She slid into a chair opposite Murat and wondered if he’d ever sat at a scratched Formica table before, with bottles of tomato sauce and vinegar in front of him. She watched as he tipped two small sachets of sugar into his tea, the white granules flowing like the sands of time, and she was reminded of that first time she’d ever met him when he had dipped a sugar cube into his coffee and sucked it.
Why remember that now? she asked herself fiercely. How is it going to help if you reinforce how attractive you found him? Wrong tense. Find him. Wrong tense again. Will always find him.
Aware of the mother and toddler at a nearby table, she spoke in a low voice. ‘I want to thank—’
‘No,’ he interrupted, his voice just as low. ‘Please don’t. You’ve thanked me enough and we’ve said everything I want to say on that particular subject. Now, all we can do is pray that the treatment works. We have very little time left, Cat, and I don’t want to waste a second of it. Not when I suspect that you have spent more years than anyone should, worrying about your mother.’
His remarks were thoughtful and perceptive, but they didn’t really help. It wasn’t going to aid her own recovery if she carried on thinking of him as her knight in shining armour. So think of the reality. Think what he’s been doing since last time you saw him.
‘So how have you been?’ she said. ‘During your time back in Qurhah?’
He gave a faint smile. ‘Mostly good. There is relative peace in the region at the moment and our exports are up. I’m heralding a drive to build new schools in the east of the kingdom.’
‘That’s all very commendable, Murat,’ she said quietly. ‘But that wasn’t what I meant.’
‘No.’ There was a pause. ‘I guess it wasn’t.’
‘How is the hunt for a suitable bride going?’ she questioned brightly. ‘Has any particular candidate caught your eye?’
‘Cat, don’t.’
‘Don’t what?’ She tilted her head to one side and looked at him quizzically. ‘Don’t face facts? Don’t square up to the truth of what’s really happening?’
‘I don’t want to discuss it. Especially not with you.’
‘But I do,’ she persisted. ‘I really do. Think of it as an exercise in letting go. It helps me realise what your real life is like, rather than allowing myself to construct fantasies about what it might have been like. Have you...’ She stirred her tea, even though it contained no sugar. ‘Have you seen many women?’
He leaned back in his chair. ‘Not many. Some.’
‘And those you have seen, what of them? Were their feet too big for the glass slipper, or was there some other reason why they wouldn’t make a suitable royal bride?’
He gave the briefest of smiles before a hard look entered his eyes and then he thought, Damn you, Cat. Did she think he was finding this easy? Did she? ‘One of the problems is that I require a virgin, but unfortunately many of these princesses are not. Some of them have been away to school in Europe and America, and have entered into relationships with other men.’
Catrin put her mug down on the table with a clatter. ‘I can’t believe you just said that. All these years you’ve steadily been working your way through scores of beautiful women. You’ve probably got more notches on your bedpost than the average Hollywood stud, yet you expect your future bride to behave as if we’re still living in the Middle Ages. Do you have any idea how much of a hypocrite you sound?’