‘It was a match like so many royal marriages in this region,’ he said. ‘A traditional marriage intended to unify two great dynasties from neighbouring countries. After the birth of his sons, my father kept mistresses, but he was always discreet about them. And yes, you can widen your eyes in horror, but that was the way things were in those days, Hannah. Once more, I ask you to look no further than your own royal family to see that kings and princes have always broken the fundamental rules of relationships. The difference was that my mother refused to accept it. She didn’t want that kind of marriage. She wanted a modern romantic marriage—and that had never been on the cards.’
‘So what...happened?’ she questioned as a long silence followed this pronouncement.
His mouth twisted. ‘The love she professed to feel for him became an obsession. She tried everything in her power to command his attention. She was his constant shadow. Wherever he turned, she was there. I remember she used to spend hours in front of the mirror, refining and redefining her appearance to try to become the woman she thought he wanted. Once, she even sought out one of his mistresses and attacked her—flaying her fingernails down the woman’s face. It took a lot of money to hush that up.’ He his face grew even darker as he continued. ‘And the irony was that, not only was her neediness driving my father further away, it blinded her to everything else around her. In the midst of her quest to win his heart, she neglected the needs of her young family.’
‘You mean you?’
He nodded. ‘Yes, me, but especially my twin brother, Haydar. I had run away to fight in the border battles with Quzabar—I think I used the war as an excuse to escape from the toxic atmosphere within the palace.’ His voice grew bitter. ‘Now I berate myself for my cowardice.’
‘Cowardice?’ she echoed. ‘A teenager who was honoured for his bravery during that war? Whose body is still scarred from the aftermath?’
‘Yes,’ he hissed. ‘Because Haydar was still here. He was the one who bore the brunt of her increasingly bizarre behaviour.’
‘She sounds like she was depressed.’
‘Of course she was depressed!’
As his words faded away, Hannah took the opportunity to ask another question. ‘And did she ever...did she ever see a doctor?’
‘Yes.’ Distractedly, he began to pace around the vast room, but when he stopped and turned back to face her, a terrible look had distorted his features into a bleak mask. ‘But people can only be helped if they want to be helped, and she didn’t.’
‘So what happened?’ she whispered.
He picked up a small box inlaid with jewels as if to study it, but Hannah suspected he didn’t really see it. Putting it carefully back down on the gilded table, he looked up. ‘It’s not uncommon for families to normalise bizarre behaviour and that’s exactly what we did. Everyone lived with it the best they could, and time passed. I only heard second-hand what happened next. Things had been bad. Worse than usual. She refused to leave her room, no matter what the inducement. By this stage, my father had renounced all his other women and was trying to make amends, but it was too late. Haydar went to show her a piece of wood he’d carved for her in the shape of one of the rainbow birds which fly in the palace gardens and that’s when he found her...’
His voice had faltered, its grim tone warning Hannah that something unspeakable must have happened. ‘Kulal?’ she said softly.
‘She was dead.’
Hannah saw the blanching of his olive skin and wondered if perhaps she’d asked enough questions but by now she couldn’t stop. Because didn’t she get the feeling that Kulal had spent his whole life bottling this stuff up, so that it had fermented inside him like a slow poison? Couldn’t this disclosure—no matter how painful—help liberate him from some of those locked-away demons, even if it darkened their own relationship as a result? ‘How did she die?’ she questioned clearly.
His eyes were bleak as they met hers. They looked empty. As if all the light had left them, never to return. ‘She slashed her wrists,’ he said eventually, not pausing when he heard Hannah’s shocked cry, emotion shaking his voice so that it sounded like rock shattering. ‘Then daubed our father’s name in blood on the walls. And that was how Haydar found her.’
A terrible silence descended on them. Hannah slapped her fingers over her trembling lips and it was minutes before she could bring herself to respond. ‘Oh, Kulal,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Of course you’re sorry,’ he iced back. ‘We were all sorry. My father went half mad with guilt, and it nearly broke my brother. It’s what made him leave Zahristan as soon as he reached eighteen. Why he renounced the throne so that I was forced to take his place as monarch, even though I am the younger twin and never wanted to rule. Why he has never returned to this country for almost seventeen years,’ he finished bitterly. ‘That’s why the information about my mother’s death is so patchy, as you defined it—because somehow, I’m still not sure how, the palace managed to hush it all up. But press coverage was also very different at that time. We had more control over the media. Now do you understand what made me the man I am, Hannah?’
She was nodding her head. ‘Y-yes,’ she said, trying to stop her voice from trembling.
‘Why I have no desire for the demands of love?’ he continued, still in that same harsh tone. ‘It’s a word I equate with selfishness and ego. A word which often contradicts itself because people use it as a justification for behaviour which is in no way loving. Now, if you can accept that, then maybe we can continue as we are. If you can accept that I can never give you love and that I have no desire to be loved by you, then I am prepared to make the best of this marriage of ours.’ He paused and, briefly, his mouth softened. ‘A marriage which has been surprisingly tolerable, given its mismatched nature.’
