CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“FOR ONE WEEK I have languished in this cell and you have not had the guts to see me? For three days I have been here and what? You have been too afraid to see me? You do not want to fight me?”
Khalifa’s lips twisted with a curl of derision. “Believe me, if I wanted to fight you, you would no longer be able to stand.”
Fayez’s expression showed disbelief. “Well, then?”
Khalifa took a step closer, but didn’t so much as lift a hand towards the smaller man. “It would be easy to cower you with my strength, as you do to those who are weaker than you. Don’t you get it? There is no strength in that – only weakness. Every time you hit a woman, every time you used your strength to force them into your bed, you have demeaned yourself. You have shown yourself to be powerless.”
Fayez moved fast, his fist lifting towards Khalifa’s body, but the sheikh caught it with ease, holding Fayez’s fist in the palm of his hand, his eyes mocking as they met the smaller man’s.
“So what?” Fayez spat. “You are a merciful King now, are you?”
“Oh, no.” Khalifa almost laughed. “There is nothing merciful about how you will be treated. You will be prosecuted to the full extent of Argenon’s laws. You will never see the light of day again. Nor will you touch another woman for so long as you live.”
Fayez smirked. “She liked me touching her.”
Khalifa was very still, his eyes locking to the smaller man’s as something like violence curdled his blood and bent his resolve. “Selena was young. She believed your lies.”
“I was not referring to Selena.”
Khalifa’s nostrils flared angrily and he pushed breath from his lungs. “You do not get to speak of my wife. Ever.”
He turned and left the room, his heart thumping, his head aching. He nodded to the guards as he left, just catching the sound of the locks clicking back into place as he left the cell, moving into the corridor. And then he stopped, dipping his head forward and staring at the ground.
For the rest of his life, the idea of Fayez touching Kylie would fill Khalifa with a sense of drowning. A sense of ache and pain from which he’d never recover.
*
“YOU LOOK WELL,” Khalifa’s smile was tight, his eyes reading every detail of Aïna’s appearance. A week after her kidnapping and only the faintest line of her scar remained.
“Thank you, your highness.”
He nodded. “I’m pleased you agreed to meet with me.”
It was such an odd turn of phrase for a man used to commanding at will that Aïna frowned. “Of course,” she dipped her head forward. “I presume you called to have me reassigned?”
“Reassigned?”
Aïna’s cheeks darkened with the slightest hint of a flush. “Now that Her Highness is no longer in Argenon…”
Khalifa’s gut twisted again. She’d been gone for six nights.
“No.” He grimaced. “I … wanted to ask you about your time in the desert.”
Aïna frowned. “Of course.”
“I appreciate this might be awkward for you but I need to know.”
There was such vulnerability in his expression; Aïna had never seen the Sheikh Sultan in any mode other than confident. She took the seat he’d gestured towards, her hands clasped in her lap.
“I need you to tell me everything, Aïna. Everything. Omit not a single detail no matter… no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, or how little you think I want to hear it.”
And so Aïna told him. She told him about the morning at the library, and Kylie’s delight in all the ancient scrolls. About their relaxed enjoyment of the corridors, because the building was secure. About the moment they were blindsided by two men, dressed as library guards. About the smell of the chemical and the immediate effect it had of rendering them unconscious. Of the moment they’d woken to find themselves chained in the dark room. She told him about Kylie’s exchange with Fayez, the things the other man had said, and finally, the things he’d done. The way he’d forced Kylie to drink alcohol and kissed her; the way he had touched her and she’d tried to push him away. Though Aïna couldn’t meet his eyes as she described the latter, her own shame at having been unable to help something she knew she would carry forever.
And she told him of Kylie’s strength in lifting the table – her certainty that they would escape. Her need to rescue them herself.
“And then you arrived,” she said with a tight smile, her face pale after reliving her harrowing journey.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw, feeling the stubble there, his eyes pinned to Aïna without really seeing. “She must have been terrified.”
“Perhaps. But she was very brave.”
