“Why?” She pushed, hoping, wanting desperately, for him to say the only thing that would make sense of this mess. The promise and pledge that she had made to him five years ago, that she could never take back. Even death would not alter her love for him. Time and distance certainly hadn’t.
“Because I’m addicted to you,” he said. “Because seeing you with that man in the bar made me feel a rage unlike any I’ve ever known. Because I think Lexi is adorable and lovely and yet I look at her and I wonder at the bastard you made her with. The man you slept with so soon after me. Did you think of me as you lay with him? Did he make your body feel as I did? Did you wish it was me instead of him?”
She shook her head, the lie feeling so incongruous now. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Did you love him, Sarah? Did you tell him that he was your world, your purpose, your everything, as you did me?” He leaned down, his eyes hunting hers. “You made a child with him; surely he meant something to you?”
It was meant as a rhetorical question, but Sarah shook her head and then looked towards the door.
“Lexi is my child,” she said quietly, and strangely, admitting the truth to him didn’t feel anything but right. “But I didn’t carry her, and I didn’t birth her.” Her hands dropped to her flat stomach, rubbing across it as if experiencing a barren ache.
His eyes narrowed. Syed Al’Eba could control a room with a single look. This look. It was as commanding as it was determined. He was extracting from her words and her being a comprehension beyond what she’d offered.
“Explain,” he said, finally, apparently failing to simply intuit what she’d meant.
“My sister …” Sarah frowned. “Well, stepsister, really.” She concentrated on the facts, rather than his reaction or what he might feel at it. All she knew was that she had to tell him about Cameron and Marshall before she married him. It was a secret she didn’t want to be accused of guarding. “We grew up together, so even though we have different dads, we still thought of each other as –,”
“Sisters,” he interrupted with a curt nod, cutting back to the point.
“Right.” She wrapped her hands together in front of her and then moved distractedly towards the window. The city swirled beneath them, like a soup at boiling point. “She came to stay with me about two weeks after you left.” Sarah’s eyes misted over. The past was playing out in front of her as a film might. “She was pregnant. Her boyfriend – I’d only met him once before – liked to show his affection by bringing his fists down on her body; sometimes his feet, too. She was terrified of what he’d do – to her, and their baby when she was born.” She felt him stiffen even when she wasn’t looking at him. Unconsciously, her eyes lifted higher, to glimpse his shape in the reflection of the window.
He was very still. Watchful.
“We didn’t see him until she was almost due. He came back and made some big effort to fix everything. I told her not to go to him, but she was adamant.” Sarah swallowed past the lump of pain in her throat. “He was worse than before. When Lexi was two weeks old, Cameron left him for good. He’d broken her arm and collapsed her jaw.” She closed her eyes, the taste of bile oppressive in her mouth.
“Did he hurt you?” The question came from nowhere. He’d been silent a long time, and it had wrapped around them, pressing on his chest until words erupted of their own volition.
But Sarah was a carriage on a train. It had a destination, and it wasn’t to be derailed nor detoured. “Lexi was a beautiful baby, but she was unsettled at night. I’d woken early one morning and she was crying. Cameron was asleep so I decided to take Lexi for a walk in the buggy.” She closed her eyes, hating the imagery that flashed before her, wanting it to go away; wanting it to have never happened.
She pressed her hand against the glass of the window. It was cold.
“He killed her while I was out. And then he shot himself. If Lexi had been there …”
“If you’d been there,” Syed interrupted with an anger that shook his whole body.
She nodded. “Yes.” Neither of them needed to put that thought into words.
The world had stopped spinning for Syed. He looked into the past and he saw what could have been. He saw his future devoid of Sarah, and a grim darkness wrapped around him, suffocating him slowly.
“She’s my daughter, but I didn’t make her.” Sarah’s smile was wistful. His eyes landed on it in the reflection and his heart thumped heavily in his chest. “I love her so much, though. I can’t imagine loving any child of my own more than I do Lexi.”
He nodded, but words felt superfluous. Actions mattered.
He needed to marry Sarah. To right this wrong, and many others. He needed to know she would never again suffer, never again feel pain or worry. He needed to take any darkness from her life and damned well turn it into light.
He closed the distance between them, wrapping his hands around her waist. “I will never let anyone hurt you or Lexi,” he said the words quietly, delivering them directly into her ear. “Tonight, we become a family.”
And the words were so perfectly reassuring that she felt a swelling of emotion; an overwhelming ache of tears. “I’ve been on my own so long,” she groaned. “I’ve forgotten what it’s like to have someone else to lean on.”
He pulled her towards him roughly, needing to pass his strength to her body. “You needed me and I left you. I will not easily forgive myself for this. But I promise you now, Sarah, that I will spend the rest of my life on earth making this up to you.”
She swallowed. There was something so perfect in his words that she found herself being pulled into them – to believing them. “It’s not your fault,” she said with a small shake of her head.
“Isn’t it?”
“No matter what happened with us, you couldn’t have fixed what he was like. He was … a monster.”
Her story was still unfolding in his mind, and something occurred to him. “You found their bodies?”
She nodded, her face drained of all colour.
And he kissed her.