Hannah told herself he wasn’t trying to be insulting as she absorbed his words. ‘And if I can’t?’
He met her eyes, all that softness having left lips which were now hard and unsmiling. ‘Then we’re in trouble.’
Hannah thought they were in trouble now. Deep trouble. Her instinct after hearing such a terrible story would have been to have taken her husband in her arms and held him close. To have stroked the raven darkness of his hair with fingers intended to comfort, because comfort was something she was good at—she’d comforted Tamsyn time and time again when her little sister had sobbed into her neck during their neglected childhood. But Kulal mistrusted closeness. He didn’t want affection unless it involved sex—and suddenly Hannah realised that his revelation had the power to change everything. Would it make her feel ridiculously self-conscious around him? If she was extra-tender towards him in bed would he think she was developing a love for him which might one day border on the obsessive, like his mother’s? Was she going to have to walk on eggshells whenever she was in his company, terrified he would misinterpret the simplest of gestures? And all that in addition to being in the inevitable spotlight of royal life...
Could she bear it?
Turning away from him, she walked over to the shutters, pulling them open to let in the bright light which flooded into the room. It should have been a symbolic lightening, but the atmosphere remained dark and heavy as Hannah stared outside. Their bedroom overlooked the rose garden, where a beautiful fountain was sending sprays of water arcing through the air in a shimmer of rainbows, but today the simple beauty of the scene made her feel unbearably sad. Often she would sit in the shade of the veranda outside, just enjoying her book in the peace of the afternoon. But somehow she could never imagine doing that again, because her newfound knowledge had changed everything. Her eyes had been opened and she could no longer pretend.
And that was the problem. Before, she could allow herself to daydream about her husband and hope they would get closer. Actually, what she’d secretly wanted was for them to fall in love. But that was never going to happen. Kulal would never allow it to happen—but
at least now he’d given her a reason. Why wouldn’t he run screaming from love, when his mother hadn’t shown him or his brother any? When she’d made a mockery of the word by sacrificing herself on the altar of her broken dreams.
‘I don’t know,’ she said huskily and saw his black eyes narrow. ‘I don’t know whether I can live like that, Kulal.’
He inclined his head. ‘Thank you for your honesty, at least.’
‘And if I can’t, what then?’
His frown deepened as her words tailed off. ‘You’ll have to be a little more specific than that.’
She supposed she should be grateful that they were discussing the flaws in their marriage so openly, but it was cold comfort indeed. She looked him straight in the eyes and dared voice the fear which had been nagging at her from the very start. ‘If I decided I couldn’t endure this life, would you try to stop me from bringing up our baby as a single mother?’
Clenching and unclenching fists hidden by the silken folds of his robes, Kulal glowered. If she’d asked him this question even a few weeks ago, the answer would have been an emphatic yes. He would have told her that such a proposition was out of the question. He would have used his wealth and his power to cut Hannah out of their child’s life as much as possible. To sideline her and ensure their baby could be brought up as a Zahristan citizen, rather than as a westerner. But that was before he had grown to know her better. Before he’d realised that the pain of her own past had made her into the person she was. She would be a good mother, he recognised instinctively, and it would be wrong to wrench her from her child.
Yet the alternative was something he couldn’t bear to contemplate. Surely she didn’t imagine he would allow her to bring his son or daughter up in England, thus denying his child its royal roots and all that went with that?
‘I don’t know,’ he said savagely, which was as close to the truth as he dared go. ‘Obviously, the best solution would be for you to remain here. I have pledged to you my fidelity and now you will understand why I would never go back on that promise. If you can settle for friendship and respect, as well as the rare chemistry which exists between us—I think we could have a very satisfactory life together.’
He wasn’t offering the moon and the stars, but at least he was being honest—and couldn’t that be enough? Hannah licked her lips. She didn’t know. But if she couldn’t accept the limitations of their relationship, then she was going to be very unhappy. And she couldn’t afford to be unhappy. Not for their baby’s sake. Not for Kulal’s, either. How could she bear to put him through any more pain when he’d already suffered so much already? The unwilling King who had made a success of the role which had been forced upon him.
But making promises she might not be able to keep was dangerous and what he was asking was too important to fire off an answer without thinking it through. Even though she had told him her love was unconditional and she wanted nothing in return, what if she couldn’t stick to that? What if she found herself yearning for more than Kulal was ever capable of giving her? Wouldn’t that drive a terrible wedge between them?
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I...I need time to think.’
‘How much time?’
She met his searing black gaze and for the first time since she’d known him, Hannah felt like his equal. It was as if all that had happened had given her the strength to finally shake off the insecurities which had helped define her for so long. Proudly, she tilted her chin. ‘As long as it takes.’
He shook his head. ‘That’s not good enough, Hannah,’ he clipped out. ‘You’re pregnant. We need some sort of timescale.’
‘Is a week reasonable?’
‘That depends,’ he growled. ‘You must know that I’m reluctant to let you return to England.’
‘Scared I won’t come back?’
‘You think I’d let you run away?’ he challenged softly.