Khalifa nodded. Hadn’t she been all along? Orphaned and alone, she’d faced the path her parents had laid out for her. She’d married him. She had never run from her responsibilities and duties. She’d been brave.
So brave.
And now he had to be likewise.
Letting her go had taken guts and courage and he was finding himself regretting that decision every day. So? What could he do?
He saw her face as she’d been on her balcony. Miserable and determined in equal measure. He’d done that to her.
She’d put all her trust in his hands and he’d proven again and again how undeserving he was of that. Even the way she’d given her body to him so freely, welcomed him, wanted him.
And he’d been using her.
She’d been right. He’d used her to avenge Selena’s wounds, uncaring that he was inflicting wounds of his own, and on Kylie of all people.
“Is there anything else, sir?”
He startled out of his reverie. He hadn’t realized Aïna had still been with him. “No.” And then, with a tight smile. “I am pleased to see you looking so well.”
*
“You run as though you’re afraid of your shadow,” Mel complained when they reached the bottom of the apartment building.
“I’m not afraid,” Kylie responded with a frown, her eyes chasing a jetski over the harbour’s surface, admiring the way it skimmed the water and threw arcs of droplets in its wake.
“I mean you’re fast! I used to be able to keep up with you.”
“Sorry,” Kylie said with a grimace.
“Don’t be. I’m impressed.”
Kylie took a long sip from her water bottle and then stretched her arms above her head.
“I’m thinking I’ll grab a cab straight to the bar tonight,” Mel murmured, inserting the key into the lock and shouldering the door inwards.
Kylie stepped behind Mel into the communal stairwell and followed her up the stairs.
“Did you want to meet there? Or come to my work?”
Kylie frowned. “Sorry, what for?”
“The concert. Remember? The Elantines are playing at The Rosie tonight?”
“Oh, right,” Kylie nodded, vaguely recollecting a conversation a few weeks earlier. Then again, in the month since returning from Argenon, things were somewhat blurred.
“So?” Mel reached the landing outside their apartment and paused, her hand hovering on the door.
“I’ll meet you there,” Kylie said with a nod. “Eight o’clock, right?”
“Nine,” Mel corrected. “But I’m catching up with a few of the guys around seven for dinner.”
“Sure. I’ll let you know if I can get there earlier.”
Mel nodded, but a frown was smudged over her face. “Kyles? Everything okay?”
Was it? Would it ever be again?
“What the hell is that?” Mel crouched down before Kylie could answer, and with her back to Kylie, it was hard to know what had caused the exclamation. But then Mel stood, a single round piece of fruit in her hands.
Kylie recognized it instantly and her heart began to tremble, her skin to flush. Heat pooled between her legs.
“It’s a kothraki,” she whispered, unable to take her eyes off the fruit.
“A… kothraki?”
“A type of fruit,” she explained unnecessarily, turning slowly, scanning the landing. It was empty in both direction. There was not so much as a hint in the air to indicate that he’d been.
And yet a shiver danced down her spine.
A shiver of awareness and anticipation.
“Here.” Mel held the kothraki towards Kylie but she stepped back as though it were flame itself.
“No. That’s okay. I’ve tried them.”
Mel pulled a face and unlocked the apartment.
It wasn’t until Kylie crossed the threshold that she realized she’d been holding her breath, half-expecting Khalifa to be inside. Or for more fruit to have appeared.
She frowned at the emptiness of their apartment.
“Kylie?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s going on? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. “I’m going to shower.”
She disappeared from the lounge area before she could see the exasperation on her best friend’s face. She flicked the water in the shower up as hot as it went, letting it scald her back and bring life back to her blood. She stood there as long as she could, and yet it didn’t make any sense.
Had he come to her?
But then why hadn’t he stayed?
What was the point of leaving the stupid fruit?
She flicked the taps off and stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a large towel and moving into her room. She dressed with a sense of gratitude – how nice it was to be able to select her own outfits and arrange them on her body. Not to feel that she would be offending a servant, nor doing them out of a job.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a singlet top, ignoring a bra, and reached for the journal she’d been reading earlier. Through the door of her bedroom, Mel could clearly be heard banging about, getting dressed with all the elegance of a baby hippopotamus playing catch, but she didn’t move.