Not because he needed her, though he did. He kissed her because he wanted to breathe life back into her and he only knew one way to do that. He kissed her because he felt more than he could put into words; he felt things that his body needed to show her.
And he kissed her because he wanted to put her all back together again, just like she’d done for him, a long time ago.
CHAPTER NINE
“You booked out the whole place?” She stared around the exclusive restaurant with its fairy lights strung over the ceiling, art deco booths lined with pale turquoise fabric and marbled floor, and the grand piano in one corner that was creating a delightful jazz melody under the skill of a musician in a tuxedo.
“For our wedding, it seemed appropriate not to share you.”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes dropped, for the hundredth time in the hour since they’d said their vows, to the simple wedding band she wore.
“Having regrets?” He asked quietly.
About the wedding? Or the ring? She’d shunned the diamonds he’d offered, choosing instead a plain ring. “I know it’s not what you would have picked,” she said, choosing to believe he’d meant the latter. “But I think it’s perfect.”
He lifted her hand, looking at the band with its rose gold and slightly crenulated edges. “I do too,” he agreed, the words tinged with a deep rumble that made her stomach squeeze.
He was her husband.
As if magically, to emphasise the point, a waiter appeared like from nowhere. “Your Highness.” She looked to Syed, but then realised the waiter was addressing her.
She was now someone who could be addressed by such a title.
How utterly surreal.
“Yes?” She asked, timidity softening the response.
“Welcome, and might I offer my congratulations?”
Sarah’s cheeks flushed a beautiful shade of pink, just enough to make her look as though she’d been running or dan
cing. “Thank you.”
Uncertainty besieged her at the oddness of this event, but she lifted her eyes to Syed and everything clarified once more.
“I have something for you,” he said, as if sensing her need for distraction.
“Don’t you think you’ve given me enough?” She muttered. How in the world could she ever repay him for his generosity?
“No.” There was a stoniness to the response; an instant rejection that she couldn’t fathom. His eyes were earnest and his voice low. “Come.” And he linked his fingers through hers, squeezing tight before lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a kiss against her palm. “You are beautiful.”
Was she? Or was it the dress? Unconsciously, she ran her free hand over the ivory silk that formed a fitted bodice with a sweetheart neckline and cap sleeves, that was held in place at the back with a series of tiny silk buttons, to keep it tight all the way to her waist where it puffed into a rather full skirt. Not exactly a bridal gown, but close enough. Her fingers lifted to the tiara a woman named Fouzia had placed on her head hours earlier. A simple crown, it was nonetheless overloaded with an embarrassment of diamonds.
“Thank you,” she murmured, her eyes clinging to his.
She wanted him.
Marrying him had been surreal. Standing opposite the only man she’d ever loved, a man that even a fortnight ago she had believed gone from her life forever, and pledging to be together for the rest of their lives? It had been a short and precise ceremony. Just an Official to preside, and two lawyers to witness it, Syed had whisked her through his London embassy, past glittering statues and stunning paintings, past tapestries and floral arrangements that smelled like honey and violets, and they’d married. In a room that looked like it had been hastily rearranged for the purpose.
There had been an air of confusion amongst the embassy staff, but Syed had not allowed a moment’s pause. Orders were given, witnesses assembled and formalities attended to. It had been a whirlwind ceremony indeed, lasting only minutes, and yet the storm of intent had been brewing for five long years. When she looked back at who they’d been, and how they’d loved one another, it was no surprise that they were married now.
Not really. In her heart, though she had lost hope, she had never really lost belief.
Sarah couldn’t have said if she credited the idea of soul mates or destiny, but if such lofty and dramatic concepts were fact, then she had been carved from the earth as Syed’s match, and he to be hers.
And just that realisation made her frustrated as hell. Because she wasn’t sure he actually deserved her. Sure, she was a fool for him, but had he done anything to show himself worthy of her?
She took her seat, her mind running over their relationship, ticking through the past. The crazy, swooning, head-over-heels love affair that had burned hotter than the sun and ended suddenly, plunging her into the depths of emotional winter. His return to Iron Oaks, not to ask her go out, not to tell her he loved her, not to beg her forgiveness, but to proposition her for one last night of sex. In exchange for money.
Her cheeks flushed pink as she remembered the cheque he’d given her the next morning, his expectation that she’d take it so obvious. And pride wrapped around her heart as Sarah accepted that she’d preferred to face her utilities being disconnected than to let him pay her for what they’d shared.
Her eyes met his, and perhaps something of her mindset communicated itself to him because he reached over and touched her hand, his expression concerned. “Sheikha? Are you okay?”
She nodded, but her mind was moving on, to the way he’d confronted her at the bar, his temper incendiary, his mind made up. The way he’d walked her home, telling her he wanted to marry her.
“What is it?”
“Why did you leave me?” She looked down at her ring, the feeling of being an imposter, someone who didn’t belong with him deep in her heart.
His voice had a forced joviality to it. “Najin, this is hardly what I want to talk with you about now. Not on our wedding night.”
