Her father at least had the grace to look ashamed of himself.
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. Then he said, ‘I’m sorry. I know I haven’t been the...best of fathers. But, well... You look at lot like her. Your mother, I mean. And sometimes I forget that you’re not her.’
Charlotte’s throat closed. He’d never talked to her like this.
‘It was never about you,’ he added gruffly. ‘You were a good girl. A good daughter. And I...missed you while you were gone.’
It was as close as her father would ever come to an explanation for his behaviour, and maybe an apology as well. But she didn’t need his approval to make her feel good about herself—not these days—so all she said was, ‘Good. I’m glad you did.’
He didn’t say much after that, and a bit later, discovering that there was no milk for their tea, Charlotte decided that she’d have to brave the rain in order to get some.
She grabbed an umbrella from the stand in the hallway and headed out.
The cobbles in the mews outside her father’s house were shiny and slippery, and it was cold. And as the hand clutching the handle of the umbrella went numb Charlotte found herself wishing she was somewhere hot. Where the sun was merciless and the sand was burning. Where neither were as hot as the passion of the man she’d left there.
Her heart squeezed and she had to grit her teeth against a wave of pain. Why was she thinking of Tariq again? Leaving had been the right thing to do. The only thing. Thinking of him hurt. Besides, she’d find herself someone else. He wasn’t the only fish in the sea.
Except you will never love anyone as you loved him.
The thought was so bleak that she had to stop, because her vision was swimming with tears and it hurt to breathe. Then, as she collected herself and prepared to go on, she noticed someone standing in the mews ahead of her.
And everything in her went quiet and still.
It was a very tall man and he was holding a black umbrella. He was dressed in what looked like a shockingly expensive dark suit, with sunglasses over his eyes despite the rain. But even the suit and the glasses couldn’t disguise the sense of authority and arrogance he radiated.
Except Charlotte didn’t need that to know who it was.
She would have known him anywhere.
Tariq.
Her poor, shattered heart seized in her chest and she blinked—because surely he wasn’t here. This had to be a mirage. Yet despite the blinking he didn’t disappear, and, yes, it seemed that he really was here, in London. Standing in the road near her father’s house.
Then he was coming towards her, moving with the same fluid grace she remembered, and just like that rage filled her, making her shake.
How dared he come here? After she’d made the horrifically painful decision to leave him. After her heart had torn itself to pieces as she’d walked away. After she’d wept all the way back to London and for days afterwards, missing him so acutely it had felt like being stabbed.
After all that he’d come here. Why? What did he want from her? Was it to hurt her again? Taunt her with what she could never have?
Charlotte didn’t wait for him to reach her. She stormed up to him instead, meeting him in the middle of the lane. Then she reached up and tore the glasses from his face so she could see him, holding the familiar intensity of his golden stare with her own.
He didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Only stared at her.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, her voice breaking, even though she tried not to let it. ‘How dare you? How dare you come here to—?’
It was only then that he moved, throwing away his umbrella as if he didn’t care about the rain that was falling around them and stepping under hers. Then he reached for her, taking her face between his hands, and the warmth of his skin was like a bolt of lightning, rooting her to the spot.
He bent and kissed her, his mouth hot and desperate, and the taste of him was so achingly familiar that tears rushed into her eyes, the deep hunger inside her stirring, waking.
Oh, God, how could he do this to her?
She stiffened, ready to push him away, but he’d already lifted his head, the look in his eyes blazing.
‘Oh, ya amar,’ he said fiercely. ‘I have been such a fool. I have done such stupid things. Said things I should not have. And all I can say is that I am sorry.’ His thumbs moved caressingly over her cheekbones. ‘I should have let you go to your father. I should have trusted you to return. And most important of all I should have given you a reason to come back to me.’
She was trembling and unable to stop. Unable to pull away from him either. All she could do was stand there and look up into the blazing gold of his eyes.
‘What reason?’ she asked, trying to hold herself together.
The lines of his beautiful face took on a familiar intensity. ‘You asked me to give you love. So I am here to offer it.’
Her umbrella didn’t protect him from the rain and his black hair was getting wet, his suit damp, water was trickling down the side of his face. But he didn’t seem to notice. His attention was on her as if he was suffocating and she was the lifeline he needed.
Except it was she who couldn’t breathe.
