Another punch, another roughly indrawn breath. “And it was as simple as cutting off your hair?” Something he had adored.
She shrugged. And when the furor in his chest calmed down, when he let instinct, the newly discovered emotions in his gut, drive him rather than plain facts and logic, Zayn remembered that she did that when she didn’t want to quite tell the truth.
She was here, he reminded himself again. She had come blasting through his doors at the idea of his wedding. That was the start he had wanted.
“Where have you—”
“I didn’t come here to answer your questions or to be harassed by you.”
Why had he thought this was going to be easy? He had little enough experience dwelling on and talking about his feelings...only a handful of times when he had even felt such strong emotions...and this was Amalia, who turned everything into a battle. He sighed. “Why are you here, then?”
“I came to give you a piece of my mind.”
“And where have you been for the last month?” The question slipped through his lips, bitter jealousy tugging at the reins of his control.
“With...” Again that infernal shrug. “That doesn’t matter. I needed to come because—”
“Is Aslam in trouble again?”
“Will you stop interrupting me as if I’m one of your staff members? This is hard enough as it is,” she mumbled at the end.
Only now did he realize the dark circles under her eyes, the pinched cut of her features. “I was merely curious about Aslam. I thought I would keep an eye on him for you but my staff could not even locate him.”
She stared at him, as if she didn’t know what to make of that. And her startled disbelief that he could care about even such a small thing as her brother’s welfare made his ire rise. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Yes. No...” Her lashes flicked down and she moved away from him. He saw her swallow forcefully before she did that. “He...is making changes in his life, the right ones. You were right. That time he spent in the jail, I think it made him see that he was heading toward utter ruin if he continued like that. He’s thinking of returning to college.”
“I am glad, for your sake more than his. I know how much you love him.”
She shrugged, a sheen of wetness coating her eyes. The slight tremble of her mouth, the shuddering breath she drew, it hit Zayn like a blow to the chest.
“Yes, but love is not always enough, is it? I have found out that my father loved my mother just as much as she loved him, but they could not make it work.”
“You went to see him?”
She nodded, a lone tear carving a path on her cheek. “Aslam refused to let me leave. Nor would he go with me. He kept saying I belonged in Sintar with—”
“You do.” His statement fell in between them like the pounding of a gavel.
“When he heard of Aslam’s release, my father came to see us at the hotel... I realized I couldn’t be a coward for the rest of my life. It was time to face him.”
“You’re the last woman on earth I would call cowardly, Amalia.”
She blanched, her skin losing every ounce of color.
“Is it so hard to think that I think well of you, Amalia?”
“Whether you think I’m strong or beautiful or intelligent, it doesn’t matter, does it, Zayn? Not when you think...”
Silence ensued between them again fraught with tension and their emotions, things that were rearing to break out into the open. Zayn felt as if he was going to break from the inside out.
Her shoulders shaking, Amalia looked like a slight breeze would fell her, too. Only then he realized how much it would have cost her to come here today, when she would have had to see the woman he would’ve chosen.
And in the face of that vulnerability, pride and self-respect and arrogance, everything dissolved. That she would take this step toward him when he’d done nothing but use her was humbling and even disconcerting. Love, it seemed, given and returned, was a roller coaster, one minute exaltation and the next, utter desperation.
“There is no bride here today.”
She frowned. The tremor that went through her lithe body was far too obvious to miss. “No bride...what does that mean?” She pushed her hair back from her face, a gesture left over even though she cut the thick waves. And it tugged at him as nothing could.
She looked toward the door, her body poised for flight and then turned toward him again. The frown deepened into a scowl. “But there are guests flying in from the neighboring countries and from your own family. There are network station crews everywhere waiting to telecast...how the hell can you not have a bride, Zayn?”
Zayn came to her and took her hands in his. Never had his heart beat so rapidly. “I forgot to ask the bride to marry me. So she doesn’t know. I was just hoping against hope that she would show up. Carter thinks I’ve lost my mind and I believe he is right.”
Comprehension dawned on her face and she jerked her hands away from him. “This was all...”
“Amalia—”
“You’re a manipulative jerk!”
“Manipulative? You disappeared off the face of the earth. You would not take my calls, you cut me off from your life as thoroughly as you did your father.”
“Because my heart was breaking and there was only so much of you I could resist before I weakened and stayed for as long as you wanted me.”
“You do not know how much I regret putting you through that, how much I wish...” Tenderness filled his gaze, stealing what little rationality Amalia was trying to hold on to. “Will you marry me? Today?”
“Is this some kind of political face-saving?”
“No. In fact, I’ve had advisers continually offer infernal advice that you might not be a good candidate to be my sheikha.”
“I heard enough of that while I was here. And I think you and your damned advisers are all wrong. That’s what I came to tell you.”
“That’s what you came to tell me...” he repeated, a little spark of hope fluttering to life inside him. Her wrist bones were delicate in his hands, almost fragile. And yet she held his happiness, his future, in her hands. “Tell me, then.”
“I think your assumption that you can’t have even a small flicker of happiness in your life is wrong. Your assumption that I would somehow detract you from your duty, somehow minimize your power, is even more absurd.
“I understand about duty and selflessness more than you think.
“I put my life on hold for so many years to look after my mom. And I never once weakened, or resented her for it. I would never weaken you, Zayn. How could I?
“There have been kings and presidents and heads of state all over the world throughout history who married for love, who chose to reach for a little personal happiness, too, and they have only thrived.
“If you think I would become a liability to you—” her voice caught here, her throat a mass of emotions “—then you’re not the man I thought.”
A gold blaze flared in his eyes, drenching her entire being in a joy that she couldn’t contain. “And if I told you that I came to the same conclusion, only a little slower than you? That I could shoulder all the responsibility in the world if I have you by my side, that you make everything joyful, meaningful?”
There was no stopping her tears now. Her heart thundered into life as if all it had been doing until now was pump blood. “You tricked me! You still think this is some kind of power struggle between us. You...”
“You left me no choice but to trick you. I...could not find you and I...went crazy imagining all kinds of scenarios.”
“I was never in any kind of trouble, Zayn.”
“Trouble? No.” A stark need filled his eyes then. “You’re the most capable woman I have ever known, Amalia. Some nights I found myself fervently wishing you weren’t so strong and independent, so stubborn that—”
Throat raw, she said, “I know what you wish I was, but this is who I am.”
“You misunderstand me. It took you—your strength, your spirit, your independence—all of you to unlock my heart. So much that I have this unbearable feeling inside my chest that it is I who is not enough for you. My worry was that you must have realized you deserved a man who recognized that, who loved you like you should be loved.
“I was terrified that you went back to Massi, had written me off completely.”
Amalia could do nothing but stare at Zayn, at the vulnerability that punctured every word he uttered. She went to him then, any anger she’d held on to as a defense melting at the warmth in his words.
He clutched her to him hard, driving the breath out of her lungs. Hard body shuddered around her, telling her more than his words ever could. He loved her, she knew it now, even if he had yet to say it. But feelings and emotions were hard for him. He’d been trained to view them as weaknesses, trained to believe that he needed no one and nothing.
He had taken an enormous risk on her, this man who didn’t put one step wrong if he thought it would hurt Khaleej and the perception about him. He had made himself vulnerable for her. And for now that had to be enough.
They all kept crowing she was far too opinionated, far too independent to be good for him, didn’t they? Well, she was. And she couldn’t bear for him to second-guess himself. “I’ve never loved and will never love a man like I love you, Zayn. What do I have to do to make you believe that?”