She loved Mel, but she didn’t want to talk to anyone.
For a month she’d dodged questions and been vague when asked about her time in Argenon.
For what could she say? She’d married a man she thought she’d loved, who’d been using her? Mel would have laughed at her stupid naivety. Worse, she’d have hugged her and told her it was totally understandable and Kylie would have felt even worse for disappointing her friend.
When she heard the front door click shut she moved out into the lounge and made a pot of coffee, taking both it and the journal with her.
And such was the way in which she spent her days. Keeping busy, being distracted, telling herself she wasn’t thinking of Khalifa.
*
Two days after the kothraki had made its unwelcome appearance, another token appeared on their doorstep. This time, it arrived sometime overnight, so that when Kylie stepped out for her run, early in the morning, she almost trod on it. But something invited her to look down and there it was: wrapped in a silver box, a little tiny timer – filled with sand that she would have bet heralded from the white sands of the Argenese desert.
The next morning it was a book of children’s stories, a whole anthology, and a bookmark was inserted into a particularly page. She turned to it on autopilot, finding a story about the village of Mesathinî and its brightly coloured buildings, which were rumoured to frighten away the monsters that dwelled in the very depths of the sea.
There was nothing the next morning and it was only when Kylie ripped the door open that she realised how badly she’d been waiting for the next instalment. The absence of a token languished in her gut all day, but the next morning, there were two. She frowned as she reached for the first – a small vial of water that didn’t immediately make sense. But then, she lifted the gauzey piece of fabric and her heart trembled and cracked. She’d worn this on her wedding night.
Was this water from his pool?
She groaned and stepped back into her apartment, her face pale, the past a vivid haunting that was tormenting the depths of her soul. There were not enough bright houses in Mesathinî to ward off these monsters.
With a soft sound of grief, she moved back to her bed and lay down, staring up at the ceiling, her gut swirling with all of the aches that the absence of love could bring.
The next morning brought flowers – but not just any flowers. It was an arrangement befitting a princess. All of the blooms that had decorated her apartment in Argenon had been pulled together and sat in a crystal vase right in front of their door.
“Do you think he’s trying to tell you something?” Mel asked over her coffee, watching as Kylie carried the flowers inside and placed them somewhat unceremoniously on the occasional table near the balcony doors.
“No idea,” Kylie shrugged with an air of non-concern. “I’m going for a run.”
She ran faster and harder than ever before, and it was only when she stopped to catch her breath that she realised two things. She was crying. Her face was wet with tears and perspiration.
And she’d come towards the harbour. Towards the boat ramp that had housed his mega yacht. Her eyes scanned the water hungrily and saw what, somewhere in her heart of hearts she’d known she was looking for.
His boat was there, the flag of Argenon flying in the early morning breeze. Kylie sucked in a breath and turned around, needing to run. To run further, faster. Only a few minutes later she swore, a word violently sucked from her being.
She needed to put an end to this.
With a determined glint in her eyes, she turned back to the craft and began to run, one foot in front of the other and then the other until she was there, staring down the gangplank of a boat that she’d been on only once before… and under such difference circumstances!
She groaned, her stomach in knots, her determination wavering. What if he wasn’t onboard?
What if he was?
“Good morning, your highness.”
She jumped at least an inch off the ground, whirling around to see a guard of Argenon watching her, his face blank of emotion. “Oh. I…”
“Would you like to come onboard?”
She stared back at the guard as though he’d sprouted two heads. Would she? Did she dare?
“Yes. Just for a moment,” she said distractedly, anxiety pummelling her insides, sweat coating her outsides.
“Certainly.” He pressed a code on the gate to his left and the doors sprung open, inviting her to the bridge which would lead to the deck. With fingers that shook, she gripped the railing, moving with a sense of sinking dread towards the boat.