‘Be clear, Tariq.’ She barely sounded like herself. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I am saying that I love you, Charlotte Devereaux,’ Tariq said in his dark, deep voice. ‘I love you, my wife. I have spent the past three weeks telling myself that sending you away would stop these feelings inside me. That once you were gone I could stay detached. Be the kind of king my father wanted me to be. But I could not do it. I could not escape what I feel for you. And I found out that...you are what makes me the king I need to be.’
His gaze searched her face, unhidden desperation in it.
‘You make me compassionate and merciful. You make me humble. You make me strong. You make me a better man, a better king. And I want to give you back everything that you have given me.’
She felt cold, and then hot, as if she was dying and then coming back to life. ‘Tariq...’
His name was the only thing she could say.
Luckily she didn’t need to speak, because he went on, ‘I want you, ya amar. I want to give you all the love you need. And I would leave Ashkaraz if I could, be with you here in London if you wanted me to. But I cannot leave my country. So all I can do is beg you to return with me.’
Her heart felt both heavy and light at the same time, at the ferocity in his eyes, at his desperation and his anguish.
She looked up at him, drinking in every line of his beloved face. ‘Then I will,’ she said simply. Because this was what she’d been wanting her entire life.
And something blazed in his beautiful eyes—heat like the sun, burning there. ‘You would do that? After everything that I did to you? Kept you prisoner...made you marry me? Gave you ultimatum after ultimatum—?’
Charlotte reached out and put a shaking finger on his mouth, silencing him. ‘After you gave me pleasure and friendship. Showed me how brave I could be and how strong. After you helped me figure out my own worth.’ She pressed harder, feeling the heat of his skin beneath her fingertip. ‘Yes, you fool. Of course I would do that.’
‘I am not a good man, ya amar. And there is much I do not understand. I will make mistakes and I will need you to help me. I am also very possessive of what is mine, and that might be...annoying for you. Are you sure you want to commit yourself to that?’
She blinked back sudden tears, her throat aching with an intense joy. ‘I’ve had some experience of dealing with difficult men, believe me. I think I can handle it.’
His expression turned even fiercer. ‘Then you have my word that I will do everything in my power to make you happy for the rest of our lives.’
There was rain on her cheeks, though some of the moisture might have been tears, because the
iron band that had been around her heart since she’d left him burst open and her chest filled, her lungs filled. Her heart filled.
And then her umbrella was on the ground too, and she was in his arms. His mouth was on hers, tasting of rain and heat and the volcanic passion that was part of him.
‘Tell me,’ he said roughly when she finally pulled away.
‘Tell you what? About my dad?’ God, how she loved to tease him. ‘About the job interview I have tomorrow?’
‘No.’ That dark intensity was back in his face. ‘Do not play with me, ya amar.’
Charlotte relented. ‘You mean tell you that I love you?’
‘Yes,’ he said fiercely. ‘That.’
‘Well, I do. I love you. And I—’
He kissed her yet again, hard, cutting off the words, stealing all her breath and then giving it back to her, so that when he raised his head again, she felt light-headed and dizzy.
‘I have a hotel nearby,’ he murmured. ‘Come with me, wife. I need you.’
‘Wait.’ She pressed her hands to his hard chest, warm despite the fact that they were both soaking wet. ‘You need to tell me what changed your mind.’
And, wonderfully, a fleeting magical smile crossed his face. ‘A friend.’
She stared at him in surprise. ‘I thought you didn’t have any?’
‘Turns out I have one at least. Faisal. He told me that the reason that my father brought me up the way he did was because he never got over my mother’s death. That he cut himself off and did the same to me.’ Tariq pushed her damp hair back from her face. ‘Faisal also told me that my father was wrong. That it isn’t detachment that makes a great king. It’s love.’ He searched her face. ‘I think I am starting to see what he meant. But perhaps you can show me the rest?’
Her heart was bursting, everything she felt for him flooding out. She reached up on tiptoes and kissed him yet again, because all the kisses in the world wouldn’t be enough.
‘Yes. Yes, I can.’
And she did.
And even though getting lost in the desert might have been the stupidest thing she’d ever done, it had also been the best.
Because in getting lost she’d found her home.
She’d found her for ever.
She’d found herself.
In the strong and passionate heart of a king.
EPILOGUE
THE KNOCK CAME on the door of Tariq’s office, and he’d barely had a moment to acknowledge it before it opened and his wife came in.
She was dressed in a deep pink robe today, and it brought a delightful blush to her pale cheeks as well as highlighting her silvery hair.
