Olivia felt a sting of emotion in her throat at the sweetness of his story. She coughed to clear it. “Your wife wasn’t from here?”
“No. She was English, by birth, though by the time I met her, she had lived everywhere. Africa, Australia, China, Russia. She loved to travel, much as you do.”
Olivia crossed one leg over the other. “Did you travel together?”
“We did.” His smile deepened. “I have never stopped grieving her loss, but I have also never felt that I did not make the most of the time we had together.”
“I’m glad for you, in that case.”
Faisal’s eyes hung on her face, in a manner that reminded her so strongly of Zamir that she had to look away.
“And you tell me with complete honesty that you do not love my son?”
“I do not love either of your sons, sir.”
“I will not lie to you. I am glad to hear it.”
Curiosity flinched in her breast. “May I ask why?”
“You may ask, but you do not need to know.” Discussing the affairs of his own heart was not something he fancied, even with a woman as captivating as this. He stood slowly. “It is an old man’s prerogative to keep some secrets, is it not?”
“Of course.” What did it matter? What did any of it matter?
She bid farewell to the ruler of the wealthy, beautiful kingdom and walked sedately towards the door. But once she was through it, and had been met by Marook, she stormed through the palace at a clip.
“Marook, where is Zamir?” She demanded without breaking her stride.
Marook was instantly watchful. “He is engaged at present.”
A wild look came into her eyes. “I need to see him. Now.”
“I’m sorry Miss Henderson, I cannot simply …”
“Yes you can, simply.” She pointed to his wrist. “Talk into that little thing, and tell him that he either comes to see me now, or I will go back to his father and demand my release.” She put her hands on her hips. “I will do it. This is not a joke. I’m sick and tired of all of this.”
Marook compressed his lips. He had known the minute he’d seen her emerging from Zamir’s aeroplane that it would not end well.
“Yes, ma’am. I will try. But Zamir is …”
“Not going to say no to me. Or he’ll be sorry.”
Marook stopped walking and pressed the digit for Zamir’s private valet He spoke in their language, his eyes glued nervously to Olivia.
“He will come to you shortly.”
“Shortly? That had better mean immediately,” she snapped crossly.
Marook supressed the flare of admiration. She had spirit, that much was obvious. He nodded politely and began to move towards her room.
“No.” She said, not following. “I don’t want to go back there.” She was being stubborn and recalcitrant and she liked the way it felt. “I want to go outside.”
“Outside?” Marook repeated with bewilderment.
“Yes.”
“It is very hot …”
“I want to go outside.” I want an oompa loompah, and I want it now, she thought to herself.
“Very well, ma’am. This way.” Her position in the palace was not clear, but Marook had an instinct not to pick an argument with her.
There was a small courtyard beyond the library. It was most frequently used by staff, taking a break from their duties of dusting and ordering the thousands of books. But one word from Marook cleared the area for Olivia.
She sent him a look of reluctant gratitude and walked slowly to the edge of the terrazzo ground. There was a wall to one side and jasmine scrambled enthusiastically over it, covering it in a mass of knotted green. But for the rest, the courtyard was open, showcasing views down one side of a fruit orchard of some type, and down another of carefully maintained lawns. She ran a hand over the back of her neck and let out a soft breath.
Dashan, the little she’d seen of it, certainly had charm.
The sound of the door closing drew her attention, and she turned warily.
Zamir. He was dressed in a flowing grey robe, and he looked mysterious and wonderful. His own expression mirrored hers. There was a tension and reserve in his features that she well understood. Marook stepped backwards, into the palace, closing the door behind him.
They were alone.
Now that Olivia was confronted by her captor, the man she had once loved, she wondered just what the hell she could say.
“Hello.”
She almost rolled her eyes at the stupid greeting.
He tilted his head in acknowledgement.
“Zamir,” she hated that her voice trembled. “I want to go.”
“To go where?” He responded quietly.
“I want to go home.”
“Where is home?”
Her face paled. “Anywhere but here. Vegas. I don’t know.” She played with her fingers. “I can’t be here.”
Zamir walked towards her with a steady purposefulness. “What will it take, Olivia?”
She didn’t understand. “What will what take?”
His kiss surprised her. Out of nowhere, his lips were on hers, and his hands were at her hips, digging into her flesh, holding her tight against his body. “What will it take to get you to agree to stay here with me?” He murmured, stroking her sides and teasing her with his touch.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. Tears ached in her eyes. “Nothing would induce me to stay.” She sucked in a deep, shaking breath. “And I know you aren’t capable of keeping me here against my wishes.”
His laugh was a short sound of derision. “You are speaking to the man who kidnapped you. And still you see the best in me?”
She lifted her hands, intending to push him away, but they got distracted by his warmth. “What do you want from me?”
“You know that,” he responded with a hint of desperate frustration in his words. “I want you here, in my bed. I want you to come to me of your own accord, and make love to me like you used to. I want you to smile at me like you used to. I want you to talk to me with that laughter you always have in your voice.”
“You want me to be your mistress,” she surmised glumly.
