of marrying Odir. Back then, barely two years ago, she had thought even the sun couldn’t shine brighter than Odir. He’d charmed her with a self-deprecation and a quick, warm wit she hadn’t expected. For a year during their engagement she had watched him, studied the care with which he spoke to palace attendants, seen his love of his people enter every decision he made, every act he chose.
He had been her childhood fantasy come to life. What had started out as their fathers’ business agreement had been moulded—so she had thought—by them. Together they had made something of their advantageous union. A friendship, she had once thought. A relationship, she had once hoped.
Here was the Prince who would whisk her away from the pains of her childhood—the Prince who would break the hold her father had over her. She had thought that perhaps he might even be her confidant—that finally she would have someone on her side.
But that had been before the reality of her marriage had struck, and all of Odir’s words and promises had disappeared into lonely nights as he’d found excuse after excuse to avoid her at every turn, leaving her cold and alone.
Now Eloise sought Odir amongst the shadows and could see determination painted across those features she had once longed to see soften and show something close to the love that they were reported to feel for each other. Looking at him now, she realised that she had been a child, with childish dreams.
She knew then that there was nothing she could say—no defence she could make of that night or any of the nights from then to now. Nothing would make any difference.
‘The past isn’t going to change. But the future can.’
His grim smile infuriated her.
‘You can say it as many times as you like, Eloise. It’s not going to happen.’
‘Odir, please. See reason. There was once a time when we could talk openly...’ She hated the longing that had crept into her voice. ‘Don’t you want to move on? Don’t you want to find a suitable princess? One who will be the right person to rule by your side one day and provide you with...with the heirs you need?’
She hoped that he would be swayed by the practicality of her argument—the same kind of practicality that had always defined their relationship.
Until she met his eyes. And then she knew that she was just as foolish as that girl who had once hoped this man would rescue her like one of the knights of old and whisk her away to a magical kingdom...
* * *
‘So, with your birthday tomorrow, on the brink of inheriting what I have been told is your grandfather’s considerable trust fund, you’re finally ready to ask for a divorce?’
The accusation heavy in his words was bad enough, but the fact that he knew about her grandfather’s trust fund was a shock.
‘How do you know about that?’
‘It’s amazing what investigators can find out in only the briefest of hours.’
How she wished she could make him understand about her trust fund—wished she could tell him what she wanted to do with the money. How she wanted to use it to help Natalia get the treatment she so desperately needed—the only way to treat the painful medical condition that would one day end her life before it had really ever begun.
But before she could create a response his furious words continued.
‘Tell me honestly, were you only waiting until your trust fund was released before you came to me asking for a divorce?’
She couldn’t deny it. Couldn’t deny that she’d had no other option. Her father’s machinations meant that until she had access to her trust fund she couldn’t leave this marriage. And she couldn’t explain to her husband why.
‘Were you always such a gold-digger? Or did a taste of royal life—even as brief as it was—ignite such an obscene fire for wealth in you?’
* * *
He hated the words that had exploded into the room, called forth from his deeply held anger. They burnt his tongue and scoured his throat, as if punishing him for the cruel taunt.
‘If that’s what you think of me then we really need a divorce, Odir. It’s impossible to have two people bound together with such...hatred.’
‘You made vows before God—before my country’s King and before its people. We don’t have a choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. I’ve seen the changes you’ve made in your country in the last six months. You’ve done incredible things. Things that have done so much to restore global respect for Farrehed.’
Could he hear admiration in her voice? It surprised him that she had kept up with the changes he’d had to make in the last months. The gruelling hours he’d spent undoing the destruction his father had caused. Or was it just carefully designed
