He looked forbidding, cold, a distant stranger, not at all the man she knew so intimately.
His gaze found hers the exact second hers found his. And still she did not turn around, she didn’t fake confusion and flee as her rational mind was urging her to. She couldn’t even look away from him.
She heard Ayaan’s voice in a distant corner of her functioning mind, ordering them all to leave, she heard the room empty, she saw realization dawn on some faces that recognized her and curious disapproval on others that didn’t. But it was all only on the periphery of her consciousness, almost as if it was happening to another poor deluded woman. Because, he, the dark Prince of Dahaar, he was at the center of her world, as he had always been.
She stepped in and closed the doors behind them. There was still no reaction in his face. He didn’t blink, he didn’t acknowledge her by the flicker of a muscle.
He only stared at her, an icy chill in his gaze, a remote set to his mouth, and that was when finally Nikhat began to worry.
She stopped when she neared him. Her shawl had fallen away long ago, leaving her in the thin cotton caftan separating her bare skin from his gaze.
And still, in the nothingness of his expression, in the riot of fear and worry that filled her, still, an electric charge danced between them.
There was nothing else to do but speak her mind, put her greatest fear into words. She stood in front of him, like his prisoner waiting for judgment.
“You have shown yourself to them,” she said, standing awkwardly, her entire body trembling.
“As have you,” he said, looking up at her, his gaze still inscrutable. “What will happen to your reputation, your dream, your clinic now?”
There was no threat in his words, implied or unsaid, but it was the utter lack of anything else that sent a shiver zigzagging across her spine. It was unbearable that he freeze her out like this, unbearable to be in front of him and see a stranger.
A fierce churning began in her stomach, but she held it off.
No, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t be angry with her over this, it was not acceptable to her. She had to get them through this, he would understand why, he would see how much she loved him, how much it hurt to be away from him, how much a part of her permanently froze every time she left him.
This time she didn’t want to go, she didn’t want to break her heart again.
“You will not let any harm come to my reputation, or my dream.”
With a soft grunt, he rose to his feet. The smile that curved his mouth chilled her to the core. It was full of such resignation that she would never forget it. “You trust me now? When you didn’t trust me with the biggest truth of our lives?”
She clasped his hands, her own frightfully cold. He still did not sound angry and it was the very lack of that anger that scared her. Hours ago he had been angry when he made love to her. Now it felt as if there was just an icy disdain that she couldn’t reach. “I did it for you, Azeez. They said…the chances of me conceiving were next to nil. That even if I went off my medication and tried, there would be no guarantees.
“That last trip to New York, the doctor performed a surgery immediately to remove some of the lesions.
“When I came back, I was so alone, so scared. I wanted to tell you, I wanted to howl. Then…my father said your coronation was imminent. And my heart shattered.
“I barely felt like a woman and to be your wife, to be the queen…But I still came to see you. And you—” tears spilled over her cheeks “—you were so excited. You said you couldn’t wait to follow in your father’s footsteps, that you couldn’t wait to add your own stamp to the Al Sharif history, that you couldn’t wait to create a legacy your heir, and your children, would want to carry forward.
“You needed a queen, you needed a wife who would give you sons, you needed a woman whose presence by your side would add strength to your rule, to your regime.”
She hiccuped and wiped her hands over her cheeks. “You were vibrant, charming, a prince of the world. I…I already was nothing compared to you. It was an uphill battle for us both. Then to find that I might never conceive, that I was broken at the one thing you did need from me…I broke my own heart.”
He grabbed her then, his fingers digging into her flesh. “Don’t you dare call yourself broken.”
“But I am. I spent my whole life seeing my father, an average aide to the royal family, disappointed again and again that he had no son. My mother knew the risks she was taking on her health and yet she had one child after another.
“An educated man like Richard…he knew all about my condition, he said he was fine with it…except when he decided he wanted children. It hurt so much to face that reality, to be denied my chance at happiness just because…God, if that had happened with you, if it was your resentment I would have to see every day, or even worse, if you had to take another wife for an heir, it would have killed me, it—”