The tears in Sarah’s eyes surprised him; so too her obvious defiance. “I don’t want to start our marriage with misunderstanding. Five years ago you broke my heart and now you’re asking me to trust you with it again.” She jutted her chin out angrily, not caring that she was basically confessing how she felt for him. “I deserve to know the truth.”
A muscle jerked in his cheek. “You know it.”
“Your family wouldn’t approve, and yet they still won’t. But we’re married. Why marry me now and not then? And don’t throw your engagement in my face. You didn’t respect it enough not to sleep with me, so I don’t think that’s a good excuse.”
His smile was tight. “You’re right. That’s very perceptive of you. I never wanted to marry Charlotte, but once I met you I hated the very idea.”
“Still you left me though,” she said softly.
The waiter appeared, a bottle of frosted champagne in hand. He began to peel the foil from its top, pain-stakingly slowly, until Syed reached up and curled his fingers around its base. “I’ll do it. Leave us, for now.”
“Oh, yes sir.”
The waiter moved away quickly, leaving Syed, Sarah and a swirling cyclone of their past.
“I started to care too much for you,” he confessed finally, popping the bottle but muting the sound with the palm of his hand.
“You started to care too much for me?”
“I was falling in love with you,” he said seriously. “I hadn’t thought that likely, and yet I felt myself growing addicted to you.” He reached for Sarah’s glass first and tipped enough champagne in to fill it half way.
“I began to worry that I’d never be able to leave you; so I thought I’d test myself.”
Of all the answers she’d expected, this blasé explanation was, perhaps, the worst. “Seriously?” She muttered, reaching for the champagne and sipping it just to blot some of the screaming thoughts tearing through her mind. “Well, congratulations. You did very well.”
“Not exactly.” He shifted in his seat, and when she didn’t look at him, he reached over and squeezed her hand. “I have thought of you every day; that wasn’t an exaggeration. I have wondered about you and I have told myself that eventually I will forget you, that no one woman can be so perfectly designed for a man, and yet here I am. As lost to you as I was five years ago, only now I have regrets for all that we’ve lost.”
His words swirled inside of her, and her heart wanted to grab them and hold them close, but Sarah had been burned by his words before. She kept them at arm’s length, refusing to let them soften her – too much.
“Your family …”
His eyes narrowed, a muscle jerking in his jaw. “What about them?”
“Doesn’t it bother you that they’re going to be really angry about this?”
He laughed, a soft sound that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Why do you think they’ll be angry?”
“Because,” she shrugged her slender shoulders. “I’m not the woman you were supposed to marry. Because I have not a royal bone in my body and because you married me without their knowledge or permission.” Something occurred to her and, stricken, she forced her eyes to meet his. “It’s why you rushed through our wedding tonight, isn’t it?”
Her frown deepened. “Why you didn’t want to wait? Because you have servants, and servants talk.” She closed her eyes, on a roll now. “Your ambassador already knew about Lexi because you stole Sasha,” she murmured, nodding to herself. “And you didn’t want your family to know you were living with me but not married… you wanted to stitch all this up.” Her eyes were enormous in her face, so wide that her hurt was a visible tide. “You’re going to present them with a fait accompli.”
“You might not have a royal bone in that delectable body of yours, but you’re a political mastermind,” he said, in an attempt to make light of her appraisal.
“Am I right?”
He toyed with the champagne flute and
then clashed his eyes to hers. “Do you think I would care what anyone said, once I’d made my mind up?”
“So five years ago you made your mind up to leave me, and I couldn’t have changed your mind even if I’d begged you to stay? And now you were determined to marry me and so there was no point forewarning your father.”
“Damn it, Najin, they’ll be pleased when they’ve had a chance to know you.”
She made a small sound, a cross between a snort and a sob. “Sure. That sounds likely.”
“When my mother died, you made me feel like myself again.” He reached for her hand and laced his fingers through them. “Have I ever told you about the Scrolls of Thammhora?”
Sarah shook her head, and with her free hand she sipped her champagne. She didn’t know which way was up but she liked the feel of his hand on hers and the way he was looking at her as though she was an item of sacred value to equal the scrolls of … whatever he’d just said.
“They’re ancient stories of my people. Thousands of years old. In one of them, the tale of Masteffa, he loses his son. A young boy, only six, I think, on the river. He drowns, and for six days and six nights the town searches for his body. They do not grieve nor weep because until his bones and flesh are laid to peace it is believed they do not have the right.” He cleared his throat. “On the seventh morning, as the sun rose, an old woman wandered into the town. She didn’t speak our language and no one knew who she was or from where she’d come. She took a boat and it was she who discovered the young boy’s body. When it was pulled from the water, it was as perfect as it had been in life.”
Sarah frowned. Though the story was interesting and Syed reading the encyclopaedia to her would have driven shivers up her spine, she didn’t quite see why he was relaying it.
“Did he come back to life?” She asked after a moment.
“No. The father buried his son, and he was a broken man. He stood to lose everything – he was a fisherman who could no longer face going out onto the water. He was full of resentment. Each night, the woman would prepare his meal and wash his feet, and he would drink and curse at her. He’d regret it in the morning, but she’d still appear the next night, not saying a word, simply cooking for him and soothing him.”
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