“I want you to be my everything, as you always have been,” he corrected, lifting his hands to cup her face on either side. “I want you to drink tea with me and talk for hours. I want you to remember that you love me, and to agree to stay here with me for the rest of your life.”
“What?” She froze, her heart barely beating. “But why?”
“I have wondered at this,” he said, appearing to shift subjects seamlessly. “I have wondered about this ache I have right here.” He lifted a hand to his chest. “I have wondered about this anger I have towards everyone, and this impatience I have for my duties. What do you think has caused me to feel like this?”
Olivia felt a sob bubbling in her chest. “Please don’t say it.”
“Don’t say what?”
She shook her head angrily. “Don’t say that you love me.”
His smile was mocking. “You doubt my feelings?”
She made a gargled sound of disbelief and pushed away from him now. “You’re damned right I do,” she said, after taking a moment to get her breath back. “It’s easy to pay lip service to something like love, but it’s a lot harder to show it.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning?” She balled her hands into fists by her side. “Meaning the ends don’t justify the means. You think you love me? You kidnapped me. That’s not love. It’s sick. You’ve had me here for two days and I haven’t seen or heard from you. Why? If you loved me, you would never have left me here to wonder and to worry …”
She was becoming hysterical. He put his hands on her shoulders and whispered comforting words in his own language. “I shouldn’t have left you,” he said softly, when she had quietened down. “Only I was so ashamed of the mess I’d made, I didn’t know … I couldn’t see how to fix it.”
“So you did nothing?” She
was angry, and with every right to be so.
“No. I spoke to Ra’if. I am having him moved here and it has involved much of my time. And I thought of you. And I wondered what I could say that might fix this.”
“Nothing. Nothing can fix this.”
He braced himself but her words were cutting away at his confidence.
“Olivia, I have never known someone like you.”
“So?” She fired back. “I’ve never known anyone like you either. What’s your point?”
“Please, let me speak.”
“Why?” She fixed her eyes to his, and he saw the heartbreak in them.
“Because I can’t stand to let you go.” He closed his eyes. “I know, I know. I have heard the adage you are about to quote at me.”
She arched a brow. “I was going to do no such thing.”
“Perhaps it is my conscience I hear then. I know that loving you should mean I am prepared to set you free. But the risk that you might choose a life away from me rips me apart. A month ago, the night I told you of my father, you were prepared to come with me. You loved me then. I know you will love me again.”
“I don’t want to love you again,” she said angrily. “You walked away from me without a backwards glance. You treated me as though I’d been a convenient stopgap in your life, but that my usefulness was at an end. You left, and I was …” She swallowed. She didn’t want him to know how badly she had struggled. It was mortifying to realise the depth of her dependence.
But he understood.
“I know. I know. I felt it too. But my duties here …”
She made a noise of disapproval. “I don’t care about your duties here. Your father met your mother and he married her within a week. Because he loved her. You could have done what you wanted. If you truly loved me, you would not have left me in Vegas. You would have brought me here, to hell with the consequences.”
He moved to her, but he didn’t touch her. “Why do you speak of my father?”
“Because I was summoned to him just now,” she snapped. “He was positively thrilled to learn that I don’t love you. Or Ra’if, for that matter.”
“You told my father you do not love me?” He pushed quietly.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “And it’s true.” Her eyes were clouded with deep emotions.
“No, it’s not.” He ran a thumb over her lower lip. “Let me show you how I know this for a fact.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, determined not to be impressed. No matter what he did or said, she was determined to steel her heart against it.
He reached into his robes and pulled out a black bow with gold thread through it. It was only when he knelt down, and held the bow up to her hands that she saw it was tied around a circle of gold. And her heart began to pound; her mouth was dry. “Olivia Henderson, you can leave any time you want to. But before you do, I ask you only to listen to what I’m about to say. Would you give me the honour of the next five minutes of your time before you make your decision?”
Her eyes narrowed and her chest contracted painfully, but she nodded.
“I am aware … believe me, I realise that I erred in dragging you here. It is yet another crime against me. I was stupid and I was wrong. I found though, that when faced with the possibility of losing you for good, and I knew that I would do anything to avoid that.”
“You have already lost me for good,” she interrupted angrily.
“I thought that I could fix everything easily enough. That you would forgive my stupidity, and we would be as we once were. But your first night here, in my apartment, I saw how badly I had damaged you. My actions were those of a selfish man, entirely used to thinking only of his own interests.
“I choose not to apologise for how I behaved, because it would demean you to accept my apology. I don’t expect forgiveness for the way I treated you. I made you doubt everything you felt. You loved me, as I loved you, and yet I left you as though that love meant nothing to me. When really, your love is the greatest gift I have ever received.” Olivia pulled her hands away so that she could wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Your love is all that matters to me.”
“Instead of apologising, I want to pledge to you that I know how wrong I was. I want to promise you that if I could go back in time and change that night, I would have brought you – beautiful, sweet, generous Olivia Henderson – to Dashan and introduced you as my betrothed. My life. I will never, for the rest of our lives, leave you in any doubt of my feelings.”