But the crazy thing was that Hannah had no desire to go back home to work this out. It wasn’t as if she had any sanctuary there—just a stubborn little sister who seemed to have slipped entirely off the radar since the night of the wedding. She didn’t even have a home of her own any more. She didn’t want England, with all its associations and familiarities, clogging up her head as she tried to work out what was best for everyone.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I want peace and quiet. I’d like to go to your beach house.’
‘On your own?’
‘Isn’t that the whole point?’
He looked at her for a long moment before he nodded. ‘Very well,’ he said, at last.
She supposed it was a victory of sorts but somehow it felt hollow. His words sounded so distant as they matched that cool new expression on his face. Almost as if he was already beginning to detach himself from her. As if he was practising for a different kind of ending. Maybe he would be the one to make the decision for both of them. What if time spent apart made him realise he didn’t want a wife, after all? There was nothing to prevent him from using his mighty power to gain custody of their baby and returning to his life of a single man. Hannah bit her lip. And wouldn’t she have facilitated that, with her insistence of demanding time away in order to think?
But it was too late to change her mind. Too late to do anything other than watch as Kulal headed towards the double doors, his lips unsmiling as he slammed his way out of the room without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT WAS VERY peaceful by the Murjaan Sea. The sunlit air had an almost luminous quality about it and the sound of the waves lapping gently against the sandy shore was hypnotic. Each morning, Hannah pulled back the floaty white curtains and opened the shutters so that she could gaze out at the azure glitter of the water. And for a moment, she would just stand there, taking in the elemental beauty while breathing in the clean desert air.
Accompanied by a team of three female protection officers, a qualified midwife and doctor, Hannah had taken just two extra servants with her to the Sheikh’s beachside retreat. Kulal had wanted to send a much bigger contingent of staff including a chef—but on this, Hannah had stood firm. She’d told him she didn’t want all the accoutrements of the palace or to set up court there. She wanted a place which felt as close to ordinary as possible. To be able to go around unbothered by protocol, without the weight of expectation. Because she hadn’t come here to play at being queen. She was here to decide how she wanted to spend her future and the choice was stark.
To live with a man who could never love her.
Or merely to exist without him.
She tried to imagine what it would be like if she went back to England—yet already it was hard to remember her life there. It felt like a country she’d visited a long time ago which was slowly fading from her memory. Much more dominant was the vivid nature of this desert land, which she found herself embracing despite her worries about the future.
Each morning, she swam in the infinity pool and, during the cool of the evening, explored the sprawling tropical gardens which Kulal had created there. But Hannah couldn’t shake off the feeling of being under some kind of giant microscope. Sometimes it felt almost as if she was being watched—even though her security detail kept a safe but respectful distance. She told herself that she was being paranoid. Because who on earth would be able to get through the fortress-like security which surrounded the Sheikh’s sprawling estate?
Her mind was like a butterfly, unable to rest on anything for long. She kept thinking about Kulal’s hawk-like features and fathomless black eyes. Eyes which could blaze with passion or harden with a flintiness which made them resemble stone. Which was kind of fitting when she forced herself to think how emotionally cold he was. But, always a stickler for fairness, Hannah forced herself to think about other sides of his character, too. His strength and his determination to do the right thing, even if it wasn’t what he really wanted. His honesty—and his courage. Sometimes you ju
st had to go with instinct, and something in her heart told her he would be a loving father even if he could never be a loving husband.
Was that enough?
Wouldn’t it have to be enough?
And meanwhile, she was finding it difficult to sleep. Despite the cool sea breezes which blew through the palace every evening, Hannah tossed and turned as she lay in bed, missing her husband more than she had thought possible. Because it was at night-time that the memories became difficult to ignore. The way it felt when he took her in his arms and kissed her. The way she trembled when he was deep inside her. Sometimes she would press her hands to her breasts and wish they were Kulal’s hands, before guiltily snatching them away.
On the fifth night, she awoke from a troubled dream in the early hours, sitting bolt upright in bed, her skin bathed in sweat. Running the back of her hand over her damp brow, she looked around, her heart thudding. She had left the shutters open and through the floaty white curtains she could see the almost imperceptible lightening of the dawn. Her breath caught in her throat as she thought she heard a faint sound, her narrowed eyes making out the dark shape of a shadow moving outside the window, but it was gone so quickly she was certain she had imagined it. Brushing a damp lock of hair away from her heated cheek, she returned to the constant soundtrack which was playing inside her head. Could she go back to how she’d been before and manage to stop loving Kulal, or was that too much to ask?
For the first time in her life, she had found a problem with no real solution and the frustration of realising this made it impossible for Hannah to get back to sleep. The minutes ticked by and in the end, she gave up and got out of bed, splashing her face with cool water and slipping on some clothes. Through the window, she could see dawn lightening the horizon with a soft blaze of colour and she felt the stir of an idea. Why not witness the sun rising over the desert and see for herself how that stark place came to life? Hadn’t Kulal told her often enough it was the best time—the time when he loved to ride his stallion, the heavy pound of Baasif’s hooves the only sound apart from the occasional hiss of a circling vulture?
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