The second her foot hit the deck, she saw him. Standing at the front of the boat (how come she still hadn’t learned the proper terminology?), his arms crossed, his eyes locked to the horizon.
He turned though, as if sensing her presence. There was a wariness in him. An emotion she hadn’t encountered before in her powerful husband.
And she wanted to run to him so badly! To push her legs into service, to close the distance, to throw herself against his broad chest, to wrap her arms and legs around his body and bring her mouth to his.
But that was just a physical response, and hadn’t she decided they led her astray?
And so she walked with as much dignity as she could muster, given that she was in her exercise gear and her hair was a wild mane down her back. She walked, but not all the way. Proximity brought dangers of its own. She paused at the edge, a hand on the railing, safety hidden in the metres that lurched between them.
She didn’t bother with a polite greeting – what a waste of words.
“I want you to stop leaving things at my door. I want you to leave me alone.”
His eyes swept closed for a moment, and she thought she glimpsed actual pain in his face. But it was a lie. Like everything about them.
“I can’t.”
Her chest squeezed painfully. She sucked in a breath, trying to breath whole into the hollow.
“Yes, you can. Just stop. Stop coming to me. Stop making me remember things I would much rather forget.”
He took a step towards her and the delicate safety boundaries she’d established were eroded away. She moved backwards.
“Why do you want to forget?”
“Because. It should never have happened. It was stupid. Like a bad dream. And I want to pretend it was. I want to pretend you never existed. That he never existed. That Argenon never existed. I can’t do that if you’re leaving kothraki on my doorstep.”
“Did you eat it?”
“No. Of course not. I threw it out.”
“You threw it out?” His eyes flashed with an emotion she didn’t understand but Kylie shrugged. What did it matter?
“I don’t want anything that reminds me of you, okay? Please, just leave me alone.”
“I tried to.” The words were torn from him, almost against his will. “I tried so hard to let you go, but I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t let you go, azeezi.”
She froze, her eyes wide, her lips parted. “Well, you have to. I live here now.”
“Why?”
The question caught her by surprise, wrong-footing her somewhat. “What do you mean?”
“Why do you live here, instead of with me?” He took another step and this time she was so distracted by his questioning that she didn’t move away from him.
“Because it’s my home.”
“Is it?” He pressed a finger beneath her chin and the contact seared her flesh. She jerked away from him.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Because you can’t bear it,” he murmured, reminding her of their last encounter when she’d insisted exactly that.
“Yes.” She ground her teeth together.
“Because he touched you.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and angled her body away. “No.”
She heard, rather than saw, his sigh. “He threatened you. And he forced you to drink alcohol. He kissed you and he touched you. And you blame me.”
Kylie sucked in a breath, his words opening wounds she had welded shut with the force of determination. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Fine. We don’t have to talk about it. But I’m not letting you run away either.”
She whipped around, the accusation galling, all things considered. “I’m not running away! Our marriage served its purpose, didn’t it? You got back at him. Again and again. Believe me, he was livid. Great job. So leave me alone!”
“I will not.” He moved closer, and when she flinched, he simply wrapped his arms around her and brought her body to his. She stayed resolutely unyielding, her body firm, her manner unwelcoming.
But Khalifa held her and stroked her back and whispered in her ear and the slick of tears wet her cheeks once more. She sobbed against his chest, the grief and shock of that day welling inside of her and finally bursting the banks of the dam and she gave into his embrace, softening against him, taking strength from him. Needing him, just a little bit, and accepting that need.
“I’m sorry,” he spoke the word soft and slow, caressing the sentiment against her ear, breaking it over her flesh. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
She shook her head, tired and angry. “Don’t. Don’t say sorry. Don’t act like you care…”
“Oh, Lanaria, I didn’t think I did. I spent our marriage fighting you, fighting this, and I fought so hard that I blinded myself. How did I not realise what you mean to me?”
He lifted his hands and cupped her cheeks, holding her face to his. “I married you to avenge Fayez’s past, yes. But truly, I don’t know if that’s true. I can’t say when this became about you and me, and no one else, but it has been for almost the whole time.”
