His tone was grave, stoic, and she found herself looking at him again, even though she’d just been telling herself to get a grip. “And this is about you?”
“When a man knows from the day of his birth that one day an entire nation will bow at his feet, it affects him. I was told the history of our country, but unfortunately I missed the moral. It was all a very interesting story about battles, about destroying the bad guys. What I did not realize was that it was also about sacrifice. That it was intended to form the way I saw the throne. That it was not enough for a leader to simply have power. It is woven into the fabric of our country that a leader must be willing to sacrifice above all else. But those realities were lost on me. Those stories, those values, were dusty relics in my mind. And everything in life was shiny and new.”
He adjusted his position and opened one of the bags that contained a piece of flat bread. He tore off a piece and ate it slowly, as if he was carefully considering his next words. He swallowed and continued. “Nothing was off-limits to me and I set no boundaries for myself. I was the despair of my mother, and I earned my father’s disdain. Make no mistake, it was earned. My father was a wise man, serious, and consumed with the idea of honor. And I was a son who had none. I was a son who cared for nothing more than acquiring the latest model of car, or finding the best nightspots throughout Europe. I had a large network of friends who helped me gain access to those places. Who helped me pick up women.”
It was jarring to think of him in this way. As a young man consumed by the idea of acquiring more wealth. She had seen nothing of that in him from the moment she met him. His only concern had ever been for his family. His family and his country.
“My father warned me that my behavior would lead to ruin, that it would lead to death. But I didn’t care. Because I had never seen evidence of a consequence. Because money and power had spared me from every single one. If we trashed a hotel room, I could more than afford to pay someone to clean it up. If we got into a fender bender, it was easy to throw money at the owner of the other car and make it all go away. When I was through with a lover, all I had to do was give her a trinket and she would be happy again. She would go on her way feeling pleased at her dalliance with a sheikh. Yes, I lived my life consequence-free for a great many years.”
She tried to read what he was feeling, tried to understand what he was thinking by looking into his eyes. But there was nothing there. Nothing but an endless black well. “What changed? Because something had to. Otherwise I very much believe you would still be cutting a party swath through Europe.” And who wouldn’t? She’d never had the luxury of living consequence-free, she’d always had to work harder. Had her life been different, she very likely would have been different to.
“You are not wrong. Something did change. My father was proven right.”
“What do you mean?”
He drew in a sharp breath and looked down, his shoulders tightened.
“Zayn,” she pressed. “What is it that he said?”
There was nothing but silence in the tent for long moments. Nothing but water on canvas. Then Zayn looked up at her, his eyes dark pits.
“My father said my behavior would end in ruin. He said it would end in death. And it did, Sophie. My actions caused the death of my sister.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOPHIE COULD ONLY stare at Zayn, his admission settling heavily in the room, like a blanket of dust, covering everything it touched. She didn’t want to speak for fear she might disturb it all, for fear she might disrupt it, cloud the air and stop his confession. Interrupt what he was about to say. And yet, she found she could hardly breathe in the silence, waiting for him to continue. Waiting for him to explain.
But he didn’t speak. He only sat, his dark eyes fixed on a spot behind her, not the tent wall, somewhere more distant than that. Perhaps somewhere back in the past.
“Zayn?” she asked. Her voice seemed far too loud in the stillness, competing with the rain falling on the tent top. Disturbing the natural order.
He still didn’t speak, a sharp breath making his chest pitch, lifting his shoulders. And then he looked back at her, snapping back to the present, as though he had never been gone. But he had been, she knew it as certainly as she was sitting there.
“I am responsible for the death of my younger sister Jasmine.” He said the words again as though to affirm them both to himself and to her.
He had mentioned his sister just last night, and yet, at the time nothing had been brought up in her memory. But now... Dimly she thought she might be able to remember a news story about the death of a royal princess somewhere in the world. But it was hard to say what was memory and what was her brain trying to forge a connection between this moment and a moment in her past. Trying to find a way to connect even more deeply than she already had. Which was a mistake, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.