She didn’t negate him. And his heart pounded harder in the thick silence.
“I’ve...you...” She sighed, licked her lips, rubbed one thumb over his stubbly jaw and began again. “I’ve been confused, overwhelmed and sometimes a little lonely these past weeks... But then...”
She pulled his hand to her cheek, and then kissed the center of his palm. The tenderness in her gaze unmanned him. “I would do anything to make this marriage work, Zafir. And not just for the baby. But for you and me.”
He didn’t know what to say in return.
It was what he had known she would give in return for his commitment, it was what he wanted of her for years to come, and yet the strength of her conviction, the courage it must have cost her to say it to him, shook him from within.
And because he didn’t know how to stop it from shifting and splintering something inside of him, didn’t know how to form a suitable response, because it was a promise the likes of which he had never known in his life, he bent and captured her mouth with his.
He worshipped her with his mouth, his hands and his body while her soft declaration took root in his veins, his cells, in his very blood. Like the roots of a gnarled tree that stood proudly in the courtyard of the palace, planting itself tight and deep within him.
The expression in her eyes, the joy in her smile, the tenderness in the way she touched him and kissed him, as if she couldn’t contain it anymore, as if it was bursting out of her every breath, it haunted him long after she fell asleep and he extracted himself from the bed and watched the dawn coat the sky a myriad of oranges and pinks.
And then, just like that, in the space of one night, no, just a few hours, he felt as if he had lost it all. Before he had even grasped it properly yet.
As if all that he had achieved was so little next to that one small declaration from Lauren, which he hadn’t earned.
Through the following four days that he allowed himself to spend with her, through his return to the palace, through every breath he took, her words haunted him.
It haunted him until he couldn’t breathe for the weight of it, until every time he saw Lauren, it felt as if he deserved her, her open smile, her affection, less and less.
Until every word of hers felt like a small lash in his skin.
But this was the life he had wanted all along, wasn’t it? The life in which he had everything?
CHAPTER TWELVE
AFTER FOUR DAYS of tasting paradise at the oasis, Lauren and Zafir returned to the city and the palace.
They had woken up before dawn one morning, and watched the sunrise together over the sand dunes. Swam in the pool while moonlight glinted off their skin. She had glutted on dates and figs and thick cakes, between feverish bouts of lovemaking during which she had, hopefully in a final way, proved to Zafir that having his wicked way with her was in no way harmful to either her or their growing child.
That it was very much what she needed.
They had exchanged college stories around a campfire in the evening. His, always working toward his goal of becoming a member of Behraat’s state affairs, and hers, building a life that nurtured her need to help, away from the sphere of her parents’ high-society life.
During the day, he’d been gone for a few hours, visiting different tribes before they migrated deeper into the desert, he’d informed her. Needing to recover from their long, busy, sweat-soaked nights, she was all too content to nap in the tent and stay away from the blistering heat.
It had been pure bliss and all Lauren wanted was to stay there forever with Zafir, cocooned away from the world.
But just like in New York, real life—full of schedules and meetings, and government and state dinners—awaited both of them this time.
She had barely showered, changed and inhaled more food when Abdul had appeared at the entrance to her suite, with a host of social appointments and a load of advice. Even before Farrah had appeared to check on her.
So Lauren fell into a routine, pushing back at Abdul at some things and bringing down Arif’s stone-faced wrath on her head, sometimes letting them mold her into what they needed the sheikha to be. Refused point-blank on some issues.
She did miss her old life. But she knew that to be a symptom of her resistance to change, to teams of strangers taking over her life.
Her career, however, was a different matter.
She had put in years of hard work to get her nursing degree, and then long night shifts to gain experience and reputation.
All she did now was spend her days watching her team fight over which designer she should wear or which charity she should grace with her presence. It felt as though she, Lauren, got smaller and lost in the huge tsunami that was Zafir’s life and Behraat.
To her shame, she’d even burst into tears a couple of times, but she decided to give herself a break and chalk it up to pregnancy hormones rather than call herself a coward.