“Very well, then.”
CHAPTER NINE
KARIM ROSE AND prowled through the dark to the door to Galila’s bedroom, paused, turned back and sat in the chair, elbows braced on his splayed thighs.
He was hard, so hungry for her he was sweating and panting with need, but he made himself resist the lure of her. The weakness that going to her would represent.
She might not welcome him anyway. He had ground her heart beneath his heel a few days ago and she’d been walking around like a ghost ever since. He loathed himself for doing it, but clung to the truth he had spoken. They had a child on the way. He had to keep a level head on his shoulders for the next two decades, at least.
Two decades of meting out their lovemaking in small measures to prove to himself he didn’t need her like air and water. Twenty years of averting his gaze from her laughing expression so he wouldn’t be tempted. Of listening to the falsely cheerful tone she used when she was hurting and trying not to let it show.
Of knowing he was breaking her heart.
She had said she was falling in love with him.
He closed his eyes, savoring those words before pushing them to the furthest reaches of his consciousness. Whatever she felt was so new, she would be able to recover from his rejection. He was sure of it.
He had to believe it.
Unable to sleep and quite sure he would go to her if he stayed, he dressed and went to his office across the palace. It wasn’t even sunrise. He ate an early breakfast in his library, a room where she permeated the walls, layering over old memories like a clean coat of paint, then started his work day.
He was little better than a ghost himself, unable to say later what he had accomplished. The entire day was an exercise in deprivation. He counted the minutes until he would see her. It was exactly the sort of weakness he dreaded in himself, but he finally began to breathe again when he entered his apartment to dress for their dinner with a general and his wife.
That was when he was informed Galila wouldn’t be joining them.
“The queen was feeling under the weather and canceled all her engagements for the rest of the week,” her assistant informed him.
Shock and concern washed through him in a sickly wave.
“Why wasn’t I informed?” He started to brush past her into Galila’s rooms.
“She’s not here, Your Highness,” the woman quickly said. “I thought—it must be my mistake. I understood she intended to speak to you before she left.”
Something inside him snapped. Broke. Exploded. “Where the hell did she go?”
The girl fell back a step, eyes wide. “I believe she went to stay with your mother.”
* * *
Galila was beating herself up for being the neediest wimp alive, scurrying off for TLC in the desert palace.
She discovered, however, that being needy could be a good thing. Sometimes a person needed someone to coddle and fuss over. Galila’s low spirits pulled a maternal instinct from Karim’s mother that put a smile of warmth on the older woman’s face. A brightness of purpose.
“I’m so glad you came to me. Of course, you should come anytime you feel a need to get away,” Tahirah said in response to Galila’s apology for imposing. “You’ll be a new mother soon. Learn to let people take care of you.”
Her spoiling and attention was so sincere, Galila wanted to cry with gratitude. Here was the mother she desperately needed. They talked pregnancy and babies and the challenge of running a palace and the endless social obligations of royal duties.
She was still scorched by Karim’s refusal to love her, but at least she had someone who seemed genuinely happy to bond with her. Her heart would still be in two pieces, but at least those pieces could be offered to his mother and the child he gave her. Her life would not be completely devoid of love.
Those broken pieces of her heart jangled when Karim rang through on a video call as she was dressing for dinner. She dismissed her maid and answered.
He looked surprisingly incensed. “What are you doing there?” he snapped.
“I was going to discuss this with you over breakfast this morning, but you weren’t there.” Completely true, but rather than seek him out or text him or try to inform him via the many other avenues of communication available at the palace, she had slipped away like a criminal. “I’m not here to tell her anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just needed some time.”
“For what?”
“To think about how I’m going to accept the kind of marriage you’ve offered.”
“We went over this in the early days, Galila. It will be fine.”
“For you. But I fell in love with you. I didn’t expect that to happen, but it did. And you don’t feel the same. Can’t. So I need to think about all of that.”
“And do what?” His tone sharpened. “If you think you’re going back to Khalia, or taking my child to Europe—”
“If I wanted to do that, I would already be there, wouldn’t I? I came to your mother’s, Karim. That’s as far as I plan on taking your child without your permission. We’re having a lovely visit so let me be.”
His mouth tightened. “When are you coming back?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I’ll send the helicopter tomorrow.”
“I just got here! Why would you even want me to come back? We’re not sleeping together. You barely speak to me. I’m surprised you noticed I was gone.”
His nostrils flared as he drew a deep, patience-seeking breath.
“What?” she goaded. “You don’t even like when I help with your royal duties. You said so. I make you feel weak. You never needed me before we married and still don’t want to, judging by the way you’ve been treating me. Go back to your old life, then. Pretend I don’t exist.”
“Galila, if you’re trying to provoke some kind of reaction—”
“I know that’s impossible! You feel nothing, Karim! We both know you’re not going to kill yourself if I stay a few days with your mother so that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
She jammed the button to end the call.
Then she threw the phone across the room. It hit a marble column, shattering the screen.
* * *
“Her Highness has broken her phone,” Galila’s assistant informed Karim the next morning. “A new one is on its way. She’ll be back online this afternoon, I’m sure. In the meanwhile, you’ll have to message her through your mother. May I also ask...? There are a number of agenda items I needed to discuss with her, but in her absence, will you approve these?”
Karim went through them quickly, resenting every second of it. Why? Not because he didn’t want to review the preliminary budget for the women’s health center. He would have to do that eventually anyway, but because he was staring at an empty chair, speaking instead of listening.
We both know you won’t kill yourself...
He forced himself to proceed through his day, thinking of her constantly. He kept making mental notes to share things with her only to realize he wouldn’t see her later. He wouldn’t watch her painted mouth as she entertained their guests, wouldn’t stand with pride beside her, wouldn’t set his hand in the middle of her back just so the silken fall of her hair would caress his skin.
By the time he was alone in his library, he was thinking for the first time in his life how good a shot of whiskey might taste.
Furious, he yanked open the curtain and glared at the balcony. Instead of seeing his father there, he saw Galila, tall and strong, chin up, eyes on the horizon.
By your logic, I should drown myself.
Was she hurting? Was that why she had run away? Breaking her heart had never been his intention. Collateral damage was inevitable in life, but he tried not to purposefully hurt anyone. Galila, with her spirit and compassion and sharp intelligence, deserved every speck of the adoration she earned.
She had definitely earned his respect, not only solving the mystery of her mother’s lover, but protecting that secret as diligently as he always had. She had been reluctant to tell him, and he knew how heavy the load was on that.
It was considerably lighter these days, he realized. Because he had shared it with her? Or because he was carrying a different load on his conscience? Her bruised heart crushed like a piano atop his own.
He turned to stare at the lion on the bookshelf, the one engraved with the words Where Is She?
The same question clawed inside him. His mate was in a palace in the desert. She might as well be locked in a vault the way the lioness was. Locked in the dark for safekeeping. Endlessly searching for her mate while this one eternally waited here.
Apart.
Why? Why did it have to be this way?
With a snarl, he grabbed the bookend, tempted to throw it through the glass doors and over the balcony, into the sea.
Instead, he carried it with him to his empty bedroom.
* * *
Galila was treading water in the infinity pool that overlooked the oasis when she heard her maid make a startled noise. She dragged her gaze from the sand dunes and palms, swirling in the water to face the paved courtyard that surrounded the pool.
Her husband picked up her robe off the chair while her maid scampered away.
Her chin was in the water and Galila very nearly sucked a mouthful into her lungs, managing at the last second to merely swallow a taste of chlorine.