He smiled, his heartbeat quickening, her presence already brightening his day. ‘What is it, ya amar?’ He pushed back his chair and raised one brow. ‘It had better be good. I have a very important report to read.’
‘Oh, it is, don’t worry.’
She gave him a secretive smile in return, then moved over to his desk and, ignoring the fact that it was the middle of the day and there were other people around, came around it and sat on his lap as if she belonged there.
Which she did.
‘This is highly irregular,’ he murmured as she settled back against his shoulder and lifted her mouth for his kiss. ‘Perhaps we should lock the door?’
Because he was hard and getting harder and—
His thoughts broke off and he went quite still. She was looking at him with a very particular kind of focus.
‘Charlotte? What is it?’
Her smile this time was breathtaking. ‘What’s “Daddy” in Arabic again? I feel our child will want to call you something.’
Everything in him became bright, burning. ‘Charlotte...’ he said again.
She touched his cheek, and everything he’d ever wanted was right there in her blue eyes.
‘Are you going to faint, dear heart?’ she asked.
But he didn’t faint. He laughed instead, and kissed her, filling himself up with her heat, and her brightness, and all the love she’d brought into his life so far.
And all the love she had yet to bring.
Coming next month
THE SCANDAL BEHIND THE ITALIAN’S WEDDING
Millie Adams
“Why did you do it, Minerva?”
“I am sorry. I really didn’t do it to cause you trouble. But I’m being threatened, and so is Isabella, and in order to protect us both I needed to come up with an alternative paternity story.”
“An alternative paternity story?”
She winced. “Yes. Her father is after her.”
He eyed her with great skepticism. “I didn’t think you knew who her father was.”
She didn’t know whether to be shocked, offended or pleased that he thought her capable of having an anonymous interlude.
For heaven’s sake, she’d only ever been kissed one time in her life. A regrettable evening out with Katie in Rome where she’d tried to enjoy the pulsing music in the club, but had instead felt overheated and on the verge of a seizure.
She’d danced with a man in a shiny shirt—and she even knew his name because she wouldn’t even dance with a man without an introduction—and he’d kissed her on the dance floor. It had been wet and he’d tasted of liquor and she’d feigned a headache after and taken a cab back to the hostel they’d been staying in.
The idea of hooking up with someone, in a circumstance like that, made her want to peel her own skin off.
“Of course I know who he is. Unfortunately… The full implications of who he is did not become clear until later.”
“What does that mean?”
She could tell him the truth now, but something stopped her. Maybe it was admitting Isabella wasn’t her daughter, which always caught her in the chest and made her feel small. Like she’d stolen her and like what they had was potentially fragile, temporary and shaky.
Or maybe it was trust. Dante was a good man. Going off the fact he had rescued her from a fall, and helped her up when her knee was skinned, and bailed her out after her terrible humiliation in high school.
But to trust him with the truth was something she simply wasn’t brave enough to do.
Her life, Isabella’s life, was at risk, and she’d lied on live stream in front of the world.
Her bravery was tapped out.
“Her father is part of an organized crime family. Obviously something unknown to me at the time of her…you know. And he’s after her. He’s after us.”
“Are you telling me that you’re in actual danger?”
“Yes. And really, the only hope I have is convincing him that he isn’t actually the father.”
“And you think that will work?”
“It’s the only choice I have. I need your protection.”
He regarded her with dark, fathomless eyes, and yet again, she felt like he was peering at her as though she were a girl, and not a woman at all. A naughty child, in point of fact. Then something in his expression shifted.
It shamed her a little that this was so like when he’d come to her rescue at the party. That she was manipulating his pity for her. Her own pathetic nature being what called to him, yet again.
But she would lay down any and all pride for Isabella and she’d do it willingly.
“If she were, in fact my child, then we would be family.”
“I… I suppose,” she said.
“There will need to be photographs of us together, as I would not be a neglectful father.”
“No indeed.”
“Of course, you know that if Isabella were really my child there would be only one thing for us to do.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” He began to pace, like a caged tiger trying to find a weak spot in his cage. And suddenly he stopped, and she had the terrible feeling that the tiger had found what he’d been looking for. “Yes. Of course, there is only one option.”<
br />
“And that is?”
“You have to marry me.”
Continue reading
THE SCANDAL BEHIND THE ITALIAN’S WEDDING
Millie Adams
Available next month
Copyright ©2020 by Millie Adams
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Crowned At The Desert King's Command (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 17