She sobbed and pulled her hands away from him. Her voice was cracked with emotion when she spoke. “I still don’t understand why.”
“I had many reasons, and all of them stupid.”
“What reasons? I need to know. I have wondered … I have thought about this for a long time. Why did you leave me, when I would have followed you anywhere?”
His lips twisted into a sad smile. “I believed you would be miserable here. It is not your culture, and the strictures of palace life can be daunting. You yourself have remarked on how stifling my life must be.”
“I don’t believe you. You would have said that at the time, if that was your motivation.”
He dipped his head forward in concession.
“Was your mother miserable?”
“No,” he agreed with a shake of his head. “And I know now that you would have been as happy here as anywhere else.”
“More so, because I would have been with the man I loved.”
“Please, Olivia, do not use the past tense. I know you love me still, though perhaps you don’t trust me enough to admit it yet.”
She didn’t respond. Her heart knew that his words were truthful. But she didn’t want to give in to him.
“I had no intention of marrying anyone. Not for a long time. I met you, but I stubbornly clung to that decision. My job was to take the reins of the country and keep it in good stead. How I felt for you would distract me from that. It does distract me from that. And yet I still want to feel it. I cannot imagine a world in which I don’t have you. In which I don’t love you.”
She would not let him appease her so easily! She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. “You say you love me, and yet you accused me again and again of moving on with Ra’if.”
He winced. “It would have been the worst thing you could have done. It was my fear, not my belief.”
“You hurt me.”
He nodded, and stood. “I know.”
“I did move on with him, in a way,” she spoke softly, spinning away from Zamir and looking once more at the grove of fruit trees. Zamir was watchful, still on his knees, his heart hammering.
“Not romantically,” she rushed to add. “But he is so like you.” She smiled towards the nothingness. “I felt like I had some part of you still. Perhaps I was weaning myself at first. But then, Ra’if and I became friends. Good friends. I found that I was no longer waking up miserable. I was no longer sitting in a ball on my floor, waiting for the day to pass so I could try to sleep again.” She closed her eyes. “He brought me back to life after you left. So yes, I did move on with him.”
Zamir’s breath burned in his throat. “It should have been me. I want it to be me forever more. I want to be the person who can make you feel better. And I never want to bring you harm.”
“Why did you leave me?”
“I told you …”
“No.” She cut him off. Her voice rose as her impatience climaxed. “None of that makes sense. You were so cold when you left. You wouldn’t even speak to me. Can you imagine how it felt? One minute, everything was perfect. I loved you so damned much. And then you just left, as though I was a hotel you could check out of.” Tears were still running down her cheeks and she didn’t bother to stop them now.
“I regretted it instantly.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered hollowly. “You stayed away, and only came back when you thought I was sleeping with Ra’if. That you allowed your mind to go there, even for one minute, is beyond offensive to me.�
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“Olivia,” the way he said her name sent shivers down her spine. “The throne of this land has taken more of a toll on this family than is fair. It claimed my mother. It ruined my brother. It has weakened my father. It is, in some ways, a curse.”
“No,” she shook her head. “It’s not cursed, and nor are you. You chose to walk away from me.”
“I know. That is the curse. The lure of duty. I chose the throne over you. I chose what I felt I owed to my country, over what I knew I owed to you. And to me, when I think about it. Just as my mother chose her duties over her children. And as my father chose his worries over his health. I don’t want to be like them.”
“Your father married for love,” she said angrily. “Why could he? And yet you seemed so set against the idea…”
“That’s complicated.” He stood, finally, and moved to stand beside her. He didn’t touch her. It would be too easy to overwhelm her with the desire that still coursed between them.
“Everything’s complicated,” she whispered, spinning around to face him. “How can I forgive you for this?”
“I told you…”
“I know! I know what you said. It was perfect. It’s probably exactly what I needed to hear. But it doesn’t fix anything. If you think of our relationship as a glass vase, the day you left was like picking it up and smashing it against a wall. You’re trying to put it back together with glue, but it won’t work.”
Zamir felt hope dying in his chest. She had given him everything, and he had thrown it back in her face. Stricken, he realised that this was it. He had done everything he could, and if she told him she wanted to leave? He would have to make it possible.
“What will it take?” He pleaded, his eyes golden on hers.
Olivia shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“I love you. I have never said that to a woman before. I have never felt it. I love you Olivia, and I will do whatever you ask. It would be disastrous for my country and yet I would quit the throne if you asked it of me. I want to be, more than anything else in the world, the man you look at like you used to.”
“I …”
“I love you.” He spoke slowly. “You need to hear that. You need to hear those words and let them in. I have loved you for almost as long as I have known you. A lifetime with you will never be enough. I want to talk to you until there are no words left in the universe. I want to make love to you again and again, beneath the shifting stars of this desert.”
The Sheikh's Convenient Mistress: What he needed from her went well beyond the call of duty... (The Henderson Sister Series Book 2) Page 13