“Don’t.” She pulled away from him, his sweetness angering her more. “I don’t believe you.”
“You must. Because I watched you walk away from me, and our marriage, and I told myself you deserved that freedom; you deserve to choose. But this last month has been a living nightmare. I need you in my life, Kylie.”
“You need me in your bed. A fact you made abundantly clear over the course of our short marriage.”
“Yes.” A dark, dusky groan. “I love you in my bed. That’s true.” He smothered a wry grimace. “But it’s more than that, just like you said.”
“Like I said and you denied.”
“Yes! I was an idiot! I thought I knew what love felt like. I thought I’d been in love before. I hadn’t. I’ve never known anything like this. What I felt for Selena was… admiration. Adoration. I wanted to protect her and make her smile. That’s all. Love isn’t like that; not in my very recent experience. It’s not sanitary and contained. It’s all-consuming, and it’s wild and it’s surprising. I had no idea I felt this for you – I knew only that you came to take over every part of my life and my mind, so that without you there was nothing. Darkness. Desperation. Depression. And I am not a man who so easily admits these things to another soul. I tell you this so you can understand why I am here… because I can’t not be. Because I need you. I need you. Not because of Fayez. Not even because you are my wife. Because you are my other half and I recognise that with all of my body, my heart and my mind. Please, come home with me.”
She sobbed, shaking her head from side to side even as his words passed like a rainbow into all her dark places, bringing joy and euphoria to the saddest aching holes of her being.
“I thought that letting you go would set us both free. That I would start to breathe again. To feel like myself, and instead I have been suffocating. But I will go again, I will leave you, if you tell me now that it is truly what you want. If you can tell me that you have not been as agonisingly alone as I have been. If you have not been needing me like I have you. Tell me you want me to go, Kylie. Tell me you really want this to end and I will respect your wishes.”
Pride, something she felt she’d lacked in the early part of their relationship, begged her to be strong. “I want you to go.”
The words were a gauntlet. A threat and a challenge. A slap that kerthunked around the boat and slammed into his side. He reached for the railing, turning to the sea, gripping the metallic side of the boat with both hands.
“This is truly how you feel?”
She nodded, but her throat was thick with emotion and her eyes were wet with tears. “Don’t you see?” The words came out strangled. She cleared her throat; tried again. “I’ve spent my whole life without love but now that I’ve known it… I can’t come back with you. I can’t live in a marriage that has the power to rip me apart. I’ve already felt that. I can’t… I won’t risk it.”
“I don’t want to rip you apart.” He shook his head, his eyes meeting hers with obvious urgency. “I want to put you back together. I want to remove every lingering hurt he inflicted, every pain I’ve given you, and then I want to hold you close and love you for the rest of your life. Love you like you have never dreamed of being loved. I want you in my bed, by my side, as my wife, a ruler of Argenon, a friend and counsel. I want you to laugh with me, to ride with me, to swim with me. I want you. All of you.”
His words were so sweet. A balm she needed.
But she had been stupid. Vulnerable. Gullible. She’d been it all before! What she needed, more than anything, was a guarantee – and there were no such things. Faced with the pain she’d already weathered and soul-withering loneliness, she knew which she would choose. She’d been alone before and survived. But you hadn’t known Khalifa then, a frustrating little voice chirruped in her mind. She ignored it. For the most part.
Was the voice right?
Should she take a risk?
No. She couldn’t.
“So prove it.”
He blinked, his dark eyes showing his confusion. “Prove it?”
“Sure. Prove to me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you mean what you just said.”
“How?”
She shrugged, tears sparkling on her lashes. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s possible. But I’m done being stupid. I’m done taking chances. I’d rather be alone than live in misery, married to a man I know will never love me like I … like I want to be loved.”
“And what if I am that man?”
“You’re not.” Her voice cracked on the small rebuttal. “If you were … if you were … you would never have treated me like you did.”
His jaw clenched together in silent acknowledgement of her words. “A mistake I do not intend to make twice.”