His shock apparent in his slow steps, Ayaan grabbed him in a sudden hug. A shudder racked his brother’s body. “I forgot how much you used to rub my face in the fact that you’re better than me at everything.”
“Believe me, Ayaan, I’m not.” For once, the memories that swamped him did not steal Azeez’s breath. He cleared his throat. “I have also prepared an official statement for you. Run it by your economic adviser. We cannot—Dahaar cannot—look weak to Zayed. By agreeing to this, we are showing good faith, not capitulating under his threat of war. He needs to understand that.”
His brother picked up the statement Azeez had written by hand, his brow tied. “This is brilliant.” Only then did he look at Azeez. “Were you up all night?”
“Yes.”
Pulling the chair back, Ayaan crumpled into it with a harsh exhale. The strain on his brother’s features intensified the thread of shame Azeez felt. “Because you are preparing to flee in the middle of the night?”
Azeez felt his temper flare but held it in check. He had deserved that. “My fate is in your hands, Ayaan.”
“What do you mean?”
“I will tell you why I didn’t come back, why I quake at the idea of meeting Father’s eyes, why I can’t bear to see Mother’s tears. And then you decide. You decide my fate and I will accept it.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
AZEEZ CLOSED THE door to his bedchamber. He was exhausted from little sleep last night and after the eviscerating discussion he had had with Ayaan.
There had been no judgment, no anger, nothing but shared loss in his brother’s eyes.
His brother and he had shed tears over their sister, he had seen what grief Ayaan hid under the strong facade, understood why the past haunted him in the form of his own nightmares, his worry for Zohra’s health, his mounting concerns about Zohra’s home country, Siyaad, and its administration until her brother Wasim came of age…
From every word he had said and every complaint he had left unsaid, it was clear that Ayaan was barely keeping up. They had both known and accepted that such was this life, that beneath the palaces and decadent lifestyles that the public saw, running a country was hard work, with peace treaties that fell apart at a minute’s notice at a perceived insult, it was strategy cloaked as diplomacy, it was sometimes picking the least evil choice in a host of bigger ones.
His father had shouldered it all with their mother by his side, and Ayaan would with Princess Zohra by his side. And Azeez would aid him, he would do everything he could to share his brother’s burden.
He would spend the rest of his life being his brother’s servant.
Instantly, his thoughts turned to Nikhat. He had been avoiding her, even as her words hadn’t left him alone. She had looked as if she would fall apart, as if somehow his grief had morphed her. He longed to hold her, kiss her, wanted to comfort her, and yet, he could not.
He wanted to tell her that he was going to stay in Dahaar, thank her for helping him find himself again, his sense of purpose again, thank her for sharing his shame and his pain…the list was endless.
But he wouldn’t stop there. He knew what it was to kiss her, to hold her and to know every intimate sound she made, and he couldn’t go back to not wanting that.
And to want her like that again, to let her tangle his emotions just as he was beginning to find a purpose to his life again, it was not acceptable.
He spied a rectangular yellow envelope on his desk marked Confidential and froze.
The reports he had requested four days ago while Nikhat had been sleeping in his bed had finally arrived.
He had no doubt it would have everything he had asked for—photocopies of every doctor’s report that had been written about the woman who had skewered him with her questions, who was bent upon knowing every dark and cracked part of him. And a comprehensive write-up translating it into layman’s words for him.
Walking past the desk to the dark wood cabinet behind it, he extracted a crystal decanter and poured himself a drink. He hadn’t touched one in five weeks, not since he had thrown the bottle at her. He didn’t have to now, the sane part of him whispered. He needn’t have the drink, nor did he need to open that envelope and read what was inside.
He could trash it and walk away from this moment, forget he had ever requested it. He didn’t have to know what she had been through. Not even she was worth playing this dangerous game of wills with his own emotions.
He put down the glass with a thud that resonated around him. Tearing open the envelope, he pulled out the sheaf of papers and proceeded to read.
Report after report of words he didn’t understand, just as he had assumed. She had seen a lot of doctors, here and abroad. Finally he found the page that would make sense of the technical words.