around his mother and howled.
Only Takia stayed silent as she stared at Rou, her eyes enormous, her small mouth compressed.
Rou, who hated feelings, hated emotion, hated grief, felt as though her heart was being ripped into pieces. Children shouldn’t know pain. Children shouldn’t have to grow up quickly. And yet these children had been thrust into reality at a very young age, their loss all the more tragic in that the girls had already lost their mother several years before.
“I wish we could wait for your father,” Rou said huskily. “It won’t be a very nice wedding without him.”
“Maybe we should wait,” Takia whispered.
“Uncle Zayed and Aunt Rou want that, too,” Jesslyn answered, looking over Tahir’s head at the girls, “but the country is in turmoil without Daddy, and no one can make any decisions without a king, and Uncle Zayed is being very good and brave, and he’s doing what Daddy would want.”
“And that’s to marry Aunt Rou?” Saba guessed.
Jesslyn smiled through her tears. “And become king.”
Rou couldn’t stay. She threw a desperate, panicked smile at them and ran out, aware that she was going to lose her composure any second. She’d barely made it out the door before the tears began to fall. It was all too much, too intense, too horrible.
Their grief made Sharif’s death real and it hit Rou hard, so very hard. Sharif was gone. Dead. He wasn’t coming back.
Sharif, the man she’d adored for a decade or more, was gone.
And now, wiping away tears, she struggled to find her way back to her wing of the palace. She made a couple of turns, and then another and before she knew it, she realized she was lost. She didn’t even know how to get back to her wing.
She was close to flagging down a palace servant when she stumbled into Zayed.
“I’ve just been to your room,” he said, catching her by the arm and steadying her.
“I went to see the queen,” she answered, wiping tears.
“What’s wrong? Has something happened?”
“Your brother’s dead. The queen and her children are heartbroken. The country’s in turmoil, and you’re being brave and good and helping out by becoming king.” She glared up at him even as the tears continued to fall. “What am I to do? Tell them I’m not marrying you? Tell them there won’t be a wedding, and their country won’t have a king? Queen Jesslyn introduced me to the children as Aunt Rou, for heaven’s sake! I’m their aunt now. And the little one, Takia, didn’t understand why we weren’t waiting for her daddy before we married!”
Her stream of tortured words ended and she looked at him for help.
“How could I have ever thought you unemotional?” he said.
“Well, I don’t like being this way—”
“I like you this way. You’re real. And you’re exactly what’s needed.”
She bit her lip to keep it from quivering like Takia’s.
“But if I could, I’d undo all this,” he added quietly. “I would give anything to see Sharif walk through those doors. I would give up everything I own, everything I am, to have him home safe. But until that day, I must do what he needs me to do. And that includes marrying and assuming the throne. But I need you to fulfill my duty. I can’t do it without you.”
“Not me, a wife.”
“But you are that wife. You’re the one I want. You’re the one I need.”
She pictured Jesslyn and the children in the nursery and tears welled up all over again. Love, loss, marriage, children … the palace was full of everything that she feared most.
Family.
Pain.
And yet she couldn’t walk away from a family in such pain. She’d spent years going to school, years building her private practice, years counseling and listening, years writing, speaking, years dedicated to helping others. How could she just run away when there was so much need right here?
She averted her head. “I need some time,” she whispered, shaken.
He started to argue and then, after a deep breath, nodded. “We’ll meet for a late lunch. That should give you a couple hours.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It has to be. I—we—Sarq, we’re running out of time. This country hasn’t had a king in nearly two weeks. Decisions can’t be made, not even about my brother’s funeral.”
“All right.” She knew her voice was sharp but she was tired and overwhelmed. Nothing was as it was supposed to be. And if she wasn’t careful, nothing would ever be again.
“I’ll take you back to your rooms.”
“No, just point me in the right direction.”
“It’s complicated.”
“I’m smart.”
Their eyes met, gazes locking, both frustrated and furious.
After a long moment of tense silence, Zayed lifted his hands. “Fine. You win. Continue down this corridor to the second hall, take a left, and then at the first right, turn. Continue to the second hall, and then a left and then another left, one more right, and then you’ll be back in your wing. Got that?”
She smiled. “Piece a cake.” Not at all, but he didn’t need to know it.
In the end, Rou had to stop two different palace staff members to get clarification on the directions, but she did eventually arrive at her suite, and once there, she went to the bedroom and stretched out, pulling a soft pillow beneath her cheek.
The bed was so comfortable and pretty, with silk and satin curtains in every shade of rose surrounding the antique frame, that she could almost imagine Zayed’s sisters here. It was a room fit for princesses, and that’s what his sisters had been. But they were gone, and now Sharif was, too.
It was all too much being here, all too intense, too emotional and just too sad.
No wonder Zayed’s mother had collapsed and been rushed to the hospital. How could any mother bear to lose so many of her children?
Although Rou wanted nothing more than to hop on the next plane and jet back to San Francisco, she reluctantly accepted that it wasn’t an option. Zayed was right. He did need her. But she wasn’t going to give up who she was, or what she wanted, not forever, not even for Zayed, although she now knew she wanted to help.
But marriage?
Perhaps if it was just a temporary marriage … something to get them through the next couple of weeks …
She must have eventually fallen asleep because Manar was there, waking her up, reminding her lunch was in just a half hour, and wouldn’t she
